Food and energy costs fluctuate wildly, mostly due to external factors (OPEC, geopolitical landscape, global futures markets, etc), so they are excluded when making policy decisions because they would add too much noise. Nevertheless, energy costs affect the cost of nearly everything else, so it is indirectly reflected in the data.
I could be wrong, but I mostly agree with the premise of the article. All the data I've seen shows most people are better off compared to 2019 (which also excluded the same stuff). As the article states, consumer spending habits are also reflective of good economic conditions. Anecdotally, everyone I know is at least a little better off since 2019, financially (lower to upper middle class, and a few upper-class people). I see a lot of "help wanted" signs with wages higher than the 20% inflation since 2019. So, I'm curious why the polls and generally everyone says the economy is worse.
One bad indicator I've seen are the costs of home down-payments outstripping inflation (which would mostly affect would-be first-time homebuyers). That has been following the same trend for decades though. There have been a lot of tech mass layoffs, but that only affects a small percentage of people. Taxes have increased for very high income people ¯(ツ)/¯.
I'm no Biden simp (though I prefer him to Trump). I think the economy is mostly outside the president's control. I just find the discrepancy in data, and what people say interesting.
Yeah, I hate wearing headphones. I built most speakers I own from online DIY plans (mostly from Paul Carmody and Lou's Speaker Site), and they sound better than any of the factory speakers I've ever owned.
Those in poverty usually have more children. Woman having more rights and joining the workforce is probably a major cause; which is probably why there's all this money backing taking away women's rights recently. Another major cause is likely isolation and lack of community in modern life ("it takes a village...").
I doubt that. Current conventional food production is highly fossil fuel dependant (everything from fertilizer to processing to transport). Earth's ariable land and top soil is decreasing quickly. Ecosystems are collapsing from the effects of agriculture and climate change. Most "advances" require more inputs and energy, which means more fossil fuel use, further accelerating resource degredation and climate change. I forget the statistic, but humans already control a significant proportion of Earth's biomass. This chart from https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/17788/how-much-of-earths-biomass-is-affected-by-humans/ might be what I was thinking of:
I think most people are a little better off. They just don't feel like it, because most people still aren't doing "well." I.e. things aren't getting better fast enough. I looked at real-wage statistics a while back, and that seemed to confirm my beliefs (real wages have been improving across all four quantiles). I have not looked at those living on SSI, SSD, or retirement; and I imagine those people could be worse off.
The current job market is still very tight, unemployment is still very low (despite the Fed). Recent mass layoffs have mostly just been in tech and some white collar jobs, which is a small fraction of the workforce/electorate. The majority of people work "unskilled" jobs and those are still easy to get, and pay a little more in real wages now.
None of this really matters to the electorate though. I'm convinced elections are all vibes-based. And vibes are largely controlled by the media and algorithms. I've recently talked to a few people that want Trump to win, and they still parotted the line, "Trump is a business man, so he knows how to get the economy back on track." They also liked the checks they got during the lockdown. They don't really follow the news or politics, so all the information they get is incidental. One person recently started to get into red-pill content (Fresh + Fit, Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, etc), who I think also discuss political issues in a vibes-based way.
Kagi is pretty good, but expensive. I like that listicles are put in their own small section so you can ignore them. You can boost, pin, demote, or block results from certain domains. You can create and quickly switch between domain list presets to search only specific sets of sites. The only thing I don't like is the exerpts below results don't bold what you're looking for like Google does.
On the left, it's due to intersectionality. And that the attacks against trans people is part of a broader attack from the christofascists to create outgroups and use hate and fear to obtain power (very similar to what the Nazis did with "degenerates" and jews). "First they came for..." and all that.
I understand the Fed pretty well. I'm going to assume you listen to the Austrian economic school, or are just a crypto bro, whereas I tend to like the New Keyenesian school; as long as we're keeping a capitalist system. Austrian school lacks mathematical rigor and libertarians just like it just because it's prescriptions align with their ideaology, IMO.
