Food companies are making record profits. In a capitalist country, where most people claim to hate socialism/communism, things are going as they are meant to. Biden is supposed to tell Kelloggs to lower their profits? good luck. If people want to be mad about the cost of groceries, they need to look at the profits of the food companies. It's insane. They make a shit ton of money, and yet shrinkflation is a real thing, they keep making the quantity you actually get smaller, but the price higher. Also, oil companies have record profits. This shit doesn't happen at the White House, it happens in the board room, when stock prices and the happiness of share holders are all anyone cares about, prices will continue to rise. But this is how it always goes. Trump doesn't get enough blame for the insane unneeded tax cuts that helped drive inflation. All of this is so nuanced, but people look at the price at the pump and blame Biden. End of story. I hate it so much. NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING would make me vote for Trump, and it's scary to think how many people think the exact same thing about Biden, DESPITE allllll the shit on Trump. Ugh. Calgon, take me away.
"Logically, it does not make a lot of sense to us."
Logic seemingly has fuck all to do with the way the majority of Americans think. If it did, people would acknowledge no politician has the power to directly impact the cost of living, and prices don't go down unless the economy crashes, which, generally, is bad. If it did, people might, maybe, possibly give a shit when The Orange Skidmark lies right in their damn faces.
But no, "Crooked Joe" is senile, the government is prosecuting their guy because they hate him, criminals are bursting out of the hedges of every cul-de-sac., and, of course recognizing CRT and DEI and LGBTQ values are making it so you won't have a country anymore [really, the WHOLE country will vanish!].
We have 180 days to go until election day but exhaustion with the constant bullshit is looming large. Maintaining any sense of urgency on a daily basis is nigh impossible. I say it's important to take some time off and tune out. The circus will still be in town whenever you get your energy back, and we will need you.
I heard recently that some people were complaining that prices didn't go down after the crazy inflation of 2022. I am absolutely baffled that anyone would have expected them to.
Look, I read a lot of amateur punditry and have a high tolerance for useless unsolicited campaign advice, but this is nonsense. First of all, yelling about things is not what "great politicians do". Innumerable examples of great politicians who do not yell spring to mind. Second of all, if yelling and pounding the table and expressing empathic outrage is your thing, Joe Biden is constantly doing that. Which brings me to my third overarching point, which is that the common thread of all of Dustin's, and most bedwetting Biden-skeptic Democrats, moving-target critiques of Biden is that none of them seem to be paying attention to what Biden is actually doing. Just this week Dustin accused Biden of sitting idly by and doing nothing to mitigate the Israel/Gaza war. Really just lazy stuff, which a lot of people are guilty of, and feels a lot like when people in conversations refuse to listen and instead just wait for their turn to speak, crafting language in their head. So many criticisms of Biden have been for his perceived failure to do things he absolutely has in fact done or been doing.
That might be followed with another criticism of Biden - if you're doing so much great stuff, how come nobody knows about it? But Dustin should know about it. Any professional or semiprofessional political writer should. "The White House isn't getting it's message to the voters" is a weak critique when you, journalists, seem to be as poorly informed as anybody and shouldn't be relying on complex messaging strategies aimed at low information/propensity voters. It's your job to know and report the facts, not wait around passively for talking points to be handed to you.
And I'm not even gonna get into the tortured math around the reporting here on inflation. My spending on food has gone up since 2019! Well, I also make more money and have two additional humans to feed. Also this is somehow to blame for people not going to movie theaters, as opposed to the much discussed downward trend of movie attendance that has been going on for years (such a weird example of how to illustrate the consumer spending squeeze - people have the money to go to the movies they just prefer to stay home.)
We are comparing apples to oranges when we compare 2017-19 habits to 2024 habits. Inflation has been one of several factors, but nowhere close to the most important. The pandemic changed how people spend, save, and plan. It changed how they want to spend their time, where, and with whom. It changed public social engagement on a bedrock level. That's not purely, or even primarily, a result of inflation.
Also, the *target* for inflation is 2%. That's what the Fed *wants* for the American economy to be healthy and not stagnate. So from 2019 to 2024 that's 10% inflation that we *need*.
I'm not denying that inflation is a powerful political issue. But only if you conflate it with all sorts of other things that really amount to "things are different from how they used to be, somewhat recently". And only if you fail to mention any number of mitigating factors and caveats. And only if you fail to mention the successful measures that the government has put in place to curb inflation. If you say certain parts loud and other parts sotto voce. Basically, if you act like you're on Fox News and you're trying to elect Donald Trump.
But sure, Biden should yell. Well, yell more. And ignore the fact that the natural and reasonable response would be "well, you're the president".
A net increase of 15% in food prices over five years is not nothing. But it's also not Weimar Germany. And with commentary like this, we seem to be turning it into yet another unnuanced, sensationalized, binary metric like gas prices or the stock market. Arrow go up, arrow go down. I expect certain people to do this purposefully, in bad faith. I would hope other people like Dustin and others, would not fall into this trap inadvertently.
Life in America is better than live anywhere else on earth right now. Our economy is doing better. Our unemployment rates and wage growth are stellar. We are taming domestic inflation better than any other country despite it being an interconnected international phenomenon. Europe and the UK are in a zero-growth pit. China's economy is faltering. Japanese GDP is weak. Russia has been sanctioned to death. But America avoided a recession when every expert on earth thought it was impossible. We are quite literally the envy of the world and have a great, great, great economic story to tell, but the reason it can't be told is not that Biden isn't yelling loudly enough, it's because you have mealy mouth bad faith journalists saying things like "I can't believe how much food costs compared to before I had two kids! Why won't Biden do anything??".
“We are taming domestic inflation better than any other country despite it being an interconnected international phenomenon. Europe and the UK are in a zero-growth pit. China's economy is faltering. Japanese GDP is weak. Russia has been sanctioned to death. But America avoided a recession when every expert on earth thought it was impossible.”
He was talking about China's and Japan's economies last week....but they won't listen because he said one of the main reasons our economy is doing better than theirs is because we aren't so closed off to immigration.
