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Why is everything so expensive now? What price life? Why are we getting poorer? First and foremost, the entire economy is set up to greatly favour owners over all other parts. Investors are owners, of course, and the company executives operate on their behalf. Shareholders are king and everyone else runs a poor second. Thus, profitability is always the prime consideration and profits have to constantly increase to satisfy the shareholders. Plus, executives manipulate the stock price through buybacks to enrich themselves wildly. This is where we get all the billionaires from. Elon Musk is a prominent illustration of this, the richest man in the world.
“The tech tycoon is believed to have added more than $US54 billion ($83.5 billion) to his net worth since the November 5 election, according to estimates from Forbes magazine.
The wealth injection came largely from a surge in the stock price of his companies Tesla and SpaceX after the re-election of Donald Trump.”
WTF? Why Are We Struggling To Make Ends Meet?
What price life? Why is everything so expensive? Formerly public infrastructure is now in the hands of private equity and under asset management. This means things like parking, road tolls, bridges, hospitals, telecommunication infrastructure, digital networks, airlines, banks, insurance companies, energy utilities, and other modern day essentials are privately owned. Their masters seek high returns for their investors. These things are priced to maximise profitability at our expense. Consumers and workers do not rate highly on their list of priorities anymore. Things are no longer priced fairly. The neoliberal promises of greater efficiencies leading to cheaper prices have been a lie. Privatization has not led to better services at fairer prices. No, it has enriched a few at the expense of the many. There is now some US$130 trillion under asset management. This is greater than global GDP.
Why We Are Poorer
- Investors rule the economy.
- Privatization has robbed the many for the few.
- The financialization of everything.
- Rich companies & people don’t pay their fair share of tax.
- Governments are controlled by the wealthy.
- Democracy no longer works effectively.
- American capitalism had been manipulated via lack of competition.
- Big Tech is bleeding the system dry.
The Financialization Of Everything
Why are we getting poorer? Wall St has turned every aspect of modern life into a financial product to be traded and bet upon. Housing or shelter is a basic requirement of life. Many people lack a roof over their heads because the cost of residential property has been driven up by investors. There are housing shortages everywhere and yet governments and the private sector cannot or will not build more stock. Asset managers in America are enjoying high returns from residential housing. Zombie neoliberalism has prevented governments from actually getting their hands dirty and they rely on private companies to do the actual heavy lifting. Profitability determines the speed and level of investment in this regard. You can see, once again, why everything is so expensive. Market forces do not do it better, rather they look after the players in the market.
The Rich Will Not Pay Their Fair Share Of Tax
“The Republican Party in the United States has led the way when it comes to drastically lowering the tax rates on the richest Americans. It has come down from some 90% after WW2 to be around the 30 to 40% rate in the current era. Thus, the National Debt of $36 trillion has to be directly impacted by falling tax revenues over decades contributing to the need to borrow to fund government. 36 trillion reasons to despise the GOP and its fundamental role in the economic debt crisis of the US. How can any American justify this huge decrease in taxing the rich at the expense of the country? Republicans have simultaneously been in the vanguard of consistently increasing defence spending over these same decades.”
Conservative political parties and governments have followed this lead over the decades. Promising tax cuts has always been a vote winner for wealthy and aspirational voters everywhere. More socialist leaning parties have been forced to follow suit to compete. Progressive taxation involves getting those that can more afford to pay more tax at a higher rate doing so. It was par for the course in most developed nations until the US started slashing top tax rates for wealthy donors. It is now reached absurd levels under Trump 2.0. They are cutting government welfare services to the poor to try and fit in their tax cuts for billionaires.
“Corporates not paying their fair share of tax is a real problem downunder, with a third of companies here paying no tax. Rich people and companies shifting profits to tax free shelters and hiding assets in family trusts are robbing the nation of tens of billions of dollars every year. Superannuation, which was an ALP designed scheme to provide retirement income for Australian workers, has been distorted by former Lib PM John Howard to become a bolthole for the wealthy to hide their money from the tax office. No limits were ever set on how much money you could stash in your super and there are some with hundreds of millions. It is highly suspicious that the boffins and politicians dealing with superannuation laws would not have known what setting no limits would produce. This is macro corruption.”
$$$$$ Speak Louder Than Your Vote
Most people know that governments listen more keenly to their wealthy donors than ordinary voters. Lobbyists frequent all levels of government across the globe. Big companies pay lobbyists to buy them government favours. Yes, this is legalised corruption at work. Why are we getting poorer? Money talks and the decisions made do not necessarily do us any favours, quite the reverse.
Reduced Competition Kills Real Free Market Capitalism
Why are we getting poorer? Have you noticed how many takeovers and mergers have occurred in just about every sector over the last 40 years? Competition has been drastically reduced via these concentrations of ownership in the markets. Duopolies and oligopolies mean too little competition. Capitalism does not work effectively without competition in the free market. Consumers and workers get shafted when bosses and owners control everything. Companies can set the prices, thus robbing consumers of their power. Workers have less choice about who they can work for so wages stagnate through lack of growth in relation to the cost of things.
Big Tech Oligarchy Bleeding Us Dry
The Big Tech oligarchies are an example of this. Every time Meta buys up its competitors, like Instagram, it gains greater market concentration. Google is the same. Amazon and Microsoft likewise. These behemoths are worth trillions of dollars.
“As of October 2025 Alphabet (Google) has a market cap of A$4.551 Trillion.”
It is hard to grasp the size of these corporate giants. There has never been anything like it. They tower over most national governments in wealth and power. Unfortunately for you and me this does not make them more generous. No, the executives who run them feel under pressure to increase profitability and dividends. It is a vicious circle spiralling toward our increasing poverty. It is killing the middle class. This rentier economy is draining our pockets and bank accounts. Big Tech imposes a subscription fee on everything. The digitalization of the economy means that you have to play their way and pay for the privilege. Now, of course AI is coming for our jobs!
What Price Life? Robert Sudha Hamilton PDF version
What Price Life?
350 pages PDF version
What Price Life? Why is everything so expensive? Is the new book by Robert Sudha Hamilton. Putting on his economist hat to do justice to explaining the prevailing headwinds we all face in the current climate. It appears that living is becoming prohibitively expensive and this is not happening by accident. There are sections of our population who are hell bent on stealing your lunch or at least making it too bloody pricey. We are supposed to be living in a democracy but it is actually a 2 speed economy. Many of us are getting left behind, when it comes to the wealth stakes. What can we do about it?
Right wing political parties have been gutting the welfare state. The middle class was created via the welfare state. Think of this next time you cast your vote.
RSH
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of What Price Life?; The Stoic Golfer; Money Matters; and America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
©MidasWord
