5 ms·

Still refusing to listen to us plebeians. I can't afford groceries. I'm not looking for a scholar-bureaucrat reframe of my problem. I'm looking for a solution.

squidsoup 2y ago
The solution is to stop the redistribution of wealth to the billionaire class. Something that is not going to happen under any American administration.
- drawkward 2y ago
  cries 2016 Sanders candidacy tears
  - raddan 2y ago
    Sanders correctly identifies the problem most of the time, and I mostly even agree with his solutions. However, he is one of the least effective legislators in the entire senate. https://thelawmakers.org/find-representatives https://thelawmakers.org/find-representatives Winning, as we have recently and very painfully seen AGAIN, depends on building coalitions. It does not help that Bernie is not a Democrat. You could argue that he should be considered a Democrat for the sake of party self-preservation, but he literally is not one. My opinion is that his unwillingness to declare himself a Democrat is a reflection of his inability to find and muster support for his causes. Hard pass.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  You don't need an administration to make it happen, just a tiny fraction of the electorate sufficiently organized and radicalized. Not advocating for that option, just pointing out that it is entirely a possibility.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
gitremote 2y ago
We need universal basic income.
- stingrae 2y ago
  that would lead to more inflation.
  - r2_pilot 2y ago
    Ok so then you change economic models away from capitalism, and towards a post-money economy. There are plenty of ways to do it, it merely requires the complete and total cooperation of everyone at once, or a sufficient transition period.
    - TimTheTinker 2y ago
      > complete and total cooperation of everyone at once, or a sufficient transition period That is almost the definition of totalitarianism. That's how hundreds of millions of people died (either by execution, war, work camps, or starvation[0]) as dictators pursued Marxist ideals during the 20th century. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
      - r2_pilot 2y ago
        Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up! Considering your own sources, seems like that work of scholarship may have not been an entirely impartial view. Particularly, from your own wiki link, >Margolin and Werth felt that Courtois was "obsessed" with arriving at a total of 100 million killed, which resulted in "sloppy and biased scholarship",[38] faulted him for exaggerating death tolls in specific countries,[6][39]: 194 [40]: 123 I appreciate your deep dive into these scholastic studies. I always appreciate learning new things.
        TimTheTinker 2y ago
        You may disagree with that particular source, but your remark glosses over the grim reality: a heck of a lot of people died under socialism, more than the entire body count arising from World War 2. When an idea has resulted in the deaths of a significant portion of the world's population at the time, it's healthy to regard it (and similar ideas) with a bit of skepticism.
nomat 2y ago
Well, it wasn't biden that posted record profits was it? It was the grocery stores. > And the record profits Professor Weber mentions? Groundwork Collaborative recently found that corporate profits accounted for 53% of 2023 inflation. EPI likewise concluded that over 51% of the drastically higher inflationary pressures of 2020 and 2021 were also direct results of profits. The Kansas City Federal Reserve even pegged this around 40%, indicating that sellers’ inflation is now a pretty mainstream idea. https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2024/02/07/why-your-groceries-are-still-so-expensive/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2024/02/07/why-y... Look at this picture: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/Behind-the-brands-illusion-of-choice-graphic-2048x1351.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/Beh... Then this one: https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/0.1-v.png https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/0.1-v.png The green line is the top 0.01%, the red line is the average american.
- pk-protect-ai 2y ago
  You can't win this argument, you are using too many big words and lot of text. Dems should lie as reds to win the votes over... Right?
- losvedir 2y ago
  I'll never understand this "corporate greed" theory of inflation. Are corporations not usually trying to maximize profits? Are prices not normally as high as the market will bear? The interesting question is not "did they?" but "why were they able to?". What's different now, that nothing kept it in check? I think you're getting at it with that last chart (though, note: It's top 0.1%, not 0.01%). The last few years has been a story of the haves (with wealth in the stock market) who got richer and the have nots who got decimated by inflation. In other words, corporations were able to raise prices because a lot of people got richer and had more money to spend.
  - tfehring 2y ago
    I'm a data scientist, and my impression is that the growth of data science as a profession over the last ~decade has enabled companies to price more efficiently than they used to. That in turn was enabled by technical improvements like cheaper storage and compute and commoditized data infrastructure. I don't have a strong opinion on how much of the inflation this explains, but directionally I'm very confident that companies have gotten significantly more efficient at pricing over that time period, and pretty confident that that would lead to price increases for a lot of businesses. Supply chain and price shocks during COVID probably accelerated this trend quite a bit - McDonald's would have eventually figured out that the profit-maximizing price of a burger is closer to $4 than $1, but COVID shocks gave it license to raise prices much faster. The good news is that I think of this largely as a one-time shock: once companies have perfectly set profit-maximizing prices, there's no room for more price-optimization-driven inflation, except to the extent that consumers get richer or less price-sensitive over time. Quoting Matt Levine, "a good unified theory of modern society’s anxieties might be 'everything is too efficient and it’s exhausting.'"
tayo42 2y ago
What was the solution trump and repoublicans provided? Were just all going to get screwed even worse now
chipdart 2y ago
> Still refusing to listen to us plebeians. I can't afford groceries. I'm not looking for a scholar-bureaucrat reframe of my problem. I'm looking for a solution. What solution do you expect from Trump?
- dekhn 2y ago
  I think most people who are poor who voted for Trump expect him to eliminate unnecessary rent-seekers while also putting up barriers to free trade, thus increasing domestic spending, which (waves hands) leads to lower prices.
  - chipdart 2y ago
    > think most people who are poor who voted for Trump expect him to eliminate unnecessary rent-seekers (...) You mean people vote for a slum lord who is lauded by billionaires expecting and who funelled Whitehouse budget to his own hotels expecting him to eliminate rent-seekers? > (...) while also putting up barriers to free trade, thus increasing domestic spending (...) You mean the same guy who sold them cheap made in China golden sneakers for a small fortune, and bragged he got all his loans from Russia? This train of thought defies any and all reasoning.
    - dekhn 2y ago
      I don't think getting so emotionally charged about these things is a useful approach. Personally, I'm glad to have a good understanding of what made so many people vote this way (even if I very strongly disagree with their fundamental approach and philosophy and behavior).
crazygringo 2y ago
> I'm looking for a solution. But what does a solution look like to you? Do you want prices to deflate? That's terrible for many reasons. Do you want regular responsible economic management? That was Harris. Inflation is back to normal now. Or do you want a president who wants a huge tariff on everything that will result in crazy much larger inflation than we've had in decades? That's Trump. How is Harris not listening? How is Trump listening better?
- slaw 2y ago
  I want prices to deflate and it is not terrible.
  - dboreham 2y ago
    Deflation is known to be bad. Much worse than inflation.
    - slaw 2y ago
      Vehicles become cheaper this this year and nothing wrong happened. If groceries and housing would become cheaper also nothing wrong would happen.
    - UncleOxidant 2y ago
      Only if the deflation gets out of control. We could probably use some housing price deflation. But we'd only get it if we had a pretty serious economic downturn - that's the tradeoff.
- nradov 2y ago
  There are zero actual reasons to think that food price deflation would be terrible. You can look back through decades of consumer price history and find many cases where at least certain foodstuffs got cheaper. It wasn't a problem. The US President has little power to lower food prices anyway though, so this discussion is kind of moot.

