Violeta 0:00

Why do we keep seeing these corporations, these big businesses having record-breaking profits year after year while our pocketbooks are hurting? We are struggling. So, like, make that make sense, right? Like, how is that going on? Why is that happening? The feds have raised rates, but is it going to actually lower prices? Is it going to bring down our grocery bill? Is it going to bring down our gas bill? Because we are out here struggling. And you might think, like, oh, they raised rates because of inflation, they're trying to bring inflation down. And so you might be tempted to think that's going to bring those prices down. But unfortunately, that's not necessarily the case. That's not really how it works. So I want to talk about that today. I want to talk about, you know, why the feds raise rates, what does that mean? What does it do? What does it actually affect? And then I kind of got want to go a little bit on a side tangent of kind of like ranting. I just have some thoughts that I want to share with y'all. And I want to hear y'all's feedback. What do y'all think on how you know I've been seeing these past few years, how we've been getting here, right? Like, and it's just been pissing me off the more I see it. Of how we are struggling to pay these things, put food on the table, have gas money to go to work, and just you know, trying to make it out here. And you're left wondering, like, why do we keep seeing these corporations, these big businesses having record-breaking profits year after year while our pocketbooks are hurting, we are struggling. So, like, make that make sense, right? Like, how is that going on? Why is that happening? And so, I have a few thoughts about that. I have a few rants about that that I want to just include in this episode. But before we get into that, don't forget to sign up for my email list if you want to stay up to date on you know my latest blogs, my latest rants, just keeping up with money cheesement. If you're interested in the real estate side, that's where I share real estate stuff as well. And if you are interested in getting into real estate investing, I do have my Latina real estate investing community that's free to join in school. All that information will be down below. But I also want to take the time and ask you to like, subscribe, share this episode, whether if you're watching it on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever, because that helps me grow, reach more people, because it's a struggle out here, especially now with like more AI generated content. So yeah, I gotta remember to ask y'all to do that because I keep forgetting to ask y'all to share and all that. So do me a favor, even if you're watching this, like comment down below if you're watching on YouTube or whatever. But yeah, let's get into the episode. So let's talk about why the feds decided to raise rates now. So, according to the latest consumer price index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it showed that consumer prices were 3.4% higher in August of 2026 than they were a year earlier. That means that in August alone, prices increased 0.4%. And I know we've been seeing it, we've been feeling it. And so inflation has been going up, right? And the goal of the Fed is that they want to keep inflation around 2%, right? So they decided to raise rates, and that's one of the tools that they have to try to bring that inflation down, and we'll talk about how that works in a minute and why they do that. So they ended up raising it by 0.25 percentage points to 3.75%, to 4%. So that makes it the first rate hike within the past three years. And there's a rumor that was going around saying that maybe in October we might have another rate increase. But I looked up today, and it looks like they're kind of seeing inflation starting to cool down, so we may not see it in October. We don't know. We'll just have to wait and see, unfortunately. So there might be some more rate hikes, or there may not be, but we definitely got one in September, and that was kind of fun to watch because you know this one is uh Trump appointed, and it was interesting because everybody thought that he wouldn't, and so so there's some political drama on that side that I won't get into in this episode. But let's talk about what the Federal Reserve is, and that's when you hear, you know, when they talk about the Fed, you know, the Federal Reserve, stuff like that. But basically the central bank of the United States. And Congress gave the Fed what is commonly known as the dual mandate, which is basically balancing maximum employment while maintaining stable prices. So I think it's important to understand, and this is why it goes a little bit into hey, is that gonna bring prices down and all that? Is that the goal isn't to have zero unemployment and very low prices. There has to be a balance, right? Because we have to protect the buying power of our money, right? So they have to balance that, and so the feds believe that this balance is keeping the inflation rate around 2%. So that's why you know you'll hear the whole 2%, and that kind of stems from that mentality of that's where they decided that's a good balance. So you're going to see them keeping track of inflation and then being like, okay, how are we gonna bring it down to our goal? So when you hear about that, that's what that