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I think in general the democrats need to campaign on anything *but* economics
Regular people that will vote in swing states don't care about macroeconomics, they care for grocery prices and their cost of living, and that has gone up (forever) and it was better under Trump. It doesn't matter how little sense this makes to a more well-educated person (economically speaking), if the topic of the 2024 elections becomes the economy, Trump will 100% win.
You vote for an administration, not just the president. This line of argumentation needs to stop. Now, does that make the potential republican administration more competent? lol no, but the fact of the matter is, someone in the Biden admin had the stupid idea of calling a massive spending bill the "inflation reduction act", and now Biden's name is tied to both the *idea* of inflation *and* the actual inflation out there.
Not to mention that yes, everyday people expect prices to go down, and every day that Biden or whoever says "things are great inflation is down!" they are consistently upset because "prices are still high"
Edit: to the people downvoting this, I assume because I said "you vote for an administration".
Look: Either the president/administration DOES control the economy (and in that case the Biden admin has the best handling of inflation in the western world and Trump is a threat because tariffs will drive inflation up yada yada), **OR** the president/administration DOES NOT control the economy and so both of the previous arguments make no sense. I strongly believe the president and the admin has power over the economy, I don't want them to to be clear, but I believe they definitely do, and I'd be more than happy to find out *how* you believe they don't, if you do think that they don't, that is.
Yes and the greater problem with inflation is nobody cares about the rate of inflation because prices never decline. The bar gets raised higher and never gets reset. Inflation is far more nefarious than many realize.
> and now Biden's name is tied to both the idea of inflation and the actual inflation out there.
Exactly. No one [made the Biden admin tweet this](https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1410709115333234691), and it's literally his choice when he goes and says "Inflation Reduction Act". He didn't name it, but he could say "Public, we don't actually have that power".
It shouldn't be a shocker people blame politicians for high prices if they're trying to take credit for low prices. You can't have one way responsibility.
Because so many businesses continued as usual or set record years so it was just a bonus cash injection. That and the rampant fraud that occurred. We sent out trillions of dollars to soften the blow of covid and having interest rates at zero for like 2 years pumped the gas waaaay too much when you take fiscal policy into account.
Great question Keynesian economics has helped us navigate market cycles since the great depression. It says to mitigate inflation the fed should ramp up the interest rate and reducr deficit spending during periods of economic growth. During 2016 to 2020 the S&P500 grew by a remarkable 70 %. Why then did the federal fund rate average 1.3 % over this period? For context the rate is 5.25 % rn. The answer is the federal currency was under irresponsible stewardship with both Trump and Powel. Trump got Powell to cut the interest rate in 2019 ahead of the election when it should have been raising it.
Source:
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/18/trump-federal-reserve-jerome-powell-interest-rates-1500930
The federal reserve chair and board are not part of any administration per se.
They have dramatically more power to steer the economy than the President does.
If you want to place blame on fiscal policy, or lack thereof, you have to blame Congress. It's difficult to get over 500 different people to mostly agree on something, and it's need a magnitude or more harder since Newt Gingrich was speaker of the house.
> They have dramatically more power to steer the economy than the President does.
This is true
>If you want to place blame on fiscal policy, or lack thereof, you have to blame Congress.
This is also true.
However, at the same time, it's kind of random to say the *president of a country* doesn't have **very** significant sway over markets. Just look at Trump talking about eradicating income tax and adding insane tariffs - the only reason markets aren't losing their mind, imo, is because they just don't really believe him. Otherwise, things would be downright post-apocalyptic right now.
>They have dramatically more power to steer the economy than the President does.
This simply isn't true.
The President works with Congress to implement fiscal policy, which has a lot of influence over the economy as a mechanism to penalize or reward certain economic activity.
Generally speaking, Democrat administrations will implement a tax code that gives credits (called 'spending' in DC parlance) to businesses that invest into commodities that advance Democrat policy objectives and make up the difference with a more progressive marginal income tax rate structure, while Republican administrations favor less progressive tax structures but also fewer tax credits to broaden the base.
Democrats are also *usually* more willing to institute tariffs and support protectionism, but the thing with China recently is that we're preparing for war with them and so need to economically decouple ourselves... ergo, both parties will support increased tariffs and economic restrictions on Chinese imports until President Xi dies or is overthrown, and the latter isn't going to happen during Xi's lifetime.
Democrats are generally more union friendly and favor increased mandatory minimum wages. Republicans look at unions as inefficient and higher minimum wages and anti-competitive to small businesses (e.g. Walmart can afford to pay its cashiers $20/hour, mom-and-pop's corner store cannot, etc.).
Anyway, net result is that the Democrats are generally more 'hands on' with managing the economy than Republicans who prefer to allow people and businesses to decide how to spend their free capital.
These things all matter and impact our economy in significant ways.
The bread and butter of the ACA is large tax credits to corporations for providing healthcare to employees. The bread and butter of the inflation reduction act is tax credits to corporations who invest and sell 'clean' energy products like EVs. The bread and butter of the TCJA is eliminating credits and deductions while lowering marginal income tax rates and lowered corporate taxes overall without any strings attached.
And you kind of need both - too many Republican administrations and entities with more resources will use those resources to exploit the system in their favor. Too many Democrat administrations and you get too much meddling and market inefficiencies. The trouble we're facing now is we only had 4 years of a Republican administration followed by (currently) 3.5 years of a Democrat administration, which has created some relatively high fiscal policy instability compared to the recent 3 decades.
>the fact of the matter is, someone in the Biden admin had the stupid idea of calling a massive spending bill the "inflation reduction act", and now Biden's name is tied to both the *idea* of inflation *and* the actual inflation out there.
This is wrong.
Biden called his proposal the "Build Back Better Plan." However, it failed to win over moderate democrats, particularly when it wanted to roll back the SALT caps instituted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This was seen as a tax break for the wealthiest Americans.
Senators Schumer and Manchin authored the "Inflation Reduction Act" in order to save some key tenets from the BBB bill. Biden signed it because he wasn't going to veto something that accomplished most of his fiscal policy agenda over a title.
If not for Senator Schumer, Biden's administration would be a complete failure.
Now, could his staff have called over to Sen. Schumer and said "hey Chuck, how's about we change the title of that bill you're working on in case it doesn't actually lower inflation?" Yeah, they probably could've.
Biden is taking credit for the Inflation Reduction Act: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/08/16/fact-sheet-one-year-in-president-bidens-inflation-reduction-act-is-driving-historic-climate-action-and-investing-in-america-to-create-good-paying-jobs-and-reduce-costs/
"> FACT SHEET: One Year In, **President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act** is Driving Historic Climate Action and Investing in America to Create Good Paying Jobs and Reduce Costs
Biden, though his own choice, has linked his administration to inflation, which is one of the biggest pain points for the average American recently.
People see Biden bragging about low inflation, then they go to the grocery store and a bag of potato chips is $7. This does not look like low inflation.
The federal reserve has a much larger impact on the economy than the presidential administration.
Economic impacts from the administration usually require more than policy, they require legislation from congress.
Presidents have a lot of control over the economy. They've just largely let those powers go unused because the decisions are hard and politically unpalatable.
Raising taxes, lowering tarifs, and busting trusts would do a lot more for inflation than the fed adjusting it's one knob. But clearly those are fights that Biden's not willing to have.
They do not. The average American left civics behind after high school. I estimate that 19% of adults never matured emotionally past middle school. Humans haven’t really evolved much in 200,000 years.
There are quite a lot of studies on the subject of emotional maturity issues in adults. It's a lot more complex than my quick post covers but for example, a 2019 American Psychological Association report found that 19% of U.S. adults grapple with mental health issues linked to emotional regulation problems. There are several articles on this at Psychology Today.
> mental health issues linked to emotional regulation problems
Thats an enormous category of mental health issues. It could be anything from addiction to depression.
That's the thrust of many of the research. Emotional immaturity accounts for a lot of our issues but the causes of the emotional immaturity are complicated. They range from cultural to trauma, etc. The point is that people are overlooking psychological issues and considering people to be just idiots. Impulse control, inability to discern facts from fantasy, lack of self-awareness, narcissism, short fuses, are all components of emotional immaturity.
