How is everyone dealing with their finances in this economy?

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

“Unchecked capitalism took advantage of the slightest hint of socialism, therefore, socialism is the problem.”

And I didn’t even need an essay for it.

This post perfectly illustrates the difference between a bit of acid reflux and projectile vomit.

[V]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

Thank Jesus my youngest is off baby formula too. You better hope the mom breast feeds because holy smokes has that ever got expensive. I spent close to $8000 the first year just on formula. Is it really that expensive to produce this stuff?

Especially when the manufacturer stops making a certain formula and tells you they'll have a replacement sometime in the future. So then you need ready to feed bottles, and that's an insanity cost. The whole thing with baby formula is outrageous.

I will say, though, that 8k per year is probably a poor guess. We foster, and so we need to use formula. However, due to the fostering, we get all infant care reimbursed, so I know exactly how much we spend on diapers, formula, etc. Over the first 6 months we've spent $420/month, or just over $5k for a year, and we use the fancy Enfamil formula too. So $8k per year just for formula alone is highly excessive, I would guess.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by pylon

TLDR/broolcorysto incoming but this is my take...




The first thing that was immediately apparent was how deceptive the stats on Covid were. Car dealerships for the better part stayed open, full tilt boogie, business as usual minus capacity restrictions for a while. Buildings full of middle aged, overweight smokers with bad diets and more comorbidities than you can count. We were coughed on by thousands of people. We dealt with hundreds of anti maskers. And in all of that I know of one car dealer employee in the entire province that died of Covid. One single person. And I can assure you, a large portion of them weren't vaccinated. Many of us caught it, nobody died. There are about 40,000 people working at car dealerships in this province. Where are the hundreds of grocery workers that died? Support should have been given to those at risk, yes. But shuttering the economy globally has had devastating, lasting effects on the world economy, youth education and people's health that will take a generation to fix. Those willing to continue on with life, should have been allowed to at their own risk.

Pure horse**** Covid misinformation. Brutal.

[pylon]

So the solution to capitalist exploitation of consumers that's driving up prices is to capitalism harder with fewer regulations? OK...

Yes.

Capitalism promotes competition and competition creates cheaper prices. Over regulation stifles everything. Once you have multiple players in anything, at least one of the parties is going to try and buy market share with a lower cost. It's why virtually everything is cheaper in the US. Massive competition and less regulation.

It's why we pay 3X the money for a block of cheese in Canada. You can thank the Canadian Dairy Commision.

It's why our cell phone and internet bills are the highest in the world.

It's why Space X can put a rocket in space for 1/10th of the cost of the government.

I could type out examples for an hour. The US system certainly has its flaws, but it is far better at price regulation than Canada.

[BlackArcher101]

Am I the only one wondering with all this socialism going around how come I/we never been able to benefit from it? Blaming everything on it just seems laughable.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by pylon

Yes.

Capitalism promotes competition and competition creates cheaper prices. Over regulation stifles everything. Once you have multiple players in anything, at least one of the parties is going to try and buy market share with a lower cost. It's why virtually everything is cheaper in the US. Massive competition and less regulation.

It's why we pay 3X the money for a block of cheese in Canada. You can thank the Canadian Dairy Commision.

It's why our cell phone and internet bills are the highest in the world.

It's why Space X can put a rocket in space for 1/10th of the cost of the government.

I could type out examples for an hour. The US system certainly has its flaws, but it is far better at price regulation than Canada.

The US had higher inflation numbers than Canada over the last few years.

[Fuzz]

Pylon doesn't really concern himself with facts.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

The US had higher inflation numbers than Canada over the last few years.

That's not even comparable.

Your cell phone bill in the US was 30 bucks a month in the US and went up 4% YoY to $31.20.

In canada you were at $70 and it went up 2.8% to $71.96.

Without knowing the starting point it's an impossible comparison to make, especially when almost every comparable on this side of the border was noticeably far more expensive before inflation came into play.

Gasoline.
Food.
Housing.
Electricity.

All are massively less expensive in the US after currency conversion and percentage of income is factored in.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by pylon

That's not even comparable.

Your cell phone bill in the US was 30 bucks a month in the US and went up 4% YoY to $31.20.

In canada you were at $70 and it went up 2.8% to $71.96.

Without knowing the starting point it's an impossible comparison to make, especially when almost every comparable on this side of the border was noticeably far more expensive before inflation came into play.

Gasoline.
Food.
Housing.
Electricity.

All are massively less expensive in the US after currency conversion and percentage of income is factored in.

That sounds awesome down south. Have you considered moving there?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by pylon

That's not even comparable.

Your cell phone bill in the US was 30 bucks a month in the US and went up 4% YoY to $31.20.

In canada you were at $70 and it went up 2.8% to $71.96.

Without knowing the starting point it's an impossible comparison to make, especially when almost every comparable on this side of the border was noticeably far more expensive before inflation came into play.

Gasoline.
Food.
Housing.
Electricity.

All are massively less expensive in the US after currency conversion and percentage of income is factored in.

Have you been to the states recently?

[surferguy]

I couldn’t ever imagine looking at America and thinking “that’s how things should be done.”

Of all the things that drive me nuts about the states (and there is a list a kilometer long) unfettered capitalism is #1 on my list.

[timun]

Originally Posted by pylon

Capitalism promotes competition and competition creates cheaper prices. Over regulation stifles everything. Once you have multiple players in anything, at least one of the parties is going to try and buy market share with a lower cost. It's why virtually everything is cheaper in the US. Massive competition and less regulation.

