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It's the economy, stupid: -Inflation is not prices; it is the rate of change in prices. Low inflation doesn't imply low prices. -Aggregate statistics don't ne

• kristopolous 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • drawkward 2y ago
    I got a raise this year, yet my purchasing power is less than it was two years ago. The stock market just surged post-election. Please explain to me how I am better off. Please explain to me how "third way" Democrats stood for union values from the Clinton-Obama eras.
    • kristopolous 2y ago
      The claim is groups like the Heritage foundation, Manhattan Institute, Cato, Hoover Institution, Heartland, American Enterprise and other think tanks are actually propaganda manufacturing companies who lie to people as a profession. It's a specific claim
    • mrguyorama 2y ago
      Biden objectively kept inflation lower in the US than most of the developed world. What did you want instead? Actual policy proposals, not vague feelings. The ultimate crime of democrats is continuing to provide explicit proposals in a post-reality world. The Republicans realized you can just make shit up on the fly, change your mind literally every day, and the masses will latch on to whatever they want to believe and assure everyone else that their own personal interpretation of whatever vague promise they got is actually the right answer. But only if you have the magic (R) next to your name.
• consteval 2y ago
  Trump's economic plans are extremely inflationary, and even a freshman economics student can point that out. It's just that nobody really cares, they just like Trump and will fill in the gaps to justify it. You can't put extreme tariffs like 200% and expect prices to come down. The reality is post-covid was an inflationary period because of hyper consumerism. Demand shot up, extremely quickly, and supply was still lagging due to covid. There was really nothing anyone could do. It's unfortunate, but voters don't consider these things. They just see the prices, see a blue president, and go from there.
  • drawkward 2y ago
    I understand all of this; I voted for Harris, despite not particularly liking her (or Biden)
  • _heimdall 2y ago
    I don't think hyper consumerism goes deeply enough to answer the question of why we saw prices change so rapidly. We printed trillions of dollars and flooded the economy with new money. We had extremely low interest rates, again creating more new money in the system. We stopped student debt payments, meaning people had more money in their pockets to spend. We also stopped evictions, though you would really have to be a special kind of asshole to skip paying rent so you can buy more random consumer goods. Its worth noting that printing new money was the actual inflation, inflation is a measure of the increase in the money supply itself. Prices did go up, or you could say the dollar lost value, but price changes aren't actually inflation (prices are tracked by indexes).
    • intended 2y ago
      Price rises are tied to higher energy costs, that are linked to the war in Ukraine.
      • _heimdall 2y ago
        Energy touches basically every corner of the economy. It seems like it'd be difficult to narrow down price increases to just one cause, especially a base resource. It looks like US electricity costs are up around 10% since 2022. How do you peel that apart to know electricity prices changed first, and that that is what caused all other prices to go up?
• _heimdall 2y ago
  > Inflation is not prices; it is the rate of change in prices. Inflation is actually the increase in the money supply. The term is used wrong almost everywhere today. Price indexes like the CPI are what measure the change in prices of a set of goods. Inflation can influence prices since the supply of money changed, but they aren't directly linked. Edit: getting plenty of requests for a source here, especially because you will find countless sources online using the price increase definition. https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentary/1997/ec-19971015-on-the-origin-and-evolution-of-the-word-inflation https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentar...
  • adastra22 2y ago
    > Inflation is actually the increase in the money supply. The term is used wrong almost everywhere today. The word has multiple meanings. That’s monetary inflation. The primary meaning in use today is price inflation.
    • _heimdall 2y ago
      Its used in many ways, that doesn't redefine the word though. Inflation is a policy of increasing the money supply, nothing more and nothing less. Inflation is not price increases. If that is the definition then the metric is effectively useless. Prices can increase for any number of reasons, looking only at price changes doesn't tell us anything meaningful or actionable.
      • adastra22 2y ago
        “Inflation” doesn’t mean anything by itself. It is a shorthand for either price inflation or monetary inflation. Or inflating a balloon. Context is needed.
