What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices?
What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices?
They keep raising prices, stating that it's due to inflation, but then they keep having record profits.
Meanwhile, the average American can barely afford rent or food nowadays.
What are we to do? Vote? I have been but that doesn't seem to do much since I'm just voting for a representative that makes the actual decisions.
Cutting back on spending is the only thing I know that works. When consumers don’t buy things, the prices come down.
For groceries this means splurging less, avoiding things you don’t need (drink tea instead of soda, don’t buy snacks and chips). Fruits and vegetables are definitely still cheaper than prepared foods in many cases. Even when frozen. And they can be used to make a meal stretch, along with beans and rice.
Buy cheap bar soap and store brands of basic things.
Coupons aren’t really a thing anymore, but you can use the app for stores like the grocery, Target, Walmart, to “clip” deals and save.
A lot of the high prices right now are just greed. They aren’t tied to actual supply chain or labor issues. A grocery store in France just told PepsiCo to take a hike because their prices were so outrageous.
If you want the government to get involved, I encourage you to write your representatives about enforcing existing anti-trust laws. The mega mergers and buyouts are driving prices up because of less competition. Kroger wants to buy Albertsons for example. That just means more layoffs and higher grocery prices.
Hope this helps.
Voting is necessary but not sufficient.
The big other thing is to build external power. That’s not like militias per se (though with the rising fascism it’s not a bad idea), but rather stuff like gardening, learning to do repairs, and practicing mutual aid. Reduce your and your community’s dependence on the corporations. And make it an issue people around you care about.
Unironically the answer is "shop less."
Prices on goods rise when demand for goods stays sufficient to support the price going up. The less everyone buys, the less things will cost.
Prices for goods have almost nothing to do with the price of rent, but the mechanisms there are the same - it's just that you have to encourage building rather than "live somewhere less" because the second option really isn't tenable, for obvious reasons.
If you want rent to come down, campaign for, vote for, or even run for office to be the candidate that will change zoning laws and encourage building multifamily housing.
Cry and hope for a revolution. Since the Supreme Court decided money is speech, we have no power. Representatives don't care about their constituents unless a message comes with a "charitable donation". The rich are seemingly immune to laws, but somehow there's a surplus of money available to fuck over the little guy. This is a failed country of the corporations, and for the corporations.
Join a union and demand more money to pay for it.
The only solution is to demand more money and buy less. Buying less will decrease demand and cut their profits, having more money will cover inequity.
This pretty much already happened with the “nobody wants to work” bullshit. People moved to better jobs, and jobs that could no longer pay a living wage either raised wages or closed their doors. Workers need to keep demanding more, unionizing, and raising wages to keep the money in their pockets. The people complaining are complaining they can’t have 4 car garages when the employees can’t afford rent. Fuck those people.
Plant a vegetable garden. Build a rain catchment system. Build a solar power system. Read books instead of consuming other media. Buy only local. Start a consumer or retail cooperative. Don't participate in wanton consumerism.
Voting in the US doesn't yield desirable results because of the gerrymandering and the voting system; however most changes which directly affect people are made at a grassroots level so participate in activities at a grassroots level.
While it isn't magic, there is a newfound pressure on the Democratic party to finally break some meaningful ground.
Unfortunately one of the biggest obstacles had been the radically conservative Supreme Court.
Simple arithmetic tells us that if just two Supreme Court Justices were to suddenly disappear from our reality, and re-emerge in another, the court would lean more progressive to allow debt relief, bodily autonomy, and hopefully more.
While there are many ways to suddenly remove people from our plane of existence, there's no proven way to have them re-emerge in another. Obviously it would be illegal and deeply unethical to suggest such removal without the safe relocation to another plane.
