@Bogan

Can't vote for Biden. He's all about Biden, and bad for our country. 

MayCaesar said:

I have survived a decade and a half of Putinomics. Bidenomics is a game on the Easy Mode. Give me a real challenge!

But you fled Putinomics, correct? Bidenomics may be a game comparatively, now but what if it should continue with more intensity as he has no more elections to lose after this one? The far left in this country believe our economy is too big to completely destroy reason being the dollar is the currency of the world bank. As you might know already, that affords us protections on overborrowing that other economies do not enjoy. What do think might happen if we lost the worlds confidence in the dollar? I ask because that has begun to happen...https://cointelegraph.com/learn/what-is-de-dollarization-what-happens-if-the-us-dollar-crashes

The effects of a United States currency collapse would be felt all around the world. Because of how intertwined the world economy is, changes in the value of the dollar would have an effect on worldwide trade, investments and financial stability. The abrupt decrease in the value of the dollar could result in inflationary pressures that would impact both domestic and international markets. 

MayCaesar said:

@Factfinder

I would encourage everyone to not succumb to the sensationalism of the media and look at facts objectively. And the facts are such that, despite countless blunders of Biden's administration, the American economy is still by far the strongest in the world, the US dollar is the only currency taken seriously in every single country of the world, and the well-being of the average American is better than it has ever been. The idea that one bad president can somehow destroy a country full of companies like NVidia, Tesla and Capital One to me seems completely absurd.

Compare it to Putinomics. The guy nationalized the biggest independent TV channel a year into his rule, nationalized multiple gas and oil companies a couple years later, later initiated a number of bizarre military operations leading to debilitating sanctions of the Russian economy - and still the Russian economy keeps slowly growing somehow.

Heck, even the North-Korean economy has been running for nearly 80 years now and does not show signs of collapsing any time soon.

Some perspective would serve this country well.

The perspective I have is here one minute, gone the next. If life has no lesson but one, that'd be it. I think you just might be underestimating some of the forces at work. And from different perspectives all seeking the economic throne. If it were a matter of biden's blunders and nothing else then yeah, what's the big deal. But biden hasn't been running things for a while. His presidency crumbles without far left support and he knows it. That's why 'middle of the road joe' turned ultra left upon becoming president. 

You do have a very good point, our economy is still stronger by far. But I don't think it sensationalism to at least explore some of the potential consequences of continuing the trend and allowing it to gain in momentum. Americans have felt the pressure of inflation more instantly under his administration then I can personally remember. Going back to the Carter years. While it may be true that the average American is still living well; the divide between who still is and who isn't anymore grows. To a first rate nation who's dominated the worlds economy it does seem logical to have a sort of 'your worst is still better than the rests best, in a lot of cases' approach. But it does add up over time. Some effects of a weakening dollar around the world are being felt today. As the dollar continues to weaken, how much bolder will authoritative regimes become at changing the geopolitical spectrum as Russia and China have chosen to do since the last election?

The point isn't to raise alarm bells. But to consider how life on the planet might change should the dollar crash.

Factfinder said:

The perspective I have is here one minute, gone the next. If life has no lesson but one, that'd be it. I think you just might be underestimating some of the forces at work. And from different perspectives all seeking the economic throne. If it were a matter of biden's blunders and nothing else then yeah, what's the big deal. But biden hasn't been running things for a while. His presidency crumbles without far left support and he knows it. That's why 'middle of the road joe' turned ultra left upon becoming president. 

You do have a very good point, our economy is still stronger by far. But I don't think it sensationalism to at least explore some of the potential consequences of continuing the trend and allowing it to gain in momentum. Americans have felt the pressure of inflation more instantly under his administration then I can personally remember. Going back to the Carter years. While it may be true that the average American is still living well; the divide between who still is and who isn't anymore grows. To a first rate nation who's dominated the worlds economy it does seem logical to have a sort of 'your worst is still better than the rests best, in a lot of cases' approach. But it does add up over time. Some effects of a weakening dollar around the world are being felt today. As the dollar continues to weaken, how much bolder will authoritative regimes become at changing the geopolitical spectrum as Russia and China have chosen to do since the last election?

The point isn't to raise alarm bells. But to consider how life on the planet might change should the dollar crash.