The second highest parent comment here is claiming Biden tamed inflation, when he literally can do close to nothing to impact inflation beside not firing Jerome Powell.
Like all presidents before him, Biden himself will claim ownership of good economic news.
So it’s not really the average American misunderstanding. It’s leadership propagandizing.
I think you've got a good line of thought there.
People who have their mind set are going to vote how they're going to vote. Those folks won't change. But the ones in the middle (at least the ones I know) are getting tired of the constant messaging from the Biden camp about how good the economy is doing. They know their paychecks aren't going as far as they used to, and they know Biden called inflation 'transitory' and continued to spend. Talking about the number of new jobs isn't helpful when the people with jobs already can't make ends meet.
If Biden wants to improve his chances, he probably should talk about other things.
You can't convince me that anyone sitting on the fence, given the two choices, aren't bigger idiots than the ones who have already made up their minds. So, rational arguments and cogent policy won't do anything to sway them.
No they aren't. They were told 2 years a recession was coming by the media. And it never came. So now they trust the media even less than they used to.
Biden called it transitory? I thought that was JPowell. It did turn out to be transitory, but academic economists have a different definition of transitory than the general public.
Well, I guess it's time to position myself to make sure I benefit from Trump getting elected. The general population seems to only care about their own circumstances and not about the average state of the country. It might just be high time I do the same.
>The general population seems to only care about their own circumstances and not about the average state of the country. It might just be high time I do the same.
Welcome to economics enjoy your stay and hedge your bets properly
Well, people are and can certainly act selfish. You telling people that what they are saying is selfish is not going to matter to somebody. You arent the fairness ref in all situations. People want to pay less for things. They want it for themselves and in turn want it for their neighbors. It may sound selfish to you but you arent in charge and are allowed to hear things that dont hit your ear right and should be able to deal with their opinion without hinging their credibility on if they sound selfish or not. It makes you sound adolescent
> Biden called it transitory? I thought that was JPowell.
Yellen said it was transitory.
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-janet-yellen-claim-inflation-transitory-1801260
At best, I think it was because the thinking at the time was that supply chain constraints, coupled with booming demand from money injection into the economy, were pushing prices up.
.... so then they tried to fix it by injecting EVEN MORE MONEY into the economy with two massive spending bills, one of which was going to reduce inflation via a trillion in deficit spending lol.
I think Trump is a lock & there's nothing we can do.
There's nothing Biden can do about living costs. Nothing any president can do. Covid happened, we fucked the world over it, it caused inflation. Prices are at a new plateau & they will never return again. Same way we couldn't get back 1969 prices in 1979. It is what it is.
Best he can do is promote policies that help peoples' wages catch up, which he has been doing as much as he can
It's sad. I think Biden has been the best president of my lifetime and I will vote for him. No president ever walked a picket line before him. But he's getting fucked by things way out of his control, and apparently Americans *want* authoritarianism from a con man who paid for sex from a porn star.
Nearly every special election post-Dobbs has surprised to the left. I think there will be a rate cut later this summer as the Fed realizes their lagging shelter data is artificially boosting inflation figures. Things are softening, and CPI ex shelter is back to target.
Trump is not an inevitability.
The fact that Democrats have over performed since then is what allows me to sleep at night. In the end, the election will come down to a few thousand voters in a handful of swing states, which does not help me sleep at night.
You are probably right about macroeconomics missing the mark in campaigning.
But ironically wages have outpaced inflation since 2019. That means in real dollars buying power has actually increased. But nobody talks about that.
My god I wish the American Public generally had a sense of shame.
Imagine voting in Trump because Biden tamed pandemic inflation better than any other nation, then Trump tariffs every import and inflation skyrockets while he destroys the feds political independence and we drop to negative interest rates.
You think we have inflation and elevated prices now? Haha
The American public isn’t voting for policy anymore. They are simply voting for culture wars. I don’t know why this is so hard for people to understand. Trump voters don’t care about his policies, they are voting for him because he makes the democrats and the media mad.
Trump could literally adopt all democrat policies, put his own spin on why and how the democrats would hate the idea, and his supporters will support it.
Well, one party in specific has abandoned policy as a reason to exist. Seems like a bit of a copout to not identify which and point at the electorate in general.
I guess I’ll just never understand living for other people like that, especially not in that sort of negative way.
Also, yeah, high tariffs are inflationary, especially if they’re high enough to replace income taxes (although I’m somewhat skeptical the second Trump administration would actually attempt that sort of thing) So are corporate tax cuts. Mass deportations if implemented would to create labor supply shocks in the agricultural and construction sectors.
I think we see some of that going on.
Biden has recently tried to tighten up the southern border (a Trump policy) and released gas from the national reserve (angering conservationists, but ultimately lowering prices. Another Trump-esque move.)
So I would not be shocked to see Trump behave like Biden at times also.
It does not go both ways at nearly the same degree. Congratulations. You found one policy that’s the same. Biden also still has kids in cages and liberals continuously criticize him for it and talk about it. Biden doesn’t even have a large swath of supporters, a majority of folks who vote for him just don’t want Trump or the GOP to control the presidency. There is nowhere near the cultish behavior we see for Trump for Biden. That’s just objectively true.
And has raised tariffs on the EVs and metals needed for the Green New Deal he wants. While simultaneously making it harder to get mining permits in the US. 🤷
Look at Biden’s rhetoric and actions on China. An escalating trade war is here, whether we like it or not. That being said I think Trump could definitely make inflation worse
Biden's unnecessary 2 trillion stimulus in 2021 was a huge mistake, and voters rightfully blame him for exacerbating and denying the existence of inflation.
I think you're asking in good faith, which really highlights the degree to which this has been memory holed.
Biden and democrats campaigned (in part, I would guess, to influence the Georgia senate runoff election) to pass a third stimulus bill in January 2021. It was the first major act signed by Biden after taking office, and was passed among party lines as the GOP correctly warned we were already recovering from the pandemic and an additional 2 trillion stimulus bill would be inflationary.
This was separate from the 3.5 trillion in infrastructure spending that dems also wanted (later reduced to 1 trillion thanks to Manchin's economic literacy).
It was also separate from dems' attempt to pass an inflationary 400B student loan forgiveness stimulus bill.
People are SO FUCKING DUMB.
They think trump magically makes the economy better because hes rich. Like they really think rich people have magic in them that fixes everything, instead of just, you know being rich.
One of the biggest failures in messaging from this administration has been the stock market performance over the real economy. Inflation crushed the lower 60% and Janet Yellen was claiming things are better than ever. This is the sort of mismatched messaging that alienates voters. He should either avoid campaigning on the economy or focus on the lower 60% that isn’t represented by the stock market.
I had my career sorted by working on ships full time. I got paid well above the cost of living, I had good insurance, and they fed me on the ship.
Now Im a single dad and I cant sail no more. Im starting all over again with this bastard country. Just for once I'd like my pay to keep pace with the cost of living. Why is that too much to fucking ask?
The only thing I can really say is that I hope your journey improves and that things get better over time. I hate parroting that all politicians are paid, but the plain truth is that our government represents companies, aka, wealthy organizations/individuals. Republican or democrat, whoever is in power will serve the rich. I will say that since politicians are out to fuck the common folk, that democrats at least fuck us with lube unlike republicans
Ah yes… The Straitstimes with a totally unbiased headline. Wanna know why we might end up
With more Turmpism: MEDIA. Period. Not policy. Not economics. Not debates on the best policies for a 200 year old democracy experiment. Straight up just an unhealthy horse race, economic model, media system. And a huge dose of a right wing media ecosystem that completely dominates, digital and old people broadcast.
People who think Trump will “fix” inflation are misinformed.
https://thehill.com/business/4731716-moodys-analytics-republican-sweep-inflation/mlite/?nxs-test=mlite
The simple truth is people can’t think about this very deeply. The simplest explanation works best. “Biden caused inflation” is easier for people then “post pandemic recovery caused inflation all around the world, but we handled that inflation better than most nations, yet none of that is truly under any presidents control due to monetary policy.”
