The Taste of an Economic Downturn

[Iroh]

Generally, I would say in most part of the world, the ordinary man had greatly felt the impact of the hike in the price of foodstuffs. Inflation has been slowly creeping into our various economies and the hike in prices doesn’t affect foodstuffs alone.
 
Although, the prices of foodstuffs have significantly increased in my area, I think the price you’ve got to pay for a kilo of onions bulbs are ridiculously high.
I also think the prices of goods and services are somewhat increased during any festive season, perhaps due to the increased level of demand.

Overall, I think the ordinary man greatly feels the impact of the economic woes and downturns. I consider myself to be an ordinary person and my pockets have certainly felt the impact of the creeping recession and economic woes.

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[Husires]

What is the standard for measuring inflation in your country? The prices of one product, such as onions, cannot control the general mood of the market.
According to the International Monetary Fund, there are four historically important drivers of food commodity prices: decline in global crops, the main interest rate of the Federal Reserve, increase in fertilizer prices, and increase in oil prices. Other than that, they are factors that lead to speculation in the price, including temporary changes in the price.

you can read full report and source
Source: https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/12/09/global-food-prices-to-remain-elevated-amid-war-costly-energy-la-nina

[autumnleaf]

I understand how difficult it is to live a normal life today. Everywhere you look, prices are rising. When you cook, the food ingredients aren't complete, therefore the flavor you wish to create isn't available. If this continues for several more months, I'm not sure how to allocate my income.

[dothebeats]

The chairperson of the senate committee on agriculture just brushed the issue off saying she can live without onions. This is the same old woman who just encouraged people to reduce their consumption on rice when its price soared intolerably high.

Such people have no sympathy for other people, and that is why her statements should be well remembered and everything should be done so that in the next elections she and her party get as few votes as possible. However, I hope that people will still learn from everything and realize how important self-sufficiency is, so even though it is unrealistic to expect that anyone can be 100% self-sufficient, anyone who has a little land can produce vegetables such as onions, potatoes, lettuce, carrots and parsley and many other cultures that do not require any special knowledge or too much effort.

Oh boy, I assure you people remember everything, but slap them with $$$ and suddenly they'll forget everything. That is why the Philippines is fucked. The current chairperson of the Seneate Committee on Agriculture  is a businesswoman whose ventures focus mainly on real estate and housing/subdivisions. There was even a comment from her that farmlands can easily be converted into subdivisions, and the sellers of those farmlands can buy land that is cheaper somewhere else and then plant crops. You see, the government here is like a legal mafia that plans to rape the resources of this country. Even if you have competent people at your disposal, if these people are your bosses, you will not have a voice and your expertise will be a waste.

There are tons of comments from the agriculture secretary that are just foul from an agriculture perspective. She treats everything as a business, and agriculture to her is nothing but a way to make money. She doesn't even know how to plant crops and that there are certain regions that can only grow a certain crop, and that it varies depending on the place.

I also think the prices of goods and services are somewhat increased during any festive season, perhaps due to the increased level of demand.

Except that we have been in this situation for months. The onion bulb situation has been going on for 3 months, whereas the rice import issue has been going on for years. Just imagine being one of the largest producers and exporters of rice for decades and suddenly, you fall off and has been overtaken by the likes of Vietnam and Thailand which has significantly lower fertile lands good for rice planting compared to you.

[Smartprofit]

Inflation is soaring and we will feel the consequences soon.
Using the moneyprinter very liberal always results in peoples hard earned money losing its value  basicly people in power
take what they did not earn.

The deterioration of the economic situation in my country is not the biggest problem....

As for the economic situation, inflation is very high in my country.  As a result, many people are starting to save on food, clothing, and household items.  People are more likely to repair shoes than throw them in a landfill (as they used to do).  Some imported goods have disappeared from sale. 

However, the range of goods cannot be called scarce. 

The rise in the price of goods leads to the fact that it is profitable to stock (buy a large number of goods without waiting for their price to rise).

[jostorres]

I understand how difficult it is to live a normal life today. Everywhere you look, prices are rising. When you cook, the food ingredients aren't complete, therefore the flavor you wish to create isn't available. If this continues for several more months, I'm not sure how to allocate my income.

The only thing that we can do for now is to pray that this soon shall pass but other than that, we can do real time actions like budgeting. If possible, eat only two meals per day. If some ingredients or vegetables are expensive then why not try to plant on our own? Maybe their seeds are also costly a little bit but it's going to be worth it when they grow because we can harvest more than if we will buy piece per piece on the market.

It's not only the price of the goods are rising but the electric and water bills are catching up as well. We can also do something about them to save like avoid using washing machine for now but just do hand wash. We can also limit the use of aircon and electric fans.

