Naw, born kids are also really useful when you need to pass some draconian surveillance or censorship regulation, or ban LGBT folks from existing - all of course to protect children, no other reason, it’s all for them precious kids!
They’ll also happily send you to protect corporate interests and keep the war machine churning so that the economy can continue to experience exponential growth freedom. As soon as you turn 18 and you enlist (and have no idea what you’re actually signing up for because of the lifetime of pro-military propaganda) they’ll happily break your body, mind, and soul, then refuse to fund your healthcare afterwards. Because nothing says “Freedom” quite like being so desperate to escape generational poverty that you’ll go kill brown people halfway across the world, just so some billionaire can sell bananas for more profit.
I’m no way am I excusing the Republican behavior here but most state agencies have organization been preparing for this such that they can weather a short shutdown. Anyone on WIC or other support should continue requesting and using it. These programs won’t necessarily shut down just because the gov’t does.
If anyone out there has the means, please donate directly to your local food bank in the form of cash money or whole cases of shelf-stable foods. Individual cans are fine to give, but individual cans require many times more work to distribute than whole cases because each can needs to be checked for damage, expiration date and label completeness (type of food and nutrition info have to be legible).
But really, money. A lot of the food that goes to food banks is near expiration. Money lets the food bank buy things like fresh produce, butter (food banks always need butter and never have it) and eggs that would otherwise be very hard to get.
If you’re hungry, look up your local food bank. They will give you food and if for some reason they can’t they will be able to point you to someone who can.
OP: Next time you make a meme about a political issue, don’t use a blatant AI-generated photo. There are plenty of real photos you could have used.
Everyone, look at that kid’s hands: there are three fingers on the left hand and five on the right, not counting thumbs respectively. And look at the weird creamy way the kid’s skin looks: no evidence of pores or extremely fine hairs everywhere. That’s AI where it does not belong, friends.
You should care if you care about the future of this country. That’s blatant propaganda. There’s nothing stopping someone from generating AI images of police murdering an innocent Black person, or of a politician groping somebody, or all kinds of nefarious shit.
But you know, who cares about the truth as long as the meme tells you something you want to hear, right? Who cares if they can be used to spread dangerous misinformation that could swing an election in a fascist’s favor or convince Americans to use violence at an inappropriate time? Who cares, right?
Not the content of the meme or the message, your upset that it’d an AI generated kid instead of a real one and clearly that’s gonna lead to the downfall of America.
Your post is blatant anti AI propaganda! You just want to exploit children for memes! See how stupid that is? That’s you.
I think what bucketofpuppies is trying to say is memes aren’t based on real shit. It’s just some AI image of a random-ass kid…shrugging. It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not, because it’s a “person”, shrugging, with text put on top.
No one here has generated a picture of cops shooting people, or people shooting cops, or mothers eating babies…it’s just a shrugging kid. It’s a meme. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
It doesn’t matter. It’s a politically charged meme telling people to express a certain opinion passing off a fake AI-generated photo of a kid as a real one to convince people to accept its message, and it’s working.
Even when you’re being told the truth about the meme, you’re rejecting it.
The reason memes work is because they use either real photos that people collectively decide are suitable representations of certain emotions, situations or opinions, or obvious artwork. Not hyper-realistic fakes passed off as real photos.
And people listen to and are influenced by memes. That means people shouldn’t be using AI-generated fake bullshit in them. It’s too easy to lie to everyone and convince most people to believe it.
It’s too dangerous and people need to reject it now, before it’s too late and people are passing off even more politically charged shit.
I can tell you care, but counterpoint: what if a genuine image of a sad, shrugging minority child was used instead? And this exact text was put over that? Genuine child, used to make a meme…does that really change anything, anything at all? This is, as you say, artwork but kicked up a few levels. A lot of levels, as you say, hyper-realistic.
Memes are not messages from the meme format to the viewer; it is merely a picture. Artwork. I can make angry & happy faces, and you can put text all over them. “I love Biden!”. “Birds aren’t real 😡” True subject material (my face), false message. My face being used doesn’t make the message any more or less real.
Now if I were to AI render Trump having buttsex with Biden, hyper realistic, and I were to lie to you & tell you this totally happened & it’s real. Okay, now I am actively engaging in a lie. I am using AI to destroy the truth, like cops shooting black kids or something. That’s an entirely different matter, man.
Then it wouldn’t have any of the propaganda baggage along with it because it wouldn’t be a really transparent attempt to normalize the use of AI-generated images in propaganda, closing an avenue for unscrupulous evildoers to use to lie to the American people.
