About LOSING that freedom and that money. Our major cities are being made unlivable for the law-abiding middle class.
The prices of everything is up, and almost everyone is feeling the pain.
The price of gasoline and other fossil fuels is up. Transporting food uses fossil fuels, so the price of food goes up.
Almost all fertilizer is from the Haber-Bosch process, which uses nitrogen from the air and hydrogen from fossil fuels to create ammonia. High temperature (from fossil fuels) and high pressure are required in the process. THAT increases the price of food.
That’s right wing media nonsense. There has always been crime in cities, but it was been magnified and distorted a hundred times until the social media age. I was out and about in Chicago all weekend, and I saw a multitude of happy people enjoying themselves. THAT stuff won’t incessantly be on the news, just the bad stuff.
Prices are up, but the number of people working and the money that people have available is way up, also. People are buying, buying, buying. Small businesses are recovering and new ones opening up. The roads are crowded with trucks delivering goods to retailers because their shelves are being emptied.
Here in Chicago, which is one of the top five most expensive places to live in the United States, gas prices have fluctuated between $3.50 and $4.00 a gallon for a long time. That is still cheaper than many places around the world. By the way, if you have complaints about fossil fuel pollution and prices, you need to talk to your Republican oligarchs who run this country via their fabulously rich corporations. They are the ones buying congressional votes.
It’s also cheaper when adjusted for inflation vs. the early 2010s (2011-2014) and other times in our recent past (summer of 2008, especially.)
And I love Chicago, wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world right now. There are problems, but it’s better, crime-wise, than it was in the 90s, when I was growing up in my teens here. But we didn’t have social media back then to amplify the message.
I always find it surprising that Chicago ends up on these “most expensive places to live in the US” lists. For a big city, it is affordable, as long as you don’t need to live in the trendiest neighborhoods.
Well said. Also, given what is happening to our climate, another big advantage is that it is adjacent to the Great Lakes, which is the largest available supply of fresh water in the world.
becuase studies showed we didnt need keystone we had enough oil
Also everyone feared opec was going to do one of their controlled floods via saudi and make the project a financial failure just like they wiped out all that shale oil concerns
I suspect several states, the Russians, the Chinese and maybe others are working towards stirring up trouble just for fun and to destabilize us. I can’t prove it. It might not be true, but it is my working theory.
I also couldn’t find toliet paper, paper towels or go to work on Trumps last day in office. Such fond memories that some people would like to pretend never happened.
Me too. And I remember that the greatest factor in that low price was that we were in a pandemic, and the demand for gasoline was actually pretty low when compared with the supply.
Can you prove that? All over the country?
Doesn’t it happen when most presidents, when the party changes, are sworn in?
I imagine the stock market did stuff too.
I would agree with pretty much everything you said. Normal people don’t argue endlessly about politics or the economy (such as they even understand those things) constantly when they feel things are “ok”. Most of the problems in the world today have existed long before I was born.
So what is it about the world now that seems to make people so crazy?
I mean is it a big surprise? Nothing seems to work and no matter how much money you make, it’s never enough to feel secure (forget being “ahead” or whatever). No one trusts any of our institutions - education, government, health care, work, marriage, etc. And if you do, plenty of people will berate you for a fool. There is a massive cognitive dissonance between the world portrayed in social media and the real world. In some cases one or the other is “better” or “worse”, but either way it’s “inaccurate”. That has to create anxiety in people because on some level they must realize they can’t completely trust that their view of reality is correct, even if they don’t realize it. There’s not real sense of community for most people as everyone seems to be caught up in their own shit pursuing their own interests. I don’t think many people have a positive view on the direction the world is heading - more people, less resources, climate change, AI, more political tension, more stupid people doing stupid things.
So yeah, I think all this causes a mentality of “every man for themselves” where all that matters is pursuing ones own interests. And even if you are doing well, you’re in constant fear that it could all be arbitrarily taken away at any moment.
Maybe it’s just me but people have always been absolutely pricks in public since I can remember. I remember old men threatening to call the cops on me for riding my bike in a public dirt field in the 90s. I remember going to a casino in the 2000s and a random drunk guy trying to start a fist fight with me in the middle of the gambling floor because he accused me of swiping his chips at the poker table despite the dealer and none of the other players taking his side.
I think we’re just more aware of it now because of social media and especially Twitter/X because people doom scroll it all day now.
Yeah, until today, you remembered those rotten ol’ men.
Just you.
But now, with only one post,…another 10 thousand people know about them, and how rotten the whole world is.
Wow; don’t acknowledge that gas prices went way down in 2020 due to the pandemic so people WFH and didn’t take vacations meaning that demand was down significantly. As people began driving again and demand went up, prices went up.
Well I see I was ninja’d by a number of people. I still want to make my comment after I saw:
just wondering if you took any ECON? Law of supply and demand, sir.
COVID struck. I had already asked TPTB a week before everyone got sent home “Why are some some people allowed to work from home at our company, and others are not allowed, what’s the policy (they love policies)” I have a perfect work from home job.
So something was rotten.
I did not know what was coming re: COVID. I was just pissed about my commute. Pointless.
At that time my boss had a new boss. Grand boss I guess we call them. I had a meeting with him.
GB asked “What do you want to do?”
Me “Work from home”
GB - “What kind of equipment will you need?”
Me = “I have everything I need” I had actually just bought a new computer system and sat dish for home. Of course on my dime. It’s my stuff.
GB - “OK”
There is a shit ton of rotten out there IMHO @Beckdawrek . But, it’s always been there. The light of day may get rid of some of it if we are lucky.
My point is there is also good. And people that don’t just want to push you around, but want to help and do reasonable things. Like my GB.
