Current events discussion

[Speed Chaser]

Huh?
You claim that known history has been disproved by a podcaster and that I should accept her YouTube video as proof, but when I ask WHY, it's due to "TDS-filled mind"?

Are you saying that wanting proof of a dubious claim is "derangement"?

So as a not-deranged person, you simply believe every claim you hear or read?

Whatever you have to say to make that little TDS-filled mind sleep at night.

 

[RobGMN Premium Member]

Whatever you have to say to make that little TDS-filled mind sleep at night.

And I'M the one who gets accused of just blindly following propaganda and the mass media

 

[RobGMN Premium Member]

What an interesting thing for a Putin sidekick to say.

 

[ThxOne Premium Member]

I am sure Trump will lower the cost of "fill in the blank" the same way he did in his first term. Nobody is claiming he has DIRECT control of prices so for the left to keep asking how he will DIRECTLY lower prices is ignorant just to be ignorant.

 

[RobGMN Premium Member]

I am sure Trump will lower the cost of "fill in the blank" the same way he did in his first term. Nobody is claiming he has DIRECT control of prices so for the left to keep asking how he will DIRECTLY lower prices is ignorant just to be ignorant.

I get that everyone is sure, but I'm interested in the HOW.

When Trump got into office, inflation doubled by the end of year one, and held until he was gone, save for the recessionary period of the pandemic.

He also directly caused gas prices to rise by engineering an intentional increase in the price of oil.

If inflation increases and fuel price increases are bad, why did he cause them, and why should we think he'll do things differently this time around?

 

[ThxOne Premium Member]

I get that everyone is sure, but I'm interested in the HOW.

When Trump got into office, inflation doubled by the end of year one, and held until he was gone, save for the recessionary period of the pandemic.

He also directly caused gas prices to rise by engineering an intentional increase in the price of oil.

If inflation increases and fuel price increases are bad, why did he cause them, and why should we think he'll do things differently this time around?

Must not have been a bad inflation because cost was still very reasonable. Gas? It was still affordable. The prices during Trumps first term compared to the whole of Biden's term is quite the contrast. There is a reason the majority of the country is red now... they are tired of what you seem to think is a good economy. I am sure you are right and the people who voted Trump back in are just delusional.

I am sure the country wants open borders, millions of illegals, billions spent on illegals, billions spent on Ukraine, high gas prices, high energy prices, high interest rates, high food cost..... I am sure the country wants much less for much more. I think the voting majority have made it clear what they want now. The left can cry about it or **** it up. Either way... nobody gives a f**k. We want a change.

 

[Jimi77 Premium Member]

The dems just believe that the Republicans are becoming more convincing to the weak minded people. They still believe the dem leaders are God-like.

The talk is now, Biden might step down to allow Kamala to be President for the remaining couple months.

I saw that. I like that, that way they can take credit for the first black female POTUS, which seems to be of the utmost importance to them. The GOP seems to have learned from the midterms that "stolen election" wasn't an effective platform and now have a more expansive platform. The DNC thought they could run on "black woman POTUS" and clearly that backfired.

 

[Jimi77 Premium Member]

I get that everyone is sure, but I'm interested in the HOW.

When Trump got into office, inflation doubled by the end of year one, and held until he was gone, save for the recessionary period of the pandemic.

He also directly caused gas prices to rise by engineering an intentional increase in the price of oil.

If inflation increases and fuel price increases are bad, why did he cause them, and why should we think he'll do things differently this time around?

Inflation is beyond Trump's control. It will (most likely) subside because inflation can only last for so long before people run out of money and changes to central banking policy (qualitive tightening and increased interest rates).
IMHO, a lot of this can be traced back to the 2008 Mortgage Meltdown. We're still paying for that fiasco in addition to the pandemic and the price is inflation.

 

[Jimi77 Premium Member]

Trump has already stated he is going after credit card companies and placing a percentage cap on them. He's talking about a 10% cap.

Maybe CC interest rates should be capped, but if you put a 10% cap on CC rates, then (IMHO) only people with really good credit and income are going to get credit lines.

 

[Jimi77 Premium Member]

How will he "reduce the cost of energy", and what percent of energy costs make up the total cost of production, on average?

I'm interested in the actual plans and methods. For example: will he assume control of private oil companies in order to lower prices (and profits)?
Will he reduce prices by subsidies to the oil companies? Will he force foreign suppliers to drop prices (through military action?)?

Details.

I think the problem he faces is that the oil companies have a big disincentive to produce and unless he socializes the system, oil prices will just float to the world market price. So even if Exxon increases production, hypothetically, Aramco could cut production and we'd see no net change in prices.

That said, I do think Trump enjoys a good relationship with our allies in the middle east and they may be more willing to up production and go back to the petrodollar. The petrodollar would of course be great for inflation.

