For the average worker, grocery prices are about as affordable as they were pre-pandemic. But the costs are still a sore spot for consumers — and a focus in the 2024 election.
MarketWatch isn’t MSM or RWM. Article seemed totally bogus at first – apparently because I am not a “worker” but a retiree. Most groceries I buy are higher than they were in 2019, but many are about the same. I stopped buying potato salad because it could almost be called potato soup – not the Deli potato salad, but that packaged stuff next to the Deli in Walmart. The price is about the same, but it seems they add more water to keep the weight the same. The sandwich meat I buy is about the same price it was in 2019—probably a few cents more tho. Chips & soda I like are waaaay higher. Used to be able to get out of Walmart w/ $25-30 of food stuff, but its more like $40-45 now…note that is after the first of the month big buy and stock up.
For more than two years now, higher prices have been pinching consumers’ wallets and testing their patience — but there’s at least one part of their monthly budget that has more breathing room these days: For the average U.S. worker, it now takes fewer hours of work to afford a week’s worth of groceries than it did five years ago, in August 2019.
That’s according to a MarketWatch analysis of wage and inflation data that shows how the price of food relative to wages has fluctuated in recent years.
Article seems to be correct – maybe even for retiree me, since my SS checks have gone up each year since 2019. Charts made sense to me…
But who’s really keeping Chicago children captive? The Chicago Teachers Union.
On Monday Mr. Johnson replaced the entire Chicago school board with his allies after the previous board resigned en masse last Friday. The previous board opposed the mayor’s plan to take a $300 million high-interest loan to hand raises to the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which funded his election campaign. Asked about the opposition to his loan scheme, Mr. Johnson pulled out . . . wait for it . . . the slavery card.
The Chicago school district is junk rated, so Mr. Johnson’s plan for a $300 million loan would cost CPS more than $700 million. The union wants 9% annual raises, climate initiatives and affordable housing units, among other non-teaching benefits that would cost between $10.2 billion and 13.9 billion, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.
Anyone who has actually researched the history of slavery—especially the Atlantic Slave Trade, the History of Colonial America Slavery (started in 1619), and the History of the Arab-Islam Slave Trade (700+- AD) would realize that slaves in Colonial America were lucky. Heck, that Colonial American history of slavery doesn’t include Indentured Servants or attempts at enslaving American Indians. Lucky Slaves landed in Colonial America—unlucky slaves ended up in South America and the Caribbean, or in countries east of Africa. Of the roughly 12-million African slaves via Atlantic Slave Trade, less than 500,000 were lucky enough to make it into Colonial America (future North America/USA)…some say just 388,747.
USA’s dependents of slaves should pay a portion of their yearly incomes as a Lucky Slave tax…
Male Slaves along the Arab-Islam route were castrated—both young and old. That slavery started soon after Islam started and continues to some degree today. DR. JOHN HENRICK CLARKE says some 30-40 Million African Slaves (@ 1:45) were taken by the Muslims.
From an old blog no longer updated – Arab-Islam Slave Trade. Lots of info and videos have been scrubbed from the internet and American History by those who are rewriting the history of slavery in colonial America.
Anyway, I get thrown off when the Slave Card gets played, so just read that WSJ article yourself…
I feel like I’ve noticed a shift in the wind lately.
And if the WSJ is commenting, that means something in itself.
_____________________________________
The Lightness of Being Kamala Harris
…but Ms. Harris seems to have plateaued. If you read the Democratic press, which means nearly all of the press, you’ll notice a creeping concern this week that Mr. Trump is gaining in the polls in the battleground states.
Democrats are suddenly worried, and a few are starting to blame Ms. Harris for playing it safe with her version of Mr. Biden’s 2020 basement campaign strategy. They want her to define herself better for swing voters.
That’s good advice, assuming she is up to it. But if she really is a doctrinaire progressive, as her career going back to California suggests, then she’s better off in relative hiding. And if she’s not confident enough about her own views to express them with any specificity beyond evasive generalities, that is also revealing information for voters.
Although few yet see it coming, humans are about to enter a new era of history. Call it “the age of depopulation.”
For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, the planetary population will decline.
