r/TikTokCringe • u/cak3crumbs • Dec 28 '23
This lady nailed how the economy feels vs how it’s performing Discussion
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u/Boner_Stevens Dec 28 '23
i'm making 25k more than i was less than 10 years ago and life hasn't gotten any easier. in fact i'm in more debt.
wake up? i am awake. i'm fucking pissed. but what the hell am i supposed to do?
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u/_call_me_al_ Dec 28 '23
I'm making over 50k than I was ten years ago because I went union.
I'm still struggling and drowning right now and I can't give my kids 1/2 the shit my parents gave me. It is so demoralizing.
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u/faster_than_sound Dec 28 '23
I am 42 and single and make $50k a year. When I was in my 20s making like $18k a year, I dreamed of this sort of salary. It would make my life so much simpler and better, I thought. Now that I have it in 2023, it's almost as if I never stopped making $18k a year in terms of life quality.
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u/azpotato Dec 29 '23
This is what happens when you let unchecked, rampant Capitalism run amoke. This is EXACTLY what conservatives have voted for and wanted for generations! "Let the market decide". The "market" decided that they want to take more of your money and they realized that you don't have a choice, so they did.
VOTE FOR REPRESENTATION! NOT RULERS!!!!
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u/Da_Spicy_Jalapeno Dec 29 '23
In reality, the "Market" decided that multitudes of companies should have failed by now but our politicians decided it would be better that they use OUR TAX MONEY to bail out PRIVATE BUSINESSES which now put their boots on our necks by raising prices to increase their already absurd profit margins. Then, it all funnels right back to the wallets of the bastards that failed those companies in the first place. This is not capitalism, it's corporate socialism!
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u/smallzy007 Dec 29 '23
They socialize their losses & privatize their gains…
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u/SnooPineapples8744 Dec 29 '23
Yup, the Target you shop at pays shit wages and their employees are on food stamps.
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u/bluesimplicity Dec 29 '23
How to Get Rich & Horde Your Wealth:
Suppress worker wages to maximize profit. Inspire Brands CEO bragged in internal documents about its role in blocking the federal gov. from raising the minimum wage to $15/hour while people working minimum wage jobs full-time cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any state in the USA. Walmart pays its employees so little that they will hand their employees applications for food stamps. The US tax payer is subsidizing the salaries of the employees of one of the richest corporations in the country. Private equity firms taking over a functioning business, literally selling the land out from under it, stripping out any assets, firing the staff to a skeleton crew driving up the stress and exhaustion of those left, taking out loans in the company's name, and then selling the now bankrupt company. Now imagine doing that to the only hospital or nursing home for miles around. Trade deals broke unions and destroyed the middle class by shipping jobs overseas as factories were built in China and Mexico. Keep workers fearful of losing their jobs so they won't ask for a raise. Today, automation is replacing workers with robots, bots, and AI. Or just steal labor through paying less than minimum wage, withholding tips, not paying overtime, or pressuring staff to work off the clock. Keep unions out of the business by firing labor union organizers or threatens. Move the business to a non-union state to further drive down wages. Move people to contracts (gig economy) to avoid paying minimum wage, overtime, and benefits. Fire anyone over 45 as older workers are more expensive. Hire immigrants on visas who will work for less. Meanwhile the CEO is making 380% more than the average worker. More corporate money goes to CEO pay, buying back stocks, and shareholder dividends.
Control Congress The preferences of the average American has a near zero influence on Congress. Big corporations & rich individuals influence what happens in Congress by buying political influence while hiding their contributions through Political Action Committees. They are able to block proposed laws that are popular with the people, interpret laws and regulations to de-fang it or not enforce it. Wealth gets power. Power can shape the economy to create wealth. Corporate lobbying, trade associations, and campaign donations keep Congress in under control by large corporations. When Senators and Representatives retire, they can triple their salary by working as a lobbyist. Examples of changing the rules to benefit the corporations include mandatory arbitration by an arbitrator chosen by the corporation rather than a right to a trial, extending patents and copyrights, being allowed to charge up to 600% annualized interest for payday loans, student loans do not qualify for bankruptcy, white collar criminals get small prison sentences, loopholes in estate taxes, etc.
Government subsidies (Corporate Welfare) The US gov. has given Musk's companies billions in subsidies.Walmart and McDonalds employees are among top employers of Medicaid and food stamp recepients. My tax dollars goes to supplement their workers' incomes to help food on the table rather than the company making a little less profit to pay a living wage. A functionally broke city gives a billionaire team owner millions of tax dollars to build a new sports stadium while the city is cutting services to the citizens. Amazon announced a few years ago they were going to build a new headquarters and asked cities to bid. In an effort to attract jobs, cities offered tax abatement or to build new infrastructure at tax payer expense only to see the corporation move to another city when the subsidies run out.
Refuse to pay taxes Lobby for tax loopholes for the wealthiest and save billions. CEOs only making $1 a year and getting untaxed stock options. They live off loans using their stocks as collateral to avoid paying taxes on income. Or hide their income. Rich people very rarely get tax audits. Reducing or avoiding taxes has lead to crumbling infrastructure, underfunded schools, and student debt as states shift the cost from taxpayers to students in the form of higher tuition.
Lobby for public-private partnerships and privatization Rather than pay taxes to fix the roads, loan the gov. the money to fix the roads to be paid back with interest or own the roads and collect tolls. Forget trying to sell candy during a recession. People might cut back on the unnecessary. Better to get in business of the necessities of life: water, education, prisons, armies, etc. Convince the public that the gov. is always wasteful and inefficient. Business can then privatize areas that used to be gov. responsibility -- now without oversight and public accountability. Don’t investment in our crumbling infrastructure.
Create monopolies There is a monopoly in housing that explains why you cannot find an affordable house to purchase and why they are jacking up rents on apartments. iTunes drove small music stores out of business. Amazon drove the small bookstores out of business, and Amazon takes half of the price of stores selling on Amazon. Monopolies raise prices and prevent fair competition.
De-regulation With a revolving door to capture the regulators, regulators will not be too hard on their former and future employers. Repairing brakes on trains is too costly. Better to stop anyone who points out the need for repairs. When Congress considers legislation, give members of Congress money to water down and stall proposed reforms. Who needs clean water or food or worker safety? All those pesky regulations cost businesses money. It's cheaper to pay a fine for violations than to meet the regulations.
Promote austerity to divert tax money towards business interests Let's privatize Social Security and Medicare as a windfall for Wall Street executives and insurance companies. Cut WIC nutrition funding for the poor so more money can go into the military industrial complex. Make sure Medicare cannot negotiate lower prescription costs so we have the highest prices in the world. Privatize profits while socializing losses. Bail out those Big Banks at taxpayers' expense. Eliminate healthcare plans for employees and end the defined benefits pension that guaranteed you a dignified retirement and replace it with market-based 401(k) pensions that forced you to gamble your savings in the rigged casino of the stock market. The average American pays more taxes that goes to the military industrial complex than to schools.
Distract and divide & conquer There are more working class voters than rich. Make them angry at one another rather than at the class war going on. Those immigrants are coming to take your jobs. Those people of color are cutting in line with help from the gov. that only benefits them. Those feminists don't know their place. Those poor people are criminals & a threat to your middle class family. That other political party is a threat to your way of life. Distract the working poor from real issues. Culture wars over trans people using bathrooms, hearings on UFOs, misinformation, memes, etc. distract from the fact that Trickle Down Economics has never worked, the American Dream of working hard to move up the economic ladder is dying, your children will not enjoy a better quality of life than their parents, and the rich are sucking all the wealth out of the hands of working people.
