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On November 07 2024 12:42 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 11:43 Zambrah wrote:
They dont care about inflation, they care about prices and prices are still real shitty, Americans just cant tell the fuckin' difference, probably from some combination of ignorance, illiteracy, and Fox News They're really not though. Prices aren't that high outside of rent/real estate which was inflated by Trump's monetary policy. When you bring that many future dollars into the present then those who have access to them will use them to buy real property. It triggered a speculative surge on real estate and stocks. But the price of bread is fine.
I dunno man, I used to get pork loin for like 60% of my meals in 2018~, that shit cost me .99c - $1.50 maximum, nowadays I go to the grocery store and its hard to find for below $4. Lots of examples of things like that, especially around staples like meat. Ironically other stuff like soda appears to have experienced those sorts of price increases but I dont think Ive paid above like 7 bucks for a 12 pack of Mtn Dew in years despite it being marked at like $11. Stupid small shit that makes people happy, things like Doritos feel exhorbitant for how little you get.
Everything also just feels infinitely worse because of that high cost of housing, when youre already stretched thin all of those additional expenses feel even worse.
Oh, and obligate Fuck Realpage and any software of its type.
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On November 07 2024 13:06 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 12:42 KwarK wrote:On November 07 2024 11:43 Zambrah wrote:
They dont care about inflation, they care about prices and prices are still real shitty, Americans just cant tell the fuckin' difference, probably from some combination of ignorance, illiteracy, and Fox News They're really not though. Prices aren't that high outside of rent/real estate which was inflated by Trump's monetary policy. When you bring that many future dollars into the present then those who have access to them will use them to buy real property. It triggered a speculative surge on real estate and stocks. But the price of bread is fine. I dunno man, I used to get pork loin for like 60% of my meals in 2018~, that shit cost me .99c - $1.50 maximum, nowadays I go to the grocery store and its hard to find for below $4. Lots of examples of things like that, especially around staples like meat. Ironically other stuff like soda appears to have experienced those sorts of price increases but I dont think Ive paid above like 7 bucks for a 12 pack of Mtn Dew in years despite it being marked at like $11. Stupid small shit that makes people happy, things like Doritos feel exhorbitant for how little you get. Everything also just feels infinitely worse because of that high cost of housing, when youre already stretched thin all of those additional expenses feel even worse.
So many things/times I find myself going "that is literally 100%+ more than it cost me even just 1-2 years ago" and other things that I realize I'm paying the same or less for than I did 20 years ago (we're talking consumables in both cases).
There's just more to the story of how humanity has managed to massively escalate its production capacity well beyond what is necessary to provide food, shelter, clothing, etc to everyone and still the wealthiest country in the world has kids going hungry at school and people sleeping in the street than is captured in the statistics. But people feel it as they live it.
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I will say, I live around a pretty affluent area, the office I work in has a floor for fuckin Raytheon, and I have noticed a HUGE increase in the number of homeless people around my area this past year. Like last year, I cant remember seeing literally any number of them, now theres at least half a dozen around the blocks around my office building.
Always hard for me to fathom how we can have so much money and just choose to let people live out on the fuckin streets.
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United States41450 Posts
Filling my car is essentially unchanged. Milk, bread, pasta, sauce, etc. are essentially unchanged. Meat varies, I tend to buy what is on offer in any given week but you can still get a whole roasted chicken for $6. Or a little Caesar’s hot and ready pizza for $6. My rule of thumb for the last decade or more has been to never pay more than $1/L for soda and I still don’t, 3 * 2L Mountain Dew for $5 and 4 * 6 pack 500ml for $12 are pretty regular at my Kroger.
The strong dollar has made imported goods absurdly cheap. I bought an absolutely huge tv a few months ago for $350 from Costco. However the post COVID labour market has certainly had some impact. My plant is hiring unskilled labour in NM at $20/hr with a decent benefits package because McDonald’s is paying $18 or so. Medium skill blue collar labour like CDL short haul drivers are getting paid even more. If you’re buying things that involve a lot of domestic labour then you’ll see price increases related to that, but it’s still not that much.
I track my expenses as a hobby because I’m an accountant and I like spreadsheets. Anecdotally where I’ve seen the increases are home insurance, car insurance, property taxes, electricity, natural gas. I own rather than rent but the house I bought for $165k in 2019 is now valued over twice that. With interest rates higher a mortgage on that home today would be far more than double what I paid so I’ll put that on the list too.
So wages are substantially up, imported goods substantially cheaper, labour intensive domestic goods are up but less dramatically, capital intensive services are through the fucking roof.
Why anyone would vote for a shady NYC property owner to protest expensive real estate is beyond me though.
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On November 07 2024 13:20 Zambrah wrote:
I will say, I live around a pretty affluent area, the office I work in has a floor for fuckin Raytheon, and I have noticed a HUGE increase in the number of homeless people around my area this past year. Like last year, I cant remember seeing literally any number of them, now theres at least half a dozen around the blocks around my office building.
Always hard for me to fathom how we can have so much money and just choose to let people live out on the fuckin streets.
They're a threat/reminder of what happens if you don't do as capitalism demands. Same goes for the globally recognized irrationally inhumane embargo on Cuba.
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On November 07 2024 12:52 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 12:48 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 11:01 WombaT wrote:On November 07 2024 10:42 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 05:43 Gorsameth wrote:On November 07 2024 04:53 Introvert wrote:
I have a bit of anecdata... at work taking to a 30 yr old, devout Catholic Mexican-American woman. She didn't vote, but when I brought it up she said after asking me who I wanted to win, before I even finished volunteered that Kamala was "terrible, like really bad." Said her brother voted Trump because of the economy, one sister and brother in law voted Trump also, and another sister and brother in law were also (?) Dems but undecided. "I asked why were they thinking about voting for her, she is against everything you believe."
Atm, Trump is doing far, far better with Hispanics and Catholics ever before. Sure, much of that is the economy (her brother's vote).
But...
Devout Christians knew she wasn't on their side, knew she'd use the power of the state to coerce their schools and hospitals. It might be why Trump is getting 40% in CA rn.
This actually gives me hope, nit only might we finally witness the end of the "coalition of the ascendant" thst dems have been trying to make happen for two decades now, but it seems like the categorical rejection of Harris really is a blow against Dems lurch to the left on so many social and cultural issues. Some dem senate candidates will win or almost win where Trump won, but they stayed away from Harris like the plague (Rosen in NV and Baldwin in WI). They have to at least appear more moderate. Iirc Casey in PA was running ads about working with Trump. There is no silver lining in the presidential race, she and what people thought she stood for was rejected by the most diverse Republican vote in modern history.
