Scary prices

[bill_schubert]

I'm mostly immune to grocery prices.  I'll buy an expensive steak now and again but mostly I buy what we need and if we need it the cost is just what it is.  Food is kind of essential.

But today I was astonished at how much prices had gone up in a couple of weeks.  I bought essentials and the single most expensive item I bought was some salmon at $15 which was too much but eating oily fish is important for us so the expense is important.  We don't much drink anymore so nothing like booze on the list.  Nor coke.  A couple of bags of dog treats totaling maybe $20 plus some canned dog food.  But nothing crazy expensive.  Our total for half a dozen of essential groceries for two people $253.64 (but I SAVED $7.78!!).

Time to start clipping coupons

One thing I did not buy but have many times before when it was about 30% cheaper:

Note the per ounce price

This is some of the best bacon I've had but we used to get it for under $8 not that long ago.  I opted for some cheaper stuff and bought some turkey bacon too.  

It is more than a little disconcerting.  We can eat cheaper and I've done so before.  We can really watch the prices and do coupons and buy Costco and freeze, really do the math and be sure.

But the stock market twitched last week and I assume will do a lot more than that next week.  The market is our inflation hedge and as such has done OK.  We've broken even over time.  But this will kill that streak.

I'm one who supported all the government programs to provide a safety net.  It is one of the primary reasons we have a national government.  But if we're going to have to put national guard troops on buses and more national guard troops on commercial trucks to get food to the markets while people continue to trot out reasons they don't want to work, my political leanings are going to shift PDQ.

That is as gentle as I can put the argument.

There is a Reddit sub /antiwork.  Much of the crap that managers dump on workers is just that, crap.  And they deserve to lose workers.   But the level of whining on that sub is so high I can not even describe it.  Most of it comes down to entitlement.  Rich people owe us more money and I'll just quit and not work until they pay me more.

The more I listen, the less I'm thrilled by the AOC and Bernie crowd.  The social net works if people are contributing.  If people were working we would not have inflation.  We would not have deficit spending [see the late 90's during Clinton years].  We would have an expanding economy and lowering prices and higher wages.  And a stock market that is more solid.

BUT, we can't increase the wage for people who don't work.

It is one thing if people are not getting whatever Christmas present is THE present this year.  That is a drag on small business and makes people unhappy.  But we have empty shelves in stores and prices spiraling up because we can't people who are out of work to drive the trucks to fill the shelves.  I think of the many posters and artwork of the late 30's and 40's.  They celebrate people working, not people quitting their jobs.  Maybe that is what AOC and Bernie should be doing, urging people to work and band together and rebuild the economy and demand more money.  Not the other way around, demanding more money first.

Sigh.  Enough.  Sorry.  [turns off the podcast mike and walks out]

Comments

[solteronita.livejournal.com]

What is your usual grocery bill?

[solteronita.livejournal.com]

We shop weekly, and it's gone up some recently here, too. From around $120 for the three of us to around $135.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

So, almost 9%.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

On a big shopping day maybe $130 or so. I bought more milk and fruit than usual so $185 would have been sane.

[solteronita.livejournal.com]

Whoa! That's outrageous--the increase in today's bill, I mean.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

It does make the meal delivery service like Dinnerly more attractive until they have to raise prices.

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

The unemployment rate is so low, though. I am aware there are people who are not working who are refusing to work for peanuts (I am one of them, actually) but I read somewhere that corporate greed is a big contributor to rising prices. That, and the backlog of goods at ports, and the shortage of truck drivers. Well shoot, I don't know how to drive a truck and I don't feel like learning. Anyway, I'm not sure people refusing to work are what is causing your increased grocery bill.

My own grocery bills have climbed recently, too, but ours are not nearly as high as yours. We buy a lot of fresh vegetables and not too much in the way of prepared and processed foods. Notice the cost of your potatoes versus the two items above that. Not that you should have to change your diet just to afford groceries. Hmm, you also have $17+ of arthritis caplets on your receipt.

I looked at the various food delivery services you say you use, and they intrigue me, but at the end of the day we eat really well around here for less than your per-meal cost of food delivery. We spend something like $100 a week for two people (though maybe slightly higher lately?).

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

I know, right? Totally regret the decision to have arthritis. Don't know what I was thinking.

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

Hee! I just meant you can't really count it as part of the food bill. But I envy you having a grocery store that actually has medications. Mine doesn't.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

Prices are soaring here too

[stainsteelrat.livejournal.com]

The lorry/truck driver thing kicked off a few weeks back here, but the blame was mostly put on Brexit, and an inability to hire foreign drivers. Curiously it's all gone quiet, but supermarket supplies still seem a bit random.

