Have you noticed a gallon of milk is up nearly 20 percent than a year ago? Bread is more expensive to say nothing of heating and fuel costs.

Is it recession or inflation? In a recession people shut their wallets and worry about losing their jobs. In inflation, the price of everything goes up but you still have a job.

A quip from Mellon economist Allan Meltzer put it this way, “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin.  It doesn’t work.”  

In the political world, no one is taking the side of the taxpayer, so it seems. No one is working against the lobbyist influence that pedals deals in Washington, who sell your inheritances of stability and honest dealings for a percentage. They are responsible for giving corporations billions in tax cuts when they outsource jobs all the while selling often inflated insider deals to political representatives.

Some of the inflationary forces at work are high ethanol subsidized energy prices, the tax cuts for multinationals outsourcing and exporting jobs overseas and bailouts of financial institutions associated with the real estate market.

They are talking about a bailout for foreclosed homeowners with a program  that would create "negative equity certificates."  I bet the taxpayers are just jumping up and down in terror while the mortgage companies roll in laughter with the promise of government guarantees.

Inflation may be dampened by small recession in the short run … if that is in the cards. But, long run, it looks like business as usual. None of the political parties want to cut expenses and clean up the landscape.