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[rogue06]

Which gets me to what I think is Biden's true weakness: messaging. They just cannot seem to get their act together to get the message out. Trump, on the other hand, is a master of messaging. He is an savant of marketing. Biden needs someone on his team with similar chops.

Messaging? He has the MSM in his corner spinning everything his way.

What he doesn't have is reality. The reality that slaps the American consumer every time they buy gas, purchase groceries and pay their utility bills. Those sharp increases that are still going up aren't something they can hide.

[Cow Poke]

Likewise. I was in your neck of the woods, I think. Tree and I are now full-time RVers, and I have spent a chunk of time in Texas (Sargent, San Antonio, Comstock, Fort Davis, Canyon, and Lone Oak). I am now outside Vicksburg and heading for Florida.

Hope you are well.

Doing great, sir, and we have been thinking about the RVing thing, too - been watching a lot of videos of Traveling Robert.

And another retired couple in Canada who sold their house, got a small apartment, and spend a bunch of time on the road.

[JimL]

Um, actually back then supporters of Washington and Adams called themselves Federalists (they supported a strong central government), while the opposition (which favored a weaker central government and the rights of states), and which was led by Thomas Jefferson, had several names including anti-Federalists as well as Democratic Republicans.

Those were the first parties and they were there from the onset.

They may have called themselves that, but they were not established political parties and there were no established political parties at the time that the electoral college was decided upon. And electors were not bound to vote in accordance to the popular vote as they are today.

[Cow Poke]

They may have called themselves that, but they were not established political parties and there were no established political parties at the time that the electoral college was decided upon. And electors were not bound to vote in accordance to the popular vote as they are today.

Which is absolutely totally irrelevant to the fact that BOTH Parties know the rules, and BOTH Parties plan their entire campaigns on those precious EC Votes.

[carpedm9587]

Messaging? He has the MSM in his corner spinning everything his way.

What he doesn't have is reality. The reality that slaps the American consumer every time they buy gas, purchase groceries and pay their utility bills. Those sharp increases that are still going up aren't something they can hide.

You and I are clearly not watching the same MSM. I listen to and read multiple sources across the political spectrum. I have found them as critical of Biden as I have found them applauding. They have chastised him for his position on Israel, raised concerns about his age, questioned his handling of the border, and missed the mark on reporting a lot of his accomplishments. I see a media bending over backwards not to be labeled "biased." Meanwhile, I see no such efforts on the part of Fox, Breitbart, One America, and many others of their ilk. These outlets are as slanted to the right as badly as Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, and CNN are skewed to the left, IMO.

As for the comments about the economy, inflation peaked at 9.1% in June of 2022 and has trended downwards since. It has been 3.1, 3.2, and 3.5 for the first three months of 2024. That is about half of the worldwide inflation rate average. That is the context that is missing from every discussion about inflation: Mr. Biden and his administration have kept our inflation rate at less than half of what the rest of the world is experiencing.

But this is indeed Mr. Biden's achilles heal, IMO. People are driven by their pocket books and narrowly focused on their local circumstances. In my experience, they seldom look around at the big picture - a situation that most Republicans and conservatives are leveraging by repeating things like what you just repeated. It's not wrong - it's not false - it's just focusing everyone's attention on the bad, raising fears of recession, and ignoring all of the progress and context. It is, IMO, disingenuous. And this call for prices to drop coming from so many corners, and claiming that people won't be happy until they do, flies in the face of basic economic theory.

Economic markers are healthy. The stock market, which so many were raving about under Trump, goes largely ignored - even though it has basically maintained strong growth, regaining all of the losses resulting from the post-pandemic bubble burst.

But this is like the immigration situation: Mr. Trump and his acolytes and are not interested in solving problems - they are interested in winning - seemingly at any cost. Mr. Trump has actually SAID that he hopes for a market collapse this year, because he knows it will likely lead to him winning the White House. The fact that millions of people would be hurt if that happened does not factor into his math; it's just about "winning."

[carpedm9587]

Doing great, sir, and we have been thinking about the RVing thing, too - been watching a lot of videos of Traveling Robert.

And another retired couple in Canada who sold their house, got a small apartment, and spend a bunch of time on the road.

We love it - though my wife is still only as part-time RVer. She goes back to the northeast for 3 weeks every two months to spend time with her mother. Her dad died two years ago, leaving her mom by herself. I hope to do this for a few years, but then I want to settle somewhere and start figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. I still have some gas in the tank - and I want to find a place where I can make a difference. I'm just not sure at what yet.

Hope you and yours are well.

[Cow Poke]

We love it - though my wife is still only as part-time RVer. She goes back to the northeast for 3 weeks every two months to spend time with her mother. Her dad died two years ago, leaving her mom by herself. I hope to do this for a few years, but then I want to settle somewhere and start figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. I still have some gas in the tank - and I want to find a place where I can make a difference. I'm just not sure at what yet.

