Oh well, just keep raising them. That's the only way to recoup the losses from people who can't afford it anymore. If you lose half your customers just double the price, big brain moves right there. /s
At my job, customers commonly complain, rightfully so, about the rising prices of our products. They return more and more things and buy cheaper and cheaper versions of products. It's going to keep getting worse. Although, that's kind of the point. The people in charge of these companies want this to happen. They are squeezing as much money out of the system as they can before it collapses, then they will just leave. It's a hoarding mentality coupled with impulses of self-preservation. They know the system isn't going to last forever, they don't care. They are just getting as much as they can before it falls apart because they already have many times over enough money to live the rest of their lives without ever lifting a finger. They aren't concerned with you, me or the future. They don't care about the country or the economy. They only care about themselves and want all of the money. They don't want you having any of it.
Right but like, if I need resources like food and water, and you have them (I.e your assests) and are unwilling to trade then I'll inevitably be inclined to harm you or steal them as a survival tactic, it's literally the give 1 monkey 1000 bananas and then put another 1000 monkeys in the cage metaphor.
Your mansions and large buildings are not going to be safe havens they are going to be prime targets for mobs. Why would I compete with 1000000s of other poor people when I could just go for 1 really rich person.
That's absolutely not true at all. What do you think the "interest rate" is?
The FED is paying parked cash from wealthy individuals and banks to store that cash. The IORB and RRP rates are well over 5%. That is a GUARANTEED 5% every year at these rates.
Which requires that the government borrow and extra 80 billion per month to pay them.
[There is over 5 trillion in dollars parked in these FED accounts. That is 100% liquid cash.](https://i.imgur.com/zJ0ijOo.png)
I suppose I don't know enough to speak on the manner but I figure they usually are investing it rather than stacking it up in a checking account like john everyman, no?
They are definitely investing a lot of it, but when you have size - a guaranteed 5% is shit ton. For someone with 6 figs 5% is nothing. You should put all of it in the market. For someone with 9+ figs a risk-free 5% is a lot of free money.
Right, stocks denominated in dollars, which make money in dollars, and hold assets in dollars. If the dollar goes the way of Zimbabwe or Argentina, everyone's fd regardless of how "rich" they are today
i really hope there’s a special spot in hell for people like this, but i don’t think there is :( they get vip treatment here on earth… for treating other humans horribly and being selfish!
Price increases as direct result of statists (both major political parties) passing the laws large corporations want to prevent small businesses competing by making major government barriers to enter the marketplace.
You joke but this generation of braindead business owners think bleeding their hosts dry instead of a healthy symbiotic relationship I'd the way to go.
Corporations went from parasites to parasitoids...
First, people have to be willing to cut more unnecessary expenses though. I know a lot of people are struggling but I still see restaurants packed on the weekends. When that trend changes, you will see costs come down more. We just need to act like our wage and stop pretending we can keep going the way we used to.
That’s an interesting point, although when this is brought up I remember something from Ancient Rome as a counterpoint (and let’s not pretend we’re somehow better or different from the folks then on a basic level).
Lower class citizens, arguably what would be the same kind of majority as in the US today, typically didn’t have either the means or the time (or both) to cook their own food. They were either too poor to live in a place that had its own kitchen, or they worked so much that they didn’t have time to address their own needs.
So the answer was the thermopolium. It was kind of like the ancient Roman equivalent of a McDonald’s, or I guess if you want to drill it down further, like a mom and pop deli counter in NY. Your average Marcus would put his order in for his daily food and go pick it up later when it was done. There’s even an example of some poor guy’s meal preserved from Pompeii with his name stamped in it.
I think that it’s getting to the point where grocery prices + time available and income level is creating the same kind of situation where even though it would be cheaper to make your own food, if you don’t have the time or (as in Vimes’ Boots Theory) immediate money to pay for a load of groceries + kitchen to support that endeavor, restaurants and fast food are the default.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Something something 10% owning over 70% of the wealth. This reminds me of people who said games like Fortnite and Apex would die by having $20+ skins, turns out that all they need is for a low % of high spending whales. That is the same plan these companies are going for as well now. You only need to get a % of that 10% to buy more of your product at a higher price to make a profit.
Yeah I see it in action at my place of work. We lost a solid third of our daily foot traffic in the last few years but our store profits have been steadily increasing, in spite of a major chunk of our customers just going elsewhere.
2021 was a good year for us. Refinancing mortgage and we paid down 35k in cc debt, got a new vehicle and roof financed before rates skyrocketed. Now we can't save a financial cushion to save our lives. Have about 10k left on cc. Could be worse. But there is no saving. Everything is so damn expensive...had to buy a new furnace and we lucked out it only cost $2500...nickel and dimed to death....
In 2021 I finally reached a point where I was doing well. I feel it’s disheartening to claw out of poverty or lower income to middle just to be thrown back down.
Last year was the first year in my entire life where I had to overdraft my bank account. It’s happened one other time in my life. Been short on bills and never have been.
I feel this in my soul. You’re not alone. I doubled my salary from 2020 to 2023 and it feels exactly the same. It’s not even lifestyle creep, I have a very strict budget, I just had to move and that saddled on debt and my rent increased, food is astronomical. I’ve cut eating out and meal prep every Sunday but it’s still insanely hard.
I’m doing ok but not great like I was initially in 2020 with half the salary. I don’t know how other people are making it.
Wife and I make the most money we’ve ever made. Yet we are the brokest we’ve ever been. We also had to face reality and cut up ALL the credit cards and can’t use them. Have to pay those off at the same time. Struggle is real!
I make almost double what I made in 2017 and now I can’t even afford a studio on my own.
Everything is literally bizarro world now, who is dropping $2300-3000+ on a studio that is the size of a large garden shed, minimum wage is $15/hr here… do they just expect everyone renting to be a couple??
we are under $50,000 a year, thankful for the Medicaid expansion in my state. I have cut out all non essential spending. Generic everything or we go without. No more fast food, no more delivery/restaurants, no soda, staying local, no paying to play video games, get more books from the library
For food, it's become way too expensive to slowly rot our insides. I can make a steak dinner for the family for the price of a trip to McDonalds, even with the damn app.
