This article is reproduced from Pinwan
Milk tea in California went from $2, 3 years ago to $4 or $5 before the epidemic, and now it is $7 after tax on any Chinese takeaway website in Silicon Valley, plus shipping, platform service fees, tips, etc. "The exorbitant taxes in the post-epidemic era" and ordering three cups can meet the conditions of delivery starting at $15. If you don't want to queue up for infection at home to join in the fun, drinking milk tea will cost you $27 or $28.
I ordered a bunch of dishes and put them into the takeaway app. Before I checked out, I checked the price, and then secretly deleted another dish.
Shanshan Zhang, who lives and works in Silicon Valley, has always had this behavior recently. She told Silicon Stars that she and many of her friends have this feeling: One year has passed, everything has become more expensive. Although wages have not decreased, and other incomes have increased a bit, but I feel that I am inexplicably becoming "poor"-the consumption that I used to do whatever I want, now I have to count it.
She always felt that this was an illusion of her own, until she saw a circle of friends that was spread by everyone: a 10-meter home in the Bay Area, still not free to take out. The meter here is not a unit of length, but the abbreviation of Million, which is nicknamed by the Chinese in Silicon Valley. The cause of this circle of friends was an early employee of a newly listed company, who had exposed his 10-meter family property while complaining that the takeaway was too expensive.
Suddenly, Zhang Shanshan had the same "worries" as a rich man with 10 meters of assets: in the year of the epidemic, the rate of increase in wealth seemed to never keep up with the price of vegetables, house prices, and even milk tea takeaway prices.
Disappearing takeaway freedom
Although there is a ridicule in the circle of friends where the 10m family’s takeaway is not free, in Silicon Valley, families with an annual income of hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars, are by no means a minority, let alone the listing in the past year During the boom, many people have skyrocketed in value or made a lot of money in the stock market. A small number of people even achieved freedom of wealth.
But in the past year, soaring prices for various reasons have made it difficult for people not to feel that they are "lying poor"-lying down and becoming poor, there is no longer the past to pick up an App to order milk tea at will, or download The restaurant enters the supermarket regardless of the free and easy price.
Zhang Shanshan calculated an account of "gradually losing the freedom of milk tea delivery". The California milk tea in my impression has gone from $2, $3 years ago to $4, $5 before the epidemic, and now $7 after tax on any Chinese takeaway website in Silicon Valley, plus shipping, platform service fees, Tips, etc., "excessive taxes in the post-epidemic era" and ordering three cups can meet the conditions of delivery starting at $15. If you don't want to queue up for infection at home, you will cost $27 or $28 to drink milk tea.
And this is not just what happened to milk tea.
When you just talk about the lobster rolls in a famous seafood shop in Silicon Valley, friends will comment on this package at $19.9 three years ago, and now it is $25.
Another friend said, “I bought a cake from a certain matcha dessert shop from a Chinese takeaway platform. It was only a few dollars before the epidemic, and now the shipping fee is included, which is close to 20 dollars.”
If you look carefully at the take-out milk tea or cake order, you will find that there is a shipping fee and a platform fee. If you are more careful, you can find that the price of vegetables is 30% higher than the in-store price.
In fact, in addition to Chinese restaurants, American mainstream food delivery platforms Doordash and Ubereats also have similar "hidden price increases" practices, which have been complained by a large number of netizens on forums such as Reddit.
"I saw Subway on Doordash, but found that their prices are much more expensive than in restaurants."
"After the epidemic, I chose to order takeaway. The price of a single dish in some restaurants is 30% more expensive than in the past. If you order a single serving, you will probably double it after all costs." Zhang Shanshan said that despite this, she still hopes to be able to give it away. The diners some tips, at least only this part of the cost is stated to be for the deliveryman.
Many colleagues and friends around Zhang Shanshan saw a bill that had nearly doubled the total price, and they would simply turn off the takeaway app and choose to pick it up by car. Some merchants even kindly urge customers to find an order with less increase after comparing prices on multiple platforms.
But who deprived the people of Silicon Valley of the freedom of food delivery? These families in Silicon Valley with an annual income of hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, have no idea.
Even the dishes purchased online are much more expensive than supermarkets. Wang Bo chooses to place an online order to buy the raw materials for his own cooking every week, but he found that regardless of whether it is a Chinese website or a mainstream website, even Costco, it can be found to be more expensive than the in-store price.
It's not that you insist on going to offline stores and you won't experience this kind of "inflation." Even if you go to the store to buy, you will find that a supermarket walks out, and the total cost is much higher than before the epidemic. Prices of everything from eggs to milk are rising.
A friend of Wang Bo went to the supermarket. Because he didn’t know the difference between organic and free-range farming, he always bought the most expensive eggs. But seeing the most expensive eggs rose from 5 dollars to 7 dollars, he also began to silently drop. If the level is higher, "AAA will do, but if it is too expensive, forget it."
Price increase is not an illusion
The American food industry organization FMI and Cal Poly University published a research paper in October last year to support the conjectures of many ordinary people like Wang Bo.
During the new crown epidemic, the price of daily necessities has continued to increase, which has increased the daily expenses of most people in the United States. According to FMI's research, the increase in food spending exceeds the increase in spending in other areas.
According to data released by the US Department of Labor, the overall food CPI (Consumer Price Index) increased by 3.9% in September 2020 compared to a year ago. The cost of cooking at home increased by 4.1% and the cost of out-of-home food increased by 3.8%.
Research and analysis point out that the main reasons leading to the soaring of daily food prices are rising food processing costs and supermarket operating costs.