It’s not just about this one meme. It’s part of a bigger picture.
Memes are not messages from the meme format to the viewer;
Yes they are, stop lying. Stop downplaying the extremely powerful effects memes have on popular culture and stop handwaving away the very real dangers of people being allowed to use AI-generated images in them with no pushback.
Now if I were to AI render Trump having buttsex with Biden, hyper realistic, and I were to lie to you & tell you this totally happened & it’s real.
Guess what you’re helping to incrementally normalize.
Just because you personally don’t see a problem doesn’t mean it’s not there. Just because you personally think it’s okay to use false AI-generated images in connection with anything political doesn’t make it okay. And just because you feel like the use of memes is under attack doesn’t make it okay either.
What’s your endgame? Make AI images illegal and uncommon?
That would make them more powerful, because people wouldn’t expect them, but the creation of AI images is still totally possible. It’s better to just call out its usage as lame, and aside from that, to adjust your thinking to acknowledge the lack of certainty you (and we all) now have about digital visual data.
Source? I want to believe this but the first page of my search results is all articles saying that WIC will shut down within days and SNAP is unlikely to last much more than a month.
Worsening standard of living as a result of 40 years of cuts to social services as neoliberal economic policy seeks to manage the contradictions of capitalism in the u.s. Basically the u.s. deindustrialized itself at the hands of monopoly capitalists which savaged the working class.
Americans make way more than Canadians do, they’re goods and services cost less than Canadians pay, Americans have a higher quality of life on average than Canadians, and yet Americans struggle the most out of all Western nations in feeding their children. Something isn’t right.
because all the things you mentioned come with a lot of asterisks and the abuse of the averages.
for example, a lot of the common “quality of life index” that you will find America rank highly on include things like “property price to income ratio” meaning that if you take the average income and compare it to the vast very cheap no-mans land, you end up with a way better ratio than other nations, or stuff like “climate index” that put Canada lower on the quality of life because northern Canada is cold, etc…
Tho you are wrong about the cost of living, Canada has a lower cost of living than America
Don’t forget that Americans have to pay a lot out of pocket and for more than the cannucks to the north
Americans pay for everything. The wage looks higher because it has to go towards medical bills, non subsidized food products like produce instead of corn, mangoes, and cheese. Insurance policies are required for everything but refuse to pay out anyways so you have to cover all casts yourself anyways. No rent protections ( but man Canada is sprinting past everyone else on rent prices lately)
America makes it look glamorous and well paid but really they hand you a wad of cash and tell you to figure out everything in your own and don’t tell you by paying us all higher they actually put less back into the country than anywhere else with capitalism just a bit under control.
Unironically, it is. No other political framework actively suggest loving, caring for and helping the anonymous fellow. Conservatism is almost always exacerbated individualism. They band together because they hate the same thing, not because they love each other.
Your Bible also says something along the lines of “chop off your hands if you jerk off.” There’s so much shit in Leviticus I could pull up which aren’t exactly “loving.”
Edit: Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT
“However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.”
Your economic framework has nothing to do with social policy and vice versa. Russia was a socialist national and they let Ukraine starve to get rid of dissidents. Norway is a capitalist country with very strong social welfare programs. The two are not related whatsoever.
Socialism as an economic model is not based on empathy at all, but rather where power lies. Capitalism is not opposed to government social programs and in fact only flourishes when government can mitigate externalities.
OPs view is simplistic and OP does not seem to understand the difference between socialism and social programs.
Is there a middle ground between individualism and communitarianism? I am looking for perspectives in earnest (i.e., this isn’t a “gotcha” question). I agree that “rugged individualism” ends up trampling people.
Social democracy, maybe. At least they acknowledge social justice as a core political value. Plenty of socialism political stances are emphatic about social justice without going full on accelerationist authoritarian communism.
Basing the collective mentality and the legal framework upon ubiquitous and mutual sovereignty. That is, an individual is sovereign, an organization is sovereign, etc - and thus, none have rights over another, except as agreed to by ongoing mutual agreement. Anyone can withdraw, and no other has the right to deny that. Disputes are resolved through finding the path of least incursion.
Implicit in this is the notion of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, that abortion is a right, that forcing medical choices (including vaccination) has no moral standing, that one can arm oneself, and one can also, by contract, participate in a community which disarms itself. Government bodies are ultimately services, in this model, which people, at some point, contractually agree to - or don’t.
