The downside of an economy is that sometimes it can go completely bonkers. Inflation has been at an all-time high in nearly all western countries, and the war in Ukraine isn’t helping at all. Basic prices are going up at alarming rates, energy has become nigh unaffordable and most middle class families are struggling to make ends meet despite having two decent incomes. According to economists from Bloomberg, we’ll have to start making an extra $5200 per year per household to compensate for the price increases. That means that if you’re a couple, each of you needs to start earning over $200 a month more. If you’re living alone, you’re pretty much screwed unless you win the lottery.
While that alone was enough to make the internet bring out their most sarcastic tweets, the story doesn’t end there. About the same time as the previously mentioned research paper was published, another article hit the internet that said US companies were having their best year since the 1950s. Which of course leads to a very simple conclusion: companies have been eagerly jumping on the “increased costs” wagon, despite their costs actually being pretty similar. We’ve heard throughout pretty much every media outlet in the last few years that Covid has ruined the transportation industry, electronic chips are at an all-time low, and it’s harder to get materials from abroad. This doesn’t affect every sector as much however, where pretty much every sector has increased their prices to pretend it does. This, naturally, didn’t fall all too well with Twitter either.
There’s no telling how long this economic crisis will last but all signs point towards the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Middle class is going to have to hope they end up richer through this process because if this situation keeps up for a few years there’ll be no more middle class. People will need to start doing multiple well-paid jobs in order to keep basic needs like energy and food affordable, which isn’t a situation we want to be in. So all Twitter kidding aside – the economy is in real shambles right now and unless you can somehow conjure up an extra $500 bucks per month with your magic wand, it’s going to be a rough year. We can only hope this inflation situation and the energy prices going rampant ends soon.
