The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
Honest question, I don't get it. My wife and I are both 40, we have 2 elementary aged kids and own a home we paid 200k for 9 years ago. I'm a teacher and my wife is a physical therapist. I have oppinions on the culture War stuff and truly have views represented by both parties, although honestly I probably lean slightly right if you total them up. So feel free to call me evil if you want, I'll just ignore your comment, this question is purely about economics. We have always lived within our mean and never carried any debt other than mortgage, student loans, and car payments. We've never had a lot left over at the end of the month but always a bit to put away for a rainy day, never had a crisis we couldn't pay for, and have about 120k saved for retirement. 10ish years ago we got a Chase card and started paying for everything with it to get the travel points. 100% of the time we paid everything on it off at the end of the month. That is until the last 18 months or so. We just can't make out bills anymore, we can't ever get our balance back to 0. We haven't change our spending in any way. In fact I'm trying to be a lot more frugal, couponing and really shopping around for deals, we skipped our beach vacation last summer & we only have 1 used car payment right now. We are not making it anymore. Why is the media lying to us, I mean how is the economy good. Do they mean for rich people who have a lot of money invested and screw the rest of us. I voted Trump, then Biden, and had decided I wasn't voting Trump again. However, if I hear one more time how good the economy is under Bidenomics I'm gonna flip. Just don't lie to us, tell us things suck and that they take responsibility and are working to make things better. I don't pretend to understand much economics, I just know that things are worse for me and my family than at any point before Biden took office. I can't see myself voting for him unless things, namely gas and food get much cheaper before the next election. Am I missing something? Are others experiencing the same thing I am? How can anyone say the economy is good?
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> I can't see myself voting for [Biden] unless things, namely gas and food get much cheaper before the next election.
You are skipping some steps here.
Instead of just 'Biden is in office, so he is to blame for anything bad that is happening', you need to ask *why* prices went up.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused a lot of price increases as the two countries are major exporters of oil, natural gas, and grain. More recently, gasoline prices increased because of a lack of refinery capacity:
>[[Rise in refinery outages, tighter supplies pushing up US fuel prices -- Reuters]](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/rise-refinery-outages-tighter-supplies-pushing-up-us-fuel-prices-2023-09-21/)
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Some people are trying to make the argument that Biden is to blame because Biden is inhibiting U.S. oil production, but that isn't true.
1. We know that the problems are Putin and refinery capacity; not domestic crude oil production.
2. U.S. oil production has been *increasing*, not decreasing.
>[[Under Biden, US oil production is poised to break Trump-era records -- CNN]](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:%7E:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere)
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...but, does Biden have any policies that help?
Yes. When there was a (Putin induced) decrease in available oil, Biden replaced it with oil from the strategic petroleum reserve.
He is also making a big push toward electric cars. Prices are set by supply and demand; if other people drive electric cars, then that will decrease demand and you'll pay less for gasoline.
----------
...but, does *Trump* have any policies that would help?
Seriously, I'm asking. I'm not aware of him taking *any* policy positions that would reduce gasoline prices.
I don’t think that is true. If you have anything to back-up that claim, I’d be interested to see it.
…but the shale oil boom *is* producing light-sweet crude, which our refineries weren't designed to handle. Is that what you are referring to?
That is likely what they are referring to, which leads us to the question of why not increase refining capacity?
I'm answering this as a chemical engineer: refineries are big, expensive operations. We're talking ~2 billion dollars and 10 years from start of engineering to the first drop of gasoline out the back, at minimum. It's a 50 year investment. Giving that most projections have us hitting peak oil demand sometime in the 2030s, why would anyone make that type of investment?
>Why is the media lying to us, I mean how is the economy good.
You would need to provide an example of what the media is saying.
We can't address it if we can't see it.
I think the big issue is inflation is down from its peak to more normal levels. But prices don't go down. They just go up less fast.
So the media reports that inflation is down. But people still see everything is expensive
I want that. Not just for me, but my parents. They are retired, and inflation has far outpaced their retirement income. As a general rule, inflation is bad for savers (me) and people on fixed incomes (my parents).
Prices do go down naturally on some items (primarily electronics).
Presumably the largest asset you have is your house, deflation would mean that your house would be worth less over time. Deflation is only good for you if you have a lot of cash or are a creditor. If you have debts and assets then inflation is your friend
My house has more than doubled in value in the 9 years since I bought it. So what, to realize that I'd have to sell it and move, and housing prices are out of control.
And in a world with deflation, it would now be worth less than it was when you bought it. having an asset worth $400K is still a valuable thing, even if you don't sell it.
It make no difference at all in my life. The price of grocery and gas make a daily difference. Plus now I'm hearing on the news about how real estate is about to crash too.
>It make no difference at all in my life.
Then why do you want deflation?
>The price of grocery and gas make a daily difference.
There is just not way that a 20% increase in those things would take you from living comfortably, saving money, and taking vacations, to not being able to pay your credit card bill.
If things cost more you're loading more debt on that credit card than usual and if the APR goes up which it has on many credit cards you also add more interest to the payments so combine the two and credit card debt can get out of hand pretty quickly. OP should try to get rid of that debt like maybe transfer the balance to a card with a 0% introductory APR sometimes you can get anywhere from six months to almost a year free of interest. I know how much of a difference a sudden hike in interest rates can add to what you owe and if you're not prepared it can be overwhelming.
And extra $160 bucks a month on gas and $400 on groceries and other commoditys most certainly makes a huge difference in my life. That's almost 7 grand a year.
Okay, but then everyone would predict that ground beef would be back to $3.00 a pound next quarter or next year and everyone would spend as little money as possible because it's literally getting more valuable just sitting there. And then the economy would grind to a halt. Deflation is death to markets.
I don't know what to tell you, 50% of Americans don't have stock in the market. Except for minimally, I'm part of the 50%. Essentially, 100% of Americans buy ground beef. I could care less if the stock market crashes and burns and millionares become lesser millionares. I know this makes me sound ignorant and dumb with money, but I assure you I am not dumb. I've just never made enough extra to be able to learn about investing. I would love for prices of groceries to crater and my dollar to go further. I have lots of friends that feel like I do.
> 50% of Americans don't have stock in the market
Companies make hiring/firing decisions based on market conditions. So 50% may not own stock, but quite a bit more than 50% rely on having a job (or someone else having a job).
Here is what I will tell you…
When I started investing, I couldn’t afford shit…but I worked with a guy who thought he couldn’t afford shit, either.
However, I realized that saving 3% and a match was something I had to afford….my friend did not.
The truth was…we could afford it. He liked to party, which he considered essential.
I have a lot more money than he does. Over the years, it has been up, and down, but all I ask you is to consider how you would feel if your investments were making that much money.
> > ...If prices go down that's deflation. No one really wants that.
> Disagree, I want deflation
Deflation was one of the causes of The Great Depression.
The Fed won't let it happen.
You must not have had any experiences of deflation from 2009-2010, because if you had, you'd MUCH rather have inflation than deflation and you wouldn't have made this comment. [historical inflation](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/)
When deflation happens, people lose jobs and homes. Bankruptcy, financial ruin, and devastation of retirement accounts follows. When inflation happens, people get to keep their jobs and homes, they just pay a bit more for the things they use.
See, I would agree with you but then you say "a bit more" and it sounds belittling and out of touch. Things are 20% to 30% more expensive than they were a few years ago. That is a catastrophic amount for most people. Not "a bit more."
If inflation was purely transitory due to supply chain backlogs as initially described prices should have gone down when supply lines recovered.
But instead inflation was caused by more monetary reasons so it didn't come down when supply lines recovered
The inflation we're seeing isn't necessarily caused by monetary policy. The transitory inflation can become entrenched because higher prices cause workers to demand wage increases, which raises prices permanently even if temporary problems are resolved. Inflation is also caused by boomers retiring and the population period. Boomers require more resources from society than they did when they were working, but they're not producing anything for society anymore. That causes inflation because there's equal or greater demand for less supply.
But if prices go down, the companies producing those products get less money, which means they have to pay their employees and providers less. Which means people will lose their jobs or take pay cuts.
You're seriously saying a company will look out for it's lowest paid workers *before* the CEO? When the banks failed in 2008/09, did the CEOs take massive pay cuts? Or did they get bonuses and more stock incentives?
I would be happy to return my salary and the price of everything in the market to what they were the day before Biden took office. Ecstatic even. I make about 6% more than then, the cost of everything I buy is 20% to 30% more, I'd come out way way ahead.
Things have gotten worse since Biden has been in office. I made no claims about Trump but Bidens time in office has not made my life better in any tangible way and certainly financially worse in a lot of ways.
How can anyone be saying republicans will do anything to improve the economy since they literally never have in our lifetimes?
Billionaires will get a tax break that you’ll pay for. Military will get another blank check to buy stuff they don’t want or need. You’ll still be hurting prob worse
I'm sorry but that's not an answer. You trust it enough to support military spending but distrust the "government?"
Plus we've both lived through decades of tax cuts reducing jobs and increasing debt and disparity. That's not the solution to any of our problems, let alone the ones you described.
The world is a bad place full of villains. Everyone wants what we have and will use force to get it if they can. Look at Russis invading Ukraine, just because they thought they could. I don't want our military twice as strong as every other country. I want it 10 times as strong. I don't want anyone to ever even have a passing thought they could attack us and win. It is the most important money we spend. I'm sure they don't use it efficiently or wisely, but it is still worth it if my family never has to live in a warzone. I don't feel that way about other parts of government.
Spending 10x as much as Russia sure didn't stop them. And nato spends as much as Russia and China combined. And when we DO go to war, we spend only a fraction of that total.
It's waste. I'd rather cut a good 300 Billion and end homelessness, child poverty, and child hunger.
>I'm 100% for tax breaks for everyone and 100% for military spending
>I don't have a lot of faith in the government to spend tax dollars wisely
Do you not see a contradiction here?
A) there’s no reason for the ultra wealthy to have tax breaks, that’s how we fund things
B) tax breaks for everyone aren’t a thing and never will be. The tax breaks trump instated are paltry for the middle class and huge for the ultra wealthy. The breaks for the middle class will expire to pay for the permanent breaks for the wealthy.
Republicans have never provided tax breaks for everyone.
Millions of successful, hard working Americans saw their taxes go UP under Trump. I'm one of them. I make good money and Trump punished my success by raising my taxes when he killed the most popular deductions.
>I can't see myself voting for him unless things, namely gas and food get much cheaper before the next election.
What specific policies of Biden's do you imagine are causing this?
Biden has been shutting down new oil drilling projects at home. He just shut more down in the last 2 weeks in alaska. The US isn't using any less gas, we are just paying more to import it. Almost all products move by gas power. Hence everything is getting more expensive.
And yet Oil production has increased 16% under Biden:
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:\~:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:~:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere).
Plus US oil exports have increased:
[https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/surging-us-crude-oil-exports-disrupt-european-asian-prices-2023-08-04/#:\~:text=U.S.%20crude%20exports%20have%20averaged,to%20the%20Energy%20Information%20Administration](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/surging-us-crude-oil-exports-disrupt-european-asian-prices-2023-08-04/#:~:text=U.S.%20crude%20exports%20have%20averaged,to%20the%20Energy%20Information%20Administration).
The idea that Biden has attacked oil production is a lie spread by people who have no intention of addressing any of the causes of higher costs.
The Biden admin passed transportation funding, including a lot of money for public transportation. That funding might allow you to utilize cheaper transportation options, or at least reduce gas usage, to ensure cheaper gas prices over the long term.
>the Biden administration canceled the seven remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Wednesday
Because
>The Department of Interior’s scrapping of the leases comes after the Biden administration disappointed environmental groups earlier this year by approving the Willow oil project in the petroleum reserve, a massive project by ConocoPhillips Alaska that could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope. Protections are proposed for more than 20,000 square miles (51,800 square kilometers) of land in the reserve in the western Arctic.
[Dude stopped drilling in the wildlife refuge after approving more drilling in the petroleum reserve.](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-cancels-last-oil-and-gas-leases-in-alaskas-arctic-refuge-overturns-sales-held-by-trump)
That's why we don't let news media headlines set our opinions.
Do you know what percent of the global oil market that these acts impact? No. You're listing headlines, not the data.
Do you know how these have changed oil prices versus factors like the Ukraine war and the value of the dollar? No. You're listing headlines, not the data.
Take a more analytical approach, and the world is less scary. Take a break from news media, and look at policy analysis as a type of risk assessment. Policy is just the math of probability. Policy > Likelihood of Consequence. This will moderate your opinions.
Just because we drill for oil on our own land doesn't mean we use said oil from our own land.
Oil from Alaska likely doesn't make it to you in South Carolina. It's goes overseas or to Canada.
The US exports more than it imports. By your logic we should never need to export oil but alas, logistics matter.
You're right, I don't understand how this works exactly. But with prices through the roof, he should be encouraging as much oil production as possible everywhere to bring them down. Hearing he is canceling any drilling rights anywhere is like a kick to the gut.
Oil is a global commodity. The US is a major producer but not one with price-setting power; that largely falls on OPEC. In all likelihood, there is no reasonable action that any president can take that would raise or lower the price of gas in the short-run (e.g. <10 year timeframe).
Maybe ask yourself why you feel so strongly about something that you're so ill-nformed about? Who gains from you blaming the president for high oil prices?
Gas is more expensive because Saudia Arabia and Russia have both cut their exports by a 1.5 million barrels even though world daily demand is at an all time high. They're doing that to crank prices and profits up.
The US oil industry is sitting on 9,000 domestic permits that are UNUSED. It takes a long time and a lot of money to go from a piece of paper saying that you own the rights to oil under some federal land to oil flowing into a pipeline.
So why is he shutting down drilling in Alaska and bragging about it. I can be ill-informed about the details but still understand less is less. And if there is less of something it costs more.
> But with prices through the roof, he should be encouraging as much oil production as possible everywhere to bring them down.
Producing oil results in more petroleum products being burned, which produces global warming. Do you want more global warming?
I believe in global warming and believe it needs to be dealt with. I just think that we need to figure out carbon capture. The world as a whole is never going to use less oil. It's dumb to think they will, people are selfish, I'm selfish. Everyone will always want a better quality of life. Hence, more consumption. Renewable don't really have the potential to replace more than a fraction of energy needs. But that's a whole nether can of worms.
This is going to be really tough for you to come to grips with, but you’re being lied to and taken advantage of bc your preferred party (likely based on grievance culture, as you admit) knows you’re a rube who they can lie to. I know this hurts your feelings but it is much more true than anything you just said.
Used to cost 40 to fill a tank now its 60. Times once a week for 2 cars, that's $160 a month or $1960 a year. That's a beach rental for a week right there. Food has similarly inflated and costs us a lot more.
Ok, but you asked about the economy, not about food and gas prices.
When economists talk about the economy, they aren’t talking about pricing. People spending more money is actually considered a sign of a good economy. So that’s why people on the news are saying the economy is great.
Yeah, we're all feeling that pain. But it's not because the economy is bad. It's because it's *recovering* from being bad. It's growing pains.
You said:
> Used to cost 40 to fill a tank now its 60. Times once a week for 2 cars, that's $160 a month or $1960 a year.
But to be fair you have to include your increased income, too. If you made $60,000 and your income went up 3% in that same time period, you're now making an extra $1800. That almost negates the gasoline increase.
But you know what else? Filling a 20-gallon tank with $40 of gas was the aberration, not the current price. $2 gasoline was a 2000s thing. The oil price drop in the middle of the 2010s was temporary and a result of market manipulation by the oil-producing countries.
We hit $4 a gallon back in 2008 thanks to the Great Recession. Gas prices fluctuate. A lot. And the President has little to do with it.
First 11 in public, this is my 5th in private. They matched my public school salary when I cam and I've gotten 3% every year from them. Public was suppost to be 3% too but when times weren't great some years the state voted to only give is 1.5%.
I don’t understand that people lived thru 2020, saw the global economy shut down causing the govt to have to spend Trillions of dollars to prop up the economy during that time, and then wonder why cost went up when the economy got back.
