1 minute ago, Gramarye said:

 

Source: Been reading their material since undergrad (early 2000s).

 

Commodity prices:

 

Steel: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/steel

Aluminum: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/aluminum

Crude Oil: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil

Global 40FT Container: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1250636/global-container-freight-index/

 

Prices of inputs are dropping fast. So why are the prices of goods staying the same or rising?

3 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

Source: Been reading their material since undergrad (early 2000s).

 

your personal opinions are not equal to data

2 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

Your statement hinges on the belief that the sort of "help" that government can provide actually "helps" the helpee.  For example, the automatic adjustment of welfare and social security benefits in response to inflation actually helps fuel more inflation.  

 

 

Not at all. My argument didn't really have anything to do with the idea that government solves all problems, and I would argue that Democrats are no different than Republicans in using government, just to different ends. My point was that more progressive policy is more beneficial to a fairer, more democratic, healthier, more educated, more diverse and more economically successful society. This idea that progressive=government just gives people money is more Right-wing propaganda, IMO, than reality-based. 

12 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

Commodity prices:

 

Steel: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/steel

Aluminum: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/aluminum

Crude Oil: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil

Global 40FT Container: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1250636/global-container-freight-index/

 

Prices of inputs are dropping fast. So why are the prices of goods staying the same or rising?

 

Not all input prices are dropping.

 

Labor is an input and that price is definitely not dropping.

 

Capital is an input and the Fed has been raising the base price of capital to try to tamp down inflation.  (Mixed results so far.)

 

Output prices, even for manufactured goods, are not a straight function of raw material prices.

25 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

If corporate profits are really up so much, why is the S&P 500 down 16% YOY?

 

I'd take EPI's carping about corporate greed with a grain of salt.  The fact that EPI is carping about corporate greed doesn't mean anything other than that it's a day that ends in "y."

 

Wall Street doesn't care about profits anymore. They're whining 

because the 0 percent interest environment they wallowed in for almost 15 years disappeared which means people's asset allocations won't be 98 percent equities anymore. They care about branding, marketing and product demand.

24 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

Wall Street doesn't care about profits anymore. They're whining 

because the 0 percent interest environment they wallowed in for almost 15 years disappeared which means people's asset allocations won't be 98 percent equities anymore. They care about branding, marketing and product demand.

 

THIS.

1 minute ago, GCrites80s said:

Wall Street doesn't care about profits anymore. They're whining because the 0 percent interest environment they wallowed in for almost 15 years disappeared which means people's asset allocations won't be 98 percent equities anymore. They care about branding, marketing and product demand.

 

I guarantee you that Wall Street still cares quite a bit about profits.  In fact, some of the last year's collapses in the most speculative tech stocks were because the slack previously given to such companies by Wall Street, willing to finance waits for profits at near-0% interest, was no longer so freely given when waiting comes with a higher price tag in terms of interest.

 

I don't think even EPI believes that Wall Street doesn't care about profits--unless you think EPI is excoriating Wall Street for greedily seeking something it doesn't even care about.

 

The real issue is risk.  And that's the dynamic that brings us back to the salient issue in the midterms, too, or at least one of those salient issues.  Falling share prices and increased profits can rationally go together when the risk profile of a given company (or entire industry) has increased, because investors will rationally worry if any given quarter of impressive profits can be sustained.  In a 0%-interest environment and stable world environment, investors would finance speculative speculative investments with high top-line growth even without bottom-line returns, because waiting was cheap and it was safer to wait a long time for a payoff.  With banks, workers, and suppliers all getting more demanding, investors can't afford to speculate so much and can't "bake in" as much future growth into current stock prices, so valuations multiples contract, which can bring down share prices even in profitable companies, let alone speculative ones.

 

That said, I think inflation played a lesser role in this midterm than predicted precisely because of what you observed: raw material prices are coming down, which at least has meant that price increases are stabilizing and may actually ebb over the next quarter or two.  We'll see.  And they'd have to come down quite a bit from here to get back to pre-pandemic normals.  Lumber, for example, peaked over $1450 per thousand-board-feet in March 2022, is down to $450 now, but was in the low $300 range for most of 2019.