So I guess just learn to kiss fascist ass 🤷♂️
You may not like the answer but you need to continue working the political process further upstream and more deeply. It’s easy to just vote for the president every 4 years and then think the system doesn’t work. But it’s too late to have any kind of effect that late in the process. Find more progressive candidates to support and vote in your primaries to support them. Volunteer and help them get out the vote. And do this even if the candidate you like is across the country somewhere, because having more progressive candidates overall helps move the Overton window and shift the party over time. And when you’ve lost the primary and don’t have a progressive choice, do the least bad thing and keep the regressive candidate from winning. You may spend all your life doing all this only for some limited victories and a small net shift if any, but that’s the lot of one person among 300 million. It’s a hell of a lot more impact than the vast majority of people will have. And it’s just the beginning of what you can do. Join a union or run for office yourself and make a more direct impact.
Of course we all live with limitations but few of us are doing as much as we could actually do. I know this well because I have some blue collar friends busy with jobs and kids who still do about 400x more than I do.
I think food riots are just a few years off, really. Maybe when enough stock is stolen and enough stores trashed they will learn, but I expect they will try to be heavy handed, sending in the local WalMart Defense Team (a.k.a. the police force closest to a given walmart) to handle it, but there are definitely going to be problems with that considering some people go to walmart armed.
If you want to live through 80's dystopian books on this subject, we all need to start learning how to hack; compromise these company's networks, take down their supply chain. In the end, we're enabling them. We can either give up because there are too many of them, or educate ourselves on their weaknesses.
Seek out the competitors to near monopolies? I heard somewhere that all glasses are built and sold by one company (that then sells them to a bunch of different companies so it looks like there is competition), and they can charge incredible markups. There probably are very small companies that make and sell glasses that don't have the economies of scale or ad budgets to get the word out. If enough people bought from them, the monopoly would have to lower prices to their "kill competitors" level to steal back the market-share (or just buyout the little guy). Once dead or absorbed, they can go back to incredible mark-ups, which means we can start the cycle over again and find a new little guy to support.
That or support the maker movements so that anything we need we can just make ourselves (3D printing, bio-hacking, hydroponics and seed banks, general lathe and mill loner libraries, open source software, etc...)
Buying clubs, when you and all your neighbors and friends buy directly from producers can cut out a lot of the graft. This lowers prices, connects you to your neighbors, and lowers the divide between the rural and urban. There may already be buyers cooperatives local to you. Some even give food based on volunteering.
My favourite theory of revolution is where these clubs start to encroach into housing and medicine. Eventually you have an economy based on mutual dependence and responsibility.
What are we to do?
Pay. AFAIK you don't have any other rights.
Vote?
Yes. Never vote for a rich person anymore :-)
One thing I've noticed is that people I know have 2 problems.
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they might not know what things should cost. If the prices rises, I notices it right away. I shop at the same grocer and know the standard price of everything I buy. I notice a price increase when I pull it off the shelf. Most my friends don't notice a price increase until they check out.
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My friends that do notice a price increase never substitute or change their meals. They will still buy the same meals. Even if the stuff they need go on sale every other week. I've found that usually most my stuff I can still buy on sale at least 1 or 2 times per month.
These two problems mean that our generation doesn't really put much pressure on stores to keep prices low.
Rent: Housing costs in America are entire caused by a supply shortage due to limitations on supply. We can literally build as much housing as we want and set the market rate at anything, but since the 60s America hasn't built much and the little we have built has been expensive single family homes. This is a choice voters have made for 60 years, but voters can also make other choices.
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if you see someone stealing food...
...no, you didn't!
If you can't afford food, heat, rent, etc., apply for assistance from things like SNAP and other programs (local, state and federal). Call 211 for information on available resources in your area.
Start being an actual adult and start making your own shit.
The only way to free yourself from the slave racket is to stop being dependent on it to survive.
Easy mode: Learn how to cook, and cook clean whole foods. Stop buying processed junk garbage.
Hard mode: Get tools and equipment and learn how to build and fix your own shit. Difficult and will take time, but 100% worthwhile.
