1) You like hypotheticals...if Law and Order Trump was shoved into this situation, he'd pivot on Day 1. All of these policies come from the president downward. You might like and agree with Biden's stance on Ukraine, but it doesn't justify the "whatever it takes" rhetoric behind them. Early on, it was passable. Now, with stalemate looming and escalation getting closer and closer to the table, the American people will want more details. Was that an apt what-if or a False Equivalence? So it is above my paygrade. You might just react to whatever you team tells you. I sometimes fall in that camp, but for whatever reasons, taking a step back does put things in perspective. 2) It's being twisted because no normal person (...psst lizard person psst...) mentions World Order outside of Foreign Policy readers, and people definitely don't want to hear it when inflation is being brought up. This guy may or may not have exposed what the admin is thinking, but he's clearly not qualified to talk to the press as Biden's economic mouthpiece. Smart with numbers...Dumb with people...Numbers go down. 3) This is all over the place. You like Biden so you might be more inclined to say it's Putin's Price Hike. It's definitely part of it, but nowhere does your link explicitly pins any blame on Russia-Ukranian War as the reason for the supply glut. It's the same kind of lazy thinking that Biden is pushing. a) Goods related Inflation happened before Ukraine. It was called transitory...not as in "Russian soldiers transitory to hike gas", but because of supply shocks pre-invasion. b) During the supply shocks where ports were shut down, undercapacity, and overloaded...inventory managers sometimes double and triple ordered when delays caused frenzies keeping goods on shelves and customers overbuying/hoarding things. Those inventories are clearing up and now people like Michael Burry are pointing to the Bullwhip Effect as the cause. This can happen even with normal demand, but now there are lower purchases because inflation is making people shyer with discretionary spending. You're going to have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to directly pin this on Russia. Biden is trying to make Americans connect the dots, but it would've only worked if he were crankier and less upbeat last year. And maybe if he shitcanned Powell while he was up for renomination. Makes you wonder how much that corruption scandal that took down two Fed Governors impacted all of this... c) Your tangent with China is just a tangent. Those tariffs aren't gone or even being renegotiated with Biden. So if we're talking about China, then we should cover Covid lockdowns and port openings. I'm gonna need harder insight on how a (relatively) small deal becomes a big crippling one wrt inflation. I'll tell you this...farmers in Iowa don't need to be worrying about the lack of customers after losing Jina no more. Gas and fertilizer prices otoh... In simple political calculus, the first "can be" blamed on Trump, but the later "is being" blamed on Biden. 4) This goes back to 1. A different president at the helm brings a different measured response. I agree that this sounds steeped in reasoned foreign diplomacy, but it's neither rule nor law. And if it's neither, then the American People aren't just going to eat **** and pay triple for the privilege in order to make the liberal world order the happiest place on earth. You want to sell that, use the Ukranian people as props to why we sacrifice...except he nor Biden is even explicitly talking about sacrifice. But I suspect you, That Guy, and everyone here knows that line is starting to get old. It's depressing on a humanistic level, but that's not going to win elections or even wars. As for sacrifice, we have all the nat. gas we need, but it's spiking like crazy. Is it because we're slowly shipping all of our excess to Europe? Europe still needs more though, and they aren't going stand tall while their nuts freeze in the dead of winter. Ro Khanna posted this on his channel. I think he took a massive L with his rebuttal blubbering about Progressive Points but not credibly answering the first half of the question. This is a massive problem for Progressive and Democrats on their understanding with the economy and with a large swaft of the American people.
