They keep raising prices, stating that it’s due to inflation, but then they keep having record profits.
Meanwhile, the average American can barely afford rent or food nowadays.
What are we to do? Vote? I have been but that doesn’t seem to do much since I’m just voting for a representative that makes the actual decisions.
Cutting back on spending is the only thing I know that works. When consumers don’t buy things, the prices come down.
For groceries this means splurging less, avoiding things you don’t need (drink tea instead of soda, don’t buy snacks and chips). Fruits and vegetables are definitely still cheaper than prepared foods in many cases. Even when frozen. And they can be used to make a meal stretch, along with beans and rice.
Buy cheap bar soap and store brands of basic things.
Coupons aren’t really a thing anymore, but you can use the app for stores like the grocery, Target, Walmart, to “clip” deals and save.
A lot of the high prices right now are just greed. They aren’t tied to actual supply chain or labor issues. A grocery store in France just told PepsiCo to take a hike because their prices were so outrageous.
If you want the government to get involved, I encourage you to write your representatives about enforcing existing anti-trust laws. The mega mergers and buyouts are driving prices up because of less competition. Kroger wants to buy Albertsons for example. That just means more layoffs and higher grocery prices.
Hope this helps.
The biggest thing is to be aware of how much things should cost, and just refuse to buy them if they’re gouging.
Can I afford $13 for a case of Coca-Cola? Sure, I absolutely can. I can afford $24 a case. I’m just not willing to pay that. That same case was $7 in 2019. You can’t tell me their costs have doubled.
And even if I believed their costs doubled (and I don’t), that doesn’t mean their prices have to double. They’re not entitled to growing percentage profit on a larger number. Just because they made 20% on that $7 case doesn’t mean they deserve 20% on that $13 case. 20% of $7 is $1.40. They could absolutely take $2 profit on $10 and be happy with it. But they won’t. Because people don’t pay attention and they can get away with it.
There are enough barriers to entry and cooperation among would-be competitors that they can charge basically whatever the duck they choose.
I too choose this man’s duck.
cutting back spending is hard when it’s one of the main ways to feel joy; you already have to spend on groceries and bills anyway, and it feels that much more stark and grim denying yourself the fun foods and nice convenience items to save like $10, then your rent goes up $50 because they said so, and so what’s the point anyhow…
Think of it as a protest then. When they’re charging stupid prices for beef, say “hell no” and eat lentils for a time. It’s all in the attitude. It’s honestly good for us to cut back a bit. If spending money is one’s main way to feel joy then something is wrong to begin with. Time to read a good library book or take more walks for joy. And most of us could stand to eat a little less beef anyway.
This is good advice. And I think it helps to think of it as a protest. None of us wants to deprive ourselves, but if they’re charging stupid prices for beef then give them the middle finger and eat lentils for a time. It can be an empowering experience instead of a shameful one if it’s intentional and you can get your whole family bought into the concept.
dude, there is no evidence for supply side economics to have ever worked, the price has nothing to do with supply and demand
This is completely wrong lol
They’re not really talking about Supply Side Economics. SSE is a macroeconomic theory about cutting taxes in the hopes rich people having more money will invest in the economy and then the money will “trickle down”. You’re right that it doesn’t work.
They’re gesturing at supply and demand having an effect on prices which every economic school I’m aware of agrees about, Marx to Chicago. Supply and demand certainly starts becoming less of a factor in monopolistic and inelastic markets when you don’t have a choice not to buy. In the case of food you can choose to spend less by buying less meat and processed goods. That will have an effect. If not done en mass the effect probably won’t matter. It’s an effective survival strategy though.
I agree they’re not advocating the most effective praxis. I think more effective alternatives like buying clubs and food co-ops would start generating alternative economies. Political advocacy, local and federal could also have an effect but I expect every victory to be rolled back as soon as convenient.
SSE is larger than just trickle down, and ironically not every school of economics accepts the supply/demand model, and some who do, also criticize it as being dysfunctional
Voting is necessary but not sufficient.
The big other thing is to build external power. That’s not like militias per se (though with the rising fascism it’s not a bad idea), but rather stuff like gardening, learning to do repairs, and practicing mutual aid. Reduce your and your community’s dependence on the corporations. And make it an issue people around you care about.