Both methods allow you to produce goods and offer services you can sell to other people, too. That way, those that actually can't make or do for themselves can turn to you and not shitty corporations for survival.
Not American, but I try to buy most of my daily stuff from independent places instead of supermarkets. The social contacts at my local butcher, bakery, vegetable shop, fish shop, ... is also much more enjoyable than stressing in the Colruyt or whatever. And the produce is way better.
Once they get to know you, they often give freebies too, like offcuts to make bouillon. And you get free cooking tips as well!
Not sure of your means, but we can boycott. Organizations like Trader Joe's and Aldi are a bit cheaper than their competitors while offering also using different sources. Likewise organizations like H Mart or your local farmers market source locally, giving the middle finger to Tyson (who claims inflation and profits) and Kellogs (who uses shrinkflation to claim profits). Obviously this doesn't work for everyone, but I think the majority of city dwellers can make these moves. This also is a fuck you to any local grocery stores trying to do the same bullshit (Walmart).
In the same vein, and what I've done, alternative meal companies have come A LONG way. The company Huel has a instant noodles, pasta, and candy bars that are macro balanced with vitamins and nutrients all for about $5/meal. I know most people will skip this, but they're actually really good. Mac N Cheese, pasta Bolognese and Cajun pasta have actually gotten me to go mostly vegan. There's another one called Outstanding Foods that has cheese puffs, cookies and pork rinds that are macro balanced and delicious as well. My daily meals are often some pasta like Mac N Cheese, one of the Huel shakes (I have a ninja creami so this is ice cream in the summer), and coffee mocha cookies, and another shake. That's 1800 calories with balanced macros and vegan that I didn't have the really cook or think about. If I'm working out, I swap the last shake for a protein shake.
General strikes, shut shit down.
Organize locally and stop being so dependent on corporations. Try to start a garden if you can, live more sustainably, and reject as many "fees" as you can. Cut cords, go for FOSS software if you can, try to use publicly funded entertainment like parks, and try to cook for yourself, rather than eating out.
If you're already doing all of that, I'm afraid there isn't much more you can do.
When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.
What we should do is collectively stop paying what the corporations are asking and start negotiating the price of absolutely everything.
For example when we're at the car dealership instead of saying "oh my God I want that car so bad I'll pay anything you want" you say " I'll give you $10,000 less than you're asking for or I'm not going to buy anything from you"
Somehow the corporate elite of not just America but of all other major countries in the world have convinced the populace that you must pay what they're asking when you actually don't have to.
As the consumer you hold all the power you are not required to buy anything you are doing a favor by purchasing products from these corporations.
you are suppose to live with it or die according to the law.
You have to take action and I don't mean wear an arm band and commit violence. The people in the driver's seat are still people for now. Human beings with families and feelings. Call their companies, say their crimes to their frontline people, ask how they sleep at night. Call the executive offices. Do the same. Keep making noise. Keep protesting. Do not be silent, ever. Keep doing it in en masse until these greedy pigs realize they're killing their own kind through apathy and greed.
Sit ins, phone line jamming, and socially ostracizing. Hold them to task any way you're comfortable. Companies were freaking out over Twitter users and they only represented 3% of the internet at its peak. You have more power than you think.
Die in a ditch?
Here's what I'm doing:
- MAXIMIZE INCOME. I just got a much overdue promotion. More income helps. I'm going to try for a second one soon. This can be difficult because if your skills are not very marketable it may mean giving up more of your time...which sucks. Move up where you are and when you can't do that any more move over to somewhere else with more headroom.
- BE WISE. Be fiscally conservative. I think you need a decent income for this, if you're barely scraping by then you don't have this luxury. Have the recommended months of savings, avoid unnecessary expenses, save for retirement, buy instead of rent, avoid borrowing, etc. All that stuff financial advisors and personal finance classes teach.
