Bidenomics

[George K]

[LuFins Dad]

@George-K said in Bidenomics:

Meh, prices did go down overall by a small amount, but not even close to a “plummet”. And almost all of the drop was precipitated by eggs, where production is finally getting back on track.

[George K]

"According to the report, they went down 0.02% for the first time in a year. So groceries that used to cost $155 cost $250 in March but “plummeted” to $245 in April! Huge savings! Huge! $5!!!!"

[Mik]

What bullshit.

[Jolly]

@Mik said in Bidenomics:

What bullshit.

I know they have to try, because some people are just that stupid, but just about anybody in the middle class has felt the pinch of significant inflation during Biden's term.

[taiwan_girl]

@George-K said in Bidenomics:

@taiwan_girl said in Bidenomics:

to me, it just reinforce my thought that the president gets too much credit/too much blame for the economy.

Why does he have red laser eyes?

@Larry and I went back and forth on this. I would ask him to give me his any five indicators of the economy (GDP grow, inflation, stock market, unemployment, etc etc etc) and I would pretty much show him that there was very little to no relationship between those and which party was the president. And I would get the typical Larry response: "If you are too dumb to understand that, then I'm not going to tell you." LOL

[George K]

@taiwan_girl said in Bidenomics:

I would ask him to give me his any five indicators of the economy (GDP grow, inflation, stock market, unemployment, etc etc etc) and I would pretty much show him that there was very little to no relationship

You may well be right. But James Carville will disagree, at least when it comes to politics.

Of course, politics might bear no relation to reality.

But in politics, perception is reality.

[taiwan_girl]

@George-K Agree. For probably the majority of people (and I dont really know majority % is) vote on emotional thinking rather than rational thinking.

[Doctor Phibes]

Somewhat related: I'm currently trying to hire - we're offering 6-figures for a basic engineering position. So far we've had all of two applicants, both referrals, and both only want to work remotely, which isn't going to happen.

[Axtremus]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Bidenomics:

Somewhat related: I'm currently trying to hire - we're offering 6-figures for a basic engineering position. So far we've had all of two applicants, both referrals, and both only want to work remotely, which isn't going to happen.

Have you tried offering 7-figures?

[Doctor Phibes]

@Axtremus said in Bidenomics:

Have you tried offering 7-figures?

I'd take the job if they offered that much.

[Jolly]

@taiwan_girl said in Bidenomics:

@George-K Agree. For probably the majority of people (and I dont really know majority % is) vote on emotional thinking rather than rational thinking.

Most of my income currently is fixed. If you don't think people in my situation have not noticed how their income has shrunk under Biden, you are delusional.

[taiwan_girl]

@Jolly said in Bidenomics:

@taiwan_girl said in Bidenomics:

@George-K Agree. For probably the majority of people (and I dont really know majority % is) vote on emotional thinking rather than rational thinking.

Most of my income currently is fixed. If you don't think people in my situation have not noticed how their income has shrunk under Biden, you are delusional.

I am not disagreeing. I am just saying that most people vote on emotion. I could post something about how the economy under Obama was better than under Trump, and there would be ALOT of people claiming otherwise. Or vice versa.

There was a chart I posted a while back (from the Customs/Border people) that showed that the number of illegal aliens coming into the US was basically flat from Obama through Trump. But many people will say that it was much lower under PResident Trump.

As @George-K says: politics is perception, and perception is not always reality.

[George K]

https://www.wsj.com/economy/stock-market-performance-biden-trump-charts-1a83371b

However, I've been assured that people don't live off of Wall Street.

[LuFins Dad]

@George-K said in Bidenomics:

https://www.wsj.com/economy/stock-market-performance-biden-trump-charts-1a83371b

However, I've been assured that people don't live off of Wall Street.

That adjusted for inflation chart is quite interesting.

[George K]

@LuFins-Dad said in Bidenomics:

That adjusted for inflation chart is quite interesting.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-vs-biden-in-one-simple-chart/

It’s a just small chart, running alongside an article on page A5 of the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, but it says so much about why Donald Trump — after losing his reelection bid, after January 6, after four indictments — is running ahead of Biden in most of the swing states. One closing paragraph summarizes the numbers:

Though inflation is falling now, it has been higher on average under Biden than Trump. Adjusted for inflation, [household] net worth was up just 0.7 percent through Biden’s first three years, compared with 16 percent through Trump’s first three years.

