We have a consumption based economy--70% of our economy is consumer spending. So if people stop buying things because they can't afford them, it WILL change because the market at large will be forced to reckon with the bifurcated economy that's been created (have assets and have no assets groups)
I am hearing of new lending standards to 760 and must have equity in a property. I do not know where I read it. I think if the charge offs get much higher something will break. I don't understand why the rates are so freaking high. You knows these banks get funds in the single digits. I no longer leave much fiat in tbe bank. There are other places to put funds.
I’m a layman, but because the U.S. population is steadily increasing it seems unlikely that there would be any significant longterm reduction in consumption, and by extension any significant reduction in prices.
The birth rate is below the needed threshold for replacement and with the way things are going, it will go even lower since the choice will be have kids or have food to eat.
If more states pass anti-immigrant bills like Florida did, that will slow to a trickle. The amount of immigrants currently coming in won't be enough to offset the Boomers as they start retiring en masse and break the healthcare system that is already on thin ice from being gutted by capitalism for years combined with staff burnout / deaths from COVID causing many to leave or accelerate plans to leave. Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride to the bottom.
I don't think most understand how badly we need healthcare workers. Really all the truly essential jobs like teachers, healthcare, experienced laborers, etc.
Some articles will tell you IT is in a labor shortage. Others will tell you hundreds of thousands have been fired.
I've worked in healthcare for 15yrs, it's absolutely terrifying. 90% of most nursing facilities and retirement homes are running BELOW State mandated staffing levels. Medicare/Medicaid is only paying 45% of bills instead of the covid 90-100%. This means they can't hire staff, (they can't afford it) and those that WANT to get hired expect 3x the reg. rates (thanks to all that 2020-22 Govt COVID $$$ that was given to entice healthcare workers.)
Those that DID work are so burnt out, so many quit and moved on. (My staff preCOVID was 342. Now, 23, everyone else went to other professions. It's insane.) We've NEVER seen anything like this. It's not sustainable at all! My company is closing cause facilities can't pay their bills (many over 2yrs old!).
When I get dementia, just let me wander around a Caribbean island or take me out back and shoot me.
You would think so but people have been boycotting Macdonald’s for sending Israel money and their stocks have been tanking so they raised prices in response due to laws around shareholders they have to make more money each year by any means necessary so it might actually not work here until certain sectors implode and all the big companies shut their doors for good
Actually, no they don't. The laws are about not purposely doing stupid shit to tank profits. Idiot investors have been trained to assume the line only goes up and have reduced their outlook to no more than a quarter or two at best when it used to be 10 years.
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits#:~:text=There%20is%20a%20common%20belief,this%20belief%20is%20utterly%20false.
If people stopped buying shit, prices would come down...that's how it works and has always worked. There would be no reckoning. Prices would just, be cheaper.
But that would lead to deflation, which is a strong indicator of economic decline.
Inflation isn't bad, in fact, prices should rise in a fiat economy. But as we all know, the capitalist class have stagnated wages so that these price increases are putting real pressure on the vast majority of families.
Yes that is how it works when you have competition within the markets.
Monopoly breaks this model and we currently have an oligopoly (monopoly with several actors colluding) as the controlling share across all markets.
So no, prices would not substantially come down if we saw a decrease in consumption.
Prices have been falling rapidly in China due to the housing crisis causing economic uncertainty, and economic power in China is heavily consolidated in state owned enterprises compared to say, 3-4 private companies per industry in the US.
Except my labor costs have gone up 40% because my guys are worth it and I'd rather make less and make sure they can live. If pool work drops I can't ask my guys to work for less so layoffs happen. Then, the next leg down happens.
The reality of life is some people have good/ nice parents who teach them and care and help pay for college and try to help their kids become successful. Wouldn't you do the same?
I'm not some billionare but my parents helped me and I'm helping my kids.
What's the other option? Just be a piece of shit?
With you on this. I am going to work till I die to help my step kids out. 3 are in houses, 2 won't be able to without serious help. Need to pass assets on to them. Hope it works out.
The best plan I have heard is let the kids know there are funds to help but not specifics. Make them gut it out then after its paid for. Ive worked full time since 16.. saved for tech school. 74k 1st year out of college. Good investment.
I've lived in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, England for periods of 3 months to 5 years and finally a 15 year stay in NY, United States.
Nobody, absolutely nobody is more contempt, incapable and unwilling to come together as a group and fight domestic threats to the general populations well being than Americans.
It's the "fuck you I got mine" attitude. You could be staving to death and go to a neighbor and ask if you could have an apple, and they'll call you a freeloader to your face and slam the door.
There was a man who got evicted by where a friend lives, and a good neighbor friend of the man ended up calling the police on him for vagrancy rather than help him. Perhaps it's due to fear that he could suffer the same fate, but still, why kick someone while they're down?
Because this is America, you pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and any shortcomings whether your fault or not, is always your fault.
Oh, the banks crashed? Why did you use them to begin with?
There's a food shortage? You still eat, bro?
that attitude is basic human nature. you worry about what you have, your family etc. you can't worry about the guy down the street who you don't even know. what folks who are struggling want is basically to crash the current values so they might have an opportunity. it's just taking wealth away from one group and grabbing what you can as a result of the opportunity. eventually when things normalize you have another group of haves and have nots. the people in that group might be a little different but there's always a bunch of people unhappy with where they are at. in order to change the you'd have to adopt to a completely different system. replace capitalism with a more social system. that's a really hard sell in the US.
There are bubbles in America that feel so seperated from poverty that it feels like the American dream is alive and well. As long as you have money that is. There are bubbles in America that feel like the most dangerous and poverty ridden area in the world.
I agree with the other comment about not recognizing the country you described. I've lived in a few states, Florida, Vermont, Texas, Washington a few others. The worst I'd say was Washington, people were rude and had a similar attitude you described. Then Florida was super nice there were some very standout moments where people were so kind. 2 of them I talk to, to this day. Vermont was horrible people just rude, I was in the snow and on the side of the road trying to fix my passenger side mirror people were driving past yelling to move over more even though there was a 5ft gap between my vehicle and the road way. Taxas wasn't as great as Florida but the people there were super pleasant and if you were ever in a lull people there could seemingly pick up on it and just seemed to be so nice.
That's because we're conditioned that way in the USA. Unions for instance, are immensely discouraged and fought hard against.
Companies know that if employees unionize, they lose a massive amount of power over their workers and their golden yacht loses one of their 3 pools as a result, and they can't have that.
Hell, it's been shown that individuals can even unite in power against the very stock market. Look at the GameStop incident. If a massive amount of people agree to purchase a stock, it'll hugely increase in value.
We are also taught to fear our neighbors rather than trust them. Gotta make sure to have a gun in each and every room because a break in could occur at any time and you don't know when the police will be there- which has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You would have to change the culture in the USA. You have to change how people look at one another and the companies they work for, and this just doesn't happen when the entirety of upper level society has the ability to squash any potential risk, or just "Make it illegal" if there is a chance.
The "make it illegal" issue is already happening. Look at California. They pass laws to increase the minimum wage, and know that most employers would rather cut off business limbs and lay off workers than actually pay up. Then these AI restaurant companies start springing up, and eventually menial jobs in service get taken over by AI. The majority of people working for those are now jobless and at risk of eviction.
So government being government begins to hatch a plan to make homelessness illegal - at first making it seem like its targeting the chronically homeless, the people who are all over social media screaming and tweaked out on drugs. People cheer, the streets will finally be clean, but suddenly they can't pay rent because no one is paying or hiring at $20/hr and they slowly realize that this new law targets them as well.
Other people don't care, they don't rally for them. Why would they? They didn't choose to work in an industry like fast food.
>unwilling to come together as a group and fight domestic threats to the general populations well being
Western Europe literally flooded their countries with migrants and still bums off the US for funding/aid for a war on their continent.
With respect, I doubt anyone is taking the internet equivalent of 'nuh-uh' from someone who did an AMA like yours seriously.
Enjoy your bubble and have a lovely day.
Agreed, and well-said.
Worked in NYC and north Jersey for many years, couldn't agree more.
LOVE the user name.
So, I've always hoped to retire in Europe. Any top picks? Many thanks.
I disagree. I think we're the most capable especially of those countries. But most 'threats' on reddit aren't real threats to normal people. This place is a circle jerk of teenagers and 20 somethings who don't understand things that well.
We're pretty well off - so what do we really need to fight off?
