Messages

Insular Americans

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When I see and hear people criticise Bidenomics and slam the economic performance of the Administration I am struck by how little notice is taken of the corresponding performance of other countries around the world.

It is blatantly obvious that in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic almost every single nation suffered massive economic hardship and especially of course, spiralling inflation. Even Harris's supporters seldom use this argument.

Are Americans so insular that they think the only relevant world exists within the borders of the USA?

All economists that I am aware of would place the recovery of the US as better than most or even best of all.

Here's a graph which may help put things in perspective with respect to inflation.

RE: Insular Americans

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Are Americans so insular that they think the only relevant world exists within the borders of the USA?

Why shouldn't we think this. You clearly do. When do you speak or write about those other countries? Nothing about Japan. Nothing about Columbia. Nothing about Ireland. Nothing about Germany. Very little about your own country, or President or Prime Minister, or whatever you have. We don't know, because even though you don't live here, work here, eat here, raise kids here, nor are you experiencing our economy, you certainly stump for Democrat political leaders you can't vote for, will never meet, etc.

RE: Insular Americans

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There is a lot I could attack here but let's just look at inflation. By this graph, the US inflation started earlier. Just because it's lower now does not mean the damage was somehow undone. Inflation is cumulative. And when you look at it that way the US is average or worse than those other countries under the Biden administration.

Second, the real costs of things that affect the poor and middle classes have increased far more than this reflects. Inflation is calculated as an average of a basket of various goods and not weighted based on actual consumption, so it's a highly manipulated statistic. I have showed in an earlier discussion how the cost of food items that the working poor consume has increased dramatically, perhaps by 40-60%, far more than the 21% claimed by half-wit fact checkers on CNN. The cost of energy is up over 50%, averaging the costs under Biden vs. Trump.

The left is wealthy and completely out of touch with the lives of the working poor. I have worked with the working poor, as well as employed hundreds of them. You can't see the real picture unless you can see both sides of how people live.

RE: Insular Americans

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Hi, Lance.

Nope, my main interest in this political Forum is in the bizarre possibility that there are enough crazy people in the US to reinstall someone to the White House who is a criminal, a rapist, a fraud. It is truly a spectacle of historic proportions.

You may not have been around for it but some of us have tried to bring up politics from our own countries before and they never gained much traction.

I'm happy to talk about New Zealand's position with regards to this particular topic. Just like with you guys, the party in power copped the blame. Unlike you we've had an election and inflation was a major cause for a change in our government. The new bunch may be able to take some credit for bringing inflation down - it's still behind the US - but it's still too high.

RE: Insular Americans

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Ah, go on. Tell me about your political leadership. Who is running things there. Why or did you vote for them? HAs inflation increased or decreased? What measures did your people take? What were the pros and cons?

Don't give up on sharing your country's issues in favor of someone else's.

RE: Insular Americans

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Wow! Harambe, I touched a nerve there.

First off, you totally ignore the main point of my post. Inflation was not caused by Biden/Harris unless you somehow believe that they also simultaneously caused inflation worldwide. Just admit it.

I do watch CNN a lot. I respect their fact-checkers because, you know what, they always acknowledge that food inflation is not the same as headline inflation. It's not in dispute, never has been. And that's why Harris is out today taking some credit for bringing inflation down, while also acknowledging that many people are still suffering the effects of high prices.

Then the sting in the tale of your little rant - the left are wealthy?!!?

WTF

Republicans have a self-proclaimed billionaire as their boss. He is supported by other billionaires because he bribes them with tax cuts.

I'm not sure where that thought even comes from.

RE: Insular Americans

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If you don't think the left are wealthy, then explain how Kamala raised hundreds of millions of dollars in a week (not counting all the alliance funds that operate on her behalf), and is out-raising Trump by levels of magnitude despite similar polling levels.

CNN consistently lies about food inflation and has claimed it is the same level as ordinary inflation. In fact they have doubled down on this BS. Do I have to go dig up all the videos to prove this to you?

