There is a continuing complaint that food prices are still too high even though inflation is down. This has long been a sore point and the Democratic Party, who has control of the Presidency and Senate (on paper anyway), is “obviously” at fault per the media and therefore public opinion. The Republican’ts can’t be at fault since they only have control of the House and Supreme Court. This discounts the fact that the ownership (and resultant editorial control) of all the media corporations, whether print, TV, Cable, internet, or radio belongs to the Rs as well.
Control of the message and information available to the, voting public is quite an edge and is being leveraged like crazy.
Just a few stories that track the root cause of food and merchandise inflation & that also explains things, could fix the voter information vacuum that currently exists. (Calling Dr Maddow STAT!)
What is this missing / buried / ignored piece of info about inflation’s causes? Look no further that the ginormous profits enjoyed by the Petrochemical Industry, and the Oil and Gas Companies in particular (They are many times one and the same.)
What does it take to grow wheat and turn it into bread on the grocer’s shelf?
Let’s follow along with an eye to the dependence on petrochemicals (Oil Companies) at each step:
- The farmer plows the fallow field to get ready to plant. (Diesel in the tractor pulling the plows and his truck to get supplies and to get places).
- The equipment to fertilize the field before planting AND to spread the fertilizer (diesel again and the fertilizer)
- final plowing of the field to break up the soil more and mix in the fertilizer (diesel & gasoline.)
- planting the seed (diesel to run equipment + cost for delivery of seed to farm + gasoline or diesel for vehicles used to get seed loaded and equipment out to the field to begin planting.)
- various equipment to maintain the field in good condition as the wheat grows and matures. (diesel and gasoline).
- harvesting the wheat with equipment and trucks to haul harvest to the silo, and equipment to get it into the silo. (diesel and gasoline again.)
- haul the harvested wheat to a flour mill. (Diesel to fuel trucks, trains)
- Mill machinery electricity. (generated by gas or oil fired power plants.)
- Mill’s warehouse vehicles. (fork lifts etc — gas, gasoline or diesel.)
- trucks and or trains to haul flour to bakery. (diesel again)
- Bakery electricity and/or gas to fire ovens and power electrical machinery + warehouse vehicles (gas, diesel, gasoline) + plastic bags and clips for loaves (oil by-product from petrochemical plant)
- Trucks to deliver bread to stores (diesel or gasoline)
- Store’s warehousing vehicles (diesel, gasoline, electricity-gas)
- Store’s electricity costs to light, heat, cool — operate the store (gas or oil fired power plant)
- YOUR vehicle or transport to and from the store (gas, diesel, electricity-generated by gas or oil fired power plants)
So, as you can see, there’s no step, from bare dirt to your table, that DOESN’T have a pay out sent to the oil companies.
Do you now need to guess just WHO is paying for those obscene profits that I guarantee you, don’t make it back to the common workers as more money in their paychecks?