Why does the cost of living increase?

I was reading an article about social security.
www.usatoday.com...

There will be no cost of living increase for more than 50 million Social Security recipients next year, the first year without a raise since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975, the government announced Thursday.

and I thought, why is it more expensive to live today, than it was yesterday.

One would think, with advancements in technology, that the cost of living would go down.

Not so. Is technology making us slaves?


[edit on 15-10-2009 by exposethosesecrets]

This was one of my favorite questions in high school, many years ago, and while many have tried to explain it to me, I have yet to understand it. Why is it that items that cost 10 cents years ago, are now 2 dollars? It not more workers because, because many labor jobs have been eliminated for machines that are supposed to be more cost effective, yet somehow the finished product costs more?!

The only thing I can figure is that all governments have magic money making machines and with a rise in population they have to print more to make sure everyone has some, and in doing that they have raise price to make sure the owners get the majority of it.

reply to post by exposethosesecrets


Check this out. Pretty thorough explanation of inflation.... Everybody should see this.
Money as Debt:

Google Video Link

reply to post by exposethosesecrets


K Try this again

Money as Debt:
id=VideoPlayback video.google.com... style=width:400px;height:326px allowFullScreen=true allowScriptAccess=always type=application/x-shockwave-flash>

As long as you live under a government you'll P2L(Pay to Live)

The price will always be high, as you will always value life and continue to pay.

But everything is energy, so paying is the act of transferring energy. Their goals are to keep your energy levels low enough to survive and keep their rat wheel spinning.

[edit on 15-10-2009 by SeeingBlue]

Originally posted by red_leader
reply to post by exposethosesecrets

 

K Try this again

Money as Debt:

Yep it's an excellent video, I have seen it before. Here ya go on the embed:

Google Video Link

Things dont cost more year after as much as the dollar is worth less year after year.

The only way things could honestly cost more is if the processes, materials, human resources used to make said things became smaller in number and output thereby increasing the value of the end product.

For most consumables the processes become more efficient and materials more numerous as less are used and should become less expensive year after year. To a point anyway. Eventually, without proper planning and foresight, materials will become more scarce forcing a cost increase in the end good but also driving a spinoff industry as alternative methods and materials for production are sought. Then the cycle starts over.

Short answer = Government. Government sticking its hands all up in your business makes things cost more.

reply to post by Paroxysm


Thanks Paroxysm, maybe one of these days I will master the "Embed" function.

It is because the "Profit margins" increase. Thus the cost of doing what you did yesterday also increases.

Wanna see the proof? Lets go to wall street and take a look.

reply to post by exposethosesecrets


Do you know what?

I've been thinking exactly the same thing with TV Licenses (not that i have one anymore) but yes TV License goes up and up each year when there are more of a population to pay the License so in reality it should go down.... anyway why is the Colour TV License so much more than a B&W TV License? The difference is nearly £100!!

Also house prices are on the way up again.... how do they figure that?

We are in a recession in the first place because everything is sky high and nobody can afford anything lol



[edit on 15-10-2009 by TruthxIsxInxThexMist]

quality of life laws drive the cost of living upwards, as well. some examples:

annual safety and emissions testing
federal, state and local taxes to support quality of life laws
handicap access in public facilities
minimum wage
air bags
shoulder harnesses
child car seats
mandatory no fault car insurance
irradiated foods
tamper proof packaging
zoning laws
road, water and air quality issues
etc

each time one of these quality of life laws is put in place, it drives the cost of living upwards. the costs are passed to the consumer. so your money will buy less the next year than it did the year before.

The cost of living increases for two reasons:

First, inflation. Not the inflation of prices. The inflation of the amount of currency that circulates. In 1930, there were 25 billion dollars that existed in the whole wide world. In 2000, there were 800 billion dollars. Yes, they were running the printing presses. Then there's that insidious exponential curve of compound interest, a burden paid to the banks that gets larger and larger over time.

Whenever there is an increase in the money supply faster than an increase in goods and services provided, the prices of these goods and services goes up to compensate. The situation can become more clear if you imagine an unlikely scenario: what if everyone won the lottery on the same day and was paid one million dollars? Do you still think you could persuade someone to come to your house and fix your plumbing for a hundred bucks? Now you're asking a millionaire. Same would be true for a loaf of bread, or a gallon of gas. It would "cost" more, not because you need to pay more, but because what you're paying with is worth less.

The second reason the cost of living goes up is because those who control the corporations, land, and real estate are constantly improving their financial positions relative to the working classes. Over time, their consolidation of power reduces the amount of choice the public has in where they get their goods from, allowing those who own those goods and services to keep prices artificially high. If there is just one man in your town that owns all the apartment complexes in it, then he can decide to keep prices very high, because there is no competitor undercutting what he has to offer. So rent goes up.

One would certainly think that with automation, improvements in manufacturing technique, efficiency, and technology that the abundance of material goods would make life cheaper and easier to live. This is a fair assumption, but what we don't consider in this idea is where these things actually come from. They come from factories.

During the initial production stages, a factory will hire many hands-on workers to build a product. At the same time, they hire engineers and analysts to find ways to make the manufacturing cheaper and faster, and in come the robots. They will do much more work for much less money overall, so the workers get fired. Now that the workers are fired, their addition to the pool of job seekers drives down the worker's wage because they are plentiful and needy. Now that the workers are competing against each other to get fewer and fewer jobs, the "market" doesn't see them as particularly valuable, and they are paid as such. So unless you owned that factory, you saw no benefit from the advances of technology, efficiency, and automation. If you were just a laborer, you would find your situation growing steadily worse as technology marches on.

