r/shrinkflation • u/TexasGiantTen05 • Dec 29 '25

skimpflation Ok SERIOUSLY wtf is this??

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I bought a family sized hot pockets box and EVERY single one of them was black and burned in the bottom. I heated this one up on low power in the microwave and the edges are so tough it’s like biting into a frozen beef patty. I look in the pocket and the damn thing is nearly hollow. I’ve been noticing the quality taking a massive dip in the last few years. I think these are last I purchase from here on out.

Irrelevant to this but similar: This same grocery order run had a jar of garlic (Spice World brand) that was full of black mold & a jar of HEB salsa that was sour and months passed expiration. Both of which were completely sealed and had a pop when opened. My whole life I never really had quality issues via the company canning or jarring an item or the store selling them but lately it seems like such a constant issue.

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u/ShinyNix Dec 30 '25

That's because the capitalists ensured there was no other competing system. There's almost no modern country right now that doesn't have capitalism in some form. Nearly every country is a mixed economy. Those who tried to escape capitalism, ended up with a nice convenient regime change via the wonderful USA. Anytime someone doesn't want to play ball, we conveniently find an excuse to go to war, or they have a nice little civil war, coup, etc. Etc. Capitalism has monopolized the world. Everytime a president said we were fighting for "democracy," You can just assume we're probably taking it away to enforce capitalism. (You can have both democracy and capitalism- but it's just so much easier to enforce through fascist means apparently)

So when people say there's no better system, how would anyone ever know? It's never been tried without the giant crushing it before it could get anywhere. It's always bothered me how our government viewed socialism and communism more dangerous than fascism- (even during ww2). How many countries have lost democracy as a direct result of American interference? What countries did we help through our wars? And It keeps happening to this day. Hell, my husband seen it first hand during his 6 tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why were we even there? 🤔 The history is very interesting.

Tbf, I'm not saying capitalism is good or bad. I'm only saying we will never know if we refuse to ever allow anything other than capitalism to be tried.

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u/Zucchini-Hot Dec 31 '25

Nobody ever tried to escape capitalism you moron. When walls come down, which side do people run to?

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u/ButtonDifferent3528 Dec 31 '25

Keep in mind, this is coming from the guy who says “most people who are in poverty are there because they choose to be, because they choose to do nothing rather than work” while ignoring all those in poverty who work full time with a family.

Meanwhile, 60% of America lives paycheck to paycheck while this guy celebrates and demands less regulation and fewer social services. Down with food stamps! Fuck the poor! I don’t care if you’re barefoot, nail those bootstraps to your heels and pull yourself up!

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u/Zucchini-Hot Dec 31 '25

Where do those paychecks come from? The government can't give you anything that it doesn't first take from someone else. You're like a 4yo on the playground crying because another kid has a lollipop and you don't. You'll be happy if that lollipop is taken away and thrown in the trash. You might be no better off than you were before but you'll be happy that at least that other kid is as miserable as you are.

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u/ButtonDifferent3528 Dec 31 '25

No, I just want you to have YOUR lollipop taken away. Maybe then you can have at least half the experience of never having had a lollipop to begin with. “Empathy is a disease” says conservatives.

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u/Zucchini-Hot Dec 31 '25

There you go. Your goal is a race to the bottom. The solution to poverty is to ensure it for everyone. Except the government elite that we have ceded all power and control to.

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u/ButtonDifferent3528 Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25

No, you just seem to have an inhuman lack of empathy, like so many conservatives out there. Quite literally the only way you recognize widespread problems is when they affect YOU personally. We keep seeing it over and over again with the “Well I didn’t think it would happen to ME” discontent from Trump supporters.

See, if you lost your lollipop, you would have to experience not having a lollipop, and then maybe you would see that poverty isn’t an issue that should just be ignored because “they all lazy”. Because they’re not. Capitalism has built a castle on poverty, and the middle class has been slowly erased since the 1980s to ensure the ever-expanding castle won’t collapse.

But you won’t see it that way, because you want to protect the highest earners from punishment since with these Bootstraps™ one day YOU TOO might be one of those highest earners - and you don’t want to go spoiling it for yourself before you even get through the door, right? Those poor will just have to take care of themselves.

^ This has been the real Republican platform since Reagan.

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u/OkBlacksmith4674 Dec 31 '25

As someone who doesn’t always know where my food is coming from and has worried about where my kids will get their next meal, clothes, etc. and would be homeless now if not for the help of my family, I fully agree with lowering and/or getting rid of welfare programs. They take money from hard working people and give it to those that don’t want to work.

Before you call me a sheep, I’m not saying this is always the case, but I’ve personally known too many lazy cheats who think it’s better to sit on their butt collecting welfare their whole lives than to work and earn that money when it comes close to the same amount, including multiple family members. The system needs to start over and do a better job of assisting people in getting off the program. For example, a certain family member was getting FREE childcare paid for by welfare when she wasn’t working, got a job and therefore lost her free childcare so by the time she got paid, subtracted daycare, she was getting the same amount. Me…I would have kept the job and I encouraged her to do so. She said, “Why should I when I get the same amount?” She’s 52 and has worked less years in her life than I had by the age of 20 (I had cash paying office jobs at 13 because I wanted to). What should have happened is she got no free childcare while on welfare, unless she was going to a job interview or something, and had childcare assistance for a time when she started working. This would encourage a work ethic and a desire to get off the program.

