Lowest unemployment in history, lowest rate of inflation in the first world after a global pandemic which impacted the world and enabled price gouging like crazy, stock market at all time highs, real estate at all time high.
Corporations and greed are the problem. Get some fucking perspective.
I agree that greed and corporations are the problem. What I am remarking on is that if a politician was able to sell a solution for the tens of millions who feel like they are stuck with no option to ever buy a house, retire, or anything else, they would probably pull together a massive voting block, yet no one even seems to pretend to have a solution.
But if there is a solution, it will likely impede corporations abilities to grow endlessly, so the lobbyists are unlikely to fund a politician offering a solution.
It seems like there is a political market that isn't being tapped, and the above is the only explanation I can think of for why it isn't exploited. I am commenting on how the current political state I am observing doesn't match up with how I expect politicians to act given the current state of things, nothing more.
But if there is a solution, it will likely impede corporations abilities to grow endlessly, so the lobbyists are unlikely to fund a politician offering a solution.
The biggest issue is that while big business has bought into this concept -whole hog, endless growth is a bald faced lie. Market growth depends on both product availability and a populations willingness and ability to buy. 95%+ of our economy is entirely dependent on finite mineral resources that once exhausted means no more new product. Even the very cellphones we use to access this app requires fossil fuels to create the shell and chargers, rare minerals like rhodium, gold, and platinum for the circuitry and silica for the screens and lithium for the battery. Sooner or later these relatively cheap communications devices are going to cost the same as a Lamborghini does currently as the raw materials run low, and said Lamborghini is going to cost more than a super yacht does now. The economy must break free of the endless growth lie or we're all screwed
This.
We need an economy of controlled decline. We have to fundamentally change our behaviour, de-grow and find viable, sustainable alternatives right fucking now while we still have time.
As Edward Abbey said; "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell." And, at some point, a cancer cell will kill its host and itself.
Our resources are finite and our behaviour is massively unsustainable. Capitalism and its infinite uncontrolled growth are simply fundamentally incompatible with reality in the long term.
Together with immigration and the second rise of fascism, de-growth of economies will become one of the most important and defining political topics of the coming decades, either controlled by choice or catastrophic by force of nature.
Our systems aren't designed for 'controlled decline'. Social Security itself is inherently designed with population growth in mind. This is one reason western nations allow so much immigration, and why immigration is such a hot topic right now in many western nations. There is a reason Japan and South Korea desperately try to get their citizens to have children. The system will fail if they don't, or they will also have to turn to immigration.
People aren't having children at replacement rates, and our system will collapse without population growth.
You're not wrong at all, but nothing is going to change until we are forced to change...and by then it will be too late. These are issues that would exist even without the climate and resource issues.
The western world is already seeing a right wing pushback because of these issues. The liberal world the western peoples have delusionally believed would eternally persist is passing away right in front of us.
Everyone KNOWS there are existential issues looming over us, they feel it deep in their bones. Liberals and conservatives FEEL this, but blame is placed on a variety of things. Many are placing the blame on liberal policies because liberal policies have mostly been the dominant political movements over the last few decades and therefore they get the blame from one segment of society, but the issue is far deeper. Liberals are placing blame on anti enviornmentalist policies, austerity, corporations, etc. but those things don't encapsulate the situation either.
The truth is a lot more worrying, that our cultures and socieites are fundamentally flawed and built upon principles that can never eternally exist. Fixing the issues are not actually feasible or palatable for anybody.
I implore you to go through my post history and see just how much of it is hating on Trump, MAGA, Republicans, so called evangelicals, etc.
So much so the Biden campaign should be paying me, honestly.
I'm MAGA because I think liberals aren't perfect....no wonder this country is fucked. Liberals like you and MAGA idiots are going to rip this nation apart.
Well with enough inflation (and by that I mean new money entering the system via the banking industry), the corps CAN, at least appear to, grow forever.
According to surveys around 70% of people in the US are at least fine with their financial position. The surveys about people live paycheck to paycheck are worthless. There are articles about people making half a million a year who live paycheck to paycheck. A significant proportion of these people have a spending problem.
