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Joe Biden 2023: The Dark Brandon Rises


StassneyHorn

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1 minute ago, nbmishoid said:

They did pass some helpful laws, Brian.  This is beyond Repub capability.   The difference is real.  

Yes of course and that's why I will continue voting D. But the fact that they are better than the GOP doesn't absolve them from criticism as some here apparently think, considering the amount of push back it gets.

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Yeah. Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS Act, attempted to cancel large swaths of student debt multiple different ways, staved off a default and multiple shut downs at this point, multiple aid packages to Ukraine, and all while in the most vitriolic and partisan congress and nation in general since the Civil War, and they still accomplished more than any administration has in the past 20 years, maybe more. Brought Down inflation from Covid. Strong economy. 

But gee wiz, what the fuck have they really done? You don't get to just hand wave "GOP Obstructionist politics nothwithstanding" away because guess what, it's fucking real and it impacts everything. "The fact that he doesn't look like Brad Pitt notwithstanding, Huckabeef Sanders should have had more success trying to fuck supermodels."  Get the fuck out of here.  

What the fuck else did you expect them to accomplish, considering the curren environment?

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2 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Yes of course and that's why I will continue voting D. But the fact that they are better than the GOP doesn't absolve them from criticism as some here apparently think, considering the amount of push back it gets.

Sure.  The dem party is a big disappointment to the left, on many issues.  Mostly they are slow.  

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2 minutes ago, nbmishoid said:

Sure.  The dem party is a big disappointment to the left, on many issues.  Mostly they are slow.  

Progressive policies move slowly. But gee wiz, regressive ones fly by at light speed. Progressives should note how quickly everything can be undone if they don’t show up. It won’t be pretty 

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1 minute ago, nbmishoid said:

Sure.  The dem party is a big disappointment to the left, on many issues.  Mostly they are slow.  

Yeah, I should have clarified that I'm coming at this from a socialist perspective.

Of course I recognize all the good that they have done and have tried to do, despite GOP and interparty obstructionist elements acting against them.

I still think my criticism is valid on certain key issues.

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6 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Yeah. Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS Act, attempted to cancel large swaths of student debt multiple different ways, staved off a default and multiple shut downs at this point, multiple aid packages to Ukraine, and all while in the most vitriolic and partisan congress and nation in general since the Civil War, and they still accomplished more than any administration has in the past 20 years, maybe more. Brought Down inflation from Covid. Strong economy. 

But gee wiz, what the fuck have they really done? You don't get to just hand wave "GOP Obstructionist politics nothwithstanding" away because guess what, it's fucking real and it impacts everything. "The fact that he doesn't look like Brad Pitt notwithstanding, Huckabeef Sanders should have had more success trying to fuck supermodels."  Get the fuck out of here.  

What the fuck else did you expect them to accomplish, considering the curren environment?

We're on the same side here, champ, take a breath.

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11 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

We're on the same side here, champ, take a breath.

We're on the same side on most shit man. Every time I have a slight disagreement doesn't mean I'm over here hyperventilating. 

I do think that the position you initially put forth is a very easy one we see often, and it supports a really bad narrative that we see everywhere in regards to the Democrats. Hell, there's not many groups of people that are more critical of the Democratic party than this group of posters here (outside of dumb MAGA dipshits), but the criticism of Biden and dems is pervasive, and everyone is so happy to just shit on them while in no way recognizing the actual, real, great fucking shit they've accomplished.

On a macro level, the discontent from the far left/progressive group, and the centrists, and the far right just creates this general malaise. I think it's why we see such low approval ratings, low polling. It irritates the fuck out of me. Biden might have accomplished more than any other president of our lifetime, and in the worst environment possible. But man, we sure can find reasons to be disappointed with him. And we have to stop it, on some level. 

 

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33 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Yeah, I should have clarified that I'm coming at this from a socialist perspective.

Of course I recognize all the good that they have done and have tried to do, despite GOP and interparty obstructionist elements acting against them.

I still think my criticism is valid on certain key issues.

I agree.  There's plenty of criticism to go around.  I'm just not worried about it until we defeat these fascist fuck heads.  Then if I could get a Buttigieg/Warren admin or vice versa, with a halfway functional congress, we could get some REAL shit done.

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24 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

We're on the same side on most shit man. Every time I have a slight disagreement doesn't mean I'm over here hyperventilating. 