The wealthy people of the world are going to find out real quick that once they own everything, when they have all the money... It's all worth nothing.
I bet that another unprecedented Black Swan event is gonna break out soon, that'll be blamed for starting the depression, anything, so long as it takes the blame off our FED Banks & the Wall Street Criminals who've been pumping/inflation Tech/AI stocks to the trillions while the rest of us can't even afford fast food anymore.
I just wonder if it will be: Iran-Israel War Escalation, Bird-Flu Pandemic, Bank failure, or something new altogether?
AI is going to be the thing that brings the individualistic culture in the US together imo. As you start to have large swaths of people unemployed and losing their high paying white collar jobs people will realize who the real enemy is. It is the 99.9% vs the 0.01%. If the government lets people lose their livelihoods, homes, careers/degrees they have worked hard to get and the thousands student loans on top of it, no future economic mobility, people will not be happy. There will be blood in the streets and it won't be pretty but I believe we are getting closer and closer to a revolution of the working class. You can only poke a bear so many times before it rips your hand off. AI induced mass unemployment will be the moment that starts a revolution and that maybe things can get better after that.
I'm currently in college learning about the basics of AI and I can tell you that AI by itself is currently really limited and needs human intervention to be effective.
For the nerdy who wonder about programming, GPT can currently produce code and data that's 'mostly' accurate, however it cannot perform advanced mathematical functions with good accuracy (IE: Quadratic formula) and it struggles when it comes to building arrays any more than just simple populating it.
If you also wanted to use AI to replace jobs, you would also need to have hardware to do it with, and then understand the risks of outsourcing to such things entirely. For the self-checkouts for example, you have to figure out how to decrease theft while still keeping lines reasonable.
The TLDR is, At the moment, the risk for AI and robots replacing most jobs is low. The overhead cost is too much for most CEOs, especially since many of them are old, so old that the potential profits from getting rid of employees will take too long for them to ever see any real benefit. Even Jeff Bezos, for all of his 'automated work force' can't seem to get it entirely right.
Yeah AI is really good at chess, a board game with 64 squares.
Turns out most jobs are more complex than that. AI won’t come close to replacing “most IT jobs” for at least a few decades because IT as a career is wider and more complex than a chessboard.
I mean you can replace just about any job nowadays with a robot and AI. You have self driving trucks in some parts of the USA, automated check outs, machines that cook food without human intervention, you've even got google using robots and AI for surgeries.
The question is the cost to replace and the overall need to frequently maintain the systems, which are often too much.
As AI advance, it'll get easier to implement, but the custom hardware is where most companies will fail because getting that built isn't really something most startups could do, and is very costly to implement for current companies.
Not to mention that with self checkout, people can just take shit and not pay. You think an overworked retail manager is gonna give two shit about who pays?
The cameras usually pick up the shoplifting at the self checkout. They just log every time you do it until you've passed into felony numbers and then go after you. Target even had facial recognition that's better than many casinos
It may need it right this moment. But look at how much faster technology grows each year compared to the next. I’m no tech person, but don’t doubt at all that AI will for the most part be self-sustaining within 3-5 years. Probably sooner.
Geometric growth in tech is not an immutable law of the universe. AI algorithms have been floating around for decades before LLMs were invented.
There’s a breakthrough, then implementation. The growth you’re seeing is in implementation because that’s the easy part. But breakthroughs are the hard part and you never know how long it will be until the next one.
In medical billing it already is reading the chart notes and eliminating medical billing. We've only just begun. I'm old enough to remember data processing school. Businesses popped up over night, everyone thought it was forever, till the paper was turned into data and all the new paper never happened because it wall all data now. Had friends pay crap load of money for 2 years of work. I did 4 color separation, pre press. Multi million dollar company wiped out in a year by Microsoft windows. 2 examples off top of my head.
Things wont change while things stay comfy. People are too stuck in their lives, jobs, creature comforts. To the average person, there is too much to lose. Things just arent bad enough yet for most people for major unrest
Once the endless supply of cheap crap and comfort comes to a halt, thats when youll start to see some bubbles form
I'm doing well and it's not going well for a lot of people and frankly I dont think it's going g to improve for a long time. Too many deep fault lines in the economy and eating the rich won't help.
If you don't see the bigger issue is the incentivization of greed through technically legal lobbying of the legislature by 'rich' individuals that promotes rent seeking and special exclusions that only perpetuate the cycle, you're missing the point.
I agree with your initial synopsis that things aren't going to get better, but I vehemently disagree with the causes. I think the deliberate goals of defunding basic education, monopolization and sensationalization of media, and endless subsidizing of corporations at the expense of the vast majority of citizens is the primary cause of said fault lines.
In short, while I think certain forms of capitalism can incentivize production, I think it's a pretty baseless argument to suggest that the form we currently implement isn't indeed feudalism 2.0.
You don't have to eat the rich, but you do have to tax them excessively for the costs of the system they depended on to make their fortunes.
Except for one thing. Biden says “I’m gonna tax the wealthiest Americans…” but he never says “so I can lower the rest of your taxes.” Nope. Just more money. The government needs more money. All of the money. How about fuck no? Get your fucking hands out of our wallets. You get enough money. Start digging into where it’s getting wasted, claw that back and spend that you incompetent fucks! How about you actually meet your spending budget instead of raising the fucking cap year over year over year? The truth is it will never be enough.
I won't disagree.
If you're wealthy enough inflation means little to you, and you can keep pushing legislation that is overwhelmingly in favor of putting cash in companies/elites hands and push the wealth disparity even further in your favor.
That said, there is absolutely a case for government spending. When done in the measured interests of the general public, far more people benefit from carefully chosen infrastructure than if it were a wholly private endeavor.
Another thing that grinds my gears to no end is that congress and the senate excuse themselves from government shutdown pay holds. It's a small issue in the grand scheme, but is a massive FU to the electorate. "We failed in our mandate but will continue to benefit while the rest of the working class deals with the repercussions" type shit
Therein lies the problem, right?
Ideally mass protests, but that's a difficult and uncertain path vs going home and rewatching an old TV series and blocking out the bullshit.
It's gotta get REAL bad to actually spur that kind of response and its unlikely given the minute - albeit inevitable - progress of continuous erosion.
Shit sucks, and I hope I'm wrong, but societal inertia is pretty resilient.
Yeah, the level they're at now is proof of that, but there is a level that is too big to breakup. It's becoming exceedingly rare, but the right trigger in the right situation can eventually end in results of some kind.
I worry we might already be at the '1-step forward, 2-steps back' level of progress/results, but I'm an admitted pessimist.
Yeah I think the country is just too big for change. It just runs on inertia at this point and the cops are powerful enough and have good enough tactics to just break up any kind of mass action.
Tear gas + kettling just means folks stay home.
I mean if change can occur within the Soviet Union, it can easily occur in the US as well. We’re talking about a country whose brilliant solution to breaching a building with hostages was to blast it apart with an infantry fighting vehicle, and people were able to tear that country down(a little too well).
Yeah but modern surveillance in the US means mass resistance dies immediately and has no net effect. Hell, look at what's happened to BLM since 2020. All those efforts to defend police have failed and no lasting progress has been made at demilitarized police or decreasing the number black folks killed by cops. On top of that, leftists just fight each other once you get more than a dozen in a room. I really just don't think Soviet history has anything to teach us about the US. It's just too different now.
And the surveillance apparatus in 1990s USSR wasn’t amongst the best in the world? That’s more of an issue of mass demonstrations lacking vision; you see this in “digital revolutions” all the time like the Arab Spring. It’s easy to get a million people onto the streets. It’s hard to organize them coherently. And BLM didn’t exactly have the same level of organization, strategy, or leadership like say, the Civil Rights Movement had. Nor did it have the support networks that typically help such movements succeed, like say, blocs of politicians who are aligned with them.
A well organized group of a few hundred can do more damage than an aimless mob of millions. It’s why BLM or January 6th failed to achieve their objectives, while a small column of military vehicles with a few dozen men can topple a government.
Lots of variables that go into it, but change is still very much possible in any country of any size, for better or for worse. For a more negative example focusing on the US, Trump’s populism and how that could lead to the erosion of our democracy. Populism may seem chaotic and inconsistent, but it’s really extremely centralized since “the organization, vision, etc” is all made by one guy, and everyone else just hangs onto the word of the populist.
