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Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

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Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#551

Post by Epa095 »

bluecalm wrote: post #537
Epa095 wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard when people call me confused :-/ But I would edit it away if I could! But it seems like I can't edit this post anymore, should I be able to?

[flagged]

So, talk me through where I am wrong. I will use the example in my sibling post you did not reply to.

If you put 10 million into the S&P 500 in 2002 you would get a dividend of roughly 132k (1.32%). That's your share, as a owner, of the wealth produced that year across all the companies you own tiny parts of. Keep the money there, do absolutely nothing, and in 2025 it has grown to 70 million. Your yearly payout is roughly 925k, 7 times what it was 20 years ago.

You agree with this? And then we compare that to wages, and see that they have grown significantly less. You agree to this as well? For sake of argument, let's say they doubled.

From this I conclude:

- Income from capital grows exponentially faster than income from salaries.

- The person who invested 10 million in 2002 gets a larger fraction of what the economy produces compared to a salaried person today than 20 years ago.

- That difference will increase if the stock market continues as it has done in the past.

Please help me understand which conclusion you disagree with, and why.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#552

Post by Epa095 »

WalterBright wrote: post #328
ziofill wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree. Additionally, stock price is driven also by expectations of further growth, which in order to keep happening, something's gotta give so it must chip away at quality of the final product too (cheaper materials, cheaper manufacturing, etc) with a consequent enshittification. My parents, who live in Italy, could afford a stone house from the 1800s in their thirties. I live in Canada and everything's made…

Just for fun, watch a movie from the 30s, 40s, 50s, etc., and take a look at the interiors of houses. We've got a lot better today, and a lot more of it. Even watch an episode of Dynasty (about rich people). Look at the crappy TV in the corner. I remember taking my last CRT TV to the recycler. I was sure glad to be rid of it.

Notice that I am not saying that labour is not getting more purchasing power, just that owners is getting more quicker. Luckily our increase in productivity is high enough that both can get more in absolute terms, although owners gets a larger part of the growing cake.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#553

Post by aprilthird2021 »

hollerith wrote: post #376
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costco used to be cheaper bc of the bulk factor, but nowadays I think of it as a good curator. The products are usually good quality. Even if more expensive

>curation . . . The products are usually good quality. Costco has a strong record of getting me to buy food products that are appealing to me for a while, but that I now consider bad for my health. About the only food products I will still eat that I can buy at Costco are boneless poultry white meat, Kerrygold butter, olive oil and fresh asparagus. Costco stocks many fruits and vegetables, but most of them are much t…

I also largely go there for Kerrygold butter, meats, oils, and other bulk household goods. But the occasional furniture purchase, automotive thing, car rental, etc. It's a good deal for the price of the annual membership

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#554

Post by hansvm »

kasey_junk wrote: post #251
hansvm wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that also count the investment losses they made last year, the cost of gobbling up other companies, the interest from the debt they acquired with previous expansionary practices, etc?

Sure, but you can run the numbers for basically every grocery in America. The industry considers 3% margins to be outstanding.

That reads more as an indictment against hyperscaled grocers than an argument that the current price gouging is unavoidable.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#555

Post by kasey_junk »

hansvm wrote: post #554
kasey_junk wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you can run the numbers for basically every grocery in America. The industry considers 3% margins to be outstanding.

That reads more as an indictment against hyperscaled grocers than an argument that the current price gouging is unavoidable.

You can get the same numbers out of small scale grocers too. It’s a brutal retail business with low margins and easy replacement. It’s probably the last industry I’d look to for price gauging accusations.

The typical argument against monopoly grocer situations is that they are problematic for how they deal with _vendors_ not customers.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#556

Post by _DeadFred_ »

potato3732842 wrote: post #501
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bro, the CEOs said on conference calls it wasn't about inflation and bragged about their profits. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/27/inflation-c... https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/big-profits-in-smal...

Bro, they have to. If they said they were making double because dollars worth have stonk no go up.

