This message was self-deleted by its author

[Zoomie1986]

44. Most Americans have always been morons

About economics. I consider myself quite stupid about the finance side of money, but I do better than most with economics in general.

That's why I'm always dismayed at how unrelated to reality some Americans are when it comes to economics.. One of the most annoying is how they expect prices to lock into place for all time, but they don't. Prices tend to go up over time for essentials like food and household cleaners and cars. But some of them go down over time, too. I always like to point to my ex-boyfriend's OG CD player, that cost him over $700 in 1983 because he bought it on the release date. Only a few years later, CD players were down to a couple of hundred bucks, and even had more whistles and bells. An Apple II computer in 1982 was $1298 retail. I can get a Macbook laptop for less than that at Costco right now, and you can bet that its performance is Space Age compared to that old machine.

I'm not saying that price-gouging doesn't happen, because it does. It's a real problem right now with certain producers. But we need to make sure we're focusing on the actual perpetrators, and not getting carried away and confusing gouging and normal pricing over time.

My husband works for a grocer. I'm tired of customers screaming at him about prices that a) he doesn't control at all, and b) that are normal pricing over time and not gouging. I understand being upset about the gougers--everyone finds that reprehensible. What is neither understandable nor acceptable is the marked increase in how many customers have become so out of control in expressing their outrage at innocent people that security and cops have had to get involved. There is absolute zero call for that kind of behavior, but, every day, I have to wonder if this is the day some deranged lunatic beats up or stabs or shoots my husband or one of his co-workers. And I'm sick of living with that kind of fear and worry.

We wouldn't have this problem if people would stop being stupid long enough to educate themselves about basic economics and the causes of a particular price increase, rather than going into total meltdowns at innocent parties.