Inflation is a complicated topic that doesn't get adequately captured in the sound bites.
I kept hearing clips of voters saying they want prices to go back down, but my understanding of the economics is that this would be terrible. Instead, IMO, what we need is for wages to increase while minimizing the inflationary effect of wage increases. That's not a catchy slogan, however.
Parallel to this, I don't think the post COVID inflation is really due to politicians.
Over 50% of the increased prices are from producers not just recouping their additional expenses, but also increasing profit margins.
Typically you would expect this to be an opportunity for competition, but generally speaking companies are suspiciously raising prices together. They've taken advantage of the COVID shortage and inflation narratives to squeeze consumers.
Corporate consolidation is one of the biggest and least talked about boogeymen of our current era, one which is set to get even worse under Trump's second term. The Biden admin barely, kind of, got anti-trust authorities somewhat working again, and that will be demolished on day 1 of Trump.
Bigger corpos means bigger donations to bigger candidates. The entire system runs on money and nobody's got money to put in like these supercorps. We live in Gerontocracy that is actively building a Corporatocracy to replace it after the Boomers die off entirely and no money will ever go to the working class again.
> If your change is no more durable than a single election, you didn't accomplish shit.
That is the way that the country works! The system is working as intended if a single government appointment can't unilaterally destroy monopolies in a single term.
What do you think inflation is? Demand shoots up, suppliers raise prices or run out, and it takes time for new capacity to be rewarded and created. There's no collusion here.
Inflation isn't just a fiscal (even though Biden failed on the fiscal side as well) or monetary phenomena, it's psychological - i.e. expectations about future prices.
Because the Biden administration was characteristically incompetent (Remember Treasury Secretary doing interviews saying that inflation was just a short-term blip and not persistent?) inflation started to get out of control. Once that happened, 30+ years of low inflation expectations went out the window. Market psychology changed, and because people now expected prices to rise, they weren't as resistant to individual price changes. This gave producers (along with legit covid supply side issues) breathing room to increase prices.
Of course deflation would be terrible for the economy. Expecting the average voter to understand the intricate complexities of how economies work vs I don't have enough money to buy things, so I want prices to drop, is sadly a losing proposition.
Any real political problem is multifaceted, deeply interconnected with the way the country works and its place in the world. But peoples experiences of them are not, inflation manifests as someone being able to afford rent one year, and not the next.
A good politician, can speak to the experience, but fix the problem. A good salesman can sell you a solution, even if it doesn't fix the problem. And the democratic party, seems mostly interested in talking about the problem and ignoring the experience.
A working economy means professional activity to make goods and services. Deflation actively kills that by incentivizing people to defer or cancel their purchases in favor of savings. So economic activity collapses.
There is no such thing as a durable deflationary market if it’s not justified by productivity gains and volume - and there is definitely no such thing as a durable deflationary economy.
The US was "a durable deflationary economy" for pretty much the whole 19th century, and first decade of 20th century. Things started to change once FED was created and given power over money supply.
Not sure what you're refering to, the 1873 panic wasn't exactly the finest hour for US economy. I guess that's not what you want to get back to.
As for the rest of the 19th century, the data we have is mostly consumer price indexes, but I can't recollect another durable deflationary period in the century.
Depends how much deflation there is with wages compared to everything else, there's a scenario that they have an opportunity to start saving
The majority of the expenses for the disadvantaged young are housing, gas, and food. With housing being 4x more expensive than 4 or 5 years it basically puts all the disadvantaged from even buying a house and then puts them at the mercy of the renters market
Actually, banks can "create" money from nowhere. It's called fractional-reserve banking. When you deposit money into a bank, the bank is required to keep only a fraction of that deposit as reserves. The rest can be used for lending.
The exact fraction is determined by the central bank's reserve requirements. And since 2020 it has been set to... zero percent.
So essentially US banks can infinitely create money.
What?? This isn’t correct at all. A deflationary economic environment is bad no matter the fiscal policy or monetary policy we have in place. You propose it would be better if we pushed for savings. Well if we all know that prices in a few weeks/months/years will be less than today, then spending drops. Friedman pushed velocity of money, even he would agree that a lower velocity would crush an economy.
I never got this line of thinking. I'm already disincentivized from spending because simple investments are likely to outpace inflation. That's a good reason to save as much as I can, but I still buy things, and it's not like I can put off buying food for a year so that prices drop. What's so different about this incentive to save and it being a part of the economy?
Yes, because most people spend most of their money. I'm saying deflation seems unlikely to change that, since a strong incentive to save money already exists, in the form of retirement fund.
