This thread could be worse (ok, it could be a lot worse) but I'm still noticing people breaking the rules. Please follow them instead—it will be a better experience for all of us, including yourself.

-Inflation is not prices; it is the rate of change in prices. Low inflation doesn't imply low prices. -Aggregate statistics don't necessarily explain individual outcomes.

The Dems failed on this count massively, and have, for maybe the last 40 years, which is about the amount of time it took for my state to go from national bellwether (As goes Ohio, so goes the nation) to a reliably red state. This cost one of the most pro-union Senators (Sherrod Brown) his job.

it's clear that at least half all American voters don't understand technical definitions or explanations (this was Obama's problem too). "Drill Baby Drill", "Lock her up", and "cheap gas" is about their comprehension level.

They don't need to, when they can very trivially understand the impact it has on their pockets.

("Why would they believe their own lying pockets, over our nice technical explanations, graphs, and citations telling them that their income is fine and things are affordable?!")

The thinking goes that Trump and the GOP will gut the Federal Govt and the spending with it. Then Trump will give Ukraine to Putin solving the food growth and export problems with Ukraine. Then MBS in Saudi Arabia will be more than happy to accomodate requests for more oil.

All three will reduce inflation and lower prices. Who knows, it could go so far that four years from now voters are complaining about deflation.

- Gutting the Fed Gov doesn't bring down inflation or prices. These are not correlated issues.

- The US is a net exporter of oil, doesn't depend on the Saudis.

- "Giving Ukraine" to Putin won't happen, as much as Trump would like to help his buddy out, but because the EU won't let it, because Congress ultimately controls spending, not POTUS, and they're the ones (mostly the GOP) pushing for more military aid and a bigger budget (they upped Biden's military budget and aid to Ukraine). But even if Trump did drop all US military aid to Ukraine, the Ukraine won't just collapse, that would take time. And even if Russia did fully occupy Ukraine and "end" the war, that doesn't impact food prices in the US as food imports from the Ukraine are a tiny percentage of total food imports, very little impact. Sunflower oil, maybe.

These are not factors that will bring down prices.

The US still imports a lot of petroleum, but that is only because it has a comparative advantage in refining heavy crude. Most of the crude produced in the US is very light sweet crude, which is easier to refine. Some of that gets exported and refined overseas.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=m...

Yes they do.

If they don't understand the causes, then they will make the wrong decisions to fix the problem.

Like just blaming Biden who kept inflation down, and electing Trump who clearly will increase inflation.

By not understanding, the people are allowing themselves to be victimized by the right wing elites. Just like the south was convinced to have a civil war by a few wealthy land owners.

I'm just thinking the baseline should be a bit higher. And we get, what get today by, the standards going down, and a large part of that is the religious war on education and science. Because the less educated, are more easily controlled and the 'right' use this. On whole, the farther those decisions are from reality.

Otherwise the economy is not the reason people dumped Kamala..... This is becoming illogical (at least for me...)

People are mad about their perception of the economy, but the economy is fine. Once their team is in, their perception will change over night.

People complain about gas going up a dollar and cry about milk and eggs. But it is actually pretty good right now.

If the right is ready for a civil war when things are good, what happens to US voters when the Economy actually is bad.

If we get 20-30% inflation (because no labor because of deportations, and tariffs), and losing jobs because of budget cuts (people forget Trump 1 didn't create many jobs).

What is very likely is that Stephen "my precious" Miller (aka Goebbels-lite) will get to break up more families, "lose" more vulnerable children and build a few more international convention breaking "camps".

Addendum: Rather than downvote at least expand on why you might think Miller will not repeat what he has done before in pursuit of the goals he has clearly stated?

I think laptops and electronics could hit 20% inflation.

While farm good, more impacted by immigration would probably be less that 20%, but who knows. If you can't pick the fruit at all, inflation can spike rapidly. Year or so ago I think peaches hit triple digit inflation, (and came back down, yes, it fluctuates).

They're cut from from the Enoch Powell, Goebbels playbook - it's not name calling when it's simple factual description of the source material in question.

This isn't some US Democratic smear at all, Miller is regarded as a far right extremist and outlier by Republicans (eg: https://www.salon.com/2018/01/21/lindsey-graham-slams-stephe...)

Call a spade a spade.

"To be fair" wrt Donald Trump, in my opinion the Generals were bang on describing him as a Fascist but he's nowhere near the level of being an actual Nazi that, say, his father actually was.

He's primarily a self serving opportunist and a supremely talented and natural grifter, the people to really worry about will be his his appointments in this coming term - they'll have their own agenda's and will have relatively free reign to pursue them as long as they are loyal to Trump (in his opinion).

Wasn't Goebbels the propaganda man, and the things Stephen Miller is tweeting about is extremely inflammatory, he is the Trump extreme Propaganda Man.

And since as stated earlier, mass deportations might not be realistic, the propaganda of caged Mexicans and destroying Mexican Families, is the kind of marketing fodder to make the Republican Base 'think' that real action is happening.

Republican's have been making a lot of reasonable claims about a 'legal path to citizenship'. And what does Stephen Miller just do, he tweeted that they will start looking into revoking citizenship for people that was already granted. To reverse citizenship. Where does that end? With Mexicans only? That seems more in line with Goebbels.

But if people were going to use logic like that, then why vote for him again at all? There was an entire 4 years of chaos that nobody remembers. Why should we think that by the mid terms people will suddenly become logical again.

I doubt very many people are going to actually track their receipts. And those who do will only get coverage on MSNBC, CNN, etc so this will be branded "fake news".

Of course they do. You can be angry and still need to make a decision about which option is most likely to make your situation better.

Anyone who actually thought through Trump's intended policies would know they won't make that particular situation better (such as bring down the price of housing or goods), except maybe the crypto bro's. In fact large tariffs will raise the price of goods (oops!).

But most people don't think things through. And if they were watching TV -- which most of the older electorate does -- then they can't even think things through because they're bombarded with superficial scare ads.

I see a lot of dismissing people as stupid, and I don't think it's a fair assessment of what happened here.

This isn't just a stereotype. Look at construction, how many appear Latino to you? Domestic people have much higher expectations and are more resilient to exploitation - they won't break their back for super low wages.

Spanish has been the main language at housing construction sites for a long time. The other industry that will get hit hard is agriculture, so I expect housing and food prices to spike a lot after Trump deports all of the illegal immigrants. Coupled with a trade war and juiced interest rates at the same time, we have basically a perfect scenario for hyper-inflation.

They aren't intelligent enough to realize that correlation != causation. Add to that the whole "Trump is rich and a businessman so he must know what he's doing in terms of financials".

There are multiple financial organisations that did deep calculation on both candidates their policy and Harris' policies were going to be invariably better for the economy, even for the lower working class. But people won't listen to that, they'll just go by gut feel.

