Summary
President Joe Biden highlighted his administration’s economic record, citing consistent job growth and a 2.7% inflation rate drop from its 2022 peak.
December’s jobs report showed 256,000 new jobs and declining unemployment, signaling steady economic growth.
However, inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, and interest rates remain high, impacting homebuyers and businesses.
Public pessimism lingers on affordability as Biden passes a largely strong economy to his successor, Donald Trump.
That’s what happens when the economic wellbeing of a country is based upon numbers on computers instead of the actual wellbeing of its population. Fuck neoliberalism.
I dont see how we can’t actually quantify economic wellbeing, but I dont know of a unit for this.
Like we need something that takes into account wealth disparity. If your GDP goes up 5,000% and all that wealth goes into the pocket of a few people, the unit that measures economic welfare should be very low.
Average savings rate, average credit card debt, number of homeowners, college enrollment rates, average net worth. Lots of measures that the news and politicians ignore.
Record Homelessness…
You can adjust GDP by Gini coefficient which measures income inequality. Eg. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_income
I looked at the article, but I have no idea what “0.689” means.
What’s the unit abbreviation?
What does a high number mean? What does a low number mean?
Im not sure about the calculations for that specific value but the Gini coefficient itself is an index between 0 and 1 where 0 is no inequality and 1 is maximum inequality.
The index in the link I provided is also between 0 and 1 where the value for one country is only comparable to that of other countries. The higher the number the better but again not sure what the exact components are as it was just an example of quanitifying inequality.
Yeah, thats not an alternative to GDP then.
Like, if everyone in the country earns $1 per day and the cost of living is $2 per day, the gini is good but the economy is still shit
We need some unit that actually measures if an economy is doing well
What happened to the Misery Index?
I imagine this measurement is probably adjusted for PPP (purchase power parity). Going from comparing the GDP per capita to a PPP and Gini adjusted GDP per capita (like what that index likely does) should be what you’re getting at. Otherwise, there’s HDI (human development index) also mentioned in the wiki that goes beyond monetary value.
That’s because the economy is wholly disconnected from the real lives of working Americans. Aside from 401k, job gains could just be shifting around of people from job to job. If you are in the job market, it still feels grim. The cost of groceries, energy, housing, healthcare, schooling still remain high. And that’s what Americans really experience. A reduction in inflation doesn’t mean prices went down, it just means the increases slowed down by 2.7%. And the fact that democrats are completely incapable or unwilling to have this conversation, is why democrats continue to lose enthusiasm every time there’s an incumbent democrat election. Obama was an exception because of how skilled a politician he was and how weak the Republican opposition was at the time.
“What has the economy done for me lately?”
Hard to think of much lately other than give me false hope about my retirement options.
I suppose I’m happy for the economy. I mean, I’m glad it’s doing better than ever, I guess, but I’ve got my own issues. Sorry if that sounds selfish, but it’s just hard for me to get too excited for the economy when I’m stressed about my own situation.
They made a typo they meant the stock market not the economy.
No no no, they added jobs*
*Uber drivers
That’ll surely cancel out the impending fascism.
stronger than it was post obama but not strongest ever. heck that is just going to be harder and harder to do as time goes by.
Strongest so far in the 21st century.
so um. obama was 21st century.
Correct.
Any steady hand would have accomplished this.
The gloating, however, reminds me of my labor union’s incessant self-promotion of how their contract negotiating skills got us a 1.5% increase in a year where the prime rate stood at about 8%.
In this theead: A whole lot of people who don’t understand that deflation is awful.
Deflation is fine. Plenty of countries have been through deflation and they haven’t exploded. Japan is probably the best example.
BUt tHeY dIdnT kEep dOmInaTiNg Tech anD cArS
Which has nothing at all to do with China, Korea, and Taiwan all rushing to be local and global competitors I’m sure.
That’s fine, we’ve got other options. Let’s just see how big the disconnect needs to get before we start taking them.
‘Than Ever’
dude was a senator starting at 1972.
he’s been an active participant in this
Sure, a massive disaster caused by trump et all fucking things up was recovered from. But that’s not really Biden’s doing, except in the most ephemeral of senses
yeah biden’s really asking for a lot of credit right now for just being an ordinary republican president. we needed to hold the insurrectionists accountable, first and foremost, and he didn’t
I thought the president didn’t have the power to do that. What could he do differently?
Fire Merrick Garland and appoint someone with teeth to go after the fucking ringleader?
Merrick Garland has been working to build a case against Trump. Trump delayed the cases. How can Merrick Garland’s replacement stop Trump from delaying cases?
Merrick Garland deferred to decorum at every turn. Knowing full well decorum is not an option in organized crime.
Just because a suspect twisted a political career into his organized crime does not mean it shouldn’t still be treated like organized crime regardless of the political optics.
