We are always headed for a crash. That’s the cycle of capitalism without strong regulatory mechanisms to mitigate it. I believe it is every 4-7 years that a crash has happened in the last 300 years.
A crash? I’d say we’re in a plane from which the pilot decided to press the “eject wings” button.
Grocery value didn’t go up. Real wages went down. We should measure inflation based on cost-of-living.
Groceries don’t really get more expensive, because the methods for producing food don’t really get less efficient over time; if anything, it’s more efficient. So there’s no real reason for them to become more expensive.
Instead, wages declined. I’ve already commented many times that the labor market is a free market, that means it’s regulated by Supply and Demand. I.e., if prices for labor go down, as we can observe, then that can be interpreted such that supply of labor went up (women go to work too, offshoring labor to other countries, immigrants, …) or that demand for labor went down (automation, end of growth, …).
I honestly think that both cases are difficult, where the supply of labor could be a bit reduced by kicking out immigrants and home-shoring labor (and also, to a lesser extent, making it more difficult for women to work), which btw some advisers to trump are seemingly trying to do, but my honest opinion is that it won’t bring wages up to how they were in the 1960s. Demand for labor is shrinking too, due to the end of growth and now AI and other automation techniques. I guess we’ll have to face that.
edit: just to offer an optimistic outlook, i think that consumerism and therefore demand for consumer products could be stimulated by simply giving handouts to people. most people will spend most of the handouts immediately, and that stimulates consumerism. and that in turn stimulates the economy.
Yes
No. Things will just get worse.
Your statement has probably been true since 2008. Maybe longer.
This is so absolutely adorable.
I live in country that has plateaued financially for the last 2 decades.
You’ll be fine. Really. In opposite to what you might have heard, free market capitalism in no way requires constant growth. It can adapt to plateaus or degrowth just fine.
Which country would this be?
Worse, you will get used to it.
Don’t worry. Trump is making sure you can get a job picking crops. You’ll be living in a tent. No rent, not utilities. You’re welcome!
Brave of you to assume he won’t make people who live/work there pay rent and utilities, and that “the haves” won’t say he’s a great guy for providing this.
Sarcastic humor aside, migratory agricultural work is a thing in the US. Some of my friends did it back in the 80’s. Live in a tent on site, earn by how much you pick, save money because no rent and no place to spend. No federal taxes. Blueberries here, apples there, travel to where the crops need picking. Clean fish in Alaska or work on the boats.
Slapping on tariffs at a time with inflation, high consumer anxiety, and wage stagnation is going to be looked on as one of the worst moves a president has made.
He is, without a doubt, the worst and second worst president in the country’s entire history.
Trump: “Ah, but you have heard of me!”
FAKE NEWS TDS, TRUMP IS OUR LAWD N SAVIOR, HE HAS RISEN AND REPLACED JESUS CHRIST. /s
He rose from the dead? I knew something about him seemed zombie like. The dead eyes and awkward hand motions gives it away.
Um, dude we’re not just talking about any normal man, we’re talking about Our Lawd N Savior Convicted Felon Donald J Trump. He didn’t just rise from the dead, he made his own bible.
Praise be his hypocritical name. In the name of the racism, the grift, and the holy crime, amen.
Amen in the name of the bigT
We can only hope! (That this is considered one of the worst ones…)
I remember during the big housing bubble in the early 2000s people were telling me “Oh you better buy now” even though down payments were insanely high and I kept thinking “The cost of housing is totally out of whack with incomes. There is no way this can keep going up.” Surprise, surprise the whole thing blew up and lots of people were then left with mortgages that cost more than their homes so they were stuck. On top of that the prices were still out of whack with incomes and I still couldn’t afford a house unless it was a wreck. I eventually just moved out of the state.
I was just reading how the normal “escape cities”, like Miami, for people fleeing high cost areas like San Francisco and Boston/NYC are now almost as expensive. Guess people will have to go to St Louis and Des Moines.
Trump is selling us off to China, he said so today in the cabinet meeting. Everything is expensive because China owns it. Climate change is here, AMOC collapse is ongoing, we’re pretty fucked tbh. So they need land and clean water for their people, we all do. Floods absolutely destroy/contaminate clean water sources like lakes. And there’s been massive floods globally, especially in China.