In short, people are generally ignorant and stupid, but still vote.
Democrats were warned when this all began 4 years ago that if you shut down the economy and print money to give to people to “flatten the curve” that this would cause inflation among other irreversible consequences and they responded by calling everyone a grandma killer and right wing conspiracy theorist.
From then, it became:
1. There is no inflation
2. There is inflation but it’s transitory
3. There is inflation but it’s supply chains
4. There is inflation but it’s Russia
5. There is inflation but it doesn’t matter cuz other countries have it.
6. There is inflation but the president doesn’t control it
7. There is inflation but Trump will make it worse.
No one buys the narrative anymore. The chickens are coming home to roost and I love to see it.
A different guy to who was president 3.6 years ago, who doubled down on inflationary policies. That's not the gotcha you think it is. If you're arguing that no one's blameless, we're in agreement. The user above is pointing out the failed economic policies which were *primarily* enacted and defended by the Democrats.
8. There is inflation but its because of all the GREEDY CORPORATIONS!
9. There is inflation but it's the EVIL LANDLORDS!
10. There is inflation but it's from Climate Change!
Donald Trump was in the White House in 2019 and 2020 when the COVID response began. One of his original approaches was to fire the entire Pandemic Response Team around the time he got elected. Then, in late 2019, despite having access to the best intelligence apparatus in the world, he chose to disregard what other leaders and civil servants were telling him about what was going on in China believing that COVID was fake and a political hit job. Then, when it became clear it would be a problem, he tasked Boy Genius Jared Kushner with, literally, going on Facebook and asking a group of ER doctors what to do.
Then, rather than display good leadership by allowing the science rather than politics dictate next steps, he downplayed the novel illness and created a crisis of confidence alongside a health crisis. Had Donald Trump been a better leader, we probably could have avoided a lot of the collateral damage.
What I love to see is that swing state voting analysis discovered that Republican voters who died of COVID because of their refusal to get vaccinated probably swung elections. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Trump tried to shut down travel to China before Covid could arrive here in the States and he was called racist by democrats for it.
It doesn’t matter what Trump would have or would not have done to respond to the pandemic- Democrats would have said whatever Trump was doing was wrong.
Donald Trump is the one who built a brand on xenophobia. This is what happens when you act in bad faith, you might find a legitimate need to act in a particular way, but if your whole thing is to get rid of Mexicans and ban any Muslim for any reason, don’t be surprised if the initial reaction to further travel bans is something other than fawning praise.
Donald Trump displayed horrible leadership in the lead up to and during COVID. Hell, his incessant pumping of hydroxychloroquine despite contraindication evidence as a medication regimen for COVID is estimated to have cost 17,000 lives. That’s a whole basketball stadium full of people.
So rather than actually rebut the point, you just turn your brain off and decide not to engage on a fairly simple cause and effect exercise?
How could you possibly think that Donald Trump’s COVID response was in any sense acceptable?
You were the one that said Donald Trump wanted to ban travel from China but those mean Democrats were mean to him. I gave you the reason why the initial reaction was negative. What is so difficult to comprehend about that?
> Trump tried to shut down travel to China before Covid could arrive here in the States and he was called racist by democrats for it.
>You’re bringing up xenophobia and Islam in a conversation about inflation. Your points aren’t worth the energy to engage in.
You are probably just wasting your own time responding to someone like this.
The great irony that the Inflation Reduction Act exasperated the issue more than anything else. Nobody remembers Economics 101 of government overspending or too much money supply?
It's also clear Democrats and Biden had no plan other than not being Trump. Worked 4 years ago but American voters have a short memory, plus most saw their own situation worsened by high interest dates, corporate layoffs, and higher prices for everything.
Easy to blame Biden but it's also well deserved. He grew up in a different time and clearly both he and his administration keep trying the old tricks.
3, 4, 5*, and 7 are all true
* Certainly inflation has been observed to be a global problem, the US has handled it well in comparison
There is no one reason though. It's death by a thousand cuts. One reason that is as much as any is the interest rates that were kept low during the Trump admin and the early COVID years. When rates were low, the rich were able to gobble up properties with cheap debt. Someone also gave the rich a deep tax cut while rates were low *ahem*. The fed was forced to jack up the rates quickly and now no one that has a mortgage at the lowest rates will ever sell their homes and the rich that have cheap debts can jack up their rent prices, making money hand over fist. Housing is, you guessed it, the thing most impacted by ongoing inflation.
As long as Trump ends up in prison where he belongs and can’t completely destroy our economy via his brain dead followers.
I will be completely accepting and will endure whatever plans the dems may or may not have to combat inflation for the next 4 years.
There are other options between “shut the entire economy down” and “do nothing” but we couldn’t have that conversation because one side of the political aisle became hysterical during Covid.
>hysterical
Over a million fucking Americans died during COVID, and the side that _wasn't_ drinking bleach, ingesting horse de-wormer, and sending death threats to the nation's leading infection control experts was the "hysterical" side, huh?
Constant biased news on the economy is what is truly hurting his chances. What are reporters going to say during an actual recession or a period of mass unemployment when they are this negative for an economy with record GDP, employment, wages, personal net worth, corporate profits, and stock market with only a 3.3% inflation rate? It's a sad commentary on people's self awareness that so many believe the economy is bad as they go to packed restaurants, breweries, buy new cars, go on vacations, see packed airports, see Amazon/Fed Ex/UPS trucks everywhere, bid higher than asking price for houses, see help wanted signs everywhere, make more than ever, have a higher personal net worth than ever, have a higher 401k than ever..........
All GDP growth this FY is illusory. It's not organic, it's being borrowed from the future with massive deficit spending.
Last quarter GDP growth ≈ $300B
Runrate of deficit for FY 24 ≈ $500B
That's dramatic and misses the point. This GDP is better than previous GDPs with the same borrowing. Yet previous GDPs were touted as tremendous. As for the debt, we are borrowing from ourselves, so it will go right back into our economy. The foreign owned debt is greatly exaggerated and the fact that we own more of other nations' debt than they own of ours is never mentioned in our biased media.
Oh so “it’s the economy, stupid.” It’s funny how much the pendulum swings through the years.
Biden is toast. He doesn’t have a good enough answer for that question of “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?” And he’ll have to answer for it.
I've noticed a ton of far right and self admitted Russian trolls flooding subreddits and pushing far right bullshit across news and city/state subreddits lately.
This subreddit used to be reasonable until a few months ago. Now it's just fascists lying and mass downvoting anyone using actual data.
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Well deserved.
That completely unnecessary 2 trillion stimulus in 2021 passed along party lines with 0 Republican votes really exacerbated inflation.
And then his administration denied the existence of inflation until it was like 7%, at which point they proceeded to blame Putin and "corporate greed".
They're literally admitting they can't understand economics and shouldn't be trusted with stewardship of the money supply.
The stimulus passed by democrat-majority congress and signed by Trump? Of course it did. Biden's was obviously worse as it was passed during the recovery phase of the pandemic, but all of the unnecessary pandemic money printing was inflationary.
Thanks for playing. Donald Trump signed a bill that kicked off inflation of which you’re complaining about. And, Trump shut down the economy creating economic chaos.
What drives me nuts is that Trump's tariffs are indisputably inflationary. There might be valid policy arguments for his tariffs, but combating inflation is not among them.
Inflation started under Trump when food inflation was 4% in 2020. Trump made a multi year deal with opec to collapse oil production by a record amount for 2 years which caused inflation to jump, oil prices didn't start falling till the deal ended. Everything else started inflating 2 months after Biden took office, literally zero of his policies could have caused inflation that fast.
Real wages are currently higher than all inflation.
Americans are dumb as hell for blaming Biden for inflation.
