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by netsharc 247 days ago
No reason? Was it Covid, or the Ukraine war? The pandemic ground the gears, there was government help but I wonder what after-effects the flood of liquidity had, did too many people end up in the Ponzi schemes (Gamespot, trading cards, Bitcoin et al)?

The war caused energy prices to go crazy, Europe needed gas and was willing to pay a premium, and the laws of supply and demand meant the price went up for everyone.

I used to live in a country where the government subsidized the price of oil (including petrol). When they needed to cut that subsidy, people knew the price of oil would go up, and that affected the price of everything else, my reasoning was because all the trucks transporting goods needed petrol, but it's probably because everything needs energy to accomplish..

2 comments

I dont think Covid or Russian invasion into Ukraine can explain price movements last two years. Covid happened years ago and Russian invasion started years ago.
>No reason? Was it Covid, or the Ukraine war?

Covid virus didn't make you poor, it was the government's response to it of shutting down large parts of the economy(and not others) plus printing endless money and dumping it on the market(mostly on rich people/businesses running on debt) distorting the market and creating hyper-inflation that wiped out your savings and wages.

Same with the war in Europe, they weren't forced to give up on cheap Russian gas that was the base of their economy, they voluntarily chose to do that to save Ukraine, with the obvious effect their prices would go up and standard of living would go down.

People need to start holding their elected governments accountable for their actions of putting too many thumbs, arms and legs on the economic scales that cause wealth transfer form the poor to the rich under the pretext of every crisis("never waste a good crisis"), and for the "let the peasants eat cake" response they get in return.