 

That said, there's still one commodity category that's up sharply YOY, and it's of direct relevance to more normal people: food.  Per that TradingEconomics site you linked, potatoes are still up 49% YOY, rice +26%, cheese +18%, soybeans +17%, milk +15%, corn +15%.  Even without those specific numbers in front of me, I had predicted inflation to play a bigger role than it obviously did because I thought more people would care about persistent food inflation than about slackening inflation in major industrial commodities like steel and lumber.  But apparently it wasn't as big a liability as advertised.

47 minutes ago, jonoh81 said:

My point was that more progressive policy is more beneficial to a fairer, more democratic, healthier, more educated, more diverse and more economically successful society. 

 

The United States already is incredibly fair - it has a robust legal system comprised mostly of freely elected judges who are very rarely coerced or threatened, is overseen by hundreds of thousands of elected officials from modest backgrounds, has the best hospitals and medical research in the world, is by orders of magnitude the most multicultural society on the planet, and boasts the largest and diverse economy in the world. 

 

The United States of America is a spectacular success.   Instead, people can't see that big picture and complain endlessly about the 3-4 items in American society that stubbornly refuse to be fixed, even though those issues don't regularly affect the complainers in a substantive way.  

 

 

17 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

The United States of America is a spectacular success. 

 

 

 

Yeah, and unicorns are real.

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/quality-of-life

2 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

Source: Been reading their material since undergrad (early 2000s).

 

Some people, that's how they "debate".   They'd be the first ones to attack the source if AEI or similar data is presented.   But Robert Reich's think tank is fair and balanced....

4 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

Some people, that's how they "debate".   They'd be the first ones to attack the source if AEI or similar data is presented.   But Robert Reich's think tank is fair and balanced....

 

The day you post an unbiased source will be the first.

 

2 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

Not all input prices are dropping.

 

Labor is an input and that price is definitely not dropping.

 

Capital is an input and the Fed has been raising the base price of capital to try to tamp down inflation.  (Mixed results so far.)

 

Output prices, even for manufactured goods, are not a straight function of raw material prices.

 

Transportation is a key cost as well.   When you are buying commodities to consume rather than speculate upon, it matters very much where they are located.

2 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

The United States already is incredibly fair -

 

A very subjective statement and highly dependent on who you ask. To upper middle class/wealthy white guys, absolutely. It starts to get a lot more gray after that.

 

2 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

it has a robust legal system comprised mostly of freely elected judges who are very rarely coerced or threatened, is overseen by hundreds of thousands of elected officials from modest backgrounds, has the best hospitals and medical research in the world, is by orders of magnitude the most multicultural society on the planet, and boasts the largest and diverse economy in the world. 

 

All of those things can be true, and also exist within a very unequal society.  Isn't medical care like the #1 cause of bankruptcy, for example? Great hospitals, though. 

 

2 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

The United States of America is a spectacular success.   Instead, people can't see that big picture and complain endlessly about the 3-4 items in American society that stubbornly refuse to be fixed, even though those issues don't regularly affect the complainers in a substantive way.  

 

 

To be honest, you sound extremely privileged. There are a lot more than 3-4 problems in America. No one is discounting the positives simply by acknowleding the deep well of serious issues the nation faces. The point is not to be all rah rah America f*ck yeah!. It's about making it better, and making it better for all people, not just some.

 

 

When Ozzy Osbourne crashed his Banshee his American doctor told him that in the U.S. his hospital bills would have been $2 million if it happened in the U.S. This was around 2004. Ozzy replied, "It didn't cost me anything. I'm British." If rich guys have a conniption seeing someone else get $50,000 in medical care for free they should be going intergalactic when they get a bill for $2 million.

3 hours ago, Gramarye said:

That said, I think inflation played a lesser role in this midterm than predicted precisely because of what you observed: raw material prices are coming down, which at least has meant that price increases are stabilizing and may actually ebb over the next quarter or two.  We'll see.  And they'd have to come down quite a bit from here to get back to pre-pandemic normals.  Lumber, for example, peaked over $1450 per thousand-board-feet in March 2022, is down to $450 now, but was in the low $300 range for most of 2019.