Capitalism does collapse ~10 years in the U.S., and requires great intervention by the government or federal reserve. E.g. 1981, 1990, 2000, 2008, 2020. I'm arguing that without the intervention or social safety nets, and families started starving, there would be a revolution.
Yeah, that's my thinking as well. All these billionaires seem to be becoming doomsday preppers (Zuck, Altman, etc).
After reading about "effective accelerationism," which many of these people seem to subscribe to, I think they're worried "technocapitalism" and AI will cause a collapse of society. I.e. they're purposely funding and promoting projects they think will cause a societal collapse. It's a really wierd cult-like ideology and worldview. I think they've fallen for their own grifts.
But yeah, I'm personally more worried about the destruction of U.S. institutions (which Trump and Republicans publicly admit they plan to do), and the potential social unrest, federal-state conflict, and economic havoc it may cause.
Capitalism requires the state to function. Directly with all the laws, regulations, and courts that allow businesses to exist as legal entities, determine who owns private property, contract law, etc. Indirectly, because capitalism tends to collapse every 10 years or so, and without safety nets or bailouts, there would be a revolution.
This isn't really true. A lot of Democrat voters are also Christian. If by "fervent," you mean "hateful," this may be more true. A large percentage of Democrat voters are also Christian, but not as hard-line about LGBT issues, and perhaps not as hard-line about abortion.
The type of Christians that Republicans court are easy to persuade and control. Religion has historically been used to create in-groups and out-groups, and as a form of control.
If one were to take the Christian bible at face-value, they would oppose things like sexual freedom. Most leftists/socialists think about intersectionality, so they would be opposed to people who have the "morals" of many Christians.
In the debates, Haley pretty strongly advocated to sending lethal aid to Ukraine (I guess you could be arguing that sending aid to Ukraine, prolonging the war, is bad for Ukraine).
The entire Republican party is a threat to democracy and human rights at this point in time. Project 2025 will likely go ahead with any Republican president. Crazy right-wing, christo-fascist, and "states rights" civil servants and justices will be appointed, and they'd probably be able to lock Demcrats out of control of the federal government for decades to come (by allowing intense gerrymandering, strategic polling location placement, giving state governments the ability to override voting results, etc).
In my area, drought and heat have been so bad the last few years, a lot of native trees are dying. You could try reforesting with trees native to a dryer, nearby area, but that's generally thought of as bad practice, and there's no guarantee they would do well in that particular soil. It seems like the climate in my area is changing to be incapable of supporting forests.
I think many worked. On the farm, in mines, in factories. Farmers would intentionally have many children just for extra labor. School hours and breaks are, in part, the way they are to let children work on the farm.
Meh, you can't disregard the current medical and scientific consensus because it may turn out to be wrong in the future. This is the same thing the pro-fossil-fuel and tobacco organizations used to do. You work with the best information you've got.
Even if gayness and trans-ness was a social contagion (I don't think it is), what would be wrong with that? The argument seems to be implying that being gay or trans is bad.
Food and energy costs fluctuate wildly, mostly due to external factors (OPEC, geopolitical landscape, global futures markets, etc), so they are excluded when making policy decisions because they would add too much noise. Nevertheless, energy costs affect the cost of nearly everything else, so it is indirectly reflected in the data.
I could be wrong, but I mostly agree with the premise of the article. All the data I've seen shows most people are better off compared to 2019 (which also excluded the same stuff). As the article states, consumer spending habits are also reflective of good economic conditions. Anecdotally, everyone I know is at least a little better off since 2019, financially (lower to upper middle class, and a few upper-class people). I see a lot of "help wanted" signs with wages higher than the 20% inflation since 2019. So, I'm curious why the polls and generally everyone says the economy is worse.
One bad indicator I've seen are the costs of home down-payments outstripping inflation (which would mostly affect would-be first-time homebuyers). That has been following the same trend for decades though. There have been a lot of tech mass layoffs, but that only affects a small percentage of people. Taxes have increased for very high income people ¯(ツ)/¯.
I'm no Biden simp (though I prefer him to Trump). I think the economy is mostly outside the president's control. I just find the discrepancy in data, and what people say interesting.