 

[Eggs 5,000+ posts]

 

[Eggs 5,000+ posts]

 

[RobGMN Premium Member]

Must not have been a bad inflation because cost was still very reasonable. Gas? It was still affordable. The prices during Trumps first term compared to the whole of Biden's term is quite the contrast. There is a reason the majority of the country is red now... they are tired of what you seem to think is a good economy. I am sure you are right and the people who voted Trump back in are just

It's interesting that a doubling of the inflation rate "must not be bad" because it happened under Trump, but I guess there must have been some tradeoff that made spending more money better under him than under Biden.
Real gas prices did not see anywhere the surge that people think, and the impact was lessened dramatically by the massive number of people who shifted to remote work, reducing their usage (which offset costs). You were actually paying more for gas in 1998 than now, and about 20 cents more than in 2017.
Gas prices are actually a pretty poor indicator of COL changes, since they just keep getting cheaper over time.

I know every number ever released on the economy is fake news, but it sure looks like after the recession, wages were outpacing inflation at almost two years to the month after Biden took office.

Inflation was already starting to rise before he took office, then it surged under Biden. Analysis puts the heavy share of it on housing shortages, later driven by supply chain issues as American shifted their spending from services to goods that were suddenly unavailable.
And we know what happens to prices when demand goes up and supply drops.

Two years from almost complete collapse, and wage growth was already outpacing inflation. Terrible job?

I am sure the country wants open borders, millions of illegals, billions spent on illegals, billions spent on Ukraine, high gas prices, high energy prices, high interest rates, high food cost..... I am sure the country wants much less for much more. I think the voting majority have made it clear what they want now. The left can cry about it or **** it up. Either way... nobody gives a f**k. We want a change.

Again, we all know the numbers are all faked, every aspect of border control is doing a shitty job and just sitting around drinking coffee and eating donuts (I'm sure they love to hear how shitty they all are doing), but the fact is that deportations surged under Biden to a level not seen since 2004, while the number of illegal immigrants here didn't see anywhere near the surge that people claim.
Yes, 10% growth is growth, but it's not the millions upon millions of bodies that right-wingers are seeing in their heads, or believing because they saw it in a meme.

A change from what we have seen under Biden would be a reduction in expulsions.
That seems to make the border more open, which will only serve to increase the population of illegals.

usage

 

[RobGMN Premium Member]

Inflation is beyond Trump's control. It will (most likely) subside because inflation can only last for so long before people run out of money and changes to central banking policy (qualitive tightening and increased interest rates).
IMHO, a lot of this can be traced back to the 2008 Mortgage Meltdown. We're still paying for that fiasco in addition to the pandemic and the price is inflation.

Yes. The economy is naturally self-correcting unless that correction is collapse, which we try to prevent with all the different measures in place (halting trading on the market, Feds adjusting interest rates, shrinking/expanding money supply, etc).
It (inflation) has been self-correcting since the "post-pandemic" spike, and so have wages (see chart above).

But there are a collective 70 million voices talking about how Trump is going to simply reduce prices when he enters office in January. I'm interested in the details of HOW he is going to do such a thing, but no one seems to be able to answer the question. It's almost like they voted simply on the belief that he will wave the magic wand and we will al get big wage increases, produce all goods in the US for cheaper than imported goods, find enough oil to no longer need imports and thus get gas for a dollar a gallon.

The problem is that you simply can't have all those things. You can't pay a great wage to the widget builder while you sell the widget for nothing. It's a reason the phrase "We're losing a dollar on every widget we sell, but we'll make it up in volume" is a joke.

So, does ANYONE know the how/what/why of the magic spell?

I think the problem he faces is that the oil companies have a big disincentive to produce and unless he socializes the system, oil prices will just float to the world market price. So even if Exxon increases production, hypothetically, Aramco could cut production and we'd see no net change in prices.

That said, I do think Trump enjoys a good relationship with our allies in the middle east and they may be more willing to up production and go back to the petrodollar. The petrodollar would of course be great for inflation.

Yes the disincentive to produce. Trump literally cut a "deal" to reduce the oil supply in order to increase prices, by threatening to scrap a 75-year-long strategic alliance with the Saudis.
He did it in order to keep prices higher so our local producers could remain profitable as prices were dropping due to the pandemic. His relationship seems to be more of their fear of our power than of being "buddies".

In effect, gas prices went up so that we could help local industry that was being hurt by a world market.
But if the world market did to us what we did to the world market, we would consider that market our newest mortal enemy.

Ptrodollar is good for us, but can we force the world market to adhere?

 

[Speed Chaser]

And I'M the one who gets accused of just blindly following propaganda and the mass media

Glad you admit to being a sheep of the media