comment: >
  
  Wouldn't the sellers just jack up their prices then because they know people can pay for more?..
  I know nothing about economy tho
context: Someone realised you need people being able to afford to spend money to keep economy going. >
  
  Adam Smith, the father of free-market capitalism knew this 300 years ago. >
  
  Dude actively asked for certain taxes like beer taxes to be lowered to improve the condition of the poor. >
  
  Don't get him started on landlords. >
  
  Any other good places to get in depth info on landlord-ism. Books, videos etc. >
  
  Henry George created an entire movement and economic philosophy centered around value being derived from resource point of origin and demand for an abstract good that humans should be collective owners of: land.
  Landlords maintain a non-productive service on a scarce resource which is a human need for all, from which they extract extreme profits relative to their contribution of mere ownership and (as minimized as possible) maintenance. His proposal was to tax the shit out of the monopoly on valuable land (really just tax all land -- and only land).
  The parasitic reward structure would collapse as landlords would now have to compete to maintain their profits. Want to charge a higher rent? Well you're paying X amount on your downtown block of land in taxes that are returned to the people, you better have improvements to justify people not going elsewhere so you can absorb demand. You have a decades old structure in a part of town suddenly being reformed and seeing skyrocketing demand? Well your tax bill just skyrocketed too, are you going to develop the high capacity residency needed to answer for your land hoarding or will you go under?
  I'm not a Georgist anymore, but his work is worth learning and understanding. >
  
  Interested on why you don't consider yourself a Georgist *anymore*. 
  I've read up on what he proposes somewhat and a lot of it makes sense on the surface. Would appreciate a little nudge in the direction of what could constitute a failure in his proposition. >
  
  well if owning land is taxed to the extend the expected profits are zero , why build anything in the first place. you wont be able to sell it. >
  
  Nono, the tax is proportional to the value the land provides. What gets built on top shouldn't get taxed to hell (at least as I understood it). Point being the tax spreads the benefits from the usage of the land itself. >
  
  My place is built on land rented forever from the government. I guess they can go tax themselves? 
  Barring edge cases like this:
  The problem is land does not provide much value until something gets built on it. Say you buy a forest and leave it be, at best hoping for speculative gains at worst losing money on it. Very different proposition to buying a forest, burning it down and building a large factory on the land. If you want to tax only the land and not what's above it then these two would be taxed the same. In the real world the latter activity would be taxed in proportion to revenue generated, value of the factory itself, CO2 et cetera. It's also not like the land value does not get taxed. In my country it's just another form of wealth which is taxed at 0.3-0.5%. >
  
  The minimum wage exists because companies would pay less if it were legal. Appealing to their ethics or empathy or any other such qualities is pointless, they will only pay more if they are forced to. >
  
  Companies would pay none if it was legal. >
  
  Or rather, they DID pay none when it was legal. They also sent kids into coalmines, and shot people to death for asking to not be treated like shit.
  There is no limit to corporate depravity when unchecked by law >
  
  In what way is it different to the Dutch consumer price index? Couldn't get an English wiki link >
  
  As far as I know the Dutch one is primarily a metric, but isn't directly tied to anything? While in Belgium for the majority of jobs it's part of the collective labor agreement that as soon as the index goes above a certain value it automatically triggers a wage increase. 
  Rent pricing and such is tied to it as well. >
  
  Omg rent is tied to it too? Sounds amazing. I'm moving to Belgium >
  
  Kind of, while there are some limitations rent wise its usually not quite as strict as "you cannot raise rent this year".
  Either way, if affordable housing is what you are looking for .. Belgium ( or Flanders, more specifically ) definitely isnt the place for you either.  40-50% of ones monthly budget going to rent or mortgage is not uncommon at all. >
  
  Yeah it's usually higher  or the same everywhere else, at least we'd be getting paid the actual cost of living >
  
  The 11.08% helps but it doesn't truly compensate, we are still worse off than we were, poverty levels are rising rapidly mostly due to extremely high energy bills.
  If you are upper middle class like me Belgium is still great but for lower class people its a real struggle these days, wage adjustment or not. >
  