Its the logical conclusion to the distrust in the academic & political class that has been building since the early 2010s. Not only in America, in Europe too. A big part of it is that for the first time since the late 80s, many aspects of life are stagnating or declining in the West. So why would people vote for the status quo parties?

Especially for Democrats / left parties in Europe, Maslow's hierarchy of needs works into it: why would you vote for a party that gives laughable DEI issues (blacklist/whitelist > blocklist/allowlist) equal amounts of ink as "let's make sure people can pay their rent."

Sadly the only solution is to care harder, even if it feels horrible to continuously be the bigger man. If you let the bottom part of the electorate wither, they'll drag on us like an anchor and make us all drown.

> and protections for diverse people

Do you really think minorities (who are generally of a lower socio-economic status) care more about being called a slur than having a roof over their head and being able to pay their groceries? Or that women care more about the ratio of male-female CEOs and senators rather than if they themselves are getting paid a livable wage?

People like to pretend policy isn't zero sum, but it is. Governments have finite budgets. People have finite attention spans. Thus things must be prioritized. Rent, finances, food, health, these need to be prioritized. Once everyone is doing good on those points, you can move up the pyramid.

I agree with you that people who are actually starving care much more about having food than being treated as equal citizens.

But lets be real. People are not starving. Homelessness, yes, because the housing market is fucked -- which is not directly the GOP or the Dem's fault, and not something Trump or Harris would be able to "just fix" -- but food is heavily subsidized in the US, though what the poor have access to is mostly processed garbage food which is why they suffer from many more health problems than the wealthier. (This is a huge problem which neither party is addressing.)

What's also interesting is the poorest segment in the US, under $30K, who might be the closest to "starving" (as a euphemism), voted primarily Democrat this election.

Having said all the above, I do agree with you that having a roof over your head is much more important to most people than being treated equally, and that economic equality is the biggest problem in our country.

Unfortunately, Trump doesn't give a shit about economic equality. And the Dems only pay lip service to economic equality. After all, it's a feature, not a bug, of capitalism.

So since Trump isn't going to fix that problem -- in fact will make it worse (judging by his first term), plus the fact that "do we really care about human decency and values so little that we're willing to put a despicable human being -- by all accounts -- as our leader?" I can't stomach that even if Trump was the Second Coming of Christ as his cultist Evangelical followers seem to think.

This is simply not true. It's not Democrats who keep making income taxes less progressive. It's not Democrats who refuse to pass a refundable child tax credit. It's not Democrats who attack programs like SNAP. It's not Democrats who pass right-to-work laws and bust unions. It's not Democrats who fight student loan forgiveness. It's not Democrats who try to repeal the ACA. It's not Democrats who fight minimum wage increases.

We live in a country where whatever Democrats try to do for the poor, they get attacked for being socialists or communists.

Yes, sometimes Democrats make mistakes. Sometimes they pass bad policy. But Democrats do more than pay lip service. Things we wouldn't have without Democrats: Social Security, Medicare (with an assist from Eisenhower), Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP), ACA, the child tax credit.

A critical issue is that Dems imagine there is a path to success that goes around an uninformed electorate. In an era where the news media is largely disintermediated, the only way to success is by engaging the type of voters Dems shun. That means listening to them and giving them some of what they want, and less of what they don’t want.

Emotions are much stronger.

If we assume that the manufacturing increase we would inevitably see in the presence of protectionist tariffs end up in those same places, then that would help make food and other things more affordable for those people.

Whether manufacturing ends up there or elsewhere is of course not actually guaranteed, the shipping technology and environmental laws were very different when the old manufacturing centers were established.

I don’t understand why people are so quick to conclude that others are very, very stupid in this case, as opposed to having interests that don’t align with one’s own and which are difficult to relate to absent the sorts of multi generational experiences these people have had.

Manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the US in large quantities. Period.

Even if you apply tariffs to force large companies to leave China, they'll go to other countries -- India, Vietnam, etc.

The one thing that might work is to provide huge tax incentives to entice foreign companies to build factories in the US -- but that has proven to have limited effect -- remember Foxconn supposed huge investment in a factory in the US?

The only place this _might_ work is in high-end chips, such as TSMC -- but those are not the "manufacturing jobs" in Ohio and PA that disappeared.

But mostly, the manufacturing jobs won't come back because companies are rushing to replace them with machines as quickly as possible. So sure, a factory might open in the US, but it won't employ many people.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/the-ira-...

The population is aging, but it's gone from an average age of ~38 in 2010 to ~40 now, while increasing. This is not a collapse, and the US is actually uniquely good at immigration, so there is a reasonable path forward.

It’s just really really hard to put the horse back in the barn once it’s bolted. Shareholders will fight it tooth and nail.

There is a possibility in new energy industries because those haven’t taken root abroad yet and so Biden efforts to fund that are good. Unfortunately Trump wants to gut all that.

Assumption 1: That Americans want those manufacturing jobs

2: Those manufacturing jobs still exist and are not simply automated away

3: People will still want to buy those goods at 30-1000% higher price points

4: That the onshoring of the lowest-quality jobs on the planet will pay enough to overcome the new inflated prices of everyday goods

I assume that people don't know what they're talking about on this subject because 100% of people I’ve seen defending the policy make dumb arguments, while approximately every single economist on the planet argues the opposite.

The tariffs level the playing field and allow us to afford to produce goods at home by effectively banning slave goods. Besides, when you produce local its better for the environment because you're not sending everything on massive cargo ships.

from an environmental point of view, yes, by reducing consumption; but that's not why people voted for Trump -- they did because they thought it would lower their prices at the supermarket. it won't do that.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls

It's not that you're "poor" if you make less than $30k, it doesn't depend on whether you're supporting family, it's that it's not possible to legally exist as a single person household working full-time at $15/hr; You are either receiving charity or you're securing your person through some sort of criminal act (squatting, living in your car, living in a park, sleeping in the breakroom at work, living in an illegal basement apartment or having five roommates in an illegal sublet), or you're delving into the 60-80 hour workweek.

Provisions which trigger at the federal poverty line for a single person not receiving private charity, require that you have been involved in criminalized living arrangements for a long time, and also that you have some sort of fixed address by which to reach you.

Why is that the goal? When I was in my late teens / early 20s back in the 90s making low 30s, I did what everyone else my age did: got a roommate.

It's not great most of the time.

It was, however, very motivating for me to improve myself so that I could afford to get my own place.

But CPI figures aren't what we have to deal with.

Average rent in 1994 was roughly $500 ($6000/year). Today it's $1400 ($16800/year).

You were paying (if a median unit) 15-20% of your income in rent and felt that this was too much and you needed a roommate.

Today there are lots of people making $32000 a year at full-time jobs (that's $16/hr, pretax), or LESS than that, and being told that they need to pay more than 50%. Or that because they make so little (we credit check tenants now!), they simply are not allowed to rent legally.

