4 ms·

The biggest problem with democracy these days is a failure of education. According to Trump, the American economy is in shambles, Kamala wanted to imprison norm

by bloppe 2y ago

The biggest problem with democracy these days is a failure of education. According to Trump, the American economy is in shambles, Kamala wanted to imprison normal Republican voters, and cats and dogs are rapidly being hunted to extinction. The list goes on and on: fake pandemic, stolen election, migrant crime wave, space lasers, stable genius, not obese, "there wouldn't be a war" etc etc etc Here's the thing: we don't equip far too many of our citizens with the ability to sniff out these lies. I think there are other countries that do a better job, notably Finland which has been effectively dealing with large scale Russian misinformation for a long time, but clearly this problem is not unique to America. Most trump voters actually value freedom, equal opportunity, fair rules i.e. liberal values. But they've been brainwashed to the point that liberal is a dirty word and everyone else is out to get them. Either they come to their senses, or we all go down with them. I'm hoping we can take the former route without too much catastrophe first

drawfloat 2y ago
The number one issue people say motivated them to vote for Trump/Boris/Wilders/et al is “cost of living”. Ie: wages have been falling behind for decades now. The other issues may play in to it, but that only keeps the wheels on the cart for so long. 2024 we’re finally seeing the complete aversion to solving the cost of living crisis that has developed since the 90s become no longer avoidable. I worry from a lot of responses from US democrats (and British Labour, and…) that we’re in for a rough ride because they fundamentally will never countenance that. It’s always an issue with the voter (education, Russia, misinformation, racism) instead. As the piece said, pointing to GDP, economic data and saying things are actually good, while overlooking that this masks economic inequality is not engaging with that issue. Edit: to clarify, this is not a dig at you. I have also continued to vote for centre left parties that ignored this inconvenient fact, doing little about house prices, wages, etc. But this can't continue if we don't want to see ever more authoritarian leaders.
- bloppe 2y ago
  This is actually also a lie (at least in America). Real income (after adjusting for inflation) has been rising at the median [1]. The bottom quintile got reamed by Covid but have been the biggest beneficiaries of inflation [2] (which tends to be bad only for people with savings) and the covid slump was more than compensated for by stimmy checks [3]. The Gini coefficient has been pretty stable since 1990. There's only a cost of living crisis in cities with epic nimby-induced housing shortages, but most Americans don't live in those cities. [1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N [2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M [3]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUINCAFTTXLB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUINCAFTTXLB0102M
  - drawfloat 2y ago
    You're sort of making the exact mistake I mentioned here. How far do those wages go vs the 70s? Add together housing costs, fuel costs, healthcare costs, transport costs, food costs, general price rises? Why can single income households no longer really support a family with a house if everything's got better and everyone is lying?
    - bloppe 2y ago
      They go further. That's why I linked to median real income. It's exactly the stat that matters: looking at the actual person in the middle of the pack (not the mean, which is distorted by outliers) and controlling for inflation using the CPI, which uses a weighted average of hundreds of different cost categories to represent typical spending. I think housing makes up like 40% of it (don't quote me on that though) so it's definitely being taken into account. Food and healthcare are also big parts. Now you may not have a typical spending profile (a lot of people in NYC spend way more than 40% on rent) but the economy is broadly doing quite well. Why can't you buy a house? You probably could, but probably not in the location you want. This was one of the most enlightening articles I've read on why: https://goodreason.substack.com/p/maybe-treating-housing-as-an-investment https://goodreason.substack.com/p/maybe-treating-housing-as-...
      - drawfloat 2y ago
        Housing in my hometown (ex-mining town, incredibly poor) has increased 1172% since the mid 1990s (£11k->£112k). Salaries have increased less than 100% in that time (£15,034 -> £29,593)
        bloppe 2y ago
        Sounds like the mining bust is a big factor, which isn't exactly representative of the whole economy. Also sounds like you're not in the US so none of my stats are relevant to you.
  - snehk 2y ago
    "Your grandpa/dad was able to support a family on a single income, have two cars, a house and a nice vacation every year and you struggle to pay for food and a place to live? That's a lie. Look at these stats, dummy."

by bloppe 2y ago

drawfloat 2y ago

The number one issue people say motivated them to vote for Trump/Boris/Wilders/et al is “cost of living”. Ie: wages have been falling behind for decades now. The other issues may play in to it, but that only keeps the wheels on the cart for so long. 2024 we’re finally seeing the complete aversion to solving the cost of living crisis that has developed since the 90s become no longer avoidable. I worry from a lot of responses from US democrats (and British Labour, and…) that we’re in for a rough ride because they fundamentally will never countenance that. It’s always an issue with the voter (education, Russia, misinformation, racism) instead. As the piece said, pointing to GDP, economic data and saying things are actually good, while overlooking that this masks economic inequality is not engaging with that issue. Edit: to clarify, this is not a dig at you. I have also continued to vote for centre left parties that ignored this inconvenient fact, doing little about house prices, wages, etc. But this can't continue if we don't want to see ever more authoritarian leaders.

bloppe 2y ago
This is actually also a lie (at least in America). Real income (after adjusting for inflation) has been rising at the median [1]. The bottom quintile got reamed by Covid but have been the biggest beneficiaries of inflation [2] (which tends to be bad only for people with savings) and the covid slump was more than compensated for by stimmy checks [3]. The Gini coefficient has been pretty stable since 1990. There's only a cost of living crisis in cities with epic nimby-induced housing shortages, but most Americans don't live in those cities. [1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N [2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M [3]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUINCAFTTXLB0102M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUINCAFTTXLB0102M
- drawfloat 2y ago
  You're sort of making the exact mistake I mentioned here. How far do those wages go vs the 70s? Add together housing costs, fuel costs, healthcare costs, transport costs, food costs, general price rises? Why can single income households no longer really support a family with a house if everything's got better and everyone is lying?
  - bloppe 2y ago
    They go further. That's why I linked to median real income. It's exactly the stat that matters: looking at the actual person in the middle of the pack (not the mean, which is distorted by outliers) and controlling for inflation using the CPI, which uses a weighted average of hundreds of different cost categories to represent typical spending. I think housing makes up like 40% of it (don't quote me on that though) so it's definitely being taken into account. Food and healthcare are also big parts. Now you may not have a typical spending profile (a lot of people in NYC spend way more than 40% on rent) but the economy is broadly doing quite well. Why can't you buy a house? You probably could, but probably not in the location you want. This was one of the most enlightening articles I've read on why: https://goodreason.substack.com/p/maybe-treating-housing-as-an-investment https://goodreason.substack.com/p/maybe-treating-housing-as-...
    - drawfloat 2y ago
      Housing in my hometown (ex-mining town, incredibly poor) has increased 1172% since the mid 1990s (£11k->£112k). Salaries have increased less than 100% in that time (£15,034 -> £29,593)
      - bloppe 2y ago
        Sounds like the mining bust is a big factor, which isn't exactly representative of the whole economy. Also sounds like you're not in the US so none of my stats are relevant to you.
- snehk 2y ago
  "Your grandpa/dad was able to support a family on a single income, have two cars, a house and a nice vacation every year and you struggle to pay for food and a place to live? That's a lie. Look at these stats, dummy."