  I'll take "things that would never happen in the states for 500 Alex". >
  
  This shit makes me want a general strike
  We should require wages to automatically match inflation every 6 months to a year  too. There's no reason corporations should pocket all that money while telling us it will get better. >
  
  Yeah same here. I hate how casually they say that unemployment needs to go up and wages need to stay where they are in order to tame inflation, as if there’s nothing else they can do. Meanwhile a windfall tax for grocery stores and energy companies are completely off the table. >
  
  "Some of you may not survive, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make"
  Now take these cameras away, I've got to go play with all this money I've just made >
  
  At this point its "Some of you may survive, but that's a sacrifice I'm not willing to make" >
  
  The inflation is around 10% so it's still a pay cut in terms of real spending power. Food is way over 10%. >
  
  Not always. Inflation is not equal in all areas. It depends on where and how you live and use the money. Even what you eat. Or have loans.
  It can easily be a pay rise for many or not enough for others.
  The advertised inflation here is over 20% - dome cists have not changed while some have gone up by 150+%. >
  
  
  dome cists
  
  I read that three times, wondering what the fuck dome cists are and why we're using them to measure inflation >
  
  No clue, I can't remember what it was before phone autocorrected it. >
  
  I'm guessing some costs >
  
  No no no, it's the workers that are causing inflation. Didn't you hear the US Fed? We need to stop giving workers raises.  Dude must not have gotten the memo. Fml >
  
  Came here for this comment.  My head almost exploded when I heard the Fed say that unemployment is good for the economy, workers are getting paid too much, and that companies should start getting rid of their employees to help the economy.  We really need to clean house here in the states. >
  
  It is good for "the economy".  As long as you understand that when they say "the economy" it's what's good for the 1%. >
  
  Yeah, they mean the elite or the 1%.
  The American government doesn't give two shits about the majority of its citizens.
  They want to keep people poor. The minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour and hadn't been raised since 2009. The federal tipped minimum wage is still a measly $2.13 an hour for fucks sake. 🤦‍♀️ >
  
  It will never happen, we have politicians asking for wage increases every year. Companies don't care about employees, instead of a pay rise they give you a spending coach. >
  
  When corporations are in trouble in stock market they fire a bunch of employees and to see a spike and not scare their investors. Yet they never cut ceo bonus’s or pay. They found a way to make money at the expense of people trying to work to survive and pay for their private yacht still >
  
  Meanwhile the head of the Bank of Canada is telling employers NOT to increase wages to match inflation. What a joke the Bank of Canada and Canada's federal government are. >
  
  That's not quite what the BoC head said.
  What he said was "don't sign long-term contracts with the expectation that the rate of inflation we have seen over the past year will continue".
  He was cautioning corporations negotiating with unions against providing cost-of-living increases in contracts under the assumption that the rate of inflation would be 7-10% every year going forward, as opposed to the 2-3% which is the norm.
  It's only bad if he's wrong and the 7-10% annual inflation becomes the new normal, at which point we've got far larger issues to deal with than the pay packages for unionized workers. >
  
  That is what he said although there's tacit acknowledgement of the fact that inflation will be high at least into a good part of 2023.  
  Also, some companies and conservative provincial governments have twisted the message into meaning that even for this year, raises should be kept low.  Case in point, Ontario's lowest paid education workers are seeing a raise this year not even half of what inflation is. >
  
  Union construction worker in Quebec here. Had a rep come to our job site to brag about getting us a 2% raise. Yippee. >
  
  Only an 8% pay cut? You guys are doing great! >
  
  Yeah. I dont often complain because in a global sense we are. When I look at what people in Europe are going through with energy prices I just shut the fuck up. >
  
  A central bank President who has his country’s best interest in mind… 🤨 >
  
  It's just posturing. We've heard that in France too. He's pretending to ask nicely if businesses are willing to raise wages, knowing full well that nothing will be done, but won't use his power to force anything. >
  
  Meanwhile energy prices are the highest in the Netherlands compared to the rest of Europe >
  