I have learned a similar lesson, but with a different interpretation: things are much less predictable than we tend to think they are. I remember reading an article by Garry Kasparov back in 2006 or 2007 titled, "Putin's regime will not last two years", where he made a very convincing argument along the lines of what you are arguing: Putin is incompetent and deluded, the country is run by a mix of insane old people and oligarchs, the Ruble is about to crash, the Western world is turning away from doing business in Russia... Well, 17 or 18 years have passed, and, last I heard, Garry still keeps predicting Putin's regime's fall in the nearest future.

On the other hand, as late as in December of 1989 no Soviet citizen seriously expected communism to fall within their or their children's lifetime. A year and a half later, well...

I personally do not pay much attention to politics, and I find that the less attention you pay to it, the less it affects you: it is very likely that more than 90% of the impact of politics is psychological and not economical - in the democratic developed world, at least. I am much more interested in all the incredible technological developments revolutionizing the world every couple of years: this is what defines progress, and it is not something that a couple of crazy old guys in the White House can stop. Or even if they can, this is not something anyone can predict. If someone could, then the US stock market would be obliterated. The possibility of the US dollar crash seems very unlikely to me, and various economists have been predicting it since the Great Depression, at least. Currencies are much more stable than people think, and in order for them to crash, something truly catastrophic has to happen, far more catastrophic than anything that has ever happened in this country.

Argument Topic: Can we survive 4 more years of Bidenomics?

• Continued hot job growth will reinforce the Fed’s cautious approach toward rate cuts as some Fed officials will likely see job growth as still too hot for comfort, but the details of the March jobs report offered welcome signs that labor demand and supply are better balanced, with the labor force participation rate rebounding and wage growth easing.
  
  
• The economy added 303,000 jobs in March, well above consensus expectations, while prior estimates of job growth in January and February were revised up by a cumulative 22,000 jobs. Job gains were broad-based, with the private sector adding 232,000 jobs and the government sector adding 71,000 jobs. Health care and leisure and hospitality drove the increase in the services sector while goods employment picked up on a large increase in construction payrolls.
  
  
• The unemployment rate fell back 0.1 percentage points (ppt) to 3.8% after reaching a two-year high in February, and it held below 4% for the 26thconsecutive month. Encouragingly, the labor force participation rate rebounded 0.2ppt to 62.7% after holding steady for three consecutive months, and it is now just a tad below its post-pandemic high of 62.8%. Stronger labor supply is encouraging as it acts as a relief valve against elevated wage pressures.
  
  

Factfinder said:

I think the biggest problem with Putin is the west doesn't listen to him. Russia before it invaded Ukraine had been working to divest it's holdings of American currency and told Biden and the west sanctions would only hurt so much and he had a way of coping. Fast forward and what do we see? He becomes cozy with China then as you said, somehow his economy is growing. That alone demonstrates the plausibility of the dollar eventually being replaced given the right set of circumstances. I'm pretty sure at one point during the reign of the British Empire most thought the pound to be untouchable, then it got replaced by the dollar.

I think you describe yourself as a glass half full kind of guy, which is cool. The positivity that you potentially bring is usually more pleasant to be around. Then there are glass half empty kind of people who always predict doom and gloom. Problem is both are right which is where you find me. I can enjoy the glass being half full right now because our currency still occupies the top spot, so believe me I relish being retired. At the same time I also realize there are no guarantees in life. I've worked hard, done things the way I was taught, and came up empty before. Then there were other times I used minimal effort and it paid off! In life you never know what's right around the corner till you get there. I do not think any currency is invincible no matter how unlikely it may seem that the dollar will crash. 

I am just a silly chaotic guy whose purpose on this planet is to wreak havoc on tradition and order. On a slightly more serious note, nobody can predict where the economy is going to go in the near future (if anyone could, they would be a trillionaire), and predictions of the US dollar crash, for instance, have been made on numerous occasions in the past, never happening in reality. That is not to say that it cannot crash, but I see no grounds for expecting such crash considering how stable currencies are in general, especially internationally used ones. Go to any country and ask people there, "In what currency are you keeping your savings?", and the most common reply aside from "In the currency of my country" will be, "In the US dollar". Even in Western Europe people prefer having a significant portion of their savings in US dollars and not in Euro.

jack said:

Hello:

Given the hot job market, not only can we survive, we'll THRIVE!

• Continued hot job growth will reinforce the Fed’s cautious approach toward rate cuts as some Fed officials will likely see job growth as still too hot for comfort, but the details of the March jobs report offered welcome signs that labor demand and supply are better balanced, with the labor force participation rate rebounding and wage growth easing.
  
