this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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politics

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 7 months ago (3 children)

The ironic thing is that anyone really paying attention would know that almost all the negative things about 2024 are due to long term impacts of the trump administration.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

You give people far too much credit.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

For all you inflation heads out there...

US M0 money supply was $3.6T in January 2017 when Trump took office.

It was $5.25T in Jan 2021 when he left office, a 45% increase in the money supply.

As of December 2023 it was $5.83T, an 11% increase under Biden.

So if we're saying increased money supply caused inflation, the Trump admin is about 4x more responsible for it than the Biden admin.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Not entirely fair. They are the result of things that happened under the trump admin. Most of it was done by the fed. And more importantly, many more people would be suffering way worse right now had they not done anything.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Whatever you want to say about reality, the poll from a couple of days ago pointing out how deeply unhappy young adults are makes this a pretty questionable way of trying to engage that demographic.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago

Are you telling me that Democrats are once again maybe having a hard time connecting to the major demographics they need to win an election?

🥴

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (28 children)

It's a pretty bad tactic because while it may let you take credit for improving some people's lives, you're also giving tacit permission for those worse off to blame you for it. This only works if the majority of people are better off than they were four years ago and recognize that they are. That's probably not a safe assumption when we've got record inflation and dipped close to, if not into, a recession. Just think of all the mass layoffs you heard about over the past four years.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I think most people are a little better off. They just don't feel like it, because most people still aren't doing "well." I.e. things aren't getting better fast enough. I looked at real-wage statistics a while back, and that seemed to confirm my beliefs (real wages have been improving across all four quantiles). I have not looked at those living on SSI, SSD, or retirement; and I imagine those people could be worse off.

The current job market is still very tight, unemployment is still very low (despite the Fed). Recent mass layoffs have mostly just been in tech and some white collar jobs, which is a small fraction of the workforce/electorate. The majority of people work "unskilled" jobs and those are still easy to get, and pay a little more in real wages now.

None of this really matters to the electorate though. I'm convinced elections are all vibes-based. And vibes are largely controlled by the media and algorithms. I've recently talked to a few people that want Trump to win, and they still parotted the line, "Trump is a business man, so he knows how to get the economy back on track." They also liked the checks they got during the lockdown. They don't really follow the news or politics, so all the information they get is incidental. One person recently started to get into red-pill content (Fresh + Fit, Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, etc), who I think also discuss political issues in a vibes-based way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The problem is that while wages have been beating inflation this year, they aren't beating the last few years. Despite breathless headlines proclaiming so from left leaning sources.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It appears earnings have been beating inflation since 2014 (with some noise, and a big temporary spike during covid lockdowns). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Really? Because everyone else disagrees. I wonder what numbers magic they used to make that particular line go up.

Oh look. Reagan redefined CPI and we've been getting gaslighted for decades.

But also the median household tells a different story. Just tracking wage doesn't tell the whole economic story unless you want to believe every American Human is working a wage job. I do admit it's my fault for using the word wages. But there's a reason we track median household and not actual wages to get a general look at the health of the Economy.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

I dunno. This demographic also suffered a lot from the pandemic. It seems like a lifetime ago, but the first lockdowns started almost exactly 4 years ago. I would think that reminding them will be beneficial.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yes, I definitely am. It's just that compared to the shit show of 2020 that's not a very high bar.

But what I'd really prefer he'd focus on is how much better I'll be in another 4 years.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

Yet another comment section that boils down to a choice between:

A dottering senile octogenarian whose career has kept him outside of the reality of being an American citizen longer than I've been alive who wants to be President of the United States, or

A dottering senile octogenarian whose career has kept him outside of the reality of being an American citizen longer than I've been alive who wants to be dictator god king of West Russia.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Nope. Going on 14 years with no increase in federal minimum wage, with continuous price inflation. No access to health insurance thanks to an oversight in the Affordable Care Act that has left millions of Americans like me to be deemed too poor to receive financial help, that he promised to address during his term. He has not mentioned it since elected. For some insane reason US emissions standards have a loophole that has led to increasingly large and more polluting vehicles on the roads, with much higher pedestrian deaths. Meanwhile his single largest piece of legislation is spending hundreds of billions on more car infrastructure, so climate change will be accelerating. Housing has gotten more and more expensive as real estate corporations keep buying everything up completely unopposed by him. And all of this is just stuff that directly impacts me. That's not addressing the union neutering he's done, the personally bypassing congress to give Israel more weapons to kill Palestinians, the horrendous performance of his DoJ that still doesnt have Trump in court for the crimes he committed 4 years ago.

I really don't understand in what ways I'm supposed to be better off now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Are you sure? Lol

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