Vegas64

Democrats (who are in charge of the White House and Congress) are feeling the pressure to do something about soaring prices. Ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, Americans say that inflation is overwhelmingly the top problem facing the country, according to Pew Research. Economists suggest that the drivers of skyrocketing inflation are fairly clear at this point. Rock-bottom interest rates, government stimulus, surging demand for goods, and constrained supply due to Covid and the war in Ukraine have all conspired to send inflation to near 40-year highs. But in breaking with economists, a group of Democrats has focused on something else entirely: corporate greed. Citing record corporate profits, they say that some companies are jacking up prices to pad their bottom lines at the expense of consumers. Or, as Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell called it (not in a nice way), “greedflation.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/12/democratic-conspiracy-theory-on-inflation-makes-things-worse/ Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic senators unveiled the “Price Gouging Prevention Act of 2022,” which would empower regulators to investigate companies that sharply increase prices and require companies that hike prices exorbitantly to disclose why. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/warren-bill-would-require-companies-to-explain-price-hikes/2022/05/12 President Biden also thinks price gouging is contributing to inflation. As part of his plan to fight inflation, he renewed his call for a minimum tax on corporations so that they finally “pay their fair share.” After Biden tweeted out those thoughts, Jeff Bezos felt inspired to go on the attack. The Amazon founder said that conflating higher corporate taxes with lower inflation “is just misdirection.” That earned a response from the White House, which yesterday noted that it was “unsurprising that this tweet comes after the President met with labor organizers, including Amazon employees.” Bezos replied that “unions aren’t causing inflation and neither are wealthy people.” One prominent economist is taking Biden’s side...kinda. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who warned early on that the government’s stimulus measures would lead to inflation, came to the government’s defense, tweeting that Jeff Bezos is “mostly wrong in his recent attack” on the Biden administration. While Summers called the corporate price gouging narrative “preposterous” (a view echoed by most experts), he also said it’s reasonable to raise taxes as a means of tamping down demand and inflation. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-16/summers-says-bezos-mostly-wrong-in-inflation-spat-with-biden and

To be fair, “Greedflation” has been roundly debunked by economists and it’s largely a political thing. But just like Republicans play politics and blame Biden for things outside of his control like gas prices, I’m more than okay with pushing something like Greedflation even though it’s not exactly honest. Edit to add, “roundly” might be a big bridge too far, let’s just say it’s debatable at best. I’ll link some sources when I get to a computer if anyone cares.

So you expect something but then in the next breath say you don't expect it. Serious question for you: do you see how you are irrational and why that might be frustrating to others who engage you in discussion around these sensitive topics?

So...your best thinking and plan to help poor people (the people you aren't talking about) is to...expect the upper middle class and wealthy (surly 1% with the F350's in The Woodlands in our running example) who aren't feeling the pain and could not care less about paying more to gas up their v8's for daily yoga workouts, outside of it being a political talking point, to change their behaviors and sacrifice for their poor brethren? This is a worse answer than the non-answer of telling poor people to just go to the non-existent grocery store in their food desert and buy fresh food and make their lunch everyday while learning to code on break at the call center and just drive less and stay home on weekends.

You are cruising for a bruising, Boomer.

In what way? I'm happy to draw encouragement if there is some to be had.

Saw the trailer and it hooked me to where I put in on my list to watch soon. Felt like a less manic Uncut Gems but cut out of the same broad cloth of gritty drama.

All they had to do was pack a lunch, huh. I don't neg people but you were this close. You are tone deaf and should be ignored.

The worst part of the tone deafness of the surly snob bootstrappy "Shut up and Drive Less" is ignoring the fact that is the first thing any non-privileged economic actor does. Again I'll repeat, do you think I'm jumping in a v8 gas guzzler and just driving with the windows down to relax or think deep thoughts or mull over my psychological or philosophical problems for fun? This isn't the 1950's where freedom is characterized by the open road; driving is a nightmare, roads and traffic and other drivesr are hellscapes and nobody wants to do it unless we absolutely, 100% HAVE to. So yes, just by virtue of gas prices being high, I drive less. My wife drives less. Everyone I know who isn't Surly 1% is driving less. Even then, the rich are driving less "a 10% jump in gas prices typically leads to a 2%–3% decline in gas consumption, UC Berkeley economist Lucas Davis told the WSJ" So we all agree everyone is driving less, now what? We should just shut up and not be vocal that inflation and rising prices outpacing wage growth and our ability to have a quality of life because it's grating on the finely evolved ear hammer and anvils of the rich.