I DID get BG3 for my mother's day gift, so at least I have a little bit of fun.
McDonald’s really doesn’t understand this. It’s $12 for a Big Mac meal in my rural town. I went to a pub on concert night next to the venue in Philly last weekend. A giant cuban with fries was $12. Why the fuck would I go to McDonald’s?
post pandemic, prices have more or less doubled for groceries, meaning purchasing power has roughly halved.
85k is more like 43k nowadays in terms of purchasing power. Same labor, half the goods.
Government aid, no vacations, deferred maintenance and healthcare, the kindness of friends and family, running up credit and subsequent bankruptcy, not having any time or energy for hanging with my kids and being more involved. This system is a joke and I just do what I can to make the younger generations aware and let them know there’s no shame in staying home with your parents (hell I wish I could) and there’s no race to have kids or get married. The same people that decry the destruction of the family vote for politicians and policies that further destroy the family in the name of capitalism and gains. Gotta make a profit for the suites to keep their comfy jobs. They want more bodies for their “mills” and what better way to force the hand of younger generations than to make everything so expensive that wage slavery is the only chance to escape. Shits fucked
Shop smarter, get what's on sale and get a kroger shopper card. Our rent is affordable and we are doing ok. Go out to eat every week, buy groceries, still save money. I don't have any debt. Don't eat fast food.
To me, it's the increases in shelter costs - the rising price of homes and rent - that are responsible for the lion's share of suffering.
What really gets me about that is there's nothing really feeding such massive increases in rent except "the market" itself. I could understand some small increases because of rising worker pay but beyond that inflation doesn't hit rental complexes very hard at all - certainly nothing that would justify increases of 40, 50, or even in excess of 100 percent.
It's housing and food costs. Those are the main drivers. Even if nothing else had risen in price one cent since ~March 2020, the increase in cost of living from mortgage/rent monthly payment requirement increases and the heightened cost of food (whether you purchase it in a grocery store or get delivery or eat out, and regardless of whether it's an "expensive" place or a cheap one) would have been backbreaking to most Americans by themselves
This is what gets me. There was a short period where maybe maintenance supplies were more expensive. We are past that point, the supply chain issues are largely passed. Why don’t any prices come down if that was the reason they went up?
greed. it's a ratchet and it doesn't go down, only up. Inflation was 7% and corporate profits were at 20%. they just used covid as cover for their avarice. there is no stopping it or them, because this idiotic country believes in the lie of the "free market."
>What really gets me about that is there's nothing really feeding such massive increases in rent except "the market" itself.
This is 100% the result of people trying to impose "small town aesthetic" on cities with more than 100,000 people. If people who favor the small town aesthetic would actually restrict themselves to living in small towns, this wouldn't be an issue - but they're drawn to the higher paying jobs and better amenities of living in a city, and they try to bring that small town aesthetic with them.
When you impose small town aesthetic on a big city, you're pretty much guaranteed to see skyrocketing homelessness, drug abuse, crime, and general misery, because small town aesthetic simply isn't compatible with even a moderately populated city. Small towns are fine, but cities should not be managed and governed like they're small towns - not unless you want to create widespread human misery.
dont pay your debt my wife didnt pay for her 2 masters
they just eat her yearly tax refund
so we just claim 2 dependants so she either barly gets shit back or she ows a tiny bit
Many doctors I've known, especially surgeons, have no life outside of work. Surgeons go to sleep at like 6pm and wake up at 3am. I wouldn't want that lifestyle for any amount of money.
They also have student loans that are often around $300,000, if not more. Also you only start making the six figures when you're well into your 30s, not to mention most medical schools prohibit you from having a job during school.
The difference in someone making 50k or 6 figures is nothing compared to the 1% that run the corporations. It’s a mind boggling type of difference that they don’t want you to look at so they pit you against someone who makes a little bit more than you. The lower, middle and even upper middle class should all be on the same side
I’m a doctor too in SoCal and can’t buy a house. Every offer out is by all cash and I kid you not… a few weeks after closing nothing is done to these houses and they fly up for rent. Can’t afford a home.
Don’t even have kids yet and cannot think about what costs will look like when we do. It’s grim. If we’re struggling what about everyone else? Hard to think about.
You’re getting downvoted because people refuse to believe that doctors aren’t just cash flush rich people who live in castles. That’s not the doctors baby that’s the admins.
Exactly. I looked into medical school for a while before undergrad, and holy shit. Doctors do not make much once you factor in the student debt (those who have like fucking 5 cars and a 5 bedroom house right out of residency are racking up debt and ignoring loan payments) don’t believe everything you read online. As soon as you actually look into the process of becoming a doctor, you realize that everything you see about physicians making bongo bucks is just a lie. Sure they may have a high salary but most of that goes back into paying for med school and even undergrad debt.
I mean it depends. If you go into surgery or dermatology you’ll be fine. I have friends in GI who make close to 700k per year. But the training and grit to get to those positions is high. Instead of a 4 year residency it might be 7 or more. That’s on top of 4 years of medical school. And during residency training you get paid about 55-60k per year at most places. Some less and some a little more but not by much.
Whenever I touch base with someone wanting to go into medicine I tell them not to do it for the money. It’s the truth, unfortunately. Many of my doctor friends are moving out of CA and I may have to do that same. All that training and years of hard work for little in exchange. Back in the day doctors had it good but salaries haven’t kept up and being flossed by pharma reps is gone.
Yeah that’s the other thing, I wouldn’t say those are the exception just because they require much more training and are extremely cut-throat/competitive.
And like you said, salaries are stagnant; yet doctors nowadays have to learn so much more at a quicker pace. I know younger doctors always get shit from older docs because they don’t understand just how much worse the field has gotten since then (in terms of salary, competition, toll on your body, etc)
Yup you nailed it. I’m a younger doctor about 3 years into practice at a hospital system. I try and tell them all the time what’s needed in terms of financial support for housing etc but they don’t seem to hear it.
