Posted on 05/08/2022 8:50:21 AM PDT by Mariner
It is 7.30pm on a Wednesday evening and Donna, a 47-year-old care assistant, is sitting in her Wakefield home, wrapped in a shawl.
Like many across the country, she has become acutely conscious of the rising cost of living. Increasing food, energy and diesel prices are already having a significant impact on her day-to-day life.
Energy tariffs that offer cheaper “off peak” rates allow Donna and many others to shift their use of household appliances to the evening, or night time. Other adjustments, though, are more dramatic, like eating significantly less hot food.
“I have noticed it recently,” she said. “My kids have left home and it’s just me and my partner. I’m washing after six now. We don’t really put the heating on. We wrap. If we put the heating on to take the cold out of the air, it’s after six and it’s only for an hour.”
She added: “We’re eating a lot of cold food, so as not to have to cook.”
Donna’s husband has also begun driving their car to work to save on the additional diesel consumed when she used to drop him off each day and then return home.
She is addressing a focus group of nine working-class voters in Wakefield, all of whom describe their own cut-backs, albeit to varying degrees, to reduce costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
My highest electrical bill is $125 a month in the winter, with electric heat and no cutbacks.
These people are screwed.
“I think most people on this forum thought those would trigger inflation, and they did.”
The legitimacy of the scope and scale of them should have been questioned in as much as the lockdowns did not affected the country, industreis or individuals equally, as only some folks were put out of work and millions of retired folks had little to no loss of income, but $1,400 was thrown out to EVERYONE. So with business activity truncated by travel reductions and lockdowns excess money was thrown out on an economy with shrinking demands and stymied supply chains. Classic inflation is too much money chasing too little goods, and that is what the “stimulus” helped create. The Feds actions, and then Biden’s actions just made matters worse.
P.S. I sent my $1,400 back.
I felt as a retired person with no loss of income it was my job to be out in my local economy supoorting my local economy, local shops, as much as I could. I knew too many folks laid off because theu were not “essential” workers, and many local shops wondering how they would stay open. The pnly ones were the giant big box retailers and retail chains who saw little drop in income.
Same here in York, PA.
That's the way it was when I was stationed there 1973-1976 too. Also, TV stopped broadcasting at 10 PM.
It’s supposed to warm up throughout the week.
Hopefully the same for you.
Not everyone got $1,400.
The first batch was supposedly sent to my home, then supposedly sent to my bank. But it never did arrive. I even got on the IRS website and filled out a form to ensure it would come to me correctly. And after 12/31 the law was defunct and the IRS was not allowed to send it. I guess I should have been dead to receive it.
But no matter. I learned I could deduct it from my taxes for the year. Except it was means-adjusted. So I could not deduct it.
Then the second one WAS means-adjusted from the get-go. I got around $400.
I know you were painting with a broad brush, but every time I’m erroneously assigned some benefit like this, I feel the need to speak up.
Carry on.
What a load of Brit-crap!
I do notice we seem to have quite a few psychics on here who seem to know what everyone thinks.
“Every Free Republic neocon believes this sacrifice, and the Americans suffering similar hardship, is totally worth it to deny Russia revenue for energy, food and fertilizers. Energy and food inflation hits everyone. But it’s the poor and middle class that truly suffer. Untold millions will starve in the 3rd world.”
And the thing is, all they had to do to keep hundreds of millions alive and also prevent the suffering of this type in the West was tell Ukraine to abide by the terms...and they could have hinted at coming back another day if they really wanted to fight Russia.
Oh well, Russia will now apply the same ‘solution’ to this problem that the United States applied to Serbia, over Kosovo.
Trump tried to warn Europe not to depend on Russia for its energy. If you are afraid of Russia, don’t fund them and become dependent on them. If you’re not afraid of them, why should we fund NATO?
I think most people on this forum thought those would trigger inflation, and they did.
———
The fact is thank Senile Joe and the war cheerleaders, Biden’s Sanctions and weaponizing the USD brought on Vlad’s sanctions which are shutting down the west’s business, manufacturing, credit markets, and comfort.
Wait till $7-10 trillion of unwanted, unused dollars start returning home, ( started noticeably last week, Japan started selling off billions of USD securities off, Sauds taking yuan for oil, etc…) add to it of the supply side induced inflation we have, trillions being printed off, severe credit markets disruptions, US banks not loaning to other banks, …..list is long. We have seen nothing yet.
….and Vlad says checkmate again.
In any case, you can’t shut down the economy for a year and pay everyone to stay home without paying a high price in inflation. You can’t print money to hide your broken economy without inflating the currency.
You can’t war on the oil industry, drive up the cost of fuel, without driving up the cost of everything and making inflation that much worse.
But if you do all that, it’s handy to blame the Russians.
It would be helpful if there was an official definition of “neoconservative”??
And how exactly they are different from a “conservative”?
Where is the line between the two?
Can’t tell the players with a score card.
I think Trump hoped to mitigate a lot of that by repatriating our industry. Just achieving oil independence helped to keep dollars from leaving, and bringing manufacturing home would help to soak up those dollars.
We’re doing the opposite, and headed for a crash. It doesn’t have to happen.
All them volcanicaction the last year.
But, but, I thought wind and solar was going to supply plentiful and cheap energy.
What happened?
The UK has lots of coal. They don’t need to import energy. There’s also nuclear power.
They shot themselves in the foot and now they’re complaining.
Mute oatmeal - a real, and growing problem.
And don't even mention the Rice Crispy issue...
The 'Pop' is gone...
/s
To reheat four plates of food in my microwave would cost me less than two cents.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.