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Why there will be more civil unrest to come.

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  • Why there will be more civil unrest to come.

    But it's not necessarily Trump or even Obama's fault, so it isn't a partisan thing. It's the FEDERAL RESERVE.

    Folks are so confused about this issue, so I'll try and explain as brief as possible. It's a complex issue and I did the best I could to explain it in detail here, albeit in extremely long and mundane posts. To make a long story short: the federal reserve (central bank) created trillions of dollars after the crisis of 2008 (ignore the official government "bailout" because this has nothing to do with that). Basically all that money flowed (and is still flowing) into the financial system, which ends up inflating asset prices like equities (stocks). This causes the stock market to skyrocket much faster than the rest of the economy can recover. This means that the stock market is almost exclusively driven by these inflated asset prices caused by the Fed's money pumping (and anyone doubting this can now see the CLEAR evidence -- the stock market has almost reached its 2019 highs, yet the economy has crashed and the rest of society is tearing apart at the seams -- does that make any sense?).

    Because the top wealthy elite own most of the stock market assets (anywhere from 80-90%), this makes them extremely wealthy -- insanely wealthy -- while the rest of the economy lags behind.

    The Fed also lowers interest rates, which not only entices the masses and the government to take on more debt than they can handle, but pulverizes savers. Even those above the poverty line (middle class) struggle to accumulate any meaningful savings because they're not earning any interest on what they put in the bank. Also, low interest rates entices companies to use that borrowed money to buy their own stocks (buybacks) instead of actually investing in production expansion. Since they don't have to worry about interest on those loans, they can be more reckless with it and gamble. Obviously expanding production benefits the whole economy. Buying back stocks benefits only those few in the stock market (the wealthy class). These effects create extreme social imbalances and thus results in a number of societal ills, not the least of which is an insane wealth gap where a few are seeing their wealth increase while the rest struggle to maintain their quality of life.

    Most of us with a little economic knowledge know the economic data, though it can look positive, doesn't always reflect the real story (of course conservatives knew this to be true under Obama, but for partisan reasons they obviously changed their tune under Trump -- but it was basically the same). Yes, the unemployment rate is lowering, but many, if not most of the jobs are low paying. Low paying jobs with massive debt and the inability to save anything meaningful = most folks are living from paycheck to paycheck.

    The MSM (owned by the wealthy elites who are getting insanely rich from the stock market bubble) propagates the booming stock market and low unemployment as a sign that the economy is doing GREAT and we should all be happy, when in reality folks are struggling to get by, which just creates more animosity between the haves and the have nots. The animosity and economic frustration can be very subtle and build over many years. The effects of it can occur in drips and drabs within society or just explode like it has now, though it doesn't always manifest as an economic issue. It can manifest in many various ways, like racial issues, or sexism issues, or political issues, or an unjust cop killing that gets a lot of media attention, but the underlying cause is still economic. This is why we've seen everything get so crazy in the last several years. It was brewing and building. We even saw hints of civil unrest under Obama, but this was just a microcosm. A lot of folks don't even know why they're angry, so the current or trendy issue just becomes a convenient outlet. Right now that outlet is racism, but this too is just a microcosm of what's coming down the pike.

    The even worse news is that NOTHING whatsoever has been fixed since 2008, but is getting much worse. The federal reserve did unprecedented things during 2008 which is causing this unrest, and now they have exceeded to levels of insanity. Even IF the economy "recovers," it will not be any better than it was prior to the shutdown, which was already bad, yet every indication is that it won't even recover to the level it was before. On top of that, we have insane amounts of debt and deficits that we didn't even have before. And on top of that, with all this insane money printing, we will undoubtedly have inflation. Though we'll likely see imbalances of it -- prices on some things rising, while other prices deflate -- or stagflation.

    More unrest is coming. This is just an economic fact.

    Trump's fault in all this (as well as Obama) is that he wasn't leveling with the public about these monetary mechanisms (though he did warn about it BEFORE he got elected, so he was well aware of this fact), but was touting a lie in order to boost his own ego. Sadly, the conservatives carried his water and went along with it in order to show everyone how great Trump was doing (though in fairness, many conservatives don't understand these mechanisms themselves). But again, I must emphasize, Trump is not to be solely blamed for the economic mechanisms behind all this (though he did pressure Powell into continuing to perpetuate the same policies under his watch), as this had already been occurring a decade before him.

