Crazy Prices for Basic Goods

[Eric Stoner]

Almost half of U.S. food banks are reporting an increase in people using their pantries. 200 food banks were surveyed by Feeding America and 45% reported more people asking for service. While it has declined recently gasoline is still up 60% over last year. Cereal costs 15% more .Meat and poultry are up 10.4%. Fruits and veggies are up 8.1% all according to the BLS. Both the food banks and recipients surveyed reported a dramatic increase in the number of working people seeking assistance. All report being squeezed between higher energy costs and higher prices for basic foods. The overall inflation rate increased 9.1% in June.

[WonderWoman0642]

Same in my area, but it seems to be equally diluted with ethanol so it doesn't last very long. I barely drive and am still needing to get gas at least every two weeks lately.

I'm glad you mentioned this...I thought it was just me

[slowpoke]

You can get ethanolfree at Murphys.

[moneybags]

Try dollar general. Yes I saw the price of TP and said NOPE. ALDI is the best for food-and also don’t fund anti-choice politicians. Dollar General is also good-does not fund anti-choice politicians.

I will say in my quest to boycott corporations that support forced birth I found they donate 50% to republicans and 50% to democrats. They all work for the corporations anyways.

People blame Biden and while he may be partly to blame a lot of it is just plain old greedy corporations.

Yeah I think I saw 4 pack at a local grocery store was $10 and I put it back and went to dollar general instead.

I’m boycotting corporations and only buying what I need if we all did that we could teach the corporations a lesson. We’re gonna have to figure out a way collectively to work together to get the elites to understand they NEED us not the other way around. As long as we’re fighting over culture wars we can’t work together to get the powers that be to work for us instead of the other way around. We globally need to work together to get these billionaires out of power. We can do it! Maybe not in my lifetime, but eventually it’ll happen when people understand that the democrats and republicans are controlled by the billionaires and if we put our differences aside we can fight together. Power to the people. There’s strength in Unity.

[miss.a.p1600]

I use digital coupons (I hate having a bunch of papers) AND I shop online using cash back sites.

I also use discount gift cards when I eat out.

Gas = get a Costco or sams club membership and you will find the cheapest gas in the city. No gas station is able to beat their prices. It’s worth the membership just to get the cheap gas.

I loathe paying full price for ANYTHING.

Also, I find adding meat to my grocery list is what makes the bill expensive so a tip i stumbled upon is going to a Super Target for cheap meat. Or going to the grocery store at the end of the night and you will find meat deeply discounted.

Also if you go to the movies have your wife or gf bring a large tote and stuff your blankets, snacks, and drinks inside so you can skip the high priced concession stand. Just don’t be obvious and no one will say anything to you.

[whirlerz]

Ok, for anyone who cares, Aldi's has tp, 24 rolls for 19.00

Also, I get the 4 rolls, 3.99 for myself.
They've a lot of other deals, 2 pr women's leggings, 8.99, I got a 6 Pk of cotton bikini undies for 4.99!

& lots of household, gardening, other stuff, a folding storage ottoman (I also got a mini dehumidifier too)

[Eric Stoner]

Try dollar general. Yes I saw the price of TP and said NOPE. ALDI is the best for food-and also don’t fund anti-choice politicians. Dollar General is also good-does not fund anti-choice politicians.

I will say in my quest to boycott corporations that support forced birth I found they donate 50% to republicans and 50% to democrats. They all work for the corporations anyways.

People blame Biden and while he may be partly to blame a lot of it is just plain old greedy corporations.

Yeah I think I saw 4 pack at a local grocery store was $10 and I put it back and went to dollar general instead.

I’m boycotting corporations and only buying what I need if we all did that we could teach the corporations a lesson. We’re gonna have to figure out a way collectively to work together to get the elites to understand they NEED us not the other way around. As long as we’re fighting over culture wars we can’t work together to get the powers that be to work for us instead of the other way around. We globally need to work together to get these billionaires out of power. We can do it! Maybe not in my lifetime, but eventually it’ll happen when people understand that the democrats and republicans are controlled by the billionaires and if we put our differences aside we can fight together. Power to the people. There’s strength in Unity.

I will take a dive on the more political aspects but just how did all those greedy, evil corporations determine Fed policy ? Or pass all the Federal government spending bills ? Or decide to limit domestic energy production ? Or not open more nuclear power plants and close existing ones ? Or decide to give government checks to people to stay home ?

Those evil, greedy corporations have a fiduciary duty to make money . To create ROI for their shareholders . If the prices of their inputs ( raw materials , energy , taxes and regulatory compliance, labor etc. ) go up what choice do they have except to raise prices ?

Currently ( and especially in the tech sector ) corporations are trying for greater productivity. Zuckerberg recently read his employees the Riot Act telling them to put down their ping pong paddles and get back to work. Many tech companies are already laying off a lot of workers with more to come.

New claims for Unemployment just jumped up 6,000 week to week.

[miss.a.p1600]

Someone please tell me why Starbucks is charging $1 for a fucking sliver of cream cheese.

