What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices?
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.
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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...
This is why I pirate a lot of my media. Aaarrrr.
At the very least I can be entertained while I am cutting expenses.
You wouldn't download a can of Poopsi
I have also found that piracy can scratch my shopping itch without spending any money.
There are other things too. It’ll sound weird but I got into the composting hobby (see: /r/composting ) and for a while I was crazy about getting as much organic material as I could. I’d rake my neighbors leaves, get coffee grounds from cafes, and dumpster dive for cardboard. I’d come home with a good haul and feel that satisfaction of acquiring something. And I was getting exercise and helping the environment in the process. Like I said, weird, but if you get creative you can find ways to have fun without spending money.
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.
I would highly recommended finding other sources of joy. Buying things has been proven again and again to just give small bursts of happiness that quickly fade, this is the cycle these corporations often feed on.
Look into cheap hobbies you can do. Recovering from getting used to these small hits of joy isn't always easy, but it will give you back more control of your life. I'm not perfect at this myself but I am much more aware of it and able to say no in the majority of my life.
You could also look into Minimalisim, there are some interesting ideas in there to be adopted, even if you don't eat the whole pie.
While I personally do appreciate the level of detail and amount of options provided in this reply, the more straightforward and longer-term solution is to eat the rich.
Taxing the Rich might help as well.
Seems to be working in NYC—hopefully it spreads.
Nothing more straightforward than hyperbole. /s
eat in an economic context, and if shit gets bad enough, a literal one as well
I'm fortunate enough to not be in a position where money is tight for food, but re: beans and rice, I absolutely love my instant pot!
Mexican-style beans are, IMHO, delicious, easy to make, and dirt cheap. I love them, our toddler loves them, and it's easy on the wallet. Dry beans are really affordable, and a 25lb bag of rice is great to have in the pantry (note: careful with bulk brown rice as I think it can go rancid). A stove and a pot can do both, but an instant pot and a rice cooker makes it so easy.
I also drink a fair amount of coffee, but again, bulk or even just "make coffee at home" is very affordable. A few cups at Starbucks costs the same as a pound of beans (which yields many cups).
Exactly this. Also try Indian Madras Lentils packets (I get them at Costco), really cheap for a serving and microwavable. Also bulk Indian spice pastes if you can get them cheap enough. Makes the rice+beans gourmet for dirt cheap. And with coffee, I've gotten to the point where the biggest cost is actually filters. To help with this I got a reusable mesh filter from Amazon. Works well, easy to clean, and holds up (I've used it for over 100 cups now). Then you're at like 10 - 15¢ / cup if you use bulk coffee mate and sugar.
I started buying dry beans recently and it has been a complete game changer for me. Same goes for things like rice, potatoes, and oats. My grocery bill is way lower than it used to be, and I haven't have to skip meals to get through the month in a while. I spend a bit more time cooking now, but I'm a college student with no kids or other major responsibilities, so it's not a big deal in my case. I've honestly started to enjoy cooking, and my roommates are nice about helping me learn.
I dunno why I'm putting all this out there, I guess I'm just happy about it. I grew up hungry, not to the extent that some kids do, but enough that it took a toll. This is the best nourished I've been in my life, and the difference it's made caught me by surprise. I feel better physically, obviously; but I also never realized how much the stress was weighing on me. It's hard to explain, but I feel like a whole different person without it, y'know?
Sorry for getting off topic. I hope it's okay if I leave this here for my own sake lol. But yeah! Rice and beans ftw! xD
Beans, rice, and Instant Pot are the best. Instant Pots are also highly repairable in the unlikely event that they break.
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.
Giving everyone more money will not fix the price of housing, It’ll do the opposite.
It will partially fix it because part of the problem is wealth inequality; housing is a form of wealth and becomes more out of reach as wealth concentrates away from people. Giving everyone money serves as redistribution.
Think about it. If everyone has more money that means so do the other people bidding against you. It’s like the college tuition problem. Everyone can get student loans, so colleges have no incentive to keep costs reasonable. Giving college students more money doesn’t fix the problem of college being too expensive.
You still think you're bidding against other people for housing. That's not the case, often, these days. Corporate land grabbing is the largest proponent of the housing crisis. That has to be ended before anything will get better on that front. Education for profit is another absolute crime against the citizenry. College should only cost what education costs, not what it costs to hire the fucking football coach and build a goddamn stadium.
You’re bidding against both, and increasing the amount of money people have also gives people who already own a home the opportunity to buy another one and get in on the investment those corporation are. All you’ll get is inflation and probably a crash leaving you owing more than the homes worth when it all comes tumbling down. Throwing money isn’t the solution. Building more multi-family buildings and legislating multi-home ownership including corporations is.
Here’s a source: https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investors-havent-bought-44-of-homes-this-year/
You’re being against people with under 10 homes, which I agree is still a problem, but you’re not bidding against large corporations.
This is basic supply and demand. Please explain how I’m wrong and giving people more money would solve the problem.
This would make sense if what was being proposed was increasing everyone's wealth proportionally to how much wealth they already have, but I don't think anyone is really suggesting that. Think about it this way; say you have 300k and are bidding on a house against someone who has 50 million dollars. They have a strong advantage. Now say you both were gifted 10 million dollars before bidding on the house. Your adversary still has the advantage, but much less of one.
