Comment on What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices?
nbafantest@lemmy.world 5 months ago
One thing I’ve noticed is that people I know have 2 problems.
- they might not know what things should cost. If the prices rises, I notices it right away. I shop at the same grocer and know the standard price of everything I buy. I notice a price increase when I pull it off the shelf.
Most my friends don’t notice a price increase until they check out.
- My friends that do notice a price increase never substitute or change their meals. They will still buy the same meals. Even if the stuff they need go on sale every other week.
I’ve found that usually most my stuff I can still buy on sale at least 1 or 2 times per month.
These two problems mean that our generation doesn’t really put much pressure on stores to keep prices low.
Rent: Housing costs in America are entire caused by a supply shortage due to limitations on supply. We can literally build as much housing as we want and set the market rate at anything, but since the 60s America hasn’t built much and the little we have built has been expensive single family homes. This is a choice voters have made for 60 years, but voters can also make other choices.
vonbaronhans@midwest.social 5 months ago
On the housing thing - there’s been a major intrusion of private equity firms into the regular house market. A report came out recently claiming as much as 40% of all single family homes sold in 2023 went to private equity firms to turn into rental properties (iirc). On mobile, otherwise would try to actually give you the source.
I can’t speak to the food price increases. My only thought is that most people are creatures of habit and always have been, so I doubt that individual shoppers ‘not putting pressure on the stores’ would explain a historic rise in costs. That said, if we did find evidence that shoppers are less savvy or willing to change habits, my first guess as to why would be people overall being more overworked and stressed. But until the data comes in, who knows.
phillaholic@lemm.ee 5 months ago
That report was bs
housingwire.com/…/no-wall-street-investors-havent…
Numbers don’t add up.
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 5 months ago
That’s not what that says at all. What it says is that companies that own 100+ properties make up a 3% of the market. You can have a small-ish company that owns 50+ properties that acquires 10 more, and they won’t make that list.
A wealth mom n’ pop investor that buys up ten houses houses to flip–or to drive up rental prices on other properties they have–would still be private equity.
phillaholic@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Look at the overall investor share, it was on a downward trend after the crash, and is only up a little. It’s been mostly consistent for over a decade.
nbafantest@lemmy.world 5 months ago
If private equity wants to invest in housing, that’s great.
There is no fundamental limit on how much housing we can build.
AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Uh, yes there is. Infrastructure.
nbafantest@lemmy.world 5 months ago
And what is that limit?
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 5 months ago
nbafantest@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Then… What is the limit to how much housing we can put on 1 acre?