Bitch about Biden thread

[Jimmy Higgins]

Inflation, Inflation, Inflation, Inflation. By now you've devoted more posts to condemning Biden's inflation than you've spent ridiculing AOC!
As I will try to explain to you, the inflation you complain of just wasn't that big a deal.

I get where you're coming from... but where you're coming from is academic math. That's all fine if that's what you want to look at, but I think you're missing some pretty material things here.

For example... yes, it's true that almost the whole world experienced inflation, and yes it's true that US inflation wasn't necessarily as bad as it was other places, and yes it's true that the US has gained value in terms of exchange rates versus the british pound.

What you're missing is that despite all of the math and the numbers and the academic studies done just right... actual people in both countries are struggling to pay the electric bills so they don't freeze during the winter. Just a few years ago, electricity was affordable.

The reality is that America is suffering from trickle economics and austerity. But they put their anger to inflation. Which as you noted, wasn't all that bad in America. But public perception matters more than reality. One of the reasons George HW Bush lost his re-election. It was was Harris couldn't say things were better because the people would have thought she was out of touch.

Our country is starving itself, a country can't build a culvert without federal funds because the GOP has done wonders in cutting revenue by cutting taxes. But people don't see this, as they don't see how all of that stuff is paid for. They just saw higher prices, and they thought they'd go back down. And when they didn't, as would be the expected case, they took it out on the White House. And we got this asshole back in charge.

I see stalwart conservatives whining about corporations and health insurance costs. It is surreal. They have drunken so much of the Flavoraid, they have no idea they've been had.

 

[Elixir]

“Just a few years ago, electricity was affordable.”

Yeah, Obama gave us 8 years of steady growth. Then Trump’s incompetence and grift came onstage, and after a few years of that, the effects of Trumponomics took hold, he trashed the pandemic playbook that would have largely mitigated pandemic effects, lied to the American public, killed over a million Americans, and left office in disgrace just in time to blame Biden for the inflation he helped cause.
But he was incredibly successful at blaming others for his failures as always, and with some help from his Uncle Vlad and a consortium of billionaires, we now have our first ever felon president about to take office. What could possibly go wrong?
Thanks, conservotards!

 

[Harry Bosch]

Inflation, Inflation, Inflation, Inflation. By now you've devoted more posts to condemning Biden's inflation than you've spent ridiculing AOC!
As I will try to explain to you, the inflation you complain of just wasn't that big a deal.

I get where you're coming from... but where you're coming from is academic math. That's all fine if that's what you want to look at, but I think you're missing some pretty material things here.

For example... yes, it's true that almost the whole world experienced inflation, and yes it's true that US inflation wasn't necessarily as bad as it was other places, and yes it's true that the US has gained value in terms of exchange rates versus the british pound.

What you're missing is that despite all of the math and the numbers and the academic studies done just right... actual people in both countries are struggling to pay the electric bills so they don't freeze during the winter. Just a few years ago, electricity was affordable.

The reality is that America is suffering from trickle economics and austerity. But they put their anger to inflation. Which as you noted, wasn't all that bad in America. But public perception matters more than reality. One of the reasons George HW Bush lost his re-election. It was was Harris couldn't say things were better because the people would have thought she was out of touch.

Our country is starving itself, a country can't build a culvert without federal funds because the GOP has done wonders in cutting revenue by cutting taxes. But people don't see this, as they don't see how all of that stuff is paid for. They just saw higher prices, and they thought they'd go back down. And when they didn't, as would be the expected case, they took it out on the White House. And we got this asshole back in charge.

I see stalwart conservatives whining about corporations and health insurance costs. It is surreal. They have drunken so much of the Flavoraid, they have no idea they've been had.

Austerity! Holy cow, the US government borrowed $2.3 trillion in 2024!

 

[Swammerdami]

I think Emily's point can be summarized as Prices went up but wages did not.
This rising inequality is the real problem, though exacerbated by inflation.

In Q4 2001 corporate (annual) profits after tax were $0.513 trillion; In Q4 2017 they were $1.865 trillion; In Q2 2024 they were $3.41 trillion. Over 22½ years, profits increased by a whopping factor of 6.65.
Over the same period, GDP went from $10.06 trillion to $29.02 trillion, an increase by a factor just of 2.88. Stated differently, in 2001 corporations got a 5.1% piece of the pie. In 2024 this was 11.8%. -- Corporate profits, as a share of "the pie", got a whopping 131% raise! And that is not the only source of inequality affecting needy Americans, some of whom need to work two jobs.

