Consumers covered the gap in part by taking on more debt, with outstanding credit balances up 117% since 1999, which may have helped mask the rise in inequality that dominates the headlines today - and which has been brought to the fore by the inflation in credit engineered by monetary authorities.
Populism Surfs a Wave of Inflation By Chris Maloney of Bloomberg
The rise of populism in America is a byproduct of inflationary policies that have helped trigger a dramatic increase in consumer debt, declining real wages and rising prices for food and housing since 1999.
From 2000-2014, housing prices have risen 73% and rents were up 45%; the cost of putting food on the table rose 47%, and college costs increased 137%
Over the same period nominal real household mean incomes rose just 38% while declining 3% in real terms.
This is no surprise as the working class and poor get any newly created money and credit last and hence “will find themselves compelled to pay higher prices for the things they buy, which means that they will be obliged to get along on a lower standard of living,” a point made by Hazlitt in his "Economics in One Lesson’’ (p.153).
Originally Posted by Chex
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