Bitch don’t make me bring my own tub of cream cheese (that I can get for that same $1) in my purse.

[whirlerz]

SB's known to charge for every extra..

I forgot about the $ store, I don't care for the quality of the tp, I know it's cheap, (I sometimes buy it for the roomies) but Aldi's 1.24 for the 24 roll Pk, I buy the 4pk @ 3.99

They now charge 1.25, lots of stuff is higher, but still some decent dealsIMG_20220805_073936.jpg 5.00 for this ^

[Zofia]

Someone please tell me why Starbucks is charging $1 for a fucking sliver of cream cheese.

Bitch don’t make me bring my own tub of cream cheese (that I can get for that same $1) in my purse.

How much did 4-bucks pay the person behind the counter? How much did they pay for rent? How much for advertising? How much for ...? It's not just the variable cost of any one item for sale, but the cost of the store, the supply chain, labor, capital and overhead. Pricing is never an easy task. In my business we have products that we sell at a loss because we would sell none of them if we priced them even at cost. But, those products do open the door to other more profitable sales. Likewise, we have products and services that we sell at a larger profit. In the end, the company usually runs about a 10-15% profit margin. We will struggle to make a 10% this year though.

Back to 4-bucks, in 2021 their profit margin, was 14.45%. Their most recent quarter, was 11.2%. Nothing crazy about those numbers.

HTH
Z

[eagle2]

I will take a dive on the more political aspects but just how did all those greedy, evil corporations determine Fed policy ? Or pass all the Federal government spending bills ? Or decide to limit domestic energy production ? Or not open more nuclear power plants and close existing ones ? Or decide to give government checks to people to stay home ?

Those evil, greedy corporations have a fiduciary duty to make money . To create ROI for their shareholders . If the prices of their inputs ( raw materials , energy , taxes and regulatory compliance, labor etc. ) go up what choice do they have except to raise prices ?

Currently ( and especially in the tech sector ) corporations are trying for greater productivity. Zuckerberg recently read his employees the Riot Act telling them to put down their ping pong paddles and get back to work. Many tech companies are already laying off a lot of workers with more to come.

New claims for Unemployment just jumped up 6,000 week to week.

You're making stuff up again. Multiple times I've posted a survey given to oil executives, asking why they haven't done more to increase domestic oil output. None of them gave government policies as the reason. Also, besides being wrong, your comment about paying people to stay home and unemployment claims increasing, contradict each other. Either there aren't enough workers, because govt is paying people to stay home, or there are too many workers and businesses are laying people off. You can't have both. The latest jobs report showing over 1/2 million jobs added in July, contradicts both of your claims. People are going back to work and businesses are hiring a lot more people than they're laying off.

[moneybags]

Someone please tell me why Starbucks is charging $1 for a fucking sliver of cream cheese.

Bitch don’t make me bring my own tub of cream cheese (that I can get for that same $1) in my purse.

i need to start being more frugal. I’ve gotten spoiled as a dancer thinking I can always make more money.

I think we need a thread dedicated to being frugal to get through this. Honestly, I’m not even mad guys get the cheap $25 dances because I know everything is so expensive! I’m honestly just happy people are coming to the club and spending. Some guys are cheap assholes, but I don’t make them feel bad for being cheap as long as their tipping on stage and not wasting my time or being rude.

[rickdugan]

Multiple times I've posted a survey given to oil executives, asking why they haven't done more to increase domestic oil output. None of them gave government policies as the reason.

Of course they didn't. They all have drilling and pipeline permit applications in the pipeline. The last thing they want to do is further antagonize the people who are already fucking them.

[Selina M]

i need to start being more frugal. I’ve gotten spoiled as a dancer thinking I can always make more money.

I think we need a thread dedicated to being frugal to get through this. Honestly, I’m not even mad guys get the cheap $25 dances because I know everything is so expensive! I’m honestly just happy people are coming to the club and spending. Some guys are cheap assholes, but I don’t make them feel bad for being cheap as long as their tipping on stage and not wasting my time or being rude.

I think we already had one at least for beauty type products, in Dollar Den.

I do NOT envy the girls working the club. Mine got rid of floor dances, the cheapest option is 2-for-$60 now. That's gotta be a tough sell given the state of inflation.

[slowpoke]

[Eric Stoner]

You're making stuff up again. Multiple times I've posted a survey given to oil executives, asking why they haven't done more to increase domestic oil output. None of them gave government policies as the reason. Also, besides being wrong, your comment about paying people to stay home and unemployment claims increasing, contradict each other. Either there aren't enough workers, because govt is paying people to stay home, or there are too many workers and businesses are laying people off. You can't have both. The latest jobs report showing over 1/2 million jobs added in July, contradicts both of your claims. People are going back to work and businesses are hiring a lot more people than they're laying off.

You posted one ( 1 ) survey of a few unidentified oil executives that flies in the face of what every other oil industry professional is saying. I have repeatedly posted the actual U.S. domestic oil production numbers showing we are producing less NOW than we did under Trump.