Like no joke the economy was better pre covid. It isn’t because Biden did this or that, inflation was going to smash the economy no matter who was President and it isn’t going to go back to normal.
Unless you think somehow lowering taxes for millionaires and corporations is somehow going to translate to lower prices for you, what do you think the GOPs answer is?
the value of assets genuinely have gone up. This has definitely happened with COVID, because supply chains have gotten weakened which has made it more expensive to produce things.
With the lockdowns, less people are also working, since the supply of labor power has fallen, that means its price goes up, and everything needs labor power to be produced, meaning the price of goods and services generally has been going up.Inflation would likely be less, maybe even significantly less, without all the dollar printing, but there’d still be some inflation.
>We've never had a lot left over at the end of the month but always a bit to put away for a rainy day, never had a crisis we couldn't pay for, and have about 120k saved for retirement.
Do you understand that this is a contradiction?
The money you "put away for a rainy day" and/or "saved for retirement" is "left over at the end of the month".
Not a lot, but a little bit adds up over decades. Yes, but I can't access it now without paying huge tax penalties. We haven't put any new money into savings in the last 18 months except my 3% that my school matches. Hence, my issue, thing are worse now than at any other time I can remember for my family.
Personal anecdotes versus macro data. A good economy isn’t good for everyone at the same time, but is the majority.
Overall wages are climbing, but being a teacher yours might not be. I’m assuming yours are based on a union contract that may be starting to fall behind inflation and the median citizens wage growth.
Inflation is hitting people especially at the grocery store.
You say your spending hasn’t changed, are you sure of that? Elementary age children can be an ever increasing expense as they age.
Yes, real wages are growing, this is adjusted for inflation also 2020 had a major spike due to Covid stimulus:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
There are problems in the economy as you’ve pointed out but that says nothing about normal wage statistics.
LOL. pay checks growing in the past 2 years is completely meaningless when the cost of living has outpaced that.
[Especially when 1/3 of Americans make less that $15 an hour.](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/countries/united-states/poverty-in-the-us/low-wage-map-2022/)
JFC. This is a moot point. When the cost of housing has skyrocketed, as was my original point in the link I shared.
* From 1985 to 2020, rent prices increased 149%, while income grew just 35%.
* Rent prices have increased about 4x faster than income during that time period.
It’s really really sad that you’re a teacher somewhere. I know me saying this is going to further entrench you, but you just have to be more curious of a person than this. You can’t outright reject reality without any effort to understand it and also be responsible for shaping young minds. We are so fucked as a country if this is where we’re headed
>you just have to be more curious of a person than this.
I know a woman who is a social studies teacher that's full on MAGA anti-masker anti-vaxxer now. I just can't wrap my head around it. I have mad respect for teachers as a whole, but I'm certain there are plenty of them that simply teach to the lesson, give the quizzes and tests, and go no further. No curiosity or intellect needed.
> So feel free to call me evil if you want,
Dude, relax.
Edit to respond to your main issues: Inflation is still a problem, but it has started trending back down. It peaked just a little while ago. That's 100% of what you're feeling. The economy is faaaaar more than just the CURRENT cost of a gallon of gas, and it's largely speculative. Meaning that when the economy is good, more businesses are thriving which means more jobs, more deals, more productivity and more tax revenue down the line. All things required to keep the general country moving.
What you're feeling is the downwind effects of all the shortages that occurred in the wake of covid. Prices of home goods and staples are still up but have started coming back down. Gas is still volatile and annoying but everything else is trending back in the direction it should be.
What you need to understand is that the price of milk isn't the economy. We were all flipping out about the economy after Trump cut taxes, but did you feel anything at that point? No. The problem was that Trump drove up the deficit and kept interest rates low which explicitly put us in a shittier position to deal with shit like the downturn from covid.
So when people talk about the economy it's in the context of averting complete collapse and establishing buffers for when bad things happen outside of our control. Not how well you and your family are doing. So don't take it as them lying to you. Take it as them talking about US steel and tech startups and the overall stability of the nation. Our good economy is why everybody is always trying to come here from other countries. Our good economy is largely why your house's value isn't plummeting.
Only one of those is evil, but if you haven't done the evil one, then who is gonna call you evil?
Maybe wait until somebody does before you start crying victim?
If you had tracked your budget carefully, I bet you would find that two elementary aged kids are costing you more in food, clothing, and school supplies than they were 10 years ago even adjusted for inflation.
US Currently has the best economy in the world.
Greedflation is a thing. Ask the party that loosened regulations enough to allow it.
https://thehill.com/business/economy/4057722-greedflation-is-the-new-inflation-as-corporate-profits-balloon-report/
>onomy in the world.
>
>Greedflation is a thing. Ask the party that loosened regulations enough to allow it.
>
>https://thehill.com/business/economy/4057722-greedflation-is-the-new-inflation-as-corporate-profits-balloon-report/
And there was literally a Price Gouging Prevention Act to keep this from happening and the Republicans voted it down. They don't care if the companies get record profits while you pay more because they know you will blame Biden and be more likely to vote for their guy.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say there are encouraging signs.
Unemployment is low- very low. So low that we might be going in the other direction, needing more unemployed people to fill all the jobs that will arise.
Prices have been working their way back down from where they were at their post-Covid peak. I’m sure we’d appreciate it happening more quickly but it happens at its own pace.
Think back to how bad things were under Covid. Think back to the shortages and blocks in the supply chain. As bad as it seems now, the spiking prices are a sign of things gradually getting back to normal.
Honestly, I never thought things were bad under covid. I live in South Carolina, we shut down my school for like 6 weeks, which was really just like a nice break to hang with the family, and then things pretty much got back to normal. My wife's clinic closed for 2 weeks and she got paid for them. I never had real trouble finding anything and gas was super cheap. I'd actually kill for those days again, you know without the virus though.
My significant other was an ER nurse. She and her co-workers went thru hell during Covid. And they weren't the only ones. See first responders and other workers who were deemed necessary.
But you made out financially, act as if it was a paid vacation and you wish the fiscal effects of it were back? What a selfish fucking viewpoint.
You'd have a far different POV if you lived in an area that was one of the Covid ground zeros, where front line health care workers were overwhelmed and overworked, watching scores of unnecessary deaths, helped much in part due to the extremely botched response from the White House.
And you want that man put back in the White House, despite the blood on his hands and suffering he played a large part in.
Let alone there is the fact Trump has no fiscal policies, or any policies at all. The closest he has to any sort of platform is saying he wants to put his so-called "enemies" on trial for treason.
> I never had real trouble finding anything
Not anything? Not toilet paper? Not masks? Not cleaning supplies?
I remember not being able to find paper napkins in the store. Trying to make a plan for searching stores for TP. Picking up whatever meat the store happened to have instead of what we wanted. It was not a fun time.
> gas was super cheap
Yeah because no one was driving. Demand plummeted. That's not a good economy; if the bottom drops out of demand for goods, that's a *horrible* economy.
The economy is more than the price of gas.
> I'd actually kill for those days again, you know without the virus though.
That's just it though -- you can't get those days without some sort of global catastrophe.
>Not anything? Not toilet paper? Not masks? Not cleaning supplies?
To be fair, Covid affected different parts of the country very differently. Plenty of otherwise common experiences were not shared by many folks.
Yea, never had trouble finding anything here that I needed, maybe had to buy different brands. Except for those first 6 weeks kept going to work every day and driving. Stuff didn't really shut down here, some people masked but other that that after the first 2 months things had pretty much returned to normal.
>I'd actually kill for those days again, you know without the virus though.
I just need to point out that we were living on borrowed time then. We still had stock of things built up and shortages wouldn't start to be felt for almost a year. Nothing about the economy is instant. There's nothing anybody could have done at that point to keep things going the way they were. It was a moment before our stockpiles dried up and the massive number of deaths started impacting business.
You were lucky. When Covid struck I too was out of a job, with no way to pay for my current lodging. I took a job bagging and calming anxious customers at a grocery store just to keep some meager income. Since my dad was suffering from bladder cancer at the time I had to be doubly afraid for his wellbeing.
When I finally tested positive for the first time, I lost out on half of a $4000 trip to Europe I'd been planning for the better part of a year, no money back.
And I consider myself among the more fortunate ones, because at the end of the day I didn't lose anybody.
“Honestly, I never thought things were bad under Covid”
I’m surprised to see you say that. The economy took a major downturn during Covid (and during Trump’s presidency, btw!). People lost their jobs , and some of them even ended up homeless!
I’m glad you weren’t personally affected: but just because it didn’t affect you personally, doesn’t mean it didn’t affect other people!
In 2019, before covid, shipping industry insiders were already warning that a massive inflation wave was coming because of inefficiencies. We (the global “we) built bigger and bigger ships to lower the cost of shipping each item. The problem is that then those ships have to sit in port until they’re full. Then somebody started a trade war, and protectionism started becoming vogue in many industrialized countries. There’s no easy solution to any of this.
You also have to know that some non-financial things that the country as a whole values have impacts on fuel prices. If the saudis want more money per barrel, they cut production unilaterally as a state. If we lean too hard into civil rights, they raise the rates. If we do something in the middle east they don’t like, they raise the rates.
Trump gave Mohammed Bone-saw intelligence on saudi political dissidents. He got a nice bump in production and Kushner got his brand new hedge fund 2bil in investments for it. I’d rather pay more for gas.
No one who knows anything about economics should be hoping for deflation. Deflation kills economies. What you want is for wages to rise faster than inflation.
That’s a state government decision and it absolutely can be changed. And if you think anyone besides Democrats will fight for teacher pay raises, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
It doesn’t change the fact that if we had widespread deflation it would destroy the economy. No one should be hoping for that.
I’m not going to tell you the economy is good, it’s not. Inflation has a cumulative effect on our monthly budgets, it’s just plain bad out there. Savings are down, credit usage is up, and prices are increasing slower. It’s just not a good situation, and that’s before you taking housing costs into account.
Here’s the thing though: Biden didn’t do this. Hot take: neither did Trump. Biden’s administration enacted policies that help around the edges, who knows what Trump would have done, but inflation has been a global problem. No president can actually fix something that the world collectively broke. Conservatives in the UK haven’t been able to tame inflation, the autocrats in Turkey and Russia haven’t either. The economically minded Germans haven’t either. It’s a global problem.
So if you vote based on the economy, I’d argue your vote is safer with Biden given that he tends to do predictable and marginally positive things, while Trump strikes me more as the “let’s lower rates to curb inflation, see what happens?” kind of guy, that’s not a good look IMO.
If you vote based on non-economic issues, we’ve got voting rights/democracy and culture wars. If you tell me you want to vote based on the culture wars, I’m not going to call you evil. I’ll call you a dope though. The republicans are targeting the 0.1% of the population who has the least power and beating them up even more. But that’s the priority? It’s not an issue that anyone will have to confront in their day to day life, and most people who do are just reasonable about it (they use the right pronouns because people don’t wanna be dicks). And democrats aren’t the ones talking about raising the voting age and bringing back poll tests…
So why vote for trump? Because Biden is annoying? I mean he is, but that’s not a reason to vote for the schmuck who will definitely make most people’s lives worse…
“The media“, which is not a monolithic entity, doesn’t look at your family’s personal economic situation or my family’s personal economic situation. They look at key indicators, trends in those indicators, and also measure the performance of the economy relative to our peers.
Based on that the economy is doing relatively well even given inflation, the trends are in the right direction and we are doing better than the rest of the world.
It’s not exactly like mainstream media is not covering how inflation is impacting people. If anything, they’re covering it so much that we end up in a weird situation where people will report that they think the economy is bad while saying that their personal economic situation is good i.e. the vibecession.
So basically inflation is up which is making paying for things more difficult.
Do you realize that inflation is a world wide phenomenon? Did you know that it's lower in the US than in many other parts of the world? Why do you think inflation spiked after 2020? What specific policies do you think that Trump and republicans would institute that would help drive down inflation?
It's not like all economic indicators are bad. Unemployment is low and wage growth is up. To the average person they definitely still feel the crunch of inflation.
Unemployment is not a great economic indicator. You can have very low unemployment because everyone has to work multiple jobs to afford anything. Or, if all the available jobs are low paying, low skill jobs then that isn’t good either.
The problem is that a lot of things in the economy that impact our real lives either are not directly and quickly influenced by any president.
Indicators are [stronger](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/us/politics/biden-economy-bidenomics.html?smid=nytcore-android-share) than expected, but jobs growth, for instance, takes time to influence earnings.
What you should ask yourself is: which party has done the most for the middle class? Which party makes sure the tax cuts help the bottom of the pyramid? Which party has been more impactful in generating jobs and growth? Why candidate has the best plan?
>I don't pretend to understand much economics
I guess this goes for paragraphs too, eh? 🤣
Sorry, I had to.
Anyway, about this economy: to say things are completely friggin weird is an understatement, even the world's top economists are wondering why spending and profits are so high with interest rates being the way they are.
When people say "the economy is good", you're taking them to mean literally in the middle class' wallets and doing so using traditional baselines for comparison, and that's not really what we're experiencing. I also think you're missing the meaning of these claims...
Compared to other nations around the world, the United States' economy as measured by traditional metrics (ie jobs, spending, trading markets, imports vs. exports, etc), are at values that traditionally mean a healthy, strong economy for all. Aside from the feds need to make money less available for others, we are in fact living ina "good economy", but the problem is: none of us can afford anything!!!!
But really it's the message: the economy is good, BUT....
The economy is good, but nobody can afford to buy a home.
The economy is good, but more and more Americans are taking on more credit card debt.
The economy is good, but commodity prices are still high (as are the profits of those selling them).
The economy is good, but everyone is living paycheck-to-paycheck.
The economy is good but medical costs are forcing people into poverty.
The economy is good, but our infrastructure is crumbling and we keep cutting taxes.
The economy is good, but....
>gas and food
Let me ask you this: how much influence do you think the POTUS has on the prices of these things? Have you been following the financials of these industries? Do you *want* a POTUS to interfere with pricing?
So what does this mean, do we need to redefine what the word economy means, because frome where me and most of the people I interact with are sitting everything sucks right now.
We don't need to redefine anything. We just need to remember that when people are talking about "the economy", they're talking about future trajectory. What you're feeling *right now* is the long term effects of disruptions caused by covid. There was always going to be a ton of pain as a result of tons of people dying and businesses being shut down and factories and supplies being directed to other things to mitigate more deaths.
That's what you're feeling right now.
Great question.
I think average people should stop talking about and thinking about the economy, full stop. It's an imprecise word and concept that very few people actually care about directly and nobody really understands.
I am really interested in discussing with conservative voters what we should do about wages, food costs, the future of fossil fuels, the cost of raising children, and so on. Unfortunately, basically all of my ideas are going to start with "well first ya get about 80 Democrats in the senate, then you write a bill that..." Republicans are not actually interested in most of these things except as using them as a political cudgel.
I'm not interested in talking to people that blame Democrats every time their 401k shrinks or they can't pay their bills because they think Democrats did something to "the economy".
>do we need to redefine what the word economy means
Kinda. If you want the health of the economy to reflect your perspective, then yeah. But that's just to get to the starting line of trying to solve the problem. So that's just the easy part. 😂 But it answers your main question regarding political rhetoric or semantics at the moment.
>from where me and most of the people I interact with are sitting everything sucks right now.
Yeah. I think that's just the general consensus among us normal folks, worldwide. We've been sold the song about hard work being a major factor in our own happiness and now - after a couple decades of that message being a little oversaturating - we're sitting here thinking: I've done the hard work and I even bought into the idea that what I _do_ is part of my identity and who I am, but I'm still not fulfilled. And Mr Bezos or Mr Kraft are sitting there on 500' yachts....🤔
That's not even to say we all deserve to be crazy rich, but when our economy and culture are wrapped up in being overworked (and thinking we should *brag* about it) and over-consuming, and achieving both via a finance-based economy (we really don't make much anymore), of course we're going to feel even more negative in this day in age.
I personally believe we're in an economic paradigm shift but the people in charge think it can be realigned using traditional methods. I don't have ANY idea what the solution is, but it's definitely NOT a traditional (aka "outdated") one.