Anyone still following or bullish on NFT's or is this a FOMO thing? Saw SFDC has published an NFT product. Jump the shark? https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/08/salesforce-takes-crypto-plunge-with-new-nft-cloud/

I'm talking about people who are driving a 2010 Nissan Sentra or a 2016 Kia Soul or something because it's all we can afford being told to just drive less because gas (everything really) being higher is painful and being told to just drive less. I'm not talking about your neighbor in the rich suburbs who recreationally bought a huge vehicle they didn't need and are complaining about gas. People aged 18-30 exist in mass quantities in America.

Do you guys hear yourselves? "Just drive less". Add it to the greatest Baby Boomer compilation. Other hits include: Just get a better paying job. Just stop eating out as much. Just cut back on buying Starbucks. Just learn to code. Just put back some money for savings every month.

This is not sarcasm. You are really saying, "hey just move to the central part of the city where the rents and price to own are the absolute highest and you won't need a car hardly except for when you are discretionarily driving it" while being 100% serious.

This is tone deaf. There are a LOT of us who simply cannot afford to live in or around economic city centers, without efficient access to public transportation, whose reality is you have to own a car and drive. Saying Just don't drive as much is about as helpful as Just don't eat out as much or whatever richsplaining people do. Also, I have to pay nearly $18 a day to park or I can pay $175 a month. "Just get a better job" is not good advice either. Do rich people think that everyone just wants to get in the hot car in the middle of Texas summer and just drive around aimlessly or for fun and that the time spent in a car isn't purposeful and because you have to? Unless you were being sarcastic and my meter is broke, then sorry.

Dude wut. He was fine. You try running and talking. Are you seriously nit-picking a middle aged guy's athleticism? Warnock is probably more athletic than the great venerable Herschel Walker at this point.

Demand for mortgages hit the lowest point in 22 years last week. Mortgage applications and refi demand were down 21% and 75% YoY. Wow. Do you think we will see massive layoffs in the sector?

Man, there was a time when Boosie rapped like he was 6'10, 280 lbs instead of the little man.

When you say "they can have him" that is also saying they can have his acolytes. Everyone who could be D voters but fall somewhere in the camp of Elon, from "Weird Elon Stan" who jumps in front of Apu in that meme to business-first liberals to technocrats and libertarians to ego-centric and contrarian liberals who want to be smarter than everyone else. I get saying "they can have those guys" but that is giving away votes that should be solid D-voters who care about the environment and technology innovation, as the author stated. We need these people, every vote counts in a voter turnout war after all. Now, if you were to tell me, "Yes, but what about the voters who get turned off and won't be D-voters because Biden is cozying up to a billionaire who acts like a petulant boy emperor? It's actually a net negative to have Musk as a political bedfellow", then I get it. But I don't know if that is the case. Do you?

I was going to post this on the Elon thread in DT but it has political points in that the author, business and sometime political pundit Andrew R Sorkin, talks about Biden and Musk as a lost political opportunity. You can read it for yourself at NYT but here are the blurbs that stuck out to me.

My anxiety is at an 11/10 when I watch these youtube videos. Seriously stresses my body out, I can just feel the injuries I would have by watching.

I need a new fridge-- if I bought one today are there supply chain delays that means I won't get it for months?

It remains the largest amphibious military invasion in history. If you’re ever feeling stressed out, consider the pressure on Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was overseeing the operation: He smoked four packs of Camel cigarettes per day in the lead-up to D-Day. (The future president later quit by filling his pockets with cigarettes and handing them out to other smokers, which gave him a feeling of accomplishment.)

Dude, yes. This has been my secret "dark horse" country for a while now as well. I have a buddy who married a woman originally from Uruguay (they've lived in Houston for 20 years now and have teenagers that look gringo) but he's been going back to Montevideo every other summer during that time and he vouches it's every bit as awesome as the internet would have us believe. ETA: It's only a 5.5 hour car drive to Buenos Aires from Montevideo, so if you wanted to avoid the Argentina government and financial nonsense but still summer or holiday in BA, there you go!

Good stuff and I was actually being sarcastic because Boban is obviously beyond useless in a basketball player capacity, but like you said, need to bring him on staff to keep the good vibes going with Luka and teammates and fanbase since he's a great personality and favorite of many.

To bring it back to the original question and conversation of the cost of UT today versus the 80's being 2x, what I'm hearing you say is that the prestige and perceived value of a UT degree in 2022 is not 2x what it was in the 1980's? I was asking you because you brought it up and matriculated in the 80's so I'll defer to you and others like you. Personally I think UT is 2x the school just based off of stories I hear from peers and network along with admission criteria and difficulty and global and national rankings and UT aspiring to be more than just a solid state school with a perennial top 10 finish in Playboys annual list of best Party School.