Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
ELIRetarded: Why has service gotten worse, and why is everything expensive and smaller now?
When I Google this I get a bunch of one-sentence explanations about "inflation" and "supply chain problems" but those just sound like things that most people think a smart person would say and/or that they heard from the TV box. There are also conspiratorial comments amount money printing, M2, the "true" inflation rate, etc.
Inflation and supply chain issues don't just fall out of the sky, they're the result of government policy. My economics-illiterate impression is that technocrat morons freaked out and started pulling levers during covid, ruining the economy in the process by causing mass unemployment and killing SMBs and pumping massive amounts of free money into an economy where money was already free, which
caused serious inflationnothing to see here citizen, inflation is low, CPI is normal, everything is fine, don't trust your lying eyes or wallet and now another band of technocrats are raising interests rates to control the mess their comrades caused in the first place, compounding everyone's pain.If the above is true, I don't know why there isn't a mob in DC with pitchforks demanding to cook and eat the bureaucrats responsible for flying the economy into the ground and royally fucking everyone who isn't independently wealthy. Please tell me my understanding is incorrect so I can stop being mad about this every time I buy groceries.
Why do you think these are conspiratorial? The Fed makes the data publicly available! The obvious explanation that growing the money supply by more than 40% in a couple years actually does increase prices substantially remains the obvious explanation. As an Occam's Razor appreciator, I don't really feel much need to find better explanations than that one. The only reason that inflation data isn't even more horrifying is that much of the newly created "wealth" wound up saved or stored in housing rather than actively circulating.
People believe the claim that the government had to do something about Covid, that lockdowns were a reasonable short-run response, and that shoveling money at people was necessitated because they couldn't just go earn it with normal economic transactions. This is the majority position. Bringing up your (and my) conspiracy theory that this was probably not a good idea will get a lot of, "yeah, but we didn't know that then" even from people that half agree.
On the hand, with regard to the pitchforks, you may have noticed that the Summer of 2020 really was marked by endless left-wing riots, then there was also a right-wing riot at the beginning of 2021. The federal government took sufficient action to persuade many right-wingers that they would not be treated as gently by the legal system as they had observed their left-wing counterparts being treated in 2020. Prosecuting a thousand or so people for whatever you can make stick has a way of dissuading many people from continuing with the same plan, at least in the short run.
I just can't understand people who think this way. If we had Athenian democracy by random citizens I could probably forgive this huge mistake, but the Experts™ who make up the administrative state literally have one job. They should at least all be purged and a full retrospective should be done on how to prevent this sort of policy disaster from occuring again. I've said it before, but the docility and lemming-like behavior during, but especially after, covid have almost completely convinced me that the vast majority of people should have zero political power.
Not sure about people having no power, but I'm with you in that it's very frustrating how willing people are to just forgive the massive, society shattering mistakes made during 2020 and the next couple of years.
We are only just beginning to see the negative effects play out, personally I think the fallout from kids losing socialization during developmental years will be massive.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link