[stompix]

There are various reasons cited. Again, there's the decision not to import. Another is hoarding and price manipulation. There's also the fact that it's holiday season, although the price has already been rising for months. As a matter of fact, just 6 months ago, a kilo is only around $2. But of all the reasons cited, none is convincing enough.

This of course shouldn't be the reason but it would be for sure the cure!

We have experienced the same price scare with sunflower oil in Europe, hoarding, people panicking and importers asking for huge prices but, immediately in a free economy the laws of offer and demand started kinking in, and rapeseed oil started to enter markets that used only sunflower, imports started to look very profitable form other countries, as soon as the profits from doing so looked juicy then hundred of tons hit the market, from 5 euros per liter it went down to 2-3, slightly above the prepandemic prices.

Now look at the differences here, even assuming I would fill a 10ton truck from a chainstore so no producer prices, I would pay 15k euros, I would spend 5000 euros on gasoline driving from Paris to Manila, rent a boat for another 5k, all the time stay in 5stars hotels, so that's about 30k euros but I could sell my cargo even at half of the price 6e/kg for 60 000euros, so that would be a net gain of 30k euros using the most ridiculous and expensive way of shipping goods!

~

I'm not sure the UK and France are good comparisons for onion prices as I'd assume they'd remain pretty stable since wild garlic is abundant in the UK (to an extent apparently a lot of people didn't eat it before the 80s because it was considered a weed).

I quoted US walmart prices, too, the max is 4$ for the best batch in Woolworths   Australia, and ~3$ in stores in Brasil when the whole world has 1/4 or 1/6 of the price something is wrong there.

I've checked some random prices in superstores in the Philippines, and there is no such difference on anything else.
This is not something triggered by inflation, this is something local done by stupid politics.

[bittraffic]

With every product, today having to be shipped to deliver and gas prices skyrocketing, it's expected to see prices drastically affect daily lives.
Importing Onions can be a solution, especially with Chinese onions, they still are big suppliers of just about anything and cheap as well.

It may affect the farmers in a country but this is at least what the government can do to maintain stability. Onions are necessary for cooking, heck every day we eat onions. We could go to war for onions.

[Hydrogen]

I think people are definitely more fearful, stressed out and depressed today than they were back in 2019.

In terms of basic statistics, the number of people who are living paycheck to paycheck has increased dramatically. Average credit card debt has definitely risen while the number of people with full time jobs who can afford average cost of rent has steeply declined. Life expectancy has made a severe downturn across the globe. Crime, violence, suicide and homicides are all on the rise.

While the majority of people probably do not follow the news or current events closely enough to immediately register everything that is occurring. I think little by little, the harsh reality of it is setting in.

I remember buying a 2 liter bottle of soda for $0.99 back in 2007. Around 2015 the cost doubled to around $2.00. Now in 2022, the cost is around $2.70. While the majority of people definitely have not been lucky enough to have their living wage near triple from 2007 to the present. People are getting further behind. Living costs are growing at a considerably faster rate than wages. Even if they're not consciously aware of it, on some subconscious level I think they're definitely feeling it. And it can't feel great.

People like me who have always been curious enough to follow doom and gloom headlines, had more than 15 years to get used to the idea that my future might be somewhat screwed economically. And it is still not the easiest thing to deal with. It must be so much worse for those who thought they were special, who believed things like inflation could never happen to them.

[kryptqnick]

IMO if a person is oblivious to soaring prices, it can mean two things (at once or one of them). One is that this person is quite financially secure, so the price difference isn't making a big impact on one's purchasing power. Another reason is that a person is living in a country where inflation is allegedly high, but it's not that significant. I didn't notice rising inflation in the UK when it comes to groceries, but I noticed it a lot when I got back to Ukraine and can see how prices are really 1.5-2 times higher than a year ago. That being said, from my experience with inflation, prices don't rise equally. If they changed significantly, and you're on a budget, you will have to spend more than before, but you can reduce the spendings by looking closely at prices of products. Maybe something you used to buy every day is now very expensive, but there's something else (or even basically the same thing but from a different brand/in a different supermarket) you might like that doesn't cost too much. Exploring new foods and looking for substitute dishes to cook can help overcome the challenge and also make it less of a tragedy and a bit more like an adventure.

[darkangel11]

I think people are definitely more fearful, stressed out and depressed today than they were back in 2019.

In terms of basic statistics, the number of people who are living paycheck to paycheck has increased dramatically. Average credit card debt has definitely risen while the number of people with full time jobs who can afford average cost of rent has steeply declined. Life expectancy has made a severe downturn across the globe. Crime, violence, suicide and homicides are all on the rise.

