US Midterm Elections

[flash2015]

What, pray tell, is your ideal?

Divided government...both sides will need to compromise to get anything done. Largely no BS complaints of voter fraud. It has been a quiet day.

Also Trump didn't have a good night vs. DeSantis which is awesome. I am not a fan of DeSantis but at least he is rational and level headed. Trump is a narcissistic, grievance-driven baby.

We've had such good results with the last four years of divided power. The Senate filibustered most legislation that couldn't be passed by a simple majority. Just passing an annual budget required parliamentary trickery.

Some Democrats are hoping the Republicans take the House so after two years of seeing how little interest they have in fixing things, they will be overwhelmingly voted out.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-re ... 00527.html

I felt that Biden was constrained too much by the promises he had made to the progressive wing of the party. He lost focus on things like inflation to waste months on BBB which was never going to pass. Then he passed the IRA in summer which had very little to actually do with inflation. The student loan forgiveness was useless as it did nothing to bring down costs longer term. If anything expectations of future forgiveness will just push up college costs even more.

The budget deficit is completely out of control and completely unsustainable, especially with interest rates rising rapidly. I am hoping that divided government may mean that there will be more pressure to rein this deficit in.

The Senate is of course more important than the House. I want the Democrats to hold the Senate...as a loss here may make it difficult for them to get it back until at least 2028.

[orathaic]

What, pray tell, is your ideal?

Divided government...both sides will need to compromise to get anything done. Largely no BS complaints of voter fraud. It has been a quiet day.

Also Trump didn't have a good night vs. DeSantis which is awesome. I am not a fan of DeSantis but at least he is rational and level headed. Trump is a narcissistic, grievance-driven baby.

Flash is... pretty much bang on actually

I think that is naive. It will result in no Compromises as one side wants the status who and as wealth inequality increases.

So long as the 'small government' party can tie up their opposition without power there might aswell be no government, so they win.

[Octavious]

If you view the Republicans as a united monolithic bloc vote you'd have a point, but what we have in reality is a Republican party about to engage in a titanic power struggle.

Speaking of monolithic bloc votes, the reason that Georgia has a runoff rule and could potentially see the Democrats lose the Senate is because of Democratic segregationists. Denmark Groover defended his runoff voting bill by saying it was designed to

prevent the negro bloc vote from controlling the elections

You have to laugh, don't you?

[flash2015]

Divided government...both sides will need to compromise to get anything done. Largely no BS complaints of voter fraud. It has been a quiet day.

Also Trump didn't have a good night vs. DeSantis which is awesome. I am not a fan of DeSantis but at least he is rational and level headed. Trump is a narcissistic, grievance-driven baby.

Flash is... pretty much bang on actually

I think that is naive. It will result in no Compromises as one side wants the status who and as wealth inequality increases.

So long as the 'small government' party can tie up their opposition without power there might aswell be no government, so they win.

Inflation hurts the poor the most. High energy prices have hurt the poor the most (and Democrats don't seem to care).

The US for decades worked with divided government (the Democrats held the House for a 40 year stretch until the 90s). While Obama did a terrible job working with it, I don't believe that outcome is guaranteed.

[Fluminator]

I'm not American so I'm sorry if I offend any Americans here, but wow the vote counting is the biggest train-wreck ever? How is it so bad?

[Randomizer]

I'm not American so I'm sorry if I offend any Americans here, but wow the vote counting is the biggest train-wreck ever? How is it so bad?

It's several problems:

Mail-in ballots need to have a signature on the outer envelope verified against records before the ballot can be opened.

Some states allow a few days to correct errors in mail-in ballots to prove they were from the voter.

Provisional ballots, where the voter appeared In person, but was in the wrong location or may have already voted by mail, take longer.

Ballots from overseas like with military personnel take longer to verify.

California sent out mail-in ballots to eligible voters and had more of them than other states.

Some places had ballot printing errors that prevented them from being read by machine.

Lawsuits on what ballots can be counted and when. Georgia had one over 1000+ absentee ballots not being mailed out to legally requested Democrat voters and demands that the deadline be extended so their votes could count.

Some states don't count early mail-in or dropped off ballots until election night.

[Jamiet99uk]

So its basically because the rules are different, state by state, yeah?

[Doom427]

Popping in for two comments-

Inflation hurts the poor the most.