Several issues that real people today are suffering with is that it's hard to remain a 2-income family and have young kids. Someone's got to take care of them, and daycare costs more than the median worker is likely to make in the limited time your kids can realistically be in daycare. So now you're down to 1 income, expensive rent, or 2 incomes, expensive rent and expensive childcare. Or 2 incomes and live with someone's parents who may also watch the kids, which while some cultures are fine with that, others resent that being their only option (especially if you can't stand those parents!) -- and for elder millennials and older, we generally were able to have better options if we planned our careers wisely. I cannot imagine any advice I would have given to two 18-year-olds from poor families in 2020 that would have set them up to be on track to have kids and live independently anytime. Especially if they were determined to go to college, which everyone is told they must do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_p...

Also Elon “Efficiency Czar” is all about cutting jobs not creating them.

It's not a feature of capitalism - we've had capitalism without sending manufacturing overseas for decades. Rather, it's a feature of globalization, which is a tactic that isn't specific to capitalism.

It's ultimately the businesses that decide how to conduct their business. If moving your jobs overseas is a cheaper strategy than producing something domestically, you will have a hard time getting anyone to stick around. Our problem today is that America raised it's standard of living without reciprocally raising the median value of the American worker.

>If moving your jobs overseas is a cheaper strategy than producing something domestically, you will have a hard time getting anyone to stick around.

Hence tariffs.... You can't have a consumer class if they cant afford to consume. You can't demand environmental protections and then turn around and claim it cost too much so we build it in a country that we can pollute in. TANSTAAFL

We want environmental protections, we pay for them. Business owners want customers, they pay for them by paying fair wages.

there is no non-free market capitalism; capitalism that is laissez-faire is not true capitalism, it's a mixture of capitalism and socialism (which is what we actually have in the US, mostly starting with FDR, but which can't bring ourselves to actually admit because "socialism is bad".

> Business owners want customers, they pay for them by paying fair wages.

Huh? WalMart has plenty of customers and they don't pay fair wages. They don't have to because they use economy of scale to put all the smaller businesses, who might have paid fair wages, out of business.

Paying fair wages is not a feature of capitalism -- only if you are in a market sector that demands it. Corporations hate it, thus offshore production, but they survive by convincing enough people that having lots of cheap shit is better than paying fair wages (even if it destroys a significant portion of the American workforce).

When every company is put out by an 'economy of scale' type company with the same tactics, you end up with a lot of sellers and no more buyers.

Routinely, conservative proposals, no matter how stupid, are displayed in the most generous light possible. Meanwhile on the left, the opposite is done.

High tariffs? Well, that could maybe bring manufacturing back! Gender affirming care? Every woman in this country will be raped in bathrooms and beaten to a pulp!

People want cheap shit, they don't care about how competitive the market is. It's just an unfortunate fact that has been reflected by dozens of American monopolies and decades of fervent offshoring. Tariffs just raise the price of said cheap shit until it costs as much as luxury alternatives, and "fixes" the problem by neglecting any market too poor to cope with more expensive goods.

It's a great trick if your goal is to artificially and temporarily encourage competition between two heavily unequal trade partners. It's a suicide rap for low-class Americans that now have to foot the bill for the rest of the economy by paying more for less food. It will put millions of American citizens on welfare, just to make unprofitable businesses seem competent. The people that want this are business owners and voters that do not understand the futility of a trade war with China.

What you are essentially saying is that over half the public has a low level of comprehension which simply isn’t true.

You can’t insult millions of people and expect them to meet you in the middle on any issues. And the issues are far more nuanced than cheap gas, like the fact that 1.7 million people work in the energy industry and happen to vote in swing states.

The average American reads at a 7th- to 8th-grade level. 21% of Americans are functionally illiterate. https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statisti...)

It's not an insult, it's just a fact. And it's a problem for politicians who need to communicate complicated policy proposals.

Americans aren't getting smarter, so politicians need to adjust the policies.... which is how we get "build a well" and "drill baby drill."

US citizens, as I think was clear from the context and the link.

I don't know how accurate these stats are, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Actually, since IQ is bounded on the low side and not bounded on the other side, it is actually likely that if the average is 100, more than 50% are below average. But that is not guaranteed. You could have only one dumb person with everyone else >100.

it is perfectly possible for a country to have the best economy ever while still having a massive amount of people who can't afford food.

It's like D-voters don't even understand how unhinged they are.

"Everyone is stupid but me" doesn't do anyone any favors and doesn't fix any problem.

"I have the makings of a plan" is 100x more attractive to people who need change.

This, this, so much this.

No one has ever been persuaded by calling them idiots, bigots, or any other insult. In fact, it does the opposite and drives them further away from what you are trying to persuade them to do/

I recommend people read 'How to win friends and Influence people' and 'Rules for Radicals' if they wish to learn on how to better persuade people.

We can debate whether Harris' proposed policies would have worked or not, or good for the economy or not, but at least they were comprehensible.

Not a single mention of "abortion" in this document.

See, this is the problem. Actually, serious policies (meaning, more serious than "drill baby drill" or "build a wall") are long, complicated, and boring. They don't fit neatly into a soundbite or a chant at a rally, so people who don't have the temperament or capacity to seek out and read such documents think the policies don't exist.

In seriousness, the solution is that Democrats need to be better at messaging by crafting policies that are understandable to their audience.

Voters demand simple explanations for complex realities, and simple solutions to complex problems, and as a result, the successful politician must fabricate simple explanations and simple solutions, even if they're wrong.

EDIT: For fun, let's contrast the attitude of each campaign to its detractors. The Democrats say that people who oppose their strategies are dumb. The Republicans say that people who oppose their strategies are Communist pedophiles who want to destroy America.

Democrats say that people who oppose their strategies are racist, sexist, xenophobic, dumb, fascist, nazi, you name it.

Republicans say that people who oppose their strategies are racist, sexist, xenophobic, dumb, fascist, and nazi.

> Republicans say that people who oppose their strategies are racist, sexist, xenophobic, dumb, fascist, and nazi.

Only one of their statements is accurate. Not all opinions are equally valid.

Me too. The Democrats need a better story, a narrative that people can engage with emotionally.

What was said, repeatedly, is that _Trump_ is a racist, misogynist, has fascist and nazi tendencies, and is a threat to democracy. All of which is true. Ask his former chief of staff.

I disagree with most GOP policies, but don't have an issue with people voting Republican -- I would have been okay with someone like Romney or McCain as president; I could probably even handle pre-MAGA DeSantis (wouldn't be happy but whatever, we'll live). But if people are voting for _Trump_ specifically, then either they hold the same values as Trump, or they're willing to sell out their values for a promise of cheap gas (that they aren't even going to get!). Either way it's pretty bad.

It didn't used to be like this. The tone of politics changed when name-calling, bullying, and hate became part of campaigning. The country is divided, and the source of the vitriol is one man.