As to the job numbers I have to do a mini quasi sort of mea culpa for lack of clarity. I repeated Peter Schiff's claim that we are 3 million jobs short of where we were in February , 2020. At present that APPEARS to be outdated and wrong. However there is no doubt that the number is actually at least 1.5 to 2 million. I spent the weekend diving into the BLS , St. Louis Fed, Richmond Fed and U.S. Chamber of Commerce numbers on job creation and unemployment. To say they are confusing , inconsistent and counter intuitive would be an understatement. As Rick and I have said we are in strange times. We have high inflation , negative growth and INCREASING employment. Or do we ? The following are ALL numbers from the BLS. If you or anyone else has a problem with them please send the BLS a strong letter. There are professionals on Wall Street and in and out of government who are scratching their heads trying to make sense of numbers that simply do NOT add up. As the King of Siam said : " Is a puzzlement".

Leisure and hospitality employment showed the largest increase in the latest BLS job report. More than half of the new jobs created were in leisure , hospitality and health care. Many are low paying jobs and many are PART-Time. More about that infra.

In March 2022, 132,718,000 Americans were employed FULL-Time. The latest jobs report had it at 132,577,000.

The "official " unemployment rate is 3.5%. But if you add up all the people who want a job but gave up looking ( and now do NOT get counted as unemployed ) all the part time workers who want a full time job and those not employed whose unemployment benefits have run out the real unemployment rate is 6.7%. The BLS always puts this column at the very bottom of its unemployment numbers. It is known as "U-6".

The latest unemployment rate measures ONLY those actually looking for work. The latest jobs report was based on the PAYROLL survey. According to which we added some 500,000 jobs. However according to the Household Survey there were FEWER small business and self employment jobs as I posted previously. As I posted supra the 3 million jobs number may be out of date. It has been overtaken by recent gains in employment to an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million jobs comparing February, 2020 to July, 2022 . The jobs deficit is an ESTIMATE based on an increase in population and a LOWER Labor Participation Rate between February,2020 and July, 2022.

According to the Household Survey if you work as little as one ( 1 ) hour per week you are counted as "employed". If you work 3 part time jobs at 12 hours each you are counted as a full time employee. In the Payroll Survey those 3 part time jobs are counted as 3 separate jobs. Likewise , the Payroll Survey does double count SS#'s. So if the same person is working two jobs ( as many today are to try and make ends meet ) they are counted as two workers. If they work three jobs then they are counted three times. If they work on a payroll for a salary and work a side gig they might be counted twice as being "employed". On both the Payroll and the Household surveys.

The numbers for total employment for the last five months are :

March -158,458,000
April- 158 ,105,000
May - 158,426,000
June - 158, 111,000
July- 158,290,000

Huh ? WHAT ? If we added 386,000 new jobs in May and 398,000 new jobs in June and another 500,000 + in July then WHERE is the increase in total number of people employed ?
In 2020 we had 128 million people of prime working age i.e. 25-54. According to the St. Louis Fed in July , 2022 88.4% of prime working age MEN were employed . In February , 2020 it was 89.2%.

In 2020 we had a total population of 329 million. Today it is 332,403,650 according to the latest Census ESTIMATE. That includes net births over deaths and immigrants for an increase of about 3 million. So we ought to see roughly half employed or 1.5 million. That means AT LEAST another 1.5 million new workers and more likely 1.8 million using the current 60% employment to population ratio.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce did their own employment survey and crunched the BLS numbers. Add in similar studies by the St. Louis and Richmond Feds and there is an argument that we indeed have 3 million fewer people employed than in February, 2020. In July, 2022 the employment to population ratio was 60% i.e. 3/5's of all Americans were employed. In February . 2020 it was 61.2 % . In December 2019 we had a Labor Participation Rate of 63.2%. In February, 2020 it had gone up to 63.4%. The total number of Americans employed in December , 2019 was 158.6 million. In July, 2022 it was 158,290,000 million. That number was 180,000 higher than June, 2022. According to the BLS a total of 165.7 million Americans worked in 2020. That was a drop in full time employment from 70.2% in 2019 to 63.1% in 2020. Obviously thanks to Covid. Now according to Statista ( relying on the BLS , U.S. C of C and Fed numbers ) full time employees peaked at 130.6 million in 2019. Then dropped to 123.19 million in 2020 and then rose to 127.16 million in 2021. As of July it was 132,718,000. But the same BLS and Census bureau says we have a total population of over 332 million and a labor ration of 60 %. That means that if 60 % of Americans are working then we would have total jobs of just under 200 million. Some 198 million to be more exact and NOBODY has anything close to that number .

So what does all this numerical and statistical salad mean in the final analysis ? I THINK the most accurate and data supported thing to say is that if the trends of late 2019 and early 2020 had continued we would have at least 3 million more jobs than we do now.

[whirlerz]

Wow, THAT'S CHEAP, for gas, Pokes^!

The 'Texan', lol.