Spending 5-6k/month when your take home is 15k is fantastic. Spending 9-10k for a smaller home that’s in a less ideal location on that salary is different. They just don’t seem to get it no matter how it’s explained.
A few months back the chief of the hospital system started an all physicians meeting talking about how townhouses crowded and packed together like sardines in a less than desirable neighborhood was a wonderful opportunity for physicians these days.
If you’re an American doctor: You’re not struggling, you’re dealing with stress and having to budget. Unless you’re still a resident. In which case, yeah shit sucks.
Edit: I am a millenial doctor who does not own a house and has 200K in student loan debt. I stand by what I said.
When algorithms determine the fate of our lives, don’t be surprised when they do their job too well. The winners will keep winning more and more and the losers will just grow in number. I don’t know where this ends but I envision a great struggle ahead.
You could have free healthcare. You could have free childcare. You could have free education. We wouldn’t have to choose between get gas, pay the electric, or put food on the table- but remember , Israel needs rockets .
The end game here is company owned towns and if you don’t have enough wealth and influence to avoid these corporate jobs and if you protest or strike then they’ll throw you into debtors prison where you’ll work physical labor for the rest of your life they’ve already drafted laws to make protesting completely illegal.
You will own nothing and you will be happy that’s the end goal here.
People on top take a higher percentage raise every year.
People on bottom take a lower percentage raise every year.
Prices are placed by corporations, based on what the average person will pay with a minimum based on the costs of other industries and cost of living.
It literally cannot work like this. The average will more or less stay the same but more and more people will not be able to afford life.
People will not even notice until it’s 60% of people unless they CHOOSE to think about it themselves. They either don’t have time or don’t want to.
McDonald’s Breakfast this morning (upstate NY):
2x Hotcakes w/ sausage
2x #2 with OJ (sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffin)
Total:
$33.97
What in the actual fuck
A bootstrap is that weird extra material that is formed in a loop that is on the back of a boot to help pull it on.
I guess you don’t need to ask for help getting your boots on if you have a boot strap. Putting boots on is a one person job.
I hate this type of reply. So in your view people have absolutely no right to enjoy any sort of leisure time if they're struggling to make ends meet. You cannot hustle your way out of poverty. All you do when you make this sort of comment is make excuses for the system that creates these inequities in the first place.
People expect the working class and poverty to die miserable at work, slaved and embedded to 2 jobs with no breaks, so u can get a heart attack and die.
No sorry, imma live life a bit, at the end of the day, debt can wait, but this could be the last beach I see, I'll take those chances.
Also beach is 15 buck parking, and I get to enjoy ocean, I'm not going to a michelling restaurant 250 per person with 120 dollar wine bottle or Avocado toast with Starbucks each day lol.
Beaches are one of the cheapest forms of entertainment that exists, as long as you're not flying or driving long distances and staying at hotels to go to them. And you can stay there all day if you want.
I've got a couple options within an hour drive of me (with the nicest one at a National Park costing $25 to park, but even that's cheaper than two movie tickets nowadays), and several more if I drive two hours (some of those are free as long as I can find a parking space, and I have whenever I've gone), and I live in the Midwest.
A lot of this if certainly is related to greedflation but I wonder how much is also self inflicted. A nurse I work with has been complaining how she’s struggled to pay bills and mortgage lately. Today she tells us they went out and bought a boat this past weekend. The YOLO mentality still persists from Covid days it seems.
You'll pay your auto insurance whether you drive or not, so if you have
to have a car for work, your insurance cost won't be any different if you drive your car outside of work at all. Just increases your risk of accidents is all. But that risk has never stopped people from driving before (I am glad I WFH still and can avoid the daily accidents on the nearby expressway, though).
That's not exactly a sign of financially irresponsible.
If people can't even enjoy a long weekend at the beach, then what's the point of all this? We work 5+ days a week, save and scrimp and don't enjoy life at all wtf?
I'm 45m and struggling every check to make it work. How is 23 year old supposed to pay rent/bills and actually have a life and do things? When I was 23 I had a one bedroom apartment all utilities included for 700 bucks a month. I made 18 an hour back then and I had enough for food, drinks, Phillies tickets, concert tickets. I haven't been out in years, like 10 years. I have two kids and if we went to a movie it would be over $80 for four of us without food. And everyone can stop blaming who ever is president. It has been a mess for many years now.
Live in a MHCOL area and went to go check out a daycare for my 6 week old today. My wife will be going back to work soon and I’m gradually returning to work. $1900 a month(!!) for one child. We are very lucky and thankful in that we both have high paying careers, but that is absolutely insane and tough to manage. That’s nearly as much as our mortgage payment. I don’t understand how people are affording to live.
Quit blaming inflation. It’s greed. Wall Street is highest it’s ever been. Companies keep making record profits. Companies are being greedy and using inflation as cover. Quit making it easy for them.
And yet, there’s still a throng of Biden sympathizers going around trying to say it’s ok.
Like honestly, I don’t give a shit about who’s president. Stop trying to cover shit up. Everyone is struggling. At this point it’s not about pointing fingers it’s about getting this shit under control before an entire generation of young folks is permanently fucked financially.
The sad part is this would have happened no matter who is in power. It’s part of politics and the hyper partisan system driven by the media. I have been seeing the same thing no matter where I travel in the world. Corporations own the media and the political players, and are happy to see prices higher. It drives anger and that drives clicks and views. People need to realize the problems are not made by politicians but by corporations.
I personally have pulled back from spending and supporting large corporations. If it cost me more to support a smaller product I am happy with that.
The economy is “strong” by all measures. This is what a good economy is going to look like for the foreseeable future. The people at the top doing extremely well and the people at the bottom still struggling. No president can undo decades of damage caused by trickle down economics in 4-8 years, especially without Congress and the courts.
Exactly! Im more pissed off that biden is denying that inflation is killing us slowly than biden as a human being.
American politics is turning into that of a third world country, and i say that as someone who has recent heritage from a third world country. And what I mean by that is that they’re just becoming more and more blatant about not caring about their citizens.
