You can't really build anything with that kind of attitude. A democracy can't work if you start imagining half your compatriots are enemies, and you'd rather blow up the entire place than let them decide anything.
What are you basing this statement on? No way is it 60%, more like 6% of the population, but perhaps 0.6%! Whatever it is the voices you hear are a tiny slither of the population skewed to the most disagreeable and combative end of the personality spectrum. So, unless you’ve done some world class polling to determine the answer to that then I’d suggest gaining more perspective.
The medium is the message. Everybody should read McLuhan if they work in the technology space. [0]
The number was clearly just rhetoric. The point is that a very large number of people view data like this as "good news" for their team. So rather than have reasonable discussions about e.g. why this is likely just an echo of the covid response/recovery combined with geopolitical disruption to supply chains... we have a bunch of doomsayers in every thread yelling about how this is clearly not transient and how we're entering a new era of stagflation, etc... It's just tiresome.
Let me ask this: what would convince you?
Continued inflation. But absent that I'm going to stick with the obvious hypothesis that the external forcing from slightly overgenerous pandemic relief, late-pandemic shutdown of Shanghai and most of Chinese output for two months, (edit: also automotive/heavy industry production shortfalls due to "chip shortage") and the removal of one of the biggest petroleum and gas exporters from the world market did what you'd expect those things to do. You can go farther and look at what sectors are seeing inflation and what aren't and see more evidence for this, FWIW.
But yeah, if we come back in another 18 months and are still at 8% YoY inflation, then that hypothesis will have been wrong. Wanna take that bet?
> If [St. Louis Federal Reserve President James] Bullard has his way, the rate will continue rising to a range of 3.75%-4% by the end of the year. After starting 2022 near zero, the rate has now come up to a range of 2.25%-2.5%.[1]
While at the same time, fiscal policy is tightening. The "slightly" overgenerous Covid aid is over and the President is likely to get only a fraction of his $3.5 trillion dollar dream program.
And eventually OPEC will probably increase oil production, as Biden asked them to [2]; or Biden will change his stance on increasing US production. (BTW, Russia hasn't been removed from the market. Their exports have only fallen about 15% since the invasion [3], which is easily compensated for. The fact that producers haven't increased production has a lot to do with Biden.)
But a return to sound fiscal policy and practical oil policy won't reverse the damage of two years of inflation and slow or negative growth.
1: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/03/feds-bullard-sees-more-inter...
2: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/03/energy/joe-biden-saudi-trip-o...
3: https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Russian-O...
So... you agree it's transitory? Why jump in to argue the opposite then? This sounds a little like a strawman, where you pretend that the "other side" meant "transitory" in the sense of weeks instead of a year or two. And no one did.
> won't reverse the damage of two years of inflation
And this is a misconception. Inflation isn't "damage", it's just a change in units. By definition (!), inflation numbers represent no change in total value of assets as a percent of macro numbers like GDP.[1] Your argument seems like it's deliberately trying to conflate the idea of inflation with "recession", when that's simply not correct.
[1] It's true that there is some disruption and relative movement of assets, though. If you're a bank who's written a bunch of dollar-denominated loans, inflation is very bad for you. If you're a credit card user carrying a balance, it's good. On the whole inflation represents a net transfer of wealth from loaners to borrowers, and in the modern US that's actually not entirely a bad thing.
No, transitory implies that it would go away on its own, without action by the government. I think it's going to end because the policies that I think caused it have ended. If the policies that were in place when it was first called transitory were still in place, then I would take the bet.
> Inflation isn't "damage"
I was referring to the decline in real wages, sky high house prices pricing out the working class, things like that. Not inflation per se.
> What are you basing this statement on? No way is it 60%, more like 6% of the population, but perhaps 0.6%!
I think what he probably meant was 30% at any given time, and in my rough estimation, he actually might be right. It's the difference between feeling that way, and being loud about it on Twitter.
I mean, can you imagine a committed liberal wanting the country to do better under a conservative politician with conservative policies? No, of course not, they want liberal policies. So they want the conservative to fail, and the country to do worse as a result, so the electorate will be unhappy and vote for a liberal next time. Then they can get their preferred liberal policies.
No, it's not a pandemic. No, it's not a recession.
But can't we do better here on HN, and discuss the state of the economy without petty partisan arguments?
Too many news media outlets start their daily reporting from "what's trending on twitter", not appreciating the degree to which those trends are being pushed by malicious parties (both foreign and domestic), and in no way represent the real dialogue Americans are having.
The FBI has published numerous reports on explicit online influence campaigns carried out by foreign organizations attempting to polarize US domestic online dialogues. ...and they do this be radicalizing the conversations on both sides.
inb4 someone calls the journalist or researcher or whatever a partisan shill/troll/hack.
Feel that reflex? We’re pretty good about not acting on it here, but this is a fairly special place.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/alarming-...
Gas goes down to $2 a gallon. You probably pay less to commute to work or pull your boat. But your kids (and these days, you) might face crippling droughts and heat waves as an indirect consequence. Is that "better"?
I can understand differing views.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/776/i-work-better-on-deadli...
If your house were on fire, you would want the public authorities to acknowledge the fact. This is not rooting for the fire
The problem is how the media (including social media) amplifies it.
And real wages fell 3% in six months [1] (i.e. over the first half of this year, wages fell at a 6% annual rate), so I think it's time to acknowledge that the nation is doing worse, at least for the working class.
1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/216259/monthly-real-aver...
