Inflation - How is it affecting you?

[Sima Tuna]

Taxes increases are just brutal and feel really unfair with the way things are going. I mean people are struggling enough already and then taxes get shot up on top of everything.

Yeah, that or rent increases for those who rent. Seems like landlords are well and truly trying to price anyone who isn't rich out of housing. Heard a number of horror stories of landlords jacking up rent to deliberately push out the current tenants in favor of richer ones.

[neorichieb1971]

My son lives in Idaho (used to be Florida). He lives in shared accomodation with his boss and maybe one other I can't remember. Its a nice brand new home with all the modcons but it made me wonder if shared accomodation is becoming the norm over there right now. The last home I bought in the USA was new, I had some say in the construction of it as it was a free lot, I extended the garage so I could put a mini arcade in the back of it which I did. I put 2 astro city cabs in there and a Capcom Impress. This was in 2003 and I bought it for $107k. Looking at the real estate website that exact address is valued at $215k now. So thats 10k a year increase year on year. But something tells me the hike shot up in recent years.

I always thought the USA was immune from house pricing hikes because you just have so much land available in the USA. But for some reason house prices shot up. Looking on the websites I cannot believe how expensive homes are over there.

As for me and my local area, its not the availability of clubs and groups its just me. My mental/physical state says stay at home. I did go out in the past couple of weeks to sort out some banking issues I have and my mother is in hospital and she has hit that age where shit goes wrong so I'm going to visit her often. I'd rather go to gaming markets and do projects at home. I'm building a retro rig at the moment with 2 console stations, 2 monitors and a speaker setup just for shmups with 2 arcade joysticks (mainly for shmups).

I am getting old, my mind says "wouldn't it be nice if...." but my body is saying "just sit in front of the computer old man".. and my wallet is thanking my body

[BryanM]

I always thought the USA was immune from house pricing hikes because you just have so much land available in the USA. But for some reason house prices shot up. Looking on the websites I cannot believe how expensive homes are over there.

Speculators want their investments to increase in value, guess who decides what things cost. It's nonsensical, but it does feel disconnected from any base product.

Really around ~2006 was when things began to balloon. Everything about ~2008 haunts us still - we didn't pull the rot out when we had the chance (in theory... in practice there's never an opportunity to vote against the banks. A Theodore Roosevelt wouldn't be allowed in to shine the lowliest staffer's shoes, in our current environment. It's kind of scary how monstrous things have become, under the cosmetic white-washing surface they project).

I often talk about how many of my colleagues jumped on property in Colorado. I think orange used to call BS on my claims of the land being affordable there, but it really was! He was just born a few years too late. My hippy computer-toucher friends ruined it for everyone else. Sorry.

I am getting old, my mind says "wouldn't it be nice if...." but my body is saying "just sit in front of the computer old man".. and my wallet is thanking my body

Yeah, I've been feeling the specter of aging myself. It's actually nice in one sense that it's easier now for my brain to focus on other things than you know. But on the other hand, it kind of feels like I'm dead sometimes.

When Gaijin mentioned earlier in this thread about the generation we're talking about, I thought we were talking about pre-retirement working age people in general, between 18 and ~50:

"Aren't... aren't we the grandpas, now??!"

[neorichieb1971]

"Aren't... aren't we the grandpas, now??!"

4x over yikes.

[Sima Tuna]

I've felt old my entire life. Chronic illness at 11, going bald by 18. The fuck I'm gonna care when I'm actually old? Every year older I get is a year closer to my appearance matching my age.

[Blackfielding]

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[rancor]

Yeah, I've been feeling the specter of aging myself. It's actually nice in one sense that it's easier now for my brain to focus on other things than you know. But on the other hand, it kind of feels like I'm dead sometimes.

Man, I feel like this could be a whole other thread. We're all old as fuck now. Is new blood even entering this hobby? Is anyone on this forum (aside from trap15) under 40? I remember I used to get so excited about new releases, meeting new people, going to Matsuri events - now I can't even be bothered to take a PCB off the shelf and power it on. Much easier to doom-scroll until bedtime. The loss of motivation in old age is real.