squidsoup 2y ago

The solution is to stop the redistribution of wealth to the billionaire class. Something that is not going to happen under any American administration.

drawkward 2y ago
cries 2016 Sanders candidacy tears
- raddan 2y ago
  Sanders correctly identifies the problem most of the time, and I mostly even agree with his solutions. However, he is one of the least effective legislators in the entire senate. https://thelawmakers.org/find-representatives https://thelawmakers.org/find-representatives Winning, as we have recently and very painfully seen AGAIN, depends on building coalitions. It does not help that Bernie is not a Democrat. You could argue that he should be considered a Democrat for the sake of party self-preservation, but he literally is not one. My opinion is that his unwillingness to declare himself a Democrat is a reflection of his inability to find and muster support for his causes. Hard pass.
jcgrillo 2y ago
You don't need an administration to make it happen, just a tiny fraction of the electorate sufficiently organized and radicalized. Not advocating for that option, just pointing out that it is entirely a possibility.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

gitremote 2y ago

We need universal basic income.

stingrae 2y ago
that would lead to more inflation.
- r2_pilot 2y ago
  Ok so then you change economic models away from capitalism, and towards a post-money economy. There are plenty of ways to do it, it merely requires the complete and total cooperation of everyone at once, or a sufficient transition period.
  - TimTheTinker 2y ago
    > complete and total cooperation of everyone at once, or a sufficient transition period That is almost the definition of totalitarianism. That's how hundreds of millions of people died (either by execution, war, work camps, or starvation[0]) as dictators pursued Marxist ideals during the 20th century. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
    - r2_pilot 2y ago
      Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up! Considering your own sources, seems like that work of scholarship may have not been an entirely impartial view. Particularly, from your own wiki link, >Margolin and Werth felt that Courtois was "obsessed" with arriving at a total of 100 million killed, which resulted in "sloppy and biased scholarship",[38] faulted him for exaggerating death tolls in specific countries,[6][39]: 194 [40]: 123 I appreciate your deep dive into these scholastic studies. I always appreciate learning new things.
      - TimTheTinker 2y ago
        You may disagree with that particular source, but your remark glosses over the grim reality: a heck of a lot of people died under socialism, more than the entire body count arising from World War 2. When an idea has resulted in the deaths of a significant portion of the world's population at the time, it's healthy to regard it (and similar ideas) with a bit of skepticism.

