Kamala Harris is trying to avoid the No. 1 issue: inflation

[DaisyDay]

But presidential candidate Harris enters the race with a significant challenge. As vice president, she cast a critical vote to break a tie in the Senate and allow the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to move forward toward a final vote. Had it not been for her vote, the bill might never have gotten to Biden’s desk for his signature.
Biden and Harris still tout this legislation as one of the centerpieces of their record. But the public isn’t buying it for good reason. Every time people buy gas or groceries, they are reminded that it was this ill-conceived legislation that jump-started runaway inflation.
One month after the ARP was signed into law, inflation increased to 4.2 percent. This came after the U.S. economy had had inflation under 3 percent for 111 consecutive months.

Kamala Harris is trying to avoid the No. 1 issue: inflation - Roll Call

It’s not easy to convince voters that their top issue is not really the most important — and that’s the challenge for Kamala Harris, Winston writes.

rollcall.com

Groceries and rent--think of Kamala. And realize how extremely radical she is and that Joe was just the start.

I thought we were blaming her for the border as the #1 Biden Disaster.

So now she was also in charge of inflation? Oh man.

 

[Hammster]

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.
- John 15:12-14

Exactly.

 

[DaisyDay]

Can we get a graph of the past 25 years, to include the Bush and Obama admin? Inflation was pretty low during the Bush and Obama years. I miss those years.

Inflation from 2000 to 2022, yes Wolfram|Alpha sadly does not have 2024 numbers, but I like the graphs from that website a lot.

Source: US inflation rate 2000 to 2024 - Wolfram|Alpha
View attachment 352831

Sure, it's quite a spike but it ends two years ago. What are the current numbers? BTW, the spike for 2020/01-2021/01 belongs to the former guy and for most of 2021, Trump's budget was in effect, so blaming inflation on the current VP is lame.

 

[probinson]

Sure, it's quite a spike but it ends two years ago. What are the current numbers? BTW, the spike for 2020/01-2021/01 belongs to the former guy and for most of 2021, Trump's budget was in effect, so blaming inflation on the current VP is lame.

Current numbers are down, but still higher than when Biden took office.

I guess you can try to blame Trump for inflation that happened on the Biden administration's watch, but it probably won't convince anyone that can read a graph and see that the bulk of inflation rates were highest at the peak of the Biden Administration.

 

[probinson]

I thought we were blaming her for the border as the #1 Biden Disaster.

So now she was also in charge of inflation? Oh man.

Harris isn't "in charge" of inflation like she was "in charge" of the border, but she was in the administration that presided over some of the worst inflation in modern history.

It may come as a shock, but an administration can do more than one thing poorly. And while the border certainly ranks up there in terms of blunders, Bidenomics is also high up on that list. Harris had more direct involvement with the border, what with Biden putting her "in change" and all, but to quote James Carville, "It's the economy, stupid!" Unfortunately for the incumbent party, the trickle of bad economic news reports will certainly hurt them come November.

 

[DaisyDay]

Wow. That's quite a spike!

The actions taken to "slow the spread" are why you see that spike. But those actions were taken by governments and public health "experts" that should have known better. I don't give them a pass because "COVID" did it. No, they did this by implementing draconian measures that did next to nothing. They own this. Would that we had listened to more rational people like John Ioannidis who tried to warn that the response to COVID was causing this immense economic damage while simultaneously not saving lives.

Oops, he did it again! John Ioannidis cries "Bias!" on COVID

John Ioannidis and Kasper Kepp published another dubious study claiming "they" stacked the deck against "natural herd immunity" advocates.

www.respectfulinsolence.com

Since the pandemic, however, my opinion—and that of a lot of Ioannidis’ former admirers—turned sour. Why? Early in the pandemic Ioannidis was quick to embrace “natural herd immunity” approaches to COVID-19 that later became the basis of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), which called for a “let ‘er rip” approach to the pandemic to achieve “natural herd immunity” in six months by letting the young and healthy just get COVID and using “focused protection” to keep those at high risk of death and complications from COVID safe. It’s a tactic that never would have worked—and didn’t work—and was, at best social Darwinist and, at worst, profoundly eugenicist at its heart. Although he was not an author—indeed, in fairness he refused to sign it, although not based on disagreeing with the GBD’s premise but because of his opposition to “signing petitions” as a means of settling “questions of scientific fact”—his call early in the pandemic for what sure sounded like a variation on the idea of “focused protection” was all over the GBD. He was also a co-author, along with GBD co-author Jay Bhattacharya of the infamous Santa Clara seroprevalence study that misleadingly claimed that over 80 times more people had been exposed to COVID-19 than previously thought (and therefore the infection fatality rate, or IFR, was way lower than was being claimed, meaning COVID was not nearly as dangerous as claimed and therefore all those public health interventions were unnecessary). Before that, he had published what is now in hindsight a ludicrous estimate in STAT that COVID-19 would likely kill 10,000 Americans. (He was off only by a factor of more than 100.) Then there was the time that Ioannidis made the vile evidence-free accusation that ICU doctors were inadvertently killing COVID patients by intubating them willy-nilly when they really didn’t need mechanical ventilation. And don’t even get me started on Ioannidis’ infamous “Kardashian index” paper, in which he smeared scientific critics and opponents of the GBD as “science Kardashians” using risibly bad methodology based on what was originally published as a satirical index to comment on scientists with more social media influence than influence in the scientific literature.
​

 

[DaisyDay]

Current numbers are down, but still higher than when Biden took office.

