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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:Wait till you find out how many teams each has. Sounds like conference inflation is a major problem, when will the fed step in
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Dec 4, 2023 20:32
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I think what people might be sleeping on in terms of economic sentiment is interest rates. If I wanted or needed a credit card right now it would really bother me that rates are so high I can barely qualify for one despite a mid-700s credit score. People's dissatisfaction with housing costs have spilled over from the sticker prices into the interest rates. High interest rates are "supposed" to cause recessions, and the fact that they haven't this time is a bit of an economic unicorn that will be studied for many decades to come. But they still are a huge pain in the rear end to a huge number of people, whether they're trying to buy a home, start a business, or consolidate debt. The fed will not be raising them anymore; there may be some cuts next year if we reach the 2% target. Looser credit would probably make people a lot happier.
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Dec 4, 2023 20:32
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reignonyourparade posted:If people were reporting their personal financial situation as fine, economy as bad, and spending like they thought the economy was bad, yeah your explanation would make sense. Instead, people are basically acting like they only think the economy is bad when there's a pollster asking about it. Think about a person that moved to TX from the PNW during the pandemic. They were forced by the economy to move (and they think that is bad). They are better off financially because they now live in a much cheaper area. They can spend more money. Maybe they have to spend more money because the lower cost of living area has less public amenities for their kids or family is no longer nearby. One can be more alienated and better off financially at the same time. That’s still unpleasant.
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Dec 4, 2023 20:38
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Think about a person that moved to TX from the PNW during the pandemic. They were forced by the economy to move (and they think that is bad). They are better off financially because they now live in a much cheaper area. They can spend more money. Maybe they have to spend more money because the lower cost of living area has less public amenities for their kids or family is no longer nearby. That's true, but I don't think the number of people who had to move for economic reasons, but also said their financial situation had improved, is significant enough to account for that large percentage. I think the simplest answer is probably what is having the most impact: Some prices, especially grocery store prices (which people see all the time and are easy to track), are still really high. Groceries in particular have outpaced real wage gains. Even if the median person has about 2.5% more relative spending power overall today compared to 2019, it is incredibly hard for the average person to really notice a 2.5% overall change. But, it is very easy to notice a 50% price change on chips, bread, and cereal at the grocery store. There's also a significant group of people who are in the 60th to 80th income percentile who had secure salaried jobs and their real income has slightly decreased over that same time period + they are annoyed that service jobs are understaffed and more expensive because unemployment is so low. If your real income has decreased a little bit, the stores and pharmacies you go to all close early or aren't staffed because of labor shortages, you can see inflation at the grocery store like everyone else, then it isn't too surprising you'd be upset. So you have: 1) Middle and upper-middle class people who legitimately are worse off because of increased power of labor and real incomed drops. 2) People in the bottom 55% to 60% who are technically better off, but 2.5% more spending power overall is really hard to notice grocery store prices are very easy. 3) The people who will just always say the economy is terrible because of partisan reasons. All combined into a large blob of people who say their personal economic situation is unchanged or okay, but the economy overall is terrible.
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Dec 4, 2023 20:53
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Think about a person that moved to TX from the PNW during the pandemic. They were forced by the economy to move (and they think that is bad). They are better off financially because they now live in a much cheaper area. They can spend more money. Maybe they have to spend more money because the lower cost of living area has less public amenities for their kids or family is no longer nearby. That's a pretty picture but it doesn't really answer the question of "why only just now, and only just in the United states." Those experiences are not needed and not unique, and yet this is the first time and only place where the things we are seeing are being reported.
