What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices?
They keep raising prices, stating that it's due to inflation, but then they keep having record profits.
Meanwhile, the average American can barely afford rent or food nowadays.
What are we to do? Vote? I have been but that doesn't seem to do much since I'm just voting for a representative that makes the actual decisions.
Cutting back on spending is the only thing I know that works. When consumers don’t buy things, the prices come down.
For groceries this means splurging less, avoiding things you don’t need (drink tea instead of soda, don’t buy snacks and chips). Fruits and vegetables are definitely still cheaper than prepared foods in many cases. Even when frozen. And they can be used to make a meal stretch, along with beans and rice.
Buy cheap bar soap and store brands of basic things.
Coupons aren’t really a thing anymore, but you can use the app for stores like the grocery, Target, Walmart, to “clip” deals and save.
A lot of the high prices right now are just greed. They aren’t tied to actual supply chain or labor issues. A grocery store in France just told PepsiCo to take a hike because their prices were so outrageous.
If you want the government to get involved, I encourage you to write your representatives about enforcing existing anti-trust laws. The mega mergers and buyouts are driving prices up because of less competition. Kroger wants to buy Albertsons for example. That just means more layoffs and higher grocery prices.
Hope this helps.
The biggest thing is to be aware of how much things should cost, and just refuse to buy them if they're gouging.
Can I afford $13 for a case of Coca-Cola? Sure, I absolutely can. I can afford $24 a case. I'm just not willing to pay that. That same case was $7 in 2019. You can't tell me their costs have doubled.
And even if I believed their costs doubled (and I don't), that doesn't mean their prices have to double. They're not entitled to growing percentage profit on a larger number. Just because they made 20% on that $7 case doesn't mean they deserve 20% on that $13 case. 20% of $7 is $1.40. They could absolutely take $2 profit on $10 and be happy with it. But they won't. Because people don't pay attention and they can get away with it.
There are enough barriers to entry and cooperation among would-be competitors that they can charge basically whatever the duck they choose.
I too choose this man's duck.
cutting back spending is hard when it's one of the main ways to feel joy; you already have to spend on groceries and bills anyway, and it feels that much more stark and grim denying yourself the fun foods and nice convenience items to save like $10, then your rent goes up $50 because they said so, and so what's the point anyhow...
This is why I pirate a lot of my media. Aaarrrr.
At the very least I can be entertained while I am cutting expenses.
I have also found that piracy can scratch my shopping itch without spending any money.
There are other things too. It’ll sound weird but I got into the composting hobby (see: /r/composting ) and for a while I was crazy about getting as much organic material as I could. I’d rake my neighbors leaves, get coffee grounds from cafes, and dumpster dive for cardboard. I’d come home with a good haul and feel that satisfaction of acquiring something. And I was getting exercise and helping the environment in the process. Like I said, weird, but if you get creative you can find ways to have fun without spending money.
You wouldn't download a can of Poopsi
Think of it as a protest then. When they’re charging stupid prices for beef, say “hell no” and eat lentils for a time. It’s all in the attitude. It’s honestly good for us to cut back a bit. If spending money is one’s main way to feel joy then something is wrong to begin with. Time to read a good library book or take more walks for joy. And most of us could stand to eat a little less beef anyway.
I would highly recommended finding other sources of joy. Buying things has been proven again and again to just give small bursts of happiness that quickly fade, this is the cycle these corporations often feed on.
Look into cheap hobbies you can do. Recovering from getting used to these small hits of joy isn't always easy, but it will give you back more control of your life. I'm not perfect at this myself but I am much more aware of it and able to say no in the majority of my life.
You could also look into Minimalisim, there are some interesting ideas in there to be adopted, even if you don't eat the whole pie.
While I personally do appreciate the level of detail and amount of options provided in this reply, the more straightforward and longer-term solution is to eat the rich.
Taxing the Rich might help as well.
Seems to be working in NYC—hopefully it spreads.
I'm fortunate enough to not be in a position where money is tight for food, but re: beans and rice, I absolutely love my instant pot!
Mexican-style beans are, IMHO, delicious, easy to make, and dirt cheap. I love them, our toddler loves them, and it's easy on the wallet. Dry beans are really affordable, and a 25lb bag of rice is great to have in the pantry (note: careful with bulk brown rice as I think it can go rancid). A stove and a pot can do both, but an instant pot and a rice cooker makes it so easy.
I also drink a fair amount of coffee, but again, bulk or even just "make coffee at home" is very affordable. A few cups at Starbucks costs the same as a pound of beans (which yields many cups).
I started buying dry beans recently and it has been a complete game changer for me. Same goes for things like rice, potatoes, and oats. My grocery bill is way lower than it used to be, and I haven't have to skip meals to get through the month in a while. I spend a bit more time cooking now, but I'm a college student with no kids or other major responsibilities, so it's not a big deal in my case. I've honestly started to enjoy cooking, and my roommates are nice about helping me learn.
I dunno why I'm putting all this out there, I guess I'm just happy about it. I grew up hungry, not to the extent that some kids do, but enough that it took a toll. This is the best nourished I've been in my life, and the difference it's made caught me by surprise. I feel better physically, obviously; but I also never realized how much the stress was weighing on me. It's hard to explain, but I feel like a whole different person without it, y'know?
Sorry for getting off topic. I hope it's okay if I leave this here for my own sake lol. But yeah! Rice and beans ftw! xD
Exactly this. Also try Indian Madras Lentils packets (I get them at Costco), really cheap for a serving and microwavable. Also bulk Indian spice pastes if you can get them cheap enough. Makes the rice+beans gourmet for dirt cheap. And with coffee, I've gotten to the point where the biggest cost is actually filters. To help with this I got a reusable mesh filter from Amazon. Works well, easy to clean, and holds up (I've used it for over 100 cups now). Then you're at like 10 - 15¢ / cup if you use bulk coffee mate and sugar.
Beans, rice, and Instant Pot are the best. Instant Pots are also highly repairable in the unlikely event that they break.
This is good advice. And I think it helps to think of it as a protest. None of us wants to deprive ourselves, but if they’re charging stupid prices for beef then give them the middle finger and eat lentils for a time. It can be an empowering experience instead of a shameful one if it’s intentional and you can get your whole family bought into the concept.
Voting is necessary but not sufficient.
The big other thing is to build external power. That’s not like militias per se (though with the rising fascism it’s not a bad idea), but rather stuff like gardening, learning to do repairs, and practicing mutual aid. Reduce your and your community’s dependence on the corporations. And make it an issue people around you care about.