 

That said, there's still one commodity category that's up sharply YOY, and it's of direct relevance to more normal people: food.  Per that TradingEconomics site you linked, potatoes are still up 49% YOY, rice +26%, cheese +18%, soybeans +17%, milk +15%, corn +15%.  Even without those specific numbers in front of me, I had predicted inflation to play a bigger role than it obviously did because I thought more people would care about persistent food inflation than about slackening inflation in major industrial commodities like steel and lumber.  But apparently it wasn't as big a liability as advertised.

I think inflation is on the mind of voters. Perhaps voters also recognize that Republican leadership don’t actually have any serious proposals to address it. Who knows what R’s would do since they haven’t actually published a platform in some time. If we look at traditional R proposals, they are what the Conservative government of the UK has implemented with disastrous results. 
 

A much better way to address inflation than interest rate increases would be to raise taxes and invest in supply-side infrastructure (ports, rail, Chips Act, etc). Much less likely to damage the economy than interest rate increases. But obviously the tax increases are a political non-starter. Oh well. 

On 11/10/2022 at 5:01 PM, jonoh81 said:

A very subjective statement and highly dependent on who you ask. To upper middle class/wealthy white guys, absolutely. It starts to get a lot more gray after that.

Compared to most successful countries, the US system is incredibly fair. There are certainly those who disagree and certainly those who may have been left behind in the past but the way the system is set up, everyone has an opportunity to partake and better themselves from their previous generation. 

 

On 11/10/2022 at 5:01 PM, jonoh81 said:

All of those things can be true, and also exist within a very unequal society.  Isn't medical care like the #1 cause of bankruptcy, for example? Great hospitals, though. 

While the system is not perfect, there are naturally going to be tradeoffs to enable the majority to succeed. Medical Care and divorce are certainly the #1 causes of bankruptcy, but remember what bankruptcy is, it is an opportunity to reset and have relief. Your debts die there and you have a chance to reset.  Also, keep in mind the cost hospitals incur to provide good care. I think most people here would prefer US hospitals to what they have in England any day. Yes, you can have free basic healthcare over there, just don't get really sick and need specialty care for anything and you will be fine. 

 

On 11/10/2022 at 5:01 PM, jonoh81 said:

It's about making it better, and making it better for all people, not just some.

 

And there are currently the systems in place to help all people achieve. The challenge is making sure that they can be delivered in an efficient manner. 

3 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Compared to most successful countries, the US system is incredibly fair. There are certainly those who disagree and certainly those who may have been left behind in the past but the way the system is set up, everyone has an opportunity to partake and better themselves from their previous generation. 

 

While the system is not perfect, there are naturally going to be tradeoffs to enable the majority to succeed. Medical Care and divorce are certainly the #1 causes of bankruptcy, but remember what bankruptcy is, it is an opportunity to reset and have relief. Your debts die there and you have a chance to reset.  Also, keep in mind the cost hospitals incur to provide good care. I think most people here would prefer US hospitals to what they have in England any day. Yes, you can have free basic healthcare over there, just don't get really sick and need specialty care for anything and you will be fine. 

 

And there are currently the systems in place to help all people achieve. The challenge is making sure that they can be delivered in an efficient manner. 

 

I know we all love the U.S., but we shouldn't let that love for our country blind us to the fact that other countries are increasingly beating us in making better lives for their citizens.

Social mobility in the US, "climbing the economic ladder" from one generation to another, is not easier in the US than in other places. The US ranks 27th in the world. 

https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-social-mobility-index-2020-why-economies-benefit-from-fixing-inequality/

On 11/9/2022 at 10:26 AM, Boomerang_Brian said:

Come on, Tim Ryan wildly outperformed all the more progressive statewide candidates. He definitely helped on D’s winning the three Congressional seats that were long shots. 
 

For me, the big lesson is that we need to improve voter turnout in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties. (Along with gerrymandering reform.) That is the best path for improving D results. 

