Biden's performance has been exceptional where it matters: It's the economy
https://www.salon.com/2024/07/12/bidens-performance-has-been-exceptional-where-it-matters-its-the-economy/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca344
Comments118https://www.salon.com/2024/07/12/bidens-performance-has-been-exceptional-where-it-matters-its-the-economy/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca
The fuck metric are they using for the economy???? The billionaires wealth increase? The stock market? Because I can't afford my rent or to feed my fucking family. Fuck off with your bullshit.
I don't blame Biden for it, I blame the orange man. But the economy isn't an exclamation point that should be used for the average person. The economy fucking sucks. EVERYONE HAS JOBS!!! .... Yeah.... they have 3 of them... start looking at the purchasing power of that money, not just the dollar amount.
This! This! This!
Anyone who can afford to invest seems to be doing fine and everyone else is screwed. Rent, bills and the cost of food are out of control.
The weird part is people think the president caused any of that or has the ability to fix it.
Why did Biden say he already fixed the economy then?
He is a politician running for reelection in a tight race. He's going to claim credit for anything good that happened during his term that voters might possibly believe.
That's not even meant as a criticism; it's just how the game is played.
You can’t claim credit for something you couldn’t help fix.
Politicians claim all sorts of things that have, at best tenuous connections to reality.
We shouldn't accept the claim that Biden fixed the economy, nor Trump's claim that Biden broke the economy, nor either of their claims that they're going to fix it next term.
So Biden’s a lying dog-faced pony soldier.
There's this thing presidential candidates run called a campaign and in this campaign they lay out their economic policies.
Presidential candidates certainly say things about the economic policies they'd like to see enacted, but most of the actual policy making is up to congress, and monetary policy is the domain of the Federal Reserve.
Factors which no part of the US government has direct control over often have a bigger impact than those that it does, from plagues to wars on other continents to business conditions.
You do know who nominates the fed chairman, right?
I do. I also know that Trump nominated Chairman Powell to his first term, and Biden nominated him to his second. Seems they agree on something.
That's not even unusual; four out of the past five Fed chairs were nominated by at least two presidents from different parties.
So we agree the president can make a significant change to the federal reserve which you said is involved in monetary policy. Which means...
The top 10% own 93% of all stocks. The working class has pennies compared to them.
People are not seeing a better economy, they can see past the gaslighting coming from our government, and gaslighting doesn't pay the bills
Wages are up, and inflation is down. The economy isn't roaring, but it's a hell of a lot more stable than what Biden was handed in 2020. The examples you are offering, while certainly valid for the folks in your community, are anecdotal. The facts are in the data. This country is too big to determine its overall economic health with a localized eye check. Lots of folks are struggling. Lots of folks are also thriving.
Yeah white suburbanites are doing better, rise in fascism often does that for them.
Where are you even getting that from? Economics isn't a matter of opinion. Wages are, in fact, up, and inflation has been easing. This isn't about fascism or race. This has been an across the board trend since 2021. Things are far from perfect, but they are improving.
Going from an unlivable wage to another slightly higher unlivable wage is not progress.
Wages are going up relative to inflation. That's literal growth and progress. No one is arguing that people aren't struggling. Has there ever been a time in US history when people weren't?
Inflation still outpaced wages
https://www.epi.org/blog/average-wages-have-surpassed-inflation-for-12-straight-months/#:~:text=Average%20hourly%20wage%20growth%20has,improve%20their%20standard%20of%20living.
This is exhausting. Be better, Lemmy.
Comparing against COVID joblessness is a hell of a premise. I would argue it’s a much better measurement to use a ratio of rent/mortgage to income. It is undeniable that the cost of housing has far outpaced real income. Anecdotally, this has become much worse since the pandemic.
Additionally, averages are just averages. A decent average doesn’t negate the negative side of that average. In many ways, the current US economy is truly the best of times and the worst of times. If the cost of housing wasn’t so ridiculous, the other price increases would be more tolerable.
For some context, here’s a recent NPR article of the cost of housing: https://www.npr.org/2024/06/20/nx-s1-5005972/home-prices-wages-paychecks-rent-housing-harvard-report
And civil rights.
Plus sustainable technology.
And critical infrastructure.
Also climate change.
Taxing the wealthy.