  • #2
    Inflation at 40 year highs.

    I won't offer any sources because I'm sure you're all aware of this by now. But now as the stimulus money has dried up, as expected, it looks like industrial production is "unexpectedly" slowing...


    source

    Seasonal retail sales have "unexpectedly" slowed...


    source

    All the delusional Keynesian economists that were sure we were booming are scratching their heads. And the Hawkish Fed (federal reserve) is just on the cusp of tightening their monetary policies which will bring more recession pain (discussed here).

    And, in spite of what the Fed does, we're most likely still at the tip of the iceberg seeing the symptoms (price rises) of all the inflation (money printing) that was created not just in the last two years, but in the last decade. You know where this all leads... say it with me... STAGFLATION. 2022's gonna be an advent.

    It's good to know that the MSM economists are finally catching on to something we knew was coming almost two years ago.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by seanD View Post

      [...]

      It's good to know that the MSM economists are finally catching on to something we knew was coming almost two years ago.
      It's fascinating to see how many things that virtually everyone outside of government with more than two working brain cells can see coming from a mile away, that they declare were unforeseen consequences.

      I'm always still in trouble again

      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

      Comment


      • #4
        'Arab Spring' Risks Flourish As Global Food Prices Jump To Record High

        (bold emphasis mine)

        Global food prices soared to a new record high in February, led by a massive jump in vegetable oil and dairy prices as well as higher costs for grains, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The move higher in food prices comes as the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent commodity markets into disarray, which indicates prices could continue to surge and may trigger another 'Arab Spring'.

        The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI), a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, averaged 140.7 points in February, up 3.9% from January, +24.1% compared with the same month last year, and 3.1% higher than the record in February 2011.

        The largest mover in the index was FAO Vegetable Oils Price Index, up 8.5% over the previous month to a new record high, driven by palm, soy, and sunflower oils. The second-largest was the FAO Dairy Price Index, up 6.4% over the prior month. The FAO Cereal Price Index was +3%.

        FAO economist Upali Galketi Aratchilage said crop condition concerns and congested supply chains only tell one part of the story of why food prices are soaring.
        "A much bigger push for food price inflation comes from outside food production, particularly the energy, fertilizer and feed sectors.

        "All these factors tend to squeeze profit margins of food producers, discouraging them from investing and expanding production," Aratchilage said.

        The February report was likely compiled before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since then, commodities markets have been skyrocketing. This week alone, the Bloomberg Commodity Index recorded its largest weekly gain since the stagflationary period of the mid-1970s over the turmoil.

        Comment


        • #5
          I knew they'd use this conflict for economic cover, but I didn't know they'd invent speak that would put even Orwell to shame...



          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by seanD View Post
            I knew they'd use this conflict for economic cover, but I didn't know they'd invent speak that would put even Orwell to shame...



            She'll be off looking for Toto any minute now.
            1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
            .
            ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
            Scripture before Tradition:
            but that won't prevent others from
            taking it upon themselves to deprive you
            of the right to call yourself Christian.

            ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by seanD View Post
              I knew they'd use this conflict for economic cover, but I didn't know they'd invent speak that would put even Orwell to shame...



              From the same woman who said when you're out of work that you should consider it "Funemplyment"

              I'm always still in trouble again

              "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
              "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
              "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                From the same woman who said when you're out of work that you should consider it "Funemplyment"
                I honestly wouldn't be surprised if saying government spending does in fact increase the debt and causes inflation is the next thing the Dems and big tech attempt to censor on social media. In fact, being that mid-terms are just around the corner...

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by seanD View Post

                  I honestly wouldn't be surprised if saying government spending does in fact increase the debt and causes inflation is the next thing the Dems and big tech attempt to censor on social media. In fact, being that mid-terms are just around the corner...
                  From the same folks who brought you the claim that a 3.5 trillion dollar ($3,500,000,000) bill would cost zero dollars.

                  I'm always still in trouble again

                  "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                  "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                  "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Though I could easily say the spike in violent crimes, particularly homicides, across the country is a form of civil unrest, particularly since there is evidence of a direct historical correlation between the rising CPI rate and the homicide rate.

                    However, when we think of "civil unrest," we think of nationwide demonstrations, riots, and violence like we saw in 2020. There are multiple factors that make the likelihood of this occurring across the country in 2022-23 extremely plausible, if not probable.

