• regul [any]
    hexbear
    77
    3 months ago

    where's that krugman post about how if you don't count food, housing, and healthcare then inflation isn't that bad

    • AernaLingus [any]
      hexbear
      39
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      It's been dunked on a bunch, but here's the submission with the most comments

      https://hexbear.net/post/1040996

      Show

      Link to Tweet

      Image description

      Screenshot of a Tweet from Paul Krugman (Recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, New York Times columnist) dated September 15, 2023. The Tweet reads:

      An inflation update: in the past I've focused on a measure that excludes lagging shelter and used cars as well as food and energy. Just to note that it adds to the evidence that inflation has been largely defeated

      It is accompanied by a line graph titled "CPI ex food, energy, shelter and used cars" with months from January 2018 to May 2023 on the x-axis and "6 month growth, annualized" on the y-axis. Inflation hovers around 1% to 2% up until March 2020, at which point it drops precipitously to around -1.5%. It climbs steadily to a peak of 7% around April 2022, then descends at about the same rate to 2% in September 2023 (the time of the tweet).

      • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
        hexbear
        32
        3 months ago

        It's so idiotic, you'd think it was a bit

        "If you exclude all the things necessary to live, the economy is doing great"

  • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
    hexbear
    60
    3 months ago

    I asked a smart investor guy to break down young people's spending into this pie graph: 50% rent/ 50% food, wow they're not saving money!

  • Rojo27 [he/him]
    hexbear
    41
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    Wow, you need groceries? Look at these ballers out heremaybe-later-honey

  • Optimus_Subprime [he/him, they/them]
    hexbear
    35
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    "Do not, my young ones, become addicted to food, for it will take hold of you and you will resent it's absence!" - Immortan Joe Brandon

  • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]
    hexbear
    32
    3 months ago

    Ah yes, probably from the same school of thought that gave us "The young should stop eating out and having avocado toast", and then when covid hit, "You should eat out to help out and have some avocado toast"

    From "Stop wasting your money on the new iphone", and then during covid to "You should buy the new iphone"

    • ta00000 [none/use name]
      hexbear
      6
      3 months ago

      Avocados are relatively expensive where I am, ~$1.50 a piece. An avocado is 240 calories. That's 160 calories/dollar. To meet all of your calories for the day on just avocados that would be about $12.50 to $18.75, for 2000 calories and 3000 calories respectively. That's pretty cheap, and I know they're less than half that price if you go south a bit.

    • PKMKII [none/use name]
      hexbear
      14
      3 months ago

      The old “Wayne Gretzky and Brent Gretzky have the most combined NHL goals of any brothers” gambit.

  • @SSJ2Marx
    hexbear
    21
    3 months ago

    Regarding "vacations" - the prevailing wisdom for basically my entire life has been "buy experiences, not things". Do you really need a new [thing] when the [thing] you have works perfectly well already? Consider buying a train ticket instead!

    • @frosty99c@midwest.social
      hexbear
      11
      3 months ago

      This and "travel when you're young, you won't appreciate it as much when you're older and you may not be physically able to do everything you dreamed"

  • Blottergrass [he/him]
    hexbear
    17
    3 months ago

    I'm 33 and I just realized I've never actually gone on a real vacation. Whenever I "travel" and take time off it's just to see family in another state. I've never like, gone to a tropical island and just hung out on the beach for a few days.

    • Saeculum [he/him, comrade/them]
      hexbear
      17
      3 months ago

      In all fairness, "real vacations" are a product being sold and advertised to you by the holiday industry. Taking time off at home and visiting friends and relatives is a perfectly fine use of vacation time.

    • SerLava [he/him]
      hexbear
      13
      3 months ago

      I did this many years ago and it was so healing and my fog lifted from my brain and I had incredible energy, and then the day before I left I caught a cold in the hotel and fell asleep with my mouth open in 0% humidity and spent the next 2 weeks hunched over a keyboard with blood leaking from my mouth and lips and every benefit of the vacation was gone forever

    • Saeculum [he/him, comrade/them]
      hexbear
      12
      3 months ago

      using paper that isn't backed by actual value...

      The value of fiat currencies are backed by the state. In the absence of a successful global revolution achieving communism in the next 50 years, this retirement will have to be under a state.

      Things of "actual value" i.e. food, water, shelter and the means of producing them cannot be hoarded in sufficient quantities to retire on with a state backing your ownership of these things.

      Planning to retire in a stateless non-communist future is idiocy.

      Global warming will either cause the collapse of near all modern states, or it won't. Planning for the former eventuality is a fantasy because you can't know how such an event will actually happen, where is safe, whether you can be safe and you also have no guarantee of being nearby whatever you have stockpiled when the collapse happens.

      In the event that the world's various states do survive the next 50 years, planning to retire with currency is probably fine, and it's not any less safe a bet than anything else you can do individually.

      • oregoncom [he/him]
        hexbear
        4
        3 months ago

        In the event that the world's various states do survive the next 50 years,

        Unless your retirement account is a mix of multiple currencies held in person you're banking (pun intended) on your particular government and financial institutions surviving for the next 50 years and not facing a single hyperinflation crisis. Even if you hold gold you're banking on there not being a steep drop in the price of gold.

        I would say if you can afford it at least keep stockpiles of stuff like dry rice (which lasts llmost indefinitely is stored right), canned food, maybe medicine.