There are a number of issues with this comment. One of them is that debt and saving are just sides of the same coin.
More importantly, everybody can see that debt for investment allows more growth. Just think about how many more people can afford to own their own home thanks to taking on debt. This allows them to pay a mortgage instead of rent, which allows them to build up wealth.
Equivalent effects exist in industry.
Debt is an extremely useful tool. We made the right choice here as a society.
Prices wont come back down; but few if any swing voters understand that. They just see high prices under biden and remember lower ones under Trump. Him losing would have taken a very strong candidate given the predicament.
Well, with a less than 6th grade literacy rate for 54% of Americans, it isn’t exactly surprising that many people have a hard time understanding any nuance. I once heard a woman explaining to her captive audience’s amazement how the colors of a “yingyang” were because “ying” means white and “yang” means black. Aside from being wholely incorrect (reversed), the concepts and meaning behind the yin yang of the balance between “light and dark” is completely lost on her. The extent of her knowledge will always be whatever someone she believed told her.
Edit: I forgot to mention, the reason for the colors. “Ying” has an i, for wh”i”te, “Yang” has an “a” for bl”a”ck. It wasn’t even a light/dark thing, it was because she believes the translated name shares a common letter with the color, so that is the reason for those colors. That is the reason why I’m not surprised by the results.
Yes prices need to specifically go down. CA decided to DOUBLE DOWN on raising gas prices during the pandemic, and apparently they're slated to vote on another change that could raise prices by $0.45 a gallon. The world has had CHOICES to go in a specific direction, and this administration and all LEFT administrations are pushing for prices to rise, and replace all the failing families with people from China, Venezuela and whoever wants to cross the border.
This post is a wonderful microcosm of why everyone is so divided and tribal now.
Here we have someone sharing a real world example of out of control inflation, which is true across all groceries no one grounded in reality would deny that.
Rather than acknowledge these concerns in anyway, you took time out of your day to imply because they used 1 unhealthy example this runaway inflation is actually a good thing because they will be forced to eat 'healthier'. Completely ignoring how expensive those 'healthy' items are as well (and that they continue to rise).
Then you use your anecdotal experience to further your dismission with 'well, ackkkstually ime prices don't go down so your concerns are invalid.'
This exact attitude is why there is nation-wide a mandate to eliminate the left from all pillars of power. And this is coming from someone who campaigned for Bernie.
Why would someone disagree with punishing crime? Are we living in reverse world where crime is the norm? How do we expect a functioning society if everything is expected to fail?
Probably the biggest one is that I do not believe that punishment is an effective deterrent most of the time. People will keep committing crimes even if the punishment is harsh.
Another is that our prisons need to be less about punishment and more about rehabilitation. A punishment-heavy criminal justice system creates more recidivism, people leave prison worse off than when they started, they might enter as petty offenders and leave as "jaded, hardened criminals".
Another is that many crimes are driven by the perpetrator having issues with poverty, drugs, etc., which should be addressed differently.
Another is that prisons are already overcrowded, underfunded, courts are not efficient, etc., so adding more felony convictions makes those problems worse and is expensive.
Another is that reformed felons have trouble finding employment when they get out. In some states they lose their right to vote.
Another is that some people are falsely accused and falsely convicted, or, I've heard this is most common, charged in excess of their actual involvement in the crime.
Another is that sometimes accused criminals have families. When you traumatize the offender's kids, you may create more criminality in the kids.
These are a few, expressed briefly and quickly. Others can probably explain it better, or with more time put into reserach.
1. Kamala isn't a great candidate shown by her poor primary results in 2020.
2. She has all the baggage of running pretty far to the left in 2020. (Like saying she was for performing gender affirming surgery on trans illegal immigrants, agree or disagree with the stance this is a deeply unpopular position)
3. She was tied to the current administration which meant she couldn't distance herself from the inflation issue or attack Trump on age and fitness as much as another candidates not tied to the administration.
One of the more insightful things I heard in the last few days was this generation of politicians got a lesson in how toxic inflation is politically. And inflation wasn't even that bad, but it felt bad.
> The real problem was Biden not dropping out early enough so that they could have a fair selection process.
This is why it's important for the media to hold politicians' feet to the fire - even if they agree with them. I think there was just a murmur[1] of Biden's problems before the catastrophic debate. Imagine if the media had been hammering the administration on this point 6 months prior.
The media and the party had many opportunities to deal with Biden's age. They didn't. And yes, they did shut out Dean Philips, on the basis of exactly this kind of "he's an unknown, therefore unelectable." Well, they went with a known, and now they're paying for it.