                    As described in the OP, the foundation is always economic, though the emotional outburst typically uses other events as an outlet, likely sociopolitical, particularly considering how divisive and charged this problem is right now. Since we're arguably in economic crisis right now, and since the situation will only get worse over the course of the rest of the year, this is a guarantee. So this is the obvious foundational tinder.

                    As far as the spark, there are two distinct issues coming to a head and might even converge (this is assuming there isn't some kind of other black swan event, like a police shooting, that could change the dynamic):

                    1) Abortion overturned.
                    2) "Red wave" in November (Reps take back both house and senate).

                    If 2 happens yet 1 doesn't happen, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most probable we'll see nationwide demonstrations and riots in 2022-23, I would rate it a 8 1/2.

                    If 1 happens yet 2 doesn't happen, since 2 may somewhat quell the effects of 1, I'd rate it a 6.

                    If neither 1 or 2 happen, I'd rate it a 3 1/2.

                    If both 1 and 2 happen, I'd rate it a solid 10.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Stagflation.

                      Two years later and the "experts" are finally catching on...

                      Former Fed chair warns US economy faces stagflation after central bank missed inflation

                      "Even under the benign scenario, we should have a slowing economy," Bernanke told the New York Times during a separate interview. "And inflation’s still too high but coming down. So there should be a period in the next year or two where growth is low, unemployment is at least up a little bit and inflation is still high. So you could call that stagflation."
                      Only thing I take issue with is the claim that inflation is "coming down." That's the current establishment line that inflation has "peaked, " but so far, the establishment has been wrong about everything. First they said inflation won't happen. Then they said it's only transitory. Now they're telling us it's at a peak and should start falling.

                      Sure, that's possible, but at this point, I'd call it a toss-up. It could always sort of flatline a bit but continue to climb, only at a slower pace, or it could unexpectedly jump to an even higher number.

                      Also, he says that unemployment will grow. Maybe, but not necessarily. It's difficult to predict anything certain because we're in an unprecedented situation, but employers could always hold off lay-offs as the last resort and just compensate for loss revenue with even higher prices, flinging us into a type of hyperstagflation scenario. Another scenario is GDP crashes and the market crash gets so severe the Fed reverses course and starts printing and pumping money back into the system creating hyperinflation.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Probably why the experts get inflation predictions wrong.

                        First they said inflation wouldn't happen. Then they said inflation was transitory. Then they said inflation had probably peaked. Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

                        In order to understand why they get it wrong, we need a simplistic understanding of what inflation is and how it affects the economy.

                        Inflation is not just rising consumer prices. This is how we naturally interpret it, but it's technically wrong. Rising prices is a symptom of inflation, but inflation can happen without this symptom. Inflation is simply expanding (inflating) the money supply = when the Fed (central bank) creates money out of thin air. But the inflation the Fed creates doesn't always reach the main economy, hence the reason consumer prices never rose with the trillions of dollars that the Fed created from 2008 to 2019.

                        So why are consumer prices rising now?

                        Think of it like a dam of water. The dam represents the stock and bond market (bond market essentially being government funding). The water sitting in the dam represents all the excess money printing (inflation) from 2008 to 2019.

                        A village at the bottom of the dam represents consumer prices. From 2008 to 2019, the village was fine because the water (inflation) was just sitting in the dam right at its edge but not quite seeping over yet.

                        Then in 2020 to now, all the excess fiscal spending and money printing was focused on the main economy. It's important to note that this was more than just stimulus money directly sent to consumers. It was the stimulus. It was also the PPP loans (which is turning out to be rife with corruption and fraud, but that's a subject for another day). It was the CARES act. It was the enhanced unemployment benefit program. It was even the rent moratorium. Though the rent moratorium didn't necessarily require money printing, it distorted supply and demand. IOW, it shifted the focus of the consumer from non-discretionary (rent) spending to discretionary spending.

                        All this excess demand was like excess water that finally took the water over the edge of the dam. And now it's not just the recent excess water flooding out and drowning the village below, but dragging much of the other water out with it that was sitting for more than a decade making the flood an uncontrollable deluge. The water flowing out of the dam is also negatively affecting the water levels that had been sustaining the dam itself (stock and bond market bubble).

                        Yes, supply chain shocks and war exacerbated the problem, but is not the primary cause or even the source of the problem. Supply and demand still would have been out of whack even without those factors.