        • _heimdall 2y ago
          > “Inflation” doesn’t mean anything by itself. It absolutely does when the correct definition is still used. Inflation is an increase in money supply, that's really all there is to it. Your point is why the use of "inflation" to mean price increases is so meaningless. Prices change for any number of reasons and you need context. When "inflation" still means in increase in the money supply there is no context required to know what it means, though obviously that's not all the information you need to understand the economy.
• aa_is_op 2y ago
  The inflation was a false boogie man pushed by MSM. Inflation was never the problem, it's people lack of understanding that wars cause prices to explode. The Iraq 91 war literally ended the USSR, which dissolved a few months later because of soaring prices and economical failures. The Ukraine war might end up pushing the US into a second tier country, especially since Trump brings Musk and RFK into the government, who are literal morons when it comes to managing anything.
  • drawkward 2y ago
    "Ignore the fact that everything costs more; you're just angry at the war but don't realize it" does not seem like a winning campaign slogan, but what do I know?
    • trinsic2 2y ago
      The "Everything costs more" is a byproduct of something more important, not sure what that is, but focusing soley on econmoics as the cause of our issues seems shortsighted, but hey, what do I know.
  • ord0abcha0 2y ago
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• cryptonector 2y ago
  The second derivative of prices hurts people hard when it is strongly positive because real wages lag real prices.
  • NickM 2y ago
    Even when real wages keep up with real prices, people still hate inflation, because they attribute their rising wages to their own successes more than macroeconomic changes. To most people it feels like "I'm working hard and getting big raises for it, only to be stymied by rising prices" rather than "this is all happening due to forces outside my control".
• noncoml 2y ago
  It’s not the economy. It’s the charisma. Look at the history and you will see Americans want someone at least somewhat charismatic as their leader. Hilary and Harris have less charisma than my cat. They were simply unelectable. A choice with a slightly more charismatic person and we would see different results in my opinion Furthermore, and sadly in my opinion, I am not convinced that Americans are ready for a female president. Give it another 20-30 years
  • scarby2 2y ago
    While I agree, I can't picture how trump was more charismatic than Harris. He seems like a used car salesman to me...
    • noncoml 2y ago
      He is not my cup of tea either but a lot of people like him. Harris on the other hand is like an EU Bureaucrat. Anyway. That’s my take, doesn’t mean I’m right.
    • FrustratedMonky 2y ago
      Yes, but used car salesman are charismatic, and people are frequently hoodwinked by used car salesman. Despite everyone saying watch out for the used car salesman.
    • ng12 2y ago
      Honestly while Trump is a little slimy he's also kinda funny. Visit some conservative spaces sometimes, they're having fun while liberal ones are all doom-and-gloom. It really does matter.
      • bad_haircut72 2y ago
        Go to any middle school in America and find who the popular kids are - its the hot, mean but funny ones, not the ones with smart ideas for change
        • 2y ago
• UncleOxidant 2y ago
  > The Dems failed on this count massively What was their failure here? The failure to explain to the economically illiterate that while inflation is now about where it was prior to covid that prices won't be going down (unless there's some sort of major recession leading to deflation)?
  • liveoneggs 2y ago
    They failed to articulate that they understood the frustration with high prices + low wages in a way that made people feel motivated enough to vote for them.
    • EricDeb 2y ago
      Exactly its all messaging and if the messaging is not getting through you need to go where voters are discussing these things (podcasts, youtube shows, tikTok, etc). And they needed to start doing it 2 years ago not 4 months ago.
    • kagakuninja 2y ago
      That was a key element of the Harris platform, but nobody gives a shit. Trump boasts about fixing everything overnight with no specifics, and gets a free pass.
      • vundercind 2y ago
        The media definitely didn’t learn that competing for horse-race viewers at the cost of all else gives Trump a large advantage. They all talked about that lesson in 2016, but didn’t really learn it. Clearly, given how they behaved.