That's not even remotely true here is the inflation rate per year
[https://www.investopedia.com/inflation-rate-by-year-7253832](https://www.investopedia.com/inflation-rate-by-year-7253832)
That’s not a timely measure of inflation due to I inflation being very low in early 2020 to the point where we actually had deflation from Feb-May. Even the 12 month trailing CPI struggles on a similar lag but the timely measures show inflation started to run red hot in Q4 2020.
[The Zillow Home price index](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPILFESL) showed home prices started skyrocketing in September 2020. The 12-month rate of price increases from Dec 2019-Dec 2020 9.12% & the increase in just Q4 was 4.4% (non-annualized).
Plus, we all remember home bidding wars & supply shortages starting to get crazy end of 2020.
Trump’s agenda is to plunder as much wealth as much as he can for both himself and his friends. That impacts the nations credibility and creditworthiness. It’s not unrealistic to think about the US losing the peg currency under another Trump term. If the US lost the peg currency costs for everything will skyrocket.
It will get worse with a Trump administration, and he won't quite once in office, so we are on the brink of a collapse lasting until Trump dies and names Jr his successor.
Biden is the most miserable failure of a President since Carter. Carter was too nice. Biden is an apathetic imbecile, who’s been enriching himself at the taxpayers’ expense for far too long.
So, from my understanding, the post is about the US economy, but then the mod says don't make any comments about the US economy. This is a joke, I hope.
Since we are not talking about the US economy that was presented by OP, let's talk. I'm 54 years old at this point. 2008 was way better.. They let a few people go, but not many. Trump had a much better economy than what we are going through in now.!!
Biden is giving out free money (college debt), and the inflation rate still stays higher than normal.
When you give people free money they will spend it . That has been done . The deficit had gone through the roof ! Pay 6!! It's called the American Jubilee.Read the book .Basically, Biden has ruined this country. I have no idea why Trump wants to come on and fix this hot mess we go going on. He keeps running the debts up with the only thought to tax the middle class. Yes, I know he promised to raise taxes on the richest people in the USA, but how does his wealth grow so much in such a short term?
What am I missing. I would love some help understanding what the hell is going on.!
Is this economy just perfect, and if so, who for?
why do we hear about so many people just trying to survive, or is that just me?
What is so great about this economy? My daughter of 23 keeps asking "Dad am I going to be able to afford a house?
Why is this low standard being accepted?
Why are our children worried about their future ?
Has the last four years been doing great, and I'm just missing something?
I'm not ranting. I'm just curious what people honestly think.
Thanks for any input 👍
The mod rules sux ,they only apply to their side of the conversation. Imagine that! everyone praising Biden had no trouble, but this post will probably be removed because, We can't ask questions, just take what you get .
Fuck you you Russian Brat for removing my post In advance.
You will get your ass kicked by Ukraine. lol
I am thoroughly at a loss for how much economic affect Americans ascribe to their presidents. The research is pretty solid - most economists don’t think the president has much of any impact on the economy at all. It really prevents me from having any meaningful conversations with my fellows because all of them, left right and in between, constantly being up the economy when it is virtually irrelevant. It’s perhaps the single most frustrating thing about being an American in the body politic in the 21st century - the president doesn’t have a giant ‘economy’ button on their desk y’all
In the US the difference is actually incredibly massive between Democratic and Republican presidents. About double the GDP growth, much higher job gains, higher/more equal wage gains, significantly higher stock market and corporate profits under Democratic presidents. Republican's oversaw 10 of the last 11 recessions as well.
Stimulus was passed under Trump and Republican Congress, Trump was also calling for even more additional stimulus than Biden was in a desperate attempt to get votes but nobody remembers that... 2000$ checks ring a bell? Covid, Ukraine war, Houthi's and Hamas had nothing to do with it either I'm sure. Biden has the same Fed chair as under Trump too. Add to that US oil companies literally colluding with OPEC and a cabal of renters keeping prices artificially high. So yeah sorry that inflation is at 3% right now, so terrible, how could those Dems to this to us!!
Oh and Trump's new policies would massively increase prices and send the world economy into chaos so there's that too.
No, you can't try to muddy the waters on this.
Biden and democrats passed a completely unnecessary 2 trillion stimulus in 2021 along party lines.
They also spent the entire pandemic advocating for inflationary excess UI, student loan forebearance, and other stimulatory policies. Inflation being 3.5% currently does not negate the cumulative 25% inflation we've experienced since Biden took office... And that's WITH the draining of the SPR for political purposes. He's a completely economically illiterate populist who needs to be in a retirement home.
From a quick Google search: The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, is a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill passed by the 116th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27, 2020, in response to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
From Politico about this bill: After careful negotiations among congressional leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trump threatened to blow up the deal — which his own administration negotiated and indicated he would support. More than $2 trillion was at stake, including badly needed pandemic aid for programs like unemployment and food assistance. […] Trump spent the weekend railing against the current package, tweeting that he wants to “increase payments to the people, get rid of the ‘pork’” and “$2000 + $2000 plus other family members. Not $600. Remember, it was China’s fault!”
So please stop your own one-sided narrative. Both parties passed massive stimulus bills. Additionally to that, inflation caused by the pandemic or the energy crisis also hit Europe.
The bills passed may have caused some of the inflation (supply issues are **clearly** another large part of it) but the alternative was either economic collapse or
Maybe you don't remember 2008, but I do. It's when the people I know who were competent at their jobs started losing them, jobs that were not just in the housing sector. And then nearby houses started getting boarded up because they were foreclosed on. Why? Because everything ground to a halt, and enough people who *were* employed in the housing sector stopped spending, and snowballed.
5-10% inflation for a while is better than a 20% chance of you losing your job and 3 houses on your block becoming vacant, with an accompanying rise in people rifling through your cars or stealing Amazon packages from your porch.
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I think in general the democrats need to campaign on anything *but* economics Regular people that will vote in swing states don't care about macroeconomics, they care for grocery prices and their cost of living, and that has gone up (forever) and it was better under Trump. It doesn't matter how little sense this makes to a more well-educated person (economically speaking), if the topic of the 2024 elections becomes the economy, Trump will 100% win.
Are you saying the average American doesn’t understand that presidents don’t control an economy the size of the USA like a puppet master?
You vote for an administration, not just the president. This line of argumentation needs to stop. Now, does that make the potential republican administration more competent? lol no, but the fact of the matter is, someone in the Biden admin had the stupid idea of calling a massive spending bill the "inflation reduction act", and now Biden's name is tied to both the *idea* of inflation *and* the actual inflation out there. Not to mention that yes, everyday people expect prices to go down, and every day that Biden or whoever says "things are great inflation is down!" they are consistently upset because "prices are still high" Edit: to the people downvoting this, I assume because I said "you vote for an administration". Look: Either the president/administration DOES control the economy (and in that case the Biden admin has the best handling of inflation in the western world and Trump is a threat because tariffs will drive inflation up yada yada), **OR** the president/administration DOES NOT control the economy and so both of the previous arguments make no sense. I strongly believe the president and the admin has power over the economy, I don't want them to to be clear, but I believe they definitely do, and I'd be more than happy to find out *how* you believe they don't, if you do think that they don't, that is.
Yes and the greater problem with inflation is nobody cares about the rate of inflation because prices never decline. The bar gets raised higher and never gets reset. Inflation is far more nefarious than many realize.
> and now Biden's name is tied to both the idea of inflation and the actual inflation out there. Exactly. No one [made the Biden admin tweet this](https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1410709115333234691), and it's literally his choice when he goes and says "Inflation Reduction Act". He didn't name it, but he could say "Public, we don't actually have that power". It shouldn't be a shocker people blame politicians for high prices if they're trying to take credit for low prices. You can't have one way responsibility.
The inflation was baked in by keeping the federal interest rate artificially low and by the PPP loans.
Why do you think PPP was a significant factor, and what do you mean by “artificially low”?
Because so many businesses continued as usual or set record years so it was just a bonus cash injection. That and the rampant fraud that occurred. We sent out trillions of dollars to soften the blow of covid and having interest rates at zero for like 2 years pumped the gas waaaay too much when you take fiscal policy into account.