As an aside I think what you're saying elsewhere about adjusting laws for more housing is right, but that can't be the whole solution when the market value of labor is being eroded away. Even if there is a large supply of housing, a share of wealth is needed to buy it, that share has to be somewhat evenly distributed or there are unavoidable problems.
You're ignoring the hundred other people with 300k that will getting money and now bidding against me. It's Supply and Demand.
I am not, I intended the person with 300k in this example to represent the whole class of people with less. Your assumption seems to be that the relatively accumulating mass of wealth held by the few is just not in competition for houses, but that begs the question, why wouldn't it be? You can extract rent from housing to profit on it over time. It serves as a safe investment very likely to increase in value. You can convert it into other forms of real estate. You can have multiple homes for convenient travel. There is a lot of incentive there.
An important feature of supply and demand is that the weight of demand doesn't depend on a quantity of people, but a quantity of money chasing the same supply. If no one ever had a reason to want more than one house for themselves, maybe it would have more to do with the quantity of individuals, but I think that's just not the case, they do want more, and it scales.
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
As a non American the gun argument for being able to rebel seems like such an empty argument. Assuming you mod your rifle to full automatic fire you are going up against tanks, jets, drones, artillery, the entire armed forces of one of the strongest military forces on this planet. Ak47s didn't work out so well for Iraq why do you think you will be different?
There is an interesting podcast from a few years ago called (if I remember right) "It Could Happen Here: The Second American Civil War". A war correspondant with experience covering the Syrian civil war takes what he observed there as a thought experiment on what modern civil war might be like on American soil. This was released around 2019 I think.
Basically what you see there is riflemen with drones and improvised explosives make a very effective fighting force when paired with smart gurilla tactics.
Vietnam and Afghanistan were not won by the US. The Soviets didn't win the Afghan war in the 80s.
In America rural citizens have weapons and experience using them (war, hunting etc) and can easily disrupt logistics to make life hell for an enemy force. Military vehicles are notorious gas hogs and expensive aircraft can be easily destroyed if caught on the ground. Advanced weaponry can be scrounged. And the factories that make them are built here.
I love my country and also see the flaws of it including our polarization. I hate the very idea of any war here under any circumstances. I see it as an incredibly foolish idea, right alongside "just nuke em". But as the journalist put it, if it came to that we would make "one ass kicker of an insurgency"
But for the record what I was meaning in my initual statement is more for home defense, hunting and so on. Not going against the government but having the capablity to be okay if they can't get help to you in time. Even the best trained police officer is of little use when they are 10 minutes away from you, which is typical in the US. In that regard it's logical to us, just like first aid kits and fire extinguishers. And it's okay if it doesn't make sense to you.
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.
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.
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.
What city is that?
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.
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.
There absolutely is. You think farmers don't have expenses? At the very least they need to pay employees wage increases to match inflation.
Rent is a different thing entirely and it's based on what people are willing to pay to live in that area. You can't charge a California rent in Ohio (unless you're selling a penthouse apartment) because nobody will pay it.
More quitter talk and apathy just like the other comment of yours I bumped into.
Fact of the matter is, if every 25% of people that normally bought X product stopped and got something else, that brand would drop prices. You can't make record profits off a 10% price hike if 25% of your sales just vanished.
There are so many people here ignorant to the basic principals of supply and demand. It’s starting to scare me how willful the ignorance is.
supply and demand is econ 101, and in econ 102 you learn that econ 101 is about as predictive as Nostradamus
yet the cost to produce hasn't gone up in any meaningful metric, and is nowhere even close to the price increase we saw in grocery goods.
rent isn't much different, there is no shortage of rent, and the (evil leftist word that means you need a house and food to live) Material conditions are the main reason why companies jack p these prices, you can't just not have a house and not have food
and pointing out that supply side economics in practice has just lead to an oligopoly increased cost of living, an increasing wealth gap, and a new class of super rich that make the fucking Rockefeller look poor. And the theoretical side is literally fairy tale beliefs that make revolutionary communists seem grounded with reality
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Join a union and demand more money to pay for it.
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.
Innocent people die in revolution or war, but generally, in cases like the French revolution, or us civil was, that overthrow a corrupt system for a (slightly) fairer one, society is better off over all. I don't think we need violent revolution but we do need revolution.
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.
Milk toast?
old family tradition
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.
Just gonna add onto here:
DO NOT FEED THE ANTI-DISESTABLISMENT TROLLS
THEY'RE EXPLOITING NON-VIOLENCE TO STOP YOU RISING UP TO PROTECT THEIR MASTERS
DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM OR ENGAGE WITH THEM AT ALL. NOT A FUCKING WORD. DOWNVOTE THEM AND MOVE ON
Radical change almost never comes without bloodshed but you can arrive at the same endpoint through the voting booth, it just takes longer.
And see the progress that has made!
Don't sling insults. By doing so it demonstrates that you have no argument worth making.
The only solution is to demand more money and buy less. Buying less will decrease demand and cut their profits, having more money will cover inequity.
