After reading this news story that half of Americans are skipping meals because of affordability and a bad economy, I have to ask how are you all doing out there?
I heard from a real estate agent friend of mine that REOs, i.e. bank foreclosures on home mortgages, are going up like crazy, which is a sign of bad times, like the recession of 2007-08.
I have heard from others about rents not being paid, lack of jobs, etc.
Every day, there’s more news of corporate layoffs, moreso than usual.
I live in the economic bubble of the SF Bay Area, where tech wealth more-or-less insulates me and mine from the most serious consequences of a bad economy, but how are things elsewhere?
Northeastern US. Things are okay. Worse than I would have predicted 5 years ago but not terrible.
We pay our bills, contribute to the 401k and HSA, and have still been saving every month. Our electric + natural gas bills fluctuate as we switch from electric cooling to gas heating, but their combined monthly average has doubled in less than 5 years. I’m eyeing up solar systems for some relief. We don’t drive much so the direct price of gas hasn’t been huge. Groceries are a bit more expensive, but usually not as crazy as I see on the news. Clothing has gotten wildly expensive, with thrift and outlet stores selling stuff for prices I would have paid at regular retail 5 years ago.
We’re holding on. I wish we ate out, and especially drank out, less. I was always a homebody, but nowadays its $15-$20 for a cocktail, $10 for a domestic draft, plus tip.
Pretty decent in Switzerland. The cost of living has always been very high here, but so have the wages and inflation hasn’t been as bad here as in other places over the past few years.
Edit: Also, the fuel prices don’t really affect me at all, or at least only very indirectly. Now, more than ever, I am grateful for the awesome trains we have.
Australian here. Financially things are okay for me and most the people I know, but the general stress is getting to us all. I always feel so worn down. A weekend is enough time to not want to die but not enough time to get actually rested.
I had to get a mouthguard because I’m grinding my teeth at night and the dentist said they’ve seen a spike in the number of people with the same problem. The stress is real and measurable.
I think that teeth grinding thing tends to happen anyway as you get older.
My dentist said I grind my teeth because I snore, i.e. apnea, which is a serious medical condition that can affect brain health later in life due to oxygen deprivation during sleeping hours.
This affects your ability to get long-term care insurance here in the States, because risk of dementia, stroke, etc. is much higher.
If a housemate/roommate/spouse/significant other says you snore, you should get yourself checked out by a sleep clinic and be prepared to have them prescribe a CPAP device.
Back to the grinding, like an idiot, I didn’t follow my dentist’s advice from 10-15 years ago to get a mouth guard, and my molars have been ground completely flat, resulting in multiple root canals and implants right now.
So you’re doing the right thing getting that mouthguard.
Cheers.
well to put it nicely in egypt we are doing bad and probably failing because the
PresidentDictator is just not wanting democracy and is just bad at his jobI limit my food intake to stay skinny & petite & cute & energetic, but skipping meals also saves a lot of money. How’s the economy where I live? I can answer that in two words: Los Angeles.
Skipping meals now and then is energizing, I have found.
Skipping meals because you can’t afford food… That’s never happened to me, but I’d imagine it’s soul crushing.
What’s weird to me is that economist are observing the official numbers and concluding that things aren’t that bad and the public is suffering some kind of mass psychosis, when the reality is just worse than reflected in their numbers completely escapes them.
That’s because they aren’t looking at numbers or statistics that are directly relevant to typical citizens. GDP isn’t the same thing as average wages or cost of living.
The economy is great if you’re disgustingly wealthy.
Yes, but they do look at stuff like the unemployment rate, wages, etc… But I don’t think it captures the lived experience of stagnation we’ve been having for the past several years, and even if there’s “job growth” it might not be good jobs and people might know that they’re chances of getting a good job are slim to none, etc… lots of little things that wouldn’t necessarily be reflected in these incredibly broad statistics.
But economics, as a practiced science, is about boosting GDP, not making the lives of individuals better, so I think it indicates that the entire field is deeply flawed.
But economics, as a practiced science
“Economics” and “science” don’t belong in a sentence together
Unless there’s a “pseudo” immediately before the “science”…
Never forget that the capitalist economy thrives off of the exploitation of the working class.
UR is bs?
