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.
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 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.
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.
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