Canceling student debt.
Oh, geez, that one is huge. Great point.
160 billion in student debt cancelled.
160 million? Th... That's it? I mean, that's cool, it's not nothing, but the top Google search stat shows that US citizens owe a collective 1.77 trillion in student debt.
He cancelled (1.6x10^8 / 1.77x10^12) 0.00009% of student debt. That's like... A homeopathic cancellation.
160 billion, not million, coming up on 10% student debt cancellation so far.
Thanks for the clarification, that makes a rather meaningful difference.
It should also be remembered that he's tried to cancel more than that, but the assholes on SCOTUS have ruled multiple times that he doesn't have the authority.
Of course, that was also before they ruled the President is immune from any "official" acts, so who know what Biden might do before November.
Sure thing, that was my typing mistake earlier, thanks for bringing it up.
1 percent is a rounding error, but wiping away 10%, 160 billion, despite the conservatives stopping him from erasing 400 billion recently is pretty impressive.
Why wasn't he able to cancel all of it again? There was some group blocking him...
List the best action he has taken for each of these.
Civil rights - LGBTQ+ legal funding, protecting youth from conversion therapy, healthcare access, reversing Trump's ban on trans military personnel, housing protections
Sustainable technology - "best" is hard among so many, probably the 65$ billion dollars inveatment for clean energy infrastructure in the US
Critical infrastructure - the largest investment in US infrastructure in US history, over a trillion dollars resulting in over 50000 new infrastructure projects.
Climate change - again, the "best" is tricky here...I guess either the hundreds of billions in green tech, clean energy, mass transit, rejoining climate accords, increasing regulations on polluters... You can choose any one of those.
Oh and taxing the wealthy. Biden succeeded in that too.
Healthcare - Biden limiting drug prices helps a ton of people. Also, trump pledged to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and replace it with nothing. So... not ruining everything is also good.
See that's the thing, Biden would be a better president than trump if he literally pledged to do nothing. Trump has pledged to make things worse, mostly for his own benefit.
That's your choice: a shit sandwich or... not eating a shit sandwich. Tough one, I know.
You are weirdly angry that Biden helped a lot of vulnerable people through drug pricing regulation.
That's what I'm saying. You're agreeing with me.
Some of Biden's other first-term achievements(listed directly above) have been incredibly helpful to hundreds of millions of people.
Weird that not eating a shit sandwich is a difficult decision for you, but maybe it explains why you don't understand the previous comment.
Biden isn't a better president compared to dumps, he literally invested more in infrastructure and clean technology and climate change than any other president.
Biden has made and is still making huge strides in civil rights.
He's taxing the wealthy.
He's making a lot of progressive strides.
You even agree with that in the first sentence, what do you think you're arguing about?
So why do you think I'm arguing with you?
I don't.
You're agreeing with me that biden is a good president, but incorrect that he's only a good precedent relative to Trump.
You're very confused. Do you have any questions?
...but you said they're arguing with you, which is why they asked why you think they're arguing with you.
I like the trolls, they are funny.
I also accept that this is often sound, logical advice.
I like the trolls, they are funny.
I also accept that this is often sound, logical advice.
^ That's the one that triggered the media attack on him.
I agree that the timing is overly conspicuous
There's nothing wrong with wanting supporting evidence for claims, but when someone says something that's very provable and common knowledge and you ask for proof - you become known as an idiot.
Lmao at being downvoted for asking for tangible examples. Platitudes don't win elections, folks. See 2016.
Google exists.
If you're curious about the downvotes, I would consider that it appears you thought you were "asking," when what your comment does is issue a command. With no other context to understand from where you are coming.
As always, "economy" in a headline can be replaced with "rich people's yacht money."
Its shit like this, dont tout this like a victory, i cant afford electricity right now
The recession started to emerge in 2019. You don't turn a large ship around on a dime. There are more jobs, wages are up and inflation is down. What do you expect?
My wages havent been touched and inflation is staggeringly up.
Biden has also had 0 impact on that. The Fed is managing that because Congress doesn't do anything but pass legislation for lobbyists and the Fed is also driving up unemployment as a result.
the president has the impact of the most powerful endorsement in the country. Technically, the president's impact on legislation is just his ability to veto, but in practice both parties operate in tandem with the executive and legislative branches, the president is the figurehead of the party and the strategy has generally been to rally behind their campaign platform. With Biden we've had the inflation reduction act and the infrastructure bill. Obama famously drove the affordable care act, even though they personally didnt get to vote on it.