  
• The economy added 303,000 jobs in March, well above consensus expectations, while prior estimates of job growth in January and February were revised up by a cumulative 22,000 jobs. Job gains were broad-based, with the private sector adding 232,000 jobs and the government sector adding 71,000 jobs. Health care and leisure and hospitality drove the increase in the services sector while goods employment picked up on a large increase in construction payrolls.
  
  
• The unemployment rate fell back 0.1 percentage points (ppt) to 3.8% after reaching a two-year high in February, and it held below 4% for the 26thconsecutive month. Encouragingly, the labor force participation rate rebounded 0.2ppt to 62.7% after holding steady for three consecutive months, and it is now just a tad below its post-pandemic high of 62.8%. Stronger labor supply is encouraging as it acts as a relief valve against elevated wage pressures.
  
  

https://www.ey.com/en_us/strategy/macroeconomics/employment-report-march-2024

excon

Oh, I am going to have fun with this one! See, EY is one of the companies I happened to interview with just a month ago. The job market right now is the worst since 2008 according to many employers and employees alike, and I definitely felt it when interviewing with these guys and having an uncharacteristically tough competition.

While the number of occupied jobs right now is very high, the number of actual openings that employers want to fill is incredibly low. People who used to get interviews with roughly one out of 10 companies they applied for today are lucky to get one interview out of 100 applications. Many companies hold job openings that they are not even planning to fill, interviewing candidates and then rejecting them all so they can prove to the government that they could not fill the position and get Biden's subsidies.

Sometimes it is helpful to get out of the Internet for a moment and talk to the real people. If you do not trust the job seekers who have all reasons to have a negative bias, we can let the recruiters themselves to talk:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-current-job-market-really-like-michele-darley-rnmzc/

As a recruiter, at least 95% of the people I’ve been interviewing this year are unemployed.
Some longer than 6 months.
In the last 2 weeks, it’s been 99%.
...
I have been recruiting for 27 years and this is the worst job market I have seen.

- Worse than after 9/11
- Worse than The Great Recession in 2008
- Worse than the Pandemic
...
The people I have worked with or hired, who were majorly successful in their roles; award winning, top performing professionals at top companies, are losing their jobs, through no fault of their own, but due to budgetary reasons (higher paid employees may be more likely to be laid off first) or business changes.I hear from people that they are having multiple interviews with multiple companies and getting ghosted.

One of gazillions of testimonies. I have many PhD friends who graduated either last summer or this winter and looked for jobs... I have observed many PhD job-seeking cycles in my life, and I have never seen such hopelessness. Straight-A STEM PhD graduates with killer dissertations, internship experience and publications are not just struggling to get into top tech companies, but to get any jobs whatsoever.

I disagree with the OP that the economy might not survive 4 more years of this (empirically, it would survive even 400 more years of this) - but the state of the job market specifically is dismal right now. Granted, I can only speak for the upper-mid-tier positions ($150k to $400k compensations or so). Maybe it is better in other tiers, I do not know. Maybe construction workers have an easier time finding jobs right now.

jack said:

Hello:

Given the hot job market, not only can we survive, we'll THRIVE!

• Continued hot job growth will reinforce the Fed’s cautious approach toward rate cuts as some Fed officials will likely see job growth as still too hot for comfort, but the details of the March jobs report offered welcome signs that labor demand and supply are better balanced, with the labor force participation rate rebounding and wage growth easing.
  
  
• The economy added 303,000 jobs in March, well above consensus expectations, while prior estimates of job growth in January and February were revised up by a cumulative 22,000 jobs. Job gains were broad-based, with the private sector adding 232,000 jobs and the government sector adding 71,000 jobs. Health care and leisure and hospitality drove the increase in the services sector while goods employment picked up on a large increase in construction payrolls.
  
  
• The unemployment rate fell back 0.1 percentage points (ppt) to 3.8% after reaching a two-year high in February, and it held below 4% for the 26thconsecutive month. Encouragingly, the labor force participation rate rebounded 0.2ppt to 62.7% after holding steady for three consecutive months, and it is now just a tad below its post-pandemic high of 62.8%. Stronger labor supply is encouraging as it acts as a relief valve against elevated wage pressures.
  
  

https://www.ey.com/en_us/strategy/macroeconomics/employment-report-march-2024

excon

Jobs are finally back up to pre pandemic levels, yay. What do they pay? Do those salaries have the buying power of pre pandemic levels? No. Are prices dropping to pre pandemic levels? No. The broader divide between the haves and the have nots Biden intentionally created to appease the far left still exist. And growing no doubt considering the housing market today. 