Learning to do repairs yourself has never been easier thanks to YouTube. There's also a ton of sources for replacement parts online these days, many of which provide repair videos for the more common parts. My dishwasher broke a few months ago; $60 for a new intake pump and a few hours of my time and it's working as if it's brand new. My TV died out a little over a year ago; $35 for a new power supply (probably could've repaired it for a few bucks if I had just replaced a capacitor or two) and less than an hour of my time and it's right as rain. Most repair jobs are a lot less daunting than people assume they are.
Unions! Rising prices are irrelevant when workers are paid fairly.
But big daddy government says guns are really bad and only they should have them!!! (jk)
Learning skills like sewing, planting/storing extra food, first aid and knowing how to use a gun isn't something for crazy bunker dwellers or the Amish. It's skills that my grandparents knew.
It makes you more resilient and capable, especially in an emergency when supply chains/govt are strained (that's why the preppers do it). You don't have to go all Stardew Valley but I think it's good stuff to know at a basic level.
As a non American the gun argument for being able to rebel seems like such an empty argument. Assuming you mod your rifle to full automatic fire you are going up against tanks, jets, drones, artillery, the entire armed forces of one of the strongest military forces on this planet. Ak47s didn't work out so well for Iraq why do you think you will be different?
There is an interesting podcast from a few years ago called (if I remember right) "It Could Happen Here: The Second American Civil War". A war correspondant with experience covering the Syrian civil war takes what he observed there as a thought experiment on what modern civil war might be like on American soil. This was released around 2019 I think.
Basically what you see there is riflemen with drones and improvised explosives make a very effective fighting force when paired with smart gurilla tactics.
Vietnam and Afghanistan were not won by the US. The Soviets didn't win the Afghan war in the 80s.
In America rural citizens have weapons and experience using them (war, hunting etc) and can easily disrupt logistics to make life hell for an enemy force. Military vehicles are notorious gas hogs and expensive aircraft can be easily destroyed if caught on the ground. Advanced weaponry can be scrounged. And the factories that make them are built here.
I love my country and also see the flaws of it including our polarization. I hate the very idea of any war here under any circumstances. I see it as an incredibly foolish idea, right alongside "just nuke em". But as the journalist put it, if it came to that we would make "one ass kicker of an insurgency"
But for the record what I was meaning in my initual statement is more for home defense, hunting and so on. Not going against the government but having the capablity to be okay if they can't get help to you in time. Even the best trained police officer is of little use when they are 10 minutes away from you, which is typical in the US. In that regard it's logical to us, just like first aid kits and fire extinguishers. And it's okay if it doesn't make sense to you.
Unironically the answer is "shop less."
Prices on goods rise when demand for goods stays sufficient to support the price going up. The less everyone buys, the less things will cost.
Prices for goods have almost nothing to do with the price of rent, but the mechanisms there are the same - it's just that you have to encourage building rather than "live somewhere less" because the second option really isn't tenable, for obvious reasons.
If you want rent to come down, campaign for, vote for, or even run for office to be the candidate that will change zoning laws and encourage building multifamily housing.
the myth of supply based economics, and other fairytales.
Realistically there is no reason for produce or rent to be increasing in price, there is not any actual reason for the hikes in COL other than "record profits"
Cry and hope for a revolution. Since the Supreme Court decided money is speech, we have no power. Representatives don't care about their constituents unless a message comes with a "charitable donation". The rich are seemingly immune to laws, but somehow there's a surplus of money available to fuck over the little guy. This is a failed country of the corporations, and for the corporations.
Not to promote violence, but I'm afraid nothing is likely to change until people are pushed far enough to do more than hope.
It's okay, this is Lemmy, not reddit.
Unfortunately, many of the people who most heavily dislike the corporate-controlled status quo are feverishly attempting to pass laws to make it harder and more dangerous to do anything other than hope.
Short answer: get paid more
Medium answer: become unionized so that you can bargain collectively for more pay instead of individually. It's like forming a political party with your labour, and then voting for yourself
Unions are a very good answer to this. They aren't a complete solution, but they are a big step in the right direction. And they're something almost everyone can do.
Long answer: direct action
Stop buying their shit. Obviously there's things you need to live and that's fine but stop wasting your money and making them rich by buying all the ancillary shit.
This is the answer. Its simple but not easy. Do you think the average person knows what they're spending money on each month? And how much? One chick I knew was spending almost $500 a month dining out!! A MONTH!
It is difficult to not have any "fun" purchases tho, nearly impossible imo. But you have to have spending discipline and next to no people have that.
But let's say everyone stops spending on non essentials, taken to its conclusion that would leave only grocery stores, dr offices, mechanics, and banks left to do business lol maybe a few others.
But.. those places all price gouge too :(.
Everyone starts growing veggies and fruit, and only buying direct from farmers.
This is good for rural areas and mid sized areas especially. In buffer cities there are lots of co-ops and other resources to do this as well. It's not easy, but it's also one of the easier things to do. Even a small change like buying a few things locally produced is better than nothing.
All are also experiencing higher operating, production costs. Costs that are passed on to the customer.
During and after covid pandemic many fortunate 100 and fortune 500 companies made record breaking profits....
It's just a big, convoluted mix of factors that are hard to separate. Yes, there are far too many bad actors. But also people are getting paid more for the same job, and the value of the dollar has gone to shit. I believe compared to 2019, a dollar in 2019 is $1.18 now. 18% inflation.
Money printer go brrrrr. Everybody, everywhere, is making record breaking profits all the time. And then you've got employers blowing smoke up your bum, saying "You got a 15% raise, wowee zowie, you're more than fairly compensated!" And it's like nice try, jackass, a 15% raise doesn't even keep up with inflation. 🙄
I am not in favor of bad actors, of course, but I know I'm paying a fuckton more than I used to pay for the same stuff. It's just...built-in.
For tracking expenses, I use an app called You Need a Budget (YNAB). It's pretty handy and is great for showing you where all your money goes.
The only solution is to demand more money and buy less. Buying less will decrease demand and cut their profits, having more money will cover inequity.
This pretty much already happened with the “nobody wants to work” bullshit. People moved to better jobs, and jobs that could no longer pay a living wage either raised wages or closed their doors. Workers need to keep demanding more, unionizing, and raising wages to keep the money in their pockets. The people complaining are complaining they can’t have 4 car garages when the employees can’t afford rent. Fuck those people.
France has the right idea about what we were supposed to do.
Protest about every single issue then vote for the most milquetoast president possible, with a side helping of fascist Russian-puppet as a runner up?
Or get out the guillotines which soon get turned on your allies (and innocent poor people), then after that collapses get taken over by a fascist dictator, who undoes most of the progressive changes you made and rampages across Europe, killing millions of people (including French people).
In fairness a fascist or at least authoritarian dictator rampages across Europe every few hundred years, give or take a century, anyways
Why stop at Europe, no one is immune, they just have the most famous framework.
Because they did it so much it spilled over onto several other continents and replicated?
