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> And yet all everyone wants to talk about is egg prices going up This comment seems very out of touch. Grocery prices don't affect Meta engineers much, but th

by lapcat 2y ago

> And yet all everyone wants to talk about is egg prices going up This comment seems very out of touch. Grocery prices don't affect Meta engineers much, but they affect ordinary people a lot. I wouldn't even call Meta engineers "middle class". They're typically in the upper class. I'm not saying the new administration is the solution, but it's perfectly understandable why people are hurt by inflation, unhappy about it, and wanted a change.

steveBK123 2y ago
Real wages (inflation adjusted) for the lower 50% went up faster than they have since pre-Reagan era. So while inflation hurts the bottom more than the top, because they spend a higher % of income, they were compensated for it. The problem is that across the spectrum, when people got raises they went "wow I'm so good at my job and hard working and smart" and when eggs/gas prices went up they went "the president is a bad man and bad at high job". Sort of like all the stimulus, payroll protection, unemployment benefit increases/extensions, rent/mortgage/student loan moratoriums during COVID that went on well past the point where economy was at risk, and people still ended up angrier than they did post GFC. The amounts of money and different ways money was thrown at people by the government 2020-2021 was historically abnormal and we got more mass unrest than when huge swathes of country were losing their homes and out of a job for years during GFC. It makes me wonder what a government can actually do that doesn't lead to backlash.
- lapcat 2y ago
  > they were compensated for it. That's a very questionable assumption. Many people have criticized the CPI and inflation rate as an inaccurate measure of the cost of living. Housing prices are crazy in many areas. I think you're exaggerating about the affect of egg prices specifically on voter behavior. And with any average or median, there are often vastly different outcomes for different people who are not exactly average. > when people got raises they went "wow I'm so good at my job and hard working and smart" This feels like a straw man. > when eggs/gas prices went up they went "the president is a bad man and bad at high job". This also feels like a straw man, and the phrasing is quite condescending. > people still ended up angrier than they did post GFC Did they? After all, the 2008 Presidential election during the financial crisis was kind of a blowout in favor of the opposition party against the incumbent party. Whereas 2020 and 2024 were closer elections.
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    Where were the mass demonstrations in 2008-2010? Sure OWS happened, and I was able to see it up close.. but this was nothing compared to summer 2020. Why did no one storm the capitol in 2008/2012? Why didn't crime shoot up and stay up for 2-3 years then? Etc.
    - lapcat 2y ago
      I'm at a loss here, because these all seem like red herrings. What do the George Floyd protests and the Capitol storming have to do with inflation, employment, and the cost of living?
      - steveBK123 2y ago
        It speaks to the mass anger, on both sides of the political spectrum, in the same 6-12 month period. None of which we saw the likes of in US during the deeper, longer, more impactful near-depression of 2008.
        lapcat 2y ago
        Ok, but your original comments said this: > And yet all everyone wants to talk about is egg prices going up so we need to vote the bums out and take a turn towards the party of the CEO class. Whereas now you're talking about things that have nothing to do with egg prices or indeed any prices. So I'm not sure how it's relevant to the original discussion or to the linked article. People get angry politically about things that have little to do with economics. You could name abortion too. But... how is that even relevant here? If your question is, why were people more angry about the economy in 2024 than in 2008, I'm not sure that they were. If your question is, why were people more angry in general in 2024 than in 2008, the answer would depend on issues having nothing to do with the economy.
      - swasheck 2y ago
        pretty sure they’re referring to the post-housing bubble crash and the brief and ineffective 99% protests
- danaris 2y ago
  But lots of people were losing their jobs and put out of their homes during the pandemic. Prices rose sharply for everyone. We got roughly $2000 of individual stimulus payments over the course of ~2 years. Doesn't pay for a hell of a lot over that span. And the increases in real wages were very uneven. If you happened to be one of the lucky ones whose wages were increased, then that's great—but many, many people's stayed the same at best. And, again, many people were fired, or quit because the alternative was putting themselves in constant physical danger plus being screamed at by people who value their own minor convenience over your life. And as someone with a family member who was on unemployment after losing their job in the summer of 2020, if we had had to rely on it to pay the bills, regardless of how long it lasted, we would have been screwed. (And that's ignoring all the hoops they had to go through just to get and keep it.) What could the government have done that wouldn't lead to (as