Do you mean by 'thrive' paying 20 dollars for a hamburger and fries?

MayCaesar said:

Factfinder said:

@MayCaesar

I should clarify, I don't think that the economy might not survive four more years of Biden. I was asking the question to stimulate conversation. Highlight the effects of Biden on the economy more than anything. I think if you reflect on what I've been saying you'll see I wasn't trying to break into the prediction game. But I see why you came from the perspective you did now. That would be a tall order for me to pull off!   

I think one issue is some old timers like myself know how good it was here at one time so we understand what's been lost. Used to be the average construction worker could support a family, buy a house, a car, plan vacations on just the one salary. It was taken for granted. That's almost unheard of where blue collar work is concerned today. What kind of country will Biden leave us? Who knows but I like to consider the possibilities and possible options the future may have.  

I am always quite skeptical when hearing about the good old times: we all tend to sugarcoat the past. Housing used to be much more affordable in the past, but the quality of those houses was not comparable to what is available today. A construction worker could certainly support a family, but I do not think many people nowadays would want to have that lifestyle.

I would add that, as the market evolves, naturally certain professions become less profitable. When cars became mainstream, buggy drivers could no longer make a living - but that is a positive development, not a negative one. By the same token, the relative value of manual work such as the one construction workers do, in light of automation, machinery and the value of work of engineers, business managers, etc. has naturally decreased. But people who keep up with the times, master the new technology and apply their skills can make a much nicer living than before.

The problem is that old industries have lobbyists everywhere, so many of them are stuck in the past. The fact that construction workers still have to do so much work with their bare hands suggests to me that the industry lags behind the market, and worker unions and legacy company lobbyists make sure that it stays that way, disadvantaging the workers. The construction industry should be nearly fully automated by now, and the people who used to hold a hammer now should hold a joystick, or type on a keyboard.

Regardless, people who keep up with the market trends can make an incredible living nowadays. The job market is rough at the moment, but that too will pass soon.

Sugar coat or not, it was understood once upon a time that one blue collar salary did pay for the aforementioned and if one salary could do all that, imagine what a second could do? Even part time. Gain the lifestyle they wanted even? This was real, May not distorted memories. I think it's is really hard for the younger generations, and those who migrate here who are young looking for employment, to understand just how different it was back then. Sure there were some draw backs, job scarcity would rear it's head once in a while. But back then, you landed a skilled blue collar job your life changed for the better exponentially. 

You seem to have a very idealist view of a future that we haven't attained yet. Fact is manual labor is still in very high demand. People still are able to take pride in what they can build with their hands. And if they know what they're doing, they make real good money (though not with the same value  as before) so I think the opposite, there are people who would like the lifestyle especially if the salary matched the buying power it did back in the day. 

I see what you're saying about keeping up with the times and adapting. But one should be careful not to overrun the modern changes that are taking place. Potentially leaving oneself unemployed in a world where there is a large contingency of jobs available that you've become overqualified and credentialed for. Employers tend to frown on that as they know you'll be still looking. 

There is an old saying that holds true today. "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians". Meaning if everyone only sought white collar jobs and no one did the blue collar work there will be no jobs eventually. If we reach your vision of the future that may change but as of now it remains true.  

@MayCaesar

Being, say, a construction worker in the 70-s was a hellish job by modern standards. You can make a much better living today by being an office clerk.

That's just not true...

While ZipRecruiter is seeing salaries as high as $23.25 and as low as $10.44, the majority of General Office Clerk salaries currently range between $14.71 (25th percentile) to $18.99 (75th percentile) in California.  https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/General-Office-Clerk-Salary--in-California

While ZipRecruiter is seeing salaries as high as $36.06 and as low as $12.10, the majority of Construction Worker salaries currently range between $17.07 (25th percentile) to $23.03 (75th percentile) in California.   https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Construction-Worker-Salary--in-California

Why would anyone want to go back to those times? Along these lines, one could argue that Romans have it great, because a Roman could just haul logs around and get paid a decent wage for that... But who wants to go back to those times?

I don't think I've expressed a desire to go back to those times. Just return to some things that worked better. One salary today should buy what one did back then. Better quality improves (or not) independently and is irrelevant.  And the roman analogy seems a bit extreme even if I had. You May, I get you think a 'cushy' office job means a better one, and that may be true for you. But for millions of others they'd rather work outside, or with their hands, or operate heavy equipment or machinery, or be able to pound a nail in one stroke, the reality is all these and more; hands on jobs are needed. And lots of people are attracted by them. Here's a story in the LA Times that came out showing how forces worked to scale back the salaries, thus the buying power...