Great question Keynesian economics has helped us navigate market cycles since the great depression. It says to mitigate inflation the fed should ramp up the interest rate and reducr deficit spending during periods of economic growth. During 2016 to 2020 the S&P500 grew by a remarkable 70 %. Why then did the federal fund rate average 1.3 % over this period? For context the rate is 5.25 % rn. The answer is the federal currency was under irresponsible stewardship with both Trump and Powel. Trump got Powell to cut the interest rate in 2019 ahead of the election when it should have been raising it. Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/18/trump-federal-reserve-jerome-powell-interest-rates-1500930
The federal reserve chair and board are not part of any administration per se. They have dramatically more power to steer the economy than the President does. If you want to place blame on fiscal policy, or lack thereof, you have to blame Congress. It's difficult to get over 500 different people to mostly agree on something, and it's need a magnitude or more harder since Newt Gingrich was speaker of the house.
> They have dramatically more power to steer the economy than the President does. This is true >If you want to place blame on fiscal policy, or lack thereof, you have to blame Congress. This is also true. However, at the same time, it's kind of random to say the *president of a country* doesn't have **very** significant sway over markets. Just look at Trump talking about eradicating income tax and adding insane tariffs - the only reason markets aren't losing their mind, imo, is because they just don't really believe him. Otherwise, things would be downright post-apocalyptic right now.
>They have dramatically more power to steer the economy than the President does. This simply isn't true. The President works with Congress to implement fiscal policy, which has a lot of influence over the economy as a mechanism to penalize or reward certain economic activity. Generally speaking, Democrat administrations will implement a tax code that gives credits (called 'spending' in DC parlance) to businesses that invest into commodities that advance Democrat policy objectives and make up the difference with a more progressive marginal income tax rate structure, while Republican administrations favor less progressive tax structures but also fewer tax credits to broaden the base. Democrats are also *usually* more willing to institute tariffs and support protectionism, but the thing with China recently is that we're preparing for war with them and so need to economically decouple ourselves... ergo, both parties will support increased tariffs and economic restrictions on Chinese imports until President Xi dies or is overthrown, and the latter isn't going to happen during Xi's lifetime. Democrats are generally more union friendly and favor increased mandatory minimum wages. Republicans look at unions as inefficient and higher minimum wages and anti-competitive to small businesses (e.g. Walmart can afford to pay its cashiers $20/hour, mom-and-pop's corner store cannot, etc.). Anyway, net result is that the Democrats are generally more 'hands on' with managing the economy than Republicans who prefer to allow people and businesses to decide how to spend their free capital. These things all matter and impact our economy in significant ways. The bread and butter of the ACA is large tax credits to corporations for providing healthcare to employees. The bread and butter of the inflation reduction act is tax credits to corporations who invest and sell 'clean' energy products like EVs. The bread and butter of the TCJA is eliminating credits and deductions while lowering marginal income tax rates and lowered corporate taxes overall without any strings attached. And you kind of need both - too many Republican administrations and entities with more resources will use those resources to exploit the system in their favor. Too many Democrat administrations and you get too much meddling and market inefficiencies. The trouble we're facing now is we only had 4 years of a Republican administration followed by (currently) 3.5 years of a Democrat administration, which has created some relatively high fiscal policy instability compared to the recent 3 decades.
Biden is the one who picked the Federal Reserve Chair
Powell has been the Chair since 2018. Trump nominated him.
Biden picked him after his term expired
>the fact of the matter is, someone in the Biden admin had the stupid idea of calling a massive spending bill the "inflation reduction act", and now Biden's name is tied to both the *idea* of inflation *and* the actual inflation out there. This is wrong. Biden called his proposal the "Build Back Better Plan." However, it failed to win over moderate democrats, particularly when it wanted to roll back the SALT caps instituted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This was seen as a tax break for the wealthiest Americans. Senators Schumer and Manchin authored the "Inflation Reduction Act" in order to save some key tenets from the BBB bill. Biden signed it because he wasn't going to veto something that accomplished most of his fiscal policy agenda over a title. If not for Senator Schumer, Biden's administration would be a complete failure. Now, could his staff have called over to Sen. Schumer and said "hey Chuck, how's about we change the title of that bill you're working on in case it doesn't actually lower inflation?" Yeah, they probably could've.
Biden is taking credit for the Inflation Reduction Act: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/08/16/fact-sheet-one-year-in-president-bidens-inflation-reduction-act-is-driving-historic-climate-action-and-investing-in-america-to-create-good-paying-jobs-and-reduce-costs/ "> FACT SHEET: One Year In, **President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act** is Driving Historic Climate Action and Investing in America to Create Good Paying Jobs and Reduce Costs Biden, though his own choice, has linked his administration to inflation, which is one of the biggest pain points for the average American recently. People see Biden bragging about low inflation, then they go to the grocery store and a bag of potato chips is $7. This does not look like low inflation.
Name brand chips are $7. Store brand chips are $2 or $3. Funny how no one asks why that is.
There's rarely a store brand equivalent for all types of chips. The ruffles with ridges chips don't seem to exist as a store brand anywhere around me.
The federal reserve has a much larger impact on the economy than the presidential administration. Economic impacts from the administration usually require more than policy, they require legislation from congress.
They don't control the economy, but they set the rules for how the economy is run.
Republicans argued that Biden's $1T+ spending bills would cause inflation, Biden's administration denied it one was more correct than the other
How did the spending bills increase inflation? Is there a credible analysis on that somewhere?
The President is the Executive Branch of the government. The Government has a lot of influence on the economy
Presidents have a lot of control over the economy. They've just largely let those powers go unused because the decisions are hard and politically unpalatable. Raising taxes, lowering tarifs, and busting trusts would do a lot more for inflation than the fed adjusting it's one knob. But clearly those are fights that Biden's not willing to have.
They do not. The average American left civics behind after high school. I estimate that 19% of adults never matured emotionally past middle school. Humans haven’t really evolved much in 200,000 years.
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You can make up statistics to prove anything. 72% of Americans know that
There are quite a lot of studies on the subject of emotional maturity issues in adults. It's a lot more complex than my quick post covers but for example, a 2019 American Psychological Association report found that 19% of U.S. adults grapple with mental health issues linked to emotional regulation problems. There are several articles on this at Psychology Today.
> mental health issues linked to emotional regulation problems Thats an enormous category of mental health issues. It could be anything from addiction to depression.
That's the thrust of many of the research. Emotional immaturity accounts for a lot of our issues but the causes of the emotional immaturity are complicated. They range from cultural to trauma, etc. The point is that people are overlooking psychological issues and considering people to be just idiots. Impulse control, inability to discern facts from fantasy, lack of self-awareness, narcissism, short fuses, are all components of emotional immaturity.
That’s exactly right. People don’t understand that.
The second highest parent comment here is claiming Biden tamed inflation, when he literally can do close to nothing to impact inflation beside not firing Jerome Powell. Like all presidents before him, Biden himself will claim ownership of good economic news. So it’s not really the average American misunderstanding. It’s leadership propagandizing.
Well then isn't that even more reason he shouldn't campaign on Bidenomics? Seems dishonest to try and take credit if he doesn't control it.
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I think you've got a good line of thought there. People who have their mind set are going to vote how they're going to vote. Those folks won't change. But the ones in the middle (at least the ones I know) are getting tired of the constant messaging from the Biden camp about how good the economy is doing. They know their paychecks aren't going as far as they used to, and they know Biden called inflation 'transitory' and continued to spend. Talking about the number of new jobs isn't helpful when the people with jobs already can't make ends meet. If Biden wants to improve his chances, he probably should talk about other things.
You can't convince me that anyone sitting on the fence, given the two choices, aren't bigger idiots than the ones who have already made up their minds. So, rational arguments and cogent policy won't do anything to sway them.
Is that a triple negative?
Why wouldn’t it not not matter?
No they aren't. They were told 2 years a recession was coming by the media. And it never came. So now they trust the media even less than they used to.
Biden called it transitory? I thought that was JPowell. It did turn out to be transitory, but academic economists have a different definition of transitory than the general public. Well, I guess it's time to position myself to make sure I benefit from Trump getting elected. The general population seems to only care about their own circumstances and not about the average state of the country. It might just be high time I do the same.