And finally, Trump outran the rest of the GOP everywhere. This again is giving vibes to the last century, the FDR coalition didn't crack all at once (you could argue it's still cracking) but Republicans started winning the South with the presidency before it trickled down. There is a change happening here, and it's fascinating to watch. He is not an anchor, at least not this year.
Of course we have to remember thet much of this is because Kamala Harris sucks, too. Do you believe in the separation of church and state? that the US should be a secular country? Do you think that perhaps these devout Christians actually want a Christian nationalist state that imposes their Christian values on everyone else? And also, Trump is the living embodiment of the 7 deadly sins, he fills every single one of them. lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. I question any devout Christian that would vote for such a man. You seem confused, perhaps. I don't know why you are going on about "Christian nationalism" (even Harris had the presence of mind to not say something like that) but I'm saying Catholics know Kamala wasn't on their side. It doesn't have anything to do with a theocracy (you are getting it mixed up because in left-wing discourse it's specifically Evangelicalism that is supposed to bring out a new Christian Nationalism. Conservative Catholics are instead just doing something like "ignoring the history of social justice in the Church"  ) Their question was what ‘Kamala not being on their side’ to paraphrase actually means and you didn’t answer it, not remotely. hmm, I read no such question of any sort (besides the rhetorical kind) but I guess to that I would quickly say Her refusal to give any quarter to those people or institutions who might disagree with her. as an example, her questioning of Catholic juridical nominees for their membership in a mainstream fraternal organization. And sure, the Al Smith dinner is a hoighty toighty event, but she couldn't be bothered to show up there either. With her in charge the DOJ would probably return to the practice of suing nuns. And never mind how the Biden administration has totally thrown the book at people outside abortion clinics while left-wing violence is treated with kid gloves. Overall there's no reason to think Kamala Harris has any room for people of faith. ** Not sure if people touting the "Inflation Reduction Act" as actually having a meaningful impact on inflation are ignorant (hard to believe) or just being deceptive. Biden, in one of his moments of accidental honesty, said when touting the 'green' parts of the bill "we should have called it what it was." It was a climate spending bill, "Inflation Reduction Act" was, iirc a name Manchin gave it because he thought it would sound better. Very cynical politics that should only work on people ignorant of its contents. Is your position that Biden's America didn't achieve better reductions in inflation than any other benchmark nation or is it that they did successfully reduce inflation but that the reduction in inflation was unrelated to the inflation reduction act?
It's my position that dem spending after COVID made inflation worse and a combination of supply chain recovery and fed actions helped bring it down. I give very little credit to Biden in particular, though I don't deny the US did better than Europe
but the IRA was not about inflation and I have a really hard time believing you didnt know that
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United States41450 Posts
On November 07 2024 13:38 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 13:20 Zambrah wrote:
I will say, I live around a pretty affluent area, the office I work in has a floor for fuckin Raytheon, and I have noticed a HUGE increase in the number of homeless people around my area this past year. Like last year, I cant remember seeing literally any number of them, now theres at least half a dozen around the blocks around my office building.
Always hard for me to fathom how we can have so much money and just choose to let people live out on the fuckin streets. They're a threat/reminder of what happens if you don't do as capitalism demands. Same goes for the globally recognized irrationally inhumane embargo on Cuba.
There’s a homeless encampment near the factory where I work. I routinely take surplus food that would otherwise be wasted and distribute it to people. Some of them are completely gone from either preexisting mental illness or years of drug abuse. Incapable of speech, incapable of understanding, literal zombies. Brain utterly fried. Less comprehension and response than you’d get from a gerbil.
99% aren’t. They’re happy to be seen, very happy to get free delicious stuff, happy to talk, normal people. The ones that are methed out may be really, really eager for me to follow them on Instagram but basically fine.
That 1% though can’t be helped. They’re not refusing to do what capitalism requires or any ideological shit like that. They’re not warnings to the rest of us. They’re the living dead.
Somewhat off topic but the only possibly appropriate place for them would be a really high end extreme dementia hospital. They’re on the streets because there is no place capable of caring for them. It’s much worse than the late stage dementia where the patient doesn’t know who they are, where they are, what is going on and all that is left is fear because fear is at least a valid and correct response to that level of mental dysfunction. Their processing is worse than that. Don’t do drugs.
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United States41450 Posts
On November 07 2024 13:53 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 12:52 KwarK wrote:On November 07 2024 12:48 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 11:01 WombaT wrote:On November 07 2024 10:42 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 05:43 Gorsameth wrote:On November 07 2024 04:53 Introvert wrote:
I have a bit of anecdata... at work taking to a 30 yr old, devout Catholic Mexican-American woman. She didn't vote, but when I brought it up she said after asking me who I wanted to win, before I even finished volunteered that Kamala was "terrible, like really bad." Said her brother voted Trump because of the economy, one sister and brother in law voted Trump also, and another sister and brother in law were also (?) Dems but undecided. "I asked why were they thinking about voting for her, she is against everything you believe."
Atm, Trump is doing far, far better with Hispanics and Catholics ever before. Sure, much of that is the economy (her brother's vote).
But...
Devout Christians knew she wasn't on their side, knew she'd use the power of the state to coerce their schools and hospitals. It might be why Trump is getting 40% in CA rn.
This actually gives me hope, nit only might we finally witness the end of the "coalition of the ascendant" thst dems have been trying to make happen for two decades now, but it seems like the categorical rejection of Harris really is a blow against Dems lurch to the left on so many social and cultural issues. Some dem senate candidates will win or almost win where Trump won, but they stayed away from Harris like the plague (Rosen in NV and Baldwin in WI). They have to at least appear more moderate. Iirc Casey in PA was running ads about working with Trump. There is no silver lining in the presidential race, she and what people thought she stood for was rejected by the most diverse Republican vote in modern history.
And finally, Trump outran the rest of the GOP everywhere. This again is giving vibes to the last century, the FDR coalition didn't crack all at once (you could argue it's still cracking) but Republicans started winning the South with the presidency before it trickled down. There is a change happening here, and it's fascinating to watch. He is not an anchor, at least not this year.
