Biden / Harris Focused Discussion

[Ripster42]

The cost of a car has always been bullshit, no one can tell me otherwise.

I was reading an article the other day about this exact thing. It's so weird when you read something somewhere and then it comes up again in a completely different place.

[Elegiac]

Sigh...dammit, Biden, you're better than this.

Our Ruling

There's enough good news about the economy in general that you don't have to make shit up.

Why are higher car prices a good thing, exactly, considering they're effectively a transport tax on the working class?

[Breccia]

Why are higher car prices a good thing, exactly

I...don't think they are? And I'm not sure from context Biden did either.

[Breccia]

The NYTimes reports --

"Paywall."

Eh, it's quick. The DoJ was asked whether or not Trump officials were allowed to testify at the Jan 6th hearings. They said "Sure, why not? I'm sure they have nothing to hide." As a reminder, Trump's DoJ blocked testimony a lot while Trump was in charge but...yeah.

I expect subpoena's.

[Themius]

The NYTimes reports --

"Paywall."

Eh, it's quick. The DoJ was asked whether or not Trump officials were allowed to testify at the Jan 6th hearings. They said "Sure, why not? I'm sure they have nothing to hide." As a reminder, Trump's DoJ blocked testimony a lot while Trump was in charge but...yeah.

I expect subpoena's.

Do you? The doj has routinely projected Washington elites as a special class since Betsy at the start of the administration.

[Breccia]

Do you? The doj has

Shit I forgot to add, they're also allowed to testify about Trump's attempts to overturn the election in other upcoming hearings.

[Levelfive]

Some good analysis from Josh Marshall on Sinema's latest clownery: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog...sinemas-antics

"I think this is best interpreted as Sinema throwing up a flag that she’s going to continue to preen and create drama for the purpose of building a reputation as an uber-‘moderate’ and generally have everyone kiss up to her. She wants to come out of this as the person who wasn’t totally down with Democratic priorities and shaved the numbers down, at least a bit. If she really wanted to stop the process she wouldn’t vote to let it begin, which she is. That tells you the story.

The most interesting thing to me is that Joe Manchin seemed to signal he’s totally on board. Now I suspect that both will try to shave the top line numbers down a bit. But what interests me here is that Manchin doesn’t seem entirely in sync with Sinema. And here’s why that’s important. Manchin is from a very red state. He’s got his own politics and set of concerns that seems to work for him in his state but he rarely actually shuts his party down on critical stuff. None of this is new for Manchin. His vote is just more pivotal. Sinema meanwhile is a preening phony. She started out as a member of the Green party. Then she was progressive Democrat. Now she’s an uber ‘centrist’. She’s a total phony and I doubt very much that she will be able to pull any of this off if she’s there alone without Manchin. Without Manchin, she’ll fold.

So, we’ll have to see how this plays out. But I don’t see this as a real threat to the two-part package infrastructure deal that has been coming into view for the last few weeks. This is Sinema putting everyone on notice that she wants to have some more drama and spotlight and will probably extract some non-trivial but not too significant reductions in the size of the overall package.

As a separate but related matter, most of you who’ve followed what I write over the years will know that I rarely ever support primary challenges. I’m not against them. They serve an important purpose, not least of which is no one is entitled to a seat. It’s just not my thing. I’d make an exception for Sinema. She’s a destructive force in the Democratic caucus and Democratic politics generally.

Most pushes for primaries involve partisans being mad that a given Democrat is out of sync with the national party’s priorities when they are – at least arguably – in sync with their state or district. Manchin is good albeit somewhat extreme example of that. That’s not really the case with Sinema. This is more the party being strung along by her ego trip. The best read of her is that she’s doing this stuff to live down her earlier lefty politics. Arizona isn’t a shoe-in for any Democrat. But she brings no special magic to the equation. There’s nothing about the state that requires her current antics.

One thing that people tend to forget is that her colleague Mark Kelly is up for reelection in 2022. And her antics make things much harder for him."

I actually pared this down, but a bit more in the article.

[gondrin]

Just wait till the GDP #'s come out because of the "timing" of the shutdowns and reopening's Biden should easily get 3%, the thing trump never got.
Will drive him nuts since he held this as the key watermark to a great economy
He might even double Trump's highest yearly number.