Innocent people die in revolution or war, but generally, in cases like the French revolution, or us civil was, that overthrow a corrupt system for a (slightly) fairer one, society is better off over all. I don't think we need violent revolution but we do need revolution.
You're right, why fight when we get a fascist Russian puppet for free and a president who literally uses Nazi rhetoric to boost his ratings.
At least if we protest, we can either get off this fucking ride or break the machine.
Milk toast?
old family tradition
Eat the rich. Bring back the guillotine.
There's surely appetite building around the world for this. Who will throw the first stone that starts the landslide?
France
Plant a vegetable garden. Build a rain catchment system. Build a solar power system. Read books instead of consuming other media. Buy only local. Start a consumer or retail cooperative. Don't participate in wanton consumerism.
Voting in the US doesn't yield desirable results because of the gerrymandering and the voting system; however most changes which directly affect people are made at a grassroots level so participate in activities at a grassroots level.
This is the answer. And it comes with other benefits also.
I do okay financially. I don't have problems affording necessities. But I have found there is also a lot of satisfaction in being more self-sufficient, in relying less on supply companies to deliver my every need. And it saves a ton of money.
Food is a big one. I used to spend a ton of money on takeout, delivery, junk food. But here's the thing, basic cooking really isn't that hard. It doesn't have to take up a lot of time, especially if you meal prep. And the resulting food is both better in quality and better for you.
On that same thread, the grocery store is not always your friend. Especially if it's one of the big national chains. You will find much better quality produce at your local farmer's market, and it's often cheaper too. Certainly way more flavorful, the vegetable that was in the dirt yesterday tastes way better than the one that's been in a warehouse for a month. Happier chickens lay tastier eggs. Etc.
And there's a lot of stuff you can do yourself. A vegetable garden is a great place to start, if you have even a tiny backyard. Think folding table size. Plant yourself some tomatoes and put up a net frame so animals don't eat them, they will be the best tomatoes you've ever had. But planting and growing stuff is one of the most efficient ways to get food- Stick it in the dirt and water it and you get food for free!
Then think about all the shit we buy. How much of it do we really need? How much of it ends up in the landfill in a year or two? When purchasing things, think about the product entire life cycle and how each step will affect you. IE, Don't just think about the dopamine rush you'll get from unboxing your shiny new toy, or the novelty of using it the first couple times, ask yourself is it going to enhance your life owning it over the long term, and is that amount of enhancement worth its purchase price and the space it consumes?
I worked in logistics for a few years running trucks out of the DRC mainly moving copper cathode and cobalt. When visiting those mines the conditions were horrific from a human and environmental perspective. It really changed how I consume.
Not to mention anything using tantalum capacitors are effectively funding war crimes currently being perpetrated in the DRC.
All of that human life, and the destruction of our plant just to fill a landfill.
This, as much as possible and in as many areas as possible. Keep everything local as much as possible and minimize consumption. I've found that satisfaction arises much more readily from minimum consumption than maximum consumption, which might be why the advertising industry spends billions per year to convince us that backward is forward.
Totally agree with participation at grassroot level though. Run for office because you can count on the ghouls sending a candidate.
I do want to just take a second to highlight this. The idea of buying local and buying from people who make things instead of corporations can be hard. It's expensive. And obviously the point is that we are all struggling. So looking at all the stuff I buy I thinking I need to spend so much more on all of that is daunting.
We all live under the same shitty capitalistic hellscape. We can't get out of it. We can only do what we can. Need a new dresser? A locally made one will cost you a lot. Don't stress about not being able to afford it. If you need to, get a cheaper one.
But for a lot of things, you can get it for just as cheap looking around on Etsy. If they have their own website where you can order it so they don't have to pay Etsy money, even better. My boyfriend is in his last semester of nursing school, so I'm getting him a gift, and it's custom made. It's expensive, but most things I would get him are probably made with cheap labor in another country, and would just help prop up a large corporation.
Does this mean everything I buy is custome made? That it's made locally? No. I can't afford that. But I stopped using Amazon for just about everything, have started buying from people when I can, and it's honestly kind of nice. I got to help someone make a living doing what they want to do, instead of just working a job. So even though we can't afford it all the time, it's great to do it when you can, and not let the idea of it needing to be everything make us feel defeated and then never doing it.
When I said buy local I was specifically talking about food and similar. Depending on few factors such as: climate, availability of land, other people with similar goals, food can be easy to produce either as a group or individual basis and there are systems looking at an aquaponics cycle for example tilapia -> leafy greens -> BSF maggots -> you can either split this into chickens and tilapia or just back into tilapia (we've done this it really requires a group effort and land availability).
Other things as you've mentioned like furniture can be a little more challenging due to economies of scale (also child labour, corruption, and general shittery) that major corporations are able to exploit that a local tradesperson can't.
For this sort of stuff I just try to budget, I never buy it immediately.
I guess it's about compromises, and unfortunately for certain things we have to do so.
To reiterate the importance of a group, it's really made it a lot easier to cut costs by having a group with various expertise.
Oh yeah, food is definitely a great one. I'm lucky in that towards the end of summer, our local vegetable garden will sell a lot of their stuff in front of the local church. It's right next to my apartment complex. I love baking, especially muffins, so I'll go right over there and grab some blue berries and raspberries. Get a pumpkin for Halloween. Maybe some watermelon. And all of that money goes back into things for the garden for the next year. I think it's great.
My wife and I tried to plant a vegetable garden last year, it was our second try after learning some things the previous year. We got a lot of veggies out of it and had a lot of fun. We weren't so interested in saving money, we were more worried about bare shelves at the grocery store. We also have a few chickens.
We are going to make it even better this year.
My new year's resolution this year is to figure out how to build a generator capable of putting out at least 200w. The trick is, I want something that doesn't require a manufactured fuel to run. Solar or wind are obvious options, but I have also considered a steam engine or wood gas engine.
Depending on how complicated you want to make it you can build a pyrolysis plant this produces various forms of fuel and can be run of a solar panel. The feedstock to this plant is plastics waste be careful of the plastics though as certain plastics produce chlorine gas.
I.t.o farming I highly suggest into looking at aeroponics and aquaponics. Both have disadvantages and advantages. You can construct systems using off the shelf materials. Stay away from turn key solutions. Aeroponics is really interesting and we've been playing around with it for a number of years.
You may not like the answer but you need to continue working the political process further upstream and more deeply. It’s easy to just vote for the president every 4 years and then think the system doesn’t work. But it’s too late to have any kind of effect that late in the process. Find more progressive candidates to support and vote in your primaries to support them. Volunteer and help them get out the vote. And do this even if the candidate you like is across the country somewhere, because having more progressive candidates overall helps move the Overton window and shift the party over time. And when you’ve lost the primary and don’t have a progressive choice, do the least bad thing and keep the regressive candidate from winning. You may spend all your life doing all this only for some limited victories and a small net shift if any, but that’s the lot of one person among 300 million. It’s a hell of a lot more impact than the vast majority of people will have. And it’s just the beginning of what you can do. Join a union or run for office yourself and make a more direct impact.
