This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This is not an accurate retelling of economic conditions, but rather is a skewed worldview based on partisan priors. The economy recovered slowly but consistently over Obama's terms, and was quite good towards the end. Trump just caught the tail end of the bull market before it fell off a cliff due to covid. Trump's tax cuts for the rich did little to improve the economy.
While granting that the swiftness of the changes is almost certainly not a product of material changes on the ground, I think the claim that the view of the economy is purely partisan rather than driven by legitimate differences of opinion is doing too much work. People are capable of projecting forward a bit and considering what they think is likely to happen. They're going to be partisan because they have actual policy preferences that drive their partisan voting preferences. When Trump wins, people familiar with him correctly believe that there are about to be corporate tax cuts; Republicans think this is good and Democrats think it is bad, so they answer accordingly. When Biden wins, people familiar with him correctly believe that he'll do things like try to give away hundreds of billions of dollars to people that don't want to pay their student loans; Republicans think this is bad and Democrats think it is good, so they answer accordingly. When people are asked about "the economy" they're certainly answering with vibes rather than trying to do some quick calculus to try to figure out what the current rate of change of GDP per capita is, but I don't think they're obviously wrong in doing so.
People aren't "projecting forward", they're just parroting what their biased media consumption tells them. The fact that 80%+ of Republicans were positive about the economy in 2019, but then <20% of them were positive in 2023 is a pretty good indicator. They'll overwhelmingly point to inflation being disastrous and wiping out peoples' earnings, yet official data shows real (i.e. inflation adjusted) wages are up since then. When confronted with this fact, they'll then give very thin evidence trying to say the official statistics are all made up, even on a relatively more rigorous site like this one.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Your version might be correct; I don't know, and I'm generally suspicious of all narratives about presidential responsability for economic outcomes.
What I do know is that when Trump was elected, I declined to invest my money in the stock market because I believed mainstream predictions that his election was clearly going to tank the economy, and then distinctly recall watching in some frustration as the stock market boomed and continued to boom.
Time in the market continues to beat timing the market.
More options
Context Copy link
Honestly, you have nobody to blame but yourself for this. I trusted my gut, that cutting corporate taxes would be great for corporate profits, and went all in on the Trump stock market. To say nothing of the deregulation and protectionist trade policies. Any expert claiming otherwise was a naked liar, and I cannot possibly conceive of how anyone could have believed that hokum if they thought critically about it for even a millisecond.
My life’s savings were all earned and invested during the Trump years, and they were substantial and thriving. Then, despite my wage actually rising slightly during the Biden years, I haven’t seen my more recent retirement investments do any better than a local credit union savings account.
That's crazy considering the s&p is up nearly 30% YoY. Hell, even VUSXX is doing better than almost any savings account I've seen (and it has tax benefits too).
Things took a big dip around the start of the Ukraine war, but to judge by my own (small and Canadian-biased) collection of ETFs, have more than bounced back since. It's possible DF sold low and is now faced with the prospect of buying high.
Diamond hands...
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
Yes, this is generally the right way to see it. Presidents aren't really responsible for the day-to-day fluctuations of the business cycle. They only really impact things in the long term.
You really shouldn't try to time the stock market, especially if you're persuadable by political trends.
In this case, it was acting on the advice of a super-famous economist.
...I don't really believe in economists any more.
Putting it in an index fund and forgetting about it is almost always the smarter bet, at least for long-term investing. I'd trust Warren Buffett over Paul Krugman any day.
More options
Context Copy link
Never the worst decision, but Paul Krugman in particular stopped being an economist and traded that for being a credentialed political attack dog... probably decades ago at this point. Certainly back in the 2000s he was serving the role of the Certified Economist to tell NYT readers how stupid his political opponents plans were, and how good the Democratic policy was as being based in Science and Facts.
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