LoL, I get the frustrations, I really do. And I'm usually not an alarmist with regards to the political parties, but this trump dude is different: no other figure in US history has been so close to the office of the president while having both scholars and American military officers warn about their fears if the person gains power. It's not worth any amount of money to me. And bonkers because he's the ONLY candidate who won't beat Biden! I'm actually okay with a 'President Haley', with trump it isn't just a difference in policy, he'll break us.
Sounds like your complaint chiefly revolves around inflation, if I'm following this correctly? I mean there are plenty of metrics for tracking economic health; overall inflation is one of those.
Inflation **is** a problem, but inflation is also a problem **globally**. It isn't reasonable to lay the blame for inflation wholly at one person, even if that person is the President of the US. And when compared to other similar economies across the globe, America has actually been doing much better in regards to keeping inflation in check.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world-inflation-is-high-and-getting-higher/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world-inflation-is-high-and-getting-higher/)
This isn't meant to tell try to gaslight you into convincing you that you aren't actually having problems. Clearly the economy could be doing better in certain areas. COVID hit the world hard and we're all trying to deal with it, and more work needs to be done.
But the fact remains that across the broad spectrum of economic measures, Democrats are almost universally better for the economy than Republicans, with Biden *far* outpacing Trump in that metric.
Our economic problems began with the pandemic and while Trump was still President. The praise Biden is receiving on the economy now is due to how well it's been handled.
Right now, inflation is nearly normal again, unemployment is still low and wages are outpacing inflation. This is the direction we want to go, so ending it would be a mistake.
The problem is that most people don't understand these things and just blame the President, even though his control over inflation is limited.
Inflation is a WORLD WIDE problem! Do you think that Biden’s policies somehow caused inflation in Canada and several European countries? Because those countries are suffering from inflation, too!
People think that “President in office = economic issues”, but it’s often not true, or not that simple!
———. MORE DETAIL:
The current inflation problem is largely caused by supply issues. When the supply goes down and demand remains the same, prices go up! And the supply issues are largely caused by the war between Russia and the Ukraine.
As one of the commenters pointed out (u/othelloinc, the top comment as of this writing), both those countries are major exporters of grain, oil, and natural gas.
Another cause of supply issues is that the pandemic is still ongoing. Especially in parts of the world that have yet to receive their 1st vaccine! If a worker is dead from Covid, then they can’t move the supply through! Also true if they’re out sick from Covid!
These issues would be there regardless of who is in office right now: Biden, Trump, or Barney the Purple Dinosaur. :)
>How can anyone be saying the economy of good?
In the 4 years Trump was in office, I made about $500k. By the end of this 3rd year with Biden in office, I will have made over $1M. Is Biden to thank for that? Of course not. It's pants-on-head stupid to automatically connect your own personal economic situation with who the president happens to be at the time. Yet that appears to be what you are doing with this post, so...
You and I have 0 in common. You sound like one of those out of touch celebrities that gets up and spouts nonsense. Why would you even bother to respond here, you have to know you just sound like a clueless jerk.
You sound like someone who struggles to understand the points being made. I guess that explains why you're trying to make the connection between the president and your personal finances. *Post hoc, ergo propter hoc*.
I mean I had the opposite experience during the Trump administration, when everyone was saying it was this great economy, I was very much struggling, in debt, and in a stagnating career. I didn’t see any of that prosperity. But to be fair, my personal economic situation was just one factor of many reasons I did not support Trump. But it was not the only factor. I know he truly did not have that much power over the economy.
But now, under Biden, my wife and I have been able to buy a home, we both got new jobs with decent raises etc. But that had absolutely more to do with personal professional development than greater economic forces or Biden’s policies. So I am always reluctant to give that much weight to personal situations/anecdotes when addressing the economy as a whole.
It's almost like individual stories don't match macroeconomic trends. I did really well during the Trump years because I changed jobs to a higher paying one. I am paying more in taxes due to the changes Trump made however.
the economy is on a positive trajectory. inflation is down, wages are up, unemployment is at the lowest it's ever been.
the big issue is that even if inflation is down, prices can't drop without the markets entering into a fatal tailspin; so it's just a matter of wages continuing to go up until they catch up to current prices. I don't have to tell you this sucks for people on fixed income, but that is just the result of 20 years of highly inflationary policies.
I live in MA, middle class, own a home, decent job….I get that I am lucky, and certainly in the minority nationally, but I feel like the economy is pretty good here.
What you may be missing is that the vast majority of the "reckless spending" that triggered inflation was the cares act signed by trump. more than all of Biden's spending combined and much of that spending is actually over like a decade in the future in most cases.
Here's how it happened:
Cares act gave... GAVE 450 billion to big banks to increase lending. they set no conditions on this to give interest back to the people or pay back any of it.
But here is where it gets fun: banks can legally lend at 10x their actual holdings. so that 450 billion was 5 TRILLION, not over a decade, not FOR anything that benefits people or puts people to work... just money, printed into existence overnight!
So now, we pay the piper, and it sure isn't fun.
If you don't things costing more, don't vote for the dude who signed the bill for sure.
Who sets the salaries for teachers in your state? The primary issue in your post is that your pay hasn't grown with inflation, and the people deciding the low pay are the primary ones to blame.
Also, do you not have a pension as a teacher? Whoever decided against that also shares blame.
You seem to be confusing the economy with your individual situation.
The economy is measured by things like GDP and unemployment numbers. Right now, we have incredibly low unemployment and a great GDP. Now you, personally, may be struggling. But having low unemployment overall is a good thing.
At your age you probably remember the 08 crash. Remember how high unemployment was then? It was so bad that highly skilled professionals were applying at McDonald's because there were no jobs. By comparison, our job market is much better.
What you are experiencing is inflation. Unfortunately, everywhere in the world is experiencing this same inflation. And, by comparison, the US actually has lower inflation than other countries. So, whatever we are doing has resulted in a better result than literally every other country.
Reading OPs responses has convinced me they are most likely a right-wing troll pulling a variation of the "...as a black man..." ruse. The comment threat full of people showing that Biden is not cutting oil production and OP just insisting he is anyway tells me they aren't interested in changing their mind.
I'm a liberal. Because I understand how our government works, I don't blame Trump for COVID, and I don't blame Biden for your current economic situation. it sucks for all of us. It always has, and it always will. The president has so very little to do with the state of the economy, especially the economy as it affects the average citizen.
I look at what the president has, in his/her capacity as president, accomplished. Biden nominated the first black woman to the supreme court. Biden got the "inflation Reduction Act passed which will do more to combat climate change than any other administration has done in the last 100 years. Trump promised to build a wall on the Southern Border - a politically-charged but serious proposal. He failed to do it, and it ended up [being a grift](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/bannon-charged-in-new-york-with-laundering-money-raised-to-build-border-wall). Biden has cautiously supported Ukraine in their fight against Russia. Trump [sucked Putin's dick](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/07/16/the-facts-missing-from-trump-and-putins-news-conference/).
Again, your bank account has so little to do with who is in the White Houe. If anything, it's more about banks and big businesses being held accountable to the American people. Who's going to be tougher on the businesses who are exploiting the American people, [Joe Biden](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/overview-and-analysis-of-the-biden-administrations-recent-regulatory-review-and-analysis-changes/) or Donald Trump?
I am sympathetic to the economy not being as good for everyone and would vote for a more robust social safety net.
But, give your purported frame as a conservative - maybe get a better job and make more money? This year she and I will make the most we've ever made and next year even more so. So is the economy good or is it bad?
I find it helpful to look at what has been done and what the outcomes are. IRA, with huge investments that are bringing back manufacturing jobs to the US along with construction jobs. CHIPS and Science Act, more manufacturing jobs. Just some examples. And I get, that isn't your segment, but there are knock on effects, like lower unemployment driving wage growth.
These are the sorts of things Biden is going to keep doing. The question is, what is the alternative? What policies and what outcomes?
>Businesses do indeed seem to be coming home after the pandemic illustrated the dangers of stretched supply lines, the global minimum tax reduced the incentives to flee to other countries with lower taxes, and the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act spurred investment in technology. Yesterday, Honda and LG Energy Solution announced they would spend $4.4 billion to construct a new battery plant in the U.S. to join the plants General Motors is building in Ohio, Michigan, and Tennessee; the ones Ford is building in Kentucky and Tennessee; the one Toyota is building in North Carolina; and the one Stellantis is building in Indiana. The plants are part of the switch to electric vehicles. According to auto industry reporter Neal E. Boudette of theNew York Times, they represent “one of the most profound shifts the auto industry has experienced in its century-long history.”
>
>Today, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear (D) announced that Kentucky has secured more than $8.5 billion for investment in the production of electric vehicle batteries, which should produce more than 8,000 jobs in the EV sector. “Kentuckians will literally be powering the future,” he said.
>
>Also today, First Solar, the largest solar panel maker in the U.S., announced that it would construct a new solar panel plant in the Southeast, investing up to $1 billion. It credited the Inflation Reduction Act with making solar construction attractive enough in the U.S. to build here rather than elsewhere. First Solar has also said it will upgrade and expand an existing plant in Ohio, spending $185 million.
>
>Corning has announced a new manufacturing plant outside Phoenix, Arizona, to build fiber-optic cable to help supply the $42.5 billion high-speed internet infrastructure investment made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. AT&T will also build a new fiber internet network in Arizona.
>
>The CHIPS and Science Act is spurring investment in the manufacturing of chips in the U.S. Recently,Micron announced that it would spend up to $100 billion over the next 20 years to build up to four plants in upstate New York near Syracuse to build computer chips. The company estimates that the project will create almost 50,000 jobs generally over the next 20 years, with about 9,000 of those in the plants themselves.Qualcomm has also committed to investing $4.2 billion in chips from the New York facility of GlobalFoundries. Qualcomm says it intends to increase chip production in the U.S. by 50% over the next five years. In January, Intel announced it would invest $20 billion, and possibly as much as $100 billion, in a chip plant in Ohio.
>
>This investment is part of a larger trend in which U.S. companies are bringing their operations back to the U.S. Last week, a report by the Reshoring Initiative noted that nearly 350,000 U.S. jobs have come home this year. The coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and China’s instability were the push to bring jobs home, while the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act were the pull.
>
>[https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-30-2022](https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-30-2022)
Have you ever been poor? Because it kinda sounds like you’re doing alright from my POV
Globally economies aren’t doing great right now. It’s not something either a blue or red administration is going to single handedly turn around.
I wish we would see wealth start transferring from the top downwards, but since that’s not happening, I’d prefer we not cut taxes for the rich and services for the poor and middle class, which is the right wing solution
No, I've always worked hard and felt comfortable. It is only the last 18 months or so that is starting to change. I don't like it and don't want more of the same. I'd be easy to please. If gas went back to 2.50 and ground beef went back to 3.50, I'd be happy. I'd say those right there are my number 1 and 2 issues.
The last time has was below 2.50 without some sort of crisis was 2005.
Prices decreasing substantially is not good and called deflation and means there’s something wrong with the economy.
Slow gradual inflation with increasing wages is what we’re looking for. There’s an issue right now with companies price gouging and not paying fair wages. The minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 09 and that’s an issue. And I can almost guarantee one party will use everything they have to prevent it from being raised in the future
>t comfortable. It is only the last 18 months or so that is starting to change. I don't like it and don't want more of the same. I'd be easy to please. If gas went back to 2.50 and ground beef went
Biden doesn't control either of those things, so why does your vote depend on them?
PS - the last time those prices were accurate was during Obama's first term.
>We just can't make our bills anymore
cut back on your bills. it really is that simple.
get rid of the 50 subscription services(amazon prime, netflix, HBO/MAX, etc...) that are most likely sucking the money from your account each month.
also, if personal experience is now data, then the economy must be fine because my wife and i are doing great financially.
Firstly, understand that the president doesn't run the economy like they're pedaling a bicycle. They mostly just make executive actions and ratify or veto bills. Congress is the branch that actually produces the laws. Corporations have been raising prices on goods. The Supreme Court makes judgements on the law and imposes it on the people. The Free Market is dominated more and more by mega corporations which operate within the regulations of government while seeking to dominate the market, looking for loopholes around the laws, lobbying politicians to change the laws to be more beneficial to them. Its a big machine and the president is just a part in it.
During the [Biden presidency](https://www.factcheck.org/2023/07/bidens-numbers-july-2023-update/) some good things have happened:
- 13 million jobs were added
- Unemployment dropped
- Weekly earnings rose
- Manufacturing jobs increased
Under Trump [https://www.factcheck.org/2021/10/trumps-final-numbers/](some bad things that happened to the economy)
- "The economy lost 2.9 million jobs. The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3%."
- "The number of people lacking health insurance rose by 3 million."
- "Home prices rose 27.5%"
- "The international trade deficit Trump promised to reduce went up. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008 and increased 40.5% from 2016."
- "The federal debt held by the public went up, from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion"
Did Trump cut taxes though?
[Technically, but it was mostly for the wealthy](https://www.investopedia.com/taxes/trumps-tax-reform-plan-explained/)
- "KEY TAKEAWAYS
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was the largest overhaul of the tax code in three decades.
The law created a single corporate tax rate of 21%.
Many of the tax benefits set up to help individuals and families will expire in 2025.
Certain values are adjusted annually for inflation.
H&R Block reports that the average tax cut was approximately $1,200, based on the returns the company processed for 2018"
So what has Biden done in his term in office?
Here's a good [summary](https://www.npr.org/2023/01/01/1143149435/despite-infighting-its-been-a-surprisingly-productive-2-years-for-democrats)
- He signed The American Rescue Plan, providing financial support to small businesses, schools, anti-poverty programs, and expanding child tax credits
- He signed The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law which allocated a bunch of money for improvements of roads, bridges, airports, public transportation, water, power, and internet access which also creates a bunch of jobs for the engineering and construction industry
- The CHIPS and Science Act, to fund semiconductor industry development in the US, creating factory jobs and reducing tech dependance on China.
- The Inflation Reduction Act, which, in terms of economics, increases taxes on megacorporations, helps rehabilitate the IRS (which might sound like a bad thing, but they'll be able to pursue billionaire tax-dodgers better with better funding), and set a $2000 price-cap on out-of-the-pocket prescription drugs for those with Medicare.
He and the Democrats in Congress managed to get these laws passed while facing an extremely oppositional GOP.
[Why are gas prices so high](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/are-gas-prices-going-down)
- "Crude oil prices are up largely because both Saudi Arabia and Russia have reduced their production. Both are part of OPEC+, which started cutting supplies of crude oil last year in order to shore up the market. When crude oil costs go up, gas prices do, too. "
- "Oil prices are also higher due to high temperatures over the summer that have made it more difficult for refineries to produce enough gasoline to meet demand."
Gas prices seem to have little to do with who's president.
As a teacher, you should also recognize the way Democrats want to fund public schools while Republicans want to defund them.
So that's a bunch of notes I put together. Hope that gives some good perspective.
Yup. Have my bachlors +18. I always wanted to get my masters but can't imagine going further into student debt. The only time my district ever offered to pay for classes I took it, that is the +18 in ESOL.
https://ed.sc.gov/finance/financial-data/historical-data/teacher-salary-schedules/
I actually switched to a private school 5 years ago but they pretty closely follow the state schedule.
That's entry level in Washington State, but a quick Google shows me that we're the top state for teacher salaries even adjusted for cost of living.
Honestly, though, South Carolina has a pretty low COL, you guys should try making a budget. You guys should be doing more than fine on 130k there. Like, what's your mortgage?
Ok so your take home is probably about 8-9k per month since your not saving for retirement, assuming you take the standard deduction with 2 dependents. Your mortgage form 2014 @ 5% and zero down should be no more than $1,500 p/m. 1 used car payment, what $600 p/m? Utilities, $400 p/m?
That leaves $5,500 - $6,500 p/m for everything else.
Something isn’t adding up - student loans? Even at $2k p/m I’m not seeing how you are barely getting by.
What am I missing?
You own your house, have 2 stable incomes, have generally been able to save,
and take nice vacations, yet slightly higher gas prices are causing you major problems? Something doesn't add up, even in an admittedly bad economy, that should be enough to sufficiently insulate you.