Of course we all live with limitations but few of us are doing as much as we could actually do. I know this well because I have some blue collar friends busy with jobs and kids who still do about 400x more than I do.
That's the correct long term answer. But you might also add that there are forces that actively fight against this kind of prpgress, so in addition to what you've written, I'll add educate yourself and others, and don't fall to the cultural war paradigm the're creating to distract us.
That shit sounds boring.
You guys want to join my radical and poorly regulated militia instead?
Would that require actually meeting up with people? I think I’ll just post messages of despair on the Internet! /s
I know, we can storm the Capitol!
Why not! Lol
Nice, that makes three of us (but the other guy never comes to the meetings)
Boy, you'd think it be easier to recruit revolutionaries in an unhinged lefty commietopia echochamber, as people keep assuring me Lemmy is.
Yep 100%. It actually encourages me that they work so hard to keep people from uniting. It means they’re afraid of it.
vote for people who are in favor of regulations
One related thing to voting that anyone can do:
Start talking about politics again. If it's impolite to talk about politics, only the impolite will be the one's talking. Discuss, respectfully, what your thoughts an opinions are. Challenge ridiculous ideas. Don't just roll your eyes and walk away. Engage (as much as is reasonable, don't start fights)and be prepared with facts.
It's not easy. I don't follow this advice all the time. Pick your battles when it won't affect your career. But be prepared to have the conversation when it comes up.
Join a union and demand more money to pay for it.
While it isn't magic, there is a newfound pressure on the Democratic party to finally break some meaningful ground.
Unfortunately one of the biggest obstacles had been the radically conservative Supreme Court.
Simple arithmetic tells us that if just two Supreme Court Justices were to suddenly disappear from our reality, and re-emerge in another, the court would lean more progressive to allow debt relief, bodily autonomy, and hopefully more.
While there are many ways to suddenly remove people from our plane of existence, there's no proven way to have them re-emerge in another. Obviously it would be illegal and deeply unethical to suggest such removal without the safe relocation to another plane.
So I guess just learn to kiss fascist ass 🤷♂️
I'm sorry, how exactly is the Supreme Court an obstacle to lower consumer prices?
Molotovs are always an option.
Project Mayhem.
Project Mayhem is a populist pseudofacist palingenetic uprising that seeks to replace modern hierarchies with ones exclusively formed around violence
That doesn't sound good at all
It's more of one guy's commentary on toxic masculinity gone completely out of hand, at least according to the author.
The literal point of Tyler Durden is he WAS toxic masculinity gone out of control
That's what I said
If you want to live through 80's dystopian books on this subject, we all need to start learning how to hack; compromise these company's networks, take down their supply chain. In the end, we're enabling them. We can either give up because there are too many of them, or educate ourselves on their weaknesses.
I like the concept of destroying them from the inside. Get a job with them and at the first possible instant do
rm -rfon all their servers.
Cool, you go to jail and their sysadmin restores from backups. Accomplished nothing, ruined your life.
That's like saying "we all need to learn how to be spies and pick locks so we can steal the gold from Fort Knox".
Also, disrupting the supply chain can literally kill people. Look what happened when the Suez canal was blocked.
That will only result in hiring more network security and passing the costs onto consumers.
Eat. The Rich.
They don't move much, I love fatty cuts 🤤
I take stuff from work.
This is the way
You need to be the example you want to see in this world. Buy ZERO Corporate.
That’s it.
Delete subscriptions. Replace your music collection with pirated MP3s. Same with movies.
Learn to cook.
Obviously you’ll have to buy gas. Nothing is perfect.
Make a start.
Tbh, in the digital world Lemmy is actually a nice step imo. But more steps can always be taken (as long they're reasonable). Whether its physical or digital.
Moving everything to Fediverse is a great next step.
Voting with your wallet is literally plutocracy -- those with more dollars get more votes.
Not only is our theoretically bad, but it's practically bad: the impact of a boycott is negligible, but the impact on the people doing the boycott is huge: not having access to the conveniences everyone else has puts us at a significant disadvantage compared to our peers.
And finally, it's not just practically bad, it's actually contraindicated. The executives of a corporation are legally required to maximize immediate returns to their investors. It's literally illegal for a CEO to move a company in the direction of civic responsibility over profit. And it's not just "profit" -- it has to be increasing profit. Line has to go up; they can't just keep it flat, even if "flat" is hugely profitable. To withdraw our financial support will just cause them to squeeze harder on everyone else.
(There's an argument that there might be more profit in social responsibility, but unless you have numbers to back that up, and it demonstrates immediate returns in addition to long term benefits, then it's just a guess, and a guess is never going to be more convincing to shareholders than facts.)
The only way to change this is with regulation, and a cultural shift away from "line goes up" mentality. And you can't effect political change when you're spend 3x as long making dinner because you're boycotting processed food.
Suggesting that we just give up all the conveniences that our labor, our creativity, and our cultural contributions have enabled, for the sake of convincing a CEO to be nicer is just ineffectual.
This moves me.
Thank you.
I’m so distanced from all regulatory processes that they seem literally as impossible as your vision of boycotts. And yet, I now see how pressuring regulatory bodies for the change we want is a very effective tactic.
But it look how long legalized marijuana has taken — that process started in the 70s.
Look how fast Musk was able to turn Twitter into the mouthpiece of fascism. Weeks.
This is what we are dealing with.
I want to push back on your sense of “convenience.”
I am not covetous of streaming. I have abandoned it.
I’m in charge of my media libraries.
What I’m saying is that we can do both: apply pressure on regulatory bodies WHILE abandoning crushing predatory capitalism.
I eat healthily. It does not hurt ME that I refuse to eat corporate bile.
I choose my media. It does not hurt ME that I never see ads.
Anyway — hoping that you can appreciate you have made me value the regulatory pressure argument while I still believe we are powerful.
Oh I pirate the shit out of everything -- and partly it's a boycott, but I think mostly it's the convenience. "Owning" things and enjoying them on my terms (no Internet? No problem) is just better than subscriptions.
And I block ads, 100% for sure. I would literally give up most of the Internet rather than subject myself to ads -- I'm "on the spectrum" and I have a very hard time with overstimulation and distraction, so ads substantially interrupt my ability to read (which I already have trouble with).
Like -- I love lemmy and everything, but I'm here because Reddit disabled the ad-free app I used to use. I was a daily reddit user for like 13 years. if I could still use Relay, my ethical resolve against their anti-user practices, and my personal commitment to foss, probably wouldn't have held up.
