Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Hoagtech]

You can't eat pants, Ninten!.

Tell me haven't been to the BLS for a stat without saying it.. They report on all major categories not just the cumulative CPI

The overall food category is at 3%. Also a 5 year low. You can’t sensationalize costs rising if they are not rising but are sky high to begin with. I won’t get into whataboutism too much but the last 4 years you can trace each commodity categories rise on our data exported chart on the BLS.

They have an active category graph you can trace any commodity you feel like (no smug condescending required)



The news (legacy) is banking on failure on this next round of tariffs, but don’t believe it’s even a majority of them. Where do you think the 29 billion in tariff revenue came from past month?

The truth is. We are fat cow consumers of the world with a consumer rate 3X above China with 6X less population. If countries want the crack juice poured on their trinket and doodad sales. We are the magic potion and the bottom line doesn’t dip on the red even with a 25% tariff.

[vol.2]

bottom line doesn’t dip on the red even with a 25% tariff.

That's exactly right. The tariffs don't enable protection for US companies even a little bit. Even if the tariffs were far, far higher than that, it would still be cheaper to make almost everything in China.

The only effect they have is to raise taxes on consumers. That will have two effects, increase inflation as the cost of everything goes up, and disproportionately impact people for whom those items make up a larger percentage of their total income (poorer people). This was a calculated tax imposed on lower income people to make up for the operating budget problems caused by the enormous reduction of the corporate tax burden.

Yay billionaires.

[BryanM]

The overall food category is at 3%. Also a 5 year low. You can’t sensationalize costs rising if they are not rising but are sky high to begin with.

Okay you win it's great that prices will go up 35% in the next ten years over a base quantity that is already highly elevated over the real price, but only if this best case scenario continues. And that the future sales tax will not increase the price of things despite that being how we thought taxes worked. Us old folks have lost the edge when it comes to looking up lanyard minutiae during internet arguments that nobody cares about.

Now explain why shooting a 13 month old dog in the head in a gravel pit is okay. And why putting someone who thinks that's cool in charge of the the Department of Homeland Security is a good decision. Please, I'd like comfort to know why the people in charge of humanity's future are righteous and trustworthy folks. If you can find some statistics and math on the BLS website (or some other .gov) to defend puppy murder, I would be highly interested in seeing that.

Srs.

[Hoagtech]

*double post glitch

[Hoagtech]

Okay you win it's great that prices will go up 35% in the next ten years

*I THINK " prices will go up 35% in the next ten years" . I think you hope so that anything you oppose around human rights isn't shunned by being tied to an economic turnaround. But you can hope and ignore all you want. Making deals with Apple, 8 car manufacturers, Silicon and tariff reduction on our exports will have an effect to it's cause, regardless of your feeling based rhetoric

Now explain why shooting a 13 month old dog in the head in a gravel pit is okay. And why putting someone who thinks that's cool in charge of the the Department of Homeland Security is a good decision. Please, I'd like comfort to know why the people in charge of humanity's future are righteous and trustworthy folks. If you can find some statistics and math on the BLS website (or some other .gov) to defend puppy murder, I would be highly interested in seeing that.

It killed chickens. That's what happens to County dogs on the farm. The landowner saved a $240 vet or humane society bill with the same outcome. Its called DIY

I do think her character was hilarious in South Park though. The new season slaps.

[orange808]

Even Forbes agrees that CPI has become a meaningless statistic. Nobody uses it to make business decisions. You used it because you wanted a graph and you had a predetermined argument to make.

[BryanM]

The raw milk E.Coli cases reminded me of one of the potentially good things coming up. There's been a report that the first drug developed using the AlphaFold tool is going into clinical testing soon, a protein that plugs the receptor on E.Coli that gobbles down hemoglobin, which it needs to eat to reproduce.

Demis had some hopes that all diseases could be tractable within ten years or so.

Even Forbes agrees that CPI has become a meaningless statistic. Nobody uses it to make business decisions. You used it because you wanted a graph and you had a predetermined argument to make.

Well yeah. Between the holocaust, the dog murderer who wants to put down racial minorities, and the guy who had a worm die in his brain who wants to give everyone cancer, it's kind of hard to find things that people are 'unfairly' mean to nazis about.

When you have all the power in the world, stomping everyone else into the ground, preparing for the one and true final solution of capitalism, it's hard to make yourself out to be a victim.

Before Covid, the five pound bag of flour at Wal-Mart went for a buckeroo. It's inflated at least 100%, yet is still one of the best life hacks to cheat your way out of paying most of the food rent.