Due to the epidemic, factories must increase various safety inputs and even reduce workers working in the same space, leading to a sharp increase in food production and processing costs, which will eventually be reflected in the price of vegetables.
In addition, the cost of supermarkets has also risen sharply due to the epidemic-for example, they need to hire more employees to disinfect products and provide customers with hand sanitizer, and to help these workers pay higher overtime wages. When these costs are passed on to customers, they can experience a sharp increase in prices.
In fact, there are more ordinary people who feel this kind of "inflation."
Lending Tree, a US consumer research organization, conducted a survey of 1052 US residents. The survey showed that the average consumption per person on daily necessities rose from 163 US dollars a week to 190 US dollars, an increase of nearly 17%.
At the same time, most interviewees mentioned that the cost of family living has risen sharply after the children do not go to school.
Among all the interviewees, 63% said that they started to use the supermarket shopping service at least once a week after the epidemic, and this also increased the cost of their daily necessities.
A resident in Boston once posted a bill on Reddit, showing that the price of Instacart is 30-40% more expensive than in-store, even if the freight, tips, and platform fees are excluded.
The price increase is fully rolled out
In fact, no matter how much you eat, it may be difficult to make a person poor. A lot of big expenses-for example, the price of real estate is more dependent on people's quality of life.
In 2020, the U.S. economy experienced various weaknesses, but housing prices remained strong after fluctuating for a while.
Due to the epidemic, many people have moved out of major American cities such as Silicon Valley, causing rents to fall all the way, but housing prices in the housing market are unexpectedly high.
Taking Santa Clara County to the south, according to data given by Compass, in 2019, before the epidemic, the median house price was only close to 1.26 million U.S. dollars, while in 2020, the median house price rose to 1.38 million U.S. dollars. , The number of days a house is on the market has been shortened from 32 days in 2019 to an average of 25 days.
This data is even the same as that of the 2018 U.S. housing price surge. In 2018, the median house price was $1.33 million. Judging from the housing sales data, the negative impact of the epidemic cannot be seen.
For ordinary families working here, housing prices make people’s lives feel even tighter-the same money can’t buy the same house.
Some people have tried to rationalize the increase in housing prices by using the increase in timber prices during the epidemic. Due to the epidemic, the price of round timber used in residential houses has soared, causing the construction cost price to rise by 6.2% in 2020. On average, the cost of each single-family property has risen by 17,000 US dollars.
But at the same time, many studies have pointed out that rising costs are not enough to explain the rise in housing prices, let alone inflation. In their view, too much easy money in the market is the culprit of inflation.
Easy money is the culprit
Why do people return from big cities to small cities after the epidemic can work remotely from home, but housing prices in big cities still rise?
New York Times columnist Ruchir Sharma, who is also a global investment strategy analyst for JPMorgan Chase Bank, published a column in the "New York Times", sharply raising the above question and pointing out that the United States is experiencing inflation.
He said that this high-priced housing market is based on easy money, not people's needs. To put it simply, people buy a house not to live, but to invest-just like investing in the stock market or fund. So just like the stock market, housing prices have risen accordingly.
It's not just the housing market, it's actually a problem in the global financial market. In his view, everything is rising, the stock market, funds and even commodity prices. These increases have little to do with the epidemic. Instead, they are related to the loose monetary policy of the U.S. Central Bank and the ever-increasing issuance of U.S. dollars.
Simply put, there is too much "easy money" in the market.
First, the Federal Reserve continues to lower interest rates to stimulate the market, while issuing a large amount of US dollars to make it flow into the financial market. In January today, the Federal Reserve once again emphasized to keep the current interest rate level unchanged, to maintain the loose monetary policy of the past year, to maintain the benchmark interest rate at 0 to 0.25%, and the excess reserve ratio at 0.1%.
This is not the first time the central bank has released water. Since March last year, the U.S. Central Bank has lowered interest rates several times, making borrowing a "free thing."
It is worth noting that in 2020, due to the epidemic and other reasons, the US GDP contracted by 3.5%, the first decline in 2009. Some economic reports commented that this phenomenon is that the financial market is gradually out of touch with the economy-the economy is shrinking and the unemployment rate is historically high, but the financial market is showing a boom.
In addition to printing money, although the 2020 epidemic has made many Americans unemployed, the high unemployment and bailout payments provided by the US government to the people have caused more funds to flow into the market and into the pockets of ordinary people, thereby turning Entered the mobile market such as the stock market. In 2020, the U.S. government spent a total of US$783 billion on bailout funds through the Cares Act.
When the money in people's hands became more and more loose, they poured money into the market one after another, causing the global stock market in November 2020 to have the largest single-month increase since the 1980s in the last world.
Ruchir refers to this phenomenon as Boom in the Gloom. When the central bank injected a large amount of money into the capital market, it lowered the 30-year loan interest rate to below 3, stimulating people to enter the housing market and lending, giving people the illusion of economic prosperity. He also said that the valuations of stocks, bonds and housing after the epidemic have risen to levels that only appeared in 2000 and 2008.
This will bring a risk-the bubble burst. When this false prosperity bursts, it will cause bad debts to the middle class and even lead to economic recession.
He also opposed the central bank's "no inflation" argument. He and a large number of economists pointed out that the central bank's so-called no inflation is a conclusion based on biased calculations. In the opinion of some economists, the official central bank index uses "rent equivalent" that includes rent and house prices, and does not fully reflect asset prices. In the view of these economists, although housing prices have soared, rents have risen at a minimal rate in the past few years. It is very unreasonable to use this data as housing expenditure to prove that there is no inflation.
Up to now, economists are still arguing about whether or not inflation. What do you think? For you in the past year, did you lie down to win or lie down?