When basic food, like vegetables, start becoming a luxury item, then we know something is very wrong with the overall system.
Sometimes it's due to crop failures or weather anomalies which correct themselves or are localized, affecting only certain products. But when it appears across multiple food products for extended lengths of time, then it's clear that the system is collapsing.
Based on the stats and data, it appears that this point of collapse is imminent. And this is in the USA, the wealthiest of nations, not some third world outback like mine.
Here in my sunny but struggling South Africa, I had to give up buying some basic foodstuffs years ago. Food inflation arrived and the cost of once simple basics ran ahead of my ability to afford them.
Foodstuffs that I enjoyed in the first half of my life, that I took as a staple, like cheese and yogurt, became luxuries.
Honey became liquid gold a few years ago and I had to give it up. That price hike was probably not just economically driven but also perhaps due to Hive collapse around the world. And that collapse in bee count was due to the toxins spread by foolish pesticide companies. Maybe worse than foolish.
So I just cut back. But then a few years ago even the most basic of foods - vegetables - became unaffordable, or their prices seemed unjustified. Broccoli and avocado, for example, which are real favorites and also crucial nutrition sources, fell off the menu.
I was left with potatoes, cabbage and butternut, which I had to eat daily for years, and still do. Along with my rice and lentils. And I've no problem with that.
Never once did I go into debt or use a credit card to artificially inflate my standard of living. I lived within my means, worked only as hard as I felt like to keep my mental balance, and life was fine. It still is. I can even afford avocado again.
However, among the wealthier nations like USA, and even among the rich all over, things are not so fine any more. In fact they look dire.
I was raised in a working class environment and never had money for luxuries of any sort. I've never known wealth. So I have other values and my needs are simple. But those born into wealth are the ones that might suffer more during this current global economic downturn.
According to another recent survey, nearly 70 percent of Americans are feeling “anxiety and depression” because of the state of their finances.
If your standard of living is based on your own hard work and effort, then anyone can achieve whatever they want according to their merit and sweat. And that is the ideal sold to us since birth in our current capitalist system.
And that system worked for a while, but it's not looking too good currently. One fatal problem in it is the fact that it's a system based on debt.
Most high earners were raised in a system that demands that you take on massive debt to get ahead. If you want a decent car, you need to finance it with debt. If you want to own a house, then you need to take on even more debt, and take a few decades to pay that off. We were groomed to think a lifestyle based on debt is normal because that was the only option.
So when the big meltdown arrives in the financial system, like it does every few decades, then those with an upper middle class lifestyle to maintain are forced to take on more debt. And that is where the system is now and that system is cracking under the pressure.
Imagine having to take on credit card debt just to buy food. Considering the fact that the average rate of interest on credit card balances is now over 20 percent, that is not good news at all.
To me that's crazy and leads only to a subtle type of imprisonment or slavery. It's crazy because you are paying 20% more for basic stuff like food. It's irrational and illogical to me. But that's where USA is today, particularly among the working class who can least afford it.
Either the average person is not financially educated or they are simply trapped in a system that is bad and have no choice, or they have been raised with wealth and are psychologically unable to live with less. Either way it's bad and suffering is increasing.
A recent survey found that 23 percent of Americans have decided to delay retirement. That figure is up from 14 percent last year.
Ironically the wealthy are suffering more than the poor. The poor simply carry on with a bare minimum, since that is their norm. But the wealthy have more mental anxiety being forced to scale down. Thus I can be happy in third world South Africa, while USA middle class are crushed under the collapsing economic house of cards.
I've never taken on any debt and never will. I bought my second hand car cash and only rent a home, with no desire to buy one. And I'm free and happy.
Those raised to think debt is fine and who now depend on it appear less happy. The capitalist game was rigged against them from the start and they never raised it.
Well, that time in history has arrived where the next crash arrives, and the crash of that wave will crush those with debt and perhaps destroy them. I'm talking about the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic — the AI company behind the large language model Claude — recently warned that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and push the unemployment rate as high as 20%.
This is just the beginning of the pain. As AI takes more jobs and there's no work for the labor force, poverty will ensue. And you can't rely on debt to help you then because debt makes you poorer than you already are. It's not a solution. It's a trap by the bankers to squeeze you to death.
Are you going to be the mark, the victim? Or are you going to break out of your conditioning since birth to have faith in this hijacked capitalist system that is rigged to crush the middle class, the working class, for the pleasure of the rich?
Give up this illusion of safety in debt, relying on a fiat currency that can be inflated out of thin air and return to a resource based economy, backed by hard assets or commodities like physical gold and silver which is immutable.
Or invest in digital gold - Bitcoin - the hardest money and the most scarce in the world, based on math and code.
If it's too late for you to invest in assets, then cut back on your lifestyle choices and find other values in this that are free, like I have. A philosophical mindset will save you from a life of depression if you're able to educate yourself.
Not only will education help you philosophically and psychologically, but as jobs shift it will help you to find a new way to work and earn the money you need to survive.
Forget about thriving, just survive at this stage. The coming collapse might last for some years. Many will be crushed to dust and swept away by the winds of change.
Adapt or die. Whatever you do, forget about debt as a safety line. And act fast because the change is already upon us.
https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/10-economic-facts-that-nobody-can
Image: https://pixabay.com/photos/burning-money-dollars-cash-flame-2113914/