THIS is the real economic problem.; it is right-wing propaganda to focus on the inflation. Better is to understand that this wasn't the ordinary "wages-push-prices" inflation; this was "profits-push-prices."

 

[Swammerdami]

Austerity! Holy cow, the US government borrowed $2.3 trillion in 2024!

For the common worker, austerity is called for. The billionaires are partying like never before!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Inflation, Inflation, Inflation, Inflation. By now you've devoted more posts to condemning Biden's inflation than you've spent ridiculing AOC!
As I will try to explain to you, the inflation you complain of just wasn't that big a deal.

I get where you're coming from... but where you're coming from is academic math. That's all fine if that's what you want to look at, but I think you're missing some pretty material things here.

For example... yes, it's true that almost the whole world experienced inflation, and yes it's true that US inflation wasn't necessarily as bad as it was other places, and yes it's true that the US has gained value in terms of exchange rates versus the british pound.

What you're missing is that despite all of the math and the numbers and the academic studies done just right... actual people in both countries are struggling to pay the electric bills so they don't freeze during the winter. Just a few years ago, electricity was affordable.

The reality is that America is suffering from trickle economics and austerity. But they put their anger to inflation. Which as you noted, wasn't all that bad in America. But public perception matters more than reality. One of the reasons George HW Bush lost his re-election. It was was Harris couldn't say things were better because the people would have thought she was out of touch.

Our country is starving itself, a country can't build a culvert without federal funds because the GOP has done wonders in cutting revenue by cutting taxes. But people don't see this, as they don't see how all of that stuff is paid for. They just saw higher prices, and they thought they'd go back down. And when they didn't, as would be the expected case, they took it out on the White House. And we got this asshole back in charge.

I see stalwart conservatives whining about corporations and health insurance costs. It is surreal. They have drunken so much of the Flavoraid, they have no idea they've been had.

Austerity! Holy cow, the US government borrowed $2.3 trillion in 2024!

How much it borrows doesn't speak to how it is spending or how much needs to be spent.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Inflation, Inflation, Inflation, Inflation. By now you've devoted more posts to condemning Biden's inflation than you've spent ridiculing AOC!
As I will try to explain to you, the inflation you complain of just wasn't that big a deal.

I get where you're coming from... but where you're coming from is academic math. That's all fine if that's what you want to look at, but I think you're missing some pretty material things here.

For example... yes, it's true that almost the whole world experienced inflation, and yes it's true that US inflation wasn't necessarily as bad as it was other places, and yes it's true that the US has gained value in terms of exchange rates versus the british pound.

What you're missing is that despite all of the math and the numbers and the academic studies done just right... actual people in both countries are struggling to pay the electric bills so they don't freeze during the winter. Just a few years ago, electricity was affordable.

The reality is that America is suffering from trickle economics and austerity. But they put their anger to inflation. Which as you noted, wasn't all that bad in America. But public perception matters more than reality. One of the reasons George HW Bush lost his re-election. It was was Harris couldn't say things were better because the people would have thought she was out of touch.

Our country is starving itself, a country can't build a culvert without federal funds because the GOP has done wonders in cutting revenue by cutting taxes. But people don't see this, as they don't see how all of that stuff is paid for. They just saw higher prices, and they thought they'd go back down. And when they didn't, as would be the expected case, they took it out on the White House. And we got this asshole back in charge.

I see stalwart conservatives whining about corporations and health insurance costs. It is surreal. They have drunken so much of the Flavoraid, they have no idea they've been had.

Austerity! Holy cow, the US government borrowed $2.3 trillion in 2024!

How much it borrows doesn't speak to how it is spending or how much needs to be spent.

Austerity is the act of a government to reduce its debt, reduce default risk in order to improve financial health. It is done by either increasing taxes; decreasing spending or going both. We have done neither! And I fully expect the republicans to lower taxes again and increase spending.

 

[Emily Lake]

THIS is the real economic problem.; it is right-wing propaganda to focus on the inflation. Better is to understand that this wasn't the ordinary "wages-push-prices" inflation; this was "profits-push-prices."

I don't think it's "right wing propaganda", and I think you're doing a disservice to all people by repeating this rallying cry.

The vast majority of people don't have an academic understanding of what inflation is. Colloquially, inflation means purchasing power. And not some hypothetical aggregated nationwide economic calculation of theoretical purchasing power, but the household-level "can I afford this" purchasing power.

Insisting that this is somehow "right wing propaganda" ends up making you sound like an out of touch elitist who's more interested in denigrating conservatives than in actually understanding the problem that people are dealing with. Especially because this exact same concern affects liberals across the country as well.