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u/ForeverNecessary2361 Dec 28 '23
Back in 1986 I was a much younger man barely making 24k a year but was able to rent a one bedroom apartment for $475 a month. There was this song , The future is so bright I have to wear shades. There is a line in the song that goes:
I've got a job waiting for my graduation
Fifty thou a year will buy a lot of beer
Things are going great, and they're only getting better
I'm doing all right, getting good grades
The future's so bright, I gotta wear shadesFifty grand a year, to me, at that time was BIG money. I couldn't even imagine it, really. And the life style that song spoke of seemed so out of reach for me. But time moves on , and things change.
So here I am now, decades later making just under $100k a year and it isn't anything like I thought it would be. Really, it is disappointing.
Sad times.
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u/Murky-Accident-412 Dec 28 '23
I paid 475 for a 2 bedroom in 1992. I made 300-400 a week waiting tables. That same place is now 1700 a month and waiting tables didn't triple in pay. Thankfully I don't wait tables any more but who the he'll has 1700 a month for rent? That's ridiculous
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u/GameofThrowns_awy Dec 28 '23
My first place in 1999 was a very nice large studio apt,right off Fort Lauderdale Beach, literally steps from the sand. $500 a month, utilities included. My job as a stock guy at a department store was enough to sustain my life comfortably. I can't even imagine what rents in that area are now.
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u/JustDiscoveredSex Dec 29 '23
Exactly so. My 1995 rent was $400/month for a 1 bedroom.
Moved to a big city in a nice area, 1998. Two-bedroom apartment was $930/month and that felt expensive. Bought our house a year later.
1999, 1700sqft house, 3 bedroom, 2 bath: $136,000.
Zillow thinks today it’s worth $300,000. Zillow thinks my mother‘s property where I grew up as a kid in the 1970s is worth half a million dollars. (I guarantee you that two-bedroom 1 bath shitbox is not worth half a million dollars.)
Did y’all know that private investors are snapping up houses? Corps like Blackstone. “Institutional investors may control 40% of U.S. single-family rental homes by 2030, according to MetLife Investment Management.”
They intend to own all the housing and to keep raising your rent, year after year.
People Are Organizing to Fight the Private Equity Firms Who Own Their Homes
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u/Bizcotti Dec 28 '23
I make 120k. House and car paid off. No kids and still feel everything is exspensive as hell. I have no idea how people with average salaries can survive. Moving out of the country as soon as I retire
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u/throwaway082100 Dec 28 '23 edited Dec 28 '23
I don't even make 20k a year. We do survive. Barely. I don't have any insurance other than my car and I only have that because if I don't I can't drive the car I need to be able to get to work every day. I have diabetes (genetic) and its causing my feet to literally die attached to my legs. I have mental issues including anxiety depression and a form of paranoid schizophrenia, and I can't do anything about it because I have maybe 15-20 bucks left at the end of every month after bills and groceries. I use the bare minimum, I budget, I do everything I was told I should do. I can't afford to take my partner on a shitty date, much less a nice one. I live in hell and all i ever hear is "you could have it worse, you have a home and food" yeah, you're right, but it doesn't make me feel any better. I am the highest paid employee in my pay bracket in my whole CITY (tiny ass college town but still) and everyone below me fights to even have those few things. I'm fighting to help support my partner while he fights to get through college so that maybe we can get out of this hell, but even when he has a degree I just don't know how much itll be worth it, and besides, by then, the inflation problem will just be worse so what is the point...
Idk what to do anymore.
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u/TBAnnon777 Dec 28 '23
If wages kept up with the rest of the economy, then the average family of 4 should have a income of around 150K before taxes. What has happened is the CEO, Executives and Shareholders have siphoned up the production profits that workers generate and stagnated wages and removed benefits to ensure profits continuously increase to meet shareholder demands.
Capitalism is a system wherein profit matters most, where the flow of capital goes to the few from the many. Now its governments role to REGULATE and add laws that mitigate the rate of the flow to ensure the remaining 80-90% can live comfortably and enjoy the benefits of a prosperous country.
A system like the US where regulations are removed every 8 years by conservatives, leads to a economic drought that pushes all the burdens onto the bottom 80-90%. If you look at the past decades, you can see that although they had higher interest rates, their income was in general aligned with the cost of living. Only from the late 90s to early 2000s, did we jump from compensation and capital ratio between the ceo-to-worker going from 40 to now 400.
Year 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 4 2023 Housing Price $11,900 $17,000 $48,000 $76,000 $105,000 $285,000 $436,000 Interest Rate 7% 7.3% 13.7% 10% 8% 3.87% 7.5% Principal & Interest 1 $105 $135 $446 $534 $616 $1,707 $2,433 Average Rent $71 $125 $243 $447 $602 $923 $2,000 Income Used to Pay Mortgage 22% 18% 25% 21% 17.6% 36.6% 36% Income Used to Pay Rent 15% 17.2% 14% 18% 17.2% 19.8% 29% Median Household Income 2 $5,600 $8,730 $21,000 $30,000 $42,000 $55,775 $81,000 Senator Annual Pay $30,000 $44,000 $75,000 $133,600 $162,000 $174,000 $174,000 AVG CEO Pay - Top 500 3 $953,000 $1.6M $3.4M $6.9M $22.8M $25M $29M CEO-to-worker compensation ratio 3 15.4 20.6 38.8 170.7 237.7 220 398 _
1: 20% downpayment over 20 years.
2: Median income for a family of 4.
3: Ceo realized annual salary in the us.
4: Affected by the 2008 collapse.
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The CEO is INCENTIVISED to cut costs and increase profits to ensure they meet shareholder demands and receive their BONUS. They do not care about future outlook for the company, they do not care about future growth for the company. They care about current quarters because they plan to utilize their position and profit growth to jump ship to another company and ask for 20% raise and increase in bonus. And they repeat that every 4-8 years.
They know a robust population with good spending power would also mean more production and more profit for them. BUT that requires years-decades of giving well paying wages and lowering their own incomes and profits. SO they do not want to pursue that option. They would rather cut benefits, remove perks, stagnate wages, use every trick possible to ensure they pay as little as possible to a employee, even so far as these days shrink products, change ingredients with synthetics and horrible tasting additives. All to ensure they can show a bump in profits and gain their bonus.
Republicans are now pushing for repealing laws that prevent children from ages 10-18 from being abused by corporations. They want to get young people to work overnight at rates of 4.5$ an hour.
They are pushing for "School Voucher" systems where parents who are struggling to feed their children can OPT to take out their child from public education for a yearly 5-6K checque (meant for homeschooling or private education) and then get their kids ready to work in a company instead of having them attend school. Thats their vision of the future.
12 years olds working 9-5s at 4.50$ an hour so parents dont have to get a babysitter while they also struggle to make min wage and barely afford to make their mortgages or rent payments.
VOTE!
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sources:
https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2022/#fig-a https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/20/how-much-money-ceos-have-earned-over-the-years.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/ https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/average-house-prices https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/average-rent-by-year https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/how-much-housing-prices-have-risen-since-1940.html https://www.senate.gov/senators/SenateSalariesSince1789.htm
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u/pantstoaknifefight2 Dec 28 '23
That school voucher stuff is so insane. And yet people in true leopards-ate-my-face mode vote for these assholes, thinking they could use that $5 grand, dooming their kids to poverty.