As for the larger social relations context, this link posted elsewhere in the thread nailed it for me: https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/boilingfrogs/liberal-tear... (Excuse the crapwall, it doesn't seem to show up with javascript disabled). I will likely ghost everyone that is openly cheering for this. I'm just not capable of entertaining the gloating over populist destruction at this time. Perhaps in six months or a few years I will be able to forgive what they have done.

For context, I'm libertarian. I own a compact tractor and burn cordwood for primary heat. I find much of the overbearing "woke mob" tedious, and internally roll my eyes when I hear things like parents talking about how their kid is trying out a new pronoun every week. But the left would never have been capable of damaging the very bedrock of our society the way that so-called conservatives throwing their own principles into the trash has.

I had a realization yesterday. This is just like someone close to you dying. The sudden unassailable loss. Walking around in a dazed brain fog going through the motions and not even knowing why. Things are now just different, and will never go back to how they were. But it made me realize that I myself will recover in spite of that, and this put me more at peace.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

Your mind is detaching from reality.

MAGA policies directly hurt some people. Let me say that again. MAGA policies DIRECTLY hurt some people.

They're not being your friend because you're conservative, it's because you're supporting policies that will hurt them. Would you be friends with someone who hurts you?

For example, I am a gay man. Conservatives across the country have been trying to undo protections around PrEP under the guise of religious freedom. The true motivation is inciting another HIV epidemic.

I take PrEP. I don't want HIV. I don't want my friends to get HIV. If you vote for these people, you are directly contributing to bodily harm to me and my community. I cannot support you, because that would be self-destructive.

But that's just me. Now look at abortion - many women know people or have themselves, required an abortion. Many have brushed with death. What conservatives propose will DIRECTLY harm them. Trump plans to chase people leaving states for abortions - this will actually, tangibly, directly, harm people!

You don't see this from "trump fans" onto liberals because the left does not propose any policies that will hurt them. If Kamala would've won, nothing bad would happen to conservatives. If we believe Trump, which I do and you should as well, then MANY bad things will happen to leftists. That's the difference.

This is it.

Liberals aren't "offended" by Trump. Liberals don't have a problem with the "way he expresses himself." The problem is with his governance and policies that do real damage to people we care about.

The reason you don't see conservatives being similarly alarmed by liberal policies is because liberal policies don't hurt people.

To saying nothing of what he's done to American democracy. Before the election, there was plenty of hoopla about another stolen election. Then, when Trump won, suddenly that disappeared. What about the mailman carrying hundreds of ballots? Oh, I guess he's okay now. This exposes the hypocrisy at the core of Trump ideology: our election system is horribly broken except when Trump wins. That's not how democracy works and taking that attitude should be immediately disqualifying.

No, the majority accept that those are attributes of Trump, and many people positively enjoy them.

Also the majority do believe it about Trump, but they hand wave it away, or just don't care. And, in a minority of cases, they agree and enjoy being able to openly flaunt it. It's no coincidence that I see Confederate and Trump flags on the same properties.

Not too different than the Germans who voted for Hitler -- though in fairness to them, Hitler seemed pretty normal when he was elected, so you can forgive them for not knowing (and once knowing, it was too late). We already know what Trump is, so what's the excuse now?

This destructive policy was the final straw and prevented me from voting for Harris. (I also didn't vote for Trump).

This fits the Kamala voters well too, but a citation that doesn't exist is probably needed.

> you have to inspire people to vote in you, if the other guy does it better you fail, no matter how low his rethoric

Agreed here.

8 out of 10 people on both sides wouldn't know what happens to the price of a bond when it's yield increases/decreases, let alone what happens to the price of a consumer product when tariffs are attached to it.

My theory is that this election was won through a combination of economic timing due to COVID/inflation, and the left providing perpetual unhinged social media material.

It does!

> and the left providing perpetual unhinged social media material

Well the right also provided such an uninterrupted stream of unhinged material, so

Thank you for your kind words. Don't you think you're generalizing a VERY big group a bit too much?

But intelligence itself is more like exponentially distributed. Think of a chess grandmaster versus a range of people of various ability. What does the distribution of winning odds look like?

Intelligence is not exponentially distributed. That would mean that the density is monotonically decreasing which its not. There are more “average people” than extremely low intelligence ones.

More concretely, someone with 140 IQ is not 40% more intelligent than someone with 100 IQ. It would be more correct to say that 140 IQ person is orders of magnitude more intelligent than the average person.

Perhaps a better analogy is the decibel scale. 100 dB vs 110 dB is only a difference of 10% on the scale, but in actually represents an order of magnitude change. A similar effect goes on with intelligence and how we measure it.

What Ive been trying to do is make the argument why an exponential-like distribution is a more natural representation of intelligence and therefore what the "underlying distribution" looks like.

Clearly, a delta function against a shelf game is not a natural or useful representation of height so I think that counterpoint to your argument is obvious.

According to you, what is the underlying distribution of intelligence and why?

I think intelligence is normally distributed, like all other human characteristics. When transformed to win rates based on intelligence that becomes a different distribution. Your argument is centered on the 2nd distribution.

My question was why do you say it is normally distributed? where is your evidence?

> When transformed to win rates based on intelligence that becomes a different distribution.

You dont have to look at just competition, but other mental skills too. Most any application of intelligence is not normally dostributed. Why is this fact not a natural reflection of the underlying distribution?

I am struggling to see any support for your position. Help me out.

This is effectively casting the distribution into a different space. Taking the right tail of a normal distribution and applying a test on it converts it to a Dirac delta distribution.

Inflation was uneven. It impacted prices but not wages or savings. It reduced citizen wealth directly and transferred it to corporations and the already wealthy.

They wanted to publicize the problem but not actually take the cure. Now they have zero mandate in any institution. That's what selling out your base gets you.

Most of Hacker News doesn't run in social circles where people are clipping coupons and going to several different stores to shop the best deals just so they can afford to eat that month, but for nearly forty million Americans who receive SNAP benefits (read that number again and let it really sink in), that's their reality. The administration looked either out of touch or even spiteful by doing a one dollar benefits increase to account for the past twelve months of inflation. I'm sure there are plenty of other similar things that are hurting the working poor that are invisible to those spewing scorn at voters who weren't concerned more about wars around the world and luxury beliefs.

No one I've pointed this out to has been able to empathize with these people yet, most coming up with glib replies about how everything for those voters will be even worse now that the other candidate won. Until they can understand the plight of the people who received that one dollar increase and why it was so psychologically devastating to them the month before the election, they'll never understand why their candidate lost. Instead they'll keep pointing to GDP, the low employment numbers made possible by people working multiple jobs to survive, and how great things are for the wealthy instead of trying to actually get in touch with the daily lives of those they rarely interact with. Maybe insulting these people and calling them stupid and evil a few more times will be what finally makes them forget about their food insecurity.