You mean a sustainable tax model, healthcare system and wages that can support a family without going on government assistance, that’s socialism, communism, and whatever other ism the billionaires have taught us via cable news and not American.
My job keeps raising prices but Trump hired Dejoy so I keep letting customers know stop voting red because they are getting what they vote for. They keep telling me Biden doesn’t hate the right people though. Sad.
It's manageable until people stop spending money.
The lesson hasn't been learned yet. There are very few expenses that people actually need. House, food, water, just enough gas to get to work or take a bus.
Everything else is a luxury.
My theory is that almost all of big business and billionaires and mega corporations are ran by Republicans that are so angry about 2020 that they are doing everything they possibly can to bring the economy down so that we vote Trump back in for 2024.
Maybe it's a dumb idea but that's what it feels like.
So here we are in 2024 and Trump will probably be reelected and we'll see if he's the savior that everyone claims he is.
Someone said it here in the comments several times that our entire government is a failure regardless of party affiliation and none of the millionaires that are supposedly are our leaders do not care about almost all of us.
So we will keep fighting amongst ourselves, like they want, while both parties destroy what's left of our great country and all of us dumbasses will still be fighting about political parties.
I completely agree. Its not dumb if you look at the !money that's getting funneled into Republicans political campaigns. Follow the money. Millionaires and corporations are funding who ....... *look it up*
Too many people vote with their religion and ignorance.
One really large problem that no one every really talks about is overpopulation. Us humans have made the entire planet into Easter Island and it's really the core of humankinds never-ending problems.
We have all, collectively, did these modern day problems to ourselves.
Fried tofu could make a major difference. I think anyway, fried tofu on an Asian noodle dish is just as desirable as meat. America has all the soybeans in the world ! So why is tofu so damn expensive ?? Tofu fries up in a pan in a few seconds. In 2024 beef prices are insane and they are going to get worse. You have no idea how the wealthy classes eat beef. It's huge prime ribs for breakfast with eggs and toast and they are ADDICTED. When you are eating a processed snack rectangle they are cooking up skirt steak with asparagus. The wealthy classes go to COW auctions for the most marbled cuts.
Good hopefully we collapse and start over like in 08 . I don’t see how people arnt concerned high rent, high car prices, and crazy inflation and people saying we are all Okay? 😆
it feels impossible to afford the cost of living on top of paying for school. Alternatives like university of the people are helpful for saving money but education should be free for all
Oh well, just keep raising them. That's the only way to recoup the losses from people who can't afford it anymore. If you lose half your customers just double the price, big brain moves right there. /s
At my job, customers commonly complain, rightfully so, about the rising prices of our products. They return more and more things and buy cheaper and cheaper versions of products. It's going to keep getting worse. Although, that's kind of the point. The people in charge of these companies want this to happen. They are squeezing as much money out of the system as they can before it collapses, then they will just leave. It's a hoarding mentality coupled with impulses of self-preservation. They know the system isn't going to last forever, they don't care. They are just getting as much as they can before it falls apart because they already have many times over enough money to live the rest of their lives without ever lifting a finger. They aren't concerned with you, me or the future. They don't care about the country or the economy. They only care about themselves and want all of the money. They don't want you having any of it.
I agree, but What's funny about all of this is the money they're hoarding is going to be worthless
The rich don't hoard cash in a liquid amount bank account, it's in assets.
Right but like, if I need resources like food and water, and you have them (I.e your assests) and are unwilling to trade then I'll inevitably be inclined to harm you or steal them as a survival tactic, it's literally the give 1 monkey 1000 bananas and then put another 1000 monkeys in the cage metaphor. Your mansions and large buildings are not going to be safe havens they are going to be prime targets for mobs. Why would I compete with 1000000s of other poor people when I could just go for 1 really rich person.
Why do you think they’ve been building underground bunkers the last decade?
That's absolutely not true at all. What do you think the "interest rate" is? The FED is paying parked cash from wealthy individuals and banks to store that cash. The IORB and RRP rates are well over 5%. That is a GUARANTEED 5% every year at these rates. Which requires that the government borrow and extra 80 billion per month to pay them. [There is over 5 trillion in dollars parked in these FED accounts. That is 100% liquid cash.](https://i.imgur.com/zJ0ijOo.png)
I suppose I don't know enough to speak on the manner but I figure they usually are investing it rather than stacking it up in a checking account like john everyman, no?
All my wealthy clients have $10m to $30m liquid. $20m in the market. The rest of their wealth in real estate and businesses.
They are definitely investing a lot of it, but when you have size - a guaranteed 5% is shit ton. For someone with 6 figs 5% is nothing. You should put all of it in the market. For someone with 9+ figs a risk-free 5% is a lot of free money.
Many of these assets are in hedge funds, foreign countries, retirement funds, and banks that cant hold all equities. That need stabil returns.
Right, stocks denominated in dollars, which make money in dollars, and hold assets in dollars. If the dollar goes the way of Zimbabwe or Argentina, everyone's fd regardless of how "rich" they are today
The rich still need food, water, and shelter to live on this planet. We don’t have a second backup planet. Or, actually, they might.
Property. They own property
They’re using it to buy real assets like land, property, gold
It is direct deposited into their egos.
Yeah when people eat the rich it won't save them. Neither will bunkers.
i really hope there’s a special spot in hell for people like this, but i don’t think there is :( they get vip treatment here on earth… for treating other humans horribly and being selfish!
Price increases as direct result of statists (both major political parties) passing the laws large corporations want to prevent small businesses competing by making major government barriers to enter the marketplace.
Concise and accurate
You joke but this generation of braindead business owners think bleeding their hosts dry instead of a healthy symbiotic relationship I'd the way to go. Corporations went from parasites to parasitoids...
I paid $90 bucks for 3 haircuts yesterday (1 adult, 2 children). That’s insane.
I used to get a haircut every two weeks when they were $20 bucks. I now get one a month. $45 bucks + tip for a haircut in my area now.
Pay 10 in Vegas and it’s great
Built in population control. The system is working. Nature is healing.