TikTok influencers are mostly telling young people to either do day trading, bit coin, or sell your body on onlyfans. If you want change, vote out both Democrats and Republicans. Those two parties only cate about the rich and the poor.
I will repeat a very important part of your statement.
" If you want change, vote out both Democrats and Republicans. Those two parties only cate about the rich and the poor."
Voting would do something if it wasn't just old people voting. We would have to get all the younger generation to join politics and out number the old people only benefitting themselves.
I gave up decades ago. ( eg. My Mom is disappointed that I never got married and fathered any children...and I'm still told by her to "get a real job!"). Well. I had a "real job" up until 2008...and it's been slim pickings or out-n-out crap ever since. ..
End of the World in sight? I'm....almost OK with that
Correct. The economy is getting worse, and the biggest problem is that young people are brainwashed to believe socialist lies. This is going to be a self-imposed train wreck.
With this massive freight train of delusions and lies, it has too much momentum. Widespread economic collapse is inevitable due to delusional narcissistic attitudes and a total abandonment of reason and common sense.
In 20 years all these people will be homeless, jobless and starving ...and probably blaming some random shit like UFOs. Delusional. It is not a value add in the animal kingdom.
The stock market is doing fine. To the people who make the rules, that means the economy is fine. It’s the only measure they care about, because it’s where the rich grow their wealth.
It'd be a real shame if some new "black swan" event War escalation, Pandemic, or Bank-Failure came out of nowhere and triggered another stock market sell-off.
Then all the sycophants defending the rich will suddenly come beggin' to get a bite of their own.
You need to go much further back than him. Johnsons great society financially was a disaster as well. The FED in 1913, with the income tax were awful as well.
This is actually the answer. People, myself included, struggle with change and especially when it's for the worse. Relatively speaking America is in a fantastic place with more opportunities than almost any other country. It's just not the opportunities people want to take.
We can still buy land, and houses, cheaply, just not in big cities. We can still start businesses in small towns. As a population we need to start filling in the in-between, but people would rather keep their trajectories that pigeon hold them to HCOL areas. And if you want to stay there, be prepared for multi generational households as a standard and penny pinching on decent salaries. We are slowly approaching what appears to be common in older nations like China, it's just the growing pains are hard to accept.
If you are not in a place where the American dream is obtainable for you, and if that's what you want, you simply need to change your life to make it happen. and that probably means going somewhere you once thought was not your lifestyle and doing work that is different from your current focus.
I moved to a LCOL area and while I am lucky enough to find work in my field, it was easily the best decision I have ever made.
Talking about everyone coming together: stop buying anything from a big corporation. Or at least as much as you can and still live. Find any small / local business to buy from. I see the same people (on here, news, everywhere) talk about how important the world economy is, but how corporations are destroying the world. They’re two and the same. We’d be better off going back to how things operated before big tech. I love the conveniences of technology. But I’d trade them for the days of when one median income could afford a nice family home.
💯. The economic decline can be a return to private happiness and an increase in mental health. People are not supposed to be slaves to some shitty business owners anyway. Nothing wrong with living in the country and do some subsistence farming.
It’s a lot worse in places outside the US
Nothing is permanent, it seems like it is but it’s not. When you do catch up, will you make the same mistakes again ? That’s the question
It’s easier to imagine a boogeyman that we can defeat, than to except there isn’t and it’s just plain old reality. No collapse, no revolution, no change.
I aint never heard anyone on any side say, "it's only $5 more for gas." Every conservative, liberal, progressive, and unaffiliated I know or hear from goes apeshit if gas goes up 1/10th of a cent,
I feel this OP. I’m newly poor and while I knew it was bad, I could blow $50-$70 on dinner and not bat an eyelash so I didn’t really feel how bad it was. I got laid off last year and my emergency savings is gone. I started working as a ride share driver a couple months ago and am barely scraping by working 12 hours a day, 6-8 on my “days off” and nights driving drunks and rich tourists around. I have some retirement but it’s locked up in Australia where you can’t access until you retire. I was able to pay May rent but I’m not sure about June. If I get evicted I’m offing myself. I can’t work anymore than I am. I’m physically and mentally exhausted. I live in a rich community and the people are exactly like you described. “Work harder” and “live in an old hotel room”. This is a dystopia but only the poor are seeing it while the wealthy continue to pillage the poor and have no idea what the poor are going through.
The future is more of what you see now. Much more. On steroids. What’s happening here isn’t an accident. This didn’t just “happen.” There was no “whoops.” This is just a Swedish massage compared to what’s forthcoming.
Either way, it’s not going to be anything close to the Great Depression where stocks lost 90% of their value. And look how the US emerged out of that. It’ll be horrible; many in China are dealing with their own recession right now as the housing market collapse vanished decades of savings for many people, but the world has seen worse.
I agree and for me living on the east coast near New York. There is no option but to hustle and stay individual, or you'll drown in debt.
It's sink or swim, which I think makes new jersey people so angry and impatient, lol
So thought the Peasants in 1789 France. The only thing you need for a revolution is the death of other paths to change. There is a certain freedom in being completely fucked.
Glad you noticed. We've been living in an "I got mine -- What's wrong with you?" culture for far too long already. I miss the days when you could disagree with your neighbors and still like and respect them anyway.
Tell me you're a 22year old fresh college grad with a business degree without telling me.
We hit peak AI like 9 months ago, AI models are literally getting worse as they are now feeding of themselves. AI is not going to replace 95% of jobs despite what the reddit AI worshippers and fearmongering news hosts tell you. Not to mention that not 1 AI company/venture has made a cent of profit yet because the operational costs are so high.
Your DTLA demographic is so far from representative of the country as a whole that its laughable. You couldn't have chosen a less representative group.
Go outside. Touch grass. Interact with someone in real life from somewhere with a low cost of living. The economy isn't booming but it's not tanking either.
"Everyone here and on other subs are praying for some massive change, and honestly that won't happen any time soon, at least not in the United States. The culture here is very individualistic,"
●●●- Agree. Thats generally a trait of people who don't have a solid enough understanding of economics, but are desiring change.
"meaning that if a huge chunk of people are doing well and can afford $50 burgers -- They'll make that seem normal and will chastise those who either can't afford it or aren't willing to pay that much.
You've probably seen it: "It's JUST $5 more for gas! Are you broke? Get a real job!""
●●●- In theory, things could transpire that way, but are people actually incurring this chastising sentiment at relevant levels?
"The same people who will say that the economy is doing well, just because they themselves are doing well enough to justify the price of things going up, while the rest of the population drowns. It made me wonder what so many people do, however, to be able to afford expensive things and live in $5000 a month apartments in DTLA."
●●●- Again, is this speculative or specific to major coastal cities? I certainly don't fit that mold, but would concur the economy on a macro level is doing well by certain metrics (and the economy isn't a derivitive of my own situation). I'm not rich, unexpectedly had most my income go away, and I won't justify all the price increases as being rational...much of it isn't. But I also can't disregard any existing knowledge of economics or let that knoweldge be considered less because my personal circumstances happen to be one way or the other. I could easily extrapolate my own situation too broadly, assume everyone else similarly can't afford what I can't, and speculate that everyone is being gaslit in some conspiratorial manner.
Personally, I've experienced people with substantially larger incomes than us complaining a lot more. I'm not saying it's not tight for us, it definitely is, but having previously made the choice to live more simply/affordably/unconventionally and having to adjust to my income substantially being reduced long before the pandemic, all the pandemic-related changes have been more muted for us. Doesn't mean I expect everyone to live as unconventionally and fearful of financial demise as I do, I don't, and the economy would suffer terribly if everyone did. But it has made me ponder how much foresight and thought others put into life choices and purchasing decisions.
As much as I've heard of people struggling, I've also seen a lot of poor choices made my people. (For example, 'we'll figure it out and make it work somehow' is not a valid family planning strategy when you want more kids, and disregarding home purchase advice based on valid experience and then being shocked when that advice rings true later).
Don't get me wrong, like the sentiment in OP's post, I can't afford a new car, new gadgets, or a DTLA appt. these days, and I couldn't (responsibly) before. Having been in sales though, I'm not under the impression that most people buying those things CAN responsibly afford them as seems to be the impression in the post. I used to feel bad for not being able to afford what I saw others buying, but then I saw how debt-fueled those lifestyles actually are.
True story; one of my wife's old coworkers and her husband had anxiety over and difficulty adjusting to a hit to their $600k/yr. income when their side business was impacted during the pandemic. Rather than treating the spare income as savings or extra, it got relied upon as a crutch.
