Nice summary, but it missed the most important factor

8.8 million jobs unfilled. Again, if you don't have a job, and ARE NOT LOOKING for one, you are not part of the "official" unemployed in America. The difference is reflected in the labor participation rate. Likewise, if you work a job, part time, at $10 an hour, you're officially employed, even though 25 hours a week at $10 an hour is not going to feed, cloth, shelter you. The data is flawed.

Likewise, with inflation, anything volatile is excluded, so if you can concentrate on other stuff, it normalizes inflation. Housing is excluded from inflation too, as it's too volatile. Energy as well. So your house cank skyrocket, and energy can skyrocket, but you only see the inflation of OTHER THINGS YOU BUY going up as a result, without the root cause, which we also ALL BUY being factored in.

Real unemployment is around 24%, if you account for all of those people with no jobs that simply don't exist in the unemployment numbers, or who work part time making less than $25K a year.

The best part is an even longer trend of devaluing the dollar and the DOMESTIC purchasing power of that dollar. Housing was more affordable during the great depression than today. The average yearly income for a household was 35% the purchasing price of an average home in the Depression. Today's average household income pays for only 15.8% of an average new home.

None of this has anything to do with Joe Biden or Donald Trump by the way. It doesn't have anything to do with republicans or democrats either. It has to do with a bipartisan, entrenched, system of economic disinformation, and misinformation, and manipulation to make people think everything is great. And you're a perfect example of the result. Republicans and democrats BOTH benefit from manipulation of economic data. Democrats and Republicans BOTH benefit from illegal immigration, trade deficits, federal deficits, federal debt, a devalued dollar, etc. Why? Because money buys votes, for dems with entitlements, for pubs with military spending. It also buys reelections, as long as you bring the bacon home to your constituents.

None of this is political, and there is, and will be, no political solution to it.

Every member of the present American tax base, the taxpayers who fund the government, each one owes $267,000. Every taxpayer. All of them, each owe that, as an average. Who voted for THAT? Was it the Dems? Pubs? No. No one voted for that, yet the people we elected did vote for that, using the misinformation above, for many decades now.

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And this is exactly why we're in the state we're in.

May 3, 2024, 11:59 AM

I've railed on our government and economic system for years, decades on this site. It wasn't until maybe 5-6 years ago that I saw things more clearly. I'm still a conservative. I'm conservative with money, and politics, and all things that are important. That being said, I'm not married to a political party. Republicans (my party, I guess, or formerly whatever) has railed on our national debt for 40+ years now, on illegal immigration for the same period. GWB had a pub Congress, amidst the worst years for illegal immigration on record. Nothing done. Obama never touched the minimum wage, with a dem Congress. Trump never mentioned a peep about a border wall his first two YEARS with a GOP Congress. NO ONE has spent less, or cut spending, no matter the rhetoric or party.

The left has railed on taxing the rich, then trot out some scheme to raise the INCOME tax, when the wealthiest Americans AVOID INCOME like the plague. Biden ALMOST proposed a very good debt (assisting) solution with his capital gains tax increase. BUT, even then, he let me down. Capital gains will be taxed at income rates for those with INCOME over 1 million. This means Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, almost every CEO of a major corporation paid in stock options, ALL will be exempt, and pay capital gains at the same rate as a decent plumber or electrician, since Jeff Bezos' INCOME is about the same.

The conclusion I came to 5 or so years ago, maybe a year or so before the pandemic, was like a lightning bolt. I was once convinced republicans held the solution to all our problems. The GOP will save America. I was so desperate I voted for Trump in 2016 over Hillary. I hoped Trump was one of these types with a public persona that masked a cunning and effective leader behind the scenes. Wrong. Oh well.

The truth lies in seeing common problems that are never addressed. Why is illegal immigration never solved. It's not the fault of dems or pubs. Congress hasn't done anything about it, even with a GOP Congress and President. Why? Our trade deficit sucks. Trump railed on that on the campaign trail. Nothing budged on our trade deficit for four years of Trump, until the pandemic hit. Our debt is insane. Trump railed against that, again with 2 years of a GOP Congress. Nothing happened. Debt increased at the same rate as before Trump, until the pandemic, then it exploded.

For the dems, minimum wage hasn't budged since Obama took office. It's been $7.25 since 2009, even today with a bad bout of inflation, it's unchanged. Even with a dem Congress, Obama didn't touch it. Dems have wanted single payer healthcare and they still don't have it. We have a bogus tax system that taxes income, when the wealthiest don't HAVE INCOME. I hear dems talk about taxing the rich, as the "wealth" gap grows wider and wider under their leadership. And every time, they propose some adjustment to the INCOME tax. That specifically punishes WORKING PEOPLE, as you have to WORK to EARN income. The wealthiest Americans don't exchange labor for income. They invest money, watch it grow, then sell the asset at a higher value, pocketing the profit, while never actually exchanging labor for that money. That money is capital gains, and is taxed at a lower rate. Furthermore, they don't even bother selling assets, they just leverage them to issue debt, which they can spend as income, without being taxed at all on it, only selling what little assets are needed to service that debt. And the gaul of a democrat politician to stand in front of people and say they're going to "sock it to the rich" with an INCOME tax rate increase. Please. That's insulting if you know enough rich people.