While the majority of people probably do not follow the news or current events closely enough to immediately register everything that is occurring. I think little by little, the harsh reality of it is setting in.

I remember buying a 2 liter bottle of soda for $0.99 back in 2007. Around 2015 the cost doubled to around $2.00. Now in 2022, the cost is around $2.70. While the majority of people definitely have not been lucky enough to have their living wage near triple from 2007 to the present. People are getting further behind. Living costs are growing at a considerably faster rate than wages. Even if they're not consciously aware of it, on some subconscious level I think they're definitely feeling it. And it can't feel great.

People like me who have always been curious enough to follow doom and gloom headlines, had more than 15 years to get used to the idea that my future might be somewhat screwed economically. And it is still not the easiest thing to deal with. It must be so much worse for those who thought they were special, who believed things like inflation could never happen to them.

I felt the same thing when I used to buy a bottle of water before going to the gym. It was 2003 and the price wasn't really going up in 2004 and 2005 but then one day I went to the same store to buy the same bottle and the price was up, a few months later it was up again. Nowadays it costs more than twice what I used to pay in 2005 and it's the same water, they're not going to run short or anything. They were taking it from a well in the mountains for the last 100 years or so. The only reasonable explanation is the government doubled the money supply in the last 10 years and everything went up accordingly.

[Jody.Drummer]

I understand how difficult it is to live a normal life today. Everywhere you look, prices are rising. When you cook, the food ingredients aren't complete, therefore the flavor you wish to create isn't available. If this continues for several more months, I'm not sure how to allocate my income.

The only thing that we can do for now is to pray that this soon shall pass but other than that, we can do real time actions like budgeting. If possible, eat only two meals per day. If some ingredients or vegetables are expensive then why not try to plant on our own? Maybe their seeds are also costly a little bit but it's going to be worth it when they grow because we can harvest more than if we will buy piece per piece on the market.

It's not only the price of the goods are rising but the electric and water bills are catching up as well. We can also do something about them to save like avoid using washing machine for now but just do hand wash. We can also limit the use of aircon and electric fans.

Everyone will face the same situation but it depends on where they live. What I think is not really touched by this crisis in terms of food is the people who live in villages and still rely on natural products for their consumption. Many of my relatives who live rely on agricultural produce and they don't have much trouble when it comes only to spices and other kitchen needs because before a situation like this happened they also relied on that and you could say they had their own garden.
Indeed I would not say they will not feel the impact of what is happening now, it's just that they won't be like most people who have to buy every day for kitchen needs.
The thing I'm thinking about right now is to make a simple hydroponic garden. Looks like it will be interesting.

[Doan9269]

Things have not been that easy with affordability in meeting up with the daily needs because of the poor economy all over the world whereby inflation impact has created fear to what tomorrow may be, it has been a race of the survival of the fittest, things have gone so badly that obe has to almost lose hope in restoration back to the usuals, the economy downtown is what has been created unnoticed ever since the pandemic closedown the shut down many businesses and now we are beginning to see the effect of it since the past years.

[FanEagle]

The chairperson of the senate committee on agriculture just brushed the issue off saying she can live without onions. This is the same old woman who just encouraged people to reduce their consumption on rice when its price soared intolerably high.

Such people have no sympathy for other people, and that is why her statements should be well remembered and everything should be done so that in the next elections she and her party get as few votes as possible. However, I hope that people will still learn from everything and realize how important self-sufficiency is, so even though it is unrealistic to expect that anyone can be 100% self-sufficient, anyone who has a little land can produce vegetables such as onions, potatoes, lettuce, carrots and parsley and many other cultures that do not require any special knowledge or too much effort.

The idea is that if you pick people who will listen to whoever bribed them, or their party, or their ruler whoever depending on the nation, then you could tell them the most logical argument ever and they will return with silly stuff like this just because they want to listen to who has their ropes.

I know a politician that once said "Flood is not that bad, it cleans the streets from dirt", yes FLOOD! and that person was trying to follow their party leader who refused to talk about it. So, you could never expect people like this to make sense, they only say or do what they are ordered and they can't do anything else at all, do not have a single ounce of remorse in them.

[Sanitough]

I wonder how ordinary people around the world felt the worsening economic situation in their respective countries. I know that although many are very much aware of the soaring inflation, nothing has changed much in their day to day lives. I can observe that in some families. They seem oblivious of how the prices of basic goods and services are rising in double digits.