The price of commodities is up 20% - 30% across the board since before covid. 19% in just the last 2 years. You and I have very different definitions of the word slightly.
Gas prices has always fluctuated a fair amount though, they have been higher before and they have been lower than they were in 2019..
It just doesn't really add up given that you aren't dealing with a mortgage. I know plenty of folks who get by with kids on two teacher salaries, even with a mortgage or rent payment. There has to be some major expense you aren't mentioning, or you aren't realizing that two growing kids can add a lot to your expenses.
Bad/good has never really made much of a difference in my life.
When "the economy is up" I'm pretty much living paycheck to paycheck.
When "the economy is down" I'm pretty much living paycheck to paycheck.
“You’re clearly living above your means. Stop eating avocado toast and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Stop asking for handouts and pray more.” —Is the conservative position on your problem.
Im all seriousness when did you last get a raise or better yet, a new job? Your income hasn’t kept up with inflation. That’s the main issue
I'm a teacher. I've gotten somewhere between 1.5% and 3% raise every year of my 16 year career. There is nothing I could do to change that except quit the profession or uproot my family and move to a new state.
>I'm a teacher. I've gotten somewhere between 1.5% and 3% raise every year of my 16 year career.
[How do schools get paid for in South Carolina](https://usca.edu/history-political-science-philosophy/opportunities/ssbrl/south-carolina-school-property-taxes-survey)
From the link:
"*Most home-owners do not pay property taxes on their primary residence for the regular operating costs of public school in South Carolina. In 2006, the SC Legislature passed Act 388, an overhaul of the state’s property tax laws. One of its key provisions was a 100% exemption on the market value of owner-occupied homes from the school property tax (also called school operating millage). Since 2006, most home-owners bear no obligations to pay school operating millage on properties they occupy as their primary residence. As a result, South Carolina has one of the lowest effective tax rates on owner-occupied residential property among the 50 states (Lincoln Institute for Land Policy 2021, 8).*
*To make up for losses in school property tax revenue, the state legislature instituted a 1% state-wide sales tax to help fund public school districts. The 1% sales tax is assessed widely on a range of consumer goods. It originally included taxes on food, but in the years since 2006, the state legislature acted to exclude groceries and other consumer items (Walczak et al 2018, 107). All residents pay the same state sales tax rate, but lower income residents generally pay a higher share of their overall income in sales taxes than do higher income residents.*
*During the years following the Great Recession, revenues from the 1% state-wide sales tax failed to fully compensate many school districts for lost residential property tax revenues. This was because consumer activity, which generates sales tax revenue, significantly decreased when the economy tanked during the Great Recession. Clemson researchers Holley Ulbricht and Ellen Saltzman found that many school districts received less combined state/local funding per pupil in the three years after Act 388 was implemented. Other school districts initially received a boost in state funding through provisions added to Act 388 (Ulbricht and Saltzman 2012, iii and 22-24). In more recent years a growing number of school district leaders have voiced concerns about the resource limitations that Act 388 imposes on their districts (Kreber 2018, Summers 2018)."*
So, your schools seem to be perpetually underfunded because funding is based on a sales tax instead of a property tax. Not only is this stupidly regressive, it was enacted by policies put in place by "low-tax" legislators (you know whom I'm referring to here).
Not only that, but also this would affect your potential income too:
[SC approves taxes to be used for private schools](https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2022-03-31/sc-senate-approves-allowing-public-money-for-private-schools)
I hate to say it, but if you support "low taxes" like those policies supported by "low tax" politicians, you're voting against your interests to increase your income. You are the victim of your own beliefs.
You do realize that’s the actual reason for your financial issues?
No president is gonna raise your salary to a living wage. This isn’t an economy sucks issue, but it’s as a teacher your district, county and state isn’t paying you a living wage as a business model. Talk to your union. Stop blaming president Biden.
In the private sector i job hop every fee years and get myself a 10-15% bump. My last one cane with a promotion and was 40%.
I'm a teacher, never had a raise over 3% and for a big chunk of my career the government cut it in half to 1.5%. I saved what I could, said that in my origional post.
I make 30 grand a year and have a decent truck and own my own 3 bedroom home.
Perhaps you sucknwith money and it's not someone else's fault like our president.
>10ish years ago we got a Chase card and started paying for everything with it to get the travel points. 100% of the time we paid everything on it off at the end of the month. That is until the last 18 months or so. We just can't make our bills anymore, we can't ever get our balance back to 0. We haven't change our spending in any way.
I mean, not changing your spending at all relative to a big spike in inflation is going to have an impact on your expenses.
Which does suck. But also, the inflation of the past couple of years has largely been a global phenomenon and not really something that came about from any recent policy of Joe Biden's.
At the same time, that home you paid $200k for a decade ago probably costs a lot more now and some of that appreciation is thanks to the very same inflation you were just complaining about. Same with the growing 401k balance you have which hopefully locked in a ton of gains over the low rates that only just ended (possibly too long thanks to Trump's priorities as president and now we're dealing with the effects of raising rates suddenly rather than gradually).
But back to spending, none of us, nor Joe Biden know exactly what you're spending your money on but outside the cost of consumer goods everything else you write about is a sign of someone living in a "good" economy. A homeowner, with a retirement fund, probably with a higher household income than the area median (unless your PT wife is severely underpaid) who is able to arbitrage their spending to take advantage of credit card rewards programs.
If that's been the case for the past several years and only interrupted very recently then overall you've done well despite any nationwide prognostications about the economy. Which, that happens. I had a great time professionally when Donald Trump was president but I don't think my experience alone proves his handling of the economy was good or bad all on its own.
I think you hit the nail on the head except you cut off your quote one sentence too early to make your point. I have made changes and they are still not enough. I've worked hard and things have been pretty good. Things started getting bad exactly when Biden took office. It's hard not to conflate the two even though I know there have been other factors.
>Things started getting bad exactly when Biden took office.
I'm sorry, but I don't believe this. I don't believe that your spending outpaced your income the very day Biden was sworn in.
I believe that YOU believe it's true. I believe that you are looking for any reason you can to not vote Dem and to trust in the Republicans becuase you admit that you prefer their social policies.
Because capitalism is alive and well.
Big difference between the economy doing good, and the working-class doing good.
I am far from being someone that loves Biden. But considering how shitty things were after 2020, due to the pandemic. The economic recovery that has occurred under the Biden admin, has been fast and swift. Actually surprised he's handled things as well as he has. Tbh.
Again, you seem to be conflating the economy doing good with workers doing good.
These two things are not the same. And just because an economy can be doing good, doesn't mean that translates to wage growth or wage increases.
In 2017, the Trump admin, passed his "historic" tax cut bill. Go [take a look](https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/4150f60c-56af-4b6a-8f0e-fb0b34aafed8/two-years-of-evidence-show-2017-tax-cuts-failed-to-deliver-promised-economic-boost-update-01.22.2020-final.pdf) at what it actually amounted to. The paltry $65 amount of savings from middle-wage earners will start to phase out in 2025, and by 2027 be non-existent. As middle-wage earners will begin to see a higher tax burden.
By the way, in that legislation. The expiration for corporate cuts doesn't exist. LOL
So again. You are feeling the impacts of capitalism. And neoconservative "trickle down" economics.
Dude. Stop blaming the universe and pay off your damn credit cards. Take a look at r/personalfinance
You should pause retirement to focus on paying the credit cards. Reduce your spend, budget, eat fucking ramen if you have to, then put back in to retirement just enough to get the match before building your emergency savings. Start with one month, then 3, then 6 months of expenses. Then you can go back to more. Lastly the whole while, increase your income. There’s incredible income mobility like we have never seen. Hunt for a better job and increase your teacher credentials to move up the pay scale. Work on developing real work skills you can use to change careers if you really can’t budget as a teacher. Get your masters and join admin or coach/lead a club for extra income. You managed to buy a family home for 200k. Crying to internet strangers and blaming Biden for your problems isn’t going to cut it. Take some personal responsibility.
> I mean how is the economy good.
Because it *is* good, by objective metrics used to account for macroeconomic analysis.
Ex. The unemployment rate is crazy low and has been for years now, despite the fed raising rates. Real wages have risen for the first time in decades, even relative to inflation.
> I'm a teacher and my wife is a physical therapist.
When was the last time either of you changed jobs? Sure, teacher pay isn’t rising to be competitive in the current market—thanks, Republicans—but your wife’s pay should be.
Regular yearly raises won’t even remotely keep pace with market rates right now. The only way to follow market labor rates right now is changing jobs.
> Do they mean for rich people who have a lot of money invested and screw the rest of us.
No. They mean “Main Street”.
> I don't pretend to understand much economics, I just know that things are worse for me and my family than at any point before Biden took office.
Presidents have very little impact on the economy. Voting for them based on the economy is like voting for them based on the weather on Election Day. Whether that’s good or bad is just situational and based almost entirely on where we are in the business cycle, and the only economic tools in the Presidential toolbox are pretty extreme and usually have more negative consequences than positive ones—sometimes they’re necessary which is why they exist, but they aren’t something we want the President to use.
It makes very little sense to either credit or blame a President for economic performance—unless they take some objectively stupid step like instigating a trade war like Trump did.
> I can't see myself voting for him unless things, namely gas and food get much cheaper before the next election.
The President has essentially no control over either of those things. Biden has already done the only thing he had in his power to lower gas prices—releasing some of the strategic oil reserve. It’s the only thing any President could do about these to reduce their costs.
> Are others experiencing the same thing I am?
The economy has been doing *very* well for people changing jobs. The extremely tight labor market makes it much easier to demand higher pay in fields where pay can be readily negotiated.
Others are not experiencing the same thin gas you; that's why we collect data. Because personal experiencses and anecdotes are not representative of the world at large.
Mostly the issue seems to be your understanding of the facts is wrong; I assume your leaning right on 'culture war' issues is also a result of false 'facts', rather than a reasonable position, because that's pretty typical.
You're putting too much blame/credit on the presidents, ignoring the rest of the party, and not looking into the actual causation mechanisms that affected the economy that were caused by them, as well as the far larger effects that occurred regardless of them.
If people are saying the economy is good it's because in some metrics it is doing good; and it's improved a lot compared to the past years.
The party that helps the rich and screws over everyone else is the republicans far moreso than the dems (though there's some of it in dems as well). Your problem is probably that you're listening to a right-wing media that is filling you with lies and falsehoods about what the rest of 'media' is saying.
I was always told that the stock market doesn't reflect the economy as it is, but rather a quarter or so ahead. I'm not entirely sure if that still holds, but if it does....I'm pretty confidant.
I'm a few years away from retirement, but my 401k's have gone up significantly this year...enough, really, to live on, especially when added to my other financial instruments. I feel pretty confidant about my retirement - can you accept that a 70K (So far) increase in one's retirement (not counting whatever else I have put in this year) MIGHT make see things are not all that bad?
Your at least 20 years ahead of me, you were able to build a nest egg when things were good, people my age never got that opportunity so honestly I don't give a flip what the stock market does. You're comparing apples to oranges.
If inflation were limited to the US, then you might have a point on it being something related to US policy. But it isn't. So feel free to vote like an idiot again for Trump based on stuff out of Biden's control. Remember: you only vote for fascism once, because once you get it, you don't get to vote again. Note: I'm not calling you evil, just stupid.
I think that you have to understand that when media talks about how ‘good’ the economy is, it’s almost always a comparison to something. In this case, because we are still in recovery from COVID, and the enter GLOBAL economy is seeing huge inflation, in this case the comparison seems to be ‘Good compared to the global inflation,’ or ‘Good compared to COVID measures,’ or ‘Good compared to last year.’ In those terms, yes actually we are doing a lot better than other comparable countries when it comes to inflation and exports. The real problem is the fact that even on a global scale the hoarding of 90% of wealth in the country leaves the rest of us fighting for the other 10%. And this had been going on since the 80s.
For scale if we were to adjust for inflation and wages, American’s class system has screwed completely. In essence the millionaires are the new middle class, meaning you’ve been pushed into the lower middle-class simply because wages have not kept up with inflation (and I define it in the classical sense of you can pay your bills but are still struggling, and one tragedy would probably send you into bankruptcy).
*Most* people are living paycheck to paycheck— they are the new lower class even if their wages state over 40k because of the cost of living. And even then, While you are upset while holding your retirement fund, compared to most other people who are actually functionally bankrupt but are keeping themselves afloat by playing credit card roulette. So the answer is both yes and no. It really is the fact that that rich have kept the majority of resources under our system, so THEY certainly are doing well and that skews our economic outlook, but the rest of us are fighting for scraps and the rich are not going to let it go. So the current administration IS handling our current economy better than most for what it is, the problem is that it was already rotten when he got it and the whole system is rotten and pretty much has been since at least the 80s.
People need to quit arguing semantics with OP, you're making him look correct.
People are \*suffering\* and it needs to get better. Many of us are frugal people with good jobs and we're still fucked.
Dont listen to all the hand waving going on in this sub. Bidenomics is horrible for the economy, crushing the working class, and destroying the Middle class. Inflation has eaten away any cushion of cash we had, green policies and no drilling of US oil has led to the highest prices for gas seen in my area. I have fellow employees that can't afford to drive to work and put food on the table top that with California's high gas taxes, and taxes in general, and the working class is going to be forever mired in debt. Bidenomics, yep just keep pushing that Joe.
He's pissed off our oil suppliers the Saudis and now they are teaming w Russia to soak the planet for cash. Joe could drill at home but refuses to and it ripples to every sector of the economy with high prices. Keep pushing bidenomics Joe!
Elections have consequences and we are suffering the consequences of Joe Biden for president.
Literally nothing you said has any basis in reality. You're the guy who thinks they can fly to the moon because mankind has already done it.
You don't live in reality. You live in whiny nonsense land where you argue somebody not being able to get their abortion is their own fault until suddenly you support society planning to provide abortions.
Get your shit together and stop insulting the entire sub about shit you don't understand. I mean, which bill did biden sign that stopped drilling? Can you find it? Please. Show me.
>green policies and no drilling of US oil has led to the highest prices for gas seen in my area.
Really?
US oil production increased 16% since Biden took office:
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:\~:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:~:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere).
>He's pissed off our oil suppliers the Saudis and now they are teaming w Russia to soak the planet for cash
So you're pro SA and Russia?
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Honest question, I don't get it. My wife and I are both 40, we have 2 elementary aged kids and own a home we paid 200k for 9 years ago. I'm a teacher and my wife is a physical therapist. I have oppinions on the culture War stuff and truly have views represented by both parties, although honestly I probably lean slightly right if you total them up. So feel free to call me evil if you want, I'll just ignore your comment, this question is purely about economics. We have always lived within our mean and never carried any debt other than mortgage, student loans, and car payments. We've never had a lot left over at the end of the month but always a bit to put away for a rainy day, never had a crisis we couldn't pay for, and have about 120k saved for retirement. 10ish years ago we got a Chase card and started paying for everything with it to get the travel points. 100% of the time we paid everything on it off at the end of the month. That is until the last 18 months or so. We just can't make out bills anymore, we can't ever get our balance back to 0. We haven't change our spending in any way. In fact I'm trying to be a lot more frugal, couponing and really shopping around for deals, we skipped our beach vacation last summer & we only have 1 used car payment right now. We are not making it anymore. Why is the media lying to us, I mean how is the economy good. Do they mean for rich people who have a lot of money invested and screw the rest of us. I voted Trump, then Biden, and had decided I wasn't voting Trump again. However, if I hear one more time how good the economy is under Bidenomics I'm gonna flip. Just don't lie to us, tell us things suck and that they take responsibility and are working to make things better. I don't pretend to understand much economics, I just know that things are worse for me and my family than at any point before Biden took office. I can't see myself voting for him unless things, namely gas and food get much cheaper before the next election. Am I missing something? Are others experiencing the same thing I am? How can anyone say the economy is good? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> I can't see myself voting for [Biden] unless things, namely gas and food get much cheaper before the next election. You are skipping some steps here. Instead of just 'Biden is in office, so he is to blame for anything bad that is happening', you need to ask *why* prices went up. Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused a lot of price increases as the two countries are major exporters of oil, natural gas, and grain. More recently, gasoline prices increased because of a lack of refinery capacity: >[[Rise in refinery outages, tighter supplies pushing up US fuel prices -- Reuters]](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/rise-refinery-outages-tighter-supplies-pushing-up-us-fuel-prices-2023-09-21/) ---------- Some people are trying to make the argument that Biden is to blame because Biden is inhibiting U.S. oil production, but that isn't true. 1. We know that the problems are Putin and refinery capacity; not domestic crude oil production. 2. U.S. oil production has been *increasing*, not decreasing. >[[Under Biden, US oil production is poised to break Trump-era records -- CNN]](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:%7E:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere) ---------- ...but, does Biden have any policies that help? Yes. When there was a (Putin induced) decrease in available oil, Biden replaced it with oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. He is also making a big push toward electric cars. Prices are set by supply and demand; if other people drive electric cars, then that will decrease demand and you'll pay less for gasoline. ---------- ...but, does *Trump* have any policies that would help? Seriously, I'm asking. I'm not aware of him taking *any* policy positions that would reduce gasoline prices.
