Because of the electoral college, my vote doesn’t mean much of anything in a presidential election because I live in a very blue state, not a swing state. I still vote, though.

I do that because I used to work in grocery stores and can noticed even small, incremental price changes on many items. Most consumers don’t do that and hardly notice 3 cents more on this and 2 ounces short on that. We are already accustomed to toilet paper and laundry detergent mega-size and “concentrated” bullshit.

The only reason I remember that I’m 64 is that I will be 65 on my next birthday. That’s kind of a milestone for a number of reasons and it’s easy to remember. The same was true when I was about to turn 50. Other than that, anything after 30 is kind of blurry

No need for ad hominem attacks. Profiteering has always been a part of inflation but it’s never the cause or the underlying reason that inflation occurs. There are a host of things that go into what drives inflation but during Covid it was the Fed dumping tons of money into the system and post Covid it was wage inflation and low unemployment. Do corporations still use predatory pricing? You bet. The only thing that will really work now is either very deep recession or a depression.

I don’t stream much but being disabled, I can’t get to the store so I do order stuff from Amazon. What I’ve seen in the last few years is an influx of Chinese sellers with tons and tons of garbage and all of the reviews are completely worthless, of course.

I always knew Arthur C Clarke was an agent of Satan, especially after the disappointment that was 3001: The Final Odyssey.

I’m Bernie Sanders left and wish I had a gas stove and could buy more steak.

I’ve been using an 8 GB MP3 player I got 6 years ago for 30 bucks and a full charge still lasts for hours and hours.

I can just hear some people going, “WHAT? Are you crazy?”. I was a little tike in the early 60s and the only monitor my mom had was me screaming or the “THUNK” of me falling and hitting the floor.

There was no catalyst specifically but I deleted my shortcuts and uninstalled the app a couple of weeks ago because there just isn’t anything for me on Twitter, X or whatever. Have not gone back since.

Understood. Whether or not we are replicating economic conditions from 1929 is another story entirely. Other than AI, there really isn’t too much of a stock market bubble. The S&P 500 P/E ratio is lower than pre-pandemic and the Buffett indicator(US stock market value divided by GDP) is still well within a safe range. 1929 was pre-globalization, pre-SEC and there were next to no banking regulations at the time. The Internet bubble of 2000 with its insane speculation more closely resembled the crash of 29 than does the current market conditions. The 2008 housing debacle was primarily too much leveraged mortgage debt.

I’m not a student of economics and haven’t studied much of it but I have owned stocks for quite a few years and have a basic understanding of how money works.

I’m not an economist but anecdotal evidence that I’ve picked up from a number of different sources in the last couple of years lends me to believe that consumer debt is pretty darn high. This is from the Federal Reserve and what else is an average schmuck supposed to look at?

You can look up delayed gratification all you want but the majority of American consumers will never actually understand it.

No but 3 rights make a left

Shitty watercolor, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time.

I’ve been on the Internet over 30 years and it never fails that the more popularity site gains, the less utility that it has. Reddit, Facebook and Twitter will always have tons of users but I don’t think any of those sites are as useful as they were a decade ago.

I suppose the larger the mob, the more it needs to be reined in but some of the subs have a number of “overzealous” mods.

Have to make sure you let people know that liberals are all socialists and hate capitalism

What probably got me banned was asking the guy how was he not aware of such a gross overpayment. Oh well, I suppose most people look at a noticeable bump in SNAP benefits and don’t even question it. I would think something was amiss and double check on it.

The slur, “welfare queen” never really has gone away and it’s been 40 years now. Heck, the colloquialism “hipster” barely lasted 10 years. Anyway, a lot of people unaware the fact that the people that get food stamps are pretty much split down the middle race wise. There are just as many white folks getting food stamps as there are African-Americans.

I’m a senior citizen I know a lot of people in my age bracket that get them because their Social Security is not quite enough to cover everything, especially since inflation has run amok the last few years.

I’ve only used mobile versions of Reddit a few times and try to use a browser for the ad blocking. Reddit actually started going down the tubes once it was taken over by the corporation that owns Condé Nast and a few other publishers. Corporate interests, whether it’s Disney or Reddit, rarely align with those of the fan base that made them popular in the first place.