Learning to do repairs yourself has never been easier thanks to YouTube. There’s also a ton of sources for replacement parts online these days, many of which provide repair videos for the more common parts. My dishwasher broke a few months ago; $60 for a new intake pump and a few hours of my time and it’s working as if it’s brand new. My TV died out a little over a year ago; $35 for a new power supply (probably could’ve repaired it for a few bucks if I had just replaced a capacitor or two) and less than an hour of my time and it’s right as rain. Most repair jobs are a lot less daunting than people assume they are.
Unions! Rising prices are irrelevant when workers are paid fairly.
Giving everyone more money will not fix the price of housing, It’ll do the opposite.
No the price of housing is caused by low interest rates and the money printer. This makes companies take out cheap loans and buy all the houses, thus driving up the pricing even more.
You’re kidding yourself if you think everyone having more money is going to do anything but increase bidding on housing right now though. I’m not blaming housing prices on people having money, I’m saying it’s not going to fix those underlying issues.
No they don’t have money. The money is created out of thin air.
Has anybody learned anything from 2008? The entire reason that Bitcoin was even created?
To scam stupid people out of money? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and I’m not sure you do either.
No I do very much know what I’m talking about. It’s just you.
But big daddy government says guns are really bad and only they should have them!!! (jk)
Learning skills like sewing, planting/storing extra food, first aid and knowing how to use a gun isn’t something for crazy bunker dwellers or the Amish. It’s skills that my grandparents knew.
It makes you more resilient and capable, especially in an emergency when supply chains/govt are strained (that’s why the preppers do it). You don’t have to go all Stardew Valley but I think it’s good stuff to know at a basic level.
Yeah I have mixed feelings about guns because on one hand an armed proletariat is more able to resist, but on the other hand sure seems like easy access to weapons is helping fascists more than anyone else and fuck am I just exhausted by the constant and unyielding gun violence in my country as well as the fact that any weapons that are effective against a larger force on shared turf are illegal for anyone but cops and troops. But antifascists and workers demonstrating our capacity to organize as a militia may make fascists rethink action.
But yeah aside from my rambling as a tired American, these skills aren’t even just for emergencies. Gardening is a hobby that gives food and sometimes drugs as a reward. And it’s healthier stuff, with the added benefit of being in season. Repair skills not only save money, they save the planet and they make you feel more comfortable and capable.
My girlfriend is an Appalachian leftist who does a lot of the prepper stuff because growing up impoverished in a place where that was normal and it’s just useful even now that she’s middle class and out of all that. When you get comfortable with repairs and making stuff you can just turn other people’s stuff they want to get rid of into things you want. You can just make furniture if you have the tools. And yeah it may not look as polished, but it’s often sturdier because you’re not going to use particleboard to build your bed, but companies sure will
Unironically the answer is “shop less.”
Prices on goods rise when demand for goods stays sufficient to support the price going up. The less everyone buys, the less things will cost.
Prices for goods have almost nothing to do with the price of rent, but the mechanisms there are the same - it’s just that you have to encourage building rather than “live somewhere less” because the second option really isn’t tenable, for obvious reasons.
If you want rent to come down, campaign for, vote for, or even run for office to be the candidate that will change zoning laws and encourage building multifamily housing.
the myth of supply based economics, and other fairytales.
Realistically there is no reason for produce or rent to be increasing in price, there is not any actual reason for the hikes in COL other than “record profits”
Rent is increasing because there are millions more people but we haven’t built enough housing since the 60s. The US is now 5million houses short, and this shortage is entirely caused by cities preventing construction of everything but single family homes.
“No reason for rent to be increasing”
What a bullshit statement.
I feel like I also hear that we have a ton of homelessness despite lots of vacant homes, where can I learn more about the nuance of this?
This is specifically about Australia, but essentially all 3 parts of this piece (and related linked essays) sum up how to solve the housing crisis worldwide.
https://theemergentcity.substack.com/p/how-to-solve-housing-unaffordability
Boils down to:
1: change zoning laws to allow more multifamily construction
2: remove incentives for homeownership and generally disincentivize single family homes
3: build for density in ways that reinforce and support density
If you want more info, basically every mainstream economist in the world agrees this is the solution, and that this is a manufactured problem. It’s a result of regulatory capture by homeowners, essentially. There are many, many papers about it.