The right to withdraw is a necessary one, as any contract one cannot deny or reject when one wants to is, at its root, compulsion or slavery.
High dependence on the government that prints so much money for dumb social programs that end up making the rich richer and poor poorer through inflation through the cantillon effect, since the rich own much more assets than cash.
Just wait until some dumb government implements UBI and see how inflation will become. All this inflation we’re seeing now is due to 3 stimmy checks from 2020. Imagine what happens when you do it monthly for a year.
Money is just paper, but it represents real stuff. No matter how much you steal from hard-working people, eventually you’ll pay the price.
Taxation also can lead to inflation if paid to people who spend it immediately. The problem relates to how the money moves in the economy. It’s a complicated matter. Some think it’s the “velocity of money”, that alone isn’t enough though as we saw in recent years. To maintain inflationary rate (of 2%, as required) you need to have a stable velocity in all sectors of the economy. But who knows how it works in reality.
And if everyone had a relatively comparable amount of assets under their control? If each person could control a certain amount of stock in the stock market or rights to property? As you became more wealthy in assets, the taxes become higher, while when you become less wealthy in assets, you receive more appropriated assets. The same amount of assets would exist in the economy, realized or unrealized, and if the appropriation equation is tuned well enough, it could provide income for people who can’t work, who might exchange all their assets for cash every time they get them, and limit the accumulation of assets for the very wealthy. There would still be the haves and have nots, but the have nots would have an effective floor, and the haves an effective ceiling.
The government would not make decisions on how the assets are used, only provide the means to even out how the assets are divided. People who work and earn enough to live on that income would be able to accumulate assets in the form of the stocks or property. They would earn assets up until the agreed upon point at which assets are taxed more than the average growth of the economy. This point would be at least enough for an average person to live comfortably and not have to work for a few decades until their assets ran out. Think in the 5 to 15 of million dollar ranges.
The assets would appreciate if profitable, like stocks owned by current stock holders, or depreciate if not. Most people would hire someone to manage their assets for a fee. That person would likely manage many people’s assets in the way requested of them. The safe investor would see their client’s assets grow with the economy, but some investors might value other things.
A person could instruct their investor to manage their assets at an agreed upon slow rate of growth, or even a loss. They might do this to spend on stocks that are less profitable, but are something the person cares about. A person might do this if they enjoy their work and have no plans of retirement unless forced to. They would keep enough assets to retire for a shorter period of time, or for use in the case of emergencies. This would allow people to fund some risky projects that could pay out massively, but keep themselves safe enough to not risk too much.
Other side effects include reducing opulent spending. You could have a huge mansion, but you couldn’t have as much in retirement savings. You could have all of your assets be boats, planes, and apartments for personal use, but you’d have to sacrifice to spend any time off work. The most expensive of properties couldn’t be owned full time by a single person, they’d have to be owned by multiple people and shared amongst themselves.
People who have huge businesses under their sole or family ownership would need to bring in outside investors. Large privately traded companies would have to be completely reworked, and would likely stop existing beyond a certain size. CEOs who own most of a large company would stop existing. Many other effects I’m sure I haven’t thought of.
This idea needs more work, and there’s a good chance constitutions would need to be amended to enable it, but it would solve the problem of the ridiculously wealthy having so much sway on the economy, and provide a social safety net. It would bring power to the hands of the people and democratize the economy, while not having the inefficiencies of planned economies.
While there is a lot wrong here, just factually, this part
All this inflation we’re seeing now is due to 3 stimmy checks from 2020
Is easily proven false because inflation is worldwide, the US is handling it better than most, and there were a wide variety of actions taken that did not include stimulus worldwide.
The USD is the world reserve currency. Inflation in the US affects all currencies because most debt is denominated in USD. You guys are seriously undereducated on the matter it’s pathetic.
Yes… we printed like 60% of the money supply, flooded the system with cash, created a tremendous bull market in stocks and all risk-on assets, and we expect it not to affect inflation. That’s what you’re trying to say. That’s sane, right?
You wish… not only we printed all that money, but we also handed cash to people to spend it in the economy, which created a spike in demand. But no… that has nothing to do with inflation. That’s INSANE!
Wait, am I hearing that stimmy DID affect inflation? lol! I’m happy you’re conceding at least.
Whether it’s third or half, doesn’t really matter. You can calibrate your factors depending on your model to get many different results and the truth will never be known, because all models and wrong and some models are useful. The point here is: I’m right, and stimmy checks caused inflation like you just admitted. Period. Stop arguing over nothing! And stop making straw mans to facilitate attacks on my point like you did two comments ago. Grow up!
