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Greed blamed for inflation
The cause of today’s inflation is corporate greed and record high consumerism.
Before COVID we were heading for deep inflation caused by the Donald Trump tariffs and tax breaks for the rich. Trump got a free pass because COVID hit us just before the inflation took effect. COVID exacerbated inflation. Even though the U.S. dealt with the economic consequences better than any other country, it caused an immediate rise in inflation. All energy prices skyrocketed and all food and consumer goods prices went up immediately and we accepted it because of COVID.
Well, thanks to our modern medicine COVID is no longer a threat and things have gone back to normal health wise-now for a long while. So why are we still plagued by the same COVID-style inflation?
Corporate greed is the answer. Corporations are making record-high profits like never before. Covid showed corporations that consumers will complain about the high prices but continue to consume and spend the same or more than ever. We consumers will pay whatever price the corporations want to charge us. Corporations are there to make as much profit and spend as little as possible making the product. But what if all they have to do is produce the same or less and just raise the price? The consumer will pay whatever the corporations want to charge. We complain, but we are still using and consuming even more of everything than before COVID.
So we blame the government for inflation. The U.S. is a capitalist economy. Producers of consumer goods and services dictate the price. It used to be a supply-and-demand economy. Now it is a supplier-dictated economy. Unless there is a state of natural catastrophe or national defense situation, the U.S. government cannot dictate the prices.
Today the members of the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court are in bed with the major corporations and the rich. Consumer protection regulations have been removed, relaxed, or not enforced at all. Airplanes are falling out of the sky, trains are spilling toxic chemicals into poor neighborhoods along the railroads, bridges are collapsing, cars are recalled because of dangerous or faulty systems, medical drugs are recalled after people die.
All these things did not happen before because consumer protection regulations were taken seriously.
Our economic inflation is not a big mystery. It is produced and fed by us, the American people who want more of everything and we want it now no matter the price. We will complain but do not take the time to become informed. Think!
Arnoldo Gonzalez
Brownsville
Democrats draw attack
Does it look like the leftist, washed-up, Hollywood globalist elites are frenetically trying to finance Obama’s fourth autocratic presidency or what? Talk about someone who refuses to leave the addictive power of a globalist dictatorship presidency! Where’s Robert De Niro’s “He’ll never go away!” when it’s needed?
Is the Democrats’ poor, bungling vessel too frail and clueless to know he’s being used? God have mercy on this cruelty against humanity.
The gagging-censoring media are naively pretending the world’s too dumb to figure it out!
The only people who take offense against you for speaking the truth are those people who are living a lie. Keep speaking the truth.
Imelda Coronado
Mission
Court justice
What is justice? The maintenance and administration on what are just.
The prosecution method in administering this and staying within the law sometimes is questioned for a good reason. If the prosecution manipulates to gain favor for his own personal goal and not so much about true justice, this is a form of injustice.
How often does this happen in our courts? Too often by dishonest prosecutors and to be honest, I never heard of a case where the prosecutor is punished for his abuse of power; prosecutors often get away with it and put innocent people in prison, and those who are caught never get prosecuted for their illegal act on their part. How many stories have we read about innocent people who served decades in prison because a prosecutor withheld information of his innocence? We are not living in a perfect world, and it’s harder when dishonest people make it worse instead of better.
The prosecution must be honest and share information with the defense especially if that information proves the innocence of the defendant. That’s how our justice system is supposed to work; to be fair to everyone and allow the facts to prove innocence or guilt.
Citizens must believe that this system is working in a fair way for everyone and be able to respect this form of justice.
Rafael Madrigal
Pharr
Facility opposed
Late last year you kindly printed our letter to the editor, titled “Expansion draws fire.” We hope the letter expressed our chagrin and dismay at the news that a prison/hospital facility was being built in our neighborhood next to an elementary school and close to homes and several churches. It was our hope that this letter might help defeat the apparent secrecy that surrounded this costly construction event. Instead we were amazed at the absolute silence that followed. No one we contacted seemed to know or care anything about it. After much discussion, we reflected that the “Editor’s note” at the end of our letter had emphatically defused the effort: “The Rio Grande State Center in Harlingen is adding 50 beds to its existing facility on Rangerville Road.” It was either naively or intentionally misleading and incorrectly minimized the event.
