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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by kleeon@hexbear.net to c/the_dunk_tank@hexbear.net
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[-] D61@hexbear.net 109 points 1 year ago

Last year the bread price went from 2.50 a loaf to 2.75. This year the price of bread ONLY rose from 2.75 to 2.90. See? Things are getting better! very-smart

[-] VernetheJules@hexbear.net 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
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[-] star_wraith@hexbear.net 100 points 1 year ago

rate of inflation

Weasel question. If the inflation rate was 15% last year and then “only” 13%, then technically the rate of inflation has gone down up obviously you still have the issue of higher prices than last year.

[-] PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net 88 points 1 year ago

rate of inflation

As @sovietknuckles@hexbear.net said a few days ago:

When your data doesn't confirm the point you want to make, just add more derivatives

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 42 points 1 year ago

"According to our expert analysis, wage growth actually outpaced inflation from 2:36:03 AM to 2:36:07 AM on the 14/11/2023, therefore you should all quit complaining about inflation, it's actually fine, don't worry about it."

[-] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 37 points 1 year ago

cannot wait for bourgeois economists to discuss the jerk, snap, crackle, and pop of inflation

[-] invo_rt@hexbear.net 37 points 1 year ago

What no fundamental theorem of calculus does to a mfer yea

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[-] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 93 points 1 year ago

My mistake, I thought everything costs more and rent has fucking tripled since covid. I guess I'm actually not poor despite my lack of money

[-] GinAndJuche@hexbear.net 79 points 1 year ago

Did you read the basket of goods they use? It includes a tv ffs. Apparently tv prices matter to people who have to choose which meal they skip.

The wall is too kind for these stains upon humanity

I for one am purchasing a new TV each month. It’s a staple for our household. We go out and it’s like a nice little tradition we’ve established. Then we put it in the living room, hold hands, and skip around it chanting while we burn the old one at its feet so it knows to behave.

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[-] plinky@hexbear.net 88 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Real average hourly earnings increased 0.8 percent, seasonally adjusted, from October 2022 to October 2023. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 0.9 percent in the average workweek resulted in no change in real average weekly earnings over this period.

edgeworth-shrug

[-] Maoo@hexbear.net 79 points 1 year ago

Now ask them to adjust for housing costs, which they more or less never do.

[-] invalidusernamelol@hexbear.net 84 points 1 year ago

They almost never include necessities in these calculations. To them the real measure of economic activity is the price of 65" TVs dropping 10%, not rent going up 100% or housing prices going up 200-300%, or food prices going up 60%.

Hey, you can get a smart TV for 85% the adjusted price of one last year and wages have gone up .8% on average meaning you can open another tv! Why are you complaining?

[-] Parsani@hexbear.net 61 points 1 year ago

Idk about you but new TVs is a primary monthly expense for me. I have like 6 in my bathroom alone.

[-] alcoholicorn@hexbear.net 30 points 1 year ago

I have 8 in the room I'm in right now.

I bought one of them from a store, the rest are second-hand, 2 are over 20 years old.

IDK why anyone would use a consumer good that people buy on average like once a decade. Might as well include mattress and car prices in there.

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[-] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 42 points 1 year ago

This is what these policy wonk nerds do they mire you down in the little details, "um, SIR, ACTUALLY you got 0.8cents of a raise, adjusted for inflation in QE 3 of 2024, ipso facto things are better than 30 years go nerd "

[-] plinky@hexbear.net 38 points 1 year ago

That's even without jumping into quintiles. If two quintiles got shit on, and two got the bombenomics bonus, you'll have your half of population mad. Not that ft cares

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[-] Mindfury@hexbear.net 79 points 1 year ago

hey nerd, break question 1 down into income quartiles for me.

oh, look at that - the other 4 questions have immediately been explained by the rate of wage increase per income quartile? wow

[-] Mindfury@hexbear.net 57 points 1 year ago

fuck, i went to the replies and Aimee fucking Therese made this exact point.

[-] Ho_Chi_Chungus@hexbear.net 78 points 1 year ago

Time traveler from 1800: "Wow! What was the 21st century like?"

Me: "I got gaslit by a fucking magazine"

[-] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 63 points 1 year ago

In the 1800s news media was firmly owned by the merchants who regularly gaslit the entire population.

“Do you think the rate of inflation has risen or stayed the same since this time last year.”

