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Everybody must learn to cut their cost of living by all means. Learning addition skills and securing extra jobs might be another means of overcoming this hard life. The government must also make policies that will help alleviate the suffering of the masses.
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I don't disagree with everything your said about cooperative. It is one of the potent solutions to the current food and other essential commodities crisis most people are facing due to this global economic problems. But currently, human needs has become very complex and might not be handled by cooperative. Human need more than food and other basic needs to live a comfortable life. And most of these essential commodities are controlled by big companies that are not willing to lose their influence on they have on the people. Data and airtime for internet and phone communication might not be basic needs but they are so essential that some people might not be able to survive without them.
Indeed, coz up to this day I can still see lots of co-ops in my own country. I am todays age when I learned that it was the purpose of co-ops. Before, I knew that it has a good purpose not knowing it has deep history related to economy. As what I can see here in my country, modern co-op has been used as a business propaganda for people in rural/urban cities.
I also agree that it would be dificult right now to let go of the convenience we experience, I don't know about other people but personally I can handle it slightly. This is also one of the downsides of having tech reliable economy, coz if things happen like that hopefully not, people are going to have a hard time.