Of course they will say its all because covid depressed numbers, but won't say the same thing about things they blame biden for like Inflation....

- - - Updated - - -



i always hated the DOW because they always kick out the laggards and its not a true reflection of performance. Its a true reflection of the top few companies which is not anywhere near representative of the years performance


At worst they should report the SP500 and ignore the dow.

At best they should be reporting one of the Wilshire index's of the 2000-5000 top companies.

They should also have to register companies at the beginning of the year and not kick them out of any index so that the index shows the true performance year over year.

If a $100 dollar stock goes to .10 it should stay in the index till the reset at the end of the year or longer.

Oh, you mean this article that states that it is on pace to have a 7% year growth. 6.5% last quarter alone. Almost double what Trump was ever to accomplish. Now, I'll state that it is mainly due to COVID really causing thing to go down. But man, someone should fly that over Mar-A-Lago everyday.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us...edgdhp&pc=U531

[Breccia]

I'll state that it is mainly due to COVID really causing thing to go down.

I agree in spirit, with two minor additions.
1) the implied "and re-opened later" on the Biden side (Biden shouldn't take all the credit the way Trump took all the credit)
2) Trump didn't get 3% any year, with or without pandemics, so "mainly" can be deleted safely. Remember, Trump's best year was 2018, 2019 was down from that. As of Jan 1, 2020, there was no pred...hold on.

(checks old news)

Found one. This is Wells Fargo, Dec 11, 2019.

Second, economies can also slip into recession when imbalances build up in an important sector, such
as housing in the previous decade or the tech sector in the 1990s. A sudden unwinding of these
imbalances can then lead to an economy-wide downturn. A hallmark of the current expansion in the U.S.
economy is its relative lack of large and noticeable imbalances. Consequently, our base-case scenario
calls for the U.S. economy to continue to expand. That said, the 2% or so GDP growth rates that we
forecast for next year and 2021 are hardly robust. Similarly, we look for the global economy to continue
to expand through at least the end of 2021, but the 3% growth rates that we look for over the
next two years are slower than the 3.5% per annum growth rate that the global economy has averaged
since 1980.

And just so we're clear on the why:

Uncertainties related to the U.S.-China trade war have held back investment spending in the United
States in recent quarters, and sluggish growth in capex spending has acted as a governor on overall GDP
growth in the U.S. economy. However, strong fundamentals in the household sector have continued to
support solid growth in consumer spending. In our view, trade policy uncertainties, which have weighed
on investment spending, are not likely to dissipate anytime soon. Although the United States and China
may very well agree to a Phase I trade deal, we are skeptical that the two sides will come to agreement
on a comprehensive deal that returns tariffs to their pre-trade war levels, at least not in the foreseeable
future. Consequently, we forecast that growth in investment spending in the United States will remain
lackluster.

I'm not going through every single Q1 2020 prediction, I'm just going to assume if Wells Fargo predicted 2.something percent than nobody was predicting over 3 percent. If I'm wrong, fine, whatever, but I don't think WF was the outlier.

Trump's policies are specifically and directly called out as growth inhibitors. Trump ruined his own 3% growth.

Trump was never going to get 3% growth. He was a horrible businessman who failed at every business he opened, and ran the country like his businesses. The lethal outbreak he directly encouraged ("it's just one person bla bla bla") didn't change that part, only made his results worse. If you're down 37 to 3 with seven minutes left in the game, whether or not you get called for Unsportsmanlike Conduct is no longer the reason you lost. You lost because you're the 2020 NYJets who became 0 and 13 that day. The foul didn't make them lose. A "biased" ref didn't make them lose. They lost because they suck. Trump never got 3% GDP growth for anything other than one 4.1% that I think was revised, and Q3 2020 which followed Q2 2020 and averaged out over the year to be NYJets territory.

[Omega10]

snip

This post is quite similar to a post about Brexit. If Brexit were done competently then UK could probably come out pretty good from it. But it was and is not being done competently at all. Similarly, Trump's incompetence pretty much doomed his chances of getting good results for the US. Meanwhile, of course, we are the ones stuck with the bad results.

