My right-wing coworker: Why is it we have record inflation whenever a Democrat is in office?
Me: Because the Republican they replaced left things an absolute fucking mess.
And this also applies the other way around. Why does the first year or 2 of a republican look ok? Because they were handed the country in a state that we were moving in the right direction due to the 4 previous years of decent decision making before blowing it all up again.
The joke of economic discourse is how you can always find something to complain about. “Inflation under Democrats” is just a way of complaining about economic growth and strong domestic income.
When the economy is running strong, we use more energy, so gas prices go up. When imports grow cheaper and prices fall, it means jobs are moving overseas to take advantage of low labor rates abroad. When job growth in the US is strong, it attracts migrants, whom we hate. When the global GDP surges, it means more international businesses start catering to foreigners - producing more entertainment and consumables that people in China and India and Africa and Latin America enjoy - which causes cultural conservatives and xenophobes to panic.
Literally show me any bit of “good” economic news, and I can spin it as something to whine about. And if I’m running a consolidated network of TV, Radio, and Internet publications, I bet I can make twenty or thirty million people believe up is down.
Its almost like the whole system is linked and intertwined, where change in one affects everything else.
As my econ tutor put it - nothing comes for free and the cost of anything good is usually inflation.
I mean, you can thread the needle if you really want to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. But that’s “managed economy” tier shit. The dark forbidden arts of applying domestic policy to industry with a hands-on approach, rather than just tweaking the Federal Funds rate and hoping everything works itself out.
You have my attention on how to do it without inflation.
Not a dig, actually curious
Inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods. The logical solution is to identify how much of everything people actually need and domestically produce at that scale. And, along the way, cutting a bunch of the subsidy and industrial waste that dilutes retail buying power.
Shrinkflation, Greedflation, etc - these aren’t symptoms of potato chips and bottled water suddenly becoming way more expensive to produce. They’re purely profit-driven price increases. So establish a state mandate on a “small” / “medium” / “large” bag of chips at X / 2X / 4X oz of foodstuff, nationalize a potato chip factory that’s been scraped by a manufacturer, and start putting out bags at that size for a fixed price relative to the input cost of potatoes, energy, and labor.
Then, if the private sector wants to compete, they can try and match a generic quality of food produced by a non-profit state actor operating at cost. And set the production quota of the non-profit state actor as “number of bags of chips people pre-order for next month” - “number of bags of chips private agents commit to produce at a fixed unit price”.
Fill the supply gap so everyone who wants a bag of chips can have one at a designated price. Do it at cost, rather than at some ill-defined wholesale + retail markup rate. Distribute the bags through the USPS, just like Amazon distributes private potato chip bags through their privatized postal system.
I guarantee you’ll be able to supply chips at a lower price than current retail rates and at a price that is far more stable than what we’ve seen in grocery stories nationally over the last ten years.
Ah, so a combination of price fixing and turning every supplier into a price-taker. I like it.
In your example marketing and differentiation come into play more than price differentiation - which is what the free market should focus on.
I’ve never heard of this model before. Where did you read about this? It’s cool and interesting and I’d like to read more about it.
Has this been implemented anywhere before?
Where did you read about this? It’s cool and interesting and I’d like to read more about it.
Richard D. Wolff is a professional economist who covers this more extensively than I could do justice. “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism” takes a deep dive into these ideas. But he’s also got a ton of podcast media to listen to, if you want something more bit-sized and drive-time friendly.
You make some very convincing arguments.
But my gut tells me it’s the democrats because they kill babies. Sorry.
You say that as a joke, but Biden’s policy in Gaza is killing a whole lot of Arab children.
Oh, I’m not joking. I have it on good authority Joe Biden is personally running down children with a chainsaw over in Ghazarmibad.
You and me brother we are the same.
Joe Biden is personally running down children with a chainsaw
Donald Trump has never personally murdered anyone that we know of, so they are both equally good cool dudes and why is anyone even complaining?
Donald Trump is chosen by God himself. When they say “he grabs women by the pussy” he is really just cleansing their soul so they can be in the presence of the divine.
He also gets off on it.
It’s like I always say, the vagina is the doorway to the soul.
Okay, but fuck Bill Clinton. He signed DOMA into law and signed a bunch of crime bills that made things way worse for poor, minorities, and convicts.
He was the best Republican we’ve had since Ike.
Yeah, but he’s so charming.
Look, he can make a cigar disappear and reappear! Amazing!