But whereas the last implosion was caused by a deadly disease borne by fleas, the coming one will be entirely due to choices made by people.
Anyone realize what happens when economy of scale loses scale?
300,000 years mankind has NEVER decided like feminism improvements to commit species suicide! (and many knew what the end result would be!)
With birthrates plummeting, more and more societies are heading into an era of pervasive and indefinite depopulation, one that will eventually encompass the whole planet.
Driven by an unrelenting collapse in fertility
Human beings have no collective memory of depopulation. Overall global numbers last declined about 700 years ago, in the wake of the bubonic plague that tore through much of Eurasia. In the following seven centuries, the world’s population surged almost 20-fold. And just over the past century, the human population has quadrupled.
a dearth of procreative power is the cause of humanity’s dwindling numbers, a first in the history of the species. A revolutionary force drives the impending depopulation: a worldwide reduction in the desire for children
A worldwide dominance of FEMINISM plots the line perfectly…
and the backlash that has started won’t happen fast enough
in fact, the youngest think it’s terribly yucky and bad to have any kids
They played with the control handles of love, fidelity, romance, and twiddled the knobs of what kept us going, and we wont remember how to get back… in fact, early feminist papers (and funny funny soviet ones) talked about this intelligence that was not written down, but was passed from generation to generation… how to REAR kids not raise them (you raise corn, you rear animals).
Basically.. we all let Uncle what’s his name come in and adjust the TV set to improve it, twiddling the dials and all that, and now, there is no real picture, when before it was at least a picture, if not a perfect one.
The leftist intelligentsia and others did the same to our survival psychology.
actually… i really shouldn’t care… i won’t live to experience it…
so, i understand no one else caring much. but caring about the
future generations is one of those survival psychology things…
So far, government attempts to incentivize childbearing have failed to bring fertility rates back to replacement levels. Future government policy, regardless of its ambition, will not stave off depopulation. The shrinking of the world’s population is all but inevitable. Societies will have fewer workers, entrepreneurs, and innovators—and more people dependent on care and assistance.
In the United States and elsewhere, thinkers and policymakers are not ready for this new demographic order. Most people cannot comprehend the coming changes or imagine how prolonged depopulation will recast societies, economies, and power politics.
Global fertility has plunged since the population explosion in the 1960s.
Global fertility has plunged since the explosion of Feminism in the 1960s.
For over two generations, the world’s average childbearing levels have headed relentlessly downward, as one country after another joined in the decline.
For over two generations, the world’s average childbearing levels have headed relentlessly downward, as one country after another joined in the feminist movement.
And the downswing in fertility just kept going. Today, the great majority of the world’s people live in countries with below-replacement fertility levels, patterns inherently incapable of sustaining long-term population stability…..
…..In recent years, the birth plunge has not only continued but also seemingly quickened.
Sub-replacement fertility has even come to North Africa and the greater Middle East, where demographers have long assumed that the Islamic faith served as a bulwark against precipitous fertility declines.
Islamic feminism is a form of feminism concerned with the role of women in Islam. It aims for the full equality of all Muslims, regardless of gender, in public and private life. Islamic feminists advocate for women’s rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded in an Islamic framework
Russian fertility first dropped below replacement in the 1960s, during the Brezhnev era
As you were informed… they did these ‘ideas’, ‘memes’ etc… FIRST… then exported the social bomb… a bomb that once unleashed cant be stopped… how can one stop an idea? even a nuclear weapon was once an IDEA. it was simple… Give women bad ideas, and they will undo cohesion, and they could step in… but again… how can one stop an idea? how can one stop a bacterium…
…since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has witnessed 17 million more deaths than births
…the 27 countries of the current European Union are about 30 percent below replacement today Together, they reported just under 3.7 million births in 2023—down from 6.8 million in 1964
Last year, France tallied fewer births than it did in 1806, the year Napoleon won the Battle of Jena
Italy reported the fewest births since its 1861 reunification
Spain the fewest since 1859
The EU has been a net-mortality zone since 2012
The United States remains the main outlier among developed countries, resisting the trend of depopulation.
Importing third worlders… eh? people who feminism has not reached much…
They wont tell you why… will they? call it the great replacement? no..
call it the great repopulation effort after the social bomb went off..