Does it? While it would hurt the unemployed and those on disability/social security, "the Poor" is a vague collection. The biggest hits from inflation goes to those who have a ton of capital in money, but no real assets. The poor don't have assets, but they also don't have money

If you view the Republicans as a united monolithic bloc vote you'd have a point, but what we have in reality is a Republican party about to engage in a titanic power struggle.

That "titanic power struggle" will be over who can own the dems the most and be the bigger do nothing. If you seriously think another republican civil war for the fourth time in the past 10 years will actually result in a party that wants to work with the democratic party I'll have to wonder if you've been paying attention at all so far.

[Trigfea63]

Popping in for two comments-

Inflation hurts the poor the most.

Does it? While it would hurt the unemployed and those on disability/social security, "the Poor" is a vague collection. The biggest hits from inflation goes to those who have a ton of capital in money, but no real assets. The poor don't have assets, but they also don't have money

If you view the Republicans as a united monolithic bloc vote you'd have a point, but what we have in reality is a Republican party about to engage in a titanic power struggle.

That "titanic power struggle" will be over who can own the dems the most and be the bigger do nothing. If you seriously think another republican civil war for the fourth time in the past 10 years will actually result in a party that wants to work with the democratic party I'll have to wonder if you've been paying attention at all so far.

Agree the Republicans will have zero interest in getting anything done or in making divided government work. They have already signaled what they will do if they win a majority in the House, as now seems inevitable:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3697 ... ority/amp/

On top of that, Trump will be running for President again, with his Twitter megaphone restored thanks to Elon Musk. American politics will be a complete shitshow for at least 2 more years.

[flash2015]

Popping in for two comments-

Inflation hurts the poor the most.

Does it? While it would hurt the unemployed and those on disability/social security, "the Poor" is a vague collection. The biggest hits from inflation goes to those who have a ton of capital in money, but no real assets. The poor don't have assets, but they also don't have money

People that are barely living paycheck to paycheck, whether it be because they are unemployed, whether it be because they are on disability/social security, whether it be because they are low paid or because of high expenses (expensive rent/lots of dependents) are getting hit the worst because they have no surplus to fall back on when prices rise. These are the people that have to choose whether to pay the rent or eating...or running up the credit cards to make up the difference even though this makes their situation even worse down the road.

For sure inflation also hurts those with a lot of capital in money but if expenses only make up a small percentage of that these people still have the time to invest and recover the lost. They don't have to make the hard decisions which the poor need to make.

[orathaic]

Inflation hurts the poor the most.

Does it? While it would hurt the unemployed and those on disability/social security, "the Poor" is a vague collection. The biggest hits from inflation goes to those who have a ton of capital in money, but no real assets. The poor don't have assets, but they also don't have money

Yes. It does.i know flash covered a fair point but poverty has considerable negative effects. The stress of not knowing when you will be able to afford your next meal is fine if it is one day, but as an ongoing effect that insecurity has known effects on cognition and development (that is especially for children growing up in poverty).

The way stress effects the brain is measurable, increased cortisol levels start out by making you hyper alert, this is a good thing, you can measure heightened reactions speeds. However the brain is not designed to constantly be in that hyper alert state, it can not maintain it, and over time constant high cortisol levels leads to worse performance on a number of cognitive measures.

It leads to worse decisions, worse educational outcomes, worse economic performance. It is likely bad for the economy as a whole when a large percentage of it is functioning suboptimally. But it is certainly bad when a significant percentage of children never have the opportunity to develop their potential, the future employees not being able to do the high value economic tasks is bad for the economy.

Inflation means expenses rising faster than income. Which increase stress levels for those who are already in poverty. It also pushes more people into poverty. The only winners are those in higher paying jobs who will have less competition in the future, and thus can demand higher wages (which further increases the inflationary pressure, while further reducing the impact on those high income earners).

Those high wealth individuals, who don't necessarily have high incomes (because why work when you have more money than God?) Can see an abstract number on a spreadsheet change, not a material effect on their ability to eat or shelter their families. And the abstract can allow them make more careful decisions.

The abstraction also appears to have allowed you to completely ignore the lived reality of poverty and just see the percentage capital loss which a spreadsheet would measure. And that is rather dissconnected from reality.

[Doom427]

Inflation means expenses rising faster than income.

[/quote]

I know that poverty is bad Orathaic, I am intimately aware of poverty. This, however, is not the definition of Inflation. Inflation refers to the purchasing power of currency going down- if a dollar is worth less, then less can be exchanged for that dollar. That applies both to you spending your dollar as WELL as you getting that dollar. If Inflation is rising expenses but not income, what we have is most likely a recession.