What’s an example of Garland deferring to decorum?
Knowing full well decorum is not an option in organized crime.
It sounds like you’re saying Garland should’ve “gone rogue” or broken the law to take down Trump.
The same judicial system that gives Merrick Garland any authority has been corrupted with GOP picks that will rule in favor of Trump.
It sounds like you’re saying Garland should’ve “gone rogue” or broken the law to take down Trump>
Not in the least. He ignored the law and most importantly, justice, in the process of appearing apolitical. He waited forever to appoint Jack Smith, he didn’t file charges for sedition or treason against any members of the Trump cabinet when it was obviously needed to at least bring details to light, he didn’t go after any of Trump’s kids (or Kushner) for illegal monetary gain when newspapers had plenty enough details to do so, and he let the Hunter Biden lawsuit continue after it was obvious they had no real cause. All in the process of appearing apolitical. Republicans would have had a hard time getting better outcomes from having one of their own lackeys in that position.
He doesn’t just run the department of law and order, he runs the department of justice. And we got none of it during his tenure.
Would have helped if Garland didn’t wait over 2 years to get started. He did this intentionally so they could then say “oopsie, we can’t continue to prosecute because now it looks politically motivated.” If Trump didn’t try for another run, Garland may have done nothing at all. He has 0 interest in holding the elites accountable and it shows.
I’ve heard this conspiracy theory. But the fact is there was never any evidence to support this. It seems like a talking point being pushed to garner bad public sentiment for Trumps enemies.
Obvious low effort troll. Garland did nothing to prosecute until 2023, this is an indisputable fact.
Covid was China, how do you figure it’s Trump’s fault?
You can’t control all the challenges of your presidency but there were a lot of actions he could have taken to reduce the harm done. Instead he worked to make it worse.
He withheld and stole equipment from blue states and sent it to Russia. He was actively anti-mask and anti-vax. Which both reduce harm to people (and the economy), he postponed stimulus checks so he could put his name on them. He allowed giving away taxpayer money to corporations and people that didn’t need it (PPP loans) and neglected the small businesses that could have actually used it.
He told people to inject bleach like what the fuck.
Nah, He didn’t.
But you construct whatever batshit insane reality you need too bud. Everyone needs a boogey man that they can direct their self hatred toward.
The quote made during a televised back and forth discussion with a doctor:
“And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”
Honestly, if the message you got from this quote was “HE SAID INJECT BLEACH!!”, you either have a severe comprehension issue, understand but still choose to live in your fantasy, or you just consider internet headlines the most credible source of news available.
You ignored the look on the doctor’s face when he said that, didn’t you? Exactly what inside do you think he was talking about? He got the idea from doing it inside hospitals, so it wasn’t that.
Ok, sure. He asked about injecting disinfectant. That isn’t better. If he didn’t pretend to be smarter than experts that would be fine, but he can’t ask that and still say he knows best on how to handle a pandemic. His disregard for human life makes me angry. I wish him all the karma he is due.
Yep I don’t like this mischaracterization either. What he said was at least as stupid but this meme using the word bleach won’t die. It’s very odd.
You cannot simultaneously ignore all the mistakes Trump made around covid but also blame China just because the virus originated there.
First detected in China. It originated at MRI in KC.
Surely you’re not really this stupid…
Doesn’t matter, when Trump wrecks the economy he will say that he inherited the worst economy ever from Biden.
Fucking asshole.
Your climate policy is why LA is burning and will continue to burn. Nice carbon extraction economy you’ve kept there, Joe.
Also your military industrial economy is supporting a genocide. Great economy, Joe.
How did you expect him to get any meaningful climate policies through the Republicans in Congress?
As if he tried? He is pro-fracking. Its his policy.
yeah four more years of trump would have had us much better off like we will be four years from now. good is not good enough. we need worse.
They’re both capitalist assholes hell bent on destroying life for profit
capitalism is a spectrum and if your going to have it either way (like in an election with no other canidates) you should go with the one thats more socialist even if by a bit.
Who said anything about voting? I’m didn’t say someone shouldn’t vote for Bidin. I did say that Biden is an asshole with blood on his hands.
Stockmarket does not determine inflation, cost of living does and we can barely afford food. Joe didn’t do shit, he maintained statues quo for the elite class. Eat the rich
Tell him he did it… He finally “beat medicare” and can go rest.
Suck my dick.
The state with the highest GDP in America is literally on fire on his way out…
To be fair… that State is on fire pretty regularly, the President has nothing to do with that, the shitty utilities not maintaining infrastructure properly are usually to blame.
Yup, California banned prescribed burning, and now they have bad wild fires every year.
You’re being downvoted but this is 100% the truth.
Do you think the President is Smokey the Bear or something?
Natural disaster! Must be that damn Biden’s fault! /s