I’m not conceding shit lol. You made up like half the shit you claim, and you don’t understand any of the underlying issues at play.
You came in here acting like a dick, and people treated you like what you are - and underinformed person who is aggressive about a position they cannot defend.
I didn’t make up any straw men. If you’re upset with how people respond to you, consider not insulting everyone right from the jump
As I said above
So you’re saying that the sole cause of inflation worldwide is the COVID stimulus checks? Or even that this is the primary driver?
This is an insane claim.
And I was asking for clarity about this
All this inflation we’re seeing now is due to 3 stimmy checks from 2020
Yeah, right. Your ego is eating you alive it’s becoming funny.
You made up like half the shit you claim
Yet you got a paper proving my point, and the best you got is that I’m “exaggerating”. Good on you. I’m still right.
If you’ve come here and said “it’s not 100%, it’s 50%”, I would never have argued with you. But because you know I’m right, you had to use a straw man. See? This is how you detect disingenuous people who aren’t here to learn or be honest, but are here to assert their dumb, impractical political agendas. No matter how you turn it, stimulus fucked the US economy. Period.
Genuinely would love to see your proof that the potential damage of doing nothing is worse than two years of inflation.
Easy. Hire me as your president, then I’ll do that job.
What a joke! Now because I’m right, it’s my job (apparently) to argue with you for another few hours about a potential plan that no one gives a shit about for an imaginary scenario. It took me hours to make you admit a truth you already know. Imagine how long it’ll take to make you learn something new you never heard of. Yeah… no thanks. Have a good day. Mission accomplished.
inflation has nothing to do with stimulus checks, nor with money paid to poorer people. but since you literally quoted taxes as theft, economics has never been the strong suite of libertarians.
“inflation has nothing to do with stimulus checks”.
This is the stupidest thing I heard today. I heard other things that are wrong, but on stupidity, this is at the top. No offense.
This is like saying “money printing has nothing to do with inflation”. Maybe think a little and try to relate money printing and inflation. There’s an argument even that stimmy checks are the worst contributer to inflation due to its direct access to everyday economy, and doesn’t just live in bank accounts collecting interest.
Or are you gonna tell me that money printing isn’t related to inflation?
Libertarians generally don’t understand Fiat Currency, mainly because it requires some form of societal trust.
And Libertarians can’t trust anyone.
Or are you gonna tell me that money printing isn’t related to inflation?
the evidence supports the claim that an increased monetary supply really doesn’t increase inflation, but that isn’t in the story book you base your economic understanding on, just in the peer reviewed Financial Analyst Journal published by the CFA for example.
Libertarians generally don’t understand Fiat Currency
I assure you I understand it more than you think. But besides that, I love how you dodged the point and didn’t really tell me what really “causes” inflation. Because of course if you print money and put it in a vault, that won’t cause inflation. This is the opposite of what I’m saying. Money printing entails making it trickle to the economy. Wanna go all academic on that? I’m all ears. But don’t bullshit a bullshitter.
Let’s never forget the great victory of the fed, who reeeeeeally understand inflation (as opposed to us, plebs)… saying that inflation will be “transitory” for a year in 2020/2021 (Jerome Powell, that Janet Yellen, and all those geniuses), while plebs like me said FUCK NO, it’s gonna be all over us for a long time… and guess who’s right? It’s not your PhDs in the fed. It’s us, those who “generally don’t understand fiat currency”, because they slap the truth in your faces without sugar-coating it.
Except that I explained the mechanism, and you did nothing but say “I’m wrong”, just because you don’t like how it works or how it makes you feel wrong and stupid.
your previous arguments don’t indicate as such, but sure thing, Mr. Kruger
tell me what really “causes” inflation.
the natural accumulation of wealth, along with a number of diverse market mechanisms, primarily on the push side of economics, for example the increase in the price of energy makes everything more expensive, because everything needs energy to be produced/shipped, thus pushing inflation.
what ever the last paragraph was supposed to be, you realize we are back down to 3%~?
and why should I not be condescending to someone talking out of his ass? are you going to stop spewing on about a topic you have no clue about just because you watched some YouTube cartoon and maybe read Atlas Shrugged? imagine if I went up to a farmer telling him about how he just needs to cast some magic because I read Harry Potter, would I not be an ass? so why should I treat you any different from an ass? didn’t spend 3 years of my life learning this stuff to not talk down to someone, telling me to cast rain magic if it’s too dry.
your previous arguments don’t indicate as such, but sure thing, Mr. Kruger
Alright, Mr. Dunning. Ditto. Very productive.
what ever the last paragraph was supposed to be, you realize we are back down to 3%~?