Of course we have to remember thet much of this is because Kamala Harris sucks, too. Do you believe in the separation of church and state? that the US should be a secular country? Do you think that perhaps these devout Christians actually want a Christian nationalist state that imposes their Christian values on everyone else? And also, Trump is the living embodiment of the 7 deadly sins, he fills every single one of them. lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. I question any devout Christian that would vote for such a man. You seem confused, perhaps. I don't know why you are going on about "Christian nationalism" (even Harris had the presence of mind to not say something like that) but I'm saying Catholics know Kamala wasn't on their side. It doesn't have anything to do with a theocracy (you are getting it mixed up because in left-wing discourse it's specifically Evangelicalism that is supposed to bring out a new Christian Nationalism. Conservative Catholics are instead just doing something like "ignoring the history of social justice in the Church" ) Their question was what ‘Kamala not being on their side’ to paraphrase actually means and you didn’t answer it, not remotely. hmm, I read no such question of any sort (besides the rhetorical kind) but I guess to that I would quickly say Her refusal to give any quarter to those people or institutions who might disagree with her. as an example, her questioning of Catholic juridical nominees for their membership in a mainstream fraternal organization. And sure, the Al Smith dinner is a hoighty toighty event, but she couldn't be bothered to show up there either. With her in charge the DOJ would probably return to the practice of suing nuns. And never mind how the Biden administration has totally thrown the book at people outside abortion clinics while left-wing violence is treated with kid gloves. Overall there's no reason to think Kamala Harris has any room for people of faith. ** Not sure if people touting the "Inflation Reduction Act" as actually having a meaningful impact on inflation are ignorant (hard to believe) or just being deceptive. Biden, in one of his moments of accidental honesty, said when touting the 'green' parts of the bill "we should have called it what it was." It was a climate spending bill, "Inflation Reduction Act" was, iirc a name Manchin gave it because he thought it would sound better. Very cynical politics that should only work on people ignorant of its contents. Is your position that Biden's America didn't achieve better reductions in inflation than any other benchmark nation or is it that they did successfully reduce inflation but that the reduction in inflation was unrelated to the inflation reduction act? It's my position that dem spending after COVID made inflation worse and a combination of supply chain recovery and fed actions helped bring it down. I give very little credit to Biden in particular, though I don't deny the US did better than Europe but the IRA was not about inflation and I have a really hard time believing you didnt know that
The Dem spending after COVID only? Not the much greater Trump spending during COVID? Or the much greater Trump spending before COVID? Or how Trump bullied the Fed every time they tried to raise interest rates during his term because cheap cash was inflating the bubble and he wanted the biggliest bubble?
Even if you attribute it to the Fed, rather than Biden, you can’t separate the two because the Fed under Trump was not permitted to control inflation.
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On November 07 2024 14:11 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 13:53 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 12:52 KwarK wrote:On November 07 2024 12:48 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 11:01 WombaT wrote:On November 07 2024 10:42 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 05:43 Gorsameth wrote:On November 07 2024 04:53 Introvert wrote:
I have a bit of anecdata... at work taking to a 30 yr old, devout Catholic Mexican-American woman. She didn't vote, but when I brought it up she said after asking me who I wanted to win, before I even finished volunteered that Kamala was "terrible, like really bad." Said her brother voted Trump because of the economy, one sister and brother in law voted Trump also, and another sister and brother in law were also (?) Dems but undecided. "I asked why were they thinking about voting for her, she is against everything you believe."
Atm, Trump is doing far, far better with Hispanics and Catholics ever before. Sure, much of that is the economy (her brother's vote).
But...
Devout Christians knew she wasn't on their side, knew she'd use the power of the state to coerce their schools and hospitals. It might be why Trump is getting 40% in CA rn.
This actually gives me hope, nit only might we finally witness the end of the "coalition of the ascendant" thst dems have been trying to make happen for two decades now, but it seems like the categorical rejection of Harris really is a blow against Dems lurch to the left on so many social and cultural issues. Some dem senate candidates will win or almost win where Trump won, but they stayed away from Harris like the plague (Rosen in NV and Baldwin in WI). They have to at least appear more moderate. Iirc Casey in PA was running ads about working with Trump. There is no silver lining in the presidential race, she and what people thought she stood for was rejected by the most diverse Republican vote in modern history.
And finally, Trump outran the rest of the GOP everywhere. This again is giving vibes to the last century, the FDR coalition didn't crack all at once (you could argue it's still cracking) but Republicans started winning the South with the presidency before it trickled down. There is a change happening here, and it's fascinating to watch. He is not an anchor, at least not this year.
Of course we have to remember thet much of this is because Kamala Harris sucks, too. Do you believe in the separation of church and state? that the US should be a secular country? Do you think that perhaps these devout Christians actually want a Christian nationalist state that imposes their Christian values on everyone else? And also, Trump is the living embodiment of the 7 deadly sins, he fills every single one of them. lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. I question any devout Christian that would vote for such a man. You seem confused, perhaps. I don't know why you are going on about "Christian nationalism" (even Harris had the presence of mind to not say something like that) but I'm saying Catholics know Kamala wasn't on their side. It doesn't have anything to do with a theocracy (you are getting it mixed up because in left-wing discourse it's specifically Evangelicalism that is supposed to bring out a new Christian Nationalism. Conservative Catholics are instead just doing something like "ignoring the history of social justice in the Church" ) Their question was what ‘Kamala not being on their side’ to paraphrase actually means and you didn’t answer it, not remotely. hmm, I read no such question of any sort (besides the rhetorical kind) but I guess to that I would quickly say Her refusal to give any quarter to those people or institutions who might disagree with her. as an example, her questioning of Catholic juridical nominees for their membership in a mainstream fraternal organization. And sure, the Al Smith dinner is a hoighty toighty event, but she couldn't be bothered to show up there either. With her in charge the DOJ would probably return to the practice of suing nuns. And never mind how the Biden administration has totally thrown the book at people outside abortion clinics while left-wing violence is treated with kid gloves. Overall there's no reason to think Kamala Harris has any room for people of faith. ** Not sure if people touting the "Inflation Reduction Act" as actually having a meaningful impact on inflation are ignorant (hard to believe) or just being deceptive. Biden, in one of his moments of accidental honesty, said when touting the 'green' parts of the bill "we should have called it what it was." It was a climate spending bill, "Inflation Reduction Act" was, iirc a name Manchin gave it because he thought it would sound better. Very cynical politics that should only work on people ignorant of its contents. Is your position that Biden's America didn't achieve better reductions in inflation than any other benchmark nation or is it that they did successfully reduce inflation but that the reduction in inflation was unrelated to the inflation reduction act? It's my position that dem spending after COVID made inflation worse and a combination of supply chain recovery and fed actions helped bring it down. I give very little credit to Biden in particular, though I don't deny the US did better than Europe but the IRA was not about inflation and I have a really hard time believing you didnt know that The Dem spending after COVID only? Not the much greater Trump spending during COVID? Or the much greater Trump spending before COVID? Or how Trump bullied the Fed every time they tried to raise interest rates during his term because cheap cash was inflating the bubble and he wanted the biggliest bubble? Even if you attribute it to the Fed, rather than Biden, you can’t separate the two because the Fed under Trump was not permitted to control inflation.
