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PaperclipPerfector  25d ago (text post)   32415 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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No Culture War articles today? Have we achieved Culture Peace?? No one wants this!

What is there to say? Trumpism is being exposed. Beyond that, democracy itself is being exposed. Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.

peace

I would not call the state of the world today "peaceful".

prosperity

For whom? Real incomes have been down for a generation for the average American worker, pretty much every other challenge the working class faces is downstream of that. Also, if you are referring to the stock market a) it is not the economy, and b) as of this minute up on the day.

I like the new term "Panicans" which very succintly describes those for whom a bit of chaos and correction is a world changing event, and contrasts nicely with the Stoics, who just want to have a pint and wait for it to all blow over.

Real incomes have been down for a generation for the average American worker

Even if it is true, then USA is still hilariously prosperous, also for average American workers. It could be better, but denying prosperity is not honest

as of this minute up on the day.

and down 7% over last 5 days, 11% over last month, 13% over last year. If you take since Trump inauguration it gets worse.

People getting way poorer from stocks crashing than from tariffs, which aren't even going to be that bad in terms of projected increase in inflation (2-3% overall). Whole thing feels like a huge overreaction. Stock valuations are based on multiples, so a small loss of profits can mean a large decrease in share price.

I'm genuinely curious about a projected 2-3% inflation when imports are all increased in cost by >10%, and that includes a lot of input costs for domestic goods. It doesn't pass the sniff test. I'm open to being educated about it though.

Not all goods are imported, raw goods are only a fraction of the cost of a good. So it evens out to much less than 10%. A large percentage is advertising . For a $5 cup of coffee Starbucks, only a tiny percentage of the price is the raw goods.

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