      • liveoneggs 2y ago
        Her failure to articulate her platform is her fault. The words chosen by the Harris campaign, and the platforms on which they were spoken, left 15M - 20M people at home, and flipped a bunch more from D to R.
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• khana 2y ago
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• bamboozled 2y ago
  Do you find it strange that to get cheaper groceries you had to vote for a convicted criminal? Can I even work in America with a criminal record? How do people look past this, I'm really having a bit of a moral crisis today about why I even bother paying taxes or obeying any laws since this whole thing happened. Do I just tell my kids to be successful, jut be like Trump?
  • seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    > Do I just tell my kids to be successful, jut be like Trump? Trump is a failed real estate tycoon, his companies went bankrupt three times; banks won't lend him money anymore because he always shafts them. He got a big inheritance and lucky that he had some charisma so could make it on TV. He is not successful role model (well, con-man maybe).
    • calvinmorrison 2y ago
      [flagged]
  • lazyeye 2y ago
    A very large number of Americans (100 million+?) dont see Trump as a convicted criminal. They see a govt that weaponized the justice system to target their political opponent. It's a reason to vote for Trump, not against him.
    • bamboozled 2y ago
      Yeah, I do see that side of it too, I think it was incredibly stupid to try him for anything if he wouldn't be jailed.
      • speeder 2y ago
        It was monumentally stupid to convict Trump for a "crime" that was basically someone else filling his taxes wrong. Something most USA people would feel is unfair and could happen to them. Also I am not from USA and very happy I don't have to deal with TurboTax lobbying and shenanigans thar make the USA tax code to be just crazy. Also the "bank fraud" trial is also monumentally stupid when they wanted to convict him and close his companies (thus making people lose their jobs) for doing something that resulted in profits for the supposed victim. Victim in fact that explained multiple times they were pleased with the business and would do it again. The message in the second case was: we will take your jobs because your boss made a good deal, don't vote for him! And of course this is just idiotic.
• ComplexSystems 2y ago
  I don't think that the problem is that Democrats didn't explain the technical definition of inflation well enough. The problem is that people can't afford to buy things. Having better infographics on how inflation is the derivative of price doesn't really solve that problem.
  • drawkward 2y ago
    That's my point! By talking about how great they are doing on inflation, the DNC campaign was LOSING votes because people experience prices which don't go down when inflation is "normal".
    • startupsfail 2y ago
      The media wasn’t talking about that, it was repeating in a loop: “The economy will be better with Trump”, including the media in the far left.
      • chgs 2y ago
        There’s no far left media in America?
      • wyclif 2y ago
        So I'm in the Philippines. These things have far-reaching effects outside of the US because of the dollar. This is why Filipinos (and Latinos, and Muslims) love Trump. A female Filipino business owner gushed to me a few hours ago (awkward!) about how she's happy because now she'll be able to afford to fuel her car (gas/petrol is notoriously expensive in SE Asia for most people). Point is, business, markets and consumers vote their interests. Look at Wall Street, Bitcoin, &c. in the hours leading up to the election.
        • catlover76 2y ago
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        • startupsfail 2y ago
• xnx 2y ago
  > It's the economy, stupid: It's the [perception of the] economy, stupid: As I'm learning, perception beats all.
  • talldrinkofwhat 2y ago
    "You’re supposed to make only two quarts of Kool-Aid from a package, but he always made a gallon, so his Kool-Aid was a mere shadow of its desired potency. And you’re supposed to add a cup of sugar to every package of Kool-Aid, but he never put any sugar in his Kool-Aid because there wasn’t any sugar to put in it. He created his own Kool-Aid reality and was able to illuminate himself by it." -Brautigan
• hackyhacky 2y ago
  > It's the economy, stupid: You are giving Americans too much credit. Regular Americans don't have any idea what's going. They don't know what inflation is, or what is causing it. They only know what they're told, so what matters is who they listen to. (Look at recent polls that show that Republicans feel that they are heavily impacted by inflation, and Democrats much less so.) Unfortunately, the traditional sources of information have lost the trust of a large body of the American people, so they look elsewhere for a source of trust, and they find it in a charismatic con-man. Trump spent years pretending to be a businessman on TV, and that skills pays off at his rallies and his interviews, where he perfected the improvisation that rubes mistakes for sincerity. Any other politician speaks in rehearsed clichés, which Americans have been accustomed to, and which they associate with dishonesty, even when they're telling the truth. It helps, and does not hurt, that Trump says crazy shit that keeps people entertained. I don't believe that politics should be based on that kind of thrill, but apparently it is. Trump's actual policy proposals are mostly nonsense, but it doesn't matter. If you want to compete with him, you have to to be (a) interesting and (b) persuasive.