I think you got a lot right in your comment except 'America is the best place to live'. Which I think you know which is why you compared America to Russia and China and not say UK, Canada, France, Netherlands. My goodness you couldn't pay me to live in America.
The saying "Capitalism is the worst form of government, except every other one that has been tried before" applies to living in America.
"America is the best country in the world, except for all the other places that are actually better". The problem with Americans is that they stop at the comma and feel cognitive dissonance if you continue on with the rest of the saying.
Most are simply incapable of understanding the rest of the world sees their country for the shithole it is becoming.
Democrats tried to pass price gouging bills in the last few congresses (and during the pandemic) as well as gas gouging, that addressed companies that used the pandemic as an excuse to raise prices without there being a supply chain issue, and have kept them artificially high. And of course the Republicans have refused to help pass it, although they sure complain about prices and tie it to Biden.
If Joe Biden (or any world leader) could do something about inflation and corporate greed coming together to really fuck us all over during the pandemic, they would have done so already. We're not the only country with these problems and the solutions remain opaque for every country on earth. It's also why right wing douchebags are doing better globally too. They can just bitch about the problem and blame a scapegoat. History sure does rhyme a lot.
I'm choosing to remain optimistic. We don't have to make the same mistakes as our great grandfathers and their great grandfathers before them. Break the fuckin wheel.
Trump's going to try to kill electric cars. He outright said so. Which brings me to the real reason I think the polls are so close: Most people don't actually know what he would do once he got back in there again. Book bans, birth control bans, telling you what clothes you can wear; these are just the beginning. Abolishing the legal guardrails that keep a president from abusing his power will be the first thing he does. Cracking down on free speech and the press will be next. I don't think most Americans can fathom what an actual dictatorship will look like.
Most people don't follow the news that closely. The MSM won't report on things like Project 2025 and right wing media certainly won't talk about it. So what does that leave? Obscure left wing media outlets no one watches. Is inflation bad? Yes. Is there much either candidate can do about it? Not really. But how many people know that?
If I wasn't fairly confident that our democracy would not recover from what Trump has planned in a second term, I would almost say that people need to endure it to understand not to play footsie with fascists. Including the far left who seem to wait until each general election year to start politically toxic movements like "defund the police" and "globalize the intifada". It's the same way part of me wishes Bernie Sanders could have been the nominee in 2016 or 2020, just so they could see how badly he'd have been crushed by the national electorate.
But we can't afford sacrificial lessons. We have to be the adults, even if our political class, our activist class, or donor class and our corporate class all seem to be whistling past the graveyard.
The Bernie bros angered me for the longest time not just because they were delusional about his chances of winning but also about what he could actually do if he did win. I saw otherwise smart liberals brains fall out of their heads over the idea of universal healthcare arguing that he could just executive order it and republicans wouldn't be able to stop him and then the public would fall in love with it and they'd never be able to get rid of it. As if the courts didn't exist and congress wasn't responsible for funding.
There is this weird contingency on the left that really is tone deaf to the concept of optics. "Defund the police" really is a bad slogan. Try selling that to Ma and Pa Kettle in Bumfuck Nebraska that their three officer police department gets too much money. Yes, I know that's not what they meant but the rest of the country doesn't. There's a video of pro-Palestinian protesters going into a Starbucks and demanding a boycott of Israel. Far as I know, Starbucks doesn't even operate in Israel. These things matter to the outside world.
I think there are people who live in very blue parts of the country that really don't get how bad things are out in the middle.
Ah yes, just look at the ACA, which 1-Republicans in congress have obviously never tried to overturn it, and have obviously never tried literally dozens of times now, and that one was actually passed by congress. It had a filibuster proof majority to pass, it is incredibly popular with the public. That never stopped them (and same now with reproductive rights or their threats on same sex marriage).
Or 2-look at how many times Republican appointed judges have told Biden that he didn't have power to overturn by executive order....an executive order written by Trump. So you know, apparently Democratic and Republican presidents have different powers.
If you'll recall, the ACA was supposed to have a public option. Stripping it out was the only way to get it passed. The ACA as it exists now was a compromise. It was supposed to provide a lot more. And since when has something being popular stopped republicans from trying to get rid of something? Roe, anyone? I don't believe Bernie could have won. At all. This is a guy who honeymooned in the Soviet Union. And on the very unlikely chance he won, he'd have been a one term president. With his republican successor doing everything in their power to undo everything he did.
Would we have gotten to keep universal healthcare on the very unlikely possibility that it passed? Maybe. Would republicans have stripped it piecemeal of anything useful in it? Count on it. The path to overturning Roe was littered with a thousand cuts watering it down in some states to the point where it may as well have not been on the books. And that was before it was overturned. Afterward, some red states didn't notice a difference.
It would be. Embracing Putin is not a political plus for Trump. It's part of the reason his favorability has literally never been above water.
An old 20th century unreconstructed leftist who honeymooned in the USSR, played apologist for communist regimes around the world including China, and was calling for the US to transition to a state-owned economy as recently as the late 1980s, in his late 40's, right before he was elected to congress, would pay a lethal political price.
Bernie's perceived popularity and electability is based on a (frankly shockingly naive) misreading of polls that reflect him as a vessel of discontent with the political system, and as a foil to the two establishment candidates that beat him. That does not, in literally any way, suggest general electability. If Bernie had been the nominee of the Democratic Party, and taken seriously as a major general election candidate, he would have been buried with his own words and former positions within months, and would end up losing 45 states. The man is an oppo researcher's dream, and it's not all about him being a crusty old communist. The second Bernie stopped being the plucky anklebiting underdog and had the responsibility and expectation of a potential president placed on him, he'd be utterly destroyed politically by the press, by the Republican Party, and by a substantial portion of the Democratic coalition. Like McGovern before him, he'd have a very young and idealistic base of support that would have to live through a humiliating, coalition-breaking, sea-of-red defeat. Yes, even against Trump. Yes, even with as polarized as we are.