is. Now, one of the tools that they have is through the federal funds rate, which is a target interest rates that banks use to lend to one another. So that's when you hear about oh, they raise rates, you're right. And that is the rate of interest on how banks borrow against each other all the time, right? And so they have their own interest rate, and that's what they are using, right? Now, if it's more costly for them to borrow money from each other, then they're going to pass that down to the consumer, and that's what when you hear like later on that hey, even though it's not the mortgage rate, you know, that's being increased or decreased or whatever, it does have an effect down the line, and there's other things that go along with that as well, because then you got the bonds and all that stuff, so but the main takeaway is that when the Fed changes the rate, the effect still goes throughout the whole financial system, so even though it's not a direct impact, it eventually like impacts it further down the line, and that's when you'll hear like mortgage rates get affected a few months later or whatever, right? So, how does raising rates reduce inflation? How does that come into play? Well, basically, raising these rates is going to make borrowing money more expensive. So if it's more expensive borrowing money from each other with the banks, then it's going to again affect later down the line because it's going to increase interest rates for other types of loans like business loans, mortgage loans, like how I mentioned earlier, but further down the line. So everything just gets costlier to borrow money. So what happens? Obviously, you've already started seeing if you've been thinking about buying a house or anything like that. For me, right now, it is of course I invest in real estate, so yes, I am definitely looking at it now because interest rates are going to be higher. I'm looking at purchasing a car, and now it's like, okay, so car loans are gonna be higher. So those are things that I'm thinking about, and so are other consumers, other small businesses, other businesses, and so they're going to think twice, or you know, maybe decide to not borrow after all, you know, money. And so that's going to lessen that demand, that's going to be, you know, less pressure on the businesses, it's going to slow down the price increases and you know, in turn, lower inflation. And so that's kind of the idea. And so I want to get a little bit into what that means because just because inflation is coming down, it doesn't mean that prices are coming down. It's just when we're talking about inflation, it's talking about you know how prices are increasing, but when we're slowing down the inflation, that is just meaning that we're just slowing down the rate of increase. So the cost is still going high, but we're just slowing it down, right? So I think that's an important thing to understand that even though when you start seeing, like, oh, we brought inflation down, and you're looking at the groceries, hey, why aren't prices coming down? No, that doesn't necessarily mean that the prices are going to come down. It's just it's going to slow down how fast that price increases, if that makes sense, right? So that is one reason that when you hear about the Fed rates hikes, it's not necessarily bringing the prices down. Their goal is inflation. So for example, if inflation drops from 6% to 3%, the price is not going to decrease by 3%. Okay. Prices again are still increasing. They're just going to increase more slowly. So let's say something costs like $100, right? And the inflation is 6%. And so let's say roughly that's $106. So something you bought, I don't know, something that was $100. Now it's cost $106 because of inflation. Now let's say Feds raised rates and it brought that uh inflation down from 6% to 3%. That doesn't mean that the following year that prices went down 3%. No, it is going to say that now that $106 item is going to be 109, right? So, because now inflation is 3%. So it still increases by 3%, just not by the 6% that we had the year earlier. So hopefully that makes sense. It can get kind of like tricky sometimes, but again, just remember inflation continues to increase prices. We still have inflation, prices are still going to go up, but the rate of increase by how much percentage that's what the feds are after trying to lower the rate of increase. So yeah. So now I want to go a little bit into the side tangent of how corporations played a part in increasing our cost of living, like really having a struggle out here. But I wanted to kind of like set a little bit of that foundation of what the Fed is, why they raise rates, how inflation, all of that, right? Because inflation is just like a natural part, right, of the economy, right? But some of these things are self-inflicted because of our administration, right? We got into the Iran war, he put terrorists out there, which is like did some damage there. And then we have corporate greed. And so I want to talk about something called like greedflation that I just thought it was interesting. That is it being caused by big corp. And I would argue that yes, heck yeah, right, obviously, because again, like we are out here struggling with our groceries, trying to go to work, and now we have the issue with high diesel costs, which you know, now the truckers, you