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The gaslighting bothers me the most. “The soft landing worked! The economy is great! Look at all these jobs!” Are they good jobs? Do they pay enough to live? Why has the price of everything gone up so much? It’s eerie being lied to on such a massive scale like this. Very much a superb example of “don’t piss in my ear and tell me it’s raining.”
It’s purposeful. The system is collapsing and the only option they have is to lie to people to convince them to continue participating.
“you now have to spend more money to survive” -> “people are now spending more money” -> “the GDP is going up” -> “the economy is doing well!”
If you are eating fast food and you give a shit if the price goes up you already lost.
The CPI is not the economy, the stock market is not the economy, wages and unemployment are not the economy, there is no one measure that effectively captures what’s happening with the economy.
This exactly, and the people making policy are so far out of touch that they don’t even have a friend of a friend that’s as impacted as we are by this insane inflation.
Worst thing is, we weren’t getting cost of living increases before inflation went batshit.
I mean, they are out of touch, but don’t believe for a second that they don’t know what they’re doing.
For example, why would a politican regulate the housing market and bolster tenants’ rights when they and a bunch of their buddies are making bank?
There is the Consumer Sentiment Index which at least tries to quantify what people are feeling about the economy. According to the recent report, 48% of consumers expect bad times in the year ahead for business conditions, which is down from the high of June 2022 when 79% of consumers expected challenging times ahead for the economy.
Oof indeed. It’s hard to think back to June 2022, but I’d have to imagine some of the sentiment increases are due to supply chain shortages getting worked out.
Personally as someone in tech, it feels like with interest rates going up, a lot of investments in technology companies have dried up. Looking back, mid 2010s was low interest rates and it seemed like there was more money being invested, without the focus of immediate profit. Now it feels like the screws are being tightened and every cent they can extract out of customers is being taken advantage of, regardless if that is overall good for the product or company.
Since the Great Depression (about a century ago!) The US government has been fudging the numbers so that the economy looks better than it is. Inflation, unemployment, wages, etc. are qualifed with modifiers (because why count anyone who stopped looking for work?).
The system intends to gaslight us and convince us the economy is doing great. We’re down on our luck, or we suck and deserve to be on the brink of homelessness and starvation.
After all, if our government was transparent with us, we might see it’s not all because of corporate greed and anticompetitive markets. We might realize regulatory capture has real consequences. We might pressure the government to actually serve the pubic and install some effective social safety nets. And then the companies would have to pay us living wages for short work weeks and provide a non-toxic, non-hazardous work environment.
And our plutocrats won’t have that.
Exactly. There may be a numerous jobs, but do they pay well?
The unemployment rate has plummeted ever since we started counting jobs per capita instead of employed individuals! It’s been below -50% ever since!
I know what a crab being brought to boil feels like now.
King crab sounds hella good right now, not gonna lie
Better than a garbage-ass McChicken ever was. I remember eating them when I was on the struggle, before covid. The only good thing about them back then was the price; now they don’t even have that going for them.
🤔 Someone ought to make a !cookathome@lemmy.cafe sub. EDIT: there we go :P
King crab are gone mon ami, their population is collapsing
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a41854680/crab-shortage-billion-crabs-missing/
McChicken is all we gonna have soon
😥
Yeah best part of McDonalds was the price. When the McSuits tried to portray the price increases as a quality increases they dropped the ball immensely.
Wasn’t that meme debunked? It’s actually: a frog with brain removed will not jump out of a pot slowly brought to boil.
A frog with its brain intact will jump out no problem.
Yeah but crabs can’t hop.
.Not a meal - that’s just the burger. $8.30 AUD (5.42usd). Ridiculous.
How in the actual fuck are you all surviving down there? Are you like hunting down the kangaroos for sustenance?
It’s my understanding that kangaroos are plentiful. I’ve had kangaroo meat and it’s pretty tasty, like very lean beef.
I was in Cincinnati a long time ago and they have this insane and awesome (in the true sense of the word) supermarket called Jungle Jim’s and they had kangaroo meat, but I didn’t trust the hotel freezer, so I didn’t buy it. I regret it now, although I don’t eat meat anymore. I don’t know, maybe I’d make an exception just once just to try kangaroo. It would be very hard to resist.
