We're Leading - USA, USA, USA
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... of course it's not one you want to lead.
I hope they get it under control soon. At some point I'd like to retire and go play with cars.
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@john-norris We also have the lowest unemployment rate, taxes, and gas prices of all of those countries. Yes dumping 10 trillion dollars in 24 months causes inflation. It also doesn't help that a madman and greed has caused oil prices to jump to record prices.
"We might lose ourselves but we will never be lost"
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Perhaps the real problem with dumping all that money was that it was not targeted at those who truly needed it. Our payments were nice, but we simply didn't need them. We were fortunate to be able to continue working--and getting paid--throughout.
I did read, though, that not making the payments could have resulted in other bad things:
"Without these spending measures...the economy might have tipped into outright deflation and slower economic growth, the consequences of which would have been harder to manage." (source)
I'm no economist, but in the rear view mirror, perhaps things might have been done differently. There are multiple reasons for the situation we find ourselves in, and this is just one of them.
/not politics
#Planelopnik all the things
Yamaha YTR-8335
Yamaha YTR-8445
Schilke P5-4 -
@ttyymmnn Armchair quarterbacking is always fun, the contrarians out there who bring so much to this world will be doing it for the next several decades.
Far too much of those funds went to corporate entities who didn't really need the money, not to mention didn't deserve it. Those same entities then reap insane profits and margins while squealing "inflation", it'll trickle down tomorrow, I promise.
/not politics
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@ttyymmnn They should have been targeted better and based on everything I've read and heard, it was probably more than what was necessary and that was better than doing less. The fact is the liquidity in the economy is high right now and supply of everything low. This imbalance combined with a mess of other issues is why we're where we are. I didn't think the path out of the pandemic was going to be easy and have prepared for the porpoising of our economy (had to use a f1 reference). Buckle up!
"We might lose ourselves but we will never be lost"
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@fintail The one good thing to come out of the pandemic is that wages finally increased and workers seem to have more confidence in asking for fair compensation. Hopefully once the supply side settles down, wages will continue to increase in a healthy trend and inflation stabilizes.
"We might lose ourselves but we will never be lost"
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@krustywantout I truly hope so. That really irks me about so many workers finally seeing wage gains and gaining some influence in their lot - it comes at a time when living costs are erasing much of the gains. Almost like it isn't a coincidence. I suspect for many, inflation is understated, too - at least in my area, where housing costs alone have created a real COL increase far exceeding published inflation numbers.
I notice some of the spoiled shithead old guard "leadership" types (who likely couldn't hack it today if they had to start over in the position of a fresh new grad without parental largesse) are growing more mouthy and arrogant about WFH, and zero-accountability manure piles like Musk are joining in - they need to be dealt with too.
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@krustywantout Isn't inflation just the push back against higher wages? A business has to increase the cost to produce and therefore increases the cost of whatever they are selling. What will really happen is that wage growth will contract, and prices will stabilize at a level commensurate with the increase in the cost of labor. We'll all be back to getting fucked an agreeable amount soon.
1987 El Camino
2015 Jaguar F-Type V6S -
@krustywantout recs for bringing it back to cars lol
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@Sovande Some of it wages but a lot has to with lack of supply (materials and labor) and increases in energy/fuel costs.
Inventories are rising and energy prices will hopefully stabilize. Companies are raising prices because they can and they have less to sell. But the recession will solve some of this inflation (demand side) and I don't expect wages to decline especially with unemployment this low.
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@ttyymmnn said in We're Leading - USA, USA, USA:
Perhaps the real problem with dumping all that money was that it was not targeted at those who truly needed it.
Much better to get money to people who didn't need it than to not get it to people who did.
In any event, it should be pretty obvious from the fact that inflation is accelerating now, well after the majority of COVID relief (the last COVID relief checks went out over a year ago in March 2021, extra unemployment benefits ended in September 2021, and the child tax credit expired in December 2021.) This spending is not driving inflation right now, because it is done with.
What is driving inflation? Shifts in demand from services to goods. Over cautious business planning in 2020 that assumed a recession, and so wasn't invested in growth. Supply chain disruptions due to COVID. War in Ukraine.
The thing is that COVID was big deal, and was going to have bad outcomes regardless, and steep inflation is less bad than other problems we could have had. Things are still very precarious. Ideally you would grow yourself out of inflation, but that takes time, and businesses are going to be unlikely to invest if they think the Fed will throw us into recession to stop inflation. But on the flip side, the Fed does need to show they are willing to do what is needed to reign in inflation to encourage confidence in from both businesses and consumers.
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@Sovande Inflation often involves the classic wage price spiral, but wages are increasing much slower than inflation. Which is why companies are able to report massive profits despite this inflation increasing their costs.
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@ttyymmnn Dumping a trillion dollars into the financial markets at the beginning probably didn’t help with inflation while also not really helping folks most affected by lockdowns. Guys at the top made out nicely, as usual.