I do think that the position you initially put forth is a very easy one we see often, and it supports a really bad narrative that we see everywhere in regards to the Democrats. Hell, there's not many groups of people that are more critical of the Democratic party than this group of posters here (outside of dumb MAGA dipshits), but the criticism of Biden and dems is pervasive, and everyone is so happy to just shit on them while in no way recognizing the actual, real, great fucking shit they've accomplished.

On a macro level, the discontent from the far left/progressive group, and the centrists, and the far right just creates this general malaise. I think it's why we see such low approval ratings, low polling. It irritates the fuck out of me. Biden might have accomplished more than any other president of our lifetime, and in the worst environment possible. But man, we sure can find reasons to be disappointed with him. And we have to stop it, on some level. 

 

The root cause to my small mind is simple:

The tent with the "R" on the front of it seems to be a much more niche and narrow and is a more homogenous group of people (and true believers are small). You don't need to accommodate for much diversity.

The tent with the "D" on front of it is very large and very heterogenous in that there are a lot of different stakeholders, interests, desires, identities, aspirations, etc. that call that large tent home to please, so it stands to reason you are going to have some internal fighting between coalitions, etc. In theory, it's a shark tank and the strongest and best idea will win and has been battle tested by the time it emerges, which I think we saw in 2020 with Biden. He was the only one who could end the national nightmare and he did. The system worked, though not everyone (like probably @Brian Fantana) was thrilled.

Fighting between D's isn't necessarily a bad thing when viewed in this context.

Fighting between R's (e.g. House Speaker housefire) definitely is.

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11 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

The root cause to my small mind is simple:

The tent with the "R" on the front of it seems to be a much more niche and narrow and is a more homogenous group of people (and true believers are small). You don't need to accommodate for much diversity.

The tent with the "D" on front of it is very large and very heterogenous in that there are a lot of different stakeholders, interests, desires, identities, aspirations, etc. that call that large tent home to please, so it stands to reason you are going to have some internal fighting between coalitions, etc. In theory, it's a shark tank and the strongest and best idea will win and has been battle tested by the time it emerges, which I think we saw in 2020 with Biden. He was the only one who could end the national nightmare and he did. The system worked, though not everyone (like probably @Brian Fantana) was thrilled.

Fighting between D's isn't necessarily a bad thing when viewed in this context.

Fighting between R's (e.g. House Speaker housefire) definitely is.

Sure, I agree with all of that, until your second to last line. There is danger there. That danger is that when the infighting because a reason to abandon the coalition, or to convince other people that the coalition isn't working, or when it sucks all the oxygen out of the ability to recognize the good things that have been accomplished. 

We joke about it, gallows humor style, when someone says "Sure, that guy is an authoritiarian fascist who wants to end Democracy, but have you seen the cost of milk," but THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY PEOPLE, and not small numbers in the Independant area, that are inclined to think and act that way. 

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16 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

We joke about it, gallows humor style, when someone says "Sure, that guy is an authoritiarian fascist who wants to end Democracy, but have you seen the cost of milk," but THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY PEOPLE, and not small numbers in the Independant area, that are inclined to think and act that way. 

I think the "Rs are good at the economy and Ds are not" may be the most enraging thing about all of politics, pre-2016.

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16 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I think the "Rs are good at the economy and Ds are not" may be the most enraging thing about all of politics, pre-2016.

Also Republicans are better at foreign policy. Uh like Iraq, Afghanistan and Iraq 2: Electric Bushaloo?

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It may be a good time to review how our government works.  There are 3 branches of government, and 1 of those is split into 2 parts.  If a contrarian party gets hold of even 1 of those branches, or even 41/100 seats in the Senate, it is almost impossible to get anything meanful accomplished.  Hell, if 1 (one) obstructionist senator wants to hold up a bunch of shit that the other 99 support, well apparently that can also happen under our current rules.  That is the political reality in play.  Despite this, Senile Biden has accomplished more than any other president in 1 term since probably Clinton.  All while being a drooling vegetable apparently.   But its just sooo disappointing cause we haven’t passed universal income or gone 100% solar!

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Well, in a twisted way...it's almost comforting to know that stupidity on all sides will be the prologue to the stories I tell my daughters around the campfire that i have to quickly snuff out before the cannibalistic marauders see it from the distance.  

