News 1/10

Do neolibs have a point when it comes to muh free trade lowering prices? Why or why not?

Well they are are trying to fund ICE more so we can re-open the government, so I wouldn't hold AOC to that.

I'm surprised their being this honest
It's pretty much admitting that All the shit you literally need to stay alive like housing food and water are increasing in inflation while the Vane and Luxurious stays stagnant and inexpensive

All I can really say is that generalized commodity production drives prices down. Neoliberals are wrong in thinking that shipping bottlecaps from a factory in south america to China is less wasteful than producing the end product in one location. I may be cheaper in some absurd perverted way due to subsidies and company bribes from the oil industry.

Right, but the real question is why haven’t the prices of these largely locally-sourced commodities went down or at least stayed stagnant.

Granted a fair number of them are services and not commodities per se but you would think with stagnant wages you would at least see stagnant prices for these services. Childcare workers get paid shit (and wage-theft is endemic) so why has even this service industry experienced 100%+ inflation?

There's more to it than just that. If industries have already been established it takes resources and energy to move them.
That's one reason why the west still has car manufacturing. Even if they're shipping in resources and components from elsewhere.

Per category?
-Housing; There are more households now per head,in turn social housing has been neglected since the 70s, and most people can't afford the garish McMansions of the 80s, 90s and 00s. Rural areas are also emptying, with people moving to the cities. Causing housing prices to spike even after 07'.
-Medical Care; More elderly, less young. More diseases are treatable now, and this drives up end-of-life cost. Hospitals are overstretched, so something has to give.
-Childcare; Supply not keeping up with demand. Less stay-at-home parents (both working to make ends meet), especially in cities.
-College
More people going to university and staying longer, puts pressure on the supply side, while R&D has gotten more expensive. The college textbooks are a sophist scam though.

Great post Nazi-poster! Do you have any explanation for why food and drink prices have inflated 50%? One would think that a commodity like food would, like other tangible commodities, be subject to forces of international competition and overproduction which might override inflationary monetary policies—as we see with some other commodities.

Labor in agriculture is probably more abused and less compensated than any other industry in the US. Do you think low wages are holding back technological innovation and therefore stalling a production-push that would ultimately be inflationary? Or is government subsidization to prevent overproduction in agriculture the key factor?

Bernie "Rape Machine" Strаsser has done it again!

Is the punchline that they literally hoard grain?