Fact Check Me: You Want Cheap? Pick Control.

We already socialize the losses. The only question is why we still privatize the gains.

You can’t demand lower food prices, lower energy prices, lower housing costs—
and then get angry when the government can’t just snap its fingers and make it happen.

That’s not how markets work.

If you want the government held accountable for prices,
then the government needs actual control over the things being priced.

Because otherwise what exactly are you asking for?

You want elected officials to somehow force private companies
to lower prices
without controlling production, supply, distribution, or ownership?

That’s fantasy.

If you truly want affordable essentials—food, power, housing, medicine—
then those things need to exist, at least in part, under public control.

Government-run supply chains.
Public infrastructure.
State-backed production.

Why?

Because then we, collectively, absorb the risk.

A bad harvest?
Society takes the hit together.

Fuel markets fluctuate?
We subsidize stability.

Supply chain disruption?
Margins compress instead of families starving.

That’s what subsidizing actually means:
the public shares the burden so the individual doesn’t carry it alone.

And because the profit motive is removed,
the goal changes.

The objective is no longer:
“How much money can this make?”

It becomes:
“How efficiently can we provide this necessity?”

Some years cost more.
Some years cost less.
Some years create surplus.

And that surplus gets reinvested back into the system—
improving infrastructure,
building reserves,
offsetting future losses.

That’s how public service is supposed to work.

Because in “free” market capitalism,
the consumer eats the losses
and the shareholders keep the profits.

When markets dip,
prices go up.

When supply shrinks,
prices go up.

When profits fall,
prices go up.

Funny how prices always seem to go up.

And if times get really tough?
The corporation gets bailed out anyway—
with your tax dollars.

So apparently we already socialize the losses.

We just privatize the gains.

If you want a true free market,
then stop blaming government when prices rise.

But if you want government held accountable for affordability,
then stop pretending public ownership is some radical idea.

You don’t get accountability without authority.

Pick one.