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Trump wins presidency for second time

(thehill.com)
1796 points koolba | 22 comments | 06 Nov 24 06:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.907s | source | bottom
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drawkward ◴[06 Nov 24 15:33 UTC] No.42063854[source]▶
It's the economy, stupid:

-Inflation is not prices; it is the rate of change in prices. Low inflation doesn't imply low prices. -Aggregate statistics don't necessarily explain individual outcomes.

The Dems failed on this count massively, and have, for maybe the last 40 years, which is about the amount of time it took for my state to go from national bellwether (As goes Ohio, so goes the nation) to a reliably red state. This cost one of the most pro-union Senators (Sherrod Brown) his job.

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UncleOxidant ◴[06 Nov 24 18:23 UTC] No.42066822[source]▶
> The Dems failed on this count massively

What was their failure here? The failure to explain to the economically illiterate that while inflation is now about where it was prior to covid that prices won't be going down (unless there's some sort of major recession leading to deflation)?

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ComplexSystems ◴[06 Nov 24 19:02 UTC] No.42067493[source]▶
The failure is in this very common exchange

Average voter: I can't afford groceries at the store. Inflation sucks.

Response: Actually, here is the correct definition of "inflation." As you can see from the correct definition, inflation rates are now good! Hopefully this helps you understand why things will never get better.

What the average voter hears: I can't afford groceries. Your solution to this problem is to reframe the current situation as "good." I still can't afford groceries.

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crazygringo ◴[06 Nov 24 19:29 UTC] No.42067909[source]▶
Where are you getting that "response" from? Here's a more accurate exchange:

Average voter: I can't afford groceries at the store. Inflation sucks.

Response: I know, inflation was caused by COVID and Biden got it back down. We had the best soft landing you could have asked for, Biden did a great job. But the original inflation wasn't under the president's control, it was a worldwide phenomenon, and you can't run it in reverse to go back to old prices.

What the average voter hears: I don't care about any of that. Prices were lower under Trump and he's a businessman, so I'll vote for him so prices go back down.

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1. tyingq ◴[06 Nov 24 19:59 UTC] No.42068412[source]▶
What the average voter wants to understand, even if they don't say it this way. "Why didn't my wages/pension/etc rise at the same inflation rate as my groceries?"
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2. smileysteve ◴[06 Nov 24 20:43 UTC] No.42069057[source]▶
... The data says wages outpaced inflation.

Social security / medicare are indexed to inflation.

The s&p500 outperformed inflation. (And treasury interest rates - 3 month and 10 Year - are ~<2x cpi and cpi targets for the first time in ~20 years)

How do you convey ideas to voters when the basis of the idea is feeling vs fact, outlier vs median?

https://www.marketplace.org/2024/10/30/wage-growth-slowing-o...

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/awifactors.html

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3. dlisboa ◴[06 Nov 24 20:50 UTC] No.42069145[source]▶
> Against a bounding rise in prices, [...], one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Leon Trotsky, 1938. [1]

Automatic rise in wages to counter inflation effects on ordinary people is literally a socialist plan. What they're asking for is socialism. Right-wing Americans (supposedly) hate socialism, at least when it benefits people other than themselves.

---

[1] - https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm...

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4. ethbr1 ◴[06 Nov 24 20:53 UTC] No.42069199[source]▶
> How do you convey ideas to voters when the basis of the idea is feeling vs fact, outlier vs median?

That's the best description of what good politicians can do that I've ever heard.

5. drawkward ◴[06 Nov 24 20:55 UTC] No.42069223[source]▶
>... The data says wages outpaced inflation

The data are aggregate measures. I have no doubt that for, say, the top 20% of earners, wages did outpace inflation. Maybe the next 30% were able to tread water. The bottom 50%, however, are likely on a sinking ship.

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6. brigade ◴[06 Nov 24 21:08 UTC] No.42069417[source]▶
If you want a verifiable large-scale example, the General Schedule has only increased by 12.5% cumulative in the last 4 years, compared to 22% CPI
7. supportengineer ◴[06 Nov 24 21:16 UTC] No.42069530{3}[source]▶
Why does the richest country in the history of the world allow 50% of its workers to be on a sinking ship?

That is the question

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8. IOT_Apprentice ◴[06 Nov 24 21:21 UTC] No.42069614[source]▶
Because corporations like Walmart and various suppliers decided they could get away with increasing their prices and they blamed it on inflation. Thee isn’t federal law monitoring this.

Employers won’t give raises to match cost of living in those situations.