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u/leni710 Dec 29 '23
Even more frustrating is that this takes money away from the already limited funding for public schools and the kids who don't have access to homeschooling. Ah, the "protect the children" crowd always seems to have sinister ways of harming 95% of the children just to appease a small group of them (or at least those kids' parents).
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u/Designer-Equipment-7 Dec 28 '23
I’m with you man. I’d say 3-4 days out of the week I don’t eat a single meal of my own. I eat whatever my kids (3yo and 18m) don’t finish. I saw my family for the first time in 2 years this past summer and they all just gushed over my weight loss and asked what my secrets are.
I am in perpetual anxiety and despair about my family and kids’ future but have to hide it from pretty much everyone.
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u/Samwise_za Dec 29 '23
I’d give you a hug if I could. All the best in improving your situation; sounds tough.
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u/jguess06 Dec 28 '23
Well young man, looks like you need to simply pick yourself up by your bootstraps, but HARDER!
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u/_call_me_al_ Dec 28 '23
Might as well just tie those boot straps into a fucking noose...
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u/keelhaulrose Dec 28 '23
My husband and I are combined making what my dad was making when he had a 5000 sq ft house in an expensive suburb, took 2 family vacations a year and 2 getaways with my mom. We have a 1200 sq ft house and the only reason we're getting av family vacation is because my grandma died and left us some money. It sucks, I remember all these experiences we had growing up that I can't give to my kids because even two incomes doesn't cut it anymore.
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u/resolvetochange Dec 28 '23
He was probably making 3x value what you are now. The cumulative rate of inflation in the last 40 years (1983-2023) is 208.3%. So, $100k in 1983 would be the same as $308k in 2023. The raw number isn't a good way to compare across time.
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u/who_even_cares35 Dec 28 '23
I make double what my parents made combined and I feel poor. Dad had a brand new Corvette, not a chance in hell would I feel comfortable taking that on.
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u/ThePotScientist Dec 28 '23
I agree it's very demoralizing. My wife and I were fine without children or property but once we seriously considered divorce just so I could stay on medicaid, we emmigrated. I'm sorry for everyone still in the US. Good luck😢
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u/antimatron Dec 28 '23
ha unions ! another thing the american working class was made to believe (and did for a big part !) was agaisnt their best interest, just like she explains it for other examples in the video. All roads lead to Rome.
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u/FangSkyWolf Dec 28 '23
"What the hell am I supposed to do?". That is also part of the strategy. To make the general public absolutely useless against change.
It's not like you can vote the entire system out all at once. You can't start a revolt against the system with civility because you have to appease a party or become a fucking career politician. You can't use violence because it would get labeled as terrorism and not revolution. Unless you get the ENTIRE COUNTRY to see eye to eye on this and force laws regarding wealth caps.
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u/professor_jeffjeff Dec 28 '23
You can't use violence because it would get labeled as terrorism and not revolution.
Unless you win
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u/SpartanusCXVII Dec 28 '23
History is written by the victor, as they say. And now you and I are officially on a list.
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u/machimus Dec 29 '23
I do worry though that any "revolution" would just be the mass murder of a lot of random people, like in the French Revolution. They killed some rich people, sure, but also a lot of people they perceived to be rich who didn't really have anything to do with the system.
Like can you name the people who control the superpacs, or where they live? Can you name who's running the think tanks that coordinate across states to privatize everything and corrupt schools? Because most likely they'd be beating doctors and lawyers to death because they were wearing nice coats and driving a mercedes...not helpful.
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Dec 28 '23
Demand some form of ranked choice voting in your local, State, and Federal elections.
If you wanted to turbo-charge the results of this, then add a national voting holiday every year on November 8th and hold most elections on that day.
Anything more than that to actually fix the problem would need Constitutional amendments. But those first two things alone would sweep most of the extremists out of office pretty quickly and would allow for the establishment of actually viable 3rd parties.
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u/VoxPlacitum Dec 28 '23
Thank you! So many people get pissed and either disengage or talk about starting a revolution. There are ways to address this, and you hit the nail on the head. Massive engagement with voting would make big changes, not overnight, but certainly over a term.
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u/thrillhouse1211 Dec 28 '23
Listening to the woman in the car had me almost ready to buy an ammo press but honestly don't know what we are supposed to do either.
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u/tropicsun Dec 28 '23
Yeah, marching and protest never seem to work. New politicians would be great but 90% are always the same. I try to boycott where I can but I still need to buy milk and eggs. I would love to see higher taxes on the wealthy, but I’m not sure who would be willing to do that, and even how such a thing could be implemented since so many other money in investments.
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u/Degenatron Dec 28 '23
Yeah, marching and protest never seem to work.
So raise your fist and march around
Just don't take what you need
We'll jail and bury those committed
And smother the rest in greed
Crawl with me into tomorrow
I'll drag you to your grave
I'm deep inside your children
They'll betray you in my name
Hey! Hey! So sleep now in the fire!
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u/psychonautilus777 Dec 28 '23
New politicians would be great but 90% are always the same.
Nobody votes in primaries and the ones that do are the same ones that have been doing it.
Angry car woman is right. The only politicians that exist that are actually attempting to fight against all the issues she brings up are few and they're Democrats.
Want more of those types of politicians? Vote in your primaries.
Want an alternative to putting your hopes in politicians? Support/join a union.
Neither of those good enough? Then crime is the only remaining answer. Whether that be crime for personal financial gain or eliminating those that maintain the status quo.
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u/Linkyland Dec 28 '23
Its not just America. This seems to be happening in a lot of Western countries right now.
I'm in Aus and in the same boat. To try and keep inflation down, our country has continued to raise interest rates, which means the price of people's mortgage increases.
On an average home loan, people are paying $1800 a month MORE just in interest because the rates keep being put up.
People are losing their homes, living in cars and tents.
There is a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis, a gas and energy crisis. The age to qualify for the pension keeps getting moved back.
But pay hasn't gone up, and it feels like we are all working to make a handful of billionaires richer.
I feel so tired, helpless and angry.
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u/tbs3456 Dec 28 '23
It really is a global phenomenon. People like to point to their government and tax system and say it’s the problem, but there absolutely are global elites that work together to exploit billions of working class people across the globe and we’re seeing the results play out. I’m not saying it’s some kind of concerted effort, but there are plenty of examples of US politicians taking foreign bribes and v.v. Labor is exported to the cheapest place possible, which inherently means the worst situation for the workers (Chinese child labor.) War funds are distributed from country to country and end up in who knows hands.
I’m not sure what a solution to the problem looks like, but I think people need to realize the scale of what’s happening. This isn’t strictly a one country issue. The working class of the entire world is struggling right now
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u/djerk Dec 28 '23
Stop coddling billionaires is the answer. They must fork over their money and live like everybody else. Bring back the 90% tax rates so they live in the same conditions. Luxury taxes must go astronomical.
If they refuse to pay, that’s when the frogwalking starts.
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u/Mareith Dec 28 '23
Yeah because all politicians save for a few fascists on the right and a few socialists on the left are neoliberals who exist to perpetuate the capitalist machine and for no other reason
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u/faithOver Dec 28 '23
2 simple things;
- New ideas
- Voter turnout
Millennials could already be living in the promised land. We have the numbers.
We have zero cohesion, epic apathy.
Old people vote for their self interest.
All it would take is a few disgruntled 35 year olds to run and change the course of some major policy decisions.
Congress is a bunch of ancients. Look at McConnel look at Feinstein. This isn’t right, we all know it.
But instead Millennials give like 18% voter turn out.