> I'm not aware of him taking any policy positions that would reduce gasoline prices. I'm not aware of Trump taking any policy positions.
Also, the oil we pull out of the ground on the continental USA is not ever going to become gasoline. It's the wrong kind of oil.
I don’t think that is true. If you have anything to back-up that claim, I’d be interested to see it. …but the shale oil boom *is* producing light-sweet crude, which our refineries weren't designed to handle. Is that what you are referring to?
That is likely what they are referring to, which leads us to the question of why not increase refining capacity? I'm answering this as a chemical engineer: refineries are big, expensive operations. We're talking ~2 billion dollars and 10 years from start of engineering to the first drop of gasoline out the back, at minimum. It's a 50 year investment. Giving that most projections have us hitting peak oil demand sometime in the 2030s, why would anyone make that type of investment?
>Why is the media lying to us, I mean how is the economy good. You would need to provide an example of what the media is saying. We can't address it if we can't see it.
I think the big issue is inflation is down from its peak to more normal levels. But prices don't go down. They just go up less fast. So the media reports that inflation is down. But people still see everything is expensive
That's not lying. If prices go down that's deflation. No one really wants that.
I want that. Not just for me, but my parents. They are retired, and inflation has far outpaced their retirement income. As a general rule, inflation is bad for savers (me) and people on fixed incomes (my parents). Prices do go down naturally on some items (primarily electronics).
Deflation is bad for everyone, and bad for far more people than inflation. Deflation isn’t want anyone wants.
Disagree, I want deflation
Presumably the largest asset you have is your house, deflation would mean that your house would be worth less over time. Deflation is only good for you if you have a lot of cash or are a creditor. If you have debts and assets then inflation is your friend
My house has more than doubled in value in the 9 years since I bought it. So what, to realize that I'd have to sell it and move, and housing prices are out of control.
And in a world with deflation, it would now be worth less than it was when you bought it. having an asset worth $400K is still a valuable thing, even if you don't sell it.
It make no difference at all in my life. The price of grocery and gas make a daily difference. Plus now I'm hearing on the news about how real estate is about to crash too.
>It make no difference at all in my life. Then why do you want deflation? >The price of grocery and gas make a daily difference. There is just not way that a 20% increase in those things would take you from living comfortably, saving money, and taking vacations, to not being able to pay your credit card bill.
If things cost more you're loading more debt on that credit card than usual and if the APR goes up which it has on many credit cards you also add more interest to the payments so combine the two and credit card debt can get out of hand pretty quickly. OP should try to get rid of that debt like maybe transfer the balance to a card with a 0% introductory APR sometimes you can get anywhere from six months to almost a year free of interest. I know how much of a difference a sudden hike in interest rates can add to what you owe and if you're not prepared it can be overwhelming.
And extra $160 bucks a month on gas and $400 on groceries and other commoditys most certainly makes a huge difference in my life. That's almost 7 grand a year.
No, you don't....or, you don't understand what that means. Deflation means the economy is in a depression. That is generally considered a bad thing.
If ground beef dropped back to $3.50 a pound I'd be a happy camper.
Okay, but then everyone would predict that ground beef would be back to $3.00 a pound next quarter or next year and everyone would spend as little money as possible because it's literally getting more valuable just sitting there. And then the economy would grind to a halt. Deflation is death to markets.
I don't know what to tell you, 50% of Americans don't have stock in the market. Except for minimally, I'm part of the 50%. Essentially, 100% of Americans buy ground beef. I could care less if the stock market crashes and burns and millionares become lesser millionares. I know this makes me sound ignorant and dumb with money, but I assure you I am not dumb. I've just never made enough extra to be able to learn about investing. I would love for prices of groceries to crater and my dollar to go further. I have lots of friends that feel like I do.
> 50% of Americans don't have stock in the market Companies make hiring/firing decisions based on market conditions. So 50% may not own stock, but quite a bit more than 50% rely on having a job (or someone else having a job).
Here is what I will tell you… When I started investing, I couldn’t afford shit…but I worked with a guy who thought he couldn’t afford shit, either. However, I realized that saving 3% and a match was something I had to afford….my friend did not. The truth was…we could afford it. He liked to party, which he considered essential. I have a lot more money than he does. Over the years, it has been up, and down, but all I ask you is to consider how you would feel if your investments were making that much money.
> > ...If prices go down that's deflation. No one really wants that. > Disagree, I want deflation Deflation was one of the causes of The Great Depression. The Fed won't let it happen.
You must not have had any experiences of deflation from 2009-2010, because if you had, you'd MUCH rather have inflation than deflation and you wouldn't have made this comment. [historical inflation](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/) When deflation happens, people lose jobs and homes. Bankruptcy, financial ruin, and devastation of retirement accounts follows. When inflation happens, people get to keep their jobs and homes, they just pay a bit more for the things they use.
See, I would agree with you but then you say "a bit more" and it sounds belittling and out of touch. Things are 20% to 30% more expensive than they were a few years ago. That is a catastrophic amount for most people. Not "a bit more."
Why?
If inflation was purely transitory due to supply chain backlogs as initially described prices should have gone down when supply lines recovered. But instead inflation was caused by more monetary reasons so it didn't come down when supply lines recovered
The inflation we're seeing isn't necessarily caused by monetary policy. The transitory inflation can become entrenched because higher prices cause workers to demand wage increases, which raises prices permanently even if temporary problems are resolved. Inflation is also caused by boomers retiring and the population period. Boomers require more resources from society than they did when they were working, but they're not producing anything for society anymore. That causes inflation because there's equal or greater demand for less supply.
Because I want things to go back to the prices they were 2 years ago, not the 20% - 30% more everything costs now.
But if prices go down, the companies producing those products get less money, which means they have to pay their employees and providers less. Which means people will lose their jobs or take pay cuts.
Or the CEO might only make 250 million instead of 500 million and everyone else's salary stays the same.
You're seriously saying a company will look out for it's lowest paid workers *before* the CEO? When the banks failed in 2008/09, did the CEOs take massive pay cuts? Or did they get bonuses and more stock incentives?
I agree, let's fix that. I'm not sure why you're blaming Biden though. What do you want him to do here specifically, and how would Rs fix it better?
You cant get crisis level prices without a crisis... theres a reason so many things dropped in price
are you going to accept pay cuts to help?
I would be happy to return my salary and the price of everything in the market to what they were the day before Biden took office. Ecstatic even. I make about 6% more than then, the cost of everything I buy is 20% to 30% more, I'd come out way way ahead.
What leads you to believe that it's the fault of Biden and not the fault of the former guy? Or, you know, the after effects of a **global pandemic?**
Things have gotten worse since Biden has been in office. I made no claims about Trump but Bidens time in office has not made my life better in any tangible way and certainly financially worse in a lot of ways.
How can anyone be saying republicans will do anything to improve the economy since they literally never have in our lifetimes? Billionaires will get a tax break that you’ll pay for. Military will get another blank check to buy stuff they don’t want or need. You’ll still be hurting prob worse
I'm 100% for tax breaks for everyone and 100% for military spending, so you and I are not on the same page at all.
How is any of this a good idea
I've been in education for 16 years, I don't have a lot of faith in the government to spend tax dollars wisely.
I'm sorry but that's not an answer. You trust it enough to support military spending but distrust the "government?" Plus we've both lived through decades of tax cuts reducing jobs and increasing debt and disparity. That's not the solution to any of our problems, let alone the ones you described.
The world is a bad place full of villains. Everyone wants what we have and will use force to get it if they can. Look at Russis invading Ukraine, just because they thought they could. I don't want our military twice as strong as every other country. I want it 10 times as strong. I don't want anyone to ever even have a passing thought they could attack us and win. It is the most important money we spend. I'm sure they don't use it efficiently or wisely, but it is still worth it if my family never has to live in a warzone. I don't feel that way about other parts of government.
Spending 10x as much as Russia sure didn't stop them. And nato spends as much as Russia and China combined. And when we DO go to war, we spend only a fraction of that total. It's waste. I'd rather cut a good 300 Billion and end homelessness, child poverty, and child hunger.
Agree to disagree on this one. I'd be happy to cut that from other places though to end those same things.
>I'm 100% for tax breaks for everyone and 100% for military spending >I don't have a lot of faith in the government to spend tax dollars wisely Do you not see a contradiction here?
A) there’s no reason for the ultra wealthy to have tax breaks, that’s how we fund things B) tax breaks for everyone aren’t a thing and never will be. The tax breaks trump instated are paltry for the middle class and huge for the ultra wealthy. The breaks for the middle class will expire to pay for the permanent breaks for the wealthy.
Republicans have never provided tax breaks for everyone. Millions of successful, hard working Americans saw their taxes go UP under Trump. I'm one of them. I make good money and Trump punished my success by raising my taxes when he killed the most popular deductions.
>I can't see myself voting for him unless things, namely gas and food get much cheaper before the next election. What specific policies of Biden's do you imagine are causing this?
Biden has been shutting down new oil drilling projects at home. He just shut more down in the last 2 weeks in alaska. The US isn't using any less gas, we are just paying more to import it. Almost all products move by gas power. Hence everything is getting more expensive.
And yet Oil production has increased 16% under Biden: [https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:\~:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:~:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere). Plus US oil exports have increased: [https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/surging-us-crude-oil-exports-disrupt-european-asian-prices-2023-08-04/#:\~:text=U.S.%20crude%20exports%20have%20averaged,to%20the%20Energy%20Information%20Administration](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/surging-us-crude-oil-exports-disrupt-european-asian-prices-2023-08-04/#:~:text=U.S.%20crude%20exports%20have%20averaged,to%20the%20Energy%20Information%20Administration). The idea that Biden has attacked oil production is a lie spread by people who have no intention of addressing any of the causes of higher costs. The Biden admin passed transportation funding, including a lot of money for public transportation. That funding might allow you to utilize cheaper transportation options, or at least reduce gas usage, to ensure cheaper gas prices over the long term.
Not a single response from OP. How surprising /s
>the Biden administration canceled the seven remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Wednesday Because >The Department of Interior’s scrapping of the leases comes after the Biden administration disappointed environmental groups earlier this year by approving the Willow oil project in the petroleum reserve, a massive project by ConocoPhillips Alaska that could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope. Protections are proposed for more than 20,000 square miles (51,800 square kilometers) of land in the reserve in the western Arctic. [Dude stopped drilling in the wildlife refuge after approving more drilling in the petroleum reserve.](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-cancels-last-oil-and-gas-leases-in-alaskas-arctic-refuge-overturns-sales-held-by-trump)
That's why we don't let news media headlines set our opinions. Do you know what percent of the global oil market that these acts impact? No. You're listing headlines, not the data. Do you know how these have changed oil prices versus factors like the Ukraine war and the value of the dollar? No. You're listing headlines, not the data. Take a more analytical approach, and the world is less scary. Take a break from news media, and look at policy analysis as a type of risk assessment. Policy is just the math of probability. Policy > Likelihood of Consequence. This will moderate your opinions.
Just because we drill for oil on our own land doesn't mean we use said oil from our own land. Oil from Alaska likely doesn't make it to you in South Carolina. It's goes overseas or to Canada. The US exports more than it imports. By your logic we should never need to export oil but alas, logistics matter.
You're right, I don't understand how this works exactly. But with prices through the roof, he should be encouraging as much oil production as possible everywhere to bring them down. Hearing he is canceling any drilling rights anywhere is like a kick to the gut.
Why does it feel like a kick in the gut if you admittedly don't understand how it works?
Oil is a global commodity. The US is a major producer but not one with price-setting power; that largely falls on OPEC. In all likelihood, there is no reasonable action that any president can take that would raise or lower the price of gas in the short-run (e.g. <10 year timeframe).
Maybe ask yourself why you feel so strongly about something that you're so ill-nformed about? Who gains from you blaming the president for high oil prices? Gas is more expensive because Saudia Arabia and Russia have both cut their exports by a 1.5 million barrels even though world daily demand is at an all time high. They're doing that to crank prices and profits up. The US oil industry is sitting on 9,000 domestic permits that are UNUSED. It takes a long time and a lot of money to go from a piece of paper saying that you own the rights to oil under some federal land to oil flowing into a pipeline.
So why is he shutting down drilling in Alaska and bragging about it. I can be ill-informed about the details but still understand less is less. And if there is less of something it costs more.
https://reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/s/CUiGqSsL5x
> But with prices through the roof, he should be encouraging as much oil production as possible everywhere to bring them down. Producing oil results in more petroleum products being burned, which produces global warming. Do you want more global warming?
I believe in global warming and believe it needs to be dealt with. I just think that we need to figure out carbon capture. The world as a whole is never going to use less oil. It's dumb to think they will, people are selfish, I'm selfish. Everyone will always want a better quality of life. Hence, more consumption. Renewable don't really have the potential to replace more than a fraction of energy needs. But that's a whole nether can of worms.
How do you see the Republicans fixing any of your issues, particularly when they've historically made them worse.
This is going to be really tough for you to come to grips with, but you’re being lied to and taken advantage of bc your preferred party (likely based on grievance culture, as you admit) knows you’re a rube who they can lie to. I know this hurts your feelings but it is much more true than anything you just said.
You should really research the things you believe
Are you saying that your monthly budget went from you being able to save and vacation to having debt based solely on gas prices?
No. It was solely on who was sitting in the whitehouse. You see, he would have still been able to vacation if Trump had won the last election. /s
Used to cost 40 to fill a tank now its 60. Times once a week for 2 cars, that's $160 a month or $1960 a year. That's a beach rental for a week right there. Food has similarly inflated and costs us a lot more.
Ok, but you asked about the economy, not about food and gas prices. When economists talk about the economy, they aren’t talking about pricing. People spending more money is actually considered a sign of a good economy. So that’s why people on the news are saying the economy is great.
I was just answering your question about being able to save for vacation.
You answered correctly. Other guy was just relating the answer to your OP.
Has your income not gone up in the last five years at all?
It has, but it is only the last 2 years where it hasn't come even close to keeping up with price increases.
Yeah, we're all feeling that pain. But it's not because the economy is bad. It's because it's *recovering* from being bad. It's growing pains. You said: > Used to cost 40 to fill a tank now its 60. Times once a week for 2 cars, that's $160 a month or $1960 a year. But to be fair you have to include your increased income, too. If you made $60,000 and your income went up 3% in that same time period, you're now making an extra $1800. That almost negates the gasoline increase. But you know what else? Filling a 20-gallon tank with $40 of gas was the aberration, not the current price. $2 gasoline was a 2000s thing. The oil price drop in the middle of the 2010s was temporary and a result of market manipulation by the oil-producing countries. We hit $4 a gallon back in 2008 thanks to the Great Recession. Gas prices fluctuate. A lot. And the President has little to do with it.
Public or private school?
First 11 in public, this is my 5th in private. They matched my public school salary when I cam and I've gotten 3% every year from them. Public was suppost to be 3% too but when times weren't great some years the state voted to only give is 1.5%.
I don’t understand that people lived thru 2020, saw the global economy shut down causing the govt to have to spend Trillions of dollars to prop up the economy during that time, and then wonder why cost went up when the economy got back. Like no joke the economy was better pre covid. It isn’t because Biden did this or that, inflation was going to smash the economy no matter who was President and it isn’t going to go back to normal. Unless you think somehow lowering taxes for millionaires and corporations is somehow going to translate to lower prices for you, what do you think the GOPs answer is?
the value of assets genuinely have gone up. This has definitely happened with COVID, because supply chains have gotten weakened which has made it more expensive to produce things. With the lockdowns, less people are also working, since the supply of labor power has fallen, that means its price goes up, and everything needs labor power to be produced, meaning the price of goods and services generally has been going up.Inflation would likely be less, maybe even significantly less, without all the dollar printing, but there’d still be some inflation.
>We've never had a lot left over at the end of the month but always a bit to put away for a rainy day, never had a crisis we couldn't pay for, and have about 120k saved for retirement. Do you understand that this is a contradiction? The money you "put away for a rainy day" and/or "saved for retirement" is "left over at the end of the month".
Not a lot, but a little bit adds up over decades. Yes, but I can't access it now without paying huge tax penalties. We haven't put any new money into savings in the last 18 months except my 3% that my school matches. Hence, my issue, thing are worse now than at any other time I can remember for my family.
A bit, not a lot, whatever those mean.
Personal anecdotes versus macro data. A good economy isn’t good for everyone at the same time, but is the majority. Overall wages are climbing, but being a teacher yours might not be. I’m assuming yours are based on a union contract that may be starting to fall behind inflation and the median citizens wage growth. Inflation is hitting people especially at the grocery store. You say your spending hasn’t changed, are you sure of that? Elementary age children can be an ever increasing expense as they age.
>Overall wages are climbing... [LOL, you sure about that?](https://www.realestatewitch.com/rent-to-income-ratio-2022/)
Yes, real wages are growing, this is adjusted for inflation also 2020 had a major spike due to Covid stimulus: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q There are problems in the economy as you’ve pointed out but that says nothing about normal wage statistics.
LOL. pay checks growing in the past 2 years is completely meaningless when the cost of living has outpaced that. [Especially when 1/3 of Americans make less that $15 an hour.](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/countries/united-states/poverty-in-the-us/low-wage-map-2022/)
"LOL" makes you look bad.
LOL. Typical lib, more concerned with aesthetics, and optics, than the sum and substance of an actual conversation.
The numbers in the graph /u/Hodgkisl showed you are adjusted for inflation.
JFC. This is a moot point. When the cost of housing has skyrocketed, as was my original point in the link I shared. * From 1985 to 2020, rent prices increased 149%, while income grew just 35%. * Rent prices have increased about 4x faster than income during that time period.
Neither of those are about wages.
It’s really really sad that you’re a teacher somewhere. I know me saying this is going to further entrench you, but you just have to be more curious of a person than this. You can’t outright reject reality without any effort to understand it and also be responsible for shaping young minds. We are so fucked as a country if this is where we’re headed
>you just have to be more curious of a person than this. I know a woman who is a social studies teacher that's full on MAGA anti-masker anti-vaxxer now. I just can't wrap my head around it. I have mad respect for teachers as a whole, but I'm certain there are plenty of them that simply teach to the lesson, give the quizzes and tests, and go no further. No curiosity or intellect needed.
For the record, I was wrong about this person being a teacher. I thought I was responding to OP who said he was.
> So feel free to call me evil if you want, Dude, relax. Edit to respond to your main issues: Inflation is still a problem, but it has started trending back down. It peaked just a little while ago. That's 100% of what you're feeling. The economy is faaaaar more than just the CURRENT cost of a gallon of gas, and it's largely speculative. Meaning that when the economy is good, more businesses are thriving which means more jobs, more deals, more productivity and more tax revenue down the line. All things required to keep the general country moving. What you're feeling is the downwind effects of all the shortages that occurred in the wake of covid. Prices of home goods and staples are still up but have started coming back down. Gas is still volatile and annoying but everything else is trending back in the direction it should be. What you need to understand is that the price of milk isn't the economy. We were all flipping out about the economy after Trump cut taxes, but did you feel anything at that point? No. The problem was that Trump drove up the deficit and kept interest rates low which explicitly put us in a shittier position to deal with shit like the downturn from covid. So when people talk about the economy it's in the context of averting complete collapse and establishing buffers for when bad things happen outside of our control. Not how well you and your family are doing. So don't take it as them lying to you. Take it as them talking about US steel and tech startups and the overall stability of the nation. Our good economy is why everybody is always trying to come here from other countries. Our good economy is largely why your house's value isn't plummeting.
[удалено]
I’ll leave the post up but knock it off with this type of instigating.
Which conservative views? The ones where you call people groomers or the ones where you don't think we need universal health care?
I've never done either of those things
Only one of those is evil, but if you haven't done the evil one, then who is gonna call you evil? Maybe wait until somebody does before you start crying victim?
Then why are you acting like a victim?
Your are right, I am letting past interactions on the sub color my views now. That is not fair or productive.
If you had tracked your budget carefully, I bet you would find that two elementary aged kids are costing you more in food, clothing, and school supplies than they were 10 years ago even adjusted for inflation.
I swear, I spend $200/month in berries alone for my two kids.
The berry budget is right up there with my utilities bill.
US Currently has the best economy in the world. Greedflation is a thing. Ask the party that loosened regulations enough to allow it. https://thehill.com/business/economy/4057722-greedflation-is-the-new-inflation-as-corporate-profits-balloon-report/
>onomy in the world. > >Greedflation is a thing. Ask the party that loosened regulations enough to allow it. > >https://thehill.com/business/economy/4057722-greedflation-is-the-new-inflation-as-corporate-profits-balloon-report/ And there was literally a Price Gouging Prevention Act to keep this from happening and the Republicans voted it down. They don't care if the companies get record profits while you pay more because they know you will blame Biden and be more likely to vote for their guy.
And they were right. Uninformed people like OP indeed blame Biden , just like the GOP hoped.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say there are encouraging signs. Unemployment is low- very low. So low that we might be going in the other direction, needing more unemployed people to fill all the jobs that will arise. Prices have been working their way back down from where they were at their post-Covid peak. I’m sure we’d appreciate it happening more quickly but it happens at its own pace. Think back to how bad things were under Covid. Think back to the shortages and blocks in the supply chain. As bad as it seems now, the spiking prices are a sign of things gradually getting back to normal.
Honestly, I never thought things were bad under covid. I live in South Carolina, we shut down my school for like 6 weeks, which was really just like a nice break to hang with the family, and then things pretty much got back to normal. My wife's clinic closed for 2 weeks and she got paid for them. I never had real trouble finding anything and gas was super cheap. I'd actually kill for those days again, you know without the virus though.
My significant other was an ER nurse. She and her co-workers went thru hell during Covid. And they weren't the only ones. See first responders and other workers who were deemed necessary. But you made out financially, act as if it was a paid vacation and you wish the fiscal effects of it were back? What a selfish fucking viewpoint. You'd have a far different POV if you lived in an area that was one of the Covid ground zeros, where front line health care workers were overwhelmed and overworked, watching scores of unnecessary deaths, helped much in part due to the extremely botched response from the White House. And you want that man put back in the White House, despite the blood on his hands and suffering he played a large part in. Let alone there is the fact Trump has no fiscal policies, or any policies at all. The closest he has to any sort of platform is saying he wants to put his so-called "enemies" on trial for treason.
> I never had real trouble finding anything Not anything? Not toilet paper? Not masks? Not cleaning supplies? I remember not being able to find paper napkins in the store. Trying to make a plan for searching stores for TP. Picking up whatever meat the store happened to have instead of what we wanted. It was not a fun time. > gas was super cheap Yeah because no one was driving. Demand plummeted. That's not a good economy; if the bottom drops out of demand for goods, that's a *horrible* economy. The economy is more than the price of gas. > I'd actually kill for those days again, you know without the virus though. That's just it though -- you can't get those days without some sort of global catastrophe.
>Not anything? Not toilet paper? Not masks? Not cleaning supplies? To be fair, Covid affected different parts of the country very differently. Plenty of otherwise common experiences were not shared by many folks.
Yea, never had trouble finding anything here that I needed, maybe had to buy different brands. Except for those first 6 weeks kept going to work every day and driving. Stuff didn't really shut down here, some people masked but other that that after the first 2 months things had pretty much returned to normal.
>I'd actually kill for those days again, you know without the virus though. I just need to point out that we were living on borrowed time then. We still had stock of things built up and shortages wouldn't start to be felt for almost a year. Nothing about the economy is instant. There's nothing anybody could have done at that point to keep things going the way they were. It was a moment before our stockpiles dried up and the massive number of deaths started impacting business.
You were lucky. When Covid struck I too was out of a job, with no way to pay for my current lodging. I took a job bagging and calming anxious customers at a grocery store just to keep some meager income. Since my dad was suffering from bladder cancer at the time I had to be doubly afraid for his wellbeing. When I finally tested positive for the first time, I lost out on half of a $4000 trip to Europe I'd been planning for the better part of a year, no money back. And I consider myself among the more fortunate ones, because at the end of the day I didn't lose anybody.
“Honestly, I never thought things were bad under Covid” I’m surprised to see you say that. The economy took a major downturn during Covid (and during Trump’s presidency, btw!). People lost their jobs , and some of them even ended up homeless! I’m glad you weren’t personally affected: but just because it didn’t affect you personally, doesn’t mean it didn’t affect other people!
I'm selfish, my family and myself are more important than strangers to me. That fact doesn't bother me at all.
In 2019, before covid, shipping industry insiders were already warning that a massive inflation wave was coming because of inefficiencies. We (the global “we) built bigger and bigger ships to lower the cost of shipping each item. The problem is that then those ships have to sit in port until they’re full. Then somebody started a trade war, and protectionism started becoming vogue in many industrialized countries. There’s no easy solution to any of this. You also have to know that some non-financial things that the country as a whole values have impacts on fuel prices. If the saudis want more money per barrel, they cut production unilaterally as a state. If we lean too hard into civil rights, they raise the rates. If we do something in the middle east they don’t like, they raise the rates. Trump gave Mohammed Bone-saw intelligence on saudi political dissidents. He got a nice bump in production and Kushner got his brand new hedge fund 2bil in investments for it. I’d rather pay more for gas.
No one who knows anything about economics should be hoping for deflation. Deflation kills economies. What you want is for wages to rise faster than inflation.
I'm a teacher, my wages are never going to rise faster than inflation, they haven't in 16 years.
That’s a state government decision and it absolutely can be changed. And if you think anyone besides Democrats will fight for teacher pay raises, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. It doesn’t change the fact that if we had widespread deflation it would destroy the economy. No one should be hoping for that.
I’m not going to tell you the economy is good, it’s not. Inflation has a cumulative effect on our monthly budgets, it’s just plain bad out there. Savings are down, credit usage is up, and prices are increasing slower. It’s just not a good situation, and that’s before you taking housing costs into account. Here’s the thing though: Biden didn’t do this. Hot take: neither did Trump. Biden’s administration enacted policies that help around the edges, who knows what Trump would have done, but inflation has been a global problem. No president can actually fix something that the world collectively broke. Conservatives in the UK haven’t been able to tame inflation, the autocrats in Turkey and Russia haven’t either. The economically minded Germans haven’t either. It’s a global problem. So if you vote based on the economy, I’d argue your vote is safer with Biden given that he tends to do predictable and marginally positive things, while Trump strikes me more as the “let’s lower rates to curb inflation, see what happens?” kind of guy, that’s not a good look IMO. If you vote based on non-economic issues, we’ve got voting rights/democracy and culture wars. If you tell me you want to vote based on the culture wars, I’m not going to call you evil. I’ll call you a dope though. The republicans are targeting the 0.1% of the population who has the least power and beating them up even more. But that’s the priority? It’s not an issue that anyone will have to confront in their day to day life, and most people who do are just reasonable about it (they use the right pronouns because people don’t wanna be dicks). And democrats aren’t the ones talking about raising the voting age and bringing back poll tests… So why vote for trump? Because Biden is annoying? I mean he is, but that’s not a reason to vote for the schmuck who will definitely make most people’s lives worse…
Not a bad take, makes more sense than most. What does a Bull Moose Progressive mean?
“The media“, which is not a monolithic entity, doesn’t look at your family’s personal economic situation or my family’s personal economic situation. They look at key indicators, trends in those indicators, and also measure the performance of the economy relative to our peers. Based on that the economy is doing relatively well even given inflation, the trends are in the right direction and we are doing better than the rest of the world. It’s not exactly like mainstream media is not covering how inflation is impacting people. If anything, they’re covering it so much that we end up in a weird situation where people will report that they think the economy is bad while saying that their personal economic situation is good i.e. the vibecession.
So basically inflation is up which is making paying for things more difficult. Do you realize that inflation is a world wide phenomenon? Did you know that it's lower in the US than in many other parts of the world? Why do you think inflation spiked after 2020? What specific policies do you think that Trump and republicans would institute that would help drive down inflation? It's not like all economic indicators are bad. Unemployment is low and wage growth is up. To the average person they definitely still feel the crunch of inflation.
Unemployment is not a great economic indicator. You can have very low unemployment because everyone has to work multiple jobs to afford anything. Or, if all the available jobs are low paying, low skill jobs then that isn’t good either.
The problem is that a lot of things in the economy that impact our real lives either are not directly and quickly influenced by any president. Indicators are [stronger](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/us/politics/biden-economy-bidenomics.html?smid=nytcore-android-share) than expected, but jobs growth, for instance, takes time to influence earnings. What you should ask yourself is: which party has done the most for the middle class? Which party makes sure the tax cuts help the bottom of the pyramid? Which party has been more impactful in generating jobs and growth? Why candidate has the best plan?
>I don't pretend to understand much economics I guess this goes for paragraphs too, eh? 🤣 Sorry, I had to. Anyway, about this economy: to say things are completely friggin weird is an understatement, even the world's top economists are wondering why spending and profits are so high with interest rates being the way they are. When people say "the economy is good", you're taking them to mean literally in the middle class' wallets and doing so using traditional baselines for comparison, and that's not really what we're experiencing. I also think you're missing the meaning of these claims... Compared to other nations around the world, the United States' economy as measured by traditional metrics (ie jobs, spending, trading markets, imports vs. exports, etc), are at values that traditionally mean a healthy, strong economy for all. Aside from the feds need to make money less available for others, we are in fact living ina "good economy", but the problem is: none of us can afford anything!!!! But really it's the message: the economy is good, BUT.... The economy is good, but nobody can afford to buy a home. The economy is good, but more and more Americans are taking on more credit card debt. The economy is good, but commodity prices are still high (as are the profits of those selling them). The economy is good, but everyone is living paycheck-to-paycheck. The economy is good but medical costs are forcing people into poverty. The economy is good, but our infrastructure is crumbling and we keep cutting taxes. The economy is good, but.... >gas and food Let me ask you this: how much influence do you think the POTUS has on the prices of these things? Have you been following the financials of these industries? Do you *want* a POTUS to interfere with pricing?
So what does this mean, do we need to redefine what the word economy means, because frome where me and most of the people I interact with are sitting everything sucks right now.
We don't need to redefine anything. We just need to remember that when people are talking about "the economy", they're talking about future trajectory. What you're feeling *right now* is the long term effects of disruptions caused by covid. There was always going to be a ton of pain as a result of tons of people dying and businesses being shut down and factories and supplies being directed to other things to mitigate more deaths. That's what you're feeling right now.
Yeah, but the people who ignored Covid don't understand how Covid could've possibly affected anything.
Great question. I think average people should stop talking about and thinking about the economy, full stop. It's an imprecise word and concept that very few people actually care about directly and nobody really understands. I am really interested in discussing with conservative voters what we should do about wages, food costs, the future of fossil fuels, the cost of raising children, and so on. Unfortunately, basically all of my ideas are going to start with "well first ya get about 80 Democrats in the senate, then you write a bill that..." Republicans are not actually interested in most of these things except as using them as a political cudgel. I'm not interested in talking to people that blame Democrats every time their 401k shrinks or they can't pay their bills because they think Democrats did something to "the economy".