[anyone remember the communist writer Naomi Goldstein before she became betty Friedan?]
The only major remaining bastion against the global wave of sub-replacement levels of childbearing is sub-Saharan Africa. With its roughly 1.2 billion people and a UNPD-projected average fertility rate of 4.3 births per woman today….
too poor for the mind virus to spread and take hold much…
too hard to live, and not enough government to punish those free people who think they are free and can just not follow the edicts
however. the more we help them even there, rates are dropping
fertility levels in sub-Saharan Africa have fallen by over 35 percent since the late 1970s, when the subcontinent’s overall level was an astonishing 6.8 births per woman.
REMEMBER… for each woman that does not have children… another woman has to have FIVE… got that? if two dont, the one that does have to have EIGHT…
its a very fragile card house!!!!
thats if you understand math…
oh.. .and a similar progression will happen with taxes..
as you get less people you get less that pay…
and there goes the card house…
oh… and it will go FAST…
I am born the last months of the boom…or the first month of the next (shrug)
In 2022, 57.8 million adults in the United States were 65 years old or older, representing 17.3% of the population. This is a significant increase from 1950, when only 8% of the population was 65 or older
that means guaranteed…
Over 60 million will drop like flies over the next 20 years
for those that may survive it… (i would be 80)…
its going to be interesting… eh?
the article is HUGE…
above was just a taste.
Oh no – is another ‘Red Wave’ coming!?!
Beneath the headline results in many polls, something unusual has turned up with big implications for politics: More voters are calling themselves Republicans than Democrats, suggesting that the GOP has its first durable lead in party identification in more than three decades.
Heck, I thought Trump was gonna win in a landslide in 2020. Then I believed everything about the infamous ‘Red Wave’ saving America in the 2022 midterms. Ended up w/ dysfunctional REPs having a bare majority in the House, and they eventually got rid of their own Majority Leader.
Yeah, humble hermit me is sticking w/ the Betting Odds this year – AND – Trump is definitely up in my Top 4 sites (Polymarket, RCP Betting Odds, Election Betting Odds, and PredictIt). Doesn’t bode well for Ukraine and EU – and may not bode well w/ Israel either w/ an embolden Russia teamed up w/ Iran, IMHO. Then again, Harris also suks…
Harris is an imbecile on her best day. I would vote for Trump a million times before even considering voting for such a buffoon as Harris. And you have to truly be a fool to think a Trump election would embolden Putin. You surely must drink gallons of Kool-Aid, Karmi.
The humble Kermit™ can’t seem to grasp that Russia and Iran have interests regarding Israel that have little to do with The Great Orange Whale (TGOW), and he also forgets about the Abraham Accords and the moving of the US embassy in Israel under TGOW.
The isolationist faction in the Republican party is less of a threat to Ukraine and Europe than continuation of the FJB junta (Harris/Waltz).
Good to see that you are still alive, Art. I thought about you the other day.
GC™ of the R-herd of sheeple bleaters cannot control his infatuation with the humble hermit Karmi, and peeps constantly from the darkness of the closet hoping for a glimpse…
Karmi:
Cut the gay slurs.
I’m pretty tired of the feud between you and om, but I tolerate a certain amount of it. I find your gay slurs especially annoying, however. Consider yourself warned – once again, because I’ve said this before.
And yes, I make the rules here for the simple reason that this is my blog. It’s perfectly okay to disagree with me or with each other. A certain amount of nastiness is also to be expected at times. But I’ve noticed over the years that there are some things I prefer to nip in the bud or they get out of control and drag the whole thing down.
What a delicately flowing beautiful little tango! Notice the smiles on the women violinists. It brings to mind the final scene in “True Lies”, Jamie Lee with a rose in her mouth and Arnold swinging her in his arms. Por una cabeza, by a head. Are you thinking of the election? Better that than the opening of “Shindler’s List.”
On the projections of a mass demographic decline, I don’t give much credence to ideas about a “species mind” or similar, where somehow we recognize “in our genes” that as we develop a mass prosperity culture and economy, the need for children declines, and the amount of energy and time allocated to children “must” give way to maintaining your life in this more complex, technical, and interdependent environment [one that also requires more trust of “the other” to be successful]. This type of reallocation seems quite reasonable in and of itself, but of course within limits* [that the “Femi Nazi’s have transgressed].