There was a good article on BBC covering inflation in the UK (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12196322), essentially the price rise in oil/gas, shortages caused by COVID, the reduction in the UK government support for businesses (again COVID), and Brexit again. Inflation here is currently around 3%, and for my particular part of the public sector they're still negotiating the pay rise that was due from April this year - the public sector employer wants 1.75%, and the unions want 2.75%.

[amw.livejournal.com]

Imo blaming inflation on the very, very small percentage of people who are part of the "antiwork" movement feels like a right wing misdirection. Right wing propagandists love catastrophizing over the most radical of folks, pretending like a bunch of teenage anarchists and some homeless advocates are somehow destroying society. That's how they get their authoritarians voted in, by scaring people into thinking these kids have way more power than they do.

Personally i think inflation is happening because of COVID. Supply chain disruptions are clearly an issue, and they're global, not just American. Death rates are up, life expectancies are down. People's travel patterns are different. People are spending money on different things than they were before. It'll take some time for the system to readjust. In the interim, big businesses don't want to fail, so they are putting up prices.

When we're talking about macroeconomic changes, it seems to me that the first place to look for blame should be the businesses and individuals that control the lion's share of the planet's wealth, not some ideologues who control virtually none.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

The percentage is significant: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/11/12/job-quit-september-openings/ and that does not include the people who decided not to work at all.

I'm hardly right wing (although I do believe that I should own the property on which my house sits). I've spent a lot of time in management, in business ownership and in worker bee mode. I've been a union member twice, voting to bring it into the company once. So I've got a fairly balanced view, IMHO. I've worked for below minimum wage and been paid far too much (I liked the latter but ultimately got bored). But I always showed up until they fired me. That's how I went from minimum wage to being paid too much. I showed up. Every day. Relentlessly.

Clearly COVID kicked this off. But the supply chain is a chain of people and the maskless people who fill the stores and gas stations and Reddit subs need to get their vaccines and get to work. The left wing should be chanting the nobility of work (I'm an old school socialist, I guess, filled with the images of Rockefeller center):


I think we should tax the hell out of the top 10% and there should be a permanent tax audit of anyone making more than $100M/year. We should be hiring hundreds of thousands of people for the IRS. The deficit would be wiped out with that one action. It is pretty obvious why Congress would never approve that.

But other than wiping out the deficit none of that will fix the housing problem (supply chain), the food problem (supply chain and climate change), inflation (supply chain). This is the shit that is killing the lower income people and it is largely self induced and no legislation or protest or whining will fix it. Only getting back to work will fix it. I am a child of depression parents so I've inherited a lot of their social genetics. I support a lot of what AOC wants to do but it has to be coupled with the work ethos to make it happen.

I'm not interested in blame. I'm interested in moving the economy in a positive direction before we fall off the cliff. Things can and will get a lot worse if we just hang out and fight over who is to blame. I think we're in a perilous position here.

[amw.livejournal.com]

People quitting their jobs doesn't mean they are "antiwork". The article you linked is talking about people switching up to better jobs, so what's the big deal? The unemployment rate is only about 1% higher than it was pre-COVID, which doesn't seem like all that much - certainly not enough to single-handedly cause massive inflation. It really seems like focusing on the wrong thing, to say that people don't care about work any more. From what i see, the vast, vast majority of Americans are still working, same as they always were.

If inflation is legitimately being caused by a shortage of workers for positions with low pay and no benefits, there is a very simple solution for that. Give temporary work permits to the million plus asylum seekers who are still waiting for their applications to be processed. Hell, you could be really mercenary about it and bump their applications up in the queue if they can prove they have been working 32+ hours per week. This way you allow the small percentage of American citizens who refuse to work for low pay and no benefits the freedom to not work (nobody should be forced to work - that's essentially slavery!) while still giving business owners the opportunity to hire people who will work for low pay and no benefits. Everybody wins?

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much we are seeing a problem caused by fewer immigrants. That would be an interesting study, more so if it were true. I'm a proponent of increased immigration and I agree it might solve some of the problems. But it is a rich white guy in power issue that will not change in time for this crisis.

[amw.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you know i am very radically pro-immigration, to the point i think there should be real freedom of movement and freedom to work across all "borders". You could see that as an ultra-capitalist position, because then each country has to compete to make itself the most attractive, and if people don't like it, they really can "just move away". Of course that's a fantasy in the US, but we do have a bit of a case study, and it's the EU. Or Australia/New Zealand, which also have a relatively open border arrangement. There are lots of opinions on whether those were successful or not, but the richer countries in those unions didn't collapse, and all of the countries still maintain their own unique cultures, so i think those specific arguments are not good ones against having a relatively permissive immigration policy.

My guess is that the truck driver shortages in particular are something that might end up solved by opening up immigration again. I assume most long haul drivers need to be registered somewhere and probably can't easily go undocumented, but i have a suspicion that many of the last mile drivers might have been disproportionately immigrants who don't have a formal work permit. Ditto for restaurant staff in non-chain operations.