The numbers are from the Saint Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

And there you go. Americans don’t blame Trump for Covid, so they give him a pass for the fourth year of his presidency and grade him on those first three years. A household net worth increasing 16 percent over three years is pretty good! And staying flat over three years is pretty bad. Sure, wages have increased over the past three years, but the corresponding increase in prices has eaten up almost all of those gains.

Will other issues matter in this election besides the economy? Sure. When Americans are asked open-ended questions about which issue is most important to their vote in the presidential election, immigration and the border consistently rank second. Abortion and the future of democracy get mentioned too, but they’re always a distant third, usually mentioned as most important by about 10 percent of the electorate.

This fall, if Americans feel like their household net worth is increasing, they’re likely to reelect Biden. If they feel like they’re treading water or that everything is harder to afford, they’re likely to reelect Trump. This isn’t the only factor, but it’s the biggest factor.

[LuFins Dad]

@George-K said in Bidenomics:

@LuFins-Dad said in Bidenomics:

That adjusted for inflation chart is quite interesting.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-vs-biden-in-one-simple-chart/

It’s a just small chart, running alongside an article on page A5 of the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, but it says so much about why Donald Trump — after losing his reelection bid, after January 6, after four indictments — is running ahead of Biden in most of the swing states. One closing paragraph summarizes the numbers:

Though inflation is falling now, it has been higher on average under Biden than Trump. Adjusted for inflation, [household] net worth was up just 0.7 percent through Biden’s first three years, compared with 16 percent through Trump’s first three years.

The numbers are from the Saint Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

And there you go. Americans don’t blame Trump for Covid, so they give him a pass for the fourth year of his presidency and grade him on those first three years. A household net worth increasing 16 percent over three years is pretty good! And staying flat over three years is pretty bad. Sure, wages have increased over the past three years, but the corresponding increase in prices has eaten up almost all of those gains.

Will other issues matter in this election besides the economy? Sure. When Americans are asked open-ended questions about which issue is most important to their vote in the presidential election, immigration and the border consistently rank second. Abortion and the future of democracy get mentioned too, but they’re always a distant third, usually mentioned as most important by about 10 percent of the electorate.

This fall, if Americans feel like their household net worth is increasing, they’re likely to reelect Biden. If they feel like they’re treading water or that everything is harder to afford, they’re likely to reelect Trump. This isn’t the only factor, but it’s the biggest factor.

The problems with that analysis:

1. Most of that inflation is on Lame Donald’s policies than it is on Uncle President Joe’s. It was Trump’s Payroll Protection plan, and multiple stimulus bills that dumped so much cash into the M1. Before @Jolly replies that Biden would have been worse, he likely would have been, but would’ve ≠ did. The Payroll Protection Act was the absolute worst legislation ever. Before @Doctor-Phibes and @taiwan_girl chime in about global inflation, a reminder that the USD IS the global currency. What happens to the USD happens to everyone. If various other Governments pumped more of their own currency into the system, that just makes it worse, but it starts with the USD.

2. Trump absolutely shouldn’t be absolved for COVID year. That SHTF moment has to be factored into your voting decisions. That was the moment you needed somebody up for the job. Trump fell well short of the task. Yes, Biden would probably have been worse, but Trump was the guy that crapped all over himself and the country. He was responsible for the single largest restriction on civil rights since slavery. He screwed over the tax payer with the absurd stimulus, and he let Fauci… Just never mind. I’m getting more pissed by the minute.

The fact is that Trump shit the bed in the big moment. How can you expect him to not do the same thing again?

[Jolly]

Revise history much?

Unless you were living in a cave, a few facts (context is important)...

1. COVID wasn't MERS, but it was responsible for quite a few deaths across the world. It was scary.
2. We weren't sure whether the disease was contact or airborne. We treated it as contact. Turns out, it wasn't.
3. Public Health policy dictates isolation when faced with a highly contagious disease that has a high mortality rate. Biden, Trump, doesn't matter, people were going to be told to stay home.
4. In an economy where most people don't have 90 days of expenses in the bank, what would you have the government do? Evict people? Starve them? Or maybe do like China, weld them up in their apartment buildings and let nature take its course?

When faced with a novel threat, one of societal altering proportions, governments can and will make mistakes. We didn't need all the respirators. We were uncertain about treatments and slow to back those that worked, like monoclonal antibodies. We let people die in isolation, being visited by nurses twice a shift and by their families none at all. We couldn't ramp up testing fast enough, because we don't control our own production.

I know, I was walking in those rooms when I absolutely had to. And for all those spineless professionals who walked away from their healthcare jobs during that first year, I hope you never, ever work in a hospital again, because you're only there for the money and not worthy of wearing white.