I think during COVID everyone knew what was going to happen, but felt they had to do it anyways. I guess we can blame *everyone* for that but the extra, unnecessary billions after it was mostly over didn't help and possibly prolonged the pain. I know you have been blaming a lot of that (and the deficit) on Trump, but spending in that time period was bipartisan (dems controlled the House). Nowhere have I blamed most of the inflation increase on Dems or Republicans at all (although again juicing spending after COVID was over was not ideal).
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On November 07 2024 14:05 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 13:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 07 2024 13:20 Zambrah wrote:
I will say, I live around a pretty affluent area, the office I work in has a floor for fuckin Raytheon, and I have noticed a HUGE increase in the number of homeless people around my area this past year. Like last year, I cant remember seeing literally any number of them, now theres at least half a dozen around the blocks around my office building.
Always hard for me to fathom how we can have so much money and just choose to let people live out on the fuckin streets. They're a threat/reminder of what happens if you don't do as capitalism demands. Same goes for the globally recognized irrationally inhumane embargo on Cuba. There’s a homeless encampment near the factory where I work. I routinely take surplus food that would otherwise be wasted and distribute it to people. Some of them are completely gone from either preexisting mental illness or years of drug abuse. Incapable of speech, incapable of understanding, literal zombies. Brain utterly fried. Less comprehension and response than you’d get from a gerbil. 99% aren’t. They’re happy to be seen, very happy to get free delicious stuff, happy to talk, normal people. The ones that are methed out may be really, really eager for me to follow them on Instagram but basically fine. That 1% though can’t be helped. They’re not refusing to do what capitalism requires or any ideological shit like that. They’re not warnings to the rest of us. They’re the living dead. Somewhat off topic but the only possibly appropriate place for them would be a really high end extreme dementia hospital. They’re on the streets because there is no place capable of caring for them. It’s much worse than the late stage dementia where the patient doesn’t know who they are, where they are, what is going on and all that is left is fear because fear is at least a valid and correct response to that level of mental dysfunction. Their processing is worse than that. Don’t do drugs.
There are quite a lot of junkies in Oslo, but i got to say they are extreeeemely well taken care of overall. You see the people you describe, but they have a house in the middle of the city center that helps them with clean syringes and stuff, and you often see the police collecting them when it’s too cold to make sure they don’t sleep in the streets. They hang out literally in the middle of the city centre, and that’s by design. It’s a really hard life, and many will never have anything resembling a normal life. Most of them will die in the street. But i feel there is real care and that society doesn’t consider them as just a nuisance to hide or get rid of.
A reminder that there is capitalism and capitalism.
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United States41450 Posts
On November 07 2024 14:19 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 14:05 KwarK wrote:On November 07 2024 13:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 07 2024 13:20 Zambrah wrote:
I will say, I live around a pretty affluent area, the office I work in has a floor for fuckin Raytheon, and I have noticed a HUGE increase in the number of homeless people around my area this past year. Like last year, I cant remember seeing literally any number of them, now theres at least half a dozen around the blocks around my office building.
Always hard for me to fathom how we can have so much money and just choose to let people live out on the fuckin streets. They're a threat/reminder of what happens if you don't do as capitalism demands. Same goes for the globally recognized irrationally inhumane embargo on Cuba. There’s a homeless encampment near the factory where I work. I routinely take surplus food that would otherwise be wasted and distribute it to people. Some of them are completely gone from either preexisting mental illness or years of drug abuse. Incapable of speech, incapable of understanding, literal zombies. Brain utterly fried. Less comprehension and response than you’d get from a gerbil. 99% aren’t. They’re happy to be seen, very happy to get free delicious stuff, happy to talk, normal people. The ones that are methed out may be really, really eager for me to follow them on Instagram but basically fine. That 1% though can’t be helped. They’re not refusing to do what capitalism requires or any ideological shit like that. They’re not warnings to the rest of us. They’re the living dead. Somewhat off topic but the only possibly appropriate place for them would be a really high end extreme dementia hospital. They’re on the streets because there is no place capable of caring for them. It’s much worse than the late stage dementia where the patient doesn’t know who they are, where they are, what is going on and all that is left is fear because fear is at least a valid and correct response to that level of mental dysfunction. Their processing is worse than that. Don’t do drugs. There are quite a lot of junkies in Oslo, but i got to say they are extreeeemely well taken care of overall. You see the people you describe, but they have a house in the middle of the city center that helps them with clean syringes and stuff, and you often see the police collecting them when it’s too cold to make sure they don’t sleep in the streets. They hang out literally in the middle of the city centre, and that’s by design. It’s a really hard life, and many will never have anything resembling a normal life. Most of them will die in the street. But i feel there is real care and that society doesn’t consider them as just a nuisance to hide or get rid of. A reminder that there is capitalism and capitalism.
The people I was describing couldn’t use a syringe. They’re not active addicts, they’re what was left behind after drug fueled brain damage stole whoever they were.
I was fine with the junkies.
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On November 07 2024 13:32 KwarK wrote:
Filling my car is essentially unchanged. Milk, bread, pasta, sauce, etc. are essentially unchanged. Meat varies, I tend to buy what is on offer in any given week but you can still get a whole roasted chicken for $6. Or a little Caesar’s hot and ready pizza for $6. My rule of thumb for the last decade or more has been to never pay more than $1/L for soda and I still don’t, 3 * 2L Mountain Dew for $5 and 4 * 6 pack 500ml for $12 are pretty regular at my Kroger.
The strong dollar has made imported goods absurdly cheap. I bought an absolutely huge tv a few months ago for $350 from Costco. However the post COVID labour market has certainly had some impact. My plant is hiring unskilled labour in NM at $20/hr with a decent benefits package because McDonald’s is paying $18 or so. Medium skill blue collar labour like CDL short haul drivers are getting paid even more. If you’re buying things that involve a lot of domestic labour then you’ll see price increases related to that, but it’s still not that much.
I track my expenses as a hobby because I’m an accountant and I like spreadsheets. Anecdotally where I’ve seen the increases are home insurance, car insurance, property taxes, electricity, natural gas. I own rather than rent but the house I bought for $165k in 2019 is now valued over twice that. With interest rates higher a mortgage on that home today would be far more than double what I paid so I’ll put that on the list too.
