Inflation: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Inflation: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

John Oliver discusses what causes inflation, what we’ve done about the current round of it, and, of course, makes the smartest investment of all time.

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40 Responses

  1. Ghost Helwig says:

    After so long on the air, I have to wonder if whoever at HBO oversees the budget of this show still gets surprised. “Not one but three giant frog statues for an episode on inflation? Makes total sense, approved.”

    • Advanced Gaming Cow says:

      @Kas S This. Just as a fun little web only episode when they’re on a break? “Hey we do a lot of crazy stuff, here’s the guy/gal who has to approve it!”

    • Luke Rabin says:

      It was $6,000. He probably bought them himself. It’s not that much money!

    • Akmal Fadhlurrahman says:

      “It’s cheaper than the big ass marble cake we had last year”

    • BB2023 says:

      Given how John Oliver likes to make fun of HBO’s/Warner Bros.’s parent company AT&T, he and his team probably enjoy quite a bit of creative and financial independence, thus allowing them to get away with their expensive gags and saying otherwise heretical things such as “corporate greed”

    • BJ Rosen says:

      @Marijuanifornia I sense that you have an agenda. Could it be because of your name? Naw, must be some other subtle clue. Hmmmmm. XD

  2. George H says:

    From the Wikipedia piece on the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer conflict after the economic collapse of 2008-2009: Jim Cramer was shown simply affirming “Your money is safe in Bear Stearns”, followed by a Daily Show statement that the global investment bank went under six days later. “If I’d only followed CNBC’s advice, I’d have a million dollars today”, [Jon] Stewart said during the piece, “provided I’d started with a hundred million dollars.”

  3. Jeff Redfern says:

    The old joke always stays relevant:

    A priest, an engineer and an economist were stranded together on a desert island. Given their location, fish seemed to be a logical source of food. So, they discussed how to get some. The priest said that the three of them should pray. The engineer said he thought a better approach would be to fashion a net from materials on the island. The priest and the engineer then turned to the economist for his input. With his hand on his chin, the economist thought for a moment and then looked up and said, “Assume a fish.”

    • Pirojf Mifhghek says:

      And as soon as the economist said that, suddenly three investment bankers jumped out of the bushes and said “I’ll borrow against that fish!” and used that to buy more fish.

    • MTN17 says:

      The fact that I don’t get the punchline describes economists perfectly! Haha!

  4. Mr. Dr. Daxter says:

    John showing off his frog statues and yelling “I am good at business!” made my morning and nothing can take me down now.

  5. CarlDillynson says:

    Prices are up due to inflation but they’re not going to come back down once this is over. Whatever price the product is once this is all over is the new normal price, which will be significantly higher than before. Wages, however, will not rise as fast. The middle, working and “lower” class is being royally screwed right now.

    • Monsieur Dorgat says:

      @Kit Coffey That is very much a thing – markets are specific to income brackets. The housing market is absolutely flooded with over-zealous and prospecting rich people made much more rich by Trump’s stimulus and increased market leverage. While some markets will not be fixed via taxing the rich, the housing market absolutely would be. We seriously need to reduce the demand from specifically speculative buyers.

    • Anthony V says:

      Not unless a crash happens

    • Kit Coffey says:

      “Price stickiness” is a real thing that people can look up from themselves and then decide to buy as little as possible to reduce demand …but ultimately, the biggest source of inflation for most people is housing and we need to regulate renting and landlords now. no landlord should be allowed to buy multiple properties while the properties they have are in disrepair. That’s a common sense thing that we could actually put into law right now, along with maybe not requiring people to fork over thousands of dollars at once in order to just even have shelter that these things called security deposits that no one ever gets back when they move out should either be banned or heavily regulated, or spread out over the course of the lease you’re being changed into anyway, it’s ridiculous that we can get more information about hotel rooms than rentals, we need more public information about what landlords refuse to do repair so that people can really shop wisely for housing… it’s a real racket that everybody makes money off of except the renter.

  6. Norm Rayos says:

    Somebody, somewhere, who a year ago was doing their insane job creating giant size frog statues just got the payoff of the century tonight.

  7. Peter Bathum says:

    Corporations don’t want their profits lowered by reasonable rates of tax or even protection for the environment

    • UrStoopid says:

      @Kira TheKillerNote no. Taxes reduce the money supply which reduces inflation.