But please, by all means folks...tell us the great travails of Cornell West, Jill Stein, and the Kennedy Royalty.   I don't know what the DNC has planned but hurry the fuck up about it.  Because the only, and I mean the only fucking thing, you should be concerned with, is not your bullshit "Rock the vote", turn out the bast, energize the youth or whatever dumb fucking electoral college loser you in your back pocket this time around.  It's simply dampen the ability or desire for about 5-10mm MAGA voters in 11 months time.  You do that...and this thing is done for good and he dies shortly afterwards.  That's it.  You can worry about the other branches and other caselaw and all the rest.  First, keep just a few of them home so he loses, then he dies, and then we reshuffle history.  There will be an uprising.  And it'll get ugly for a hot minute.  But you'd be surprised how conveniently you can rewrite history.  "How'd the United States lose 10mm people so quickly after Trump lost/died, you ask?  Um well (sweeps foot over mass grave)...a lotta people said if he didn't win, they'd leave the country.  I guess they must have.  We have the ticket stubs to prove it." 

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4 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:



On a macro level, the discontent from the far left/progressive group, and the centrists, and the far right just creates this general malaise. I think it's why we see such low approval ratings, low polling. It irritates the fuck out of me. Biden might have accomplished more than any other president of our lifetime, and in the worst environment possible. But man, we sure can find reasons to be disappointed with him. And we have to stop it, on some level. 

 

The far left and the far right are both committed ideologues who are going to express extreme dissatisfaction with anything that happens within our current framework of liberal secular democracy. They want to dismantle that system and replace it with a cheap facsimile but gut the underlying principles. Their voices are amplified to 11 through social media and captured institutions which makes the centrists believe that the center is not holding, everyone is angry, and thus Biden is not doing a good job. 
 

This, fundamentally, is the problem with social media and new journalism, it gives equal time to voices that do not deserve equal time. 

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2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The far left and the far right are both committed ideologues who are going to express extreme dissatisfaction with anything that happens within our current framework of liberal secular democracy. They want to dismantle that system and replace it with a cheap facsimile but gut the underlying principles. Their voices are amplified to 11 through social media and captured institutions which makes the centrists believe that the center is not holding, everyone is angry, and thus Biden is not doing a good job. 
 

This, fundamentally, is the problem with social media and new journalism, it gives equal time to voices that do not deserve equal time. 

I would say it gives far more time to those who do not deserve it, but the point is made. 

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Someone want to talk me off the ledge on this one: https://www.marquette.edu/news-center/2023/marquette-law-school-national-survey-finds-biden-trailing-three-gop-opponents.php

Marquette Law School poll shows Nikki Haley 10 points ahead of Biden, Trump four points ahead of Biden and DeSantis two points ahead at this point.

Of course, we all know Trump is getting the GQP nom barring some stunning occurrence AND I know there's a long way to go until Election Day 2024 but sheesh ...

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1 hour ago, C-Man said:

Someone want to talk me off the ledge on this one: https://www.marquette.edu/news-center/2023/marquette-law-school-national-survey-finds-biden-trailing-three-gop-opponents.php

Marquette Law School poll shows Nikki Haley 10 points ahead of Biden, Trump four points ahead of Biden and DeSantis two points ahead at this point.

Of course, we all know Trump is getting the GQP nom barring some stunning occurrence AND I know there's a long way to go until Election Day 2024 but sheesh ...

In Shaka y'all trust. 

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ECONOMISTS STRUGGLE TO COME TO TERMS WITH “IMMACULATE DISINFLATION”

My guest article was printed in the New Yorker

 

Spoiler

A little more than a year ago, the Wall Street Journal surveyed economists about their forecasts for 2023. The respondents, who included more than seventy experts from academia, business, and Wall Street, said that a recession was the likeliest outcome, as the Federal Reserve was keeping interest rates high to bring down inflation. They predicted that G.D.P. would shrink slightly in the first half of the year and that job growth would turn negative. In other words, the cost of bringing down inflation would be an economic slump. “Soft landing will likely remain a mythical outcome that never actually comes to pass,” one respondent said.

In January of this year, when the Journal carried out its next survey, economists were still predicting a recession and job cuts. “For 2023 as a whole, economists expect that payrolls will decline by 7,000 a month on average,” the paper reported. These predictions couldn’t have been more wrong. About the only thing the economists got right was that inflation would continue to fall, but even there they underestimated the pace of decline. Earlier this week, the Labor Department reported that the consumer-price inflation fell to 3.2 per cent in October, reversing a slight pickup over the summer. And with gas prices still falling, it seems perfectly possible that the the November figure for consumer-price inflation could begin with a two.

The great inflation spike, which has dominated economic news for the past couple of years, appears to be over. The rate of price increases is still a bit higher than the Fed would like; its target is two per cent. But since reaching a peak of 9.1 per cent, in June of last year, inflation has fallen by almost two-thirds. And this big decline has been accompanied not by the predicted recession but, rather, by a pickup in G.D.P. growth and sustained job creation: the opposite of what economists predicted.