At the same time, the job got less lucrative. American construction workers today make $5 an hour less than they did in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.
In 1972, construction paid today’s equivalent of $32 an hour, almost $10 more than the average private-sector job. But real wages steadily declined for decades, erasing much of that gap.  https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-construction-trump/

Note that in the 70's average construction salaries were at the equivalent to the high end pay of today for construction. I don't know how you can say...

 The salaries corrected for inflation have increased noticeably. The jobs have become safer and physically less demanding, while providing people with higher income.

I know I'm using California stats but we were or still are(?) the fifth largest economy.

You don't think construction is demanding or less so then in in the 70's? If your search were in field you wouldn't have said that. 

First, physical strength and stamina are crucial. Construction tasks require hard physical labor for extended periods of time: operating hand tools and power tools, lifting heavy objects, climbing scaffolds, and digging. These tasks also require manual dexterity, coordination, and excellent vision and depth perception.
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/e/What-Skills-Does-a-Construction-Worker-Need

The home ownership rate has remained quite flat since the 1970-s,

But the houses that are bought, does the data detail what houses were bought with one salary or two? And how many at one salary then and now comparatively?

I am not sure what is idealistic in my view:

It is idealistic because we are not at the point yet. Modern computer access to data as impressive as it is, is nothing like erecting complex structures by remote control as you suggested we should be doing. We're just not there yet. And if we slow our advance, allow more people to live better along the way, why not? In the end you make a good point, jobs eventually become 'better' but the transition causes a high price. If you mean by 'better' you mean less labor intensive that is.  Some people don't want to have to work two jobs to make ends meet. Some mothers find nothing wrong with staying home and raising their own children. 

To your last point, I very strongly disagree with this outlook...

You don't think China makes use of all their little Indians? Of course they do. If you strongly disagree with my point then explain how today, the work would get done with no blue collar workers? Not in an idealistic future, but now.

there will be endless demand in managers, scientists, programmers, analyticians...

In conclusion we are going through changes but say the jobs you listed where the blue collar workers would gravitate to, who would need managing? Would the manager be as informed, talented as the people being managed? Technicians, repair personnel, people from a wide array of blue collar trades, they'd all work side by side with with scientists and programmers because no one repairs or trouble shoots equipment? 

It's cool to be excited about the possibilities of human advancement. We (in my humble opinion) just need to do so while considering the whole of humanity and think in humane ways for transitioning when it becomes necessary as part of the advancement. Even if it slows the advancement. After all, 7 billion people strong on the planet, all need things that allot for opportunities for them to advance and stabilize on a personal level as well. 

@Factfinder

Well, I said that you "can" make a better living, not that you necessarily will. Take a fairly easy job, that of an accountant (easy in terms of the amount of education it requires: Bachelor's from an unnamed university is enough). The median salary in the US is $78,000 a year. Consider a household with two adults making this amount each and not living at the center of a megacity - and you get a very solid quality of life, without risking having a heavy metal bar drop on your head every day and coming home with aches across your body. With good budgeting, it is quite realistic to get a house in a decent area and pay it off in a few years.
I looked up the data for construction workers country-wide in 1970: around $26 an hour, or $54,000 annually (in today's dollars). This does not look nowhere near enough for a comfortable life to me, especially if the man is a sole provider (as was much more common back then). So, again, I do not see what there is to mourn.

Of course construction work is demanding. This is one of the arguments I was making: this is not the kind of job to want on today's market if your goal is to simply make a living. I would not go into construction if I was not passionate about the field. There are far easier ways to make far bigger amounts of money if you are okay with working a job you do not like.

I am not sure what difference it makes how exactly people buy their homes when they live in them as commonly as before. The modern economy is very dynamic, credit is extremely common, and it is very typical for even billionaires to be perpetually broke from the sole income-to-spending proportionality point of view - this point of view simply does not describe the economy of the modern individual well.

Lastly, I do not at all claim that tomorrow all manual jobs can be done away with. Transition is required. But that transition can be very rapid if all the rusty cogs slowing it down are taken out and replaced with well oiled ones. There is nothing more humane than an incredible technological leap that allows everyone to be 10 times as productive as they were yesterday. And nothing less humane than what happens in African coal mines, where people do prefer to live stable lives and not rock the boat too much.