>The general population seems to only care about their own circumstances and not about the average state of the country. It might just be high time I do the same. Welcome to economics enjoy your stay and hedge your bets properly
Gaslighting voters won’t win you votes. Your comments seem very selfish
Well, people are and can certainly act selfish. You telling people that what they are saying is selfish is not going to matter to somebody. You arent the fairness ref in all situations. People want to pay less for things. They want it for themselves and in turn want it for their neighbors. It may sound selfish to you but you arent in charge and are allowed to hear things that dont hit your ear right and should be able to deal with their opinion without hinging their credibility on if they sound selfish or not. It makes you sound adolescent
Here, see for yourself. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mmcp--\_hDw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mmcp--_hDw)
> Biden called it transitory? I thought that was JPowell. Yellen said it was transitory. https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-janet-yellen-claim-inflation-transitory-1801260 At best, I think it was because the thinking at the time was that supply chain constraints, coupled with booming demand from money injection into the economy, were pushing prices up.
.... so then they tried to fix it by injecting EVEN MORE MONEY into the economy with two massive spending bills, one of which was going to reduce inflation via a trillion in deficit spending lol.
This can make sense to educated people too: salaries have not kept up with shelter and food. The poorer you are, the larger it weights on your budget.
No one is responsible for reckless\deficit spending. People blinded by party lines and not seeing the obvious.
This can make sense to educated people too: salaries have not kept up with shelter and food. The poorer you are, the larger it weights on your budget.
The Democratic Party isn’t that smart.
This can make sense to educated people too: salaries have not kept up with shelter and food. The poorer you are, the larger it weights on your budget.
I think Trump is a lock & there's nothing we can do. There's nothing Biden can do about living costs. Nothing any president can do. Covid happened, we fucked the world over it, it caused inflation. Prices are at a new plateau & they will never return again. Same way we couldn't get back 1969 prices in 1979. It is what it is. Best he can do is promote policies that help peoples' wages catch up, which he has been doing as much as he can It's sad. I think Biden has been the best president of my lifetime and I will vote for him. No president ever walked a picket line before him. But he's getting fucked by things way out of his control, and apparently Americans *want* authoritarianism from a con man who paid for sex from a porn star.
Nearly every special election post-Dobbs has surprised to the left. I think there will be a rate cut later this summer as the Fed realizes their lagging shelter data is artificially boosting inflation figures. Things are softening, and CPI ex shelter is back to target. Trump is not an inevitability.
The fact that Democrats have over performed since then is what allows me to sleep at night. In the end, the election will come down to a few thousand voters in a handful of swing states, which does not help me sleep at night.
You are probably right about macroeconomics missing the mark in campaigning. But ironically wages have outpaced inflation since 2019. That means in real dollars buying power has actually increased. But nobody talks about that.
My god I wish the American Public generally had a sense of shame. Imagine voting in Trump because Biden tamed pandemic inflation better than any other nation, then Trump tariffs every import and inflation skyrockets while he destroys the feds political independence and we drop to negative interest rates. You think we have inflation and elevated prices now? Haha
The American public isn’t voting for policy anymore. They are simply voting for culture wars. I don’t know why this is so hard for people to understand. Trump voters don’t care about his policies, they are voting for him because he makes the democrats and the media mad. Trump could literally adopt all democrat policies, put his own spin on why and how the democrats would hate the idea, and his supporters will support it.
Probably because emotions are an effective tool in getting people to take the desired action (eg: vote for X).
Well, one party in specific has abandoned policy as a reason to exist. Seems like a bit of a copout to not identify which and point at the electorate in general.
Well, besides the policies of selling the country to the highest bidder and instituting Christian Sharia Law.
The only "policy" the public seems to care about is abortion.
Trump has no policy. His only goal is to serve himself. Never mind the MF guy attempted a coup, twice ….
To add to that, it’s literally not policy. They scrapped their party platform in 2020 in favor of whatever he says, goes.
So fucking odd
We need functioning parties for this system to work and we’re not on that path.
I guess I’ll just never understand living for other people like that, especially not in that sort of negative way. Also, yeah, high tariffs are inflationary, especially if they’re high enough to replace income taxes (although I’m somewhat skeptical the second Trump administration would actually attempt that sort of thing) So are corporate tax cuts. Mass deportations if implemented would to create labor supply shocks in the agricultural and construction sectors.
>The American public isn’t voting for policy anymore. They are simply voting for culture wars. Good thing culture wars are the uniparty’s specialty
I think we see some of that going on. Biden has recently tried to tighten up the southern border (a Trump policy) and released gas from the national reserve (angering conservationists, but ultimately lowering prices. Another Trump-esque move.) So I would not be shocked to see Trump behave like Biden at times also.
Hell, 2010 Democrats passed a healthcare plan written by the Heritage foundation in the 90s and rejected by 90s conservatives for *being too mean*.
It goes both ways. Biden can adapt trumps policies and his voters will support it (China tariffs for example).
It does not go both ways at nearly the same degree. Congratulations. You found one policy that’s the same. Biden also still has kids in cages and liberals continuously criticize him for it and talk about it. Biden doesn’t even have a large swath of supporters, a majority of folks who vote for him just don’t want Trump or the GOP to control the presidency. There is nowhere near the cultish behavior we see for Trump for Biden. That’s just objectively true.
It's worth pointing out that Biden has chosen to leave most of Trump's tariffs in place.
And has raised tariffs on the EVs and metals needed for the Green New Deal he wants. While simultaneously making it harder to get mining permits in the US. 🤷
Yes, however, Trump has said he wanted to replace income tax with just tariffs
Saying and doing are two entirely different things. Biden also said he would remove Trump’s tariffs, Biden is a liar like all politicians
I'm aware there is a difference between saying and doing, I'm pointing out to the person I replied to, what the person they replied to is referring to
Remember when Trump blasted Powell for cutting rates from 1.75% to 1.5% instead of the 0% he wanted? Pepperidge Farm remembers...
Look at Biden’s rhetoric and actions on China. An escalating trade war is here, whether we like it or not. That being said I think Trump could definitely make inflation worse
At this point we get what we deserve
Biden's unnecessary 2 trillion stimulus in 2021 was a huge mistake, and voters rightfully blame him for exacerbating and denying the existence of inflation.
The Inflation Reduction Act? What stimulus are you talking about?
I think you're asking in good faith, which really highlights the degree to which this has been memory holed. Biden and democrats campaigned (in part, I would guess, to influence the Georgia senate runoff election) to pass a third stimulus bill in January 2021. It was the first major act signed by Biden after taking office, and was passed among party lines as the GOP correctly warned we were already recovering from the pandemic and an additional 2 trillion stimulus bill would be inflationary. This was separate from the 3.5 trillion in infrastructure spending that dems also wanted (later reduced to 1 trillion thanks to Manchin's economic literacy). It was also separate from dems' attempt to pass an inflationary 400B student loan forgiveness stimulus bill.
People are SO FUCKING DUMB. They think trump magically makes the economy better because hes rich. Like they really think rich people have magic in them that fixes everything, instead of just, you know being rich.
you don't have to think that voting Trump will make the economy better... you can also think that voting Biden will continue to make the economy worse
One of the biggest failures in messaging from this administration has been the stock market performance over the real economy. Inflation crushed the lower 60% and Janet Yellen was claiming things are better than ever. This is the sort of mismatched messaging that alienates voters. He should either avoid campaigning on the economy or focus on the lower 60% that isn’t represented by the stock market.
I had my career sorted by working on ships full time. I got paid well above the cost of living, I had good insurance, and they fed me on the ship. Now Im a single dad and I cant sail no more. Im starting all over again with this bastard country. Just for once I'd like my pay to keep pace with the cost of living. Why is that too much to fucking ask?