much) backlash[0] from ordinary people? Well, how about - Provide stimulus that actually keeps people afloat over a long period, rather than just tossing $2000 at them and declaring that should be enough - Provide complete and effective PPE for everyone who has to be working during the lockdowns - Put in place robust protections for the health and safety of both those workers (ie, protection against employers who want you to endanger yourself) and everyone else (ie, mandating masks in enclosed public spaces, mandating vaccines, strengthening requirements for good ventilation, etc) In general, if the government were not hamstrung by having roughly half its legislators actively seeking to make government less effective to justify dismantling it and privatizing everything, it would be able to provide for its people in a more compassionate and comprehensive way. [0] And yes; I'm aware there would be backlash against these things from right-wing science deniers. They were never a majority.
- jasdi 2y ago
  Sociologist buddy told me few years back (during the first Trump term) they had survey data showing the anger is not economy related. When its jobs and inequality related people tend to move left more than right. More likely it was GFC/Iraq-Afg/Snowden-Assange/social media generated dysfunction/metoo/blm etc etc getting seen as some kind of attack on American identity, the kind of stuff that pushes people right. But either way Govt is not magic. It has to react to a very complex uncontrollable ever changing reality. There will be oscillations between periods of calm and chaos.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  I didn't get a penny. No PPP, didn't qualify for any other protection, stimulus payments, etc. I'm not complaining, I did okay. The perception was that the money was being thrown to business owners that instead bought multiple exotic European luxury cars.
- ferbivore 2y ago
  A government could tax wealth. You talk about minor wage increases or payroll protection as if this actually benefits the people receiving these benefits. It does on paper, sure, but governments haven't been paying for this through taxes. They've been paying for it by printing money, which devalues money (mostly held by normal people in the bottom X% of society) in favour of assets like houses and stock (mostly held by the top (100-X)% of society). This is a de facto transfer of wealth from normal people to rich and ultra-rich asset owners. Not to mention most of this money goes towards replacing money lost to asset owners anyway - if you make $X, you get fired and the government prints $X to cover that, your relative position is the same, but someone up the food chain from you has just made $X. This kind of thing drives up asset prices. For the US specifically, house prices have gone up by over 50% since January 2020 (per every index I can find), the S&P 500 has gone up by around 125% (!), the price of gold by around 80%, etc. Meanwhile, the SSA's National Average Wage Index has gone up 19% since 2020. If you have a huge portfolio of stocks and REITs and gold, that's great news. If you're a normal person who maybe aspires to one day stop paying rent, this is terrible news. Of course people are upset!
airstrike 2y ago
Egg prices went up because of the bird flu causing a supply chain disruption.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Egg prices are a great litmus test because there were supply chain disruptions (for different reasons!) under Joe & Orange but depending on which color hat you wear, you gave/are giving one a pass and get/got mad at the other.
  - amenhotep 2y ago
    Nobody is actually mad at orange for egg prices, though. Exasperatedly calling out hypocrisy is not the same thing.
    - bamboozled 2y ago
      It’s wild to me how much time and money he has spent on doing everything but lowering the price of eggs. He has taken it as far as going to the Super Bowl and NASCAR in AF 1 …on tax payer money. Not sure what he’s thinking…
      - malfist 2y ago
        He's thinking what he's always been thinking "me, me, me, me, me" He doesn't care about egg prices, he just wants to crown himself King and make himself even richer
    - notyourwork 2y ago
      Yes, one is given a pass and the other not.
    - malfist 2y ago
      It's a common refrain, it's just dishonest discourse. Remember when Obama was relentlessly criticized for golfing when he golfed less than and recent presidents, and certainly less than Trump did? Remember when Obama was criticized for running up the deficit when Bush added more to the national debt than he did? And then Trump came along and nearly doubled the national debt? Remember when Al Franklin resigned over an inappropriate image with a woman, and Trump brags on tape about grabbing women by the genitals? Remember when Hillary spent years being investigated for having a private email server, just like Bush had? And today DOGE does too. Remember when Trump accused remote workers of "only playing golf" during the workday, while Trump was on the golf course during a workday? There's a whole lot more examples but I'm tired of typing them and they make me angry thinking about them.
JKCalhoun 2y ago
Comment though was about people choosing the fire to the frying pan. That kind of change.
- lapcat 2y ago
  Unfortunately, that's how it always is in our political duopoly. If people want a change, the only choice is to pivot back and forth between Democrats and Republicans.