Here’s an easily-digestible article
https://www.businessinsider.com/economist-how-to-fix-america-housing-crisis-rural-cities-2022-10
And a well-cited study in an economic journal:
https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2022/12/30/the-economics-of-the-housing-shortage/
All these sources agree, because this is the solution. Realistically, the only bad solutions are subsidizing more demand via things like rent control - these will only make our problems worse, kind of like how adding more lanes to a highway doesn’t fix traffic.
1: change zoning laws to allow more multifamily construction
Our city did this and it hasn’t helped at all, because banks won’t finance it. No minimum parking, no height limit, no maximum FAR, no maximum unit count.
What city is that?
No minimum parking, no height limit, no maximum FAR, no maximum unit count.
yeah get rid of these next and you’re set.
It’s gonna take a lot of work, man. The regulatory capture here is extreme.
Everyone wants to point to capitalism for this, but this is what happens when you kneecap any economic system. That’s why it’s all over the world.
That’s what I’m saying though, we got rid of those regulations, and it still doesn’t matter. Banks want parking. Banks limit height. Banks limit unit counts. Developers routinely propose some pretty decent housing products, where they’ve run the numbers and they work, then go to get it financed and it very rapidly gets cut in half and turned to shit.
The only solution is for the city to finance and build themselves.
SUPER high level, and slightly biased explanation: corporate home buying.
Large investment firms like buying up property increasing the demand and raising prices. This prices normal people out of being able to afford a house. It also raises other housing related costs like rent, because these firms want to make a profit. This in turn prices people out of being able to afford ANY housing.
When we’re just numbers on a spreadsheet, there is a certain level of vacancy and homelessness, that maximizes profits.
this shortage is entirely caused by cities preventing construction of everything but single family homes
So I work in a field closely related to this, and the issue is less cities and more banks. The regulations in my city are basically: “if it’s housing, no regulations”. No minimum parking, no maximum density, no height limit, etc etc. But the banks? Won’t finance over ~22 stories. Or over ~200 units. Or parked less than 2:1. So we end up with only these short towers that are 50% parking podiums, where units are expensive AF because they have to pay for $100,000+ of parking per unit, not to mention the astronomical land prices being less diluted.
The only solution is for the city itself to start financing construction (and realistically doing the development themselves too), but that’s never going to happen.
Cities should def be funding more public housing.
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Cry and hope for a revolution. Since the Supreme Court decided money is speech, we have no power. Representatives don’t care about their constituents unless a message comes with a “charitable donation”. The rich are seemingly immune to laws, but somehow there’s a surplus of money available to fuck over the little guy. This is a failed country of the corporations, and for the corporations.
Not to promote violence, but I’m afraid nothing is likely to change until people are pushed far enough to do more than hope.
It’s okay, this is Lemmy, not reddit.
Violence is skipping a step. A national strike would do more damage to this country in a day than isolated riots in every major city.
Unfortunately, many of the people who most heavily dislike the corporate-controlled status quo are feverishly attempting to pass laws to make it harder and more dangerous to do anything other than hope.
That’s why the media pushes every news about shootings to the top of the front page, they want you to be scared of guns, so they can trick you into giving up your gun rights.
Never give up any rights, period. Rights are not something we get handed out on a frequent basis.
Stop buying their shit. Obviously there’s things you need to live and that’s fine but stop wasting your money and making them rich by buying all the ancillary shit.
This is the answer. Its simple but not easy. Do you think the average person knows what they’re spending money on each month? And how much? One chick I knew was spending almost $500 a month dining out!! A MONTH!
It is difficult to not have any “fun” purchases tho, nearly impossible imo. But you have to have spending discipline and next to no people have that.
But let’s say everyone stops spending on non essentials, taken to its conclusion that would leave only grocery stores, dr offices, mechanics, and banks left to do business lol maybe a few others.
But… those places all price gouge too :(.
All are also experiencing higher operating, production costs. Costs that are passed on to the customer.
During and after covid pandemic many fortunate 100 and fortune 500 companies made record breaking profits…
It’s just a big, convoluted mix of factors that are hard to separate. Yes, there are far too many bad actors. But also people are getting paid more for the same job, and the value of the dollar has gone to shit. I believe compared to 2019, a dollar in 2019 is $1.18 now. 18% inflation.
