Wish this sentiment holds steady. But there will undoubtedly be forthcoming protests in all the hot spots by those just looking for an excuse to smash a window.
One of the legacies of Trump's success is that there are no longer any norms of behavior that can be expected from our leaders. He is a uniquely immoral and narcissistic figure, but we will see a procession of unfit, divisive leaders now that the bar for decency, civility and honesty has been dropped to the floor.
One of the legacies of Trump's success is that there are no longer any norms of behavior that can be expected from our leaders. He is a uniquely immoral and narcissistic figure, but we will see a procession of unfit, divisive leaders now that the bar for decency, civility and honesty has been dropped to the floor.
Unless they are a democrat...then we kick them to the curb immediately ala Franken
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018) The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
Wish this sentiment holds steady. But there will undoubtedly be forthcoming protests in all the hot spots by those just looking for an excuse to smash a window.
What kind of lame gaslighting is this?
Super lame since that's not what gaslighting is.
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,304
One of the legacies of Trump's success is that there are no longer any norms of behavior that can be expected from our leaders. He is a uniquely immoral and narcissistic figure, but we will see a procession of unfit, divisive leaders now that the bar for decency, civility and honesty has been dropped to the floor.
And it's just the beginning. The starting gun has just been fired and the long race has only begun. And the MAGA voters actually believe they will benefit from this. How utterly short-sighted and foolish.
As Dan Rather said, "There is a possibility [I would call it a likelihood] that Americans will experience buyer’s remorse, and quickly."
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
One of the legacies of Trump's success is that there are no longer any norms of behavior that can be expected from our leaders. He is a uniquely immoral and narcissistic figure, but we will see a procession of unfit, divisive leaders now that the bar for decency, civility and honesty has been dropped to the floor.
we already saw it with Lauren Baboon and MTG. You're right. It's only going to get worse.
"Oh Canada...you're beautiful when you're drunk" -EV 8/14/93
So how long till all the investigations are just swept away into oblivion J Smith I’m sure is not going to keep going he’s already started winding down the investigations!
Wish this sentiment holds steady. But there will undoubtedly be forthcoming protests in all the hot spots by those just looking for an excuse to smash a window.
What kind of lame gaslighting is this?
Super lame since that's not what gaslighting is.
It is exactly that. There absolutely would’ve been window smashing and all kinds of violent protesting if trump had lost. Haven’t seen that from the other side after an election.
Wish this sentiment holds steady. But there will undoubtedly be forthcoming protests in all the hot spots by those just looking for an excuse to smash a window.
What kind of lame gaslighting is this?
Super lame since that's not what gaslighting is.
It is exactly that.
>>>Not following how any of the above would fit the definition of gaslighting.
There absolutely would’ve been window smashing and all kinds of violent protesting if trump had lost.
>>>Agreed and never made a statement saying there wouldn't have been.
Haven’t seen that from the other side after an election.
>>>Move to Seattle/Olympia/Portland. There are people who make careers out of it.
Trump’s economic plans would worsen inflation, experts say
They fear that Trump's proposals would “reignite’’ inflation, which has plummeted since peaking at 9.1% in 2022 and is nearly back to the Fed’s 2% target.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks about the tax code and manufacturing at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Savannah, Ga. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
With characteristic bravado, Donald Trump has vowed that if voters return him to the White House, “inflation will vanish completely.”
It’s a message tailored for Americans who are still exasperated by the jump in consumer prices that began 3 1/2 years ago.
Yet most mainstream economists say Trump’s policy proposals wouldn’t vanquish inflation. They’d make it worse. They warn that his plans to impose huge tariffs on imported goods, deport millions of migrant workers and demand a voice in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies would likely send prices surging.
Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a letter in June expressing fear that Trump’s proposals would “reignite’’ inflation, which has plummeted since peaking at 9.1% in 2022 and is nearly back to the Fed’s 2% target.
Last month, the Peterson Institute for International Economics predicted that Trump’s policies would drive consumer prices sharply higher two years into his second term. Peterson’s analysis concluded that inflation, which would otherwise register 1.9% in 2026, would instead jump to between 6% and 9.3% if Trump’s economic proposals were adopted.