                        Moreover -- and I know a lot of folks don't like to hear this -- you also can't blame just one president. It's Biden, Trump, and Obama's fault, as well as the house and senate, and the central bank (the Fed). All of them are culpable for this situation with the central bank as the chief facilitator. In fact, you could even go as far back as Bush and Clinton in light of economic distortions created by Fed policy.

                        "Expert" economists strangely don't seem to get this (likely because they're Keynesians and Keynesians have grossly distorted views about how the economy functions), which is why they've been consistently wrong -- i.e inflation won't happen, inflation is transitory, inflation has peaked, etc. Keys' thinking is really like an economic cult because there are just basic economic principles that explain how this all functions, and so there's no other way to explain why these experts -- many of them Ivy League academics -- don't seem to grasp these principles.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          This was an interesting article from NYT, of all sources, about the cause of inflation...

                          (for those with a paywall, I'll include the whole article at the bottom of this post)
                          https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/11/o...democrats.html

                          What's so interesting is that they were fairly accurate about the source of the inflation problem and the federal reserve's culpability, scarily accurate in fact, something MSM hardly ever admits about central bank policy. Normally they keep a tight lid on this info.

                          And so I think the reason NYT is admitting all this is because they're basically a partisan hack rag and had to admit it for political reasons. The current inflation situation definitely conveniently gives the Reps a lot of political fuel, and so out of desperation, they're panicked and forced to drop truth bombs.

                          However, this is NYT after all, and so there are certain details they're not being forthright or just outright lying about which is expected. One of the things is this...

                          Democrats would be wise to point to the source of the problem: a decade of easy money policies at the Fed, not from anything done at the White House or in Congress over the past year and a half.
                          The bold part is a lie, which I'll address shortly, but NYT is also correct that it would serve the Dems well to be upfront about the real source of the problem instead of making it worse by gaslighting Americans with ridiculous scapegoats.

                          The reason I personally believe the Dems can't be honest here is because A) they believe the American people are stupid (and they're correct -- most folks are ignorant about this subject) and B) they like the federal reserve, and want to utilize that institution to their political advantage. Dems are very big spenders, with lots of big government projects planned and are well aware they need the Fed to finance these projects.

                          More lies...

                          Republicans have also homed in on Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, meant to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, as a cause for runaway inflation. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen rejected that, noting in testimony before members of Congress: “We’re seeing high inflation in almost all of the developed countries around the world. And they have very different fiscal policies. So it can’t be the case that the bulk of the inflation that we’re experiencing reflects the impact” of the American Rescue Plan.
                          This is especially interesting to me because they cite Janet Yellen, and the reason they did this is because Yellen herself is not being forthright. In fact, Yellen is outrightly lying here. She knows perfectly well (being the former Fed chairman) that the reason inflation is global is because ALL the central banks were doing the exact same thing the Fed was doing -- lowered interest rates (ECB actually had rates negative) and printing obscene amounts of money to bail out their governments, fund government spending, and keep their currencies stable since 2008. She knows this but is hiding this obvious fact.

                          And more lies...

                          Democrats would be wise to point to the source of the problem: a decade of easy money policies at the Fed, not from anything done at the White House or in Congress over the past year and a half.

                          The real tragedy is that this fall’s elections might reinforce the very dynamics that created the problem in the first place. During the 2010s, Congress fell into a state of dysfunction and paralysis at the very moment its economic policymaking power was needed most. It should be viewed as no coincidence that the Fed announced that it would intensify its experiments in quantitative easing on Nov. 3, 2010, the day after members of the Tea Party movement were swept into power in the House. The Fed was seen as the only federal agency equipped to forcefully drive economic growth as Congress relegated itself to the sidelines.
                          Being the partisan hack rag NYT is, they try to shift the blame onto the Tea Party. What makes this so laughably absurd is that to say the inflation problem is the result of Fed policy but not government spending is a contradiction.

                          The Fed printed all that money TO FUND government spending, hence the reason they have a $9 trillion balance sheet (about two thirds being government treasuries). The two go hand-in-hand. The less government spends and the less government programs there are, the less the Fed has to print the money to fund it all.

                          Again, this is why I think the Dems keep a tight lid on this and don't target the Fed, because they know they need the Fed and know that most people don't know this information or understand it.

                          NYT apparently spilled the beans out of sheer partisan desperation.


                          The whole NYT article...

