Trump Thread 2.0

[nando]

Funny thing is the USD has actually strengthened vs other currencies recently. And it's painted as either a good/bad thing depending on which outlet reports on it - it's either bad, because exports do better with a weaker dollar, or good, because it gives us a better deal on imports. I swear all financial reporting is schizophrenic. For example: video card prices are too high! I can't wait for them to drop - damn the miners! Oh, prices are dropping? the end is nigh! bitcoin is dead! they're all going to go bankrupt!

It's absolutely ridiculous. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Sorry to hear mrsleeve if you're not doing as great financially - with the way oil prices are, I'd think you'd be doing OK. we've been super busy here. I'm only awake right now because I'm working and I needed a break while the computer ran something for me. We even got some mid-stream work starting up and that was dead all through the Trump admin (ironically). Oil prices are always a double edged sword to me - when the price temporarily went negative during the start of Covid, I was pretty sure I'd be homeless, but it didn't end up working out that way. Oh, and adjusted for inflation (hah!), gas prices are still lower than they were in 2008.

I don't really panic about the markets either, I learned I'm really bad at timing the highs, but it's easy to see when everyone is freaking out and to buy when things are low. I doubled my rate of savings and it timed nicely with the downturn. But it did make me a little more aware that when I get older and closer to wanting to retire, I'm going to want to reduce that risk. I can afford the huge down swing in the markets now because I don't need that money for another 10 years at least.

Also I wish Elon Musk would shut his freaking mouth and just run his companies. But I digress..

[ForcedFirebird]

To say this inflation has been building up isn't entirely true. From 2020-2022 the US "printed" 28% more money (10% just in 2020 alone $44.9t to $50.3t). What did everyone think was going to happen?

Common sense says that money is worth 70% of what it was two years ago, we are lucky to see 8.x% and 10.x% on the indexes. That's a whole 'nother story, anyways. Public inflation rates has had the formula updated 3x since Carter - each time making appear less than it is. If you use 1980's formulas we are about 16%. In the 80's the index was calc'd by purchases a specific set of commodities, services, energy use and the like. Then, they started allowing "substitutions", you know, like hamburger meat is as good as filet since they are both beef. All you have to do is look at your receipts/debit transactions from <2020 and compare.

8% inflation? Then why did my power bill increase 20% in Jan and will again in October. My vehicles take 2x as much to fill, our grocery budget hasn't changed, but now we are substituting and going without (still have three teens at home). Dog food has doubled (when we can find it), chicken has almost tripled, beef doubled, the list goes on. Sure the wife got a 6% merit raise, and I bumped shop prices a bit, but the bottom line it's not enough.

As soon as the gov't announced they were handing out checks, I KNEW the dollar was going to tank. Most of the public didn't "need" that money, many businesses that are owned by friends were fully functional during the closures, they all got checks, wife and I worked the entire time, we got checks. Then those that didn't need the money started blowing it on stocks/crypto, home renovations and the like (lumber shortage/price spike), updating their cars (price spike), upgrading homes (price spike).

I think it's a bipartisan issue, we all want term limits, and we all know who makes the policies, and we all know who has had the real control. Let's get all the career fart dusting q-tips out.

[roguetoaster]

I am not even going to start with anything in depth, safe to say over the last 24 months, I have lost my ass in many ways. I am still getting by but inflation is devouring what little liquid savings I still have, and the markets are taking the rest with it. I am not going to get into the missteps this admin seems to make on a near daily basis that we are all collectively paying for and will continue to for years to come.

To you more left leaning types, please some how explain to me how this is now better!!!

It's not better now, but it's not like any administration really controls pricing, markets, or world events.

Today is built on years/decades of policy in the past, and no one is free of blame for failures or can take sole credit for any type of recovery.

The events of today may also be the corporate/market response to increased wages and anticipation of future wage increases/employee costs while still serving the ever important profit margin/profit projection.

There's no one thing we can point at as the causation or the solution, but we do know that our current system (political and economic) is not effective at serving us.

How can we fix it? Vote all ideologues out, vote all of the old guard out, vote in those who are willing to hear input from all sides and make thoughtful policy. Although likely impossible, dismantle speculative investments and trading. Invest for a longer term and allow companies to take a loss in a year or two in order to grow in ten without compromising their ability to acquire credit. Ban crypto, NFTs, and the like. Revoke insane corporate tax credits, nonprofit statuses for special interests, prohibit large scale public subsidizing of private ventures. Hold CEOs criminally liable for corporate wrongdoing. Fix gerrymandering. Create term limits everywhere, limit the campaign season, prevent private, screened, or pooled donations. Make voting mandatory. Completely overhaul our healthcare system to make sure that all children, mothers, and families are completely covered from preventive care onward. House all of those in need. Rethink our current incarceration incentivizing prosecution system to allow people to recover from errors rather than condemning them to the scrap heap of humanity. Welcome immigrants, educate them, recognize their value. Provide basic public college degree programs for free to all those who test in, provide real vocational certification programs for all who want them for free.

The list goes on and on and on, and I don't think any of it has been fixed in my 34 years here.

Edit:

Something is better now, US service personnel are now no longer dying in a nation we couldn't convert to a western standard ever, no matter what we did.