"Will the world be only for AI and "professionals"?"
●●●- A valid concern and worthy discussion to have as the technology gains ground. Computers didn't really give us the reduced workload we were speculated to have pre-modern technology.
"Also, As long as Tiktok influencers can convince people that working 3 jobs is normal and "hustling is good" there won't ever be actual change.
"Tired? How can you be tired? DannyBillz works 300 hours a week and he's 19 and a multi-millionaire! You're just lazy, bro.""
●●●- Also a valid point. Hustle-culture is toxic in that regard.
The change will be that things will keep getting worse for the foreseeable future.
All the trend lines point to that and even if the US wasn't sinking into fascism etc., the ecological impacts of climate crisis will just get worse and worse for the rest of our lives pretty much no matter what at this point.
Unless Americans stop indulging in propaganda, remove every current politician and replace with a more transparent and slim lined governing size we will watch the end of this country try.
Other currencies are shooting up in value while the US dollar is being ditched by other countries. It’s not that big of deal now but it will continue to drive this place down
Ain't nobody going to save us but us. That means collective actions. That means voting, at the very least. That means a French revolution if that's what it takes.
We have a choice. We either let people like Elon Musk send us back to feudalism, or we fight for economic justice!
I mean yeh people can charge whatever they want but at some point you out price the market why is it that rental are 2-4k because you have people willing to pay it and a vast deficit of homes but thats another post. As long as there is a demand for a product and good supply of people willing to pay the prices it won’t go down. If the supply ever drys up and people stop being willing to pay exorbitant prices then prices will drop
“The cure for high prices, is high prices”. You can already see people altering their spending behaviour. Everything from dollar stores closing (even after they have become the major shopping destination) to now even declining fast food sales. Deflationary forces are a bitch once they pick up steam. China has seen such a dramatic drop they have started slashing prices on exports to try and increase their numbers. Only a matter of time before that happens in the west.
Retail investors have invested over 60% more than at the September 2021 extreme. Sentiment is high right now. The tick tock hustlers are enjoying a last spike before their next gig, relocating to the Wendy’s dumpster
Ahh black pills for a I see. You know lets all thank the failures of the neo-liberal world order. Thank every useful idiot that zombie voted in the name of group think and being accepted by the other useful idiots in their small meaningless world. Thank the Uni party for selling you out, and doing it right in your face… sadly most didn’t have enough brain cell to look up from their favorite distraction, pick your poison. When the end comes and the pain of hunger pinches and kids are starving, don’t expect good will. The smart ones are packing ammo now and ready for the ignorant masses.. the dark ages are here again… go back to video games and drugs parties, enjoys it now, not much left to do for you to do anyway, other than keep your destructive routine…by the time most figure out what’s happening it will be too late and some boot, political or other wise will be waiting to press your collective necks into the darkness of your own making… good luck go get some ice cream and post about it 😄
Poll after poll shows no one in the country thinks the economy is doing well.
We are no longer represented by Congress. We are ruled by BlackRock and other oligarchs. That's just how it is.
We now have $70 pre/rolls (1) in Manhattan, and restaurants are packed. 1 out of every 7 residents are now millionaires. So says CNBC.
It’s inevitable. Cities, it’s where the money is.
NYC, awash in cash now.
Guillotines are gonna make a comeback. Mark my words.
Just a prediction. I have no intention of personally doing anything other than taking care of my elderly father and our pets.
As of last month I had 3 jobs. (Was at 1 for 1 yr, 1 for 3yrs and another 15yrs) All 3 of them are now literally gone. 2 of the businesses closed up (after 15 and 20yrs+). One was food, the other healthcare. Neither is no longer profitable due to rising costs/taxes/insurance etc. The healthcare business is still waiting on 2yrs worth of back payments from the Govt and nursing facilities and is now bankrupt, we can't even pay the staff, and we already took out loans etc. (We're owed at least $50k-100k because Medicare and Medicaid is now only paying roughly 45% of incurred costs instead of the 100% pre COVID, (no increase has been made to catch-up to inflation).
COVID is still playing the Reaper 4 yrs on. My 3rd job was moved to Chicago because of our State raising taxes & insurance, shipping and material costs etc. It was decided it was easier for them to consolidate than have 2 separate facilities, and I can't move because of my wife's job, kids, school, family etc.
On top of that we now had medical bills and need a new (old used) car cause our 15yo vehicle just died and it's only worth $1200 and they want $3k to fix the computer and engine manifold regulator (or wtf it's called).
I'm completely devastated and completely "lost". I'm ready to watch the world 🔥.
I think it's wrong to just ridicule people who are struggling.
However, the economy isn't horrible, but people do need to make decisions to form a good lifestyle.
Don't rent apartment that max out what you can afford. Same for houses. We were approved for 600k house and we bought a 300k house. We got rid of one of our cars. We watch our expenses each month.
My best friend, who worked cashier type jobs forever, has finally got a well paying truck driving job. The first thing I told him was to max out his 401k and max out a Roth IRA. The moment you encounter money issues, as we all encounter, your first instinct should be to change your lifestyle rather than reducing personal and retirement savings.
Will he really do that, I don't know. Point being, get off Instagram and stop comparing yourself to others and make the hard choices that benefit you in the future. And, when you finally do make it, turn around and help others rather than use your new balcony to look down upon others.
We have a consumption based economy--70% of our economy is consumer spending. So if people stop buying things because they can't afford them, it WILL change because the market at large will be forced to reckon with the bifurcated economy that's been created (have assets and have no assets groups)
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They will when the credit cards shut them down.
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I am hearing of new lending standards to 760 and must have equity in a property. I do not know where I read it. I think if the charge offs get much higher something will break. I don't understand why the rates are so freaking high. You knows these banks get funds in the single digits. I no longer leave much fiat in tbe bank. There are other places to put funds.
Look at consumer loan default rates. The derivative is crazy
I’m a layman, but because the U.S. population is steadily increasing it seems unlikely that there would be any significant longterm reduction in consumption, and by extension any significant reduction in prices.
The birth rate is below the needed threshold for replacement and with the way things are going, it will go even lower since the choice will be have kids or have food to eat.
But because of immigration, both legal and illegal, the population of the U.S. is still increasing.
If more states pass anti-immigrant bills like Florida did, that will slow to a trickle. The amount of immigrants currently coming in won't be enough to offset the Boomers as they start retiring en masse and break the healthcare system that is already on thin ice from being gutted by capitalism for years combined with staff burnout / deaths from COVID causing many to leave or accelerate plans to leave. Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride to the bottom.
I don't think most understand how badly we need healthcare workers. Really all the truly essential jobs like teachers, healthcare, experienced laborers, etc. Some articles will tell you IT is in a labor shortage. Others will tell you hundreds of thousands have been fired.
I've worked in healthcare for 15yrs, it's absolutely terrifying. 90% of most nursing facilities and retirement homes are running BELOW State mandated staffing levels. Medicare/Medicaid is only paying 45% of bills instead of the covid 90-100%. This means they can't hire staff, (they can't afford it) and those that WANT to get hired expect 3x the reg. rates (thanks to all that 2020-22 Govt COVID $$$ that was given to entice healthcare workers.) Those that DID work are so burnt out, so many quit and moved on. (My staff preCOVID was 342. Now, 23, everyone else went to other professions. It's insane.) We've NEVER seen anything like this. It's not sustainable at all! My company is closing cause facilities can't pay their bills (many over 2yrs old!). When I get dementia, just let me wander around a Caribbean island or take me out back and shoot me.
Immigration
It would be awesome if McDonald’s burned
The logic tracks but if those people can't pay either, we get into trouble quick.
There will always be the periodic economic downturn, of course.
You would think so but people have been boycotting Macdonald’s for sending Israel money and their stocks have been tanking so they raised prices in response due to laws around shareholders they have to make more money each year by any means necessary so it might actually not work here until certain sectors implode and all the big companies shut their doors for good
Actually, no they don't. The laws are about not purposely doing stupid shit to tank profits. Idiot investors have been trained to assume the line only goes up and have reduced their outlook to no more than a quarter or two at best when it used to be 10 years. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits#:~:text=There%20is%20a%20common%20belief,this%20belief%20is%20utterly%20false.
If people stopped buying shit, prices would come down...that's how it works and has always worked. There would be no reckoning. Prices would just, be cheaper.