 

On 11/9/2022 at 10:35 AM, ryanlammi said:

 

What other statewide progressive candidates were there? Serious question. No one had heard of any of the statewide candidates. I, someone very engaged in politics, had barely heard of a couple of the Democrats running for various statewide offices. I wouldn't be surprised if they combined for $0 in TV ads. This is all mainly because DeWine was a shoe-in and the rest of the offices were going to fall in line with the Governor's race. The only statewide race that was even close to possibly being a contest was US Senate.

 

Democratic Supreme Court candidates lost because the Republicans realized that their electorate never bothered to research judges, so they decided to change state law and put party affiliations next to justices' names. Without that, it probably would have been a close race.

 

Every single year Republicans pretend that if we nominate a moderate, that they have a chance. Every year that moderate loses by 6+ points.

 

On 11/9/2022 at 12:39 PM, westerninterloper said:

I've watched all this from Toledo/Lucas County, and noticed a few important differences between the victorious Kaptur campaign (against a weak oppoinent) and the losing Ryan campaign:

 

(1) Kaptur's ads in Toledo consistently addressed African-American voters. They turned out for her in Lucas County. I don't recall seeing a Ryan ad that address Black voters. To suggest they didn't turn out for Ryan is disingenuous; he didn't address their concerns;

 

(2) Kaptur maintained a respectful distance from Biden and national Dems, but didn't reject or publicly criticize them like Ryan did. I think Ohio Dems don't really respect someone who disrespects the party like Ryan did. 

 

(3) Kaptur had an ad late that I think was extremely effective, two lines especially: "We stand for the national anthem; and those who say we defund the police, [with deadpan delivery], are ridiculous. To me Kaptur threaded the needle very astutely about her commitment to Democratic Party's blue collar values (like Sherrod Brown) while criticizing its extremes. Ryan didn't seem to be able to do this.

 

(4) Most importantly for Kaptur - she must be the hardest working politician in Ohio. Everyone in Toledo who supports her has met her, has a story about her, can point to something she has done. She is always in the news, and she has strong support among the Ohioans of East European descent because of her consistent work on Ukraine, the former Warsaw Pact countries. She almost never makes mistakes. I don't think Ryan had adequately prepared Ohio voters in general with a narrative about what he had accomplished. 

 

Im really disappointed that Vance won, but maybe he'll be horrible enough Dems can get rid of him in a cycle or two. 

 

On 11/9/2022 at 12:57 PM, Boomerang_Brian said:

Nan Whaley ran a more progressive campaign and lost by a lot more than Ryan. I agree the other statewide candidates weren’t in the same league, but I don’t know how one can discount the governor race. I don’t think running a Progressive vs a “moderate” solves this challenge. The most likely path to success is increasing turnout in Cuyahoga and Franklin. 

I thought about it more and I'm revising my opinion on this. @ryanlammi and @westerninterloper raised some really good points. Kaptur and Sykes ABSOLUTELY deserve all the credit for their wins and my previous statement that Ryan helped them diminished their efforts - I retract that comment. (Kaptur also benefited from R primary voters' inclination to nominate horrible people.) If we want to learn from the loss, we need to take the right lessons from it. I DO think that Ryan was extremely helpful to overall Democrat efforts by forcing R PACs to divert large sums of money to Ohio, thus putting D's in a better position to win in more competitive states. But when we see the success of D's in Michigan and Pennsylvania, those states are similar enough to OH that we need to be learning from them. I think Ryan rhetorically running away from the Democratic party was a mistake. The key to Democrats being successful is energizing voters in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties. Our politicians need to lean in and aggressively court these voters by focusing on issues that make their lives better. The recent vote by Toledo city council to buy a bunch of citizen medical debt and retire it is a great example of an action that dramatically improves the lives of citizens and can potentially earn more votes.

 

Another mistake was criticizing the student debt relief efforts. (Whaley made the same mistake.) The reason this national election cycle went better for Ds than expected was the Gen Z vote. And there is still significant opportunity for increasing Gen Z turnout. To me this means advocating for the issues that matter to young people is critical - you have to earn their votes. From my perspective, this means advocating for student debt relief, climate change mitigation policies, abortion rights, and addressing housing-cost crisis. Of those, Ryan only hit one (abortion rights) or maybe two (climate - IRA will be tremendous for this, so I give credit on that vote). Of course it's risky to count on young people's votes, since they often don't vote, but clearly whatever Ohio D leaders are doing isn't leading to electoral wins.

