They literally are saying that it is like this every summer. The other excuse they use is that we shouldn’t be forced to do something when there are countries that pollute worse. The other argument they provide is that climate change policy affects poor people the most, so they claim that it would be unfair to them if we enacted any of it.
How to not be an asshole. If everyone mastered that, I think the world would be a great place.
An underground gymnasium. Not a dinky one. Moreso what you have in a high school. A whole bunker facility would be nice as well.
There was a global supply chain shortage due to COVID. This meant that the demand for everything backed-up. This was compounded by people having more time at home and potentially more money to repurpose from services to goods, so the shift also drove up demand. When there is more demand for goods than the amount available, the cost of goods sold goes way up until you reach a threshold where people are forced to buy less or go broke. This is the elasticity of demand. Their is a point where certain goods are no longer appealing in price or affordable in general. It’s really bad when these are mandatory commodities like food.
This runaway inflation is always dealt with in the same way. The central bank raises interest rates for their notes/loans that they make with the banks across the country. This makes consumer and business loan interest rates rise, which makes them less appealing and also staves free cash flow, so people have less money to spend from loans, but potentially their salaries might be affected as well. This has the benefit of forcefully lowering demand. Whenever demand goes down, the cost of goods will start to go down. During the lull of demand, the supply chain can catch up as well. This is not the first time interest rates were raised to fix runaway inflation. Over time, interest rates will go back down again. It is cyclical.
One difference though is that the government is also in a cycle of under-regulating and over-regulating business. At the moment, we were promised more monopoly-busting and cracking-down on driving up prices in a collusive manner to fight the fed’s deflationary tactics and attempt to make windfall profits. Meaning, whole industries are not supposed to band together behind closed doors and agree to not lower their prices. That is called collusion and is supposed to be illegal. As long as that keeps happening, interest rates will keep getting hiked. The current administration seems to have more of a tolerance for this than they should. If things are going to shit, it’s due to this type of corporate cronyism with the government.
Additionally, you have outside actors like China who are buying up land and businesses and contributing to the turmoil in clever ways like making housing and food less affordable.
Source: Am MBA.
If I were to create a city that can withstand the downfall of society, I would want to put a defensive military fortress at its center. Right now, they don’t run it, but when the shit hits the fan, they can inherit an arsenal of protection.