[vol.2]

Man, I feel like this could be a whole other thread. We're all old as fuck now. Is new blood even entering this hobby? Is anyone on this forum (aside from trap15) under 40? I remember I used to get so excited about new releases, meeting new people, going to Matsuri events - now I can't even be bothered to take a PCB off the shelf and power it on.

This forum definitely skews older, but of course there are plenty of game fans of all kinds elsewhere. Just go over to reddit or something and you'll see how popular it is. There are tons of arcade conventions and meetups and every year they get exponentially bigger and have been encompassing younger and younger fans.

Shooters specifically are definitely more popular among people our age, but definitely not exclusively.

The loss of motivation in old age is real.

Dude. I feel you. It's hard to give a shit about anything sometimes. But I really think it's just death calling you. The only way to keep it at bay is to be motivated, to make yourself motivated. I'm less into shooters than most shmups people, but I like to repair the hardware. It really keeps me going to work on projects and challenge myself.

[BryanM]

Is new blood even entering this hobby? Is anyone on this forum (aside from trap15) under 40?

It is a bit demoralizing looking at the member list, and not seeing any new heavy users. This dead forum gets deader by the year. The young people on this forum are a rare precious resource that need to be protected!

I think it's impossible for kids these days to imprint on shoot'em ups unless they have weirdo hardcore gamer parents. Just too many other distractions; it's not like when we were kids and the Galaga machine at the local restaurant was pretty cool.

God, I remember a time when I played every jRPG I could and followed the news on every new PC game that was coming up. (How many people on this planet remember the cancelled FPS Seraphim?!) Something absolutely impossible with the flood of media we have available to us now.

[Sima Tuna]

Shmups are actually kinda perfect for zoomers if you think about it. They're fast-paced, flashy and not too long. Very ADHD-compatible. You can shmup on a portable gaming device like a steam deck or switch.

The problem is shmups are an OLD genre for OLD people. So zoomers would have to discover shmups somehow. The most likely way for that to happen is via an online storefront like Steam or the Eshop. Many people used to come to shmups via Touhou but I don't know if that is still true. DDP DFK is/was an extremely popular gateway drug to shmupping as well.

Now forums... Forums are for old people. Joining a forum is a very "old internet" thing to do. I like forums because I remember the time before dischord and group chats, when you could post questions or information to a website and it would stay archived there for everyone to see. Sure, sometimes there are downsides to that. The stupid shit I post here is going to be carved in stone for as long as this website exists. But so will all the 1cc strats that the smart people who use this website post. And that part is really cool.

[Lander]

There was a period in the last few years where certain expenses (domestic gas, in particular) got completely out of hand; it's come back down to a more reasonable projection lately, but is still a factor higher than it was when I moved into this place. Must be ridiculous if you're living in a population center.

Reading about the social phenomena of Buddha-like Mindset struck a chord recently; it's broadly contextualized around China, but seems like it could easily apply anywhere that the modern societal machine collides with flesh-and-blood people just trying to live: An apathetic symptom of the abstraction outgrowing its components.

Though I suspect the practical outcome will be further division between the people who are compatible with cog life, and those who aren't, the latter freeing up resources for the former to consume. Whether that'll ever shift to the point where the machine no longer has the material to continue as-is, is another question...

Is anyone on this forum (aside from trap15) under 40?

Yes hello. Early 30s reporting for census.
There was x1993 too, whose SN implied a similar bracket before his tragic departure.

I suspect a few others, but it'd be rude (and potentially embarrassing) of me to speculate

It is a bit demoralizing looking at the member list, and not seeing any new heavy users. This dead forum gets deader by the year. The young people on this forum are a rare precious resource that need to be protected!

It's always a shame when someone new shows up, has a few nice interactions, and then disappears never to be seen again. But I suppose it's not always to be - the ones that stick around are to be cherished.

Though familiar faces are important too - the place'd be markedly less rich without its cadre of seasoned wise / grumpy / sardonic / madcap / eccentric (check all that apply) character.

