988
I feel the actual inflation
(lemmy.world)
It's not inflation. It's price gouging.
Yeah it isn't natural at all and needs regulation on basic items to live
I don’t know, they look natural to me
Price gouging coincidentally at the same time across the entire economy, soon after an enormous increase in the monetary supply.
A---Aurora Borealis? At this time of year! At this time of day! In this part of the country! Localized entirely within your kitchen?!?
Record high prices coinciding with record high profits and plunging cost of good sold, followed by even higher prices. They are testing to see what the pain thresholds are. All that's gonna happen is that business will start to collapse as consumer spending plummets because people can barely afford to survive. Will the system autocorrect or collapse? Will the government ever enforce consumer protection laws ever again? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The loan on my van is paid off, The bank is paying me interest on my savings again, I have a years worth of costco rice stored, and the campsites by the river where i live in my van is empty because everyone too broke to go on holiday. Life is sweet. (No part of this comment is hyperbole)
Out of curiosity is your van largely stock or have you upgraded it?
Mechanically, not upgraded, no. But it was an empty van with an aluminium roof rack when I bought it, and I did the fitout myself. Awning, solar panels, batteries, inverter, fridge, shower, ventillation etc.
Occam's razor says it's a more simple/plausible explanation that a huge increase in the monetary supply causing higher prices through supply and demand is about a thousand times more plausible than tens of thousands of corporations simultaneously deciding to coordinate to fix prices despite that it's in each of their best interests individually to break with that scheme.
"Not really looking for a debate about it tbh."
No, just the last word. There's a lot more to it that clearly explains why it's a systematic failure that led to this, and it's a lot more complex that just over supply of cash. You can't stop looking at other facts once you've researched just enough to find an answer you're comfortable with.
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I'm sorry you're under the impression that the economy is controlled equally by tens of thousands of corporations. Its much more like 2 dozen control nearly all money that presently exists. They wake up everyday and fix prices. They've been doing it a lot ever since 2008 and the utter downfall of consumer protections. I also have no fucking clue what you mean when you say that not fixing prices is in their best interests?? Like, you realize that by price fixing they make billions of dollars more than they should be? How tf is making even more money not in the interest of a corporation? They literally profit off of wars. Any possible thing that increases the amount of capital they generate is in their own best interests. Even employing children, or slaves. Capitalism is designed specifically to be exploitative of as many people as possible to generate as much capital as possible.
I’m sorry you’re under the impression that the economy is controlled equally by tens of thousands of corporations. Its much more like 2 dozen control nearly all money that presently exists.
There are 8 million businesses in the U.S. We have problems with monopolization, but to the level where a cross-economy price fixing scheme could possibly be implemented, we are not at that point. That's an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof, not something to just believe dogmatically because you don't like capitalism.
I also have no fucking clue what you mean when you say that not fixing prices is in their best interests??
You could start by just asking me. This is basic game theory. Market price of a good is 10 dollars, ACME and BLLC corp meet and fix prices at 15 dollars. ACME corp goes to market at 15 dollars, BLLC corp goes against the secret agreement and goes to market at 10 dollars. BLLC gets ACME corp's customers as long as they retain their price at 15. Now take the same example and spread it across hundreds, thousands of companies, keeping in mind that this level of coordination would leave behind proof, witnesses, and take an extraordinary level of coordination. Non-participation in a price fixing cartel for a minority company could mean capturing the entire market, and anyone who was participating would immediately be incentivized to exit it.
This is what is being posited, versus the dirt simple explanation that more money has been printed and has thus decreased in value. And we know a ton of money was printed.
Price-fixing cartels aren't impossible, however, they do become completely impossible to create or maintain at a scale like that. There is simply way too much competition.
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Just gonna leave these links here.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/18/america-food-monopoly-crisis-grocery-stores
https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/handful-companies-control-almost-everything-152800823.html
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There is inflation I agree, but I think a significant percentage is from price gounging, around 30%. I saw a study detailing this that I could find and link if you want.
If you're wondering how it can happen simultaneously accross whole countries and much of the world, you can look up the concept of "price leadership."
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Rose by any other name?
But yeah. It's all made up.
tbh both inflation numbers are hot
Small tits fan checking in.
The inflation report that came out today specifically omits fuel and grocery prices because those are "volatile" categories. My grocery bill is double what it was two years ago and has been for six months. I wouldn't call that volatile.
They didn't omit those prices. CPI and Core are two separate measurements. Core excludes food and energy.
In fact, excluding food and energy actually made the numbers worse. CPI is at 3.2% YoY. Core is at 4.7%.
Idk man ground beef is still like $3 a pound for me, milk $2.70 a gallon, pasta $1 a pound. I'm not saying some things haven't gotten more expensive because they have, but my grocery bill from 2 years ago is like 20-30% more expensive now.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. A 20-30% jump in a grocery bill is unprecedented in my life time. I'm skeptical it's even that low for most. Pre-pandemic, I was buying eggs for 1.39, they're 2.49 now. Jarred spaghetti sauce used to be 1.99, it's 3.49 now if I catch a sale. I used to be able to regularly buy chicken breast for like 1.49-1.99, now if it's less than 3 I buy as much as I can afford and freeze it. This time of year in my area, corn would usually be on sale 4/$1. The cheapest it's gotten is $0.79.
Just repeat ad nauseam for everything. The other day I was in the store thinking to myself, "I'm not sure I can afford convenience foods like canned beans." Canned. Fucking. Beans. The luxury.
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Grocery prices can vary widely depending on location. The absolute cheapest Walmart ground beef I can get is $4.50 per pound and milk is $3.62 a gallon. Pasta is a $1 pound and eggs are relatively cheap here. Produce has gone through the roof.
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Where I am at,ground beef is more in the $5-6/lb range, as a comparison. We have some dairy farms local so milk is a bit cheaper, but basically everything else is significantly more expensive, especially meat.
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Depends where you're at. Ohio? Same. Florida? 2-3x
Florida: not even once
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inflation can't be that cute
Yuck
Sir, explain
I wish these had been dick pics instead
When you thought Lemmy would be less cringe than Reddit: 🤡
Feels like everything is too expensive these days. Rent now takes more than 1/3rd of my income and I'm trying out different foods so that I can save on groceries. Hell, I don't drive anymore if I can avoid it. Shit is getting rough out here.
In some ways, the reported inflation is real. The main increase in cost is not actually real, or caused by anything except greed.
There's also a lot of hidden costs that aren't factored into inflation as strongly as they should be, or at all. Those hidden fees have also gone up.
So the entire business segment is just hand waving the whole issue because they know it will be reported wrong; they're going to keep raising prices and point to the "official" inflation numbers and continue to feed us the bullshit that inflation isn't a problem to justify never giving their employees a raise.
IDK how stupid they think we are, but I'm sure they think we're little more than retarded (I mean that in the clinical sense). They're (very publically) showing massive profit numbers, using inflation, or the lack thereof, to justify slave wages, while ripping off their users as much as they think that they can without creating riots.
More for them, less for us. As it's always been.
The only happy inflation for me is the one in my pants. This image does it
Well, thing is, some product categories probably aren’t suffering the same price hikes as groceries, fuel and rent. Stuff like cable and internet, clothing and office supplies are probably bringing the average down (please tell me if they’re having inflation, I pulled these categories out of my butt).
I hope we see deflation eventually... I know it's not good for the economy but no one wants to pay 100 dollars for a coke
That's the fun part! It never deflates! I guarantee lots more prices for consumer goods could have already come down, but damn do they love the idea of keeping those price points where they are. We already need another round of inflation on wages to get to where we were.
There have been periods of deflation in the past.
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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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