Many economists aren’t thrilled with Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic agenda, either. They dismiss, for example, her proposal to combat price gouging as an ineffective tool against high grocery prices. But they don’t regard her policies as particularly inflationary.
Moody’s Analytics has estimated that Harris’ policies would leave the inflation outlook virtually unchanged, even if she enjoyed a Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress. An unfettered Trump, by contrast, would leave prices higher by 1.1 percentage points in 2025 and 0.8 percentage points in 2026.
Consumers pay for tariffs
Taxes on imports — tariffs — are Trump’s go-to economic policy. He argues that tariffs protect American factory jobs from foreign competition and deliver a host of other benefits.
While in office, Trump started a trade war with China, imposing high tariffs on most Chinese goods. He also raised import taxes on foreign steel and aluminum, washing machines and solar panels. He has grander plans for a second term: Trump wants to impose a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods and a “universal’’ tariff of 10% or 20% on everything else that enters the United States.
Trump insists that the cost of taxing imported goods is absorbed by the foreign countries. The truth is that U.S. importers pay the tariff — and then typically pass along that cost to consumers in the form of higher prices. Americans themselves end up bearing the cost.
Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute have calculated that Trump’s proposed 60% tax on Chinese imports and his high-end 20% tariff on everything else would, in combination, impose an after-tax loss on a typical American household of $2,600 a year.
The Trump campaign notes that U.S. inflation remained low even as Trump aggressively imposed tariffs as president.
But Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said that the magnitude of Trump’s current tariff proposals has vastly changed the calculations. “The Trump tariffs in 2018-19 didn’t have as large an impact as the tariffs were only just over $300 billion in mostly Chinese imports,’’ he said. “The former president is now talking about tariffs on over $3 trillion in imported goods.”
And the inflationary backdrop was different during Trump’s first term when the Fed worried that inflation was too low, not too high.
Pennsylvania’s general election is Tuesday, Nov. 5. Here’s what you should know beforehand, from election deadlines to who’s on the ballot.
6 months ago
Trump would reverse an immigration surge that helped ease inflation
Trump, who has invoked incendiary rhetoric about immigrants, has promised the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history.
Many economists say the increased immigration over the past couple years helped tame inflation while avoiding a recession.
The surge in foreign-born workers has made it easier for fill vacancies. That helps cool inflation by easing the pressure on employers to sharply raise pay and to pass on their higher labor costs by increasing prices.
Net immigration — arrivals minus departures — reached 3.3 million in 2023, more than triple what the government had expected. Employers needed the new arrivals. As the economy roared back from pandemic lockdowns, companies struggled to hire enough workers to keep up with customer orders.
Immigrants filled the gap. Over the past four years, the number of people in the United States who either have a job or are looking for one rose by nearly 8.5 million. Roughly 72% of them were foreign born.
Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson of the Brookings Institution found that by raising the supply of workers. the influx of immigrants allowed the United States to generate jobs without overheating the economy.
In the past, economists estimated that America’s employers could add no more than 100,000 jobs a month without igniting inflation. But when Edelberg and Watson factored in the immigration surge, they found that monthly job growth could reach 160,000 to 200,000 without exerting upward pressure on prices.
Trump’s mass deportations, if carried out, would change everything. The Peterson Institute calculates that the U.S. inflation rate would be 3.5 percentage points higher in 2026 if Trump managed to deport all 8.3 million undocumented immigrant workers thought to be working in the United States.
A politicized Fed would make inflation-fighting harder
Trump alarmed many economists in August by saying he would seek to have “a say” in the Fed’s interest rate decisions.
The Fed is the government’s chief inflation-fighter. It attacks high inflation by raising interest rates to restrain borrowing and spending, slow the economy and cool the rate of price increases.
Economic research has found that the Fed and other central banks can properly manage inflation only if they’re kept independent of political pressure. That’s because raising rates can cause economic pain — perhaps a recession — so it’s anathema to politicians seeking reelection.