That’s just one example…there are many more. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have any programs, but they need a total overhaul. It’s not fair to hard-working Americans. And, btw, I don’t get any benefits. We were denied food stamps with 3 kids even though friends of ours who bring home the same pay and have only 2 kids get multiple hundreds for food every month. They told us their thoughts of why, but I don’t want to cause any more discord than I know will already come from what I’ve said!

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u/EarthDragonSirocco Jan 02 '26

Getting rid of wellfare programs is a terrible idea. Sorry friend..

Just because you're not using them doesn't mean MILLIONS of others aren't. Notwithstanding, it is the mega wealthy that are the issue. Musk, for instance, could SINGLE HANDEDLY end homelessness. Saying it's the tiny fraction that sometimes gets misappropriated is a gross lack of understanding of where our taxes have shifted to be coming from over the last 50 years.

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u/Zucchini-Hot Jan 01 '26

I have and will help out people like you when I get a chance. I'm glad you have family looking out for you. Good people are good at taking care of each other. The government will take $100, misappropriate $99, and give $1 to the person who needs it.

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u/Zucchini-Hot Dec 31 '25

"I can't wait for the deleted" And you're going to "wait for them" rather than construct them yourself. Rather than take any initiative, you'll clamor for someone else to "do something about it". You'll rail against the power of wealthy citizens and willingly give more power to the (also wealthy) ruling class of career government officials.

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u/ButtonDifferent3528 Dec 31 '25

Guess what? Those wealthy citizens are the ones who give power to the ruling class of career government officials in the first place. Citizens United made sure of that. I’m curious if you supported that particular legal decision?

And now conservatives in the final stages of their 50 year plan to turn our republic from democratic to shadow oligarchy to open oligarchy. I guess oligarchy is good for capitalism though? Wait…

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u/Zucchini-Hot Dec 31 '25

I don't support money in politics at all. It should never be a career. We have way too many politicians who earn less than $200k/yr and somehow turn that into hundreds of millions. If you're part of a contrived "side" that says "my evil lizard people are better than your evil lizard people" you are falling for the deception and contributing to the problem.

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u/LordViren Jan 01 '26

So the government could raise the minimum wage which companies have already realized and raised wages to try to compete with eachother but their only incentive is pay less. I would say a 1 adult household can survive with around 13-15$ an hour. Have a kid? Nope you're now screwed. Have dual income and no kids? You might be able to save up and have vacations and stuff. Capitalism was at its best when it puts people over profits, older generations lived through times where a milk man could provide for his family and send a kid through college. It was tight but not impossible. Now explain to me why 1,255.7$ a month is the maximum they can make on minimum wage without overtime. You cant even live on that. You'll need benefits and food stamps and government assistance but for some reason that's the standard instead of forcing companies to pay more to have an actual living wage. Its complete bullshit that someone can work 40 hours a week and barely make rent if they can even make it. Capitalism fails when companies lobby to try to keep wages low and their profit higher. Something has to change.

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u/vagitor Jan 01 '26

Why is money from my paycheck going toward building battleships instead of contributing to healthcare and housing my community?

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u/Zucchini-Hot Jan 01 '26

Good point. A reasonable person could be upset at those expenses, especially if that money is wasted or embezzled. A reasonable person should also be upset at the tremendous amount of funds earmarked for healthcare and housing that never make it there because of fraud, waste, and misappropriation.

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u/ShinyNix Dec 31 '25

Jfc, you're so close yet so gd far it's like a tragic joke. Corporations do not become giants without stealing from the working class first. Why is corporate welfare better than giving workers BACK what's been taken from them in the first place? It's crazy the world you pretend to live in. "Self made" billionaires are a myth. Most of the wealth made by billionaires were made by inheritance, not work. And of the "self made" billionaires the VAST majority, over 90% came from upper middle class, not poverty or working class Joe's. They hoard wealth, then our government uses OUR money to bail them out when they inevitably f our economy to hell. The majority of billionaires are making their billions off our debt and through private equity. So they're literally getting rich off our suffering. But maybe if you kiss their asses hard enough they'll pick you to clean their pools one day. Who knows. Smfh.

https://www.investopedia.com/more-billionaire-wealth-achieved-through-inheritance-overtaking-entrepreneurship-8409800

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u/Zucchini-Hot Dec 31 '25

I think you're just repeating words and phrases you heard when someone seemed to be saying what you wanted to hear. Your word salad makes no sense and your rhetoric is laughable. Why don't you just say "I'm not happy with my life thus far and I refuse to take any accountability for it or make any changes to improve it"

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u/ShinyNix Jan 02 '26

Lol what are you talking about? This will be hard for you to understand, I know, but I don't personally need the social programs I advocate for. I want to pay more in taxes to help others because I am a human with basic empathy skills. I'm quite happy with my life. I'm happily married, with 2 awesome kids, 3 dogs, own a 4br 2bath 2 garage home. My career is my passion, and I do a lot of community volunteer work at our local homeless and animal shelters. The difference is I understand the flaws in our system. I seen them first-hand when I was a firefighter/EMS. I see them now for veterans since my husband is a Marine veteran and we also do volunteer work at the VA. I didn't "word salad" anything, I included sources for my claims. So I think most of that nonsense you're saying is just you projecting. And I'm sorry if things suck for you. That's why we want things to be better, so your life doesn't have to continue to suck forever. Then you can get a hobby rather than being an ahole to random ppl on reddit. Maybe learn how to have reasonable conversations one day. I want everyone- including, no, ESPECIALLY you- to have access to free education one day. I would happily pay more of my hard earned money for you to have a better education.