My feeling is, if I behave in a way that's conducive with good mental health and life satisfaction, and what I do is also a political statement, then the universe is in harmony.
It's really just the "voting with your wallet' perspective I mean to illuminate and undercut -- it's a very tempting idea, but I would rather we (as a resistance movement) remain sane and comfortable than ascetic and underengaged.
Buying clubs, when you and all your neighbors and friends buy directly from producers can cut out a lot of the graft. This lowers prices, connects you to your neighbors, and lowers the divide between the rural and urban. There may already be buyers cooperatives local to you. Some even give food based on volunteering.
My favourite theory of revolution is where these clubs start to encroach into housing and medicine. Eventually you have an economy based on mutual dependence and responsibility.
I read this as "buying clubs". Like, buy clubs and hit stuff. My first take was "Ah, the violent revolutionary type." :)
Only in my darker moments 😅 Most of the time I think their punishment is having to be a working stiff like the rest of us
How does one start a buying club?
Food co-ops are the most popular form of buyers club and an excellent place to start. Here's a how to guide.
Not buying things is probably the most accessible course of action. I haven't bought a carton of eggs in probably over a year now. Yes, I heard prices went back down. But you know what? Fuck 'em. Companies can't just price-gouge and then pretend everything's cool.
Honestly, learning how to make/grow things yourself and forming a community of others who do the same thing for different items is the most revolutionary act you could do in this world.
Exactly. The christo-fascists love to promote the whole "prepper" thing of being self-reliant and ready for social collapse when the "Communist takeover" happens, but honestly we need to be doing that for the upcoming fascist theocratic dictatorship rn...
Bend over and Get fucked
This, but with whatever group of people you've banded together with to actually afford a place to live.
Hahaha yes!! Sad crying at this because it's so true...both beautiful and tragic.
Steal.
And if you have wooden shoes, throw them into the workings of the capitalist machinery.
Can you explain that last bit? I don't understand the idiom.
The origin of sabotage (sabot meaning shoe). Early factory workers would throw shoes in the gears of new machinery to bind them up.
What he said.
Thank you for this very fun fact!
Have a great weekend.
Shoplift
"If you saw someone stealing food, no you didn't."
Demand that our politicians to stop allowing corporations from buying up all single family housing.
Thats where I would start.
We can literally build as much housing as we want. If a corporation want to invest in housing, it is a good thing. Build baby build.
Join a more radical organisation than the democrats. Participate in rallies, protests and put up flyers. Its not easy.
Instructions unclear: Joined the Trump campaign.
Seek out the competitors to near monopolies? I heard somewhere that all glasses are built and sold by one company (that then sells them to a bunch of different companies so it looks like there is competition), and they can charge incredible markups. There probably are very small companies that make and sell glasses that don't have the economies of scale or ad budgets to get the word out. If enough people bought from them, the monopoly would have to lower prices to their "kill competitors" level to steal back the market-share (or just buyout the little guy). Once dead or absorbed, they can go back to incredible mark-ups, which means we can start the cycle over again and find a new little guy to support.
That or support the maker movements so that anything we need we can just make ourselves (3D printing, bio-hacking, hydroponics and seed banks, general lathe and mill loner libraries, open source software, etc...)
EssilorLuxottica is the current name of that company. Fuck those guys.
if you see someone stealing food...
...no, you didn't!
Organize locally and stop being so dependent on corporations. Try to start a garden if you can, live more sustainably, and reject as many "fees" as you can. Cut cords, go for FOSS software if you can, try to use publicly funded entertainment like parks, and try to cook for yourself, rather than eating out.
If you're already doing all of that, I'm afraid there isn't much more you can do.
this, but zoom out. network with your friends and neighbors to share resources. do your best to trade services in kind rather than money. every time you get what you need without resorting to the market, you've cut out governments and corporations that don't actually do anything for you. Maybe you need clothes and you can't sew, but you can grow and can food. The guy down the street can't work in a garden because his back's fucked up, but he can sew. Maybe you have to buy the fabric from a real store, but then you take the fabric and some jarred tomato sauce to him, and he gives you back something you can wear. He also gives you the jars back when he's done with them, so you can fill them again without having to buy more from the market. Bit of an injury? The other neighbor lady is an RN. She can't save you if you're having a heart attack but she can put in and take out stitches, help relocate a dislocated joint and all sorts of other stuff. She needs her driveway shoveled though, and you can't do it because you're injured but you can make bread, so you give some dope ass cheese bread to the kids that live across the way and they do it. The key here is small groups where people actually know one another with repeated interactions. Capitalism thrives when both sides of the equation have to balance out immediately, because the person you're dealing with is a stranger and is likely to disappear as soon as the deal is done. If you float him when he's short he'll never come back around to make it right. A community economy thrives when everyone in it knows that they're going to see the same people regularly, because that means Pete doesn't have to pay me for this food today. He's Pete. He has lived right down the street for years and he's gonna keep living right down the street for years, and he'll make things right eventually. He'll also float me when I'm the one short, and trust me to make things right eventually. This is how humans interacted economically for a very, very long time. Favors and even giveaways were their own sort of currency.
This is extra tough nowadays, because participating in the capitalist economy is not optional. We can provide some things for one another, but the alternative power structure isn't mature enough that we can realistically feed, house and clothe one another without resorting to the market. So you avoid the market when you can. Trade with your neighbors, do them favors, encourage them to do you favors. When you do have to participate in capitalism, buy unrefined, raw goods where you can and refine them yourself. Each step of refinement that a product goes through has to be profitable for the refiner, so the more refinement a product has gone through the more cost in excess of value is tacked on. Simply put: under capitalism a loaf of bread has to cost more than the ingredients and time it takes to make it or no one would bother to make and sell bread. But we can't all be wheat farmers. So you buy flour, and you deny them the profit of refinement. You buy fabric from the capitalists and put your own time and effort into making that fabric into clothes. You buy a tomato seedling for a couple bucks and you use the only thing that's 100% yours, the sweat of your brow, to turn that seedling into tomatoes. You get real simple and real friendly with the people around you, and you figure out every way you're capable of to avoid the power structure they've built around you and instead to use the power structure that you've built with a small group of people that actually give a fuck about one another. Limit your interfacing with the dominant power structure to strict necessity. And steal from walmart.
I hope urban community gardens were a thing in my country. It would provide fresh and cheap vegetables and I wouldn't mind working at it a few hours per month.
Same. Mixed-use urban infrastructure with community gardens, public transit, and more would be wonderful. Building it yourself is the only option for many.
General strikes, shut shit down.
When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.