It kind of it is, because it doesn’t capture people who have given up on looking for work, either because they don’t think they can get a job, or think the jobs they can get are emotionally/physically worse than living off whatever systems they have access to.
The one you want to look at it if you want to understand society better is NEET–people Not in Education, Employment or Training…
Pay attention to the news reports talking about ‘K’ shaped economy, which is exactly what you’re talking about
That’s been a phenomenon for awhile now, there used to be more of a correlation between the economic data and the public perception of the economy. Things like low unemployment and wages outpacing inflation don’t necessarily result in improved consumer confidence like they used to.
Yes, but the academic question to ask if if people know something the numbers don’t.
Removed by mod
I see economic indicators that I’ve never heard commented on.
We’ve been building storage places around here non-stop for several years. This is clear evidence that people are downgrading their living arrangements.
There are fewer flea market vendors and they’ll selling cheaper and cheaper. This leads me to believe the lower end of the income spectrum can no longer afford what was already stupid cheap. This is kinda true of garage sales, but those have always been the cheapest end of the used market.
People are leaving far less free shit on the curb. Either that or people are snatching it up faster. Not a good sign in either case.
Yes because economic metrics were never intended to show how the economy is doing for the average person. The entire field needs to be reworked from first principles before it has any value to us
I live in rural northern Japan so… not great? Everything keeps concentrating to Tokyo. We were promised “work from anywhere in Japan” and “remote-first”, but the company tried to revoke that. A couple of us joined a union and are fighting it, but most people just rolled over and took it. Still don’t know what things will look like come next year.
There are very few remote backend software engineering jobs in Japan now. The situation is pretty dire. No US or Canadian company wants me in this time zone (even if it allowed them to have people available around the clock). No one wants to sponsor a visa in another country.
I have a small farm, but it’s not profitable. Most of the other jobs around here are forestry, fishery, and factory and pay less than half of what I make now which my family cannot survive on. Things are rusty and falling apart all over in the countryside.
Here in Tokyo, I feel things are pretty rough financially too. I cannot imagine how hard it is in inaka. It’s quite sad that everything seems to be pulled towards a few cities. This feels different than America where the draw is to bigger local cities whereas here it’s mostly to only the biggest cities.
I really wish I could go back to my northern (urban) Japan cost of living, though. Not sure how things are now over a decade later, but I was paying 700円 per month for cellular + data, 2000円 per month on gigabit internet, and 33000円 per month for a 1LDK apartment…
Excluding food and utilities, that was just a hair over 200 Euro per month for expenses in today’s currency (but conversion rate may also be more favorable to Euro today than back then).
I have a cell provider with a pretty small data limit, but I almost never use it. They no longer even take new customers. ~2400/mo. My internet is with NTT and fiber to the home at 5500 a month + servicer fee -> about 6500 a month after price increases in 2027 they announced.
When I lived in a sharehouse in 2013, it was over double what you were paying and about 12 minutes from a station in suburban tokyo. My first apartment about 8 minutes away was 115,000 ish plus all utils just inside the 23ku and was 33sqm IIRC.
Cost of living including groceries and such have gone up like crazy since corona. Everything is undergoing shrinkflation and raises aren’t keeping up unless you’re at a really good company.
Even living in the countryside now, costs are still way over what they were for Tohoku. My prices here are more than even Tokyo when I moved here for a lot of groceries and such.
My mortgage on its own is over 85,000 in the deep countryside almost an hour walk to a station. I’m sure apartments are cheaper, but this is on a used house built in '96 IIRC (though with some rennovation and a new roof not long before I bought it).
I can’t day I’m very well-informed on the issue as an outsider, but I’ve heard that the central government (at least in the recent past) have tried to encourage people to move out into inakas in an attempt to slow down or even reverse the migration trend. Some carrots, like housing subsidies if I remember correctly, are even offered, but there hasn’t been many sticks, eg actually encouraging able firms to keep their jobs remote, from what I know.
So I guess my question is, has this sentiment / tone changed from the government (esp since the LDP has had a few leadership changes in the last few years)? I did hear of the intention to have a second capital, likely in Osaka, but that seems only tangentially related.
encourage people to move out into inakas in an attempt to slow down or even reverse the migration trend.