- MINIMIZE EXPENSES. Do you need a brand new car or can you get by on a 5 year old car? My vehicle is about 15 years old. Vehicles are almost always a liability. Can you take public transportation instead of owning a vehicle? Buying groceries at Whole Foods? Stop that, go to Aldi and Costco. Burning incandescent bulbs? Get LEDs. Can you live with a roommate? Etc.
Some things I'm considering:
- BITCH ABOUT IT. Write your representatives and tell them to get off their FUCKING ASSES and DO SOMETHING.
- Downsize my living situation.
- Rent my current house and buy a duplex. Let someone else pay for the duplex with the other half's rent.
- Move to Vietnam and live like a king.
Ask for a raise, get a better job. If the balance sheet is up then that means they have more money to pay workers. They only get to keep it if the workers do nothing. If workers rise up together then they will take back the gains.
Apathy and hopelessness is what they want you to feel when you should feel empowered instead.
Wow, some terrible answers in here. Look, dumb answers like steal, riot or "eat the rich" don't do anything. You all sitting there acting like internet keyboard warriors literally does nothing to solve this issue so wake up and get a grip.
To answer op's question, the only thing one can do is not engage with it. Price increases or not it's still a free market and you do have choices on what you buy. You don't need a new truck, or phones or organic eggs or whatever they want to sell you. Take care of yourself, learn to be budget conscious, work on your career and your own journey and ignore the rest, it's noise. Truly if you're underwater and can't afford to live where you are, move. There are places in every state that remain cheap. Food should not be a problem in this country. Everyone can afford $50-100 a week for food and you can stay in that budget if you learn what to buy and what to make with it. If everyone did that it'd be far more effective than rioting or stealing or any other dumb response.
If you have the knowledge, means and time, make your own stuff.
Bend over and take it. We can vote corrupt people out, but they generally just get replaced by the same people that can be swayed by lobbyists.
I'm sick right now and went to buy cold medicine... It's fucking TWENTY DOLLARS for a 12 ounce bottle of Vick's Cold and Flu medicine here in Miami. Pretty much every other brand was between $15-25. There was a pack of DayQuil that was $6... It had like 5 doses in it and you're supposed to take it every 4 hours, so like a day's worth... For $6.
A few weeks ago I had to buy laxatives and it was the same thing, everything was $17-$40! I almost shit myself when looking at the prices 🤣
Prices aren't coming down. Our financial systems are built around inflation and drastic measures will be taken to fight deflation.
You can only reduce expenses so far. As purchasing power fell, steak was replaced with ground beef, and ground beef is getting replaced with beans and rice. What can replace beans and rice? Already, too many people are having sleep for dinner.
The answer is both simple and difficult: we need to get paid more.
The answer is "vote" but not just once. Not just for federal elections. Every election, you should be there. Show up to candidate forums and bother your current electeds.
Every government is like a ship of various size, it takes a while to see the turn even start, let alone have the course actually get corrected. The bigger the government, the harder it can be to get long lasting positive change accomplished. (This isn't a "small government is better" thing either, it's just how large organizations work.)
If you can, run for office. If you can't, find someone you trust who can and support them. Not just Congress or president or governor. City council, county government, school board, on and on...
What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices?
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Ask their boss for a raise.
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Switch jobs if they don't get the raise.
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If they can't switch jobs, go to school and get an education in a different career path, then go back to step one.
(On a side note, never stay at the same place more than a couple of years, always be changing and working on your career. It's the best way to gain more wealth, so you can handle companies raising prices better.)
And before you hate on me for expressing the above, just realize I'm stating what the realities are, I'm not the one who created Capitalism.
I personally believe in regulations, including the regulation of wealth, but unfortunately we as citizens don't seem to be able to elect people to office to pass those kind of laws.
I honestly wonder if FDR would be able to pass the 'New Deal' in today's environment.
For me personally? What's worked is being frugal in my spending, rewarding good companies with my monies.