(And apropos of nothing, it's good to see you've not been totally consumed by the Apocalypse thread )

I think it's impossible for kids these days to imprint on shoot'em ups unless they have weirdo hardcore gamer parents. Just too many other distractions; it's not like when we were kids and the Galaga machine at the local restaurant was pretty cool.

Probably true in the general case, the mainstream is too optimized for most to slip past the dragnet of Just Dance and other normie-friendly forms of the medium.

I wonder if smaller meatspace game stores still do a little glass case in the corner with retro stuff in it. That was my in as a teen - picking up Mega Drive and SNES bits at the Gamestation in town because it was a good deal on trade-ins. And then the discovery of Zophar's Domain, emulation, and the broader world of good old stuff.

(what an old man, meatspace gamestores, lmao so mid no cap)

On the upside, finding out about such via the internet has never been easier, for someone with the requisite motivation.

[orange808]

Casual gamers figured out they didn't like shooters very much by 1983.

These days, core hardcore gamers (that we can relate to) are playing dem soulz gamez and/or derivative sandbox games that require centuries of investment. I play some of those games as well, but shmups are a great fit for short sessions. If anything, my affection for arcade game designs has increased with age. I don't need to remember "where I'm at" and I know how long it's going to take to do another run.

[MintyTheCat]

Now forums... Forums are for old people. Joining a forum is a very "old internet" thing to do. I like forums because I remember the time before dischord and group chats, when you could post questions or information to a website and it would stay archived there for everyone to see. Sure, sometimes there are downsides to that. The stupid shit I post here is going to be carved in stone for as long as this website exists. But so will all the 1cc strats that the smart people who use this website post. And that part is really cool.

Exactly : the kids today don't use the technologies and services the way the Gen X folk do.

Also, the level of ability, awareness and basic intelligence is different now than say back in the 90s.

To use a computer back then and get yourself on the Inet you needed more of everything : time, money, IQ, technical know-how, etc.
That's no longer the case as the barrier of entry is now non-existant.

Fewer people will go to a forum and get answers and help that way. People want things fast, fast, fast! I mean, when I was back in my University days waiting a week for a response on a newsgroup or forum was just normal. As such, people learned to ask the right questions and elaborate. I remember the old school programming newsgroups and maths groups - used to be pretty funny but also useful. But, well, standards have dropped

Folks used to set up their won website : planting their first foot on the new territory, that took effort. Now, no effort required. You don't need to be talented or skilled to get onto social media, no. A forum, well, for a start one needs to know how to write an actual sentence that someone else can understand - call it a life skill

Then there's the education system which isn't fit for purpose often these days.

Just the way it is. I don't fight it, I just accept with a sense of humour.

On topic:

Yep, usually the buying power of a hard currency halves roughly every 40 years or so. Of course, we have serious inflation affecting hard currencies at this time and have had for the last couple of years greatly. The mean over that time will be higher, but it is skewed over the last 2-3 years.

The problem : it can take a very, very long time to correct inflationary action.
Some will naively say : "just increase Interest-Rate, etc.", but that then affects the macro economy and its effects can take years to resolve.

It is crude, but I tend to find that it becomes the norm pricewise when a sufficient number of people simply forget the "old prices" and get on with it. In the meantime, expect lots of social and political wrangling.

I have noticed this last 1-2 years too that banks are making it very hard for people to get anything like a fair return on their savings.

It is essentially always like this under our present financial scheme, it's just that its now pretty obvious what the mechanisms are.

Still, the man on the street sees what's going on, he doesn't know necessarily how, he may suspect why, but he's the weakest in the chain here - the most vulnerable and this is why we have political and social reactions : people are not happy.

Back in the Covid lockdown era around 2020 or so, I was waiting for the long-term loan rates and policies to change : mortgages, etc.
I knew what had taken place when I started seeing changes to the types and varieties of "home ownership" and funding. Even stable nations not offer very different mortgage policies compared to pre-2020.