 

Obviously none of this matters that much for Ohio's political situation until we get gerrymandering fixed. I look forward to signing those petitions and voting for those changes as soon as they are available.

On 11/19/2022 at 3:26 PM, Boomerang_Brian said:

The reason this national election cycle went better for Ds than expected was the Gen Z vote.

Do you have any evidence for this? The exit polling data I've seen has the 18-29 year old demographic having decreased participation from either 2020 or 2018. 

 

Edit: @Boomerang_BrianThis excerpt from 538 supports your claim that there wasn't a statewide Dem over performance. 

 

"These crosscurrents showed up within states, too, as some states saw inconsistent trends across districts. Take Ohio, where Democrats gained one seat but outperformed their baseline in only a little less than half of the races we looked at. The largest overperformance for Democrats in the whole country came in Ohio’s 9th District. Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in the history of the House, defeated Republican J.R. Majewski, who attended the Jan. 6 rally and reportedly misrepresented his military service record"

 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republicans-house-election-margin/

Edited November 21, 20222 yr by Ethan

1 hour ago, Ethan said:

Do you have any evidence for this? The exit polling data I've seen has the 18-29 year old demographic having decreased participation from either 2020 or 2018. 

 

Young people, who overwhelmingly favored Democrats, had one of their highest turnout rates ever in a midterm and shaped results across the country.

 

https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/millions-youth-cast-ballots-decide-key-2022-races

19 hours ago, Clefan98 said:

 

Young people, who overwhelmingly favored Democrats, had one of their highest turnout rates ever in a midterm and shaped results across the country.

Thanks to aggressive ballot harvesting. Most of those young people are still living with their parents or at college, have very little real world experience and are naive about business and the economy. They know that the Democratic Party is the party of loan forgiveness and other free handouts. They don't yet realize that free stuff is not really free. So of course they are going to favor Democrats.

 

Edited November 22, 20222 yr by LibertyBlvd

17 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

Young people, who overwhelmingly favored Democrats, had one of their highest turnout rates ever in a midterm and shaped results across the country.

 

https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/millions-youth-cast-ballots-decide-key-2022-races

Thanks! So basically while turnout is down from 2018, it is still very high relative to the historic baseline.

 

The data from the battleground States are interesting. Michigan, which experienced a blue wave, only had 10% youth vote, but Texas, which moved back towards the red team had 15% youth vote. That's only two data points of course, but I don't see much of a trend line on a state to state basis. 

2 hours ago, Ethan said:

Do you have any evidence for this? The exit polling data I've seen has the 18-29 year old demographic having decreased participation from either 2020 or 2018. 

 

Edit: @Boomerang_BrianThis excerpt from 538 supports your claim that there wasn't a statewide Dem over performance. 

 

"These crosscurrents showed up within states, too, as some states saw inconsistent trends across districts. Take Ohio, where Democrats gained one seat but outperformed their baseline in only a little less than half of the races we looked at. The largest overperformance for Democrats in the whole country came in Ohio’s 9th District. Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in the history of the House, defeated Republican J.R. Majewski, who attended the Jan. 6 rally and reportedly misrepresented his military service record"

 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republicans-house-election-margin/

My original point was more regarding the party splits than the turnout of young voters:

https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/diversity-inclusion/3730922-researchers-say-2022-election-had-second-highest-young-voter-turnout-in-last-30-years/amp/

 

“Youth also overwhelmingly voted Democrat in the 2022 midterms, with rates almost identical to those seen in 2020. The Edison Research National Election Pool exit poll found 63 percent of young voters opted for democrats in the House of Representatives race, while 35 percent voted for republicans. 

This age group was the only cohort where a strong majority supported democrats, as voters between the ages 30 and 44 largely split their votes along party lines, and older voters opted for republicans. “