Seriously, I’d like to know too. I’ve always thought that you got them and then you were done. But maybe that was counting on there not being a bunch of disease vectors walking around.

But if we fixed it where would we get all our slaves undocumented workers?

I think the average bullet wound might result in slightly higher medical bills than the average car accident.

I was disappointed when this happened but now I’m glad I can’t find it anymore. I had become lazy, just putting it on everything. Now I have a variety of sauces I choose based on what I’m putting it on. There are a lot of good sauces out there. With proper pairing you might not miss Sriracha at all.

Turning off Java script worked when this happened to me. Firefox and ublock origin. It breaks some things but you can do it on a per site basis.

Hopefully the knowledge can affect their bottom line. Consumer sentiment affects spending habits. If people know they’re being gouged instead of just feeling like it, maybe they’ll curb their non-essential spending enough to put downward pressure on prices.

Maybe not, but it can’t hurt.

If you want to know how bad we’re being fucked, search for the PPI, the producer price index. CPI, the one we always hear about, is the measure of inflation to us, the consumer. The PPI is the measure of inflation to producers, what they pay for goods and services to produce the goods and services we buy.

The PPI has been back to “normal” for a while now. Pretty much as soon as the post COVID logistics issues were mostly ironed out. The difference between PPI and CPI changes is pure profit.

We don’t get daily articles on the PPI though, I wonder why.

Edit: tell people about PPI whenever you can, online or off, the more people know, the better. It’s easy enough to say inflation is just down to greed but being able to back it up by comparing two simple charts will help people really understand.

It’s not too heavy. That’s “premium feel and materials.”

You can’t get it in the boonies. I live in a city and my insurance, with an earthquake rider, is only a few hundred a month. My coworker lives in sparsely populated area (by the standards of this metro area) and his insurance costs a little over 7x as much, and continues to rise.

And it’s deserved too. These people move out there because they’re the type that want to “own land,” but then none of them maintain it. I’ll go over to his house for a party and be in the backyard and everywhere I look, his property and every property it touches, as soon as you go beyond the area immediately around the house that is actually used, the entire ground is covered by kindling. One dropped cigarette and his entire neighborhood is gone.

It used to be that when people talked about hypersonic missiles it was understood to mean hypersonic cruise missile, something that could hug terrain and maneuver. Then Russia and China came out with “hypersonic missiles” that were just ballistic with maybe some minor maneuverability so the term doesn’t mean anything until you dig deeper.

Shut the fuck up! Now Vader, he’s a spiritual brother, with the force and all that shit. Then this cracker Skywalker gets his hands on a lightsaber, and the boy decides he’s goinna run the fucking universe - gets a whole Klan of whites together, and they’re gonna bust up Vader’s 'hood - the Death Star. Now what the fuck do you call that?

All the bullshit with tipping on food delivery apps made me stop using them years ago.

First I hear the apps are stealing tips. Then they’re not stealing tips anymore. Then maybe they’re stealing some of the tips.

To try and avoid all that I tried to use cash. The drivers don’t get their base rate reduced and they get the entire, non-reportable cash tip. Then my food started taking twice as long and arriving cold because the drivers thought I was stiffing them.

My theory is the apps do this (pre-tipping) on purpose to discourage cash and after-tipping so they can lower what they pay the driver and they’ll still accept the order because they see the higher after tip amount. So now the apps might not be technically stealing tips, but they’re using up front tips to allow them to reduce their shitty base rate for everyone.

Now if want delivery it’s pizza, Chinese, or one of the few other places with their own drivers. I’ve had this policy for years now and I don’t see myself ever going back unless it’s an emergency.

Bonus to me: all my takeout/delivery is now 20-30% cheaper. Everyone should really take a look at the inflated prices they’re paying and decide if it’s really worth saving a short drive.

What else do you want? There are numbers for short-term, long-term, actively looking, stopped looking, workforce participation, and underemployed both part-time who want full-time and full-time in a low paying job because they can’t find anything in their field. They also have trends and more granular breakdowns in each category.

Enlighten me, what else should be reported? People who wait tables but dream of being a movie star or pro athlete?

Don’t put words in my mouth. I never said the data doesn’t match reality. I’m saying the data is reality, or are least the best measure of it we have.

You’re the one insisting that your experiences are the only measure of reality, and since the data doesn’t agree, it must be bullshit, instead of the much more likely explanation that your experiences aren’t typical.

I’m not sure what you’re referring to with the “6 months” thing, but if you’re talking about the inflation rate spiking, the data wasn’t wrong, the interpretation was. The data showed inflation up, every month, but the Fed thought it was “transitory”. Eventually they realized “oh shit” it’s not transitory and took action to bring it down while trying not to cause a recession at the same time. I’m no fan of the Fed in general, but credit where it’s due, it looks like they did a damn good job.

I’m well aware of all the various measures of unemployment, and they’re very good. Both short and long term unemployment are below what used to be considered maximum employment, and have been for a while. Underemployment is historically low. And after controlling for boomers aging out, workforce participation is trending upward. More people are working, more people are working full time, in jobs they’re trained for (as opposed to having to take jobs they’re overqualified for), and their wages are growing faster than inflation.

No, I don’t think there is a vast conspiracy of thousands of federal workers, normal career employees, not political appointees, publishing fake numbers. The raw data is public and so is the origin. No one disagrees on what the numbers are, just what spin to put on it. Often, for political reasons, people will try to put a bad spin on good numbers, or a good spin on shitty numbers, but the numbers themselves are not in question.

I think you’ve been taken in by someone who wants to put a bad spin on good numbers. Numbers so good, if you had told me you thought we’d be here a year ago I would have laughed in your face.

Maybe, just maybe, the people doing well aren’t lying to you, there isn’t a conspiracy of government workers, and things are as all available data suggests.

Maybe your experiences just aren’t typical.

You keep saying that, but that’s not what the data shows. It shows real wage growth is exceeding inflation. It’s also starting to show deflation across several categories of goods.

It sucks your wages haven’t kept up with inflation and maybe eggs at your grocery store aren’t any cheaper, but the data shows that your experience isn’t typical.

The typical experience is surprisingly good and getting better.

Yeah…we know. It’s pretty clear wildginger was using it sarcastically and I was using the same words as them.

But things have changed, that’s the point. While individual experiences vary, all the economic data this year has been pretty stellar.

Reducing inflation this fast without tanking the economy, and not just not tanking it, actually having pretty decent economic numbers is a major achievement.

When the Fed stated raising rates to curtail inflation almost everyone thought there was no way to do it without a recession, maybe a major one, and increasing unemployment 2-3X. The “soft landing” seemed like a naive hope. We’re not all the way there yet but it looks like they actually did it. Inflation is almost down to targets and at the same time, unemployment is still low, GDP growth is good, real wage growth beats inflation, etc.

It’s not all blowjobs and caviar for everyone but we were heading for a major disaster and it’s been avoided.

Me and everybody I know are doing great. My empirical evidence seems to disagree with yours.

Too bad nothing can be done about that. If only someone, maybe a government agency, could collect all the data and determine how the country is doing as a whole.