Unfortunately Americans using their brain when they purchase something means they are looking to maximize their quality to cost ratio. I do this all the time when shopping for automotive tools. Lots of companies sell what is more or less the same exact quality product made by the same exact manufacturer. And if you peruse amazon(so hard not to even send traffic their way) you will find the same item sold by say matco, cornwell, mac or bluepoint rebranded in different packaging for 15-25% the price asked by those other high end brands. And in some instances i have seem people open up the product and find it is packaged with the more expensive brand name logo on it. So when 50% of Americans earn $42,200/year($20.29/hr) or less and when you remove the highest earning 10% from the data set then the average wage in the USA is $58,000 ($28/hr) American’s known only one way to shop smart and that is look for the best deal and ignore the ethical implications because most of us can not afford to figure this into our shopping habits.

And this is compounded even more so by the reality that us yankees are being lied to by the financial institutions at the helm of our societal machinery. Inflation statistics are wildly skewed to reduce the possibility of the working class rioting and fomenting a revolution so the passive income stream for the ultra wealthy will continue to flow.

The world bank and international monetary fund who’s inflation calculations are regurgitated to us hu the FED and all of Wall Street- they use consumer price index to figure inflation statistics and CPI is flawed in multiple ways but the most important of them being that CPI does not account for the devaluation of a currency due to the increase in circulating currency supply as well as leveraged national debt/ deficit, and these 2 factors are the primary driving force of inflation. And if you even mention the fact that the price of gold foes account for those two factors then youre called ridiculous and a few will try to spew out a ton of nonsensical economics information at you but all you need to know is that in the 172 years of the US dollar as a standardized currency the price of gold only fluctuated ≈95% from $18 to $35 (and the bulk of that was when FDR had to take drastic measures to save the economy after wall street malfeasance that caused the Great Depression which was mild in comparison to the last 40 years of fraud by wall street so FDR made it illegal to hoard gold and bought up the majority of the supply at $20.67/ounce to store in the newly built fort knox and when his administration was certain they had the majority of the supply they revalued gold wt $35/ounce where it remained until nixon ended the gold standard permanently in 1971 by withdrawing from the bretton woods agreement) but since nixon ended the gold standard permanently 54 years ago the value of gold has increased in direct proportion to the national debt going from $35 to $3400/ounce or ≈9600% compared to the national debt increasing from $400 billion to 37.3 trillion ≈9400% in the same exact time frame.

So this is why the silent generation l, boomers and most of Gen x had it so well. Why my grandfather was able to buy a house in 1955 just 5 years after coming to the usa at the age of 18 on a minimum wage salary in an Ivy League college town for less than $3000 but today federal minimum wage hasn’t been raised in going on 17 years and average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in the same city is now $3000/ month if you go outside the city its $2200-2500 depending on your standards but the reality is that it cost more to purchase and maintain enslaved people during chattel slavery some 170+ years ago than minimum wage workers anywhere in the Usa are currently paid today. We are slaves convinced of an illusory freedom. Mainly through the eradication of high education standards that were the norm after the Great Depression up until the end of the civil rights movement Fascism has creeped into sociopolitical system and taken a strong foot hold while using digital medial to effectively disburse propaganda and condition many to support ideas against their own self interest and simultaneously believe what is in the better interest of the working class is evil and foolish. Things couldn’t be more upside down than they are now.