In my opinion, the biggest myth in capitalism is the one of inflation. This is a boogeyman that corporations use to justify their greed and relentless demand to keep revenue growing quarter over quarter. Governments try to keep this greed under control, but corporations in the post-pandemic landscape realized that they aren’t bound by governments. They realized they can charge whatever they want and in many market segments consumers would be forced to eat the increased cost. This has lead to a death spiral of greed where the only resolution would be to opt out of consumerism until companies start to panick.

Economists are celebrating the drop inflation, “correcting” the market, making things more “affordable” for consumers. Thing is, this is an outright lie; an attempt to calm a stressed consumer base. Inflation dropping doesn’t mean that the cost of goods is decreasing, it means that costs are increasing at a slower rate. But why? Looking at pre-pandemic prices to 2024 prices, many have doubled or tripled. Again, but why? They claim supply chain, or demand, or shipping costs. The supply chains have stabilized, demand has returned to a stable pre-pandemic level, shipping has eased. Wages haven’t changed substantially since 2019 nor has core costs like electricy or water.

The simple answer (with complex interactions) is greed. This isn’t greed from just one corporation or industry - it is across the entire chain. No publicly traded company wants to have a bad quarter by adjusting prices back down to pre-pandemic inflation rates, so instead they are doubling down with price increases and creating a narrative that people don’t want to spend money anymore.

Elon Musk is a threat to society. All society. His shameless bigotry, hatred, and incitement to violence has only become amplified since his purchase of Twitter. He has turned Twitter into a nightmare hellscape of a platform which is tangibly harming people. This could very well lead to the end of democracy in the west.

Social media in general is an unregulated, dopamine driven nightmare. But Xitter takes it to a new, unimagineable level. No other social network has the reach and the lack of governance, not even close. Truth Social is limited to a smaller group of weirdos. Meta is click-bait but at least regulates outright illegal activities. TikTok is very clearly social manipulation, but arguably has pretty firm limitations in terms of content and behaviour. Meanwhile on Xitter there are government agencies and literal neo-Nazis in the same space. There is no governance around dangerous and hate speech, yet Musk orders accounts from otherwise insigificant NGOs to be banned while boosting transphoes like JK Rowling and Joe Rogan.

Most of the violence from the 2022 Freedom Convoy and 2024 UK Riots can be traced back to unchecked and violent voices that were amplified on Xitter. Not only does Xitter allow this behaviour, but actively encourages it with its profit sharing program where the only barrier to entry seems to be paying $8/month. Content doesn’t seem to be demonitized or demoted, if anything that Blue payment lets people amplify their hatred in an unchecked manner.

The introduction of long-form and video content only served to increase the mindshare of these purposefully divisive individuals. At the same time, Musk seeks to reduce the change that any meaningful information can be shared on his platform by limiting headlines and links, and actively harming organizations that aim to publish useful information such as NOAA.

Any advertiser and individual who is actively paying to be on Twitter at this point is complicit in the hate and danger fostered by Musk. Anyone involved should be held to account for the damage that it is doing to nations around the world.

Like many millenials, I have been shopping at Costco for years. I have been a consistent member, annually renewing my membership, and upgrading to the Executive membership. I have noticed over the years is the slow decline of quality at Costco. Not just their products, but their service and practices. What triggered this post for me was the recent shift to treating their customers like criminals, requiring ID scans on entry, and increasingly slow exit lines due to higher levels of scrutiny of cart contents.

I first noticed the declining quality a few years ago around some of their products. As they moved items to their in-house Kirkland brand the quality felt comparable or even better than the name brands. But I have found the quality of some of their items decrease in quality over time. This includes things like their deli meats, precooked bacon, and their fresh meats like the chicken. That said, the quality change is minimal especially as compared with other major and store brands.

Another area they have been cost-cutting seems to be packaging. This is a minor but noticeable hit to the Costco experience. Rotisserie chickens moving to bags, like Wal-Mart; Kirkland nuts moving to using bags rather than the nice and easy containers. Even the manufacturing process not being well tuned leading to packaging that tears rather than opens nicely. Again, this isn’t major but it is indicative of the overall slow decline in the quality of the Costco brand as a whole.

Finally, one area which is less in their immediate control but more indicative of the decaying quality of their merchandising and warehouse teams are the problems with the quality of goods on the shelves. Costco quality and care used to inspire confidence when shopping. Now I often have to spend time sifting through product. I frequently encounter damaged packaging and expired goods in basically every aisle. The ready-to-cook meals are often short on toppings and have best-by dates for the same day whereas as recently as a year ago they would be fresh enough to have 24-48 hours to prepare and consume.

I know that all of these are minor issues and very much first-world problems, but the net effect is I am no longer willing to trust Costco to give me a good shopping experience. When my membership is up for renewal this year I will have to consider whether the cost is worth experience.

Well this is a bit of a new thing for me, I tend to just keep my thoughts to myself. But I feel like I need a space to open up about different things that I see in the world around me. Given my professional role, I feel like this needs to stay at least pseudo-anonymous.

This will be more of a journal covering my thoughts and ideas than a blog targeted at say artificial intelligence or some other technical skillset. There will be some of that intermingled, but definitely not my main goal. This journal will meander between politics, philosophy, technology, and general social things that irritate or intrigue me.

Anyways, I will keep this meta-post short as there isn’t much more to say. Read along if you’re interested.