As president, Trump frequently hounded Jerome Powell, the Fed chair he had chosen, to lower rates to try to juice the economy. For many economists, Trump’s public pressure on Powell exceeded even the attempts that Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon made to push previous Fed chairs to keep rates low — moves that were widely blamed for helping spur the chronic inflation of the late 1960s and ’70s.
The Peterson Institute report found that upending the Fed’s independence would increase inflation by 2 percentage points a year.
Wish this sentiment holds steady. But there will undoubtedly be forthcoming protests in all the hot spots by those just looking for an excuse to smash a window.
What kind of lame gaslighting is this?
Super lame since that's not what gaslighting is.
It is exactly that.
>>>Not following how any of the above would fit the definition of gaslighting.
There absolutely would’ve been window smashing and all kinds of violent protesting if trump had lost.
>>>Agreed and never made a statement saying there wouldn't have been.
Haven’t seen that from the other side after an election.
>>>Move to Seattle/Olympia/Portland. There are people who make careers out of it.
Yeah no, never seen it happen. But you keep on trucking along lil buddy.
Wish this sentiment holds steady. But there will undoubtedly be forthcoming protests in all the hot spots by those just looking for an excuse to smash a window.
What kind of lame gaslighting is this?
Super lame since that's not what gaslighting is.
It is exactly that.
>>>Not following how any of the above would fit the definition of gaslighting.
There absolutely would’ve been window smashing and all kinds of violent protesting if trump had lost.
>>>Agreed and never made a statement saying there wouldn't have been.
Haven’t seen that from the other side after an election.
>>>Move to Seattle/Olympia/Portland. There are people who make careers out of it.
Yeah no, never seen it happen. But you keep on trucking along lil buddy.
Wish this sentiment holds steady. But there will undoubtedly be forthcoming protests in all the hot spots by those just looking for an excuse to smash a window.
What kind of lame gaslighting is this?
Super lame since that's not what gaslighting is.
It is exactly that.
>>>Not following how any of the above would fit the definition of gaslighting.
There absolutely would’ve been window smashing and all kinds of violent protesting if trump had lost.
>>>Agreed and never made a statement saying there wouldn't have been.
Haven’t seen that from the other side after an election.
>>>Move to Seattle/Olympia/Portland. There are people who make careers out of it.
People in Portland busting shit aren’t Biden/Harris supporters. It’s not the same thing.
Wish this sentiment holds steady. But there will undoubtedly be forthcoming protests in all the hot spots by those just looking for an excuse to smash a window.
What kind of lame gaslighting is this?
Super lame since that's not what gaslighting is.
It is exactly that.
>>>Not following how any of the above would fit the definition of gaslighting.
There absolutely would’ve been window smashing and all kinds of violent protesting if trump had lost.
>>>Agreed and never made a statement saying there wouldn't have been.
Haven’t seen that from the other side after an election.
>>>Move to Seattle/Olympia/Portland. There are people who make careers out of it.
Yeah no, never seen it happen. But you keep on trucking along lil buddy.
Will do, have a great day tiger.
"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
Wish this sentiment holds steady. But there will undoubtedly be forthcoming protests in all the hot spots by those just looking for an excuse to smash a window.
What kind of lame gaslighting is this?
Super lame since that's not what gaslighting is.
It is exactly that.
>>>Not following how any of the above would fit the definition of gaslighting.
There absolutely would’ve been window smashing and all kinds of violent protesting if trump had lost.
>>>Agreed and never made a statement saying there wouldn't have been.
Haven’t seen that from the other side after an election.
>>>Move to Seattle/Olympia/Portland. There are people who make careers out of it.
People in Portland busting shit aren’t Biden/Harris supporters. It’s not the same thing.
I believe true moderates saw this coming. I noticed that there were way less signs out than there usually are around here(Northern New England). I told my wife there is a lot more support for Trump this time around. Typically most people around the towns surrounding mine have some sort of sign up supporting or criticism a candidate.
I believe a lot of moderates didn't want to admit who they were voting for due to Trump being a horrible (in my opinion) person. Hopefully the Democratic party pulls away from the far left and makes a comeback next time around.
Hopefully the Republicans will resist the temptation to enact far right policies while they control, the House, Senate and presidency.
