Reply to U.S. Annual Inflation rose to 6.8% in November

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "U.S. Annual Inflation rose to 6.8% in November - the highest in 40 years"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=BlueFredneck][quote=Anonymous][quote=BlueFredneck][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]This has been my family’s most successful year financially by far. I got a new job with a big raise, my wife got a promotion, our retirement and bank accounts are way up, our daughter started grad school after being furloughed in 2020, one brother bought a bigger house, my mom sold her house and downsized with a nice profit, four nieces are doing well in college. So a little temporary inflation is not a problem.[/quote]

Anyone invested in the market did great. The state of Virginia is running a huge surplus. Life is pretty good here in NOVA. Roads are being fixed. Bonuses being given in public service. There's not much to complain about here even with some inflation. Of course Omicron or whatever variant comes could change that. [/quote]

Are you a Republican?

Because this is what Republicans used to be accused of in the past - as long as everything was hunky dory for them, who cared about the plights of other people.

I've long observed that the Republican and Democratic party are switching places and it sure does seem like it. The growing indifference of the Democrats to the everyday plights of ordinary people is getting worse, their obsession with grand schemes and fix-it-all policies (which of course never fix anything but promise to make things worse) at the expense of paying attention to the nuts and bots of everyday reality aka prices and rents and inflation and wages is something that really concerns me, especially as a greater share of Democrat leadership and voters live in affluent bubbles with no real clue as to what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck with inflation and economic worries. The Republicans, for all their many, many, many flaws, are capitalizing on these fears for a good reason - because these fears do exist and are real problems. [/quote]

The GOP had all the levers in 2017 and 2018. Did the TCJA do anything for the plight of ordinary people? Heck, I've even asked what the GOP plan to tackle inflation might be ... McConnell surely knows after 2024 he has to do some actual governing; if inflation goes away on its own in 2023-4 it'll be Morning in America again (maybe, if the Dems can resist the temptation to be superwoke.) But for 2021-24, opposing is easy and it's all he has to do.

I suppose conservative judges allowing pro-life and anti-trans legislation through made ordinary people's lives a bit better if they started out that way. (pro-life/anti-choice and/or anti-trans/pro-gender norms.)

I suppose you could argue that they could've done more if it hadn't been for that nasty Schumerses and his filibusters, but, well, isn't that what Dems are running into? It does seem both parties are unable to get their stuff done, but get the blame from their less-devoted will vote no matter what base and from swing voters as if they could just Thanos snap and make stuff happen.

Now with that said ...

If front-line hourly workers are seeing their wages go up from $9-$10 an hour to $14-$16 an hour, they're doing okay even if inflation is at 10%, and skilled white-collar workers making $125k and up aren't feeling the pain (yet). The local grandee class (think the owner of a construction business, the McDonald's franchise owner, etc.) is likely feeling the pain as much of their business model is predicated on paying their workers $9-$10 an hour and their raw materials are going up in cost.

But skilled blue-collar workers/lower end white-collar/pink-collar workers making $20-$40 an hour (depending on locality) likely aren't seeing their wages keep up with inflation. (Plus they're more liable to feel the competition from foreign workers.) [/quote]

We didn't have inflation in 2017-2018.... certainly not beyond the ordinary and if anything it was still part of the broadly accepted deflationary period.

We did have wage gains in that same period. Not enormous but there was decent and steady wage gains. If anything, the Trump years leading up to 2020 saw wage gains for working Americans for the first time in a while (part of the reason Trump gained a lot of support among working class men of all races).

The problem with your assumption is that front line hourly workers are starting to see much of the wage gains eaten away by inflation. With rents rising sharply, food prices rising sharply, costs of services rising noticeably, any wage gains they eke out is being whittled back by inflation and we're still at the threat of even more inflation next year that may wipe it out altogether. Most of these people exist at transitionary jobs - few people make a career out of driving Amazon delivery vans or working at a supermarket checkout counter. If a recession hits due to sharply rising interest rates, this front line class gets walloped big time. The price they pay for a real-life modest increase in wages is lost jobs and real economic struggles a year later - a distinct pattern that follows interest rates rises meant to combat inflation.

Most Americans - indeed, the great bulk of the majority - exist between the 125k salaries and the hourly front line workers. If inflation is 7 to 10% while most of this demographics are getting pay increases mirroring the feds, which is sub 3%, it represents a real decline in buying power. Another year of similar trajectory means things really start hurting for the middle classes and that is the political danger facing the Democrats. It's certainly a factor in Manchin refusing to vote for the $2T bill.  [/quote]

I don't think I was saying there was inflation in 2017-18 ... but needless to say Republicans will have to do something other than "inherit a good economy." Of course if it turns around in 23-24, it's Morning in America. And yes, concur that 2017-19 was a continuance of the Obama economy (I think some of the general gains started in 2012-13 ...)

Now if inflation is 10% and your income is up 30-50%, inflation isn't going to hit you. But you're right that those making 30k-70k (in LCOL areas) and 30k-125k (in HCOL areas) aren't getting the wage gains of the hourly workers BUT are getting pinched by inflation -  I think I even said that in my post.

Another point I'm making is that we as a society have grown addicted to low cost labor. It has taken hold of us and we have grown to resent its absence.

These hourly front line jobs are necessary - they are often difficult to automate - and even if we did they'd be sitting around not working. Even the skilled trades have a shorter expected career than other white-collar jobs. It's possible to be a lawyer until your early 70s. Good luck laying tile or pipe that long.

There needs to be dignity in all levels of work. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics