I think that a significant portion of the negative economic sentiment is caused by corporations becoming increasingly good at minimizing the consumer’s share of the surplus economic value created by their transactions. This is manifested in extreme rage against inflation, but it is really a different phenomenon.
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Of course Biden should campaign on the US post-COVID economy being better than most everywhere else on earth. Doesn’t preclude anything from being done to enhance conditions for those that haven’t benefitted from the improvement. Not as fun to argue about that tho.
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But we all know even if he runs on it, little will be done if he wins. If he runs on it already being good, nothing will be done.
hey i said doesn’t preclude not something will be done 
Right now around me 1400-1600sqft townhomes are unaffordable for the median earner. The examples I gave up thread on the housing price since the late 90s was a <1600sqft home.
I haven’t really dug in on this one yet, but something that’s been percolating is that it seems like health insurance companies are either finding ways around the ACA or violating it, and medical billing seems to be getting worse.
In the last year we’ve been billed for stuff that didn’t happen in a practice and a hospital, and then got an “oopsie” when we complained enough times. Then one of them didn’t fix it, so we complained again, they said they would, didn’t, and the third time they did. My wife says she hears a lot of stories about insurance companies refusing to cover preexisting conditions even though they “have to” by law, then they sue each other and the patient is often twisting in the wind.
Don’t know how much is being exaggerated or lost in a game of telephone before the story gets to her but it reminds me of the run up to Obama winning. People got so fed up with all the bullshit they actually turned out to vote for change.
We’ve been seeing this dynamic of growing frustration with the broader economy with Bernie getting so much traction in 2016 and 2020. To a lesser degree, Trump is a result of a misguided direction of anger over the situation toward immigrants instead of the wealthy, corporations, etc.
- Democrats need to push back on the idea that Republicans are better for the economy. Republicans literally have only 1984 to hang their hats on, but people still believe them, despite the same Republican principles overseeing 1992, 2008 and 2020.
- You’re asking Biden to not use his most potent weapon when the alternative is Trump. The alternative is undermining everything you value.
I agree! And they have tried, but I think it’s fairly obvious why it doesn’t work.
No, I’m suggesting that he runs on something like, “I kept unemployment low and brought inflation down, and we have the best economic growth post-COVID of developed countries, but corporations and the wealthy are reaping all the rewards so for a lot of you the economic reality isn’t as good as it should be. That’s why my second term will be about restoring a large middle class and making the American Dream as strong as it was in the 90s. Here’s how…”
And by the way, his most potent weapon is abortion. If I’m advising him, every answer possible is going to pivot to abortion or strengthening the middle class and restoring the American Dream.
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Why does it work for Republicans? Bear in mind, lots of Democrats voted for Reagan in 1984?
Also, there is poll after poll showing that most people consider the #1 issue to be the economy. There is no getting around that.
Because Republicans run on tax cuts, then give tax cuts. Simple, straight forward. Their position is the government takes too much of your money and we’re going to fix it, then they do.
It doesn’t matter that their policy sucks, everyone hates paying taxes and if you give regular people a small tax cut they don’t notice/care that rich people got a huge one.
What have Democrats accomplished over the last 25 years for regular people on the economy? The ACA, a watered down Republican version of healthcare reform that they failed to make a good economic case for, and an infrastructure bill that was largely a Republican version with some stuff added, which indirectly benefits a lot of people but that’s not being explained.
So if you ask people who’s better on the economy, everyone knows the Republicans give them tax cuts, but what exactly is it the the Democrats do for them?
That could be the case. Each area is going to have its own market and its going to be different for better or worse for a whole host of reasons.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median sales price of a house in the U.S. in 1980 was $64,600. Given that the mortgage loan rate at that time was 13.74%, a 30-year loan for $64,600 required a monthly payment of $752.15. The average size of an American home was 1,595 square feet, indicating a monthly payment rate of $0.47 per square foot of housing.
