6 ms·

Right? Biden actually pulled off a soft landing and got inflation under control. Just couldn’t land that messaging by the time it mattered.

bdangubic 2y ago
messaging is hard when prices never went down… you can’t send economist/finacial times article explaining what biden was able to pull of (albeit the raising deficit) to a farmer in oklahoma who is paying 80% more for his groceries…
- distortionfield 2y ago
  The prices definitely did go down, just not to same levels as before. But I agree Biden failed to hit on that messaging though, and Kamala made the same mistake.
- oh_my_goodness 2y ago
  It's not that hard to explain that prices stopped rising, which is what it means to kill inflation. Even Trump explained that point pretty clearly. After the election.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    we’ll see how that will work in 2026 midterms :) he didn’t explain jackshit. he’ll try to play the word game which he also tried in 2018/2020 and we all know how that worked out
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - oh_my_goodness 2y ago
      It will probably work out fine in the elections, because Trump's followers trust him to do right by them even while he's lying. Time will tell whether they're correct.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        Trump followers alone is nowhere near enough to win an election in the USA. It was somewhat easy to win this election. you had post-Covid economy coupled with half-senile 80+ year old grandpa who was replaced by a candidate not a soul voted for. however, when you are up for re-election (and midterms as 1/2-way gauge of how the country thinks you are doing) the buck stops with you. there is no “booo, it is not my fault” etc - american voter is not dumb in this regard. - responsible for deaths of 100’s of thousands of people - you, the President - locked everyone up for months in their homes for months, you, the President - locked kids out of school for months - you, the President - high un-employment - you, the President - increased deficit more than anyone could even possible fathom - you, the President - … the buck stops with you. core MAGAs might still fall for “anti-wokeness” but that will get you a loss by many millions of votes to an already half-senile grandpa (see 2020) :)
        data_maan 2y ago
        While I agree on your point regarding midterm reckoning, I'm afraid people DID vote for Trump, he even won the popular vote - which is mind numbing: Americans actually WANTED to install a proven criminal and rapist as president.
        mulmen 2y ago
        Be careful extrapolating the intent of Americans from the majority of voters.
        bdangubic 2y ago
        it is extremely short-sited to think in simple terms like this. what you should be asking yourself is WHY this happened - WHY did all these people come out to vote for Trump. We are not talking here about "MAGAs" - there are nearly not enough of them to win the election. every single state in the United States moved to the right in this election... so you should stop and think this through to figure out why would America choose Trump so that it is not all that mind numbing... there is a reason this happened and you should think about that why that is...
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  > messaging is hard when prices never went down… The opposite of inflation (when prices go up), deflation (when prices go down) is never a good thing. But explaining that a bit of inflation is a good thing is something all economists agree on but most normal people can't understand. The fact that velocity should always be positive, and that "lower inflation" means lowering the rate of price growth, not deflation, is also something they don't get.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    I doubt all economists agree on that because it is obviously not true. For example if there was a period where the CPI dropped combined with increasing wages across the workforce, that'd be pretty great for most people. Deflation, in the abstract. is about as good or bad as inflation. Slightly better because a serious deflationary crisis is much less damaging than an inflationary one. You go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation#Historical_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation#Historical_examples and it is a whos-who of countries who then went on to be successful and prosperous and a few TBDs in the 2010s - there might be examples of catastrophic deflation but they haven't made it to Wikipedia yet.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      Deflation is universally considered bad, I don’t think there are many economists, if any at all, who think it’s a good thing. The problem with deflation is that everyone stops consuming in hope of better prices, like Japan, and the way they dig out of deflation is via artificially inducing inflation. It is definitely an easier problem to solve than excessive inflation, but deflation usually underlines a bigger problem with the economy.
      - roenxi 2y ago
        > The problem with deflation is that everyone stops consuming in hope of better prices, like Japan... May as well say the problem with inflation is people stop consuming because things cost more, like Tuvalu. You've picked a random high performing economy and claimed that its existence shows that people buy less when prices drop (an exotic claim). It is an unusually weak argument because it contradicts basic supply-demand logic and you've put your fingers on no evidence. One of the reasons democracy works so well is that voters ignore that sort of unsupported just-so economic mumbo jumbo and vote for change when their living standards drop. It isn't a great algorithm but it is a lot better than the alternatives.
- Aunche 2y ago
  Another problem is that people will blame the government entirely on inflation, but then give themselves the credit for wage increases. It doesn't help that wage increases disproportionately go towards those those to switch jobs.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    it is extremely difficult to make this into an election issue - impossible to explain to “joe voter”
    - data_maan 2y ago
      The fundamental issue is that Joe voter is dumb - but you can't tell him that, or he won't vote for you (as Hillary Clinton found out). The million-dollar question is: How to you make Joe voter be less dumb?
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        Joe Voter is not as dumb as you might think... otherwise just in recent history there would be different election results in 2018 and 2020...
jmward01 2y ago
We are in post policy politics. It no-longer matters what you do, how intelligent or well executed your plans were, just what the messaging says. It is far easier to pick things that you can control messaging on and make them the issues, even when they aren't, than to actually take on the hard things that truly impact people's daily lives. That is what killed Carter's second term and that playbook has just gotten stronger in the years since.
- data_maan 2y ago
  Being in a post policy politics era means voters are too dumb to vote on policy and will vote on messaging. No voter likes to know that they're dumb - but the fact that Donald Trump is soon the ROTUS implies they are. Maybe more should be invested in education.
  - rnd0 2y ago
    "Maybe more should be invested in education." Yes, and there's a reason why education continues to suffer when it comes to budget and resources. An educated populace is something nobody wants.