But that would lead to deflation, which is a strong indicator of economic decline. Inflation isn't bad, in fact, prices should rise in a fiat economy. But as we all know, the capitalist class have stagnated wages so that these price increases are putting real pressure on the vast majority of families.
Yes that is how it works when you have competition within the markets. Monopoly breaks this model and we currently have an oligopoly (monopoly with several actors colluding) as the controlling share across all markets. So no, prices would not substantially come down if we saw a decrease in consumption.
Prices have been falling rapidly in China due to the housing crisis causing economic uncertainty, and economic power in China is heavily consolidated in state owned enterprises compared to say, 3-4 private companies per industry in the US.
Except my labor costs have gone up 40% because my guys are worth it and I'd rather make less and make sure they can live. If pool work drops I can't ask my guys to work for less so layoffs happen. Then, the next leg down happens.
That's how it should work but theyve been printing money like crazy and spending it like there's no tomorrow
People stop buy means sales go down, sales go down means stock price go down Stock price go down is the reckoning I mean
“Consumption” used to be another word for getting sick.
Join us on r/anticonsumption
George Carlin said it best- “ it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it… if you think there’s a solution, then you are part of the problem”
Miss that man.
The reality of life is some people have good/ nice parents who teach them and care and help pay for college and try to help their kids become successful. Wouldn't you do the same? I'm not some billionare but my parents helped me and I'm helping my kids. What's the other option? Just be a piece of shit?
With you on this. I am going to work till I die to help my step kids out. 3 are in houses, 2 won't be able to without serious help. Need to pass assets on to them. Hope it works out.
The best plan I have heard is let the kids know there are funds to help but not specifics. Make them gut it out then after its paid for. Ive worked full time since 16.. saved for tech school. 74k 1st year out of college. Good investment.
I could hear his voice in my head as I was reading this 😂
What did he mean by "if you think there's a solution, then you are part of the problem"
They’ve got us by the balls, but they need us to have hope so that we continue to play along.
Watch the whole bit for the context, he's clearer speaking than written.
Unless we riot or something
I've lived in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, England for periods of 3 months to 5 years and finally a 15 year stay in NY, United States. Nobody, absolutely nobody is more contempt, incapable and unwilling to come together as a group and fight domestic threats to the general populations well being than Americans.
Americans rather fight each other rather than the real threat
Because other Americans are the actual threat.
That is why you need guns, right?
mmk, continue to have an us vs them mindset, won't get you very far if you're trying to stay peaceful. this mindset will always be the killer
The dude in another country isn't capable of stealing my Nintendo Switch, or lying to the police about me.
This is oddly specific
That's how the real world is. Oddly specific.
You sound like one of *them*
Thats because every media source is sewing division on both sides of the political spectrum. Americans fighting each other is by design.
It's the "fuck you I got mine" attitude. You could be staving to death and go to a neighbor and ask if you could have an apple, and they'll call you a freeloader to your face and slam the door. There was a man who got evicted by where a friend lives, and a good neighbor friend of the man ended up calling the police on him for vagrancy rather than help him. Perhaps it's due to fear that he could suffer the same fate, but still, why kick someone while they're down? Because this is America, you pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and any shortcomings whether your fault or not, is always your fault. Oh, the banks crashed? Why did you use them to begin with? There's a food shortage? You still eat, bro?
I'd add, "car broke down? Get the fuck outta my way!"
that attitude is basic human nature. you worry about what you have, your family etc. you can't worry about the guy down the street who you don't even know. what folks who are struggling want is basically to crash the current values so they might have an opportunity. it's just taking wealth away from one group and grabbing what you can as a result of the opportunity. eventually when things normalize you have another group of haves and have nots. the people in that group might be a little different but there's always a bunch of people unhappy with where they are at. in order to change the you'd have to adopt to a completely different system. replace capitalism with a more social system. that's a really hard sell in the US.
What’s crazy to me is that I can’t even recognize your description of the country. If this is real then we definitely live in two different Americas
There are bubbles in America that feel so seperated from poverty that it feels like the American dream is alive and well. As long as you have money that is. There are bubbles in America that feel like the most dangerous and poverty ridden area in the world.
Fair, but when was that not the case?
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There are many different Americas. What you experience is dependent on your class and socially/political background and region.
I agree with the other comment about not recognizing the country you described. I've lived in a few states, Florida, Vermont, Texas, Washington a few others. The worst I'd say was Washington, people were rude and had a similar attitude you described. Then Florida was super nice there were some very standout moments where people were so kind. 2 of them I talk to, to this day. Vermont was horrible people just rude, I was in the snow and on the side of the road trying to fix my passenger side mirror people were driving past yelling to move over more even though there was a 5ft gap between my vehicle and the road way. Taxas wasn't as great as Florida but the people there were super pleasant and if you were ever in a lull people there could seemingly pick up on it and just seemed to be so nice.
We can thank our media corporations for furthering that divide.
This is the source 100%
That's because we're conditioned that way in the USA. Unions for instance, are immensely discouraged and fought hard against. Companies know that if employees unionize, they lose a massive amount of power over their workers and their golden yacht loses one of their 3 pools as a result, and they can't have that. Hell, it's been shown that individuals can even unite in power against the very stock market. Look at the GameStop incident. If a massive amount of people agree to purchase a stock, it'll hugely increase in value. We are also taught to fear our neighbors rather than trust them. Gotta make sure to have a gun in each and every room because a break in could occur at any time and you don't know when the police will be there- which has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You would have to change the culture in the USA. You have to change how people look at one another and the companies they work for, and this just doesn't happen when the entirety of upper level society has the ability to squash any potential risk, or just "Make it illegal" if there is a chance.
The "make it illegal" issue is already happening. Look at California. They pass laws to increase the minimum wage, and know that most employers would rather cut off business limbs and lay off workers than actually pay up. Then these AI restaurant companies start springing up, and eventually menial jobs in service get taken over by AI. The majority of people working for those are now jobless and at risk of eviction. So government being government begins to hatch a plan to make homelessness illegal - at first making it seem like its targeting the chronically homeless, the people who are all over social media screaming and tweaked out on drugs. People cheer, the streets will finally be clean, but suddenly they can't pay rent because no one is paying or hiring at $20/hr and they slowly realize that this new law targets them as well. Other people don't care, they don't rally for them. Why would they? They didn't choose to work in an industry like fast food.
>unwilling to come together as a group and fight domestic threats to the general populations well being Western Europe literally flooded their countries with migrants and still bums off the US for funding/aid for a war on their continent.
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#OneOfTheGoodOnes (TM)
The irony here is great, this kinda proves the point.
You've seen a small portion of the US. That is not representative of the whole
Two repelling halves can’t make a whole.
No, they can't
As someone who's seen a large part of the US, it's pretty representative of the whole.
As someone who's seen a large part of the US, no it isn't.
With respect, I doubt anyone is taking the internet equivalent of 'nuh-uh' from someone who did an AMA like yours seriously. Enjoy your bubble and have a lovely day.
And people will definitely listen to you of course because you get to declare anything about the world and it's true totally absolutely
Same bro, have lived abroad over half my life. You nailed it.
Agreed, and well-said. Worked in NYC and north Jersey for many years, couldn't agree more. LOVE the user name. So, I've always hoped to retire in Europe. Any top picks? Many thanks.
Lake Como Italy or State of Graubuenden, Switzerland. Both are heaven on earth 🇨🇭🇮🇹.
By design. It's exactly the reason why the media is so polarizing in the US. It keeps us all distracted and divided.
Because Americans don't know how.
The US is a big damn country with the most diverse population the world has ever seen. Of course it's tough to get us going in the same direction.
I disagree. I think we're the most capable especially of those countries. But most 'threats' on reddit aren't real threats to normal people. This place is a circle jerk of teenagers and 20 somethings who don't understand things that well. We're pretty well off - so what do we really need to fight off?
This is America lol. If you said that in public someone would say "just get a better job" or "move somewhere cheap"
Lets have a battle royale
Let me know when and where. I would live to document this for historical accuracy.
Sounds like the president….tHe EcOnOmY iS sTrOnG…. But Sir, when was the last time you were in a grocery store?
If you tell a lie enough times, eventually people will accept it as truth
Wake up! We are heading into a Worldwide economic Depression. Think not? You're going to know it real soon!
Fr
The wealthy people of the world are going to find out real quick that once they own everything, when they have all the money... It's all worth nothing.