Some allowance for using technology to aid in caring for a growing elder population should probably be made, as the fraction of younger caregivers declines [as seems to be occurring in Japan?] and in any case, as Art suggests, this cohort [aka “us”] will be gone soon enough and the “youngsters” can get on with their “reduced??” lives.
*and I am reminded that somewhere in a past thread, our RTF made a strong and glowing expression of appreciation about the capability that only the female of our species can actually grow a life within and then so strongly protect it after birth.
neo:
And yes, I make the rules here for the simple reason that this is my blog … But I’ve noticed over the years that there are some things I prefer to nip in the bud or they get out of control and drag the whole thing down.
Totally agree – it is your blog and you have the right to run it anyway you want. I apologize if ever giving you a reason to think otherwise. Have even stated that you can feel free to ban me – since I have enjoyed reading & commenting here. Have never complained about you deleting some of my replies to GC™ – that was your right.
neo:
I’m pretty tired of the feud between you and om, but I tolerate a certain amount of it. I find your gay slurs especially annoying, however. Consider yourself warned – once again, because I’ve said this before.
I don’t recall initiating “the feud” – even at the beginning, middle, or present.
I don’t consider the word “infatuation” to be a gay slur—GC™ seems to have an infatuation with certain MALE commenters here, and also seems to stalk them in order to hassle them, to make insulting or disparaging remarks, and in general be rude towards them.
The word “closet” was meant as a “gay slur” towards what I consider to be GC™’s gay behavior. In the future, I will avoid replying (since I don’t initiate) with such obvious slurs.
I also have a right to respond (since I don’t initiate) to GC™’s insulting or disparaging remarks and/or rude behavior directed towards me; however, also recognize your right to ban me for such replies.
Former Georgia candidate for U.S. Senate Herschel Walker blasted Barack Obama for sending black people backward in equality by demanding they vote based on skin color.
But as the rest of the world marked one year on since Hamas terrorists invaded parts of Israel and killed 1,200 people, while kidnapping another 250, Harris was getting ready for her close-up.
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Are Republicans trying to ‘Out Lie’ the Democrats this Year?!?
Groceries are more affordable now than in 2019. So why are prices still such a hot-button issue?
MarketWatch isn’t MSM or RWM. Article seemed totally bogus at first – apparently because I am not a “worker” but a retiree. Most groceries I buy are higher than they were in 2019, but many are about the same. I stopped buying potato salad because it could almost be called potato soup – not the Deli potato salad, but that packaged stuff next to the Deli in Walmart. The price is about the same, but it seems they add more water to keep the weight the same. The sandwich meat I buy is about the same price it was in 2019—probably a few cents more tho. Chips & soda I like are waaaay higher. Used to be able to get out of Walmart w/ $25-30 of food stuff, but its more like $40-45 now…note that is after the first of the month big buy and stock up.
Article seems to be correct – maybe even for retiree me, since my SS checks have gone up each year since 2019. Charts made sense to me…
WSJ vs Brandon Johnson
https://archive.md/IawkV
Per Mike Plaiss WSJ link:
Brandon Johnson Plays the Slavery Card
Anyone who has actually researched the history of slavery—especially the Atlantic Slave Trade, the History of Colonial America Slavery (started in 1619), and the History of the Arab-Islam Slave Trade (700+- AD) would realize that slaves in Colonial America were lucky. Heck, that Colonial American history of slavery doesn’t include Indentured Servants or attempts at enslaving American Indians. Lucky Slaves landed in Colonial America—unlucky slaves ended up in South America and the Caribbean, or in countries east of Africa. Of the roughly 12-million African slaves via Atlantic Slave Trade, less than 500,000 were lucky enough to make it into Colonial America (future North America/USA)…some say just 388,747.
USA’s dependents of slaves should pay a portion of their yearly incomes as a Lucky Slave tax…
Male Slaves along the Arab-Islam route were castrated—both young and old. That slavery started soon after Islam started and continues to some degree today. DR. JOHN HENRICK CLARKE says some 30-40 Million African Slaves (@ 1:45) were taken by the Muslims.