  My monthly bill is €400 with Vattenfall for a 90m^2 apartment with an A energy rating. I showed it to one of my coworkers who is paying around €50/mo on a locked contract from right before the prices went fucking insane. 
  New customers are subsidizing the older ones so Vattenfall can maintain their insane profits. On their own damn website, it says I should be paying around half of what I am currently, before the price cap. 
  Next year, my rate is going to drop at least in half, but I can only lower my monthly payment €40, so these fuckers are gonna get an interest free loan of 5k to invest all year until they are forced to pay me back. 
  If you can’t tell, I’m a bit salty :p >
  
  Lol, sounds like they Ponzi schemed their own energy sector. Incredible. 
  Energy should be a FLAT rate for everybody. You should only pay for what YOU use and nothing else. >
  
  Yeah, ideally. But the Dutch are notoriously frugal and this reflects that. Essentially, if the energy company can get a good rate on bulk energy purchases, they will pass that on to their customers via a locked in year long contract. That means when energy is cheap, you pay less, but now when we’re in the midst of a crisis, the current rates are dogshit and you pay a lot more.
  For existing contracts, the reality is that the company purchased enough energy for that customer when they signed up at that bulk rate, and customer is paying off that bulk purchase over the term of the contract.
  The smart option for everyone would have been to add a little extra margin on the low end and build an emergency fund to smooth out the spikes in prices. But you can’t wring out every last cent of profit that way so companies don’t do it. >
  
  A 5% pay rise does not level the 25% price increase in groceries but I might be bad at math. >
  
  % pay raise doesn't = groceries cost increase. Only way it would be equal is if 25% of your income goes to groceries. >
  
  It's probably MORE than 25% for most people. All people do now is pay bills, and the money is gone. So unless you're talking about a single guy who lives off of ramen noodles, food budget is going to be pretty high for most households. >
  
  I doubt it. Rent/mortgage takes up half, then there is energy bills, groceries is probably less than 25%. >
  
  Oh my god. Someone speaking some sense to this. 
  I cannot fathom how easily North Americans are now just accepting that high inflation is here to stay all the while their policy makers work explicitly to ensure wage gains do not grow.  
  Its surreal. >
  
  High inflation is intentional so countries can burn their national debt. This comes at the price of eating up the lifesavings of the little people. >
  
  If you look at union pay raises the past 2 years (we have alot of unions in the Netherlands) they have been around 2-2.5% each year. Next year I'm getting more than that because there is also a fixed raise in euro's (which is better for lower incomes), but we still aren't getting anywhere close to the 10% inflation. But I also realise not all companies have the margins to give a raise like that, a lot of them actually have struggled with rising costs themselves. No excuse though for those reporting record profits. >
  
  If we actually get to a recession it is due to corporate greed. It will be the first attested recession where companies are still making a profit during it. >
  
  Then you have more money chasing the same amount of goods. So inflation. >
  
  With price caps you don't get inflation, you get shortages. >
  
  Which is worse. Instead of cutting back on something to be able to buy bread you won't be able to find bread in the country. You can't fix an economical problem, prices rising, by making it illegal. >
  
  Wage control, such as price control, has never worked unfortunately, as a mid to long-term policy. >
  
  Well, as long he as he says it's ok....... >
  
  And here I am 19 months with not even a cost of living adjustment in record high inflation. 
  Thanks $company, in these unprecedented times you still found a way to fuck me while smiling during our quarterly meeting. >
  
  The Dutch get it. >
  
  It's the same reason Taiwan is facing such a wealth disparity. There is no wealth redistribution of profits to employees. Almost all profit is paid out to management bonuses or kept. >
  
  “Wealthy elitists say to do stuff for the common man with no intentions of actually doing anything” 
  All talk, no action, always. >
  
  What! Give regular folks more money? The audacity /s. Thinking that regular people will spend more money if they have it and keep the economy from tanking is something that maybe the US federal reserve might take heed to. >
  
  You guys make enough money and are rich enough. Stop hoarding the money while  your employees can’t pay rent.  ——— I think that’s the gist of it >
  
  … but we’re not rich enough!