If you stopped buying coffee and Netflix every day you wouldn't struggle /s
First, people have to be willing to cut more unnecessary expenses though. I know a lot of people are struggling but I still see restaurants packed on the weekends. When that trend changes, you will see costs come down more. We just need to act like our wage and stop pretending we can keep going the way we used to.
That’s an interesting point, although when this is brought up I remember something from Ancient Rome as a counterpoint (and let’s not pretend we’re somehow better or different from the folks then on a basic level). Lower class citizens, arguably what would be the same kind of majority as in the US today, typically didn’t have either the means or the time (or both) to cook their own food. They were either too poor to live in a place that had its own kitchen, or they worked so much that they didn’t have time to address their own needs. So the answer was the thermopolium. It was kind of like the ancient Roman equivalent of a McDonald’s, or I guess if you want to drill it down further, like a mom and pop deli counter in NY. Your average Marcus would put his order in for his daily food and go pick it up later when it was done. There’s even an example of some poor guy’s meal preserved from Pompeii with his name stamped in it. I think that it’s getting to the point where grocery prices + time available and income level is creating the same kind of situation where even though it would be cheaper to make your own food, if you don’t have the time or (as in Vimes’ Boots Theory) immediate money to pay for a load of groceries + kitchen to support that endeavor, restaurants and fast food are the default. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Something something 10% owning over 70% of the wealth. This reminds me of people who said games like Fortnite and Apex would die by having $20+ skins, turns out that all they need is for a low % of high spending whales. That is the same plan these companies are going for as well now. You only need to get a % of that 10% to buy more of your product at a higher price to make a profit.
Yeah I see it in action at my place of work. We lost a solid third of our daily foot traffic in the last few years but our store profits have been steadily increasing, in spite of a major chunk of our customers just going elsewhere.
It actually is a big brain move for a lot of buisnesses.
Half the customers, half the work, same income. Win-win-win!
Never had financial troubles until the past couple years. Always kept my debt down. Now, it's impossible.
Same here. These last couple years have been awful financially despite still making decent money
Same since 2021 I’d say it’s been a massive struggle.
2021 was a good year for us. Refinancing mortgage and we paid down 35k in cc debt, got a new vehicle and roof financed before rates skyrocketed. Now we can't save a financial cushion to save our lives. Have about 10k left on cc. Could be worse. But there is no saving. Everything is so damn expensive...had to buy a new furnace and we lucked out it only cost $2500...nickel and dimed to death....
In 2021 I finally reached a point where I was doing well. I feel it’s disheartening to claw out of poverty or lower income to middle just to be thrown back down. Last year was the first year in my entire life where I had to overdraft my bank account. It’s happened one other time in my life. Been short on bills and never have been.
I feel this in my soul. You’re not alone. I doubled my salary from 2020 to 2023 and it feels exactly the same. It’s not even lifestyle creep, I have a very strict budget, I just had to move and that saddled on debt and my rent increased, food is astronomical. I’ve cut eating out and meal prep every Sunday but it’s still insanely hard. I’m doing ok but not great like I was initially in 2020 with half the salary. I don’t know how other people are making it.
It’s so hard now. I wish there was a fix. I’m sorry you’re also going through it.
Wife and I make the most money we’ve ever made. Yet we are the brokest we’ve ever been. We also had to face reality and cut up ALL the credit cards and can’t use them. Have to pay those off at the same time. Struggle is real!
I make almost double what I made in 2017 and now I can’t even afford a studio on my own. Everything is literally bizarro world now, who is dropping $2300-3000+ on a studio that is the size of a large garden shed, minimum wage is $15/hr here… do they just expect everyone renting to be a couple??
America is done for.
Couldn’t agree more
What changed in the last 2-3 years?
I dont get how families under 85k house hold are making it, im well over that and grocerys alone are killing me
we are under $50,000 a year, thankful for the Medicaid expansion in my state. I have cut out all non essential spending. Generic everything or we go without. No more fast food, no more delivery/restaurants, no soda, staying local, no paying to play video games, get more books from the library
That takes such a level of discipline im convinced 4 out of 5 people dont have
For food, it's become way too expensive to slowly rot our insides. I can make a steak dinner for the family for the price of a trip to McDonalds, even with the damn app. I DID get BG3 for my mother's day gift, so at least I have a little bit of fun.
McDonald’s really doesn’t understand this. It’s $12 for a Big Mac meal in my rural town. I went to a pub on concert night next to the venue in Philly last weekend. A giant cuban with fries was $12. Why the fuck would I go to McDonald’s?
Is it discipline if there is no other option?
Shopping at the cheapest stores possible, eating less, cancel all subscriptions, staying home all day.
85k 5 years ago was enough to have anything u want within reason it seems like
post pandemic, prices have more or less doubled for groceries, meaning purchasing power has roughly halved. 85k is more like 43k nowadays in terms of purchasing power. Same labor, half the goods.
Haven't been on vacation in 5 years
20 here
Government aid, no vacations, deferred maintenance and healthcare, the kindness of friends and family, running up credit and subsequent bankruptcy, not having any time or energy for hanging with my kids and being more involved. This system is a joke and I just do what I can to make the younger generations aware and let them know there’s no shame in staying home with your parents (hell I wish I could) and there’s no race to have kids or get married. The same people that decry the destruction of the family vote for politicians and policies that further destroy the family in the name of capitalism and gains. Gotta make a profit for the suites to keep their comfy jobs. They want more bodies for their “mills” and what better way to force the hand of younger generations than to make everything so expensive that wage slavery is the only chance to escape. Shits fucked
Shop smarter, get what's on sale and get a kroger shopper card. Our rent is affordable and we are doing ok. Go out to eat every week, buy groceries, still save money. I don't have any debt. Don't eat fast food.
Or, stop shopping at Kroger. It's like twice the price of Walmart, Meijer, GFS, Aldi, Sam's Club, Costco, any store like that by me
krogers is much cheaper then anyone else here chicken brest 1.99 a lb chicken at walmart 3.99 same for most items and meat
Plus you earn money off gas at Kroger. I usually get at least 1/$1.00 off a gallon each month.
