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> Everything is becoming more expensive often for no reason. - For food, this was caused by supply shocks. First COVID, then Ukraine, now tariffs and the trade
by concinds 1y ago
> Everything is becoming more expensive often for no reason.
- For food, this was caused by supply shocks. First COVID, then Ukraine, now tariffs and the trade war. And on top of that, excessive price-setting power in some highly concentrated sectors of the food industry.
- For housing, this was caused by a supply shortage, i.e. bad housing policy. A housing shortage gives property owners price-setting power, which allows them to keep raising the price. However, while we've made it very easy for owners to profit, we've made it harder for developers, feeding the shortage.
- For healthcare, we decided to let many middle-men profit. A decent portion of spending could be cut without harming pharmaceutical innovation or new drug development.
These problems all have causes, and the cause is bad policy that benefits a minority while harming the country. And "tax the rich and give to the poor" does not fix these; the government is gonna need to get involved in directly fixing these broken markets, not just giving money to the poor so they immediately hand it over to the existing rent-seekers.
- janwl 1y ago[flagged]
- lalaland1125 1y agoImmigration isn't the issue. Population growth is actually down compared to historical levels. Immigration numbers (and births) are lower than they have ever been and housing costs are higher than they have ever been. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2021/january/us-population-growth-slowed-further-2020 https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2021/january/us-po...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- potato3732842 1y agoImmigration is an issue only insofar as it's making it harder for the shit policy that's been peddled from going over well. It's not "the" issue.
- b3ing 1y agoIt was the PPP loans they gave out, and increase in every one wanting to be a housing investor thanks to social media
- array_key_first 1y agoYeah all those... illegal immigrants... buying 500,000 dollar homes in Texas. Nevermind they're the only people building the homes.
- LexiMax 1y agoIt's the immigrants' fault. No wait, it's because of the queers. Surely it's because of women. Would you believe it's the socialists fault? Gangs? Non-Christians? Welfare Queens? China? The American People as a whole? It's everybody else's fault except ours, the people who actually and demonstratively have power. Please believe us.
- PlunderBunny 1y ago“Even when it was the bears, I knew it was [the immigrants].” [0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Apu_About_Nothing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Apu_About_Nothing
- sph 1y agoFor a nation built and made immensely great by immigrants, I truly fear the type of propaganda that is able to turn all of their social and economic problems on immigrants. I know Europe has been consumed by this rhetoric, but I feel Americans should know better, knowing their history. Incredible how the powerful can shift the blame on the guy making minimum wage, and the entire populace laps it up like complete morons. It is frightening to see the how mass media can easily brainwash a whole country in the span of a few years. Deceiving people at global scale is by now a solved problem; despite believing we are the smartest and most well-read and rational in history, humanity as a whole is on aggregate really, really dumb.