And he plays saxophone.
I never understood how he could play 🎷 since we know he doesn’t inhale
It is weird how he gets hated by the right for being too soft on crime and by the left by not being soft enough.
Because it is not a question of being “soft” on crime. The way that the system is setup right now, someone with money (see Trump), can stall and weasel out of many crimes because he can pay for the best lawyers.
Poor people are already poor to start with, and the system is built to make their life even worst. They get fucked over and over while the rich do whatever the fuck they want with no consequence.
The only time a rich person get what’s coming for them is when they fuck over other rich people.
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Also, Clinton “balanced the budget” by gutting welfare programs at the behest of a Republican Congress. Between that and his telecom deregulation, he was a massive piece of shit and hugely responsible for the dumpster fire hellworld we’re all stuck in now.
But if we hadn’t voted for Clinton, we would’ve gotten Bob Dole and he would’ve genocided Kansas.
Having a presidency that coincided with a tech boom helped balance that budget too.
I was born in 87.
I was really pretty oblivious to politics until 9/11 kicked my adolescent brain into political awareness overdrive.
I was a fervent liberal Democrat until about a year into Trump’s term (and with hindsight I’m a little ashamed it lasted that long, the DNC shift from liberal culture to Hilary-Progressive culture and all).
Now I fervently hate Republicans, and I am completely fed up with Democrats.
I am 100% independent.
Both parties are trash, always have been, and a with each passing year it is harder for me to see an actual substantive difference between the 2.
We need a third party/independent person in the White House. This year.
actual substantive difference between the 2.
One party wants to deny me access to healthcare: they want to make it illegal for me to continue taking the testosterone I have taken for almost a decade. They would force me to carry a pregnancy to term, even if it was deformed and could kill me. They are making it illegal for teachers to even refer to a kid by the name they prefer. They are attacking things like free school lunches and even the department of education itself. Their figurehead has repeatedly flouted the rule of law and has told us loud and clear that he would like to be a dictator.
Yeah, Dems fucking suck. The ACA was garbage, the Clinton’s crime bill was garbage. The Democratic Party fucks over actual leftists all the time.
But there is most certainly a substantive difference between the 2.
But there is most certainly a substantive difference between the 2.
Yes, that diminishes with each passing year. Like I said.
If the common sentiment that we’re more divided than ever is accurate, how could this possibly be true? Wouldn’t the differences grow? Can you name policy positions that are identical between parties? If I look at healthcare, taxation, infrastructure, education, foreign policy, welfare, business regulation, environmental policy, social issues etc. it is pretty clear cut to me. How do you justify your both-side-ism?
Here’s a possible example. While Bernie Sanders has proposed pegging minimum wage to inflation, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats support this. My belief is that it is more important to have something to fight about than to win. If minimum wage just quietly tracks inflation, then there is nothing for Democrats to claim victory over when it does go up.
This kind of apparent unending struggle without progress is shit, but it suits the status quo on both sides, even in the face of eternal media telling us how we are more divided.
Now, it is possible to fuck this up, as with abortion. The Republicans forgot that they weren’t actually supposed to win, and they have been rightly punished. The Democrats share some blame for not doing much to ensure abortion rights, since they naively thought that the Republicans understood the game.
Thanks this is a good example! however I think the conspiracy about Democrats wanting a big win instead of what’s good for the people is probably not true, especially absent of evidence.
The min wage is ticking up in more places (and it is not at the behest of republicans…), and the Biden admin increased wages in the places they could (fed workers) via executive order.
It totally makes sense to be annoyed at the glacial pace of progress in the United States, but we can’t possibly pretend that there is an equivalence between the two choices that we are presented with.
We need a third party/independent person in the White House. This year.
I’m sorry, but there is absolutely no good reason whatsoever to believe that’s possible at this point, and a Republican administration will be tangibly worse than a Democratic one, even under the present circumstances.
Also, it’s worth noting that shitty neoliberal Democratic party members don’t just disappear when Democratic candidates lose elections. Actually, it only makes them stronger and louder because they’ll start their “Progressive voters never show up, this is why we need to appeal to wealthier and more conservative voters with even crappier policies” routine. It’s a lot better for progressives in the party if Dem candidates are winning races, because then the campaign consultants who run things will start worrying about primary challenges and feel compelled to have slightly more progressive policies.
Lol they do that when progressive voters show up too.
Fuck em both to death.
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lol you’re late-30s and still falling for the 3rd party trap? I went through that phase during Ron Paul.
The only way alternative parties succeed is through campaign finance / election reform. And the only way that happens is by either a policy transformation of a party (eg, progressives slowly overtaking the Democrats), or a party going the way of the Whigs (ideally, the GOP).
Voting 3rd party or not voting just supports the worst poison every election and guarantees you’re further from your goal.
No, I have reached my mid-30s and have stopped falling for the 2 party fallacy, like I did when I was a kid.
I’m sorry you supported… lol, Ron Paul (your only political focus was on marijuana legalization, wasn’t it?), but that doesn’t invalidate the dire need to ebb the 2 increasingly unhinged fascist movements in America and find a new way.
A choice between civil war and genocide domestically vs world war and genocide abroad demands a third choice.
But the third choice isn’t real so pick one of those. I too hail from '87 and it’s kinda you’re damned if you do damned if you don’t. My goals are to set up a commune and disappear from society and hopefully fall off the grid with people I care about. Until then, though, kinda stuck with what we got.
The third party is 100% a real choice. We just need someone to step up.
Never has. Never will. Until you get FPTP removed.
I think the flaw in one’s reasoning is revealed in your dichotomy. What do you mean by civil war and genocide domestically? What do you mean by world War? For all intents, Trump is guaranteed to be worse in universally every aspect, foreign and domestic.
And you’ve yet to elucidate exactly how that third choice occurs when it’s mathematically a given that a 3rd choice simply promotes the greater of two evils.
And nah, I was young and naive. Never liked pot. While I’ve always been supportive of legalization for criminal justice reform, I fell for the bullshit Libertarian idea of fiscal conservatism / social liberalism. I’m ashamed to say I read Atlas Shrugged, too.
with each passing year it is harder for me to see an actual substantive difference between the 2.
Then you’re an idiot or a shill
It depends on perspective. There are certainly major differences, but at the end of the day, they both serve the elite class and capitalism.
Definitely an idiot.
Morons always drift to the right. They are incapable of blocking out right wing propaganda.
The major give away is how similar their arguments are and how angry they get when challenged on it.
Notice how we are stupid for not understanding what is obvious to them. That indicates they did not form a chain of logic to move to their political position. If they had used logic, they would lean on their logical process and share it with us. Instead it’s raw negative emotion.
And your a brainwashed idiot who has nothing to offer but name-calling.
Also NEED to point out the extreme irony of you calling me a shill for NOT endorsing either of America’s fascist movements.
You’re parroting right wing propaganda, advocating reduced voter turnout. That benefits Republicans. So yes, you’re a shill, either wittingly or unwittingly
they didn’t say not to vote
We don’t just need a third party in the White House, we need complete reform at the state and federal levels to allow a third party to be a realistic option
Yes, but as long as the Reds and the Blues maintain their stranglehold and keep the “there is no other choice muahahahaha” rhetoric in party member mouths, the only thing we can do is turn out and vote for someone who is not affiliated with a fascist movement.
Yes, that’s also correct.
Weren’t the bailouts all paid back? It wasn’t just giving them money. I get that it still wasn’t ideal, and there are legitimate problems with the bailouts, but it’s disingenuous to say that he “gave” the money to them.
It was far more dystopian than all that.
So Obama pushes through tarp. 443.5 billion dollars are moved from the public trust to 1%er CEOs. The CEOs promise trickle down. The CEOs don’t deliver trickle down. As a show of gratitude, they SLOW THE INCREASE of profit margins, they do not LOWER PROFIT MARGINS in an act of trickle down. They pocket the 443.5 billion real dollars that were collected from common people via taxes.
Obama then asks for the 443.5 to be repaid, but sure as shit, those 443.5 billion dollars are not leaving 1%er pockets.
The CEOs go to big banks and say “I owe Obama 100 billion dollars. Would you value my company at 100 billion dollars, create an unsecured equity security (the oxymoron, unsecured security, amirite?) and give me 100 billion dollars to give to Obama.”
The bank CEO says “Absolutely. I will take 100 billion real dollars that people have put into this bank as savings and give those dollars to you, so you can give them to Obama, and in exchange, I will have this abstract imaginary unsecured equity that says you owe me 100 billion dollars, and I will let you do that because IF I ever enforce repayment, in theory, you can sell your company for 100 billion dollars. I don’t plan to ever enforce repayment (favors among 1%s and all), and if I did, you could file bankruptcy and since the equity is unsecured, it would probably be discharged, in which case the 100 billion fake dollars I ‘have’ disappear into smoke, so if there comes a day that all of the people at my bank want to withdraw their savings, that money simply will not exist anymore and they will be told ‘tough shit’ while I jump on a private jet to Aruba Enron style.”