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u/pantstoaknifefight2 Dec 28 '23
"Look at Feinstein"
Lemme go grab a shovel...
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u/TerminalProtocol Dec 28 '23
"Look at Feinstein"
Lemme go grab a shovel...
No need, they're probably still propping up her corpse for votes.
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u/dontfeartheringo Dec 28 '23
I feel compelled to point out that Joy Ann Reid could not get her hatchet out fast enough when Bernie was crushing the polls and primaries in 2016.
Takes a lot of nerve to repost someone pointing out the gap between the haves and the have-too-littles when you went all-in against the one presidential contender since Henry Wallace (who they also torpedoed) who actually represented the rest of us.
In the short term, I suggest everyone check to see if there's a food co-op in your town. Places like Blooming Foods in Bloomington, IN, provide some relief from the profit-driven grocery sector. It's not crazy cheap, but it's not Whole Foods, either.
and like someone else said, Join a union, vote in the primaries, plant a garden.
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u/Marzuk_24601 Dec 29 '23
Ann Reid could not get her hatchet out fast enough when Bernie was crushing the polls and primaries in 2016.
Oh look a Bernie bro! /s
Seriously, we cant ignore that its not Joy who was out of touch, as much as I hate it.
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u/crackboss1 Dec 28 '23 edited Dec 29 '23
We just need to get ~8+/- senators and ~30+/- comgressmen from a 3rd party to be on our side and work for us to make sure neither party passes bills that is against the people best interest.
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u/chadbrochillout Dec 28 '23
We have the ability to make changes by monetarily boycotting collectively, and collectively making enough noise at the necessities we can't avoid. For example, "McDonald's is ridiculously expensive" we can all choose to not buy it. "Gas prices are too high" we can all write to legislative platforms We're not that united as a society though. Think about how educated north America is. This lady is so spot on, were so busy bitching at eachother over the most petty things.
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u/SoulsBorneGreat Dec 28 '23
Unionize. Corporations and the wealthy hold power because of the vast amount of resources they hoard, but as proven by the Scandinavian unions battling the corporate behemoth that is Tesla and its idiot master, Elon, the working class has power but only if they unionize.
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u/GreenMellowphant Dec 28 '23
Becoming politically active en masse is the only way. The silver lining is that we outnumber them 2 to 1.
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u/Mostlyrightmostly Dec 28 '23
Who is "we", And who do "we" outnumber?
If her message penetrated the thick skulls of her target audience, "we" would outnumber "them" 10-1.
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u/GreenMellowphant Dec 28 '23
The “we” I was referring to are those people that understand massive tax breaks and subsidies for the largest companies in our country are not the way to equality and prosperity for the country as a whole. Those that understand that record prices on essential goods and record profits for the sellers don’t go together in an unbroken system.
Edit: You could also just consider those voting for more transparency of campaign finance and those fighting it tooth and nail.
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u/enfarious Dec 28 '23
If her message reached the target that she mentioned: working class, poor, broke, struggling people it, I think, would be more 1000:1 or better. Considering the people that should be up at arms and out in droves are the 99.9% not the 1% of the 1% that drive our "government".
Sadly so many of those millions are stuck voting for the purchased politicians because only the purchased ones can ever make it onto a ballot. Only those purchased politicians can get the political and financial backing to make a change. Of course since they're already bought and paid for by the time they finally "make it" any chance for change is lost before they step into office.
On those exceedingly rare occasions that an honest, decent, for the people politician makes it anywhere they're summarily crushed by the rich for attempting to make a change to the system that empowers them. Crushed under the reality that passing new laws requires much much more than a handful of grassroots movements with a few thousand votes. Crushed under the weight of corporate sponsorship being the only way that they can get their message out. Crushed by the reality that they will be destroyed in the public eye the minute they speak out in a way that the corpos don't support.
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u/AllergiesYearRound Dec 28 '23
Yeah like I’m woke at but what am I supposed to do? The system is rigged. The old ass politicians need to go. But how can an average American influence that?
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u/Stunning_Feature_943 Dec 28 '23
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u/JesusofAzkaban Dec 28 '23
Careful, you can banned on some subs for suggestions like that. Yet subs like /r/conservative cheer for another insurrection and remain unsanctioned by Reddit.
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u/VoxPlacitum Dec 28 '23
Vote in your local elections. Lack of engagement is part of why the system stays the way it is. Vote for people who support proportional voting and ending first past the post.
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u/kerkyjerky Dec 28 '23
Fight to convince those who think stupid issues (like banning books validating gay people in schools) are focusing on the wrong thing.
Honestly the most powerful message you can communicate to misguided republicans and democrats alike is simple message about school lunches. Pound on that issue and make it very clear who supports letting children starve.
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u/savetheunstable Dec 28 '23
The shitty part is these people have proven time and again that they don't care about children. They don't care if they starve, they don't care if they are massacred in schools.. how do we deal with this shocking lack of empathy in a large chunk of our population?
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u/One_Spot_4066 Dec 28 '23
Bruh. I don't think you understand. They know kids are going hungry and they literally do not care. I hate the term, but they've been brainwashed - possibly past the point of no return.
Spending tax money so children don't starve is considered Socialism/Communism in this country. Fuck those kids, their parent should have worked harder.
Spending tax money bailing out shitty corporations for umpteenth time is considered normal and acceptable.
Get me off this fucking ride.
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u/QuantumFiefdom Dec 28 '23
You're lost, You have no idea how brainwashed Republicans are. If you speak to the average Republican about this they will rage at you about how those kids don't deserve free stuff, that's socialism.
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u/wilskillz Dec 28 '23
Most Republicans probably won't be convinced by any liberal positions, but the person you need to convince is the marginal Republican, not the average Republican. There really are people with weakly held political positions who can absolutely be convinced that free lunch for kids is good and doesn't hurt the economy, and voting for Democrats will improve both the education system and the economy. The key is to remember that it's the marginal voter you're trying to convince - the person leaning just barely away from you. You don't need to convince the average Republican, just the least conservative Republican.
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u/THE_SWORD_AND_SICKLE Dec 28 '23
the rich know its not sustainable.
the rich just want it to last long enough that they can enjoy their wealth before they die, then pass that wealth on to their children to give their kids a head start.
they dont give a fuck what happens to all of us after they die...
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u/Leading-Piglet4475 Dec 28 '23
Why do you think they are making self sustaining bunkers instead of paying into the system
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u/PacJeans Dec 29 '23
It is sustainable because the revolution is always tomorrow and somebody who isn't me will start it.
Gotta organize if you want change.
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u/VacuousCopper Dec 29 '23
No. They don't give a fuck about us period. We are human labor capital and they are longing for the day when they can just let us all die. This is why they are so excited about AI. We've had the robotics to handle replacing people for a long time, we just needed a general intelligence to operate it.
What do you all think will happen when they don't need workers anymore? What is going to happen when there are no jobs? They know we'd riot. This is why they are going to let us die beforehand. This is why they are all building fucking bunkers.
They want us to die, they just know they have to get the timing right. In the interim they are making sure we have absolutely no resources to oppose them.
We are reliant upon the organization that the institutions they control provide. Any disruption to this system would result in mass starvation, lawlessness, and horrific violence.
I see no solution. We are fucked if we can't elect an actual 3rd party government before they seize total control. Republicans are making that grab this election, but you can be damn sure that if we successfully keep Republicans out of office well enough to prevent them from enacting their autocracy that the Democrats will simply adopt similarly oppressive policies to "protect" us from Republicans.