This pretty much already happened with the “nobody wants to work” bullshit. People moved to better jobs, and jobs that could no longer pay a living wage either raised wages or closed their doors. Workers need to keep demanding more, unionizing, and raising wages to keep the money in their pockets. The people complaining are complaining they can’t have 4 car garages when the employees can’t afford rent. Fuck those people.
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.
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
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 🤷♂️
I'm sorry, how exactly is the Supreme Court an obstacle to lower consumer prices?
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.
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.
Thieve from big corpos. Don't feel bad about it. They don't.
Getting a criminal record would definitely help me afford food
Don't be stupid about it, don't get greedy. Just give yourself a little discount to offset some of the recent bullshit price inflation and portion shrinkage.
Johnny? That you?
"Fucking corpos choom, they are raising prices, flatlining the poor, and made us a mad murderer who's only satisfied with fake orgies on BDs. Fucking preem."
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.
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.
Eat. The Rich.
They don't move much, I love fatty cuts 🤤
I had to return some videotapes...
Lower consumption
so just not eat at all then?
No. Purchase ingredients instead of products. Stop buying the highly processed, ready to consume, expensive but easy options. It's hard. It is, but it works. I could never afford to feed my family on TV dinners and frozen pizza, but we eat well because rice is cheap and veggies are filling and meat can be stretched. Herbs and spices are a bit of an initial investment, but they go a long way. And believe it or not, eating till you feel full every time is not good for you. And the more you do it the more it takes next time. And commercial food is made to make you try, but also formulated to make it harder to reach that feeling.
The cost of ingredients have gone up anywhere from 75%-300% from corporate greed. Flour went from $1/Lb to $5/Lb. It's actually cheaper in some cases to buy the mass produced version of things like bread.
TL;DR: You can only lower you consumption so much before you starve
What we need are non-profits who engage in agriculture specifically to sell basic goods cheap and to undercut for-profit companies. With automation advancing, it's possible to slash prices in that way.
That would help shift Americans away from capitalism to a post-scarcity economy where they don't have to worry about buying food and such.
The idea that an average person in the US is anywhere near starving is ridiculous. Except a tiny, almost vanishingly small minority, americans would be healtier consuming significantly less.
I'd like to add that not everything is inflating at the same rate, so you can certainly consume less of the crazy priced stuff. If you're forced to buy it, like auto insurance, then start getting quotes from competitors.
I take stuff from work.
Not buying things is probably the most accessible course of action. I haven't bought a carton of eggs in probably over a year now. Yes, I heard prices went back down. But you know what? Fuck 'em. Companies can't just price-gouge and then pretend everything's cool.
Honestly, learning how to make/grow things yourself and forming a community of others who do the same thing for different items is the most revolutionary act you could do in this world.
Exactly. The christo-fascists love to promote the whole "prepper" thing of being self-reliant and ready for social collapse when the "Communist takeover" happens, but honestly we need to be doing that for the upcoming fascist theocratic dictatorship rn...
You need to be the example you want to see in this world. Buy ZERO Corporate.
That’s it.
Delete subscriptions. Replace your music collection with pirated MP3s. Same with movies.
Learn to cook.
Obviously you’ll have to buy gas. Nothing is perfect.
Make a start.
Seek out the competitors to near monopolies? I heard somewhere that all glasses are built and sold by one company (that then sells them to a bunch of different companies so it looks like there is competition), and they can charge incredible markups. There probably are very small companies that make and sell glasses that don't have the economies of scale or ad budgets to get the word out. If enough people bought from them, the monopoly would have to lower prices to their "kill competitors" level to steal back the market-share (or just buyout the little guy). Once dead or absorbed, they can go back to incredible mark-ups, which means we can start the cycle over again and find a new little guy to support.
That or support the maker movements so that anything we need we can just make ourselves (3D printing, bio-hacking, hydroponics and seed banks, general lathe and mill loner libraries, open source software, etc...)
EssilorLuxottica is the current name of that company. Fuck those guys.
the "vote with your wallet" stuff is bullshit, and it always was. there are very real limitations on what some small company can do in a near monopoly, that's why we had antitrust in the first place.
I guarantee if everyone switched purchase orders from a major company to a small company overnight, that company would not be a small company.
Vote with your wallet isn't bullshit, it just takes enough people actually doing it and it takes work to find the small businesses you want to buy from. It's much easier to just rollover, buy the product you know sitting on the shelf, and then go complain on the Internet.
nothing happens overnight, and even if everyone switched the smaller company does not have the capital to realize such a jump in demand, nor would it have the capital to protect its self from hostile market strategies the larger company can and generally will entail.
now please do try and vote with your wallet if 90+% of everything is owned and sold by some small group of companies
You’re taking it literally, they are taking it realistically. Literally yes everyone switching would do that; realistically that won’t happen, nowhere close. So it won’t work.
Pay. AFAIK you don't have any other rights.
Yes. Never vote for a rich person anymore :-)
One thing I've noticed is that people I know have 2 problems.
they might not know what things should cost. If the prices rises, I notices it right away. I shop at the same grocer and know the standard price of everything I buy. I notice a price increase when I pull it off the shelf. Most my friends don't notice a price increase until they check out.
My friends that do notice a price increase never substitute or change their meals. They will still buy the same meals. Even if the stuff they need go on sale every other week. I've found that usually most my stuff I can still buy on sale at least 1 or 2 times per month.