So to simplify it: Americans paid for the money to be given to the CEOs through public trust, then Americans paid for money to be given to the Federal government through private banking institutions.
It was all a giant money laundering scheme that enriched the 1%ers, kept the Federal Government at the same level, and cost the American people 887 billion dollars. Interest rates go up, everyone gets bled more aggressively by their debt, banks and CEOs get ballsier about how hard they can fuck the American people with impunity.
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Well shit. This needs a video essay on YouTubes.
Saying the bailouts were paid back is like that joke about the captain was sober today (which you should read if you don’t know it cause it is funny). It is technically true but it highly misleading.
- The bailouts were paid back but the excessive reserve funding was not. The reserve funding was multiple times the size of the bailouts
- There was an inflationary spike during the time so even with interest the amount paid back bought less.
- Due to stressing testing the entire midsize banking sector was shutdown by the US government. Effectively eliminating the competition for Goldman and other receivers. The stress testing also allowed AIG to not pay out. The last point is important. AIG was supposed to be insurance and the government allowed them to not do the one thing insurance is supposed to do. Even today there are less banking companies in the US compared to 2007 and the population has gone up by about 30 million. A 10% increase of customers in a market that has much less competition
- The bailout of GM and the airlines gets buddled in with the Banking bailout. GM of course never paid back the 45 billion dollar stock swap but did pay back the small loan. The airlines didn’t even do that much. As part of the GM bailout they were able to get sweet deals like not having to deal with lawsuits from problems with Saturns for example, despite federal requirements.
- The banks took advantage of the destroyed competition by the US government. That’s why if you had an account during those years chances are it was sold to one of the big players. Did you get the free checking and overdraft protection carried over? No of course not. In violation of established law the banking regulators allowed sold accounts to be treated like new accounts.
- The banks totally misrepresented their situation. Yeah yeah Barnes. I don’t care. The last year of operation the CEO received 750 million dollars in bonuses alone. This does not even come close to what he received by other means and what the C suite got as a whole. Bankruptcy for a bank is not the same as real bankruptcy. Me or you we go bankrupt we eat ramen for the next 5 years. Corporate bankruptcy is “I think I could shutdown shop and make more money that way instead of continuing”. There was zero danger of you going to your bank account and they couldn’t give you your money. FDIC stood ready to inject 100s of billions in cold hard cash. If any of the big banks suddenly went over it would have sucked for the average person for a single weekend. Most of the toxic assets has already been moved on to pension funds anyhow.
TL:DR imagine I gave you Delaware and 5 dollars, you paid me back 6 dollars and never shut the fuck up about how you paid your debt.
Because people don’t understand how fucked we were and the complete implications of the total economic collapse that was about to happen. It was a very good deal for the US economy.
You clearly don’t understand what actually occurred, you are just signed up for all of the Democrat newsletters.
Zero percent chance of that happening. They lied about the situation.
TARP was passed by GWB, who along with Henry Paulson had already given away 290 billion from it before Obama had even taken office.
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The wealthy are the economy.
So it’s a jobs program?! I knew it!!
“He tells it like it is” - his deplorable base
I mean, I guess if you’re a bigoted racist he does
This is bullshit, everyone knows that Reagan destroyed the economy. Bush got us into a kill brown people for twenty years war…
and destroyed the economy.
Bleach… bleach is yummy.
The quote could’ve just been “Drink bleach” and it would’ve been perfect.
Get that cleasing light directly into your body.
No wonder why my poo is just white now
Oh shit that’s why it isn’t working, I’ve been injecting it this whole time… Time to make a smoothie. I bet ammonia would be a great flavor enhancer.
Do I need to pull the light bulb out of my ass too or was Trump’s advice good there?
Treason is yummy
Fixed it
McDonald’s is yummy.
mmm hamberders
Bleach leaves an aftertaste.
Not as yummy as putin’s schlong.
Classic Repunlican’ts & Republicunts.
Cumlord, Shoe dodger, Tried to fix, Traitor.
Name one of them that didn’t bomb middle east
Needs a new Biden panel.
Hamberder