[mrsleeve]

I am not even going to start with anything in depth, safe to say over the last 24 months, I have lost my ass in many ways. I am still getting by but inflation is devouring what little liquid savings I still have, and the markets are taking the rest with it. I am not going to get into the missteps this admin seems to make on a near daily basis that we are all collectively paying for and will continue to for years to come.

To you more left leaning types, please some how explain to me how this is now better!!!

[2mAn]

Hey Corporations are people too

[MrBurgundy]

Our government serves corporations and not the people.

America is a corporate oligarchy

[2mAn]

All politicians are giant pieces of sh*t... WAKE UP.

facts.

a third option is more and more necessary and until we have one it’s always “anybody but ....”

[roguetoaster]

It's like we took everything Washington said in his farewell and absolutely did the opposite for the majority of the following 226 years.

[MrBurgundy]

^that’s the honest truth right there.

[Schnitzer318is]

All politicians are giant pieces of sh*t. Every admin I live through... is the worst one I've lived through. They all (blue and red) want to shrink the middle class to keep the rich, rich.... and the poors, poor. They don't want any in between. Biden is a POS, Trump was a POS, Obama was a POS, etc. Until we stop fighting each other and vote the motherf*ckers out... we're boned. If you are Dem idealistic... vote against the Dem incumbent with another one. If you are Rep idealistic... vote against the Rep incumbent with another one. But this is all just a pipe dream... people like thinking everything will be fine with minimal effort, and it's far easier to buy the lie and fight amongst ourselves than realize we have been fed, and bought, a lie. Dems lied to us. Reps lied to us. I have voted for both. It's two heads of the same monster. If you want to save the Republic, vote independent, or against the incumbent.

/rant sorry, been drinking. Tired of having to home school because our school district sucks (even though prop taxes have doubled in 4 years), tired of people thinking covid is the end of the world, tired of people thinking masks are evil and useless, tired of both parties spending us into oblivion, and most of all, tired of neighbors arguing that their chosen rich elites are better than the other's chosen rich elites. WAKE UP.

[MrBurgundy]

Hey man, as long as he's out of office it's worth the cost!


Everything is worse now. It's honestly amazing how fucked things have gotten in such a short amount of time. Honestly, hats off to Brandon.

Everything two years ago was Trump's fault, now nothing is the presidents fault. It's cringe as fuck.

Diehard libs are going to come here and express how everything is not Biden's fault and gaslight themselves into believing that things are even better LOL.

I'm pretty sure some people here have voiced that- I don't even know what kind of mental hoops you'd have to make to come to that conclusion.

[ForcedFirebird]

This thread aged well. How's buyer remorse on Brandon?

Orange man was a narcissistic mean tweeter, but not sure about the rest of you, I actually miss 2020. The funny memes and clips were worth the price of fuel, meat, supplies, and I am sure glad my kids are 16yr-23yr, or I'd be in a world of hurt - in 2007 when registering here, had three kids in diapers and still 2.5 on formula. My house cost $260k and in 2004. We could have covered our house in 2.5yr wages at the time. If we were top purchase today the same house is worth $540, which puts property tax (alone) at $500+/mo, borrowing $.5m with 20% down, taxes and insurance puts you at about $4k/mo. That's $25/hr just going to your mortgage. If you make $50/hr, uncle Sam takes $16, 1hr round trip to work is gonna hit you for $640/mo in fuel alone.

I can't get brake cleaner, m20 oil pump bearings, crank bearings in bulk is non-existent, pistons have increased 100% in TWO YEARS, oil has almost doubled, everything is 100% more. 8.5% inflation my a$$.

I was going through old filing cabinets and getting rid of paperwork. In 2016 I was paying $4.30 per liner foot of 1.75" .120" wall tubing for roll cages. Yesterday, I paid $14.75 per linear foot.

Everyone NEEDS to be making 25-100% more money now, than they did with sun tan man.

[nando]

I doubt it's a stunt, because he's just been made a complete fool.

74 and obese, his future isn't exactly clear. Never was a Biden fan, but he was honorable and IMO too respectable in the way he approached Trump's turn for the worse today; if the shoe was on the other foot, Trump would've called Biden a loser and wished his family got it too.

I thought that too, but I think Biden has taken the right tack. After thinking about this and reading a bit more, I definitely don't think this is a hoax (he's in the freaking hospital), but I don't see much upside for Trump.

Faux News is already running stories complaining about the left politicizing this, but it was Trump who made COVID-19 political in the first place. Biden taking the high road isn't going to hurt him one bit.

Honestly, I see this as giving Trump an out, an excuse for losing in potentially a landslide, that he won't have to blame on voting fraud that even if it happened, would have been caused by him in the first place. That to me, is potentially a relief.

There's nothing Trump likes more than an excuse for failing, especially a faceless virus that he blames on the Chinese and not his own incompetence.

[phillipj]

I doubt it's a stunt, because he's just been made a complete fool.

74 and obese, his future isn't exactly clear. Never was a Biden fan, but he was honorable and IMO too respectable in the way he approached Trump's turn for the worse today; if the shoe was on the other foot, Trump would've called Biden a loser and wished his family got it too.

[bmwman91]

Yeah, things are so bizzarro world that I give the odds of "Trump gets COVID" being a political stunt >50%. The BS electioneering has basically been going non-stop since 2016, and I really hope that the new normal is not for both parties to be in mega campaign mode 24/7/356 from now on. The stupidity is painful.