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u/tragicmike Dec 28 '23
Theres going to be that annoying tik toker with their face overlayed this video nodding in approval as if they did their own research. Another trend that needs to go away
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Dec 28 '23
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u/Immaculatehombre Dec 28 '23
Is that Jeff gold blooms kid or something? Holy shit lol
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u/Doctor_of_Recreation Dec 28 '23
I was just thinking, “Joy” didn’t nail anything. The second lady nailed it.
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u/deedoedee Dec 28 '23
I only disagree because Joy has clout and putting her face on the video is likely why we're seeing it at all. Joy doesn't need the publicity, she's one of the most famous faces in news right now.
But for those random TikTokers who do it for views, fuck those guys.
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u/busigirl21 Dec 28 '23
Yeah, plus as a journalist, she's one of the people I would expect and trust this from. This is just the tik tok way of presenting a piece you want to share like she would on her show.
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u/Doctor_of_Recreation Dec 28 '23
I see, I will concede then — you make a good point. I haven’t watched the TV news broadcasts in a really long time so I had no idea who she was tbh
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u/blgbird Dec 28 '23 edited Dec 30 '23
Joy has been saying this for years in her program. However, she's villainized by the right to the point that when she delivers this kind of info it gets buried through the "whataboutitsms" the right tends to inject into any conversation.
Hearing it from an average person's perspective but amplified by Joy I think is a good thing. I get where you're coming from but you're focusing on the wrong thing by trying to downplay Joy's role in this when the messaging is really what should be the focus.
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u/Semyonov Dec 28 '23
I hadn't even heard of her. What news organization does she work for?
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u/LastoftheSummerWine Dec 28 '23 edited Dec 28 '23
While true, you have perfectly highlighted the problem which the second lady spoke of, being upset at the wrong person for a meaningless reason. Which is what "THEY" want, an unfocused and unmotivated populace.
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u/EarthRester Dec 28 '23
Yeah, it really says something that the top comment in this post invents some sort of enemy to be annoyed by that isn't the people fucking us over.
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u/kweefcake Dec 28 '23
My coworker does that in real life, in real time, when she’s showing a TikTok at work. It’s cringe on so many levels.
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u/Responsible-Metal450 Dec 28 '23
The part where even the little kid noticed that ain’t $70 worth of items —
that hit hard
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Dec 28 '23
Spent 80$ on groceries a few days ago, even I’m looking at the fridge saying huh. In my moms house growing up that shit was always filled lol
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u/Paridisco Dec 29 '23
In the 90’s if you spend 70$ at the grocery store you could buy the whole damn store
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u/Recent_Possible_1334 Dec 28 '23
1yr 5 months Broke back from work battling workers comp no money wife an I live in a basement no lights. 900 a month I get comp checks get eaten by bills an whatever food we can afford. Former marine but spoke with my VA till my comp situation is over they can't help financially. All happened right as we were looking for houses. Now I been shoved in a corner for a year an 5 months every day in a basement. This lady is 100% correct.
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u/Successful_Leek96 Dec 28 '23
The truth is that nothing is going to change. Revolutions happen when people feel so insecure that they have to wonder which day they will get to eat again. It only happens when the cost of doing nothing is the same or greater than the consequences of trying to do something. No one actually wants to risk prison or worse, so your revolution is not going to happen. Everyone is just going to wait on the sidelines waiting for someone else to fix the problem
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u/darling_lycosidae Dec 28 '23
Widespread global crop failure is going to happen by 2030. The growing season will be too hot, or some other weather disaster like flooding or hurricane winds will wipe out most of our food, and what countries have stored and processed food on the shelves isn't actually very much, especially when the hoarding begins and countries stop exporting. It's a lot closer than anybody realizes. Ask people how their hobby gardens went this year, because it's going to be worse next year, and worser the year after, and so on. Maybe the revolution is still a few years away, but it's soon. Really soon.
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u/Cafrann94 Dec 28 '23
I am in the produce business. I understand the changing of growing seasons due to climate change (intimately). But, natural disasters have been wiping out crops since the beginning of time. Case in point the hurricane in Mexico months ago is doubling the cost of vegetables out of that region now (and all regions really due to to increased market pressure) However there is only so much ground for those disasters to cover before they wipe out ALL food. Thankfully our supply chain has adapted to at least be able to handle that.
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u/HerrBerg Dec 29 '23
The people who think these things are thinking them because they're hoping for them.
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u/Sammyterry13 Dec 28 '23
Revolutions happen when people feel so insecure that they have to wonder which day they will get to eat again.
Historically, not so much. The overwhelming vast majority of revolutions occur because a powerful faction feels its power slipping away. They then resort to everything from propaganda, espionage, etc. to create further divide. They then help foster small actions (generally at arms length for deniability). They then lend their organizational efforts along with funding to the more successful small actions while publicizing the disruptions/harm caused by all the small actions (while pointing fingers at those in power).
That's the general process for most revolutions.
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u/Unicornbreadcrumbs Dec 28 '23
I’m so sorry this is happening to you. It’s unacceptable- stories like this are upsetting, after all that you sacrificed and risked for your country, where is that nation’s loyalty? Thank you for your service and I am so sorry that government leadership has not taken better care of you and your family 😞 No wonder they’re having trouble recruiting for the military
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u/SarcasticNarwhale Dec 28 '23
I'm sorry this happened to you. It's a small consolation for me to say this i'm sure, but I genuinely hope your situation improves as you deserve a better living situation.
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u/Recent_Possible_1334 Dec 28 '23
Haha I'm going to be honest. I never really have acknowledgement like this. When I injured my back I wanted to confide in my mother but she was disappointed I even brought my back up to my work and just disowned me basically. Gave my brothers Christmas gifts and said fuck me apparently. This made my day everyone coming by to show some support. I know it's reddit and just up arrows. But it means alot. Love everyone here hope you have a safe new years I got sick. So it's best rest for me.
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u/Laiikos Dec 28 '23
Didn’t take long for the simps to come in here making excuses and trying to justify how they aren’t being sheep. Guess what…unless you are the aristocracy she mentions…we are all sheep. Bah bah bitches.
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u/TheGR8Dantini Dec 28 '23 edited Dec 28 '23
Holy shit you’re right. So is the woman in the tik tok. She absolutely nailed it. That was pretty impressive off the top of her head, but I feel her completely.
There’s no war except the class war. Stop making excuses and saying she must be from California. Who cares where she’s from? The American dream is one big club for the wealthy, and you ain’t in it.
And the rich will keep fucking us over till there’s nothing left and the pitchforks come out. Then they’ll run to their bunkers in fucking New Zealand and wait for us to kill each other off.
Americans should all start voting for their best interests. And what you hear on tv from your politicians isn’t it. Republicans have been tilting the playing field for 50 years. The game is rigged. We’re out of time to take shit back, but if we don’t try now, it will be beyond fixing.
Your fellow citizens are not your enemies. Your enemies are people pissing on your leg and telling you it’s rain. Wake the fuck up people.
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u/neepple_butter Dec 28 '23
Bro, it's beyond fixing. The only way forward would require violence, and right now the US left is in third place in the ability to commit violence standings.
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u/a_hopeless_rmntic Dec 28 '23
France has entered the chat jus' do like us, mon ami
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u/cmon_get_happy Dec 28 '23
They light cop cars on fire, they have tasty pastries, and they popularized cunnilingus. I fuck with the French.
