Whenever this comes up about athletes and musicians, I say the same thing. I’ve watched friends lament how much money quarterbacks get compared to “heroes” aka police officers, military, firefighters, etc… yet vote against tax increases and buy sports jerseys.
It's a bummer because I want to know about what people enjoy, like, not what they hate or dislike. So often it is the latter. I somewhat blame social media as outrage and anger gets more engagement than anything else it seems and folks seem conditioned to express that more often than something ... nicer.
When you're a kid it's blue toy aisle versus pink toy aisle. SEGA (blue logo / mascot) — or I guess Playstation these days — versus Nintendo (red logo / mascot). Coke versus Pepsi.
As we reach adulthood we're primed for duality in a way that makes us think we must choose one way or the other when presented some choice we didn't even ask for. Do I shop at Walmart, or Target? Do I vote Democrat, or Republican? Do I watch CNN, or Fox? Do I use iPhone, or Android? Do I take the Blue Pill, or the Red Pill? By the time one has been coerced into the decision they've already lost. The only winning move is not to play :)
[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
The reason I say numbers vary is because the chart at the top of this article paints a different story (that more than 50% do not vote)
It sounds like the alternative you propose would involve... not having a ticket? That is clearly not an acceptable outcome if I want to go to the concert.
A lot of people just don't get it: Tickets for major sporting events and concerts are luxuries for the rich, exactly like private jets. They are supposed to be unaffordable. I don’t know where this idea came from that a middle class family is supposed to just be able to afford live Taylor Swift tickets. This isn’t 1970.
If artists price them below what they are worth, they are going to sell out to (mostly) scalpers in 200 milliseconds. If they price them at what they're worth, people grumble and complain about how expensive they have gotten, but that doesn't stop people from buying them, so there is no downward pressure on the price.
So by now they're pricing them way more than they are worth, and people are buying it regardless, so there's still further upside :\
I want concert tickets to cost more; I hate scalpers more than I hate the rich.
Yeah, I remember when Led Zeppelin first came to my town.
All the way from England.
It wasn't 1970 yet either.
That was two dollars well spent.
Or find a free concert to go to. There’s always free music performances to be found if you know where to look.
Someone like Taylor Swift has hundreds of millions of fans. There are what, maybe 50-100 tour dates a year.
The venue doesn't have a million seats.
Most of the fans aren't going, then.
I've seen it when I've written tweets, write it dramatically, engagement everywhere, write it with nuance, nobody engages.
I suspect this is coming for many thing that AI will automate. In the future rich people will have human performers performing for them only while everyone else has to make do with AI generated slop.
Here in the US, now though? There are huge swathes of people who will say, with all seriousness, "I'd rather be dead than be friends with a liberal/etc." It's so polarized. Not just teasing/smart ass as outright abusive labeling.
People do notice changes, however, even if they don’t contextualize them correctly all the time.
I wouldn't call it an actual trend unless it falls outside the typical range and stays there for more than a few years.
this is something I found weird about how inflation was politicized.
One group said “its corporations being greedy, exclusively!” another group said “its the stimulus money in everyone’s hands, exclusively!”, centrists would say “supply chain disruptions!”
but…. capital misallocations are expected in any economic school of thinking? this means all of those politicized scapegoats are expected factors?
the part nobody wants to hear is that if you still begrudgingly bought overpriced necessities instead of starving to death in the street, then yes, you contributed to inflation. congratulations.
if corporations raised their prices and profits stayed the same, that would be the most equalized outcome.
if profits went down then there would be a case for attempting greed and failing, and if it was for withholding a necessity that would be a real case worth scrutiny!
but since they raised prices and profits went up, despite that combination being what really pissed people off the most, it means that the buyers … had more money… from… somewhere. hmmm….
But about those savings: nothing about our economy is about rewarding savers, every single aspect of monetary and fiscal policy is to promote transactions in the economy
If not to another person for consumptive reasons, they want savings to go into assets
If you want to save in its currency the governments will tax you the most, up to 55% if you’re self employed anywhere Americans have a 1/3rd chance of living
If you do what the government is pointing at with big blaring neon signs, you’ll often get taxed 0% and be paid a tax rebate for doing do.
Because saving is not stuffing money under a mattress, it is investing it for a presumed return. And many major voting blocks benefit by hitting the presumed returns, which happens by promoting transactions.
I mean even as recently as last month you have politicians on the right saying that people are even now "hoarding" stimulus checks, or are still living large on them.
$3,600. In 2020. That's a generous definition of hoarding. And an extremely generous definition of "living large".
the PPP loans along side amplified unemployment benefits were far longer running
in California, Covid unemployment was $450/week with an additional $600/week on top, and it lasted 18 months statewide
the reality isn't as political as it masquerades as, there are and were capital misallocations as a result of these broad programs
What are they supposed to do? Meat is generally considered an inelastic good [1] unlike your concert example.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand
Also let's not judge the shoppers in the original comment. Maybe they wanted it for a special occasion which made it less optional.
That people consider meat an inelastic good shows a cultural and commercial brainwashing. The idea that an individual or family could go without meat is practically heresy in the United States. Frankly, it's ridiculous and shows a fundamental lack of imagination and willingness to accept that reality doesn't guarantee anyone's ability to acquire cheap hamburger, chicken breasts, bacon, or any other meat.
I used to think the shopping mall full of zombies in Dawn of the Dead was just a hamfisted critique of consumerism. But after all the complaining and not much doing I see Americans doing I think if you reanimated our corpses they would mostly go right back to shopping in a literal sense.
> In grocery stores, they’re shifting away from name brands to store-brand items, switching to discount stores or simply buying fewer items like snacks or gourmet foods.
Like everything must be a war between two sides. It can’t simply be the most basic economic concept at work.
On the other hand, I’m equally surprised at how few people seem to understand supply and demand has influence on prices. I watched as some family members complained loudly about how concert prices were outrageous and unaffordable for the average person like them, then went right on ahead and then bought the tickets they wanted anyway. They didn’t understand that people’s willingness to pay uncomfortably high prices was the entire reason tickets were so expensive.
I watched the same thing happen at the grocery store earlier where a couple picked up a package of steaks, lamented that it was going to cost them X hours of work, and then threw them in the basket anyway. It’s like large parts of the population are on purchasing autopilot and the price barely matters.
I think it speaks volumes to how high our standard of living has been if we think that it’s newsworthy that some people are switching to store-brand foods or buying fewer gourmet food items (quoted from the article above). Of course, the people suffering the most are the ones who have had to buy store brand foods and avoid gourmet luxuries long before inflation kicked in.