Hodad

You mean the grabbed it by the poosy without consent? That adds up.

No link? No article? Pretty sure you can make this stuff up.

Obviously cheap and shitty, so right in Trump's wheelhouse, but I don't think it's a new low at all. He's definitely done worse. At least it's AI here. He misrepresented poor Dorian with just a sharpie.

I'm sure protesters are welcome outside of the convention grounds. Nobody wants you unhinged crazies to create another J6 situation.

Are you weasels planning to tunnel under them? No? Then they'll probably suffice. But I'll let them know to be on the lookout for a Rascal scooter with a ladder strapped to the basket.

And vasectomies! If you're interested, I'd chip in for travel.

Seriously? Lol. That's actually below average cost for a family of 4. In 2023, the average cost of health insurance for a family of four was approximately $23,968 per year.

Yeah, in some places it is. I pay about $1300 a month to insure a family of 4 on a high deductible plan with another $500 a month into a pre-tax health savings account that can be used to cover any out -of-pocket costs. And same situation for wait times. General care is really available, but if you need a specialist or non-urgent surgery you're looking at wait times in months. It's a broken system. Insurance companies as nothing to the quality of health care but take tens of billions in profits (more?) out of the system.

Nobody can claim exclusive credit, for sure. But the Trump Stimulus, the Biden Stimulus and the tough medicine from the Fed are all massive factors. As well as some artful follow-on actions. There have been maybe two "soft landings" in history, and this one isn't accidental. A huge cast of players involved, but it's not just good luck. The Biden admin didn't just not fark it up.. They've earned considerable credit. I don't dismiss inflation. It's no fun for anyone, and definitely some people have been hurt, but there are two points to make--maybe three. The first is that there is a huge difference between saying, "The post pandemic economy has been tough for me," and saying, "The economy is in shambles!" I'm sympathetic to individual pain, but it doesn't erase the overall success. While this has been a tough period, the US had fared really well compared to most of the world. We experienced a global pandemic. It was a massive shock. There were many kinds of pain inflicted, including economic. There's some irony in the fact that the "conservative-ish" crowd who decries the nanny state is irate that the state didn't protect them from all types of pain resulting from a black swan event of biological origin. Yes there was damage. Yes, good government made it better. No, good government didn't erase all effects, nor is that a reasonable expectation. Second, our measures of inflation and wage growth are based on averages. There are definitely things and people on the up and down side of those averages. Some employers will scale wages more effectively than others. People with a lot of cash savings got burned by inflation, yep. But a sort of inverse of that is that everyone with a mortgage (or any other loan) got "boosted" by inflation as the relative burden of those notes decreased. Workers will fare better than non-workers. Etc. Etc. Third is that while inflation can cause some real pain, a lot of the pain is psychological. It's really easy to see a higher price tag at the grocery store and a lot harder to notice a few extra offsetting dollars in your paycheck. And indeed, employees locked into long-term contracts might not be getting the same adjustments as employees without long-term contracts. Sometimes those contracts help and sometimes they hurt. Mobile employees (job jumpers) are going to fare better than loyalists. But even considering all of it, hourly and salaried real wages (CPI adjusted) have climbed. You can see that easiest in the 10-year view here. The point isn't to dismiss the pain of real people. It's to say that if the state of the economy is an election issue, it should be viewed as a strength rather than a weakness. It's a good economy in any context, but coming out of the pandemic, it feels downright remarkable. And the average American is better off.

As usual, lacking the ability to find or understand data, you turn to your "feelings." You're the kind of person who looks at a thermometer on a perfect 65-degree day and says "Bullshit! Feels 45 degrees to me. Fark you, thermometer! The weather is a disaster!" 🙄

Lol. Prices? "Prices" is not an economic indicator. In fact, strong economies drive up prices of most goods (more spending). That's why the FED raises interest rates, to cool spending and keep inflation at the target rate. Which is 2% to hedge against the risk of deflation. In the "perfect" economy prices will go up over any 4 year period. They will always be higher. Though when you say "prices," the obvious question is "prices of what goods or services"? I'm going to assume you mean something like inflation based on the CPI. There certainly was post-pandemic inflation--for all the reasons mentioned all the times--but while it's a bit above target it's at a reasonable place this year. But inflation isn't really the ballgame. It's meant to happen, and as long as wages are outpacing inflation it doesn't much matter that prices are higher, because people will still be better off. And over the last 4 years wages HAVE outpaced inflation. If you zero in on the short timeframe that is the peak of post-pandemic inflation, yes inflation was rising faster than wages, but in the big picture that isn't true, and for the last two years that hasn't been true. And as for job growth, you've completely pooped the bed with that one. Here's the 5-year job growth view. Here are the screenshots. So, as you say, the "results are clearly visible to every person." They don't even have to click the links. So howzabout you just go play in the meme thread while the grownups talk about the economy.