I guess you can try to blame Trump for inflation that happened on the Biden administration's watch, but it probably won't convince anyone that can read a graph and see that the bulk of inflation rates were highest at the peak of the Biden Administration.

View attachment 352847

Thanks. It is far lower than in 2022. Most economists I've read believe that an inflation rate of 2-3% is healthy and most beneficial for the majority of the people as it allows - is necessary for - economic growth. Too much is bad, too little is also bad and negative inflation (aka deflation) is the worst.
It does appear that Biden/Harris were successful in avoiding the widely predicted post-covid recession. Or they lucked out, whichever.

 

[Vambram]

What do the liberals as well as the Democratic Party political machine say about the cumulative inflation from over the last 4 years and what are their plans to do anything about it?

 

[Valletta]

I thought we were blaming her for the border as the #1 Biden Disaster.

So now she was also in charge of inflation? Oh man.

She's also in charge of AI.

 

[Richard T]

But presidential candidate Harris enters the race with a significant challenge. As vice president, she cast a critical vote to break a tie in the Senate and allow the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to move forward toward a final vote. Had it not been for her vote, the bill might never have gotten to Biden’s desk for his signature.
Biden and Harris still tout this legislation as one of the centerpieces of their record. But the public isn’t buying it for good reason. Every time people buy gas or groceries, they are reminded that it was this ill-conceived legislation that jump-started runaway inflation.
One month after the ARP was signed into law, inflation increased to 4.2 percent. This came after the U.S. economy had had inflation under 3 percent for 111 consecutive months.

Kamala Harris is trying to avoid the No. 1 issue: inflation - Roll Call

It’s not easy to convince voters that their top issue is not really the most important — and that’s the challenge for Kamala Harris, Winston writes.

rollcall.com

Groceries and rent--think of Kamala. And realize how extremely radical she is and that Joe was just the start.

The opinion writer should study the lags in economics more and the cumulative effect of deficits. The law was signed and magically one month later inflation appears? The money was not even spent yet. Inflation works with the multiplier effect and its impact will be higher when the velocity of money increases. (Review MV= PQ) velocity is the number of times the same dollar turns over in the economy. If we all spend faster then during those times inflation will run hot. So velocity increased after covid and inflation from the Trump years was a big part of it. Inflation should have been higher under Trump than Biden. Why wasn’t it?

 

[wing2000]

...still no policy solutions offered as to how the next POTUS should address inflation.

 

[DaisyDay]

She's also in charge of AI.

Good to know who to blame. /s

 

[AlexB23]

This isn't accurate. No hindsight was needed. There were people in 2020 who were seeing 20/20 (great pun!) that the response was foolish. They were fiercely attacked and censored.

​

“We’re falling into a trap of sensationalism,” Ioannidis told the documentary filmmakers interviewing him remotely on March 23 (2020) as he sat in a studio at Stanford. “We have gone into a complete panic state.”​

​

The video would be viewed more than a half-million times on YouTube before it disappeared. Six weeks after it was uploaded, the footage of Ioannidis was removed by YouTube, which said the interview with one of the world’s foremost epidemiologists had violated its policies on covid-19 misinformation. Ioannidis — whose talks for TEDx, at Google and in university lecture halls have circulated online for years — said he was stunned. But he was hardly silenced.​

Ioannidis was sounding alarm bells about the "sensationalism" and "panic state" we were in as early as early as March 2020. But YouTube decided what he was saying was "misinformation". Just think about that. YouTube decided that one of the world's foremost epidemiologists was spreading "misinformation" and removed his interview. On what authority do the flunkies at YouTube think they are qualified to judge what one of the world's foremost epidemiologists has to say about a pandemic and the response to it?

Don't let anyone tell you that now we know better in hindsight. No, we knew full well when it was happening. They just chose to censor the people who didn't fall in line with the approved narrative.

We will have to see what happens in the future. Sweden did a good job at solving corona, same with NZ.

 

[AlexB23]

Sure, it's quite a spike but it ends two years ago. What are the current numbers? BTW, the spike for 2020/01-2021/01 belongs to the former guy and for most of 2021, Trump's budget was in effect, so blaming inflation on the current VP is lame.

Yeah, it ended 2 years ago. Trump plays the blame game, just as the devil blames stuff on everything but himself.