These two problems mean that our generation doesn't really put much pressure on stores to keep prices low.
Rent: Housing costs in America are entire caused by a supply shortage due to limitations on supply. We can literally build as much housing as we want and set the market rate at anything, but since the 60s America hasn't built much and the little we have built has been expensive single family homes. This is a choice voters have made for 60 years, but voters can also make other choices.
General strike/protest? Get enough people making noise on the street and people will have to listen. With a presidential election coming up, Dems won't be able to fully ignore it either.
You will never get enough people to join in, for various reasons, but I think a big reason is the big money won with media propaganda and influence, and misinformation is just going to get worse.
Look how well occupy wall street went, BLM protests went, look at the current state of anti-Isreal genocide protests are going (people literally cheering for the genocide of kids, and they don't wanna hear anything about it).
Activists almost always have terrible PR. BLM at least have a coherent point. Occupy Wallstreet was the dog catching cars of protests.
Buying clubs, when you and all your neighbors and friends buy directly from producers can cut out a lot of the graft. This lowers prices, connects you to your neighbors, and lowers the divide between the rural and urban. There may already be buyers cooperatives local to you. Some even give food based on volunteering.
My favourite theory of revolution is where these clubs start to encroach into housing and medicine. Eventually you have an economy based on mutual dependence and responsibility.
Bend over and Get fucked
This, but with whatever group of people you've banded together with to actually afford a place to live.
Hahaha yes!! Sad crying at this because it's so true...both beautiful and tragic.
if you see someone stealing food...
...no, you didn't!
Steal.
And if you have wooden shoes, throw them into the workings of the capitalist machinery.
If you can't afford food, heat, rent, etc., apply for assistance from things like SNAP and other programs (local, state and federal). Call 211 for information on available resources in your area.
Shoplift
Start being an actual adult and start making your own shit.
The only way to free yourself from the slave racket is to stop being dependent on it to survive.
Easy mode: Learn how to cook, and cook clean whole foods. Stop buying processed junk garbage.
Hard mode: Get tools and equipment and learn how to build and fix your own shit. Difficult and will take time, but 100% worthwhile.
Both methods allow you to produce goods and offer services you can sell to other people, too. That way, those that actually can't make or do for themselves can turn to you and not shitty corporations for survival.
Join a more radical organisation than the democrats. Participate in rallies, protests and put up flyers. Its not easy.
Not American, but I try to buy most of my daily stuff from independent places instead of supermarkets. The social contacts at my local butcher, bakery, vegetable shop, fish shop, ... is also much more enjoyable than stressing in the Colruyt or whatever. And the produce is way better.
Once they get to know you, they often give freebies too, like offcuts to make bouillon. And you get free cooking tips as well!
The problem in the states is that many of the local grocery stores went out of business when wally world rolled into town.
O, I see. I guess that makes it even more important to support your local baker/butcher/..., if you've still got one. But yeah, that's a shitty situation.
To add to this, due to the scale that the major grocery chains operate at, even if you do have a local grocer, baker, etc their prices will be higher than the big box stores
There's usually still farmers markets within driving distance. Granted they're not a replacement for a grocery store, but they have a lot of the essentials. There's no middle man getting a cut when buying from them. But also it's important to go because otherwise the local markets won't get any bigger.
While those do exist where I live, the selection is usually limited to fruits and vegetables.
On top of that, the ones around here are time limited (growing season only; weekends only; etc).
Agreed. Ones near me (in Texas) usually have meats, eggs, nuts etc. But, to your point, this last summer it was so hot almost all of the chickens for all of the farmers stopped laying eggs. So we just couldn't get eggs from the for half the summer.
It's not a great option, but I think it is one of the only options we have against large corporations.
Guess it depends on where you live.
In my hometown (rural Midwest), there's a Walmart, a Schnucks (Midwest chain), maybe an IGA if it's still around, and about five Dollar Generals (more convenience store than grocery). I don't think I've seen a farmers market there my whole life, despite being literally in the middle of a million farms. Super odd now that I think about it.
I live in a rural area too, and there are at least 3 farmer's markets within 25 miles of me. I would assume it's common in most similar areas.
I don't live in that particular rural area anymore, so it could just be my ignorance, who knows.
The ultra rich know that there's tough times ahead. They're amassing even more resources to try to survive the coming fall off civilization.
And we're all paying for their parachute.
no, they don't "know" that there are tough times ahead, they are trying to create those tough times, purposefully
Organize locally and stop being so dependent on corporations. Try to start a garden if you can, live more sustainably, and reject as many "fees" as you can. Cut cords, go for FOSS software if you can, try to use publicly funded entertainment like parks, and try to cook for yourself, rather than eating out.
If you're already doing all of that, I'm afraid there isn't much more you can do.
When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.
Not sure of your means, but we can boycott. Organizations like Trader Joe's and Aldi are a bit cheaper than their competitors while offering also using different sources. Likewise organizations like H Mart or your local farmers market source locally, giving the middle finger to Tyson (who claims inflation and profits) and Kellogs (who uses shrinkflation to claim profits). Obviously this doesn't work for everyone, but I think the majority of city dwellers can make these moves. This also is a fuck you to any local grocery stores trying to do the same bullshit (Walmart).
