by Thomas R. Eddlem
The federal government has been waging a war against the middle class and working poor since at least 1970. Wealth inequality has steadily increased since the early 1970s, and it’s not a coincidence. It’s a result of a series of policies. The government wants the masses of American working people broke, propertyless, and dependent upon elected officials for the crumbs they give back as handouts from taxes taken.
The most insidious attack on working people has been inflation, which really took off when the federal government decoupled the dollar from gold in 1971.
The inflation tax is the most regressive tax that currently exists in federal policy.
Inflation always taxes wages twice, once when the labor is performed and the worker is awaiting payment, and again when the wages are deposited into the worker’s checking account. But inflation leaves the rich man’s yacht untaxed.
No level of inflation, no matter how high, can ever take one cent of value away from a yacht. A yacht is always going to be a yacht, no matter what the value of money is.
Inflation taxes the poor man’s rent he advances to his landlord, but leaves …
Finish reading over at the Libertarian Institute here: https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/on-wealth-inequality-the-left-has-a-point/
Thomas R. Eddlem is the treasurer of the Massachusetts Libertarian Party and the William Norman Grigg Fellow at the Libertarian Institute. The views expressed in this column are his own and do not necessarily represent the view of the Massachusetts Libertarian Party.