So wages are substantially up, imported goods substantially cheaper, labour intensive domestic goods are up but less dramatically, capital intensive services are through the fucking roof.
Why anyone would vote for a shady NYC property owner to protest expensive real estate is beyond me though.
Christ I havent bought a 2L in forever, they're above a dollar each now lol, I tend to sticks to cans for carbonation preservation.
Anyways, things definitely arent as killer as Republicans make it seem, but its hard to make a living on 20 an hour, Im happy a lot of jobs that were seeing piss-poor wages are seeing a nice uptick, but it doesnt seem to be preventing people from having to live with roommates well beyond whats considered a socially acceptable age in the US.
At the end of the day theres a certain lived experience that Democrats need to understand from the working class, theres been a huge shift over the last several decades about what people can expect with regards to their quality of life below the upper middle class, you can crunch numbers and say its not so bad, and its probably not as bad as giga-doomers would have you believe, but theres been a lot of change of expectation and reality from what people's quality of life has looked like.
EDIT: And yes, the homeless people around here dont strike me as being junkies, the newest homeless dude Ive seen is a very old man with a mattress who mostly reads his book when I see him awake. Honestly shocked he hasnt been shooed away given hes set himself up around 1M+ townhomes full of fairly rich people. Most of the homeless people I've seen just look like they were probably low wage workers around here and lost their low cost housing lottery or something and just have nowhere to go.
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United States41450 Posts
On November 07 2024 14:18 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 14:11 KwarK wrote:On November 07 2024 13:53 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 12:52 KwarK wrote:On November 07 2024 12:48 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 11:01 WombaT wrote:On November 07 2024 10:42 Introvert wrote:On November 07 2024 05:43 Gorsameth wrote:On November 07 2024 04:53 Introvert wrote:
I have a bit of anecdata... at work taking to a 30 yr old, devout Catholic Mexican-American woman. She didn't vote, but when I brought it up she said after asking me who I wanted to win, before I even finished volunteered that Kamala was "terrible, like really bad." Said her brother voted Trump because of the economy, one sister and brother in law voted Trump also, and another sister and brother in law were also (?) Dems but undecided. "I asked why were they thinking about voting for her, she is against everything you believe."
Atm, Trump is doing far, far better with Hispanics and Catholics ever before. Sure, much of that is the economy (her brother's vote).
But...
Devout Christians knew she wasn't on their side, knew she'd use the power of the state to coerce their schools and hospitals. It might be why Trump is getting 40% in CA rn.
This actually gives me hope, nit only might we finally witness the end of the "coalition of the ascendant" thst dems have been trying to make happen for two decades now, but it seems like the categorical rejection of Harris really is a blow against Dems lurch to the left on so many social and cultural issues. Some dem senate candidates will win or almost win where Trump won, but they stayed away from Harris like the plague (Rosen in NV and Baldwin in WI). They have to at least appear more moderate. Iirc Casey in PA was running ads about working with Trump. There is no silver lining in the presidential race, she and what people thought she stood for was rejected by the most diverse Republican vote in modern history.
And finally, Trump outran the rest of the GOP everywhere. This again is giving vibes to the last century, the FDR coalition didn't crack all at once (you could argue it's still cracking) but Republicans started winning the South with the presidency before it trickled down. There is a change happening here, and it's fascinating to watch. He is not an anchor, at least not this year.
Of course we have to remember thet much of this is because Kamala Harris sucks, too. Do you believe in the separation of church and state? that the US should be a secular country? Do you think that perhaps these devout Christians actually want a Christian nationalist state that imposes their Christian values on everyone else? And also, Trump is the living embodiment of the 7 deadly sins, he fills every single one of them. lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. I question any devout Christian that would vote for such a man. You seem confused, perhaps. I don't know why you are going on about "Christian nationalism" (even Harris had the presence of mind to not say something like that) but I'm saying Catholics know Kamala wasn't on their side. It doesn't have anything to do with a theocracy (you are getting it mixed up because in left-wing discourse it's specifically Evangelicalism that is supposed to bring out a new Christian Nationalism. Conservative Catholics are instead just doing something like "ignoring the history of social justice in the Church" ) Their question was what ‘Kamala not being on their side’ to paraphrase actually means and you didn’t answer it, not remotely. hmm, I read no such question of any sort (besides the rhetorical kind) but I guess to that I would quickly say Her refusal to give any quarter to those people or institutions who might disagree with her. as an example, her questioning of Catholic juridical nominees for their membership in a mainstream fraternal organization. And sure, the Al Smith dinner is a hoighty toighty event, but she couldn't be bothered to show up there either. With her in charge the DOJ would probably return to the practice of suing nuns. And never mind how the Biden administration has totally thrown the book at people outside abortion clinics while left-wing violence is treated with kid gloves. Overall there's no reason to think Kamala Harris has any room for people of faith. ** Not sure if people touting the "Inflation Reduction Act" as actually having a meaningful impact on inflation are ignorant (hard to believe) or just being deceptive. Biden, in one of his moments of accidental honesty, said when touting the 'green' parts of the bill "we should have called it what it was." It was a climate spending bill, "Inflation Reduction Act" was, iirc a name Manchin gave it because he thought it would sound better. Very cynical politics that should only work on people ignorant of its contents. Is your position that Biden's America didn't achieve better reductions in inflation than any other benchmark nation or is it that they did successfully reduce inflation but that the reduction in inflation was unrelated to the inflation reduction act? It's my position that dem spending after COVID made inflation worse and a combination of supply chain recovery and fed actions helped bring it down. I give very little credit to Biden in particular, though I don't deny the US did better than Europe but the IRA was not about inflation and I have a really hard time believing you didnt know that The Dem spending after COVID only? Not the much greater Trump spending during COVID? Or the much greater Trump spending before COVID? Or how Trump bullied the Fed every time they tried to raise interest rates during his term because cheap cash was inflating the bubble and he wanted the biggliest bubble? Even if you attribute it to the Fed, rather than Biden, you can’t separate the two because the Fed under Trump was not permitted to control inflation. I think during COVID everyone knew what was going to happen, but felt they had to do it anyways. I guess we can blame *everyone* for that but the extra, unnecessary billions after it was mostly over didn't help and possibly prolonged the pain. I know you have been blaming a lot of that (and the deficit) on Trump, but spending in that time period was bipartisan (dems controlled the House). Nowhere have I blamed most of the inflation increase on Dems or Republicans at all (although again juicing spending after COVID was over was not ideal).