Great job! I guess prices will fall back to where they were 3 years ago… no wait, they won’t, right? I mean, after all this inflation RATE being high, the prices will remain high, and will still increase after this spike, and we’re kissing Jerome Powell’s balls not to hike federal fund rates higher because the economy is so subtle that things can… break? Like we “never seen before”? reuters.com/…/bank-england-buy-long-dated-bonds-s…
I mean, back then with Paul Volcker in the 70s we did like 20% rate hike… and now we can’t even go to 6% without destroying the whole world’s economy.
But hey everyone… don’t worry! we’re back at ~3%!!!
Government debt is at 33 Trillion, and the government is struggling to pay the interest of that debt, leave alone the debt itself…
But hey everyone… don’t worry! we’re back at ~3%!!!
and why should I not be condescending to someone talking out of his ass?
I believe at this point I’ve shown who’s talking out of their ass and using unilateral self-constructed imaginations to justify economic history that can be summarized with “everything politicians are doing is perfect, and greeeeeeeeeed is why I’m miserable”. Excuse me that I don’t give to shits what you think. You have no idea what you’re saying when you think that “3%” means that “everything is OK”. You will remain miserable, and I will laugh more seeing you miserable, because you deserve it, 100%. Every bit of it. You chose those who did it. Enjoy!
tell me you don’t know how economics work, without telling me you don’t know how economics work:
I guess prices will fall back to where they were 3 years ago… no wait, they won’t, right?
we will never see any meaningful deflation, since that’s about as dangerous as Venezuela style runaway inflation. it literally freezes markets, causes massive layoffs that make the covid era look humane, and stops all investment. 3% is a healthy annual level of inflation for any developed economy.
I mean, back then with Paul Volcker in the 70s we did like 20% rate hike… and now we can’t even go to 6% without destroying the whole world’s economy.
the 20% was for a span of a few months during an era of rampant inflation in America because the dollar was overvalued after WW2 and the late 60s-70s saw it come to its actual market value after being artificially driven up by the new industrial demand for gold and the “gold standard” (something I find funny is that Libertarians rave about the gold standard but, then ignore the fact that they just abstract the fiat to the metal, and then tie the value of the money to the new fiat currency), and all of this during a global financial crisis… but that wasn’t covered in the fun libertarian cartoon you watched eh?
Government debt is at 33 Trillion, and the government is struggling to pay the interest of that debt, leave alone the debt itself…
meaningless, completely and utterly meaningless, as long as the government continues to pay the extremely low interest rates on that debt it is a safe way (for overwhelmingly Americans btw) to safely store assets long term, but like all libertarians you will ignore how state financing works because you believe we should live in a world ruled by the free market or some shit like that.
and lastly, your entire post has shown a staggering lack of even any fundamental economic history outside a few fun facts you might find on the bottom of libertarian Snapple caps, this is how economics works, I recommend you look into some macroeconomics.
The inflation we’re currently seeing is largely caused by supply being savaged by Covid and not having fully recovered yet. Demand hasn’t really grown compared to pre-Covid, which if the issue was those “stimmy checks” wouldn’t be the case.
Proving you’re wrong is easy. On one hand sure, supply chains has an effect, but it’s not in the way you’re thinking. To prove you’re wrong, you can see the spike in demand after stimmy checks where given. This is what made economists describe the situation as the “bullwhip effect”:
which was guessed because the stimmy checks is the “free money” that increased demand uncontrollably, which led to inflation. I remember seeing the spike in demand in Target financial reports after stimmy checks arrived. These chains had an unexpected spike in demand and revenue in these times. If it’s supply chains like you’re saying, this wouldn’t have been the case.
If it is just down to the stimmy checks - as you keep repeating - why is inflation high across the world, including countries that did not issue checks to individuals?
The bullwhip effect refers to perceived demand, not actual demand. And if perceived demand is larger, suppliers would act to increase supply, which suppresses inflation, not causes it.
Instead we saw supply shortages well before any stimulus checks were passed, and we saw further supply shortages after demand for oil for example absolutely cratered. The impact of this on various supply chains is still being felt everywhere.
