 Midterm elections are scheduled to be held in the US in a few days. These elections will define the future of the Joe Biden administration. A key issue on voters' minds has been the economy. Over the past year, inflation has been wreaking havoc on people's lives. Rising prices have hit food baskets and fuel purchases. Housing is an issue that is on the minds of people. What is the overall state of the US economy ahead of the midterms? The situation with the economy in the United States has become this bizarre dichotomy where on the one hand unemployment is very low, growth is up. To some degree wages appear up when you look at it on paper. But because of the impact of inflation, which has been almost majorly driven, 50-some percent out of every dollar of inflation is because of corporate profits, the impact of the changes or the sort of rejuvenation of the economy after the COVID restrictions were relaxed has been essentially wiped out for the average working class person. Now, of course, for the richest of the rich, these have been two or three of the best years they've ever had. The wealth of billionaires is up. But for the average working class person, there has been about a 4% wage cut essentially based on what inflation has done. So when you look at the polls, you already have a super majority of people in the United States who say we are already in a recession. And one number that I think maybe can help people understand that in a more real way is 161 million people in the United States are struggling to make their daily expenses week to week. Now to even give you a sense of how deep that is, if you compare that number and that number comes from, you know, sort of the end of September, early part of October. If you compare that to where that number was in March, between March and the end of September essentially of 2022, 24 million people have gone from being able to buy all the food they need and pay their rent and everything on a week to week basis to not being able to do so. So you've had a growth in sort of extreme hardship and poverty of about 24 million people and really just a handful of months. So the impact of the inflation has meant that the economic growth, more so than normal of course is always the case, but more so than normal has actually only accrued to the highest possible income brackets and also of course the big corporations. But the average working class person is seeing significant hardship in their daily life and it only seems to be growing from month to month. The response of the authorities has been to increase interest rates which is extremely bad for growth overall. How effective has this strategy been? You know, when you look at the government strategy in the United States around inflation, around the economic crisis, you know, the most important thing I think for people to recognize is that because of so-called central bank independence, the Federal Reserve, which is essentially a totally unelected body of people who are deeply tied into the Wall Street banks and the big corporations, they dominate all the boards, they dominate all the discussions, has essentially the total control over macroeconomic policy in the United States. And when you look at the most recent meeting of the Federal Reserve in the early part of October, they say it directly in the minutes of their meeting that were released that their fear in vis-a-vis inflation and part of the reason why they feel that they have to continue to raise interest rates is because unemployment is not high enough. So what we're seeing from the Federal Reserve is the logic of Wall Street. They're essentially saying that contrary to all the evidence that exists, which is that corporate profiteering is driving inflation. They are insisting, despite the fact that there is no evidence of this, that it's government spending and increases in wages, that's what's driving inflation. And so the only way to address it is to essentially cause a recession, to induce an economic crisis in order to increase unemployment, which of course will increase competition amongst workers, which makes it easier for the bosses to lower wages. And in the context of an economy that is doing worse, everyone is looking essentially for the best deal, right? And so prices can't just be artificially inflated in ways that corporations can just unlimited, profiteer in an unlimited way. And so you'll have a situation where inflation will come down. But it's like a blunt force instrument, because yes, inflation will come down, but that's because the economy will be significantly worse and the condition of the average working class person will also be worse. But here's the trick. In terms of how you address inflation, this is a way using the interest rate increases to make sure the vast majority of pain is for working in poor people. Now, if you wanted to deal directly with the issues that are causing inflation primarily, which is corporate profiteering, you could just raise taxes on the rich, have when-fall profit taxes, all of these different sorts of things. But the difference is that means that most of the pain would be felt by the billionaires and the millionaires who control the Federal Reserve and who more or less control the two major parties in America. So of course they do not want that. So you have the Federal Reserve pursuing a strategy to address inflation that makes sure the working class bears most of the pain of solving the problem, that the richest people get off more or less scot-free. And both political parties are basically silent about it because they don't want anyone to know that they are complicit and going along with it. So you really can see a class war strategy right now in front of your face when it comes to the U.S. economic situation. And of course, if the economy gets worse, that 161 million people who are struggling week to week to meet their normal household expenses will only grow by tens of millions more. What is the political implication of changes in the economy and the methods to bring relief? How is it likely to play out in the coming elections? You know, both parties are attempting to use the inflation crisis in particular as a slogan. I mean, the Democrats, of course, passed something called the Inflation Reduction Act that, believe it or not, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will not actually reduce inflation. But they're basically saying that their policies, you know, over the past year or so, and the bills that they just passed is showing that they're serious about fighting inflation. They aren't talking a lot about it, probably, because they know the facts don't really link up. And so, in a way, they're trying to redirect the energy away from talking about the economy because they don't think they can succeed. Republicans are doing the opposite. They have no plan to address inflation at all. They're, in fact, 100% behind the Federal Reserve plan to destroy the economy and destroy the working class in order to address inflation. But on the same token, they're constantly talking about it. And they're essentially relying on the fact that there is no good financial education in the United States and that most people don't know the real issues that are behind inflation. And they're following behind the mainstream media, which agrees with the Republicans that quote-unquote government spending is a major issue. So the Republicans are saying, see, it's because all these profligate government programs spending too much on poor people that we have all these problems with inflation and you've got to get the Democrats out and get the Republicans in. And that's it. They're actually not saying they're even going to solve inflation. So they're demagoguing around it, but they're not really addressing it. Democrats have passed a bill that doesn't address it but claims to, but they can see that. So they're trying to throw up a smokescreen by talking about other issues. So it's interesting. The Democrats are really going into the elections, pressing more on social issues, on the racism of the Republican Party, on their opposition to a woman's right to choose and a number of other very important issues. While Republicans are basically just saying a lot of things that are totally false and hoping that no one understands what's going on by putting inflation at the center of their argument by having no option or no plan for how to solve it.