By 'economy' they always mean how well the rich are doing. WE are struggling, and the constant gaslighting that everything is ok tells us our cries for help are going unheard.
"Listen, dipshit. I don't care if you can't afford groceries, I don't care if you our landlord priced you out of your own home, and I certainly don't give a fuck you can't find a new job that pays enough to live. The economy is doing great, all the graphs the capitalists chose says so. Your lived experience is a lie. Shut up, don't ask questions, and vote for me."
Source?
Fair enough, I guess I didn't account for the pandemic's impact on stock ownership. I should've said almost most Americans don't own stocks. I mean, your own sources show it was just about half of Americans for a while until recently.
Also, I hate considering 401ks as part of that since it's not like people have a choice there. it's just a cop out to sell out the nation to corporations via tax cuts and reduced regulations. My main premise is moreso that the economy is great if you're a corporation or have a good job/are ready to retire
The line is definitely going up!
I definitely am paying exceptional prices for toilet paper and groceries
The same economy that's reliant on sucking the working class dry of every last cent?
That’s how you know the capitalism is working!
In the United States, the minimum wage is set by U.S. labor law and a range of state and local laws.[4] The first federal minimum wage was instituted in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but later found to be unconstitutional.[5] In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act established it at 25¢ an hour ($5.41 in 2023).[6] Its purchasing power peaked in 1968, at $1.60 ($14.00 in 2023)[6][7][8] In 2009, it was increased to $7.25 per hour, and has not been increased since.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States
if people are unable to afford things the economy is not good and neither Trump nor Biden in their four years did anything to help the citizens notably minimum wage
Note the complete absence of any mention of housing prices in this article (and every other pro-Biden article about how great the economy is and why we should be grateful).
Didn't we change the rules for realtors to reduce their commissions?
Drop in the bucket, the issue is with zoning and how banks are apportioning debt and packaging home loans.
If we want home ownership to be available to the common person, and are unwilling to set a realistic national wage, we should just allow the Fed to issue home loans again and get rid of the middlemen all together.
Respectfully, two things:
Hey, thanks for the respectful reply. I apologize for the delay in mine.
I believe we're saying pretty much the same thing. Banks being able to set rates based on debt and the nebulous policy of a credit score, feed into wealth inequality, especially as to how it relates to home ownership.
Yes you are absolutely correct that the one main problem in the US today is wealth inequality. There is no arguing that. However, likely policy that has historical reference would be bringing back something akin to the Fannie Mae of the 1930's but instead of paying the the Banks to service the loan, the Fed would take on the debt itself and would escrow the sale between the home owner and the home buyer.
The reason I bring up the Great Depression is because as you've pointed out, the wealth inequality gap is growing, at a similar rate as to what led to the Great Depression. Unregulated securities are being traded by common folk and there's a looming sea change as to what employment will look like.
Unfortunately for us both, we live in interesting times.
Please explain to me how Biden can control housing prices.
Ban corporations from owning housing.
So you want the President to do Congress' job?
The president can't do that
Now that we have an emperor I think the sky's the limit lol
Nah, the supreme court would deem it not an official act of the president and reverse it.
They're majority traitor, so their ruling only benefits Trump.
Why can't we have anything nice:(
Have you heard of executive orders? Sure he can't do it directly, but imposing a 100% tax on corporations/individuals buying more than a certain number of residential properties? A large tax on rental income from residential properties? Quit acting like he's powerless.
The President can't impose taxes, bud. That's Constitutionally delegated to Congress.
Now, if you said "use the military to arrest any corporation that owns more than five residences" you would have a case.
Here's the thing that kills me. This is what the presidency is kinda supposed to be like. He's gotten a good amount of good (and bad) things done. We've gotten so used to lazy, ineffectual, malicious, and downright bad governance that a kind of normal presidency seems like "WOAH HOLY FUCK WOW" to some folks. Biden's a solid statesman when it comes to the actual work of politics, but I wouldn't say that he's totally unique or a once-in-a-lifetime statesman. He's not irreplaceable, we just haven't been looking for someone to replace him because they did a good job hiding the fact that he needed replacing.
