This is a serious point. I couldn’t afford a place until I was in a relationship. And that was a long time ago. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be with today’s rent.

Yup. Rent and then food right now.

I assumed it was housing.

People really love quizzes.

Investment funds stocking up on US farmland in safe-haven bet

Investment funds have become voracious buyers of U.S. farmland, amassing over a million acres as they seek a hedge against inflation and aim to benefit from the growing global demand for food, according to data reviewed by Reuters and interviews with fund executives.

The trend worries some U.S. lawmakers who fear corporate interest will make agricultural land unaffordable for the next generation of farmers. Those lawmakers are floating a bill in Congress that would impose restrictions on the industry’s purchases.

Though their acreage is a small slice of the nearly 900 million acres of U.S. farmland, the pace of acquisitions by investment firms like Manulife Investment Management and Nuveen has quickened since the 2008 global financial crisis drove firms to seek new investment vehicles, according to Reuters interviews with fund managers and an analysis of data from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF).

The number of properties owned by such firms increased 231% between 2008 and the second quarter of 2023, and the value of those holdings rose more than 800% to around $16.2 billion, according to NCREIF's quarterly farmland index, which tracks the holdings of the seven largest firms in farmland investment.

Farmland offers steady returns even in periods of high inflation, and firms hope crop demand will remain steady as the United Nations predicts the world will need 60% more food by 2050 due to population growth.

You don't want to confuse "inflation" with "economic growth". One makes prices go up because the evil bad salaries are increasing. But the other makes profits go up because of the smart efficient business net revenues are increasing.

A prosperous nation needs big new investments in the future. And that means speculating in our domestic breadbasket, so we can maximize the price of inelastic commodities in an effort to optimize consumption habits. You don't like waste, do you? Optimizing price reduces waste. Its all right here in the book Basic Economics by totally non-problematic and very smart guy Thomas Sowell.

In the US? I think they just die?

They eat cake? /s

Rent and health insurance definitely for me unfortunately

I went to get chicken for some meal prep a couple of days ago (Missouri, US) and a 1lb container of just chicken breast tenders costs $13, I figured it was a "labor" cost for cutting the tenders off before the customer buys it, like how a container of diced onion costs an order of magnitude higher than just buying a whole onion, but nope, the pack of 2 breasts right next to it cost basically the same, maybe only 50 cents cheaper, and I wasn't in anything expensive like a whole foods, just a generic lowcost midwest regional store. It's absolutely ridiculous. Not to mention 2 orange or red bell peppers costs $5....

Five boneless skinless chicken breasts for $28 is insanity. Yet here we are.

The fuck.

Here in the Netherlands we apparently have the opposite problem. Lots of complaints that meat is too cheap, mainly by animal rights organizations who oppose the conditions under which the animals for this cheap meat are held.

wish. : /

Honestly, how?

We can buy a few raw ingredients and easily hit $80 unless we only buy SNAP foods.

What do you mean by independent young adult. Is that even possible to be any more? Without being born wealthy or making a huge gamble in health and safey or finances or both?

Yesh, and knock ot off with the avacado toast! Amiright?

While I like gardening, unironically advising people to grow their own food to cut costs is just bonkers.

It takes months to grow anything, and given the limited space, you can't grow much anyway. You'll be lucky to grow 20€ worth of food on your balcony while spending hours doing the gardening. That's not cost effective.

Yeah, sorry, no. Even if I had the space, when I get home from work at 1900 the last thing I want to do is more work. It's not like you can just plop some seeds into soil and do nothing until the harvest is ripe—I know, we had a decent family garden when I was a wee lad. Took a lot of work to keep it going.

If I worked 4 or even 6 hours a day—sure, I could add some homework to my day. But not when working 8 hours+commuting. And many people are working even longer days.

Gardening has its own associated costs with supplies and requires space

It's the cost of supplies and garden maintenance and see requirement vs the cost of food at the supermarket

It needs to cost less than the growable food you can buy at the store