Underlying that problem were the Administration thinking they could fool us all into believing that Biden's faculties were unaffected. This was a two-edged sword because it also demonstrated that maybe it doesn't matter so much who is president, at least as domestic affairs go, because the administrative state runs so much on autopilot.
I believe his faculties got substantially worse in 2024. He was a lot more present in speeches in 2021 for example. Mental decline isn't black and white, and you tend to see people as your mental model of how they used to be, so you can look at brief moments of clarity and declare him "well", so many did that. But it doesn't work that way.
"you tend to see people as your mental model of how they used to be"
Pot? Meet Kettle.
I worked in an advanced Alzheimer's ward for about 4 years when I was younger. There is a look that happens in the eyes which is a sure-sign they are effectively gone - it's like a light has been turned off.
(even if they have moments of lucidity, there is a clear switch that is talked about in exactly these terms if you work in these places and are close to them every day.)
Biden clearly had 'the look' back in 2021, and was making enough gaffes for people who maybe aren't as familiar with the signs of mental decline could clearly see it.
Just because you didn't, doesn't mean everyone else was wrong and saw what they wanted to see.
If you are going to argue 'well, that's just like your perspective man' you have to at least see how that same argument can be turned towards you.
You are absolutely right that it is not black and white - I fully believe that back in 2021 he had enough moments of lucidity (which generally are somewhat reliable, which appear to be tied to the circadian rhythm hence 'sundowners') -- so if all you watched were his scheduled speeches I could see how you may have been left with that impression.
There were plenty of other opportunities to watch his decline in real time however.
The gap between his last state of the union (March 2024) and the debate (June 2024) seemed pretty big, and I'm not the only one to say that. But again, it isn't black and white. Maybe the speech format suited him better.
I've followed politics for my whole life and watched tons of Biden speeches going back decades. I was seeing his old "spark" quite a bit well into 2024. The debate, he fell off a cliff, and his follow-up interviews were even worse. 3 months before he competently delivered a barn-burning SOTU address. IIRC a few months before that, he delivered a good NATO speech. He'd slip up minor points but he also did that in 2002. Back then they used to call him a gaffe factory.
Plus with every iota of decrease in the government’s credibility, the relative credibility of candidate’s promises and proposed policies also matter less too in deciding between them…
> thinking they could fool us all into believing that Biden's faculties were unaffected
Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the Democrats treating voters like children to be coddled and lied to. Voters don't like being treated as less-than just because they're less educated, and uneducated doesn't mean stupid. They can see through it.
My county went >75% for Trump, and the reason is because Trump is the only presidential candidate in most of our lifetimes who treats working-class voters as his equal. He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up.
I think it is stupid to vote based on how a politician talks rather than the expected impact of their proposed policies, though of course I realize that that’s how elections have been decided in practice for as long as representative governments have existed.
The thing is, when you "talk down" to people, chances are pretty good those people's best interested aren't being represented by the one doing the down-talking.
However, if you "talk to" them, you are in a much better position to actually hear and respond to their concerns - with the added bonus of seeming actually human.
The way you frame it seems to imply that people are voting for him because he talks 'like them' while ignoring the 'to' them. I believe the hot leftist term for this is 'code-switching' which just means talking to your audience with language they understand and relate to -- and it's usually portrayed as a virtue, not a defect.
In reality, these people voted for Trump because as a result of him talking to them like equals rather than down to like subjugated servants left many feeling that he was in fact advocating for policies that support their best interests and would be impactful in their day to day lives.
Obviously personality matters more than it should - but in Trumps case the entire media apparatus was single-mindedly determined to make sure they dictate what his personality is, rather than his words or actions. So if anything this win shows that policy matters more than personality at this point anyway.
Now of course, if you see his policies as wrong and evil and dictatorial and the embodiment of fascism, none of that will matter and no lessons will be learned from this absolute rejection of the democrats platform.
You're not wrong about people resenting being talked down to. I've tried to make this point to Democratic (especially progressive) activists for years and years and it's like talking to a dog that just heard a new noise. The fraction of people in the country that actually care about religious culture wars is relatively small; it's one reason why seven states passed initiatives enshrining abortion rights in their state constitutions this go-round. Voters care deeply about concrete things that affect their lives and they're not receptive to someone haranguing them to care about something else entirely.
If you want to catch a fish, you bait the hook with something the fish wants to eat instead of something you want the fish to eat.
He had substantial gains in every single one of those communities, as far as I'm aware. Not 100% confident about Puerto Ricans but I've seen the numbers on the others.
