Is this surprising given stagnant wages and drastic inflation for the last few years straight?
Don’t forget about the absolutely massive wealth transfer that happened: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/16/richest-1percent-amassed-almost-two-thirds-of-new-wealth-created-since-2020-oxfam.html
That’s so strange. So you’re saying the entire capitalist system, that funnels value and wealth ever upward, where consolidation has been rampant, oligopolies are the order of the day and some of our “most successful” companies face charges of but then nothing is done about their monopolies, where at these same titans of industry, an even narrower funnel shovels obscene wealth to those with access to the company’s equity grants and options, while those who actually provide the work in the company get 2.3% wage increases because wage stagnation must increase until beatings improve, where these same few companies set and increase prices to enrich their own quarterly stock grants while their employees can’t get an increase that even matches inflation let alone provides value…
You’re saying that this system somehow allows for wealth concentration? /s
I was thinking about it today as I went by a Les Schwab where behind the front desk they proudly offer payment plans for those with good credit in an enormous banner. Why can’t Americans afford to buy car tires? Why would they need to exist in a system where interest would need to be paid to be able to fix their common mode of transportation? Why are tire companies opening finance arms to loan usuriously? Why does a mobile telephone take 2 months of salary to afford? Ask GE finance I suppose and Jack Welch.
This isn’t inflation. This is greed. Record profits with soul crushing wages. Governments that allow this are complicit. We need heavy windfall taxes
Windfall taxes are reactive and bad policy in general.
What we need is a return to pre-Reagan tax policy. Higher upper tax brackets, corporate taxes, and the closing of loopholes that allow the rich to hide their wealth offshore.
saying “greed” in the context of capitalism makes no sense. the word doesn’t have meaning because the system is morally agnostic.
edit: its a headless system optimized for profit accumulation as its sole parameter. there’s no systemic incentive for anyone to behave otherwise.
What word do you prefer to use to describe people who hoard more wealth than they or their children can spend in a lifetime while the vast majority of workers are on the edge of financial ruin? Why can’t they be satisfied with just having one mega yacht? One giant mansion? If not “greed” what do you call it?
The system isn’t morally agnostic dumbass, it literally is greed. It was created for the purpose of greed and it continues funnel all the wealth to the greedy. Loopholes are found around all the rate limiters and speed governors that get designed into the law and federal agencies. They’re trying “company store” tactics again. Fucking child labor is back.
“The system is morally agnostic” imagine the fucking Stockholm Syndrome (yes I’ve heard it’s not actually real stfu)
True, a system whose only imperative is personal upside maximization with no consideration for anybody else is morally agnostic if you put aside the moral dimensions of having no consideration for anybody else whilst acting for personal upside maximization.
Same as murder being morally agnostic if you put aside the moral dimensions of killing another human being.
Consider the possibility that you’re confusing familiarity, common use in your environment and even normalization of something with it actually being devoid of a moral component: just because people around you got used to act in some way without questioning such way of acting doesn’t mean it’s morally agnostic: after all, slavery too used to be normal.
So many people seem to have mistaken what you said for a defense of capitalism.
I think a better way to say it is that greed isn’t a useful way to explain any particular thing that happens in a capitalist system, because everything that happens in capitalism is driven by greed. Saying one particular problem is caused by greed is like a doctor saying someone’s illness is a symptom of being alive; it’s true, but it explains nothing.
Those are here for the same reason…
People act like inflation is the invisible hand of the market, this is capitalism, companies will charge whatever they want to maximize profits, and that rarely results in a lower price.
Like, if you made thingamajigs, and if you made as many as you could (10 million) and sold as much as you could to saturate the market and end up making 10 million, that’s less profit than if you charged $5 a piece and only sold 2 million. Same income, much lower overhead.
So you cut staffing and make 1/5th of what you can because that maximizes profit.
Which is fine until your thingamajig is something that people need like food, water, or shelter. If you’re putting profit over production, then people who can’t afford it have to go without.
It’s literally what’s going on with insulin. This is t a hypothetical, this is what’s been happening for a long time.
It’s just with the same few giant corporations making everything, if just one does, the other 2-4 giant corporations crunch the same numbers and come up with the same plan.
