Submitted 8 months ago by LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Wages are stagnant and cost of living is ridiculous. Are we headed for a crash?
[“Create one’s own money as a IOU/ Promissory note, put your thumb print on it’s value and signature to it and get others to do the same. Trust it as you would have done so if it were debt based fiat currency. Get your villages and towns to start using it and bingo a new private lawful currency has come to life. :-) .”]
It’s in the making since 1971
We are heading into a feudal system of a sort. The wealth gap is absolutly massive and the only way to end up in the upper class is to inherit. As per usual the population feels that the system is unfair, but is unable to see the real problem. Media is really pushing far right talking points, as the upper class realizes that the system is broken and a real revolution is a problem. Thats how the US ended up with a de facto monarchy. The UK is moving towards that pretty quickly too.
The good news is that Labour might make some really usefull changes. Mainly end first past the post to prevent Reform from taking over. That might very well allow left wing parties like the LibDems and Greens to win more seats and change the narrative.
What makes you think Labour are looking to change that?
Labour had a bit more then a third of the votes, which is pretty close to were Reform is polling today. However Labour won a massive majority with those votes. If Labour wants to prevent a Reform victory they need to change the election system. It is even worse for the Tories. So long term Tory supporters will cheer them on.
We’re headed for a revolution, of the French variety.
Bonjour
I already know that you are from the US because of the implicit defaultism of your question. Yes, it doesn’t look good at all.
I'm in the UK
Sure.
It depends on who “we” are.
If you’re in the US, then bad news buttercup - you’re already under the thumb of a ruthless insane dictator, and the economy is the last of your worries.
brought on by the dismal job prospects of many degree/fields too, even before trump 2nd term.
Yes degrees are ridiculous nowadays. Graduates are ten a penny and debts are awful
before covid hit i was visiting indeed forums and glassdoors quite alot. and found out so many people are like struggling with thier employment. Indeed and glassdoor shut them down, because the employers/companies were threatening the site owners with lawsuits because it made them look bad, because people were reporting how terrible the employers were, unethical business practices,etc.
we’ve already crashed
We are always headed for a crash. That’s the cycle of capitalism without strong regulatory mechanisms to mitigate it. I believe it is every 4-7 years that a crash has happened in the last 300 years.
Grocery value didn’t go up. Real wages went down. We should measure inflation based on cost-of-living.
Groceries don’t really get more expensive, because the methods for producing food don’t really get less efficient over time; if anything, it’s more efficient. So there’s no real reason for them to become more expensive.
Instead, wages declined. I’ve already commented many times that the labor market is a free market, that means it’s regulated by Supply and Demand. I.e., if prices for labor go down, as we can observe, then that can be interpreted such that supply of labor went up (women go to work too, offshoring labor to other countries, immigrants, …) or that demand for labor went down (automation, end of growth, …).
I honestly think that both cases are difficult, where the supply of labor could be a bit reduced by kicking out immigrants and home-shoring labor (and also, to a lesser extent, making it more difficult for women to work), which btw some advisers to trump are seemingly trying to do, but my honest opinion is that it won’t bring wages up to how they were in the 1960s. Demand for labor is shrinking too, due to the end of growth and now AI and other automation techniques. I guess we’ll have to face that.
edit: just to offer an optimistic outlook, i think that consumerism and therefore demand for consumer products could be stimulated by simply giving handouts to people. most people will spend most of the handouts immediately, and that stimulates consumerism. and that in turn stimulates the economy.
Groceries don’t really get more expensive, because the methods for producing food don’t really get less efficient over time; if anything, it’s more efficient. So there’s no real reason for them to become more expensive.
There is reason though. Making them more expensive increases money in flow. Prices aren’t just based on supply
that depends on whether there’s still competence in the grocery market
A crash? I’d say we’re in a plane from which the pilot decided to press the “eject wings” button.
Why do we even have that lever?
Yes
No. Things will just get worse.
Your statement has probably been true since 2008. Maybe longer.
This is so cute.
I live in country that has plateaued for the last 2 decades.