It’s also dead-simple to prove that demand hasn’t suddenly spiked due to stimulus checks, because if you look at a graph of US household savings, you’ll notice those jump up at a couple points, and those jumps happen to be roughly equal to the size of the total stimulus package. Which very strongly suggests Americans used the stimulus checks to pay off built up debts and to put the rest into savings. These graphs are available online, feel free to Google it.
Furthermore, inflation was at its peak well after the stimulus checks had ended. This was due to a normalization of demand to pre-covid levels, whereas supply still needs time to go to those levels.
Savings going up and demand going up are not mutually exclusive. Your assumption is simply wrong.
Of course inflation will have a delayed effect. Did you expect this to happen overnight? What logic says that you give stimmy checks and you see the result overnight in a multi trillion dollar economy?!
You literally argued that demand spiked after the stimulus checks and therefore caused inflation? And now you’re arguing “oh this demand spike didn’t have an effect at the time but it does have one after a year of no more stimulus”?
Make up your mind. Either stimulus directly impacted demand so severely that it causes severe inflation, or the “demand spike” you asserted with nothing but anecdotal evidence did not cause inflation but is somehow now causing prolonged inflation. Instead of, you know, the vastly more likely and by experts agreed upon cause of covid-induced damage to supply chains. Which also conveniently explains supply shortages and why demand is barely at pre-covid levels.
But I’m sure your misinterpretation of various economic terms is the more likely cause.
There are tons of economic factors that have delayed effects, especially like money printing. Read about the cantillon effect. Inflation takes time to trickle into the economy.
Every one of these countries has its problems. This idea that “the grass is greener on the other side” is ridiculous. You like Norway, go to Norway. Easy.
ya, but most European nations are a better place to live than the USA, and ironically many Americans stationed there from the military chose to stay there after their contracts are up
you are repeating old news, but besides that, don’t pretend like you are inherently affected by inflation, you don’t have millions in different monetary funds, the only real problem you have with inflation is that for the longest time Americans refused to actually increase wages to match, scared of costing the billionaire class an extra penny.
What does that even mean? I’m right. Old news or not, I don’t give a shit. Let’s start by acknowledging that I’m right, then call it whatever the fuck you want. I know it’s hard, but the truth is the truth.
If I were you, I would blame the morons who caused the inflation, not the companies who are producing things and have to deal with it.
don’t pretend like you are inherently affected by inflation, you don’t have millions in different monetary funds
I assure you I’m benefiting from inflation, and everything I’m saying here is because I’m a compassionate human trying to make a bunch of brainwashed communist morons understand that governments are not their friend, but their corrupt servant that doesn’t give two shits about them as long as their collecting more votes.
I assure you I’m benefiting from inflation, and everything I’m saying here is because I’m a compassionate human trying to make a bunch of brainwashed communist morons
All the ‘inflation’ you see is from simultaneous pure greed on part of corporations and would have eased by now. They saw the pandemic as a nice permanent excuse.
All this inflation we’re seeing now is due to 3 stimmy checks from 2020.
uh… and massive price gouging from the production sector. everywhere, from the corner store to energy markets to drugs - prices are going up because… fuck you, prices are going up.
While it may be unethical to do price gouging and use inflation as excuse, there are two important excuses for this behavior:
It’s the fault of the government for causing it in the first place
It’s not easy to make accurate assessments of the costs in an inflationary environment. It’s a guess at best. So even if a business is 100% ethical, not increasing the prices sufficiently can cause them to lose money. Keep in mind that the profit margins of some businesses is like 3%, in an environment with 9% inflation. If that’s not a nightmare for a business, I don’t know what is.
But again, not every single business works ethically, but beyond that it’s the government’s fault.
Go run a business then say that nonsense. This is not how it works in real life. Lot’s of business operations involve taking risks into the future. Go read about Ray Dalio’s story on stabilizing the price of McDonald’s chicken nuggets with futures contracts.
This is the problem with social media. A teenager who doesn’t know shit in how business operations work is here to teach us about it… what a joke.
Please shut your mouth and don’t speak of things you don’t understand to promote your agendas. Life is more complicated than the cartoon world you learned in school.
LOL. I have, and I do. Both medium sized independents and in a large org. You are again, literally, and irrefutably wrong. All businesses know their current costs. Stop trying to reframe it against future forecasts.
Only responding so people dont fall for your trolling, as fact.
You don’t, and stop lying. Taking risks in business is normal. Future or not depends on the way the business operates and what kind of risks counter parties have. Stop lying and making blanket statements. It’s fascinating how much you’d lie to defend your dumb political agendas. Your politics made you a liar. Congrats.
yo, int. Business economics major here (what got me to Europe) and I can 100% guarantee that you don’t know shit, and are literally repeating the economic arguments of a fantasy book.