Hope you and yours are well.

Interesting you should use the term "make a difference" - that term keeps coming up, and as Chaplain to our EMS, I have often reminded them "you guys make a difference".

I think if more people focused on that, we would definitely have a better world.

[rogue06]

You and I are clearly not watching the same MSM. I listen to and read multiple sources across the political spectrum.

Given how often I cite what was on MSNBC, CNN etc or quote from the NYT and WaPo and the like, it should be rather obvious that I don't reside in a bubble but like to hear what folks are saying rather than what someone claims they said. Can you say the same? Have you ever cited Fox News or the Washington Times? Or is that "wide spectrum" actually pretty darn narrow?

The MSM has been carrying old Joe's water on the economy (and several other subjects as well) trying to convince everyone that the economy is doing great and you shouldn't believe your own lying eyes every time you have to pay for something no matter how severe the sticker shock. When inflation finally leveled off awhile back, old Joe bizarrely declared that inflation was at 0% (no, it was still at around 8% -- it just wasn't going up) and you had the MSM like the NYT happily repeating that whopper as the truth.

Another way you can tell that the MSM is largely in the tank is the complete lack of human interest stories about families struggling to make ends meet and making some hard choices trying to do so. Such stories are a regular feature on the evening news broadcasts when the economy is struggling and a Republican is in the White House.

[carpedm9587]

Interesting you should use the term "make a difference" - that term keeps coming up, and as Chaplain to our EMS, I have often reminded them "you guys make a difference".

I think if more people focused on that, we would definitely have a better world.

I would heartily agree, though I strongly suspect we have different definitions of "better world," at least in some respects. Still, I would imagine that our definitions also overlap a good deal. It is too bad that we are moving towards a world where the differences are more important than the commonalities.

But "make a difference" has always been my beacon for choosing where I put my efforts. I strongly doubt that I can do anything to save the world. But it is very possible to protect someone from rain, feed someone who is hungry, teach someone to read, and the list goes on and on and on.

There's another simple thing everyone can do to make a better world: leave every place and thing and person you touch better than you found it. A fellow scoutmaster was big on that theme, and taught the boys in his troop to take the moment to pick up one piece of trash, wipe one counter, say one kind thing to someone, etc. I adopted his approach, and try to live it myself. Imagine a world where EVERYONE did that? It would be just amazing!

[Cow Poke]

I would heartily agree, though I strongly suspect we have different definitions of "better world," at least in some respects. Still, I would imagine that our definitions also overlap a good deal. It is too bad that we are moving towards a world where the differences are more important than the commonalities.

But "make a difference" has always been my beacon for choosing where I put my efforts. I strongly doubt that I can do anything to save the world. But it is very possible to protect someone from rain, feed someone who is hungry, teach someone to read, and the list goes on and on and on.

There's another simple thing everyone can do to make a better world: leave every place and thing and person you touch better than you found it. A fellow scoutmaster was big on that theme, and taught the boys in his troop to take the moment to pick up one piece of trash, wipe one counter, say one kind thing to someone, etc. I adopted his approach, and try to live it myself. Imagine a world where EVERYONE did that? It would be just amazing!

Ah, the Boy Scout thing --- "take nothing but pictures - leave nothing but footprints". Along with the obvious, "leave it better than you found it".

[carpedm9587]

Given how often I cite what was on MSNBC, CNN etc or quote from the NYT and WaPo and the like, it should be rather obvious that I don't reside in a bubble but like to hear what folks are saying rather than what someone claims they said. Can you say the same? Have you ever cited Fox News or the Washington Times? Or is that "wide spectrum" actually pretty darn narrow?

The MSM has been carrying old Joe's water on the economy (and several other subjects as well) trying to convince everyone that the economy is doing great and you shouldn't believe your own lying eyes every time you have to pay for something no matter how severe the sticker shock. When inflation finally leveled off awhile back, old Joe bizarrely declared that inflation was at 0% (no, it was still at around 8% -- it just wasn't going up) and you had the MSM like the NYT happily repeating that whopper as the truth.

Another way you can tell that the MSM is largely in the tank is the complete lack of human interest stories about families struggling to make ends meet and making some hard choices trying to do so. Such stories are a regular feature on the evening news broadcasts when the economy is struggling and a Republican is in the White House.

Yes, I can say the same. My podcast feed includes Fox News, Potomac Watch (WSJ), and The Federalist, to name a few more right-leaning sources. On the left I have CNN 5Things, Anderson Cooper, and Rachel Maddow. I will cite any story I can verify, regardless of the source, and have cited sources across the political spectrum.

