I have a weird idea. Much of what I see the left promoting is very luxury. A luxury can be a fast food visit, a new console, or some cool new item. It's not necessary, but it's fun. The prices of these are going up.
Necessity items are gas, electricity, food in the fridge, and internet. The prices for these are going down.
There's a weird upper middle class that wants necessities as luxuries. This is the "Farmers Market" fresh, Whole Foods, and gaming PCs for work. The price going up makes them feel better, because they think the value goes up as well.
No idea how to explain this to a lefty.
Don't.
Explaining economics to liberals is like reading Shakespeare to dogs. They are liberals precisely because they are incapable of understanding and acting in accordance with reality.
The left is trying their very best to make gasoline, gas & electricity as HIGH PRICED as possible.
This will hurt the poor the most, of course, but that's OK! The poor will be taken care of by the government, who will "tax the rich" (but not the leftist rich!) to pay for it all.
Trying to explain ANY math or economics to leftists is virtually impossible. They lack the basic common-sense understanding of any of it, preferring dogma and slogans to replace it.
Simple shit! John has 10 apples, I take 2 for taxes. Suzy has 100 apples, I take 10. WHO paid more taxes? The gross number says Suzy, but the rate of taxation says poor John did.
They look at things like "Carbon Tax" and claim it isn't recessive, that it doesn't tax the poor good & hard. But it does 😣 right where it hurts! Food, transport & shelter hit hardest.
PS: I know the top 5% in the USA pay over 50% of all taxation, but even that is an anathema to the leftists. In reality we'd take 50 of Suzy's apples and give John 2 of those, leaving him with 12 :/ They'd still claim Suzy didn't pay "her fair share" because she still had 6X as many apples as John does. 🤡
It is a lot stranger than you think. The elite left, the limousine liberals, want exactly this, for two fold reasons: they are not affected financially by increased prices, and they are integrated into the systems that will financially profit from those items increased prices. The working class left, their base [aside from the leeching foreign brownoids] believe that adopting the elites beliefs means they are brought into the fold and are in the elite class themselves.
"Luxury beliefs" they are called. Which are low/zero cost to actual elite leftists, but the working class leftists are so concerned about their status that they signal their alignment with the elites at a determent to themselves. They would rather signal to others that they are in a higher status than they really are than admit to themselves [or others], that they are affected.
That is how much the average leftists hates themselves, their real status, and their fellow men.
One has an excess and the other is left starving.
😹 We should take another 30 away from Suzy, eh? In reality I mean.
Notice how the Gov't takes 50 but only gives 2 to "the poor" eh? Where does the rest go, I wonder? 🤔
There will always be those at the top, but we shouldn't allow it to be private interests with no interest in the nation or blood. That's how jews were able to get a hold of our nations.
The left exist off of resentment. They already know what this is within their academia: the material wealth focus of the Petite Bourgeois. Even Orwell was so mind-raped by Leftism that he created the character "Mollie" the mare, who obsessed about her ribbon, and left when things got rough, and then everyone hated her and defamed her for leaving because she was bad.
But that's the thing... every Socialist is a Bourgeois Socialist. There's never been a lower-class Socialist movement in history. In fact, the lower-class were always the most reactionary group in every society. This is because the poor work very hard for what they make, and keep. They are unwilling to dispense with their wealth, property, religion, or traditions in the event that a "committee" of "learned men" tell them they have to give those things up or be killed. Meanwhile, the entire Socialist movement is staffed by people who are in the upper-class, or are the children of elites, who can't actually make the leap into the elite circles.
As a result, the prices of things that the commoners benefit from is irrelevant. The things that make them happy are "necessities", not luxuries, and they are to be guaranteed by the state. But most of the time, they know this and don't care. They just lie openly so they can keep up the virtue signal.
For example, Leftists support rent control because they claim it will guarantee housing for the poor. In reality, and this is undisputed by all economic analysis including Leftist analysis, it drives property prices up, and makes cheap housing fundamentally unattainable. This is because the Bourgouis Socialist is already a homeowner seeking to increase their net asset wealth, protect it from competition, and uninformed people may be dumb enough to believe their claims when they lie.
Say what you will, but at least the Soviets forced them to live in Tenements when they weren't party officials.
Wish my necessities were going down...
I'll also accept not inflating at COVID rates.
Where are you at that utilities are going down? Ours have all but doubled over the last year
I was scratching my head thinking the same thing.
I consolidated a lot of electronic equipment and swapped my workstation for something that draws a fraction of the power and it cut my light bill in half.
However, gas skyrocketed so much that it compensated for everything I saved on the light bill.
Gas in Florida just went below the price it was at when I moved here 4.5 years ago. My lefty friends are telling me that's just the ebb and flow of price, and not admitting gas has gone down $1-$2.
Gasoline for sure is hitting good markers right now. Hopefully we will see it "trickle down" to better prices on consumer goods because when gas increases, prices increase as well (it will never happen).
I'm more focused on electricity prices, Internet prices, and home heating fuel prices (gas, propane, ect). Where in the country are those going down?
The price of my food and utilities is going up.
The only one stable or slightly down is the price of gas. But Americans will enjoy sustainably lowered gas prices thanks to yeeting Maduro.
This is called Veblen good.
It's good to know it has a name.
I had similar feelings about a lot of the China tariffs. Friends and hobby groups complaining about toys, games, and electronics going way up. Very few essentials (for my lifestyle) really got hit and the couple times I've felt it was on luxury stuff I could have easily not bought.
"The cost is passed to the consumer" yeah okay? Don't buy it if you can't afford it. Buy second-hand? Look for an alternative brand?
3D printer go brrrr
When I was a kid the Farmers Market used to be actual farmers that would show up with baskets of whatever their farm product was. Most of the time you’d be buying from someone who was obviously a farmer or someone from their family. Hell I remember when I was 12 or so talking to just another white kid my age about computers who was there with their family selling farm stuff. The rest of it would be the crafty country people selling jams and pickled stuff. Most of it was very cheap and cheaper than the grocery store. Farmers get a bigger cut, we get cheaper food, etc.
Last couple times I went to one, it was Mexicans and if you looked closely they were unpacking them from Sysco boxes or something similar. You’d notice things we just didn’t grow—pineapple or oranges or something in the climate I was in. Why the hell is there pineapple for sale?
No they don't, especially in the gaming PC markets. Prices are up and gains are minimal and objectively measurable.