Yeah I could tell you the same thing without the degree, but who'd believe me lmao.
While I was walking through the park I saw so many birds and squirrels just chilling around, arguably moreso than I see in my town in Alaska - where there are plenty of outdoor cats - which actually makes me kind of sad that new york's beating us out on smol wildlife
Sacrifices for protecting democracy!
Everything the Republicans wanted. Which meant the Republicans had to find new things to want. Meaning it's time for more triangulation!
Or a free boot to wear as a hat
I highly doubt Stalin would've used nukes for anything except the worse case scenario.
Dipshit know-nothings called "economists" say people wanting to not sell their blood to afford luxuries like food and a roof over their head are lazy entitled idiots that don't know what's good for the economy
Economists say you’re wrong for wanting prices to start falling—and they point to the Great Depression of the 1930s
Here's a fun game, every time you see a ghoul say or write the words "The Economy" replace it with either corporate/shareholder profits, and see how many times you go "oh shit that makes more sense!"
Many Americans are in a sour mood about the economy for one main reason: Prices feel too high.
First mUh EcOnOmY, and already we can really see what these mongrels are whining about
Maybe they’re not rising as fast as they had been, but average prices are still painfully above where they were three years ago. And they’re mostly heading higher still.
THE PRICE IS TOO DAMN HIGH
Consider a 2-liter bottle of soda: In February 2021, before inflation began heating up, it cost an average of $1.67 in supermarkets across America. Three years later? That bottle is going for $2.25 — a 35% increase.
"THE POORS SUGAR WATERS PRICE GONE UP!"
Or egg prices. They soared in 2022, then fell back down. Yet they’re still 43% higher than they were three years ago.
I wonder why
Likewise, the average used-car price: It rocketed from roughly $23,000 in February 2021 to $31,000 in April 2022. By last month, the average was down to $26,752. But that’s still up 16% from February 2021.
Wouldn’t it be great if prices actually fell — what economists call deflation? Who wouldn’t want to fire up a time machine and return to the days before the economy rocketed out of the pandemic recession and sent prices soaring?
Who needs a time machine when you can actually MANAGE THE FUCKING PRICES
At least prices are now rising more slowly — what’s called disinflation. On Friday, for example, the government said a key price gauge rose 0.3% in February, down from a 0.4% gain in January. And compared with a year earlier, prices were up 2.5%, way down from a peak of 7.1% in mid-2022.
Econ ghoul sophistry. They're investing a word for the phrase "we overguessed it would go up by 10%, so aren't you happy the prices went up by 9% instead?"
But those incremental improvements are hardly enough to please the public, whose discontent over prices poses a risk to President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.
INCREASED INFLATION ISNT A FUCKING IMPROVEMENT WHEN THE MINIMUM WAGE HASNT CHANGED SINCE 2009
“Most Americans are not just looking for disinflation,’’ Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, said last year. “They’re looking for deflation. They want these prices to be back where they were before the pandemic.’’
If you won't pay people more, no shit they'll want to spend less you fuckubg leech!
Many economists caution, though, that consumers should be careful what they wish for. Falling prices across the economy would actually be an unhealthy sign.
Many economists are frauds that couldn't tell you how much of the U.S GDP is fake fluff made up of financial transactions between the finance imperialists and how much of the U.S GDP is actual industrial production
“There are,’’ the Bank of England warns, “more consequences from falling prices than meets the eye.’’
The fucking gangsters that are the banksters of England can blow it up their ass
What could be so bad about lower prices?
Bet you're gonna tell us why it's good for people to starve.
WHAT IS DEFLATION?
A fetish that is the inverse of inflation
Deflation is a widespread and sustained drop in prices across the economy. Occasional month-to-month drops in consumer prices don’t count. The United States hasn’t seen genuine deflation since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Causes by finance ghouls destroying themselves and taking the world with them
Japan has experienced a much more recent bout of deflation. It is only now emerging from decades of falling prices that began with the collapse of its property and financial markets in the early 1990s.
Tough shit, maybe they should put their imperialist government on an airplane and dive-bomb it into a volcano.
What's wrong with inflation?
“Although lower prices may seem like a good thing,’’ Banco de España, the Spanish central bank, says on its website, “deflation can in fact be highly damaging to the economy.’’
