Average American is losing $34K and everything else on Biden’s watch

My father was an engineer and I got interested in how things worked from him. I got hooked on business (making money!) and never got an engineering degree.

Worse, sometimes they sink into illegal activities, from selling drugs to stealing. I would rather people get workfare than be left to fend for themselves. My real preference is a negative income tax that has people working for private employers, for whatever they can earn (less than a minimum wage) and their income topped up by government.

Democrats suffer from their position on welfare, law and order, and how they deal with the environment.

With Boomers going into retirement and using more medical care, we'll go through a period of higher government spending to maintain services. We should cut spending and/or raise taxes.

Beats me. Pols on both sides are toadying to folks with extreme views, so it's hard to know how they would govern.

I was hopeful (but not holding my breath!) Biden would make more sense than he has. His nixing of the Keystone pipeline on Day One was a bad omen. He's spent far too much money on "green" technology that's often a sop to "green" businesses. I wonder what conclusions they drew from Solyndra. That it was a dumb idea? Or that they shoveled a lot of money to their pals with no real political downside? I'm leaning toward the latter as their thinking.

Republicans have to get away from Trump. We really don't know what most Republicans would do because right now many are taking radical positions they might not take if Trump wasn't riling up the base.

 

I agree with about 85% of what you wrote in your post, and that is much more than I would have imagined possible at one time. We don't see eye-to-eye on everything, obviously, but when I imagine both of us as teenagers, busting nuts on truck flats, I realize that maybe we're not so far apart after all.

I asked you for your preferences for president and VP, so now I'll reveal mine... Tom Cotton OR Tulsi Gabbard for either president OR vice-president. That could change, going forward, but I don't want Trump, or Biden (or anyone I see in the current 'woke' Democrat insane asylum....).

 

I wonder what percentage of people who oppose either of these two think about the damage they might do to the economy.

When the pols continued spending as inflation set in, the Fed should started tightening long before they acted.

I wonder how many people know it was Jimmy Carter who set Volcker loose on inflation.

If Democrats continue ignoring crime and problems with illegal immigration, things people do understand, they're going to find themselves on the outside looking in.

 

One comment -- yes, it was Carter who appointed Paul Volcker to be Fed chairman... but it was Reagan who really teamed-up with him, and that remarkable team virtually eliminated inflation as a concern for decades to come!

 

Cotton might be okay, but Gabbard doesn't impress. I have trouble with Cotton over his views on abortion.

 

We can never know what Carter would have done in a second term, but Reagan's popularity cemented the low inflation policy. Where they went wrong is creating a set of laws and policies that created this...



There is little doubt, I submit, the median real wage getting stuck for four decades caused the unrest that elected Trump and continues to this day.

 

No doubt in my mind that Carter was, by far, the most ethical, sincere, and honest president we've had in perhaps all my long life... but unfortunately he was politically naive and surrounded by incompetents and "men of an inferior stamp".

It's hard for me to criticize much of what Reagan did, even though he had flaws and foul-up's. He did, I think we can agree, inherit a dreadful mess that featured the ravages of years of inflation, 'stagflation', Nixon, Ford, a phony 'oil shortage', and a robust, menacing Soviet Union which increasingly threatened Western Europe. All in all, though, with Volcker at this side, the imperfect but effective mechanism of "Reaganomics" and occasional help from the 'better' Democrats in Congress crushed the inflation monster for a very, very long time.

But, now that I'm retired, one thing Reagan did that really irritates the hell out of me was that he drove a policy in place that taxes a retiree's Social Security benefits. That never was 'right', and now that I'm drawing my earned SS, the whole idea of that burns my selfish butt. Strange that none of our socially-conscious, liberal Democrat administrations have thought to change that particular injustice....

 

Reagan's policies came as a time when computers were poised to revolutionize the workplace. I don't think he understood the long-term impact on wages and how difficult it would be for some workers to migrate to workplaces where computer skills were essential.

I think Reagan will be remembered for helping bring about the peaceful end of the Soviet Union. He and George H.W. Bush pulled it off.

Until Trump came along. A second Trump term in 2020 would have been even more inflationary than Biden's Presidency.

Democrats stopped representing everyday Americans when Obama came along.

 

TRUTH BOMBS DROPPED: My goodness, Matt Walsh just dropped an unreal number of truth bombs on trans activist Dylan Mulvaney.

 

'Claiming that Reagan imposed the tax on Social Security benefits ignores that it was a widespread bipartisan effort, passed easily and quickly with overwhelming support by a Democratic House and Republican Senate. Why did it have such bipartisan support?'

Social Security Amendments of 1983
'By the 1980s, Social Security was in big trouble. Starting in 1975, SS expenditures exceeded revenues and its reserves were close to being exhausted. It was anticipated that, without legislative action, it would not have been possible to continue paying benefits on time beginning in July 1983.'

So these changes are part of why you are even getting a retirement check.

'Remember, SS is supposed to be self-funded, not take from the general fund. Being the third rail of politics, both parties had a vested interest in saving the program. This was the impetus behind the changes, which became the Social Security Amendments bill of 1983.'

'They also made 50% of SS benefits part of taxable income for higher income recipients. The equivalent of about $67K/85K today. For those seniors earning above this threshold, they’d be taxed on 50% of their benefits. This additional revenue would go to the SS trust fund.'

'Left out of the meme is that this tax was again increased in 1993, under Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress. Instead of the 50% tax on SS for “high income earners,” 85% of their benefits were now taxed and the 50% began to include modest earners. Every House Republican voted against this, although it was part of a massive Omnibus Reconciliation Act. The bill was deadlocked in the Senate, with none other than Vice President Al Gore breaking the tie.

 

Yup you can break down the misery index here
United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) - January 2023 Data - 1950-2022 Historical (tradingeconomics.com)


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