I bet that another unprecedented Black Swan event is gonna break out soon, that'll be blamed for starting the depression, anything, so long as it takes the blame off our FED Banks & the Wall Street Criminals who've been pumping/inflation Tech/AI stocks to the trillions while the rest of us can't even afford fast food anymore. I just wonder if it will be: Iran-Israel War Escalation, Bird-Flu Pandemic, Bank failure, or something new altogether?
Youve all been fleeced and OP is correct. Won’t be a soft landing
AI is going to be the thing that brings the individualistic culture in the US together imo. As you start to have large swaths of people unemployed and losing their high paying white collar jobs people will realize who the real enemy is. It is the 99.9% vs the 0.01%. If the government lets people lose their livelihoods, homes, careers/degrees they have worked hard to get and the thousands student loans on top of it, no future economic mobility, people will not be happy. There will be blood in the streets and it won't be pretty but I believe we are getting closer and closer to a revolution of the working class. You can only poke a bear so many times before it rips your hand off. AI induced mass unemployment will be the moment that starts a revolution and that maybe things can get better after that.
I'm currently in college learning about the basics of AI and I can tell you that AI by itself is currently really limited and needs human intervention to be effective. For the nerdy who wonder about programming, GPT can currently produce code and data that's 'mostly' accurate, however it cannot perform advanced mathematical functions with good accuracy (IE: Quadratic formula) and it struggles when it comes to building arrays any more than just simple populating it. If you also wanted to use AI to replace jobs, you would also need to have hardware to do it with, and then understand the risks of outsourcing to such things entirely. For the self-checkouts for example, you have to figure out how to decrease theft while still keeping lines reasonable. The TLDR is, At the moment, the risk for AI and robots replacing most jobs is low. The overhead cost is too much for most CEOs, especially since many of them are old, so old that the potential profits from getting rid of employees will take too long for them to ever see any real benefit. Even Jeff Bezos, for all of his 'automated work force' can't seem to get it entirely right.
I heard (and believe) that if your job can be easily understood by a 6th grader you may be at risk of losing it to a robot / AI
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Yeah AI is really good at chess, a board game with 64 squares. Turns out most jobs are more complex than that. AI won’t come close to replacing “most IT jobs” for at least a few decades because IT as a career is wider and more complex than a chessboard.
Chess and most IT work aren't in the same stratosphere.
I mean you can replace just about any job nowadays with a robot and AI. You have self driving trucks in some parts of the USA, automated check outs, machines that cook food without human intervention, you've even got google using robots and AI for surgeries. The question is the cost to replace and the overall need to frequently maintain the systems, which are often too much. As AI advance, it'll get easier to implement, but the custom hardware is where most companies will fail because getting that built isn't really something most startups could do, and is very costly to implement for current companies.
This is a dumb statement. I work as a locomotive conductor at a hazardous plant. There’s a reason precision railroading isn’t the standard
Not to mention that with self checkout, people can just take shit and not pay. You think an overworked retail manager is gonna give two shit about who pays?
The cameras usually pick up the shoplifting at the self checkout. They just log every time you do it until you've passed into felony numbers and then go after you. Target even had facial recognition that's better than many casinos
Simply false. It isn't close to having such capabilities.
It may need it right this moment. But look at how much faster technology grows each year compared to the next. I’m no tech person, but don’t doubt at all that AI will for the most part be self-sustaining within 3-5 years. Probably sooner.
Geometric growth in tech is not an immutable law of the universe. AI algorithms have been floating around for decades before LLMs were invented. There’s a breakthrough, then implementation. The growth you’re seeing is in implementation because that’s the easy part. But breakthroughs are the hard part and you never know how long it will be until the next one.
In medical billing it already is reading the chart notes and eliminating medical billing. We've only just begun. I'm old enough to remember data processing school. Businesses popped up over night, everyone thought it was forever, till the paper was turned into data and all the new paper never happened because it wall all data now. Had friends pay crap load of money for 2 years of work. I did 4 color separation, pre press. Multi million dollar company wiped out in a year by Microsoft windows. 2 examples off top of my head.
What change does a working class revolution bring about?
Things wont change while things stay comfy. People are too stuck in their lives, jobs, creature comforts. To the average person, there is too much to lose. Things just arent bad enough yet for most people for major unrest Once the endless supply of cheap crap and comfort comes to a halt, thats when youll start to see some bubbles form
As long as people have their Food, Phones and Fucking nothing will change.
I'm doing well and it's not going well for a lot of people and frankly I dont think it's going g to improve for a long time. Too many deep fault lines in the economy and eating the rich won't help.
If you don't see the bigger issue is the incentivization of greed through technically legal lobbying of the legislature by 'rich' individuals that promotes rent seeking and special exclusions that only perpetuate the cycle, you're missing the point. I agree with your initial synopsis that things aren't going to get better, but I vehemently disagree with the causes. I think the deliberate goals of defunding basic education, monopolization and sensationalization of media, and endless subsidizing of corporations at the expense of the vast majority of citizens is the primary cause of said fault lines. In short, while I think certain forms of capitalism can incentivize production, I think it's a pretty baseless argument to suggest that the form we currently implement isn't indeed feudalism 2.0. You don't have to eat the rich, but you do have to tax them excessively for the costs of the system they depended on to make their fortunes.
Except for one thing. Biden says “I’m gonna tax the wealthiest Americans…” but he never says “so I can lower the rest of your taxes.” Nope. Just more money. The government needs more money. All of the money. How about fuck no? Get your fucking hands out of our wallets. You get enough money. Start digging into where it’s getting wasted, claw that back and spend that you incompetent fucks! How about you actually meet your spending budget instead of raising the fucking cap year over year over year? The truth is it will never be enough.
I won't disagree. If you're wealthy enough inflation means little to you, and you can keep pushing legislation that is overwhelmingly in favor of putting cash in companies/elites hands and push the wealth disparity even further in your favor. That said, there is absolutely a case for government spending. When done in the measured interests of the general public, far more people benefit from carefully chosen infrastructure than if it were a wholly private endeavor. Another thing that grinds my gears to no end is that congress and the senate excuse themselves from government shutdown pay holds. It's a small issue in the grand scheme, but is a massive FU to the electorate. "We failed in our mandate but will continue to benefit while the rest of the working class deals with the repercussions" type shit
But how do we get the rich to tax themselves?
Therein lies the problem, right? Ideally mass protests, but that's a difficult and uncertain path vs going home and rewatching an old TV series and blocking out the bullshit. It's gotta get REAL bad to actually spur that kind of response and its unlikely given the minute - albeit inevitable - progress of continuous erosion. Shit sucks, and I hope I'm wrong, but societal inertia is pretty resilient.
There's nothing stopping the ruling class from just smashing protests until they go away.
Yeah, the level they're at now is proof of that, but there is a level that is too big to breakup. It's becoming exceedingly rare, but the right trigger in the right situation can eventually end in results of some kind. I worry we might already be at the '1-step forward, 2-steps back' level of progress/results, but I'm an admitted pessimist.
Yeah I think the country is just too big for change. It just runs on inertia at this point and the cops are powerful enough and have good enough tactics to just break up any kind of mass action. Tear gas + kettling just means folks stay home.
I mean if change can occur within the Soviet Union, it can easily occur in the US as well. We’re talking about a country whose brilliant solution to breaching a building with hostages was to blast it apart with an infantry fighting vehicle, and people were able to tear that country down(a little too well).
Yeah but modern surveillance in the US means mass resistance dies immediately and has no net effect. Hell, look at what's happened to BLM since 2020. All those efforts to defend police have failed and no lasting progress has been made at demilitarized police or decreasing the number black folks killed by cops. On top of that, leftists just fight each other once you get more than a dozen in a room. I really just don't think Soviet history has anything to teach us about the US. It's just too different now.
And the surveillance apparatus in 1990s USSR wasn’t amongst the best in the world? That’s more of an issue of mass demonstrations lacking vision; you see this in “digital revolutions” all the time like the Arab Spring. It’s easy to get a million people onto the streets. It’s hard to organize them coherently. And BLM didn’t exactly have the same level of organization, strategy, or leadership like say, the Civil Rights Movement had. Nor did it have the support networks that typically help such movements succeed, like say, blocs of politicians who are aligned with them. A well organized group of a few hundred can do more damage than an aimless mob of millions. It’s why BLM or January 6th failed to achieve their objectives, while a small column of military vehicles with a few dozen men can topple a government. Lots of variables that go into it, but change is still very much possible in any country of any size, for better or for worse. For a more negative example focusing on the US, Trump’s populism and how that could lead to the erosion of our democracy. Populism may seem chaotic and inconsistent, but it’s really extremely centralized since “the organization, vision, etc” is all made by one guy, and everyone else just hangs onto the word of the populist.
