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Because this isn’t a strong economy…
The rich are making money, but they’re just hoarding it
So amount of money in circulation keeps decreasing, and prices keep increasing because in capitalism if a company isnt increasing profit margins, the stock price isn’t going up. And they finally figured out calling corporate greed “inflation” means around 2/3s of the country will accept it
Either we drastically raise taxes soon, or shits about to get really really bad.
Very few people will just sit back and calmly starve to death
deleted by creator
The 2/3 of the country can generally be fooled to believe anything.
However, just raising taxes in this case may have some similarity to extinguishing fire with a burnable substance.
You have to raise some taxes (say, on realty ownership, and some other possessions, and in general discourage possession of wealth without circulation) and lower some other taxes (say, anything taxing a transaction, I’m really not familiar with the way taxes work in USA, but in Russia plenty of taxes in hard numbers simply discourage economic activity). The goal should be increasing the actual inflation (not a good or bad thing per se). That’s if you are right about the cause, which I’m in doubt about TBF.
The amount of money in circulation isn’t decreasing though. Wages have increased more than inflation, almost every month in the last year. Especially for median wage/salaries.
When they say strong economy they are talking about spending, jobs etc.
The answer is in the first few sentences:
Housing crisis
A strong stock market is not a strong economy. The economy is the flow of money exchanging hands, which is down because people are paid less than ever compared to the cost of living. This leads to starvation.
Some practical advice for donating to food banks: Give money instead of food.
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They know exactly what they need. You don’t.
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They have partnerships and buy in bulk which makes that same dollar go further in their hands than in yours.
That article has changed how I give to food banks since I read it.
I remember reading another factor is that food which people donate is often expired, nearly expired, or undesirable and unlikely to be used before it expires, so often ends up getting thrown away anyway.
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Utilities have also been on the rise, and this year Ortigoza isn’t planning on turning on the home’s heater, even with temperatures dipping into the 30s at night. Instead, she plans to wear extra clothes around the house and bundle her daughter in blankets.
I just want to say… Don’t do that.
If you want burst water pipes, then that is how you do it.
Instead, let your house drop to uncomfortably cold temperatures, but with still a buffer above freezing. The thermostat is only accurate for wherever it’s placed in the house. It’s not able to tell you what temperature your pipes are at the distant ends of the house.
If you’re going to turn the heat off at below freezing, then you need to empty your pipes first, and no one is going to do that.
But yeah… I felt I needed to get that out of the way first.
Anyway, wages and unemployment are getting ‘better’, but that means very little if it’s still not a living wage.
You mean how can some people barely survive while others have millions or even, wtf, billions? NBCnews? That’s your question?
Boy that’s a question right there NBCnews. Yessir a real head-scratcher. Hmm! Boy howdy, the mind reels at what could be the cause of such a huge imbalance in our society. I suppose we’ll just never FUCKING KNOW.
Back to work.
Strong economy == corporate price gouging while everyone else’s wages stagnate.
It’s a great economy if you’re already rich.
Since all elected officials are either rich or grabbing everything they can to become so, they can’t understand what it’s like for people on minimum wage or a fixed income.
We need more attention on stats like “what percentage of people have zero savings”, “what percentage of the median worker’s income is consumed by basic expenses”, “how many people didn’t eat yesterday”…
We were over at my mother’s yesterday and we were talking about grocery prices and my mother asked my wife how much we paid for milk and my wife says she doesn’t look, because it doesn’t matter when we need milk regardless. I don’t look either. It’s the same with gas prices. I hear they’ve gone way down, but I’ve honestly stopped looking. What difference does it make what a gallon of gas costs when I need that gallon no matter what it costs?
I like to pay attention though so you can see firsthand how bad things are getting. I remember selling shoes to old people and all the employees would joke that they all had no sane grip on the fact that prices go up. They’d say at 80 years old, well when I was 30 that used to be $X thats way too high of a price! Its funny though because we will never experience that. We are used to it being this way year to year much less 30 or 40 years from now. So much so that some people dont even check the price anymore, we just know its higher than it used to be automatically. It’s sad.