by lapcat 2y ago

steveBK123 2y ago

Real wages (inflation adjusted) for the lower 50% went up faster than they have since pre-Reagan era. So while inflation hurts the bottom more than the top, because they spend a higher % of income, they were compensated for it. The problem is that across the spectrum, when people got raises they went "wow I'm so good at my job and hard working and smart" and when eggs/gas prices went up they went "the president is a bad man and bad at high job". Sort of like all the stimulus, payroll protection, unemployment benefit increases/extensions, rent/mortgage/student loan moratoriums during COVID that went on well past the point where economy was at risk, and people still ended up angrier than they did post GFC. The amounts of money and different ways money was thrown at people by the government 2020-2021 was historically abnormal and we got more mass unrest than when huge swathes of country were losing their homes and out of a job for years during GFC. It makes me wonder what a government can actually do that doesn't lead to backlash.

lapcat 2y ago
> they were compensated for it. That's a very questionable assumption. Many people have criticized the CPI and inflation rate as an inaccurate measure of the cost of living. Housing prices are crazy in many areas. I think you're exaggerating about the affect of egg prices specifically on voter behavior. And with any average or median, there are often vastly different outcomes for different people who are not exactly average. > when people got raises they went "wow I'm so good at my job and hard working and smart" This feels like a straw man. > when eggs/gas prices went up they went "the president is a bad man and bad at high job". This also feels like a straw man, and the phrasing is quite condescending. > people still ended up angrier than they did post GFC Did they? After all, the 2008 Presidential election during the financial crisis was kind of a blowout in favor of the opposition party against the incumbent party. Whereas 2020 and 2024 were closer elections.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Where were the mass demonstrations in 2008-2010? Sure OWS happened, and I was able to see it up close.. but this was nothing compared to summer 2020. Why did no one storm the capitol in 2008/2012? Why didn't crime shoot up and stay up for 2-3 years then? Etc.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    I'm at a loss here, because these all seem like red herrings. What do the George Floyd protests and the Capitol storming have to do with inflation, employment, and the cost of living?
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      It speaks to the mass anger, on both sides of the political spectrum, in the same 6-12 month period. None of which we saw the likes of in US during the deeper, longer, more impactful near-depression of 2008.
      - lapcat 2y ago
        Ok, but your original comments said this: > And yet all everyone wants to talk about is egg prices going up so we need to vote the bums out and take a turn towards the party of the CEO class. Whereas now you're talking about things that have nothing to do with egg prices or indeed any prices. So I'm not sure how it's relevant to the original discussion or to the linked article. People get angry politically about things that have little to do with economics. You could name abortion too. But... how is that even relevant here? If your question is, why were people more angry about the economy in 2024 than in 2008, I'm not sure that they were. If your question is, why were people more angry in general in 2024 than in 2008, the answer would depend on issues having nothing to do with the economy.
    - swasheck 2y ago
      pretty sure they’re referring to the post-housing bubble crash and the brief and ineffective 99% protests
danaris 2y ago
But lots of people were losing their jobs and put out of their homes during the pandemic. Prices rose sharply for everyone. We got roughly $2000 of individual stimulus payments over the course of ~2 years. Doesn't pay for a hell of a lot over that span. And the increases in real wages were very uneven. If you happened to be one of the lucky ones whose wages were increased, then that's great—but many, many people's stayed the same at best. And, again, many people were fired, or quit because the alternative was putting themselves in constant physical danger plus being screamed at by people who value their own minor convenience over your life. And as someone with a family member who was on unemployment after losing their job in the summer of 2020, if we had had to rely on it to pay the bills, regardless of how long it lasted, we would have been screwed. (And that's ignoring all the hoops they had to go through just to get and keep it.) What could the government have done that wouldn't lead to (as much) backlash[0] from ordinary people? Well, how about - Provide stimulus that actually keeps people afloat over a long period, rather than just tossing $2000 at them and declaring that should be enough - Provide complete and effective PPE for everyone who has to be working during the lockdowns - Put in place robust protections for the health and safety of both those workers (ie, protection against employers who want you to endanger yourself) and everyone else (ie, mandating masks in enclosed public spaces, mandating vaccines, strengthening requirements for good ventilation, etc) In general, if the government were not hamstrung by having roughly half its legislators actively seeking to make government less effective to justify dismantling it and privatizing everything, it would be able to provide for its people in a more compassionate and comprehensive way. [0] And yes; I'm aware there would be backlash against these things from right-wing science deniers. They were never a majority.
jasdi 2y ago
Sociologist buddy told me few years back (during the first Trump term) they had survey data showing the anger is not economy related. When its jobs and inequality related people tend to move left more than right. More likely it was GFC/Iraq-Afg/Snowden-Assange/social media generated dysfunction/metoo/blm etc etc getting seen as some kind of attack on American identity, the kind of stuff that pushes people right. But either way Govt is not magic. It has to react to a very complex uncontrollable ever changing reality. There will be oscillations between periods of calm and chaos.
JKCalhoun 2y ago
I didn't get a penny. No PPP, didn't qualify for any other protection, stimulus payments, etc. I'm not complaining, I did okay. The perception was that the money was being thrown to business owners that instead bought multiple exotic European luxury cars.
ferbivore 2y ago
A government could tax wealth. You talk about minor wage increases or payroll protection as if this actually benefits the people receiving these benefits. It does on paper, sure, but governments haven't been paying for this through taxes. They've been paying for it by printing money, which devalues money (mostly held by normal people in the bottom X% of society) in favour of assets like houses and stock (mostly held by the top (100-X)% of society). This is a de facto transfer of wealth from normal people to rich and ultra-rich asset owners. Not to mention most of this money goes towards replacing money lost to asset owners anyway - if you make $X, you get fired and the government prints $X to cover that, your relative position is the same, but someone up the food chain from you has just made $X. This kind of thing drives up asset prices. For the US specifically, house prices have gone up by over 50% since January 2020 (per every index I can find), the S&P 500 has gone up by around 125% (!), the price of gold by around 80%, etc. Meanwhile, the SSA's National Average Wage Index has gone up 19% since 2020. If you have a huge portfolio of stocks and REITs and gold, that's great news. If you're a normal person who maybe aspires to one day stop paying rent, this is terrible news. Of course people are upset!

