Just a reminder that the comm has moved to !historyphotos@piefed.social
I’m still mad that we measure inflation as the price of goods instead of the money supply and people have the audacity to say greed doesn’t play a role.
can you explain what you mean
As a country prints more money, prices go up as a side effect. But inflation isn’t a measure of the money supply, it’s a measure of the price of goods. But people act like greed isn’t a component even when we see things like companies skirting the law and colluding on prices through loop holes.
That’s because inflation is the relevant factor for considering consumer well-being, and because prices can go up for any number of reasons.
For example, prices can go up due to a shortage. Suppose there is a corn blight, and 90% of corn fields are destroyed one year. We expect the price of corn to go up, then, because corn is now scarce. People can switch to other grains for any deficiencies in nutrition they have - but we still need to ask, what should we do with our remaining corn? How much should go to corn on the cobb, creamed corn, corn meal, corn oil, or doritos? Some people want to make their family’s traditional corn bread for thanksgiving. Some people want to eat doritos more than anything else in life. Some people never eat corn anyway since it gives them a stomach ache. And some people exclusively eat corn instead of flour due to a gluten sensitivity that every doctor they’ve seen assures them isn’t real, but their osteopath/shaman confirmed using magic crystals. If corn stays the same price as before the shortage, the first person to get to the store buys it all and hoards it. But using the signalling mechanism inherent in higher prices, everyone is persuaded to only buy as much corn as they really need. And at the same time, farmers who might be economically devistated by their poor yeilds are able to recoup their losses, and are reassured that if they can find a way to fight the blight, a market for their product will still exist.
As for greed - we don’t talk about it because it is uninteresting. It is a constant. It would be like talking about the effect of gravity on crop yeilds - it isn’t going to change, so it doesn’t matter. What does matter is the anti-competitive practices you are describing, which should be controlled via strong regulations and regulatory bodies.
I’m not saying we measure inflation incorrectly, I’m saying I’m annoyed when people act like greed isn’t a part of it. And yes, by greed I mean “anti competitive practices”.
I have yet to meet anyone who had a strong opinion that anticompetitive practices were not happening. Usually when I talk about inflation, we discuss numerous factors like shortages, the fed interest rate, how some amount of inflation is reasonable to maintain a stable market, etc. And then one of us will say “and there is probably some price fixing going on that we don’t know about”, and everyone will agree that - knowing how profit-seeking companies work - this is probably the case, but we personally have not seen any strong evidence.
If you believe that greed is paying into inflation then I’m not talking about you, simple as that.
But… it doesn’t matter, does it? Whatever the reason for the increase in prices, if the CPI goes down, inflation goes up, that’s all there is to it, no?
I’m saying it’s annoying when economists and government officials act like greed can’t play a part in inflation when shit that should be illegal (like price colluding) happens that is purely an effect of greed.
Hmm… I don’t think they are. Most of the time they don’t even mention the reasons for inflation, just that inflation happens. A “reason” is only mentioned if it contributes in a significant manner - like a horrible financial strategy by a new government, or a market crash. Greed is an inherent part of capitalism, so - to mention it - they’d have to talk about it every single time.
What I mean is: everybody who understands what inflation is knows that greed is a contributing factor. Everybody who doesn’t understand it, wouldn’t understand why is it being mentioned every time.
What do you mean government officials don’t mention reasons for inflation most of the time? That happens very often lmao. It’s used as a talking point all the time. What fantasy land are you in where government officials always act in good faith and 100% logically? Because that’s been my point this whole time, that I find that frustrating, and it really feels like everybody keeps trying to make it about something else, like I’m misunderstanding something.
What fantasy land are you in where government officials always act in good faith and 100% logically?
What a weird leap that is to go from “don’t mention reasons” to “always act in good faith”. Yikes.
Greed is always a factor. Always. There’s no point mentioning it, just like there’s no point in telling someone to “remember to breathe”.
Can we get something like that again, please?
BTW in 1918 1.34$ was around 31 bucks today, and in 1945 it was around 24.5 or so.
To be clear, you’re requesting a great depression?
Can we just have the bit where speculators got wiped out?
Let’s have more purchasing power WITHOUT a depression! BTW 1945 was just when WW2 was going to end, and during WW2 the US and Canadian economies were booming because they were far away from the fighting and everyone who wasn’t fighting could get a job helping those that did. So people were working.
Man I wish i lived back in 1940 times and my husband beat me for having polio
And back then your therapist was also your bartender.
So free therapy?
If you were lucky…
Same as it ever was…
it only took a market crash and two world wars.