Slowly, but inevitably - over a matter of decades and generations - the powerful get more powerful, the weak have fewer choices and become worth less, and the money we pay with gets diluted by inflation until the cost of living starts to get out of reach for a great majority of humankind.

Capitalism at work.



[edit on 15-10-2009 by 30_seconds]

reply to post by 30_seconds


That is not capitalism. It is downright fraud, and should be illegal in any capitalistic society.

In fact, that is the entire reason it was all done in secret and presented in a way contrary to what it actually is, in response to economic conditions they themselves created through manipulation and fraud.

"Magically", they were able to instead of getting rid of the problem in response to the situation, got it all legalized.

But that is not capitalism at all. Nor have we truly lived under a capitalist society since then either.

Aside from calling it capitalism, I agree with you.

It's plain out fraud and it should be treated as such. If you or I did that, it would be called counterfeiting and we would go to jail. Wrongfully calling it capitalism only goes to legitimize it as being a valid part of a capitalist system - it is not.

Capitalism does not operate on a debt based system. Debt is not the same thing as Capital. The only value in debt is from what another person mentioned - the lower class rats who will keep spinning the wheel for them. IE: Benefits the elite.

Thanks for all the great replies. And yes, I've seen that Money for Debt movie.

It's a good one.

It seems like a simple question. But, I feel if it were an easy answer, TPTB wouldn't be using it as a tool to dominate mankind.

In 1953, the average spendable income per family in Florida was $4000
Average car cost. $1800

Average spendable income in 2007 was around $32,000 after taxes.
Average new car cost $28,400

So in the 50's a new car was about 50% of ones yearly income. Now, it's around 80%, not including increased cost of financing, insurance, license fees, fuel, etc.

But take a look at housing. In the middle 50's the average 3 bdrm house was around $10,000. Or roughly 300% of yearly income.

Now the average new home costs 292,000, or 900%.

www.census.gov...

[edit on 15-10-2009 by exposethosesecrets]

Originally posted by TruthxIsxInxThexMist
reply to post by exposethosesecrets

 

Do you know what?

I've been thinking exactly the same thing with TV Licenses (not that i have one anymore) but yes TV License goes up and up each year when there are more of a population to pay the License so in reality it should go down.... anyway why is the Colour TV License so much more than a B&W TV License? The difference is nearly £100!!

Also house prices are on the way up again.... how do they figure that?

We are in a recession in the first place because everything is sky high and nobody can afford anything lol



[edit on 15-10-2009 by TruthxIsxInxThexMist]

I really have to ask - what is a TV liscence? I know I dont want to know really - youre going to tell me its a tax for owning a TV right?

reply to post by exposethosesecrets


I live on social security, and got this news a few weeks ago. Bad news it was, and prices are going up all the time. I can barely afford gas to get to the store, and have to walk the last week of the month. Our raises are never much, but they help. I would do most anything if I could hold a job again and if one was available to work at.

Originally posted by exposethosesecrets

and I thought, why is it more expensive to live today, than it was yesterday.

In a nutshell, the quantity of the fiat dollars is constantly increasing beyond the quantity of real goods/services being created, hence there's more dollars chasing a slower-increasing amounts of goods/services, hence the value of the fiat dollars decrease, hence the inflation of the prices of goods/services.


In short: the decrease in the value of the dollar = increase in the prices of goods/services in dollars.

One would think, with advancements in technology, that the cost of living would go down.

Yes, indeed, that is the case, but, with the vampiric, greedy private banking industry, we are constantly losing our productivity gains to THEM, who profit enormously from the steady increases of the dollars that are made available to them, based on the productivity gains that we, the sheeople, create.


In a world that has neutral currency (currency that has NO interest/usury attached to it), the productivity gains would be distributed amongst the masses, the owners of the businesses and others, with very little going to the very top.


The KEY is to get rid of the usury-based, debt-based money!

Just watched Money for Debt part II.

Pretty good.

Originally posted by Amagnon

Originally posted by TruthxIsxInxThexMist
reply to post by exposethosesecrets

 

Do you know what?

I've been thinking exactly the same thing with TV Licenses (not that i have one anymore) but yes TV License goes up and up each year when there are more of a population to pay the License so in reality it should go down.... anyway why is the Colour TV License so much more than a B&W TV License? The difference is nearly £100!!

Also house prices are on the way up again.... how do they figure that?

We are in a recession in the first place because everything is sky high and nobody can afford anything lol



[edit on 15-10-2009 by TruthxIsxInxThexMist]

I really have to ask - what is a TV liscence? I know I dont want to know really - youre going to tell me its a tax for owning a TV right?

Hi there.... well over here in the UK if you buy a TV you need a License or "tax certificate" as you say to watch the TV.... apparently our License Fee goes towards programmes/research etc etc on the BBC because they don't get subsidised from TV commercials so in effect even you don't watch BBC1, BBC2, BBC3 OR BBC4 you are supposed to own a License!

reply to post by TruthxIsxInxThexMist


HOLY TAX ME FOR BREATHING BATMAN!!

Wow - you guys are really on the path to destruction there in the UK - tax for watching TV - thats unbelievable.

They spend that tax money to feed you bias and lies - money well spent .. ??