  • thomassmith65 2y ago
    Yes, exactly. The election results don't make much sense in terms of serious policy. Voters worry about inflation: they vote for tariffs? Voters worry about democracy: they vote for the guy responsible for J6? Voters are 50% female: they vote for a SCOTUS that care less women's issues? The only issue where a vote for Trump coincides with voter concerns is immigration. It's easier to explain this election in terms of "Trump seems confident and strong... Harris seems scripted and phony." The closest thing to a real issue is probably the impression that "Democrats are a bunch of radical woke communists"
    • hunterhod 2y ago
      I think there’s a lot of truth to this, and it’s worth reflecting on. Trump survived an assassination attempt, a series of questionably motivated legal challenges, and then leaned into showing up for hostile interviews during the campaign. At a time where there is armed conflict spreading across the world again, this kind of personality is appealing to a large portion of the population, and understandably so.
• deepsquirrelnet 2y ago
  Amusingly/sadly JD Vance could tell you exactly why Trump wins. The secret is empty promises. In an unfortunate way, it’s a kind of empathetic approach. It’s why he called Trump the “opioid of the masses”[1]. You just make promises even when you know it’s total BS. But at least people are feeling heard. I think the average voter really doesn’t want to have a nuanced discussion where they learn about the problems that they’re experiencing. They just want to hear someone say “I got this”… even if they don’t. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/opioid-of-the-masses/489911/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/opioid-...
• inglor_cz 2y ago
  Czechia was hit by pretty bad inflation too, after decades of very low inflation rates. Our current government will likely lose the election in a year as a consequence. Being in office when inflation hits is a recipe for electoral disaster, regardless of actual culpability, which, in this interconnected world, is likely lower than perceived.
• deepfriedchokes 2y ago
  I would argue it’s not just the economy, but capitalism in general is no longer serving the public well, and hasn’t for a long time. It is corrupting our public institutions, it is creating poverty and suffering, and it abuses power to exploit people. Capitalism is abusive, and very often the things that we aren’t supposed to talk about are what we need to talk about the most.
  • trinsic2 2y ago
    I agree, Capitalism is not working any longer. Maybe changing it would be a start in the right direction (Not that it would ever happen)
  • NobleLie 2y ago
    Schumpeter called it the eroding foundation of Capitalism. Its not technically Capitalism, as the system, at fault though. It's interesting. Feel free to explore it more. Or perhaps you already do
  • altpaddle 2y ago
    Agreed and Trump is not going to do it, he's going to try and make the richer richer just like he did with his tax cuts last time https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-how-capitalism-needs-reformed-ray-dalio https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-how-capitalism-needs-refo...
• jimnotgym 2y ago
  Can I ask, what do you think is likely to happen to inflation when you slap tariffs on imports?
  • drawkward 2y ago
    Oh, it's gonna send inflation through the roof. Trump's economic policies are likely disastrous, and I am fretting about my 401k. That said, I have been contending that people experience prices and talking about lowering inflation when prices have recently gone up is net negative for the incumbent administration.
