Stagflation
Joe Zeigler
Summary: The United States isn't drifting into stagflation—it's being shoved. Market concentration lets a handful of giants set prices without competition. Fifty years of tax policy shifted the burden from billionaires to nurses. Healthcare devours a fifth of GDP while delivering worse outcomes than peer nations. The Fed fights supply-side inflation with demand-side tools, punishing borrowers while cash-hoarding corporations shrug. None of this is fate. It's arithmetic—exposed, reversible, and protected only by the people who profit from it. The bill came. The arsonists are still holding matches.
Stagflation doesn't sneak. It waits. It sits in the corner like a debt collector who already knows your bank balance, your credit score, and which kidney you're more attached to.
Economists talk about it like weather—high pressure meets low pressure, clouds form, growth stalls, inflation rises. Very scientific. Very neutral. As if the clouds weren't manufactured in a boardroom. As if the front didn't roll in from decisions made by people who will never feel a single cold drop of the storm they built. They have umbrellas. And helicopters. And islands.
The United States isn't entering stagflation because of fate or cycles or the mysterious workings of the invisible hand. We're entering it because of choices. Political choices. The choice to let four companies control your beef and three companies control your seeds and two companies decide whether you can afford to fix your house. The choice to give billionaires a tax code written in their favor and then act confused when the roads fall apart. The choice to treat tariffs like scripture and budgets like someone else's problem.
This isn't structural destiny. It's arson with a flag on it.
Jerome Powell spent two years hiking rates like a man swatting at a wasp in another room. Inflation stayed sticky because it wasn't coming from too much demand. It was coming from consolidation—a polite word for the fact that a handful of giants now own everything and can charge whatever they want.
Four companies control 85% of American beef. Exposed wiring, but legal. Three control 80% of the seed market. Hope you like their seeds. Two dominate home improvement retail. Good luck with that bathroom remodel. One runs the pharmacy counter at most of the country's grocery stores. Don't worry, they're sure your insulin is priced fairly.
