This graph left me speechless
I was curious how this graph would look like in my country or even compared to the US. Let’s just say I don’t understand how you are not on the streets, rioting.
https://inflationglobal.com/en/compare/united-states-vs-germany
(I have spent no amount of time checking those numbers, but they do seem to correlate with the graph you posted. I have no clue why they chose to use a decimal point in the years.)I don’t understand how you are not on the streets, rioting.
I think there are two big reasons for this.
Thing #1 is that the USA is highly divided and individualistic. People literally don’t see themselves as being part of a bigger thing. There is no sense of class consciousness or social organization.
Thing #2 is that food is super cheap and still affordable. I think the average American spends about 10% of their income on food [ * ] . When that 10% goes up 30%, now you’re spending 13%, so it’s a small increase. (In comparison, Canadians spend around 22%!).
The percent increase is notable, but the impact to your life is quite small. The main people who seem to be affected by inflation are those on a fixed income (retired, disabled etc who are not keeping up with rapid price changes).
[ * ] For an American it’s a mere 5% on groceries and the other 5% on eating out in restaurants, which is pretty optional for a lot of people. The average american spends about 55% of their food budget on dining out. There is a trend in restaurants where the prices have increased a lot, so people are visiting restaurants less and spending more each time, so sales in $ terms are holding steady while people dine out less frequently. This is some of the slack in the system that will shift before people riot. Another weird detail is that grocery stores compete on ambiance but not on price. You can go to a spacious dimly lit quiet supermarket and pay $$$ or you can go to a basic crowded warehouse style supermarket and pay $ for the exact same item. So as the article mentions, you can change your shopping habits to change your budget without changing what you eat. Many of my neighbors actually pay for grocery delivery services. Like the degree of luxury and disposable income is hard to imagine in other countries… Some people are close to the edge, but most people have lots of slop in their budgets already.
I have most of my groceries delivered, but the prices are mostly the same. I wouldn’t especially say I’m living in unimaginable luxury. But fine, if it helps keeping the American soul calm, oh my, what luxury!
You’re probably paying about 10% higher than a middle-range supermarket for the convenience.
Like, they may not advertise a special delivery “fee” but the delivery costs are baked into the costs of the food items.
It just goes to my point that most Americans have the luxury of not being price conscious and not even caring about it.
I think there is a Marxist joke here somewhere about how a person doing an absolutely bullshit job sitting in a Hermann Miller Aeron chair in an air conditioned office snacking on Doritos is not a revolutionary. Life is super cushy for a lot of folks, and it’s hard to rebel against something that is this undifficult.
In the developing world, people are struggling for those things they actually need at a basic level.
Life is super cushy for a lot of folks, and it’s hard to rebel against something that is this undifficult
John Galbriath wrote a book on this, worth a read IMO
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691171654/the-culture-of-contentment
that said the time to rebel is now because somewhere around 2030-2035 ,it will be too late and too many tipping points will have been crossed
which is why we won’t solve this, It’s contra to how humans behave.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2006923-understand-faulty-thinking-to-tackle-climate-change/
DANIEL KAHNEMAN is not hopeful. “I am very sorry,” he told me, “but I am deeply pessimistic. I really see no path to success on climate change.”
I am not American and the prices in the store are the same as in my delivery. The difference is that I don’t get to choose the cheaper option.
Wild guess on the decimal point: the library doing the graph doesn’t recognize the xaxis as a year, but as an integer. In that case, it is adding the separator, which in your locale is
.rather than how others display,Probably, yes. I wouldn’t have added a separator, but it’s easy enough to understand even if you don’t know about different locales.
“rewire” like were some kind of machine.
News continuing to use wishy washy language to not offend.