They literally had this but fucked up the climate, future investions, infrastructure and pensions anyways
They got rich by doing all that. Well their kids.
Does everyone on lemmy just equate “old” with “Boomer”?
Boomers were the people who were born after 1945, during the baby boom after the second World War. The people in this picture were, if they had kids born after 1945, the parents of boomers.
Right, but it was the boomers that did the fucking up, no?
Yeah, like their previous generation didn’t do anything… Remember the nazis? Remember Stalin? Remember the empire of the rising sun? I mean, boomers fucked up the environment and economy for our generation. The generation before them killed literally millions in death camps all around the world, during 2 world wars with the most horrible war crimes and with 2 nukes. It’s a matter of perspective.
Have we stopped talking about the photo and subsequent comment chain?
Silent generation
Or forgotten generation.
But also, yea let’s not forget it really came down to who voted for Reagan. I’m a little tired of the boomer hate because it overlooks some of the okay boomers, and yes, equates “old” with “selfish asshole”.
Hot take, old is already equated with asshole. The current ruling class in the United states is predominantly ancient and white. The gerontocracy is the reason we are in this shitstorm. People have already been hating white people for decades, and ageism has been around since at least I was a kid.
My mom is an ‘okay’ boomer. My point stands.
It’s not the age, it’s the class.
The wealthy, both young and old, are the ones giving over the rest of us.
Generational division is just a distraction from the real culprits
The current ancient ruling class you’re talking about are literally boomers.
No one said anything about boomers?
Lol, this is like the people who get themselves worked up because everything is “woke”… when no one but them mentioned it.
Unfortunately this comes about from a depression which is when most folks have zero of close enough to it to be zero. then suddenly bread goes for a few cents because most people cannot get enough cents together to buy bread and those with money don’t need anymore bread they have plenty.
It comes from price ceilings. When there’s no capitalist making money for doing nothing, and their buddies in overplayed management positions making money doing almost nothing, you can produce sugar real cheap.
pretty sure there were plenty of owners still making money for nothing during the depression. They jumped out of windows because. OMG! LESS MONIES!!!
Today that list would be 16 euros or something.
Yeah you’re close. Ball park for Lidl where I do most of my shopping:
5lbs of sugar €5
Bread €1
2 quarts of milk €2.50
6 oranges €2.50
Oatmeal €1.80
Coffee €4
In the US bread is 3 even at aldi, 5 at big box stores at label.
That’s crazy money. Name brand bread in a normal supermarket is around 3 USD here and I resent paying it.
Honestly I’d be buying a bread machine at those prices but we’ve a lot in the house so go through a lot of bread for school lunches etc.
Comparatively your sugar prices are nuts to me as an aussie, i get it for like a buck a kilo.
Holy fuckballs! How in the name is Jesus is anyone making money on that?
Actually, on further reflection and a check in my cupboard, I am a donkey. It’s just over a euro a kilo here. I had it in my head that the bags were half kilos.
That’s still nearly half the price compared to here and I thought it was stupid cheap already.
We have a lot of cane and sell it like crazy overseas
My price is for like 12 grain type of bread, not the Wonder Bread which is a little cheaper, the bottom shelf bread might be $250 to $3 at a big box store if not on sale, the better factory stuff is like four or five.
I was baking bread for a couple of years not even because of price specifically but because this factory bread is kind of garbage.
I hardly eat bread anymore or I still would. I cut out all added sugar as well. Almost any kind of processed food. Now if I eat something like factory bread it is a shock to my taste buds tasting all of the sugar and salt they load it up with.
Yeah, American bread shocked me when I got there the first time. Sugar in bread is wild to me. WILD!!! I was genuinely, deeply shocked at sweet bread.
The stuff you get for a euro here is a basic white sliced pan (no sugar). It’s…fine. The kids like it for toast and sandwiches and I’m not averse to it. They have multigrain or freshly baked (that day) brown soda bread and a slicing machine which would be my preference and that is around the $3 / €2.50 mark but I can’t justify buying it just for myself. Nothing costs anywhere remotely near $5.
I recall the US being cheaper for groceries and food in general when I was living there but that was only for 4 months in the late 90’s. I wonder if you’ve been harder hit by inflation in the intervening years than we have in Europe.
edit: I was curious so went off to look. The answer is yes. For groceries you guys have had higher inflation since I was there (roughly +110% versus roughly +70% in the EU). Interesting stuff.
Inflation had ticked up considerably by 2020, 2021 it just started rising and never stopped.
Especially beef at the moment. But in a year 2003 prices seemed about half of what they are now.