In 2022, G.D.P., which is the broadest measure of the economy’s output, grew at an annual rate of 1.9 per cent, according to the Commerce Department. In the first three quarters of this year, the annualized growth rate has clocked in at 2.2 per cent, 2.1 per cent, and 4.9 per cent, respectively. With the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model pointing to growth of two per cent in the final quarter, it looks like G.D.P. growth for 2023 as a whole will be above two per cent. As for jobs, in the first ten months of the year, non-farm employers created about 2.4 million of them, and the unemployment rate is still below four per cent. So much for the forecasts of negative job growth.

It’s conceivable that between now and the New Year, the economy could still fall off a cliff. Over-all retail sales dipped slightly last month, and just this week Target and Home Depot reported that some consumers are holding off on big-ticket purchases. But barring some sort of financial calamity or a dramatic escalation of the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, it seems unlikely that this weakness will turn into a broader free fall. The October decline in retail spending followed a surge during the summer, and other indicators remain positive. On Friday, housing stats came in stronger than expected.

Taken together, these figures show that the American economy has greatly outperformed expectations over the past year, shocking some of those who argued that a big slowdown and higher unemployment would be required to break the back of inflation. “The US combination of strong growth, low unemployment and falling inflation looks rather like the ‘immaculate disinflation,’ in which I, for one, disbelieved,” Martin Wolf, the Financial Times’ chief economics commentator, wrote last week. Even the former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who is now a professor at Harvard and said last year that it would likely take an unemployment rate of six per cent to “significantly restrain inflation,” has rowed back a bit. “Given how strong the economy has been, there’s still a surprise in what’s happened to inflation,” Summers told Bloomberg earlier this week.

To be fair to the inflation hawks, the immaculate disinflation that Wolf referred to has no precedent in recent history, and it has also surprised policymakers at the Fed. At their December, 2022, meeting, Jerome Powell and his colleagues predicted G.D.P. growth of just 0.5 per cent in 2023 and an unemployment rate of 4.6 per cent in the October-to-December quarter. Both of these predictions were way off, but in a good way.

How could economic forecasters have got things so wrong? One possibility is that their dire predictions were not inaccurate but premature, and that higher interest rates will eventually take their toll and bring on a recession. Another possibility is that many economists misinterpreted the nature of the inflation spike to begin with, viewing it primarily as a product of excessive demand rather than of pandemic-era supply disruptions, which have now largely disappeared. If that’s true, economists need to rewrite their textbooks.

The debate will go on, as will the parallel discussion about why, according to opinion polls, most ordinary Americans think that the U.S. economy is doing badly, and give Joe Biden negative ratings on this front. But the fact that many people are still bummed about the price of groceries and the level of mortgage rates shouldn’t be allowed to obscure what is shaping up as a historic victory over inflation. That’s where we are, and it’s worth a holiday toast. 

 

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Another possibility is that many economists misinterpreted the nature of the inflation spike to begin with, viewing it primarily as a product of excessive demand rather than of pandemic-era supply disruptions, which have now largely disappeared.
there's non-trivial chance that the fed has been rate-hiking for nothing.  "we're going to ease inflation pressures by making it more expensive for suppliers to supply" is ... some kind of logic.

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On 11/16/2023 at 1:16 PM, Biff Tannen said:

I think the "Rs are good at the economy and Ds are not" may be the most enraging thing about all of politics, pre-2016.

Before 2016 Something you need to understand this is that it is a single issue nonsense. When someone screams that their number one issue is the economy it generally signals that they are a republican to begin with hence it is always the Ds fault, the thing is all of these single issues never really propel someone past 50%+1.

At the end of the day there is a monstrous 45% of the country that would butcher us all if they got real power, we all need to vote and volunteer to help people vote, fixing the economy is imporant but it is no longer "it's the economy stupid" .

This is my litmus test for navigating the modern political landscape, always look at polls that are over 51% of all respondents. (and Likely voters) Republicans winning on the economy 45% R to 1% D is fucking meaningless, they still lost the election.

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6 hours ago, StassneyHorn said:

Another possibility is that many economists misinterpreted the nature of the inflation spike to begin with, viewing it primarily as a product of excessive demand rather than of pandemic-era supply disruptions, which have now largely disappeared. If that’s true, economists need to rewrite their textbooks.