That may sometimes be the case. However, companies like mine (and no I won’t name it since I don’t want to be sued) say “work from anywhere in Japan” and then go "J/K, we now require you in the office with no relocation expenses and a monthly travel budget of 20k JPY (which is less than a single trip for me which also takes 8 hours round trip with buffer). My union is fighting this and we are willing to go to court since I was never required to be in the office except for about 3 days of orientation. The results are spotty in cases like this with some courts favoring the contract which, as a permanent employee, has traditionally means the company more or less owns you. On the other hand, there are protections against undue hardship which is one way in which we would fight it. However, because of things like this, no one is willing to move to the middle of nowhere with zero job opportunities.
like housing subsidies
I got a subsidy to move with my wife and buy a house. 1.3 million JPY to be paid back if we leave in < 5 years. Families could get more. We used it to buy a used car since I was a bit optimistic in thinking my motorbike and taxis would get us by. Almost no taxis after 6pm without prior reservation. No easy rental places right in the area to go that route when we would need a vehicle.
has this sentiment / tone changed from the government
The lip service doesn’t change, but concrete actions, especially for people not doing low-paid manual labor, is missing. Add to that that companies still abuse laws and hope not to get caught, it’s worthless. Much like many places in the US, we have lots of other immigrants, particularly from SE Asia, moving in to do ag work as well as nurses and carers for the elderly that are in high demand.
I did hear of the intention to have a second capital, likely in Osaka, but that seems only tangentially related.
Yeah, that’s a thing. The LDP was trying to pay back the loyalty of those that worked with them. I don’t have any problem in principal with Osaka functioning more like Tokyo in terms of governance (though this is not definitely Osaka last time I heard, but I don’t follow it closely), though I don’t know what this accomplishes other than people saying “yay, Osaka is great!” feel better and maybe solve some redundancy (which is not necessarily bad). Then again, I’m not following closely.
My problem with things like this: Osaka also has big natural disasters; the world is getting hotter all the time, why not do this somewhere more north; it’s still performative more than anything as best I can tell (though I’m just a dude who can’t vote living on the other side of the country). It doesn’t actually decentralize and take pressure off the real estate market and other things that are facing increasing difficulty, and causing foreigner backlash (specifically AirBnB-type places and (often allegedly Chinese) illegal short-term accommodations buying up buildings illegally).
I’m sorry to hear about all that. I hope you and your union can win the case, if not find a path for you and your wife to go through the ordeal in one piece, cause it sounds like you’re basically trapped financially because of the repayment clause of the subsidy.
I imagine this is also partly the responsibility of the local government, given that they would be responsible for building the town to properly support the expected population growth? Though it also seems like it would be difficult for them to do much in really rural places in the short term, where there already is a lack of the necessary structures to provide these jobs, not to mention sustain these structures themselves.
And it’s fine not to dox yourself by naming your employer. This sort of rug-pulling move is reminiscent of companies here in North America though. To be fair, given that remote working is a fairly new phenomenon, it’s understandable that there simply isn’t a lot of protections in place against such nasty behaviours. If the different levels of governments want to decentralize to better spread the population around the country though, perhaps I’m being naive, but actually encouraging remote working, and making it a safe route for people to take, would be a really good path forward for that.
Thank you for sharing your story and perspective. I’m sure it’s been quite hard on you, so hope the conflict will be resolved soon, and satisfactorily.
Booming in Taiwan. GDP growth over 10%, construction cranes everywhere you look, shops and restaurants going gangbusters. And it’s all because of the world’s insatiable appetite for AI chips. So, yah. What could go wrong?
Scotland. Fucked. The terrifying thing I realised recently is how I can see the sharp decline in living standards pre-and-post covid. If we dont get a grip of it we’re backsliding toward Dickensian levels of poverty and deprivation.
Other thing I noticed recently - how most of our short-term problems can be linked to that cunt Trump. Iran war, tariffs, Ukraine etc. I say this to highlight to the Americans in the room that your political choices have implications far beyond your own borders. Theres fuck all I can do about him, but plenty you can do.
Hey the American progressives are trying but we’re not even our own party because of our two party system. Not to be a dick but I think other countries hold more power than Americans at keeping a senile dementia riddled Cheeto fuck in check. His congress and court aren’t.
I guess we’re doing OK in Sweden. We’re used to high grocery and fuel prices. I’m driving a diesel and filling up at almost $10 per gallon.