                          As the midterm elections draw nearer, a central conservative narrative is coming into sharp focus: President Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress have made a mess of the American economy. Republicans see pure political gold in this year’s slow-motion stock market crash, which seems to be accelerating at the perfect time for a party seeking to regain control of Congress in the fall.

                          The National Republican Congressional Committee in a tweet last month quipped that the Democratic House agenda includes a “tanking stock market.” Conservatives have been highlighting a video clip from 2020 in which President Donald Trump warned about a Biden presidency, “If he’s elected, the stock market will crash.” The right-wing pundit Sean Hannity’s blog featured the clip under the headline “Trump Was Right.”

                          But the narrative pinning blame for the economy’s woes squarely on Democrats’ shoulders elides the true culprit: the Federal Reserve. The financial earthquakes of 2022 trace their origin to underground pressures the Fed has been steadily creating for over a decade.

                          It started back in 2010, when the Fed embarked on the unprecedented and experimental path of using its power to create money as a primary engine of American economic growth. To put it simply, the Fed created years of supereasy money, with short-term interest rates held near zero while it pumped trillions of dollars into the banking system. One way to understand the scale of these programs is to measure the size of the Fed’s balance sheet. The balance sheet was about $900 billion in mid-2008, before the financial market crash. It rose to $4.5 trillion in 2015 and is just short of $9 trillion today.

                          All of this easy money had a distinct impact on our financial system: It incentivized investors to push their money into ever riskier bets. Wall Street types coined a term for this effect: “search for yield.” What that means is the Fed pushed a lot of money into a system that was searching for assets to buy that might, in return, provide a decent profit, or yield. So money poured into relatively risky assets like technology stocks, corporate junk debt, commercial real estate bonds and even cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. This drove the prices of those risky assets higher, drawing in yet more investment.

                          The Fed has steadily inflated stock prices over the past decade by keeping interest rates extremely low and buying up bonds — through a program called quantitative easing — which has the effect of pushing new cash into asset markets and driving up prices. The Fed then supercharged those stock prices after the pandemic meltdown of 2020 by pumping trillions into the banking system. It was the Fed that primarily dropped the ball on addressing inflation in 2021, missing the opportunity to act quickly and effectively as the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, reassured the public that inflation was likely to be merely transitory even as it gained steam. And it’s the Fed that is playing a frantic game of financial catch-up, hiking rates quickly and precipitating a wrenching market correction.

                          So now the bill is coming due. Unexpectedly high inflation — running at the hottest levels in four decades — is forcing the Fed to do what it has avoided doing for years: tighten the money supply quickly and forcefully. Last month the Fed raised short-term rates by half a percentage point, the largest single rate hike since 2000. The aggressiveness of the move signaled that the Fed could take similarly dramatic measures again this year.

                          A sobering realization is now unfolding on Wall Street. The decade of supereasy money is likely over. Because of inflation’s impact, the Fed likely won’t be able to turn on the money spigots at will if asset prices collapse. This is the driving force behind falling stock prices and why the end of the collapse is probably not yet in sight. The reality of a higher-interest-rate world is working its way through the corridors of Wall Street and will likely topple more fragile structures before it’s all over.

                          After the stock and bond markets adjust downward, for example, investors must evaluate the true value of other fragile towers of risky assets, like corporate junk debt. The enormous market for corporate debt began to collapse in 2020, but the Fed stopped the carnage by directly bailing out junk debt for the first time. This didn’t just save the corporate debt market but also added fuel to it, helping since 2021 to inflate bond prices. Now those bonds will have to be repriced in light of higher interest rates, and history indicates that their prices will not go up.

                          And while the Fed is a prime driver of this year’s volatility, the central bank continues to evade public accountability for it.

                          Just last month, for instance, the Senate confirmed Mr. Powell to serve another four-year term as Fed chairman. The vote — more than four to one in favor — reflects the amazingly high level of bipartisan support that Mr. Powell enjoys. The president, at a White House meeting in May, presented Mr. Powell as an ally in the fight against inflation rather than the culprit for much of this year’s financial market volatility. “My plan is to address inflation. It starts with a simple proposition: Respect the Fed and respect the Fed’s independence,” the president said.