In the same vein, and what I've done, alternative meal companies have come A LONG way. The company Huel has a instant noodles, pasta, and candy bars that are macro balanced with vitamins and nutrients all for about $5/meal. I know most people will skip this, but they're actually really good. Mac N Cheese, pasta Bolognese and Cajun pasta have actually gotten me to go mostly vegan. There's another one called Outstanding Foods that has cheese puffs, cookies and pork rinds that are macro balanced and delicious as well. My daily meals are often some pasta like Mac N Cheese, one of the Huel shakes (I have a ninja creami so this is ice cream in the summer), and coffee mocha cookies, and another shake. That's 1800 calories with balanced macros and vegan that I didn't have the really cook or think about. If I'm working out, I swap the last shake for a protein shake.
Trader Joe's is just one more shitty company with a nice face.
Ask their warehouse workers. Who will also let you know that where Trader Joe's sources their stuff isn't different than other places, actually.
You will be paying the same companies, in the end.
For cheap food, rice and bulk Indian lentil packets can be around $2.50/meal for good sized portions, $1.50 - $2 for smaller portions and 3 meals/day. See also: ramen, potatoes, off-brand soy sauce, bulk dried seaweed (very healthy and cheap). use an app to track macros yourself and you can save a lot of money. This is assuming you have what you need to boil water, but even a hotplate can do ramen and rice, and potatoes microwave well. Bulk frozen chicken breasts can work for meat if you have a little more money.
Aldi appears to be a good place to work, too 👍
partly because the German Aldi union forces them to abide by minimum standards around the world
I didn't know that, very cool!
General strikes, shut shit down.
Ask for a raise.
Join a union, demand at minimum an inflation matching raise.
Asking will do nothing if they are not giving you a raise he default.
While it's great to have a union or a inflation based raise, you still need to ask for a raise.
Take a good look at your contract. Are you doing more than it describes and still getting paid what it does describe? Then it's time for a new contract. Remember, you can have a new contract done at your current job or you can have a new contract done at a new job. If your current manager does not want to review it, then you can do it elsewhere and he will still have to make a new contract for whoever takes your job after you quit. Because of this, it should be in everyones interest that your contract is reviewed.
you obviously haven't gotten how unions work yet.
YOU don't ask for a raise, you ALL ask for a raise, you alone need money to eat, have a house, and basically survive, the business will not die without your specific labor, unlike you.
The Union is the labor, without what the business WILL die, leveling the playing feild a bit.
I'm a union representative. I still ask for raises.
The union only negotiate the minimum wage. I don't work for minimum wage.
The union negotiated for my right to demand an annual review. This right is worth more than an automatic inflation based raise.
most people with serious economic issues work minimum
The way out of minimum wage jobs is education. A union agreement also often contains rights to education, so that f.i. a retail worker can be educated into other specialized tasks and use that to demand a higher pay or seek other opportunities.
It's always uphill encouraging people to do so though..
I'll continue fighting for higher minimum wages, but I have to say that I also meet a lot of people who have no interest in taking advantage of the opportunities that could get them off minimum wage. Minimum wage is maximum wage if you don't do anything yourself. Anyone who thinks they're worth more than minimum needs to get that on paper and shove that paper in their bosses face and ask for a raise or quit the dead end job.
Starve.
you are suppose to live with it or die according to the law.
Move to another country
What we should do is collectively stop paying what the corporations are asking and start negotiating the price of absolutely everything.
For example when we're at the car dealership instead of saying "oh my God I want that car so bad I'll pay anything you want" you say " I'll give you $10,000 less than you're asking for or I'm not going to buy anything from you"
Somehow the corporate elite of not just America but of all other major countries in the world have convinced the populace that you must pay what they're asking when you actually don't have to.
As the consumer you hold all the power you are not required to buy anything you are doing a favor by purchasing products from these corporations.
Riot.
Move to another country?
I’m trying to figure out the same question.
Moving rocks. You should do that. I did that.
I want to move to one of the EU countries maybe even Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. But I have no skills to offer these countries. Can I still move?
Canada would be tough immigration-wise without special skills and it's not very cheap, you could do farm work in new Zealand or Australia and minimum wage would cover you far better than it does in the states, and you don't need benefits because health care is affordable there.
In terms of Europe, Portugal is very reasonable, although I don't know what kind of unskilled work is available and you'd have to learn the language, which is simple but limited to only a few countries around the world.
Australia is probably the easiest of your desired locations: low population relative to land mass, high wages, universal healthcare and education, open unskilled labor market, tons of seasonal work on farms for high pay, no language skills required. Crazy beautiful and clean. No shootings. Rent isn't as cheap as a place like Portugal in the larger cities, but it's there if you look, and you can always live in smaller cities or towns.
There will always be something you have to figure out, but overall everything is just so much cheaper and less stressful abroad that it's worth it to figure out the details.
