Here's an old clip of Michael Caine talking about the working class

The economy has been hitting everyone hard in the last year. Scratch that; the economy is always hitting everyone that isn't part of the 1% pretty hard every year. However, the rising level of inflation- which recently hit 9.1% on the consumer price index in June- is making life post-pandemic incredibly difficult for millions of Americans. As if that weren't enough, the record-setting inflation rate, the swiftest increase of its kind since November 1981, is expected to balloon even further in the coming months. It's a rough time to be part of the working class in America. 

Whenever news headlines start to spark my pessimism, I tend to turn to the past to help alleviate my concerns. I'm not trying to bury my head in the sand or anything, though. When I measure past and present, I'm usually trying to compare how much overlap there is between today's concerns and those of yesteryear. And when I thought about how the rich will inevitably profit from the economic strife the rest of us are currently experiencing, I immediately flashed back to the interview with Michael Caine featured above.

Aside from a few spots of antiquated language and questionable racial comparisons, Caine eloquently explains, in the most salient section of the interview, how the rich have brainwashed the less fortunate to believe that there's nobility in their suffering. The message Caine proffers in the clip is timeless, which is both oddly comforting and endlessly frustrating.