the_dunk_tank

bread prices huh?

rate of inflation

As @[email protected] said a few days ago:

When your data doesn't confirm the point you want to make, just add more derivatives

Did you read the basket of goods they use? It includes a tv ffs. Apparently tv prices matter to people who have to choose which meal they skip.

The wall is too kind for these stains upon humanity

Now ask them to adjust for housing costs, which they more or less never do.

This is what these policy wonk nerds do they mire you down in the little details, "um, SIR, ACTUALLY you got 0.8cents of a raise, adjusted for inflation in QE 3 of 2024, ipso facto things are better than 30 years go "

That's even without jumping into quintiles. If two quintiles got shit on, and two got the bombenomics bonus, you'll have your half of population mad. Not that ft cares

fuck, i went to the replies and Aimee fucking Therese made this exact point.

In the 1800s news media was firmly owned by the merchants who regularly gaslit the entire population.

Translated into reality:

The economy is so bad we don’t even base our measurements of it on the assumption that it’s stable.

Someone posted an inflation graph on here the other day that showed the huuuuuuuge spike a year ago and the not-even-close-to-comparable dip that's happened since then. That question is absolutely a cherry picked piece of data.

I personally think that requiring ordinary people to understand differential calculus to parse the question is cool and normal.

The funniest part is no one wants to talk about why roughly 10% to 15% say there is no inflation, they are wealthier than ever, and life is great but the other 90% of the US is screaming that they are living on the edge closer to homelessness and ruin than ever before. Sometimes these same articles will mention that luxury car sales are at an all time high as further evidence that the 90% are just being delusional.

Which socioeconomic class do your think the authors of all these articles and posts fall into, the 90% or 10%? Same people always try to point out to fellow Americans that by being in the US a person is automatically in the global top 10%, which is an insidious lie. It's eye opening for most Americans when they learn only the top 15% of US households fall into the global top 10%, that most Americans don't take home the required $150,000 USD or greater but a few tens of thousand each year and are indebted with zero savings. The sheer number of US adults who only manage to earn roughly $20,000 USD per year is hard for these people to wrap their minds around.

The US government only tracking "household income" rather than a break down of incomes for individual working aged US adults is also a slight of hand. An unspecified number of individual people living under one roof with multiple incomes being combined to get that household income number, further skewed by millions of functionally homeless (couch surfing, living in cars, living in motels a few days a week) working adults most of which are lower income being just ignored.

Shirt questions raised shirt

TBF, people "experience" things that aren't going on all the time.

Half of Republicans think they live under a Trans-Muslim Communist dictatorship, for example.

And then they follow their feelings and twist the facts to suit them

That's the ultimate irony of these fucksticks.

People like the Koch brother (half way there) and all the other far right pieces of dogshit spent decades astroturfing and fueling this anti-government sentiment. Selling the idea that government is hated by everyone, government is inefficient and ineffective so private corporations are the better alternative. That allowing wealth to accumulate in only a few individuals will benefit everyone as they fund humanitarian projects.

One thing I gotta hand to guys like Rockefeller is he took his son's advice and actually did give a fuck load of money to prop up stuff that benefited society. This isn't praise for him, no, it's just recognizing that he wasn't a total buffoon. He and his son and family (and many other tycoons then and since then) realized you either have to give back or eventually things will degrade so far that people snap and TAKE back what you stole.

Unfortunately the Koch-types let their wild dogs off the leash and they have no power to control them anymore. Things like repealing Roe v Wade was supposed to be the carrot forever in front of the hogs so that they accept the tax cuts for the wealthy. Cutting social security was always supposed to be promised in the pursuit of "cutting taxes" and making the damn disabled and elderly (obviously they're all faking it) go back to work. The non-dipshits knew that passing such unpopular laws not only would end the game for them it would also cause societal ruptures that they couldn't undo. You can't shove the country ever further to the right for a century and then when the inevitable comes to pass, and the boom post-WWII completely fades, start screaming "woah woah too far guys! We gotta keep THAT law!"

There are people, a lot of them, who somewhat-correctly identify government programs as failing to meet their proposed goal. Social security disability is one. Medicaid, various unemployment programs, food stamps/EBT, etc. They fail to see that the reasons those programs fail is due to systematic dismantling and crippling via defunding, understaffing, and means testing. Neoliberalism, basically. The idea that the "market" can and will solve all problems, so why do we need social security? Mix that in with radicalization of (ironically) many poor workers to knee jerk question and resent anyone who does become old enough or disabled enough to break through all the means testing and red tape to get benefits and, of course, racism, and it's a perfect recipe for advocating against their own best interests and for, no exaggeration, ultimately the total dismantling of the federal government followed by state governments (which are already inadequate).

This is something the "tea party" (idiotic name) types and their outgrowth which includes people like pdf file Gaetz, Gym Jordan, etc. openly advocated for for like 20 years now. At least 15 years. To shut government down (brother!) to defund every "unnecessary" agency (guess which are unnecessary? Hint: it sure isn't the military or FBI), and basically to grind everything to a halt.

A ridiculous idea, one that the Koch brother (never gets old) surely is not thrilled about seeing actually possibly happening. Because all he really wanted (his personal views on abortion, gay marriage, God, etc. are totally irrelevant) was to keep his taxes down and make sure he and his family and his capitalist buds could make billions of dollars and continue directing how Washington is run. If there is no government, or society starts SERIOUSLY declining (imagine the homelessness if social security were cut by say 50%), their wealth starts becoming pointless. Riots are inevitable if enough people are homeless and hungry. That's why they've always favored the "bread and circus" route instead of the full on authoritarian "pick up that can, citizen!" approach. It's more peaceful (in their home country - key point), safer, more enjoyable. If they can't go to the airport anymore without a person chucking his shit at their limo before he's blown away by private police in front of them, that's not so much fun anymore!

I don't know how they can recover things. If I were a betting person, I'd say they can't recover neoliberalism. It's going away one way or another. The only thing left to see is how right wing authoritarian things get, how bad things get, at least in the US. Other places may well have strong leftist movements rise up. The US, due to 80 strong years but over a century generally, of anti-socialism and anti-communism rhetoric is surely going down the fash pipeline. Probably anyway.

fridge: "ad blockers are not allowed on youtube: content blocked"

Survey bias, I'm willing to bet Florida village retirees are skewering the data in their favor by virtue of having nothing else better to do with their remaining time on earth