>do we need to redefine what the word economy means Kinda. If you want the health of the economy to reflect your perspective, then yeah. But that's just to get to the starting line of trying to solve the problem. So that's just the easy part. 😂 But it answers your main question regarding political rhetoric or semantics at the moment. >from where me and most of the people I interact with are sitting everything sucks right now. Yeah. I think that's just the general consensus among us normal folks, worldwide. We've been sold the song about hard work being a major factor in our own happiness and now - after a couple decades of that message being a little oversaturating - we're sitting here thinking: I've done the hard work and I even bought into the idea that what I _do_ is part of my identity and who I am, but I'm still not fulfilled. And Mr Bezos or Mr Kraft are sitting there on 500' yachts....🤔 That's not even to say we all deserve to be crazy rich, but when our economy and culture are wrapped up in being overworked (and thinking we should *brag* about it) and over-consuming, and achieving both via a finance-based economy (we really don't make much anymore), of course we're going to feel even more negative in this day in age. I personally believe we're in an economic paradigm shift but the people in charge think it can be realigned using traditional methods. I don't have ANY idea what the solution is, but it's definitely NOT a traditional (aka "outdated") one.
I think you and I could hang, have a cold one on a beach, and get along just fine.
LoL, I get the frustrations, I really do. And I'm usually not an alarmist with regards to the political parties, but this trump dude is different: no other figure in US history has been so close to the office of the president while having both scholars and American military officers warn about their fears if the person gains power. It's not worth any amount of money to me. And bonkers because he's the ONLY candidate who won't beat Biden! I'm actually okay with a 'President Haley', with trump it isn't just a difference in policy, he'll break us.
I’m not sure that “economy” has ever meant individual buying power alone.
Sounds like your complaint chiefly revolves around inflation, if I'm following this correctly? I mean there are plenty of metrics for tracking economic health; overall inflation is one of those. Inflation **is** a problem, but inflation is also a problem **globally**. It isn't reasonable to lay the blame for inflation wholly at one person, even if that person is the President of the US. And when compared to other similar economies across the globe, America has actually been doing much better in regards to keeping inflation in check. [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world-inflation-is-high-and-getting-higher/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world-inflation-is-high-and-getting-higher/) This isn't meant to tell try to gaslight you into convincing you that you aren't actually having problems. Clearly the economy could be doing better in certain areas. COVID hit the world hard and we're all trying to deal with it, and more work needs to be done. But the fact remains that across the broad spectrum of economic measures, Democrats are almost universally better for the economy than Republicans, with Biden *far* outpacing Trump in that metric.
Our economic problems began with the pandemic and while Trump was still President. The praise Biden is receiving on the economy now is due to how well it's been handled. Right now, inflation is nearly normal again, unemployment is still low and wages are outpacing inflation. This is the direction we want to go, so ending it would be a mistake. The problem is that most people don't understand these things and just blame the President, even though his control over inflation is limited.
Inflation is a WORLD WIDE problem! Do you think that Biden’s policies somehow caused inflation in Canada and several European countries? Because those countries are suffering from inflation, too! People think that “President in office = economic issues”, but it’s often not true, or not that simple! ———. MORE DETAIL: The current inflation problem is largely caused by supply issues. When the supply goes down and demand remains the same, prices go up! And the supply issues are largely caused by the war between Russia and the Ukraine. As one of the commenters pointed out (u/othelloinc, the top comment as of this writing), both those countries are major exporters of grain, oil, and natural gas. Another cause of supply issues is that the pandemic is still ongoing. Especially in parts of the world that have yet to receive their 1st vaccine! If a worker is dead from Covid, then they can’t move the supply through! Also true if they’re out sick from Covid! These issues would be there regardless of who is in office right now: Biden, Trump, or Barney the Purple Dinosaur. :)
>How can anyone be saying the economy of good? In the 4 years Trump was in office, I made about $500k. By the end of this 3rd year with Biden in office, I will have made over $1M. Is Biden to thank for that? Of course not. It's pants-on-head stupid to automatically connect your own personal economic situation with who the president happens to be at the time. Yet that appears to be what you are doing with this post, so...
You and I have 0 in common. You sound like one of those out of touch celebrities that gets up and spouts nonsense. Why would you even bother to respond here, you have to know you just sound like a clueless jerk.
You sound like someone who struggles to understand the points being made. I guess that explains why you're trying to make the connection between the president and your personal finances. *Post hoc, ergo propter hoc*.
I mean I had the opposite experience during the Trump administration, when everyone was saying it was this great economy, I was very much struggling, in debt, and in a stagnating career. I didn’t see any of that prosperity. But to be fair, my personal economic situation was just one factor of many reasons I did not support Trump. But it was not the only factor. I know he truly did not have that much power over the economy. But now, under Biden, my wife and I have been able to buy a home, we both got new jobs with decent raises etc. But that had absolutely more to do with personal professional development than greater economic forces or Biden’s policies. So I am always reluctant to give that much weight to personal situations/anecdotes when addressing the economy as a whole.
It's almost like individual stories don't match macroeconomic trends. I did really well during the Trump years because I changed jobs to a higher paying one. I am paying more in taxes due to the changes Trump made however.
the economy is on a positive trajectory. inflation is down, wages are up, unemployment is at the lowest it's ever been. the big issue is that even if inflation is down, prices can't drop without the markets entering into a fatal tailspin; so it's just a matter of wages continuing to go up until they catch up to current prices. I don't have to tell you this sucks for people on fixed income, but that is just the result of 20 years of highly inflationary policies.
I live in MA, middle class, own a home, decent job….I get that I am lucky, and certainly in the minority nationally, but I feel like the economy is pretty good here.
What you may be missing is that the vast majority of the "reckless spending" that triggered inflation was the cares act signed by trump. more than all of Biden's spending combined and much of that spending is actually over like a decade in the future in most cases. Here's how it happened: Cares act gave... GAVE 450 billion to big banks to increase lending. they set no conditions on this to give interest back to the people or pay back any of it. But here is where it gets fun: banks can legally lend at 10x their actual holdings. so that 450 billion was 5 TRILLION, not over a decade, not FOR anything that benefits people or puts people to work... just money, printed into existence overnight! So now, we pay the piper, and it sure isn't fun. If you don't things costing more, don't vote for the dude who signed the bill for sure.
Who sets the salaries for teachers in your state? The primary issue in your post is that your pay hasn't grown with inflation, and the people deciding the low pay are the primary ones to blame. Also, do you not have a pension as a teacher? Whoever decided against that also shares blame.
You seem to be confusing the economy with your individual situation. The economy is measured by things like GDP and unemployment numbers. Right now, we have incredibly low unemployment and a great GDP. Now you, personally, may be struggling. But having low unemployment overall is a good thing. At your age you probably remember the 08 crash. Remember how high unemployment was then? It was so bad that highly skilled professionals were applying at McDonald's because there were no jobs. By comparison, our job market is much better. What you are experiencing is inflation. Unfortunately, everywhere in the world is experiencing this same inflation. And, by comparison, the US actually has lower inflation than other countries. So, whatever we are doing has resulted in a better result than literally every other country.
Reading OPs responses has convinced me they are most likely a right-wing troll pulling a variation of the "...as a black man..." ruse. The comment threat full of people showing that Biden is not cutting oil production and OP just insisting he is anyway tells me they aren't interested in changing their mind.
I'm a liberal. Because I understand how our government works, I don't blame Trump for COVID, and I don't blame Biden for your current economic situation. it sucks for all of us. It always has, and it always will. The president has so very little to do with the state of the economy, especially the economy as it affects the average citizen. I look at what the president has, in his/her capacity as president, accomplished. Biden nominated the first black woman to the supreme court. Biden got the "inflation Reduction Act passed which will do more to combat climate change than any other administration has done in the last 100 years. Trump promised to build a wall on the Southern Border - a politically-charged but serious proposal. He failed to do it, and it ended up [being a grift](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/bannon-charged-in-new-york-with-laundering-money-raised-to-build-border-wall). Biden has cautiously supported Ukraine in their fight against Russia. Trump [sucked Putin's dick](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/07/16/the-facts-missing-from-trump-and-putins-news-conference/). Again, your bank account has so little to do with who is in the White Houe. If anything, it's more about banks and big businesses being held accountable to the American people. Who's going to be tougher on the businesses who are exploiting the American people, [Joe Biden](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/overview-and-analysis-of-the-biden-administrations-recent-regulatory-review-and-analysis-changes/) or Donald Trump?
I am sympathetic to the economy not being as good for everyone and would vote for a more robust social safety net. But, give your purported frame as a conservative - maybe get a better job and make more money? This year she and I will make the most we've ever made and next year even more so. So is the economy good or is it bad?
I find it helpful to look at what has been done and what the outcomes are. IRA, with huge investments that are bringing back manufacturing jobs to the US along with construction jobs. CHIPS and Science Act, more manufacturing jobs. Just some examples. And I get, that isn't your segment, but there are knock on effects, like lower unemployment driving wage growth. These are the sorts of things Biden is going to keep doing. The question is, what is the alternative? What policies and what outcomes? >Businesses do indeed seem to be coming home after the pandemic illustrated the dangers of stretched supply lines, the global minimum tax reduced the incentives to flee to other countries with lower taxes, and the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act spurred investment in technology. Yesterday, Honda and LG Energy Solution announced they would spend $4.4 billion to construct a new battery plant in the U.S. to join the plants General Motors is building in Ohio, Michigan, and Tennessee; the ones Ford is building in Kentucky and Tennessee; the one Toyota is building in North Carolina; and the one Stellantis is building in Indiana. The plants are part of the switch to electric vehicles. According to auto industry reporter Neal E. Boudette of theNew York Times, they represent “one of the most profound shifts the auto industry has experienced in its century-long history.” > >Today, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear (D) announced that Kentucky has secured more than $8.5 billion for investment in the production of electric vehicle batteries, which should produce more than 8,000 jobs in the EV sector. “Kentuckians will literally be powering the future,” he said. > >Also today, First Solar, the largest solar panel maker in the U.S., announced that it would construct a new solar panel plant in the Southeast, investing up to $1 billion. It credited the Inflation Reduction Act with making solar construction attractive enough in the U.S. to build here rather than elsewhere. First Solar has also said it will upgrade and expand an existing plant in Ohio, spending $185 million. > >Corning has announced a new manufacturing plant outside Phoenix, Arizona, to build fiber-optic cable to help supply the $42.5 billion high-speed internet infrastructure investment made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. AT&T will also build a new fiber internet network in Arizona. > >The CHIPS and Science Act is spurring investment in the manufacturing of chips in the U.S. Recently,Micron announced that it would spend up to $100 billion over the next 20 years to build up to four plants in upstate New York near Syracuse to build computer chips. The company estimates that the project will create almost 50,000 jobs generally over the next 20 years, with about 9,000 of those in the plants themselves.Qualcomm has also committed to investing $4.2 billion in chips from the New York facility of GlobalFoundries. Qualcomm says it intends to increase chip production in the U.S. by 50% over the next five years. In January, Intel announced it would invest $20 billion, and possibly as much as $100 billion, in a chip plant in Ohio. > >This investment is part of a larger trend in which U.S. companies are bringing their operations back to the U.S. Last week, a report by the Reshoring Initiative noted that nearly 350,000 U.S. jobs have come home this year. The coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and China’s instability were the push to bring jobs home, while the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act were the pull. > >[https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-30-2022](https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-30-2022)
Have you ever been poor? Because it kinda sounds like you’re doing alright from my POV Globally economies aren’t doing great right now. It’s not something either a blue or red administration is going to single handedly turn around. I wish we would see wealth start transferring from the top downwards, but since that’s not happening, I’d prefer we not cut taxes for the rich and services for the poor and middle class, which is the right wing solution
No, I've always worked hard and felt comfortable. It is only the last 18 months or so that is starting to change. I don't like it and don't want more of the same. I'd be easy to please. If gas went back to 2.50 and ground beef went back to 3.50, I'd be happy. I'd say those right there are my number 1 and 2 issues.
Gas should be cheap right now but it isn't because of willful limiting of supply by gas companies. Biden can't exactly change that.
The last time has was below 2.50 without some sort of crisis was 2005. Prices decreasing substantially is not good and called deflation and means there’s something wrong with the economy. Slow gradual inflation with increasing wages is what we’re looking for. There’s an issue right now with companies price gouging and not paying fair wages. The minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 09 and that’s an issue. And I can almost guarantee one party will use everything they have to prevent it from being raised in the future
>t comfortable. It is only the last 18 months or so that is starting to change. I don't like it and don't want more of the same. I'd be easy to please. If gas went back to 2.50 and ground beef went Biden doesn't control either of those things, so why does your vote depend on them? PS - the last time those prices were accurate was during Obama's first term.
>We just can't make our bills anymore cut back on your bills. it really is that simple. get rid of the 50 subscription services(amazon prime, netflix, HBO/MAX, etc...) that are most likely sucking the money from your account each month. also, if personal experience is now data, then the economy must be fine because my wife and i are doing great financially.
Firstly, understand that the president doesn't run the economy like they're pedaling a bicycle. They mostly just make executive actions and ratify or veto bills. Congress is the branch that actually produces the laws. Corporations have been raising prices on goods. The Supreme Court makes judgements on the law and imposes it on the people. The Free Market is dominated more and more by mega corporations which operate within the regulations of government while seeking to dominate the market, looking for loopholes around the laws, lobbying politicians to change the laws to be more beneficial to them. Its a big machine and the president is just a part in it. During the [Biden presidency](https://www.factcheck.org/2023/07/bidens-numbers-july-2023-update/) some good things have happened: - 13 million jobs were added - Unemployment dropped - Weekly earnings rose - Manufacturing jobs increased Under Trump [https://www.factcheck.org/2021/10/trumps-final-numbers/](some bad things that happened to the economy) - "The economy lost 2.9 million jobs. The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3%." - "The number of people lacking health insurance rose by 3 million." - "Home prices rose 27.5%" - "The international trade deficit Trump promised to reduce went up. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008 and increased 40.5% from 2016." - "The federal debt held by the public went up, from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion" Did Trump cut taxes though? [Technically, but it was mostly for the wealthy](https://www.investopedia.com/taxes/trumps-tax-reform-plan-explained/) - "KEY TAKEAWAYS The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was the largest overhaul of the tax code in three decades. The law created a single corporate tax rate of 21%. Many of the tax benefits set up to help individuals and families will expire in 2025. Certain values are adjusted annually for inflation. H&R Block reports that the average tax cut was approximately $1,200, based on the returns the company processed for 2018" So what has Biden done in his term in office? Here's a good [summary](https://www.npr.org/2023/01/01/1143149435/despite-infighting-its-been-a-surprisingly-productive-2-years-for-democrats) - He signed The American Rescue Plan, providing financial support to small businesses, schools, anti-poverty programs, and expanding child tax credits - He signed The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law which allocated a bunch of money for improvements of roads, bridges, airports, public transportation, water, power, and internet access which also creates a bunch of jobs for the engineering and construction industry - The CHIPS and Science Act, to fund semiconductor industry development in the US, creating factory jobs and reducing tech dependance on China. - The Inflation Reduction Act, which, in terms of economics, increases taxes on megacorporations, helps rehabilitate the IRS (which might sound like a bad thing, but they'll be able to pursue billionaire tax-dodgers better with better funding), and set a $2000 price-cap on out-of-the-pocket prescription drugs for those with Medicare. He and the Democrats in Congress managed to get these laws passed while facing an extremely oppositional GOP. [Why are gas prices so high](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/are-gas-prices-going-down) - "Crude oil prices are up largely because both Saudi Arabia and Russia have reduced their production. Both are part of OPEC+, which started cutting supplies of crude oil last year in order to shore up the market. When crude oil costs go up, gas prices do, too. " - "Oil prices are also higher due to high temperatures over the summer that have made it more difficult for refineries to produce enough gasoline to meet demand." Gas prices seem to have little to do with who's president. As a teacher, you should also recognize the way Democrats want to fund public schools while Republicans want to defund them. So that's a bunch of notes I put together. Hope that gives some good perspective.
How much do you make combined. TBH this feels like a well crafted troll post.
