The Triumph of Bidenomics!

[SimplyMe]

Key Word: DECADES
It took about 50 years to switch from horses to cars.
The Horse Cavalry was still in operation 1942.
Granted, the technology may not take so long
However it is not going to happen by government force in 5 years.

As you point out, the comparison isn't the same. I mean, I could point out that we had electric cars a century ago -- so the technology has seen a great deal of improvement in the last century. Just that, since gas engines won out they got more of the research money. At the same time, the electrical grid and electrical components aren vastly different from a century ago and today, just as gasoline cars have changed in that period. Batteries have been around for centuries and seen improvement; this isn't about inventing a completely new technology but rather inventing ways to make that technology faster and more efficient.

Again, Toyota claims they have solved the issues with a capacitive battery, that they are getting ready to produce it and will be ready to mass produce it by 2028. I hope that is true, though I remain skeptical. At the same time, there are a large number of companies working on that technology -- in large part because of how it will improve battery charging in EVs. And I doubt Toyota would be making those claims if they didn't believe they could come close to their target; while I'm skeptical I think they (and others) will likely be ready by about 2030.

In the meantime, here in the real world, the average American (I believe something like 90%) drive less than 50 miles per day. Most Americans can switch to an EV -- though to do so easily will require more infrastructure and that does seem to be accelerating as EVs are sold. I'm sure we will need more power -- though that has happened without EVs over the last 50 years -- but not as much as people think. The fact is, people charging at home typically charge at night, when power demand is less than half of what it tends to be during the day. We actually turn off entire power plants at night, more EVs will largely just mean that those power plants don't shut down.

Now, yes, some of this may be too ambitious. At the same time, the government deals with that all the time. There have been many government "mandates" that get postponed, including the fuel economy mandates. And that ignores the fact that the car industry has done a lot to get around the EPA mandates -- which is yet another reason so many SUVs are sold today (they are classified as trucks, not cars), to get around the fuel economy mandates. And particularly with the lobbying power of oil companies, as well as the automakers, and a not insignificant number of voters, I have little doubt these rules will be moved out.

 

[QvQ]

Batteries have been around for centuries and seen improvement; this isn't about inventing a completely new technology but rather inventing ways to make that technology faster and more efficient.

Batteries were important in rural areas before the Rural Electrification Program and the technology was advancing. However, the REP shut that down.

We have to change, because Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource, Hint, that means we may be running out if not now then sooner than later.
How fast electric will replace oil is debatable. It is not going to happen by government subsidies or force.

According to my Remote Control Flying friends, battery technology is advancing, slowly. The problem is the weight.
I haven't heard about any amazing whizo battery technology revolutionizing the Remote Controlled Planes (drones) but maybe Toyota has made some breakthrough.

It is going to happen. But Biden is not going to wave a magic eco wand and "make it so."
5 years for all the changes? Serious doubts about that.

 

[Ana the Ist]

The way I’m understanding your comments infers something so fundamentally incorrect that I’m not confident I’m understanding you correctly.

A small, positive amount of inflation (typically ~2%) is, AFAIK, the goal of virtually every central bank, which all take deliberate steps to modify interest rates and/or the money supply to achieve that rate. That inflation affects everything, though as you’ve noted with your tv set example, it can be overcome in some sectors by other advancements.


Is this not how you understand inflation?

That's what I would call the econ 101 version of inflation which is a bit different from Modern Monetary Theory.

Mmt is kind of a mess, but the explanation of inflation as a result of the difference between potential economic growth and the printing of money is explained pretty well by this video.

I watched 3 videos before deciding on this one lol. I hope it makes sense.

 

[The Barbarian]

I watched 3 videos before deciding on this one lol. I hope it makes sense.

Great. Another YouTube Economist, trying to tell us why black is white.

 

[QvQ]

Great. Another YouTube Economist, trying to tell us why black is white.

Modern Money Theory is the model our government is using.
That is why, except to excite the voters, the Congress is not concerned about spending $1T every 90 days while the debt is 124.3% of GDP

One can only theorize what the result will be. We are in uncharted territory. Never been unhinged from gold standard or GDP valuation for dollar. The dollar now is whatever the Fed wants it to be. Monetary manipulation as a value of need rather than real worth.
To me and possibly to you, it doesn't make good economic sense and it isn't, in the traditional sense of economics.
However, it is what the Federal Reserve and Congress are doing.
If it works, the sky is the limit on what government can do for you.
If it doesn't work, well, we will see....

