The cost of gas has risen to $2.19 a liter in South Africa, in The U.K. it is moving upward a further 10-15% while its government has tried to pass discounts onto its citizens. Canadian consumers face a horrendous see-saw of increasing, dropping, and increasing further prices, just like the stock exchange, never at a standstill. Energy costs will continue to rise so long as the Ukrainian -Russian conflict continues. Not that Energy Corporation‘s mass profiteering, of the back of hard-working people, has not happened. It has a big time. American and Global Energy Sources are sticking it to their consumers, with a plan to drive prices high enough, that when prices plateau, drop the price a bit, hoping consumers will be happy to pay the remaining higher prices. The price of oil is @$110.00 a barrel and increasing. The oil patch is attempting to force prices beyond accepted levels with the intention of taking advantage of present-day inflationary struggles.
Food, housing, energy, and almost every product or service we use or consume have risen to unseen levels.
Prices of the World = Rise up, Rise Up.
Wages of the Working Person= Stable and Stagnate.
Waged and salaried citizens face a Financial Armageddon, while their finances shrink, assaulted by rising costs both personal and professional. Urban centers pre-pandemic were already expensive. Now they are difficult to unlivable. What can those of us living on the lower economic stratus do to survive?
Workers throughout the world are uniting and standing fast against “The Man”, Corporate Elites who live their lives within a bubble we will never experience. Out-of-touch politicians, corporate managers, and their corporate masters set the rules affecting our marketplace. They have bank accounts hidden throughout the offshore banking system, while we need to keep our credit and banking balances above water. The Public Sector Unions are already moving towards strike action, asking for increases that our governments will not give. Unionism has taken to the streets realizing there is a labor-Worker Paradigm at work, and their struggle is more than a financial one but is one that is societal and class-based. If there ever was a time when an existing class structure was visibly identifiable, it is now.
There is the Wealth/Well to do, and there are the working man and woman. The middle class seems to be evaporating away. Further developments have a redefinition of what a worker truly is, a person who makes others better off than themselves. We make the rich richer, while we live in a world where we are financially stable today, but not so next month. Most of us do not have a stash of cash lying around or put under our mattresses. Financially moving from week to week or month to month. Waking up in the morning or going to bed at night worrying if we can come up with needed payments. We are challenged each day by our own expectations and desires, ever-increasing costs and expenses that can drive many of us to bankruptcy or worse. If you have money in the stock exchange, look out. A financial reckoning is on its way. Those playing the stock market, like those at a casino, have bet our money on stocks and bonds of low or no real value, making money for themselves, but little for us. When the market re-evaluates itself and finds personal, corporate, and public debt being a sea of unmanageable concern, it will go into control mode, forcing many investments into the bump bin, and your valuation also.
Striking workers may very well face mass layoffs.The Marketplace will be looking for places and things to divest from. Cash will become king once again. Well, these are my thoughts, as perilous as described. I side with working people, and their struggle to be heard, acknowledged, and properly incentified.
Steven Kaszab
Bradford, Ontario
[email protected]