Corporate greedflation.
I was gonna say, this post seems pretty disingenuous to blame “every public figurehead” for corporate greed. Maybe if we better taxed and regulated those companies this wouldn’t be happening. If only some public figureheads had literally that exact platform.
Considering greedy corporations are lobbying (bribing) public figure heads, it’s not far off.
Then the party of campaign and political finance reform would be the obvious choice.
lol oh is it? Which party is that again?
I don’t know what country you even live in, mate. If it’s the USA then look up “HR 1 For The People Act”.
Ok and? This act has nothing to do with financial reform.
If you think this changes anything then I have a bridge to sell you.
It literally does, though?
Passed House (03/03/2021) For the People Act of 2021 This bill addresses voter access, election integrity and security, campaign finance, and ethics for the three branches of government. Specifically, the bill expands voter registration (e.g., automatic and same-day registration) and voting access (e.g., vote-by-mail and early voting). It also limits removing voters from voter rolls. The bill requires states to establish independent redistricting commissions to carry out congressional redistricting. Additionally, the bill sets forth provisions related to election security, including sharing intelligence information with state election officials, supporting states in securing their election systems, developing a national strategy to protect U.S. democratic institutions, establishing in the legislative branch the National Commission to Protect United States Democratic Institutions, and other provisions to improve the cybersecurity of election systems. Further, the bill addresses campaign finance, including by expanding the prohibition on campaign spending by foreign nationals, requiring additional disclosure of campaign-related fundraising and spending, requiring additional disclaimers regarding certain political advertising, and establishing an alternative campaign funding system for certain federal offices. The bill addresses ethics in all three branches of government, including by requiring a code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices, prohibiting Members of the House from serving on the board of a for-profit entity, and establishing additional conflict-of-interest and ethics provisions for federal employees and the White House. The bill requires the President, the Vice President, and certain candidates for those offices to disclose 10 years of tax returns.It was a partisan DNC bill that immediately passed the house upon them gaining a majority.
Let’s be real, the $13 trillion printed in the blink of an eye doesn’t help.
Would help a lot more if we had equitable distribution of wealth
We’re all equal in death
2023 = “$166.6 billion to $190.5 billion” citation: https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/2023_currency_print_order_revised.htm#:~:text=The revised print order increases,%24166.6 billion to %24190.5 billion.
You think that’s when this started? For the love of God.
Wow, you can’t even understand a basic graph and what it covers. News flash, it’s NOT just printed currency.
“Printing” money is used as a colloquial umbrella term to cover all expansive monetary policy, but I have a feeling you already knew that captain pedantic
Hey now, that’s just not true (!)
If you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, work an extra shift, maybe sell some things you don’t need, you can afford a McChicken Sandwich (!)
Honestly anyone who isn’t willing to work an extra 5 or 6 jobs has no right to complain.
Even then, you could be making passive income.
Yeah, just buy a house and rent it, demand for housing is super high so you can charge as much as you want!
Have you seen the price of boots these days? More like pull yourself up by your dirty socks (cost probably $15 to wash) and then get kicked out of any building you walk into for being in your socks then go find a hole somewhere without anti-homeless spikes to crawl into and die then your next of kin get the outrageous bill for the ambulance that was called, the cycle repeats and basically everything will be fine haha!
If I can pull myself up, I’ll just have the pie in the sky.
I am and old millennial and have pretty much considered my wife and I somewhat upper middle class. We never paid attention to grocery prices, took a vacation every year and were able to put away money for retirement. And while I am fortunate enough to still be doing well, that comfort and buffer we had has all but dissappeared in the pandemic.
Half decade sounds longer than 5 years. Someone could have started highschool, and by the end of highschool be in a completely different price market than before. 5 years is way too quick for these things to change that much.
Me who started driving in 2001 and then saw gas prices double before I was out of hs. Then the great recession happened when I finally got out on my own and gas was even more expensive than it is now and companies had started raising prices like crazy with the excuse that fuel prices were high. It’s also when shrinkflation started happening. Good jobs were also unobtainable because people postponed retirement for years after the recession. I didn’t get anything decent until around 10 years ago, and now I feel like I’m back where I was when I was 21 working at McDonald’s.
