re: Matt Walsh on affordability

I’m having the best year ever - not sure what people are so upset about - wages far outpace inflation

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GreatLakesTiger24

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Yeah, that's great, except for a little simple logic (something Walsh is not afraid to abandon if it stands between him and a good cry.)

You have to have some standard that you use in order to declare something "substandard." If something is substandard, then by necessity, there has to be a standard.

What's the standard you and Walsh are using for our standard of living?

When has life been more comfortable and equitable than it is now? When have more people had more opportunity to do and have more things than they do now? When has a society been less institutionally racist, sexist, etc. than this one? When did people enjoy more luxuries as a matter of daily life than they do now? When has the every day living experience gap of the rich vs the poor been narrower than it is today?

Never?

What other country has a better quality of life than we do based on those sorts of metrics?

None?

Then what is the standard?

I once saw a video with Dinesh DeSousa in which he was describing a conversation he had with Jesse Jackson. Jackson was complaining about some racial thing or other and DeSousa stopped him dead in his tracks. He said, "I have brown skin just like you and I've lived in other places in the world, and I can tell you that even with my brown skin I have more opportunity here than anywhere else I can go in the world. The reason you are constantly upset and resentful is that you are using a standard of comparison that does not exist, has never existed, and will never exist. It's a fictional standard. An ideal that you just made up in your head. And yeah, you're right, nothing will live up to that. If you use a standard of comparison that actually exists, the United States is the best that has ever existed in the history of the planet, and it's not close."

That's populism. That's Walsh, and that's you if you agree with him, and that was Jackson and every other race baiter in the country.

You can find all kinds of things to bitch about if you want to frame things like that. But the reality of the situation is that given a choice I wouldn't choose to be my age in 1940 or 1960 or 1970 or even 1980. Life is better now than it was then, even if affordability isn't better. That's just one aspect of life. (and actually, affordability has been much worse at times during American history than it is now.)

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Neither of us can be sure what would have happened. I think blue states would have locked down and most red states would only have locked down for a few weeks.

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Let's consider how political the whole shitshow was. I'll put it this way - if Obama had been president and heading for an easy reelection in November 2020 instead of Trump, there'd have been zero lockdowns and the CDC would have been preaching calm, and "all we can do is care for those in harm's way - the old/frail and already very unwell - as best we can. It would be crazy to shut schools down because kids aren't in jeopardy, and it would be counterproductive to shut commerce down, so let's all stay strong."

We would have ended up counting only about 30% of the Covid deaths we (supposedly) had under Trump, and we all would have celebrated as the country developed natural immunity.

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Trump could not command the CDC/NIH to preach anything. Fauci and company weren’t going passive on this. We know what would happen if Trump got more aggressive on reopening than his public health administration was preaching. We know it because it happened, and Trump was vilified in the press and by the democrats. And if anything, it made the left more militant about shutting down.

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Well, recall how it all started. It was Democrats that were dismissive of Covid. They're the ones that refused to change their actions/habits, right? It was the American Right, unfortunately led by f'n Tucker Carlson every night on his show, that started the national freakout about Covid.

I don't understand the point about Trump being incapable of directing the CDC/NIH, two organizations in the executive branch. I'm not suggesting he could have muzzled Fauci without a ton of bad press, but I think a rational approach to this whole shitshow would have started with the understanding that no matter what Trump did, he was toast in the press and Dems would be as difficult as possible. So he should have stuck to his guns and done what was right.

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Let's consider how political the whole shitshow was. I'll put it this way - if Obama had been president and heading for an easy reelection in November 2020 instead of Trump, there'd have been zero lockdowns and the CDC would have been preaching calm

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Yeah, we are in agreement on all of that. But Obama wasn’t president, and the left was in all out war on Trump.

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Well, recall how it all started. It was Democrats that were dismissive of Covid. They're the ones that refused to change their actions/habits, right? It was the American Right, unfortunately led by f'n Tucker Carlson every night on his show, that started the national freakout about Covid.

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Yep. I’m on board with this, too. I remember it all very well - Trump telling folks to avoid Chinatown and Pelosi criticizing him for it.

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but I think a rational approach to this whole shitshow would have started with the understanding that no matter what Trump did, he was toast in the press

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I think what you are missing is that we really didn’t know what covid was in the early days. And the factional wars took off like a rocket before we found out. The flip flop of the left and right was weird and bizarre, but it is easily understood by this: Trump was being guided by a balancing of the economy and the public health. His flip flop occurred because he realized that the virus wasn’t very deadly. The dems were being guided by OMB.

I see kids start their careers today at more than $100k a year. I started at $18k a year. Wages rose faster than anything. Kids today confuse wants with needs. You should not expect to get all your wants and you should have to budget to get all your needs. More than that is a symptom of affluenza…..

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You're the one who agrees with Bernie Sanders here.

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Actually I agree with JD Vance, and Donald Trump but gopE calls everyone who doesn't have libertarian economic policies socialist

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When they made trade agreements that allowed more free trade.

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Like letting China into the WTO? great win there buddy

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Because he used selective tariffs to block semicondictor dumping by Japan?

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to needlessly pay more for products so that a tiny fraction of Americans can benefit.

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Like Reagan did to help Harley Davidson? again learn some fricking history

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Yep..So? Again, what point do you think you're making when you say stuff like that?

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The politicians you support don't do what you and they claim to support
Populist Trump has cut more regulations than every GOPe politician in the last 30 years and done it with despite GOPe politicians trying to block him doing it

your policies and what you believe in don't work in today's world. The people you support are losers who fleece the American people

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When someone is manipulating the world market with respect to a particular product, it's a good strategy

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You do realize that just about every country we buy from does this in multiple industries? you think Europe plays by the rules? So those tarriffs are now ok for you

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Illegal immigration has pushed non-skilled American labor wages down even further. So if not for that, American factory jobs might command $20 an hour instead of $17.

Thus making the cost even greater for the average American by re-shoring more factory jobs.

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So now you support illegal immigration and are against re-shoring manufacturing
Glad we know where you stand you pos

We can't make it today Pappy!

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I see kids start their careers today at more than $100k a year. I started at $18k a year. Wages rose faster than anything. Kids today confuse wants with needs. You should not expect to get all your wants and you should have to budget to get all your needs. More than that is a symptom of affluenza…..

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The problem is that American society has become too comfortable and all perspective has been lost.

Refer back to my post above about having a standard by which to judge.

The average American—adjusted for inflation—has 900% more disposable income than they did in 1920, 290% more than 1960, and 144% more than 1980.

That's average. Median is a more accurate metric for this, so to be fair:

1920—250%
1960—70%
1980—27%

This "crisis" of affordability is mostly made up based on comparing today to 5 years ago. Hardly a blip on the timeline.

And yes, healthcare, higher education, and housing are more expensive now. They have increased at rates beyond inflation, no doubt. And people STILL have more disposable income than they used to.

And that's not because fewer people have homes or health insurance or go to college, either.

Home Ownership Health Insurance College

1920 45% 1% 3%

1960 62% 70% 8%

1980 64% 86% 16%

Today 65% 92% 39%

So again, the FACTS indicate that this "crisis of affordability" is mostly a populist fabrication like so many populist fabrications these days. The FACTS say that people now have more access to all three of the big outliers in terms of disproportionate price increases and STILL have more money left over than previous generations.

You can't tell a populist Zoomer or Gen Y that, though. They don't care about facts.

Actually, no populist does.

And Walsh is a populist.

My grandparents ate popcorn when money was tight.

I’m not arguing against your points. I’m saying Trump and his team cannot credibly argue those points after 2024.