Bro, they account for the dollars worth in their calls though.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#557

Post by _DeadFred_ »

beezle wrote: post #494
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you see, the poors are bad people and deserve to be poor. OP identified say $2000 in annual luxuries. If they lived a completely ascetic lifestyle free of wants, that would put them 0.4% closer to buying that $500k house on their $40k annual salary.

Even if it is just 2K (I think closer to 3), that is 5% of their $40K that could go towards food, healthcare and rent (or mortgage).

I hope people advocating this realize that the lower 50% of Americans are waking up to the fact that their quality of life based on America's PPP is actually the same as third world nations, and the upper levels still want them to 'cut back more'. How long do you think people will go for that?

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#558

Post by gabrielgio »

tossandthrow wrote: post #424
gabrielgio wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it more like that people should start tracking success of country not based on how much health it produces and start caring about the actual quality of live of its people. People can't eat GDP or sleep under it

First, my comment was overly snarky - I can see the karma counter jumping up and down like a rabbit which is fair. Personally, I see the central governance responsibility as ensuring a peopsperous society. This must necessarily include a high level of equality. Equality can be achieved using capital systems and market economies. The US is failing hard at being a good country these years.

> Equality can be achieved using capital systems and market economies.

Sure, it is just going to be a eternal battle between the need of capital for infinity growth and the need of working class for better wealth distribution.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#559

Post by piva00 »

self_awareness wrote: post #538
piva00 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't jump directly into the red scare through a slippery slope fallacy, it's just intellectually dishonest while being the most boring thought-terminating cliché on this type of discussion. Wanting to live in a better and more just system, even if we can most realistically just work towards an improved version of capitalism, is probably something most of us can agree upon. I don't think anyone sane is against people…

We probably can agree on lots of things, about inefficiencies in current system and the like, but some elementary things between us are too far apart. The ideas you identify as solutions, for me are the problems. You can promote artificial redistribution all you want, but I will want to stop it however I can. If a global redistribution system would be implemented, then all your wealth would go to Africa and Russia, a…

You go to absolute loaded language to talk about concepts that should be discussed in a more leveled language. You consider thievery just wealth redistribution but don't consider thievery the products of the exploitation of labour, for example.

Why is it thievery to redistribute wealth from elites who are exploiting societal developments (education, skills training, etc.) so they pay their share back into the society which enabled them to become rich in the first place? Why is it ok that they can exploit a whole society's work for their own personal gain while gaming the system to not pay back to the thing that gave all foundations so they could play their game?

You talk about redistribution in a black-and-white way, no nuance, you go to the extremes such as:

> You can promote artificial redistribution all you want, but I will want to stop it however I can. If a global redistribution system would be implemented, then all your wealth would go to Africa and Russia, and you will be left with nothing.

Which is a strawman, I did not touch on this point whatsoever, I did not talk about "global redistribution", you are the one bringing this up, in an utopic sense, yes, we could talk about it but I'm trying to discuss in realistic terms what could be improvements in enclosed societies (aka: national states) to improve the system.

That's where we fundamentally disagree, you cannot talk in nuanced terms, it's either "communism!" or "you will be poor and give your money to all the poor in the world" instead of a level-headed discussion on the flaws of our current systems, how we could search for solutions to it.

And even worse, you talk about "artifical redistribution" as if the current form is the "natural" one, what is natural about a few people who found ways to exploit the system for personal gain instead of the natural way of living collectively since we all depend on each other for societies to function since time immemorial?

Your view is very conservative, it's unimaginative, it just states that what it currently is is what's natural and supposed to be. Challenge a bit more your thoughts, you are just repeating the same trope over and over...

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#560

Post by theredleft »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #223
theredleft wrote: post #145

socialism could help us here.

Has there ever been an example in history where this has been true? All of the largest famines were caused by socialist attempts at controlling the food supply. Besides... the massive crash in population coming over the next 10 years should solve most fo this without ripping up entire societies.

All of the largest instituted famines were literally perpetrated by Fascist Capitalist societies... I think it's interesting how much agitprop westerners swallow and think it's sugar.
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