America doesn’t do free market capitalism it does late stage capitalism, where profits do in fact need to be record high every quarter, even if that means people are gonna die (like 10m people becoming uninsured, plus us borrowing a bunch of money from China, so we can give more to the billionaires that own us and don’t need it).
Which country would this be?
Worse, you will get used to it.
Don’t worry. Trump is making sure you can get a job picking crops. You’ll be living in a tent. No rent, not utilities. You’re welcome!
Brave of you to assume he won’t make people who live/work there pay rent and utilities, and that “the haves” won’t say he’s a great guy for providing this.
Sarcastic humor aside, migratory agricultural work is a thing in the US. Some of my friends did it back in the 80’s. Live in a tent on site, earn by how much you pick, save money because no rent and no place to spend. No federal taxes. Blueberries here, apples there, travel to where the crops need picking. Clean fish in Alaska or work on the boats.
More of a sticky slide into a chaos. From it our pain and suffering will fuel new metrics for new economic models with new crash indicators. Indicators that when applied to today would appear as an ominous array of flashing red lights.
Slapping on tariffs at a time with inflation, high consumer anxiety, and wage stagnation is going to be looked on as one of the worst moves a president has made.
He is, without a doubt, the worst and second worst president in the country’s entire history.
Trump: “Ah, but you have heard of me!”
FAKE NEWS TDS, TRUMP IS OUR LAWD N SAVIOR, HE HAS RISEN AND REPLACED JESUS CHRIST. /s
We can only hope! (That this is considered one of the worst ones…)
I remember during the big housing bubble in the early 2000s people were telling me “Oh you better buy now” even though down payments were insanely high and I kept thinking “The cost of housing is totally out of whack with incomes. There is no way this can keep going up.” Surprise, surprise the whole thing blew up and lots of people were then left with mortgages that cost more than their homes so they were stuck. On top of that the prices were still out of whack with incomes and I still couldn’t afford a house unless it was a wreck. I eventually just moved out of the state.
I was just reading how the normal “escape cities”, like Miami, for people fleeing high cost areas like San Francisco and Boston/NYC are now almost as expensive. Guess people will have to go to St Louis and Des Moines.
Trump is selling us off to China, he said so today in the cabinet meeting. Everything is expensive because China owns it. Climate change is here, AMOC collapse is ongoing, we’re pretty fucked tbh. So they need land and clean water for their people, we all do. Floods absolutely destroy/contaminate clean water sources like lakes. And there’s been massive floods globally, especially in China.
ITT: Slaves use bunk stats to feel indignant about maintaining the status quo.
Yes, we are. It isn’t currently whether or not a crash is coming but which one in particular.
The USA could trot along forever North Korea style because our entire country is full of cowards who will just take oppression without any fight.
…the climate, tho. 😬
You will own nothing, live in the company town, owe your soul to the company store, and be grateful.
And that’s different from now, how exactly?
What I am saying is that IS now. Next up, rats and maggots on the menu.
Depends what you mean by crash. Before, we have crashed through small bushes and banana stands. Big showy and doing minor damage. We are about to run into that tiny little tree that the devs never made animations for.
We are not prepared for the devastation that tree will cause.
And some turnip brain has thrown down a random slalom course of giant boulders of tariffs, terrorizing immigrant labor, and a full clown car of national “leadership” whose only qualification is personal loyalty
you are outside the bounds of the map
And I just found out I need a new job as we are being ordered into the office after they moved it 50 miles away
its called constructive dismissal learn that when they were doing the very first round of layoffs in '23, from reddit.
I’ve been WFH since Covid for Ed it, but then a year ago the promised us WFH full time was here to stay and only those that needed or wanted to be in the office could. They downsized buildings and everything. Nice!
They just told us we all had to be back in the office in a month. There isn’t enough offices, not enough parking, we’ve blown away all the productivity metrics at home, half the company is out of state. But, uh, REASONS! We must have butts in THIS specific chair or work doesn’t count.
There is literally no valid reason to force it. I think it’s all about control and power. They really don’t care about productivity or employee satisfaction at all, they just want to force everyone to comply. If they wanted either of those other things we’ve proved what works.
