I’m pretty sure it has lol.
ETA: according to this world GDP was projected to be down 4.4% in 2020.
According to Marx this is one of the hidden ways the working class get fucked over by capitalism - commodity prices of necessaries the worker needs to stay alive remain the same, but the worker is being paid less per hour OR working more hours for the same wage per day (essentially the same thing), meaning that basically the value of one hour of labour in relation to those commodities has gone down. Previously a worker could buy $10 of commodities per hour of labour, now they can buy $8, or what have you.
This also works in reverse, i.e. it’s one of the ways the capitalist class maintains profits - profit is just the surplus value left over after the capitalist pays for the labour that went into the finished product. Instead of charging more for the finished product, the capitalist can just pay less to the worker, and still get more profit. And in tough times with HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT, workers are more likely to take jobs with shitty wages and long hours (which, as an aside, is why capitalism requires a large segment of unemployed people, what Marx called the reserve army of labour - to keep downward pressure on the demands of the working class, for fear of falling down into the unemployed class).
To put this in much simpler terms for the libs - real wages do not match the real prices of commodities
But my Playstation One is cheaper now than in 2002, explain that smartypants
Yes, in the US, because the housing market crashed, what does that mean though? Why should prices fall significantly in every recession?
i guess i just assumed that since capitalist crises are those of over production, prices would drop. with too much stock, companies would have to sell at whatever price possible. i guess that's not always the case though
It has. It was gonna happen before covid. Then covid happened so people got distracted for a while is all
It has, it's just not as bad is it would be otherwise because everyone is pretending there isn't one. People with lots of money spending less money because they know the economy is bad makes the economy even worse. That isn't happening.
The US feds are printing money and keeping interest rates low. There was supposed to be a depression back in March 2020 but they've all gotten gigantic bailouts.
The interest rate thing is insane. Home prices have absolutely skyrocketed everywhere. I thought it was just a thing on the coasts but talking to my friends back in the midwest and prices there are at levels I would never have dreamed of. Among my small social circle I know three middle class folks who are buying houses. This can't be good, it has to be creating some sort of bubble, right?