    • Pirojf Mifhghek says:

      ​@Kit Coffey Housing costs are a major source of inflation because investment firms and banks have been buying them up like crazy. They need it as collateral, because they know the Quantitative Tightening measures by the Fed are going to have to match the MASSIVE Quantitative Easing that they’ve been pumping into the markets from the past four years (it goes back farther than covid by a lot). That means that the corporate bonds that they would otherwise be using as collateral are in danger of falling through. If they lose collateral, they get margin calls and liquidations. So they’ve been trying to find as many other investments as they can that might have some means of weathering the storm. This is why obscure financial vehicles like the Overnight Reverse Repo program are bloated to the tits with over $2 TRILLION in pure liquid cash. They need something they can have on their books that doesn’t have the ability to lose a third of its value due to a crash. They’re so afraid of putting their money into anything else that they don’t care if all those overnight t-bills lose out to inflation. And many others are buying up housing because they see that as another way to weather a potential storm in lost collateral. And that rabid buying of real estate has lead to a bubble there as well. They’re all trying to scramble onto that liferaft and they’re gonna cause it to sink.

      Mortgages across the markets are WAY down. Mortgage backed securities are WAY down. People can’t afford to buy houses because they cost too damn much. Investors are trying to flip em as hard as they can, but now they have a rapidly receding pool of people to sell them to. They’re selling them to… each other. So now housing is in a huge bubble and they stand to lose bigtime on that too.

    • UrStoopid says:

      @Entrepenumbra yes. They actually do. We live in a society.

    • UrStoopid says:

      @Kit Coffey actually, mainstream economists agree that 54 to 60 percent of current inflation is due to growth of corporate profits.

    • Kira TheKillerNote says:

      Taxes raise inflation. Are you sure you want a higher tax rate at the moment?

  8. Shmluh says:

    Since workers are being overcharged and overworked, it’s time for folks to learn about where our rights came from. Not from our creator- they are all written in blood. The podcast “Cool People who Did Cool Stuff” is a history of labor movements in the US and they spell out how those in power have always been more than willing to beat, kill and starve workers to keep them in line. May Day (Workers’ Rights Day everywhere else but the US) needs to make a resurgence.

    • Luís Andrade says:

      @Luke Rabin lol that doesn’t even make sense lmao

    • Luke Rabin says:

      @Luís Andrade nahh. The people who need to quit playing the victim are usually those who tell everyone else they’re playing victim.

    • Anmol Biswas says:

      May day is called May day in India too

    • SmokeStack says:

      This is actually an extremely good point because the funny thing is ‘May Day’ was born from events that occurred in the US but we celebrate ‘labor day’ instead. It was done arguably because the ruling class doesn’t want an internationally linked working class so they morphed May Day into a day which conflicts a celebration of worker’s contributions with patriotism. Literally polar opposites in most instances. The association May Day has with Marxism might have something to do with it but I would bet it has more to do with ousting working class power by putting it in conflict with patriotism. So now we have ‘Labor day’ instead.

    • Luís Andrade says:

      @Michael F. it’s a term for everyone between Canada and Mexico

  9. Jose Mari Gomez says:

    John, just so you know, I find your shows not only hilariously entertaining but also highly educational in a way the average Joe can understand. The punchlines, timing, and delivery are flawless. Am a huge fan as are thousands of other fans across the globe. Cheers!

  10. evlqueen says:

    Here’s what I know about inflation: I’ve been switching jobs for higher pay for 15 years and I finally was able to break an income barrier during the pandemic and now it feels like I’m making no more money than I used to because a weekly grocery trip went from $150 to $300 and fuel went from $30 for a full tank to $70. I’ve been wanting to be a homeowner for a very long time but housing prices doubled as soon as I started making enough money to save for a down payment. Basically my soul is crushed again…

    • Stacey Strukel says:

      @Nath you’re the idiot. Inflation with low pay has been a problem for decades. Republicans have been in power more years than democrats so why aren’t things better? Those of you that believe one party is the problem or answer are the idiots causing this. STOP following bullshit politicians and vote those who want to take away power from corporations and the military. That’s where all the money is.

    • Operation FUBAR says:

      I’m right there with ya. I’m making more now than I ever have but it really, really doesn’t feel like it.

    • Donna Vorce says:

      What a bunch of crap. So sorry that happened to you. You’re probably in a big crowd of fellow americans who had the rug torn out from under them. Meanwhile companies are reporting record profits. Wtf. This probably won’t last forever. Fuel is already coming down. Perhaps other items will also fall in price.

    • Nath says:

      And yet people will be lined up to vote Democrat all over again. Reminds of that meme with Eric Andre shooting someone then wondering what went wrong. Fortunately it seems like the vast majority aren’t idiots with the upcoming massive red wave

    • kinduvabigdeal says:

      Same. I’ve more than doubled my paycheck since March ’20 and I’m still about to start selling dope on the side to get into a house. Fml

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