 

[probinson]

Oops, he did it again! John Ioannidis cries "Bias!" on COVID

John Ioannidis and Kasper Kepp published another dubious study claiming "they" stacked the deck against "natural herd immunity" advocates.

www.respectfulinsolence.com

Since the pandemic, however, my opinion—and that of a lot of Ioannidis’ former admirers—turned sour. Why? Early in the pandemic Ioannidis was quick to embrace “natural herd immunity” approaches to COVID-19 that later became the basis of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), which called for a “let ‘er rip” approach to the pandemic to achieve “natural herd immunity” in six months by letting the young and healthy just get COVID and using “focused protection” to keep those at high risk of death and complications from COVID safe. It’s a tactic that never would have worked—and didn’t work—and was, at best social Darwinist and, at worst, profoundly eugenicist at its heart. Although he was not an author—indeed, in fairness he refused to sign it, although not based on disagreeing with the GBD’s premise but because of his opposition to “signing petitions” as a means of settling “questions of scientific fact”—his call early in the pandemic for what sure sounded like a variation on the idea of “focused protection” was all over the GBD. He was also a co-author, along with GBD co-author Jay Bhattacharya of the infamous Santa Clara seroprevalence study that misleadingly claimed that over 80 times more people had been exposed to COVID-19 than previously thought (and therefore the infection fatality rate, or IFR, was way lower than was being claimed, meaning COVID was not nearly as dangerous as claimed and therefore all those public health interventions were unnecessary). Before that, he had published what is now in hindsight a ludicrous estimate in STAT that COVID-19 would likely kill 10,000 Americans. (He was off only by a factor of more than 100.) Then there was the time that Ioannidis made the vile evidence-free accusation that ICU doctors were inadvertently killing COVID patients by intubating them willy-nilly when they really didn’t need mechanical ventilation. And don’t even get me started on Ioannidis’ infamous “Kardashian index” paper, in which he smeared scientific critics and opponents of the GBD as “science Kardashians” using risibly bad methodology based on what was originally published as a satirical index to comment on scientists with more social media influence than influence in the scientific literature.​

​

Good to see that we're accepting scientific evidence from Substack blogs entitled "Respectful Insolence" authored by someone named "Orac".

 

[Bradskii]

That's true. Pretty much the entire world implemented largely ineffective "lockdowns" that resulted in (predictable) economic problems. As I said, Trump began these foolish and ineffective policies (albeit under immense pressure from people who swore up and down that lockdowns and business closure was the only way to "slow the spread") but Biden continued them for far too long. Therefore, any economic repercussions were not as a result from COVID, but rather the ineffective, government-imposed measures wrought upon us by the "experts" that fiercely attacked anyone who dared to question them.

I guess the fact that we had quite restrictive lockdowns down here and we came out of it better than most must be down to our rude health.

 

[Bradskii]

So now she was also in charge of inflation?

Only when it was rising.

 

[probinson]

I guess the fact that we had quite restrictive lockdowns down here and we came out of it better than most must be down to our rude health.

Excess deaths in Australia are still pretty high.

 

[Bradskii]

Excess deaths in Australia are still pretty high.

Hey, the data is in. We had restrictions. We did very well indeed.

If your kid has the flu, do you send her to school? Do you invite all her friends over? If a friend had covid, did you organise a party at her place to cheer her up? My wife has had a chest infection these last few days. She missed our grandson's first birthday because she obviously didn't want to contaminate the rest of the family. As did I because I might have picked it up from her.

You don't need a masters in contagious diseases to know that you isolate when you are sick or when you could be sick when the disease may well kill someone who comes into contact with you.

And hey, this subject has been done to death. No way am I getting further involved in some obscure argument that the current Dow or inflation or the unemployment rate is somehow the fault of Biden because he tried to keep as many people safe as he could.

 

[probinson]

If your kid has the flu, do you send her to school?

Unfortunately in this post COVID world, we have to define what you mean by "has the flu". If by "has the flu", you mean is sick and exhibiting flu symptoms, then no, I don't send her to school. If by "has the flu" you mean sees two lines on a test strip but feels perfectly fine, then yes, I send her to school.

Do you invite all her friends over? If a friend had covid, did you organise a party at her place to cheer her up? My wife has had a chest infection these last few days. She missed our grandson's first birthday because she obviously didn't want to contaminate the rest of the family. As did I because I might have picked it up from her.

Swell. These are common sense measures. If you don't feel well, then stay home. Sound advice that we've given people for decades.

You don't need a masters in contagious diseases to know that you isolate when you are sick or when you could be sick when the disease may well kill someone who comes into contact with you.

You also don't need a masters in contagious disease to know that if you're standing 6 feet away from someone, you're not any safer than if you're 2 feet away. Or that walking in one way lanes in a store will make you any safer. Or masking in restaurants while walking to your table but taking your mask off to eat isn't going to help. But hordes of people did all of that and more nonsensical theater because their government told them to.

And hey, this subject has been done to death. No way am I getting further involved in some obscure argument that the current Dow or inflation or the unemployment rate is somehow the fault of Biden because he tried to keep as many people safe as he could.

That's cool. You can try to convince yourself that Biden was trying to keep people safe, but most objective people aren't buying it. Lockdowns were a failure. Fauci admitted that they just made up the 6 ft social distancing rule. Community masking was a complete failure. School closures have done immense damage to an entire generation of students deprived of a normal educational experience. And of course, the economic repercussions that were self-inflicted from instituting and adhering to all of these foolish measures that protected precisely no one.