Cardi B sounds off on inflation

Say what you want about rapper Cardi B, but she’s an artist of the people. The hip-hop mogul often steps outside of standard entertainment narratives to weigh in on issues impacting her fans.

She did just that in a recent Twitter rant. Cardi labeled her video as a “PSA” and weighed in on the nation’s skyrocketing inflation for a full minute.

https://twitter.com/iamcardib/status/1610813475177271298

She began by clarifying that she still cares about prices even though she is wealthy, and that those who fail to budget will go broke soon. She then clarified that she receives a summary of the money being spent in her house each week and has observed a significant jump in costs, specifically on food prices.

"Lettuce was like $2 a couple months ago and now it’s like f***ing $7, of course I’m [going to] say something. The f***?" she said. Cardi continued, “If I think that s*** is crazy, I could only imagine what middle class people or people in the hood [are] motherf***ing thinking."

She went on to say she would continue using her large platform to speak on this topic and told “anybody that’s responsible [for] these f***ing prices to put that s*** the f*** down."

https://twitter.com/iamcardib/status/1610426861972082690

It’s refreshing to see someone with Cardi’s attitude. She’s self-made and genuinely seems to value hard work as well as the consistency and attitude needed to maintain success. She also seems to remember where she came from and genuinely still cares about people who are struggling.

However, as I often say, good intentions without a good understanding of economics often lead to bad outcomes. Cardi has frequently used her platform to promote some of the very people (and their ideas) that created inflation in the first place.

In a 2020 interview with Bernie Sanders, Cardi used her significant cultural influence to promote the socialist’s bid for the presidency. In that same interview, she named Franklin D. Roosevelt as her “favorite” president (FDR was responsible for some of the most detrimental policies in all of US history).

Both of these politicians favor or favored excessive taxes and a bloated federal spending budget that encompasses practically all walks of life. Fortunately, they’ve been thwarted in their most extreme goals, but even just the micro-vision of what they want has already proven detrimental under the Biden administration.

In fact, it was the big spending American Rescue Plan, which every Democrat in Congress supported, that led to the very inflation Cardi is complaining about. Since the first half of 2021, when the bill was passed, US inflation has increasingly outpaced inflation in other developed countries. And, research shows that income transfers—like those supported by Bernie and FDR—may have contributed to a 3 percentage point inflation by the fourth quarter of 2021.

So while it’s admirable that Cardi B still speaks for the average American and their struggles, her platform won’t be of much use until she takes time to understand the underlying causes of the problem: big government and progressive spending.

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