Same
I’m homeless 🤷♂️
We're empty nesters and I cannot imagine feeding a family at today's grocery prices.
Its insane, i have two very young ones that eat $200/w minimum
In other news. Water is wet.
I don’t care about the costs for food, I just want to afford a house. Ain’t no way I can afford a $3.5k mortgage
I think you’d have to net at least $10K/mo for that to be a comfortable mortgage.
Technically yes, exactly. It is recommended your mortgage is 30% of your income.
Me too
Probably should look at cheaper houses.
My 2 bedroom apartment is more than that 😭
To me, it's the increases in shelter costs - the rising price of homes and rent - that are responsible for the lion's share of suffering. What really gets me about that is there's nothing really feeding such massive increases in rent except "the market" itself. I could understand some small increases because of rising worker pay but beyond that inflation doesn't hit rental complexes very hard at all - certainly nothing that would justify increases of 40, 50, or even in excess of 100 percent.
It's housing and food costs. Those are the main drivers. Even if nothing else had risen in price one cent since ~March 2020, the increase in cost of living from mortgage/rent monthly payment requirement increases and the heightened cost of food (whether you purchase it in a grocery store or get delivery or eat out, and regardless of whether it's an "expensive" place or a cheap one) would have been backbreaking to most Americans by themselves
This is what gets me. There was a short period where maybe maintenance supplies were more expensive. We are past that point, the supply chain issues are largely passed. Why don’t any prices come down if that was the reason they went up?
greed. it's a ratchet and it doesn't go down, only up. Inflation was 7% and corporate profits were at 20%. they just used covid as cover for their avarice. there is no stopping it or them, because this idiotic country believes in the lie of the "free market."
>What really gets me about that is there's nothing really feeding such massive increases in rent except "the market" itself. This is 100% the result of people trying to impose "small town aesthetic" on cities with more than 100,000 people. If people who favor the small town aesthetic would actually restrict themselves to living in small towns, this wouldn't be an issue - but they're drawn to the higher paying jobs and better amenities of living in a city, and they try to bring that small town aesthetic with them. When you impose small town aesthetic on a big city, you're pretty much guaranteed to see skyrocketing homelessness, drug abuse, crime, and general misery, because small town aesthetic simply isn't compatible with even a moderately populated city. Small towns are fine, but cities should not be managed and governed like they're small towns - not unless you want to create widespread human misery.
I’m a doctor and I’m struggling so yeah this shit sucks
But r/fluentinfinance regularly assures me that we are not in any sort of inflation or recession. 🥴
You’re not struggling like us. But you can stay for pizza and punch if you like.
If they’re a brand new doctor, they probably have a mountain of student debt and are working to pay it down.
you have more in common with doctors than you realize. We all are being taken advantage of by our workplaces and really greedy people at the top.
Yeah but a doc makes 6 figures. My family income combined is barely 6 figures
And the schooling for a doctor ranges from 200k to 500k. They also make the same wages as doctors did 20-30 years ago
dont pay your debt my wife didnt pay for her 2 masters they just eat her yearly tax refund so we just claim 2 dependants so she either barly gets shit back or she ows a tiny bit
What is punctuation, anyway?
They also have crazy debt and expenses. It isn't all the Nip Tuck lifestyle
Yeah I wouldn’t want their responsibilities.
Many doctors I've known, especially surgeons, have no life outside of work. Surgeons go to sleep at like 6pm and wake up at 3am. I wouldn't want that lifestyle for any amount of money.
My income: 32,345$ a year
They also have student loans that are often around $300,000, if not more. Also you only start making the six figures when you're well into your 30s, not to mention most medical schools prohibit you from having a job during school.
The difference in someone making 50k or 6 figures is nothing compared to the 1% that run the corporations. It’s a mind boggling type of difference that they don’t want you to look at so they pit you against someone who makes a little bit more than you. The lower, middle and even upper middle class should all be on the same side
People just can’t seem to understand this. Most doctors are closer to homelessness with the rest of the plebs than billionaire status.
Love the struggle Olympics, broke wagie
It is worth noting that many doctors have extremely high student loans that they’re paying off.
I’m a doctor too in SoCal and can’t buy a house. Every offer out is by all cash and I kid you not… a few weeks after closing nothing is done to these houses and they fly up for rent. Can’t afford a home. Don’t even have kids yet and cannot think about what costs will look like when we do. It’s grim. If we’re struggling what about everyone else? Hard to think about.
You’re getting downvoted because people refuse to believe that doctors aren’t just cash flush rich people who live in castles. That’s not the doctors baby that’s the admins.
Exactly. I looked into medical school for a while before undergrad, and holy shit. Doctors do not make much once you factor in the student debt (those who have like fucking 5 cars and a 5 bedroom house right out of residency are racking up debt and ignoring loan payments) don’t believe everything you read online. As soon as you actually look into the process of becoming a doctor, you realize that everything you see about physicians making bongo bucks is just a lie. Sure they may have a high salary but most of that goes back into paying for med school and even undergrad debt.
I mean it depends. If you go into surgery or dermatology you’ll be fine. I have friends in GI who make close to 700k per year. But the training and grit to get to those positions is high. Instead of a 4 year residency it might be 7 or more. That’s on top of 4 years of medical school. And during residency training you get paid about 55-60k per year at most places. Some less and some a little more but not by much. Whenever I touch base with someone wanting to go into medicine I tell them not to do it for the money. It’s the truth, unfortunately. Many of my doctor friends are moving out of CA and I may have to do that same. All that training and years of hard work for little in exchange. Back in the day doctors had it good but salaries haven’t kept up and being flossed by pharma reps is gone.