Throwing your ghoulish selves under a moving tank would help the economy
How so? Mainly because falling prices tend to discourage consumers from spending. Why buy now, after all, if you can purchase what you want — cars, furniture, appliances, vacations — at a lower price later?
FUCK RIGHT OFF INTO THE SEA YOU GODDAMN SNAKES
The reality is that the economy’s health depends on steady consumer purchases. In the United States, household spending accounts for around 70% of the entire economy. If consumers were to pull back, en masse, to await lower prices, businesses would face intense pressure to cut prices even more to try to jump-start sales.
GOOD
In the meantime, employers might have to lay off waves of employees or cut pay — or both. Unemployed people, of course, are even less likely to spend, so prices would likely keep falling. All of which risks triggering a “deflationary spiral’’ of price cuts, layoffs, more price cuts, more layoffs. And on and on. Another recession could follow.
Guess what I think should be cut to stave off a recession 
It was to prevent that very kind of economic nastiness that explains why the Bank of Japan resorted to negative interest rates in 2016 and why the Fed kept U.S. rates near zero for seven straight years during and after the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
Deflation exerts another painful effect, too: It hurts borrowers by making their inflation-adjusted loans more expensive.
ARE THERE ANY BENEFITS OF DEFLATION?
It’s certainly true that Americans can make their paychecks go further when prices are falling. If food or gasoline prices were to tumble, households would surely find it less painful to afford groceries or their commutes to work — as long as they remained employed.
Fuck off, you try to raise wages, you'll say people will lose their jobs, you try and raise buying power, you'll say people will lose their jobs, you try and say you'll do anything to materially improve the lives of the people and your knee-jerk instinct is to threaten their lives by threatening their employment. You know what we call folks that want to behave like that? Robber-barons and slavers.
Some economists even question the notion that deflation poses a serious economic threat. In 2015, researchers at the Bank for International Settlements, a forum for the world’s central banks, reviewed 140 years of deflationary episodes in 38 economies and reached this conclusion: The correlation between falling prices and economic growth “is weak and derives mostly from the Great Depression.’’
Those few economics can actually use a bit of common sense materialism to figure out they don't actually know shit and base their entire theories off of one fuck up they themselves caused.
But the exception was a doozy: From 1929-1933, U.S. economic output plummeted by a third, prices sank by a quarter and the unemployment rate shot up from 3% to a crushing 25%.
Yet again, who's fault was it?
The bank’s researchers said the biggest economic risk came not from falling prices for goods and services but rather from a freefall in the price of assets — stocks, bonds and real estate. Those collapsing assets, in turn, can topple banks that hold crumbling investments or that made loans to struggling real estate developers and homebuyers.
Oh no, they let the cat of truth out of the bag at the last minute like they always do. It's the finance bros fault!
The damaged banks may then cut off credit — the lifeblood of the broader economy.
Ghouls lived on borrowed debt
The likely result? A painful recession
For us, not them. They'll get bailed out like always.
Tanzania definitely has U.S Army presence.
No you nimrod, I'm not saying China will retaliate, I'm saying China's official policy is that they will retaliate. What the hell is your issue?
52
I popped into Sainsbury’s this week to buy tea bags. It took some time out of my working day, but I had read of potential shortages and my family hates to run out of tea. It turned out to be a false alarm: the supermarket’s shelves were packed with boxes of the stuff, from PG Tips to Twinings and Tetley Tea.
This paragraph screams IM FUCKING BRITISH
Tetley admitted last week that its stock of tea was “much tighter than we would like it to be” because vessels sailing through the Red Sea are being attacked by Houthi rebels protesting the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. There is little problem of production in India or Kenya, but tea is taking longer to arrive as container ships are diverted away from the Suez Canal and around the Cape of Good Hope.
Good. Nothing is more American than fucking with the British and sending their tea straight into the sea
God bless the Ansar Allah
My trip was self-defeating, given that supermarkets tend to run out of stock more when shoppers panic than because of endemic shortages. But we have been made jumpy by the pandemic and the supply chain inflation that followed. I used to be confident that tea, coffee, rice and cereals would be there without fail but it now takes discipline to remain calm.
Americans panic-buy toilet paper, Brits panic-buy tea.
Honestly I think the American hogs have their priorities more in order than the British.
Shut up bidet gang, I know.
