Trump is officially president today

[Hardkill]

16 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

Inflation is at an all time high so let's see if it comes down along with the economy getting better overall.  Just because he's a narcissist doesn't mean he can't help the country in some way.  You can also make the argument that Biden was bad because he was a weak president. 

Who told you that inflation is still sky-high?

For almost 2 years inflation levels have been normal (~2-3% inflation) and have been outpaced by average real wage growth throughout the whole country. Also, gas and oil prices over the past 2 years have been about as cheap or as reasonable as they were during much of Obama's presidency and close to what they were during Trump's 2nd and 3rd year as president, especially when you adjusted for inflation in 2024-2025 dollars.

It's the cumulative effects of inflation from 3 to 4 years ago that have caused the cost of living, affordability, and high prices of various such as housing and grocery prices along with high borrowing costs including very high credit card interest rates and debt that are altogether still the problem.

Edited 10 hours ago by Hardkill

[Talinn]

My property is in Tucson and I don't think this is the best city in which to have property nowadays.

[Leo Gura]

47 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Isn't this the kind of same Trump hysteria and fear that I've been making?

No. I am not hysterical. This was a statement of our political situation published on the date of an inauguration.

Your posting is different and unproductive.

Edited 10 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Lyubov]

I’m not so freaked out. We made it through Covid, the (real) Ukraine war started in 2022 and crazy inflation all happened under Biden. Not saying he’s to blame but my day to day life as an American citizen that isn’t broke or illegal probably will stay the same. For refugees and people who rely on government programs, I feel bad for them and could see it getting harder. Home ownership is out of reach even for the middle class today so if you own a home you will be most likely just fine. I don’t see the USA passport weakening too much. I’m a dual citizen too of Germany so I can always go to the EU. A lot of us will be fine, those on the edge will not be. 

[Hardkill]

57 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No. I am not hysterical. This was a statement of our political situation published on the date of an inauguration.

Your posting is different and unproductive.

Is it because my posting about him have been way more overblown than yours?

[Hatfort]

Edited 8 hours ago by Hatfort

[PurpleTree]

^ What’s funny is that Wernher von Braun.

SS Nazi Member who knew Hitler personally, rocket scientist, NASA guy wrote a sci fi book about mars, where the ruler of Mars was named Elon.

Edited 8 hours ago by PurpleTree

[Husseinisdoingfine]

@Leo Gura

The reason why I asked that question, btw, was because I was concerned about America’s past history of removing other country’s Governments.

It’s like… America and the CIA did a coup to remove the democratically elected President Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran, as well as remove President Salvador Allende in Chile.

If America was responsible for that, then is  it not unreasonable to think that America may have had something to do with the 2014 Maidan Revolution?

What about the accusations of involvement by Western NGO’s? I don’t mean to push Kremlin narratives, just asking questions. You yourself, when the war began, posted videos of John Mearsheimer and alluded that the NATO expansion justification had some credibility.

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

If America was responsible for that, then is  it not unreasonable to think that America may have had something to do with the 2014 Maidan Revolution?

I don't deny the CIA was invovled. That's just irrelevant to Russia's invasion and conquest of Ukraine.

KGB is also involved in many places. That doesn't mean America can now annex Georgia, Khazakstan, or Belorussia.

Edited 7 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Husseinisdoingfine]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I don't deny the CIA was invovled.

But to what extent? We don't know.

Would EuroMaidan have happened at all if it weren't for the CIA? Was it completely an astroturf movement by the CIA and NGOs, or completely natural and by the Ukrainian people? We don't know.

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Husseinisdoingfine

[Something Funny]

1 minute ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Would EuroMaidan have happened at all if it weren't for the CIA? Was it completely an astroturf movement by the CIA and NGOs, or completely natural and by the Ukrainian people? We don't know.

Would it have happened if our former president wasn't an incompetent idiot who decided to bounce the moment things got sketchy? You know that nobody actually threw him away out of the office and hanged, right? He actually made his own decision to run away, leaving a country without leadership for several months, lol.

Even if CIA or whoever else was involved, you can't say that they have overthrown the government.

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

We don't know.

