The US is an almost unbelievable, unquantifiable mess. All stats now send the same message. The cost of living is out of control. Nothing at all is being done to manage it. There is no indication of any positive national economic initiatives, real or imaginary, for the macro economy.
The numbers are all bad. They translate into the single, all-embracing and totally misleading expression, “inflation”, according to so-called experts who really should have gone to kindergarten.
Inflation is simply a measure of price moves over any given period of time. These figures are typically anything but indicative of the big picture. A current inflation rate of 4%.
Any annual figure for 2026 doesn’t include the massive price rises of recent years. These percentiles also move around a lot, every month. Nobody cares or bothers to mention it. The numbers are massaged and manipulated, but never actually managed in any sense of the word.
If inflation goes down to 3.9%, that’s supposed to be good news. It isn’t. That number has very little to do with anything physical that you’re paying for. The figure specifically doesn’t include things like the fact that average monthly rent has gone up 50% since 2018, and the cost of just about everything else has gone up with it.
Your real personal inflation rate over the period has almost nothing at all to do with interest rates. Groceries aren’t supposed to be the same thing as mortgages or the cost of borrowing a few billion for your new data centre.
This rather endearing set of numbers from urban.org out the macro-economic picture.
This set of stats from statista.com says effectively the same thing about what’s worrying Americans.
The AI summary of this search for USA cost of living statistics 2026 simply rephrases the situation.
Projections aren’t great. Check out the Citrini research paper that terrified the markets recently.
The problem for the world is that the US has been the default economic model for most of the world since the 1950s. “Hey, the Americans raised rents, healthcare, and education to insane levels! We can do that, too!” is about the level of intelligence required.
“Our idiots think your idiots know what they’re doing” pretty much covers it. Sheer lack of talent and dubious levels of education do the rest.
One of the major reasons the world is having to back away from the US, apart from an obnoxious president, is this utter madness and incompetence. Lack of any kind of meaningful relationship with reality doesn’t help.
Let’s try a simple view of this totally avoidable train wreck.
Increases in costs devalue your money. The real value of money is purchasing power, not just big numbers.
Debt costs money. You pay for somebody else’s debt directly or indirectly.
Money sucked up by one part of the economy is removed from the rest of the economy. There’s less money in play, and it can’t be spent elsewhere.
Money shortages drive price rises. The money to cover deficits has to be raised from somewhere.
Credit becomes more expensive in direct proportion to the demand for more money. No-brainer? Yes. So you’re paying for the credit gap, as well.
Now apply this to the entire US economy and the global economy for the last 70 years. Never mind the Good Old Days mythology. Those days were incredibly dull, but stable and prosperous. And a lot happier.
It was possible to plan pretty realistically for years ahead, not just wistfully to the next degrading paycheck. You actually could raise a family on a single wage. The Bank of Mom and Dad was a heavy enough hitter if you ever needed it.
To be fair, every American I know hates this current situation with a vengeance. They want out, and they want it now.
So, what’s to be done about it?
Save Main Street.
The financial fools decided it didn’t exist decades ago. They then killed a large section of the US economy, Main Street itself, the breadbasket, with the sub primes disaster. The same mentality has made it this much worse.
The US economy of the old days wasn’t a problem. It was an underpinning asset. It was trustworthy and not full of billionaire drama queens.
You still have the blueprint. You can wind down prices with the same wholesale pricing and massive domestic economy positions you’ve always had. You can modernize the whole country with new business models and new ideas.
America is made of ideas. It’s the lack of ideas that’s killing it.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