know, you're talking here talks about a trucker strike or whatever, but don't get me started on that one because that one's definitely self-inflicted. Like, y'all voted for this. But other things that come along with that, because now higher price for them means it's going to get passed down to our grocery bills once again, but also things that you might not think of right away. So Ashley with an eye, I'll link her TikTok down below, but she kind of talked about like predicted this as well as like, hey, don't forget that you know, school buses run on diesel. So what are they gonna do? Because now the schools are going to have higher costs as well. Are they gonna go down to four days a week? Or, you know, like what's gonna go on with that, the school buses, and then that affects the parents, right? Because maybe they have to call, not be able to go to work, cut back hours, maybe get a babysitter because now they got to do school at home. Like, you know, now you're starting to have some ripples, some effects that you didn't predict. Well, actually, with an eye did, and all of this has been just pissing me off. So I wanted to include it in this episode, and I just want to rant. So if y'all, if y'all let me just like rant and again, just you know, let me know what your thoughts am I wrong? I mean, I'm okay being wrong, unless you know, if it's through factual stuff, but like this is kind of like my thoughts, and it's something that I've been seeing throughout the years once I started becoming more aware of I guess my surroundings and started paying more attention of big corporations and all that, because when you are like in survival mode, you're not paying attention to these things, right? When I was just trying to like make money, pay my bills, and all that, I wasn't paying attention. I didn't want attention, I was just like, whatever. And then once I got financially stable, and especially during COVID, because man, COVID, I think, gave us all the time to be able to start opening our eyes and start paying attention, right? So this is when I started looking at it, and I noticed this through the COVID-19 pandemic, and I saw, yes, there was some supply issues or whatever, but who was there and who remembers the drama of how they were holding shipments at the port and really making products more scarce than they really were, which was accelerating all the high prices, and I remember that it went crazy at that time, like anything, like it was going so pricier, especially the essentials, like hand sanitizer and all that. Even the bootleg hand sanitizers were going for so high, like it was so pricey, and it was just like if I remember, it was like people would just mix like vodka and all this other stuff to make like their makeshift hand sanitizer. And yes, of course, inflation comes from like supply shortages and all that stuff, right? But during COVID, I want to say it was accelerated by these big corporations that took advantage of the situation, right? Because we're desperate, we need these things, and especially during the pandemic when we're scared about getting sick and dying, and people were dying. We weren't in the position to really fight back these corporations. And you saw that they made, you know, money, and then they were saying that they were struggling, and then you had these PPP loans, and you know, don't get me started on that, and that they took and then they never pay back and all that stuff. So, like, yeah, a lot of I want to say like corruption and they really played a part in pushing those prices higher than they needed to be. And yes, they would have gone, you know, higher increase because of all this situation. Of course, COVID did have an effect, but BitCorp made it so much worse and really took advantage of the situation, in my opinion, right? And there is proof, right, that did happen. So a 2024 Federal Trade Commission investigation into grocery supply chains found that large market participants sometimes accelerated or distorted the negative effects of supply disruptions. So, of course, after the fact, a few years after there was an investigation, and they did see that that these big corporations were inflating prices on purpose and really hurting us even faster than needed to, right? And so you see them making money and record profits. And so they used all that to just raise prices more than they should have. So, again, the same thing kind of happened with the tariffs. Similar things happened there where they were passing off the cost of the tariffs to the consumers. It affected like a lot of small businesses, and it really did a lot of damage as well. And even though like the tariffs were deemed like it wasn't legal to do those tariffs or whatever, the effects still remain, right? There's still lots of people that struggled because of the tariffs. There's a lot of people that got charged. Those tariffs costs were passed down to them, and we're not getting that money back. Where's that money? Like, I definitely didn't get a check or anything like that, you know, refunding me those tariff costs. And that's kind of where I want to get at with these big corporations because I keep seeing we're over here struggling, but these big businesses are still making record profits, they are still keeping people poor by keeping them with barely minimum wage, no benefits, no nothing like