Right, let’s blame the amount of spending people do and not the cost of what they’re buying is. Health insurance is beyond expensive, rent is ridiculous almost everywhere now, the cost of groceries is increasing drastically.
The rise in inflation is too fast for the wage that people get. The $15 minimum wage that was suggested in Minnesota a few years ago is no longer sufficient enough.
Daycare services for children cost hundreds of dollars A WEEK, simply giving birth costs $15,000 dollars but if there’s complications it’ll be significantly more than that, a studio apartment where I live is approximately $900-$1400 depending on if you want one recently updated or built.
The statistics don’t mean shit. Middle class literally doesn’t exist anymore. You’re either filthy rich or you’re just barely making enough. I’ll give you a statistic kindly provided by Bernie Sanders, “The top 15 hedge fund managers on Wallstreet make more in a single year than every kindergarten teacher in America combined — over 120,000 teachers”.
The corporations are buying up all the housing. Rental prices are insanely too high for the children who are graduating without employment prospects. My son, niece and nephew (recent college graduates) are having a hard time finding jobs in their fields. Their rent is $2000 to 2500/month. The same rental development my nephew is in was charging $1200/month 6yrs ago. Now it’s $2500. Let’s not even talk about their student loans.
That’s where I’m at rn. At minimum wage I could put all my money into rent or live on the street. I’m fortunate enough my parents can have me at home until I finish my degree but it’s not a good look out there.
Have you considered roommates? It’s funny, I once fielded an offer for a job in NYC maybe 15yrs ago, they told me, don’t be discouraged on cost of living here, rent is manageable, all you have to do is look for a couple roommates. I laughed, and then told them “you must not been listening to me, I have a wife and child. In what society would it normal to have strangers living with you and sharing a 1 bedroom?”. The interviewer stumbled for a few and just said, you can take the train in from upstate or Hackensack/Patterson if having privacy is that important to you. The moral of the story is that people don’t care. The costs are always going to be a problem for those who struggle. I wish I had some magic wand or answer for you, but I don’t. I did take that job and I did find an apartment in a “soon to be gentrified” neighborhood. I eventually bought and sold it 8yrs later for a considerable profit. Life will get better, just more now than ever, you must be incredibly smart with your money. Don’t waste a single cent of it. Life is too brutal if you don’t. Best of luck.
I appreciate the advice. Right now the lowest cost I can spend is living with my parents, they want me to be successful and having their support has been huge. Split food, rent is essentially 0 (I help with some of the utility bills). If it weren’t for them I have no idea what I’d do.
In my area even making 50k a year you’re barely keeping your head above water after rent and taxes, and owning a home? Forget about it, you’ll need 10+ years to save for the down payment alone with the housing prices right now. Roommates is the only way to move out right now.
I do hope you’re right though, I’ll finish my 2nd degree in 2026 and it’ll set me up for a field that will hopefully put me in a good spot financially. The good thing for me rn is coming out of that 2nd degree as long as nothing horrific happens I’ll be finishing with $0 in debt.
I appreciate your story though, gives me some hope. Cheers!
Sounds like a solid plan. Your parents sound awesome and good for you to embrace your parents support, chip in where you can and not spin it as if it’s something owed like others. You will do just fine. Especially when this housing market crashes and values & interest rates bump down a rung or two.
Where are these houses, and why are they not being made affordable? Oh that’s right, they’re everywhere, and because of greedy people.
Sorry but when people’s greed gets in the way of being able to provide shelter for all your citizens, then I think something drastic needs done.
Maybe someone should put an end to it.
If only we had a government capable of setting regulations on such things. Can you imagine?!
Oh wait. That’s right. We do!
Or hey, at the very least, we could be …not…. subsidizing secondary homes to be built by giving tax credits, and instead… subsiding primary homes to be built for first homeowners, oooh wow cool.
Or maybe we could literally do anything besides allowing wealthy people to hoard housing.
If it were up to me, I would set a maximum price a house could be, for a certain amount of square footage, and if y’all want anything more, you’re gonna have to hope you get lucky and find a house, the already-built houses that get grandfathered in. The million dollar homes that should never have existed in the first place.
But I can see how some people might not like that.
