“I’m the source of all your misery? Who closed the store to play hockey? Who closed the store to go to a wake?” – Clerks
I found a store that only sells donuts, bagels, and macaroni. It’s called Hole Foods.
Misery is a state of being includes suffering, but suffering is short. Misery is like suffering crossed with my ex-wife talking about my faults: it goes on and on and never seems to stop.
Misery is OJ.
OJ is up. And you don’t need to be worried about your throat being sliced open followed by a weird car chase, because in this case it’s not Orenthal James, it’s Orange Juice. Since 2020, OJ has gone up in price by 315%, while Orenthal James probably hasn’t killed anyone in that time period. Here’s the graph:
What’s the difference between O.J. Simpson and the movie Caddyshack? One had a Bronco pursuit and the other one had a Chevy Chase.
It’s not like there’s a shortage of OJ, because if there was, I’d expect to see a shortage of vodka, too, and there’s no shortage of vodka, I mean, not that I’d know. But when orange juice is headed through the moon, I expect to look around and see Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd swapping a dollar on a bet.
I suppose that orange juice isn’t required for living, but you have to live somewhere. I was talking to an acquaintance the other day, and he mentioned his kid had graduated from college and had a job in a major metropolitan area – not one that’s known for being expensive, mind you. The apartment building is probably in a sketchier neighborhood because he mentioned it was gated. The rent? $1,700 a month. For a fresh college grad and his spouse.
How many ants to fill an apartment? Ten ants.
Ouch! They’re probably not saving a lot of money, fresh college grads, at that level. Is it any wonder that the birth rate for folks who contribute to the economy is down? Who has money to have a baby when you have to cough up $1,700 a month, before utilities, to live in a neighborhood that requires walls and gates to be safe? I guess that’s where the vodka comes in . . . vodka: overriding good judgement in child bearing since 1405.
The impact of rent has been bad, but housing prices have done the youth of our country no favor, either. It has long been my thought that people shouldn’t make themselves poor by buying a house, and, yet, they do, with the exception of Joe Biden, who has made buying the White House pretty lucrative.
Not my meme, but you can tell it’s classy by the “FF” in “PROFFIT”. At least he’s doing well in this economy . . .
It seems like the market is rigged to extract the maximum amount of money out of the people consuming housing, especially when compared with the 1950s when a single manufacturing income could afford a decent home for a family. I can’t imagine a rent of $1,700 as a new college grad – that’s more than I’m paying right now on my existing mortgage. I know that $1,700 sounds like Heaven to those of you living on the coasts, but this is a mid-tier southwestern town.
Houses have gotten worse. In August, the average asking price in the United States was $445,000. Due to inflation and interest rates, the average price that a purchaser could afford was $356,000. This is an obvious recipe for deflation in housing prices in any other economy. But in 2023?
How do Millennials fireproof their home? By never owning one.
And, yet, there’s a housing shortage. How could that be?
Could it be that millions and millions of people have hopped the border since 2000? The minimum is 6,300,000 since Biden became Resident. Minimum. It’s likely that the number is much higher, and it’s nearly certain that tens of millions of illegals have poured across the border since 2000. Want cheap housing? You’re competing against people who often don’t pay taxes, live many families to a dwelling, and, when finally given the opportunity, will vote far Left to elect people who want us to eat the bugs and live in the pods.
In any previous world, we have the makings of an economic catastrophe:
- Unlimited labor,
- Massive cash printing,
- Mass illegal immigration into crowded cities,
- Bidens,
- Housing shortages, and
- Skyrocketing food prices.
What’s happening is that the things that are required to live, food and shelter, are becoming very, very expensive. The blame is mainly left at the feet of the United States’ government and the Federal Reserve Bank®, but there’s more to go around. McDonald’s© is selling a Big Mac® meal around Modern Mayberry for about $9. That’s ludicrous for what you get in both quality and quantity, but that’s what it costs. On the East Coast, it’s $16. Here at the locally owned butcher shop, a very, very good ribeye from a local cow is $12.95 a pound. Take your pick: meat® on a bun™ or juicy, delicious steak?
YMMV, but for me that’s an easy choice.
My doctor suggested I eat at Burger King®. I know, technically, he said, “no more McDonald’s®”, but I know what he meant.
But what about McDonald’s©? Surely they must be having a McAwful™ day to have to raise prices that high. Nah. Their stock price is doing fine and they’re making lots of money – they beat the profit that Wall Street thought they were going to make. McDonald’s® isn’t hit by inflation – they can just (at least until now) make everyone else pay. That probably won’t last, but it sure is miserable for many now.
To summarize, the things that are required to live are going up. The misery created by the current bad set of choices by bankers and elected officials is real, and getting worse by the day. So, tonight, let’s put all of our worries aside and enjoy a television show about a bunch of hot people who are rich and successful!
This reminds me of the days of Carter, except I was young, mostly ignorant, and could work all day pouring concrete without becoming excessively tired.
Jess
Yup, and we had Morning in America waiting for us . . .
‘And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine’. (Rev. 6)
A ‘measure of wheat’ = one loaf, bit more mebbe. A ‘penny’ = a denarius, equivalent to one day’s wage. I had to take algebra twice but even I can read that handwriting.
In Rev. 6, the condition is one of severe crisis, therefore projected slightly into (our) future. But not projected far.
The shenanigans in the Middle East argue that you might be right. Time will tell.