Australia isn't that much better. Yeah, you're much less likely to get shot unless it's by the cops, but housing and grocery prices are insane. Public health is kind of okay at the moment, but it's slowly and surely being gutted along with most other public services. It's honestly worse than it was even 2-3 years ago. Disability and unemployment are a labyrinthine nightmare of maliciously incompetent bureaucracy. Workers rights don't suck in some places, but if you're coming in on a visa, you may be required to do work in regional areas, and the employers out there 100% know this and will take advantage of it. Some industries have very strong unions (construction). My state has sick pay guarantees for casual workers and jail time is a possibility for wage theft. I think it's the only one where that's true tho. Otoh we just voted nationally to continue systemic racism, we have nazis sieg heiling in the streets, our prime minister is a non-event and the opposition leader is an angry potato.
Use the self checkout and steal half your food
From big corpo stores. Don't dare mess with mom n pop shops, if there are any left.
Considering the likelihood of them having self checkout, shouldn't be a problem!
Yes please! Please please not from locally owned businesses. It's fucking hard rn!! When you have the ability to, please consider small over big businesses. Treat yourself to that local butcher's bacon one month...or take a class at a local studio. Just anything helps. I can tell you, from a group of us small lil guys, we are trying so hard to NOT pass the buck on to you. We are doing anything we can to keep shit affordable, slowly increasing prices (because we literally have to). Omg I fucking hate it!! My goal was to start paying myself this year...I can't. It's complicated, but what I'm doing is so important to me, I will sacrifice until I can't. Do I have a roof? Food? My meds, am I living safely...yes. Am I thriving? No.
Our community is struggling with Gen Z/Alpha Gen being the biggest culprit of thieft. Might be different else where. But please teach your kids to be respectful of AT LEAST small businesses. Fuck big corps!!! Set them loose at a Walmart, team up with them to raid an Amazon Warehouse...I saw nothing. But not us.
Ps: if someone wealthy out there wants to take pitty on me and my situation...will send feet pics for $$$. (+_+)
No mom and pop shop has self checkout.
Don't do this. I used to work at a magistrate and the local Walmart manager walked in with a stack of theft reports every Friday. We sent out court summons to every one of them, and most of them ended up with a criminal record of theft and a hefty fine. It's not worth it.
Who's got a copier at home?
Or at the library!
What a horrible take, encouraging theft. For shame.
Think of the shareholders! The economy! And the (already fucked) social contract?!
Ask for a raise, get a better job. If the balance sheet is up then that means they have more money to pay workers. They only get to keep it if the workers do nothing. If workers rise up together then they will take back the gains.
Apathy and hopelessness is what they want you to feel when you should feel empowered instead.
My company gave a temporary 2% raise to everyone last year due to inflation. This year they said inflation was not up, so they took away the raise. The audacity!
Iniquity will hit a critical mass, we'll start a 3rd world war, if we survive the war we'll have another post war economy boomer world.
Here's what I'm doing:
Some things I'm considering:
Ah, landowner class, checking in with bullshit as per usual
I'm not going to apologize for who I am but I'm no1%er.
Sorry you have to hate.
Your post reads like a buzzfeed article.
Next you're going to tell me to lay off the avocado toast
The vast majority of Americans own houses
It's very funny how effectively you can turn "a statistically average person" into some ominous sounding elite other by just dressing it up in class language.
@[email protected] is just being nice enough to let us know @[email protected] is part of the shadowy elite cabal
Hey I own my own home too!
It has four wheels.
I don't actually know anyone who straight up owns any land
There are certainly a lot of structural reasons people keep mortgages rather than paying them off.
skill issue
You have to take action and I don't mean wear an arm band and commit violence. The people in the driver's seat are still people for now. Human beings with families and feelings. Call their companies, say their crimes to their frontline people, ask how they sleep at night. Call the executive offices. Do the same. Keep making noise. Keep protesting. Do not be silent, ever. Keep doing it in en masse until these greedy pigs realize they're killing their own kind through apathy and greed.
Sit ins, phone line jamming, and socially ostracizing. Hold them to task any way you're comfortable. Companies were freaking out over Twitter users and they only represented 3% of the internet at its peak. You have more power than you think.
Die in a ditch?
I'm building a chicken coop and turning my monoculture lawn into a native wildflower/vegetable garden.
If I'm still struggling to feed my family when that's established I will be violently entering the local government offices to issue a complaint.
Wow, some terrible answers in here. Look, dumb answers like steal, riot or "eat the rich" don't do anything. You all sitting there acting like internet keyboard warriors literally does nothing to solve this issue so wake up and get a grip.
To answer op's question, the only thing one can do is not engage with it. Price increases or not it's still a free market and you do have choices on what you buy. You don't need a new truck, or phones or organic eggs or whatever they want to sell you. Take care of yourself, learn to be budget conscious, work on your career and your own journey and ignore the rest, it's noise. Truly if you're underwater and can't afford to live where you are, move. There are places in every state that remain cheap. Food should not be a problem in this country. Everyone can afford $50-100 a week for food and you can stay in that budget if you learn what to buy and what to make with it. If everyone did that it'd be far more effective than rioting or stealing or any other dumb response.
Bend over and take it. We can vote corrupt people out, but they generally just get replaced by the same people that can be swayed by lobbyists.
I'm sick right now and went to buy cold medicine... It's fucking TWENTY DOLLARS for a 12 ounce bottle of Vick's Cold and Flu medicine here in Miami. Pretty much every other brand was between $15-25. There was a pack of DayQuil that was $6... It had like 5 doses in it and you're supposed to take it every 4 hours, so like a day's worth... For $6.