Unfortunately, as you say, nothing will change. Border/Lines has repeatedly made that point... it doesn't matter what Biden does, even when his immigration policy is almost exactly the same as Trump's, the right wing media will slam him as if he is some kind of radical. It's hopeless. This was a good article from a month or two back: https://borderlines.substack.com/p/gop-officials-ramp-up-campaign-centered

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

I agree! I'll take it one step further ....No public benefits for those who are not actively seeking work! As is the case for every non celebrity actor, there were many times I filed for unemployment. To receive a check, I had to maintain a list of auditions/interviews weekly to show I was trying to find employment. I am against any benefits going to people who are simply choosing not to work. As you know, I'm far from conservative in my politics.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as with anything in the economy it is a complicated issue. I was all for the stimulus checks but we're rapidly evolving from a pandemic economy and people are taking advantage of the situation causing a lot of unnecessary problems that kind of snowball and roll over the very people who need help the most. Supply chain is a people problem and this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/11/12/job-quit-september-openings/ does not help.

Get all the vaccines and all the boosters and get back to work. I don't hear this message anywhere. We need a work cheer section that makes it noble again. Or, as you say, remove the safety net for those who don't need it but are using it as an alternative to work.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

And as a final kicker. With the direction the country is going we're going to end up with Trump as president again. Biden/Harris are being undercut so badly by the left wing of the party (alternately, they are not keeping them in line... different focus, same result) that they are not going to make progress in getting inflation under control and that will snowball into congress (foregone conclusion with that — the dems have already lost enough seats in congress to lose control) and the idiots on the right will float back up and reelect Trump.

I'd like for it not to happen but I can see more ways it will happen than that it won't.

And, of course, he will do all he can to be Putin and change the foundations of the republic to suit his family.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

I will hope your forecast doesn't come true; if so, it means I'll be entering dire circumstances just as I hit 70.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Same. I read a piece on the Cook report (https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-politics/its-competence-not-wokeness-thats-hurting-democrats) that talked about competence and I agree. I'm afraid that Biden is not up to it and Harris definitely isn't. So I'm not sure what will happen.

[somedayseattle.livejournal.com]

Great post.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

ROFL, yeah. Pissed some people off. But rattling cages now and again is good.

[sleepybadger.livejournal.com]

the antiwork subreddit is interesting. On one hand, I'm glad to see workers realizing that $8.50 an hour and no benefits to risk their health and well-being on a daily basis is not worth it, especially when their companies expect them to come in while sick, be exposed to covid because they don't enforce mask wearing, etc. There will always be companies and managers who take advantage of people who don't know any better or have a sense of loyalty to a place, and there will always be places that commit wage theft because of "policy". But as you say, we can't increase the wage for people who don't work (and it's definitely more complicated for people who have really limited options because of where they live and their transportation options). And I know companies love to distribute work to the remaining workers and then decide they don't need to hire anyone else because the work is technically getting done. I do agree that workers need to push back on the expectation that they will just keep taking on more and more unpaid labor (I also very strongly feel that other than very specific circumstances, people should not be expected to do work on off times like weekends, holidays, and vacations).

I am also worried that as things continue down this road, and the democrats are unable to present a united front (say what you will about the republicans, but they are fantastic at keeping just about everyone in their party in line and on the same page), Trump will sweep right back into office, and god help us all when he has no concerns about getting reelected.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Agreed with all of the above. The latest poll by WAPO says that if elections were today 51% would vote Republican. That is useless since elections are not today but I think it is a referendum on what AOC, and to a lesser degree, Bernie are doing to ruin any chance of a united front. I see a lot of paths that would get Trump reelected and think it is a foregone conclusion that the Dems lose Senate and the House in a year.

There is not a Dem presidential candidate so far. Biden is too old and too tainted. Harris is really just a crap manager. A disaster of a campaigner who has no chance of further office unless by some amazing way Biden gets reelected and she's still on his coat tails. She just has no organization ability.

The list gets complex after that with Buttigieg being the best candidate but unfortunately not, I think, electable.

Ugly, ugly if inflation goes up and stocks go down. My hope is that Yellen and the Fed manage to keep their promise of controlling inflation. That is all that is keeping the stock market from diving. Fingers crossed about that.

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

I rarely go into a grocery store, most of the time its Amazon Fresh or Instacart and i only buy a few items.
Recently I stopped at a specialty grocery we have and another store (can't even remember which) but i remember coming home thinking "Holy shit it's gotten more expensive. "

your comments about anti-work make me think about Fairygodboss a women's focused networking site. There is some good feedback there but 90% of the posts are about how toxic everyone's office is. It makes me wonder if it's that bad or if expectations are skewed. (or if it's an Olympics of complaining)