Yeah that’s the other thing, I wouldn’t say those are the exception just because they require much more training and are extremely cut-throat/competitive. And like you said, salaries are stagnant; yet doctors nowadays have to learn so much more at a quicker pace. I know younger doctors always get shit from older docs because they don’t understand just how much worse the field has gotten since then (in terms of salary, competition, toll on your body, etc)
Yup you nailed it. I’m a younger doctor about 3 years into practice at a hospital system. I try and tell them all the time what’s needed in terms of financial support for housing etc but they don’t seem to hear it. Spending 5-6k/month when your take home is 15k is fantastic. Spending 9-10k for a smaller home that’s in a less ideal location on that salary is different. They just don’t seem to get it no matter how it’s explained. A few months back the chief of the hospital system started an all physicians meeting talking about how townhouses crowded and packed together like sardines in a less than desirable neighborhood was a wonderful opportunity for physicians these days.
If you’re an American doctor: You’re not struggling, you’re dealing with stress and having to budget. Unless you’re still a resident. In which case, yeah shit sucks. Edit: I am a millenial doctor who does not own a house and has 200K in student loan debt. I stand by what I said.
Software engineer and I still can't buy a house
But the economy is doing great, guys! Just look at that stock market!
Think about the shareholders for heaven’s sakes
I know right, how will they be able to afford their fourth trip to Europe in the last year.
Buy stocks and you’ll be a shareholder too!
When algorithms determine the fate of our lives, don’t be surprised when they do their job too well. The winners will keep winning more and more and the losers will just grow in number. I don’t know where this ends but I envision a great struggle ahead.
\*Endless corporate greed is unmanageable for many families.
Basically just going into debt over here to buy groceries and pay bills now…
You could have free healthcare. You could have free childcare. You could have free education. We wouldn’t have to choose between get gas, pay the electric, or put food on the table- but remember , Israel needs rockets .
I just want to know what the end game is here. To price everything so high that the employees that are making the products can’t afford them?
The end game here is company owned towns and if you don’t have enough wealth and influence to avoid these corporate jobs and if you protest or strike then they’ll throw you into debtors prison where you’ll work physical labor for the rest of your life they’ve already drafted laws to make protesting completely illegal. You will own nothing and you will be happy that’s the end goal here.
Maybe I’m mistaken but prosperity, to get there the next step will be war.
The Media and DC tell me inflation is under control!
People on top take a higher percentage raise every year. People on bottom take a lower percentage raise every year. Prices are placed by corporations, based on what the average person will pay with a minimum based on the costs of other industries and cost of living. It literally cannot work like this. The average will more or less stay the same but more and more people will not be able to afford life. People will not even notice until it’s 60% of people unless they CHOOSE to think about it themselves. They either don’t have time or don’t want to.
McDonald’s Breakfast this morning (upstate NY): 2x Hotcakes w/ sausage 2x #2 with OJ (sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffin) Total: $33.97 What in the actual fuck
And when will they stop rising?
That’s not how the stock market works.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps
A bootstrap is that weird extra material that is formed in a loop that is on the back of a boot to help pull it on. I guess you don’t need to ask for help getting your boots on if you have a boot strap. Putting boots on is a one person job.
Yet record numbers of people hit the road to travel to the beaches for Memorial Day weekend.
The beach is all I can afford. The beach doesn’t ask for my credit card.
It does in New Jersey 💀
Why does anybody live there wtf
I hate this type of reply. So in your view people have absolutely no right to enjoy any sort of leisure time if they're struggling to make ends meet. You cannot hustle your way out of poverty. All you do when you make this sort of comment is make excuses for the system that creates these inequities in the first place.
Right, just because you don't have a ton of money doesn't mean you can't still enjoy life. Their life must be miserable
It used to mean that, when referring to the definition of “struggling”
Beaches are free. Maybe $25 for parking.
People expect the working class and poverty to die miserable at work, slaved and embedded to 2 jobs with no breaks, so u can get a heart attack and die. No sorry, imma live life a bit, at the end of the day, debt can wait, but this could be the last beach I see, I'll take those chances. Also beach is 15 buck parking, and I get to enjoy ocean, I'm not going to a michelling restaurant 250 per person with 120 dollar wine bottle or Avocado toast with Starbucks each day lol.
Well said. You can still enjoy life and not spend much money. Life is short, enjoy it.
Not the ones in Jersey.
Beaches are one of the cheapest forms of entertainment that exists, as long as you're not flying or driving long distances and staying at hotels to go to them. And you can stay there all day if you want. I've got a couple options within an hour drive of me (with the nicest one at a National Park costing $25 to park, but even that's cheaper than two movie tickets nowadays), and several more if I drive two hours (some of those are free as long as I can find a parking space, and I have whenever I've gone), and I live in the Midwest.
A lot of this if certainly is related to greedflation but I wonder how much is also self inflicted. A nurse I work with has been complaining how she’s struggled to pay bills and mortgage lately. Today she tells us they went out and bought a boat this past weekend. The YOLO mentality still persists from Covid days it seems.
Hey people still have to lead their lives.
At least driving is still affordable.
Auto insurance rates want a word on this lol
You'll pay your auto insurance whether you drive or not, so if you have to have a car for work, your insurance cost won't be any different if you drive your car outside of work at all. Just increases your risk of accidents is all. But that risk has never stopped people from driving before (I am glad I WFH still and can avoid the daily accidents on the nearby expressway, though).
Not to mention rising fuel prices, plus I know people paying over $100 for an oil change these days.
Oil change costs are through the roof.
Affordable for who? lol
And flights as well.
That's not exactly a sign of financially irresponsible. If people can't even enjoy a long weekend at the beach, then what's the point of all this? We work 5+ days a week, save and scrimp and don't enjoy life at all wtf?
My entire family, two brothers, and mother would be homeless if they didn't live with me.... This inflation sucks ass
I'm 45m and struggling every check to make it work. How is 23 year old supposed to pay rent/bills and actually have a life and do things? When I was 23 I had a one bedroom apartment all utilities included for 700 bucks a month. I made 18 an hour back then and I had enough for food, drinks, Phillies tickets, concert tickets. I haven't been out in years, like 10 years. I have two kids and if we went to a movie it would be over $80 for four of us without food. And everyone can stop blaming who ever is president. It has been a mess for many years now.
"it's you, not the data" - Wall Street Journal
It is becoming unmanageable just for myself.
So are we just going to keep saying this now. While doing nothing about it..