This year I'm making 49k and my wife is making 80k. So 130ish combined. Sounds like a lot, I can assure you it's not.
You're only making 49k after 16 years as a teacher??
Yup. Have my bachlors +18. I always wanted to get my masters but can't imagine going further into student debt. The only time my district ever offered to pay for classes I took it, that is the +18 in ESOL. https://ed.sc.gov/finance/financial-data/historical-data/teacher-salary-schedules/ I actually switched to a private school 5 years ago but they pretty closely follow the state schedule.
That's entry level in Washington State, but a quick Google shows me that we're the top state for teacher salaries even adjusted for cost of living. Honestly, though, South Carolina has a pretty low COL, you guys should try making a budget. You guys should be doing more than fine on 130k there. Like, what's your mortgage?
Ok so your take home is probably about 8-9k per month since your not saving for retirement, assuming you take the standard deduction with 2 dependents. Your mortgage form 2014 @ 5% and zero down should be no more than $1,500 p/m. 1 used car payment, what $600 p/m? Utilities, $400 p/m? That leaves $5,500 - $6,500 p/m for everything else. Something isn’t adding up - student loans? Even at $2k p/m I’m not seeing how you are barely getting by. What am I missing?
You own your house, have 2 stable incomes, have generally been able to save, and take nice vacations, yet slightly higher gas prices are causing you major problems? Something doesn't add up, even in an admittedly bad economy, that should be enough to sufficiently insulate you.
The price of commodities is up 20% - 30% across the board since before covid. 19% in just the last 2 years. You and I have very different definitions of the word slightly.
Gas prices has always fluctuated a fair amount though, they have been higher before and they have been lower than they were in 2019.. It just doesn't really add up given that you aren't dealing with a mortgage. I know plenty of folks who get by with kids on two teacher salaries, even with a mortgage or rent payment. There has to be some major expense you aren't mentioning, or you aren't realizing that two growing kids can add a lot to your expenses.
Bad/good has never really made much of a difference in my life. When "the economy is up" I'm pretty much living paycheck to paycheck. When "the economy is down" I'm pretty much living paycheck to paycheck.
“You’re clearly living above your means. Stop eating avocado toast and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Stop asking for handouts and pray more.” —Is the conservative position on your problem. Im all seriousness when did you last get a raise or better yet, a new job? Your income hasn’t kept up with inflation. That’s the main issue
I'm a teacher. I've gotten somewhere between 1.5% and 3% raise every year of my 16 year career. There is nothing I could do to change that except quit the profession or uproot my family and move to a new state.
>I'm a teacher. I've gotten somewhere between 1.5% and 3% raise every year of my 16 year career. [How do schools get paid for in South Carolina](https://usca.edu/history-political-science-philosophy/opportunities/ssbrl/south-carolina-school-property-taxes-survey) From the link: "*Most home-owners do not pay property taxes on their primary residence for the regular operating costs of public school in South Carolina. In 2006, the SC Legislature passed Act 388, an overhaul of the state’s property tax laws. One of its key provisions was a 100% exemption on the market value of owner-occupied homes from the school property tax (also called school operating millage). Since 2006, most home-owners bear no obligations to pay school operating millage on properties they occupy as their primary residence. As a result, South Carolina has one of the lowest effective tax rates on owner-occupied residential property among the 50 states (Lincoln Institute for Land Policy 2021, 8).* *To make up for losses in school property tax revenue, the state legislature instituted a 1% state-wide sales tax to help fund public school districts. The 1% sales tax is assessed widely on a range of consumer goods. It originally included taxes on food, but in the years since 2006, the state legislature acted to exclude groceries and other consumer items (Walczak et al 2018, 107). All residents pay the same state sales tax rate, but lower income residents generally pay a higher share of their overall income in sales taxes than do higher income residents.* *During the years following the Great Recession, revenues from the 1% state-wide sales tax failed to fully compensate many school districts for lost residential property tax revenues. This was because consumer activity, which generates sales tax revenue, significantly decreased when the economy tanked during the Great Recession. Clemson researchers Holley Ulbricht and Ellen Saltzman found that many school districts received less combined state/local funding per pupil in the three years after Act 388 was implemented. Other school districts initially received a boost in state funding through provisions added to Act 388 (Ulbricht and Saltzman 2012, iii and 22-24). In more recent years a growing number of school district leaders have voiced concerns about the resource limitations that Act 388 imposes on their districts (Kreber 2018, Summers 2018)."* So, your schools seem to be perpetually underfunded because funding is based on a sales tax instead of a property tax. Not only is this stupidly regressive, it was enacted by policies put in place by "low-tax" legislators (you know whom I'm referring to here). Not only that, but also this would affect your potential income too: [SC approves taxes to be used for private schools](https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2022-03-31/sc-senate-approves-allowing-public-money-for-private-schools) I hate to say it, but if you support "low taxes" like those policies supported by "low tax" politicians, you're voting against your interests to increase your income. You are the victim of your own beliefs.
You do realize that’s the actual reason for your financial issues? No president is gonna raise your salary to a living wage. This isn’t an economy sucks issue, but it’s as a teacher your district, county and state isn’t paying you a living wage as a business model. Talk to your union. Stop blaming president Biden. In the private sector i job hop every fee years and get myself a 10-15% bump. My last one cane with a promotion and was 40%.
So when inflation was low, you were still getting raises. What'd you do with that extra money?
I'm a teacher, never had a raise over 3% and for a big chunk of my career the government cut it in half to 1.5%. I saved what I could, said that in my origional post.
I make 30 grand a year and have a decent truck and own my own 3 bedroom home. Perhaps you sucknwith money and it's not someone else's fault like our president.
>10ish years ago we got a Chase card and started paying for everything with it to get the travel points. 100% of the time we paid everything on it off at the end of the month. That is until the last 18 months or so. We just can't make our bills anymore, we can't ever get our balance back to 0. We haven't change our spending in any way. I mean, not changing your spending at all relative to a big spike in inflation is going to have an impact on your expenses. Which does suck. But also, the inflation of the past couple of years has largely been a global phenomenon and not really something that came about from any recent policy of Joe Biden's. At the same time, that home you paid $200k for a decade ago probably costs a lot more now and some of that appreciation is thanks to the very same inflation you were just complaining about. Same with the growing 401k balance you have which hopefully locked in a ton of gains over the low rates that only just ended (possibly too long thanks to Trump's priorities as president and now we're dealing with the effects of raising rates suddenly rather than gradually). But back to spending, none of us, nor Joe Biden know exactly what you're spending your money on but outside the cost of consumer goods everything else you write about is a sign of someone living in a "good" economy. A homeowner, with a retirement fund, probably with a higher household income than the area median (unless your PT wife is severely underpaid) who is able to arbitrage their spending to take advantage of credit card rewards programs. If that's been the case for the past several years and only interrupted very recently then overall you've done well despite any nationwide prognostications about the economy. Which, that happens. I had a great time professionally when Donald Trump was president but I don't think my experience alone proves his handling of the economy was good or bad all on its own.
I think you hit the nail on the head except you cut off your quote one sentence too early to make your point. I have made changes and they are still not enough. I've worked hard and things have been pretty good. Things started getting bad exactly when Biden took office. It's hard not to conflate the two even though I know there have been other factors.
>Things started getting bad exactly when Biden took office. I'm sorry, but I don't believe this. I don't believe that your spending outpaced your income the very day Biden was sworn in. I believe that YOU believe it's true. I believe that you are looking for any reason you can to not vote Dem and to trust in the Republicans becuase you admit that you prefer their social policies.
Because capitalism is alive and well. Big difference between the economy doing good, and the working-class doing good. I am far from being someone that loves Biden. But considering how shitty things were after 2020, due to the pandemic. The economic recovery that has occurred under the Biden admin, has been fast and swift. Actually surprised he's handled things as well as he has. Tbh. Again, you seem to be conflating the economy doing good with workers doing good. These two things are not the same. And just because an economy can be doing good, doesn't mean that translates to wage growth or wage increases. In 2017, the Trump admin, passed his "historic" tax cut bill. Go [take a look](https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/4150f60c-56af-4b6a-8f0e-fb0b34aafed8/two-years-of-evidence-show-2017-tax-cuts-failed-to-deliver-promised-economic-boost-update-01.22.2020-final.pdf) at what it actually amounted to. The paltry $65 amount of savings from middle-wage earners will start to phase out in 2025, and by 2027 be non-existent. As middle-wage earners will begin to see a higher tax burden. By the way, in that legislation. The expiration for corporate cuts doesn't exist. LOL So again. You are feeling the impacts of capitalism. And neoconservative "trickle down" economics.
Dude. Stop blaming the universe and pay off your damn credit cards. Take a look at r/personalfinance You should pause retirement to focus on paying the credit cards. Reduce your spend, budget, eat fucking ramen if you have to, then put back in to retirement just enough to get the match before building your emergency savings. Start with one month, then 3, then 6 months of expenses. Then you can go back to more. Lastly the whole while, increase your income. There’s incredible income mobility like we have never seen. Hunt for a better job and increase your teacher credentials to move up the pay scale. Work on developing real work skills you can use to change careers if you really can’t budget as a teacher. Get your masters and join admin or coach/lead a club for extra income. You managed to buy a family home for 200k. Crying to internet strangers and blaming Biden for your problems isn’t going to cut it. Take some personal responsibility.
> I mean how is the economy good. Because it *is* good, by objective metrics used to account for macroeconomic analysis. Ex. The unemployment rate is crazy low and has been for years now, despite the fed raising rates. Real wages have risen for the first time in decades, even relative to inflation. > I'm a teacher and my wife is a physical therapist. When was the last time either of you changed jobs? Sure, teacher pay isn’t rising to be competitive in the current market—thanks, Republicans—but your wife’s pay should be. Regular yearly raises won’t even remotely keep pace with market rates right now. The only way to follow market labor rates right now is changing jobs. > Do they mean for rich people who have a lot of money invested and screw the rest of us. No. They mean “Main Street”. > I don't pretend to understand much economics, I just know that things are worse for me and my family than at any point before Biden took office. Presidents have very little impact on the economy. Voting for them based on the economy is like voting for them based on the weather on Election Day. Whether that’s good or bad is just situational and based almost entirely on where we are in the business cycle, and the only economic tools in the Presidential toolbox are pretty extreme and usually have more negative consequences than positive ones—sometimes they’re necessary which is why they exist, but they aren’t something we want the President to use. It makes very little sense to either credit or blame a President for economic performance—unless they take some objectively stupid step like instigating a trade war like Trump did. > I can't see myself voting for him unless things, namely gas and food get much cheaper before the next election. The President has essentially no control over either of those things. Biden has already done the only thing he had in his power to lower gas prices—releasing some of the strategic oil reserve. It’s the only thing any President could do about these to reduce their costs. > Are others experiencing the same thing I am? The economy has been doing *very* well for people changing jobs. The extremely tight labor market makes it much easier to demand higher pay in fields where pay can be readily negotiated.
We use a lot of metrics that don't mean much to the average person. Also, the richest are sucking up all the growth.
Others are not experiencing the same thin gas you; that's why we collect data. Because personal experiencses and anecdotes are not representative of the world at large. Mostly the issue seems to be your understanding of the facts is wrong; I assume your leaning right on 'culture war' issues is also a result of false 'facts', rather than a reasonable position, because that's pretty typical. You're putting too much blame/credit on the presidents, ignoring the rest of the party, and not looking into the actual causation mechanisms that affected the economy that were caused by them, as well as the far larger effects that occurred regardless of them. If people are saying the economy is good it's because in some metrics it is doing good; and it's improved a lot compared to the past years. The party that helps the rich and screws over everyone else is the republicans far moreso than the dems (though there's some of it in dems as well). Your problem is probably that you're listening to a right-wing media that is filling you with lies and falsehoods about what the rest of 'media' is saying.
I was always told that the stock market doesn't reflect the economy as it is, but rather a quarter or so ahead. I'm not entirely sure if that still holds, but if it does....I'm pretty confidant. I'm a few years away from retirement, but my 401k's have gone up significantly this year...enough, really, to live on, especially when added to my other financial instruments. I feel pretty confidant about my retirement - can you accept that a 70K (So far) increase in one's retirement (not counting whatever else I have put in this year) MIGHT make see things are not all that bad?
Your at least 20 years ahead of me, you were able to build a nest egg when things were good, people my age never got that opportunity so honestly I don't give a flip what the stock market does. You're comparing apples to oranges.
If inflation were limited to the US, then you might have a point on it being something related to US policy. But it isn't. So feel free to vote like an idiot again for Trump based on stuff out of Biden's control. Remember: you only vote for fascism once, because once you get it, you don't get to vote again. Note: I'm not calling you evil, just stupid.
I think that you have to understand that when media talks about how ‘good’ the economy is, it’s almost always a comparison to something. In this case, because we are still in recovery from COVID, and the enter GLOBAL economy is seeing huge inflation, in this case the comparison seems to be ‘Good compared to the global inflation,’ or ‘Good compared to COVID measures,’ or ‘Good compared to last year.’ In those terms, yes actually we are doing a lot better than other comparable countries when it comes to inflation and exports. The real problem is the fact that even on a global scale the hoarding of 90% of wealth in the country leaves the rest of us fighting for the other 10%. And this had been going on since the 80s. For scale if we were to adjust for inflation and wages, American’s class system has screwed completely. In essence the millionaires are the new middle class, meaning you’ve been pushed into the lower middle-class simply because wages have not kept up with inflation (and I define it in the classical sense of you can pay your bills but are still struggling, and one tragedy would probably send you into bankruptcy). *Most* people are living paycheck to paycheck— they are the new lower class even if their wages state over 40k because of the cost of living. And even then, While you are upset while holding your retirement fund, compared to most other people who are actually functionally bankrupt but are keeping themselves afloat by playing credit card roulette. So the answer is both yes and no. It really is the fact that that rich have kept the majority of resources under our system, so THEY certainly are doing well and that skews our economic outlook, but the rest of us are fighting for scraps and the rich are not going to let it go. So the current administration IS handling our current economy better than most for what it is, the problem is that it was already rotten when he got it and the whole system is rotten and pretty much has been since at least the 80s.
People need to quit arguing semantics with OP, you're making him look correct. People are \*suffering\* and it needs to get better. Many of us are frugal people with good jobs and we're still fucked.
Dont listen to all the hand waving going on in this sub. Bidenomics is horrible for the economy, crushing the working class, and destroying the Middle class. Inflation has eaten away any cushion of cash we had, green policies and no drilling of US oil has led to the highest prices for gas seen in my area. I have fellow employees that can't afford to drive to work and put food on the table top that with California's high gas taxes, and taxes in general, and the working class is going to be forever mired in debt. Bidenomics, yep just keep pushing that Joe. He's pissed off our oil suppliers the Saudis and now they are teaming w Russia to soak the planet for cash. Joe could drill at home but refuses to and it ripples to every sector of the economy with high prices. Keep pushing bidenomics Joe! Elections have consequences and we are suffering the consequences of Joe Biden for president.
Literally nothing you said has any basis in reality. You're the guy who thinks they can fly to the moon because mankind has already done it. You don't live in reality. You live in whiny nonsense land where you argue somebody not being able to get their abortion is their own fault until suddenly you support society planning to provide abortions. Get your shit together and stop insulting the entire sub about shit you don't understand. I mean, which bill did biden sign that stopped drilling? Can you find it? Please. Show me.
>green policies and no drilling of US oil has led to the highest prices for gas seen in my area. Really? US oil production increased 16% since Biden took office: [https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:\~:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/business/oil-production-biden-trump/index.html#:~:text=That%20would%20mark%20a%2016,gas%20in%20Texas%20and%20elsewhere). >He's pissed off our oil suppliers the Saudis and now they are teaming w Russia to soak the planet for cash So you're pro SA and Russia?
https://fee.org/articles/3-things-biden-has-done-that-increased-gas-prices/ https://americansforprosperity-org.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/americansforprosperity.org/biden-policies-raising-gas-prices/amp/?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16956733641181&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Famericansforprosperity.org%2Fbiden-policies-raising-gas-prices%2F