We were living paycheck to paycheck before that inflation boom too.
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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Yeah. Because wages have remained stagnant, or even decreased relative to prices. Inflation is supposed to be a response to people making more money, but that never happened. So now we're all just effectively poorer.
"I've turned off the oven, yet food is still burnt"
If you really want to compare that to inflation slowing, then you haven't turned off the oven, you just slowed down the rate that you are making it hotter.
They were doing that too begin with though?
They'll keep waiting too. Because without some shock therapy like raising min wage to like $25 an hour overnight and taking that economic hit it's never going to get any better. This is the new normal until that happens.
Prices didn't go back down.
That’s deflation, and is actually really bad for society and the economy overall.
Honestly, more workers need to unionise and restore wages to where they should be (pegging back to rates in the 80s - 90s), minimum wage should be closer $25/hr.
If real wages continue to rise higher than CPI for blue/white collar workers, rather than the capital class - things would be a lot better overall.
Deflation is only bad for an economic system based on the kiddie dream of infinite growth in a finite world
Deflation is actually bad because it would be an incentive to keep rather than spend money as its value would just increase by itself.
Money that is kept and never spent is worthless. Currency has to be used to have value, otherwise it's just paper (or bits). The working class won't hold on to their money, they have bills to pay, groceries to buy, etc. Only the wealthy would hold on to their money, which they're already doing.
That was my point, pretty much. The issue is that money that's kept is useless for society, but if its value increases it gains potential usefulness for its owner. I'm not saying that ordinary people will stop buying food and I'm not saying that corporations are doing community work right now, but the world in which the rich get even richer without even spending their money on something will be problematic at best. The economy will crash while everybody will hold on to whatever moves they have.
Only the wealthy would hold on to their money, which they're already doing.
No, they invest it otherwise it loses value over time. Invested money is put to work.
Work? Like "buying" yet another company? Or stock buybacks?
No, like paying your wages. You should read a bit about how things work before getting upset.
The fuck you think investors do at all? What value do they create? They definitely don't pay my wages from their own "investment". My wages are paid from the profits created by myself and coworkers working to create, market, sell, distribute the product. Soon as those profits don't hit targets investors will absolutely vote to downsize or shutter entirely, not "invest" and continue paying wages.
News flash, most Americans were paycheck to paycheck before inflation, too.
You guys are getting pay checks?
“Inflation” to economists is how much the price is going up this month.
“Inflation” to most people is how much stuff costs.
It feels like there needs to be some acknowledgement of that when this is all talked about, after the superinflation of 2022. The goal should be that prices go back down, not that they go back to going up by 3% per year now that they’re way up high.
You really don't want deflation. The correct thing now is for wages to go up to match the new costs and this has been happening.
The levers which incentives wages closing the gap on the "super inflation" are probably more realistic than the levers that would cause the prices of everything to deflate.
"Many Americans" have always and will always live paycheck to paycheck. Seize the means of production.
CNBC can fuck all the way off with that brain dead journalism.