 

[iluvatar5150]

Great. Another YouTube Economist, trying to tell us why black is white.

I watched the first half or so and it's basically just a run down of MMT. I don't have any deep understanding of MMT, so I can't say whether or not it's an accurate summary, but it's not inflammatory.

It kind of doesn't matter, though, because at least the section I saw talked about what it takes for government spending to trigger inflation via crowding out private expenditures (i.e. it doesn't do it immediately; it has to pick up any slack in the market first). What we were talking about earlier in the thread was sort of how inflation manifests in the economy as prices and what it does to the purchasing power of cash reserves.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Modern Money Theory is the model our government is using.
That is why, except to excite the voters, the Congress is not concerned about spending $1T every 90 days while the debt is 124.3% of GDP

One can only theorize what the result will be. We are in uncharted territory. Never been unhinged from gold standard or GDP valuation for dollar. The dollar now is whatever the Fed wants it to be. Monetary manipulation as a value of need rather than real worth.
To me and possibly to you, it doesn't make good economic sense and it isn't, in the traditional sense of economics.
However, it is what the Federal Reserve and Congress are doing.
If it works, the sky is the limit on what government can do for you.
If it doesn't work, well, we will see....

"Real worth", with respect to something like precious metals, is a myth.

What is an ounce of gold worth? Whatever somebody will trade for it.
What is a dollar worth? Whatever somebody will trade for it.

The difference isn't what either one is "worth." Both of them derive their value from the psychology of the people trading them. The difference is in how easy it is to control the supply, particularly in response to external events. Gold is hard to control because the government doesn't have control over the supply - anybody can open a new mine, including foreign governments. Dollars are easier to manage because the US government has a monopoly on it, and now that we've had a while to figure things out, we're pretty good at managing it - things are certainly smoother than they were under the gold standard.

 

[QvQ]

Dollars are easier to manage because the US government has a monopoly on it, and now that we've had a while to figure things out, we're pretty good at managing it - things are certainly smoother than they were under the gold standard.

I agree in part and disagree in part.
The government creates dollars. Those dollars must be distributed for circulation:
The dollars are traditionally circulated through lending by banks. That money had to be repaid, production as value. That is dollars to GDP
And there is money distributed through social programs which is "for the public good."
Traditionally, social programs and government services were paid through tax on production.

Modern Money Theory means the dollar doesn't have a "value."
The Fed determines how many dollars are printed for lending to banks.
The Government, primarily the Agencies, submit budgets of how many dollars will be printed for social programs and government services.
It doesn't have anything to do with gold or production (GDP)
It is predicated on how many dollars are needed to fulfill the government's goals.
Taxes are only to manipulate money supply, primarily to curb inflation.
That model is modern money theory.

It may work. No one knows. This model is fairly new.
If it works, Great. The government can print me more money to consume more goods. Stimulate the economy. I'm willing.
However, if it doesn't work, the dollar may be worthless, maybe. No one knows yet.
There is also the specter of government control and corruption, social engineering, money given to special interest groups to buy votes. There is also an increase in fraud and waste compared to the old gold or GDP standard. Easy money, as whatever the Agency states for a budget is what an Agency gets, not based on tax receipts (production)
It is modern money theory in a brave new world. Anybody's guess how it will all turn out.

 

[The Barbarian]

It is modern money theory in a brave new world. Anybody's guess how it will all turn out.

Hmmm... how did the Gold Standard work out, in the years between the World Wars?

 

[QvQ]

Hmmm... how did the Gold Standard work out, in the years between the World Wars?

The gold standard has the same problem as the production standard, dollar to GDP
There was insufficient gold to circulate. Gold is clumsy compared to paper currency or card swiping for zero's on a computer screen.
Money has to circulate freely. Gold and silver were commodity based economies. Not everyone traded in gold. Most of those old timers traded apples for wheat. You carried your wealth in your pocket, on your back or in a wagon and traded for whatever. If you were really wealthy, you had gold or silver.