That's what Trump was working with. A huge unknown pandemic, a cacophony of advice, lies from Federal health officials and a public on the verge of panic. Along with a screaming need for a vaccine or some kind of magic bullet.

And you're worried about the first spending bill, equating it with Biden's? Shucks, I'll even cut Biden a little slack for his first big bill, but I do agree the third was political theater and vote buying, as COVID had virused into a less lethal dominate strain and many people had some form of vaccine-induced or natural immunity against the initial strains.

History can be revised by the application of 20-20 hindsight, but to just hand-wave the effect of COVID in the early days is coke bottle astigmatism.

[Doctor Phibes]

@LuFins-Dad said in Bidenomics:

The fact is that Trump shit the bed in the big moment. How can you expect him to not do the same thing again?

I don't think either Trump or Biden was up to the task of dealing with the pandemic. You could say the same about other leaders too. Boris "They Call him Britain Trump*" Johnson was a freaking disaster.

(* - nobody calls him Britain Trump. They call him even worse things.)

[LuFins Dad]

@Jolly said in Bidenomics:

Revise history much?

Unless you were living in a cave, a few facts (context is important)...

1. COVID wasn't MERS, but it was responsible for quite a few deaths across the world. It was scary.

Irrelevant

2. We weren't sure whether the disease was contact or airborne. We treated it as contact. Turns out, it wasn't.

Irrelevant

3. Public Health policy dictates isolation when faced with a highly contagious disease that has a high mortality rate. Biden, Trump, doesn't matter, people were going to be told to stay home.

Public Health Policy is one policy group and decision that needs to be weighed against others. That’s where leadership comes in. Making difficult decisions. Beyond that, there were public health officials and experts that realized the shutdowns weren’t going to work. Florida started off going down a bad road but quickly rectified their mistakes. In addition to Florida’s Surgeon General and Public Health group, there were many others in and out of Government against the lockdown. Jay Bhattacharya, Scott Atlas, Martin Kulldorf, Sumatra Gupta, and more tried to warn the administration against these steps. These weren’t crackpots, but the lead Epidemiologists and Public Health experts at Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, and more. When the head disease experts want a meeting with you in the beginning of an epidemic, you take the fucking meeting.

4. In an economy where most people don't have 90 days of expenses in the bank, what would you have the government do? Evict people? Starve them? Or maybe do like China, weld them up in their apartment buildings and let nature take its course?

More often than not, that’s the best course to take… BUT… You want to pass extra unemployment payments? Great. Do so. But there was no need for that to be extended past the first 6 months. By the middle of summer there was already a good handle on the fact that most people were able to continue working from home, that many businesses were still thriving, and that suitable social distancing measures could be implemented. Beyond that, it would have been very simple to tag onto the Payroll Protection Act that the loans would be paid back interest free if audits found that revenue did not decrease year or year… An interest free loan would still have been astounding for these companies. Beyond that, sending extra money to people that were still working? Come on…

When faced with a novel threat, one of societal altering proportions, governments can and will make mistakes. We didn't need all the respirators. We were uncertain about treatments and slow to back those that worked, like monoclonal antibodies. We let people die in isolation, being visited by nurses twice a shift and by their families none at all. We couldn't ramp up testing fast enough, because we don't control our own production.

Yeah, no problem with that.

I know, I was walking in those rooms when I absolutely had to. And for all those spineless professionals who walked away from their healthcare jobs during that first year, I hope you never, ever work in a hospital again, because you're only there for the money and not worthy of wearing white.

That's what Trump was working with. A huge unknown pandemic, a cacophony of advice, lies from Federal health officials and a public on the verge of panic. Along with a screaming need for a vaccine or some kind of magic bullet.

Irrelevant. Civil rights aren’t something that can be suspended, period. If they are, then they aren’t rights. In the middle of an emergency like that is when you most have to be respectful of people’s rights.

And you're worried about the first spending bill, equating it with Biden's? Shucks, I'll even cut Biden a little slack for his first big bill, but I do agree the third was political theater and vote buying, as COVID had virused into a less lethal dominate strain and many people had some form of vaccine-induced or natural immunity against the initial strains.

History can be revised by the application of 20-20 hindsight, but to just hand-wave the effect of COVID in the early days is coke bottle astigmatism.

That’s your opinion. Mine is that you don’t want to accept the fact that your guy was abysmal when we needed him to be great. That he tried to illegally usurp control from the Governors, and when he got smacked down, then he refused to use the influence that he did have in trying to get schools open. Lame Donald was a disaster. Biden would have been a disaster, too, but Lame Donald was.