The basic premise of stimulus spending is that you introduce future cash into the present day economy by artificially lowering interest rates when you want to juice the economy. It lowers the cost of capital, encourages businesses to engage in capital investment, expansion, plant upgrades etc., facilitates entrepreneurial activity, and increases consumer demand as they move spending from tomorrow to today.
But doing this inevitably overheats the economy and leads to inflation and so it must be followed with a cool off period. Interest rates must be raised to encourage people to forgo consumption today and instead pay back the loans they took out yesterday.
It doesn’t allow the creation of something from nothing, only the smoothing out of temporary blips and cyclical market crashes.
Stimulus was appropriate during the Great Recession and the years after. It was completely inappropriate ten years later. Those are the years in which the cool down would have to occur in order to have gas in the tank for future stimulus.
I have a very clear memory of sitting at work and reading Trump tweeting abuse at Jerome Powell for raising interest rates. You’ll recall that Trump used the Dow Jones etc. as proof that he had the greatest economy of all time and that cheap cash inflated their valuations. Whenever interest rates went up, as the Fed attempted to do in early 2019, the market would respond unfavorably and Trump would lose his custard. The man was (and still is) completely incapable of understanding the difference between asset valuations and the economy and would not take his medicine.
The Fed was lowering rates and providing additional stimulus at the instruction of Trump before COVID. The overheating of the economy and the inflation of asset bubbles was a specific policy goal of Trump, albeit probably not one he really understood. COVID didn’t start the runaway train, it was all gas no brakes already.
This is unfortunately the risk of putting a complete moron in charge. He lacked (and still lacks) any understanding of the responsibility involved in good governance. You can get all the experts in the country into a room with him and try to walk him through the need to prevent inflation but a few days later he’ll be right back to tweeting. The economic overheating and inflation is exactly what every economist said Trump was doing. He was unlucky that there was a genuine need for stimulus in 2020 but that’s why you need to put on the brakes outside of emergencies, you can’t go all gas all the time because it leaves you nothing in the tank.
Trump is objectively to blame for overheating the economy. The Fed said it was happening during his presidency long before COVID. They said the brakes needed to go on. They said if the brakes did not go on then inflation would become an issue. Trump accused them of being part of some deep state plot trying to destroy the economy to undermine his presidency and they acceded to his wishes like the gutless cowards they are.
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Not to be quick to all that but I'm pretty sure I was very critical of Trump's spending habits way back when, and have been critical of Republicans unwillingness to follow their own rhetoric. But they don't own the post COVID spending binge and, while the infrastructure bill was "bipartisan" it was mostly a Dem creation spending billions of dollars on goods that were undergoing rapid price increases (and which the bill itself certainly contributed to). There is no budgetarily responsible party in DC, GOP wants to spend on the military and doesn't want to be called heartless cutting other stuff, and Dems think they can spend forever and somehow not have to eventually tax the middle class.
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On November 07 2024 13:32 KwarK wrote:
Filling my car is essentially unchanged. Milk, bread, pasta, sauce, etc. are essentially unchanged. Meat varies, I tend to buy what is on offer in any given week but you can still get a whole roasted chicken for $6. Or a little Caesar’s hot and ready pizza for $6. My rule of thumb for the last decade or more has been to never pay more than $1/L for soda and I still don’t, 3 * 2L Mountain Dew for $5 and 4 * 6 pack 500ml for $12 are pretty regular at my Kroger.
The strong dollar has made imported goods absurdly cheap. I bought an absolutely huge tv a few months ago for $350 from Costco. However the post COVID labour market has certainly had some impact. My plant is hiring unskilled labour in NM at $20/hr with a decent benefits package because McDonald’s is paying $18 or so. Medium skill blue collar labour like CDL short haul drivers are getting paid even more. If you’re buying things that involve a lot of domestic labour then you’ll see price increases related to that, but it’s still not that much.
I track my expenses as a hobby because I’m an accountant and I like spreadsheets. Anecdotally where I’ve seen the increases are home insurance, car insurance, property taxes, electricity, natural gas. I own rather than rent but the house I bought for $165k in 2019 is now valued over twice that. With interest rates higher a mortgage on that home today would be far more than double what I paid so I’ll put that on the list too.
So wages are substantially up, imported goods substantially cheaper, labour intensive domestic goods are up but less dramatically, capital intensive services are through the fucking roof.
Why anyone would vote for a shady NYC property owner to protest expensive real estate is beyond me though.
Thank you for what you do. Even in coma patients there is a non-zero success rate. The same applies to the "walking dead." A shred of humanity can save a person.
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United States41450 Posts
On November 07 2024 15:08 Introvert wrote:
Not to be quick to all that but I'm pretty sure I was very critical of Trump's spending habits way back when, and have been critical of Republicans unwillingness to follow their own rhetoric. But they don't own the post COVID spending binge and, while the infrastructure bill was "bipartisan" it was mostly a Dem creation spending billions of dollars on goods that were undergoing rapid price increases (and which the bill itself certainly contributed to). There is no budgetarily responsible party in DC, GOP wants to spend on the military and doesn't want to be called heartless cutting other stuff, and Dems think they can spend forever and somehow not have to eventually tax the middle class.
It’s not the spending, it’s the constant vitriol spewed at the Chairman of the Federal Reserve when the technocrats saw the early warning signs of inflation and attempted to take corrective action to avoid it.
Part of the underlying premise of government is that we pay nerds to specialize into really niche fields like monetary policy or pandemic response or military strategy and then they make day to day decisions that are in line with the goals the elected representatives assign them. The voters don’t decide how to conquer Iraq, we have generals for that, the voters ask that it be done and then defer to career generals on the execution.
One of the most consistent and damning issues with Trump is his failure to understand that he’s not actually an expert on every possible subject. That the problems with the occupation of Iraq were just that the US Army was unfamiliar with the concept of surprise but that as President he would explain it to them and then the army would win. That COVID could not be fixed through the insertion of light bulbs into the body.
Inflation is a classic and extremely well documented example of this problem with Trump. The technocrats saw the overheating coming. They came up with an action plan to avoid inflation. They attempted to execute. Trump attacked them until they deferred to him. The American people suffered considerably from the inflation.
Jul 31, 2019 03:41:17 PM: What the Market wanted to hear from Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve was that this was the beginning of a lengthy and aggressive rate-cutting cycle which would keep pace with China, The European Union and other countries around the world....
Jul 31, 2019 03:41:18 PM ....As usual, Powell let us down, but at least he is ending quantitative tightening, which shouldn't have started in the first place - no inflation. We are winning anyway, but I am certainly not getting much help from the Federal Reserve!