You don’t need milk. You do need gas though.
We don’t “need” milk in the sense that it is not necessary for our survival. We need milk in order to keep eating and drinking the things we enjoy eating and drinking. And I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect milk in your tea and your cereal.
No, you do need milk. Don’t let the capitalist propaganda engine tell you that comfort and contentment are not necessary for life. To even insinuate that having milk to put on cereal or in tea is some sort of luxury or indulgence that you should be able to cut out is lunacy. Human beings need comfort as much as we need socialization for emotional and mental maintenance. We need fun and enjoyment. That is why even in modern hunter-gatherer tribes the workload is less than half of ours and they all have full bellies and spend the rest of their time pursuing leisure activities and spending time with their family/community.
(not accusing the person you are replying to, they are a victim too)
I don’t disagree with you at all. I was sort of trying to say that myself but you put it much better than I did. I can live without any comfort if it means that or death, but it sure would take a toll on me. That’s why solitary confinement is such torture.
I guess my sleep-deprived ass is just lurking lemme looking for good lessons to which to attach a little eloquence.
It’s not about comfort. Humans need calcium, lactose, various bacteria to not, eh, have reduced mobility conditioned by the toilet always being nearby, and so on.
Capitalist propaganda engine? Do you hear yourself? Say those words out loud and tell me your not a looney conspiracy theorist. What propaganda? XD
Is it propaganda to say most mammals do not keep drinking milk after they’re babies? Is it also propaganda to say things like broccoli, kale, nuts and seeds are calcium alternatives? Is it propaganda that the vitamin D can be obtained from fish, sunlight, and liver? Explain what this propaganda machine is. 🤡
Capitalist propaganda tells us that we don’t “need” anything and that all of those things you’re talking about are luxuries. Food? That’s a luxury. Clothes? That’s a luxury too. Water? You better believe you don’t need that, you selfish little piggie!
(also, tbh they didn’t specify the milk has to come from an animal. plant milk is milk!)
You can still afford to eat cereal?
For now. We’ll see. We’re down to a single income, but we’re going to keep putting milk in our tea as long as we can. Because I’ve been drinking tea with milk almost as long as I have been alive thanks to an English father and grandmother. It’s like heroin for me except with milk and just a little something to sweeten it a bit. I don’t want to go through tea withdrawal.
And don’t tell me I can just drink tea without milk. That’s like non-alcoholic beer. You have to be desperate. I’d rather get the tea shakes.
I cut my sugar in half by adding cinnamon and nutmeg. Works for coffee as well.
We use stevia extract instead of sugar. It works very well for tea.
I’ve tried stevia before. Can’t get over the cotton-candy flavor. I do make sure to use brown sugar, though. Sitting by the back window as I log in for work, contemplating if Anericans have a final straw or if we’ll just keep growing more and more bitter without functionally snapping due to the socioeconomic pressure like steel bars balanced on a beam with steady pressure on both sides, warping and weakening us.
Then it’s time to start my shift.
There are plenty of people for whom this is not a true statement.
Anyone saying the ‘economy is strong’ doesn’t know jack shit about economics let alone macroeconomics.
Supply side is doing great!
It’s relatively strong given all the crap that’s happened in recent years. Inflation is finally down, unemployment remains low, median wages have grown faster than inflation, etc. Things aren’t great for a lot of people obviously, but shit could easily be so much worse.
In a household of four with two full time incomes (both teachers, so take that with a grain of salt), we are at the point that the food budget is the only thing left to cut. We have canceled any subscriptions, cut all other spending, and often skip lunch/breakfast or eat Ramen noodles to save the bulk of our money for the kids and feed them better. I’m sick of beans and rice, BTW. Due to the nature of our jobs and the outside of school hours (which we are compensated for), side hustle is not an option. We would like to actually be present and part of our kids lives. I keep getting told “it gets better,” but the stress of making the bills and feeding the family is relentless, and that says a lot since we are way more fortunate than most. We need change.
“It gets better” is just a bullshit comment to keep you complacent. It doesn’t get better unless we make it better.
