Fed to the Wolves: Hiking Interest Rates Harms Workers and Small Businesses While Enriching the Banking Oligarchy

In the past, increasing wages among workers played a significant part in the rise of inflation. As workers make more money, they tend to spend more money which leads to a surge in the Consumer Price Index (a formula that captures the price of goods and services) which ultimately leads to higher inflation. In this way, inflation was, in a way, a sign of a somewhat healthy, though overheating, economy. Nominal gains by workers meant reinvestment in America by way of heightened consumer demand.

Fourteen years of pillaging employees and small businesses to benefit multinational corporations and their billionaire owners turned that reality on its head. Inflation is now driven solely by “publicly owned” corporations engaging in price gouging and has nothing to do with growth in salaries. The incontrovertible truth is that the vast majority of workers have seen their wages either flatline or decline over the past two decades while the neo-aristocracy have seen their fortunes skyrocket ever since the “Great Recession”.

Consequently, the quarter-point hike the Federal Reserve announced today was not only a travesty of economic justice, it was yet another shot at the heart of Main Street while giving a boost to the global plutocracy. After opening the spigot wide open to flood Fortune 500 companies with cheap money by way of Quantitative Easing, which incentivized stocks by punishing savings, Chairman Powell is now intent on breaking consumers by inducing higher interests. While Big Banks are popping bottles applauding this legalized larceny, borrowers like aspiring homeowners and would-be entrepreneurs will take a hit.

One of the big reasons I am running for Congress is to speak truths to these powerful moneyed interests that have hijacked our government and impeded marketplaces. Here is a fact that neither Democrats or Republicans will tell you because both of them are corporations owned by multinational conglomerates: the reason we are seeing prices escalate at gas pumps, grocery stores, pharmacies and beyond has nothing to do with Ukraine or the lack of drilling in America and has everything to do with the lack of competition.

Companies like Amazon, Walmart, ExxonMobil et al are using their size and scale to monopolize markets and eliminate alternatives. They do so by rent-seeking as they weaponize their vast cash reserves to bribe politicians (they call it campaign contributions) and outright dictate policies by way of K Street lobbyists. A government of, for and by the people has turned into a regime of, for and by the plutocracy that gives the green light to the whims of special interests while ignoring our concerns.

If we have any chance at restoring fairness in our country and ensuring equality of opportunity for all Americans, we must break the grip Wall Street and multinational corporations as a whole have on our government. That means reigning in the Federal Reserve and recognizing that it is an unconstitutional banking cabal that is unaccountable to the American people whose charter is to sacrifice the citizenry and profit their corporate masters. Just as important, it is imperative to measure the wellness of society not by the wealth of Wall Street but by the wellbeing of We the People.

We have a choice before us, we can keep hoping and praying that millionaires who work for billionaires will deliver us or we can finally reach a collective understanding that people who are thriving through the status quo have zero interest in delivering change. Don Beyer, the incumbent I’m running against, exemplifies just how broken our politics has become thanks to the kleptocracy that passes as governance. Fourteen years ago, while millions of Americans were losing their homes to foreclosures, Beyer expanded the massive wealth he was handed from his father by parlaying Obama’s “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” to further enrich himself.

Once again, the Federal Reserve is feeding US to the wolves by increasing interest rates to enrich the global oligarchy. Clearly, millionaires working for billionaires is not working for us. #Fikre4Congress #Fikre4VA

We can do better than to sit back and allow politicians to pay lip service to our needs while leveraging our pains for personal gains. The simple truth is that Democrats and Republicans are collectively gaslighting us every election cycle as they pretend to present an alternative when in reality they are both champions of multinational corporations and their billionaire owners. If you feel financially secure and believe that Wall Street’s riches represent your economic reality, you are more than welcome to stick with politicians like my opponent. If, however, you believe that We the People are being left out in the cold and think it is time for one of us to occupy a seat at the table, I am asking for your vote and your support.

The return on your investment, if you decide to support me and shall I be entrusted with your vote, is gaining an fierce advocate who “feels your pains” not because I read about the it in the New Yorker but because I live your reality. An accomplished IT Project Manager and successful Business Consultant with an MBA from Johns Hopkins University, I am nonetheless forced to drive Uber part-time to augment my income—such is the state of most households these days. Yet while some might see working two jobs as a drawback for being a Congressman, I see it for the blessing that it is.

Every morning, I get to interact with riders who share their hopes and struggles which gives me an even better insight into the concerns of voters in my district and throughout America. Moreover, because I have spent more than a decade honing my craft as an independent journalist and understanding the power of words, I will not take a backseat to anyone who tries to silence my advocacy of workers and small business owners as “class warfare”. Unencumbered by corporate contributions and loyal only to my constituents, I will tell it like it is—the only war is the one that has been declared by the global oligarchy on Americans.

We are at an inflection point in our country’s history, debt and hubris have always been the death knells of all previous empires. If we are to escape the fate that befell Rome, we better course-correct by decentralizing power, retaining more of our earnings locally and preserving the rights of workers and small businesses instead of treating us like fodder for Wall Street. After all, as the French Revolution demonstrated, the safety of the gentry cannot be guaranteed if the rest of society is not given a modicum of security. Let us chart a course towards an inclusive economy in order to safeguard our democracy.

“Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.” ~ Thomas Jefferson