The message: Harmlessly adding hospital beds cannot be bad. The facts: $120 million of taxpayer money is being used to create a free-standing, maximum security hospital prison, where prisoners (patients) will be held inside a “15-foot motion-detected anti-climb perimeter fence” next to an elementary school, sites in recent years to some of the most horrendous mass murders by insane criminals in our nations history! Think Uvalde, Columbine, Sandy Hook, et al.
Yet no one cares, apparently. We can’t imagine the parents of Treasure Hills Elementary School children allowing this to happen in their school.
The thought of having done nothing to try to stop this is unacceptable. We have children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, and if our generation does nothing to counter ignorance, naivety or deliberate deception, it will soon be too late.
Nancy S. and Garner F. Klein
Harlingen
Seek treaty compliance
The Texas congressional delegation has been raising awareness of Mexico’s lack of compliance with the 1944 water treaty for the “Utilization of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande” in the nation’s capital.
Since 1990, Mexico has routinely missed both annual and five-year water delivery deadlines laid out in the treaty. This has been found to be a contributing factor to the acute water shortage Texas is experiencing.
Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller is in current communication with the State Department regarding the water shortage.
It is important to note that the United States continues to adhere to the water treaty.
As state representative for District 37, I strongly support the efforts of the Commissioner Miller, who is focused on ensuring our water supply is sufficient, which will assert our agricultural producing state can continue to provide food for state of Texas and the nation.
State Rep. Janie Lopez
Austin
Democrats and socialists
Maximilien Robespierre: “The secret of freedom lies in educating people whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.” Unfortunately, all of us have been lied to for generations by those who control the flow of information. They say the truth hurts. When we’ve been lied to all our lives, the truth can be brutal, hard to believe and often, even harder to accept.
Many of you who vote for Democrats but don’t believe in communism may not know that 2016 and 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is quoted as having said, “In Vermont, everyone knows I’m a socialist.” It’s no wonder that Sanders and his bride honeymooned in the former Soviet Union. Sanders also visited Cuba and Nicaragua and had high praise for Communist leaders Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega.
During a Jan. 5, 2016, interview with the other 2016 Democrat Party presidential candidate, MSNBC host Chris Matthews asked Hillary Clinton five times to explain the difference between a Democrat and a socialist. Clinton had no response.
Clinton likely had no response because there is little to no difference between a Democrat and a socialist. Among others, synonyms for socialism include liberalism, welfarism and Marxism. And the liberal party is the Democrat Party.
Unfortunately for America’s working class, there are many liberals and free-trade globalists who masquerade as Republicans.
Gen. George S. Patton Jr. was one of America’s greatest battlefield commanders who happened to hate the Russians, Communists and Communism. After Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, Gen. Patton was quoted as having said, “We defeated the wrong enemy.”
Gen. Patton hit the nail on the head when he said, “There are all kind of low-class slime who are trying and will continue to try to wreck this country from the inside. They may not know it but they are actually working for the Russians (and since the 1970s, the Chinese Communist Party). Some of them do know it, though.
It doesn’t matter whether they call themselves socialists, communists or just plain liberals. That’s what they’re doing. There are virtually no differences between socialism, communism, liberalism and the Democratic Party.
Natividad Rodriguez
Harlingen
Editor’s note: We welcome your letters and commentary. Submissions must include the writer’s full name, address and daytime telephone number for verification. Letters of 200 words or fewer will be given preference. Submissions may be edited for length, grammar and clarity. Letters may be mailed to P.O Box 3267, McAllen, Texas 78502-3267, or emailed to [email protected].
