Inflation is often sold as a mysterious force in mainstream commentary – like weather, or fate. In reality, it is a predictable redistribution mechanism. A stealth tax. And like most mechanisms in our economic system, it redistributes to the few. It’s a pipeline – straight from your pocket to theirs. A slow, silent redistribution of value upwards, wrapped in economic jargon and blamed on whatever is culturally convenient.. globalists, migrants, wind farms, your neighbour’s pronouns. Yes, energy shocks and supply issues play a role. But who ends up better off after the dust settles? Not you.

The Winners?

• Governments groaning under debt (they repay with devalued money).
• Borrowers with fixed-rate loans.
• Owners of property, stocks, and commodities.
• Corporations with pricing power.
• The already rich, who simply rebalance their portfolios and barely feel the breeze.

The Losers?

• You.
• Wage earners, pensioners, small businesses.
• The so-called “middle class”, now largely the working poor with a better wardrobe.

While prices rise and security slips away, people get desperate for someone to blame. And into that void, step the salesmen..

Enter the Snake Oil Populists.. in suits, flags, or fatigues.

They arrive with righteous fury and easy targets. “Your life’s getting harder? Blame the EU. Blame immigrants. Blame the green mafia. Blame the elites in Brussels, London, or Washington”.

But look closer, and the story collapses under its own hypocrisy.

Nigel Farage

Swills pints and rants about sovereignty – while pocketing over £1 million a year from media gigs, crypto promotions, and campaign donations. Net worth? At least £3.2 million – and that is just the declared portion.

Marine Le Pen

Claims to stand for working France – but the lifestyle says otherwise. Between her MP salary, party stipends, and her role as sole heir to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s estate – including a multi-million euro villa in Saint-Cloud – her financial comfort is beyond dispute.

Her father, who died earlier in 2025, was tied to a Swiss trust valued at over €2 million, including gold coins and ingots, as revealed by Mediapart in a 2015 investigation. Whether she benefits directly or not, she now inherits the broader political and financial legacy of one of France’s most entrenched dynasties. Populist on the podium, property heiress on paper.

Viktor Orbán

Waves the flag of Hungarian values – while consolidating media control, funnelling public funds to friends, and ruling over a loyalist oligarchy where nationalism and self-enrichment go hand in hand.

Donald Trump

Back in office, and back on the grift. Claims to be saving the nation – while peddling merchandise, crypto coins, and policy outrage. He imposes tariffs that make Americans pay more, while offering tax breaks for the already wealthy. He promised to drain the swamp. He bottled it, slapped his name on it, and sold it to Americans instead.

Vladimir Putin

Less a populist in the Western electoral sense, more a czar in camouflage. But the performance is familiar: defending tradition, civilisation, the ‘Russian soul’ – all while dissent is crushed, fortunes are hoarded, and ordinary citizens bury their sons.

Officially, he earns a civil servant’s salary. Unofficially, he is linked to a financial empire worth up to $200 billion via oligarchs and offshore proxies. While sanctions bite the public and war drains the economy, the regime’s upper tier remains insulated.

The slogans are nationalistic. The results are plutocratic. Ordinary Russians, meanwhile, face inflation, shortages, and funerals.

Giorgia Meloni

Italy’s “outsider” PM now governs comfortably within the system she once decried – especially when Brussels keeps the money flowing. Loud on cultural warfare, quiet on protecting oligarchic tax perks. She rails against Brussels while happily spending EU money. The rhetoric is nationalist. The reality is fiscal dependency and strategic ambiguity.

And on, and on.

The grift Is the point.

Modern populism is not about fixing problems – it is about monetising resentment.

It follows the TV preacher playbook.

• Convince people they are under attack.
• Offer salvation through loyalty and outrage.
• Live off their fear, their donations, and their despair.

Whether it is miracle water, nationalist rhetoric, or freedom coins, the pitch is always the same:

“Trust me. I’m one of you”.

They are not.
They never were.