natarey

I mean, this article from from AP is what we're all talking about:

But even as overall price increases slow, it doesn’t mean inflation is reversing or that most prices are falling back to pre-pandemic levels. The consumer price index, the most widely followed measure of inflation, remains about 20% higher than it was before the pandemic.

Milk prices, which have ticked down compared with the past year, are still 23% higher than they were pre-pandemic. Ground beef prices are 31% higher. Gas prices, despite a steep decline from a year ago, are still 46% higher than before the pandemic.

Many economists say a key reason why so many Americans hold a gloomy view of the economy despite very low unemployment and steady hiring is that these prices — on items that they buy regularly — remain much higher than they were three years ago.

https://apnews.com/article/inflation-prices-interest-rates-economy-federal-reserve-1f83d45fc6e30c6864d1b02913ec60c6

Basically, the things that actually matter to most people -- food, fuel, housing, utilities -- remain more expensive than before the pandemic by significant margins. And those prices will never come back down. The best most can hope for is to earn more money to offset the price hike -- which, for most people, means taking on new or additional employment just to be able to get back to where they were before the pandemic. People have lost ground. That's the problem here.

More fundamentally, I think there are a lot of countries that could benefit from taking a good long look at themselves and asking --

• Why does this nation exist?
• Whose needs matter most?
• To what end are our nation's resources directed?
• What are our our priorities?

Because I think a lot of countries have just straight-up lost the plot. They've lost sight of, and fail to articulate, their purpose for existing, and thus squander phenomenal resources on bullshit. They live in myths and fantasies and old cultural scripts that haven't been relevant or functional since the mid-70s.

I think honest answers to those questions would kind of horrify people -- at least, they should horrify American citizens -- and it might spark an actual change of direction.

I'm baffled that you're getting downvotes -- like... yeah. It's a no brainer that people primarily care about their own purchasing power, and the last few years have depressed that to a shocking degree. Not one person on Earth looks at their inability to pay for groceries or rent and goes, "Well, thank God the markets are okay!"

As for what can be done? Price controls exist. Subsidies exist. The trouble with the modern world is, the wrong prices are controlled, and the wrong products are subsidized -- that stuff is all tipped in favor of pouring money into the gullets of the already wealthy and powerful. And that's a problem that could, in theory, be fixed if anyone at any level of any government gave the slightest shit about the people they serve.

Because the seats on aircraft are fucking torture devices, and the sooner I can stand up the less pain and discomfort I'm in.

I'm about fifteen years older than you, and I think what I'd say is, for the United States -- and a lot of developed countries -- the the majority of progress has been made on issues that matter the least in the grand scheme of things.

Like, I agree, a moderate decline in the number of homophobic jokes from culture is a good thing -- but compared to the lack of action on an existential crisis like the climate, or the active encouragement of wealth hoarding, and the deterioration of your once-vaunted democratic norms...? I mean, that's like saying, "At least my executioners were polite!"

Most of that applies to developed countries generally. For the United States specifically, you folks don't have universal healthcare, you have a tremendous problem with guns, you have tremendous problems with education, you've made precious little progress on race issues, you're backsliding on women's rights, and -- to circle back -- it's not like the actual legal situation of LGBTQ folks is great and getting better.

Basically, from the outside, it looks like your nation's vast resources are being applied to everything except improving the lives of your citizens.

And I know someone will say -- "the United States isn't homogeneous -- it's huge and there are a bunch of different states, so things aren't bad EVERYWHERE! Don't trust the news you see!" But, really, that just makes the United States looks like an orange that is slowly rotting. Some parts of it are still orange and healthy-looking, but vast swaths appear to be deep in decay.

Edit: And I really want to say, this isn't sourced from smugness or intended as an insult. It's despair for your situation. And despair for a lot of the rest of us. Because, unfortunately, the end of the United States as a functional democracy is going to pull the keystone out of the modern world, and drag all the rest of us down with you. I desperately want your country to get its shit together, while simultaneously doubting you're capable of doing so at this late date.

This reply sort of makes the point for the OP though -- the American system appears to be broken at levels so fundamental that it's not worth engaging with, much less saving. It's amazing the evil that people are comfortable shrugging at.

That’s super close to my own situation, and why all of this is so maddening to me — we need to move closer to my parents to care for them, but they live in an even more expensive town, and we will never, ever afford to buy there… and my parents won’t move.

You and me both. And lots of people are quick to say shit like, "You could live like a king on that kind of money in rural Louisiana!" Without realizing that the only reason I have said money, or the money for an extortionate monthly mortgage payment, is that I'm tied to a job in a major metropolitan area. If I left the area, no job, no money.

They can release as many headsets as they want — they’re still Facebook and they can still get all the way fucked.

The way things are going, what's next will be to outlaw giving the homeless money.

Always a great sign when your geopolitical neighbors quietly start planning for you to go full fascist.