I do not claim to speak for all of humanity: not everyone loves the modern world the way I do. But it is very strange to me to hear people lamenting over things like outsourcing jobs to the developing world, replacing workers with machines, missing the past... We are living in the coolest time in human history, and if one turns off their TV and turns on broadcasts of SpaceX launches or Two Minute Papers videos on Youtube, it is very hard to not jump with excitement all the time. To me, Noland Arbaugh's story alone is so unbelievably cool, that something like World War III is needed to offset such an accomplishment.

Maybe I am somehow different, but I have never looked into the past, never had nostalgia. What was yesterday is gone; I am interested only in what is beyond the horizon, out there, ahead. This allows me to look at the past impartially when I choose to analyze it, and when you look at it like this, it is very hard to feel warmth towards it. Even my own past. I do not want a single element of my childhood to come back: been there, done that.

@Factfinder

Well, my opinion is that everyone above a very young age should have a salary or some sort of income. Self-sufficiency is the most basic prerequisite for happiness as I see it. Perhaps this cultural divide is what separates us. I do not find the traditional family appealing whatsoever.

I agree that being an accountant does not sound very appealing to many. And does being a construction worker? If one was offered two jobs right now - an accountant in a comfortable office with a $80,000 salary, and a construction worker in a ditch with a $55,000 salary - which would they be more likely to choose?
These are rarely jobs people pick because they love them.

But I will add more: people should not aim this low to begin with. Unless someone really loves construction or accounting for some reason, they should be far more ambitious: the higher you aim, the further you generally go. People should not be stuck in jobs for their whole lives where they do not really grow and have to actively learn something. A cool alternative to construction, for instance, is engineering: similar subject matter, but much more interesting and profitable.
I hear you saying that everyone cannot be an engineer: construction workers are also needed. Sure. For now. But when everyone strives to be an engineer and construction workforce starts becoming scarce, then these engineers will accelerate the automation process, and eventually there will be no need in construction workers. Or make construction work as a step towards engineering: when no one wants to do construction for life, construction companies will provide incentives: "Work for us for 5 years, get your engineering degree fully funded". You get both construction workers, and a nice career pathway for them that does not get them stuck in an entry-level job.

That people used to be able to do simple manual jobs for life and live okay off that - is not something to desire. The modern world provides so many opportunities... It makes no sense to stick to the same line of work as people did 100 years ago and feel comfortable. It would be like living without a cell phone (which some people do). Just... why? Maybe I do not understand something about humanity, but to me such a decision seems to only be reasonable in the lack of alternatives. The alternatives may have been lacking 1,000 years ago... not today.

I’m not sure, there’s not many running for president that could fix the economy after Trump and Biden 

Factfinder said:

Do you mean by 'thrive' paying 20 dollars for a hamburger and fries?

jack said:

Factfinder said:

Do you mean by 'thrive' paying 20 dollars for a hamburger and fries?

Hello F:

I remember the $.15 cent McDonald's hamburger.  We survived.  I remember a nickel phone call and a nickel Coke.  I'm still kicking. I remember $.25 gasoline.  We're here, and thriving..  Hell, I remember gold @ $300/oz.

Will paying its staff $20/hr bankrupt the hamburgler??  Nahh..

excon

Surviving isn't the same as thriving. I wasn't as concerned about the hamburglar as much as I was thinking about the growing gap between the 1% er's and the shrinking middle class. And the growing homeless problem that officials hide when someone important comes to town. They going to thrive paying 20 dollars for hamburger and fries?

jack said:

Factfinder said:

Surviving isn't the same as thriving. I wasn't as concerned about the hamburglar as much as I was thinking about the growing gap between the 1% er's and the shrinking middle class.

Hello again, fact:

We agree..  So, you're certainly against Trump giving his wealthy donors another zillion dollar tax cut. Right?? That'll make the gap even wider..

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/10/politics/trump-2017-tax-cuts-rich/index.html

excon

Well we agree 20 dollars for burger and fries isn't thriving.

Similar claims were made in 2016 and proven false as the tax cuts benefited all. When will you learn? A friendly government invites investing in the economy by the rich. Times were better during the trump years, no inflation and all. Then along came Biden, adversarial towards achievement and success, declares war on energy companies cause companies made profits instead of giving away their money, creates shortages and high, stubborn inflation, widening gap between 1%er's and shrinking middle class, growing homeless population, all thanks to Biden sucking up to the far left. Meanwhile the rich protecting THEIR money puts it in tax shelters instead of investing. All this Biden himself call bidenomics, then says vote for me if you want more. And people will....