Harris doesn't have her own people yet, so likely whoever is on Biden's staff.🤷‍♂️ It would be nice to know which washed up supply siders are still allowed in camp Trump. 😄

As per usual. There is almost zero political value to publicly discussing or debating actual economics. Might as well be Greek to most voters. Nobody wants to end up like poor Ross Perot with his charts. So we'll get a lot of campaign nonsense--a lot of it cynical nonsense for 100 more days and then economic advisors will try to quietly move actual levers with things like CHIPS and the poorly named (but long term great) Inflation Reduction Act.

Pick a set of economic indicators from December 2020 and compare them to today. GDP? DOW? Unemployment? Job growth? Wage growth? Production? Spending? Composite indicators? Pick your poison. Jeebus, I hope your kids are at hot as you think they are because you didn't do 'em any favors in the brains department.

The numbers didn't lie, but you do. Read 'em and weep.

We sure have. Trump inherited a strong economy and left it a dumpster fire. Biden inherited a dumpster fire and will leave a strong economy. The degree to which any POTUS is responsible for the economy is a separate question, but if you want to talk results, we definitely know what those were.

Lol. We've long since established that you're economically illiterate, but I appreciate that you never miss an opportunity to demonstrate it. 1. Yes, stimulus can contribute to inflation, but it was not the primary driver here. And if you were even marginally honest you'd acknowledge that both the Trump stimulus and the Trump deficit were larger than those under Biden. If you want to claim that stimulus and deficit are the primary drivers then apportion blame appropriately. --For the record, stimulus was absolutely the right move to stave off disaster. Regarding timing, there is almost nothing a POTUS could do to cause an immediate inflationary reaction in the first month in office. The lag alone is longer than that. That should be your first--and most obvious clue--that the inflation train was already in motion as Biden was being sworn in. Again, because it's being driven primarily by external economic realities. Which, again, is why it's a worldwide phenomenon, you thick twit. 2. "Biden's war on domestic energy" is an absurd fiction. You're taking about a period of record domestic oil production--literally more oil extracted than at any point in history. If you can grasp a concept as basic as supply and demand (and I'm skeptical) then you would understand that record supply is NOT driving up costs. As you've been told many times, oil is a global market with global prices. Even at record production, the US isn't going to fill global demand. Production sites around the world were shuttered when demand dropped during the pandemic and global production wasn't coming back online until prices increased to justify restart costs. 3. Calling it "Biden's war in Ukraine" is just asinine. A non-starter for any thinking person. Yes, Putin invading Ukraine did exacerbate the disruption of the energy market, but it had nothing to do with Biden, your fantasies to the contrary notwithstanding. 4. OPEC had just finished cutting production, partially at Trump's urging (raising gas prices). They're not our servants. They're not going to jump every time we ask, especially against their own interests. We are dependent nations. If you don't want to be beholden to OPEC buy a goddamn EV and break the cycle.

Prices were up because of COVID, goofus. The disruption to production and supply chains (some of which still persists), the relief money chasing fewer goods, the extreme shock to the oil industry as people stopped driving (and subsequent price spike as people resumed driving), it all goes back to the pandemic. How do you still but understand basic market forces?

You're right. But that's also a pretty good illustration of why the Supreme Court and the presidency matter. Even people who have the misfortune of living in Louisiana or Arkansas deserve to have their basic rights secured against an overreaching state or a tyrannical majority.

You're pretty reasonable about this stuff, but you have to admit that there are a lot of examples of extreme government overreach when it comes to speech, even in Western democracies. In Democrat-controlled New York, for example, a tourist was arrested earlier this year just because he listened to the "wrong" kind of music.

I don't know your reality. Maybe you really won't be affected by the outcome of the presidential race, but you must realize that many people will be affected in profound and meaningful ways. The last time Trump was elected he nominated 3 Supreme Court justices hand picked by the Federalist Society to overturn Roe. Now half of the nation's reproductive rights are in jeopardy and in red states already lost. There are pregnant people suffering and dying because their doctors cannot intervene for fear of going to prison. His myriad abuses of power and outright criminality might not have affected you directly, but they certainly had a terribly corrosive effect on our government and society, undermining faith in the function of many important institutions and pushing social cohesion to the brink And while we used to take democracy for granted--the birthright of every American--it seems now that we need to recognize that it is fragile and just be protected. Trump tried to take that from all of us. There's a lot more on the line this election than marginal tax rates and foreign policy.

A. That's an Op Ed. B. WaPo is a good paper because, among other reasons, they are comfortable publishing such opinions. C. You're loony if you think Harris has "lost" the Washington Post. She never "had" them to begin with, but journalists aren't suddenly transformed into Trump supporters D. There are an awful lot of opinions about a policy proposal which hasn't actually been unveiled. 🤨

This is a weird/dumb thread, but I'm very worried about OP when he gets around to noticing that the Dutch live in Holland, formally The Netherlands, within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He may go full meltdown.

Lol. You know, just because someone on "your team" says something doesn't' mean you have to automatically nod along and shake your pom poms. He fundamentally misstated the IVF process when understanding that process is absolutely essential to understanding the thread topic. I provided the correct information. Really no need for you to say or do anything. Just learn something and move on.

Because Mickey D's has strict sexual harassment policies?