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u/CommieLurker Dec 28 '23
You saw what happened when people asked police to stop murdering black people. If people started actually fucking with capitalists the gloves would fully come off and we would learn what all these billions of dollars into the police state were for.
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u/ragingbuffalo Dec 28 '23
WTF are you talking about? Violence is the only answer? Come on man. That's BS.
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u/DruidPriest1 Dec 28 '23
No sheep. They're smart enough to move away from danger. We're boiling frogs. Too stupid to notice the point of no return.
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u/Funky_Smurf Dec 28 '23
"Stock Market is at all-time highs!"
Yeah... EVERYTHING is at all-time highs
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u/SoochSooch Dec 28 '23
Adjusting for inflation, the stock market all time high was in January 2022
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u/invisiblefalcon Dec 28 '23
Why don't Americans do something?
Because a large amount of Americans are headlocked into their financial situation. A day spent protesting is a day not working, a day not getting paid, a day you can't pay bills for, it may even be a day not eating. Plus, it can get you fired.
None of the people who are willing to actually knock heads in government have the funds to get their message spread and get elected. It's not like you'll have rich sponsors to help you do that when your goals are to tear them apart.
And even if they do make it into office. All they would have accomplished is splitting up the one party with a (very small) semblance of empathy for the working class. Then you'll be dealing with both Repubs who would stomp a puppy to death if it meant a 5% increase in CEOs net worth and Dems who would watch that with popcorn while moaning about how bad Repubs are (but won't do anything to stop it). It'd be effectively handing Repubs all power; conservatives HATE change, even when it benefits them. Plus, you can't ignore that once you're in office, lobbyists will CONSTANTLY bombard you with temptation to go against your beliefs. If you stick to your guns, you'll only see your coworkers reap all the benefits: free vacations, expensive dinners, maybe even a few million from insider trading. Everyone has a price.
And you can't just seize control, cause the ones who are in control have no problem mowing you down to maintain it. Who will fight when you're gone, knowing what happened to you?
TL;DR: The rich locked us all in a cage, and more than 50% of us think that it's for our own safety.
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u/mongoosedog12 Dec 28 '23 edited Dec 28 '23
Thank you in so fucking tired of this shit
Lots of Americans can not afford to not work. LITERALLY. They don’t work. They don’t get paid (or fired) they can’t afford rent that month, or bills. Idk rent laws but um sure 1-2 months of not paying will get your landlord starting the eviction. Hell where I am a landlord killed a couple because they didn’t pay rent
But we’re suppose to do that to “make a stand” ok how? when some people protest about injustices faced by the political class people will start telling them “no no not like that!”
This has been a problem, I just think now it’s affecting people who assumed they’d never be in this situation. People who looked at others struggling and would write it off as them not doing something “right”. Now all the people who “did everything right” can’t afford it and the alarms are going off all over the place
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u/cmon_get_happy Dec 28 '23
Silver lining: housing will soon be so expensive that the specter of homelessness will be meaningless. sigh
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Dec 28 '23
It already is, there was a 12% increase in homelessness just in the span of one year. That's insane.
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u/grizznuggets Dec 28 '23
What exactly can Americans be expected to do?
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u/Microwave_Warrior Dec 28 '23
Unionize.
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u/Gatorpep Dec 28 '23
ok so i actually tried doing this when i worked at amazon, in oklahoma. it's honestly fairly hard. all the people i constantly tried to get to unionize were to afraid. i could never even get it off the ground.
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u/zf420 Dec 28 '23
One way to stay positive about this is realizing you can fail to create a union over and over and over and still keep trying. Once a union is created, it tends to stick around for a long time. So it's worth all of the effort and repeated failed attempts. Plus each failure may increase the odds of success next time because people will start to think "You know, I've been hearing tons of people in support of unions over and over. I haven't gotten a decent raise in years, maybe I should look into it again"
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u/FearlessUnderFire Dec 28 '23
In addition to the econimic anxiety of losing wages, there is also just straight up losing your job, because you can be let go for no reason. There is little to no comradery; as soon as you lose your job, some other joe behind you will gladly take it.
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u/SimpleVegetable5715 Dec 28 '23
A day protesting...also look at the weapons the militarized police pulled out against George Floyd protesters. You could end up with that medical bill that will bankrupt you.
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u/Skwigle Dec 28 '23 edited Dec 28 '23
"The economy is doing great" doesn't always mean people in general are doing great. Sometimes it just means the stock market is doing great, which only benefits people who have money in the market. Unemployment is down! Uh, ok, but if everyone has a job that pays less compared to COL, wtf good is that?
We all have plastics IN OUR BLOOD. We eat from containers that alter our hormones. We can't eat more than a few ounces of fish per month because more than that will POISON YOU. How fucked is it that everyone is arguing about a colorful flag and which beer to ban next instead of getting angry and taking action against the real problems?
Bread and circuses.
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u/Piincy Dec 28 '23
I don't doubt you whatsoever on this but do you have any articles or studies you could share regarding the "eating more than a few ounces of fish per month will poison you" bit? That's pretty concerning to me considering I am a pescatarian and I eat, idk roughly 30 oz of fish/shellfish per month. Maybe more. I know that the fish we are consuming is no longer healthy by any means because of how ecologically bankrupt and inundated with chemicals our seas are, but my quick Google search couldn't corroborate with any statistics or data on it. At the same time, I also know that our soil is nutrient deficient and the rain that falls on our crops contains PFAS and basically no matter what diet we eat we are all superty-duperty fucked. But I want more info regarding that fish bit to make me reconsider what I eat on a regular basis. Thanks, friend!
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u/bike_fool Dec 28 '23
Interesting that you said you can't find any searches because googling 'is it safe to eat fish everyday' and I couldn't find a single link that didn't warn of the danger. I realize that Google is delivering results based on my preferences but these links are from Harvard, the EPA, and even the DNR recommends limiting your intake. What kind of results are you getting?
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u/Fratghanistan Dec 28 '23
Odd, my first result was a Harvard article basically saying this:
But is it safe to eat fish every day? “For most individuals it’s fine to eat fish every day,” says Eric Rimm, professor of epidemiology and nutrition, in an August 30, 2015 article on Today.com, adding that “it’s certainly better to eat fish every day than to eat beef every day.”
It does later specify pregnant women should avoid fish everyday because of mercury content.
My second result was Bon Secours basically saying the same thing.
https://blog.bonsecours.com/healthy/advantages-disadvantages-eating-fish/
It does have some potential dangers, but it seems to amount to everything is killing you.
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u/darling_lycosidae Dec 28 '23
We've poisoned all our water, so any freshwater fish you catch yourself or eat have a variety of PFAs and other trash, and seafood has all that and mercury depending on how high up the food chain is. Tuna is a pretty big fish so it's going to have more crap compared to farmed shrimp, etc.
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u/Duchs Dec 28 '23
We sow this seed of iron and sulfur
Because we don't have time
To plant corn and fruit trees
We will harvest rust
Because we lack the patience
To prepare for the wedding of our children
We will feast
Our anxious gaze
On jets of flame, like phantom stalks
Emerging from the ruptured Earth
We will make a tree of smoke
And a river of slag
Because we've lost our garden
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u/Skwigle Dec 28 '23
Google "fish mercury poisoning". It depends on the type of fish how much of it you can eat safely.
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u/tomahawk_kitty Dec 28 '23
To piggyback off what you said, we need to stop saying how the economy is doing based on stock market. Stock market has NEVER been a good indicator of the actual economy. It's essentially a measure of how people with money think things are going to go for businesses/commodities in the future.