In 2020, the average blue-collar worker’s hourly compensation rate stood at $32.54. Therefore, a $1,440.45 loan payment required 44.27 hours of work per month, which is equal to a monthly payment rate of 1.17 minutes of work per square foot of housing.
That means that the time price of a loan payment decreased from 82.47 hours of work per month in 1980 to 44.27 hours of work per month in 2020, or by 46.3%. Over the same period, the time price of a monthly loan payment per square foot of housing decreased from 3.1 minutes of work to 1.17 minutes of work, or by 62.1%.
Between 1980 and 2020, the nominal price of a square foot of housing increased by 268%. Over the same period, the average nominal blue-collar hourly compensation rate rose by 257%. As such, the time price of a square foot of housing rose from 4.44 hours of work in 1980 to 4.58 hours of work in 2020, or 3.1%.
- Also, note that over the last four decades the average household size decreased from 2.76 persons to 2.53 persons. The living space per household member increased from 578 square feet in 1980 to 894 square feet in 2020, or 55%.*
All in all, the time price of U.S. homes remained almost the same between 1980 and 2020. On average, blue-collar workers need to work 3.1% longer to earn enough money to buy a square foot of housing in the U.S. That small increase is surprising, given the spread of “not in my back yard” opposition by residents to new developments in their local areas and the additional regulatory burdens imposed at all levels of government on the U.S. housing industry over the last four decades.
Crucially, the 3.1% increase in the time price of a square foot of housing is more than offset by the 77% decline in the 30-year mortgage interest rate, which fell from 13.74% in 1980 to 3.11% in 2020. That reduction alone saves blue-collar workers 62.1% of work per square foot of housing.
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Seems like it would behoove democrats to explain and champion their economic programs (which are a lot more than this)!
Serious question, has any one on this board even register one of these big tax cuts ever? Did anyone actually receive a worth-mentioning amount of money ever?
More jobs, higher wages, lower inflation
Affordable health care, better 401k returns, Social Security, Medicare.
Also,
You should come up with a better metric, then, because asking us to take this as gospel based on nothing but your word is pretty dubious.
Couple things here:
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If smaller homes aren’t being built, the price per sqft isn’t relevant to the middle/lower class potential first time homebuyer.
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Is there a chart of this price? 2020 was a peculiar year, with iirc a brief crash in housing prices followed by a surge. The timing of the data point matters a lot. Also 1980 was at the tail end of bad inflation. Seems like this comparison may be very cherry-picked.
Read the thread, plenty of evidence was given.
Yeah, Trump’s qualified business deduction saves me some money and it is very obvious because it gets its own line in the return. I’ve never had a full-time paycheck so I’ve never seen a paycheck go up from tax cuts and less withholding, but I’m sure there are small changes.
Again, you’re spending more time telling people to read the whole thread than it would take to simply try to make your point. The implication that people like wookie and I are not reading the thread is simply annoying, not helpful and doesn’t make your point at all
Real wages have been pretty stagnant for a long time, and hardly anyone in the bottom 50% feels like they can “get ahead.”
When people get jobs they don’t tend to credit the president unless there’s a very direct line between an action and that job, which is rare.
This is all nuanced stuff that smart people can figure out, but it’s hard to run on because none of it is specifically targeted at regular people and tied directly to policy. Dems could do stuff that fits that bill and it would be great for most people, but not for the big donors who own the party, so it doesn’t happen.
So a Republican healthcare bill, the stock market (note, not pensions either), and stuff that was done 90 and 60 years ago?
This is what you do, the evidence was posted and you smugly hand waved it away with no explanation, and now you’re trying to make it my job to go find it again and post it, so you can ignore it again. You can take your Karl Rove Internet argument tactics and go pound sand.
God forbid anyone imply that you, of all people, might be arguing in bad faith, or Wookie might not be closely following a thread he had posted in like twice before yesterday.