3% on top of a price that's arbitrarily suddenly doubled is effectively a 6% increase over the base price in absolute terms. People on social security certainly didn't have their wages doubled, and then get a 3% pay raise this year.

[Sima Tuna]

And you better believe a shitload of more easily eaten foodstuffs (lots of people don't know wtf to do with a bag of flour) have increased by 2x or more.

Before covid, I used to buy a pound of peanuts for a dollar fitty. The same peanuts cost $3 now. 2.50 on a sale. Same store, same packaging. Now, you can get cheaper peanuts if you buy in bulk at a different shop. I'm just explaining the packaging and the shop I used to buy at. They were one price and then the price pretty well doubled during covid and didn't go back down.

A lot of food items were like that. Fast food has at least doubled in price. Typical takeout/low-income dine in places are a solid 30-50% more than they used to be. I barely eat out ever but the price is always higher than the last time I went to that place, when I do go. Seems like it goes up every month. Nobody out here is getting monthly cost of living increases.

I've ranted on here in the past about bread. Went to the shop today. Entire section of the store devoted to bread, right? All the bread is expensive. $3, $4 a loaf or more. Sometimes much more. Anyway, they had some cheap bread on sale. Guess what? Entire display of the cheap bread was picked clean. There was one loaf of the cheap bread left in that section.

The price wasn't even that good. It wasn't a pre-covid price. I used to get bread that was on sale for $.60 or a dollar a loaf. It wasn't THAT long ago. Pre-covid, I think I could find bread for a dollar fifty a loaf fairly reliably. Now? The cheap stuff is $2 or $2.50. Most bread in the stores is $3-7.

This was a problem under Biden too. I complained about it under Biden. It's a fundamental problem with how cost of living is spiraling out of control and far outpacing real wages. Just like with Biden, we always hear this BS about how the economy is doing so damn good. Then why is everybody I know broke as shit? Why is everyone struggling so hard right now? Profits for some CEO are up, but that doesn't translate at all to working class folks.

The issue with the tariffs is, far from solving any of this, they're acting as a further regressive tax on the working poor, who buy the most cheap and disposable shit (because that's what they can afford.)

[BulletMagnet]

I'm deeply skeptical there's even going to be more elections, srs.

Going by what's transpiring in Texas I'm inclined to guess that, if nobody is willing to intervene, elections will continue to be held but the right's thumb will be so heavily on the scale that it will be nearly impossible for them to lose, and thanks to the Totally Legit Supreme Court it's all perfectly legal. And the Dems continuing to steadfastly refuse to offer an actual alternative will only cement the status quo further.

Your complete and utter inability to see any ethical concerns in that story is depressing, but not at all surprising.

He absolutely sees the ethical concerns the same way he absolutely knows his economic argument is a joke and simply ignores what he can't respond to, he's just a whipped authoritarian lap dog like the rest. Presumably I don't need to propose to you how he or any of his fellow groyper glory holes would have reacted if either this behavior or this economy had occurred under The Other Team.

Meanwhile, Trump is giving Putin safe haven in the US to sign off on a deal to hand him Ukraine. Seems we've completed a trifecta of sorts: we've told the markets that our economic principles are worthless, we've told the armed forces that our promises to them are worthless, and now we're telling the rest of the world that our security guarantees are worthless too. Obviously this is what True Greatness looks like and there will be absolutely no long-reverberating repercussions to speak of.

EDIT: Oh, and in case the Epstein saga wasn't enough to make you momentarily question the notion that the right truly, deeply cares so, so much about protecting (white) girls from sexual abuse, the hits just keep on a-comin'. Pro Tip: Don't stop at the headline. It gets worse.

[vol.2]

Fast food has at least doubled in price.

I went to a Roys last week with my dad and got 3 piece chicken with a side of coleslaw and it was almost $18. My dad literally spent the entire evening bitching to me and my mom that my fast food with $17. And it hurt to think about so I just told him to quit it.

It's going to go up. I know it will. Who the hell can afford that? If you can spend $15 plus on a single meal, why are you going to eat at fast food? I can eat a meal for about $5/person at home to cook for myself and my partner. That's also up from about $4/person before COVID, but it's less of an increase than anything at any restaurant.

[orange808]

If you define inflation as the natural circle where rising costs create wage adjustments and all prices go up, it's not really "inflation" at all when labor costs stay the same. If you're in the monarchy or aristocracy, you can stand your ground, hold or reduce pay, watch the real value of money in the economy decrease, raise your own prices, and make more adjusted profit in the end.