(Yes, we can complicate this by discussing relative stickyness of inocme vs expenses etc etc, but as of right now? The starting wage everywhere I go for any basic entry job- fast food, retail, grocery clerk- has gone from ~10$ to ~15$, a truly massive bump in purchasing power- inflation is not 33% for commodities).

[Doom427]

Now, if we want to just say "I feel like things are bad for me" then sure, cool, that sucks for you. I mean, my family personally did great and finally became a first time homeowner during the massive 2008 recession and then got foreclosed on during the economic recovery.

I will say though, in a very basic way, feeling are not facts. Inflation is in fact much better for the poor than deflation, or a stagnant economy (yes, yes duh, obviously not massive inflation than makes the economy bad for everyone).

Now if you want me to play affect with you, sure, anything that happens ever can make someone sad in economic terms. We had a whole big thing where due to possible economic downturns for some, we can't forgive college loans. But I actually don't like playing pretend- I like knowing facts and figures.

Now, if we want to play Marxist, and say that inflation is a tool of capital to extract more exploited labor from the poor, then sure, go wild, I'll listen in and see if you convince me.

But if your only argument is "I feel like this is making more people poor, so therefore it is"? That's not an argument for the poor, that's an argument for the middle class to further exploit the poor by making an economic system that works better for them while claiming they're doing it for the poverty-stricken masses.

[flash2015]

Inflation means expenses rising faster than income.

I know that poverty is bad Orathaic, I am intimately aware of poverty. This, however, is not the definition of Inflation. Inflation refers to the purchasing power of currency going down- if a dollar is worth less, then less can be exchanged for that dollar. That applies both to you spending your dollar as WELL as you getting that dollar. If Inflation is rising expenses but not income, what we have is most likely a recession.

(Yes, we can complicate this by discussing relative stickyness of inocme vs expenses etc etc, but as of right now? The starting wage everywhere I go for any basic entry job- fast food, retail, grocery clerk- has gone from ~10$ to ~15$, a truly massive bump in purchasing power- inflation is not 33% for commodities).

Where are you getting the idea that real wages have been rising for the poor??? Dallas Fed says that the outcomes are the worst faced by employed workers in a quarter century:

https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2022/1004

28 percent of workers report that they are struggling financially...with the worst affected being those with only high school diplomas (44%) - i.e. the poorest:

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/ ... ports.aspx

I think you may not be seeing this clearly because the Democrats are in power at the moment and you sound like you are a Democrat. Democrats have been hammered over the issue...even though a lot of it likely was not caused by them.

However in the UK the same terrible inflation is occurring under a Conservative government (I am not sure how to classify the Ireland coalition - orathaic?). I think you need to step back from your tribal biases on this one.

[orathaic]

Inflation means expenses rising faster than income.

I know that poverty is bad Orathaic, I am intimately aware of poverty. This, however, is not the definition of Inflation. Inflation refers to the purchasing power of currency going down- if a dollar is worth less, then less can be exchanged for that dollar. That applies both to you spending your dollar as WELL as you getting that dollar. If Inflation is rising expenses but not income, what we have is most likely a recession.

(Yes, we can complicate this by discussing relative stickyness of inocme vs expenses etc etc, but as of right now? The starting wage everywhere I go for any basic entry job- fast food, retail, grocery clerk- has gone from ~10$ to ~15$, a truly massive bump in purchasing power- inflation is not 33% for commodities).
[/quote]

We are looking at are recession, at least in Europe. Maybe we are not already in recession, but we will be soon.

And yes, costs can rise without your employer being able to afford to offer more money - because their other costs are already rising - and if businesses pass on all of the costs to their customers (where they are not stuck on long term contracts) consumption will drop, which can lead to reduced staffing requirements.

So if everyone gets a raise and the result is half of them lose their jobs, the actual income of 'everyone' has dropped on average.

[orathaic]

.However in the UK the same terrible inflation is occurring under a Conservative government (I am not sure how to classify the Ireland coalition - orathaic?). I think you need to step back from your tribal biases on this one.

It is a centre-right / right-centre coalition (with the Greens propping them up).

Elected by the wealthy farmers, the best off economic classes, and the upper middle class environmentaliats. Probably the closest thing Ireland has to moderate Tories.