Honestly even though I disagree with the TrumpGOP 70% of the time, I'm actually kind of happy to see them control the whole thing, at least we can now put a bunch of right-wing ideas to the test rather than just have a big political wrestling match that usually ends in a draw, like we have for most of the past 3 presidencies. The thing is, without the government trying to destroy itself with infighting, right-wing ideas at least have some upsides, such as lower taxes. We have mostly seen the worst of both sides' ideas with few of the gains due to sabotage being so common.

Republicans have shown they can't govern. The House has been in complete disarray for the last 4 years, with constant in-fighting among the GOP and just trying to keep the government funded and running. Republicans are constantly flipping on criticizing Trump and fawning over him, depending on which way the wind blows.

It's shocking that so many people prefer a bully-rapist-fraud-felon with "a concept of a plan" who has openly talked multiple times about suspending the Constitution and rights of Americans, over almost any other alternative.

Again I don’t even agree with a lot of Trump stuff - or for instance TCJA which was total BS and raised my taxes. But again, Democrats have done nothing for me when they had power either. Where are healthcare improvements? Where is a better tax cut that actually hits the middle or even lowest earners? They couldn’t get it done because they suck at both convincing enough people to vote for them to get 60 votes in the Senate, and they suck at horse-trading to get the important things.

Indeed, it's 41.2 million out of a total of 334.9 million U.S.-Americans, or 12.3 % or more than one in ten folks - that this is more than one in hundred suprised me because the US are by some counts the "richest" country on the planet.

It's merely the country with the richest few, perhaps this calculation is just a way to show statistically what many believed all along, namely that the so-called "American dream" is a pipe dream for most, in the sense that the majority of people simply fund a tiny fews success in the way lottery ticket buyers fund a few select millionaires that don't deserve it.

Here are the yearly trends showing food stamps from 1985 to 2020, I don't know why 21, 22 and 23 data is not shown.

Since the 1985 until 2008, the number of people on benefits stayed roughly around 25 million. In the same time period, US population grew from 220M to 300M, roughly 1% every year.

From 2008 to 2013, the number of people on SNAP roughly doubled to peak at 47.54M people. Population growth was 300M to 315M.

2019 was the lowest point in recent history of only 35.29M people on SNAP, with population growth from 315M to 330M.

I averaged the monthly data from 2021 onward and got 2021: 41.6M, 2022: 41.2M, 2023: 42.1 and 2024 through July: 41.6M

For a long time, poverty in the US was shrinking as a percent of the population. 2008 reversed that trend with things starting to get better after 2013 and really accelerating up until 2019. It's been flat since the post Covid growth.

So everyone saying; "economy is back to normal, we have recovered." there have been 5M people who don't feel it.

1985 to 2020: https://www.fns.usda.gov/yearly-trends

2021, 2022, 2023 & 2024: https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-f...

Food stamps was historically a subsidy for farmers as much as a welfare program. I read something about that changing, but don’t know the details.

But I qualified for food stamps long after I was making good money.

This is not the actual increase of the benefit amount. In particular, it appears the cost of living adjustment this year is 2.5%. I have been unable to find statistics on how many people/households actually receive the maximum amount, but I don't have a particular reason to believe it is large. (The average benefit amounts are significantly below the maxima.)

Tldr: the average SNAP benefit amount received by people has increased and will increase by significantly more than $1/month.

The calculation of benefits is required by law/regulation. The government can’t just say “yeah this is small, let’s skip it this year”.

Right, because how do you empathize with someone who gets $1, and their response is: Oh yeah? Well fine then I'm going to vote for the person who wants to take away literally EVERYTHING to show you!

It is the definition of cutting off your head to spite your body.

I completely understand and empathize with someone on SNAP not getting what they need to cover the insane pricing increases we saw greedy corporations force upon all of us and wanting that rectified. But if your solution to that is to either not vote at all, or intentionally vote for the guy who has literally told you his plan is to gut all social services... I'm not sure what to tell you beyond whatever empathy I DID have for you is gone and enjoy sleeping in the bed you just made for yourself. I, and most of the folks on HN are going to be perfectly fine. Those folks that were on SNAP? Good luck...

Consider how the program actually works. You have a job and pay taxes, but don't make much money, so the government takes the taxes you paid and gives them back to you. But you have to apply for the program, and then spend the money (which was originally yours) on only the things they tell you to. And there is more than one assistance program so you have to apply to them each individually. Then each of the programs have their own phase outs if you make more money, but the phase out rates combine to a very high de facto marginal tax rate, which means if you're still struggling you can't get out of it by working some extra hours because that just causes you to lose your benefits. It's a poverty trap.

Then prices go up by 20% or more, but you still can't make any more money or you lose your benefits. In response your benefits are increased by one dollar.

Are people even wrong to want to blow all of that up and replace it with a tax credit?

Going to chime in here hopefully to give better context than "a carton of eggs is up 10%!" or whatever.

The average price of a gallon of gas in 2018 was ~$2.72, peak was $2.92 in May.

The average price of a gallon of gas in 2022 was ~$3.95, peak was $5.01 in June.

So that's an increase in average price of about 45% between the midpoints of Trump and Biden, and an eyewatering 71% in peak increases. Obama 2014 was ~$3.37 average and $3.70 peak in June, for further comparison. Trump's economy was objectively and factually easier to live in.

A 45% increase for a good necessary for daily life is going to hurt no matter what, let alone 71%. All else being equal it's thrown around as a meme that incumbent presidents and parties live and die by the gas price index, but there's a reason for that.

Anecdata, I'm decidedly middle class. I can afford luxuries reasonably if I want to, and objectively I can tolerate increasing costs of living fine (for now). That said though, even I feel a bit of discomfort buying mundane groceries because they definitely feel like they should be cheaper. It's even worse for mundane luxuries like beer, I can't really complain about a luxury good being expensive but at the same time it still feels too expensive anyway.

Don't get me started on gas prices, where I'm at they're ~$4.00 per gallon today and were up to ~$5.00 at some points during Biden. It was ~$2.00 during Trump. That's a 100% increase or more, you can't pay me to say that doesn't hurt even if I can still afford it.

That feeling of discomfort and pain isn't nice and I don't blame a voter if they cast a single issue vote on it.

(Thus the low comprehension level of many voters.)

I have no problem with people voting GOP, and am happy to debate Democrat vs Republican policies and economic impact, etc. Republicans certainly do some things better than Democrats. But this wasn't about policy. If Americans have so little values, and are so gullible, that they are willing to sell out to a man who is literally a despicable self-serving despot (the only reason he's not as bad as Putin or Xi is because he's restrained by the Constitutional structure), for a promise of cheap gas that Trump can't even fulfill (it may happen, but it won't be because of Trump, just like the price of gas going up in 2022 had nothing to do with Biden), well, that's a very sad statement about a large segment of the American people.

Indeed, the economy is practically a force of nature with countless levers and the federal government can only influence a small handful of them.

That said, when Trump argues "Drill, baby, drill!" and Biden and Harris shut down oil production and transport in the name of environmentalism, guess how that affects gas prices and the broader cost of living at large.