A few weeks ago I had to buy laxatives and it was the same thing, everything was $17-$40! I almost shit myself when looking at the prices 🤣
If you have the knowledge, means and time, make your own stuff.
Ask their boss for a raise.
Switch jobs if they don't get the raise.
If they can't switch jobs, go to school and get an education in a different career path, then go back to step one.
(On a side note, never stay at the same place more than a couple of years, always be changing and working on your career. It's the best way to gain more wealth, so you can handle companies raising prices better.)
And before you hate on me for expressing the above, just realize I'm stating what the realities are, I'm not the one who created Capitalism.
I personally believe in regulations, including the regulation of wealth, but unfortunately we as citizens don't seem to be able to elect people to office to pass those kind of laws.
I honestly wonder if FDR would be able to pass the 'New Deal' in today's environment.
For me personally? What's worked is being frugal in my spending, rewarding good companies with my monies.
It's allowed me to accumulate some amount of wealth over the years, and I'm doing my small part to help foster a better society.
No one person can make the change, but we all together can make the change.
The answer is "vote" but not just once. Not just for federal elections. Every election, you should be there. Show up to candidate forums and bother your current electeds.
Every government is like a ship of various size, it takes a while to see the turn even start, let alone have the course actually get corrected. The bigger the government, the harder it can be to get long lasting positive change accomplished. (This isn't a "small government is better" thing either, it's just how large organizations work.)
If you can, run for office. If you can't, find someone you trust who can and support them. Not just Congress or president or governor. City council, county government, school board, on and on...
Prices aren't coming down. Our financial systems are built around inflation and drastic measures will be taken to fight deflation.
You can only reduce expenses so far. As purchasing power fell, steak was replaced with ground beef, and ground beef is getting replaced with beans and rice. What can replace beans and rice? Already, too many people are having sleep for dinner.
The answer is both simple and difficult: we need to get paid more.
Die
Pay more. Be good little consumer drones. Not be so selfish when a corporation thinks they should have all your money instead of you.
Because nothing helps with the rising cost of living more than deliberately pissing away any chance of promotion and likely eventually being laid off and jobless.
You do realize how much privilege one has to have in order to casually jeopardize your income without sweating over it, right?
The problem is people's finances are being jeopardized by corporate price gouging in the first place.
Better to simply stop reelecting politicians who support corporate bailouts for failing companies.
Recently watched this interesting Gary Stevenson interview.
Not very optimistic but might give you some ideas.
Tl;dr: do everything you can to buy a house and get the rich taxed (much) more.
The term wage slave is a thing. Capitalism is the same as slavery except it's seen as acceptable because we're mislead to believe we have power to change. The system itself is stepping on the lower wage people and using their work for the corporations at and owner's profits, not just lower local wages but abusing labor and resources from even lower wage countries.
eat the rich
It's not enough for YOU to vote. We ALL need to vote. And not just in the Presidential election. In all elections, including local, state, and most importantly PRIMARIES. We have an FPTP Voting System, which trends us towards a 2 Party system.
In such a voting system, the only way to meaningfully change the position of the parties is to make sure the party is compromised of and is led by people who share your positions and who will actually represent your interests effectively.
1 person voting in a general election that's already narrowed down to a few swing states isn't going to do it. Get everyone you know to get off their asses and vote in primaries, in general elections, and any other local elections you can manage.
If you only have time to vote in one election? Make it the primary for your party.
Voting is the lowest hanging fruit. It will cause the biggest impact for the least amount of effort. If we cannot get our asses to polls we aren't going to get our asses up to do anything harder than voting. Not until people get much more desperate, much hungrier, and much more miserable. I think our voter turnout for primary elections is around 20%. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
Imagine a world where the shittiest candidates were all weeded out months before the general election. That's what the Primaries are for.
violent uprising?
i mean- be complacent and accept that there's totally nothing that can be done about it?
Try to still be alive when the cog in the machine breaks and the pendulumn swings the other way
https://fortune.com/2023/06/10/fortune-500-falling-profits-telling-something-economy-recession-return-to-normal/
If companies were just greedy they could have raised prices at any time before. They didn't because they're trying to find the optimal point between supply and demand to make the most profit (as we all do -- are you willing to take a pay cut or eschew a raise you can probably get?)
All the money pumped into the economy is why they could raise prices -- not just in 2020, but pretty consistently for the past 20 years. Lots of normal people are getting screwed but it's fine for these companies because guess who gets much of the money being printed? Hint: donors.
A
This isn't super viable right now, but it's true.
If you want to do something about it: start a company, and be reasonable. There will be a lot of pressure to do otherwise, though.
Roll over and die
damn remember when lemmy was cool
Civil War.
Stop voting Democrat, obviously. Since it was their policies that caused the high prices.
Earn more.
It's not easy, but I used to be in the "we need to make everything fair" crowd.
Now (currently unable to afford groceries myself) I'm part of the "if I'm not getting paid my worth, I must show my worth."
Move. Why stay somewhere that is taking advantage of you?