In fact, Latino turnout is pushing half and half, an unprecedented showing for a Republican candidate in that community. That single fact should have you carefully questioning the truth of what you've said.
"A likes B", is not a proof that "B likes A" necessarily.
But If Trump loves Latinos we will probably see a lot of them promoted to important positions. I spot two hispanic surnames in his first cabinet, Acosta and Carranza, both for a short period of time.
Citation, please? I think you're making the error that the media loves to commit, which is to forcibly reinterpret everything as racism.
For example, in the recent Puerto Rican "garbage" kerfuffle, the comedian never said that Puerto Ricans as such were garbage - that was a fabrication of the media. What he said was that the island of Puerto Rico is an island of garbage, which is figuratively true as it has an acknowledged a problem with garbage disposal.
Similarly, Trump never said that Mexicans are rapists, etc.; that's another media fabrication. What he said was that those in America illegally are disproportionately criminals. That may or may not be true, but it's not a statement about Mexicans as a race, but about a particular subgroup set apart by their own behavior of illegal immigration, and notably NOT directed at their cousins in America legally, or still back in Mexico.
Trump says a lot of crap. But if you find it particularly egregious, chances are that it was fabricated by the media. Another very recent example is when the media told us that Trump said that Liz Cheney should be put in front of a firing squad. In reality, the topic of conversation was her attitude toward war, and his statement was that if there were guns pointed at her, she'd feel different about soldiering.
The comedian never said that Puerto Ricans as such were garbage - that was a fabrication of the media.
Of course he did. It's called innuendo, and everyone knew exactly what he was getting at. If you say an entire neighborhood, city or country is garbage, then you're saying that the people living there are garbage, too. There's no point pretending otherwise.
If you disagree, try walking to the other side of town, telling a few residents that "You know, nothing personal, but your whole neighborhood is big mountain of garbage", and feel free to share the results of your research with us.
Trump never said that Mexicans are rapists, etc.
What he did say was that women traveling through Central America en route to the United States were "raped at levels that nobody's ever seen before" (despite there being no evidence of this happening). Which again, amounts to exactly the same thing. Pretending otherwise is extremely naive.
"Puerto Rico is a garbage island" and Trump trowing paper toilet rolls to victims of natural disasters with a clear purpose of humiliating them.
The problem in this thread is that everybody is trying to find what Democrats did wrong, or say that Kamala was not well known. Well, every voter knew who was Trump, and they still voted him, so changing the candidate by "better" does not matter if people wants "worse". If a country can't use the best people that they had ("elite thinks that are better than us") the outcome is predictable.
And we aren't even daring to discuss the elephant in the room that is "Can't be really, (really) sure that they didn't just cheated?
After all wouldn't be the first time, so is legit to speculate about it. Lets imagine [hypothetically] that in an alternate timeline they just learned from past fails and cheated better this time. How that could be disclosed or done? Was mail vote altered?. How could we spot it in this case?. This is the real meat in this discussion.
How strong or weak is a candidate does not matter if a party just can jump over the game rules.
1)Got the platinum plan which provided half a trillion dollars to black communities
2) He also was very involved in the 'first step' act, helping address 'over-incarceration'.
3) He secured funding for HBCU via the FUTURE act, some of which were at risk of closure.
4) Prior to covid, black unemployment was at record lows (5.4%)
I keep hearing it repeated over and over again that black people hate him and he is racist, but I have yet to see a non-hyperbolic example. Whereas Biden is on video making incredibly racist remarks throughout his career like "I don't want my kids to grow up in a racial jungle" and speaking at a 'Grand Cyclops" KKK members funeral... not to mention he was largely RESPONSIBLE for the 1994 Crime Bill, which led to the over-incarceration of black people to begin with.
Surely you have something at least that damning, if you are going to casually label him as anti-black - right? I mean I know that supposedly the fact that the KKK guy later said 'oh no this was bad for my image' absolves him of THAT infringement for some reason, but it doesn't square the other stuff.
I'll keep the rest short, but the point I am trying to drive home to anyone reading this far:
Just because you were told 'trump is super duper racist and hates minorities' by the TV every day, doesn't mean it was reflected in his actions.
Muslims:
Less of substance here admittedly, but he did sign an executive order in 2019 to promote religious freedom WORLDWIDE, which included efforts to protect Muslims from persecution.
Asians:
As a large contingent of 'small business owners' the tax cuts for small businesses were a major boon.
Mexicans:
Honestly the fact that you listed this one is kind of weird - like what is he supposed to do for citizens of another country? Or did you mean Latin Americans but just reducing them to 'mexicans' would elicit the mental imagery you were hoping for?
