@HayekAndKeynes This is a compelling chart, one I had not seen. Do you have a source for it so I can look to see whether the trend has abated thru where we are in 24?
At least on food I’ve consistently paid less than what’s reported. Every week is a major discount on something. It just so happens it’s ground beef this week at $2.99/lb. @GiantFoodStores always has much lower prices using their bonus card or coupons.
The price of ground beef is up 45% since 2019.
Few things are more insulting to middle class Americans than this continual narrative that inflation didn’t hurt them at all.
One area in which costs have dramatically increased for me is on insurance of any kind, but especially car insurance on a percentage basis. Up around 40% over last two years.
@PrinceVogel I was a paralegal at DOJ in antitrust from 12-16 helping to prosecute Clayton and Sherman Act violations that were in part because of the Jones Act’s existence. It was the Jones Act itself that appeared anticompetitive.
Civil asset forfeiture, in which police can seize one's property without any criminal charges, places the onus on the individual to retrieve it only after significant time and expense, and allows police to use any proceeds to fund their own dept, is so counter to American values that it shocks the conscious.
Despite orgs across the political spectrum, from ACLU to Cato to Heritage, fighting for reforms, the practice persists. The only defenders of the action are governments. Both red and blue states are guilty of abuses, but reforms have been quickening across the states.
The most effective org defending individuals against civil asset forfeiture is longtime @Arnold_Ventures grantee @IJ. Yesterday, they won another case, this time at the Michigan Supreme Court. This goes along with wins in GA, OK, NV, TX and IN, and against the DEA and FBI just in the past year. We support this work because the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendments also need defending.