I believe true moderates saw this coming. I noticed that there were way less signs out than there usually are around here(Northern New England). I told my wife there is a lot more support for Trump this time around. Typically most people around the towns surrounding mine have some sort of sign up supporting or criticism a candidate.
I believe a lot of moderates didn't want to admit who they were voting for due to Trump being a horrible (in my opinion) person. Hopefully the Democratic party pulls away from the far left and makes a comeback next time around.
Hopefully the Republicans will resist the temptation to enact far right policies while they control, the House, Senate and presidency.
As an independent, I don't understand this point of view. The Republican party consists almost entirely of radicals. Most of the moderates have left the party since Trump. Most of the elected moderates have been primaried by more radical MAGA types. The Democrats are not beholden to the far left to the extent that the Republicans are beholden to the far right. Two of the key factions in the Biden coalition that won the 2020 election were socially conservative black church ladies and moderate suburban women. Look at it this way. Far-right voters voted for Trump enthusiastically. Nothing he does can dissuade them from supporting him. Far-left voters (the pro-Hamas people, the defund-the-police people) either held their nose while voting for Harris or didn't vote at all, because she's not actually as radical as they are.
One of the comical thing about our politics is how the Republicans successfully paint Democrats as radicals when their party is the one that wants to fire the civil servants, overturn the long-enshrined right to abortion, abandon NATO, destroy the administrative state, and overturn elections. The Republicans get an amazing amount of mileage out of fringe issues like transgender rights. (I don't mean to sound dismissive of transgender rights, but the fact is that a very small number of voters are making voting decisions based on where the parties stand on that issue. Many Democrats are ambivalent about trans rights, and even among the majority of Democrats who support trans rights, it is not high on their list of top issues. But Republicans manage to convince people that an overwhelming majority of Democrats want to turn your little boy into a little girl. It says a lot about the influence of Republican media that hammers home these wedge issues all day every day.)
I believe true moderates saw this coming. I noticed that there were way less signs out than there usually are around here(Northern New England). I told my wife there is a lot more support for Trump this time around. Typically most people around the towns surrounding mine have some sort of sign up supporting or criticism a candidate.
I believe a lot of moderates didn't want to admit who they were voting for due to Trump being a horrible (in my opinion) person. Hopefully the Democratic party pulls away from the far left and makes a comeback next time around.
Hopefully the Republicans will resist the temptation to enact far right policies while they control, the House, Senate and presidency.
As an independent, I don't understand this point of view. The Republican party consists almost entirely of radicals. Most of the moderates have left the party since Trump. Most of the elected moderates have been primaried by more radical MAGA types. The Democrats are not beholden to the far left to the extent that the Republicans are beholden to the far right. Two of the key factions in the Biden coalition that won the 2020 election were socially conservative black church ladies and moderate suburban women. Look at it this way. Far-right voters voted for Trump enthusiastically. Nothing he does can dissuade them from supporting him. Far-left voters (the pro-Hamas people, the defund-the-police people) either held their nose while voting for Harris or didn't vote at all, because she's not actually as radical as they are.
One of the comical thing about our politics is how the Republicans successfully paint Democrats as radicals when their party is the one that wants to fire the civil servants, overturn the long-enshrined right to abortion, abandon NATO, destroy the administrative state, and overturn elections. The Republicans get an amazing amount of mileage out of fringe issues like transgender rights. (I don't mean to sound dismissive of transgender rights, but the fact is that a very small number of voters are making voting decisions based on where the parties stand on that issue. Many Democrats are ambivalent about trans rights, and even among the majority of Democrats who support trans rights, it is not high on their list of top issues. But Republicans manage to convince people that an overwhelming majority of Democrats want to turn your little boy into a little girl. It says a lot about the influence of Republican media that hammers home these wedge issues all day every day.)
While the second sentence is true, I'm not sure the first is...at least in terms of how people vote. If the moderates were not voting MAGA, MAGA would be toast.