  • TrackerFF 2y ago
    Trump has also proposed devaluing the dollar, on top of tariffs. Imposing tariffs, and starting a trade war, will surely mean that imports will shoot up in price for the consumer. Exports will suffer, which is likely why he'll also try to devalue the dollar - to make exports be more attractive amid the receiving countries tariffs. So that's a double-whammy as far as prices go, for the consumer. His grand plan is of course to bring back manufacturing to the US - or that foreign companies will set up plants in the US. But that doesn't happen overnight, and there's no automatic mechanism that will make the companies do so. And Trump has been clear about imposing the highest tariffs on all Chinese imports. Now look around you, and try to estimate how many things you see that are made in China. Then you have the other countries, too, which will get hit with tariffs.
• throw_that_away 2y ago
  I think people keep saying crap like this: Prices can absolutely come down without killing the economy. It's done by doing smart things that republicans were making talking points: * Drill for oil, lower the price of gas, prices at the store come down. * Stop the wars that make for unstable access for gas. * Create pipelines so that instead of "flaring" Natural gas, we transport it cheaply to be used for electricity generation * Change the tariff structure so that American goods are worth something against Chinese imports that raises the value of the dollar which lowers the cost of goods * Stop the insane energy policies that raise gas prices by 45 cents per gallon (in CA for example) for 0.0001% change in climate NONE of these were democrat talking points.
  • mike_d 2y ago
    > * Drill for oil, lower the price of gas, prices at the store come down. Strategically and economically stupid. Buy oil when everyone has it, sell oil when everyone else has ran out. > * Stop the wars that make for unstable access for gas. The US military is the largest socialist jobs program in the world and is the single greatest creator of skilled labor for our economy. > * Change the tariff structure so that American goods are worth something against Chinese imports that raises the value of the dollar which lowers the cost of goods Lets say you make widgets for $9 and sell them to me for $10 (a healthy 10% profit). The government comes along and tells you there is a $2 tariff on widgets. Are you going to sell me widgets at $8 (a $1 loss) or raise the price to $12? Tariffs are a tax on goods paid by the buyer and a way to de-incentivize overseas production. But here is the problem - do you want to make 39 cents an hour sewing soccer balls or do you want to pay 10x for that soccer ball so that an American can have a livable wage doing the sewing for you? The "American Dream" is exploitation of cheap overseas labor because of our superior economic position. Regardless of how you feel about that morally, Trump's economic plan is to try and figure out how to on-shore the lowest paid factory jobs.
    • thenayr 2y ago
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    • TheCycoONE 2y ago
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  "It's the economy, stupid:"^1 That unoriginal theory as applied to this election appears to be based on exit polls. History has shown these polls are unreliable. 1. Pundits like the one who penned this quip^2 just aren't worth much anymore. 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Carville https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Carville
  • 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
    NB. Nothing against Carville. He was/is interesting and entertaining. But the times they have been a-changin.
• fizx 2y ago
  Prices always go up. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. We can slow it, but it's a fool's errand to make them go down. When I was a kid, I could get an ice cream cone for a 50 cents. That's never coming back. Now that we've slowed inflation to a manageable level, we need to grow wages to catch up. I never heard a good plan on that from either side.
  • SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
    There's a reason the term "deflation" exists, and it's not simply a theoretical concept. Constant inflation is a political choice, entirely so in the age of fiat currency, whatever you think of it. The reason you never hear a good plan for growing wages to catch inflation is because inflation is a form of intentionally regressive taxation. For reasons of macroeconomic theories meeting special interests with socio-political leverage.
    • teeray 2y ago
      > There's a reason the term "deflation" exists Which has always been treated as a spooky four-letter word in economics. I remember the news stories in 2008 when we had a brief period of deflation and the headlines were particularly apocalyptic (even despite the overall grim economic news of the time).
      • TheFlyingFish 2y ago
        Isn't the problem with deflation that it de-incentivizes investment (why accept risk when you can just stuff your mattress with money and grow your wealth risk-free), which tanks the economy? Lowering prices sounds nice, but my understanding has always been that it would come at the cost of less actual wealth overall.
        • sethammons 2y ago
          which should disproportionately affect the wealthy. Another way of saying that: we pay higher prices with inflation so the wealthy are more wealthy. That money goes somewhere.