Money printer go brrrrr. Everybody, everywhere, is making record breaking profits all the time. And then you’ve got employers blowing smoke up your bum, saying “You got a 15% raise, wowee zowie, you’re more than fairly compensated!” And it’s like nice try, jackass, a 15% raise doesn’t even keep up with inflation. 🙄
I am not in favor of bad actors, of course, but I know I’m paying a fuckton more than I used to pay for the same stuff. It’s just…built-in.
For tracking expenses, I use an app called You Need a Budget (YNAB). It’s pretty handy and is great for showing you where all your money goes.
Plant a vegetable garden. Build a rain catchment system. Build a solar power system. Read books instead of consuming other media. Buy only local. Start a consumer or retail cooperative. Don’t participate in wanton consumerism.
Voting in the US doesn’t yield desirable results because of the gerrymandering and the voting system; however most changes which directly affect people are made at a grassroots level so participate in activities at a grassroots level.
My wife and I tried to plant a vegetable garden last year, it was our second try after learning some things the previous year. We got a lot of veggies out of it and had a lot of fun. We weren’t so interested in saving money, we were more worried about bare shelves at the grocery store. We also have a few chickens.
We are going to make it even better this year.
My new year’s resolution this year is to figure out how to build a generator capable of putting out at least 200w. The trick is, I want something that doesn’t require a manufactured fuel to run. Solar or wind are obvious options, but I have also considered a steam engine or wood gas engine.
Depending on how complicated you want to make it you can build a pyrolysis plant this produces various forms of fuel and can be run of a solar panel. The feedstock to this plant is plastics waste be careful of the plastics though as certain plastics produce chlorine gas.
I.t.o farming I highly suggest into looking at aeroponics and aquaponics. Both have disadvantages and advantages. You can construct systems using off the shelf materials. Stay away from turn key solutions. Aeroponics is really interesting and we’ve been playing around with it for a number of years.
Short answer: get paid more
Medium answer: become unionized so that you can bargain collectively for more pay instead of individually. It’s like forming a political party with your labour, and then voting for yourself
Unions are a very good answer to this. They aren’t a complete solution, but they are a big step in the right direction. And they’re something almost everyone can do.
Long answer: direct action
Unions wont do shit unless they also stop supporting capitalist owned politicians thats keeping them down
Unions did shit when the corporations and government could literally shoot them, stop being a larper and get to work
vote for people who are in favor of regulations
One related thing to voting that anyone can do:
Start talking about politics again. If it’s impolite to talk about politics, only the impolite will be the one’s talking. Discuss, respectfully, what your thoughts an opinions are. Challenge ridiculous ideas. Don’t just roll your eyes and walk away. Engage (as much as is reasonable, don’t start fights)and be prepared with facts.
It’s not easy. I don’t follow this advice all the time. Pick your battles when it won’t affect your career. But be prepared to have the conversation when it comes up.
fuck civility politics, if some “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” is calling for more bullshit, call them out on it.
no one remembers the “nice guys” in politics because they never accomplished anything.
I don’t disagree with you, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m saying in normal civilian life, talking with friends and family, it has long been considered taboo to discuss politics at all. Treating friends and family with respect is just an important part of fostering healthy relationships. Public officials, pundits, and celebrities don’t require the same level of civility, because I don’t expect to have a personal relationship with those people.
like you don’t have some uncle that goes on about how Biden stole the election, or how taxation is theft
Eat the rich. Bring back the guillotine.
There’s surely appetite building around the world for this. Who will throw the first stone that starts the landslide?
France
What a horrible take, encouraging violence against people. For shame.
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Radical change almost never comes without bloodshed but you can arrive at the same endpoint through the voting booth, it just takes longer.
Don’t sling insults. By doing so it demonstrates that you have no argument worth making.
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France has the right idea about what we were supposed to do.
Protest about every single issue then vote for the most milquetoast president possible, with a side helping of fascist Russian-puppet as a runner up?
Or get out the guillotines which soon get turned on your allies (and innocent poor people), then after that collapses get taken over by a fascist dictator, who undoes most of the progressive changes you made and rampages across Europe, killing millions of people (including French people).
In fairness a fascist or at least authoritarian dictator rampages across Europe every few hundred years, give or take a century, anyways
Why stop at Europe, no one is immune, they just have the most famous framework.
Because they did it so much it spilled over onto several other continents and replicated?
you think this is new or unique to Europe? downside of Eurocentric history education i guess.