[Beefhammer]

This post is quite similar to a post about Brexit. If Brexit were done competently then UK could probably come out pretty good from it. But it was and is not being done competently at all. Similarly, Trump's incompetence pretty much doomed his chances of getting good results for the US. Meanwhile, of course, we are the ones stuck with the bad results.

Yup. If he told his MAGAts to wear masks, social distance, and take the vaccine when it was available, as well as encourage shutdowns, we could have have came out of this by June/July 2020 with minimal deaths and stopped the curve like many other places only seeing some resurgences with some variants. All this with little impact on the economy and every day life. He would have one reelection easy. But much like his supporters, Trump is a moron who doesn't even have the basic understandings of science or history. Considering this happened 100 years ago almost exactly with the Spanish flu.

[Zan15]

Oh, you mean this article that states that it is on pace to have a 7% year growth. 6.5% last quarter alone. Almost double what Trump was ever to accomplish. Now, I'll state that it is mainly due to COVID really causing thing to go down. But man, someone should fly that over Mar-A-Lago everyday.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us...edgdhp&pc=U531

yah he's only really hitting these numbers because consumers really did not spend for a year. Savings rates went through the roof and now its spend spend spend.
Not to mention businesses taking advantage of supply problems by jacking prices.

consumer spending, the main engine of the economy, rocketed 11.8% higher in the spring, the GDP data showed. That’s four times faster than the typical increase each quarter.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-...?mod=home-page

It just hit 6.5% again. It was well under forecast (8-9.1%) but that was mainly because of huge inventory reductions because of supply issues.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/29/q2-g...-estimate.html

GDP is now higher than it was Pre-Pandemic

Englund said he will adjust his forecast for the second half, but now sees 2021 GDP growing by 6.1% year-over-year and 6.2% fourth quarter over fourth quarter. He said the Fed’s central tendency forecast is much higher, at 6.8% to 7.3%.

That would be more than 100-130% higher than trumps best year.


Of course its all because of the pandemic squeeze, but hey they want to blame Biden for everything related to INFLATION, then they have to give Biden credit for everything related to GDP/Growth. Not to mention he will most likely have one of the biggest WAGE increases in decades. Also 100-130% higher than trump.


Oh and they cry its govt spending..... non defense government spending fell 10.4%....

[Milchshake]

Somebody explain this picture.

Wrong answers only!



A: Skit about the Cincinnati Polycule

[Edge-]

Sinema seems to have less, "Let them eat cake" and more "Did I do good, daddy?" vibes in this picture.

[DarkTZeratul]

Somebody explain this picture.

Wrong answers only!

An SNL skit with host Billy Bob Thornton.

[Benggaul]

Somebody explain this picture.

Wrong answers only!



A: Skit about the Cincinnati Polycule

"It was at that moment that Senators Portman and Sinema realized they had been Freaky Friday'd. Sinema relished the chance to change political affiliations once again."

[Draco-Onis]

Somebody explain this picture.

Wrong answers only!

Infrastructure XXX Parody.

On a serious note this bipartisan infrastructure thing is a joke, I hope it dies in the house because Sinema is refusing to back the 3.5 trillion dollar bill that actually does something.

[Breccia]

Pelosi calls upon the CDC to extend the eviction moratorium in the face of red voters getting sick and dying.

Okay, points for intent but um...wasn't that just declared unConstitutional? Maybe she should write up a bill and have Florida Reps on board.

[Endus]

Pelosi calls upon the CDC to extend the eviction moratorium in the face of red voters getting sick and dying.

Okay, points for intent but um...wasn't that just declared unConstitutional? Maybe she should write up a bill and have Florida Reps on board.

I think it was less "unconstitutional" and more just "outside the CDC's authority". It's the kind of thing they should be recommending to Congress to pass a law about, but not within their own direct authority.

Still kind of shit for Pelosi to be asking them to take care of for her.

[Breccia]

I think it was less "unconstitutional" and more just "outside the CDC's authority". It's the kind of thing they should be recommending to Congress to pass a law about, but not within their own direct authority.

Still kind of shit for Pelosi to be asking them to take care of for her.

Yeah, that sounds right to me.

The eviction moratorium and a few other things, such as unemployment, will have to come up again as Delta runs through half the US. I personally want to see the Republicans vote against their own states' interests.