From an old blog no longer updated – Arab-Islam Slave Trade. Lots of info and videos have been scrubbed from the internet and American History by those who are rewriting the history of slavery in colonial America.
Anyway, I get thrown off when the Slave Card gets played, so just read that WSJ article yourself…
I feel like I’ve noticed a shift in the wind lately.
And if the WSJ is commenting, that means something in itself.
_____________________________________
The Lightness of Being Kamala Harris
…but Ms. Harris seems to have plateaued. If you read the Democratic press, which means nearly all of the press, you’ll notice a creeping concern this week that Mr. Trump is gaining in the polls in the battleground states.
Democrats are suddenly worried, and a few are starting to blame Ms. Harris for playing it safe with her version of Mr. Biden’s 2020 basement campaign strategy. They want her to define herself better for swing voters.
That’s good advice, assuming she is up to it. But if she really is a doctrinaire progressive, as her career going back to California suggests, then she’s better off in relative hiding. And if she’s not confident enough about her own views to express them with any specificity beyond evasive generalities, that is also revealing information for voters.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/kamala-harris-media-interviews-stephen-colbert-cbs-joe-biden-record-39c7daef
Anyone realize that income inequality is a farce unless you have borders?
Anyone realize that if the population collapses, what will hold up global warming (farce)?
subplot…
The Age of Depopulation
Surviving a World Gone Gray
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/age-depopulation-surviving-world-gone-gray-nicholas-eberstadt
Anyone realize what happens when economy of scale loses scale?
300,000 years mankind has NEVER decided like feminism improvements to commit species suicide! (and many knew what the end result would be!)
Driven by an unrelenting collapse in fertility
a dearth of procreative power is the cause of humanity’s dwindling numbers, a first in the history of the species. A revolutionary force drives the impending depopulation: a worldwide reduction in the desire for children
A worldwide dominance of FEMINISM plots the line perfectly…
and the backlash that has started won’t happen fast enough
in fact, the youngest think it’s terribly yucky and bad to have any kids
They played with the control handles of love, fidelity, romance, and twiddled the knobs of what kept us going, and we wont remember how to get back… in fact, early feminist papers (and funny funny soviet ones) talked about this intelligence that was not written down, but was passed from generation to generation… how to REAR kids not raise them (you raise corn, you rear animals).
Basically.. we all let Uncle what’s his name come in and adjust the TV set to improve it, twiddling the dials and all that, and now, there is no real picture, when before it was at least a picture, if not a perfect one.
The leftist intelligentsia and others did the same to our survival psychology.
actually… i really shouldn’t care… i won’t live to experience it…
so, i understand no one else caring much. but caring about the
future generations is one of those survival psychology things…
Global fertility has plunged since the population explosion in the 1960s.
Global fertility has plunged since the explosion of Feminism in the 1960s.
For over two generations, the world’s average childbearing levels have headed relentlessly downward, as one country after another joined in the decline.
For over two generations, the world’s average childbearing levels have headed relentlessly downward, as one country after another joined in the feminist movement.
Islamic feminism is a form of feminism concerned with the role of women in Islam. It aims for the full equality of all Muslims, regardless of gender, in public and private life. Islamic feminists advocate for women’s rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded in an Islamic framework
As you were informed… they did these ‘ideas’, ‘memes’ etc… FIRST… then exported the social bomb… a bomb that once unleashed cant be stopped… how can one stop an idea? even a nuclear weapon was once an IDEA. it was simple… Give women bad ideas, and they will undo cohesion, and they could step in… but again… how can one stop an idea? how can one stop a bacterium…
Oh no – is another ‘Red Wave’ coming!?!
Heck, I thought Trump was gonna win in a landslide in 2020. Then I believed everything about the infamous ‘Red Wave’ saving America in the 2022 midterms. Ended up w/ dysfunctional REPs having a bare majority in the House, and they eventually got rid of their own Majority Leader.
Articles are Power Line’s Republicans Rising – AND – WSJ’s More Americans Identify as Republican Than Democrat. Here’s What That Means for the Election.