You’re right, why fight when we get a fascist Russian puppet for free and a president who literally uses Nazi rhetoric to boost his ratings.
At least if we protest, we can either get off this fucking ride or break the machine.
old family tradition
I think food riots are just a few years off, really. Maybe when enough stock is stolen and enough stores trashed they will learn, but I expect they will try to be heavy handed, sending in the local WalMart Defense Team (a.k.a. the police force closest to a given walmart) to handle it, but there are definitely going to be problems with that considering some people go to walmart armed.
Funny enough I’ve seen a few Walmarts with mini police stations inside of them.
The location has been closed for nearly a year after officials say shoplifters set fires in the store to distract from their thieving
And I have zero fucking sympathy for Wal Mart, their entire business model is based on exploitation both of the surrounding community, the government and of their own workers. Burn the police station down with it next time, so long as you get what ya need.
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Member the time a guy stole underwater from Walmart and then ran into a random house to escape the police (I think in Colorado). The police destroyed the house to get him. Then the home owners tried to sue for the value of their house and the police found not liable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Robert_Seacat
Totes meant to say underwear not underwater
You may not like the answer but you need to continue working the political process further upstream and more deeply. It’s easy to just vote for the president every 4 years and then think the system doesn’t work. But it’s too late to have any kind of effect that late in the process. Find more progressive candidates to support and vote in your primaries to support them. Volunteer and help them get out the vote. And do this even if the candidate you like is across the country somewhere, because having more progressive candidates overall helps move the Overton window and shift the party over time. And when you’ve lost the primary and don’t have a progressive choice, do the least bad thing and keep the regressive candidate from winning. You may spend all your life doing all this only for some limited victories and a small net shift if any, but that’s the lot of one person among 300 million. It’s a hell of a lot more impact than the vast majority of people will have. And it’s just the beginning of what you can do. Join a union or run for office yourself and make a more direct impact.
Of course we all live with limitations but few of us are doing as much as we could actually do. I know this well because I have some blue collar friends busy with jobs and kids who still do about 400x more than I do.
That’s the correct long term answer. But you might also add that there are forces that actively fight against this kind of prpgress, so in addition to what you’ve written, I’ll add educate yourself and others, and don’t fall to the cultural war paradigm the’re creating to distract us.
Yep 100%. It actually encourages me that they work so hard to keep people from uniting. It means they’re afraid of it.
While it isn’t magic, there is a newfound pressure on the Democratic party to finally break some meaningful ground.
Unfortunately one of the biggest obstacles had been the radically conservative Supreme Court.
Simple arithmetic tells us that if just two Supreme Court Justices were to suddenly disappear from our reality, and re-emerge in another, the court would lean more progressive to allow debt relief, bodily autonomy, and hopefully more.
While there are many ways to suddenly remove people from our plane of existence, there’s no proven way to have them re-emerge in another. Obviously it would be illegal and deeply unethical to suggest such removal without the safe relocation to another plane.
So I guess just learn to kiss fascist ass 🤷♂️
America needs to nuke the entire structure, not just one party. Its two wings of the same bird. Dems are only “progtessive” and “trying to make meaningful change” because they have an excuse not to. Otherwise that stuff would have been implemented or secured years ago.
As long as first-past-the-post elections are the norm, any political scheme will distill to two opposing factions, because that’s the only way to effectively compete. We must push for ranked choice voting.
You’re certainly right about that. Fptp is a fuckin scam.
We have a long history of making progress through incremental change within our two party political system. It’s not perfect, no political system is. But even if we had a parliamentary system, you’d still have to form coalition governments with democrats and face the same perceived issues.
Progress can be made within our current system, even if your vote goes to the “least bad” at first. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.
The lesser of two evils is still evil mate. You also have a long history of making incremental steps towards bending the common folk over so the upper class can get a few more pennies.
Molotovs are always an option.
If you want to live through 80’s dystopian books on this subject, we all need to start learning how to hack; compromise these company’s networks, take down their supply chain. In the end, we’re enabling them. We can either give up because there are too many of them, or educate ourselves on their weaknesses.
That’s like saying “we all need to learn how to be spies and pick locks so we can steal the gold from Fort Knox”.
Also, disrupting the supply chain can literally kill people. Look what happened when the Suez canal was blocked.
how to hack; compromise these company’s networks, take down their supply chain.
That will only result in hiring more network security and passing the costs onto consumers.