Not to mention America failing to police the world and maintain or establish peace will lead to higher costs of living. Note that Obama literally said on the record that America is no longer the world police, and Biden and Harris are more of that.

Democrat policies are not conducive to a better economy for the common man, and arguing that the stock market is at all time highs or the prime rate is coming down merely signals a harsh detachment from reality on the ground.

I don’t know what facts you’re basing this on but the US military action abroad is not correlated with higher standard of living in the US. In fact one could argue the opposite, but they’re not really interconnected.

> Drill baby drill

High oil prices are not because we’re not drilling enough. Oil production in the US is at an all time high and was higher under Biden than under Trump. (Not that I think it’s a good thing).

You need to reevaluate your news sources or do more research before you determine which set of policies are better for the common man as you put it.

Wars lead to disturbed movement of people and goods, massive loss of lives, destruction of goods, destruction of infrastructure, destruction of production, and more. Wars are great for the military industrial complex and even moreso if you never have to take lead yourself, but it's hell for everyone else.

Pax Americana, the era in which we all live in today, is predicated on the US policing the world and maintaining or establishing the peace for everyone's (and chiefly the US's) benefit. The means can be either Soft Diplomacy or Bigger Gun Diplomacy, but regardless every single administration in recent history with the exception of Trump's first term has been a disaster for world peace and thus better economies and happier lives American or otherwise.

>High oil prices are not because we’re not drilling enough.

High oil prices are because we let OPEC strangle us all by our balls. Anyone paying even the slightest of attention to how oil pricing works will know that OPEC decides the price they want and then adjusts the production/supply to get it.

If we "drill, baby, drill" harder and harder then OPEC will be forced to produce less to maintain the price until they can't, at which point oil prices will come down until right before we also start bleeding red ink. We can crash that price even harder with government action to compensate the bleeding, too. Don't believe me? It's literally what China does with practically everything.

So I am going to sharply disagree with you: High oil prices are because we're not drilling enough. If Biden's actually drilling more oil than Trump, that just means Trump needs to drill even harder.

The US has been a _net exporter_ of oil for some years, and we don't depend on OPEC and haven't in some time. (The only reason we import oil is because it's cheaper to import some oil and sell our oil at a higher price.) Very little of our oil comes from OPEC. We get 4x more oil from Canada than we do from OPEC.

War is hell, and on that I can agree with you. But "Pax Americana" hasn't been around for a long time, and especially not since we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, all the wars that we've been engaged in for decades now have been wars that we started. We're just not good at "establishing the peace" and we haven't been since the 1950s, or if you want to argue that we provided a "bulwark against communism" in the 70s and 80s, which has some merit except that communism failed because of economics not our global policing, then we haven't been "establishing the peace" since the fall of the USSR in 1991.

The cost of ingredients for a burger doesn’t radically change if a burger flipper gets paid more and the price of the burger isn’t going up drastically either.

Clearly companies with billion dollar market caps can also be held to higher standards because no one is going to pay more than they are required for labor. Maybe the minimum wage is a percentage of the business total profits and minimum wage at $7.25 is just the floor?

A lot of wealth is locked up in the wealthiest people which could be circulating in the economy instead of being in a Swiss bank account.

There are multiple layers, multiple solutions instead of hoping wealth trickles down. Poverty wasn’t solved under the last Trump administration as I recall nor do I expect it in the upcoming one.

> The cost of ingredients for a burger doesn’t radically change if a burger flipper gets paid more and the price of the burger isn’t going up drastically either.

These things are two sides of the same coin. The increase in wages is the same as the increase in costs, so if one of them is small then so is the other one and if one of them is large then so is the other one.

> Clearly companies with billion dollar market caps can also be held to higher standards because no one is going to pay more than they are required for labor. Maybe the minimum wage is a percentage of the business total profits and minimum wage at $7.25 is just the floor?

This is only less of a bad idea because the bad idea then applies to fewer businesses. Also, the billion dollar market cap companies would then just contract it out.

> A lot of wealth is locked up in the wealthiest people which could be circulating in the economy instead of being in a Swiss bank account.

That's not real wealth. That's just money. Money is numbers in a computer. Taking non-circulating money and putting it into circulation has the same inflationary effect as printing it. Whereas leaving it non-circulating doesn't consume any real resources (land, labor, etc.) because it's just bits.

However, most rich people don't store their "wealth" as cash money anyway, they buy stocks and things, which in turn puts the money in the hands of businesses to use to hire employees etc. That money isn't non-circulating and what you're doing then is reallocating resources from something else.

You're trying to solve the problem that people aren't being paid enough by passing a law that literally says they have to be paid more. It's like passing a law that literally says housing prices have to be low. That's a dumb law. You can't just magic up a change in labor demand or housing supply. You need to figure out why wages are low or housing prices are high and do something about that.

Genuinely, if you have something to teach I’m all ears for my personal betterment.

How do we ensure everyone gets a livable wage without redistributing the wealth of the rich, mandating a higher minimum wage, or increasing inflation and since you mentioned housing, make that affordable without gutting the value of existing housing which will make existing home owners upset.

If the answer is tax cuts for the rich “job creators” so they might spend some of the savings on employees instead of pocketing it, we’ve had decades for that to work.

> You're trying to solve the problem that people aren't being paid enough by passing a law that literally says they have to be paid more

If a company is profitable and chooses not to share their profitability with their employees then I have no qualms with this anymore than I do with the current minimum wage law, which was created for a reason and the world did not burn down as a result.

Businesses are more profitable than ever, employees more productive than ever, they had their chance to do this on their own and avoid gov interference and they blew it. We can argue the details of that intervention but the market isn’t going to correct this.

> These things are two sides of the same coin. The increase in wages is the same as the increase in costs, so if one of them is small then so is the other one and if one of them is large then so is the other one.

It’s not 1/1 increase and labor is not the only cost. If 5 employees make an extra $1 the price of a burger doesn’t go up $5.

If 5 employees build a million dollar house the cost of the house doesn’t go up if they get paid $7 extra because the cost is tied up in material/licenses/etc, not labor.

> If the answer is tax cuts for the rich “job creators” so they might spend some of the savings on employees instead of pocketing it, we’ve had decades for that to work.

The way "supply side economics" is supposed to work is that you lower barriers to entry and operating costs (i.e. simplify regulations and lower taxes) to make it easier for more companies enter the market, so you get more competition and competition reduces the share of prices that go to investors instead of employees or customers. This is basically right, if you actually do it.

So we've had decades for this to work, right? Here's federal receipts as a percent of GDP:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

You can clearly see the point where we significantly lowered taxes to see what would happen, which is nowhere. 2016 was nearly the first time we tried lowering taxes at all outside of a recession, even that was by less than 2%, and that experiment got stuffed up by COVID.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to count the number of pages in the US Code or CFR by year and look for a trend.

