Any *good* psychologists here? How do we deal with voters' "feelings"?

[Zoomie1986]

28. Odd

We're a working class household, but our grocery prices have come down considerably since 2020.

I've noticed that some of the supply issues are still sorting themselves out with a resulting impact on prices, but that's less of a problem than the price gouging that vulture corporations have used to max their profit margins at our expense. However, even that is starting to wane as things return to normal.

Too many people seem to think their 2024 grocery bills would go back to exactly what they looked like in 2019, and that never would have happened, even if we'd never had a pandemic. It's five years later. Prices go up for most things over that much time, and that's normal. So if a can of diced tomatoes is now 95c instead of 90c, as is the case at my supermarket, then that's normal inflation over time, not some huge price hike.

I've seen people who gripe and moan about how high gas prices are now, when the average was 31c a gallon in 1958, why can't it be that cheap again, gripe gripe gripe moan moan moan. They conveniently forget that wages then were also a fraction of what they are now: The minimum wage was $1/hr, and the average salary was $5100. Did I mention that most cars also sucked down gas to the tune of 8-10mpg? When we adjust gas prices for inflation, and consider the far more fuel-efficient vehicles available today, the average person in 2024 is far more likely to spend less on gasoline as a percentage of their income compared to people in 1958.

Anyway, we can't do much about supply chain disruptions that linger still, but we can make the case that corporations have gouged consumers, and need to face consequences for that. They do.

We can also make the case that people need to learn to think realistically about economics so that they can get some perspective about how prices do not remain stagnant over time. Some go down (gas is effectively cheaper now than in 1958), but most of the time they go up.

That's just how it is.