Jul 31, 2019 07:17:45 PM Experts stated that the Fed should not have tightened, and then waited too long to undo their mistake. James Bullard of St. Louis Fed said they waited too long to correct the mistake that they made last December. "Mistake, Powell cut rate and then he started talking."
Aug 14, 2019 12:14:50 PM The Great Charles Payne @cvpayne correctly stated that Fed Chair Jay Powell made TWO enormous mistakes. 1. When he said "mid cycle adjustment." 2. We're data dependent. "He did not do the right thing." I agree (to put it mildly!).
Aug 14, 2019 02:21:05 PM We are winning, big time, against China. Companies & jobs are fleeing. Prices to us have not gone up, and in some cases, have come down. China is not our problem, though Hong Kong is not helping. Our problem is with the Fed. Raised too much & too fast. Now too slow to cut.... Spread is way too much as other countries say THANK YOU to clueless Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve. Germany, and many others, are playing the game! CRAZY INVERTED YIELD CURVE! We should easily be reaping big Rewards & Gains, but the Fed is holding us back. We will Win!
Aug 19, 2019 10:26:20 AM Our Economy is very strong, despite the horrendous lack of vision by Jay Powell and the Fed, but the Democrats are trying to "will" the Economy to be bad for purposes of the 2020 Election. Very Selfish! Our dollar is so strong that it is sadly hurting other parts of the world...
Aug 21, 2019 07:52:27 AM Doing great with China and other Trade Deals. The only problem we have is Jay Powell and the Fed. He's like a golfer who can't putt, has no touch. Big U.S. growth if he does the right thing, BIG CUT - but don't count on him! So far he has called it wrong, and only let us down....
Aug 23, 2019 09:57:40 AM....My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?
September 11, 2019
The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN, while at the same time substantially lengthening the term. We have the great currency, power, and balance sheet... The USA should always be paying the the lowest rate. No Inflation! It is only the naïveté of Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve that doesn’t allow us to do what other countries are already doing. A once in a lifetime opportunity that we are missing because of “Boneheads.
The evidence is undeniable. Trump’s monetary policy was specifically inflationary.
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On November 07 2024 13:32 KwarK wrote:
Filling my car is essentially unchanged. Milk, bread, pasta, sauce, etc. are essentially unchanged..
Are you talking about prices adjusted for wage growth or something? Because prices are definitely way higher than they were before the pandemic. I used to get the hot n ready pizza for $5 with crazy bread combo for another $2.79 when I was in college. The crazy bread combo at my local lil Caesar’s is like $7.99 just by itself. Not saying that’s normal, just another anecdote to go along with yours.
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On November 07 2024 15:35 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 15:08 Introvert wrote:
Not to be quick to all that but I'm pretty sure I was very critical of Trump's spending habits way back when, and have been critical of Republicans unwillingness to follow their own rhetoric. But they don't own the post COVID spending binge and, while the infrastructure bill was "bipartisan" it was mostly a Dem creation spending billions of dollars on goods that were undergoing rapid price increases (and which the bill itself certainly contributed to). There is no budgetarily responsible party in DC, GOP wants to spend on the military and doesn't want to be called heartless cutting other stuff, and Dems think they can spend forever and somehow not have to eventually tax the middle class. It’s not the spending, it’s the constant vitriol spewed at the Chairman of the Federal Reserve when the technocrats saw the early warning signs of inflation and attempted to take corrective action to avoid it. Part of the underlying premise of government is that we pay nerds to specialize into really niche fields like monetary policy or pandemic response or military strategy and then they make day to day decisions that are in line with the goals the elected representatives assign them. The voters don’t decide how to conquer Iraq, we have generals for that, the voters ask that it be done and then defer to career generals on the execution. One of the most consistent and damning issues with Trump is his failure to understand that he’s not actually an expert on every possible subject. That the problems with the occupation of Iraq weren’t just that the US Army was unfamiliar with the concept of surprise but that as President he would explain it to them and then the army would win. That COVID could not be fixed through the insertion of light bulbs into the body. Inflation is a classic and extremely well documented example of this problem with Trump. The technocrats saw the overheating coming. They came up with an action plan to avoid inflation. They attempted to execute. Trump attacked them until they deferred to him. The American people suffered considerably from the inflation. Show nested quote +Jul 31, 2019 03:41:17 PM: What the Market wanted to hear from Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve was that this was the beginning of a lengthy and aggressive rate-cutting cycle which would keep pace with China, The European Union and other countries around the world....
Jul 31, 2019 03:41:18 PM ....As usual, Powell let us down, but at least he is ending quantitative tightening, which shouldn't have started in the first place - no inflation. We are winning anyway, but I am certainly not getting much help from the Federal Reserve!
Jul 31, 2019 07:17:45 PM Experts stated that the Fed should not have tightened, and then waited too long to undo their mistake. James Bullard of St. Louis Fed said they waited too long to correct the mistake that they made last December. "Mistake, Powell cut rate and then he started talking."
Aug 14, 2019 12:14:50 PM The Great Charles Payne @cvpayne correctly stated that Fed Chair Jay Powell made TWO enormous mistakes. 1. When he said "mid cycle adjustment." 2. We're data dependent. "He did not do the right thing." I agree (to put it mildly!).
Aug 14, 2019 02:21:05 PM We are winning, big time, against China. Companies & jobs are fleeing. Prices to us have not gone up, and in some cases, have come down. China is not our problem, though Hong Kong is not helping. Our problem is with the Fed. Raised too much & too fast. Now too slow to cut.... Spread is way too much as other countries say THANK YOU to clueless Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve. Germany, and many others, are playing the game! CRAZY INVERTED YIELD CURVE! We should easily be reaping big Rewards & Gains, but the Fed is holding us back. We will Win!
Aug 19, 2019 10:26:20 AM Our Economy is very strong, despite the horrendous lack of vision by Jay Powell and the Fed, but the Democrats are trying to "will" the Economy to be bad for purposes of the 2020 Election. Very Selfish! Our dollar is so strong that it is sadly hurting other parts of the world...
Aug 21, 2019 07:52:27 AM Doing great with China and other Trade Deals. The only problem we have is Jay Powell and the Fed. He's like a golfer who can't putt, has no touch. Big U.S. growth if he does the right thing, BIG CUT - but don't count on him! So far he has called it wrong, and only let us down....
Aug 23, 2019 09:57:40 AM....My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?
September 11, 2019
The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN, while at the same time substantially lengthening the term. We have the great currency, power, and balance sheet... The USA should always be paying the the lowest rate. No Inflation! It is only the naïveté of Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve that doesn’t allow us to do what other countries are already doing. A once in a lifetime opportunity that we are missing because of “Boneheads. The evidence is undeniable. Trump’s monetary policy was specifically inflationary.
