> I get the frustration that the price of daily goods was too high but the incumbents did present an actual feasible plan to deal with it. So I’m not really sure it was about “the economy”.
As usual, it's about the allocation of surplus value.
The US has enjoyed a great economy over the past four years, and really, even longer. I'm in my 30s and most of my life has been marked by economic expansion. The problem comes from the fact that we take all of the money generated by that economic expansion and pipe it to shareholders instead of labor. The average person cannot live solely off the returns from their equity investments; they have to work in order to pay bills. That work essentially started buying less over the last half-decade.
Now, is that partially because of the Biden administration? Yes. Any time you print money, it devalues the money that already exists.
But it's also, and more fundamentally, the fault of the first Trump administration. The PPP, funded with printed money, was a massive subsidy to upper-middle class Americans, and 35-ish years of GOP revenue policy made sure it has to be printed. The US had no reserves of cash to pay for an emergency like COVID. Why? Because we haven't had a real federal tax discussion since George HW Bush said "read my lips: no new taxes".
That, of course, doesn't matter: the buck stops at the Oval Office, and Biden didn't have the likely personality disorder necessary to shove the buck back in people's faces on the order that Trump does. Neither did Harris. So back to the "glory" years of 2016-2019 we go, reckless monetary policy and all.
As usual, it's about the allocation of surplus value.
The US has enjoyed a great economy over the past four years, and really, even longer. I'm in my 30s and most of my life has been marked by economic expansion. The problem comes from the fact that we take all of the money generated by that economic expansion and pipe it to shareholders instead of labor. The average person cannot live solely off the returns from their equity investments; they have to work in order to pay bills. That work essentially started buying less over the last half-decade.
Now, is that partially because of the Biden administration? Yes. Any time you print money, it devalues the money that already exists.
But it's also, and more fundamentally, the fault of the first Trump administration. The PPP, funded with printed money, was a massive subsidy to upper-middle class Americans, and 35-ish years of GOP revenue policy made sure it has to be printed. The US had no reserves of cash to pay for an emergency like COVID. Why? Because we haven't had a real federal tax discussion since George HW Bush said "read my lips: no new taxes".
That, of course, doesn't matter: the buck stops at the Oval Office, and Biden didn't have the likely personality disorder necessary to shove the buck back in people's faces on the order that Trump does. Neither did Harris. So back to the "glory" years of 2016-2019 we go, reckless monetary policy and all.