Yeah, humble hermit me is sticking w/ the Betting Odds this year – AND – Trump is definitely up in my Top 4 sites (Polymarket, RCP Betting Odds, Election Betting Odds, and PredictIt). Doesn’t bode well for Ukraine and EU – and may not bode well w/ Israel either w/ an embolden Russia teamed up w/ Iran, IMHO. Then again, Harris also suks…
Harris is an imbecile on her best day. I would vote for Trump a million times before even considering voting for such a buffoon as Harris. And you have to truly be a fool to think a Trump election would embolden Putin. You surely must drink gallons of Kool-Aid, Karmi.
The humble Kermit™ can’t seem to grasp that Russia and Iran have interests regarding Israel that have little to do with The Great Orange Whale (TGOW), and he also forgets about the Abraham Accords and the moving of the US embassy in Israel under TGOW.
The isolationist faction in the Republican party is less of a threat to Ukraine and Europe than continuation of the FJB junta (Harris/Waltz).
Good to see that you are still alive, Art. I thought about you the other day.
GC™ of the R-herd of sheeple bleaters cannot control his infatuation with the humble hermit Karmi, and peeps constantly from the darkness of the closet hoping for a glimpse…
Karmi:
Cut the gay slurs.
I’m pretty tired of the feud between you and om, but I tolerate a certain amount of it. I find your gay slurs especially annoying, however. Consider yourself warned – once again, because I’ve said this before.
And yes, I make the rules here for the simple reason that this is my blog. It’s perfectly okay to disagree with me or with each other. A certain amount of nastiness is also to be expected at times. But I’ve noticed over the years that there are some things I prefer to nip in the bud or they get out of control and drag the whole thing down.
What a delicately flowing beautiful little tango! Notice the smiles on the women violinists. It brings to mind the final scene in “True Lies”, Jamie Lee with a rose in her mouth and Arnold swinging her in his arms. Por una cabeza, by a head. Are you thinking of the election? Better that than the opening of “Shindler’s List.”
On the projections of a mass demographic decline, I don’t give much credence to ideas about a “species mind” or similar, where somehow we recognize “in our genes” that as we develop a mass prosperity culture and economy, the need for children declines, and the amount of energy and time allocated to children “must” give way to maintaining your life in this more complex, technical, and interdependent environment [one that also requires more trust of “the other” to be successful]. This type of reallocation seems quite reasonable in and of itself, but of course within limits* [that the “Femi Nazi’s have transgressed].
Some allowance for using technology to aid in caring for a growing elder population should probably be made, as the fraction of younger caregivers declines [as seems to be occurring in Japan?] and in any case, as Art suggests, this cohort [aka “us”] will be gone soon enough and the “youngsters” can get on with their “reduced??” lives.
*and I am reminded that somewhere in a past thread, our RTF made a strong and glowing expression of appreciation about the capability that only the female of our species can actually grow a life within and then so strongly protect it after birth.
neo:
Totally agree – it is your blog and you have the right to run it anyway you want. I apologize if ever giving you a reason to think otherwise. Have even stated that you can feel free to ban me – since I have enjoyed reading & commenting here. Have never complained about you deleting some of my replies to GC™ – that was your right.
neo:
I don’t recall initiating “the feud” – even at the beginning, middle, or present.
I don’t consider the word “infatuation” to be a gay slur—GC™ seems to have an infatuation with certain MALE commenters here, and also seems to stalk them in order to hassle them, to make insulting or disparaging remarks, and in general be rude towards them.
The word “closet” was meant as a “gay slur” towards what I consider to be GC™’s gay behavior. In the future, I will avoid replying (since I don’t initiate) with such obvious slurs.
I also have a right to respond (since I don’t initiate) to GC™’s insulting or disparaging remarks and/or rude behavior directed towards me; however, also recognize your right to ban me for such replies.
Herschel Walker to Barack Obama: ‘Telling Us to Vote Based on Color Is a Step Backward’
Obama has lost his ‘Mojo’…
***
Picture Worth a Thousand Words
Kamala Harris posed for Vogue cover on anniversary of October 7 massacre
didnu nuffin