I hate it. It feels like the dumb “open office” fad all over again. Let’s cram 200 people into a single giant open noisy room. Employees HATED it. Managers all gloated how innovative they were. Then it faded away again as they all slowly accepted that no one gets anything done in that chaotic environment.
So too with office vs home. We live in a digital age. The computer age. The internet age. Long gone is the age of work being done by shaking hands and looking at a binder of papers. It’s an email, zoom call and a pdf now. Accept it.
In a weird way I’m actually looking forward to my company all going back with 0 coherent plan and not enough parking or desks and then I’ll giggle as productivity and morale absolutely tanks.
It’s also very likely they know a certain % will quit over it and do it on purpose to lay off without having to. The only problem is that all the most experienced and qualified people leave first.
Companies have had 5 years to accept reality, sell off the MASSIVELY expensive offices and stay fully remote where possible, but no, I think they want control over profits. They want to FEEL like they are managing instead of actually managing.
constructive dismissial, create a situation where it becomes untenable to stay at your job, eg far away location limit office space, so people resign.
Oh I absolutely expect morale to tank. We barely have parking at all, the office is large enough for about 25% of the company, the parking is enough for 5% of the seats in the office.
I am hoping I can get it down to once a month, at that point its no worse than commuting into town for retail every day as far as total commuting time each month. The pay I get is barely over minimum wage so that is hardly a benefit compared to retail. Full WFH is pretty much the only benefit that is worth anything.
Then at once a month hopefully avoid coming in for a few of them. Plan holiday for the days we were going to be in, that kind of thing.
That's scary. How are you holding up?
Scrolling through indeed right now, its not great. Maybe just give up trying to find anything I have skills for and find something unskilled?
But I think my contract states once a month in the office so if I can argue that its probably worth staying and just going through a shit commute once a month. Still not great but probably slightly better than taking a local retail job.
More of a slow collapse than a crash. Ever seen a dilapidated house on a country road, parts of the roof caving in, paint chipped, vines covering the yard? We’re working on being that house by slowly letting social and physical infrastructure in the US collapse over time.
my parents house is like that, lol dad getten older and is too lazy to do anything, he keeps hoping something will magically happen.
Florida is already the rusty old car on blocks in the front yard.
with hurricanes washing away homes that are built on flood prone areas too.
What you’re describing is basically stagflation. It doesn’t necessarily mean a crash. It’s possible for the majority of people to keep on earning less and less real income for a long time without a crash.
I do wonder what the effect of all the layoffs from tech and the public sector and all the cuts in federal funding will do though. Dunno if that’s enough to flood the housing market and crash it or not. I think I’ve read that banks are in a good position to absorb housing market losses, so it won’t be like 2008.
AFAIK, most current economic indicators are OK. Not necessarily great, but not dire either.
The stock market makes no sense to me. It doesn’t appear most stocks move on the fundamentals of the companies or anything like that. It all appears to be driven by hype/gambling, and propped up from sustained lows by 401ks on auto-pilot and people trained to “buy the dip” by the quick Covid recovery.
The USD appears to be rapidly losing a lot of value compared to other currencies like the EUR. But, that fits well into the plan to reduce imports and boost US exports. Inflation with stagnant wages makes US exports more attractive/cheaper.
The stock market makes no sense to me.
That’s because “The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
Could the housing market crash independently? Or would it be always with the other markets?
Isnt a crash in the housing market a good thing for the average person?
The crisis happened because everyone got credits to buy a house, even if they shouldnt, and banks made money by betting against them ever paying it back. This caused a huge bubble that had to burst.
Republicans are really determined to make life as awful as possible, and the democrats in power are fine with it.
Republicans will buy stock in airlines then sink the Titanic, but first make sure their donors’ rooms are located right next to the life boats. Democrats will make arrangements so that the band plays your favorite song while it sinks.
while the rich dems also flee, possibly to another country.
They play your favorite song, but the tuba is right in your face and the band is off key.
sircac@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Headed? I would say we are a looney toon several meters in the air beyond the cliff border after traverse a mountaing through a tunnel pinted in the wall with an ACME parachute… and I think that I fell short in the hyperbole