Maybe I haven't been super clear but I'm not disagreeing with you about Trump's pre-pandemic views on interest rates. And I have been very critical of his views on tariffs. But I'm going to put a big chuck of blame on the pandemic, since, as you pointed out, Europe was also afflicted. I'd love to see who thinks the 9% inflation of 2022 was in significant part caused by Trump pressuring the FED to keep rates low in 2019.
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United States41450 Posts
On November 07 2024 15:39 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 13:32 KwarK wrote:
Filling my car is essentially unchanged. Milk, bread, pasta, sauce, etc. are essentially unchanged.. Are you talking about prices adjusted for wage growth or something? Because prices are definitely way higher than they were before the pandemic. I used to get the hot n ready pizza for $5 with crazy bread combo for another $2.79 when I was in college. The crazy bread combo at my local lil Caesar’s is like $7.99 just by itself. Not saying that’s normal, just another anecdote to go along with yours.
Nah, large pepperoni went from $5 to $6 in the last 5 years or so. They do try to trick you with the extra most bestest though. That’s a rip off.
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United States41450 Posts
On November 07 2024 15:44 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2024 15:35 KwarK wrote:On November 07 2024 15:08 Introvert wrote:
Not to be quick to all that but I'm pretty sure I was very critical of Trump's spending habits way back when, and have been critical of Republicans unwillingness to follow their own rhetoric. But they don't own the post COVID spending binge and, while the infrastructure bill was "bipartisan" it was mostly a Dem creation spending billions of dollars on goods that were undergoing rapid price increases (and which the bill itself certainly contributed to). There is no budgetarily responsible party in DC, GOP wants to spend on the military and doesn't want to be called heartless cutting other stuff, and Dems think they can spend forever and somehow not have to eventually tax the middle class. It’s not the spending, it’s the constant vitriol spewed at the Chairman of the Federal Reserve when the technocrats saw the early warning signs of inflation and attempted to take corrective action to avoid it. Part of the underlying premise of government is that we pay nerds to specialize into really niche fields like monetary policy or pandemic response or military strategy and then they make day to day decisions that are in line with the goals the elected representatives assign them. The voters don’t decide how to conquer Iraq, we have generals for that, the voters ask that it be done and then defer to career generals on the execution. One of the most consistent and damning issues with Trump is his failure to understand that he’s not actually an expert on every possible subject. That the problems with the occupation of Iraq weren’t just that the US Army was unfamiliar with the concept of surprise but that as President he would explain it to them and then the army would win. That COVID could not be fixed through the insertion of light bulbs into the body. Inflation is a classic and extremely well documented example of this problem with Trump. The technocrats saw the overheating coming. They came up with an action plan to avoid inflation. They attempted to execute. Trump attacked them until they deferred to him. The American people suffered considerably from the inflation. Jul 31, 2019 03:41:17 PM: What the Market wanted to hear from Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve was that this was the beginning of a lengthy and aggressive rate-cutting cycle which would keep pace with China, The European Union and other countries around the world....
Jul 31, 2019 03:41:18 PM ....As usual, Powell let us down, but at least he is ending quantitative tightening, which shouldn't have started in the first place - no inflation. We are winning anyway, but I am certainly not getting much help from the Federal Reserve!
Jul 31, 2019 07:17:45 PM Experts stated that the Fed should not have tightened, and then waited too long to undo their mistake. James Bullard of St. Louis Fed said they waited too long to correct the mistake that they made last December. "Mistake, Powell cut rate and then he started talking."
Aug 14, 2019 12:14:50 PM The Great Charles Payne @cvpayne correctly stated that Fed Chair Jay Powell made TWO enormous mistakes. 1. When he said "mid cycle adjustment." 2. We're data dependent. "He did not do the right thing." I agree (to put it mildly!).
Aug 14, 2019 02:21:05 PM We are winning, big time, against China. Companies & jobs are fleeing. Prices to us have not gone up, and in some cases, have come down. China is not our problem, though Hong Kong is not helping. Our problem is with the Fed. Raised too much & too fast. Now too slow to cut.... Spread is way too much as other countries say THANK YOU to clueless Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve. Germany, and many others, are playing the game! CRAZY INVERTED YIELD CURVE! We should easily be reaping big Rewards & Gains, but the Fed is holding us back. We will Win!
Aug 19, 2019 10:26:20 AM Our Economy is very strong, despite the horrendous lack of vision by Jay Powell and the Fed, but the Democrats are trying to "will" the Economy to be bad for purposes of the 2020 Election. Very Selfish! Our dollar is so strong that it is sadly hurting other parts of the world...
Aug 21, 2019 07:52:27 AM Doing great with China and other Trade Deals. The only problem we have is Jay Powell and the Fed. He's like a golfer who can't putt, has no touch. Big U.S. growth if he does the right thing, BIG CUT - but don't count on him! So far he has called it wrong, and only let us down....
Aug 23, 2019 09:57:40 AM....My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?
September 11, 2019
The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN, while at the same time substantially lengthening the term. We have the great currency, power, and balance sheet... The USA should always be paying the the lowest rate. No Inflation! It is only the naïveté of Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve that doesn’t allow us to do what other countries are already doing. A once in a lifetime opportunity that we are missing because of “Boneheads. The evidence is undeniable. Trump’s monetary policy was specifically inflationary. Maybe I haven't been super clear but I'm not disagreeing with you about Trump's pre-pandemic views on interest rates. And I have been very critical of his views on tariffs. But I'm going to put a big chuck of blame on the pandemic, since, as you pointed out, Europe was also afflicted. I'd love to see who thinks the 9% inflation of 2022 was in significant part caused by Trump pressuring the FED to keep rates low in 2019.
Do you see why the guy who fought the technocrats in order to overheat the economy and maximize inflation probably isn’t the right guy to lower inflation?
Inflation is one of the more textbook examples of how Trump’s ignorance can be really dangerous. He just doesn’t understand the field, never has, but he’s not afraid to fight the Federal Reserve due to an emotional attachment to the biggliest number. A man like Trump simply must be kept away from any position of power.
You can disagree with Democrats on policy all day long but they’re not trying to replace career technocrats with loyalists who flatter the ego of the president. These are fields in which there is objective truth, levers that have known results when pulled. They’re not going to war with the fundamental premise of good government. The story of Trump and inflation was a very foreseeable and very avoidable lesson in exactly why not to do that.
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EPT
