Joe Biden is, at the moment, losing his reelection campaign. And he is doing so while presiding over the strongest economy the United States has ever experienced.
Why is the link between the economy and political sentiment fraying?
ctrl f genocide, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, war - 0 results. Gee I wonder why Biden is doing so bad in the polls
I think the focus on the economy is correct – far more people care about that then Palestine – but the problem is conflating the stock market with how ordinary people experience the economy.
Also an over reliance on data from averages which basically buries the truth that most people aren’t seeing any benefit from anything. They continue to trot out wage growth being high but never seem to cite the data that proves it. Because it’s damning, with it overwhelming coming from rich wage earners commanding higher wages while poor working class continue to not see any gains at all unless they have a union, in which case Biden is not given credit because he didn’t do shit, the workers did that for themselves and Biden wants credit for workers striking while Biden offer striking workers contempt at best for daring to slow down his economy.
To bring in some anecdotal horseshit, my buddy in tech has nearly doubled his salary over the last three years, but they also fired 20% of their workforce. And he barely works, maybe takes two or three calls a day. This is in comparison to factory jobs in the area maybe rising about 20%, most of which has been eaten by inflation. We can buy electronic toys and tools (things that come from China hint hint) more easily, but you can’t eat a Milwaukee.
I’ve heard this liberal line, too. It’s “the economy is doing great and inflation has slowed down to really record lows!” and you point out that bread and milk are still like 2x or more than they were 4 years ago and the response is, “well yeah food, housing, power, and education are still inflated” well what do you think people really need in life? Nobody gives a shit if the iPad x279 is still the same release price as the iPad x278. We need to eat, be sheltered, have heating, and send our kids to school.
Shit’s terribly expensive yeah but inflation never reverses. You’re not gonna get a regression back to the prices of yore, and the central bank will literally see to it that that stays true for reasons i won’t get into.
Bread and milk are still 2x what they were, and it’s as good as law that they won’t come back down.
yup the only way to counteract the deleterious effect inflation like that has on working people is a proportional increase in wages
the owners of capital dont want that because inflation combined with wage increases across the board demolishes any gains they make on interest on debt, effectively it wipes out the value of debt so they will fight tooth and nail against whether or not it is bad for the country as a whole
so as always death to capitalism death to america death to the great satan
Thanks for the link, I knew about this piece of shit’s past because mentioned it in an interview a month or 2 ago but it’s always good to have a real source I can link to
https://web.archive.org/web/20240520142845/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/biden-economy-election/678431/
ctrl f genocide, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, war - 0 results. Gee I wonder why Biden is doing so bad in the polls
I think the focus on the economy is correct – far more people care about that then Palestine – but the problem is conflating the stock market with how ordinary people experience the economy.
Also an over reliance on data from averages which basically buries the truth that most people aren’t seeing any benefit from anything. They continue to trot out wage growth being high but never seem to cite the data that proves it. Because it’s damning, with it overwhelming coming from rich wage earners commanding higher wages while poor working class continue to not see any gains at all unless they have a union, in which case Biden is not given credit because he didn’t do shit, the workers did that for themselves and Biden wants credit for workers striking while Biden offer striking workers contempt at best for daring to slow down his economy.
To bring in some anecdotal horseshit, my buddy in tech has nearly doubled his salary over the last three years, but they also fired 20% of their workforce. And he barely works, maybe takes two or three calls a day. This is in comparison to factory jobs in the area maybe rising about 20%, most of which has been eaten by inflation. We can buy electronic toys and tools (things that come from China hint hint) more easily, but you can’t eat a Milwaukee.
I’ve heard this liberal line, too. It’s “the economy is doing great and inflation has slowed down to really record lows!” and you point out that bread and milk are still like 2x or more than they were 4 years ago and the response is, “well yeah food, housing, power, and education are still inflated” well what do you think people really need in life? Nobody gives a shit if the iPad x279 is still the same release price as the iPad x278. We need to eat, be sheltered, have heating, and send our kids to school.
Shit’s terribly expensive yeah but inflation never reverses. You’re not gonna get a regression back to the prices of yore, and the central bank will literally see to it that that stays true for reasons i won’t get into.
Bread and milk are still 2x what they were, and it’s as good as law that they won’t come back down.
yup the only way to counteract the deleterious effect inflation like that has on working people is a proportional increase in wages
the owners of capital dont want that because inflation combined with wage increases across the board demolishes any gains they make on interest on debt, effectively it wipes out the value of debt so they will fight tooth and nail against whether or not it is bad for the country as a whole
so as always death to capitalism death to america death to the great satan
guess where Jeffrey Goldberg, who runs The Atlantic, used to be a prison guard https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-evolution-of-jeff-gol_b_562212
Thanks for the link, I knew about this piece of shit’s past because
mentioned it in an interview a month or 2 ago but it’s always good to have a real source I can link to
And the economy fucking sucks