What is… a convoluted poorly overseen scheme to feed public money to cronies and businesses under the guise of keeping people employed. Sure a good portion of the smaller businesses followed the rules and ended up getting not enough to really make up the difference. But those big boys with their astute accounting departments fed from that money trough like the disgusting bloated economic hogs that they are.

I STILL keep hearing that consumer spending is being driven by “stimulus checks from the pandemic”. Anyone spouting that bullshit is either a liar or completely out of touch with reality. Over 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. A truly horrifying statistic btw but I digress. Those stimulus funds were probably gone as soon as they cleared the bank. There were absolutely some shortages that led to price increases.There was/is also a shit ton of price gouging going on.