Okay, so if we actually tried those things for once we might get more competition, which could be good.

The opposite of this is, of course, less competition. Zoning rules that inhibit construction of higher density housing, certificate of need laws in healthcare, corporate mergers that ought to be antitrust violations, etc. That is what we've actually been doing, and therefore what we need to stop.

> make that affordable without gutting the value of existing housing which will make existing home owners upset.

"Make housing prices go down without making housing prices go down" is not a thing. The closest you get is to make real (i.e. inflation-adjusted) housing prices go down while nominal housing prices stay the same, by keeping nominal housing prices from increasing (e.g. by building a lot of new housing) while wages and the prices of everything else increase. This might even satisfy existing homeowners, because then the price of their existing house doesn't go down relative to their existing mortgage.

Which is approximately what you get if you just build a ton of new housing until housing prices go down, then lower interest rates or otherwise create new money as that happens, which causes the nominal housing prices to maintain their current level while wages and other prices go up.

The real key for getting this to work is to make sure that the "inflation" also applies to wages, which for the last few years it hasn't, which is why everybody is so upset. If you make $110 and spend $100 and then in a few years you make $130 and spend $120, not a big deal. If you now have to spend $120 but still only make $110, huge problem. But this is the thing where market consolidation enables rent extraction; you have to enforce antitrust laws and prevent regulatory capture to prevent that from happening.

> If a company is profitable and chooses not to share their profitability with their employees then I have no qualms with this

Companies don't pay people more than they have to just as employees don't take lower paying jobs when higher paying ones are available.

If corporate profits are high, that's a sign that some kind of regulatory capture is happening or antitrust enforcement is necessary, because otherwise smaller competitors would use some of their profits to gain market share by lowering prices. Instead of trying to order them to pay more, figure out why that market is broken when it should be forcing them to charge less.

> It’s not 1/1 increase and labor is not the only cost. If 5 employees make an extra $1 the price of a burger doesn’t go up $5.

It's a 1/1 increase, you're just implying that it would take five employees an hour to make one burger. If five employees each make $1/hour more then that restaurant has to cover an additional cost of $5/hour, not $5/burger. But that whole $5 is coming from somewhere, and restaurants are notoriously competitive businesses, so that somewhere is liable to be from customers.

> If 5 employees build a million dollar house the cost of the house doesn’t go up if they get paid $7 extra because the cost is tied up in material/licenses/etc, not labor.

I suspect you're underestimating the proportion of construction costs that go to labor. "Materials" is also an input that has labor costs baked into it. You're buying "lumber" but what you're really doing is paying a lumberjack to fell trees and a sawmill operator to cut them and a truck driver to transport them and a clerk at the hardware store to ring them up etc.

What you really want to do is not to increase the cost of labor but to reduce the proportion of wages going to rents. The largest categories of these rents are actual rents (i.e. landlords/housing costs), high healthcare costs largely as a result of regulatory capture, and tax dollars spent on inefficient or corrupt government programs. Stop wasting money on those things -- we're talking trillions of dollars here -- and you get to put the money in your pocket.

> It's a 1/1 increase, you're just implying that it would take five employees an hour to make one burger. If five employees each make $1/hour more then that restaurant has to cover an additional cost of $5/hour, not $5/burger. But that whole $5 is coming from somewhere, and restaurants are notoriously competitive businesses, so that somewhere is liable to be from customers.

I don’t mean to drag this on, I just want to end saying I’m not implying 5 people are needed to make a burger. I’m saying that increasing wages for 5 employees by a $1 doesn’t increase the cost of an individual good (burger) sold to customers by $5 so the burden to the customer to support this new paradigm is negligible, especially at the volume of goods being sold. It is not a death knell to the business as it is sometimes painted.

Yes the 5$ is made up somewhere, either in cutting costs elsewhere, increasing sales or increasing prices. They may already be making numbers that would support an increased wage without any changes to those things.

I accept that you may still disagree with me but I wanted to make my position clear.

Restaurants are highly competitive. A fast food restaurant generally has ~25% of the price as direct labor costs and ~3% of the price as profit margin.

> I’m saying that increasing wages for 5 employees by a $1 doesn’t increase the cost of an individual good (burger) sold to customers by $5 so the burden to the customer to support this new paradigm is negligible, especially at the volume of food being sold. Yes the 5$ is made up somewhere but it’s spread out across multiple goods sold to multiple customers that share only small fraction of the burden for supporting that change. I don’t know how to state it more clearly than that.

Oh certainly, but then the spreading out comes back in again. You pass a law that requires the average wage to increase by 10%, so the price of the average item doesn't increase by $5 (i.e. 100%), it increases by ~10%. But then it's not just the burger that goes up by 10%, it's everything (on average).

Now, this result is not going to be uniform, but that's another problem in itself. For the average wage to increase by 10%, the wages of people who actually make minimum wage might have to go up by 100%, because there aren't that many of them. For them -- at least the ones who don't lose their jobs as a result -- the 10% is smaller.

But the other population for which the hit is smaller is the very rich, because they spend a lower proportion of their income. The CEO who makes 1000 times minimum wage is paying the same $5 for a burger as anyone else, so the 5% increase is a 0.005% increase in spending to them. Even if they buy a fancy burger for $100, 5% of that is still only equivalent to 0.1% for the person making minimum wage.

So if the hit is less to the very rich and less to the people making minimum wage (if they don't lose their jobs), where does the rest of the money come from? Oof, the middle class. They pay the higher prices and spend ~all of their income but don't get any of the money. And the goal is supposed to be to benefit the poor at the expense of the rich, not to hollow out the middle, right?

So you raise the minimum wage but keep the crazy high effective marginal tax rate? Then the benefits phase out eats the extra money the same as it would if they were working extra hours.

Also, hardly anybody actually makes the minimum wage. If your problem is you make $20/hour but that's not enough to afford housing, raising the minimum wage to $15/hour doesn't get you a raise and only makes the things you buy cost more. If you tried to use a $40/hour minimum wage you would get high unemployment and stagflation.

Minimum wage laws are broken technology. They do more harm than good and most of the studies "in favor" of them are really only claiming that they don't hurt that much, and those studies are performed in contexts where the minimum wage is quite low. Somewhat obviously, if the median wage is $18/hour and less than 1% of people make less than $4/hour and then you ban paying less than $4/hour, there is no major effect and therefore no major harm. That doesn't at all imply that banning anyone from paying less than $40/hour is going to be equally harmless.

BTW empathy is when you can feel for those you don't relate to/have attachment to. Empathy is when you make a genuine effort to understand and connect, even across differences. It's not a concept only for people you already relate to.

Or you can be a D-leaning voter who sees D only rising to the level of a less-awful version of putting rich people before you, and you want to discipline D for taking all the D-leaning votes for granted, rather than earning them by being effective on your behalf.