The absolute best thing that ever happened to Bernie Sanders was getting beaten by Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
The trouble is there's not much, if anything, he can do about it as President so if he's out there yelling about it the same politically unengaged people ignorantly blaming him will simply respond with "Well do something! You're the President!!".
I gotta tell you, I think an awful lot of politically engaged people who ought to know better will *also* respond with "well do something, you're the president". Social media is full of politically engaged left-wingers insisting that Biden could magically legalise abortion all over the country if he wanted to, he just can't be bothered.
All good points but I don't know if I'd call the terminally online left wingers you're talking about "politically engaged". By and large, these people don't vote, don't volunteer or campaign, and don't really talk to anybody but their fellow travelers in the epistemically closed feverswamps they occupy, other than to troll the libs. These people really aren't a constituency, but the impact they do make is just to add to the cacophony of dumb, reflexive, half-baked criticism of Biden and give the impression that Biden is under siege from "both sides", though the reality is that he's attracted the ire of both sides of the fringe horseshoe.
Which I personally think is what he should lead with. Unite the center left and center right under the banner of rule of law, liberal democracy, and American strength at home and abroad. Embrace the hatred of the illiberal left and right.
Yep, look at all the idiots who think Biden is responsible for local police forces being dumbasses. They say they don't want a dictator, but they absolutely DO. They want a person who can wave a wand and control everything and dictate that a 12-pack of Coke can be no more than $4.
You're right. They absolutely want to dictator, just one they happen to agree with. We are all just so painfully dumb and selfish. That's really all I've learned over the last 6 years.
It's wild that this election will basically be decided within 1-2 weeks of Election Day.
I hate to admit it, but I wish I could be as apathetic as the casual voter can tune out of current events for long stretches. I know this political engagement is bad for my mental health.
"Project 2025 released an 887-page document that lays out policy goals and recommendations for each part of the federal government. Buried on page 554 is a directive to execute every remaining federal death row prisoner — and to persuade the Supreme Court to expand the types of crimes that can be punished with death sentences."
So, yeah, this is kind of what we're looking at if he gets back in there.
Not even our congresspeople can be bothered to read an 887-page document (they have staffers who read and summarize things for them) so there's no way that Mr. and Mrs. America are going to even think about it. Part of the problem is that republicans have learned to bury their evil plans in piles of boring other stuff that most working people--who are busy with their jobs, kids, and trying to understand why a box of cereal costs $7--think they can ignore, while all they see are screaming clickbait headlines about scary brown people from other countries.
I mean, Texas is very much in play this year if people who care show up to vote. In the Bush years R's won 60% in state-wide Presidential contests. In Obama's two elections, the R vote share dropped to 55%, and in Trump's first two runs that fell to 52%... if that trend continues they will hit close to 50% even this year.
If nobody wastes their votes on 3rd parties and everyone living in Austin, Houston, and Dallas that is to the left of Joe Manchin, much less Joe Biden, shows up....
You know what makes greedy corporations lower their prices? When people stop buying their crap. But it seems those who have a choice are incapable of that. There are many people who don't have that luxury and are at the mercy of what's available to them at a given price. But there are enough of us who do have a choice and we're too selfish to sacrifice in ways that won't even hurt us really. I'm guilty of it too so I'm also yelling at myself.
Streaming prices go up, but people grumble and keep subscribing anyway. If enough people just stopped subscribing do we not think prices would come down? My recent favorite example is Starbucks. Record profits and still raising prices for mediocre coffee and sugar bomb drinks. But I think they are realizing they may have gone too far because they missed the quarterly mark AND they are offering coupons every week. Buy one, get one, half price day, special deal Monday. They rarely offered coupons like this, just their reward stars or whatever they are.
I'm a lucky DINK with enough money to buy food and clothes etc., without worry about costs too much. Yes, we've noticed the increases. I also have a cheap streak. I just won't buy shit because there's no reason for it to cost that much. The list of stuff I no longer buy is so long and maybe all that shows is that I bought too much shit. But you know what? It also shows that I don't need it and for the most part don't miss it. What if all of those who could "boycott" did? Would the companies not notice and do something?
Remember recently when Wendy's tried some bullshit surge pricing for their menu and they had to record scratch that back in less than 24 hours? Why? Because they knew people would stop buying. They weren't being cancelled for being woke or openly supporting anti-abortion laws. They went too far with their greed and they knew it. It's nothing new. Coke, I think tried this decades ago with surge pricing in the summer. The CEO said they would raise the price of drinks in the summer because it was hot and people would be thirstier and be willing to pay more for drinks. Again (or maybe first because it happened before Wendy's) WRONG.
So we know Biden can't "do anything about inflation" and can only do so much with regards to price gouging etc. But I also don't think we need not-for-profit grocery stores as a commenter mentioned. It's not that I think it's a bad idea, I just think we, those of us who have the power have not done enough to move the needle. Hell, people won't even stop using free stuff like Twitt(l)er so why would we expect that people who have the means to pay but grumble, do anything more than continue to grumble and pay? I don't even think we would need to give up things very long if enough people did it.
I think you've made an excellent point here. With your example of the streaming services, so many people were so mad when Netflix cracked down on sharing accounts...but how many ACTUALLY canceled their subscriptions? Same with Prime and their added commercials -- people online howled, but then when news came out about the new season of whatever their big show is, those same people are very excited to watch it. Businesses will take every inch you give them (and that is also why Libertarianism doesn't work: businesses will do absolutely everything they are allowed to get away with).
I'm not suggesting we stop buying food, but our supermarkets have a million alternatives. We don't have to buy Coke, for example. What if we just stop buying Coke for a while (not a food I know). A few years ago a 2-liter bottle was $1.19. Now it's $2.89 at my local. Coke doesn't need to be so expensive.
There are a million cereals, snacks, desserts, pastas, canned foods, coffees, basically all of the packaged goods. Don't like shrinkflation that Kellogg's did with a cereal? Don't buy it and buy the store brand or another less expensive cereal. I know sometimes they don't always taste the same/good. I stopped buying my favorite Kellogg's cereal regularly because of shrinkflation. Tried the store brand and didn't like it, so I just stopped buying it and now it's an occasional treat when I have a nostalgic craving. And with a jillion things in the store there's always a replacement if desired.