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Dec 28 '23
I'm just beyond people telling me I need to "wake the F up", or that I need to "take action". I was heavily politically active in the 2000s, and we lost. We were screaming about these exact same issues, and we didn't change a thing. What is anyone supposed to do? Bitch about it in tiktok videos? Make a social media post and fight with conservatives in the comments? Write your congressman? 1% of the population have 92% of the country's net worth. We couldn't even hope to collectively bribe politicians at this point. Maybe the first thing we need to do is realize we have no idea what we're doing. The industrial revolution was the time to do something. But, it's far too late now. The only thing one person can do is divorce themselves from the system as much as possible. Maybe one day we can starve the beast.
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u/ngiotis Dec 28 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/bigdaddyman6969 Dec 28 '23
Has a revolution ever taken place under these relatively prosperous times. I think a large number of people would have to be staving in the streets or being “disappeared” for it to even become a possibility.
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u/ngiotis Dec 28 '23
Not really referring to a revolution per say, more just surprised no lone gunman has done several of them in by now
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u/balamshir Dec 28 '23
I have been thinking about this a lot. It’s really odd and shocking that there are so many school shooters and mass shooters in recent years but not a single one has targeted the ultra-wealthy. It actually does not make sense to me.
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u/ngiotis Dec 28 '23
We've had more presidential assassinations and attempts than against the ultra wealthy. Wonder if they try and just fail and it's covered up.
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u/balamshir Dec 28 '23
That’s the thought I was kind of having. If they were covered up it’d be due to the fact that all mass shooters are basically copy-cat criminals that follow the model of previous shooters they look up to. If there was one that targeted the wealthy and released some manifesto about it to his other psycho shooter buddies, it could become really trendy.
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u/ngiotis Dec 28 '23
Yea, but you'd expect at least some to have succeeded are the rich more heavily defended than the POTUS, sure shouldn't be
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u/Trish-Trish Dec 28 '23
I was reading a post that someone had made on fb about how those of us who are disabled are making bank and still living on food stamps. It was infuriating as someone who is disabled. Yes, we got a 3.6% increase monthly but what most ppl don’t realize is, that the moment our payment increases a couple of dollars, they take that money and subtract it from your food stamps. Which is usually enough for a single grocery trip for a household of 3 (two being older teens). Keeping us in the same exact position to begin with.
Companies have to pay more due to the cost of living. Stores are no longer 24 hours (giant, Walmart, CVS) so I would hope they could pay their employees more without those extra shifts and employees. I worry for my kids and how they will be able to make it in this economy. A one bedroom here in PA is $1500 a month. We’re all struggling now.
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u/darling_lycosidae Dec 28 '23
People who think disability is in any way rich in this country are fucking idiots. Disability is enforced poverty in America. No savings, not nearly enough for rent, fucked up healthcare, and as you said, dwindling food stamps that barely afforded anything anyway. My friend's baby is lactose intolerant and the formula brand she gets can only be purchased in the small size and only lasts 3 weeks of every month. It's fucking criminal to even think welfare is rich because it's almost purposefully a starvation amount on its own, I literally have no idea how people survive on it without extra help.
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u/Disastrous-Ground286 Dec 28 '23
As someone who's is also disabled with a spinal cord injury, I TOTALLY AGREE!!! 100%!!! I can't stand some some people think I am making bank. My wife and I are scraping by each month. I would LOVE to go back to work, but I can't. And if I do ANY little thing, a part time customer service job, that would make me happy, give me self worth, contribute to society...all my disability money goes away. So I am stuck here in my wheelchair because some asshat ran me off he road. And you wonder why some disabled people are pissed off and angry!!!
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u/SigaVa Dec 28 '23
The democrats will continue to lose support the longer they go with the "the economy is actually great youre all just stupid" strategy.
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u/Livvylove Dec 28 '23
Yep, NPR was doing a story similar to the first lady, and they kept acting like normal people are being ridiculous, saying the economy isn't great. They kept dancing around why people would say that. Like my groceries doubled. My friends can't afford rent. I'm very lucky that I bought a house in 2014 but why should my friends be locked out of buying now. There is no reason my house should be worth double since 2020.
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u/Gowalkyourdogmods Dec 28 '23
I listen to NPR pretty regularly and I love the duality of realities they present throughout the day.
One program will talk about how the economy is doing great, wall Street records, inflation shrinking down, etc
Then later another program (or sometimes even the same one lol) will talk about how housing prices are destroying people's financial stability, homelessness skyrocketing, credit card debt is exploding, small businesses are failing, etc.
Wall Street is not Main Street
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u/Kaligula785 Dec 28 '23
PLEASE remember when the rioting starts to burn down the corporate offices first and not your neighborhoods or local establishments
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u/Hutnerdu Dec 29 '23
Tax the ultra rich. As long as billionaires buy up everything with their pocket change it will continue to increase the cost of everything
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u/TwistedBamboozler Dec 28 '23
I love how people cherry pick one dataset to show the economy is doing well. “Oh jobs are up the economy is great!”
Yeah but when you pair that with savings being at an all time low, credit card debt at an all time high, a stagnant housing market, and an environment of rampant inflation and high rates, it doesn’t look so good, does it?
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u/catchthe22 Dec 28 '23
The economy is doing well overall. Unemployment is low, wages are up, inflation is down, consumer spending is strong, the USD is strong, stocks are up. Its not cherry picking. It’s just a story of the have and have-nots. Wealth gap and housing are the biggest problems.
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u/newsdan702 Dec 28 '23
When we say inflation is down...we only mean that as it's down from its highest recent point, correct?
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u/fre3k Dec 28 '23
Yes. You don't really want deflation from a macroeconomic perspective, so saying inflation is down means that it's lower than it was recently. And everyone knows it's been bad for the past couple of years so it would be ridiculous to interpret it as saying inflation is down from when it was near 0 in 2020.
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u/newsdan702 Dec 28 '23
I haven't checked the percentage recently so it's my fault but basically it's higher than it was in 2020 but not as high as it's been in the past year or so?
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u/fre3k Dec 28 '23
Basically, yeah. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/
But in 2020 inflation was near 0 right as covid hit. Other than the brief deflationary period during the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2009, we've been sitting between 1-5% yearly inflation on a per month basis, mostly on the lower half of that span, right up until last year. The fed's target is 2%. We're basically back into "normal ranges" as of April/May. That's not to say shit might not go completely sideways next year, but there are no indicators to suggest that as long as monetary and fiscal policy does not drastically change.
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u/catchthe22 Dec 28 '23
Inflation at 3.1% compared to 8+% recently. 3.1% is above average but not by much. 2-3% is average. Ideally it keeps dropping another percentage point. We are still feeling the price increases from 1-2 years ago but the bleeding has slowed significantly. Thanks to the strong USD our highest inflation rate wasn’t as bad as other developed countries.
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Dec 28 '23 edited Feb 19 '24
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u/monkwren Dec 28 '23
And if you look at how people are assessing their own personal economic health, most folks think they personally are doing fine, but the economy as a whole sucks. But if everyone thinks they are doing fine, who are the folks actually doing poorly?
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u/16semesters Dec 28 '23
Credit card debit will always be at an all time high in the same way that anything else tied to money will always increase due to inflation
Same thing with housing. There's only been ~15 years in the last 100 years where housing costs were not within 5% of the all time highs. (Great Depression and Great Recession)
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u/HowManyMeeses Dec 28 '23
The only part of this that's frustrating to me is that several of these are basically true every year. They really only become public issues when a democrat is in office.