Or you can be an R-leaning voter who sees both R and D as putting rich people before them, and then D goes and adds insult to injury with some stunt, but at least this one R candidate sounds like they might make things better. (Helped along by a lot of disinformation, as well as being alienated by D voters in general. You see many D voters as a bunch of elitists who're benefiting more than you, and are screwing you, while they pick causes or other people to favor that you think are stupid and unfair.)

Years ago, I was horrified, the first time I heard a D-leaning college student tell me they weren't voting D, to discipline D, in a very important election. My first thought was that this sounded like some revolutionary-till-graduation thing, which probably sounded better in their head, but now I sorta see.

Having seen a few elections and administrations since then, with D consistently seeming not to earn the votes of people, I've come around to understanding, even if I don't full agree. If many people either go out of their way to discipline D, or simply can't be bothered to go to the polls, IMHO, it's hard to blame them.

A bit similar with R voters.

We're all being served poop sandwiches, who aren't working for us, and we are desperate or depleted.

If people never have a shot at redemption, why would they ever try to redeem themselves?

And mind, the whole campaign was based on "Trump is worse". That is also hardly ignoring someone.

That's not what I meant by "getting away from them". It's just like Germany in the 1930s: the smart people got out and moved somewhere else before the SHTF. It's the same thing I did: I left the USA. I don't see things getting any better there in my lifetime, and I didn't want to be around the angry MAGA people, so I left.

I don't mean this as finger-wagging at you or anyone; it's so easy to tell people to stay and fight somewhere where you're not. The Nazis could have prevented early on, later on staying couldn't really change anything, it was just another life destroyed in the maw. So yes, good on those who got out. But also good on those who stayed and fought. Personally, as much as I would love to run away from my own country sometimes, I know that wherever I end in, I will have even less influence than here, as infinitely little influence as that may be. And wherever I'd end up, it would just be an even smaller ship in the same rough waters that seem to be engulfing the world.

In the case of the US, it's arguably the most powerful country that is still somewhat free. The Nazis were stopped in a world war, which they started with no real need. If they hadn't started the war, or if they had won it, or if there hadn't been any other power that isn't also totalitarian that could have conceivably challenged them -- as is the case with the US -- then they might still be in power.

It was close enough back then, if the US falls into that hole, with all the weapon and surveillance tech that exists today, I just don't see any "outside" that could help, or be safe. There could be countries poor enough in resources that get left alone long for me to get old in them, at best, but should I have children, they'd be be up for grabs by whatever is being cooked now. That's basically why I even care about US politics as non-American. When that particular tower falls, it might blot out the sun. If not forever, then for long enough that it simply must never be found out IMO.

Sorry I didn't mean to be this dark, but I mulled this stuff over so much, and this is what I think about it, what I can't help but think about it.

I got tired of dealing with that, and found a society I enjoyed living in much more, so I found a job there and moved there. If someone wants to stay in the US and try to make it better, more power to them, and I hope they succeed. I'm not that young any more and just want to live in a nice place in relative peace, and the US was no longer that place (and, in my view, stopped being that place around 2000).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War

If you're looking for a place where you can blend into the culture and easily make local friends, it's probably not a great choice, but I could say the same about many, many places (I frequently read articles about US expats complaining about this in western Europe, and frequently moving back), but if you can get a good job here and don't mind a degree of social isolation and can learn enough of the language to get by, I think it's a good choice. It's not an easy place to move to for westerners, however, by most accounts (for social reasons, not logistical/administrative ones). Personally, I didn't have too much trouble, but I know I'm not typical. If you're a tech worker (this is HN after all) and can get a good tech job here, it's really easy to move in, as far as the visa is concerned.

Here is something I saw on Bluesky, where all the good people are:

"To all the misgueded twits who ignored every red flag, caved to your worst selves, and bought into all of the most obvious of Trump's insane lies: Everything that happens from here on out. The family members you lose, the suffering, the confiscation of your freedoms of at the whim of your dictator. It's all on you. You can no longer falsely blame dems, antifa, lgbtq, or immigrants for everything you set into motion with your prejudice and cowardice"

It goes on like that, and ends with

"Hope it was all worth it, you hateful fuckwits. Enjoy the ride"

That's just the most widely shared and liked on I happened to be shown by Bluesky, I've seen this repeated in individual comments in many variations. Basically, "at least we'll burn together and it'll be your fault."

> they'll never understand why their candidate lost. Instead they'll keep pointing to GDP, the low employment numbers made possible by people working multiple jobs to survive, and how great things are for the wealthy instead of trying to actually get in touch with the daily lives of those they rarely interact with.

as Cenk Uygur said here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7m0tbZJgE

So she put out some good things in the beginning, and we were excited about it. She had some economic populist policies about housing and price gouging etc. [..] She then turns around and sends Mark Cuban all over CNBC to go, remember, I love business interests. [..] She's never going to do the price gouging plan. They swear up and down on CNBC and all over cable news. Well, then she lost her lead. Why do you think you're getting the lead, why do you think you lost the lead? No, they'll never figure it out.

I don't think that's as obvious as Cenk seems to believe it is.

Point is, business, markets and consumers vote their interests. Look at Wall Street, Bitcoin, &c. in the hours leading up to the election.

On another note: Winston Churchill: "...it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time..."

But I am increasingly of a mind that Churchill may be wrong: perhaps we should re-investigate alternatives to our current form of government and possibly to democracy itself - perhaps there is something better for us b/c today:

- We know more about ourselves (e.g., the IQ note, above),

- The rules have changed (e.g.,we have diluted the requirements to be a voter), and

- we now can simulate group behaviors based on large populations of different individuals.

I was recently surprised to learn what "sortition" is. This possible enhancement might have some beneficial value in reducing corruption but was apparently rejected by the USA's founding fathers. OTOH they weren't interested in building a democracy but wanted a republic instead, which requires an educated voting class, which we no longer have thanks to our changes in suffrage.

So, in a way, the Founding Fathers set up a system where most voters had higher-than-average IQ. Succeeding generations inherited that system and, among other things, diluted voter requirements. Now we are possibly paying a price for making changes. Perhaps we're moving in the direction of a literal idiocracy.

This approach is a great way to lose elections.

Try explaining MMT, interest rates, fractional reserve banking, etc. to even college educated people and you’ll just get a blank stare, but everyone can intuitively understand a gold standard

Trump is very serious about tariffs, and the president has more unilateral authority in this arena than folks realize, he wouldn't even need an act of congress to do alot in this arena

The Dems didn't really have an inroad to that demographic. Suggesting federally granted home buying credits just sounded like another financial scheme from on high and missed the mark entirely imho; there was no bigger economic discussion happening there.

AKA: we figured out how to pass a consumption tax which disproportionately hurts poor people without calling it that because we know it's universally unpopular. When billionaires effective tax rate drops to what will probably be 1%, the wheels are going to REALLY fall off.

Billionaires fund, and in some cases directly craft, the narratives that shape the voter’s perception of the political landscape.