From a thread I just encountered, and it’s bothered me the whole year. . . . .

I can’t believe how expensive everything is now. It is positively scary when you have little money,

You're part of the problem.

This is why Democrats took a beating this year.

Out-of-touch, wealthy, privileged "limousine liberal" who has no clue what the rest of the people in this country are going through.

All you look at are the stock markets and your portfolios, thinking that the economy is booming.

Not for everyone, dear.

And stop reading online articles telling you that crime is down.

Because it's not.

Until wealthy Democrats step outside of their gated little bubble, Republicans will keep beating the crap out of us.

I live on a school teacher’s salary, i haven’t seen this.

[quote] Out-of-touch, wealthy, privileged "limousine liberal" who has no clue what the rest of the people in this country are going through.

I live on 50,000 or so a year, I’m no limousine liberal

If you live in any Blue State, there's no way you could live on $50,000 a year.

Million dollar homes; $3000+ a month rent; $500 / month grocery bills (bare minimum); skyrocketing car fuel, electricity, gas, and insurance rates; and that's just the necessities.

Never mind the incidentals.

And forget about the luxuries.

I just got back from the winery today in with two cases of champagne. Thank god I went to grad school.

Tough shit, because I do. So it is clearly YOU who are the isolated bubbel dweller.

My groceries are half that. My rent is under 1000 dollars. I don’t drive a car.

But I looked at those things and the only things I’ve notice change are services, which is fine, you’re paying people for people. And housing.

R6, i haven’t bought wine but once in the past 5 months. And that was a single bottle

My impression so far is that where I thought it as crazy, it’s spendthrift idiots who are pushing the inflation idea.

R8 I live in California, and groceries and restaurants are way more expensive than they used to be. I’m very lucky that I have a good job and don’t have kids.

OP = Rachel Green.

Some how 70% of the voters in exit polls said the economy was bad due to inflation. Too bad you weren’t around to tell them how stupid they were. I’m sure Kamala would have won easily.

Service is higher, that I noticed in 2021, and it is higher today than in 2021, but i notice no more inflation on say Eggs, or jeans, than any other point in my life. Maybe I just live in a very expensive city.

R2 thinks Elon Musk and Donald Trump represent "real America" 🤣 😂

R11, then tell me why I’m stupid? I’m covering my bills, am i just a lot wiser after the pandemic than I was about spending? I’m sure there is inflation, but the jaw-dropping forms I saw in Europe I haven’t encountered. Is it more so in other parts of the country than where I live?

Coffee is more, and dairy products and many processed and convenience foods. Eating out is mainly beyond my average salary these days. I like to cook so I'm OK with it.

[quote] Until wealthy Democrats step outside of their gated little bubble, Republicans will keep beating the crap out of us.

I get that, i likely know not a single person who didn't’ vote for harris, and many on my block even stumped for her. But i look at prices. In the open air market near me avocados were cheap this summer, three for a dollar on occasions. Now then are possibly a buck fifty, but the price fluctuates. I bought nice tweed pants at target of all places on sale for 24 bucks the other day.

And again, going out to eat is expensive, but honestly, it should be it sure was in my parents’ youth. It feel like a splurge to do so. But that i account of service costs, which is good

Some how 70% of the voters in exit polls said the economy was bad due to inflation

It wasn't inflation.

It was PRICE GOUGING.

Corporations from fast food, to hotels, to airlines, to chain restaurants, to car dealerships, to grocery stores, to "you name it" price gouged the ever loving FUCK out of consumers for the past four years.

They did it purely out of GREED!!!

Democrats paid the price for it, and Republicans reaped the benefits.

I did notice RADICAL differences in hotel prices from one year to the next. 2021 a room in hotel could be as cheap as $140, now it is $350. Yes, that is offensive.

Maybe the grocers in my city are very equitable - but I doubt it. I’ll admit that I stopped shopping at Whole Foods about seven years ago and I couldn’t be happier.

I used to buy ten burger patties frozen for #$12,99, The price had been very stable until two weeks before the election when it suddenly went to $16,99. Today it was down to $9.99 on sale. I definitely think there was a corporate conspiracy to deliberately raise prices just before the election like a subliminal message. In the old days this wouldn't have mattered as people got their political views through the union hall or or the social club. But now with people mainly unorganzed, the Citizens United decision enabled a few billionaires to create saturation campaigns: for example, in Dearborn, Michigan Elon Musk ran ads saying Kamala Harris supported Palestinian genocide because of her Jewish husband; and at the same time, Elon Musk ran ads in Jewish areas of eastern Pennsylvanian saying she was a secret supporter of Palestinian terrorism. You'd think as perpetual victims of ten second peanut hacks to cure diabetes and other such internet based nonsense, that people would have approached any new shit that came from the internet with skepticism. But in a close race where 90% had already decided long ago whom to vote for, all you had to do was reach 10% of people who had nobody telling them whom to vote for and who knew nothing independently about any issues and who had no idea what a president should or should not be involved with, and those people broke for Trump like 80-20 due to these lying campaigns funded by evil billiionaires like Musk and Thiel and Adelson. That's until we can get rid of the traitors on the Supreme Court who gave us Citizen United, we need to get rid of the secret ballot. If people are responsible for their votes yes employers can attack them but employers do that anyway based on their perceived political orientation. But if they knew everyone knew how they voted, people would be more informed and take care with their votes. Abraham Lincoln was not elected by secret ballot. Donald Trump was.