Half decade sounds longer than 5 years
Only if you have no clue how long a decade is (10 years).
I buy those dollar store packages of refried beans and rice, and cans of mixed vegetables. I put them in individual containers and freeze them to take to work for lunch. It’s pretty cheap, and it makes me feel a lot fuller than anything I could buy at a convenience store or restaurant.
It’s also vegan and gluten free (I have celiac and severe lactose intolerance)
A thing I have thought of trying is to take a bean and rice mixture and make stuffed peppers with it. I am certain it will be delicious. Certainly better than a ShitChicken.
This sounds really good too!
Also, whenever I cook something like soup or even pasta, I always cook extra so I can freeze it in portions. It’s so much better than paying like $15 for fast food or junk food that’s not even satisfying
I have two boys that will soon be giants. I’m working on my rice and beans skills.
I do that with poblanos (and vegan chorizo if I’m feeling fancy), and I can confirm that it’s so good, and not terribly expensive. The last time I did it, it was probably about $10 for the ingredients, but it made enough peppers for 2 meals each for me and my mom, plus enough leftover filling for at least couple more.
I can also very much recommend lentins.
They are good. There’s even pasta made out of lentins. It is gluten free. You use it like ordinary pasta. It’s good.
I’ve had that, and I totally agree!
Lentils
It would be even cheaper if you bought them nearly anywhere else but the dollar store.
Unit for unit, dollar stores are almost always more expensive than grocery stores or warehouse clubs.
In this case, they are cheaper at the dollar store. I’ve compared prices at Walmart and grocery stores.
Same with the packages of pre-cooked microwaveable rice.
While I agree that dollar store prices can be higher, with the foods I buy they’re pretty consistently cheaper per ounce at the dollar store. Believe me, I compare!
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Not even 15 minutes ago I was in a McDonald’s drive-thru. The only thing I ordered was a Single Cheeseburger, the cost was $3.59…. I told them never mind and came home and made pasta instead. Absolutely ridiculous that a single patty burger from there could cost so much.
Of course, it’s cheaper to cook at home. But the McChicken is, like the whole industry that is to blame for it’s existance, a serious threat to our physical health and thus to be avoided at any cost.
The only way to get decent prices is through the app, and even then, it’s really hit or miss.
Over a lifetime it’s more economical to not eat any fast food.
The fast food you eat on a regular basis early on in life just degrades your health later on in life when you will spend money trying to remedy. You will pay for that fast food twice, once when you eat it and again later on life when you pay to treat your heart, weight, circulation, blood and inflammation.
Eating fast food is investing in having some terrible last years of your life … you may live long but if you’re not healthy now, you’ll spend the last ten or 20 years of your life miserable.
If you’re eating it on a regular basis sure, McDonald’s once every two weeks or longer isn’t going to kill anyone more than the rest of the junk on the shelves
for its* existence
And they can get away with it because your average voter only cares about whatever culture war nonsense Fox tells them to be angry about
“Idc about cost of living nonsense when there’s migrants caravans at the boarder and kids are being transed!!!”
The thing that gets me, is that since 2018, I can confidently say that my wage has not even nearly tripled… It’s barely even ~40% higher, and I’ve been on a fairly steady upward path, but the fucking McChicken has increased by almost triple.
I could not give fewer shits about the numerical prices. It’s the relative price that annoys me. A trip to McDonald’s (or realistically, anywhere) is that much more of a percentage of my paycheque.
And the icing on this shit-filled cake is that productivity has been on a steady incline the entire time. So we’re doing more work, for the same wages, and prices continue to inflate.
Where is it all going? (Isn’t it obvious)
They’re exploiting the fact that they’ve turned humanity into creepy, hopelessly dependent little goblins and it’s horrific to watch.
You’re getting wage increases?
No. I just applied for jobs that paid more.
Eventually I got one.