Not to mention that corporations kept prices jacked up because they fucking felt like it. Chicken wings went from $13 for 10 pieces to $20 and never came back down, despite wholesale costs going down. Fuck em all. 

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On 11/16/2023 at 8:57 AM, Snake Diggity said:

NO ONE under 40 answers their phone, not even for people they know.  And they don’t respond to spam texts.  I am not sure how you accurately poll people under 40 but it isn’t over the phone or via email.  Most people in their 40s are the same way.  Polling via phone is only going to accurately gauge the over 50 vote.

I spent five years across two companies talking on the phone for a living (tech support)…I absolutely hate talking on the phone.  Pisses my wife off when a simple call is needed to schedule something, and I sulk simply because they don’t have a website where I can do it without the ‘our menu items have changed’ bullshit.  

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5 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

What margins should businesses be allowed to make?  Where should they be capped?  And do you believe they pay enough in taxes?

A better question (and one that boards should and do ask) is;

  1. are these higher margins coming at the cost of market share, growth, or profit per share?
    1. And if they are, why should you keep your job?
    2. And if they aren't, why weren't we able to access them before?
    3. And if we were, why should you keep your job?
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18 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

What margins should businesses be allowed to make?  Where should they be capped?  And do you believe they pay enough in taxes?

There's a difference between earning a profit as a business, and stealing wages from workers to pass onto investors as """record profits""". I appreciate that you can't discuss this in good faith and so need to continually lie and misrepresent my position, so I look forward to explaining this to you again soon, farty. 

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There's a difference between earning a profit as a business, and stealing wages from workers to pass onto investors as """record profits""". I appreciate that you can't discuss this in good faith and so need to continually lie and misrepresent my position, so I look forward to explaining this to you again soon, farty. 

I’d love to see profits confiscated from companies that have too many employees on government assistance. You should not be allowed to be a welfare company and have record profits.
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In completely anecdotal junk food shopping stuff, the price of Doritos before all this was $2.50 for a bag at HEB. Now it's $4.48 -- an 80% increase. I'm sorry, I just don't see how the cost to get a bag into a consumer's hands has popped 80%. Same thing with 20 ounce bottles of Coke, which is now $2.25 (in my mind, they are still priced at $0.50).

Meanwhile, frozen pizzas seem like they've maybe gone up $1 in all of this? So now you're paying $6-7 instead of $5-6.

 

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It’s like y’all don’t understand why your 401k’s are where they are.  

17 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

A better question (and one that boards should and do ask) is;

  1. are these higher margins coming at the cost of market share, growth, or profit per share?
    1. And if they are, why should you keep your job?
    2. And if they aren't, why weren't we able to access them before?
    3. And if we were, why should you keep your job?

Agree. But I’m pretty sure Tysons has that figured out.  They don’t hold any duty to provide Biff with a price he finds reasonable, until the point he switches brands.  And at that point, the boards questions become legitimate.  Without seeing a drop in sales, they should be asking why have we not reached our peak margin. And why should you keep your job, since you can’t identify efficient margins. 

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On 11/16/2023 at 3:22 PM, SydneyCarton said:

We're on the same side on most shit man. Every time I have a slight disagreement doesn't mean I'm over here hyperventilating. 

I do think that the position you initially put forth is a very easy one we see often, and it supports a really bad narrative that we see everywhere in regards to the Democrats. Hell, there's not many groups of people that are more critical of the Democratic party than this group of posters here (outside of dumb MAGA dipshits), but the criticism of Biden and dems is pervasive, and everyone is so happy to just shit on them while in no way recognizing the actual, real, great fucking shit they've accomplished.

On a macro level, the discontent from the far left/progressive group, and the centrists, and the far right just creates this general malaise. I think it's why we see such low approval ratings, low polling. It irritates the fuck out of me. Biden might have accomplished more than any other president of our lifetime, and in the worst environment possible. But man, we sure can find reasons to be disappointed with him. And we have to stop it, on some level. 

 

I'm with you on this, especially the bolded part.  

1 minute ago, fattyflattie said:

It’s like y’all don’t understand why your 401k’s are where they are.  

Agree. But I’m pretty sure Tysons has that figured out.  They don’t hold any duty to provide Biff with a price he finds reasonable, until the point he switches brands.  And at that point, the boards questions become legitimate.  Without seeing a drop in sales, they should be asking why have we not reached our peak margin. And why should you keep your job, since you can’t identify efficient margins. 

Just out of curiosity, how many economics classes did you actually take?  Or do you just watch a lot of Fox news?

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