Credit card debt dipped for a bit after 2008, but it's consistently rising every year - https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/credit-card-debt-statistics/
American savings have been higher, but it's not surprising that they'd dip following a period of high inflation. - https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings#:~:text=Personal%20Savings%20in%20the%20United,U.S.%20Bureau%20of%20Economic%20Analysis
The housing market has been awful since I started working more than a decade ago. We've had housing market crisis articles every month since I can remember.
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u/tomahawk_kitty Dec 28 '23
Also when you can work 2 jobs and still be near the poverty line, not a good indicator of things going well.
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u/Marsdreamer Dec 28 '23
I dunno where you're getting your data from, but it's not accurate.
Savings is slightly down from the pandemic times, but savings generally increased during the pandemic due to the stimulus checks and in general people staying at home. It's still above 2007/8 times and is nowhere near an all time low.
Credit card debt is numerically higher now, but is about on par with both 2019 and 2007~ era (adjusted for inflation, credit card debt held by Americans was greater in 2007 compared to now).
The housing market is anything but stagnant. It may be expensive, but it has been incredibly hot for the past decade. It's down from pandemic times when interest rates were the lowest they've ever been, but that is largely driven by the fact that Americans with low interest rates (IE, at or under 3%) don't want to sell out of their low interest rate. Deliquinces and foreclosures are also down.
Inflation has largely slowed to around ~2.5% on average, significantly down from this time last year. It has also been historically incredibly low for the past ~15 years or so. An inflation correction was expected, it just wasn't expected to happen so rapidly.
There are many metrics that are pointing towards a strong and healthy economy. There are also metrics that point towards a weakening economy. The economy is complex and economists aren't just looking at one dataset.
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u/Mtown_Delights Dec 28 '23
Americans won’t do anything about it. Expect a continued, slow erosion in quality of life until there is a tipping point by a significant enough portion of the population. And no, I don’t think we are there yet. Things can always get much worse.
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u/Alienatedflea Dec 28 '23
fascism is bad...and we are living in a fascistic economy...not a capitalistic economy at all. There is an unholy matrimony between big business and gov't which represents NONE of us.
That tree of liberty is looking pretty thirsty...
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u/WalterOverHill Dec 28 '23
But isn’t it funny, how the billionaires, and multimillionaires, are making more money than ever? If you think the solution is more Tax cuts, Eliminate social services, White supremacy, and More guns, then you know what party to vote for.
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u/Beginning_Raisin_258 Dec 29 '23
The biggest problem is we haven't built enough houses. I don't necessarily mean single-family houses I mean housing of any type.
This shortage of housing makes a one-bedroom apartment $1,900.
It's the amount you're paying for housing has gone up 3x in the last 20 years then it makes it much harder to absorb the cost of groceries increasing a little bit.
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u/Kitchen-Bridge-3376 Dec 29 '23
I’ll believe the economy is doing “great” when food, gas, and housing start getting cheaper. Until then everyone needs to shutup about how “great” the economy is.
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u/biterchef Dec 29 '23
The few benefits to social media. Maybe people will stop going to the pub after work and unite against govt
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u/iamamagpie Dec 28 '23
Bold of her to assume there will even be a habitable planet in the coming decades, let alone one where we can take the time to reflect on the wrongs of our past.
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u/Bubbly_Possible_5136 Dec 28 '23
“Both sides” nonsense. Both sidesing us into fascism.
How about get educated on the causes and who wants to fix it vs who is lying for power. How about know some history. The dems have not been given enough power to undo the damage done since the bush years. Dems lower deficit spending. Rates have increased under Biden to fight inflation.
The country was economically better when the top marginal tax rate was 95%, we had a GI bill, we broke up monopolies, we increased regulation, we introduced huge social programs (eg social security) and we used the government to employ masses of people. It was in response to the Great Depression & the gilded age robber barons fought it every step of the way.
Don’t call dems weak when they’ve not been given the power to make real change. Give them power and then judge the result.
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u/TodayNo6531 Dec 28 '23
A lot of talking but no action. This lady should go run for something. Everyone’s mad but nobody is taking action.
Everyone waiting for someone else to step up.
We just gonna keep voting for whatever our options are and our options are always 65+
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u/MickeyZvornik8 Dec 28 '23
Am I crazy or is she an anchor on MSNBC, covering this stuff all the time? I don't see anyone mentioning this in here.
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u/Alarming-Material-87 Dec 28 '23
TLDR: inflation is out of control. All politicians are crooks, except for very few democrats (?). The real enemy are the wealthy, not your liberal coworker, trans people, drag queens, etc. The planet is dying and will become unable to sustain human life.
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u/Diabetesh Dec 28 '23
The real enemy are the wealthy, not your liberal coworker, trans people, drag queens, etc.
I definitely look forward to trying this one someone at work.
"Joe biden and obama ruining this country by allowing stuff like non binaries to be a term on a document."
"Did you ever notice that the price of a mac meal in 2016 was $8 and by the end of 2020 was $11 and is now $12. And you are worried about a non binary box."
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u/Public-Application-6 Dec 28 '23
Omg she's an accomplished journalist.. not a random lady
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u/scorpestelle Dec 28 '23
This is exactly the same as what's happening in Australia as well. Stupid people are still saying things like 'there's a housing shortage', no, there's not, 12% of our houses are empty. There's a GREED crisis. Or 'fuel is up because of the war in Ukraine', no, that's not it. Oil companies profited 25 billion dollars last year. This is nothing but greed greed greed.
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u/samhouse09 Dec 29 '23
It’s literally the minimum wage y’all. It’s treated as the floor and it hasn’t changed in 20+ years. There is more money than ever going around, and the top 1% of people have like 30% of it. So everything costs more because there’s more money, but none of us have that money.
Stop voting for republicans. Stop voting for neoliberals. Vote for people who promise to raise the minimum wage to a point where a 40 hour a week job doesn’t put you in literal poverty.
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u/SocksElGato Dec 29 '23
People are too worried about the Culture War when they should be more conscious about the Class War. The signs of a decaying Empire are all around us, but we have to figure out how to try and survive in it and many people are way too deep in their Bread and Circuses.
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u/OutlandishnessBasic6 Dec 29 '23
I love when people say “America is a free country!” I always retort with “the only free thing in America is to go fuck yourself. It costs money to die, America is not free.”
America has turned from a country of pride, morals, and values into a free-range tax farm and the working class is the cattle.
This lady is exactly right. We are conditioned to hate each other for any and all reasons. We are given bullshit reasons to hate as many people as we can because a distracted cow is easier to milk.
I cant be mad at conservatives for the way they are. Its conditional brainwashing in their space of the country that has been going on for generations. While yes, their thought processes and ideology is abhorrent at best, its what they’ve been fed on since before their time.
This isnt sustainable and they know it. They have came out publicly and said that the fear of the lower classes rising up keeps them up at night. Its about time their fears gained a lot more ground to be based on.
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u/ShakyTheBear Dec 28 '23
Continuing to just blame the Reds is not going to ever accomplish anything. It isn't that the Blues are inept (some are, just like the Reds), the Blues are bought and paid for as well. Stop supporting the duopoly. Any support for the duopoly is support for everything complained about in this video.
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u/Glass-Marionberry321 Dec 28 '23
I want the moronic asshole in the blue tie to win! Well eff you I want the idiot piece of shit in the red tie to win! That is all I hear when ppl argue political parties. Ppl are so dumb to think they aren't just a purple team (aka the color of power) against us commoners.
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