There's no dearth of alternatives and options. We may not be able to do anything about the price of eggs, milk, fresh veggies, etc. (although it's interesting that even with these when prices get too high and people stop buying they start to come down) but there sure are options about most everything else. I know not everyone has the option of rows and rows of what is essentially the same thing, but a lot of people do. And we pick up the box of our favorite brand, get mad at the price and buy it anyway. I've literally stood in an aisle too long hemming and hawing because I didn't want to pay the price but really wanted, not needed the thing. That pisses me off and I feel foolish so I just put the thing back.
I boycott a lot of things/businesses for moral reasons. And I choose not to buy things I cannot afford. Like, at this point, clothing for myself.
We're already on food stamps and going to the food bank regularly. A lot of what we buy is basic staples we cannot cut back on, and they are more expensive all the time. We don't buy a whole lot of branded food--though again that is tricky because things like having a chronic illness, or being a parent with a FT job, mean that people have to be able to save time and energy with some prepared foods in order for the meal to happen at all. Even if staples *were* cheap--which again, we agree they are not--very few of us have the good fortune to be able to consistently eat meals prepared from scratch.
Like, it's sensible and frugal to draw these lines, and I agree with them (like you I'm stubborn as hell haha), but for it to make any difference in food prices we'd all have to collectively organize in an incredibly disciplined way. We'd all have to agree to boycott Kellogg together until a specific point--and their price would probably creep up again pretty quickly once we shifted our collective attention to boycotting General Mills; as long as they stayed remained a little below the General Mills price, they'd be fine. What are we going to do, boycott both at once? You and I will lead the charge, but food and routine are a pretty entrenched thing we're not going to have a lot of people following us.
If we really want to cut our grocery budgets to the bone, we can do what my husband's family did after his dad left: have Ramen or boxed mac'n'cheese for dinner every night for weeks in a row. It's not enjoyable and it creates lifelong issues with obesity . . . but it is cheap.
:) I love a fellow stubborner and agree with your points. Your personal experience is what I meant by some people not having as many options. You should not have to do more. But there are millions who can and are too selfish to do the work short-term, never mind long term, for the reasons you say. Why is it that the far right can boycott Bud Light and a little more than a year later their sales are still suffering and the price dropped, but we can't garner enough people to give up Coke because it's too expensive? Why can't we get to "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore"? I mean we're collectively watching prices creep and creep and creep and people blame Biden and keep buying - when they don't have to.
I spend a lot of time thinking about this because I feel so helpless. I once tried to start a FB boycott. Reached out to everyone I knew. Not one person would join me or spread the word. "This is how I keep in touch with people. I'm not cutting off my lifeline." I get it. But if enough people boycotted, wouldn't they change some policies that we've all (well decent people) have been screaming about for years?
I don't want people to cut their budgets to the bone, I want corporations to lower their prices, pay their CEOs less, and stop being held captive by shareholders demanding increases by any means. And what about the comparatively smaller space of streaming services? That should be easier to address than than the myriad of food brands simply because there are less options, but no.
Clearly I don't have the answer, but I guess what I'm stuck with is the idea that if those who can withhold their dollars and the "only" negative impact is having to do something different for a while (believe me I don't take that lightly. Change is a b^%$h), don't start looking internally and deciding enough is a enough, can we really complain? P.S. If you want to try to start a movement together I'm willing to give it a go. :)
I basically don't go to restaurants unless it's something I really cannot make at home ie: meals requiring a deep fryer, a proper BBQ pit/smoker, or more skill than I have like making perfect sushi.
I have noticed that "inflation" (especially for food and consumer goods) seems to be based more on corporate greed and pandemic grift than anything else. But much like gas prices (which the POTUS also has nothing to do with) the Average American Voter really likes to vote based on these things.
I think we also need to call out the GOP solution to inflation: stick it to the poor! They’ll cut government services and programs so that those with lower/middle incomes suffer, can’t afford things, and then costs will go down.
The pandemic was a stress test for what consumers are willing to pay, and companies have increased prices/profits because they saw we were willing to pay more. The only way to get them to stop, is when consumers stop being able to afford what they’re charging…or govt intervention into price gouging.
Whether it's applicable to the current circumstances . . I'm okay with being wrong. But when we talk about how food prices have skyrocketed out-of-sync with other products' inflationary prices, this is where my historical brain goes. There was such a huge (and misguided) push from the Ford Administration to 'voluntarily' cut consumer spending, particularly in food stuffs where most Americans were raising hell about inflation.
"James Carville famously coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” during Bill Clinton’s campaign. You can’t argue that when the economy is good, and yet as good as the economy is, pizza night cost a goddamn fortune."
I'm old enough to remember the GHW Bush (the First) presidency and Clinton's election. The 1992 economy wasn't *that* awful, it just wasn't good + unemployment of previously middle-class blue collar workers & managers really stung. These folks fell squarely into Dustin's description of the 'politically uninvolved'.
Is the pizza shop thing hyperbole? I live in a small city right outside Boston, and a large pizza w/ 4 toppings at my ~20 year old indie shop (2 locations) is $23 and change. Hell, a 2 topping pizza from Bertuccis through Grubhub is $30. WTF is going on up theee?
For me, it's the delivery fees that have noticeably gone up. I can still get a large pizza delivered with basically anything/everything on it for well under $50, though...And I live in an overpriced area of the US (NYC suburbs, basically).
Food companies are making record profits. In a capitalist country, where most people claim to hate socialism/communism, things are going as they are meant to. Biden is supposed to tell Kelloggs to lower their profits? good luck. If people want to be mad about the cost of groceries, they need to look at the profits of the food companies. It's insane. They make a shit ton of money, and yet shrinkflation is a real thing, they keep making the quantity you actually get smaller, but the price higher. Also, oil companies have record profits. This shit doesn't happen at the White House, it happens in the board room, when stock prices and the happiness of share holders are all anyone cares about, prices will continue to rise. But this is how it always goes. Trump doesn't get enough blame for the insane unneeded tax cuts that helped drive inflation. All of this is so nuanced, but people look at the price at the pump and blame Biden. End of story. I hate it so much. NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING would make me vote for Trump, and it's scary to think how many people think the exact same thing about Biden, DESPITE allllll the shit on Trump. Ugh. Calgon, take me away.
