Summary

President Joe Biden highlighted his administration’s economic record, citing consistent job growth and a 2.7% inflation rate drop from its 2022 peak.

December’s jobs report showed 256,000 new jobs and declining unemployment, signaling steady economic growth.

However, inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, and interest rates remain high, impacting homebuyers and businesses.

Public pessimism lingers on affordability as Biden passes a largely strong economy to his successor, Donald Trump.

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    I suppose I’m happy for the economy. I mean, I’m glad it’s doing better than ever, I guess, but I’ve got my own issues. Sorry if that sounds selfish, but it’s just hard for me to get too excited for the economy when I’m stressed about my own situation.

  • djsoren19@yiffit.net
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    23 days ago

    There’s also a part of this that could, if you were naive, be solved with time. My job gave me a solid raise last year, 4.9%. Assuming four years of Harris status quo could get inflation down to ~2.5%, and assuming I can maintain similar raises each year, I’d likely recover from the pandemic within the next four years. Inflation is a necessary evil, but when managed over time, it isn’t a big issue. Should work for everyone right, stupid Trumpies just don’t understand long-term economics!

    Except it ignores that corporations are colluding in duopolies across many industries to steadily raise their prices above inflation to maintain profit growth. It ignores that landlords are treating maximum rent hikes as the expectation rather than the exception. It ignores that climate change is globally impacting our supply lines for food.

    Inflation being healthy doesn’t mean a damn thing when unchecked capitalism is left rampant. The Biden administration, to their credit, did weakly try to fight corporate interests. However, they did nothing to fight the fully captured Supreme Court, which made Biden’s efforts so pitiful they resemble a controlled opposition.

    • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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      23 days ago

      Inflation is a necessary evil,

      Only in a capitalist system, that requires the exploitation of labor…

      • djsoren19@yiffit.net
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        23 days ago

        It’s required in any system that uses a fiat currency. Maybe a fiat currency is evil incarnate, but it also offers a lot of conveniences. Personally, I think I’d prefer having some number that translates my labor into spending units, and fiat currency works about as well as anything else when carefully managed.

        • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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          23 days ago

          Personally, I think I’d prefer having some number that translates my labor into spending units

          How about non-transferable labor vouchers?

          Even in a system with fiat currency, inflation is not a requirement. Its only a requirement under a capitalist system, that demands profits rise constantly.

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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      22 days ago

      Biden did elect a very effective FTC chair. She’s done some great work breaking monopolies and monopolistic practices.

      • djsoren19@yiffit.net
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        22 days ago

        The problem, as I alluded to, is that the Supreme Court is starting to hear the lawsuits filed in response to those policies and is striking them down as unconstitutional. It’s quite likely that things like NDAs being unenforceable will also get overturned.

        Everything Biden accomplished has either been grossly undermined, hindered, or reversed by the current corrupt Supreme Court. Completely ignoring them for his full four years, especially after Roe V Wade, was pure incompetency. Again, it gives credence to the idea of a controlled opposition. He was allowed to say and do some progressive things, but anything that stepped over the line the Supreme Court would stop. He could have packed the courts, used the big public outcry against the courts legitimacy to pack it with additional judges, and actually make a meaningful change to our country’s fate.

        Instead, Joe Biden will be remembered as a vain fool who gave the country to fascism. Nothing else he accomplished will matter, if any of it is still left.

        • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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          22 days ago

          Undermined by the supreme court? What is he supposed to do about that it’s a separate branch of government.

          The only people to blame for trumps election is the people who voted for him or a 3rd party. Joe Biden will be remembered badly because the right wing were incredibly successful in getting their attacks to propagate through the pop culture.

          • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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            22 days ago

            President has the right to nominate more judges. And with control of the Senate, they could have been sworn in. He wasn’t helpless, he just chose not to use the power he had.

            • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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              22 days ago

              He cant usurp judges with no reason other than political alignment. The bar for getting rid of a judge is extremely high and has only been done once in the history of the US in 1800s. Biden did all that he could he nominated a great judge when Stephen Breyer stepped down. The things you ask of Biden are out of the realm of possibility.

              • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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                21 days ago

                Never said anything about getting rid of existing judges. Did you know there is NO RULE limiting the Supreme Court to 9 judges?

  • AshMan85@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    Stockmarket does not determine inflation, cost of living does and we can barely afford food. Joe didn’t do shit, he maintained statues quo for the elite class. Eat the rich

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    What good is that when we couldn’t sentence the clown coming into office that is going to dismantle whatever gains we might make.

  • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    When the media or politicians report on ‘the economy’ they mean wealthy people’s money in investment capital and financial instrument earnings, not wages or savings for the working class.

  • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    Fuck the economy when garland let trump go. That’s biden’s fault. I will always remember Biden for that.

  • mydude@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    The state with the highest GDP in America is literally on fire on his way out…

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      To be fair… that State is on fire pretty regularly, the President has nothing to do with that, the shitty utilities not maintaining infrastructure properly are usually to blame.

    • hydrashok@sh.itjust.works
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      24 days ago

      Do you think the President is Smokey the Bear or something?

      Natural disaster! Must be that damn Biden’s fault! /s

  • themaninblack@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    Any steady hand would have accomplished this.

    The gloating, however, reminds me of my labor union’s incessant self-promotion of how their contract negotiating skills got us a 1.5% increase in a year where the prime rate stood at about 8%.

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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      22 days ago

      He isn’t gloating. He’s highlighting this issue to undermine common right-wing talking points. He’s trying to get this fact into Americans head so Trump can’t use it as an excuse to win another election(if he even holds another one)

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    24 days ago

    stronger than it was post obama but not strongest ever. heck that is just going to be harder and harder to do as time goes by.

    • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Don’t you know, fascism is actually great and they’ve been lying to us for years because they don’t want us to have it. Thankfully trump, the biggest fascist ever, is going to fix that for us.

  • frog_brawler@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    According to traditional economic indicators, that’s a true statement. There is an issue with traditional economic indicators however.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      Deflation is fine. Plenty of countries have been through deflation and they haven’t exploded. Japan is probably the best example.

      • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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        22 days ago

        You mean that period of Japan that they call “the lost decades”. No one would ever want their economy to go through that.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          You mean the decades their life expectancy actually grew? Japan showed that it can be managed. That it’s not this wild beast wall street would have you believe it is.

          • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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            21 days ago

            Really? Japanese life expectancy is the stat you’re going to pull up to justify this. Go take a look at the Japense life expectancy from 1950 to today and try and find the decade where their economy crashed. You cant because its a consistent increase not at all tied to their economic successes/failures.

            Its not wall street saying this is bad its the bank of Japan.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              21 days ago

              The Japanese version of Wall Street disliking deflation is not the great point you think it is. And yeah if it was so bad you would see a drop in statistics like life expectancy. The fact that people were able to largely keep going with their lives means it’s not the apocalypse.

              • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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                21 days ago

                Im sorry to be rude but you have no idea what you are talking about you dont even know what the bank of Japan is. The bank of Japan is the Japanese central bank that monitors and controls Japans monetary policy. Its nothing like wall street which is an american stock exchange.

                Also Life expectancy has so many contributing factors you cannot point to it and say “it didnt go down therefore this change was good”.

                • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                  21 days ago

                  Oh I’m sorry, the financial elite. Happy?

                  And yeah there are a lot of factors. But one pretty universal one is a functioning economy.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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        23 days ago

        BUt tHeY dIdnT kEep dOmInaTiNg Tech anD cArS

        Which has nothing at all to do with China, Korea, and Taiwan all rushing to be local and global competitors I’m sure.

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      23 days ago

      That’s fine, we’ve got other options. Let’s just see how big the disconnect needs to get before we start taking them.