DoubleG
4200
Yes, thank you. I was hoping for your permission.
I don’t actually think 14 year olds should be in the workforce. They’re kids.
I gotta say, these guys may not have thought this plan through…
Matt_W
4203
Yeah, I feel like if that area is prime mountain lion habitat, a state or federal Department of Fish and Wildlife could justify using eminent domain to seize all the property and turn it into a wildlife refuge. And it’s hard to imagine that move being politically unpopular.
Thrag
4204
A town full of extremely high income households. Probably a lot of husbands working late at the firm. Lonely housevives. Makes sense there’d be a lot of cougars.
Alstein
4206
This is an inflation article, but it hints at a point that I’ve realized, and honestly, as a middle-class American, I took advantage of. A lot of problems with income inequality in America for middle-class folks were masked by our ability at a consumer to exploit the lower classes.
Now that the pandemic reduced the worker supply, and pandemic working conditions made the jobs not worth it for others, and as workers figured out how to upgrade their jobs during the pandemic, we’re starting to see it bite in to the middle class more.
This is going to add a lot of volatility to things, and I worry the Dems won’t listen to the right folks on this. The Republicans might be able to run on an effective platform of putting the lower classes back in their place to lower costs, and that could be destabilizing (and has the added impact of playing the burden on the folks the Republicans see as enemies)
Who are the right folks, and what do they suggest? Or, put another way, who the wrong folks, and what’s their proposal?
DoubleG
4208
I’d say the wrong folks are the entrenched economists that have been offering the same opinions for 50 years, who say that there’s nobody to blame, there’s no extreme actions required, and that everybody should calm down and let the Fed handle this. Here’s an example: Opinion | Inflation Is Not a Simple Story About Greedy Corporations - The New York Times
Democrats love a technocratic solution that they can brand as politically “neutral”, so I think they’re likely to follow this advice. They’ll say nothing is systemically wrong with the economy – it’s great actually – and the Fed just needs to pull some levers. That’s an issue because the Fed can only play with interest rates, where the negative effects are predominantly felt by the working class. It’s not a good or fair tool for the problem of giant companies raising their prices.
There are other options to consider, especially like reducing the market power of these companies through aggressive anti-trust enforcement. But Dems have proven they don’t have the political will to challenge corporations like this.
Probably not, but even if they had the will, it isn’t a strategy that is going to play out in time to help with the midterm elections.
DoubleG
4210
The alternate strategy is to continue saying “everything is going fine, no fundamental changes are needed” when voters can clearly see that there’s a problem. Better to acknowledge the issues and start fixing them regardless if they can do anything by November.
I’m skeptical that anyone but policy nerds will pay any attention to what the Dems say about what they’re doing about inflation before the midterms. The vast majority of voters are and will be ignorant about the policy; they’re just going to vote based on how things are going for them. If inflation is high and their wages haven’t compensated for it, they’re going to be unhappy.
DoubleG
4212
People may not pay attention to policy solutions but they certainly pay attention to whether a politician even acknowledges a problem. Democrats are grudgingly admitting prices are an issue but they’re saying that this is because of Covid and it will just go away. Biden said today “According to Nobel laureates, 14 of them that contacted me, and a number of corporate leaders, it ought to be able to start to taper off as we go through this year.” Voters are smart enough to know who’s screwing them and why would we take their word for anything?
Also, the focus on messaging for the next round of elections is a broader problem with the Dems. There are clearly systemic issues here, ones voters want them to solve, and they always use the distance to the next election as an excuse to not do anything.
CraigM
4213
I’m gonna stop you right there because, well, I do not have the same level of confidence in this as you :)
It’d be so much easier if the so called ‘liberal media’ was actually meaningfully liberal and not just clickbait focused drum up drama.
DoubleG
4214
Whatever you think of voters they can tell when meat costs twice as much, or their landlord raises their rent by 500 dollars.
But even if you think voters are blind, the Democrats should still start addressing these systemic problems. Cost of living increases have an outsized effect on people with lower incomes. If the alternative is inaction and sunny messaging because it might help with the midterms, what’s the end goal? Why are we repeatedly electing these guys if they’re always going to punt until the next election cycle?
Enidigm
4215
The US system is so balanced on a pin head that if the Democrats don’t apparently kiss babies and wave flags and do everything in the power to keep the status quo spinning, apparently the voters, not being able to discern cause and effect, will vote them out in a generational landslide, and as a result, liberals will lose every socially progressive advance made since 1965.
The tension in liberal / Democratic party is saying or doing anything to stay in power to keep the Republicans from destroying everything they’ve accomplished, and that means a lot of babies get thrown out with the bathwater in that pursuit. This means that they’re always playing defense and always reacting than proacting, and are always terrified about the Right Wing Media’s iron grip on white non-college educated voters that are kept basically always on the cusp of igniting a Civil War and can turn out in huge numbers that Democrats just have no answer for, being the party of everyone else.
Yes, this is exactly what I’m saying. They won’t give a damn what anybody says they’re going to do about it if they haven’t actually done anything about it when it comes time to cast a vote. The vast majority of voters aren’t paying attention to policy debates. They’re voting based on the current state their own economic and financial world.
I understand that there’s a view on the left that Democrats can do anything they want once they win a presidential election and get a slim legislating majority, but they really can’t. It’s hard to point to a period in the last 40 years when you could say see, right here, Dems could have completely changed everything.
And some Dems don’t even want to change the world. That’s a shame, but you still have to work with them, because the alternative is Donald Trump and George Bush and Newt Gingrich and Bill Frist and Dick Armey and Mitch Fucking McConnell.
There might not actually be a (purely political) option anymore, as it will take a bit to fully subside. Dems might need to be seen doing something, even if it increases unemployment and causes a mini-crisis, while doing nothing of value to prices; the common sense confidence fairy must be fed.
Alstein
4218
The Dems are going to have to pick losers. I suspect they’re going to pick the status quo option and slash the social safety net to drive low-income folks back to work for trinkets.
they should do the exact opposite. They should boost lower and middle income folks, and go after the profiteers.
With what political means, with a few months to go? That could work if they had mobilized workers; by now they’ve conceded policy in order to successfully have the gutted BBB be rejected while gathering as little public support as possible.
TINA.