"Logically, it does not make a lot of sense to us."
Logic seemingly has fuck all to do with the way the majority of Americans think. If it did, people would acknowledge no politician has the power to directly impact the cost of living, and prices don't go down unless the economy crashes, which, generally, is bad. If it did, people might, maybe, possibly give a shit when The Orange Skidmark lies right in their damn faces.
But no, "Crooked Joe" is senile, the government is prosecuting their guy because they hate him, criminals are bursting out of the hedges of every cul-de-sac., and, of course recognizing CRT and DEI and LGBTQ values are making it so you won't have a country anymore [really, the WHOLE country will vanish!].
We have 180 days to go until election day but exhaustion with the constant bullshit is looming large. Maintaining any sense of urgency on a daily basis is nigh impossible. I say it's important to take some time off and tune out. The circus will still be in town whenever you get your energy back, and we will need you.
"prices don't go down unless the economy crashes"
I heard recently that some people were complaining that prices didn't go down after the crazy inflation of 2022. I am absolutely baffled that anyone would have expected them to.
American memories are short. They've forgotten the hard grocery price inflation post-70's stagflation & post-80's Reganomics.
Wish i could put in graphics. There's a great graph & webpage at https://www.in2013dollars.com/Food/price-inflation
"Yell about it"?
Look, I read a lot of amateur punditry and have a high tolerance for useless unsolicited campaign advice, but this is nonsense. First of all, yelling about things is not what "great politicians do". Innumerable examples of great politicians who do not yell spring to mind. Second of all, if yelling and pounding the table and expressing empathic outrage is your thing, Joe Biden is constantly doing that. Which brings me to my third overarching point, which is that the common thread of all of Dustin's, and most bedwetting Biden-skeptic Democrats, moving-target critiques of Biden is that none of them seem to be paying attention to what Biden is actually doing. Just this week Dustin accused Biden of sitting idly by and doing nothing to mitigate the Israel/Gaza war. Really just lazy stuff, which a lot of people are guilty of, and feels a lot like when people in conversations refuse to listen and instead just wait for their turn to speak, crafting language in their head. So many criticisms of Biden have been for his perceived failure to do things he absolutely has in fact done or been doing.
That might be followed with another criticism of Biden - if you're doing so much great stuff, how come nobody knows about it? But Dustin should know about it. Any professional or semiprofessional political writer should. "The White House isn't getting it's message to the voters" is a weak critique when you, journalists, seem to be as poorly informed as anybody and shouldn't be relying on complex messaging strategies aimed at low information/propensity voters. It's your job to know and report the facts, not wait around passively for talking points to be handed to you.
And I'm not even gonna get into the tortured math around the reporting here on inflation. My spending on food has gone up since 2019! Well, I also make more money and have two additional humans to feed. Also this is somehow to blame for people not going to movie theaters, as opposed to the much discussed downward trend of movie attendance that has been going on for years (such a weird example of how to illustrate the consumer spending squeeze - people have the money to go to the movies they just prefer to stay home.)
We are comparing apples to oranges when we compare 2017-19 habits to 2024 habits. Inflation has been one of several factors, but nowhere close to the most important. The pandemic changed how people spend, save, and plan. It changed how they want to spend their time, where, and with whom. It changed public social engagement on a bedrock level. That's not purely, or even primarily, a result of inflation.
Also, the *target* for inflation is 2%. That's what the Fed *wants* for the American economy to be healthy and not stagnate. So from 2019 to 2024 that's 10% inflation that we *need*.
I'm not denying that inflation is a powerful political issue. But only if you conflate it with all sorts of other things that really amount to "things are different from how they used to be, somewhat recently". And only if you fail to mention any number of mitigating factors and caveats. And only if you fail to mention the successful measures that the government has put in place to curb inflation. If you say certain parts loud and other parts sotto voce. Basically, if you act like you're on Fox News and you're trying to elect Donald Trump.
But sure, Biden should yell. Well, yell more. And ignore the fact that the natural and reasonable response would be "well, you're the president".
A net increase of 15% in food prices over five years is not nothing. But it's also not Weimar Germany. And with commentary like this, we seem to be turning it into yet another unnuanced, sensationalized, binary metric like gas prices or the stock market. Arrow go up, arrow go down. I expect certain people to do this purposefully, in bad faith. I would hope other people like Dustin and others, would not fall into this trap inadvertently.
Life in America is better than live anywhere else on earth right now. Our economy is doing better. Our unemployment rates and wage growth are stellar. We are taming domestic inflation better than any other country despite it being an interconnected international phenomenon. Europe and the UK are in a zero-growth pit. China's economy is faltering. Japanese GDP is weak. Russia has been sanctioned to death. But America avoided a recession when every expert on earth thought it was impossible. We are quite literally the envy of the world and have a great, great, great economic story to tell, but the reason it can't be told is not that Biden isn't yelling loudly enough, it's because you have mealy mouth bad faith journalists saying things like "I can't believe how much food costs compared to before I had two kids! Why won't Biden do anything??".
I wish Biden touted this more!!!
“We are taming domestic inflation better than any other country despite it being an interconnected international phenomenon. Europe and the UK are in a zero-growth pit. China's economy is faltering. Japanese GDP is weak. Russia has been sanctioned to death. But America avoided a recession when every expert on earth thought it was impossible.”
He was talking about China's and Japan's economies last week....but they won't listen because he said one of the main reasons our economy is doing better than theirs is because we aren't so closed off to immigration.
He is. They don't report it. Not at Pajiba. Not at the New York Times.
I think you got a lot right in your comment except 'America is the best place to live'. Which I think you know which is why you compared America to Russia and China and not say UK, Canada, France, Netherlands. My goodness you couldn't pay me to live in America.