Vegetables and produce are probably twice what they were just in 2020, salad dressing was 88 cents at Aldi and now is like $2.
I get auntie mills carb smart bread and checked, it doesn’t have any perceptible amount of sugar in it. I didn’t know sugar was common in bread in the US.
What do you mean by “bread”? Is it completely white, or does it contain a lot of sugar? The bread I know in the US contains zero nutritional value.
I am talking about the mid grade bread like 12 grain that I buy. The lower shelf is like Wonder Bread that is worthless where you could squeeze the entire loaf down to an inch. As to the mid-grade bread like the 12 grain or the whole wheat or other variants there is some nutritional value but it is also chock full of sugar and salt to disguise substandard ingredients and just to indulge our corrupted palettes.
Perversely most of the top shelf bread that is usually made by local bakeries is almost all white bread from refined grains. Although it may be the case that how the grain is grown leads to higher amounts of pesticides and toxic chemicals not removing the outer part of the grain but I don’t know on that specifically.
Inch?
Agricultural and food regulations in the US are terrible. What is considered food-safe in the US is considered toxic here.
The only healthy bread is whole wheats. It’s the only bread containing fibers. I just bake my own, with a bread baking machine. That way I can control the amount of sugar (none) and salt in it (bare minimum) and don’t use preservants. Supermarket whole wheats bread here contains a maximum of only 20% whole wheats. Mine 50% (more makes it become a brick).
how was this possible? was there a deflation?
or was it the specificity of the product sugar that was made so expensive due to wartime restrictions on maritime trade?The sign says “O.P.A. Ceiling Prices,” so WWII-era price controls were probably the subject.
Between taxing the wealthy, nationalisation of key companies and assets, and this, seems like they had some really good policies back then.
Okay, but what about their freedom?
If you don’t have the right to price gouge, how long until the government steals all your other liberties?
Sure, you’ll enjoy a higher quality of life. But is it really worth it, knowing that the mega-wealthy will suffer?
Gonna have to say, had me in the first half there.
Beltalowda na animals!
sasa ke
Damn i wish i was witty enough to remember belter dialect. I can read it just fine but using it is beyond me.
sta calm, kopeng
The answer is in the photo (well the reason I guess)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Price_Administration
Its so funny how the US despises socialism when its best economic time period had full on government controlled industry production and pricing requirements.
the US despises socialism
Took a good 40 years of far right propaganda, red scares, bigotry, and conspiracy mongering to get from FDR’s New Deal to Reagan Economics.
American fascists poisoned the minds of their children and their grandchildren in order to reach this point.
American fascists have been used as tools by the rich to undo the gains of the new deal, and ultimately the gains of the Enlightenment to bring us back into some type of feudalism where owing money leads to Virtual slavery. And the entire system is fixed so you cannot avoid owing money to somebody.
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We hate socialism so much we bought part of Intel.
I actually support government/public shareholding. It’s a natural path to UBI that maps effective taxation directly to shareholder value (prohibiting tax loopholes) and reflects public backing of commercial entities proportionately with public stake.
Honestly it’s absurd that major stimulus initiatives proceed without requiring public equity in return for the funds. And that’s doubly true for corporations that would crater otherwise, since such a bailout would then result in a controlling stake. Public centralization via such an acquisition would be logical for any entity that’s “too big to fail.”
I’m sure this administration’s motivations are corrupt and we should be wary, but the precedent itself is progressive IMHO.
That’s facism
America was great when it was communist.
You just gonna ignore that America stood by, didn’t enter the war, built the finest war machine Earth has ever seen, deployed it, WON, and suffered no loses at home?
But hey, if you want a war economy, and think you can sustain it, Putin would like some tips.
i was so busy looking at the prices that my adhd brain didn’t register the opa part! thanks for the explanation
In addition to the WWII rations and OPA stuff that others have mentioned, there was a fair amount of general deflationary pressure during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
I haven’t looked at what happened to sugar specifically.
Later on, after the Cuban Revolution I know we subsidized sugar partly out of spite for Cuba. That would not be at play here though.
I wonder why, its not like any major events happened around 1918 and 1945
nope, just the invisible hand of the free market!
I still find it crazy that this modern-quality video clip + set is from the 1930s
Inflation is caused by the Wizard of Oz.
I knew it.
so it’s 1/2 milk then?
Or how I like to call it, 1+2 milk
Wasn’t that the time when money was based on precious shiny metals instead of imaginary garbage and farts?
Kinda, but not for domestic transactions.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2017/november/why-us-no-longer-follows-gold-standard
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