More of a sticky slide into a chaos. From it our pain and suffering will fuel new metrics for new economic models with new crash indicators. Indicators that when applied to today would appear as an ominous array of flashing red lights.
The US could poke along forever, North Korea style because our entire country is full of cowards who will just take oppression without any fight.
…the climate, tho. 😬
You will own nothing, live in the company town, owe your soul to the company store, and be grateful.
And that’s different from now, how exactly?
And I just found out I need a new job as we are being ordered into the office after they moved it 50 miles away.
Things are not looking good. I think they will hit us with another round of redundancies after some people leave too.
I’ve been WFH since Covid forced it, but then a year ago the promised us WFH full time was here to stay and only those that needed or wanted to be in the office could. They downsized buildings and everything. Nice!
They just told us we all had to be back in the office in a month. There isn’t enough offices, not enough parking, we’ve blown away all the productivity metrics at home, half the company is out of state. But, uh, REASONS! We must have butts in THIS specific chair or work doesn’t count.
There is literally no valid reason to force it. I think it’s all about control and power. They really don’t care about productivity or employee satisfaction at all, they just want to force everyone to comply. If they wanted either of those other things we’ve proved what works.
I hate it. It feels like the dumb “open office” fad all over again. Let’s cram 200 people into a single giant open noisy room. Employees HATED it. Managers all gloated how innovative they were. Then it faded away again as they all slowly accepted that no one gets anything done in that chaotic environment.
So too with office vs home. We live in a digital age. The computer age. The internet age. Long gone is the age of work being done by shaking hands and looking at a binder of papers. It’s an email, zoom call and a pdf now. Accept it.
In a weird way I’m actually looking forward to my company all going back with 0 coherent plan and not enough parking or desks and then I’ll giggle as productivity and morale absolutely tanks.
It’s also very likely they know a certain % will quit over it and do it on purpose to lay off without having to. The only problem is that all the most experienced and qualified people leave first.
Companies have had 5 years to accept reality, sell off the MASSIVELY expensive offices and stay fully remote where possible, but no, I think they want control over profits. They want to FEEL like they are managing instead of actually managing.
Oh I absolutely expect morale to tank. We barely have parking at all, the office is large enough for about 25% of the company, the parking is enough for 5% of the seats in the office.
I am hoping I can get it down to once a month, at that point its no worse than commuting into town for retail every day as far as total commuting time each month. The pay I get is barely over minimum wage so that is hardly a benefit compared to retail. Full WFH is pretty much the only benefit that is worth anything.
Then at once a month hopefully avoid coming in for a few of them. Plan holiday for the days we were going to be in, that kind of thing.
Yeah, honestly once a month isn’t that bad. Annoying because you MUST do it, but like you said, not so bad. I’ve done once a week and it feels ok ish. Like, I can’t get ANYTHING done in the office anymore. It’s too distracting, too many meetings, and as opposed to being at home, I now have to commute, get lunch, etc. And when in meetings in person you can’t really keep working, but a zoom call, yeah I can get half my work done while sitting through all the meetings all day, but not now and I’m not about to go into unpaid overtime to make up their awful decision. And I’m not going to log on early or stay late either. Done with all that. You get your 8 hours, no more now. So I’m sorta looking forward to sitting around in meetings all day discussing all the things we could be working on.
That would be hilarious if you took PTO that 1 day every month. Amazing. Come in like, one time per year just to make a point that you didn’t skip them ALL. Hahaha.
Honestly though, if your pay isn’t that great keep looking and bail asap.
That’s scary. How are you holding up?
Scrolling through indeed right now, its not great. Maybe just give up trying to find anything I have skills for and find something unskilled?
But I think my contract states once a month in the office so if I can argue that its probably worth staying and just going through a shit commute once a month. Still not great but probably slightly better than taking a local retail job.
All we gotta do is
trickconvince some company to hire us as CEO. Get paid millions more than the employees and do nothing! Sounds like my kind of gig.If they force your hand, file for UI.
Yes it’s rough mate, I hope it picks up soon
ITT: Slaves use bunk stats to feel indignant about maintaining the status quo.