Imagine if I took Game of Thrones as a guide on pre enlightenment warfare
If you’re right, you’re free to debunk my arguments. But then you’re full of shit, how would you do that?
Of course everything I’m saying is fantasy… because it doesn’t align with your dumb agenda. I gave examples from real life, but you, Mr. Business Major, have better examples. Why don’t you show us? Because you’re full of shit!
how am I supposed to disprove literal fantasy? no, really, I may as well try and disprove Harry Potter!
then again, considering you basically deny the last 100 years of economic science, there is not much anyone can tell you, that you won’t just blatantly disregard.
“Economic science”… you basically mean “Keynesian economics” bullshit. Yeah, and it’s not really 100, it’s 50 since Nixon separated gold from us dollars, and we’re seeing the great effects and the huge instability in the whole world’s economy.
And besides your Keynesian economics bullshit, all I argued is simple supply and demand, which has been true for thousands of years, since humans started creating farms inside fences. So spare me your bullshit and condescension. The only fantasy here is the communism you, and other ignorant Lemmy users, are living in your heads. I do hope you get your wish, and I’ll be laughing watching you getting shot in the Gulag.
yup, liberated who wants the gold standard back, doesn’t understand anything outside what fun pictures tell him, for example, you know what is more strongly ties to worker compensation? unions, not something that happened almost 10 years beforehand.
all I argued is simple supply and demand, which has been true for thousands of years
except it hasn’t, demonstrably, all through history we see, time and time again that vested interest groups with any larger amount of bargaining power artificially change valuation, then again, it’s not the neat simple and easy solution that appeals to the average person.
and imagine, anything but straight up barbarism (the name of the economic model you propose btw) is now communism XD
Hey everybody, if you dont agree with this person you’re a liar.
What do politics have to do with facts?
If I’ve already purchased inputs at $10, and my sell price is $15, and the cost of inputs next week are going to be $20 maybe, there is no reason for me as an ethical business owner to raise my prices in anticipation. I will not be in the red. I will need to raise my prices if inputs increase. Smoothing my price curve is a clear deflection on your part. No one is talking about keeping nuggies at $x to avoid impairing demand.
My objection to you all the way through is based on your fraudulent and specific lie - around current input costs and ethical business requirements to raise prices. Stop trying to confuse the issue.
Also, perhaps change your user name to Mr. Adhominem.
Disagreeing is fine. Making authority-based arguments is where the lying begins. Nowhere have I said “believe me because I’m this and that”. That’s the difference. I’m open to rational discussion.
You’re talking about something that was already done. That’s the difference. I’m talking about something you’re manufacturing now and you’re preparing to ship. You still have to anticipate how your contractors will act in an inflationary environment. For example, if you’re shipping the goods that you created and you’re paying the cost for shipping due to details required, and gas prices go up, you still have to anticipate cost going up even if you made a contract with a third party retailer to sell things after the shipping. All this also ignores the complications in big chains that fail to react fast enough to such changes.
Speaking from your butt that everything is fixed and can be anticipated is ridiculous and never realistic. If you’re selling toys in a shop, sure, your business model is super-simple. But don’t make shit up about big chains that deliver over weeks at a time and expect them to calculate everything to the latter. It’s not feasible, especially when your margins are less than 5%.
Err… “go run a business before…” “I have”… “Stop appealing to authority”
Yeah, your inventory of raw materials is already purchased. Your current freights already contracted. Most companies can raise prices lockstep with costs without going whoopsie daisy, we raised it too much.
For the last time, your claim was that even ethical businesses must xyz, now youre talking specifically about large complex operations that do not have clear controls, KPIs, supply chain and contract risk management practices. Way to shift the goal posts.
Were having two conversations here, and Im beginning to assume its by design on your part. Or… yeah… were all lying teens, youre the only one thats right.
My butts getting tired so Ill stop speaking through it.
Most companies can raise prices lockstep with costs without going whoopsie daisy, we raised it too much.
I mean, I’m done making examples from real life and you making up bullshit. I guess Ray Dalio fixing the price for chicken nuggets is a bullshit story… I mean, McDonalds could’ve just increased the price in “lockstep” with the change in chicken nuggets prices, right? This is the stupidity of oversimplified world view that I keep seeing around here. You forget socioeconomic factors and how people respond to price changes. It’s unbelievable how you paint this naive world where it’s possible to have everything dynamic and predictable.
