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sundin13 said: I can't help but "oof" when I hear takes like this. |
Words can't express my shock, considering that you always disapprove of everything I say and seem to feel morally compelled to actively let me know every single time.
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A couple notes: First of all, when you say Biden's approval ratings have stabilized "at a record 12.5 percentage points underwater", what exactly is that record? He certainly has the worst approval differential of any American president currently in office (and coincidentally, the best), but it isn't the worst approval differential ever (Trump was at -17 at this point in his presidency). |
A record low for the Biden presidency is what I meant, as in to say his worst polling average to date.
(Also, I may have spoken a little too soon, as his RCP average actually slipped to a new record low of -12.7% briefly the other day, indicating that further slide may yet be possible within the current time window.)
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Second, I feel the sky-is-falling mentality in regards to inflation is a bit overblown. In 2020, we saw prices decrease due to a lack of demand. As a result, real earnings increased. The decrease in real earnings that we are seeing now is largely a reversion to the mean, not a plummeting in buying power when put in context. If you look at the historical trend from the last five or so years, you'll see that we tend to see real weekly earnings gains around 0-1%. 2020 was anomalous in how large of a gain there was due to contexts outside of the direct work environment, so as those contexts are being reversed, we should expect to see some degree of decline. As I said before, this does not represent a plummeting in buying power. If you look at the change over the last two years, you are left with an increase of 2.7% over two years, which is still well above average. Further, these gains are spread over virtually every sector of the economy, not a thin sliver as you state. There is little good data indicating that such trends actually exist. Surveys are great at demonstrating how people feel, but far less good at actually representing objective realities. This is demonstrated by the fact that 31% of Biden voters say they are earning more YOY compared to only 6% of Trump voters. |
I can't help but "oof" when I hear takes like this. It just seems like you're responding to my commentary on inflation by talking about wage growth to the complete neglect of, well, inflation.
(Speaking of which, since I wrote the post you were referencing, December's consumer inflation data has been released, and it's even worse, revealing that the cost of living actually jumped a full 7 percentage points over the course of 2021. Just as an aside.)
Perhaps some more data will help get the point I was trying to make across.
In the Census Bureau’s “household pulse” survey last May, 46.7% of respondents said they had no difficulty paying usual household expenses. By December, that had fallen to 39.9%. During the same time period, the portion saying it’s a little, somewhat or very difficult to pay those bills rose from 45.9% to 49.9%. (The remaining 10% or so did not answer the question.)
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One surprise of the COVID pandemic was a broad improvement in household finances, when many economists expected soaring unemployment to make things much worse. Roughly $6 trillion in relief programs passed by Congress gets much of the credit. Consumers also became frenetic savers, since it was hard to spend money when businesses shut down or it felt unsafe to go out. The saving rate rocketed from 8.3% before the pandemic to a high of 33.8% in April 2020. It stayed elevated for the next 15 months, providing a financial cushion as businesses struggled to get back to normal.
That cushion is evaporating. The saving rate in November fell to 6.9%, and Census data shows that more people are now using credit cards to pay for routine expenses. A saving supercycle has now yielded to “dissaving,” when people spend down their surplus and start to borrow more.
The article title itself sums up the point: "People are running out of money." This is what you don't seem to be grasping.
Nearly all aid from the Covid relief bills is gone, expired, over, and people's (including my) "pandemic pay" rates have been ended. Over in Republican Land, that's cause for celebration, as it means prices should be falling right now, being as bankrupting more people always gets supply into balance with demand in their alternate reality wherein markets operate according to pure logic, but back here on Earth prices just keep going up at a steadily accelerating rate anyway because there's actually this thing called corporate greed that exists. Steps have to be taken to stifle that greed or else it will just keep getting further and further out of control. The once-touted personal savings rate is now back below pre-pandemic levels and people (presumably other than you to judge by your typical callous, condescending tone here) are experiencing real difficulty affording basic living expenses. That is real. Very real. I can speak to these realities personally. The 2020 recession was actually the best thing that ever happened to my personal finances. It was extremely stressful in other ways, but financially I was actually okay for once between three stimulus checks and a brief $2/hour pay increase, on top of which people called me an "essential worker" and would voice gratitude that I'd come to work all the time and tip me. Now that we've "recovered" and I'm back to being "unskilled" instead of essential, all that is over and my water bill is way overdue, so right now I'm thinking what people like me could use is another recession.
People mistakenly think the stock market took a beating in 2021 when the S&P in fact jumped like 21% for a banner year because most people still naively buy into capitalist ideology a lot more than I do. They figure that because their own finances suffered this last year, the financial aristocracy must have as well, being as our fates are so inextricably linked and all. And yet in reality, a good year for corporate America isn't by any means necessarily a good year for the average worker. It's sort of like a cat who ducks low in the grass thinking you can't see it because it can't see you. The cat's thinking of you as if you were another cat, when in reality I belong to different species and have a whole different vantage point. I'm much taller than the grass and can easily spot a cute kitty cat in need of some cuddles.
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Third, I feel like I sound like a broken record, but I need to point out again that your widespread bitterness in regards to the failure of Democrats to pass BBB is understandable but largely misplaced. By what evidence are you truly asserting that Biden is unwilling to pass BBB? You know, his signature bill that he has been pushing for the last year. |
I've spoken my peace on this subject at considerable length before as well, but to reiterate, I fault not only Joe Manchin for transparently and consistently negotiating in bad faith with no intent of ever reaching an agreement on the BBB Act, but also President Biden for making this outcome possible in the first place by splitting up his heavily watered down version of what was once known as the Green New Deal into two separate bills (one only does that if they consider it acceptable for one part of the program to be defeated) with a clear prioritization of one of those two (the infrastructure bill, of course), which he actively made sure passed without the BBB Act. In other words, I'm honestly not sure how serious President Biden himself has ever actually been about this "signature legislation" of his and deserves his share of the blame for this outcome, as does House Speaker Pelosi and Progressive Caucus leader Jayapal for affording it, and so on. I feel that there's plenty of blame to go around here on different levels for most of the Congressional Democrats. To me, it just comes off like after the off-year elections, the Democratic Party practically as a whole essentially just gave up on passing the BBB Act and went for what they thought was easier.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 13 January 2022