• nickfromseattle 2y ago
  >The Dems failed on this count massively The Dems failed to communicate inflation is a global phenomena and that the US has faired far better at reducing inflation, unemployment and GDP growth then the rest of the developed world.
• deleted 2y ago
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• ranger_danger 2y ago
  Current news stories seem to suggest that the upcoming administration will likely worsen inflation. https://0x0.st/XDTK.png https://0x0.st/XDTK.png
• typeofhuman 2y ago
  Inflation is the devaluation of currency. Lowering purchasing power.
• DEADMEAT 2y ago
  [flagged]
• bagels 2y ago
  Most people are completely innumerate. It's an impossible task.
• hintymad 2y ago
  Yet Paul Krugman told us that inflation was going down if we didn't include food, gas and etc. Just for this kind of gaslighting by the elites, the democrats deserve a giant middle finger.
• tomrod 2y ago
  Absolutely, 100%. Biden and Harris have failed in the messaging all along, dramatically and obviously!!
  • throwaway48476 2y ago
    They failed on the policy too. Good policy makes for good messaging.
• hintymad 2y ago
  I'm better off than 4 years ago, thanks to stock market. I guess that has to do with Biden-Harris' policies. That said, people are not just economic animals, right? My blood boils when the left attacks 1A, and when Kamala blames retailers for price gauging.
  • throwaway48476 2y ago
    It doesn't help that they've let retailers merge into monopolies for the last 40 years.
• analog31 2y ago
  Likewise my home state, Michigan. None of the articles I've read mention religion or race. Perhaps these omissions are due to political correctness, but both of these factors are known to be drivers of party affiliation in the US. This makes it really hard to guess what the ultimate dominant issue actually was, if anything. I do agree that the Dems should be taking more credit (and giving credit to liberal democracy in general) for improving the quality of life, which is ultimately the subject matter of economics.
  • guywithahat 2y ago
    If you look at polling data, Biden (a white man) was doing considerably worse than Harris (an asian woman). The issue wasn't race/gender, the issue was causing 8% inflation and ignoring real american issues to instead talk about abortion, which has always been a state issue
    • analog31 2y ago
      Good points. And I think this is where the Dems could have made a better case about economics. Prices weren't the only reason why it was getting harder for people to get by in red states. Of course talking about economic conditions in red states was also considered to be offensive. It would be very hard for the people in those states to have a real voice about economics. For one thing, they don't really elect their representatives.
    • Slava_Propanei 2y ago
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• aredox 2y ago
  Trump will say in a few weeks how great the economy is under his rule, when absolutely nothing will be different from now, and people will gobble it up. It's the stupidity, stupid.
  • seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    He won't say that until after he has been inaugurated when absolutely nothing has changed yet. That is how we went from "struggling under Obama" to "best economy ever under Trump" in a week or two last time he was president. Also, his supporters will go from saying "lower gas prices were rigged by the president to steal the election!" this month to "Trump brought us lower gas prices!" after inauguration without any sense of irony. Well, get the popcorn ready because the next 4 years are going to be interesting, to say the least.
• BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  > It's the economy, stupid Probably not. 1) Exit poll data show that every household income band was basically evenly split between Trump and Harris. 2) Religions, on the other hand, were not split evenly at all. Evangelical Christians went extremely hard for Trump. Catholics and other Protestants followed too. But that's it. Jews, Atheists, other[0] religion demographics? They went for Harris. Are you suggesting that only Christians pay grocery bills? [0] - Muslims we'll find out tomorrow from CAIR, but the bombing of Gaza is known to be weighing heavily on that vote. Again, though, not the economy.
• OSI-Auflauf 2y ago
  https://www.watchvigilantesinc.com/ https://www.watchvigilantesinc.com/
• diamond559 2y ago
  That is just factually wrong: "Blinder and Watson found that since 1945 the average inflation rate was higher under Republican presidents than under Democrats". Wages are also higher under Dems.
