Thursday, January 18, 2024

Bidenomics

 Nice rant… Dems in big trouble….





17 comments:

Peter Pan said...

The next Gilbert Gottfried?

But he leaves out the punchline, which is probably: "When will they stop printing money!"

mike norman said...

How much has your income increased? It's not just about the nominal level of prices.

Peter Pan said...

Some of those prices would be looked at with envy in Canada.

Konrad said...

“How much has your income increased? It's not just about the nominal level of prices.”

I think that when average people complain about “inflation” they mean that their income is not keeping up with price increases.

I propose that this is one of the principle causes of social angst in much of the world today (perhaps the principal cause). I propose that all other “crises” are ruses that people employ to distract themselves from this basic economic reality.

By “crises” I mean things like “racism,” “climate change,” and myriad other distractions from economic reality. Young people focus on such distractions to avoid thinking about extremely high housing prices, for example.

This is just my opinion.

Matt Franko said...

The current Democrat high interest rate policy is regressive…

Peter Pan said...

Blame the Boomers.

mike norman said...

"I think that when ordinary people complain about “inflation,” they mean that their income is not keeping up with price increases."

That may be true for some or many, but people complain about rising prices all the time without reflecting on income gains.

Inflation is not about the nominal level of prices, which always go up; it's about how many labor hours are required to purchase a basket of goods. This "prices are going up" whining is getting out of hand.

I see people saying stupid things like it used to cost a dollar to see a movie or a new car in 1968 was $3500. Give me a break.

Matt Franko said...

Well the price increases become generally politically unpopular …

Maybe this is why the Biden people (all monetarist) are not cutting the rates and still insist on keeping them up here… even in an election year…

We e had a pretty long period of general price stability since 2008 and ZIRP effectively the whole time…

So these unstable conditions are new to younger voters..,

Konrad said...

I propose that all major civilizations experience severe inflation when they enter their twilight.

Even if a society has no monetary system in the modern sense, the society will have its own form of inflation that consists of out-of-control political tyranny and corruption, disintegrating social and physical infrastructure, increasingly desperate demand for increasingly scarce resources, and so on. (The scarcity is caused by the other pathologies.)

The life cycle of larger civilizations is perhaps analogous to that of medium-sized stars. All stars the size of our own sun, and up to eight times the mass of our sun, eventually burn up the hydrogen in their cores, and start to burn up the hydrogen in the rest of their mass. They cool down and expand into red giants. Our own sun will inflate to engulf Mercury, Venus, and the Earth. After a shirt time (in cosmic terms) a red giant shrinks into a white dwarf, and then to a black dwarf. (Our sun does not have enough mass to explode as a supernova.)

In this analogy, today's societal inflation is akin to an expansing red giant, soon to be followed by a collapse in the West.

As I see it, this is the mainspring of today’s pathologies (e.g. rigged elections, LGBTQ mania, “climate change” hysteria, suicidal anti-whitism, pandemic hoaxes, out-of-control inflation, etc).

Others here will attack me for this. Denial is a normal part of the process.

Konrad said...

“I see people saying stupid things like it used to cost a dollar to see a movie or a new car in 1968 was $3500. Give me a break.”

Not sure why this is stupid.

In 1968 the average price of a new car was $2,822. According to Kelly Blue Book the average price for a new car in 2018 was $35,359.

Incomes have increased over time, but not enough to keep pace with price increases. This is “inflation” in an experiential sense, and it is what makes young people today so angry, anxious, depressed and demoralized. They see little or nothing positive about their personal futures.

Most kids are too stupid to understand all this clearly, but they feel it.

Peter Pan said...

A one bedroom apartment renting for $1000 per month is not inflation when it used to rent for $500

Same apartment + huge jump in rent = rentier rip off

Peter Pan said...

Nova Scotia Power equal billing "inflation":

Amount jumped from $54 to $74 per month. Current amount owed on bill is $73
Power rates went up an average of 6.5 %

What a scam.
In July the equal amount will have to drop by around $15 or the credit on my account will be significant come next January. THIS is what SMART metering gets us.

Matt Franko said...

Power bill going up is because of the climate nutters..,

Matt Franko said...

“ As I see it, this is the mainspring of today’s pathologies (e.g. rigged elections, LGBTQ mania, “climate change” hysteria, suicidal anti-whitism, pandemic hoaxes, out-of-control inflation, etc).”

A lot of that has been due to censorship of antitheses to those which is quickly being reversed due to X and new streaming media…

Peter Pan said...

When equal billing was limited to an annual adjustment in January, it was more honest. Now that they've been granted another adjustment in July (by their so-called 'regulator'), they abuse it.

Nationalize them, dammit!
But Nova Scotia only knows how to shoot itself in the foot.

Peter Pan said...

Even Nova Scotia Power's profit rate is guaranteed. Free market my ***

Konrad said...

@ Peter Pan “A one bedroom apartment renting for $1000 per month is not inflation when it used to rent for $500. Same apartment + huge jump in rent = rentier rip off.”

Yes. Severe inflation is not just a monetary or financial phenomenon. It has social and political aspects too. Much of today’s inflation is a kind of mass looting. It is caused by scams and sheer greed fueled by the breakdown in societal cohesion.

Example: Oil companies pay “just stop oil” protesters in order to promote scarcity, and thereby boost profits.

Example: Natural gas companies use “climate change” propaganda to stop selling gas to Americans, and instead sell gas to Europeans at a higher profit.

Example: Agricultural monopolies pay politicians to outlaw medium and small competitors, using “climate change” propaganda.

Example: The Tata Company of India is paying British politicians to shut down the Port Talbot Steelworks in Wales, thereby eliminating 4,000+ jobs. Tata will boost profits by causing scarcity, while exploiting cheap steel labor in places like Kazakhstan.

Example: In many U.S. cities, scammers hit the owners of high-rise condominiums with ruinously inflated “maintenance and certification” fees. The purpose is to force out the owners, and turn the condominiums into high-rent apartments.

Example: Big Pharma is notorious for using lies to inflate drug prices. They falsely claim, for example, that cholesterol causes heart disease. Therefore you need to take toxic (and lucrative) statins for life. In another example, Gilead Sciences of Foster City CA devised a drug called ledipasvir (or sofosbuvir, sold under the trade name Harvoni) in 2014 that actually cured hepatitis C. A major stockholder in Gilead Sciences was Goldman Sachs, which published a white paper explaining that drugs are not profitable if they actually cure disease. Drugs are only profitable if they manage symptoms so that people are forced to take the drugs for life. Proof positive that modern medicine is not profitable if it actually cures people.

The examples go on and on. Government could control this type of greed (and thereby control much of inflation) but politicians are bought, owned, and enslaved – today more than ever. This is why, for example, the USA is powerless over Israel. When politicians run for office, they depend on Jewish money, and they know they will be removed if they displease their donors.

THE POINT is that inflation is not strictly a monetary phenomenon. Again I propose that as civilizations die, many of them experience various forms of severe inflation, like stars inflating into red giants just before they collapse.