People are correctly pointing out that inflation has made prices worse. The fact that the rate is down is little consolation when the rate has been very high and is still higher than for their salaries.

[-] GinAndJuche@hexbear.net 48 points 1 year ago

Translated into reality:

The economy is so bad we don’t even base our measurements of it on the assumption that it’s stable.

[-] CrushKillDestroySwag@hexbear.net 45 points 1 year ago

Someone posted an inflation graph on here the other day that showed the huuuuuuuge spike a year ago and the not-even-close-to-comparable dip that's happened since then. That question is absolutely a cherry picked piece of data.

[-] Mardoniush@hexbear.net 44 points 1 year ago

I personally think that requiring ordinary people to understand differential calculus to parse the question is cool and normal.

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[-] Great_Leader_Is_Dead@hexbear.net 72 points 1 year ago

There's now like 2-5 Op-Eds/Twitter threads a week about how the economy is ASKCUALLY doing GREAT now, and every one gets posted to r/neoliberal

[-] WayeeCool@hexbear.net 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The funniest part is no one wants to talk about why roughly 10% to 15% say there is no inflation, they are wealthier than ever, and life is great but the other 90% of the US is screaming that they are living on the edge closer to homelessness and ruin than ever before. Sometimes these same articles will mention that luxury car sales are at an all time high as further evidence that the 90% are just being delusional.

Which socioeconomic class do your think the authors of all these articles and posts fall into, the 90% or 10%? Same people always try to point out to fellow Americans that by being in the US a person is automatically in the global top 10%, which is an insidious lie. It's eye opening for most Americans when they learn only the top 15% of US households fall into the global top 10%, that most Americans don't take home the required $150,000 USD or greater but a few tens of thousand each year and are indebted with zero savings. The sheer number of US adults who only manage to earn roughly $20,000 USD per year is hard for these people to wrap their minds around.

The US government only tracking "household income" rather than a break down of incomes for individual working aged US adults is also a slight of hand. An unspecified number of individual people living under one roof with multiple incomes being combined to get that household income number, further skewed by millions of functionally homeless (couch surfing, living in cars, living in motels a few days a week) working adults most of which are lower income being just ignored.

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[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 32 points 1 year ago

Shirt questions raised shirt

[-] MineDayOff@hexbear.net 71 points 1 year ago

"Here's why what you're experiencing is not actually real."

-Some Chucklefuck

[-] Great_Leader_Is_Dead@hexbear.net 33 points 1 year ago

TBF, people "experience" things that aren't going on all the time.

Half of Republicans think they live under a Trans-Muslim Communist dictatorship, for example.

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[-] AssaultRifle15@hexbear.net 70 points 1 year ago

Fish hook theory is proved correct once again. Libs and Conservatives are both fully on board with the "facts don't care about your feelings" method of argument and don't seem to understand that being smarmy to people who are miserable doesn't get them to like you.

[-] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 35 points 1 year ago

And then they follow their feelings and twist the facts to suit them

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 62 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Am I out of touch? 🤔

No. It's the masses who are wrong. 🙃

[-] Trustmeitsnotabailou@hexbear.net 62 points 1 year ago

These freaks are going to fuck up their game and bag by denying Americans their bread and circus

[-] Justice@lemmygrad.ml 54 points 1 year ago

That's the ultimate irony of these fucksticks.

People like the Koch brother (half way there) and all the other far right pieces of dogshit spent decades astroturfing and fueling this anti-government sentiment. Selling the idea that government is hated by everyone, government is inefficient and ineffective so private corporations are the better alternative. That allowing wealth to accumulate in only a few individuals will benefit everyone as they fund humanitarian projects.

One thing I gotta hand to guys like Rockefeller is he took his son's advice and actually did give a fuck load of money to prop up stuff that benefited society. This isn't praise for him, no, it's just recognizing that he wasn't a total buffoon. He and his son and family (and many other tycoons then and since then) realized you either have to give back or eventually things will degrade so far that people snap and TAKE back what you stole.

Unfortunately the Koch-types let their wild dogs off the leash and they have no power to control them anymore. Things like repealing Roe v Wade was supposed to be the carrot forever in front of the hogs so that they accept the tax cuts for the wealthy. Cutting social security was always supposed to be promised in the pursuit of "cutting taxes" and making the damn disabled and elderly (obviously they're all faking it) go back to work. The non-dipshits knew that passing such unpopular laws not only would end the game for them it would also cause societal ruptures that they couldn't undo. You can't shove the country ever further to the right for a century and then when the inevitable comes to pass, and the boom post-WWII completely fades, start screaming "woah woah too far guys! We gotta keep THAT law!"