All the Mexican Americans I know voted Trump, and if you look at the voting history in 2020 he got 32% of 'latino voters' and in 2024 that is looking like a jump to 45%. So roughly half seem to support him.
Puertoricans:
If you are going to exploit a minority group to make a mis-guided political point, at least type out the proper 'Puerto Ricans'... but I see clearly you just want to appeal to the 'coloring box of oppression' and throw some minorities out there and see what sticks.
Again, this group went from 30% supporting trump in 2020 to 40% in 2024 -- something tells me droning on and on about how the 'insult comic' harmed Puerto Rico (who does have a garbage crisis) didn't really have the effect you or the media or whoever formed your opinion were shooting for
Anyway, now that the facts are out I think it would be pretty hard to seriously claim Trump is a racist bigot without also conceding that 'your guy' is demonstrably more so -- but at the end of the day these identify politics games are getting tiresome, and no one is listening anymore.
It doesn't matter if he actually perceives them as his equal (I frankly think he doesn't perceive anyone as equal to him, he appears to be something of a sociopath), what matters is that he successfully treats people that way.
Democrats would be welcome to continue believing voters are children as long as they don't project it so blithely.
> Democrats would be welcome to continue believing voters are children as long as they don't project it so blithely.
I hear you and found it irritating as well. Republicans don't even treat their voters as children, it's far worse in my opinion, and yet they reap all the benefits. I think that if Democrats want to continue treating their voters as children they should go all the way and use the same dirty lies in the republican handbook, at least we could finally say they're all the same.
> who treats working-class voters as his equal. He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up.
No, he demonstrably doesn't treat them as his equals - however, you're absolutely right, he does talk to them like they are, and in this sense, it is one of his strengths.
Tangential, but I think a big problem for the world going forward is that modern technology has made the average voter unable to really understand things important to their lives.
People who don't know what RNA, lymphocytes or spike proteins are, are nonetheless trying to make decisions about taking a vaccine.
People who don't understand statistics, can't comprehend graphs and don't understand fundamental physics are nonetheless trying to make decisions about climate change.
See also corporate tax law, Middle East ethnic divisions, AI, pollution, etc.
Our innate intuition is often entirely wrong and disinformation can often make compelling arguments that sound correct to non-experts. I'm not sure what the solution is. We all have to put our trust in others about the many things where we're non-experts, but obviously many people are choosing the wrong people to believe.
>Yeah, this was a big part of a general trend of the Democrats treating voters like children to be coddled and lied to.
Meanwhile the rest of this comment section is talking about how democrats lost because they tried to talk about complex policy issues instead of just giving vague promises. Which is it?
>He doesn't talk down to them, he talks like them, and they eat it up.
"He says it like it is" right next to "But he didn't mean that", and he also literally talked about how devastated he was that the Jan 6 supporters were so shitty looking. He spends all sorts of time shit talking veterans who sacrificed for our country, even when the wars they fought were caused by dumb Republican policy.
It's fucking schrodinger's reality when it comes to Trump.
Trump also lies to voters. For instance every sophisticated analysis of his tariff plan have shown it will do the exact opposite of what he promises. The analysis is as bad as the analysis of Bernie and Warren's Medicare for all plans where magically everything was 50% cheaper.
Given Trump's current faculties, it might show that people are more willing to trust that he probably won't do much either. He'll be on a similar auto-pilot at this age
That's the thing about the left, they think the "machine" could just run things. You actually have to have someone that fires people. Think about it, Even Kim Cheatle had to resign! Biden did not ask for ANYONE to do a good job. No one was in control of that admin, it was a complete mess. If there is an atmosphere of governance/leadership that no matter how shitty a job you do, but you get to keep your job, then no one will care about anything at the top.
You may be right but short to remember the chaos in Trumps administration from 2016 to 2020. It really seemed like the country was about to burst. I hope it won't happen this time though...
> There was not enough focus on economy in a way that actually mattered
Between price controls, tariffs, and excepting tips from taxes, I had no confidence either candidate could pass Econ 101. The proposals can play well politically, but it leaves people who have a basic understanding of economics at a loss of who'd be better.
I think a democrat who could actually distance themselves from Biden, someone who had more leeway to criticize his policies without the obvious "if current policy is wrong, what's stopping you from changing it" question, would have faired better. Maybe not won, but done better. Certainly there was no way Biden would have won re-election and switching was a good choice, but too little too late.
But tbh I’m not sure how much it mattered. With the high inflation levels it was always an uphill battle for the incumbent.