Just imagine if he didn't have a hostile Congress to work with.
I'm so glad the "economy" is doing well so rich fucks are more richer and fuckier than before. Meanwhile everyone else is struggling. Hard. Such great. Many progressive.
And how was this accomplished? Oh yea, by the Fed just printing trillions and trillions of dollars. How can the economy be bad when we're making so much new money?
This is bad messaging even though he probably has prevented some level of collapse. The trump tax cuts for the rich have lead to a lot of assets being hoovered up by all the surplus cash and the absolute ballooning of asset management companies. Until those things are fixed the economy will stay fucked
I don't give a shit about the economy. I've been broke through boom and bust. I care about the safety, freedom, and happiness of those I love. The centrists of the democratic party like this bag o bones are doing nothing about that.
Real wages (wages as expressed in 1982-1984 dollars, so controlled for inflation) are higher now than before the start of the pandemic. They aren't quite as high as they briefly got in early 2021 when the government was propping up the economy with large amounts of money both to employers and directly to people, when people were initially holding on to money rather than spending causing prices to drop (things were closed, people couldn't or didn't want to travel and go out) and before the supply chain crisis among other things started causing inflation across the globe. The wage growth since the pandemic has been highest for low income and hourly workers, so higher income salary workers may not have seen as much. Some industries may not have done as well as others, for instance the high interest rates to help control inflation hit tech jobs particularly hard. And as always, these are averages across the largest economy in the world with over 300 million people, I'm not trying to assert conclusions about any one person's financial situation.
January 2020 and January 2021 real wages https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/realer_02102021.htm
June 2023 and June 2024 real wages https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.t01.htm
Wage growth vs inflation since March 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
Also for more full context keep in mind that real wages dropped some for decades before finally starting to recover in the 2000s. We're only just starting to get back to real wages as they were in the 1970s.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
I thought the line that matters was stopping fascism. It's their whole platform.
Judging from the last 4 years, I wouldn't say it's going well
Gas was lower for the ducks who care. I was saying where's all the "I did that" stickers now
Matters more in swing states
Looking at the polls, it is too bad American voters are judging him based on vibes and not substance. But I'm sure if you just try talking to those vibes-based voters they will change their mind when presented with facts. /S
The article cherry-picks data to reach it's conclusions. Unemployment is not the best it's every been. It has been rising rapidly, it's up half a percent in the last year, and this print was the first pause we've had since March. Unemployment is rising due to Fed fighting inflation with higher interest rates. The higher interest rates are the reason inflation is coming down and Biden has done nothing to address that. The only thing he did was dump our oil reserves on the market when gas prices were rising early in the inflation cycle. That was 2 years ago.
I thought it was his team? Make your minds up. If it's the team, get someone else to head it, because this is a fucking disaster
"Vote for administrations, not Biden! Btw this is all Biden's doing, single handedly. Also Biden can't do anything alone, he needs congress."
We are not in a recession and economic growth is positive?
When did the federal minimum wage go up?
Did workers get more rights?
When did food prices go down?
Did housing costs get cheaper?
Has a sustainable and more affordable energy source been found to lower power bills?
Are the costs of healthcare something he solved?
How did he fix transportation costs?
wow did not know we were living in the Golden Age of Biden
good thing propaganda articles like this are around keep us in the know
Hail Biden and Vote BLUE!
He has done nothing to directly impact the economy. We are in a money-printing generated gilded age where life is tolerable for most and better than ever for a few. As soon as something breaks, everyone below the top 10% will be thrown on the street into abject poverty and we are all just waiting around for that to happen.
Here's the problem, is it him or his staff?
How is that a problem?
So a president that is visible gone is not a concern?
Visible gone?
Like a literally invisible person?
Yup, a ghost dad situation.
That turned out okay right?
So good they didn't see him coming for 30 yrs.
They're kind of a package deal, so does it matter?
Greatly. Reagan the last 4 years was run by his staff. Is Biden in the same boat?
Keeping things running, yup that's what staff do
Yup but they run off the person at the head. Harris could be a replacement or open the DNC to show they are not the Republicans.
Neither, it's the Fed.
That would be his staff.