  • atoav 2y ago
    If that isn't the bistory of the world: a certainntype of man making others do things that are against their interest. Trump has been elected by people who are all willing to pay more taxes so the maximum tax bracket can pay less. And his tarrifs: most economics agree who will pay the brink of that.
• casenmgreen 2y ago
  I may be completely wrong, but I see a lot of talk in terms of how the Dems failed to be elected. I'm thinking more about how the Reps succeeded in being elected. That, far as I can tell, is through Trump lying through his teeth in the most incredible manner every time he speaks, and people who are ill-equipped to see through it being deceived. I have to think it's hard to compete with that, if you're not lying yourself.
• K0balt 2y ago
  People are frustrated. Incomes are below the levels of a half century ago, and there are a growing number of things you “have” to pay for. Internet, streaming services, increasingly deregulated and less subsidized utilities, private equity hyperinflating housing costs, etc. Sure, we live better in many ways.. but that too takes its toll. Vehicles are much, much more advanced (and expensive), for example. Instead of owning land and living in whatever you can build, people live in better accommodations but own nothing. Credit replaces savings with the promise of instant gratification. In every transaction there are parasitic costs all the way down in the name of efficiency, JIT logistics, payment processors, etc. the costs of these “savings” is passed on the the consumer, while the temporary balance sheet boost is distributed to the capital class through stock buybacks or dividends. In the end there is a good or service that you “need” for every penny you can possibly make if you are on the top of the bell curve. The economy is fundamentally a two party system, those who generate and shed surplus value (wage workers), and those who seek to recover the fraction off the value that the workers were given in exchange for their time. Companies exist to harvest and concentrate this surplus. When the distinction between the workers and the companies is small, as with small enterprise, worker-owned businesses, etc this system actually works fairly well. It also works well even for large companies working on physical or technological frontiers. They benefit much more by moving the bar in innovation or resource exploitation than by optimizing profitability on a fixed resource. When it is huge corporate conglomerates in crowded or saturated markets, that exist primarily to enrich investors from a relatively static market, it becomes less clear where the benefits fade into the burden that these entities place on their host populations. The outcome we see today is the counterintuitive result of a relatively efficient market - total living costs will rise to consume all of the available “surplus” resources. Nature abhors a vacuum, and unspent cash makes a howling roar that attracts capitalist parasites from miles away. It’s the unmentioned corollary of the efficient market, and it is turbocharged by regulatory capture (thus the battle over community broadband, right to repair, etc) The same system that incentivizes rational actors to seek superior value incentivizes their counterparts to create vendor lock-in, soft price fixing, hostile supply chain manipulation, deceptive trade practices, regulatory capitulation, and more. It’s often more profitable to manipulate incentives than it is to create a superior value position. The net result of this push-pull between entrepreneurial innovation and parasitic trade practices is the sucking up of all significant sources of discretionary spending. So if you are doing well at an average level, you will be living paycheck to paycheck just to buy the “essentials”. This is a systemic problem endemic to capitalism when there are no more commons (frontiers) to consume. This is probably the best argument for aggressive space colonization and industrialization. A wild, unpredictable frontier is the only suitable substitute for the cleansing power of large scale war to clean out the graft, grift and cobwebs from entrenched capital. Otherwise, every erstwhile efficient market becomes a new frontier for “inefficiency farming”.
• Friedduck 2y ago
  The dems failed at messaging, as they have forever. Both parties have abdicated their role enforcing antitrust regs (esp as it relates to the food industry). Additionally mis-handling COVID and implementing a 25% tariff on some commodities had a massive impact on prices. Then there’s just the evolution of some markets: PE buying housing inventory + short-term rentals + Rental yield-management (thinly-veiled collusion on pricing) have transformed the housing market. The biggest impacts: consolidation and a deregulation mandate. Companies can do whatever the hell they want.
• partiallypro 2y ago
  Trump isn't going to bring down prices though, so what's the point? Inflation wasn't tamed by your own definition under any Republican either.