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Dec 4, 2023 20:55
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To an extent some of what we're seeing with economic opinion polling is mimicking what's long been the case with Congress and especially Healthcare. My rep? Pretty good (especially true because it's Omar), even across party lines (this is less true in my situation). Congress generally? Bunch of bums. Healthcare is even more jarring. Per Gallup, 68% of Americans say that the American Healthcare system is in crisis or has major problems (vs 3% who say it has no problems). Yet, 72% are happy with their own quality of care, 66% with their coverage, and 56% are satisfied with their Healthcare costs. On the economic side, Arin Dube (economics prof at UMass, global expert in wage/labor economics and specifically the effects of minimum wage) links it back to some decades old research that he thinks is applicable: https://twitter.com/arindube/status/1728492015699055053 https://twitter.com/arindube/status/1728492018375008663 And also paraphrases a census bureau economist in thread: Price changes are the nefarious result of bad actors that have been inflicted upon me, income increases are the just and moral reward for my effort. I may  post on this later (though I'm no more an economist than I am a lawyer or a political strategist), but I think there are parallels with the benefit cliffs (most often caused by means testing) we see in American social spending - frequently discussed RE Obamacare and its subsidies. If someone goes (for argument, a future effort post would contain the real numbers) from an income of $45k to $55k per year and is no longer eligible for $5k in benefits, they are still $5k (more than 10%!) better off than before the increase - but the reasonable (contra "rational") expectation for that person is being around $10k better. So we have someone that is objectively in a better spot by economic metrics but is unlikely to be rosy or even neutral about the economy. For some folks, that's more easily understood (and less politically fraught) as someone moving from a $75k job in Dubuque to a $105k job in Chicago - accounting for cost of living, that's still a $2,500 upgrade, but whatever the new hire had imagined a six figure lifestyle to be is probably well shy of their new reality. And if they reasonably (again, contra rationally) spent money according to the lifestyle they had expected before meeting their new reality, then they likely feel (and are!) less secure and less well off than they were before the increase to their nominal AND REAL salary.It's unfortunate for a variety of reasons, not least because the past 4 years have gone a long way to disproving an errant piece of political wisdom that even a lot of mainstream libs hold to: government spending increases cause inflation and, eventually, recession - and that replacing private expenditure with public expenditure deepens and worsens the negative economic impact. Nevermind that Dube's UMass colleagues proved the most famous recent research used to support post-Financial Crisis spending cuts worldwide was premised on an Excel error severe enough to flip the direction (and that the formula error was still less of an issue than assigning a causal relationship to debt:gdp ratios when the denominator definitionally fell in every case they studied). There's no particular reason the narrative right now shouldn't be of Keynesian rebirth and celebrating the high profile evidence that countercyclical spending saves jobs, lives, and even can reverse the effect of economic downturn... other than that there are far more incentives left, right, and center to beat the drum about how bad things are for everyone. Paracaidas fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 21:07
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Some prices, especially grocery store prices (which people see all the time and are easy to track), are still really high. Groceries in particular have outpaced real wage gains. I’ve written about this in the BFC thread. Here’s a thing I’ve been able to do. I’m extremely lactose intolerant. I like ramen. Only the high end ramen doesn’t have milk as an ingredient. I have a preference for the good Shin (Black, Green or Gold multi packs). This is a low volume item at my QFC, basically I was the only person buying it (I was watching shelved stock). Some time in 2022 they raised the black price to 16 dollars a for pack. I bought it once at that price and then decided gently caress that. Turns out only my local store had the price increase. Other QFC locations has it stocked at 8-9 dollars. I drive around a lot for work. So I’m able to go into other stores regularly and repeatedly. I’ve been able to drag the increased price with me by using a loyalty card. Basically if I buy the ramen at a low priced store with my loyalty card they raise the price on it to 16 dollars from 8-9. If I skip the card it doesn’t change. I’ve tested this three times now. That level of targeting by algorithms is extremely problematic (and infuriating!)