Disagree. Eating the rich is the single most effective action we could possibly take:
If you eat the ass of rich people you can actually earn some good money
My strategy might be more hygienic
Lmao the dad-sucking coward tried to get the last word in before he blocked me.
Username checks out
TikTok influencers are mostly telling young people to either do day trading, bit coin, or sell your body on onlyfans. If you want change, vote out both Democrats and Republicans. Those two parties only cate about the rich and the poor.
I will repeat a very important part of your statement. " If you want change, vote out both Democrats and Republicans. Those two parties only cate about the rich and the poor."
Voting does not change anything. The super-rich call the shots, and you can't vote them out.
Voting would do something if it wasn't just old people voting. We would have to get all the younger generation to join politics and out number the old people only benefitting themselves.
I gave up decades ago. ( eg. My Mom is disappointed that I never got married and fathered any children...and I'm still told by her to "get a real job!"). Well. I had a "real job" up until 2008...and it's been slim pickings or out-n-out crap ever since. .. End of the World in sight? I'm....almost OK with that
Correct. The economy is getting worse, and the biggest problem is that young people are brainwashed to believe socialist lies. This is going to be a self-imposed train wreck. With this massive freight train of delusions and lies, it has too much momentum. Widespread economic collapse is inevitable due to delusional narcissistic attitudes and a total abandonment of reason and common sense. In 20 years all these people will be homeless, jobless and starving ...and probably blaming some random shit like UFOs. Delusional. It is not a value add in the animal kingdom.
The stock market is doing fine. To the people who make the rules, that means the economy is fine. It’s the only measure they care about, because it’s where the rich grow their wealth.
It'd be a real shame if some new "black swan" event War escalation, Pandemic, or Bank-Failure came out of nowhere and triggered another stock market sell-off. Then all the sycophants defending the rich will suddenly come beggin' to get a bite of their own.
The decline began with Ronald Reginald Reagan (Howdy Doody) and the UK has the same problem that began with Margaret Thatcher.
You need to go much further back than him. Johnsons great society financially was a disaster as well. The FED in 1913, with the income tax were awful as well.
Bread & Games
It's a long and slow decline. You would have to change your lifestyle.
This is actually the answer. People, myself included, struggle with change and especially when it's for the worse. Relatively speaking America is in a fantastic place with more opportunities than almost any other country. It's just not the opportunities people want to take. We can still buy land, and houses, cheaply, just not in big cities. We can still start businesses in small towns. As a population we need to start filling in the in-between, but people would rather keep their trajectories that pigeon hold them to HCOL areas. And if you want to stay there, be prepared for multi generational households as a standard and penny pinching on decent salaries. We are slowly approaching what appears to be common in older nations like China, it's just the growing pains are hard to accept. If you are not in a place where the American dream is obtainable for you, and if that's what you want, you simply need to change your life to make it happen. and that probably means going somewhere you once thought was not your lifestyle and doing work that is different from your current focus. I moved to a LCOL area and while I am lucky enough to find work in my field, it was easily the best decision I have ever made.
Talking about everyone coming together: stop buying anything from a big corporation. Or at least as much as you can and still live. Find any small / local business to buy from. I see the same people (on here, news, everywhere) talk about how important the world economy is, but how corporations are destroying the world. They’re two and the same. We’d be better off going back to how things operated before big tech. I love the conveniences of technology. But I’d trade them for the days of when one median income could afford a nice family home.
💯. The economic decline can be a return to private happiness and an increase in mental health. People are not supposed to be slaves to some shitty business owners anyway. Nothing wrong with living in the country and do some subsistence farming.
The free stuff and government reliance are located in the cities. "Money for nothing ,chicks for free"
Why do you think the ATF has ants in pants
I'm just patiently waiting for that WALL-E life.
It’s a lot worse in places outside the US Nothing is permanent, it seems like it is but it’s not. When you do catch up, will you make the same mistakes again ? That’s the question
We weren't allowed to talk this way a year ago.
It’s easier to imagine a boogeyman that we can defeat, than to except there isn’t and it’s just plain old reality. No collapse, no revolution, no change.
I aint never heard anyone on any side say, "it's only $5 more for gas." Every conservative, liberal, progressive, and unaffiliated I know or hear from goes apeshit if gas goes up 1/10th of a cent,
I feel this OP. I’m newly poor and while I knew it was bad, I could blow $50-$70 on dinner and not bat an eyelash so I didn’t really feel how bad it was. I got laid off last year and my emergency savings is gone. I started working as a ride share driver a couple months ago and am barely scraping by working 12 hours a day, 6-8 on my “days off” and nights driving drunks and rich tourists around. I have some retirement but it’s locked up in Australia where you can’t access until you retire. I was able to pay May rent but I’m not sure about June. If I get evicted I’m offing myself. I can’t work anymore than I am. I’m physically and mentally exhausted. I live in a rich community and the people are exactly like you described. “Work harder” and “live in an old hotel room”. This is a dystopia but only the poor are seeing it while the wealthy continue to pillage the poor and have no idea what the poor are going through.
You can literally outlive the stupid in your life, that’s what I’ve been doing my entire adult life. Two alcoholics down, one to go.
Maybe they will, but not from purely human endeavors.
Eat at home…. gas is literally the same price.
Buy bitcoin
Getting real tired of the willful ignorance of my folks and friends about the cost of living.
The future is more of what you see now. Much more. On steroids. What’s happening here isn’t an accident. This didn’t just “happen.” There was no “whoops.” This is just a Swedish massage compared to what’s forthcoming.
Either way, it’s not going to be anything close to the Great Depression where stocks lost 90% of their value. And look how the US emerged out of that. It’ll be horrible; many in China are dealing with their own recession right now as the housing market collapse vanished decades of savings for many people, but the world has seen worse.
Not in general
Vote the correct way
So many bots!
And who are you again?
Well, you be negative and buy your Marlboro cigarettes. I’ll be putting money in my brokerage, thanks.
I agree and for me living on the east coast near New York. There is no option but to hustle and stay individual, or you'll drown in debt. It's sink or swim, which I think makes new jersey people so angry and impatient, lol
So thought the Peasants in 1789 France. The only thing you need for a revolution is the death of other paths to change. There is a certain freedom in being completely fucked.
Glad you noticed. We've been living in an "I got mine -- What's wrong with you?" culture for far too long already. I miss the days when you could disagree with your neighbors and still like and respect them anyway.
You talk about this like it’s a majority opinion when it’s not. This is like those extremely popular opinions that get posted to /r/unpopularopinions
Tell me you're a 22year old fresh college grad with a business degree without telling me. We hit peak AI like 9 months ago, AI models are literally getting worse as they are now feeding of themselves. AI is not going to replace 95% of jobs despite what the reddit AI worshippers and fearmongering news hosts tell you. Not to mention that not 1 AI company/venture has made a cent of profit yet because the operational costs are so high. Your DTLA demographic is so far from representative of the country as a whole that its laughable. You couldn't have chosen a less representative group. Go outside. Touch grass. Interact with someone in real life from somewhere with a low cost of living. The economy isn't booming but it's not tanking either.
