I’m doing my part to undermine Democrats in the midterms, since we all know a Harris administration would have all the same problems as the current one.
Many people have been doing many things. Are there specific actions you’re asking about when you say “do something”?
How dare you try to interrupt the powerlessness circle jerk with this reality based take!
He’s trying to get the Internet to write his congressman
Nobody has waived the magic “all of this stops” wand yet.
Fucking wizards just being lazy.
Careful, people don’t like to be told that we are doing things.
How is saying that at all in any way useful. Why the absolute fk do people keep saying “do something”. Do what? What are people supposed to do. What are you specifically thinking about when you say do something, that these other people are supposed to do? Wouldn’t suggestions be more helpful than trying to post tense shame people for not…what. what is it you’re even suggesting. People are individual and the oppressive / ruling class moves as a swarm against them. People are trying to survive as best they can. They’re individuals with their survival threatened, capitalism is a form of oppression, rising prices is the oppression. They know it’s oppression. How do people organise when their entire day is consumed by surviving. You think people should do something, outsourcing the action to others. People, not you. You didn’t even say why aren’t we doing something. What can we do. Like for fkn real. What would be more helpful is suggestions. Asking for recommendations for yourself. What are you doing?
The most effective is if say “essential” workers got “sick” and didn’t come into work. Imagine if the railway workers all got "sick"again. And truck drivers got “sick” from eating jalapenos, which is pretty pretty possible. And an entire school of teachers got “sick” so parents had to skip out on work. All these people would skip a day of having to buy petrol. It’s risky but the chaos.
I think not buy stuff as much as possible would add to it. So with people staying home even for a day would have a ripple effect.
I mean I’m not OP but I have cut down on spending. Started more car pooling. Quit my high skill job, sorry local businesses one less person that repairs pretty much everything when there’s a massive tech shortage here. Started going to college just to find something else to do. Once my health gets a bit better, thank you Taylor Farms, I’ll get a job within walking distance while I keep going to college. I’ve cut down to almost never going out to eat, only when a friend from overseas visits since it’s easier. Restaurants and fast food place are closing left and right here, in very populated area.
Mutual aid societies, time banks, and various expressions of the gift economy are popping up everywhere. People are eating out less and (young people especially are) drinking less.
We are doing some things, but it looks more like a rejection of consumerism than armed revolt.
Armed revolt is a massive undertaking involving trusting thousands of other people.
One guy trying to revolt is a “crazy person with a gun” who gets killed or arrested and then their one singular chance at life is over.
Even with a proper armed revolt there’s still the chance for it to be put down by the military and or law enforcement.
Either way it’s a big ask and it’s not going to happen until it gets to the point where enough people aren’t afraid of losing their lives (or may lose them anyway).
What they are “doing” is becoming more fascist, because they feel like it’s a change. It’s not a change that’s going to make things more affordable, it’s just that choosing to be bad people is something they can control.
“These secretly corrupt politicians are not creating the world I want to live in! Let’s see what happens if we replace them with even more openly corrupt politicians and see what happens!”
Never. The reason prices are so stupidly high right now is that when they went up during COVID most people just paid them, and the corporate world said, “Wow, cool! We won’t have to lower them!” Modern-day Americans couldn’t “actually do something” their way out of a Walmart unless their pants were on fire, and then all they would do is run around screaming for help and/or whining on social media.
Yep. General strikes when.
ICE is murdering people in the streets. Your military is committing war crimes in Iran and the caribbean. Your navy is starving people in Cuba. Your talking asshole is threatening Canada and Europe.
But high prices are the problem?
Man, some Americans suck.
OP didn’t say they were American
OP is like 10% of everything you see on the threadiverse and openly talks about being American all the time.
I didn’t know that. The wording of the post implied to me they weren’t American because they’re referring to Americans as if separate from themself
Who knows. But we’re going to out last you.