I live in a town full of rich Democrats, have a wealthy hyper left-wing landlord who has all left-wing friends, two streets over from poor black neighborhoods. They go to their anti-racism seminars and then do absolutely nothing. Like Lance says, you seem to be out of touch with American realities.

RE: Insular Americans

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Biden has contributed to inflation in various ways:

-signing massive spending bills
-bullying mandates imposed on private business
-unilaterally writing off student debts to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars
-excessive emissions mandates and prohibitions on energy exploration

We can go into these details a lot more if you want to debate them.

RE: Insular Americans

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Lance, our politics are pretty boring. You know why? Because we don't tolerate criminals and insane people as potential leaders. We've had our share try for office, but they are usually weeded out early.

You know what else? While one side may accuse the other of incompetence or sloppiness, no one here would ever accuse the other mob of 'trying to destroy the country,' of being evil, aligned to satanic forces, drinking the blood of children or being part of pedophile rings based beneath pizza parlours.

I don't have time right now to go into details of our politics and as I said it's boring. Here's a brief synopsis of recent years.

We have 3-year parliamentary terms. From 2016 - 22 we were in the hands of a Labour Govt led by Jacinda Ardern as PM. You may have heard of her - she made quite a splash on the international scene with her philosophy of kindness. She and her government oversaw the aftermath of the worst mass shooting in our history and also the COVID years.

As mentioned before, COVID changed a lot of things. The Labour govt. took a lot of flak for their handling (or mishandling) of the pandemic and were voted out comfortably last year. The new PM is Christopher Luxon (a former businessman and head of Air New Zealand). he is the leader of the National Party

You could make some parallels between our two major parties and the Dem/Rep split in the US. No surprise that I am a supporter of the Labour Party. However, because of our MMP voting system, we also have various other parties in the mix - notably the Greens, ACT (more right-wing) and The Maori Party.

The current Govt is clearly working through a program of reversing Labour's policies and especially reducing regulations which they see as handicapping progress.

RE: Insular Americans

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Really, I need to explain why/how Harris got such a huge surge of enthusiasm which translated into (mostly) small dollar fundraising?

Do you not understand that Trump is the most unpopular president ever. That most Americans understand that he is a convicted criminal with many more charges on the way? That he is a sleazebag, a fraudster and a rapist?

And that harris is like a breath of fresh air offering hope to a population that had assumed they were going to be condemned to four more years of his crime spree?

Yes, show me the videos. I've not seen anything like that and I'm on CNN most days.

And you still haven't explained how what Biden/Harris did caused inflation to soar around the world.

Like every other country they had to tackle the ravages of COVID with economic stimulation. They also inherited the weakening economy mismanaged by Trump with his reckless tax cuts for his billionaire buddies. It's taken this long to get things back under control. No recession, stockmarkets at all-time highs, unemployment low, best GDP in the world ((or close to it)

Sure their actions caused inflation - JUST AS IT DID EVERYWHERE ELSE under every other government in the world.

And actually I don't care about debating those things as much as I want to show the deadly threat that Trump poses to your country and to the rest of the world.

RE: Insular Americans

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Inflation has gotten worse in Canada. One medium sized white onion now costs $2. One red pepper $3. Two medium sized red potatoes $2. A shrink-flated tub of coffee $26 pre-Covid $7. Laundry detergent 32 pellets $24 pre-Covid $8. One whole wheat bun 99 cents pre-Covid 35 cents. Meanwhile ALL the grocery stores have done major renovations and where exactly did this money come from?

Joe Biden is a man of average intelligence, incapable of putting an idea into words and as you know, I can't stand the zero-empathetic man. Sure his policies didn't cause inflation but he simply hasn't got a clue what is going on and even if he does, which I doubt, he can't put it into words.

As far as Columbia goes when Trudeau is defeated that will be a happy day.