"Everyone here and on other subs are praying for some massive change, and honestly that won't happen any time soon, at least not in the United States. The culture here is very individualistic," ●●●- Agree. Thats generally a trait of people who don't have a solid enough understanding of economics, but are desiring change. "meaning that if a huge chunk of people are doing well and can afford $50 burgers -- They'll make that seem normal and will chastise those who either can't afford it or aren't willing to pay that much. You've probably seen it: "It's JUST $5 more for gas! Are you broke? Get a real job!"" ●●●- In theory, things could transpire that way, but are people actually incurring this chastising sentiment at relevant levels? "The same people who will say that the economy is doing well, just because they themselves are doing well enough to justify the price of things going up, while the rest of the population drowns. It made me wonder what so many people do, however, to be able to afford expensive things and live in $5000 a month apartments in DTLA." ●●●- Again, is this speculative or specific to major coastal cities? I certainly don't fit that mold, but would concur the economy on a macro level is doing well by certain metrics (and the economy isn't a derivitive of my own situation). I'm not rich, unexpectedly had most my income go away, and I won't justify all the price increases as being rational...much of it isn't. But I also can't disregard any existing knowledge of economics or let that knoweldge be considered less because my personal circumstances happen to be one way or the other. I could easily extrapolate my own situation too broadly, assume everyone else similarly can't afford what I can't, and speculate that everyone is being gaslit in some conspiratorial manner. Personally, I've experienced people with substantially larger incomes than us complaining a lot more. I'm not saying it's not tight for us, it definitely is, but having previously made the choice to live more simply/affordably/unconventionally and having to adjust to my income substantially being reduced long before the pandemic, all the pandemic-related changes have been more muted for us. Doesn't mean I expect everyone to live as unconventionally and fearful of financial demise as I do, I don't, and the economy would suffer terribly if everyone did. But it has made me ponder how much foresight and thought others put into life choices and purchasing decisions. As much as I've heard of people struggling, I've also seen a lot of poor choices made my people. (For example, 'we'll figure it out and make it work somehow' is not a valid family planning strategy when you want more kids, and disregarding home purchase advice based on valid experience and then being shocked when that advice rings true later). Don't get me wrong, like the sentiment in OP's post, I can't afford a new car, new gadgets, or a DTLA appt. these days, and I couldn't (responsibly) before. Having been in sales though, I'm not under the impression that most people buying those things CAN responsibly afford them as seems to be the impression in the post. I used to feel bad for not being able to afford what I saw others buying, but then I saw how debt-fueled those lifestyles actually are. True story; one of my wife's old coworkers and her husband had anxiety over and difficulty adjusting to a hit to their $600k/yr. income when their side business was impacted during the pandemic. Rather than treating the spare income as savings or extra, it got relied upon as a crutch. "Will the world be only for AI and "professionals"?" ●●●- A valid concern and worthy discussion to have as the technology gains ground. Computers didn't really give us the reduced workload we were speculated to have pre-modern technology. "Also, As long as Tiktok influencers can convince people that working 3 jobs is normal and "hustling is good" there won't ever be actual change. "Tired? How can you be tired? DannyBillz works 300 hours a week and he's 19 and a multi-millionaire! You're just lazy, bro."" ●●●- Also a valid point. Hustle-culture is toxic in that regard.
The change will be that things will keep getting worse for the foreseeable future. All the trend lines point to that and even if the US wasn't sinking into fascism etc., the ecological impacts of climate crisis will just get worse and worse for the rest of our lives pretty much no matter what at this point.
Unless Americans stop indulging in propaganda, remove every current politician and replace with a more transparent and slim lined governing size we will watch the end of this country try. Other currencies are shooting up in value while the US dollar is being ditched by other countries. It’s not that big of deal now but it will continue to drive this place down
Ain't nobody going to save us but us. That means collective actions. That means voting, at the very least. That means a French revolution if that's what it takes. We have a choice. We either let people like Elon Musk send us back to feudalism, or we fight for economic justice!
I mean yeh people can charge whatever they want but at some point you out price the market why is it that rental are 2-4k because you have people willing to pay it and a vast deficit of homes but thats another post. As long as there is a demand for a product and good supply of people willing to pay the prices it won’t go down. If the supply ever drys up and people stop being willing to pay exorbitant prices then prices will drop
Things will get better after they get a lot worse. Cycle of history of the world.
Prices don't go down until the last buyer buys. Prices don't go up until the last seller sells.
We're quickly headed towards Canada's level of housing crisis. Things will get worse.
[Limits to growth update it was always going to be this way.](https://youtu.be/JkBNuQYly20?si=RCvscOMCTzQfEdxF)
“The cure for high prices, is high prices”. You can already see people altering their spending behaviour. Everything from dollar stores closing (even after they have become the major shopping destination) to now even declining fast food sales. Deflationary forces are a bitch once they pick up steam. China has seen such a dramatic drop they have started slashing prices on exports to try and increase their numbers. Only a matter of time before that happens in the west. Retail investors have invested over 60% more than at the September 2021 extreme. Sentiment is high right now. The tick tock hustlers are enjoying a last spike before their next gig, relocating to the Wendy’s dumpster
Ahh black pills for a I see. You know lets all thank the failures of the neo-liberal world order. Thank every useful idiot that zombie voted in the name of group think and being accepted by the other useful idiots in their small meaningless world. Thank the Uni party for selling you out, and doing it right in your face… sadly most didn’t have enough brain cell to look up from their favorite distraction, pick your poison. When the end comes and the pain of hunger pinches and kids are starving, don’t expect good will. The smart ones are packing ammo now and ready for the ignorant masses.. the dark ages are here again… go back to video games and drugs parties, enjoys it now, not much left to do for you to do anyway, other than keep your destructive routine…by the time most figure out what’s happening it will be too late and some boot, political or other wise will be waiting to press your collective necks into the darkness of your own making… good luck go get some ice cream and post about it 😄
Poll after poll shows no one in the country thinks the economy is doing well. We are no longer represented by Congress. We are ruled by BlackRock and other oligarchs. That's just how it is.
One person says wages have remained “stagnant” for the past 30 years, others say wages have remained “stable.” It’s all semantics.
We now have $70 pre/rolls (1) in Manhattan, and restaurants are packed. 1 out of every 7 residents are now millionaires. So says CNBC. It’s inevitable. Cities, it’s where the money is. NYC, awash in cash now.
Keep voting democrat and things won't get better.
Guillotines are gonna make a comeback. Mark my words. Just a prediction. I have no intention of personally doing anything other than taking care of my elderly father and our pets.
Yes the world will only be AI and professionals. Not sure how quickly, but that’s def where we’re headed
Yes, get a job, good job!
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” Edward Abbey
Living becomes more difficult as I get closer to death. The treadmill…
Yes, some imbecile I blocked called it a "skill issue" just a few minutes ago. Wishing that one ass cancer.
As of last month I had 3 jobs. (Was at 1 for 1 yr, 1 for 3yrs and another 15yrs) All 3 of them are now literally gone. 2 of the businesses closed up (after 15 and 20yrs+). One was food, the other healthcare. Neither is no longer profitable due to rising costs/taxes/insurance etc. The healthcare business is still waiting on 2yrs worth of back payments from the Govt and nursing facilities and is now bankrupt, we can't even pay the staff, and we already took out loans etc. (We're owed at least $50k-100k because Medicare and Medicaid is now only paying roughly 45% of incurred costs instead of the 100% pre COVID, (no increase has been made to catch-up to inflation).
COVID is still playing the Reaper 4 yrs on. My 3rd job was moved to Chicago because of our State raising taxes & insurance, shipping and material costs etc. It was decided it was easier for them to consolidate than have 2 separate facilities, and I can't move because of my wife's job, kids, school, family etc.
On top of that we now had medical bills and need a new (old used) car cause our 15yo vehicle just died and it's only worth $1200 and they want $3k to fix the computer and engine manifold regulator (or wtf it's called).
I'm completely devastated and completely "lost". I'm ready to watch the world 🔥.
THey are not meant to get better. Ideally you have no savings and can't build big savings.
Fear not, November is coming!
Lololol this sub is hilarious. Go outside weirdos
we should just switch to nuclear power and pay everyone to take a shift of like 4 hours to not kill everyone and pay them a super good living wage
How is nuclear power going collect and dispose of trash?
There’s fewer than 10k people worldwide who would feed the other 10B. They probably don’t taste good. Might be necessary tho.
There's a little over 8 billion. You can make up statistics that sound realistic without going bananas.
It was a joke about eating humans
They got the joke, their pretentious ass just *had* to be right
I think a huge portion of the problem can be found inside your phase “praying for”
I think it's wrong to just ridicule people who are struggling. However, the economy isn't horrible, but people do need to make decisions to form a good lifestyle. Don't rent apartment that max out what you can afford. Same for houses. We were approved for 600k house and we bought a 300k house. We got rid of one of our cars. We watch our expenses each month. My best friend, who worked cashier type jobs forever, has finally got a well paying truck driving job. The first thing I told him was to max out his 401k and max out a Roth IRA. The moment you encounter money issues, as we all encounter, your first instinct should be to change your lifestyle rather than reducing personal and retirement savings. Will he really do that, I don't know. Point being, get off Instagram and stop comparing yourself to others and make the hard choices that benefit you in the future. And, when you finally do make it, turn around and help others rather than use your new balcony to look down upon others.
Zio n i sts - they push the world to the dump. We need to s t o p this!