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During the current democratic presidency, and whether it can be justifiably blamed or not, we've seen: - Housing bubble burst and destroy the assets of tens of

During the current democratic presidency, and whether it can be justifiably blamed or not, we've seen: - Housing bubble burst and destroy the assets of tens of millions of Americans; - Private health insurance costs increase 100% [0] as the administration bungled the implementation of the solution to those incredible cost increases; - College tuition costs increase 50% [1]; So if you're the 2-income family and over the last 8 years, while your kids became college age, you've seen health insurance and tuition skyrocket. If you took a second mortgage in 2007, you lost it all by 2009 and had a high probability of being wiped out as the stock markets went on a tear over the next 6 years. You had to watch from the sidelines. If you're blue collar, there's a high probability you were unemployed and possibly laid off more than once. That's a lot of people with recent, seriously adverse, major life circumstances who need to point the finger somewhere. They are hurt and angry enough to rally around a candidate who curses the incumbents to their face. [0] http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/04/16/public-vs-private-health-insurance-on-controlling-spending/ http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/04/16/public-vs-private-h... [1] http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2015/07/29/chart-see-20-years-of-tuition-growth-at-national-universities http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-col...

themartorana 10y ago
The problem is when blame is not cast on the removal of regulations that let banks run wild, and it is not cast on for-profit healthcare companies that post massive premium increases while posting massive profit increases. Instead, some of those injured rally around the same group of people that deregulated banks, the same group of people that killed a public-option plan, and the same group of people that make it illegal for the government to negotiate lower costs for drugs, bolstering the current run of multi-thousand-percent cost increases. I'm really at a loss. I agree whole heartedly that the destruction of the middle class while the super-wealthy get rapidly richer and corporations post huge profit increases while dodging taxes lead to absolute disillusionment. But this time around doesn't feel like disillusionment on its own. It feels like it's being married heavily to racism and religion, which really does skew things. Edit: although, maybe that's not all that different than usual. It's just a lot braver and mob-mentality-ish.
extra88 10y ago
By saying these things happened during Obama's presidency, you make it sound like his administration is somehow to blame. * The housing bubble burst before he was elected * The WSJ chart projects private insurance costs being 100% above 2007 rates not now but in 2023. The chart also doesn't show what the rate of change before 2007. Obamacare contained huge compromises to get passed, hasn't even been fully implemented, and has had its implementation hampered by Congress's inaction and some Republican-led states. Its primary mission was give the uninsured access to insurance, not to keep insurance affordable for those who already have it. It was never going to solve the cost increases, at best it could ease the rate of change a bit, and it has, a little. * Tuition rates increases are a long-standing trend, long before 2009. There are multiple factors, only some of which are practically correctable through politics. Bernie did a lot more cursing the incumbents, Trump seems to focus more on brown foreigners. Bernie also described actual plans instead of handwaving and random adjectives like "beautiful" and "great." But you can completely ignore me because I've always supported Clinton.
whamlastxmas 10y ago
Additionally, if you look at "real" numbers, unemployment has only gotten worse since 2008: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-chart... Funnily enough, it was the HW Bush years when unemployment trend was improving (aside from 2001 bubble).
- kesselvon 10y ago
  Don't tell me you actually believe the bs coming out of shadow stats.
  - whamlastxmas 10y ago
    What exactly is wrong with it? They use the same numbers as the BLS, they just don't remove BLS's own figures for discouraged workers etc. It's ridiculous to say that because someone has been so unsuccessful in finding a job and gave up searching over a certain period that they shouldn't be counted in the most commonly accepted unemployment figures. To say that "unemployment has become less of a problem" is an outright lie and yet that's the phrase we constantly hear due to "convenient" sampling for U3/U6. According to U3 and U6, we could have 99% of Americans out of work and totally given up trying to find work, but still only have 5% unemployment.

themartorana 10y ago

The problem is when blame is not cast on the removal of regulations that let banks run wild, and it is not cast on for-profit healthcare companies that post massive premium increases while posting massive profit increases. Instead, some of those injured rally around the same group of people that deregulated banks, the same group of people that killed a public-option plan, and the same group of people that make it illegal for the government to negotiate lower costs for drugs, bolstering the current run of multi-thousand-percent cost increases. I'm really at a loss. I agree whole heartedly that the destruction of the middle class while the super-wealthy get rapidly richer and corporations post huge profit increases while dodging taxes lead to absolute disillusionment. But this time around doesn't feel like disillusionment on its own. It feels like it's being married heavily to racism and religion, which really does skew things. Edit: although, maybe that's not all that different than usual. It's just a lot braver and mob-mentality-ish.

extra88 10y ago

By saying these things happened during Obama's presidency, you make it sound like his administration is somehow to blame. * The housing bubble burst before he was elected * The WSJ chart projects private insurance costs being 100% above 2007 rates not now but in 2023. The chart also doesn't show what the rate of change before 2007. Obamacare contained huge compromises to get passed, hasn't even been fully implemented, and has had its implementation hampered by Congress's inaction and some Republican-led states. Its primary mission was give the uninsured access to insurance, not to keep insurance affordable for those who already have it. It was never going to solve the cost increases, at best it could ease the rate of change a bit, and it has, a little. * Tuition rates increases are a long-standing trend, long before 2009. There are multiple factors, only some of which are practically correctable through politics. Bernie did a lot more cursing the incumbents, Trump seems to focus more on brown foreigners. Bernie also described actual plans instead of handwaving and random adjectives like "beautiful" and "great." But you can completely ignore me because I've always supported Clinton.

whamlastxmas 10y ago

Additionally, if you look at "real" numbers, unemployment has only gotten worse since 2008: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-chart... Funnily enough, it was the HW Bush years when unemployment trend was improving (aside from 2001 bubble).

kesselvon 10y ago
Don't tell me you actually believe the bs coming out of shadow stats.
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  What exactly is wrong with it? They use the same numbers as the BLS, they just don't remove BLS's own figures for discouraged workers etc. It's ridiculous to say that because someone has been so unsuccessful in finding a job and gave up searching over a certain period that they shouldn't be counted in the most commonly accepted unemployment figures. To say that "unemployment has become less of a problem" is an outright lie and yet that's the phrase we constantly hear due to "convenient" sampling for U3/U6. According to U3 and U6, we could have 99% of Americans out of work and totally given up trying to find work, but still only have 5% unemployment.