The first sentence of the second paragraph is spot-on, though I don't know that it's the candidates...more podcasters, AM radio, and all the other echo-chambers and fringe-mainstream sources that spend 23.5 hours per day spewing fear, shock, and outrage.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
I believe true moderates saw this coming. I noticed that there were way less signs out than there usually are around here(Northern New England). I told my wife there is a lot more support for Trump this time around. Typically most people around the towns surrounding mine have some sort of sign up supporting or criticism a candidate.
I believe a lot of moderates didn't want to admit who they were voting for due to Trump being a horrible (in my opinion) person. Hopefully the Democratic party pulls away from the far left and makes a comeback next time around.
Hopefully the Republicans will resist the temptation to enact far right policies while they control, the House, Senate and presidency.
As an independent, I don't understand this point of view. The Republican party consists almost entirely of radicals. Most of the moderates have left the party since Trump. Most of the elected moderates have been primaried by more radical MAGA types. The Democrats are not beholden to the far left to the extent that the Republicans are beholden to the far right. Two of the key factions in the Biden coalition that won the 2020 election were socially conservative black church ladies and moderate suburban women. Look at it this way. Far-right voters voted for Trump enthusiastically. Nothing he does can dissuade them from supporting him. Far-left voters (the pro-Hamas people, the defund-the-police people) either held their nose while voting for Harris or didn't vote at all, because she's not actually as radical as they are.
One of the comical thing about our politics is how the Republicans successfully paint Democrats as radicals when their party is the one that wants to fire the civil servants, overturn the long-enshrined right to abortion, abandon NATO, destroy the administrative state, and overturn elections. The Republicans get an amazing amount of mileage out of fringe issues like transgender rights. (I don't mean to sound dismissive of transgender rights, but the fact is that a very small number of voters are making voting decisions based on where the parties stand on that issue. Many Democrats are ambivalent about trans rights, and even among the majority of Democrats who support trans rights, it is not high on their list of top issues. But Republicans manage to convince people that an overwhelming majority of Democrats want to turn your little boy into a little girl. It says a lot about the influence of Republican media that hammers home these wedge issues all day every day.)
It was just an observation and feeling I had the last couple weeks. I can only speak to the area in which I live in.
I appreciate your response. it was both civil and had decent points.
Trump’s First Broken Promise Will Be 3% Mortgage Rates
A cost-of-living backlash shaped the presidential election. But voters will be disappointed when they find out interest rates on home loans and big-ticket items won’t be coming down.
Jonathan Levin is a columnist focused on US markets and economics. Previously, he worked as a Bloomberg journalist in the US, Brazil and Mexico. He is a CFA charterholder.
Inflation has been a crucial issue for voters.
Photographer: Adam Gray/Getty Images North America
In many ways, Donald Trump was elected to a second presidency as part of a cost-of-living backlash, and unaffordable housing was at the center of Americans’ frustration. High home prices and the highest mortgage rates since the financial crisis meant that as much as a third of the country was effectively locked out of the homeownership dream. That, in turn, helped explain why Americans gave the economy such low marks in consumer sentiment surveys and political polls even as official inflation statistics cooled and the stock market boomed alongside gross domestic product.
The early signs from mortgage and bond markets aren’t encouraging on that front. Trump will have to dramatically moderate his agenda if he’s going to meet voters’ expectations and, even then, his promise to drive mortgage rates down to 3% or lower seems well out of reach in the absence of a sharp economic downturn.
At the time of writing, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes, a key reference for 30-year mortgages, was up 18 basis points to 4.45% and hovering near the highest since July (with even more dramatic superlatives not far off). Even before his victory was sealed, mortgage rates had surged toward 7% from close to 6% partly on his improving prospects, and home-loan applications had been declining.
The reasons behind the moves weren’t particularly surprising. Throughout the campaign, Trump spooked most mainstream economists with his comments about 60% tariffs on Chinese imports and duties of as much as 20% on all others. He also promised mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, which could dramatically curb labor supply in key fields such as construction and child care, in addition to the toll it would take on families. Add to that the eye-popping deficit math of actually implementing Trump’s various tax promises (expanding the 2017 tax cuts, no tax on tips, etc.) and you can understand why inflation concerns have resurfaced and fixed-income traders have demanded a premium for the emerging risk.
Trump is very good at finding scapegoats for America’s problems, and I have little doubt that he’ll try that again.