As for your comments about the economy, I see the MSM reporting facts: the economy IS doing great. Virtually every indicator points to a healthy economy: unemployment, reducing inflation, stock market returns, etc. We have dodged a recession that was described as "unavoidable" by many economists only 2 years ago. Prices are up - so people are paying more. That is what many people are pointing to in claiming that the "economy sucks." What is left out is that the Biden Administration has held inflation to less than half of the worldwide number in the face of overwhelming odds: wars, profiteering, supply chain hassles, international economic disputes, etc. Inflation is not a U.S. issue - it is a worldwide issue. It is due to a complicated tangle of factors. But I agree that there is at least one obvious thing Biden could have initiated to soften the inflation hit for the poorer members of our country, and no one in his administration seems to have thought about it.

As for the "zero inflation" comment, I just did a little digging (having missed this when it happened). As so often happens, politicians spin. Inflation is most commonly measured either year over year or month over month. Both are valid, and they get different results. For the month I think you are referencing, the month over month number was 0%. The year over year value was 8.5%. Why does this matter? Let's take a simple scenario. Let's assume zero inflation for an entire year, then a sudden 8.5% leap in a single month. If prices then hold perfectly steady for the next 12 months, you will have 11 months of the month-to-month inflation at 0% and the year-to-year inflation at 8.5%. The month-to-month number ignores the 8.5% jump - basically buries it. The latter number makes it look as if inflation is still climbing at 8.5% when, in fact, prices are holding steady. An economist would cite both numbers to reflect that reality. A politician is going to choose whichever number serves their political interests. No surprise there.

Personally, I applaud a politician (either Trump or Biden) who cites the positive economic numbers, even if I know that paints a rosy picture. The economy is not just dependent on raw numbers; it is also driven by people's perceptions. One of the ways to increase the probability of a recession is to get everyone to believe it is inevitable. The belief tends to create the reality.

As for the human interest stories, I cannot say I have noticed that absence, and I have absolutely no data to show that the pattern you describe has happened. Do you have access to such data and would you be willing to share it?

[carpedm9587]

Ah, the Boy Scout thing --- "take nothing but pictures - leave nothing but footprints". Along with the obvious, "leave it better than you found it".

They are even pithier than that: "Leave no trace."

You know, I have completely forgotten how to add emojis to my posts! You can assume the first sentence was punctuated with a nodding emoji!

[carpedm9587]

Yes, I can say the same. My podcast feed includes Fox News, Potomac Watch (WSJ), and The Federalist, to name a few more right-leaning sources. On the left I have CNN 5Things, Anderson Cooper, and Rachel Maddow. I will cite any story I can verify, regardless of the source, and have cited sources across the political spectrum.

As for your comments about the economy, I see the MSM reporting facts: the economy IS doing great. Virtually every indicator points to a healthy economy: unemployment, reducing inflation, corporate profits, job growth, wage growth, stock market returns, etc. We have dodged a recession that was described as "unavoidable" by many economists only 2 years ago. Prices are up - so people are paying more. That is what many people are pointing to in claiming that the "economy sucks." What is left out is that the Biden Administration has held inflation to less than half of the worldwide number in the face of overwhelming odds: wars, profiteering, supply chain hassles, international economic disputes, etc. Inflation is not a U.S. issue - it is a worldwide issue. It is due to a complicated tangle of factors. But I agree that there is at least one obvious thing Biden could have initiated to soften the inflation hit for the poorer members of our country, and no one in his administration seems to have thought about it.

As for the "zero inflation" comment, I just did a little digging (having missed this when it happened). As so often happens, politicians spin. Inflation is most commonly measured either year over year or month over month. Both are valid, and they get different results. For the month I think you are referencing, the month over month number was 0%. The year over year value was 8.5%. Why does this matter? Let's take a simple scenario. Let's assume zero inflation for an entire year, then a sudden 8.5% leap in a single month. If prices then hold perfectly steady for the next 12 months, you will have 11 months of the month-to-month inflation at 0% and the year-to-year inflation at 8.5%. The month-to-month number ignores the 8.5% jump - basically buries it. The latter number makes it look as if inflation is still climbing at 8.5% when, in fact, prices are holding steady. An economist would cite both numbers to reflect that reality. A politician is going to choose whichever number serves their political interests. No surprise there.

Personally, I applaud a politician (either Trump or Biden) who cites the positive economic numbers, even if I know that paints a rosy picture. The economy is not just dependent on raw numbers; it is also driven by people's perceptions. One of the ways to increase the probability of a recession is to get everyone to believe it is inevitable. The belief tends to create the reality. Given the constant hammering on "bad economy" from so many on the right, the fact that we avoided one is amazing to me.

As for the human interest stories, I cannot say I have noticed that absence, and I have absolutely no data to show that the pattern you describe has happened. Do you have access to such data and would you be willing to share it?