The saying "Capitalism is the worst form of government, except every other one that has been tried before" applies to living in America.
"America is the best country in the world, except for all the other places that are actually better". The problem with Americans is that they stop at the comma and feel cognitive dissonance if you continue on with the rest of the saying.
Most are simply incapable of understanding the rest of the world sees their country for the shithole it is becoming.
Lol America is better to live than anywhere else???? Not even close.
Democrats tried to pass price gouging bills in the last few congresses (and during the pandemic) as well as gas gouging, that addressed companies that used the pandemic as an excuse to raise prices without there being a supply chain issue, and have kept them artificially high. And of course the Republicans have refused to help pass it, although they sure complain about prices and tie it to Biden.
https://financialregnews.com/bill-introduced-in-congress-seeks-to-protect-consumers-from-price-gouging/
Wait, you mean Republicans voted against a bill that would improve something they like to carp about!?!? It's like border security all over again....
If Joe Biden (or any world leader) could do something about inflation and corporate greed coming together to really fuck us all over during the pandemic, they would have done so already. We're not the only country with these problems and the solutions remain opaque for every country on earth. It's also why right wing douchebags are doing better globally too. They can just bitch about the problem and blame a scapegoat. History sure does rhyme a lot.
I'm choosing to remain optimistic. We don't have to make the same mistakes as our great grandfathers and their great grandfathers before them. Break the fuckin wheel.
Trump's going to try to kill electric cars. He outright said so. Which brings me to the real reason I think the polls are so close: Most people don't actually know what he would do once he got back in there again. Book bans, birth control bans, telling you what clothes you can wear; these are just the beginning. Abolishing the legal guardrails that keep a president from abusing his power will be the first thing he does. Cracking down on free speech and the press will be next. I don't think most Americans can fathom what an actual dictatorship will look like.
Most people don't follow the news that closely. The MSM won't report on things like Project 2025 and right wing media certainly won't talk about it. So what does that leave? Obscure left wing media outlets no one watches. Is inflation bad? Yes. Is there much either candidate can do about it? Not really. But how many people know that?
If I wasn't fairly confident that our democracy would not recover from what Trump has planned in a second term, I would almost say that people need to endure it to understand not to play footsie with fascists. Including the far left who seem to wait until each general election year to start politically toxic movements like "defund the police" and "globalize the intifada". It's the same way part of me wishes Bernie Sanders could have been the nominee in 2016 or 2020, just so they could see how badly he'd have been crushed by the national electorate.
But we can't afford sacrificial lessons. We have to be the adults, even if our political class, our activist class, or donor class and our corporate class all seem to be whistling past the graveyard.
The Bernie bros angered me for the longest time not just because they were delusional about his chances of winning but also about what he could actually do if he did win. I saw otherwise smart liberals brains fall out of their heads over the idea of universal healthcare arguing that he could just executive order it and republicans wouldn't be able to stop him and then the public would fall in love with it and they'd never be able to get rid of it. As if the courts didn't exist and congress wasn't responsible for funding.
There is this weird contingency on the left that really is tone deaf to the concept of optics. "Defund the police" really is a bad slogan. Try selling that to Ma and Pa Kettle in Bumfuck Nebraska that their three officer police department gets too much money. Yes, I know that's not what they meant but the rest of the country doesn't. There's a video of pro-Palestinian protesters going into a Starbucks and demanding a boycott of Israel. Far as I know, Starbucks doesn't even operate in Israel. These things matter to the outside world.
I think there are people who live in very blue parts of the country that really don't get how bad things are out in the middle.
Ah yes, just look at the ACA, which 1-Republicans in congress have obviously never tried to overturn it, and have obviously never tried literally dozens of times now, and that one was actually passed by congress. It had a filibuster proof majority to pass, it is incredibly popular with the public. That never stopped them (and same now with reproductive rights or their threats on same sex marriage).
Or 2-look at how many times Republican appointed judges have told Biden that he didn't have power to overturn by executive order....an executive order written by Trump. So you know, apparently Democratic and Republican presidents have different powers.
If you'll recall, the ACA was supposed to have a public option. Stripping it out was the only way to get it passed. The ACA as it exists now was a compromise. It was supposed to provide a lot more. And since when has something being popular stopped republicans from trying to get rid of something? Roe, anyone? I don't believe Bernie could have won. At all. This is a guy who honeymooned in the Soviet Union. And on the very unlikely chance he won, he'd have been a one term president. With his republican successor doing everything in their power to undo everything he did.
Would we have gotten to keep universal healthcare on the very unlikely possibility that it passed? Maybe. Would republicans have stripped it piecemeal of anything useful in it? Count on it. The path to overturning Roe was littered with a thousand cuts watering it down in some states to the point where it may as well have not been on the books. And that was before it was overturned. Afterward, some red states didn't notice a difference.
Oh for the days when spending time in the Soviet/Putin Union would be perceived badly by the voting public....
It would be. Embracing Putin is not a political plus for Trump. It's part of the reason his favorability has literally never been above water.
An old 20th century unreconstructed leftist who honeymooned in the USSR, played apologist for communist regimes around the world including China, and was calling for the US to transition to a state-owned economy as recently as the late 1980s, in his late 40's, right before he was elected to congress, would pay a lethal political price.
Bernie's perceived popularity and electability is based on a (frankly shockingly naive) misreading of polls that reflect him as a vessel of discontent with the political system, and as a foil to the two establishment candidates that beat him. That does not, in literally any way, suggest general electability. If Bernie had been the nominee of the Democratic Party, and taken seriously as a major general election candidate, he would have been buried with his own words and former positions within months, and would end up losing 45 states. The man is an oppo researcher's dream, and it's not all about him being a crusty old communist. The second Bernie stopped being the plucky anklebiting underdog and had the responsibility and expectation of a potential president placed on him, he'd be utterly destroyed politically by the press, by the Republican Party, and by a substantial portion of the Democratic coalition. Like McGovern before him, he'd have a very young and idealistic base of support that would have to live through a humiliating, coalition-breaking, sea-of-red defeat. Yes, even against Trump. Yes, even with as polarized as we are.
