Political Fantasies

[Ken]

And so? COVID happened on Trump's watch.

I agree that Trump should have immediately shut down all immigration/travel and already had a travel ban long before COVID got here and had the wall built, but that didn't happen. But in any case, Democrats would have fought that tooth and nail. In February 2020, Democrats were making a big deal that we shouldn't even stop flights coming in from China.

The inflation that you and Grace are blaming on Biden was largely a global COVID-supply chain related issue as well. And, in fact, the Biden Administration has navigated those problems better than any other western country. If you think COVID gets Trump off the hook for his Administration's failures then you shouldn't be shouldn't be talking about inflation either.

COVID is an acceptable excuse in 2020, or maybe 2021, but not an acceptable excuse in 2023.

And in 2023 inflation is down to 3% with the most recent numbers being 0% in October 2023 and 0.1% in November 2023. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/i ... ion-rates/

And the core rate is already down to the Fed's 2% target

[Josh]

And in 2023 inflation is down to 3% with the most recent numbers being 0% in October 2023 and 0.1% in November 2023. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/i ... ion-rates/

Which does exactly nothing to fix the problem that (a) prices are still high, and (b) wages haven't kept up with the rise in prices. So the average person is worse off.

[Ken]

And in 2023 inflation is down to 3% with the most recent numbers being 0% in October 2023 and 0.1% in November 2023. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/i ... ion-rates/

Which does exactly nothing to fix the problem that (a) prices are still high, and (b) wages haven't kept up with the rise in prices. So the average person is worse off.

So you want deflation then? Back to when? Say when bread was 20 cents a loaf and the minimum wage was $0.75./hr? Deflation is actually highly recessionary so not a good thing.

As for wages, average wages are currently outpacing inflation. Maybe not in a lower wage place like rural Ohio. But in most of the country: https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federa ... ion-index/

[Josh]

Wage growth hasn’t come anywhere close to keeping up with the increase in home prices and rents.