With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.
If you're a U.S. citizen with voting rights, your polling place can reportedly be located here.
If you're still researching issues, Ballotpedia is usually reasonably helpful.
Any other reasonably neutral election resources you'd like me to add to this notification, I'm happy to add.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It's worth mentioning that Bernie Sanders is dead wrong about a lot of things.
For one, he says that inflation adjusted earnings for the average worker are down over the last 50 years. But... they're not. When we consider government transfer payments, the average worker actually makes a lot more than they did 50 years ago.
So what does Bernie want? More transfer payments of course. Which he can then continue to ignore as he trots out his entirely false theory of economic history. Communism has been tried. It didn't work then, and it won't work now.
It’s not a transfer payment if the funds are legally declared to not belong to you, but in any case, would you support “transfer payments” if it didn’t affect the efficiency of businesses? In other words, all things being equal and having no bad consequences, Bill Gates winds up with less money and 1000 middle class families have more. If you don’t support that, then how have you calculated the balance of today’s transfer payments, or are you resolutely against the wealthiest paying more in taxes?
More options
Context Copy link
Is he really though?
Hasn't a signifigant portion of the culture war over the last 8 - 12 years been about how the "official numbers" no longer reflect reality? The powers that be assure us that inflation is below 5% and then when asked why a chicken dinner, or a tank of gas, costs twice what it did a year ago they respond with some nonsense about how "vibes" are clouding people's judgment of the "true" economy.
Unless inflation statistics are completely falsified, there's simply no way that's actually true. Perhaps people opted for a different chicken dinner than before because they're easily manipulated.
That would be the joke wouldn't it? That the "official" number have been manipulated or falsified is kind of the point.
More options
Context Copy link
I believe that's the idea. I have no dog in the fight either way, but it certainly seems like people believe that inflation statistics have been falsified (or are fatally flawed) because their lived experience does not jive with the statistics.
By way of personal anecdote, I do almost all of my grocery shopping at Costco, and have done so for my whole adult life, all the way back to when I was a teenager living at home. For pretty much that entire time, until around 2016, 2 gallons of fat-free milk was priced at $4. I suspect it may have been a 'loss-leader', but $4 for two gallons of skim milk was the standard for years. Around 2016 or so, the price suddenly shot up -- I think it was $4.50 or maybe $5, still quite cheap but compared to the baseline a shocking price hike, especially given the price changed all at once (it had been $4 during my previous Costco trip). There was another price hike in 2020, during the COVID year, and ever since it's been going up and up and up. I know that there have been supply problems for milk, so they discontinued fat-free entirely [EDIT: in my area] except for one specific store, and a month or so back they started selling individual gallons of milk (Costco milk has always come in a 2-pack).
I just came back from my latest Costco run. 2 gallons of 2% milk cost $7.50.
I'm aware that milk is a single commodity, that Costco milk is cheaper than expected, that there have been supply problems for a number of reasons, all that. I am well aware that the plural of anecdote is not data. My point is to contrast the top-level 'this is my experience of inflation' vs. 'this is how the government is reporting inflation'.
In the last decade, according to my personal experience, milk has practically doubled in price -- a near-100% inflation rate.
In the last decade, according to this graph, the price of milk has gone up by about 33% in nominal dollars, but stayed perfectly flat in inflation-adjusted dollars.
It would not surprise me in the slightest to learn that the government has been cooking the books for inflation.
For what its worth my experience mirriors yours. My eldest is 9 years old and i remember that when they first started eating solid food ground beef was something like 3 dollars a pound, today it's closer to 8.
My admittedly imperfect impression is that that the prices of food and gas have more than doubled since 2016. Yet the official line continues to be that inflation is minimal or an illusion.
Is anyone else here old enough to remember the 5 dollar foot-long promotion at Subway? What does a large Itallian BMT cost you today?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Or perhaps they opted for exactly the same chicken dinner.
From that article:
More options
Context Copy link
I don't know if this is true nationwide, but where I live Walmart has dramatically raised prices on groceries in the last 4 years. No one considers it the "cheap" place at all anymore. Their general merchandise is still lower than most competitors, also otc meds, health and beauty stuff, some tools and electronics, but not food. Food costs more at Walmart than anywhere else I have access to, excepting gas stations.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link