And I like that “most” word you used. I guess you either are conceding or just playing with words to give yourself some leeway after fucking up, since I never used a blanket statement and I only need a counterexample to be right. You see, you’re assuming that everything is contracted, but doesn’t that depend on the contract’s terms? Even if you use a futures contract there’s a risk associated with it and arbitrage will fuck you up if you make a bad bet and management will screw over whoever made that suggestion. In your little head “everything is fixed”, because it doesn’t play well with your dumb agenda of the simple cartoon world that pertains to whatever dumb communism is running in your head, like I always see on Lemmy.
Congrats on having the most ignorant opinion and most downvotes of this entire Lemmy post.
I’m really surprised to see someone still parroting this Trumptard delusion so long after the stimulus checks were long gone. Do you really think those few checks did that much? They were not that much money and probably went mostly to basic living expenses for those who were in need at the time, spent on the usual things and then forgotten. For my family, it was just an increase to our bank balance that stayed there for a little while and we didn’t change any spending habits.
As everyone else has said it’s easy to see that inflation has been caused by corporate greed. There was an initial issue of supply chain resources being scarce during 2020-2021 that hurt economies everywhere, but we are well past that and all the price hikes are due to corporate executive decisions to take more profits now.
Why bother responding to you when you think my opinion is this and that with personal attacks? Here’s a better answer as opposed to everyone else I responded to seriously: Everything you said is wrong. Go fuck yourself, I don’t care what you think. See how that’s better? When an animal acts like an animal, I like to give them the treatment they deserve. Now fuck off.
You are spouting all this garbage like you want to pretend to be an economist, but you are displaying an inch-deep level of knowledge on the subject. Perhaps you should study macroeconomics for a bit.
Being wrong? Says who? A fuck nobody on the internet? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Dude, not only that I run businesses and make shit loads of money and have experience in all that, but I also am textbook correct. Every argument presented here is wrong in a way or another, and you think just because a bunch of uneducated animals, bots and teenagers say “I’m wrong” it’s gonna make me wrong? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
But for what it’s worth, I am enjoying something. I’m enjoying noticing why everyone is broke and poor. It’s because people are ignorant, stupid, dependent, brainwashed and don’t want to work and insist on handouts. Good! So, go fuck yourself again and make me laugh more.
Don’t forget to cry more and ask for help from your masters who despise you. I hope the government shuts down and you starve on the streets. That’s the least you deserve. HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Wow you are really a shitty person. You will be blocked after this message, so good riddance you misanthropic garbage bastard.
FYI there’s no chance of me starving because I’m quite well off, with savings to live on for a year if I lost my job, plus I make more than double the amount of money I need to support my family. I own my own house and numerous acres of land. Even if I had no money at all I could still hunt and fish on my property, so I’m ready for anything.
As an avid republican myself, I don’t know what this is about. We don’t even have 7 million children in this country. But Australia should not be ruled by the monarchy.
The world needs more fact checkers and information finders like you, but in this case you missed that you’re responding to someone from Australia who was making a joke. “Haha, the Americans think everything revolves around them. Let’s write an intentionally vague opening sentence and see how long it takes 'em to notice the instance I’m commenting from or figure out that I’m Australian from context”
That’s a pretty appropriate thing to think about when children will literally die because of this. Again- infants depend on formula through WIC. You don’t think that’s serious? Really?
The upper echelons of the party couldn’t possibly care less about “unborn children.” They care about maintaining power, and being anti-abortion is the single-greateat advantage they have.
The GOP absolutely depends on people voting against their own self-interest. They have 3 major strategies to achieve this - making voting more difficult, spreading disinformation, and targeting single-issue voters.
Pro lifers are by far the most-powerful single-issue voting group in the county - followed by pro-gun voters.
Tens of millions of people literally believe abortion is murdering a child. To them, there is no combination of issues that outweighs stopping abortion. While they may be a minority of Americans, they base 100% of their vote on abortion. I know people who are hard-left liberal on every other issue who vote straight-ticket Republican because to them NOTHING else matters.
If you think the pro-choice crowd is a powerful voice in a general election, imagine Trump and Biden having opposite positions on abortion, but otherwise being the same in every way.
How many pro-choice historically-Democratic voters would have voted for Trump instead of Biden? Pretty much zero.
How many pro-life historically-Republican voters would have voted for Biden instead of Trump? Tens of millions.
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