So paper money was easier to manufacture, transport and trade as a symbol of wealth.
Paper money, printed and lent through banks, is measure of production as it had to be repaid. You borrowed paper money to buy seed. Sold the wheat for a larger value of paper money and repaid the loan.
Dollars = production =GDP

However, again there is a distribution problem and a revenue problem for the government.
The government, in the 1930, started spending money for social programs to circulate money.
At first, those programs, Social Security and Public Works Programs were Trust Funds, paid by taxes on production.

The welfare programs during Johnson changed the model. Taxes were still on production but there wasn't enough production to pay for it all as the government found more problems that needed money solutions.
All those money solutions created consumers which stimulated production.
However the consumers were not necessarily producers so the money given tended to accumulate in the hands of the producers. "Tax the Rich" is a modern money theory as rather than print more money for consumers, the government wants to take that money back to give to the consumers.

The bank lending, production to GDP, was slow for distributing money although it was a very stable system.
That is where Modern Money Theory came into being.
IT is faster to distribute printed money as "needed" rather than as a "value" of production (GDP) or gold (commodities)

 

[The Barbarian]

The gold standard has the same problem as the production standard, dollar to GDP
There was insufficient gold to circulate. Gold is clumsy compared to paper currency or card swiping for zero's on a computer screen.

More than that:

How Did the Gold Standard Contribute to the Great Depression?​

A number of complex factors helped to create the conditions necessary for the Great Depression—adherence to the gold standard was just one of those factors.

How Did the Gold Standard Contribute to the Great Depression? | HISTORY

A number of complex factors helped to create the conditions necessary for the Great Depression, and adherence to the gold standard was just one of those factors.

www.history.com

Monetary Policy Regimes, the Gold Standard, and the Great Depression​

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, most countries abandoned silver and paper standards in favor of gold. Under the convertibility principle, governments attached the highest priority to maintaining the fixed price of their currency in terms of specie.

During the twentieth century, though, the convertibility principle's importance declined steadily, clashing with the increasingly accepted goal of domestic macro stability.2 The techniques and doctrine of monetary policies developed under the gold standard proved insufficient for achieving economic stability during the interwar period, setting the stage for the Great Depression.

Monetary Policy Regimes, the Gold Standard, and the Great Depression

www.nber.org

 

[Fantine]

I lived through years of double digit inflation as a young married mom in the 1970's, and we survived.

While I know that inflation is difficult to deal with, in the past forty years our inflation has been either low or non-existent. I am grateful that the Fed helped put our economy back on track quickly, and am pleased that this happened without high unemployment or stock market crashes.

One might even say that the past three years have been miraculous. I am grateful we had a President who listened to the experts and was able to delegate to a carefully selected, capable team--rather than a President who was impulsive and dismissive, disregarding experts and often seeming to put his own personal business interests ahead of the people he was supposed to serve.

The economy is working well, and, without trying to sound like a grumpy lady codger, I would respectively ask everyone to grow up, realize that life will be full of challenges, and attempt to learn the resilient coping skills needed to succeed.

 

[NxNW]

And his statement caused the recession how?

His failure to keep that promise caused it.

 

[NxNW]

The economy was better under Trump. Everyone knows it. We are not fooled.

The facts say otherwise. Trump put us in a recession. Biden got us out. The economy is great now.

 

[rjs330]

you learned, wages are rising faster than inflation.
Wage growth vs inflation U.S. 2024 | Statista

That's not true at all. Over Biden's four years they haven't kept up.

FactChecking Biden's State of the Union - FactCheck.org

Since his presidency started wages did not keep up. You might want to stop living in a fantasy world.

Wage growth vs inflation U.S. 2024 | Statista

Now you do have a point that February 2024 has been good. Will it keep up and will it overcome the past three years? Good luck convincing the rest of America that it will.

 

[iluvatar5150]

That's not true at all. Over Biden's four years they haven't kept up.

Wage growth vs inflation U.S. 2024 | Statista

Now you do have a point that February 2024 has been good. Will it keep up and will it overcome the past three years? Good luck convincing the rest of America that it will.