Stop focusing on some specific academic meaning of the word, and try understanding the meaning and the impact to average people.

 

[laughing dog]

THIS is the real economic problem.; it is right-wing propaganda to focus on the inflation. Better is to understand that this wasn't the ordinary "wages-push-prices" inflation; this was "profits-push-prices."

I don't think it's "right wing propaganda", and I think you're doing a disservice to all people by repeating this rallying cry.

The vast majority of people don't have an academic understanding of what inflation is. Colloquially, inflation means purchasing power. And not some hypothetical aggregated nationwide economic calculation of theoretical purchasing power, but the household-level "can I afford this" purchasing power.

Insisting that this is somehow "right wing propaganda" ends up making you sound like an out of touch elitist who's more interested in denigrating conservatives than in actually understanding the problem that people are dealing with. Especially because this exact same concern affects liberals across the country as well.

Stop focusing on some specific academic meaning of the word, and try understanding the meaning and the impact to average people.

I agree. But this “Can I afford this” criteria is usually myopic. Many of the complaints blaming Biden for inflation came ftom people whose real income after the decline was still higher than it was under Trump. It was just bad timing for Biden.

And good timing for a presentable reason for those who were going to vote for Trump anyway. Like my one of my brothers who is clearly better off economically under Biden (fewer hours of work, much better benefits and much higher pay) than under Trump.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Austerity! Holy cow, the US government borrowed $2.3 trillion in 2024!

How much it borrows doesn't speak to how it is spending or how much needs to be spent.

Austerity is the act of a government to reduce its debt, reduce default risk in order to improve financial health.

It is quite possible I don't know what the word austerity means. I used it to mean reduced spending to low levels lower than optimal, to save money. If that's wrong, then I apologize for not knowing how to speak my own language. Heck, I'm having problems just writing it.

It is done by either increasing taxes; decreasing spending or going both. We have done neither! And I fully expect the republicans to lower taxes again and increase spending.

I'd expect nominal spending increases, but notable revenue decreases. At least they don't sell the "tax cuts pay for themselves" crap anymore.

 

[Emily Lake]

I agree. But this “Can I afford this” criteria is usually myopic. Many of the complaints blaming Biden for inflation came ftom people whose real income after the decline was still higher than it was under Trump. It was just bad timing for Biden.

And good timing for a presentable reason for those who were going to vote for Trump anyway. Like my one of my brothers who is clearly better off economically under Biden (fewer hours of work, much better benefits and much higher pay) than under Trump.

Again though, real income is an academic concept, leveraging the academic concept of CPI, which is based on an academic concept of a never-changing basket of commoditized goods.

I get where you're coming from, but I end up having this exact same sort of discussion at work when we're looking at claims trend. On one hand, we've got a data department that has no clue what our consumer or product profile looks like, who just take cost-per-person in year 2 and divide if by cost-per-person in year 1 and say "OMG, you've got a 27% claims trend! The world is ending!". On the other hand, we've got a clinical outcomes department that looks at customers who were present in both years and calculates their costs in each year as a constant-case-mix and says "Woohoo, you're doing awesome, you've only got a 3% claims trend".

Then there's the reality, where our business mix shifted materially, as did our geographic footprint, and the average age and family composition of our customers... and I'm looking at our financial outcomes saying "we didn't meet plan for loss ratio, but we're not too far off and about 98% of the miss is explainable by know mix changes, which leaves a net trend of approximately 7.5% which isn't great but it's better than what several of our competitors are reporting".

 

[Harry Bosch]

Anyway, his shit position on Israel.

I suspect that Biden’s approach of behind the scenes restraint on BB will end with Trump.

 

[bilby]

Inflation, Inflation, Inflation, Inflation. By now you've devoted more posts to condemning Biden's inflation than you've spent ridiculing AOC!
As I will try to explain to you, the inflation you complain of just wasn't that big a deal.

I get where you're coming from... but where you're coming from is academic math. That's all fine if that's what you want to look at, but I think you're missing some pretty material things here.

For example... yes, it's true that almost the whole world experienced inflation, and yes it's true that US inflation wasn't necessarily as bad as it was other places, and yes it's true that the US has gained value in terms of exchange rates versus the british pound.

What you're missing is that despite all of the math and the numbers and the academic studies done just right... actual people in both countries are struggling to pay the electric bills so they don't freeze during the winter. Just a few years ago, electricity was affordable.