nomat 2y ago

Well, it wasn't biden that posted record profits was it? It was the grocery stores. > And the record profits Professor Weber mentions? Groundwork Collaborative recently found that corporate profits accounted for 53% of 2023 inflation. EPI likewise concluded that over 51% of the drastically higher inflationary pressures of 2020 and 2021 were also direct results of profits. The Kansas City Federal Reserve even pegged this around 40%, indicating that sellers’ inflation is now a pretty mainstream idea. https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2024/02/07/why-your-groceries-are-still-so-expensive/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2024/02/07/why-y... Look at this picture: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/Behind-the-brands-illusion-of-choice-graphic-2048x1351.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/Beh... Then this one: https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/0.1-v.png https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/0.1-v.png The green line is the top 0.01%, the red line is the average american.

pk-protect-ai 2y ago
You can't win this argument, you are using too many big words and lot of text. Dems should lie as reds to win the votes over... Right?
losvedir 2y ago
I'll never understand this "corporate greed" theory of inflation. Are corporations not usually trying to maximize profits? Are prices not normally as high as the market will bear? The interesting question is not "did they?" but "why were they able to?". What's different now, that nothing kept it in check? I think you're getting at it with that last chart (though, note: It's top 0.1%, not 0.01%). The last few years has been a story of the haves (with wealth in the stock market) who got richer and the have nots who got decimated by inflation. In other words, corporations were able to raise prices because a lot of people got richer and had more money to spend.
- tfehring 2y ago
  I'm a data scientist, and my impression is that the growth of data science as a profession over the last ~decade has enabled companies to price more efficiently than they used to. That in turn was enabled by technical improvements like cheaper storage and compute and commoditized data infrastructure. I don't have a strong opinion on how much of the inflation this explains, but directionally I'm very confident that companies have gotten significantly more efficient at pricing over that time period, and pretty confident that that would lead to price increases for a lot of businesses. Supply chain and price shocks during COVID probably accelerated this trend quite a bit - McDonald's would have eventually figured out that the profit-maximizing price of a burger is closer to $4 than $1, but COVID shocks gave it license to raise prices much faster. The good news is that I think of this largely as a one-time shock: once companies have perfectly set profit-maximizing prices, there's no room for more price-optimization-driven inflation, except to the extent that consumers get richer or less price-sensitive over time. Quoting Matt Levine, "a good unified theory of modern society’s anxieties might be 'everything is too efficient and it’s exhausting.'"

tayo42 2y ago

What was the solution trump and repoublicans provided? Were just all going to get screwed even worse now

chipdart 2y ago

> Still refusing to listen to us plebeians. I can't afford groceries. I'm not looking for a scholar-bureaucrat reframe of my problem. I'm looking for a solution. What solution do you expect from Trump?

dekhn 2y ago
I think most people who are poor who voted for Trump expect him to eliminate unnecessary rent-seekers while also putting up barriers to free trade, thus increasing domestic spending, which (waves hands) leads to lower prices.
- chipdart 2y ago
  > think most people who are poor who voted for Trump expect him to eliminate unnecessary rent-seekers (...) You mean people vote for a slum lord who is lauded by billionaires expecting and who funelled Whitehouse budget to his own hotels expecting him to eliminate rent-seekers? > (...) while also putting up barriers to free trade, thus increasing domestic spending (...) You mean the same guy who sold them cheap made in China golden sneakers for a small fortune, and bragged he got all his loans from Russia? This train of thought defies any and all reasoning.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    I don't think getting so emotionally charged about these things is a useful approach. Personally, I'm glad to have a good understanding of what made so many people vote this way (even if I very strongly disagree with their fundamental approach and philosophy and behavior).

crazygringo 2y ago

> I'm looking for a solution. But what does a solution look like to you? Do you want prices to deflate? That's terrible for many reasons. Do you want regular responsible economic management? That was Harris. Inflation is back to normal now. Or do you want a president who wants a huge tariff on everything that will result in crazy much larger inflation than we've had in decades? That's Trump. How is Harris not listening? How is Trump listening better?

slaw 2y ago
I want prices to deflate and it is not terrible.
- dboreham 2y ago
  Deflation is known to be bad. Much worse than inflation.
  - slaw 2y ago
    Vehicles become cheaper this this year and nothing wrong happened. If groceries and housing would become cheaper also nothing wrong would happen.
  - UncleOxidant 2y ago
    Only if the deflation gets out of control. We could probably use some housing price deflation. But we'd only get it if we had a pretty serious economic downturn - that's the tradeoff.
nradov 2y ago
There are zero actual reasons to think that food price deflation would be terrible. You can look back through decades of consumer price history and find many cases where at least certain foodstuffs got cheaper. It wasn't a problem. The US President has little power to lower food prices anyway though, so this discussion is kind of moot.