@hoot I love you hoot but the reality is that it is their fault. It’s neither coincidence nor happenstance. It’s a product solely of policy. From the lockdowns and stays and free cheese of democrats to the tariffs and war of trump. The difference between 2018 and today is the people in gov.
@hoot I love you hoot but the reality is that it is their fault. It’s neither coincidence nor happenstance. It’s a product solely of policy. From the lockdowns and stays and free cheese of democrats to the tariffs and war of trump. The difference between 2018 and today is the people in gov.
I don't think it's just policy. When @snarlcakes and I were going back and forth a bit over some graphs, something stuck out to me. A big factor - which presidents have very little control over - is consumer behavior. There are things that are objectively cheaper now than they used to be, but still may not feel that way to the average voter because of how people use those things. Take food. It feels like it's really expensive. But objectively, the inflation in food isn't really all that outrageous. And taken over many decades, it's not even a serious thing. But the way we use food now is different. We have more delivered. We eat out more. We are pickier. Etc. So we go to Etienne's Coffee Shop and get the Cage-free Organic Bran Muffin, and when it costs us $15 (or $35, because we had it DoorDashed), we get pissed off that we used to get a box of Cheerios for a fifth that.
Take cell phones. They are relatively affordable now, compared to, say, nearly 30 years ago (I got my first cell phone in, I dunno, 98, 99, something like that). But back then, it was a luxury. If we couldn't afford it, no big deal. Now, it feels like a necessity. So that's X number of dollars per month that you just write off the top, and you don't even consider the value you are getting for it, because it's simply become such a core part of your life. So even if I'm spending a tiny fraction in real dollars for my plan each month compared to what I did in 2000, it feels like more money because I need it now, and in 2000, I could have easily let it go without too much pain at all.
That doesn't mean the cost of living crisis is any less real. It's still real. We're not wrong to think we need cell phones and kick-ass bran muffins. We're very right to need those things. But policy didn't make that happen. Changing culture and consumer practices made that happen. Show me the executive policies that would push us back toward landlines and cheap cereal. I bet you can't.
Take cell phones. They are relatively affordable now, compared to, say, nearly 30 years ago (I got my first cell phone in, I dunno, 98, 99, something like that). But back then, it was a luxury. If we couldn't afford it, no big deal. Now, it feels like a necessity.
I got my first full featured smart phone maybe 8 years ago. (I had a couple pay-as-you-go TracFones prior.) Paid $100 for it through Consumer Cellular when I signed up for their service. It's the one I still use, and I still pay the $35/mo. I started with.
@goat that was the case in 2019.
here’s what spiked inflation. Biden stayed all bills and converted child tax credits to monthly checks extended unemployment gave out stim checks on and on. Look at inflation month by month and you can see the spike. Then Trump came in and issued tariffs and started a war and that war spiked gas. The cost of gas impacts everything from production to shipping. My own company raised prices 28 percent this fall.
the lions share is absolutely gov. From your hand held device to your home that spiked as a result of COVID lockdowns.
That doesn't mean the cost of living crisis is any less real. It's still real. We're not wrong to think we need cell phones and kick-ass bran muffins. We're very right to need those things. But policy didn't make that happen. Changing culture and consumer practices made that happen. Show me the executive policies that would push us back toward landlines and cheap cereal. I bet you can't.
You mentioned this earlier in your post but the inflationary rise of takeout is outpacing the actual cost of food at a grocery store by orders of magnitude. So, yes, no president or policy made that happen. But we also don't need $10 bran muffins and $7 coffee. We just don't. I haven't bought Starbucks regularly for 10 years. I bet I haven't bought Starbuck period in 3 months. I make my own coffee. Do I buy good shit (meaning not Starbucks)? YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT I DO. $20 a bag per week. I grind it myself every morning. 4 cups per pot. 28 cups of coffee $20/week plus a 5 year old burr grinder and pretty nice Cuisinart drip coffee maker (all in on those two is $200). I've had the coffee maker for ten years. So I might be at about $.90 per cup today. And that's on the high side.
I've never shopped Temu or Shein and I never will. I don't buy cheap shoes or cheap clothes. I also don't own that many. We're addicted to consumerism.
Americans are lazy and entitled. We deserve our debt. I am constantly peeved by the amount of money people spend on shit while listening to them cry about debt. Like, what? You can't put 2+2 together? Social media is probably mostly at fault. Who the fuck was eating $15 avo-fucking-cado toast before Instagram and TikTok told you to. Shit, I make my own at home for next to nothing if I so desire. And I make my own fucking bread for $1.50 a loaf (would cost you $5-6 loaf in store).
As far as this inflationary pressure does extend to policy, I can't help but agree with some of what @bar-down is saying. Pumping dollars into the economy while running federal deficits is pretty much going to cause inflation every single time.
If we're pumping money into the economy faster than wages are growing, it's inflation no matter what the government tells you. And if you only collect $5.5t in taxes while spending $7t a year in expenses (the majority of which is transfer payments), you're pumping money into economy. Period.
This thread is as good as any to drop this.
https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/buying-bullshit-in-4-easy-payments
Money quote:
"The numbers suggest consumers are increasingly borrowing to fund everyday spending rather than simply using BNPL as a checkout convenience. Once reliance on BNPL becomes a necessity to fund consumption, signaling an increasingly tapped-out consumer, rising defaults are the obvious risk that comes next"
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan.
POTFB