The reality is that America is suffering from trickle economics and austerity. But they put their anger to inflation. Which as you noted, wasn't all that bad in America. But public perception matters more than reality. One of the reasons George HW Bush lost his re-election. It was was Harris couldn't say things were better because the people would have thought she was out of touch.

Our country is starving itself, a country can't build a culvert without federal funds because the GOP has done wonders in cutting revenue by cutting taxes. But people don't see this, as they don't see how all of that stuff is paid for. They just saw higher prices, and they thought they'd go back down. And when they didn't, as would be the expected case, they took it out on the White House. And we got this asshole back in charge.

I see stalwart conservatives whining about corporations and health insurance costs. It is surreal. They have drunken so much of the Flavoraid, they have no idea they've been had.

Austerity! Holy cow, the US government borrowed $2.3 trillion in 2024!

A meaningless observation unless you have a sum in mind that they should have borrowed.

Borrowing to pay for infrastructure is a duty of government. Austerity is a measure of just how far they are derelict in that duty.

$2.3 trillion sounds like a big number; But then, the US sounds like a big country, with a big economy.

How much should it borrow?

 

[laughing dog]

I agree. But this “Can I afford this” criteria is usually myopic. Many of the complaints blaming Biden for inflation came ftom people whose real income after the decline was still higher than it was under Trump. It was just bad timing for Biden.

And good timing for a presentable reason for those who were going to vote for Trump anyway. Like my one of my brothers who is clearly better off economically under Biden (fewer hours of work, much better benefits and much higher pay) than under Trump.

Again though, real income is an academic concept, leveraging the academic concept of CPI, which is based on an academic concept of a never-changing basket of commoditized goods.

That is the official method of calculating real income, but the concept is the purchasing power of the income.

I strongly suspect that many more people’s real incomes were higher in 2024 than 2020 but lower than in 2023. That means despite inflation, those people could afford to buy more stuff they wanted in 2024 than in 2020, but not in 2023.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Inflation, Inflation, Inflation, Inflation. By now you've devoted more posts to condemning Biden's inflation than you've spent ridiculing AOC!
As I will try to explain to you, the inflation you complain of just wasn't that big a deal.

I get where you're coming from... but where you're coming from is academic math. That's all fine if that's what you want to look at, but I think you're missing some pretty material things here.

For example... yes, it's true that almost the whole world experienced inflation, and yes it's true that US inflation wasn't necessarily as bad as it was other places, and yes it's true that the US has gained value in terms of exchange rates versus the british pound.

What you're missing is that despite all of the math and the numbers and the academic studies done just right... actual people in both countries are struggling to pay the electric bills so they don't freeze during the winter. Just a few years ago, electricity was affordable.

The reality is that America is suffering from trickle economics and austerity. But they put their anger to inflation. Which as you noted, wasn't all that bad in America. But public perception matters more than reality. One of the reasons George HW Bush lost his re-election. It was was Harris couldn't say things were better because the people would have thought she was out of touch.

Our country is starving itself, a country can't build a culvert without federal funds because the GOP has done wonders in cutting revenue by cutting taxes. But people don't see this, as they don't see how all of that stuff is paid for. They just saw higher prices, and they thought they'd go back down. And when they didn't, as would be the expected case, they took it out on the White House. And we got this asshole back in charge.

I see stalwart conservatives whining about corporations and health insurance costs. It is surreal. They have drunken so much of the Flavoraid, they have no idea they've been had.

Austerity! Holy cow, the US government borrowed $2.3 trillion in 2024!

A meaningless observation unless you have a sum in mind that they should have borrowed.

Borrowing to pay for infrastructure is a duty of government. Austerity is a measure of just how far they are derelict in that duty.

$2.3 trillion sounds like a big number; But then, the US sounds like a big country, with a big economy.

How much should it borrow?

Borrow, but also tax. We've got these private equity firms buying the hell out of our country. Luxury businesses like sports teams (FSG, I still luv ya, YNWA!) but average corporations as well, property, housing, etc... They have too much fucking money at the moment. They shouldn't be turning America into a oligarchy.

 

[Derec]

Maybe the oil companies should start using the leases they've been sitting on for years doing nothing before bitching about other places they might want to maybe someday drill maybe.

Not all leases end up productive. And besides, Biden is intending for this ban to be permanent, so "someday" does matter here.

Do you have a good reason to be for this rule? Instead of second-guessing oil companies?

It reminds me of the debate over the Dakota Access Pipeline. Some on here were also arguing that oil companies should use trains, or build a pipeline to somewhere else - never mind that whatever pipeline destination and route was chosen radical environmentalists would be against it.

