“It’s the economy, stupid” has never been truer. People will trade their rights for more basic needs being fulfilled and most people simply aren’t happy with the one sided economy that has prevailed since the late 80s. Interest rates were too low for too long beginning circa 2000, and the massive flood of QE led to an explosion in house prices, car prices, and food. This is what the world gets for poor monetary and fiscal management for more than two decades.
> the massive flood of QE led to an explosion in house prices, car prices, and food.
That's not really the case though.
We had a similar QE in '08 with pretty much no effect on CPI [1] or Housing [2]. As well as the increase in pricing has occurred _when the money printing stopped_ and not _while the money was printing_ [3].
The current inflation isn't caused by money printing. It's caused by pricing power by conglomerates. We've allowed energy companies to join together and they've agreed with OPEC to cut production to lead to price increases. We've allowed rental companies to join together and raise prices. We've allowed meat companies to join together and raise prices. The lack of anti-trust enforcement along with a trigger (Covid) is what caused inflations, companies realized they had a talking point (supply chain problems) that they could pin price increase on regardless of if it was true.
> The current inflation isn't caused by money printing.
I'm not sure that is fair. Nothing is ever caused by just one thing, of course, but it is unlikely that money printed and given to average Joes was not a significant contributor. COVID relief saw money flow into the hands of regular people, which was quite unlike 2008.
2008 was different as it only went into the hands of the rich. You can print money endlessly and give it all to Jeff Bezos and inflation will never occur. It's just another number in his bank account, so to speak. But if you give it to poor people on the street, soon they are going to start buying things with it, increasing competition for goods and services and thus driving up prices.
Although I would say the biggest factor was the devastating crop failure in 2020 with a dash of COVID problems on top, followed by the EU shutting down their fertilizer plants in 2021, and then Russia invading Ukraine in 2022 which both complicated access to Ukraine food production as well as denying trade with Russian fertilizer. This left food stocks in a precarious situation and thus sent the price of food to the moon. Everyone else followed as best they could to ensure they could continue to eat. Now that we're getting our food house back in order, the inflation panic has started to subside in kind.
Saying that the current drive of inflation is a monetary expansion must demonstrate that there's a significant component of the inflation to be attributable to monetary expansion. M0 has been stable, M1+M2 components as whole have also followed a stable route.
When you consider the slow reaction of the economy, the money supply and inflation do track fairly well. It is not like if the money supply goes up today that inflation will also go up today. If the money supply goes up today, you wouldn't expect to see to see an inflation reaction for quite some time.
Hell, look at how long it took grocery stores to react to the aforementioned food crisis. Us on the farm saw the price of food we were selling double (or even more) from the price norm early in the crisis, but it took another year or so before the consumers of that food started complaining about how much grocery stores were charging. Things happen very slowly.
Indeed, the money supply has been stable for a while, only veering of track for a short time, but inflation is also now stabilizing and only veered off track for a short time.
> Us on the farm saw the price of food we were selling double (or even more) from the price norm early in the crisis
Because conglomerates (ex. Tyson Foods) were upping their prices as shown by gross margins of 10% increasing to 15% [1].
> but it took another year or so before the consumers of that food started complaining about how much grocery stores were charging. Things happen very slowly.
Uh. More like immediately people complained; just throw a max date on a web search [2] and you'll find them readily.
I can't speak to your own personal anecdotes. But the price of eggs has been talked about ad nauseam since start of covid.
Did they? You seem to only be able to go back to 2021, whereas I was seeing substantial gains in the price of food I was selling on the farm as early as 2019, thanks to another devastating (albeit less so) crop failure.
It is not like the price was $x one day and then $x*2 the next. It ramped up over time. Just like the price of groceries did, albeit on a later timeline.
Exactly. The Harris team made a key mistake by responding with, ‘No, you’re wrong. The economy is doing great—just look at the stats.’ They needed a concrete plan to address people’s concerns directly, but that was missing.
Personally, my issue with the Democrats is how they mishandled the electric vehicle charging network initiative. [0]
Regardless of the causes, Harris should have acknowledged that things have been bad for a lot of people, and presented a plan for how to make it better.
Instead, she insisted the economy was doing great, and the millions of people whose wages have not risen enough to offset inflation just didn't know what they were talking about.
The economy has been doing great for some people, but not for the voters who ended up mattering to the election outcome.
> People will trade their rights for more basic needs being fulfilled
Seems like people got the best of both worlds - they will be able to keep more rights than they otherwise would have and they will enjoy a better economy. Win-win!
Can you elaborate on how there will be more rights under the GOP, which just spent significant energy reducing women’s rights to bodily autonomy, and Trump threatening the free speech of media companies he doesn’t like?