that, raising prices on us, so their own people, their own employees are having a harder time buying their necessities, but the CEOs are making money, they're making millions and millions of dollars, and so when is it you know going to be enough? Something has to give, right? Because we can't keep on doing this. These corporations can't keep just being allowed to raise these prices whenever it's not necessary. Like, I totally understand the whole idea of raising prices, the whole supply and demand thing, whatever, but stan abusando, like they're abusing the system, and we're the ones paying it. And so that's kind of like my rant because not only are they doing that, they are getting that money to further hurt us by lobbying, by you know, making our products cheaper, like more crappy. Like I saw a really good episode from the Financial Diet, and that episode will be linked. It's linked in the blog, but I'll try to post it in the show notes as well. And it was really good, and she went into kind of like a deep dive of the quality of some of these products that say they're organic or sustainable or blah blah blah, when in reality they're not. And I think we've been seeing it right, that we go purchase something this desk, it just is not as good as quality, but they keep raising prices, they keep increasing how much something costs, but they're reducing their costs, and we're getting shittier products that don't last, and like clothes now, everything's made out of plastic, and so again, they're still making record profits, making us struggle to pay for clothing, housing, food, gas, like all our necessities, making it harder for us to pay for those things, but also hurting us, right? Because now we're wearing plastic, we're having products that have all this stuff, and don't get me started with all this cutback of things. I mean, we've seen all these recalls lately of like freaking mangoes, mangoes were being recalled for I think it was salmonella or something, I forget, but like it is ridiculous. So all these companies are making all this money off of our blood, sweat, and tears, and it's like when and is enough going to be enough, and then there's so much I can rant about of how these corporations are accelerating the cost of living over here, of how much more expensive life is, how much more we are struggling just to be alive is just so annoying, and I get frustrated. And sometimes I I have to be careful when I go and look at these things, and I want to do more episodes like this, but I also like I get mad, I get so mad, and kind of like side note, I also am taking like sociology right now, and one of my classes is like Mexican-American Latinx studies over here in the border states. And let me tell you, I need to find a way to kind of like decompress from those classes because it enrages me, and I see the things that have been going in our community from there, stemming from the very beginning of when you know Texas was Mexico, now it became Texas, and all the drama that went on from there, from lands being stolen from Mexican Americans and so on, and coming all the way to what's going on now. So, on top of that, seeing how the corporations are are just like running us dry, right? So, just a little frustration there, also like we're kind of stuck as well because everything that we do, even with me, right? Like, I try to do what I can, but I The end of the day, like you know, some of these it's what's available to me, and kind of like I'll go on a little bit of side tension even more because I saw a post of Janice from Yokiro Dinero. She was talking about how you know she created some AI agents to do several things for her, and I use AI, right? And I know there's people that get mad about AI because AI is doing a lot of damage. I agree with that, and I'm not happy about that, but AI is also something that can also help our communities come up, right? And she got attacked by that because she wanted to teach other Latinas on how to set up these systems to be able to help them in their businesses, right? Because we don't have the luxuries or the abilities or the funds to be able to grow. Like I've been trying to get money, achieve me off the ground, and one of the things that's been helping me is being able to outsource the editing of these episodes, but also outsource a lot of my taskers of you know the things that I have to do to prepare these episodes, that I only have limited resources, and AI has been able to help. And the problem with like technology is that it's always taken too far because AI is a great tool, but it needs some guidelines, some rules, some things like that. And I know she got attacked, and I think I want to do kind of like an episode of just the AI version, kind of the ethics about that. But I'll just quickly say that yeah, she got attacked, but I feel that is misplaced anger because you're attacking somebody that is just trying to use the resources and tools that are out there so we can grow because she's doing a lot of awesome things right now. She's trying to crowdfund. And matter of fact, I'll link that below because I can't believe I forgot about it. But I'll link her crowdfunding because she wants to do a financial conference for you know people of color because we're tired of being just afterthoughts in these, you know, just to fill their diversity quotas, whatever. So check that