bdangubic 2y ago

messaging is hard when prices never went down… you can’t send economist/finacial times article explaining what biden was able to pull of (albeit the raising deficit) to a farmer in oklahoma who is paying 80% more for his groceries…

distortionfield 2y ago
The prices definitely did go down, just not to same levels as before. But I agree Biden failed to hit on that messaging though, and Kamala made the same mistake.
oh_my_goodness 2y ago
It's not that hard to explain that prices stopped rising, which is what it means to kill inflation. Even Trump explained that point pretty clearly. After the election.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  we’ll see how that will work in 2026 midterms :) he didn’t explain jackshit. he’ll try to play the word game which he also tried in 2018/2020 and we all know how that worked out
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - oh_my_goodness 2y ago
    It will probably work out fine in the elections, because Trump's followers trust him to do right by them even while he's lying. Time will tell whether they're correct.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      Trump followers alone is nowhere near enough to win an election in the USA. It was somewhat easy to win this election. you had post-Covid economy coupled with half-senile 80+ year old grandpa who was replaced by a candidate not a soul voted for. however, when you are up for re-election (and midterms as 1/2-way gauge of how the country thinks you are doing) the buck stops with you. there is no “booo, it is not my fault” etc - american voter is not dumb in this regard. - responsible for deaths of 100’s of thousands of people - you, the President - locked everyone up for months in their homes for months, you, the President - locked kids out of school for months - you, the President - high un-employment - you, the President - increased deficit more than anyone could even possible fathom - you, the President - … the buck stops with you. core MAGAs might still fall for “anti-wokeness” but that will get you a loss by many millions of votes to an already half-senile grandpa (see 2020) :)
      - data_maan 2y ago
        While I agree on your point regarding midterm reckoning, I'm afraid people DID vote for Trump, he even won the popular vote - which is mind numbing: Americans actually WANTED to install a proven criminal and rapist as president.
        mulmen 2y ago
        Be careful extrapolating the intent of Americans from the majority of voters.
        bdangubic 2y ago
        it is extremely short-sited to think in simple terms like this. what you should be asking yourself is WHY this happened - WHY did all these people come out to vote for Trump. We are not talking here about "MAGAs" - there are nearly not enough of them to win the election. every single state in the United States moved to the right in this election... so you should stop and think this through to figure out why would America choose Trump so that it is not all that mind numbing... there is a reason this happened and you should think about that why that is...
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
> messaging is hard when prices never went down… The opposite of inflation (when prices go up), deflation (when prices go down) is never a good thing. But explaining that a bit of inflation is a good thing is something all economists agree on but most normal people can't understand. The fact that velocity should always be positive, and that "lower inflation" means lowering the rate of price growth, not deflation, is also something they don't get.
- roenxi 2y ago
  I doubt all economists agree on that because it is obviously not true. For example if there was a period where the CPI dropped combined with increasing wages across the workforce, that'd be pretty great for most people. Deflation, in the abstract. is about as good or bad as inflation. Slightly better because a serious deflationary crisis is much less damaging than an inflationary one. You go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation#Historical_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation#Historical_examples and it is a whos-who of countries who then went on to be successful and prosperous and a few TBDs in the 2010s - there might be examples of catastrophic deflation but they haven't made it to Wikipedia yet.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    Deflation is universally considered bad, I don’t think there are many economists, if any at all, who think it’s a good thing. The problem with deflation is that everyone stops consuming in hope of better prices, like Japan, and the way they dig out of deflation is via artificially inducing inflation. It is definitely an easier problem to solve than excessive inflation, but deflation usually underlines a bigger problem with the economy.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      > The problem with deflation is that everyone stops consuming in hope of better prices, like Japan... May as well say the problem with inflation is people stop consuming because things cost more, like Tuvalu. You've picked a random high performing economy and claimed that its existence shows that people buy less when prices drop (an exotic claim). It is an unusually weak argument because it contradicts basic supply-demand logic and you've put your fingers on no evidence. One of the reasons democracy works so well is that voters ignore that sort of unsupported just-so economic mumbo jumbo and vote for change when their living standards drop. It isn't a great algorithm but it is a lot better than the alternatives.
Aunche 2y ago
Another problem is that people will blame the government entirely on inflation, but then give themselves the credit for wage increases. It doesn't help that wage increases disproportionately go towards those those to switch jobs.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  it is extremely difficult to make this into an election issue - impossible to explain to “joe voter”
  - data_maan 2y ago
    The fundamental issue is that Joe voter is dumb - but you can't tell him that, or he won't vote for you (as Hillary Clinton found out). The million-dollar question is: How to you make Joe voter be less dumb?
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      Joe Voter is not as dumb as you might think... otherwise just in recent history there would be different election results in 2018 and 2020...

jmward01 2y ago

We are in post policy politics. It no-longer matters what you do, how intelligent or well executed your plans were, just what the messaging says. It is far easier to pick things that you can control messaging on and make them the issues, even when they aren't, than to actually take on the hard things that truly impact people's daily lives. That is what killed Carter's second term and that playbook has just gotten stronger in the years since.

data_maan 2y ago
Being in a post policy politics era means voters are too dumb to vote on policy and will vote on messaging. No voter likes to know that they're dumb - but the fact that Donald Trump is soon the ROTUS implies they are. Maybe more should be invested in education.
- rnd0 2y ago
  "Maybe more should be invested in education." Yes, and there's a reason why education continues to suffer when it comes to budget and resources. An educated populace is something nobody wants.