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Dec 4, 2023 21:34
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Paracaidas posted:There's no particular reason the narrative right now shouldn't be of Keynesian rebirth and celebrating the high profile evidence that countercyclical spending saves jobs, lives, and even can reverse the effect of economic downturn... other than that there are far more incentives left, right, and center to beat the drum about how bad things are for everyone. yeah, it's striking to me that there was a good amount of visible criticism of the feds "lower for longer" post-great recession ethos during the initial price spike, but now here we are 18 months later with pce close to 2% annualized and sub 4% yoy, with no recession to date, and headlines are still about sticky prices and not about a stunning threading of the needle on monetary policy. i really hope that the discourse around the inflation spike doesn't lead the fed to move away from the dovish policies that started to develop in the wake of the failures of the late 00's
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Dec 4, 2023 21:49
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Chuck Schumer just announced that Democrats have walked away from the negotiations over the emergency aid/supplemental bill and that it is dead. Schumer says that Republicans were demanding several major changes to immigration law as part of the bill. Democrats were willing to compromise on some aspects, but Republican insistence on including "indefinite detention of asylum seekers and sweeping powers to shut down the immigration system" were too far for Democrats. The bill was a combination of: - Humanitarian and military aid for Ukraine. - Humanitarian aid for both Gaza and Israel and military aid for Israel. - Money for more immigration judges to process asylum requests faster. - Disaster relief aid and flood insurance reimbursements for Hawaii, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. - Approval of sales of U.S. planes to Taiwan. - Funding for additional inspection technology on the Mexico and Canadian borders to more quickly process vehicles passing through. - More money for FEMA to fill disaster relief coffers so they aren't required to pass new funding for relief and allow FEMA to act more quickly to disburse money. - Money to implement a permanent pay reform for national park firefighters that stops them from having their salary cut by 40% if congress doesn't vote to approve every year. - Money for schools, highways, and rural areas to repair and modify their buildings to be more resistant to natural disasters. - Additional funding for LIHEAP to provide free and subsidized heating oil this winter. - Extending the 2021 stimulus bill's provision that subsidized up to $8,000 in child care costs that is set to expire at the end of the year. - Money to extend a program to provide free internet to low income Americans. - Reforms and money to encourage the development of enriched uranium and nuclear power to replace sources that previously came from Russia and encourage green energy. - Money for grants to expand rehab and opioid treatment centers. - Permanently expand the budget of the "Food for Peace" program that provides international food aid. https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1731735844300435782 https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1731775118844547315 https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1731776439358243307
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Dec 4, 2023 21:57
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Bar Ran Dun posted:I’ve written about this in the BFC thread. Isn't that the sort of thing the FTC is VERY interested in learning about?
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Dec 4, 2023 21:58
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lol at minmax algorithm madness. i hope you have great documentation, even if your in a red state and district you should send that stuff to the gov and the news.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:07
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:How many kidnappings do people think happen in the United States? I just want to challenge these numbers a bit because the actual number of child kidnappings was something like 250,000. The vast majority of these (200,000) were parental kidnappings or custody disputes rather than some kind of stranger danger child abduction, but they're still kidnappings, and quite a few of them are across international borders. There's also another ~50,000 acquaintance kidnappings which usually gets bundled with forms of assault. The number of pure stranger danger kidnappings is about what you said, but that's not the only kind. Numbers were sourced from here but they're largely coherent with other numbers I saw.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:10
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Mid-Life Crisis posted:Remind me to never fly with any of you. How much further does the gap need to widen before the guys with guns start shooting the bourgeoise instead of shooting up classrooms and grocery stores and churches? Furthermore, how did that gap get so wide in the first place? Don't Americans have guns everywhere? How did the gun owners let that happen? Trazz fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 22:11
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Bar Ran Dun posted:I’ve written about this in the BFC thread.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:15
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Somehow I don't think the Jade Helm crew will get up in arms over the Republican bill
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Dec 4, 2023 22:23
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shimmy shimmy posted:I just want to challenge these numbers a bit because the actual number of child kidnappings was something like 250,000. The vast majority of these (200,000) were parental kidnappings or custody disputes rather than some kind of stranger danger child abduction, but they're still kidnappings, and quite a few of them are across international borders. There's also another ~50,000 acquaintance kidnappings which usually gets bundled with forms of assault. The number of pure stranger danger kidnappings is about what you said, but that's not the only kind. Sure, but in the context of a poll asking "what things that can injure or kill your child are you worried about?" I think we can assume that 30% of parents are responding with the traditional definition of kidnapping and not thinking about custody disputes. That figure is between 100 and 350 per year.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:32
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Tiny Timbs posted:This isn't true in a general sense but it's hard to argue with perception. I'd be interested in seeing this graph being presented for 2021. New York for example has a really high death rate as the pandemic tore through NYC pretty badly in the early stages when no one knew what the gently caress was going on. However by 2021 except for the wackos everyone was masked up.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:49
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Chuck Schumer just announced that Democrats have walked away from the negotiations over the emergency aid/supplemental bill and that it is dead.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:05
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mobby_6kl posted:Oh very cool, hopefully russia decides to take a break while this is resolved. There's just so much in there. The part about border inspections is pretty  . They're sabotaging border security in the name of border security. Obviously the actual reason is they're more scared of Latino immigrants than drugs. But come the gently caress on.Am I crazy for thinking the demands for indefinite detention and ability to shut the border down aren't just swinging for the fences, but deliberately a poison pill?
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Dec 4, 2023 23:13
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Am I crazy for thinking the demands for indefinite detention and ability to shut the border down aren't just swinging for the fences, but deliberately a poison pill?
