How a weaker dollar is quietly making life more expensive

https://apnews.com/article/trump-dollar-currency-inflation-dd9a898575e378e6144b3f152e9d8ea0

82 points · 9 comments · view on lemmy.world

9 Comments

unmagical@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 128d (4 replies)

You get paid $10 an hour.

Gas to go to work goes from $2.80 to $3.90. Your food goes up a couple tens of dollars a week. Your rent goes up a couple hundred to cover your landlord's higher gas and food prices.

Your employer wants to save money so they fire you.

misk@piefed.social · 7 pts · 128d (3 replies)

Funnily enough, US can produce everything listed here domestically. This is what happens eventually when you outsource all your manufacturing and that’s doing of both political parties.

JonDorfman@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 128d

The political parties are only enabling it. The people doing it are the boards and CEOs of the massive companies. That’s the real reason we lost our manufacturing capacity. The constant pursuit of shareholder value.

As an aside, it’s very funny how your response implies the US doesn’t domestically produce its own food and gas. Those are absolutely things that the US produces in insane quantities.

frongt@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 128d (1 reply)

It can, but at higher prices.

The biggest reason stuff is so cheap in the US is because we import it from countries with weaker worker and environmental protections. They get paid less, worked harder, and exposed to more hazards. Produce it domestically and it's going to be more expensive.

Is this a bad thing? No. We should absolutely be insisting on those protections. The US is one of the wealthiest countries in the world; we can afford it.

misk@piefed.social · 2 pts · 128d

Yes, US policy is to dump initial societal and environmental costs onto others. It does not mean it’s cheaper overall, it’s only cheaper if you don’t care about brown people. Things being more expensive for Americans is good news for everyone not living at imperial core.

otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 128d

Only for us poors using USD as transactional proxy. 🤌🏼 Fuck the system, fellow plebs.

DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social · 3 pts · 127d

Empires don't die overnight. First they must lose their respect and influence. Or fear, as the case may be.

Then, one day, they wake up and realize everyone is using different markets and they've alienated all their traditional allies only to find out very, very quickly why their prosperity was based on those particular alliances.

SchwertImStein@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 127d (1 reply)

Wow, guys. If your currency is worth less it is worth less

ResistingArrest@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 127d

How less clouds are quietly making a bluer sky