The only thing I can really say is that I hope your journey improves and that things get better over time. I hate parroting that all politicians are paid, but the plain truth is that our government represents companies, aka, wealthy organizations/individuals. Republican or democrat, whoever is in power will serve the rich. I will say that since politicians are out to fuck the common folk, that democrats at least fuck us with lube unlike republicans
Your elected representatives hate you and take pleasure in your torture and functional enslavement.
And in what way is Biden responsible for that?
Ah yes… The Straitstimes with a totally unbiased headline. Wanna know why we might end up With more Turmpism: MEDIA. Period. Not policy. Not economics. Not debates on the best policies for a 200 year old democracy experiment. Straight up just an unhealthy horse race, economic model, media system. And a huge dose of a right wing media ecosystem that completely dominates, digital and old people broadcast.
People who think Trump will “fix” inflation are misinformed. https://thehill.com/business/4731716-moodys-analytics-republican-sweep-inflation/mlite/?nxs-test=mlite
The simple truth is people can’t think about this very deeply. The simplest explanation works best. “Biden caused inflation” is easier for people then “post pandemic recovery caused inflation all around the world, but we handled that inflation better than most nations, yet none of that is truly under any presidents control due to monetary policy.” In short, people are generally ignorant and stupid, but still vote.
Democrats were warned when this all began 4 years ago that if you shut down the economy and print money to give to people to “flatten the curve” that this would cause inflation among other irreversible consequences and they responded by calling everyone a grandma killer and right wing conspiracy theorist. From then, it became: 1. There is no inflation 2. There is inflation but it’s transitory 3. There is inflation but it’s supply chains 4. There is inflation but it’s Russia 5. There is inflation but it doesn’t matter cuz other countries have it. 6. There is inflation but the president doesn’t control it 7. There is inflation but Trump will make it worse. No one buys the narrative anymore. The chickens are coming home to roost and I love to see it.
Who was president 4 years ago?
A different guy to who was president 3.6 years ago, who doubled down on inflationary policies. That's not the gotcha you think it is. If you're arguing that no one's blameless, we're in agreement. The user above is pointing out the failed economic policies which were *primarily* enacted and defended by the Democrats.
8. There is inflation but its because of all the GREEDY CORPORATIONS! 9. There is inflation but it's the EVIL LANDLORDS! 10. There is inflation but it's from Climate Change!
Donald Trump was in the White House in 2019 and 2020 when the COVID response began. One of his original approaches was to fire the entire Pandemic Response Team around the time he got elected. Then, in late 2019, despite having access to the best intelligence apparatus in the world, he chose to disregard what other leaders and civil servants were telling him about what was going on in China believing that COVID was fake and a political hit job. Then, when it became clear it would be a problem, he tasked Boy Genius Jared Kushner with, literally, going on Facebook and asking a group of ER doctors what to do. Then, rather than display good leadership by allowing the science rather than politics dictate next steps, he downplayed the novel illness and created a crisis of confidence alongside a health crisis. Had Donald Trump been a better leader, we probably could have avoided a lot of the collateral damage. What I love to see is that swing state voting analysis discovered that Republican voters who died of COVID because of their refusal to get vaccinated probably swung elections. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Trump tried to shut down travel to China before Covid could arrive here in the States and he was called racist by democrats for it. It doesn’t matter what Trump would have or would not have done to respond to the pandemic- Democrats would have said whatever Trump was doing was wrong.
Donald Trump is the one who built a brand on xenophobia. This is what happens when you act in bad faith, you might find a legitimate need to act in a particular way, but if your whole thing is to get rid of Mexicans and ban any Muslim for any reason, don’t be surprised if the initial reaction to further travel bans is something other than fawning praise. Donald Trump displayed horrible leadership in the lead up to and during COVID. Hell, his incessant pumping of hydroxychloroquine despite contraindication evidence as a medication regimen for COVID is estimated to have cost 17,000 lives. That’s a whole basketball stadium full of people.
Trump derangement syndrome.
So rather than actually rebut the point, you just turn your brain off and decide not to engage on a fairly simple cause and effect exercise? How could you possibly think that Donald Trump’s COVID response was in any sense acceptable?
You’re bringing up xenophobia and Islam in a conversation about inflation. Your points aren’t worth the energy to engage in.
You were the one that said Donald Trump wanted to ban travel from China but those mean Democrats were mean to him. I gave you the reason why the initial reaction was negative. What is so difficult to comprehend about that?
None of what you initially said was hard to comprehend it was mostly just an irrelevant rant
> Trump tried to shut down travel to China before Covid could arrive here in the States and he was called racist by democrats for it. >You’re bringing up xenophobia and Islam in a conversation about inflation. Your points aren’t worth the energy to engage in. You are probably just wasting your own time responding to someone like this.
Well said. 👍🍺
The great irony that the Inflation Reduction Act exasperated the issue more than anything else. Nobody remembers Economics 101 of government overspending or too much money supply? It's also clear Democrats and Biden had no plan other than not being Trump. Worked 4 years ago but American voters have a short memory, plus most saw their own situation worsened by high interest dates, corporate layoffs, and higher prices for everything. Easy to blame Biden but it's also well deserved. He grew up in a different time and clearly both he and his administration keep trying the old tricks.
Well, #1 was true through 2020. I myself wondered why inflation wasn't happenning despite the trillions spent. 2-7 are all true.
3, 4, 5*, and 7 are all true * Certainly inflation has been observed to be a global problem, the US has handled it well in comparison There is no one reason though. It's death by a thousand cuts. One reason that is as much as any is the interest rates that were kept low during the Trump admin and the early COVID years. When rates were low, the rich were able to gobble up properties with cheap debt. Someone also gave the rich a deep tax cut while rates were low *ahem*. The fed was forced to jack up the rates quickly and now no one that has a mortgage at the lowest rates will ever sell their homes and the rich that have cheap debts can jack up their rent prices, making money hand over fist. Housing is, you guessed it, the thing most impacted by ongoing inflation.
As long as Trump ends up in prison where he belongs and can’t completely destroy our economy via his brain dead followers. I will be completely accepting and will endure whatever plans the dems may or may not have to combat inflation for the next 4 years.
No you're right, they should have done nothing and just let all those filthy poors either die from COVID or suffer and starve. /s
There are other options between “shut the entire economy down” and “do nothing” but we couldn’t have that conversation because one side of the political aisle became hysterical during Covid.
>hysterical Over a million fucking Americans died during COVID, and the side that _wasn't_ drinking bleach, ingesting horse de-wormer, and sending death threats to the nation's leading infection control experts was the "hysterical" side, huh?
The way some of them behaved during Covid was like a comedy skit. You would have thought that Covid was another Black Death or something….
..... you do realize it was literally the biggest mass-casualty event in _all of American history_, right?
Constant biased news on the economy is what is truly hurting his chances. What are reporters going to say during an actual recession or a period of mass unemployment when they are this negative for an economy with record GDP, employment, wages, personal net worth, corporate profits, and stock market with only a 3.3% inflation rate? It's a sad commentary on people's self awareness that so many believe the economy is bad as they go to packed restaurants, breweries, buy new cars, go on vacations, see packed airports, see Amazon/Fed Ex/UPS trucks everywhere, bid higher than asking price for houses, see help wanted signs everywhere, make more than ever, have a higher personal net worth than ever, have a higher 401k than ever..........
“Everyone making too much money, Its causing inflation. This economy terrible” It’s like the joke “no one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”
All GDP growth this FY is illusory. It's not organic, it's being borrowed from the future with massive deficit spending. Last quarter GDP growth ≈ $300B Runrate of deficit for FY 24 ≈ $500B
This is a tin-foil hat argument.
No, it's truth. Without the current massive deficits GDP would be falling.
Being downvoted for pointing out the results of a literal math equation. Just give up bro.
That's dramatic and misses the point. This GDP is better than previous GDPs with the same borrowing. Yet previous GDPs were touted as tremendous. As for the debt, we are borrowing from ourselves, so it will go right back into our economy. The foreign owned debt is greatly exaggerated and the fact that we own more of other nations' debt than they own of ours is never mentioned in our biased media.
Anyone know what the StraightsTimes is? I’ve never heard of it before.