Cocoa could be next. The price of cocoa powder and hot chocolate in UK shops rose 25 per cent in the year to January (more than confectionery). Cocoa futures are at record levels because West Africa, from where most cocoa comes, has been affected by extreme weather and crop disease. Many of the 6mn small farmers who tend cacao trees globally face hardship.
Westerners only giving a shit about climate change when it effects their treats, more news at 10
The cost of food and drink has increased sharply in general but the disruption to cocoa, coffee and tea is especially instructive. These beverages were early products of empire and the trade routes established by the British East India Company and other merchant adventurers. They were first enjoyed as exotic luxuries in the 17th century, then gradually became part of everyday life at home and work.
May it follow the course of your empire
The strains are emblematic of the fragility of globalisation and the smooth production and transport of consumer products from the global south to Europe and the US. Arabica coffee is back in surplus after a price spike in 2021 due to drought and frost in Brazil, but lower grade robusta beans from Vietnam are in short supply, not helped by the troubles in the Red Sea.
Love to ignore the fucking drought in Central America that's also fucking the Panama Canal, but please tell me more about how it's the Palestinians fault for not offering their lives on a silver platter
There is an irony in tea being transported the long way around Africa, rather than via the Suez Canal. It was the opening of the canal in 1869 that put an end to the “tea races” of clipper sailing ships such as the Cutty Sark to bring tea supplies from China to the west as rapidly as possible. As soon as steam ships could cut thousands of miles off the journey, sailing became redundant.
What a shame for the tea racists
Victorians used to celebrate the arrival of new tea from Shanghai in London and prices would drop as the clippers docked. There is less excitement about refreshment now: a tea bag is a tea bag and it is easy to forget how far processed leaves in branded packets have come. What was an adventure has turned into a routine bit of logistics.
What was a bloody journey of imperialism has become a part of the day to day droll
But it is time to wake up and smell the coffee. The Suez Canal will probably be able to resume normal operations in time, but a vital trade route will remain a tempting target for attackers. The Panama Canal has also had to limit passages, in its case because of drought. It is getting hard to ensure safe and easy navigation for ships that have been loaded with products for our consumption.
Oh look he finally mentions Panama.
It is also more difficult to fill up those vessels without fail. Agricultural commodities were always volatile, with good growing seasons one year and failures the next. But climate change increases the risks and is making it difficult for farmers and farm workers to earn a consistent living. They have less capital to invest in trees and bushes, and less reason to carry on trying.
Not mentioning they're paid fractions of pennies for what their products are actually worth, but that'd be talking about imperialism again
Cocoa is suffering the effects. It was originally consumed as a drink in England until the 19th century turn to solid chocolate. Higher cocoa prices presage the same impact on confectionery later this year. Growing conditions have been so problematic in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria that farmers cannot harvest enough cocoa pods from their trees to be processed into butter for chocolate makers.
sad violin noise for the poor British chocolate makers
Hedge funds have not been helping by speculating on even higher cocoa prices, but the underlying crisis is real. Even well-meaning measures can have unintended effects: a new EU law meant to discourage deforestation could lead to the destruction of coffee and cocoa being stored in European warehouses. The intention is laudable but the consequences may be perverse for vulnerable African growers.
Fuck off mate
Few brands that sell these products now ignore such things: every box of tea bags in Sainsbury’s bore a logo from an organisation such as Fairtrade or the Rainforest Alliance. They make more effort than before to ensure that life is sustainable for growers and plantation workers on whose efforts they, and we shoppers, depend.
"Sustainable"
But the old empires of coffee, cocoa and tea are getting fragile amid climate change and the interruption of global trade routes. The price of their weakness is already becoming obvious, and the supermarket shelves may not always stay full.
MUH TREATS
I just accept my mortality with open arms and my relationship with death as an open relationship that'll become monogamous one day
How common of a bit is the "throwing batteries in the ocean" outside of hexbear?
I just heard someone say out loud, when joking about red flags and green flags in relationships, "My green flag is people that throw batteries in the ocean". And I'm sitting here with my internal monologue screaming at me "AM I BEING DOGWHISTLED HERE? Have I actually discovered a wild hexbear in the wild in the most absurd way? No way!"
Ergo, me here asking if it's a common bit or a hexbear special. if it's the latter, i have a message for the person that said it out loud should you be reading this: I hate you so much 
If we lower the prices of food, we'll destroy the economy like the great depression!