If you aren't receiving benefits for the taxes you're paying or representation for your votes, you can run for office or move and find immediate relief in less expensive countries, which is almost every country.
As if it's that easy.
It really is.
Spend several hundred to move and get set up, cut your yearly expenses by tens of thousands of dollars.
It's not a tricky equation.
No you won't. It's much cheaper to travel than you are pretending.
My numbers are from experience and current ticket prices.
It's under $300 right now to fly to most countries in South America or Europe, the Bahamas, under $500 to fly anywhere in Asia and this is the most expensive time of the year because of the lunar New Year, my ticket last month was 270 usd from new York to Hong Kong.
LOL okay boomer
Prices from New York, boomer:
Prices from; 1 available. Those ain't market, they're marketing.
Here you go, boomer.
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This is such a low effort answer that does not even begin to consider the complexity of people's lives.
I have considered that complexity, it is included.
The answer is just simple.
Make more money. Your income should be going up over time in line with inflation. This is easier if you don't work a dead-end job and are willing to change jobs every once in a while.
Basically if you work in a retail or food service job, your main priority in life should be to get out of that industry and into something else. Even something as simple as working in a warehouse or construction will get you a lot more $$$ with much more leverage for raises and forward-moving promotions.
Me and my girlfriend both work full time and we are able to more or less easily afford rent and food. It helps to have two incomes. Although I will say, it's sad that she got pregnant with twins and we ultimately decided we couldn't keep them because of the financial situation. I wanted them but she didn't feel like we were financially stable enough.
So yeah, people gotta learn to live like it's a third world country. It's not the 1950s anymore where everyone can work whatever job and make ends meet.
Inflation means money is worth less than before and inflation is actually money creation. Higher supply means lower demand. Record profits are only records because the nominal value is higher, but the real value isn't.
Companies operate on gross margin, so 30% margin is always 30% of the total price. The actual value is irrelevant.
You're not wrong that it's the profit margin that tells the story, and you can't tell just from the nominal amount alone.
But average profit margins in the United States have reached a record high percentile not seen since the 1950's. So it's not just the dollar amount that's gone up for corporations, it's the margin percent that's gone up too.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-25/us-corporate-profits-soar-taking-margins-to-widest-since-1950
The actual value of groceries seems quite relevant...
The value is the same. Join a union.
Of course, if you're not getting an actual pay rise. Then you strike until you get a better deal or start making money without exchanging it for units of time.
Buy stock in the companies posting record profits.
Sure, we cant afford food or rent, but there's always stock money sitting around.
Are you just here to tell people there's nothing they can do?
What's your suggestion?
Delete this
why? honest question. if they are making record profits and their stock is going up why would you not buy their stock?
Because you'll be investing in, and therefore helping that company. Only a small fraction of the company's profit is going to reach you. You'll be part of the problem with capitalism.
When you buy a stock that's already ipo'd you're not giving any money to the company.
That's not really true.
If it were, why would a company care about their share price, post-IPO?
Although people generally conceptualize shares as an ownership of the company, there are a ton of mechanisms at play that make that notion essentially a farce.
It's better to think of shares as a currency for which the company owns the printer. The reason companies want to keep their stock value high is that they can at-will conjure more shares from the ether and sell them. It's not JUST during an IPO.
So, in a fractionally insignificant way, as a retail investor, every purchase adds buy pressure and shifts the order book towards a higher market price. The higher the market price, the more money the company can raise by issuing new shares while minimizing the dilution effect of the issuing of new shares.
Only in fantasy land can we think capitalism will go away. Might as well put my money where it will gain value for me. Not like they'll suddenly go out of business if I don't invest in them. Buy let it gain 5-6% then sell it.
Didn't have this problem under Trump.
My dude, we had covid prices and insane global shortages under Trump.
Not that the huge supply chains were his fault, but my 4 year old GPU appreciated 300% during that period.
That's a fucking stupid thing to say (or even think).
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Yeah... I actually did that immediately after I commented that and then just blocked them since I knew there was zero chance of rational discussion.
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What?? The inflation problems literally STARTED under Trump. He's not to blame for the covid supply chain issues, sure, but "didn't have this problem under Trump" is an easily fact checked lie.
Bullcrap. Nice revisionist history. Inflation was non-existent under Trump. This is all on Biden and his doing everything his feeble mind is able to tank the economy.
It was non-existent at the end of Obama's last turn.
But it definitely is back once Trump started.
Don't let statistics hit you on your way out.
Don't you get tired from losing?
No one loses because of the ranting of fools. I take the down votes here for what they are, the desperate clinging of a false narrative by people that refuse to see reality and instead of thinking for themselves rely on others to do it for them.
The ranting of fools has actually lost us quite a lot
Wow, the self-righteousness just oozes from you. You haven't proved anything. Keep trying kid.
That depends very much on your exact position under him... and what exactly you were doing there under him.
It's always in the term after mismanagement that the effects are felt, eg. in the UK how the tories are raising funding sky high for everything, then will inevitably blame Labour for both underspending and making cuts when they get in later this year
Reason 3674 why representative democracy absolutely sucks
And maybe if he'd done a better job with COVID we'd still not have this problem
Maybe if Fauci hadn't lied from the get go Covid wouldn't have been a problem either.