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Almost all my money goes to mortgage, shit from China, food, and the occasional service. It does make me wonder some times how it all works. But it's been wor
by treis 1y ago
Almost all my money goes to mortgage, shit from China, food, and the occasional service. It does make me wonder some times how it all works. But it's been working like this for a long time now.
- whackernews 1y agoWhy are you buying shit from China?
- striking 1y agoWhy, don't you? How would you have posted this message if you hadn't?
- whackernews 1y agoYou got me. I buy old second hand phones because the planet is full of mugs.
- skylurk 1y agoWhere are you getting your shit from?
- tclancy 1y agoI have a deal with Cologuard.
- whackernews 1y agoDown the road where I can.
- Mashimo 1y agoApparently it's even hard to make molds in the US. China seems to be the top dog in the production chain. From design, to mold, to production, to packaging. Fstopper has one or two nice videos about it. Can't even buy US made glass bottles that fits his needs in the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xewpuM1eJRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xewpuM1eJRg
- lm28469 1y agoIt cuts the middleman, supermarkets and online stores are 90% Chinese dropship these days. Why pay the 50-500% markup?
- whackernews 1y agoI have no idea what you’re talking about. What the heck are you people buying?! I mean, after some pots and pans and a couple of t-shirts what else is there?
- lm28469 1y agoI'm very frugal but I buy some electronic parts every now and then, last time I bought a titanium hiking pot, $12 instead of like $50 locally, same factory, the only difference is that the brand is not stamped on it
- jrflowers 1y agoI am delighted to hear from the actual FedEx’s own Chuck Noland! Getting this post to appear on this website using only vellum and iron gall ink is an incredible feat. Could you share some about your process (in many months time obviously)?
- jrflowers 1y agoSee this can be the issue with posting on the internet without directly using Chinese-built electronics: you have to periodically remind your seneschal what your various shorthand terms mean or they will make mistakes like forgetting what “ctrl+D” means and assuming you meant “downvote” and not “bookmark”
- ilikerashers 1y agoI've started buying clothes from China. Quality and style is starting to really improve. Makes you wonder how much we've been ripped off for years.
- skeeter2020 1y agoAs a 6'5" male westerner finding the right size is next to impossible.
- ryoshoe 1y agoWhile you can't go off the standard S M L sizing scale, if you know your measurements you should be able to find something suitable
- whackernews 1y agoRipped off? I think it’s more that you are ripping off people from other countries, whilst undermining your own economy and draining your country of meaningful work. It’s nice to pay your neighbour properly for the work they do. How much clothes are you actually buying and why? The clothing industry is a horrible one, riddled with waste and slavery. You been to the factory where they’re making your clothes have you? Wake up man. This shit matters.
- everdrive 1y agoIt's very difficult if not impossible to avoid. Just how many hours do you want to spend doing research for _every single_ household item? It'd be genuinely difficult, and even plenty of stuff which claims to be "made in the USA" is actually just assembled here. It's possible to look these things up, but that takes time and it's difficult to get absolute certainty. And not all stuff from China is terrible, either. It's just an opportunity cost which is nearly impossible to avoid given just how common so much of the crap from China is. A normal person who doesn't want to upend their life might have a few easier baby-steps: buy as little stuff as possible, and buy used whenever possible. The original country doesn't see any real direct benefit when you buy used.
- ChrisGreenHeur 1y agoIts very difficult to buy something "made in china" that is actually made there, not just assembled there. Even if you get something like a DJI drone, you can do some quick research and find out the guts (SOC) is from a company in California using IP from Europe/USA (arm).
- everdrive 1y agoThat's a good point as well: where do you draw the line? If I buy a car, were the screens made in China? Is that a sufficiently small portion of the car to render it acceptable? If so, what about every remaining part in the car?
- whackernews 1y agoIt just depends how important you think it is to chose who gets your money, where raw materials are coming from and how things are made. I happen to think it’s the most important global issue right now. Come at me.
- unglaublich 1y agoIt's better quality. The people there are skilled and well-educated, and the factories and machinery are modern.
- treis 1y agoThat's partially a euhpemism for imported stuff. But more to your general meaning the point of the article is that there's not a lot of slack. The US is pretty close to fully utilized and there's not a lot of slack to start making stuff here instead.
- rangestransform 1y agowhy not? I like high quality products at reasonable prices
- sandworm101 1y agoReal estate. The US economy floats on the perpetually-increasing cost of land. Thats where your mortgage money goes, to a series of finacial instruments to allow others to benifit from the eternally rising value of "your" property.
- nxm 1y agoMuch worse the case in Canada & Australia unfortunately
- ta1243 1y agoIt amuses me what's been true in the rest of the world (Vancouver, Sydney, Aukland and London come to mind but I'm sure it's not just the Anglosphere) for decades arrived in the US a couple of years ago and is suddenly a shocking new thing
- hrimfaxi 1y agoWhy is that amusing to you?
- ta1243 1y agoAmericentrism. America discovers that water is wet and suddenly out come the flags and eagles
- ahmeneeroe-v2 1y agoThat makes sense. Those other places don't actually matter, but America does.
- Kerbiter 1y agoCan't even understand whether you're being ironic or not.
- thelastgallon 1y agoFederal taxes are #1 expense for most people. People forget to think about it because of direct deduction.
- surajrmal 1y agoThis isn't true. At 70k (much higher than the median income), the effective federal tax rate is under 10%. People generally spend more than 10% of their income on housing. If taxes are your number one expense you likely have a significantly larger than average income.
- nxm 1y agoPrices going up 20-25% due to excessive money printed and hence high inflation during last administration don't help.
- redserk 1y agoThe stimulus spending started under the administration prior to the last one. In the United States, elections were held on November 2020. A new administration would’ve started in January 2021.
- i80and 1y agoThe extent to which media and the public both blame Biden for events prior to his administration's start is deeply concerning.
- gryfft 1y agoThey know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. They have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
- dh2022 1y agoOh, come on. Why don't you mention the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)? Which actually stoked the inflation by increasing government spending when the labor market was very tight? IRA's pie in the sky green energy cost reductions were going to take years at least to show any benefits - assuming there were any benefits. High inflation belongs to Democrats just as much as it belongs to Republicans.
- overfeed 1y ago