airstrike 2y ago

Egg prices went up because of the bird flu causing a supply chain disruption.

steveBK123 2y ago
Egg prices are a great litmus test because there were supply chain disruptions (for different reasons!) under Joe & Orange but depending on which color hat you wear, you gave/are giving one a pass and get/got mad at the other.
- amenhotep 2y ago
  Nobody is actually mad at orange for egg prices, though. Exasperatedly calling out hypocrisy is not the same thing.
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    It’s wild to me how much time and money he has spent on doing everything but lowering the price of eggs. He has taken it as far as going to the Super Bowl and NASCAR in AF 1 …on tax payer money. Not sure what he’s thinking…
    - malfist 2y ago
      He's thinking what he's always been thinking "me, me, me, me, me" He doesn't care about egg prices, he just wants to crown himself King and make himself even richer
  - notyourwork 2y ago
    Yes, one is given a pass and the other not.
  - malfist 2y ago
    It's a common refrain, it's just dishonest discourse. Remember when Obama was relentlessly criticized for golfing when he golfed less than and recent presidents, and certainly less than Trump did? Remember when Obama was criticized for running up the deficit when Bush added more to the national debt than he did? And then Trump came along and nearly doubled the national debt? Remember when Al Franklin resigned over an inappropriate image with a woman, and Trump brags on tape about grabbing women by the genitals? Remember when Hillary spent years being investigated for having a private email server, just like Bush had? And today DOGE does too. Remember when Trump accused remote workers of "only playing golf" during the workday, while Trump was on the golf course during a workday? There's a whole lot more examples but I'm tired of typing them and they make me angry thinking about them.

JKCalhoun 2y ago

Comment though was about people choosing the fire to the frying pan. That kind of change.

lapcat 2y ago
Unfortunately, that's how it always is in our political duopoly. If people want a change, the only choice is to pivot back and forth between Democrats and Republicans.