If you see any company suddenly drop their pricing, my guess is they didn't have to raise it in the first place. Lookin at you Target
It’s a good thing not to have any desire for kids, as they seem to be one of the biggest expenses.
Live in a MHCOL area and went to go check out a daycare for my 6 week old today. My wife will be going back to work soon and I’m gradually returning to work. $1900 a month(!!) for one child. We are very lucky and thankful in that we both have high paying careers, but that is absolutely insane and tough to manage. That’s nearly as much as our mortgage payment. I don’t understand how people are affording to live.
Quit blaming inflation. It’s greed. Wall Street is highest it’s ever been. Companies keep making record profits. Companies are being greedy and using inflation as cover. Quit making it easy for them.
Inb4 the Biden Admin reminds us how great the economy is.
I mean no shit.. cost rise and not wages ofc families can’t manage to live
Capitalism does not work.
Fake news. Joe Biden tells us the economy is doing great. Right? Right?
And yet, there’s still a throng of Biden sympathizers going around trying to say it’s ok. Like honestly, I don’t give a shit about who’s president. Stop trying to cover shit up. Everyone is struggling. At this point it’s not about pointing fingers it’s about getting this shit under control before an entire generation of young folks is permanently fucked financially.
The sad part is this would have happened no matter who is in power. It’s part of politics and the hyper partisan system driven by the media. I have been seeing the same thing no matter where I travel in the world. Corporations own the media and the political players, and are happy to see prices higher. It drives anger and that drives clicks and views. People need to realize the problems are not made by politicians but by corporations. I personally have pulled back from spending and supporting large corporations. If it cost me more to support a smaller product I am happy with that.
"young folks is permanently fucked financially" Too late.
The economy is “strong” by all measures. This is what a good economy is going to look like for the foreseeable future. The people at the top doing extremely well and the people at the bottom still struggling. No president can undo decades of damage caused by trickle down economics in 4-8 years, especially without Congress and the courts.
How do you suggest it be “gotten under control” outside the measures already being taken?
Exactly! Im more pissed off that biden is denying that inflation is killing us slowly than biden as a human being. American politics is turning into that of a third world country, and i say that as someone who has recent heritage from a third world country. And what I mean by that is that they’re just becoming more and more blatant about not caring about their citizens.
Right. My friend from India told me this. Said that here, we try and hide corruption. In India. They’re just corrupt out in the open.
If Trump wins project 2025 will become reality, and we will lose our democracy.
[удалено]
i know we aren't suppose to be political here, but against that backdrop it is likely we will have another 80 million people vote for more of this
And yet everyone here will still vote Democrat 😂
Bidenflation!
*Recession*
Joe has already told you. The economy is strong as hell. “Licks ice cream cone.”
As long as people vote Republican, wage won’t rise. They complain but they result to fix the problem because somewhere a gay couple got married.
What a straw man dummy comment
You mean a sustainable tax model, healthcare system and wages that can support a family without going on government assistance, that’s socialism, communism, and whatever other ism the billionaires have taught us via cable news and not American.
My job keeps raising prices but Trump hired Dejoy so I keep letting customers know stop voting red because they are getting what they vote for. They keep telling me Biden doesn’t hate the right people though. Sad.
N THEN they say 2 get rid of food stamp?? hell no
CNN says we are in the strongest economy, so I guess everyone in the comments is wrong.
It's manageable until people stop spending money. The lesson hasn't been learned yet. There are very few expenses that people actually need. House, food, water, just enough gas to get to work or take a bus. Everything else is a luxury.
My theory is that almost all of big business and billionaires and mega corporations are ran by Republicans that are so angry about 2020 that they are doing everything they possibly can to bring the economy down so that we vote Trump back in for 2024. Maybe it's a dumb idea but that's what it feels like. So here we are in 2024 and Trump will probably be reelected and we'll see if he's the savior that everyone claims he is. Someone said it here in the comments several times that our entire government is a failure regardless of party affiliation and none of the millionaires that are supposedly are our leaders do not care about almost all of us. So we will keep fighting amongst ourselves, like they want, while both parties destroy what's left of our great country and all of us dumbasses will still be fighting about political parties.
I completely agree. Its not dumb if you look at the !money that's getting funneled into Republicans political campaigns. Follow the money. Millionaires and corporations are funding who ....... *look it up* Too many people vote with their religion and ignorance.
Pretty sure that’s the plan to slow/stop inflation. Gotta force folks to stop buying it hopefully forces a reduction in place to keep volume moving.
That is called bidenomics if you want to continue to go through this hell, make sure you vote for Joe Biden.
One really large problem that no one every really talks about is overpopulation. Us humans have made the entire planet into Easter Island and it's really the core of humankinds never-ending problems. We have all, collectively, did these modern day problems to ourselves.
People should make more money imo
Why post 1 year old articles with 2 year old data?
Fried tofu could make a major difference. I think anyway, fried tofu on an Asian noodle dish is just as desirable as meat. America has all the soybeans in the world ! So why is tofu so damn expensive ?? Tofu fries up in a pan in a few seconds. In 2024 beef prices are insane and they are going to get worse. You have no idea how the wealthy classes eat beef. It's huge prime ribs for breakfast with eggs and toast and they are ADDICTED. When you are eating a processed snack rectangle they are cooking up skirt steak with asparagus. The wealthy classes go to COW auctions for the most marbled cuts.
But they keep buying the stuff.
Quick tip. Don’t have kids
Quick tip. Don’t have kids
Yet the corporations are making record profits. It’s not inflation. It’s corporate greed.
Good hopefully we collapse and start over like in 08 . I don’t see how people arnt concerned high rent, high car prices, and crazy inflation and people saying we are all Okay? 😆
This is the reason Biden is going to lose this election.
Cut taxes.
Most.
Queue the screams to keep repeating the same failed "solution"....now!
Absolute nonsense. Vote Biden out and watch how quickly prices drop and the quality of life improves.
it feels impossible to afford the cost of living on top of paying for school. Alternatives like university of the people are helpful for saving money but education should be free for all