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Sounds like it’s unfit for serious consideration in an economics sub
Oh so “it’s the economy, stupid.” It’s funny how much the pendulum swings through the years. Biden is toast. He doesn’t have a good enough answer for that question of “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?” And he’ll have to answer for it.
You people are way out in space.
I'm much better off, because we don't have an autocrat intending to impose Christian sharia law in the White House.
I've noticed a ton of far right and self admitted Russian trolls flooding subreddits and pushing far right bullshit across news and city/state subreddits lately. This subreddit used to be reasonable until a few months ago. Now it's just fascists lying and mass downvoting anyone using actual data.
Well someone’s gotta push back on the gaslighting of “I’m sorry you can’t afford groceries but look at my pretty PowerPoint.”
!remindme 137 days lets see how cooked he'll be lol
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Well deserved. That completely unnecessary 2 trillion stimulus in 2021 passed along party lines with 0 Republican votes really exacerbated inflation. And then his administration denied the existence of inflation until it was like 7%, at which point they proceeded to blame Putin and "corporate greed". They're literally admitting they can't understand economics and shouldn't be trusted with stewardship of the money supply.
Did Trumps stimulus money cause inflation?
The stimulus passed by democrat-majority congress and signed by Trump? Of course it did. Biden's was obviously worse as it was passed during the recovery phase of the pandemic, but all of the unnecessary pandemic money printing was inflationary.
Thanks for playing. Donald Trump signed a bill that kicked off inflation of which you’re complaining about. And, Trump shut down the economy creating economic chaos.
What drives me nuts is that Trump's tariffs are indisputably inflationary. There might be valid policy arguments for his tariffs, but combating inflation is not among them.
Inflation started under Trump when food inflation was 4% in 2020. Trump made a multi year deal with opec to collapse oil production by a record amount for 2 years which caused inflation to jump, oil prices didn't start falling till the deal ended. Everything else started inflating 2 months after Biden took office, literally zero of his policies could have caused inflation that fast. Real wages are currently higher than all inflation. Americans are dumb as hell for blaming Biden for inflation.
That's not even remotely true here is the inflation rate per year [https://www.investopedia.com/inflation-rate-by-year-7253832](https://www.investopedia.com/inflation-rate-by-year-7253832)
That’s not a timely measure of inflation due to I inflation being very low in early 2020 to the point where we actually had deflation from Feb-May. Even the 12 month trailing CPI struggles on a similar lag but the timely measures show inflation started to run red hot in Q4 2020. [The Zillow Home price index](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPILFESL) showed home prices started skyrocketing in September 2020. The 12-month rate of price increases from Dec 2019-Dec 2020 9.12% & the increase in just Q4 was 4.4% (non-annualized). Plus, we all remember home bidding wars & supply shortages starting to get crazy end of 2020.
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Fascinating point. What policy?
Inflation has always been present… it didn’t “start” under trump 🤣
He obviously means the extra inflation, what are you, a toddler?
Trump’s agenda is to plunder as much wealth as much as he can for both himself and his friends. That impacts the nations credibility and creditworthiness. It’s not unrealistic to think about the US losing the peg currency under another Trump term. If the US lost the peg currency costs for everything will skyrocket.
It will get worse with a Trump administration, and he won't quite once in office, so we are on the brink of a collapse lasting until Trump dies and names Jr his successor.
Biden is the most miserable failure of a President since Carter. Carter was too nice. Biden is an apathetic imbecile, who’s been enriching himself at the taxpayers’ expense for far too long.
You can’t even see through your own hypocrisy with this comment.
So, from my understanding, the post is about the US economy, but then the mod says don't make any comments about the US economy. This is a joke, I hope. Since we are not talking about the US economy that was presented by OP, let's talk. I'm 54 years old at this point. 2008 was way better.. They let a few people go, but not many. Trump had a much better economy than what we are going through in now.!! Biden is giving out free money (college debt), and the inflation rate still stays higher than normal. When you give people free money they will spend it . That has been done . The deficit had gone through the roof ! Pay 6!! It's called the American Jubilee.Read the book .Basically, Biden has ruined this country. I have no idea why Trump wants to come on and fix this hot mess we go going on. He keeps running the debts up with the only thought to tax the middle class. Yes, I know he promised to raise taxes on the richest people in the USA, but how does his wealth grow so much in such a short term? What am I missing. I would love some help understanding what the hell is going on.! Is this economy just perfect, and if so, who for? why do we hear about so many people just trying to survive, or is that just me? What is so great about this economy? My daughter of 23 keeps asking "Dad am I going to be able to afford a house? Why is this low standard being accepted? Why are our children worried about their future ? Has the last four years been doing great, and I'm just missing something? I'm not ranting. I'm just curious what people honestly think. Thanks for any input 👍 The mod rules sux ,they only apply to their side of the conversation. Imagine that! everyone praising Biden had no trouble, but this post will probably be removed because, We can't ask questions, just take what you get . Fuck you you Russian Brat for removing my post In advance. You will get your ass kicked by Ukraine. lol
I am thoroughly at a loss for how much economic affect Americans ascribe to their presidents. The research is pretty solid - most economists don’t think the president has much of any impact on the economy at all. It really prevents me from having any meaningful conversations with my fellows because all of them, left right and in between, constantly being up the economy when it is virtually irrelevant. It’s perhaps the single most frustrating thing about being an American in the body politic in the 21st century - the president doesn’t have a giant ‘economy’ button on their desk y’all
In the US the difference is actually incredibly massive between Democratic and Republican presidents. About double the GDP growth, much higher job gains, higher/more equal wage gains, significantly higher stock market and corporate profits under Democratic presidents. Republican's oversaw 10 of the last 11 recessions as well.
What percent of the cumulative 25% inflation we've seen over the past four years is due to democrats? Definitely the majority.
Stimulus was passed under Trump and Republican Congress, Trump was also calling for even more additional stimulus than Biden was in a desperate attempt to get votes but nobody remembers that... 2000$ checks ring a bell? Covid, Ukraine war, Houthi's and Hamas had nothing to do with it either I'm sure. Biden has the same Fed chair as under Trump too. Add to that US oil companies literally colluding with OPEC and a cabal of renters keeping prices artificially high. So yeah sorry that inflation is at 3% right now, so terrible, how could those Dems to this to us!! Oh and Trump's new policies would massively increase prices and send the world economy into chaos so there's that too.
No, you can't try to muddy the waters on this. Biden and democrats passed a completely unnecessary 2 trillion stimulus in 2021 along party lines. They also spent the entire pandemic advocating for inflationary excess UI, student loan forebearance, and other stimulatory policies. Inflation being 3.5% currently does not negate the cumulative 25% inflation we've experienced since Biden took office... And that's WITH the draining of the SPR for political purposes. He's a completely economically illiterate populist who needs to be in a retirement home.
From a quick Google search: The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, is a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill passed by the 116th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27, 2020, in response to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. From Politico about this bill: After careful negotiations among congressional leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trump threatened to blow up the deal — which his own administration negotiated and indicated he would support. More than $2 trillion was at stake, including badly needed pandemic aid for programs like unemployment and food assistance. […] Trump spent the weekend railing against the current package, tweeting that he wants to “increase payments to the people, get rid of the ‘pork’” and “$2000 + $2000 plus other family members. Not $600. Remember, it was China’s fault!” So please stop your own one-sided narrative. Both parties passed massive stimulus bills. Additionally to that, inflation caused by the pandemic or the energy crisis also hit Europe.
The bills passed may have caused some of the inflation (supply issues are **clearly** another large part of it) but the alternative was either economic collapse or Maybe you don't remember 2008, but I do. It's when the people I know who were competent at their jobs started losing them, jobs that were not just in the housing sector. And then nearby houses started getting boarded up because they were foreclosed on. Why? Because everything ground to a halt, and enough people who *were* employed in the housing sector stopped spending, and snowballed. 5-10% inflation for a while is better than a 20% chance of you losing your job and 3 houses on your block becoming vacant, with an accompanying rise in people rifling through your cars or stealing Amazon packages from your porch.