[quote]If you live in any Blue State, there's no way you could live on $50,000 a year. Million dollar homes; $3000+ a month rent; $500 / month grocery bills (bare minimum); skyrocketing car fuel, electricity, gas, and insurance rates; and that's just the necessities. Never mind the incidentals. And forget about the luxuries.

This person HAS to be autistic, right?

I pay less than $1,800 in the SF Bay area. Nobody in most blue states is paying those rents unless they have a high-paying job, which in NYC and Boston they mostly do. But if you live in Port Washington or Yonkers you aren't paying that. And if you live in Syracuse you could probably squat in a solid abandoned building for free!

I noticed grocery prices actually came down a little this year, generally. But that’s after a huge spike in prices in 2021-2023. I recall the rising anxiety at the checkout line, things I’d assumed were $3 were $5, things I’d assumed were $5 were $7.

Where in the US were you living if you buy groceries regularly and didn’t experience the surge in prices?

the east coast - i'm presuming my groceries were already quite high I suppose. i saw within a year - going to do work in germany in the summer of 2022 and 2023 about 30 percent price differences. everything form bike rental to apples

and the asshole saying I can't possibly live in a blue state, what fuck off. go suck some more corporate cock I suppose.

If you’re thinking of it as “this inflation thing“, it’s no wonder you’re surprised by the complexity of it.

greedy price gouging.

Everyone in a decent position scrambling to get out of the precarious middle class into the wealthy.

And out of the merely wealthy and into the 1%

I think people are psychologically prone to feel the out-of-control daily expenses heat because of the nonstop daily media reporting on services given to frontline-cutting hordes of daily instreaming illegal aliens, endless funding of Ukraine, military support for Israel, and pledging forgiveness for millions of whiny liberal arts college graduates’ knowingly borrowed school loans…

While back here on Earth, we everyday Americans need every paycheck to choose between paying for utilities, housing, or food.

Get it now??!

[quote] Also other services, massage therapists, et al. Even me!

What’s this “even me” business?

No R27. Not true. The military budget that Republicans including Trump are always pledging to increase? the 900 offshore military bases that the government maintains at US taxpayer expense so we can be the world's rent a cops? Giving money to Ukraine is cheap compared to all that. Without all that we could have socialized health care and still lower taxes, and yet do we need it? We are literally the only country in the world that has no strategic invasion risk. As for Americans choosing between utilities and food, if minimum wages were raised they wouldn't have to. If taxes were raised on the rich, not only would the economy and deficit improve, but the rich would have less money to pay 1 million people to lie to us every day and less money to buy elections with lies like they did this time.

James Madison for saw all this. He said the greatest danger to a republic is factions, us v. them and that if people are allowed to profit immoderately from the operations of government (eg. Elon Musk) they will continually find interest REAL AND IMAGINED to divide the people. And the BEST WAY to control this is, consistent with property right, to TAX THE RICH TO MEDIOCRITY and SUPPORT THE POOR TO COMFORT. But we have ignored this lesson, and now we are paying the price. This is the truth of our Founding Fathers: they favored a welfare state, what contemporary republicans call "socialism" because otherwise the rich will tear apart our society.

And this is EXACTLY what has happened.

And that was in 1792

[quote] I just got back from the winery today in with two cases of champagne. Thank god I went to grad school.

And became a lush.

[quote]While back here on Earth, we everyday Americans need every paycheck to choose between paying for utilities, housing, or food.

I suppose that has been my existence for the whole of my adult life, the past four years felt different, not worse in that regard.

I'm far from a rich bitch, in fact, my friends all know me as the poor one. and no, not a whore, but when you pay someONE it isn't a good, it is a service. like a consultant or an instructor.

So that everyone realizes, i posted this because another poster commented as such. I’d felt for the past year that i hand’t noticed much inflation and that I must have simply been crazy. But another here felt the same and inquired.

I wonder if suburban environments were harder hit

OP " Also other services, massage therapists, et al. Even me!"

What? Even you?

Indeed. My rates and wages have increased. If they hadn’t, maybe I would have felt something more. As I said, services I noticed increased a lot. From restaurants to tax assessors. But amtrak tickets went down, and by a noticeable margin.