That chart only overlays wage growth with inflation rates, it doesn't add them together. What you want is this:

Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over: Men

Graph and download economic data for Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over: Men (LES1252881900Q) from Q1 1979 to Q4 2023 about full-time, males, salaries, workers, earnings, 16 years +, wages, median, real, employment, and USA.

fred.stlouisfed.org

It is true that real wages right now are not as high as they were when Biden took office. But that's partly because inflation numbers had started bouncing around in 2020 in a way that cause real wages to spike and then start falling. Biden took office at the beginning of Q2 2021, after they'd already started falling.

If we want to filter out the fluctuations that happened during covid, real wages now are above where they were in 2019.

 

[QvQ]

A number of complex factors helped to create the conditions necessary for the Great Depression—adherence to the gold standard was just one of those factors.

I can agree
During the interwar period:
1) The nation was actually operating on the bank lending/paper money model.
2) The adherence to the gold standard was diminishing the supply of readily negotiable currency (paper) in circulation effectively strangling the economy.

One old man told me that during the Great Depression there were plenty of things to buy but no money.

These times are not so much like 1929 as akin to the Depression of 1873.

 

[hislegacy]

I lived through years of double digit inflation as a young married mom in the 1970's, and we survived.

Yes, we both survived Jimmy Carter's runaway inflation and are now reliving it in like measure.

Our fond hope is that the end of joe's first term will also be like the end of Carter's with a landslide victory and 12 years of Conservative Republican leadership helping regain what the failed economic policies of a Democratic President foisted on the American middle class and poor.

LOCAL NEWS ​

Inflation forces US families to spend $709 more a month than two years ago​

August 11, 2023 / 11:19 AM EDT / CNN​

New York -- US inflation has had a snowballing effect on family budgets.​

​

The typical American household spent $709 more in July than they did two years ago to buy the same goods and services, according to Moody's Analytics.​

​

That averages out to an additional $8,500.00 a year for maintaining food, lodging etc.

If that is a Triumph of Bidenomics - I would hate to see what he considers a failure.

 

[The Barbarian]

Yes, we both survived Jimmy Carter's runaway inflation and are now reliving it in like measure.

You think 3.2% is runaway inflation? We've located the problem.

Current US Inflation Rates: 2000-2024

The annual inflation rate for the United States was 3.2% for the 12 months ending February, compared to the previous rate of 3.1%, according to U.S. Labor Department data published on March 12, 2024. The next inflation update is scheduled for release on April 10 at 8:30 a.m. ET, providing...

www.usinflationcalculator.com

The pandemic is over, and the recovery is doing well.

The typical American household spent $709 more in July than they did two years ago to buy the same goods and services, according to Moody's Analytics.

But even in your cherry-picked months, average wages were over $7,000 higher in 2023 than in 2021.

If that is a Triumph of Bidenomics

It's not just wages rising faster than inflation. It's also a very low inflation rate and rising GDP. Learn about it here:

Why the US economy has powered ahead of other rich nations ​

Not all pandemic recoveries are created equal.

The world’s richest economies have taken diverging paths in recuperating from the devastating effects of Covid-19.

At a time when multiple forces and crises — wars, geopolitical tensions, the pandemic’s lingering aftershocks, high inflation and steep borrowing costs — weigh on global growth, there have been few bright spots.

The US economy is one of them. Gross domestic product in the United States grew at a remarkable 5.2% in the third quarter, ahead of China, long the engine of global growth.

“The US has really outperformed relative to other countries for the past year,” Innes McFee, chief global economist for Oxford Economics, told CNN.

The United States has powered ahead of the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada and other advanced economies this year.

Last month, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development became the latest intergovernmental body to upgrade its forecasts for US growth this year and next, while downgrading the outlook for the 20 countries that use the euro currency.

That followed similar moves by the Washington-based International Monetary Fund in October.

The IMF now expects US GDP to expand by 2.1% this year and 1.5% in 2024 — more than double the growth rates forecast for the UK economy and well ahead of the euro area, which is predicted to grow 0.7% this year and 1.2% next year.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/economy/us-economy-china-europe/index.html

Just as Trump wasn't wholly responsible for the economic troubles we passed through, Biden isn't entirely responsible for the remarkable recovery; other factors were significant. But ultimately, Trump failed and Biden is successful.

 

[JustOneWay]

Yes, we both survived Jimmy Carter's runaway inflation and are now reliving it in like measure.

Untrue. Not even close. Why post such untruths?