There's a lot of shit we won't ever know.

But it's irrelevant to the issue of Ukraine's international border.

[PurpleTree]

Yea and the Ukrainians not eanting to be part of a Russian empire and closer ties to the West is seemingly a very real thing. Otherwise the 3 day military operation wouldn’t be going on for years now.

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

My mistake i forgot it had come back down - probably because it hurts everytime i buy eggs now... i guess I need to make more money to keep up with the current rate though because I'm sure feeling it in the pocketbook....as I'm sure you are.  Incomes have to keep pace with inflation.. And the rate has been pretty high last few years as your graph shows.

Get ready for your egg prices to double thanks to tarrifs.

Your wallet will be empty by the time Trump is out. But this will teach you a valuable existential lesson about equivocating with the devil.

Welcome to the consequences of voting for a devil.

Edited 6 hours ago by Leo Gura

[ryandesreu]

@Inliytened1

21 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

Inflation is at an all time high so let's see if it comes down along with the economy getting better.

Trump was in for four years and WW3 didn't break out.  It won't now.  

The statement "Trump was in for four years and WW3 didn't break out. It won't now." exemplifies the hasty generalization fallacy.

The statement "The inflation rate is at an all-time high" is an example of the false statement fallacy or factual error, depending on intent.

Are you trying to get attention or spread misinformation or...?

[Terell Kirby]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Get ready for your egg prices to double thanks to tarrifs.

 

“Hey it costs an arm and a leg for that omelette!”~ says no one. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Terell Kirby

[Basman]

You could argue that Musk didn't mean to make a Nazi salute and that he was just being awkward, which isn't new to him. That he was simply excited and meant to signify that but it came off as Nazi salute.

Edited 5 hours ago by Basman

[Terell Kirby]

Imagine ICE busting into you local churches and schools armed with assault rifles to round up illegal immigrants (could be janitors or cooks)

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/21/politics/ice-can-arrest-people-at-churches-and-schools/index.html

[Peo]

Trump signing out of The Paris Agreement was sad to watch. I thought Elon musk was pro fixing climate change, but i guess i was wrong. 

 

[Hardkill]

7 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

My mistake i forgot it had come back down - probably because it hurts everytime i buy eggs now... i guess I need to make more money to keep up with the current rate though because I'm sure feeling it in the pocketbook....as I'm sure you are.  Incomes have to keep pace with inflation.. And the rate has been pretty high last few years as your graph shows.

As I've already mentioned in my previous post on this thread, real wages for most workers in America have actually outpaced inflation for almost 2 years now. What's the issue is that the general level of prices of goods and services for Americans today are about 20% higher than they were around 2019-2021.

According to economist, Mark Zandi and his team, you have about half of Americans whose real income increases have either barely kept up with or have significantly exceeded that of the cumulative inflation from over the past 3 or 4 years and you have the other half of Americans whose real wage/salary increases have not kept up with the cumulative inflation from over the past 3 or 4 years.

Plus, even though mortage rates and Fed Fund rates have actually been historically average since 2022 and have been going down significantly since late 2024, many Americans are still having trouble tolerating even those levels of relatively normal rates largely because of the growing housing shortage we have had and was never seriously addressed since the end of the 2008 financial crisis. Also, credit card rates have been at such unprecedented high rates for years now that it's become truly usurious. That too has also been hurting many people in the US.

Believe me, I've been keeping track of all the data on all of this stuff obsessively like every other day since inflation first became a problem in 2021. It's like I've been learning to become an expert on the economy for years.

Last but not least is the fact that the widespread discontent many people have had over inflation and general level of prices in our country has been disgustingly amplified by the extreme negative partisanship, ridiculous drama, and the never-before-seen amount of misinformation out there from the right-wing media, the far left media, and the alt-media. The mainstream media outlets for years have done a terrible job in counteracting the falsehoods and toxic mischaracterizations of inflation and high prices projected by all of the anti-mainstream media outlets out there and the more reasonable progressive media outlets have still not been anywhere near as robust as they need to be to combat all of the misinformation and false narratives on this issue. The brain rot in this country is so real.