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.
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
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.
1: change zoning laws to allow more multifamily construction
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.
What city is that?
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.
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.
this shortage is entirely caused by cities preventing construction of everything but single family homes
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.
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”
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.
the myth of supply based economics, and other fairytales.
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
deleted by creator
Cry and hope for a revolution. Since the Supreme Court decided money is speech, we have no power. Representatives don’t give a shit or care unless it comes with a “charitable donation”. The rich are seemingly immune to laws, but somehow there’s a surplus of money available for fucking 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.
This is the answer. Its simple but not easy. Do you think the average person knows what they’re spending money on each month? And how much? One chick I knew was spending almost $500 a month dining out!! A MONTH!
It is difficult to not have any “fun” purchases tho, nearly impossible imo. But you have to have spending discipline and next to no people have that.
But let’s say everyone stops spending on non essentials, taken to its conclusion that would leave only grocery stores, dr offices, mechanics, and banks left to do business lol maybe a few others.
But… those places all price gouge too :(.
Everyone starts growing veggies and fruit, and only buying direct from farmers.
This is good for rural areas and mid sized areas especially. In buffer cities there are lots of co-ops and other resources to do this as well. It’s not easy, but it’s also one of the easier things to do. Even a small change like buying a few things locally produced is better than nothing.
All are also experiencing higher operating, production costs. Costs that are passed on to the customer.
During and after covid pandemic many fortunate 100 and fortune 500 companies made record breaking profits…
It’s just a big, convoluted mix of factors that are hard to separate. Yes, there are far too many bad actors. But also people are getting paid more for the same job, and the value of the dollar has gone to shit. I believe compared to 2019, a dollar in 2019 is $1.18 now. 18% inflation.
Money printer go brrrrr. Everybody, everywhere, is making record breaking profits all the time. And then you’ve got employers blowing smoke up your bum, saying “You got a 15% raise, wowee zowie, you’re more than fairly compensated!” And it’s like nice try, jackass, a 15% raise doesn’t even keep up with inflation. 🙄
I am not in favor of bad actors, of course, but I know I’m paying a fuckton more than I used to pay for the same stuff. It’s just…built-in.
For tracking expenses, I use an app called You Need a Budget (YNAB). It’s pretty handy and is great for showing you where all your money goes.
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
Join a union and demand more money to pay for it.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
vote for people who are in favor of regulations
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.
Funny enough I’ve seen a few Walmarts with mini police stations inside of them.
The location has been closed for nearly a year after officials say shoplifters set fires in the store to distract from their thieving
And I have zero fucking sympathy for Wal Mart, their entire business model is based on exploitation both of the surrounding community, the government and of their own workers. Burn the police station down with it next time, so long as you get what ya need.
deleted by creator
Member the time a guy stole underwater from Walmart and then ran into a random house to escape the police (I think in Colorado). The police destroyed the house to get him. Then the home owners tried to sue for the value of their house and the police found not liable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Robert_Seacat
Totes meant to say underwear not underwater
Molotovs are always an option.