Energy prices are hurting. Mostly because we’re on the same shared market as Germany… and Germany has dismantled their nuclear energy. Wind and solar is great when it’s windy or sunny. But it leaves us wanting on cold still nights.
The state has been subsidizing both fuel and electricity, but it’s not really going to the right pockets.
Why not switch to an EV? I’ve heard the Scandinavian countries all have great charging infrastructure.
Price is one factor. I’ve never bought a new car. I’ve also never had a car loan.
Privacy is one factor. My 2016 is just about the newest you can get without being connected to the interwebs. I prefer my car to be finished as it rolls out of the factory without requiring updates like it was a modern game.
Caravan is one factor. I did 5000km towing a tonne this summer. Any range is cut in half when towing that. Most charging stations don’t really make space for a trailer.
I’d consider a small cheap EV for local trips like grocery shopping or taking the kids to kindergarten. The diesel particle filter isn’t too happy about short trips. We have electric bikes and trailers for that, so… maybe if it’s a gnarly winter.
nuclear energy only contributed about 10% of the total energy consumption of germany though.
That’ll do it. The price is set to the highest bid all across the board.
U.S. There’s no jobs. I’m willing to bet it’s 95% ghost listings that keep getting reposted until covid loans get waived.
My spouse’s health insurance plan is actually pretty good with coverage and relatively lower in cost, but it’s still way too expensive and gets more expensive and worse every year. If it wasn’t for the (decreasingly) decent coverage, we’d be rationing meds and care, let alone meals.
But yeah, every single paycheck completely evaporates. There’s nothing left to cut back on. There’s nothing left to save. It’s a fucking delight.
I’m willing to bet it’s 95% ghost listings that keep getting reposted until covid loans get waived.
Either that or just straight-up data farming. How do you collect the identities of thousands of IT workers? Put up a bogus remote job listing for a too-good-to-be-true IT position on Indeed and let them send it to you voluntarily.
Subsequent marketing calls and scam emails unrelated.
I’m in Canada but the situation isn’t much different. We are still feeling the effects of the pandemic economic bubble bursting as the cost of essentials were steadily raised through early COVID and have not dropped, still dealing with the homelessness issue, I’m not being political but Trump has caused a lot of economic strain on the entire world, people who got low interest mortgages during COVID aren’t willing to let go of their house which causes further housing scarcity, there’s so many factors. At least weed is legal though.
I hate what trump has done to our brothers and sisters to the north. Our household is a moderate visitor to Canada and bring our money there to spend to help the local economy. This year it was BC and Ontario. Last year it was big spending in Quebec and Alberta. I’m sorry for what our idiot president is doing to your country, and I’m using my vote to combat his actions.
Most people understand most Americans don’t want this as much if not more than we do. We’re just disappointed. Not in individuals but more the system that allows this to happen.
Good news! The Wall Street types have started using this brand new, never-been-used-before thing called a credit default swap to hedge their bets against AI companies. Good thing none of those words have ever been used before in the financial industry or associated with any financial collapses.
I’ll tell you after tonight. Last year’s Halloween was more subdued than previous 2 years under Biden. Lots of candy left on shelves, not as many lights in our area. I don’t expect as many trick-or-treaters but we’ll see. Of course this isn’t the only recession indicator.
As for where I’m from originally and which has voted Trump loyally every election cycle, they are just increasingly going down the shitter. Rust, bible belt, etc. The pain a lot of these people feel is genuine – they’re just too “poorly educated” to know who’s screwing them over the most.
what would you say is “screwing them over the most” in the past few decades?
Not sure if I should write this, but here is a summary from Russia:
Everything is fine overall. There are some cuts (I work in a telecom company). Nevertheless, there are enough vacancies, and the only downside is the merging of positions from different departments in some places. At my last test interview sprint, I got a job in 3 days.
Fuel prices have almost doubled, so I’ve started driving less for non-essential matters. Small businesses have closed down in some places, so now there are only 3 snack bars in the neighborhood instead of 5. Inflation is felt unpleasantly; prices are slowly rising.
Nevertheless, I eat whatever I want, drink whatever I want, and buy electronics. Maybe I’m just lucky and things are worse for blue-collar workers.
