Citizens' concerns
- I don’t understand how the financial system works 🤔
- My savings are losing their value 💸
- I’m worried about my pension 💰
- The gap between rich and poor is growing 📈
- Housing prices are too high 🏘️
- Banks are corrupt and self-serving 🐺
- Local businesses will go bankrupt (once support is withdrawn) 🧾
- Prices are going up 🛒
- Unemployment levels are too high 🤖
- The economy is fuelling the climate crisis ⛽
- We will never pay off the public debt 💶
- Bankers have too much power 🕴️
Prices are going up 🛒
My weekly shop is costing me more and more. Yet my wages are staying the same. This is leaving me with less money to save, invest or spend on non-essential items.
Although official statistics show that prices of consumer goods have only slowly grown by around 1% on average over the last decade, it is true that wages have largely stagnated. In addition, the ECB policies have often been accused of pushing up housing prices (which are not totally reflected in the inflation index), and represent a big budget item for vulnerable families. So while the perception that prices are rising a lot is not really true, one can be rightly concerned that their real income is stagnating, or degrading. More generally it is undeniable that inequalities are on the rise.
Three approaches are proposing to address this issue:
→ Ⓑ The ECB has gone too far and should go back to basics of its mandate
→ Ⓒ The European Central Bank should stop banks creating too much debt
→ Ⓓ The European Central Bank should support the economy and citizens more directly
