Even as inflation continues to cool into the second half of 2024, many Americans say they’re still struggling to make ends meet.
Roughly one-third of U.S. workers say they’re living paycheck to paycheck and have nearly no money for savings after paying their monthly bills, according to a survey from personal finance website Bankrate.
We were living paycheck to paycheck BEFORE the inflation. Now we’re just NOT buying food. Or maybe skipping auto insurance.
People want to know why the PS5 isn’t getting the amount of people buying it that the PS4 had? It’s because the games look 90% as good on the PS4, they already have the PS4, and the PS5 costs $500 at a time when $5 would be a hard sell.
Taco night is just GONE from our lives. You have to buy so many ingredients. Ramen noodles is like a dollar per pack, and that’s it.
This is like saying “Well the bleeding seems to have stopped from where this guy was stabbed in the chest by spears 175 times.” Yeah, the bleeding may have stopped, but the guy’s still dead and unable to do anything about the fact that he was already stabbed.
I never stopped living paycheck to paycheck since I turned 18 back in the early 2010’s. None of these people even realize just how shitty it is, and has been, for the last 20 years. You ever had to use a fucking credit card to pay rent just to keep a roof over your head because you couldn’t get to either one of your 2 jobs because your car broke down? I did about 8 years ago and I’m still paying it off. If I have any kind of emergency, whether it’s medical or otherwise, I am completely fucked financially.
If prices go back down, it’s Deflation the opposite of Inflation.
Inflation “cooling down” is not the opposite of Inflation, it’s merely less of it, or in other words prices going up but not as fast as before.
If people are crushed by the rise in living cost from previous high Inflation, less Inflation by itself will do nothing at all to solve their problem and in fact it will crush them some more, it’s just that the increase in crushing won’t be as fast as with higher Inflation.
There are only two ways of them to be less crushed: either Deflation (i.e. prices actually go down) or their incomes increase (which for most people means their salaries go up).
The theory is that if prices are going down people will just delay their purchases waiting for better prices, so in aggregate they’ll consume less, though this of course only applies to things people don’t actually need immediately, so food prices or rents going down would have no such effect.
People not consuming as much is bad for a Consumer Society. However, one should ponder further on whether the Consumer Society itself is a good thing or a bad thing, especially in light of the Ecological damage its doing, that the infinity growth of Revenue it aims for is Mathematically impossible and that what it’s mostly achieving in the era of automation is to move more and more of the resources into the hands of fewer and fewer people.
Maybe people being desincentivised from buying on impulse lots of things they don’t need would be a good thing, even if the Owner Class would be unhappy for not making as many billions.
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It’s not inflation if companies post record profits.
The economy is doing great. Stock prices are up. Corporate profits are through the roof. Housing investments are more valuable than ever…
What do you mean you’re “not a shareholder”?
It’s a good time to be a member of the Owner Class!
For the rest, it’s probably the worst time since the days of the Robber Barons…
We were living paycheck to paycheck BEFORE the inflation. Now we’re just NOT buying food. Or maybe skipping auto insurance.
People want to know why the PS5 isn’t getting the amount of people buying it that the PS4 had? It’s because the games look 90% as good on the PS4, they already have the PS4, and the PS5 costs $500 at a time when $5 would be a hard sell.
Taco night is just GONE from our lives. You have to buy so many ingredients. Ramen noodles is like a dollar per pack, and that’s it.
This is like saying “Well the bleeding seems to have stopped from where this guy was stabbed in the chest by spears 175 times.” Yeah, the bleeding may have stopped, but the guy’s still dead and unable to do anything about the fact that he was already stabbed.
Have you tried not being poor?
Price gouging is still happening though
I never stopped living paycheck to paycheck since I turned 18 back in the early 2010’s. None of these people even realize just how shitty it is, and has been, for the last 20 years. You ever had to use a fucking credit card to pay rent just to keep a roof over your head because you couldn’t get to either one of your 2 jobs because your car broke down? I did about 8 years ago and I’m still paying it off. If I have any kind of emergency, whether it’s medical or otherwise, I am completely fucked financially.
If prices go back down, it’s Deflation the opposite of Inflation.
Inflation “cooling down” is not the opposite of Inflation, it’s merely less of it, or in other words prices going up but not as fast as before.
If people are crushed by the rise in living cost from previous high Inflation, less Inflation by itself will do nothing at all to solve their problem and in fact it will crush them some more, it’s just that the increase in crushing won’t be as fast as with higher Inflation.
There are only two ways of them to be less crushed: either Deflation (i.e. prices actually go down) or their incomes increase (which for most people means their salaries go up).
Why is deflation always so vigorously opposed by all sides. Why is it (deflation) so unthinkable/verboten?
The theory is that if prices are going down people will just delay their purchases waiting for better prices, so in aggregate they’ll consume less, though this of course only applies to things people don’t actually need immediately, so food prices or rents going down would have no such effect.
People not consuming as much is bad for a Consumer Society. However, one should ponder further on whether the Consumer Society itself is a good thing or a bad thing, especially in light of the Ecological damage its doing, that the infinity growth of Revenue it aims for is Mathematically impossible and that what it’s mostly achieving in the era of automation is to move more and more of the resources into the hands of fewer and fewer people.
Maybe people being desincentivised from buying on impulse lots of things they don’t need would be a good thing, even if the Owner Class would be unhappy for not making as many billions.