9. tunesmith ◴[06 Nov 24 21:24 UTC] No.42069648[source]▶
I think average and even median aren't the right way to look at this. In an atmosphere where both inflation and wages shot up and then came back down, it's the variance that kills you. Compared to a steady 2-3% growth with low variance, the raw number of people who experienced distressing adjustments, with some people profiting and others losing, is a big deal.
10. timssopomo ◴[06 Nov 24 21:32 UTC] No.42069756[source]▶
Wages in aggregate outpaced inflation in aggregate. That's not necessarily going to make it feel like your living situation has improved, especially if your consumption patterns don't perfectly match the CPI model and if you're financing major purchases. Compared to 2020, rent indices are up 30%, houses are up 50% (in value, not monthly payment - that's worse), used cars are up 30% currently but peaked at 40%. Groceries are up 26%. Costs of borrowing have skyrocketed across the board, and Americans live on financing.

If Americans own stock at all (38% don't), the majority of it is in retirement accounts.

Last year, the median income was still below 2019: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

11. holbrad ◴[06 Nov 24 21:44 UTC] No.42069931[source]▶
Do we not see the obvious cyclical death spiral such a policy could cause ?
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12. dlisboa ◴[06 Nov 24 21:53 UTC] No.42070071{3}[source]▶
That is definitely the opposing argument. Trotsky certainly realizes that it would mean the death of capitalism, which is the whole point of his socialist revolution. He's not really looking to maintain the status quo.

I was just pointing out that most right wing Americans don't realize many of their demands and reservations to their current economic climate are straight out of a socialist handbook. Political education is at an all-time low worldwide.

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13. drawkward ◴[06 Nov 24 21:57 UTC] No.42070109{4}[source]▶
Because it was bought by billionaires.
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14. WalterSear ◴[06 Nov 24 22:17 UTC] No.42070356{4}[source]▶
Because it's foundational social contracts rely too heavily on the Fundamental Attribution Error.
15. achierius ◴[06 Nov 24 22:35 UTC] No.42070601{4}[source]▶
There are people who would argue that your opposition to such policies (simply because they are part of the socialist playbook) is itself an uneducated position. It's certainly possible to go round and round calling each other uneducated because of diverging opinions on various labels, but I don't think it's a very helpful approach to take.
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16. fuzzfactor ◴[06 Nov 24 23:04 UTC] No.42070950{5}[source]▶
Not just billionaires so much as multi-billion-dollar corporations that are too big not to be stronger than (indebted) government and control politicians.

It's been a while but lots of the real gems (precious metals too) have already been sold for a profit so there's not as much upside as there was traditionally.

Without hard-asset inflation, the dollar could turn out to be one of their least-performing assets, and you know they can't have that.

17. fuzzfactor ◴[06 Nov 24 23:10 UTC] No.42071005[source]▶
>How do you convey ideas to voters when the basis of the idea is feeling vs fact, outlier vs median?

It would probably be best with deep empathy from the heart, which seems to be in extremely short supply from some camps, and nothing else seems to be working.

18. dlisboa ◴[06 Nov 24 23:14 UTC] No.42071040{5}[source]▶
I’m not arguing for or against those policies. My comment is about how most anti-socialists don’t know what socialism is or what their policies entail. If shown many socialist ideas without saying where they’re from they’d support them and would not connect them to socialism at all. That is indeed a symptom of lack of political education. You see it everywhere, it’s not a uniquely American issue.
19. fuzzfactor ◴[06 Nov 24 23:20 UTC] No.42071099{3}[source]▶
>Do we not see the obvious cyclical death spiral such a policy could cause ?

Naturally, as the prices of consumer items spirals downward, followed proportionally by decline in equivalent buying power of the wages, non-consumables like cars and homes remain within reach for fewer of the accomplished workers, and primarily only those who could be considered affluent beforehand.

Leaving everyone who is non-affluent further from prosperity even though they can still afford almost the same amount of cheap consumer items after all.

Almost.

This is by design.

The 1938 guideline was a good starting point for those who want to calculate the tolerance for the differential that could be extracted, and whether or not it would be expected to lead to revolution or something.

>straight out of a socialist handbook.

And then there's the worst-case scenario :\

20. KiwiJohnno ◴[06 Nov 24 23:39 UTC] No.42071318{4}[source]▶
And the (simplistic) answer is because many of those 50% vote Republican, because the Republicans say they will fix things and yet always make things worse for the bottom 50%
21. tyingq ◴[07 Nov 24 11:14 UTC] No.42075665{3}[source]▶
The obvious example being minimum wage earners.
22. plumarr ◴[07 Nov 24 12:31 UTC] No.42076069{3}[source]▶
For information, it's done in Belgium and there is no spiral of death : https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/inflation-of-consumer-pri...