Kind of hate posts like this. Yes! Inflation is happening and bad. And yes! The McChicken (and a lot of fast food value options) have soared in price in recent years. But trying to take that and frame it as “look at this… it’s so obvious the government is lying to us and overall inflation is actually over 100%” Is just ignorant nonsense and it tends to play into conspiratorial minds who don’t actually have any experience in economics or data collection.
You can hate the federal government all you want. Really. I totally get it. But they are unfortunately really good at data collection.
Inflation for necessities like food and housing is ridiculous and exceeding 100% over three years.
Inflation for rich luxuries have barely gone up comparatively.
But all the reports are averaged.
So since the rich are doing so fabulous that their numbers make it look like no one is struggling.
Nevermind the fact that 60% of people live paycheck to paycheck.
Can you provide… anything to actually substantiate that? Maybe some food items like fast food value options have gone up 100%. Maybe some homes in particular, extremely high demand areas have gone up.
When you make these gigantic sweeping claims with nothing but vibes and the McChicken to point to it just feels like bad faith
Sorry Sealion, I’m not wasting my life to show you stats you can easily get off of the internet. There are literally 5 very high profile search results that will give you historical food inflation values.
You just want to waste my time because no matter what source I give you, you will find an irrelevant detail that lets you shift the goalposts again and again, and I’ve been through that dance non-figurativley hundreds of times.
The increase in food costs is obvious to literally anyone who does their own grocery shopping. The fact you don’t understand this either means you are being deliberately obstinate, or indeed, do not do your own grocery shopping.
In either case neither types of people deserve a moment more of my time.
Turns out food inflation as a portion of income is currently sitting at about 1% since 2000, and maybe 2% since 1990.
Ignorance is bliss though right?
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I get what you are saying, but think about it like this. If all you ate was McChickens then food inflation for you specifically was almost 300%. So even though “real” inflation was lower, you are still paying 3 times the amount you did before for your food.
See I get that, and that’s absolutely fine. There’s just a gigantic difference between saying “hmm, it seems like inflation for ‘budget’ items used by poorer individuals has gone up at a higher rate than other items, let me see if I can find some info on that” and “nope! The government is lying, actually! I can tell from the vibes.”
One is very solution and truth oriented and the other is impatience that only sets them up to fall for further conspiracy theories and emotional arguement
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You can get a stack of burger patties from stores usually for like 10-12 bucks then cook one for a burger in your broiler if you got one, 15 min, flip once, throw some vegs as a side, yummay!!
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A wild idea that deserves experimentation
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I’ve made burgers in the air fryer before. Just put it on the Bake setting instead of Air Fry.
Just FYI. If you use the app, you can get 2 mcdoubles and a medium fry for just over $4. It’s the only place I will still get fast food because they actually have prices similar to they used to in the app.
Remember, if you are getting something for free (including a discount) in exchange for using an app, you’re paying for that in data.
Some people don’t care about that, lots of people care an awful lot about that. Sure you’ll get a McDouble for cheaper but you’ll also be receiving scam phone calls every day for the rest of your life as McDonald’s sells your personal data to anyone who bids for it.
Very true - I do use burner emails and remove trackers. Fortunately my spam filter for phone calls works well, but yeah, they gonna get dat data.
BuT tHe EcOnOmY iS bOoMiNg!
On average the economy is doing good but people don’t live in averages, especially if the average is skewed by billionaires.
In school we learned that when the economy “booms” or is at its current high point, everyone, excluding very rich people, are doing worse. Most of humanity (like 95%) are better off when the economy is doing poorly, as goods tend to get cheaper. Just something I wanted to share.
Most of humanity (like 95%) are better off when the economy is doing poorly, as goods tend to get cheaper.
They’re cheaper because people are buying less.
People are buying less because they don’t have the money to buy more.
They don’t have the money because they’re out of a job.
They’re out of a job because the economy is in the toilet.
The super rich also love recessions. They still have money. If they want to acquire a company, they can do it for cheaper. The GCF of 2007-2009 is considered to be one of the largest wealth transfers and wealth consolidations in history.
“the economy” can be replaced with “rich pepole’s yacht money”
“Rich people’s yacht money is at an all time high!”
“trickle down economy” All the trash will magically trickle down from their yachts onto the beaches and onto our plates!