out below. Donate what you can. In fact, I gotta go donate myself now that I just got paid. I was waiting for my paychecks. But yeah, I feel like we're attacking the people that we don't have that much power. We are forced to use these resources. I am like in a rural area, so like, yes, Amazon is crap, but that's what I got out here. I I have to go an hour and some change to go get the stuff I need, and it's just it's kind of like you're punching down on people when we should be attacking these corporations. And not to mention, is like in the same breath, we're funding these same corporations, anyways, through our 401ks because they were in the Fortune 500 companies, right? They're the ones that are doing here, doing that. And as a matter of fact, I talked about this with Tina Berger, author of Invest Likey Mother, which was a great conversation. If you haven't checked out that episode, that's down below. I know I'm leaking a lot of stuff, but there's a lot that goes into this conversation that I've just been kind of, you know, just thinking about it and just you know, thinking about it. And that's why I want to kind of wanted to include it in this episode. And I want to hear your thoughts. What do y'all think, especially with everything that's going on with these corporations and trying to do what we can? But at the end of the day, it's kind of the similar mentality of when we were all using like those little paper straws and things like that to save the turtles. But the corporations, the ones that are actually, you know, really making the bigger negative impact, they're still there. Like it's me choosing to because I rarely use straws, anyways. Most of us rarely use plastic straws. We only use them when we go out to eat for the most part. So, in the maybe, let's say, five times that I go out there, like that's not enough, even if it's like a combined effort. That's not enough because that plastic is everywhere. It's even in our clothes now. So we're attacking the wrong people. And same thing with this AI tactonese, when she's just trying to help, you know, Latinas, when the big issue is the lack of regulations up in, you know, the administration, just letting them go amok. And these tech companies that are allowed to grow so big and take, take, take, take with no guidelines, with no rules, no nothing. And when they're allowed to go into these rural areas and buy up land and use up resources and all of that, because it's just exponential growth. And so that's the bigger problem. That's what we need to attack because AI I can see the benefits of it, and it's been around for quite some time. It's just now come into kind of like the mainstream where like the average person can use it more, and it has its benefits, it really helps small businesses grow and people and all that stuff, but we just need some more guidelines, some more rules. So I think that was kind of just misplaced anger at Janice. So, anyways, went on a rant with that, but basically, I feel like we are struggling, we are suffering these higher grocery bills and all that because one, of course, the policies we have people that are lobbying, and you know, there's a reason Trump went over there, you know. He's making money, he's making money, his friends are making money off of these DOD contracts, and why we're there. So he doesn't care that we're struggling for gas bills, you know. Matter of fact, he said, suck it up, you know, right? It is what it is. You gotta deal with this because, you know, of weapons of mass restriction and blah blah blah, right? So they don't care, corporations don't care. It's just so frustrating to see that we are carrying that weight. Meanwhile, they just keep getting richer and richer, and so that's why it's so important for us to learn how to manage our money, how to grow our money. And I saw a good Instagram post about how we need to, instead of out here protesting, I mean, yes, definitely you want to protest, but we see that it's not really being in effect. What talks is money, right? What talks is having our own financial security, our own finances, our own money to go create our own interest groups, our own lobbying to actually make a change because we're too focused on the protesting, sharing this, sharing that. I was like, but we need to get our money up to either fund somebody that's doing something, like politicians right now. The midterms are coming around, and we could be donating to this. Like, we need money to fund these people that can go out there and fight for us. And so I agree with that Instagram post, and so that's what you know, money cheese is about helping you manage and grow your money, investing, and of course, that's why I also have real estate cheese because that's how I am making impact, how I am building wealth, so that way I can either donate money or do projects of my own to start making small impacts and so on. So, yeah, that was my little rant, kind of a long rant. But yeah, what are your thoughts? Let me know how y'all doing. Like, how are y'all doing? I know it's a struggle, but we're gonna get through it, and we have to get through it together. So don't forget to like and share this episode. And yeah, I'm gonna try to do more of these, but like I tend to go on a rant, so hopefully, y'all didn't mind that too much. But other than that, I will see you in the next episode. Bye.