 

[Derec]

You will never see the people who whine about "TDS" doing this with Trump.

There is no need for a dedicated "Bitch about Trump" thread, since bitching about Trump is what many threads in Political Discussion devolve into eventually anyway.

Anyway, his shit position on Israel.

Can you elaborate?

 

[Emily Lake]

I agree. But this “Can I afford this” criteria is usually myopic. Many of the complaints blaming Biden for inflation came ftom people whose real income after the decline was still higher than it was under Trump. It was just bad timing for Biden.

And good timing for a presentable reason for those who were going to vote for Trump anyway. Like my one of my brothers who is clearly better off economically under Biden (fewer hours of work, much better benefits and much higher pay) than under Trump.

Again though, real income is an academic concept, leveraging the academic concept of CPI, which is based on an academic concept of a never-changing basket of commoditized goods.

That is the official method of calculating real income, but the concept is the purchasing power of the income.

I strongly suspect that many more people’s real incomes were higher in 2024 than 2020 but lower than in 2023. That means despite inflation, those people could afford to buy more stuff they wanted in 2024 than in 2020, but not in 2023.

I know what the concept is, LD.

But come on - you know as well as I do that the basket of goods represented by the CPI calcs isn't representative of what actual people in modern times spend their money on.

I'll direct you back to my prior post #20 in this thread.

In particular...

The fixed basket of goods used for CPI calculations is a pretty generic collection. So sure, the cost of generic store-brand eggs hasn't increased as much as median income has... but the cost of free range eggs has gone up more. The cost of generic store-brand bread hasn't gone up as much, but the cost of the Sara Lee Artisan bread that we have preferred since it came out has gone up quite a bit more. Where most people used to be able to afford the core generic groceries as well as some nice-to-have items and a good selection of name-brand items... now people have to contract their purchases to exclude those "luxuries" like actual real Cheerios, and can only afford the generic bagged "toasted oats" which are not actually as tasty or enjoyable.

So at the end of the day, sure... as long as nobody wants or needs to move, and they have a locked in mortgage instead of a rental apartment, and they have a car that is in great shape and they don't need to purchase one, and they don't buy anything beyond the bare necessities, and then only buy the generic stuff and no name-brand stuff... yeah, it's no big deal. Everything is fine, the academics doing math said so!

I mean, let's be realistic here. CPI has some pretty serious flaws. Like, CPI-U Med has consistently shown medical trend to be massively lower than actual costs are. This is largely because CPI uses a "fixed basket" of medical goods that does NOT account for changes in technology, introduction of new drugs, or changing in treatment patterns over time. In reality, the medical "basket" gets bigger every year, and as a result CPI-U Med seriously underestimates the in-reality impact of medical trend.

 

[ZiprHead]

THIS is the real economic problem.; it is right-wing propaganda to focus on the inflation. Better is to understand that this wasn't the ordinary "wages-push-prices" inflation; this was "profits-push-prices."

I don't think it's "right wing propaganda", and I think you're doing a disservice to all people by repeating this rallying cry.

The vast majority of people don't have an academic understanding of what inflation is. Colloquially, inflation means purchasing power. And not some hypothetical aggregated nationwide economic calculation of theoretical purchasing power, but the household-level "can I afford this" purchasing power.

Insisting that this is somehow "right wing propaganda" ends up making you sound like an out of touch elitist who's more interested in denigrating conservatives than in actually understanding the problem that people are dealing with. Especially because this exact same concern affects liberals across the country as well.

Stop focusing on some specific academic meaning of the word, and try understanding the meaning and the impact to average people.

Hmmm. Record breaking black friday sales. Record breaking holiday travel.

That so many Americans are doing terrible economically just isn't supported by the numbers. Unemployment is very low after Trump actually left office with fewer jobs than when he came into office. Wages are up greater than inflation.

I think what's going on is Orange Jesus proclaims the economy is in the crapper and the plebes believe it.

 

[Emily Lake]

Borrow, but also tax. We've got these private equity firms buying the hell out of our country. Luxury businesses like sports teams (FSG, I still luv ya, YNWA!) but average corporations as well, property, housing, etc... They have too much fucking money at the moment. They shouldn't be turning America into a oligarchy.

The past decade or two has led me to re-evaluate venture capital, private equity, and the entire derivatives market. I still fundamentally think that capital, as a concept, is a necessary component for innovation and growth... but the risk-taking aspect of investment capital has really taken a predatory turn. Watching investment capital and derivatives markets essentially exploit economic downturns, pandemics, the housing crash etc. really bothers me.