this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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$1 in January of 2018 has the same buying power as...$1.24 in December of 2023. "The price of everything" did not increased 100%, it increased 24%.
That also sucks, and you don't have to lie about it to make your point.
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=201801&year2=202312
Tell that to all of us paying upwards of 3X as much for many basic goods, including McChickens.
I am currently telling you that, and your response is to shift from a claim of a 100% increase to a 200% increase which just about proves my point.
Then I'll spell it out for you: your complaint is moot because what actually matters to people is the price listed in this meme, not blatant attempts at distorting what we can clearly see happening in front of our eyes.
We're suffering hyperinflation and no amount of dishonesty and manipulation from you is going to change that. You want it to not be true? Petition McDonald's to lower their prices.
Are McDonalds dollar menu items so absolutely pivotal to your life that it completely breaks down when they raise in price?
Am I so much of a threat to the status quo you benefit from that you completely break down over a picture of the price of a McChicken at McDonald's?
Does it truly matter so much to you?
I don’t think you’re a threat to anyone. I just think it’s kind of baby brained and an overall bad trend for society to think like that
Do you understand what the overall inflation figure means though? You can’t just say “no, that figure about overall inflation in the economy isn’t true, my double whopper supreme is way more than that!!”
Wasn’t Lemmy supposed to be the somewhat “smarter” Reddit where people had taken a basic stats class at some point in their life? I just really don’t get this thinking.
🤔 Oh, I get it. You're one of "those types." The type that'll find any way to dispute anything that tells us something is wrong.
As if the overall inflation figure and other obscure, arcane bullshit changes the fact that a McChicken tripled in price, which is something that deeply and demonstrably affects ALL of our lives whether we eat fast food or not.
No just one side tends to have very complex figures backed by large independent teams of experts in the field and the other has McChicken prices and vibes.
If the other side had like… any real data I would be on board with it
Hot take: a McChicken isn't a basic good.
It is to people who can't afford anything else or cook for themselves. Like the homeless population you claim to care about.
Since 'everything' is an average of all purchases, it pays to point out that necessities like food and housing has gone up significantly higher than upper class luxuries.
Because it is, and always has been, class warfare.
In 2018 I'm pretty sure junior chickens were 1.89... they are 3.89 now, that's double the price.
One fast food chain might have increased the price of one sandwich, that doesn't mean "the price of everything" has "at least" doubled. The price of everything weighed together has increased 24%. We monitor these things scientifically and consistently across time to get as accurate a number as is possible.
You can't refute that by extrapolating the price of one sandwich from one chain in one cherry picked time frame.
Personally I charge people double for me to give a fuck these days so I'd say there's two sandwiches to worry about.
Definitely. I really don’t like posts like this, as they really just feed into a false, conspiratorial narrative wherein somehow every single federal agency and employee, no matter how bureaucratic, monitored, and independent - is under the direct control of whoever happens to be the sitting president at the time.
It’s just fundamentally really not how government (or data collection) works, and it reeks of that dangerous “midwit” territory wherein people feel like they can cite one or two examples of the data seeming off or the government being a bit opaque and they think they’re experts on the subject.
You end up creating a society in which people can’t trust/believe basic facts because everyone keeps convincing eachother that only the vibes of a situation matter
I'm not sure the original post was referring specifically to the inflation of the dollar but it does highlight a real phenomenon in which large corporations are shrinking their product and their workforce, yet prices increase exponentially. I'm not arguing that McDonald's sandwich price changes are reflective of the economy either, but as one of the worst offenders on the planet in regards to corporate greed, there's no question "inflation" only accounts for a small portion of the increase,
Actually McDonald's sandwich prices are literally an economic measure. The big Mac has specifically been used by economists to measure purchase power over time
Yeah that 24% may very well be true for the average of "the price of everything", but food is definitely closer to a 100% increase, so especially people with lower income will be closer to experiencing inflation of up to a hundred percent and not "just" 24.