Based on yesterday's discussion at Dan Allosso's Book Club, we don't include defense spending into the consumer price index for calculating inflation or other market indicators. What other things (communal goods) aren't included into these measures, but which potentially should be to take into account the balance of governmental spending versus individual spending. It seems unfair that individual sectors, particularly those like defense contracting which are capitalistic in nature, but which are living on governmental rent extraction, should be free from the vagaries of inflation?

Throwing them into the basket may create broader stability for the broader system and act as a brake via feedback mechanisms which would push those corporations to work for the broader economic good, particularly when they're taking such a large piece of the overall pie.

Similarly how might we adjust corporate tax rates with respect to the level of inflation to prevent corporate price gouging during times of inflation which seems to be seen in the current 2023 economic climate. Workers have seen some small gains in salary since the pandemic, but inflationary pressures have dramatically eaten into these taking the gains and then some back into corporate coffers. The FED can increase interest rates to effect some change, but this doesn't change corporate price gouging in any way, tax or other policies will be necessary to do this.

Commercial TV channels unite to screen Covid vaccine myth-busting video. (2021, February 18). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-56101990

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Chari, Varadarajan V, Rishabh Kirpalani, and Christopher Phelan. ‘The Hammer and the Scalpel: On the Economics of Indiscriminate versus Targeted Isolation Policies during Pandemics’. Working Paper. Working Paper Series. National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2020. https://doi.org/10.3386/w27232.

Akhvlediani, T., Ali, S. M., Angus, D. C., Arabi, Y. M., Ashraf, S., Baillie, J. K., Bakamutumaho, B., Beane, A., Bozza, F., Brett, S. J., Bruzzone, R., Carson, G., Castle, L., Christian, M., Cobb, J. P., Cummings, M. J., D’Ortenzio, E., Jong, M. D. de, Denis, E., … Webb, S. (2020). Global outbreak research: Harmony not hegemony. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30440-0

Structural Racism distinction from interpersonal racism; yet similar effects.

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