Not sure of your means, but we can boycott. Organizations like Trader Joe's and Aldi are a bit cheaper than their competitors while offering also using different sources. Likewise organizations like H Mart or your local farmers market source locally, giving the middle finger to Tyson (who claims inflation and profits) and Kellogs (who uses shrinkflation to claim profits). Obviously this doesn't work for everyone, but I think the majority of city dwellers can make these moves. This also is a fuck you to any local grocery stores trying to do the same bullshit (Walmart).
In the same vein, and what I've done, alternative meal companies have come A LONG way. The company Huel has a instant noodles, pasta, and candy bars that are macro balanced with vitamins and nutrients all for about $5/meal. I know most people will skip this, but they're actually really good. Mac N Cheese, pasta Bolognese and Cajun pasta have actually gotten me to go mostly vegan. There's another one called Outstanding Foods that has cheese puffs, cookies and pork rinds that are macro balanced and delicious as well. My daily meals are often some pasta like Mac N Cheese, one of the Huel shakes (I have a ninja creami so this is ice cream in the summer), and coffee mocha cookies, and another shake. That's 1800 calories with balanced macros and vegan that I didn't have the really cook or think about. If I'm working out, I swap the last shake for a protein shake.
Trader Joe's is just one more shitty company with a nice face.
Ask their warehouse workers. Who will also let you know that where Trader Joe's sources their stuff isn't different than other places, actually.
You will be paying the same companies, in the end.
For cheap food, rice and bulk Indian lentil packets can be around $2.50/meal for good sized portions, $1.50 - $2 for smaller portions and 3 meals/day. See also: ramen, potatoes, off-brand soy sauce, bulk dried seaweed (very healthy and cheap). use an app to track macros yourself and you can save a lot of money. This is assuming you have what you need to boil water, but even a hotplate can do ramen and rice, and potatoes microwave well. Bulk frozen chicken breasts can work for meat if you have a little more money.
Aldi appears to be a good place to work, too 👍
Thieve from big corpos. Don't feel bad about it. They don't.
Getting a criminal record would definitely help me afford food
Don't be stupid about it, don't get greedy. Just give yourself a little discount to offset some of the recent bullshit price inflation and portion shrinkage.
"Fucking corpos choom, they are raising prices, flatlining the poor, and made us a mad murderer who's only satisfied with fake orgies on BDs. Fucking preem."
Johnny? That you?
Pay. AFAIK you don't have any other rights.
Yes. Never vote for a rich person anymore :-)
Move to another country
Easier said than done.
I know but it's the only real solution
If you can't afford food, heat, rent, etc., apply for assistance from things like SNAP and other programs (local, state and federal). Call 211 for information on available resources in your area.
you are suppose to live with it or die according to the law.
Starve.
Be more proactive: light yourself on fire in a Walmart.
Lower consumption
so just not eat at all then?
No. Purchase ingredients instead of products. Stop buying the highly processed, ready to consume, expensive but easy options. It's hard. It is, but it works. I could never afford to feed my family on TV dinners and frozen pizza, but we eat well because rice is cheap and veggies are filling and meat can be stretched. Herbs and spices are a bit of an initial investment, but they go a long way. And believe it or not, eating till you feel full every time is not good for you. And the more you do it the more it takes next time. And commercial food is made to make you try, but also formulated to make it harder to reach that feeling.
The cost of ingredients have gone up anywhere from 75%-300% from corporate greed. Flour went from $1/Lb to $5/Lb. It's actually cheaper in some cases to buy the mass produced version of things like bread.
TL;DR: You can only lower you consumption so much before you starve
What we need are non-profits who engage in agriculture specifically to sell basic goods cheap and to undercut for-profit companies. With automation advancing, it's possible to slash prices in that way.
That would help shift Americans away from capitalism to a post-scarcity economy where they don't have to worry about buying food and such.
General strike/protest? Get enough people making noise on the street and people will have to listen. With a presidential election coming up, Dems won't be able to fully ignore it either.
What we should do is collectively stop paying what the corporations are asking and start negotiating the price of absolutely everything.
For example when we're at the car dealership instead of saying "oh my God I want that car so bad I'll pay anything you want" you say " I'll give you $10,000 less than you're asking for or I'm not going to buy anything from you"
Somehow the corporate elite of not just America but of all other major countries in the world have convinced the populace that you must pay what they're asking when you actually don't have to.
As the consumer you hold all the power you are not required to buy anything you are doing a favor by purchasing products from these corporations.
That's only works if there is a surplus. Manufacturers have gotten really good at only producing exactly what is needed and no more to keep their products in demand.
At some point you will need a new car. My 15 year old Sienna was having more and more expensive problems. Technically I could have kept going but I wanted a car I could trust to make long trips with my family. If it was just me, being stranded for a day wouldn't be a problem.
So I waited 2years for the supply chain to get better before giving up and buying a new Sienna. It was the only one on the lot. I could pay full price or not buy it at all. The dealer didn't have to negotiate because someone else would buy it immediately.
Yes. That's a problem, that guy right behind you is the issue. He's the one that should be negotiating the price.
We need to stop allowing the manufacturer to set whatever price they want.
Meh. The only problem of manufacturers raising prices is out of control executive pay. If the workers are getting more money because a product is desired, then they should benefit.
To an extent, this is already happening. I work in manufacturing, and the last couple of years there was more demand for our product than our factories were physically capable of producing, and prices were raised to weed out the number of customer orders to what we could handle. Projections for this year are for softened demand, and sales expects to have to offer significant price cuts to keep enough orders for our manufacturing lines to stay busy.
Collective "we have enough stuff and will buy less" at work.
As long as we keep capitalism tightly regulated!
https://apnews.com/article/wifi-cartel-michoacan-extortion-mexico-1a5ec0f8fdb0ed88fe6e0e471868d564
Riot.
https://www.bellriots.com/
Not American, but I try to buy most of my daily stuff from independent places instead of supermarkets. The social contacts at my local butcher, bakery, vegetable shop, fish shop, ... is also much more enjoyable than stressing in the Colruyt or whatever. And the produce is way better.
Once they get to know you, they often give freebies too, like offcuts to make bouillon. And you get free cooking tips as well!
The ultra rich know that there's tough times ahead. They're amassing even more resources to try to survive the coming fall off civilization.
And we're all paying for their parachute.
Move to another country?
I’m trying to figure out the same question.
Moving rocks. You should do that. I did that.
I want to move to one of the EU countries maybe even Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. But I have no skills to offer these countries. Can I still move?
Canada would be tough immigration-wise without special skills and it's not very cheap, you could do farm work in new Zealand or Australia and minimum wage would cover you far better than it does in the states, and you don't need benefits because health care is affordable there.
In terms of Europe, Portugal is very reasonable, although I don't know what kind of unskilled work is available and you'd have to learn the language, which is simple but limited to only a few countries around the world.