Roughly, the Euro has half the buying power today as it had before 2020.
If it takes kind of 40 years for $10 to reach the buying power of $5 - price action, but we have had this happen over the last 2-3 years : let that sink in. Sure, there are the residual effects of inflation - that's part of the present system, but the shock is when it happens all at once, like you are on fast-forward. Quick, sudden alterations to a market and currency is what causes the most damage when it happens in isolation : think the Turkish Lira. But when it happens pretty much all at once, that's something else

[Lander]

I got an email from my bank recently (well, building society; same thing, more egalatarian facade) announcing that the first £50 of everyone's overdraft is now free.

I can't decide whether I'm pleasantly shocked that they'd loosen the belt on that much capital at once (bearing in mind the multiply by number of accounts factor), or put out at how token of a gesture it is relative to already-high rates and living costs.

Fewer people will go to a forum and get answers and help that way. People want things fast, fast, fast! I mean, when I was back in my University days waiting a week for a response on a newsgroup or forum was just normal. As such, people learned to ask the right questions and elaborate. I remember the old school programming newsgroups and maths groups - used to be pretty funny but also useful. But, well, standards have dropped

Very true, I catch myself doing the fast fast fast thing on occasion; the answer isn't on the first page of google? Clearly the subject must be challenging and obscure!

Discord worsens it too - I really can't be arsed to keep a proprietary chat client (plus all the encumbent distractions) around for the sake of being able to access specialist information. Whitepapers and manuals are salve for my domain of choice, but mailing lists are starting to look a lot more appealing!

I really dislike the way things have gone with specialist help fora; places like Reddit and Stackoverflow go some way to keeping the idea alive, and are packed with useful info, but are twisted by over-optimized merit machinery (i.e. likes / dislikes) that inevitably influence how people behave. Jokes (when allowed) become low-effort high-payoff templates, pecking order is formalized numerically instead of socially, and the whole thing just becomes another rat race where the entrants are as concerned with the structure they exist in as they are with their peers.

[MintyTheCat]

I'm with you on Stackoverflow, Lander - yes, still a good resource

Indeed, the UK banks - and especially that evil HSBC got a proper kicking from the Ombudsman for ripping people off royalty on the Overdrafts - fascists.
For now, they are having to be "kind" to us, peasa....people

It's just that they need us around to be able to pay them later : loose too many peons and that will no longer be possible. The house of cards will topple and there will be blood in the streets, etc.

All a game really that they play with us.

I miss the good old days too

Me and a mate of mine were in central Berlin yesterday and, lo and behold at the "Christmas" "market" they had one of these "Influencer" types hocking herself up, checking her hair, standing a certain way to show the camera her ar$e, etc.

It occurred to me: everything is being commodified: time, spirit, "love", etc. Even money itself is being "commodified".

Half the time, I find myself agreeing with Nick Land these days

[moh]

hope you guys are all doing ok. the days when I was active on this forum were the best years of my life.

[BIL]

Blimey, wondered if that was you in the new posts, moh! Hope you're doing ok out there bud.

[evil_ash_xero]

Population decline is kindof the elephant in the room and is what is needed. The only problem is decline is not setting in in all regions at the same pace, so that'll give huge problems in the next decades.

The "higher ups" aren't letting us have a population decline. Every time a country starts to show it's not having good birthrates, they bring in hundreds of thousands, to millions of people from somewhere
else. And they aren't having a population decline, back home.
So, that's not happening. Only white people and certain Asians seem to not want to breed. Everyone else is fine with having kids. You can try and talk them out of it, but I don't think
it's gonna work. It's a natural instinct that we have beat out of ourselves. But most of the world has not.

How is inflation affecting me? Mainly fast food. It's insane. I don't pay quite enough attention to other things, to be honest. I don't pay too much attention to groceries, as
I don't eat very healthily, so produce and whatnot is not on my receipts.
Wood and metal went up a lot, a batch of years ago. It did affect me, as I was repairing some buildings. It went WAY up.