                          This leaves the field open for the Republican Party to pin the blame for Wall Street’s woes on the Democratic Party’s inaction. As Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, phrased it on Twitter recently, “Your 401k misses President Trump.” This almost certainly presages a Republican line of attack over the summer and fall. It won’t matter that this rhetoric is the opposite of Mr. Trump’s in 2018 and 2019, when the Fed was tightening and causing markets to teeter. Back then he attacked Mr. Powell on Twitter and pressured the Fed chairman to cut interest rates even though the economy was growing. (The Fed complied in the summer of 2019.) But things are different now. Mr. Biden is in office, and the Fed’s tightening paves a clear pathway for the Republican Party to claim majorities in the House and Senate.

                          Republicans have also homed in on Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, meant to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, as a cause for runaway inflation. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen rejected that, noting in testimony before members of Congress: “We’re seeing high inflation in almost all of the developed countries around the world. And they have very different fiscal policies. So it can’t be the case that the bulk of the inflation that we’re experiencing reflects the impact” of the American Rescue Plan.
                          Democrats would be wise to point to the source of the problem: a decade of easy money policies at the Fed, not from anything done at the White House or in Congress over the past year and a half

                          The real tragedy is that this fall’s elections might reinforce the very dynamics that created the problem in the first place. During the 2010s, Congress fell into a state of dysfunction and paralysis at the very moment its economic policymaking power was needed most. It should be viewed as no coincidence that the Fed announced that it would intensify its experiments in quantitative easing on Nov. 3, 2010, the day after members of the Tea Party movement were swept into power in the House. The Fed was seen as the only federal agency equipped to forcefully drive economic growth as Congress relegated itself to the sidelines.

                          With prices for gas, food and other goods still on the rise and the stock market in a state of flux, there may still be considerable pain ahead for consumers. But Americans shouldn’t fall for simplistic rhetoric that blames this all on Mr. Biden. More than a decade of monetary policy brought us to this moment, not 17 months of Democratic control in Washington. Voters should be cleareyed about the cause of this economic chaos and vote for the party they think can best lead us out of it.








                          Last edited by seanD; 06-15-2022, 12:17 PM.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by seanD View Post
                            This was an interesting article from NYT, of all sources, about the cause of inflation...

                            (for those with a paywall, I'll include the whole article at the bottom of this post)
                            https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/11/o...democrats.html

                            What's so interesting is that they were fairly accurate about the source of the inflation problem and the federal reserve's culpability, scarily accurate in fact, something MSM hardly ever admits about central bank policy. Normally they keep a tight lid on this info.

                            And so I think the reason NYT is admitting all this is because they're basically a partisan hack rag and had to admit it for political reasons. The current inflation situation definitely conveniently gives the Reps a lot of political fuel, and so out of desperation, they're panicked and forced to drop truth bombs.
                            Given that it was an opinion article, and the NYT is well known for its liberal leanings, it's not surprising that it would publish an article saying that it's not Biden's fault. You seem to agree with that overall point to some extent, even if you disagree about some of the details.

                            As for the fed, it seems to me that they've just been trying to do what they've been mandated to do, namely maximizing employment and stabilizing prices. It's just that lawmakers (both Democratic and Republican) and events (pandemic and war in Ukraine) have been putting them in a position where it's harder and harder to accomplish those objectives.

                            As for ultimate blame, I'd say that goes to the politicians in both parties who care more about their own reelection than the good of the country (and thus run up the debt), and the voters who elect them. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything that can be done about that, other than suffer the consequences.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Stoic View Post

                              Given that it was an opinion article, and the NYT is well known for its liberal leanings, it's not surprising that it would publish an article saying that it's not Biden's fault. You seem to agree with that overall point to some extent, even if you disagree about some of the details.

                              As for the fed, it seems to me that they've just been trying to do what they've been mandated to do, namely maximizing employment and stabilizing prices. It's just that lawmakers (both Democratic and Republican) and events (pandemic and war in Ukraine) have been putting them in a position where it's harder and harder to accomplish those objectives.

                              As for ultimate blame, I'd say that goes to the politicians in both parties who care more about their own reelection than the good of the country (and thus run up the debt), and the voters who elect them. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything that can be done about that, other than suffer the consequences.
                              I've never once argued it wasn't Biden's fault. It is Biden's fault, but isn't only his fault I've argued.

                              And I've been researching this subject for more than decade, and I can tell you, MSM sources hardly ever publish articles like this about this subject, clearly stating the mechanisms about the federal reserve and its affects on the economy and markets. It's why most folks are completely ignorant and clueless about it all.

                              Comment

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