The absolute best thing that ever happened to Bernie Sanders was getting beaten by Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
Yeah, but that doesn't count because they weren't "christian" back then.
The trouble is there's not much, if anything, he can do about it as President so if he's out there yelling about it the same politically unengaged people ignorantly blaming him will simply respond with "Well do something! You're the President!!".
I gotta tell you, I think an awful lot of politically engaged people who ought to know better will *also* respond with "well do something, you're the president". Social media is full of politically engaged left-wingers insisting that Biden could magically legalise abortion all over the country if he wanted to, he just can't be bothered.
All good points but I don't know if I'd call the terminally online left wingers you're talking about "politically engaged". By and large, these people don't vote, don't volunteer or campaign, and don't really talk to anybody but their fellow travelers in the epistemically closed feverswamps they occupy, other than to troll the libs. These people really aren't a constituency, but the impact they do make is just to add to the cacophony of dumb, reflexive, half-baked criticism of Biden and give the impression that Biden is under siege from "both sides", though the reality is that he's attracted the ire of both sides of the fringe horseshoe.
Which I personally think is what he should lead with. Unite the center left and center right under the banner of rule of law, liberal democracy, and American strength at home and abroad. Embrace the hatred of the illiberal left and right.
Yep, look at all the idiots who think Biden is responsible for local police forces being dumbasses. They say they don't want a dictator, but they absolutely DO. They want a person who can wave a wand and control everything and dictate that a 12-pack of Coke can be no more than $4.
You're right. They absolutely want to dictator, just one they happen to agree with. We are all just so painfully dumb and selfish. That's really all I've learned over the last 6 years.
It's wild that this election will basically be decided within 1-2 weeks of Election Day.
I hate to admit it, but I wish I could be as apathetic as the casual voter can tune out of current events for long stretches. I know this political engagement is bad for my mental health.
"Project 2025 released an 887-page document that lays out policy goals and recommendations for each part of the federal government. Buried on page 554 is a directive to execute every remaining federal death row prisoner — and to persuade the Supreme Court to expand the types of crimes that can be punished with death sentences."
So, yeah, this is kind of what we're looking at if he gets back in there.
Not even our congresspeople can be bothered to read an 887-page document (they have staffers who read and summarize things for them) so there's no way that Mr. and Mrs. America are going to even think about it. Part of the problem is that republicans have learned to bury their evil plans in piles of boring other stuff that most working people--who are busy with their jobs, kids, and trying to understand why a box of cereal costs $7--think they can ignore, while all they see are screaming clickbait headlines about scary brown people from other countries.
I mean, Texas is very much in play this year if people who care show up to vote. In the Bush years R's won 60% in state-wide Presidential contests. In Obama's two elections, the R vote share dropped to 55%, and in Trump's first two runs that fell to 52%... if that trend continues they will hit close to 50% even this year.
If nobody wastes their votes on 3rd parties and everyone living in Austin, Houston, and Dallas that is to the left of Joe Manchin, much less Joe Biden, shows up....
You know what makes greedy corporations lower their prices? When people stop buying their crap. But it seems those who have a choice are incapable of that. There are many people who don't have that luxury and are at the mercy of what's available to them at a given price. But there are enough of us who do have a choice and we're too selfish to sacrifice in ways that won't even hurt us really. I'm guilty of it too so I'm also yelling at myself.
Streaming prices go up, but people grumble and keep subscribing anyway. If enough people just stopped subscribing do we not think prices would come down? My recent favorite example is Starbucks. Record profits and still raising prices for mediocre coffee and sugar bomb drinks. But I think they are realizing they may have gone too far because they missed the quarterly mark AND they are offering coupons every week. Buy one, get one, half price day, special deal Monday. They rarely offered coupons like this, just their reward stars or whatever they are.
I'm a lucky DINK with enough money to buy food and clothes etc., without worry about costs too much. Yes, we've noticed the increases. I also have a cheap streak. I just won't buy shit because there's no reason for it to cost that much. The list of stuff I no longer buy is so long and maybe all that shows is that I bought too much shit. But you know what? It also shows that I don't need it and for the most part don't miss it. What if all of those who could "boycott" did? Would the companies not notice and do something?
Remember recently when Wendy's tried some bullshit surge pricing for their menu and they had to record scratch that back in less than 24 hours? Why? Because they knew people would stop buying. They weren't being cancelled for being woke or openly supporting anti-abortion laws. They went too far with their greed and they knew it. It's nothing new. Coke, I think tried this decades ago with surge pricing in the summer. The CEO said they would raise the price of drinks in the summer because it was hot and people would be thirstier and be willing to pay more for drinks. Again (or maybe first because it happened before Wendy's) WRONG.
So we know Biden can't "do anything about inflation" and can only do so much with regards to price gouging etc. But I also don't think we need not-for-profit grocery stores as a commenter mentioned. It's not that I think it's a bad idea, I just think we, those of us who have the power have not done enough to move the needle. Hell, people won't even stop using free stuff like Twitt(l)er so why would we expect that people who have the means to pay but grumble, do anything more than continue to grumble and pay? I don't even think we would need to give up things very long if enough people did it.
I think you've made an excellent point here. With your example of the streaming services, so many people were so mad when Netflix cracked down on sharing accounts...but how many ACTUALLY canceled their subscriptions? Same with Prime and their added commercials -- people online howled, but then when news came out about the new season of whatever their big show is, those same people are very excited to watch it. Businesses will take every inch you give them (and that is also why Libertarianism doesn't work: businesses will do absolutely everything they are allowed to get away with).
What foods are you suggesting we stop buying?
I'm not suggesting we stop buying food, but our supermarkets have a million alternatives. We don't have to buy Coke, for example. What if we just stop buying Coke for a while (not a food I know). A few years ago a 2-liter bottle was $1.19. Now it's $2.89 at my local. Coke doesn't need to be so expensive.