The cost of labor is ridiculous, as well. That being said, I'm not in an area where we can import Mexicans and get cheap labor. So, I have to pay the full amount. I'm fine with that, as I don't
want some underclass of cheap labor. But it does hurt the wallet.

[Hyperspace]

Well I’m still poor and living like a minimalist. Still pirating all my shmups. Except for my Nintendo switch. Maybe someday I will be able to afford real arcade boards and cabinets. Haven’t been on a vacation for years. And buying food is outrageous.

[neorichieb1971]

Well I’m still poor and living like a minimalist. Still pirating all my shmups. Except for my Nintendo switch. Maybe someday I will be able to afford real arcade boards and cabinets. Haven’t been on a vacation for years. And buying food is outrageous.

Sorry to hear that. I watched a youtube yesterday (ill link it) where these women were 5 figures in credit card debt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihFGlr5p2cQ

Makes me feel rich that I just don't have any credit card debt. I really think the USA considers GDP to be more important than debt these days. Because if that GDP is made up of borrowed money at high interest rates people are living a life which is a lie. My son lives in TN with his brother now as rent in FL where he lived before made him homeless. I have this vision in my head that says if you don't have credit card debt in the USA you are wealthy even if you don't look it. Imagine having to move to a different state to live with family because your 2 jobs don't make ends meet? My sons story is a bit personal and circumstantial but nobody with 2 jobs should be homeless. I did help him out a bit but my wife is also supplementing her mother which is another story.

I know this is a controversial opinion, but seeing how taxing the billionaires/rich seems to be off the table for a host of different reasons. I firmly believe there should be a restriction on what they can buy with that money. If folk with $10m plus are making more passive income in a week than most people make in a year working and not paying taxes on most of it, it stands to reason that if nothing is done a majority of the population will be poor with no assets within 15 years and it will hit the youngsters hardest. Inflation has gotten to borderline modern day slavery now. I think businesses around Homes (if you have more than 1, say 2), Energy and Food should be off the table for those who have extreme wealth.

I'll give you an example of what I think should be a metric of a broken society looks like in the UK where I live, and why being a bank clerk in the UK is possibly the most depressing job right now.

Bank Clerk avg salary - £25000 ($30000). High responsibility (key to safe and unlocking of building, handling huge amounts of money, being responsible for doing everything 100% perfect or major consequences, handling people in desperate situations like denying loans, denying giving their ATM card back because it was issued with another bank etc). There are so many situations which people don't realize a bank clerk goes through.

Lets say you find the cheapest property on the market in your home town and its £150k. Without even looking the bank you work for will deny your application for a mortgage, even if you work there and even if there is a discount on the interest rate. A company which is likely swimming in money with a CEO that has 3 yachts, 5 mansions around the world and a host of other highly priced assets.

Then in your daily activities on the counter, 100 people a day enter your bank and ask for cash withdrawals. The system says these customers main income is universal credits (Benefit payments to anyone outside the UK). You look at half of them and they don't speak English. You look at the other half of them and there is nothing physically wrong with them, they look physically able to work. Most are probably women who have multiple children. Then you look at what they get and you see there is hardly any difference what you get paid as a bank clerk and what these people on benefits are getting.

So that must be depressing being a bank clerk in the UK. And that to me is a metric of a broken system where working doesn't pay. At most you'll get nice vacations and a nicer car if you work. If you're happy living under a benefits system in the inner city and you're friends are walking distance and shops are walking distance and you're happy, what is the incentive to do anything more? I can't see it.

Under my roof there is 2 people, my and my wife. 3 jobs between us. We do ok mainly because my mortgage payment is now cheaper than monthly rent. I had a major life reset in 2006 where I started my life from scratch again. I've had some wobbly years but i'm gradually climbing up the ladder again. Mainly due to holding a single job which has looked after me for nearly 18 years.

The education system is still teaching children for office jobs but you'll find its a dying thing. All the money is digital now and flowing into cloud systems, social media and online shopping. In most cases face to face customer service is heavily in decline.

If you read this far, thanks for reading. Just having a little rant.