That’s because the economy is strong… for the rich.
The problem is shareholders expect infinite growth from a finite space, and that growth has to come from somewhere.
If you’re already producing as many of your product, as cheaply as you can get away with, then the only thing you can do is charge more - but that strategy only works if the worker’s wages don’t go up with the profits.
As a result prices are going up, but worker’s salaries aren’t anywhere near as quickly, because the rich are scooping the extra cash and leaving all the working class to starve.
I’ve been working since the mid 90s and in the corporate sphere since the early 2000s.
From this experience I think we go through cycles. If you remember the 80s we had movies like wall street. “Greed, for want of a better word is good”
I think we’re around about that point again. I received a directive from way up top and it was about priorities. Profit, shareholders, reducing cost and then customers. Customers were last and employees not even in the list. Unironically straight up customers last no mention of employees.
Through the 90s it was quite different, investors in people was a big thing, there was a lot of focus on team dynamic, wage rises were good, fully comped end of year parties. This kind of thing.
Then I watched this very slow drift away from this. Entire departments and then offices being closed. Below inflation payrises becoming the norm and the bare minimum from the company. Legal minimum pension match, no end of year anything comped. If lucky you’ll get lunch at a corporate meeting.
The only thing that keeps me sane is the hope that we’re near the end of the cycle and things turn around. It’s depressing at this point.
deleted by creator
Go for it. We’re following your lead.
I wish someone had told me the economy was strong again earlier. Here I was thinking that hyper inflation was a bad thing.
I feel so bad for those without college degrees or trade certifications. They are absolutely fucked going forward.
I feel so bad for those without
college degreesvast inheritances ortrade certificationshuge trust funds. They are absolutely fucked going forward.Fixed it.
Do you think everyone is poor? With the right training or college degree a path to moderate wealth is quite open. Trade jobs are especially in high demand and bring in a huge income.
As of 2022, 33.9% of US HOUSEHOLDS made less than $50k/year. The median rent for the same year was $1874/month. That is $22,488/year. That is 44.976% of 50,000. 50,000 was the highest end of the range from 0 to 50,000. That means that ~⅓+ of the country have a very high probability of paying more than 45% of their annual wage in rent alone. Taking the low average from here, that is another $562/month out the window for utilities, or $6,744/year. So shelter and basic utilities for survival has us up to $29,232. For reference, that is 38% of the annual income for $75,000/year, the next line up in that chart. That is another 16%+ of households, which means that more than 50% of the US population is spending 38%+ of their annual income on housing and basic utilities, not even food. And just in case you are curious, that initial <=50k group is paying 58% of their income just to have heat, electricity, and housing to use them in. And to make sure that these numbers were not being biased by rents among income distributions, I was able to find raw data to check my estimates. They were actually low. Of the 45,221,844 households renting as of 2022, 10,492,596 of them make less than $50,000/year AND pay more than 40% of their annual income in rent. That is 47.2% of people making less than 50k/year and accounts for over 23% of all renters in the country.
So, in long, yes, everyone is poor. And to think otherwise is to either buy in to blatant propaganda, functionally not understand statistics but still think you know better than those who do, or be disingenuous representing reality in a bid to mislead the public. Only you can answer which one that is.
I party because the rent is too damn high! No, wait…… 🤔
Trade jobs are especially in high demand and bring in a huge income
Yeah dude, all those carpenters and plumbers are driving lambos.
In Colorado, they are driving $100K+ trucks and live in huge houses. Trade jobs pay close to six figures here, with a median salary of $97,860 per year.
You keep saying “trade jobs”. Be specific.
You don’t know what a trade job is? Carpenter · Carpet installer · Construction worker · Drafter · Framer · Home inspector · Housecleaner · Mason · Mechanical installer.
I work in the trades. That’s how I know carpenters don’t make a hundred grand a year you fucking idiot. Or plumbers, or drywallers, or housecleaners.
The Biden economy is anything but strong. Even traditional liberal leaning media outlets agree. The American people have done with less under his administration.