There are a million cereals, snacks, desserts, pastas, canned foods, coffees, basically all of the packaged goods. Don't like shrinkflation that Kellogg's did with a cereal? Don't buy it and buy the store brand or another less expensive cereal. I know sometimes they don't always taste the same/good. I stopped buying my favorite Kellogg's cereal regularly because of shrinkflation. Tried the store brand and didn't like it, so I just stopped buying it and now it's an occasional treat when I have a nostalgic craving. And with a jillion things in the store there's always a replacement if desired.
There's no dearth of alternatives and options. We may not be able to do anything about the price of eggs, milk, fresh veggies, etc. (although it's interesting that even with these when prices get too high and people stop buying they start to come down) but there sure are options about most everything else. I know not everyone has the option of rows and rows of what is essentially the same thing, but a lot of people do. And we pick up the box of our favorite brand, get mad at the price and buy it anyway. I've literally stood in an aisle too long hemming and hawing because I didn't want to pay the price but really wanted, not needed the thing. That pisses me off and I feel foolish so I just put the thing back.
I boycott a lot of things/businesses for moral reasons. And I choose not to buy things I cannot afford. Like, at this point, clothing for myself.
We're already on food stamps and going to the food bank regularly. A lot of what we buy is basic staples we cannot cut back on, and they are more expensive all the time. We don't buy a whole lot of branded food--though again that is tricky because things like having a chronic illness, or being a parent with a FT job, mean that people have to be able to save time and energy with some prepared foods in order for the meal to happen at all. Even if staples *were* cheap--which again, we agree they are not--very few of us have the good fortune to be able to consistently eat meals prepared from scratch.
Like, it's sensible and frugal to draw these lines, and I agree with them (like you I'm stubborn as hell haha), but for it to make any difference in food prices we'd all have to collectively organize in an incredibly disciplined way. We'd all have to agree to boycott Kellogg together until a specific point--and their price would probably creep up again pretty quickly once we shifted our collective attention to boycotting General Mills; as long as they stayed remained a little below the General Mills price, they'd be fine. What are we going to do, boycott both at once? You and I will lead the charge, but food and routine are a pretty entrenched thing we're not going to have a lot of people following us.
If we really want to cut our grocery budgets to the bone, we can do what my husband's family did after his dad left: have Ramen or boxed mac'n'cheese for dinner every night for weeks in a row. It's not enjoyable and it creates lifelong issues with obesity . . . but it is cheap.
:) I love a fellow stubborner and agree with your points. Your personal experience is what I meant by some people not having as many options. You should not have to do more. But there are millions who can and are too selfish to do the work short-term, never mind long term, for the reasons you say. Why is it that the far right can boycott Bud Light and a little more than a year later their sales are still suffering and the price dropped, but we can't garner enough people to give up Coke because it's too expensive? Why can't we get to "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore"? I mean we're collectively watching prices creep and creep and creep and people blame Biden and keep buying - when they don't have to.
I spend a lot of time thinking about this because I feel so helpless. I once tried to start a FB boycott. Reached out to everyone I knew. Not one person would join me or spread the word. "This is how I keep in touch with people. I'm not cutting off my lifeline." I get it. But if enough people boycotted, wouldn't they change some policies that we've all (well decent people) have been screaming about for years?
I don't want people to cut their budgets to the bone, I want corporations to lower their prices, pay their CEOs less, and stop being held captive by shareholders demanding increases by any means. And what about the comparatively smaller space of streaming services? That should be easier to address than than the myriad of food brands simply because there are less options, but no.
Clearly I don't have the answer, but I guess what I'm stuck with is the idea that if those who can withhold their dollars and the "only" negative impact is having to do something different for a while (believe me I don't take that lightly. Change is a b^%$h), don't start looking internally and deciding enough is a enough, can we really complain? P.S. If you want to try to start a movement together I'm willing to give it a go. :)
I basically don't go to restaurants unless it's something I really cannot make at home ie: meals requiring a deep fryer, a proper BBQ pit/smoker, or more skill than I have like making perfect sushi.
I have noticed that "inflation" (especially for food and consumer goods) seems to be based more on corporate greed and pandemic grift than anything else. But much like gas prices (which the POTUS also has nothing to do with) the Average American Voter really likes to vote based on these things.
I think we also need to call out the GOP solution to inflation: stick it to the poor! They’ll cut government services and programs so that those with lower/middle incomes suffer, can’t afford things, and then costs will go down.
The pandemic was a stress test for what consumers are willing to pay, and companies have increased prices/profits because they saw we were willing to pay more. The only way to get them to stop, is when consumers stop being able to afford what they’re charging…or govt intervention into price gouging.
This I don't remember personally, but when we talk about a 'weird economic circumstances' I think about the 1973-5 recession, where we first saw stagflation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973%E2%80%931975_recession_)
Whether it's applicable to the current circumstances . . I'm okay with being wrong. But when we talk about how food prices have skyrocketed out-of-sync with other products' inflationary prices, this is where my historical brain goes. There was such a huge (and misguided) push from the Ford Administration to 'voluntarily' cut consumer spending, particularly in food stuffs where most Americans were raising hell about inflation.
"James Carville famously coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” during Bill Clinton’s campaign. You can’t argue that when the economy is good, and yet as good as the economy is, pizza night cost a goddamn fortune."
I'm old enough to remember the GHW Bush (the First) presidency and Clinton's election. The 1992 economy wasn't *that* awful, it just wasn't good + unemployment of previously middle-class blue collar workers & managers really stung. These folks fell squarely into Dustin's description of the 'politically uninvolved'.
Is the pizza shop thing hyperbole? I live in a small city right outside Boston, and a large pizza w/ 4 toppings at my ~20 year old indie shop (2 locations) is $23 and change. Hell, a 2 topping pizza from Bertuccis through Grubhub is $30. WTF is going on up theee?
It is a real thing! The menu is still up on the website. It was a family favorite, but we got priced out.
https://portlandpizzajoint.com/pizza/
That’s insane
For me, it's the delivery fees that have noticeably gone up. I can still get a large pizza delivered with basically anything/everything on it for well under $50, though...And I live in an overpriced area of the US (NYC suburbs, basically).