Australia is probably the easiest of your desired locations: low population relative to land mass, high wages, universal healthcare and education, open unskilled labor market, tons of seasonal work on farms for high pay, no language skills required. Crazy beautiful and clean. No shootings. Rent isn't as cheap as a place like Portugal in the larger cities, but it's there if you look, and you can always live in smaller cities or towns.
There will always be something you have to figure out, but overall everything is just so much cheaper and less stressful abroad that it's worth it to figure out the details.
Australia isn't that much better. Yeah, you're much less likely to get shot unless it's by the cops, but housing and grocery prices are insane. Public health is kind of okay at the moment, but it's slowly and surely being gutted along with most other public services. It's honestly worse than it was even 2-3 years ago. Disability and unemployment are a labyrinthine nightmare of maliciously incompetent bureaucracy. Workers rights don't suck in some places, but if you're coming in on a visa, you may be required to do work in regional areas, and the employers out there 100% know this and will take advantage of it. Some industries have very strong unions (construction). My state has sick pay guarantees for casual workers and jail time is a possibility for wage theft. I think it's the only one where that's true tho. Otoh we just voted nationally to continue systemic racism, we have nazis sieg heiling in the streets, our prime minister is a non-event and the opposition leader is an angry potato.
Iniquity will hit a critical mass, we'll start a 3rd world war, if we survive the war we'll have another post war economy boomer world.
is that a Battletech Atlas?
Ask for a raise.
Join a union, demand at minimum an inflation matching raise.
Asking will do nothing if they are not giving you a raise he default.
While it's great to have a union or a inflation based raise, you still need to ask for a raise.
Take a good look at your contract. Are you doing more than it describes and still getting paid what it does describe? Then it's time for a new contract. Remember, you can have a new contract done at your current job or you can have a new contract done at a new job. If your current manager does not want to review it, then you can do it elsewhere and he will still have to make a new contract for whoever takes your job after you quit. Because of this, it should be in everyones interest that your contract is reviewed.
Use the self checkout and steal half your food
From big corpo stores. Don't dare mess with mom n pop shops, if there are any left.
Considering the likelihood of them having self checkout, shouldn't be a problem!
Yes please! Please please not from locally owned businesses. It's fucking hard rn!! When you have the ability to, please consider small over big businesses. Treat yourself to that local butcher's bacon one month...or take a class at a local studio. Just anything helps. I can tell you, from a group of us small lil guys, we are trying so hard to NOT pass the buck on to you. We are doing anything we can to keep shit affordable, slowly increasing prices (because we literally have to). Omg I fucking hate it!! My goal was to start paying myself this year...I can't. It's complicated, but what I'm doing is so important to me, I will sacrifice until I can't. Do I have a roof? Food? My meds, am I living safely...yes. Am I thriving? No.
Our community is struggling with Gen Z/Alpha Gen being the biggest culprit of thieft. Might be different else where. But please teach your kids to be respectful of AT LEAST small businesses. Fuck big corps!!! Set them loose at a Walmart, team up with them to raid an Amazon Warehouse...I saw nothing. But not us.
Ps: if someone wealthy out there wants to take pitty on me and my situation...will send feet pics for $$$. (+_+)
No mom and pop shop has self checkout.
Don't do this. I used to work at a magistrate and the local Walmart manager walked in with a stack of theft reports every Friday. We sent out court summons to every one of them, and most of them ended up with a criminal record of theft and a hefty fine. It's not worth it.
Who's got a copier at home?
Or at the library!
You have to take action and I don't mean wear an arm band and commit violence. The people in the driver's seat are still people for now. Human beings with families and feelings. Call their companies, say their crimes to their frontline people, ask how they sleep at night. Call the executive offices. Do the same. Keep making noise. Keep protesting. Do not be silent, ever. Keep doing it in en masse until these greedy pigs realize they're killing their own kind through apathy and greed.
Sit ins, phone line jamming, and socially ostracizing. Hold them to task any way you're comfortable. Companies were freaking out over Twitter users and they only represented 3% of the internet at its peak. You have more power than you think.
I'm building a chicken coop and turning my monoculture lawn into a native wildflower/vegetable garden.
If I'm still struggling to feed my family when that's established I will be violently entering the local government offices to issue a complaint.
Honestly, owning a house/property puts you in a better spot than a lot of people. What state are you in?
I'm in an extremely overtaxed state in the central US. I'm currently renting from a very cool landlord for almost a decade. The owner respects the environment and is in full support of my proposed additions, I reside in an unincorporated area so there aren't any HOAs or policing bodies to bother with.
Ahh, owning a chicken coop suggested to me you own property. Not many landlords are going to be ok with stuff like that.
Here's what I'm doing:
Some things I'm considering:
Wow, some terrible answers in here. Look, dumb answers like steal, riot or "eat the rich" don't do anything. You all sitting there acting like internet keyboard warriors literally does nothing to solve this issue so wake up and get a grip.
To answer op's question, the only thing one can do is not engage with it. Price increases or not it's still a free market and you do have choices on what you buy. You don't need a new truck, or phones or organic eggs or whatever they want to sell you. Take care of yourself, learn to be budget conscious, work on your career and your own journey and ignore the rest, it's noise. Truly if you're underwater and can't afford to live where you are, move. There are places in every state that remain cheap. Food should not be a problem in this country. Everyone can afford $50-100 a week for food and you can stay in that budget if you learn what to buy and what to make with it. If everyone did that it'd be far more effective than rioting or stealing or any other dumb response.
"if you don't have any money - spend the money you don't have and move"
Might be the dumbest thing I've read ment as good advice.
Moving won't help the whole country is in the same sinking boat.
Fleeing the country costs even more money and time.
I'd wager more the 70% of people are stuck where they are. Whether they own a home or are renting.
Move. To where? Cuba? Most places don't want the average dumbed down north America.
Moving also men's leaving all your support groups, friends and family. You have any idea how hard and expensive it is to pack up and move someplace where you don't know anyone?
I mostly agree with you, but I think it’s naive to suggest people under financial hardship can just up and move. Moving is a huge burden in both time and money. It also doesn’t consider finding new job(s), uprooting a family, and that while moving to a cheaper area lowers cost, it generally also lowers wages.
It’s also naive to suggest everyone has $50-$100 a week they can spend on food. There are lots of people who don’t have $50-$100 a month to spend on food.
The people who are suffering most under these economic conditions are the people who have the least ability to take themselves or their money elsewhere.
