Comment · Sat, June 12, 2021 · ND Owner
Did prices go up?
Original post in this thread
Brains-In-Jars · 47 points
Edit: Check out MYASD's reply. Tl;dr is it's super shitty timing but their costs went up a lot so it sucks for everyone, no shadiness here.
I had my cart already picked out ahead of the sale (lol) and I just went in to add one more thing I forgot and noticed that a large number of items went up in price, some of them by a good bit too.
What they were answering
Gainzwizard · 7 points
Considering all of your exposition on the US situation here + all the other accounts from Americans I've read or spoken to recently, I'm honestly very concerned for the impending economic weirdness.
Due to my country's intrinsic geopolitical weaknesses/exploitability and the post-2016 breakdown of Western Hegemony we function as a canary in the gold mine. Quality of life was high enough for us all to not care and just laugh it off/gaslight it when discussed up until recently.
Seeing well-off people or former middle/upper-middle class Americans reporting the same kinds of insane basic goods inflation and logistics-based-extortion and real estate market insanity where survival and success boil down to financial attrition does not fill me with hope at all.
Locally, small online and real life businesses got eaten up last year for what amounts to the same situation (different reasons and pathways) as you're describing, even normal people were shocked by it. Only the BIGGEST companies can afford to eat the losses for long enough to survive waves of economic hardship, but then they'll have free reign to perpetuate shitty monopolies.
Wishing you all the best mate, I'm poor AF but will happily continue buying products despite the inflation because it's worth it for every reason. Hope everyone else does so too.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
I share your concern. This whole thing is only consolidating power in large companies that can weather the logistical storm. Small businesses and independent operations are getting hammered hard. Many have already closed, and I fear that many more will when the music stops. Our government has already blown its load on keeping the economy going. There's not a whole lot left they can do. The federal funds rate has been between 0% and 0.25% since March 2020. They have spent $5.3 trillion on stimulus bills so far, and the FED's balance sheet has ballooned up to levels unthinkable before the pandemic. M1 money supply has shot up so much, it makes the graph look downright comical.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL
I mean look at that shit... It makes the government actions after the 2008 financial crisis look like blips. Housing is ballooning up faster than I have ever seen it. My wife's uncle is a custom home builder here in Phoenix. He just finished a house for a client that cost $3.2 million with the lot included. The owner moved in last October. He just sold it in a cash offer for $6.4 million! It fucking APPRAISED for that, too. Up $3.2 million in equity in 8 months! It's impossible to get a reasonably priced house right now. What the hell are first time home buyers supposed to do?!? Food is up. Cars are up. Building materials are up. Everything is up, yet all we are being told is that everything is fine, and this is just a temporary situation that will normalize. How? How can we just normalize this out? It just seems crazy to me. Maybe I am overreacting, but none of it is making me feel good about what is coming.