Something that used to be called price fixing is suddenly just “internal analytics”
So… The Chinese real estate model? Overbuild, saturate the market, and suddenly housing is no longer an issue.
wait, all we have to do is make more than what the optimal profit supply/demand curve dictates, and we can get rid of homelessness? maybe do the same with food so no one has to starve?
Wages are not stagnant.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
You can see rising median wages for several decades. The covid stimuluses caused a bump but cant expect that level of government spending forever.
It went from 335 in 1979 to 365. That’s less than a 9% increase. In 34 years. How do you not see this as stagnant?
that may be true, if you live in the magic no change in cost of living world
The advice in that article is primo out of touch and humorous. They give statistics that people’s savings and assets are down X amount, and the first advice is save for an emergency. Running out of savings?! Just save more, five head.
I am reminded of that quote along the lines of “it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.” I did everything right, and had a more than adequate emergency fund.
But then my house vaporized that emergency fund… and only then did COVID happen and I lost my job twice. So that’s roughly three “holy shit thank god we saved for a rainy day” events in three years.
I’m sure I will be in “just save money” mode some day in the future. Lots of shit left to clean up right now though.
and only then did COVID happen and I lost my job twice. So that’s roughly three “holy shit thank god we saved for a rainy day” events in three years.
You just explained the last three years of my life. I have no savings left. Period. If anything happens to the car, or either one of us loses our jobs, we’re done. That’s it.
If you stop eating Starbucks and drinking avocado toasts, you will be fine
Ok, yeah! I’ll just set aside the (checks notes) almost nothing I have left after food, rent, utilities, gas, and my exactly two streaming services.
yeah, I’m seeing discretionary spending right there that could be accruing interest instead. and judging by your profile pic I think you know what I’m suggesting.
Now ask the CEOs how they’re doing.
Man, some of them have had to delay that second private jet purchase until next year.
Most of them got richer. So no they did not put off anything.
About $42 trillion in new wealth was created in the first two years of the pandemic. Two-thirds of that has gone to the richest 1% of the world’s people
Mitch McConnell staring off into space - Good thing Americans had those stimulus checks to live off of for the past 30 months.
Speaking of, where did that money come from?
Did they just print it?
Weird how when it comes to helping the working class, taxing the rich is never an option. But when it comes to helping the ruling class, you can tax the working class and print money.
There is ALWAYS more money available to kill people with. Never so much to help folks with.
Just to add facts to your comment
America spent $8 TRILLION on two wars over 20 years
Didn’t it just come from taxes. I know they claim there’s never any money but there’s always money, they just don’t to use any of it.
They’re always claiming they need to raise taxes but they don’t, they just need to spend them. Also possibly maybe they shouldn’t give contracts to their chums as backhanders. Maybe then they get better deals.
Every dollar they can save by not spending on making US citizens lives better can be used to buy another missile or drone. The Ukrainian and Israeli armies have benefitted more from our tax dollars than US citizens have in recent times, it seems.
Didn’t it just come from taxes.
No, Treasury directed the fed to issue bonds and run those loans through banks and businesses. When Congress spends money, it spends it into existence- it doesn’t have a pool of dollars that people have sent in somewhere. For that matter, when you pay your taxes, the money is used to zero out the bonds (again, in the Fed’s ledger) used to issue it. Remember, money in circulation is (from the POV of the fed) a liability on its books.
I canceled all our streaming services and Amazon prime. I canceled my phone service and opted for a $15/month plan (Mint). I buy a cheap phone, about $70 bucks. I asked my wife to stop buying me snack foods at the grocery store to save ~$50/week. All told I think we are not spending ~$300/month that I can now put towards our cars that are starting to break down. Someone said something about savings but I only cultivate dust and stones there.
Don’t feel like you have to do without just because you’re smart enough not to subscribe!
You can stream pretty much anything for free here: https://fmoviesz.to/
Just make sure you have uBlock Origin installed.
if your cars are totaled one day, definetely buy a toyota made around 2000-2015. those things are modern but still indestructible. (but definetely don’t cheap out on maintenance, oil is especially important)
Especially with the war on work from home that seems to be going on at the moment.
Can’t you guys just apply to work for European companies remotely wouldn’t that be a workaround? I know my company has a few remote American employees and they’re not totally useless.
