this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2022
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United States | News & Politics

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Op-Ed: Wild inflation? Not anymore. A closer look shows we're already approaching normal (www.latimes.com)
submitted 2 years ago by pingveno@lemmy.ml to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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[–] leanleft@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

i think it's too late. everyone needs to ask for pay increases at this point.
it's hard to imagine the landlords dropping their rates. only if they have like 25 vacant units. then still.. if they believe them to be valuable then they will hoard the property. its normal for them to do that.

[–] simsymbiote@midwest.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Even beyond housing, it is hard to believe that any corporation is going to reduce prices to accomodate for the changes in inflation. They have had layoffs/reduced new hires to accomodate the increased interest rates/increased supply chain costs. As these things correct I can only see them trying to hedge the margins a little more.

Much easier to rework a system when you have to rebuild it back up and it is in the corporations' interest to take advantage of this at this time. Mass workers quitting (besides coordinated anti-consumerism to drop costs to increase purchases) was one of the only things we had to combat that but that got muddled in with the messaging of high unemployment (which has already corrected to pre-covid levels nearly).

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Decreasing inflation does not mean that prices are going down. That would be deflation, which is poison to an economy because people hold onto their money instead of circulating it through the economy.

[–] simsymbiote@midwest.social 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Sorry, didn't mean to make it sound like I want deflation. I just want better purchasing power to workers that will accomodate the increased cost of goods which I don't see reversing in the long term because of the "techinically" strong market.

But a side-note on the end of your comment, we sort of want people to stop circulating money. That's why there are layoffs and that's why it is an issue that people are continuing to buy things in the service industry especially (although it doesn't help that the cost of necessary goods are still extremely high), especially with unemployment as low as it is. Granted this is all through the lens of the American economy for me and my super basic understanding of things lol