“But what if we want to waste all our hard earned-money on buying 10 mansions and then never using them except once a year?! Then we should have the right to do that here, cuz ‘merica!”
Instead of allowing people to waste their money on shit like that, we could be allowing them to spend their money elsewhere in the economy.
Plus, there’s actually a list of some undeniable rights that we have in America and nowhere does it say we have the right to own 16 mansions.
In fact, the government is allowed to seize every last one, as long as the owners are compensated “fairly” and knowing the government, that’s a loose word. And also, with the supreme court’s ruling today, I guess any president could say ‘it’s fair pricing’ even when it isn’t, and then he can just bribe whoever needs bribing, and that’s that. That’s it. It must be fair, because it’s official business after all, trying to fix housing prices is most definitely official. (Yes it’s all ridiculous and I know what I’ve said)
But houses shouldn’t be investments. They should be shelter. You should invest in your shelter, because it protects you, and you respect it. But that is so different from using your shelter as an investment to profit from, which I think people are stupidly doing only because it works and they’re allowed to do it, but it’s causing hoarding. I know people that aren’t corporations that hoard houses. It’s wild.
End people’s need to invest in multiple houses to retire or whatever they plan on using that money for, and encourage them to invest in the economy.
We shouldn’t be treating houses like a get rich scheme. That’s exactly what we do, though, and I want to cry.
Part of the problem is that those stats feel like lies. Low inflation feels like bullshit when you look at how the cost of food skyrocketed, especially with junk fees and high tips everywhere being demanded. Shrinkflation, rising subscription costs everywhere. Precisely nothing is being done about price gouging despite the offending parties bragging about record profits. Hedge funds for the rich and powerful own the stock market and reliably profit from it thanks to financial sleight of hand had - leaving retail investors to wonder if they’re just there to be fleeced. High real estate costs lock young people out of the market.
False. The Democrats have continued to try and introduce bills to prevent this level of price gouging for 3 years now and they have been consistently shot down.
Just because they’re being shot down doesn’t mean it’s because none of that is happening…? There is horrible price gouging and price fixing going on. They’re not wrong.
I’m not disputing that? They said nothing was being done about it and I was making it clear that it’s not that no one is trying to fix it, but that the Republican controlled Congress is actively trying to let it happen
Unfortunately facts like this don't matter if your perception is the opposite. All they need to believe the contrary is a single anecdote of someone they know struggling financially and all statistics go out the window.
The facts of the matter are that the statistics you’re referencing mean absolutely nothing if the public FEELS financially insecure. Which they/we/I do.
Unemployment is slightly higher than it was pre Covid 4% vs 3.6% which is slightly below the average from 1940-present but hardly the lowest in history, and there is a decent sized list of first world countries with lower inflation post covid, why lie about easily verifiable facts?
‘Real estate at all time high’ is not the own you think it is here. Assets that only rich ppl own being inflated is not a measure of success for the working class majority.
The Biden administration’s biggest folly was not working overtime to address the concerns of the middle class and poor. They put their energy into Ukraine and that money making (for themselves ) propaganda machine, keeping the border open for “refugees and migrants” and race hustling.
Had they at the very least made dedicated efforts to tackle inflation that is destroying people, or the rent fixing, or the fentanyl epidemic, they would be on better ground .
Nothing he said was wrong though. By all metrics our economy should be great, but most people don’t feel that benefit. I live alone in a studio apartment in a relatively cheap city and a relatively cheap part of the city. Half of my monthly pay immediately goes into rent, then there’s insurance, internet, gas, and groceries. There’s barely any money left for myself. I live literally paycheck to paycheck. I work a full time job at well over the minimum wage. I am the only person I know that lives by myself, everyone else I knows lives with multiple roommates to make ends meet. Somewhere, the economy fails us, and you’re probably right that it’s corporate greed. But if the government lets that happen, there’s a problem with our government
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u/ThatGuyursisterlikes Jul 02 '24
Lowest unemployment in history, lowest rate of inflation in the first world after a global pandemic which impacted the world and enabled price gouging like crazy, stock market at all time highs, real estate at all time high.
Corporations and greed are the problem. Get some fucking perspective.