There are people, a lot of them, who somewhat-correctly identify government programs as failing to meet their proposed goal. Social security disability is one. Medicaid, various unemployment programs, food stamps/EBT, etc. They fail to see that the reasons those programs fail is due to systematic dismantling and crippling via defunding, understaffing, and means testing. Neoliberalism, basically. The idea that the "market" can and will solve all problems, so why do we need social security? Mix that in with radicalization of (ironically) many poor workers to knee jerk question and resent anyone who does become old enough or disabled enough to break through all the means testing and red tape to get benefits and, of course, racism, and it's a perfect recipe for advocating against their own best interests and for, no exaggeration, ultimately the total dismantling of the federal government followed by state governments (which are already inadequate).

This is something the "tea party" (idiotic name) types and their outgrowth which includes people like pdf file Gaetz, Gym Jordan, etc. openly advocated for for like 20 years now. At least 15 years. To shut government down (brother!) to defund every "unnecessary" agency (guess which are unnecessary? Hint: it sure isn't the military or FBI), and basically to grind everything to a halt.

A ridiculous idea, one that the Koch brother (never gets old) surely is not thrilled about seeing actually possibly happening. Because all he really wanted (his personal views on abortion, gay marriage, God, etc. are totally irrelevant) was to keep his taxes down and make sure he and his family and his capitalist buds could make billions of dollars and continue directing how Washington is run. If there is no government, or society starts SERIOUSLY declining (imagine the homelessness if social security were cut by say 50%), their wealth starts becoming pointless. Riots are inevitable if enough people are homeless and hungry. That's why they've always favored the "bread and circus" route instead of the full on authoritarian "pick up that can, citizen!" approach. It's more peaceful (in their home country - key point), safer, more enjoyable. If they can't go to the airport anymore without a person chucking his shit at their limo before he's blown away by private police in front of them, that's not so much fun anymore!

I don't know how they can recover things. If I were a betting person, I'd say they can't recover neoliberalism. It's going away one way or another. The only thing left to see is how right wing authoritarian things get, how bad things get, at least in the US. Other places may well have strong leftist movements rise up. The US, due to 80 strong years but over a century generally, of anti-socialism and anti-communism rhetoric is surely going down the fash pipeline. Probably anyway.

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[-] quarrk@hexbear.net 49 points 1 year ago

Hilarious tbh. The audacity to publish a poll where you shit talk one segment of the population, not to mention 90%

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[-] CrimsonSage@hexbear.net 47 points 1 year ago

If you are outside the top decile then things have objectively gotten worse over the past 30 years.

[-] 420stalin69@hexbear.net 47 points 1 year ago

BUT HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THAT YOU CAN WATCH YOUTUBE ON YOUR FRIDGE NOW

[-] Des@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago

fridge: "ad blockers are not allowed on youtube: content blocked"

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[-] Judge_Juche@hexbear.net 47 points 1 year ago

Stancil as great, I hope he never gives this up. Like its been explained to him dozens of times every day for three years now that peoples experience of the economy really can't be captured in macroeconomic data and ultimately it's people's lived experience that will drive voting in 2024. And yet every day he logs on with a new GDP chart and screams at people that their should change their opinion on the economy becuase of the chart.

Also the only people that follow him and engage with him are leftists who are there to make fun of him.

[-] Vingst@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago

oh, it's that clown getting roasted for making excuses to avoid reading and engaging with theory

https://www.carlbeijer.com/p/crank-profiles-3-will-stancils-theory

[-] CarbonScored@hexbear.net 46 points 1 year ago

"The peasants say they're not eating food or getting clean water. But have they considered that they're wrong?"

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[-] mar_k@hexbear.net 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd like to meet the 40% of Americans who think it hasn't gotten worse since the 90's. "Fuck you I got mine" boomer/gen x types?

[-] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 31 points 1 year ago

Survey bias, I'm willing to bet Florida village retirees are skewering the data in their favor by virtue of having nothing else better to do with their remaining time on earth

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[-] VernetheJules@hexbear.net 33 points 1 year ago

It's the stupid, economy!

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this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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