Okay, but...

It's why we pay 3X the money for a block of cheese in Canada. You can thank the Canadian Dairy Commision.

The US dairy industry is directly and indirectly subsidized by the government to the tune of tens of billions of dollars annually, so that dairy products can be sold for far less than the cost of production. US consumers don't pay as much upfront for dairy products, but the difference is made up on the back end by the amount of taxpayer money funnelled into propping up the dairy industry.

It's why Space X can put a rocket in space for 1/10th of the cost of the government.

"The government"—NASA—always contracted out the design and supply of rockets and componentry. SpaceX has received billions and billions of government contracts over the last 20 years. If not for government contracts they would have gone belly-up long ago.

I could type out examples for an hour. The US system certainly has its flaws, but it is far better at price regulation than Canada.

There's no doubt it's a bigger market with more competition, but if you think prices are lower in the US simply because they love capitalism that much more than we do, you're delusional. They manipulate their markets just as we do, and subsidize the crap out of all sorts of stuff.

[nik-]

This corny ass dude is still crying about vaccines loooool

[V]

I don’t want to derail the pylon pile-on, but on another note, I find it very interesting how offensive it seems to be to even bring up the idea of budgeting or cost management in this thread. It really shouldn’t be. To repeat Pepsi, if nothing else, budgeting provides incredible peace of mind. And secondly, while I appreciate folks believe they should be entitled to live a certain lifestyle if they work in a certain job, the simple fact is that sometimes you’re not, and cost management can open a lot of opportunities to make free money simply by cutting costs that are lower priority than others. Anyways, sorry if I offended, but I do like to evangelize budgeting, as offensive as it may be.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by pylon

Yes.

Capitalism promotes competition and competition creates cheaper prices. Over regulation stifles everything. Once you have multiple players in anything, at least one of the parties is going to try and buy market share with a lower cost. It's why virtually everything is cheaper in the US. Massive competition and less regulation.

It's why we pay 3X the money for a block of cheese in Canada. You can thank the Canadian Dairy Commision.

It's why our cell phone and internet bills are the highest in the world.

It's why Space X can put a rocket in space for 1/10th of the cost of the government.

I could type out examples for an hour. The US system certainly has its flaws, but it is far better at price regulation than Canada.

Have you looked at what the government pays in subsidies to US dairy and farm producers? They have chosen to have the government subsidize directly rather than charge the consumer. US agriculture is not an example of capitalism.

What do you see as the difference between US regulation of telecom spectrum and Canadian regulation of telecom spectrum? It’s actually because of increased regulation and control that the IS has more competition. It goes back to to the break up of Bell into the baby bells.

You seem to want more regulation and subsidies based on two of your examples here.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by GGG

Have you looked at what the government pays in subsidies to US dairy and farm producers? They have chosen to have the government subsidize directly rather than charge the consumer. US agriculture is not an example of capitalism.

What do you see as the difference between US regulation of telecom spectrum and Canadian regulation of telecom spectrum? It’s actually because of increased regulation and control that the IS has more competition. It goes back to to the break up of Bell into the baby bells.

You seem to want more regulation and subsidies based on two of your examples here.

Me!!! I would like him to type out examples for an hour! lol

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by V

I don’t want to derail the pylon pile-on, but on another note, I find it very interesting how offensive it seems to be to even bring up the idea of budgeting or cost management in this thread. It really shouldn’t be. To repeat Pepsi, if nothing else, budgeting provides incredible peace of mind. And secondly, while I appreciate folks believe they should be entitled to live a certain lifestyle if they work in a certain job, the simple fact is that sometimes you’re not, and cost management can open a lot of opportunities to make free money simply by cutting costs that are lower priority than others. Anyways, sorry if I offended, but I do like to evangelize budgeting, as offensive as it may be.

Cost management has a defined upside (I.e. if somehow you found a way to eliminate all of your expenses to $0 you are limited to only being ahead by what you spend.) Focusing instead on making more money has unlimited potential upside. Not saying you should spend like crazy and be grossly negligent in how you spend money, but rather there's a diminishing return to cost management where at a point, effort would be be spent more on upscaling your skills, finding new income sources, etc.

Also for many Canadians it's a revenue problem. Collectively right now objectively things are much less affordable than they used to be.

[Izzle]

Curious how much SaskTel charges for cell phone plans compared to Alberta.

[PepsiFree]

Gas at Costco in Calgary: $1.53/L CAD

Gas at Costco in US cities, in CAD/L:
- Spokane $1.53
- Seattle $1.65
- San Jose $1.82
- Las Vegas $1.56
- Salt Lake $1.37


Median home price in CAD:
- Calgary $557000
- Spokane $678000
- Seattle $1212000
- San Jose $1790000
- Las Vegas $618000
- Salt Lake $784000


Median household income in CAD:
- Calgary $98000
- Spokane $86000
- Seattle $158000
- San Jose $172000
- Las Vegas $81000
- Salt Lake $90000


I guess the lesson here is that even though housing prices are significantly higher and things like healthcare and education take a significantly bigger chunk of the average income, capitalism works because you spend a little bit less for gas (in some places) when measured against your income and you get sweet deals on cell phones.

It’s incredible how stupid people have become.

Also had to laugh at an example of capitalism having a “check” was the brief period where they didn’t have new inventory so dealerships gouged people on used cars because they could.

Good job.

[Flacker]

Telecom and internet prices are high in a massive, sparsely populated nation. That is due to a small customer base and the infrastructure needed to provide coverage. People like to blame the providers, but the market can't be directly compared to the US.