Something I don't get about the economy and I wish someone could explain...

That is free market forces at work. But if the big corporations control major and majority of the economy, then all things will turn hellish when bubble burst. The past several years, all these super low interest rates created a fault sense of prosperity in the wall street and main street. Easy credit for everyone even those with bad credit history are able to obtain sub prime loan (very high interest rate)to buy out of reach house,several credit cards with extended line of credit; in return banks rake in high sale revenue and CEO pocket big bonuses; everything in wall street look rosy and speculator reap big profit overnight. Then come economy contraction, the bubble started to burst, reality set in, company started to lay -off employees, workers cannot afford to pay off their mortgages and high credit card debt, interest rate started to rise to fend off inflation, mortgage payment become expensive for those with fix income. Market exuberance came to abrupt stop, public euphoria collapse, double whammy from over flooded housing and financial market fraud, the economy has to bear all these at the same time to deepen into depression.

As I see it it has a lot to do with greed, and there are also other factors which have some influence on prices normally go up. It happens in many parts of the world. When workers get a raise, many retailers increase the prices of goods because they said, and I heard it myself, the buyers can afford to pay the new prices. When the consumers confront them the most common excuse I have heard is that the retailers have to increase their prices because the prices of other goods have increased. In my country the government tries to control prices spiralling by keeping a cap on certain essential items like sugar, rice, flour, chicken, cooking oil, and condensed milk. When it comes to price control the government, Federal or local, needs to take proactive actions. Words or political speeches alone would not suffice. As you have observed any salary increase results in an increase in prices of goods. The domino effect can be devastating to some people. all the best in your life, rosdimy

If you will notice the price of everything went up big time when the gas was $4.00 a gallon. The companies that ordered stuff from places had to start paying three times as much for the fuel surcharge to have it delivered and so the companies had to make up for it in someway. That is part of why everything went up so high. Plus the fact that with everything so high it costs more to make stuff so we have to pay more. I am not sure how old you are but I think that maybe when we were growing up there was not near as much as credit cards and credit cards debts as there are now. If the price of pay keeps going up the job lose situation will just get worse. People that are use to paying their employers say $7 an hour will have to cut back if it is raised to say $10 an hour. Even if it is only an extra dollar an hour they may have to cut back.. Because to the employees it may only be an extra dollar per hour but to the employer it is an extra dollar per hour times how many employees plus how many hours per week they work. So they will have to cut back. This is what I mean. Say you have 50 employees and they all work 40 hours a week. And they make $7 per hour and it gets raised to $8 an hour. That is an extra $2,000 per week. So if you cut out people then you only have to pay them. If you cut out 10 people that is $3,200 a week that you can save and make up for that extra dollar per hour. I was told that by the time I am old enough to receive SSI(I am 25) that there would not be anything for me to draw. Really cause I still have to pay it in. My Mom also draws an SSI check and I told her that I did not think that it was right for me to have to pay in when I will never get a penny of it. And she said that somebody had to pay for her check!!! So all the money that people are paying in for their social security is where your money comes from. Not many people now how to live frugally and have to pay for stuff. For instance milk is $5 a gallon. And butter is about $3 a tub. If you buy a cow, you can have usually 2 gallons of milk a day. Take the cream off and make your own butter. What is left is buttermilk for biscuits. That is about $70 worth of milk a week $3 worth of butter a week. And $3 worth of buttermilk a week. If you buy all three of these in a week that is $76 a week which totals up to $3,952 a year worth of stuff. You could do this for a few years and then eat the cow. That is 14 gallons of milk in a week though. I do not know anyone that drinks that much milk. But do you know anybody that would pay $2-$3 a gallon for milk. Anyways this is just some thoughts here. Not sure if it will help.

The economy is OK. 0bama just said it isn't all that bad. As far as the prices of stuff... If I'm a baker and I charge $10 for a loaf of bread, that is my prerogative. You or anybody else don't have to buy it. If that trend continues, then I will no longer be a baker. So, first I figure out how much it costs me to make a loaf of bread, then I look around and see what all the other bakers are charging for their loafs. Then I have to decide whether to make mine a little cheaper and earn my money buy selling quantity, or I sell mine a little more expensive and use premium ingredients. I have to follow the market. The more intriguing questions deal with the finicky consumers. Things like, why won't they buy my tasty but affordable bread?

I can't really help you, cause it is confusing. All it takes is for one person to raise their price and then it causes the person who buys from that person to raise their price and the person who gets from that person to raise their price, so on and so forth. I know what you are saying about minimum wage. It was raised here too. It seems like people who are voting for it are not affected by it, anymore than maybe recieving it. It went up to $8 here, from $7. The thing is, that is fine for large companies, but small businesses cannot afford it and the raise causes them to raise prices and or lay people off. A couple people I knew with small businesses had to lay some people off after the raise in minimum wage. They were in a business where they don't control the price of their product so the only thing they could do was lay people off. And, they did not lay these people off to keep their profit, they had to lay them off just to survive. They were not making profit. I couldn't understand everything going up when no one had money in the first place. Even water, electric bills, etc. were going up as well as necessities. They say they had to do it because everything else went up. But, it is not like everyone got a raise to afford everything going up. Why do they get to charge more to keep their lifestyle when we have to suffer, because we have no one to get more money from. If you are on SSI I wouldn't worry. You should be pretty safe. It seems like you should have gotten a little raise. Someone I know on Retirment Soc. Sec. got a Cost of Living raise in her check. Not much, but something. Things have been picking up a tiny bit. There has been more people buying houses and that is a really good sign. It will take time, but it seems like we are slowly making a climb up instead of down. Sorry, I couldn't help and hopefully I didn't confuse you more .

hi well for one thing the goverment is'nt worried about the poor people and what the affects will be on them it's all about the rich as it has always been they only think about bailing out the bank car sales and for what ol yea like i said the rich because what poor person can go to a bank and borrow money or buy a car anyway.any it does'nt help to raise mim wage because they just take it on something else.there is no hope for the poor.