But if you take off the political blinders, step back, and look at the big picture, everything makes sense. Not in a good way, but the only way it makes sense. The system is bipartisan at the core, and the core is money. It started with detente and leaving the gold standard under Nixon. From there we steadily legislated for decades to make debt cheaper. Why? Well, for the legislators in Washington, so they could get reelected. Bring home the bacon, spout the right rhetoric for your constituents, and you'll be reelected forever. We then pivoted to allowing in illegal aliens to work, deflating domestic labor costs, and increasing domestic labor supply. We embraced Free Trade. NAFTA, as a prime example. We shipped manufacturing and a large chunk of our middle class overseas, to lessen the cost of goods we couldn't afford to make in the US. So goods got cheaper. Labor became plentiful. Inflation lowered over time as more domestic labor, and cheaper foreign labor deflated the cost of goods and services in the US, allowing Americans more buying power, with the benefit of cheaper debt. We could afford bigger houses, nicer cars, fancy electronics, etc. Congress could afford deficits as it cost a slim percentage of federal revenue to service our cheap debt. So Congress could spend more and more without issues. The wealthiest Americans saw the biggest gains, as they could sit back, grown money without exchanging labor, and then use that asset as collateral for low-interest loans, which is the "income" of the wealthiest Americans. Only subject, like Congress, to making the minimum payments to service interest.

The proof is in the pudding that this isn't a single party doing this. Meanwhile, the federal government throws out economic data to the benefit of Wall Street, and the voters, and by extension to the benefit of the very government providing the data. It's a huge conflict of interest, never discussed. The federal government releases economic data, and that data determines if the federal government must pay $300 billion to service the debt, or $1T. Sure, there's absolutely zero incentive ($700 billion dollars anyway) for the federal government to report bad or misleading data to the people who independently decide how much the government must pay on its debt. They know the data is cooked for maximum debt serviceability. Powell knows when he talks about strong employment and the unemployment rate, he knows that number isn't the percentage of unemployed Americans. He knows energy, housing, and other volatile commodities are left out of inflation data, and then he says any changes will be slow as they have to wait forever for the data, because it's normalized meaning it TAKES forever to see any trends, and even then there's a massive delay meaning any possible action that needs to be taken, will be taken too late, as we saw in 2022.

There is no republican solution to this. There is no democrat solution to this. There is no tax solution to this. This is 100% a democracy problem, and honestly one envisioned by our founders, who ironically provided a solution, which like everything else above, is never mentioned. And our founders knew that this solution would likely ONLY be used to force some type of a systemic or structural change, not to add or deny rights. And that is how it was designed to be used, and should be used in this case. 20 years ago.

Anyway, I'm done. Above are my talking points. They're not talking points of the right or the left. They're the talking points that make sense when nothing else seems to make sense. And they indict the republicans just as much as the democrats. And until a politician steps in front of a camera and says ANYTHING I mentioned above, any other vote is futile. The next Presidential candidate to mention an Article V convention to enact Congressional term limits, and a balanced budget amendment, will get my vote and I don't care if they're a democrat, a republican, or a fidocrat, a dixiecrat, an amoeba, or a rhinoceros. Until then, I'm not even going to bother. We will have a collapse and/or a revolution before I ever see a President endorsing that. heck, you want to see an assassination of a President, find someone brave enough to suggest Article V, seriously, and consistently. They will NOT last.

Oh, one more thing. Congress can trade stocks with impunity and immunity. They can buy the next benefactor's stock for the next DOD contract, or the next infrastructure bill, then ride the stock up and sell, all day long. THIS is why capital gains will not be touched, in any real way. Congress is making bank on the scheme. That's how they all get rich while serving the people. Using insider trading and relatives investing, while spending the people's money knowing the winners in the market before anyone else. Again, nothing has been done about this, and won't. And less than 20% of Americans approve of the job Congress does (or doesn't do). That's a strong bipartisan number.

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+175K jobs in April....

Re: +175K jobs in April....

Yaaaayyyy! Stagnation !

Re: +175K jobs in April....

Re: +175K jobs in April....

Meanwhile ... in Consumer Price Index land ...

OMG, a whole 3.5%? Whatever will we do?....

Re: OMG, a whole 3.5%? Whatever will we do?....

Re: OMG, a whole 3.5%? Whatever will we do?....

Re: +175K jobs in April....

Re: +175K jobs in April....

Re: +175K jobs in April....

No, he said 50% of real gdp growth was attributed

LPR at 62.4%, on par with the late 1970's.

Ahhh, the fake "hellscape"....

Re: Ahhh, the fake "hellscape"....

He's a nice guy, but he spouts right-wing talking points****

And this is exactly why we're in the state we're in.

So, I was right....

Re: And this is exactly why we're in the state we're in.

So 20% of peolpe 25-54yo are not employed?

Half of those people have long Covid, half need time tho protest

Oddly, the only people I know who are unemployed are trust funders

Personally, no. But I do know many through my job.

People that want jobs can find them....

That's right, and it's the highest since 2001....

Re: So 20% of peolpe 25-54yo are not employed?

24%?? You're saying unemployment is as bad right now as it was during the

They calculated unemployment differently back then

Round #2 of Wall Street and their CDOs...?***

Re: They calculated unemployment differently back then

Re: LPR at 62.4%, on par with the late 1970's.

Re: LPR at 62.4%, on par with the late 1970's.

Re: +175K jobs in April....

Re: +175K jobs in April....

Re: +175K jobs in April....

Re: +175K jobs in April....

Re: +175K jobs in April....

You're not going to get the Red Hats to accept any good economic news....

Employment down, inflation up...Both missing expectations. "Good...news."

From a bastion of the far-right propagandizers... CNBC. They see it differently.

No, there's nothing to twist....

I didn't write the above article, Dumb Axx. Keep believing the BS numbers.***

You don't even read what you link, moron...

So great for the investor class and screw the working class...? Probably so.***

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