No, I just see the big picture which goes back further than whenever administration leaves and a new administration comes into power. This has been decades in the making. Policies and their effects don't abruptly stop when a new administration comes into power. We were in the midst of trying to reverse "deflationary globalization" which put critical supply chains and many strategic resources in places that are in varying degrees of indifference, hostility, or adversarial to us. Biden has clearly kept many of the same inflationary policies in place to bring back those supply chains while dialing back the Trade War against allies. Biden has also taken climate change seriously and isn't going to enact short term energy policies, which is politically unpopular. Stepping back from the Ukrainian War, authoritarianism in Russia and China (especially the latter) is challenging the rest of the developed world so we do need to have a response. We have taken for granted the past few decades. Pundits usually aren't like "normal people". Distilling everything into a few minute long clips is the issue. I certainly don't disagree that distilling complex issues into soundbites isn't easy and this guy failed at that. I think the Biden Administration has done a terrible job of communicating with the American people and communication has never been a Biden strength. However, you still haven't told me what you thought "liberal world order" meant. I was trying to illustrate the various inflationary forces that are in play, many of which didn't start with the Biden administration. I wasn't trying to put all the blame on the Putin Price Hike; however it is clearly Putin's strategy of using commodities to inflict maximum damage on the rest of the world so they just acquiesce to his demands and territory taking. If Putin sees that bullying and causing global misery is a successful strategy, you think he'll just stop? Same with China? Russia and China are using globalization (going back decades) as a weapon since we opted too much for cost efficiency over redundancy. It happened before Covid as well...... we deliberately made imports more expensive through a global trade war so the policy was already in place to cause a rise inflation. Your problem is you are just using Covid as the starting point when climate change and globalization have been decades in the making. Not trying to... just apparently having a tough time explaining the larger picture to someone who chooses Covid as a starting point for the current state of the world. Maybe if Biden did what the current GOP does and makes enemies out of groups, states, countries, then he could appeal to America's sense of patriotism against China, Russia, climate change, Christian nationalism, etc. However, victomhood seems to be a great political strategy, which also just compounds the issue since it's only good for getting votes. Actually it's not, it's a very important piece of the issue and has been occuring before Covid. Your problem is you are only thinking in the context of Covid and post Covid: Globalization made goods cheaper for the US. Agree or disagree? Doing the opposite will make goods more expensive for the US? Agree or disagree? What are we currently doing? We are making imports more expensive. It wasn't an issue under Trump because we were having a tech boom that could mask the major oil bust we had and the rising input costs due to a trade war/on-shoring. Farmers in Iowa are passing on higher costs to consumers. Should Biden just give even more subsidies to farmers? Ethanol subsidies is just about the stupidest policy we are and was just a bailout to farmers to get votes. The Biden admin increased SNAP and SSN for lower income families and lower income seniors. Hyperbole doesn't help your case here but let me add some simplistic hyperbole.... should the globe be run by rule based liberals or strong armed authoritarians? I agree that Americans are generally dumb and can't understand complex, big picture issues. I also agree Biden has done a terrible job of communicating that to Americans. I would personally tie Russia and China together. It's no coincidence that China is also looking to invade its neighbor and has generally tried undermining the US in the 21st century..... much like Russia. Big picture, Russia and China have been shrewd taking a large share of global manufacturing, global exports, and commodities (food, energy, metals, precious metals needed for a Green energy Transition) and they have the rest of the developed world (and developing) by the balls. That didn't start at Covid despite your insistence of using that as a starting point. Because gas is priced globally and supply was reduced through sanctions or Russia cutting off Europe. Europe is already rationing energy and switching back to dirty coal due to the overreliance on a hostile neighbor for energy and commodities. Are you isolationist that just wants to retreat from the globe? Distilling complex issues into sound bites for your average joe six pack is hard, no doubt. Complex issues require complex solutions, which is tough for your average American to understand. And I didn't really even talk about how climate change is inflationary.
They should just stick to "Democracy vs Authoritarianism". Russia and China will only grow stronger with American isolationism. Convincing joe six pack that while "the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were a costly geopolitical blunder but standing up to Russia and China is important to our national security" will be a tough task.... especially when the costs are at the gas pump and grocery store. If Russia and China see how easily we fold under prices increases... why wouldn't they do it again and again?
Another slack jawed yokel that prefers dancing men over nuanced conversation like @tinman . To each their own. Perhaps this is more to your liking:
Those guys are having a detailed debate. That post was informative. Obviously you don't have to read it. I usually avoid long posts but I was interested in their positions. The post is about Biden and his policies that may or may not be driving inflation, the thread topic. As someone who gets caught in meaningless sidetrack arguments at least its about the thread topic
China and Russia realize that they can control American politics by hiking up prices and having the right do their dirty work for them. The GOP will sell out America to anyone these days if it means they can win some extra votes.
Back to my China point..... Biden Close to Rollback of Chinese Tariffs to Fight Inflation I have severe misgivings about this. America can't have its cake and it eat too as the Chinese and Russians will see this as capitulation and that they can outlast the West. I never agreed with the global trade war started by Trump and glad Biden eased tariffs on our allies, but we shouldn't roll back tariffs on China without implementing others in more strategic areas.
the leading conspiracy theory now is that a deep state White House intern posted the tweet to intentionally sabotage the President
i would describe it this way. while Russia has learned from the Saudi / OPEC insofar as leveraging a commodity to influence US policies. China has learned from the Japanese (of the 1950s to 1990s era) in leveraging its relative low labor cost, further enhanced by strategic currency manipulation / efficient labor force / logistic mgmt, towards becoming the dominant global factory for consumer goods
