(boosting domestic manufacturing and supporting unions through an actually-pro-labor NLRB) which have been boosting wages

That’s good, I didn’t know that. However, that hasn’t had any affect on me, personally, as you have suggested, being a tech worker. In fact, I had to take a wage cut just for the business to survive. This whole economy is screwed in one way or another. And anytime the economy is screwed like this, it usually benefits some (typically the rich), and destroys others.

This is all considerably too complex to boil down to any one real thing to point to, but the notion of corporate greed still nags at me every single time I go to the grocery store. If prices can rise, they surely can also fall – and they simply haven’t, all while record profits are continually posted, and not for just luxury items – but for basic needs as well (groceries, etc).

This is as large a cost-of-living swing as I’ve ever seen in my many decades on this Earth. And it worries me greatly for my kid’s future.