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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   15562 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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People like me have been predicting far worse inflation for... decades. I'm fond of the quip "Peter Schiff has successfully predicted 20 of the last 2 recessions!" But hey, if the return is big enough; I'm not sure it is. Anyway, End the Fed!

Hopefully I am wrong, and I have been for decades, but I still think the time is coming where the piper will need to be paid. More and more I think it will be a slow malaise spiraling as we make worse self-reinforcing populist/socialist policy changes rather than a relatively short- to mid-term hyperinflation shock.

Hopefully the US can keep growing at a faster pace than we accumulate debt, maybe AI saves us. While food prices are going up (wages have been as well), food price inflation is still well within the bounds of frugality. So what the food discourse indicates to me - I already believed this - is that a bunch of people on the "right" don't have what it takes for real austerity. If you're throwing a tantrum over a hiccup in beef prices - a primarily example I see of "Oh you don't think it's that bad?! LOOK AT THE PRICE OF BEEF" - you don't have what it takes do do what's necessary to really address these issues, and removing 50 to 100 million people from the country isn't feasible and probably won't actually fix the problems.

nicknow

We can all agree inflation is an economic problem AND also agree that we each must take responsibility for what we actually control, and change our behavior accordingly. That just pisses off people that can’t understand that the cards you are dealt may be unfair (societal problem) but you still have to play them best you can (personal responsibility.)

wayne

Often, where you should be fighting tooth and nail in the political arena to reject intolerable conditions, you should simultaneously as an individual resign yourself to reality as it currently exists and more or less just get on with it as best you can. There may be political conditions in which it’s just literally impossible for this or that group to get ahead, but that’s not true of any group in the United States of America in 2025, whatever real challenges exist.

Hopefully the US can keep growing at a faster pace than we accumulate debt

Debt to GDP has been going up fairly uniformly and quickly since 2001? Your growth isn't outrunning debt accumulation.

Hopefully the USA can the future*

"Peter Schiff has successfully predicted 2 of the last 20 recessions!"

A good quip but you flipped the numbers.

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