As we all know only too well, the world around us is fast changing at a rate and cost out of equilibrium with our human psyche and our individual abilities to lead relatively unencumbered lives.

The root problem to all this is the inordinate profit-taking by certain sections of big business, by some financial industry actors and the Mr Big’s behind various manufacturing and wholesale and retail price- settings.

In addition to the various localised wars and political fights currently besetting our globe, the average citizen’s growing problem at present began as soon as the nine-letter word of ‘inflation’ was broadcast after those Covid restrictions on the movement of goods which often caused unplanned distribution delays and a temporary scarcity of certain products.

The widespread use of this money-sensitive word of ‘inflation’ was immediately jumped on by big-time profiteers in the food and materials industries who used it as an excuse to fill their coffers more than ever on the basis of a shortage of certain products, generally from China and other countries overseas.

Even Australian agricultural products grown locally had their consumer prices set at record high levels although they suffered no real additional distribution costs — and the farmers had their prices drilled down.

If one studies the annual financial results of the organisations I am referring to, the immediate answer is that most of them have, ever since the pandemic, recorded their highest profits ever. One multi-national food manufacturer in Australia has since the days of Covid increased its annual profits by 600 per cent.

Technology in the hands of these companies is also unfortunately developing at a rate that we cannot cope with as a people. Artificial Intelligence as applied to householders is just one such example.

We are, in fact, kidding ourselves if we think life today is an improvement on our days before the turn of this century.

Advancing data-driven technologies are unfortunately destroying our human-to-human relationships and are replacing them with machine-to-machine interactions already decimating our global economy.

A life-long study of history tells me that we now need to start to ignore — or seriously reduce — these technologies before it is too late and to protect what we in Australia had before certain influences decided to take over our lives and futures.

What I cannot understand as an economist and journalist is why our world governments, particularly in the West, are not developing new policies to ensure the immediate reigning in of certain new electronic instruments, such as the social media platforms, and to ensure that they are only for the betterment of our people and those elsewhere overseas.

The executives leading the global computer industry keep reminding us of how wonderful our latest communication systems are and how these systems are bringing people together. This attitude is, however, very far from the experiences of most of us who now find that our friends and colleagues are often more interested in looking at their mobile phones than conducting a wholesome eye-to-eye human-to-human conversation.

We should also be reminded by the fact that many world governments are now much more removed from each other as they exchange harsh disagreements over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, over the Israeli-Palestine state of affairs, over Africa’s fractious inter-state arguments and violence, and over the travails of illegal immigration and terrorism.

Globalism has gone digital with the urgings of the United Nations and its support of a new one-world order by the year 2030. But inter-State political disruptions are not as yet slowing down in any way and are more likely to continue to exacerbate, defeating any thoughts of complete global collaboration in the near future.

As in some other countries, we in Australia have in the past three years experienced various big and small clandestine ways of certain business elements getting more money for less from we consumers.

Simple examples of this include reducing the size of their products for the sake of an increased price and profit. All too often, one finds that, what was a one-kilo item, is for instance now only 750 grams in weight but can still be contained in the original large one kilo sized container.

Certain ointments and creams sold in tubes no longer seem to weigh what is printed on their labels. Instead, after a few squeezes of these products, one is aware of a large, compressed air bubble of nothingness before finding another injection of the cream one has purchased in good faith. The nett result is many fewer cream applications than before, yet at an enlarged price. The same story applies to some coffee sachets.

More serious examples of firms drawing increased hard cash from our pocketbooks is that provided by one professional outlet in Northern New South Wales which charges its clients a certain newly inflated figure for its services and then charges an additional sum of money on a separate receipt as rent for the client using their premises for maybe only a matter of minutes. The sad story here is that most people today only pay with their bank cards and seldom ask for any confirmation of their payment.

Things of this nature are, of course, small fry compared to the bigger companies advertising major products at a cut rate while keeping the ‘new’ sales price the same as before. All this corporate pricing and profiteering does nothing but give a further boost to our dreaded inflation.

The cost of present-day household and vehicle insurances are computed to have increased by an average of over 33 per cent since Covid while income buying power has gone backwards in the face of our spiralling costs.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is backed by an Act of Parliament allowing it or individual buyers to take action if goods offered for sale misuse market powers or fail to reach a bare advertised level of quality or quantity.

Whatever the situation, there is little argument that we all are going to have to be more wary of how we spend our incomes; how we save for the unknown future and how we can stop some elements of technology, commerce and industry from ruling our lives and wallets.