BraveSirZaphod

The First Amendment is pretty strong about how it’s legal to be a dick.

Just as I can say that evangelicals are delusional children who never learned how to get over their daddy issues to the extent that they literally invent a daddy in the sky who just so happens to approve of every bias and bigotry they hold to.

The merger happened in 2010.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1335258/000119312510012287/dex991.htm

If you think Biden is only “slightly less extreme”, you really need to take another look at the Republican party, given its leader is casually suggesting sending out secret police to round up undocumented immigrants into camps.

Even restricting the view to economic policy, the gap between the average Republican and Democrat in office has been growing much much larger compared to the old 90s consensus. Both parties have grown critical of free trade, with Republicans going much further and wanting to throw huge tariffs on any country that feels icky (and somehow thinking that jacking up prices on all imported goods will improve inflation*). Republicans have also grown extremely fond of attacking any corporation they perceive as being too woke or socially aware, even going so far as to invoke the powers of supposedly-small government to ban certain diversity practices.

Both parties have become relatively protectionist, but Republicans tend to be against any form of actual domestic investment. On housing, pretty much all supply-side solutions (which you’d think would come from the supposedly market-loving Republicans!) are instead coming from the Democrats, with the Republicans instead reducing essentially everything to culture wars.

Again, look at the Republican party as it actually is today, because they largely do not have any substantial policy beyond stoking white conservative rage. I’m not saying mainstream Democrats are revolutionary champions of the working poor, but there simply is no competition compared to the Republicans of today.

I mean, it’s both, among other things.

Target would absolutely love to charge $1000 for a carton of eggs, and would if they could, but they can’t. There has always been some ceiling price past which most consumers will simply walk away and go somewhere else. What exactly that number is depends firstly on the actual cost of getting the item in the first place, since no store will sell an item at a loss (unless they expect that to drive greater returns elsewhere), but then on how much money people actually have available to spend, and that very much is influenced by how much money the Fed is printing, among plenty of other things.

My point here isn’t that corporate greed isn’t a factor, but it’s not a new factor. It’s not like corporations were feeling generous in 2019 and then got in a greedy mood in 2021. They always have and always will charge as much as people are willing to pay, so any changes to what they’re charging should be examined by looking at what other factors might be at play. In this case, they’ve probably realized that they’ve gotten past the point of driving too many customers away.

Obviously corporate PR will never come out and say “We’re being greedy because fuck you, but we got a little too greedy so please come back”, but that is and always has been the dynamic.

There are very real constitutional issues with explicit wealth taxes. It took a constitutional amendment to authorize the federal government to collect an income tax, and it’s quite possible that it would take another to authorize a wealth tax. Particularly with this Supreme Court, Congress probably doesn’t have the legal ability to impose a wealth tax even if it wanted to, to say nothing of the general complexity and costs of collecting it. There are plenty of economists who support the general idea of taxing the wealthy more but who prefer other taxation schemes.

This behavior is literally millennia older than capitalism.

Letting poor people die of lack of medical care is not the merciful strategy you think it is.

When discussing actual economic phenomena like inflation and recessions, yes, I think it is reasonable to actually be accurate and consistent in what we’re talking about.

Inflation is one problem. Wages not matching the cost of living is another, though related, problem. Saying that inflation has largely returned to normal is true, regardless of whatever else might also be true. Someone saying that is not saying that all economic woes have been fixed and that no one has any right to complain about anything.

I’m guessing you’re implying that Biden is saying that consumers need to stop whining because inflation has normalized. That would be pretty annoying, but he’s not actually said that. In fact, he just recently gave a speech blaming corporations:

Any corporation that has not brought their prices back down, even as inflation has come down, even as the supply chains have been rebuilt, it’s time to stop the price gouging.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/27/white-house-supply-chain-bidenomics-wins.html

He’s also launched several initiatives aiming to make supply chains more robust and thus prevent future shocks from impacting prices so severely.

No facts, just vibes!

Okay, that’s more like it.

You’re absolutely correct, it is a massive structural problem. It’s incredibly stupid and causes an obscene amount of pain every year or so because the structure of government enables a few children causing a tantrum to grind everything to a halt.

But once you’d identified that, what next? This is one of the many downsides of being stuck with one of the oldest active constitutions in the world that was envisioning a very different environment than what we have now. The simple fact of the matter is that we’re not going to see a Constitutional Convention anytime remotely soon (and given how disastrous that could be, probably for the best). So, what is the point of spending energy being angry about these structural issues when that won’t actually accomplish anything?

Believe me, everyone involved in government right now knows that this is incredibly stupid. It’s not as if no one has ever considered this before. The problem is, no matter how frustrating it is, being angry at these structural issues doesn’t actually do anything, because we’re stuck with them. While I do think it is absolutely important to raise some awareness about those issues, that doesn’t really help the acute situation right now.

So yes, it is horrific that welfare payments will get halted by this, I completely agree. I don’t see where I ever “refused to acknowledge” the structural issues that caused this. They’re not a secret; everyone vaguely knowledgeable about politics knows them.

Your impressive lack of ability to have a conversation with any amount of good faith is pretty entertaining, yes.

Speaking of the poor starving, while you’re talking to McCarthy, hop over the to Senate and ask the Republicans (and Manchin and Sinema as well, but also 50 Republicans), why they ended Biden’s child tax credit that caused significant measurable reductions in child poverty and food insecurity?

You know, since you seem to care so much about these things.

Ah, my apologies; I didn’t realize I was talking to a clown. Enjoy waiting around for the revolution. It’ll be here any day now, I’m sure!

Ask Kevin McCarthy to go wrangle his clowns then, since he’s in charge of that particular circus.

Would you prefer the Pentagon stop operating?

The entire thing is stupid, but there’s one party that’s squarely responsible for this. Go ask the House GOP why they don’t care about halting SNAP payments, but I don’t see how enabling Russia to slaughter more Ukrainians would be better.