Your comment on the steak versus a Big Mac is an interesting one, imagine if food inflation forced people back to eating “real” food again? Never happen given my observations of the EBT crowd and the frozen food section at Dollar General, but it would change the health of the nation for the better.
Eating “real” food again would change the health of the nation for better – for those that don’t live in a ‘food desert’, and that have a working kitchen in their hovel. All joking aside – it continues to amaze me how many people *just don’t know how to cook*. At least, not in ways that aren’t going to give you a result that’s just about as bad as what they would have bought with their EBT.
As others have noted – we’re in for a serious culling, even if it’s just because food has gotten to be too expensive to buy (and because it’s hard to keep a garden big enough to feed a family on your apartment balcony), let alone because of supply chain issues caused by pissing off the foreign manufacturer of the drugs necessary to keep in check the chronic but life threating illnesses far too many of us suffer (and, ironically – often caused by our diet!).
And . . . people started growing their own food, and trading locally . . . sounds . . . wholesome.
When the government cooks the books on inflation for 40 years, when raises (when they happen at all, for those who still have jobs that haven’t been “off-shored”) are pegged to the official inflation rate but prices aren’t, what you get the the slow but inevitable destruction of the middle class.
It’s not happening by accident. It has been carefully planned for generations.
Not just inflation, They lied about the unemployment numbers and jobs figures for 8 years when Obama was in office, with every monthly reported being quietly “revised” lower the following month.
“Better off than our parents” is one for the history books.
With a big family of 8 kids and a “stay at home” wife, housing was always a big concern for us as most places simply weren’t big enough for us, even though our kids shared rooms. When we bought our current place and were looking for a home with a small amount of acreage and a house large enough for a family of ten, we had a whopping two places to choose from. Housing inflation is definitely going to suppress child bearing, at least among Whites.
It already is pretty grim, but I think, ironically, hard times will change that.
Way back when I was a wee bairn (*lights corncob pipe, snaps suspenders, attaches onion to belt*) a visit to McDonalds, or Pizza Hut, or any of a hundred other fast food eateries was considered an uncommon treat. A ‘special’ event, or even a celebration. Somewhere along the road to dietary and fiscal perdition it became commonplace, a near-daily ritual for many. Including legions of newly-single Dads, who couldn’t (or couldn’t be bothered to) cook a meal at home for the
spoiled, snot-nosed little bahstidsprecious angels under his care that week according to the divorce decree.At the same time, home-cooked meals morphed from Mom’s pot roast and mashed potatoes to Hot Pockets and Lunchables. If you ask me (*adjusts tinfoil fedora and lowers voice to a conspiratorial whisper*) it is all part of a nefarious grand plan to divide and impoverish the middle class in order to control it. When people are too busy treading water trying to pay rent and feed the kiddies in their unhappy, broken homes, they tend not to notice who is pulling their strings (or are just too jaded and tired to do anything about it).
As always, the source of this and every other problem in modern-day America circles back to the seemingly deliberate destruction of the family, and the sharp devaluation of men. The White ones in particular, who are the former backbone of this once-great nation. Easy-peasy divorce, abortion-on-demand, you-go-grrrl feminism and boxed wine have totally corrupted women and emasculated men to the point where there is no longer any percentage in pairing up (vice hooking up) and investing in a family.
Where do we go from here? Beats me. But it will probably look like a mash-up of Road Warrior, Hell Comes to Frogtown and Idiocracy. Only without the happy endings.
TBC, I do NOT like your oh-so-probable out look. X SPECIALLY the no happy ending!
Except for the anticipated future we’re destined for – I agree wholeheartedly.
Unfortunately, I fear that your outlook is entirely too optimistic. :-/
Hell Comes to Frogtown? I thought I was the only one who saw that. RRP, RIP.
The values will come back, but what it takes to get there will be . . . unpleasant.
“Housing inflation is definitely going to suppress child bearing, at least among Whites.”
I’ve been blessed with a near-non-existent sex drive, which afforded me a clarity that most of my peers didn’t have. (One of my dimmer former colleagues slept with an underaged girl and is now registered as a low-level sex offender.) I saw the trajectory the country was on and vowed to never being kids into the three-ring circus we’re balls-deep in.
My Lord and Savior was right – pregnant and nursing women are going to have a tough time soon.
They will, though the US is probably going to do better than many other countries.
WHEN this whole thing crashes, the ‘single moms’ are gonna be toast. Just no options available to them. They will have to take what they can get, once the EBT/housing subsidy/welfare money stops. Same with those of working age on disability – unless they have a VERIFIABLE disability, likely the money will be cut.
For most, that will be either mass housing shelters, or living with their relatives. Expect a LOT of complaining.
You think EBT/SS/Disability will continue once it all comes crashing down?!?! Oh that I could be that innocently optimistic. When they say ‘Assume crash positions’, they mean: “Assume the position” – and it’s coming in dry…
Their economic value will drop, some to zero. Complaining won’t be on the menu.
We go to Publix® 3-4X/week, and it’s never less than $100 or so. A 1.5L of Tito’s was $44+ the other day at a Red Dot we rarely go to, was $38 several months ago.
Loved the old OJ joke – “How did John Elway get involved? No, OJ was in a slow white Bronco, not with a slow white Bronco.”
The inflation appears to have kept going at the same, or a larger pace. Wonder where interest rates will spike to?
John – – You correctly stated, “Misery is a state of being (that) includes suffering….”
It is located between Kentucky and Kansas.
Its nickmame is: The Show Me How To Drive state
Hahahaha! That’s a new one to me! I’ve got some people I’m gonna use that with.