Edit: grammar
If someone doesn't have that little money for food then they have real budget issues to work out. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but finding a solution to that for them is far better than turning to thieving or rioting
Moving is different for everyone but obviously it can be done. Look at the people trying to come here from South America with nothing but the clothes on their back. They're not angry thieves or rioters, they're not mad at corporations or rich people or anything else, they just want an opportunity to work and live a modest life and they're leaving everything behind for the chance at it
Here in America you probably have a car already, some basic essentials and maybe some money to your name. That's more than those migrants have so I know it's possible. My grandparents immigrated to Canada from Austria to flee the war, built their own farm by hand and scratched out a living. My parents moved us every few years for work to make sure we were fine. I moved myself from East Coast to West Coast to escape a bad social life and restarted completely with an unpaid internship, working my way back up. None of it is easy, of course not, I can't give an answer on where to go or what to do for work but at least try because all this other nonsense people are saying is just not helpful and at worst will land people in trouble
Again, I agree, but also disagree.
I agree that using a budget can help people make their money work better for them.
The issue is that people can’t budget their way out of not having enough money to cover basic living expenses. No amount of sitting around and trying to allocate money you don’t have to cover expenses you have to pay will make that money magically appear.
And yes, people under constraints can and do do hard things every day. But it doesn’t always work out like it did for your parents. Investing limited resources into moving is a big risk that isn’t guaranteed to pay off.
I’m not saying you don’t have good points. You do. I don’t know if you mean it this way, but your comments make it seem like you’re taking difficult, multifaceted problems and reducing them down to, “Just make a budget and if that doesn’t work, just move.”
That oversimplification is just as unhelpful as the suggestions like “steal” that you’re criticizing.
Bend over and take it. We can vote corrupt people out, but they generally just get replaced by the same people that can be swayed by lobbyists.
I'm sick right now and went to buy cold medicine... It's fucking TWENTY DOLLARS for a 12 ounce bottle of Vick's Cold and Flu medicine here in Miami. Pretty much every other brand was between $15-25. There was a pack of DayQuil that was $6... It had like 5 doses in it and you're supposed to take it every 4 hours, so like a day's worth... For $6.
A few weeks ago I had to buy laxatives and it was the same thing, everything was $17-$40! I almost shit myself when looking at the prices 🤣
If you had shit yourself looking at the prices you would have saved yourself $17-$40.
If you have the knowledge, means and time, make your own stuff.
The answer is "vote" but not just once. Not just for federal elections. Every election, you should be there. Show up to candidate forums and bother your current electeds.
Every government is like a ship of various size, it takes a while to see the turn even start, let alone have the course actually get corrected. The bigger the government, the harder it can be to get long lasting positive change accomplished. (This isn't a "small government is better" thing either, it's just how large organizations work.)
If you can, run for office. If you can't, find someone you trust who can and support them. Not just Congress or president or governor. City council, county government, school board, on and on...
Prices aren't coming down. Our financial systems are built around inflation and drastic measures will be taken to fight deflation.
You can only reduce expenses so far. As purchasing power fell, steak was replaced with ground beef, and ground beef is getting replaced with beans and rice. What can replace beans and rice? Already, too many people are having sleep for dinner.
The answer is both simple and difficult: we need to get paid more.
Ask their boss for a raise.
Switch jobs if they don't get the raise.
If they can't switch jobs, go to school and get an education in a different career path, then go back to step one.
(On a side note, never stay at the same place more than a couple of years, always be changing and working on your career. It's the best way to gain more wealth, so you can handle companies raising prices better.)
And before you hate on me for expressing the above, just realize I'm stating what the realities are, I'm not the one who created Capitalism.
I personally believe in regulations, including the regulation of wealth, but unfortunately we as citizens don't seem to be able to elect people to office to pass those kind of laws.
I honestly wonder if FDR would be able to pass the 'New Deal' in today's environment.
For me personally? What's worked is being frugal in my spending, rewarding good companies with my monies.
It's allowed me to accumulate some amount of wealth over the years, and I'm doing my small part to help foster a better society.
No one person can make the change, but we all together can make the change.
Pay more. Be good little consumer drones. Not be so selfish when a corporation thinks they should have all your money instead of you.
Die
Recently watched this interesting Gary Stevenson interview.
Not very optimistic but might give you some ideas.
Tl;dr: do everything you can to buy a house and get the rich taxed (much) more.
Do everything you can to buy a house? Don't you suspect the housing market is going to take a dramatic fall within the next few years? That seems like asking people to catch a falling knife.
Tax the wealthy more for sure, but I guess I would suggest keeping powder dry and punching in at some point during the housing market deflation. Else you risk watching your equity dissolve and be worse off for the effort.
The video responds much better than I could. But in short, Gary doesn't believe the housing prices to fall until the rich are taxed more. So get in soon if you can, it's only going to get worse.
Might be wrong, who knows. I'm not able to buy a house currently anyways so I'd have to wait either way.
I watched it again at 1x, and I feel more convinced. The amount of inflationary pressure average people buying homes is going to cause pales in comparison to the amount caused by the very wealthy using them as investment instruments.
That being said, I'm not sure housing is always going to be the asset of choice for the very wealthy, but, I suppose, it'll always be one of them unless the bottom falls out. Which seems inevitable. Nevertheless, the main idea--tax the rich at way higher rates--is true and always has been true. The real question has always been HOW to get that done.
I watched it, admittedly at 2x speed, and I'm really not sure I agree. It seems a but of a self-fulfilling prophecy that more people trying to buy homes, thereby creating more demand in the housing market, is going up increase the cost of houses, i.e., "getting in while you can" is only likely to increase the difficulties of being able to afford a home, but, I'm not an economist, and he is, so I really don't know. Regardless, interesting video.
The term wage slave is a thing. Capitalism is the same as slavery except it's seen as acceptable because we're mislead to believe we have power to change. The system itself is stepping on the lower wage people and using their work for the corporations at and owner's profits, not just lower local wages but abusing labor and resources from even lower wage countries.
violent uprising?
i mean- be complacent and accept that there's totally nothing that can be done about it?
It's not enough for YOU to vote. We ALL need to vote. And not just in the Presidential election. In all elections, including local, state, and most importantly PRIMARIES. We have an FPTP Voting System, which trends us towards a 2 Party system.
In such a voting system, the only way to meaningfully change the position of the parties is to make sure the party is compromised of and is led by people who share your positions and who will actually represent your interests effectively.
1 person voting in a general election that's already narrowed down to a few swing states isn't going to do it. Get everyone you know to get off their asses and vote in primaries, in general elections, and any other local elections you can manage.
If you only have time to vote in one election? Make it the primary for your party.
Voting is the lowest hanging fruit. It will cause the biggest impact for the least amount of effort. If we cannot get our asses to polls we aren't going to get our asses up to do anything harder than voting. Not until people get much more desperate, much hungrier, and much more miserable. I think our voter turnout for primary elections is around 20%. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
Imagine a world where the shittiest candidates were all weeded out months before the general election. That's what the Primaries are for.
Try to still be alive when the cog in the machine breaks and the pendulumn swings the other way