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Dec 4, 2023 23:19
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FlamingLiberal posted:It's hard to tell with the current GOP. They probably wanted an excuse to kill Ukraine funding for good, but I thought maybe they would get onboard since it also gives more money to their good buddy Israel. Yeah. Looking at that list, it seems like baby-rich bathwater. But it's hard to overestimate how much they hate helping people in need.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:22
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FlamingLiberal posted:It's hard to tell with the current GOP. They probably wanted an excuse to kill Ukraine funding for good, but I thought maybe they would get onboard since it also gives more money to their good buddy Israel. Sure sounds like they knew it was DOA https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1731785802156220744
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Dec 4, 2023 23:28
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OK so literally 'let us do endless fascism on the border or you get nothing'
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Dec 4, 2023 23:30
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zoux posted:Sure sounds like they knew it was DOA "This is not a traditional negotiation. Give us everything we want or we all die" The GOP are a strategic threat to themselves. It would be nice if a bunch of voters next year stay home for the wrong reason of the GOP not being able to funnel more cash to the IDF. I admit it would be impressive incompetence for the GOP to keep this stupid game going until next October. But lately they have acted with truly historic incompetence, so that doesn't seem too far-fetched now.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:41
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Misunderstood posted:I think part of the issue that people have who are ascribing the malaise to things other than material conditions is that so many people are going ahead and paying the high price when there are ways to avoid it. I'm addicted to energy drinks and if you just look at the prices at the gas station, you'd think they'd gone up by a dollar or so each. But I buy my brand on Amazon and actually pay the least for them I ever have, less than $1.50 each, compared to an average of $3.39 or whatever at a Henny Penny. (And I feel like the free shipping for such a heavy package is a loophole, I hope they don't close it because right now prime is saving me hundreds on shipping per year.) Right and this is happening within grocery pricing! The normal price of goods is going way way up. But then the sales coinciding with new stock arrival are extremely deep. They are doing bifurcated pricing and then taking the discounting for the lower end customers as a loss in merchandising.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:43
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zoux posted:Sure sounds like they knew it was DOA This is a bluff that must absolutely be called, drat the consequences.
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Dec 5, 2023 00:18
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it's worth noting that one of the Biden administration many quiet achievements has been am extremely substantial increase in non-detention solutions for immigrants while their sts5us is reviewed some of them still aren't great (I don't really think ankle monitors are necessary in an immigration case) but they're all better than the possibility of detention naturally, the Republicans are pissy about it
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Dec 5, 2023 01:09
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Bluff or not government by hostage taking must end.
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Dec 5, 2023 01:12
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:This is a bluff that must absolutely be called, drat the consequences.
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Dec 5, 2023 01:13
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Kalit posted:Hmmm... I might be wrong, but I figured that would have less to do with the second amendment since the full government was united against displacing Native Americans. Whereas it was not fully united on slavery, so slaveowners were scared that they wouldn't have government support if an uprising occurs. When it comes to Native Americans, wouldn't the issue have been more about the federal government's ability to respond rather than its willingness? This was an era before cars and trains, as well as an era before the well-funded and highly-organized federal bureaucracy which could spread a dense network of civil servants and military bases across the entire country. Hell, it was a time period when many expected to have a minimal standing federal army at all. As an example, it took the federal government weeks to get troops out to deal with the Whiskey Rebellion. For someone living on the frontier where raiding by (and sometimes against) Native Americans wasn't uncommon, they couldn't exactly hope for a timely federal response (or even a state response) to a raiding group heading their way. In practice, usually small raids would pile up without serious response until some politician got ticked off enough to order a punitive expedition in hopes that it would quiet the natives for a while. Until then, the settlers were mostly on their own in the early decades of the US - and there were plenty of instances where they had to defend themselves, sometimes successfully. The same would naturally go for slave rebellions. Whether or not they thought that the federal government would be willing to dispatch a military force to stop a slave rebellion, it's definitely true that sending a request to the US capital for a military expedition would take a lot longer than just gathering up a bunch of already-armed locals. And a slave rebellion, like a native raid, is something that tends to allow very little time for organized response before the attackers reach people's houses. His Divine Shadow posted:FT article says the economy isn't as bad as most americans think it is: It says so right in the article: quote:One particularly revealing statistic is that Americans’ assessment of their own financial situation has barely budged over the past five years, but their rating of the national economy has worsened steeply. It seems they have decided that the vibes are bad, so things must be going badly for most other people, even if not for themselves.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:31