If so, I blame the media for constantly selling their narratives and inciting hatred. Any disagreement is labeled as far this and far that. If a politician makes a move that does not fit a side's narrative, the media will attack the politician's motives and assume the worst. When the SCOTUS make a ruling that the media disagrees with, it must be that the SCOTUS are the worst human beings in the world and they have the most sinister motives. The list can go on.
I'd also blame the education system of the US. We are supposed to educate kids to take different views, to seek information instead of merely opinions, to be aware of logical fallacies, especially the damaging ones like attacking one's motive. Yet someone we get generations of angrier and angrier kids.
The politicians and the media (i.e., the 10%) continue to live in a bubble. They have a very biased and incestuous lens. It's groupthink taken to an extreme.
Just look at the news yesterday. Pelosi crossed a line in the sand and visits Taiwan. Given all the other things on our collective plate, how was adding more to that pile (of sh*t?) a good use of her time and energy? And taxpayer resources? Who in the 90% wants more on the pile? And who in the 10% is willing to say, "Nancy! You're only showing how out of touch you are with the 90%."
I'm not suggesting Taiwan be cut loose. Not at all. Only that the sense of priorities is dumbfounding. But perhaps, rather than talk about the economy (and the 90%'s perceptions and fears) it makes better political and media sense to have news of Nancy in Taiwan?
Put another way, it's not the 90% putting the screws to the stability of the democracy. We don't have enough power in hand to do that.
They're the very image and foundation of "lamestream media" as Republicans imagine it, but it's not easy to notice the beam in one's own TV-watching eye, I guess.
Yes, blame the media --all of them they all have abandoned principles of neutrality in favor of ideology and partisanship. It wasn't so during Clinton or Bush's time (not that any of the two were any good).
In general I don't blame Russians for what Putin is doing, but I will definitely blame a Russian that unapologetically supports the invasion of Ukraine, despite having the means to know otherwise.
If I tried to give them another perspective and they tell me to go fuck myself, or if they were actively trying to push an agenda (like it's common in USA political discussions), I would definitely blame them.
When media are indoctrinating people and not providing perspectives how do you blame people, even if they have agency and can be considered responsible --just like the wolverine is ultimately responsible but free of blame.
Sure, media is a huge problem. But people behaving like animals, having no empathy, taking no taking time to reflect upon what they say and taking no time to check other perspectives is what's doing the real damage here.
> Yes, blame the media --all of them they all have abandoned principles of neutrality in favor of ideology and partisanship. It wasn't so during Clinton or Bush's time (not that any of the two were any good).
I'm not sure if the comparison holds. I think a big difference between the US and China, is that in China there's much less of a positive feedback loop between people's attitudes and media coverage. If the people want and would eat up, say, liberal criticism of the Communist government, they're not going to get it from the Chinese media.
So in the US you probably can lay some of the blame on the people: if they start to favor more "ideology and partisanship" over "neutrality," that could cause the media to give them what they want, which then could cause them to want even more "ideology and partisanship." That positive feedback loop then gets you to where we are today, and it's both "the people" and "the media" who are responsible.
Except in China it's not the media itself setting the tone, it's the authorities who give it commands that it has no choice but to obey.
Who gives the American media its commands? Its customers, the people. But it's different because the media also has the choice not to obey, which spreads the responsibility for the outcome between both groups, instead of concentrating it in one or the other.
Nevermind the 8 years before that with the black guy.
> the root cause of this problem is not those 60% or whatever then number is on the other side, it’s lack of objective and trustworthy institutions like media.
I agree. It takes 2 to tango; it's still important to apply accountability proportionally.
Regionality > Nationality
tl;dr america is geographically too big and it's really starting to show.
Just look at brexit.
True to the OP's point: I don't really care what happens to the east/west coasts. These people have been trying to legislate my rights away for decades now, so I am very apathetic to their plights.
We're all in the same boat and we have learned the value of rowing together versus throwing others overboard. If that means sometimes you eat crow and other times you serve it up, so be it. I too wish there were more on the menu than crow, but that's why we have scientists: perhaps our grandchildren can eat lobster.
We've all been duped into believing we need a federal government to maintain what we have, and I very strongly believe we do not.
Shit, I would wager that whatever 'economic' distress balkanization would cause could quickly be recouped by the simple fact that we no longer have the feds taking 15-30% of our paychecks and then sending it over seas to eastern europe or israel.
Even balkanized countries have levels of governments. In the scenario you envision, the role of the federal government would pass to some other new entity and you'd still be paying taxes or worse.
Reason is, if you don't have some government then you cannot protect your property and yourself simultaneously. A local warlord or landowner or one from an adjacent state might take your land. A neighboring state might invade your state. Who would protect you? What rights would you have? What court system would you use to gain redress?
That was the original design with much power belonging to the states. The federal government has gained a lot of power over the last century or so. We're seeing the effects of centralized power over a large and diverse population. Also, many people want the government to solve problems at the federal level, having little to no understanding that other people in other states live their lives very differently and have different priorities.
I'm not sure what else could be abstracted this way so that the citizen wouldn't interact so directly with the federal government. Things like the DoE, and HUD, could probably be eliminated while things like the FDA and EPA really should have federal reach to execute their missions properly (not that they're really doing that).
This thing doesn't work as a "European Union." we're all tied together, for better or worse.
Alas you are right, we're all tied together- until we're not :)
> Alas you are right, we're all tied together- until we're not :)
The south tried that once when the battle lines made more sense. We all know what happened there - annihilation. Maybe that is necessary again.
Realistically we'll just continue to limp along, a zombiefied husk of what our country was meant to be, until the banks and tech elite have bled us dry.
Then we'll likely just implode. Tis the fate of many an empire.