From my household, however, we can literally taste the economic downturn. It feels odd and sad that we have to sacrifice taste in order to somehow cushion the impact of the economic problems my country is facing. Onion here is already hitting $12.57 a kilo. Depending on the size, that's about $0.63 apiece. Cooking an ordinary dish for a small family requires a bulb or two. During this holiday season especially, we normally need tens of onions. That's not affordable anymore. So we had to greatly reduce the use of onions and try not to care about how the dish would turn out. On ordinary days, onions are even removed from the ingredients.

I had to share this here because it feels like the economic situation has already affected the most basic need of everybody. It seems insignificant because it's only a spice, but I thought that if the economic situation is already affecting everybody's taste buds, it could mean things are getting pretty serious.

I wonder, especially in other countries, how drastic is the change in your daily life that's brought about by this economic downturn?

A lot of changes have been happening since the start of pandemic and until now that the inflation has become uncontrolled already. Yes, even spices here in our country have been consistently increasing its prices too so we just need to adjust our taste buds, otherwise we won’t be adding spices anymore, lol. However, there are certain times too that those prices have been controlled but with the holiday season that we have recently faced, it even boost the rising of prices for all our basic necessities and even in services.

[carlisle1]

Things have not been that easy with affordability in meeting up with the daily needs because of the poor economy all over the world whereby inflation impact has created fear to what tomorrow may be, it has been a race of the survival of the fittest, things have gone so badly that obe has to almost lose hope in restoration back to the usuals, the economy downtown is what has been created unnoticed ever since the pandemic closedown the shut down many businesses and now we are beginning to see the effect of it since the past years.

Indeed, we are now on our survival the downtrend of the economy is being affected and we are all witnessing how tough life
after that close down when pandemic hit each affected country.

We need to find ways to combat the inflation and try our best to survive, the growing increase in terms of every product that
we needed in our everyday life.

Things that we needed to have just to survive, it's fearful but we don't have any option but to go with the flow and stay alive.

[uneng]

I wonder, especially in other countries, how drastic is the change in your daily life that's brought about by this economic downturn?

The worst part are the changes in the emotional side of people. It's terrible to compare previous years and conclude your life quality is decaying. For us, human beings, it's not normal to decay, since we are constantly fighting to thrive and prosper in every aspects. Then we see people sad, angry, bored, annoyed, hopeless. The incidency of conflicts between each other and mental diseases increase considerably.

[kawetsriyanto]

In my country, we start to feel hard days after the government raised the fuel price and removed some subsidies. This decision triggers a significant increase in the prices of basic necessities. Moreover, the issue of recession makes a further price increase since the number of some goods/necessities are decreasing a bit. I suspect people may start to consider stockpiling goods as a crisis precaution. I assume this situation will trigger the price to skyrocket if there is no proper solution from the government. As the result, my family decreases monthly spending allocation, as a preventive way if the bad economic crisis continues.

- https://www.voanews.com/a/indonesia-hikes-fuel-prices-by-30-cuts-energy-subsidies-/6730301.html

[Woodie]

I wonder how ordinary people around the world felt the worsening economic situation in their respective countries.

It's all about adjusting and I want to think one of the sectors that was really hit by this economic  caused by the Russia Ukraine War is the energy sector as fuel prices went up but with time should stabilize.

From my household, however, we can literally taste the economic downturn. It feels odd and sad that we have to sacrifice taste in order to somehow cushion the impact of the economic problems my country is facing. Onion here is already hitting $12.57 a kilo. Depending on the size, that's about $0.63 apiece.

If we apply laws of supply and demand to this, am starting to wonder just how easy is it to grow onions back home because these are crazy high prices unless these are some kind of special onions in your home town, and how much of a price jump has happened before the economic crisis because sometimes trader's could also be causing artificial shortages to earn more money fraudulently!

I wonder, especially in other countries, how drastic is the change in your daily life that's brought about by this economic downturn?

Covid, fuel prices going up etc it's all about being more resource conscious these days but I think we all have gotten used to it and live like nothing ever happened which is the funny things but am hopeful things will get back to normal ..

[Vaskiy]

I wonder, especially in other countries, how drastic is the change in your daily life that's brought about by this economic downturn?

The worst part are the changes in the emotional side of people. It's terrible to compare previous years and conclude your life quality is decaying. For us, human beings, it's not normal to decay, since we are constantly fighting to thrive and prosper in every aspects. Then we see people sad, angry, bored, annoyed, hopeless. The incidency of conflicts between each other and mental diseases increase considerably.

With time we need to progress, for which the human living standard is getting downturn. In my country we've got a saying we should know to live in all conditions. When you're in good wealth you should know how to live, same is when you're left without anything. Right now this should be a learning for us to keep ourselves prepared to experience any sort of situation and lead a better life.