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Main Paineframe posted:
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Dec 5, 2023 03:43
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Main Paineframe posted:When it comes to Native Americans, wouldn't the issue have been more about the federal government's ability to respond rather than its willingness? This was an era before cars and trains, as well as an era before the well-funded and highly-organized federal bureaucracy which could spread a dense network of civil servants and military bases across the entire country. Hell, it was a time period when many expected to have a minimal standing federal army at all. The Whiskey Rebellion is probably the most famous example of the Second Amendment being used as originally intended but no one really talks about it that way since it doesn't fit either competing narrative about it. First, and most obviously, the "militia" described in the Amendment itself wasn't the rebellion against supposed government overreach. It was the army Washington led, raised by the states at the order of the federal government. At some 13,000 men, it was as big as the armies Washington led during the Revolution, despite the Constitution and federal character of the time having a strong stance against standing armies. Which is the second point: despite the Militia Act of 1792, it's not like there was any sort of organized and equipped militia ready to call up like the National Guard today. They drafted random people, and where they could they leveraged people who had guns or firearm training (military or private) to make it less of building an army ground up. You're right that it took a long time due to the scales involved and the size of the army called for (The reports they were getting said there were 8000 armed rebels, thus the demand to outclass them.) Individual states drafting smaller militias could presumably act more quickly. The whole point of the 2nd was "raise an army on the cheap to deal with rebels or invaders" which only made sense from the perspective of a thinly populated agrarian nation with no great powers nearby and then only if you squinted, but it's still why no matter what the right tells you "militia" doesn't mean rebels marching on Washington to throw the bums out, and no matter what the right tells you, "the people" does not mean "employees of a government organization with government-issued arms." The correct left-wing argument is that it was a dumbass pipe dream replacement for an army, and was being called out as such by 1810, never mind how outdated it is today. That and how if you really care about the founders' fears of government tyranny, they were way more concerned about "expensive standing military draining the economy and looking for wars to fight."
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Dec 5, 2023 04:33
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Misunderstood posted:I think part of the issue that people have who are ascribing the malaise to things other than material conditions is that so many people are going ahead and paying the high price when there are ways to avoid it. I'm addicted to energy drinks and if you just look at the prices at the gas station, you'd think they'd gone up by a dollar or so each. But I buy my brand on Amazon and actually pay the least for them I ever have, less than $1.50 each, compared to an average of $3.39 or whatever at a Henny Penny. (And I feel like the free shipping for such a heavy package is a loophole, I hope they don't close it because right now prime is saving me hundreds on shipping per year.) What energy drink if you don’t mind me asking
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Dec 5, 2023 04:58
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illcendiary posted:What energy drink if you don’t mind me asking Oh God... this is embarrassing... Sugar Free Rockstar They all taste gross, that one just tastes gross in a way that I like. Yeah, I wish I could just drink coffee like a regular grown up.
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Dec 5, 2023 05:15
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No shame there, white can Rockstar is solid, didn’t realize it was that cheap. Thank you!
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Dec 5, 2023 05:17
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Misunderstood posted:Oh God... this is embarrassing... You Monster.
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Dec 5, 2023 05:42
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MixMasterMalaria posted:You Monster. No that's a different gross tasting energy drink
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Dec 5, 2023 06:03
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Misunderstood posted:I think part of the issue that people have who are ascribing the malaise to things other than material conditions is that so many people are going ahead and paying the high price when there are ways to avoid it. I'm addicted to energy drinks and if you just look at the prices at the gas station, you'd think they'd gone up by a dollar or so each. But I buy my brand on Amazon and actually pay the least for them I ever have, less than $1.50 each, compared to an average of $3.39 or whatever at a Henny Penny. (And I feel like the free shipping for such a heavy package is a loophole, I hope they don't close it because right now prime is saving me hundreds on shipping per year.) Same. I found a plug who gets me my sugar free Red Bull a dollar a can. Sitting on about 20 cases right now. Should make it through the winter.
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Dec 5, 2023 06:31
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Yawgmoft posted:No that's a different gross tasting energy drink You're right. This isn't a derail we need to Kickstart.
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Dec 5, 2023 08:21
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https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1731786514512671228?s=20 Good top tier trolling here. You love to see it. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67620882
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Dec 5, 2023 09:13
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