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> A certain political party was handed a blank checkbook. A few problems with this entirely over-simplistic view (which seems to be what you are accusing HNers
by thephyber 4y ago
> A certain political party was handed a blank checkbook.
A few problems with this entirely over-simplistic view (which seems to be what you are accusing HNers of having).
Most of the expenses of the most recent $trillion+ have never been dispersed.
Inflation in 2021-2022 was not simply demand side. Yes, team transitory was partially right. It was significantly driven by supply side as well.
Mismatched supply and demand for goods and services post pandemic lockdown. Overloaded choke points in the logistics system. Periodic failures in key systems for travel (FAA outage, Southwest outage, etc). Food supplies, for various different reasons including a bird flu pandemic, spiked in price. Backlogs of chips at semiconductor fans for cars after manufacturers cancelled their contracts in March 2020. Not to mention a little land war in Europe and a key pipeline blown up, that resulted in reshuffling of key oil and gas imports/exports to other countries and a rush to build LNG terminals to assist with that.
Hell, the population of the US is millions lower than it would have been had we not closed the legal immigration gates in 2017 and again (for different reasons) in 2020.
One of the key drivers of inflation is typically wage growth. American workers stopped taking as much shit as they used to and started taking actions they used to be afraid to. People working minimum wage started finding better paying or less tedious jobs. People moved from cities with plentiful jobs and where expenses were high to suburbs where there is a different pace of life. But then companies started reducing compensation or demanding return to office, causing a whiplash adjustment.
No, this isn’t an issue to lay at the feet of one party, whether we like that party or not. People need to actually struggle with the fact that some of inflation can be affected with monetary policy, some with targeted fiscal policy, some with diplomacy, and some of it requires no government intervention and simply requires time for the market to figure it out.