General Politics Discussion (XI) [ARCHIVED] World • Page 685

I’m not talkin about theory though. I think most people - including teachers! (Source: married to one) - recognize or at least can feel that their money doesn’t go as far as it used to, and that their careers get them less relative to what people in those same careers could accomplish in decades past. My granddad was making $31 an hour as a mechanic at an auto plant in Dayton OH in the late 90s before he retired. That company isn’t there anymore, and the (post-NAFTA, non-Union) jobs now in that plant pay far less than that 30 years later. Meanwhile, good homes in that area are way more expensive than they were in the 90s. That’s a fact that makes people feel bad about the state of the economy, regardless of what metrics like inflation/GDP/unemployment or people’s own tenuous grasp thereof indicate!

 

“he drove an intoxicated civilian in a police vehicle on duty with lights/sirens during a non-emergency. He also did donuts in a business parking lot.”

So basically real life version of the Superbad cops?

 

chalking peoples' struggles up to 'vibes' or just like being fooled by a negative press cycle is insanely dismissive

which, okay fine I guess, if you just want to be a prick, but doing that and then asking for a vote - or worse, acting like you are owed a vote! - is weird and not a good strategy

 

His buddies are gonna be mad that he’s reading their group texts out loud

 

Well teachers have always been underpaid haha, that’s not new to this economy, which is why I was assuming you were referring to capitalism being the underlying cause of that. My point was I know my personal situation isn’t because “the economy is bad”, it’s because I work in a profession that we don’t value much as a society. Paying two daycare payments with two teacher salaries is scary to think about haha. I mean like you said, we would make it work, but it’d be doing things like cutting back on cable bills, take out way less/coupon shopping for food, etc. i really should sit down and actually make a budget one of these days just to see what we could/should cut back on

 

That’s not anywhere near the point I’m trying to make, so I’ll put it this way: You know those graphs that people post when republicans are in office showing how since Reagan era the cost of living has only gone up while wages have not kept anywhere near pace? That really hasn’t been addressed at all, in the past 4 year or in my lifetime in general. In many ways it has only continued to get worse. The way in which this impacts people’s lives makes them feel bad about the economy. Even if I can get my groceries and afford to put gas in my car, I still don’t feel good about living in a precarious position, or the amount of debt I have to go into, or things that used to be attainable but now don’t seem to be, or what I see happening to the people in my life or the people in my community who are in a less fortunate position than I am (which is a lot of them), and so on and so on. Inflation can be whatever the fuck number you like it to be, it’s not helping any of that. So if i get that call from that pollster, im saying yes i can pay my bills but also i think the economy sucks. Acting mystified by that is weird.

It’s basically like saying if you personally are not living in poverty, then what are you complaining for!

 

David is like Michael Scott in the episode of the Office where he drives into the lake because he takes the GPS literally

 

I agree to an extent, but then that doesn’t explain the years between Reagan and today where people have said in larger numbers that the economy is actually in good shape. Like in 2020 right before Covid hit, it was something like 55-60% were saying the economy was good or excellent. That’s with every economic measure basically being the same now with the only thing that changed is 1. Wages were rising slower than they have the last 18 months and 2. Prices went up faster the last 18 months. Thats why a lot of folks have been expressing nervousness about what a Dem loss this election would mean for economic policy going forward—if a politician is getting punished for prioritizing employment+higher wages over lower prices, it’s going to scare off future politicians from pursuing similar policies. Obama didn’t spend as big as he needed to in 2009 to recover, the result was a crushingly slow rate of job growth and wage gain during his first term, along with very low inflation, and he was rewarded with a second term. Congressional Dems teamed with Trump, and then Biden came in and continued/expanded on/prioritized big spending programs designed to increase employment and income gains faster and bigger than the last recovery, seemingly learning from Obama’s “mistakes”, while enduring inflation and having the Fed use monetary policy to combat it and…he’s on the brink of losing to possibly the worst president in history. A lot of left leaning people and pundits are nervous about the message that’s gonna send future Pols and I don’t think they’re wrong to worry.

edit-digressed there, but going back to what I started that post with—if people were saying the economy was great in January 2020 but horrible today, and the only change macroeconomics wise is higher wages and higher prices, I think the “vibes” and way the economy is being reported on has a lot of merit. Hell I still remember all the ways the media was framing Trump jobs numbers evry month compared to months under Obama and Biden where it was the same number of jobs but framed much more negatively lol

 

I mean, if you recognize all the ways in which electeds on either side of the aisle will spin the narrative to justify economic policies we both dislike, then I don’t know why you wouldn’t spend your time instead trying to show people why those politicians are their enemy and why they should be organizing themselves against the two parties that do that.

But if you insist on conventional political signposts, I’d say that 2010-2020 saw such a rise of awareness on how the economy really always sucks that Bernie Sanders became a household name and very possibly could have become president. Imagine going back and telling yourself that in 2008 lol

EDIT - and to your edit, I think you should be more upset at people who tried to and (any many cases) succeeded in painting the Trump economy inaccurately as being good, rather than upset at the normal people who correctly identify this economy as shitty. And then work with people amenable to that message. But if you do that in the context of “vote for Dems” the contradictions will be too great not make you look partisan and hypocritical.

 

the fact that the bar Biden has to clear is at "trump" and this is how he is doing is honestly fucking astounding

 

the goal is to push electeds to pass policies I want, and one of the incentives to do so is job security for doing so. If they turn to other policies due to better job security, that makes it that much harder to convince them to do the things I want, especially if they think doing so means they’ll lose—hence why I’ll virtually never be on the “don’t vote” bandwagon. I don’t think not voting solves anything or sends the message people want it to send. I think it’s more important to make the things i want more popular, which is why I tend to be concerned about messaging. Dems are fucking horrible at messaging.

oh yeah that is definitely true. The combo of the Great Recession and a lot of other things helped get Bernie and his ideas way more to the forefront than I ever woulda thought possible. But Bernie’s solutions to the problems of the 2010s woulda been big spending programs—they woulda been the right solutions, but they also may have led to higher inflation numbers. Would he have gotten a 2nd term if they did?

Well yeah that’s why I keep talking about the media! Their doom and gloom spin on everything now vs. what they were like during Trump’s years vs. what they were like durinf Obama is fucking ridiculous. But you still have to point out why your economic policies are actually good and why they’ll be better for you than the other guys, and part of that is going to be pushing back on the conventional wisdom that the media helped make happen.

 

Da fuck

 

Genius

 

Are AOC and Hasan streaming together or is Hasan streaming her stream?

Very unexpected mashup if they are doing a collab

 

She was on his stream. Not the first time I think.

 

I used to be in the "Face ID is fine" camp till I had nose surgery and forgot to turn off Stolen Device Protection and Face ID before the procedure. It wasn't fun using the passcode and dealing with the constant harassment about Face ID not working for a week. Luckily, I was able to get my phone to recognize our home as a "significant location" in week two and turn both features off.

After that experience, I found Face ID's flaws to be glaring when they're in front of you.

 

Killer whales keep attacking and sinking boats. Scientists now know why, study says.

Maybe the whales need to be allowed in public spaces more

 

Someone mailed a live rattlesnake to a California man. He thinks it was attempted murder.

This new season of True Detective is starting off well

 

Italian Teenager to Become the First Millennial Saint

 

80,000 a few hours ago. Loud speakers are now saying 100,000

 

Taiwan came out!
台灣加油！

Largest protests seen here since the 2014 sunflower protests. One of the churches nearby open their doors to allow us to eat and watch the speakers from inside, which was nice.