It's allowed me to accumulate some amount of wealth over the years, and I'm doing my small part to help foster a better society.
No one person can make the change, but we all together can make the change.
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Die
Every day when going to your corporate job find creative ways to sabotage and monkeywrench the corporation you have access to. Nothing illegal, lose paperwork, lose files, foment miscommunication and misunderstanding, make mistakes at your specific tasks, misplace items, sow distrust in management. Cost them time, money, and efficiency. And above all unionize. Direct action on the ground where you have access.
Recently watched this interesting Gary Stevenson interview.
Not very optimistic but might give you some ideas.
Tl;dr: do everything you can to buy a house and get the rich taxed (much) more.
Pay more. Be good little consumer drones. Not be so selfish when a corporation thinks they should have all your money instead of you.
The term wage slave is a thing. Capitalism is the same as slavery except it's seen as acceptable because we're mislead to believe we have power to change. The system itself is stepping on the lower wage people and using their work for the corporations at and owner's profits, not just lower local wages but abusing labor and resources from even lower wage countries.
It's not enough for YOU to vote. We ALL need to vote. And not just in the Presidential election. In all elections, including local, state, and most importantly PRIMARIES. We have an FPTP Voting System, which trends us towards a 2 Party system.
In such a voting system, the only way to meaningfully change the position of the parties is to make sure the party is compromised of and is led by people who share your positions and who will actually represent your interests effectively.
1 person voting in a general election that's already narrowed down to a few swing states isn't going to do it. Get everyone you know to get off their asses and vote in primaries, in general elections, and any other local elections you can manage.
If you only have time to vote in one election? Make it the primary for your party.
Voting is the lowest hanging fruit. It will cause the biggest impact for the least amount of effort. If we cannot get our asses to polls we aren't going to get our asses up to do anything harder than voting. Not until people get much more desperate, much hungrier, and much more miserable. I think our voter turnout for primary elections is around 20%. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
Imagine a world where the shittiest candidates were all weeded out months before the general election. That's what the Primaries are for.
violent uprising?
i mean- be complacent and accept that there's totally nothing that can be done about it?
Try to still be alive when the cog in the machine breaks and the pendulumn swings the other way
If companies were just greedy they could have raised prices at any time before. They didn't because they're trying to find the optimal point between supply and demand to make the most profit (as we all do -- are you willing to take a pay cut or eschew a raise you can probably get?)
All the money pumped into the economy is why they could raise prices -- not just in 2020, but pretty consistently for the past 20 years. Lots of normal people are getting screwed but it's fine for these companies because guess who gets much of the money being printed? Hint: donors.
A
Civil War.
Stop voting Democrat, obviously. Since it was their policies that caused the high prices.
Earn more.
It's not easy, but I used to be in the "we need to make everything fair" crowd.
Now (currently unable to afford groceries myself) I'm part of the "if I'm not getting paid my worth, I must show my worth."
Make more money. Your income should be going up over time in line with inflation. This is easier if you don't work a dead-end job and are willing to change jobs every once in a while.
Basically if you work in a retail or food service job, your main priority in life should be to get out of that industry and into something else. Even something as simple as working in a warehouse or construction will get you a lot more $$$ with much more leverage for raises and forward-moving promotions.
Me and my girlfriend both work full time and we are able to more or less easily afford rent and food. It helps to have two incomes. Although I will say, it's sad that she got pregnant with twins and we ultimately decided we couldn't keep them because of the financial situation. I wanted them but she didn't feel like we were financially stable enough.
So yeah, people gotta learn to live like it's a third world country. It's not the 1950s anymore where everyone can work whatever job and make ends meet.
Inflation means money is worth less than before and inflation is actually money creation. Higher supply means lower demand. Record profits are only records because the nominal value is higher, but the real value isn't.
Companies operate on gross margin, so 30% margin is always 30% of the total price. The actual value is irrelevant.