The American obsession with inflation is interesting, considering the unanimous agreement among those with an above-kindergarten-level understanding of economics that modest inflation of a few percent is generally the optimal state of affairs, for a variety of reasons. (There is a summary on the Wikipedia article on inflation, for those interested.) No reasonable case can be made that inflation ranks among the top 1000 problems in US society or its economy. I say it’s an American obsession, as it’s really not popularly discussed among laymen to the same degree in most other above-average economies.
From an anthropological/sociological perspective, it’s a fascinating question what drives this obsession. I’m not qualified to give an authoritative answer, but I may speculate that weak unions and a lack of collective wage agreements drive job-hopping as a major source of keeping up with inflation. This results in people associating their wage gains with their own career advancement and skills, rather than with inflation causing their own labour costs to increase. On the other hand, when wages are indexed to inflation automatically, at least to a large degree, then people care less about inflation eroding their wages. People perhaps do not have sufficient abstract reasoning skills to realize that when their wages are flat and inflation is a few percent, it’s in fact not so much inflation eroding their wages, but employers actively deciding to cut their real wages.
it’s not that hard man. it has to do with the 1970s economic crisises, which gave the entire country and policy makers ptsd.
stagflation was a real thing and it freaked the hell out of people.
Hence “Inflation” is a loaded term that has come to encapsulate other issues consumers are feeling, like wage stagnation, wealth inequity, seemingly high taxes with rising debt and borrowing costs, enshittification, supply issues, purchasing power issues, and other systemic problems like that.
I don’t like it. It’s unscientific and masks too much. But when Americans say “inflation,” I really think they’re expressing feelings for much more than that.
it’s mostly folks pissed off about the price of gas. which affects the price of everything else indiscrimately because most of our goods are distributed via trucks.
if gas goes down, inflation cools. generally other fuels/oils also go down.
It’s diesel, not gas, that is the inflexible fuel. The average American may skip a road trip, or opt for a hybrid or EV on their next vehicle purchase. It’s the truckers and the farmers that have no option but to use diesel and are getting hit hard with the record prices.
I agree that this will be a major contributor to overall inflation, but there are still other meaningful factors. One example being the current administration’s lack of focus on regulatory oversight. This is letting large corporations manipulate markets to raise prices far above their increased production costs as well as keep prices high after the conditions that originally caused the increase in operating expenses have been alleviated.
no one says boo when inflation is one or two percent. I also think folks are well aware its not about inflation but about their ability to live a modestly decent lifestyle.
They have to have nothing, it very little to lose. That’s basically how every revolution begins. I would say the one benifit of Trump over the last decade or so is that there are zero enforcement of any laws or regulations being done inside politics. It doesn’t matter what your party is, who you vote for, their goal is to get as rich as possible and have you pay for it.
More than half of Congress isn’t even in session for voting. Not that it matters, their party tells them how to vote, or else. Your paying to fly them home and back to DC every weekend so close to 52 round trip flights a year, so they can attend Congress sessions they don’t go to anyways, then you get to pay for their office and apartment in DC, all their staff that actually do why real work.
I pray in my lifetime people get pushed far enough to actually get off their fat asses and actually do something. Rather than just sign petitions that don’t matter, and make comments on FB. “I’m so angry about xyz!” But you know not angry enough to actually do anything.
I’m not sure what you expect us to do, our next option to right the ship is during the midterm elections.
People are doing things. They aren’t all broadcast to the internet. Find a local group that aligns with your ideals (or the closest fit you can find; something is better than nothing in this case) and go to a meeting and meet people. You’ll get ideas about what to do from there.
Prices have always kept rising. That’s called an inflation and it’s a good thing for the economy when it stays modes and people’s wages increase too. That’s why your grandparents bought a house for 40k that now costs half a million. The value of the house haven’t necessarily gone up, just the price of it in absolute monetary terms. 40k just got you more back then.
Just staring at increasing prices as if it’s happening in vacuum is missing the full story.
Rising prices isnt what I’d expect to push Americans over the edge. Things are still extremely cheap for them. Most are doing fine financially and have no empathy for the bottom of the ladder.
The Republican party is what I’d expect to push them over the edge.