In his first presidency, he famously berated Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Twitter for not lowering interest rates amid his trade war with China. “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy,” he said, Powell or China’s President Xi Jinping. Trump may well train his threats on Powell once again if borrowing costs remain elevated, but I don’t think it will help. After all, mortgage rates aren’t set at the Fed. The central bank’s half-percentage-point interest rate cut in September was met with a run-up in borrowing costs, as markets weighed both an improving US economy and the prospect of a second Trump presidency. And Trump will find it hard to bully the invisible bond vigilantes driving yields higher.
It’s possible, of course, that bond markets are overreacting. On the issue of tariffs, for instance, Trump’s apologists argue that the attention-getting numbers that Trump has bandied about in the campaign were really just threats to gain leverage in negotiations with America’s trade partners. Under this theory, the bond yields — and mortgage rates — should come down once everyone figures out what the president-elect is up to. Maybe so, but that’s inconsistent with the words out of Trump’s own mouth.
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In an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait last month, Trump said: “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff, and it’s my favorite word.” And even if it really is gamesmanship, the ploy comes at the expense of first-time homebuyers who have been waiting patiently on the sidelines for years for an opportunity to enter the market. If Trump draws out the uncertainty or follows though with his threats, those buyers could be waiting for months or years more.
Mortgages may be the biggest household borrowing cost at stake, but they’re not the only one. His policy stance may also be reflected in auto loans and credit card rates, among others. Already, auto and credit card delinquencies are on the rise, especially among those ages 18-39. It is far from clear what the Fed itself would do about all of this, but it stands to reason that policymakers will at least slow the pace of cuts on its target rate while it awaits clearer signals, adding another weight on bond markets.
If Trump wants to fulfil the promises he made on the campaign trail, he’ll have to start by making peace with fixed-income markets. The sooner he does so, the better.
Comments
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt2
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
-EV 8/14/93
https://whyy.org/articles/trump-economic-plan-worsen-inflation/
Trump’s economic plans would worsen inflation, experts say
They fear that Trump's proposals would “reignite’’ inflation, which has plummeted since peaking at 9.1% in 2022 and is nearly back to the Fed’s 2% target.
By- Associated Press
- Paul Wiseman, Christopher Rugaber
October 15, 2024
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks about the tax code and manufacturing at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Savannah, Ga. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
With characteristic bravado, Donald Trump has vowed that if voters return him to the White House, “inflation will vanish completely.”
It’s a message tailored for Americans who are still exasperated by the jump in consumer prices that began 3 1/2 years ago.
Yet most mainstream economists say Trump’s policy proposals wouldn’t vanquish inflation. They’d make it worse. They warn that his plans to impose huge tariffs on imported goods, deport millions of migrant workers and demand a voice in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policies would likely send prices surging.
Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a letter in June expressing fear that Trump’s proposals would “reignite’’ inflation, which has plummeted since peaking at 9.1% in 2022 and is nearly back to the Fed’s 2% target.
Last month, the Peterson Institute for International Economics predicted that Trump’s policies would drive consumer prices sharply higher two years into his second term. Peterson’s analysis concluded that inflation, which would otherwise register 1.9% in 2026, would instead jump to between 6% and 9.3% if Trump’s economic proposals were adopted.
Many economists aren’t thrilled with Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic agenda, either. They dismiss, for example, her proposal to combat price gouging as an ineffective tool against high grocery prices. But they don’t regard her policies as particularly inflationary.
Moody’s Analytics has estimated that Harris’ policies would leave the inflation outlook virtually unchanged, even if she enjoyed a Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress. An unfettered Trump, by contrast, would leave prices higher by 1.1 percentage points in 2025 and 0.8 percentage points in 2026.
Consumers pay for tariffs
Taxes on imports — tariffs — are Trump’s go-to economic policy. He argues that tariffs protect American factory jobs from foreign competition and deliver a host of other benefits.
While in office, Trump started a trade war with China, imposing high tariffs on most Chinese goods. He also raised import taxes on foreign steel and aluminum, washing machines and solar panels. He has grander plans for a second term: Trump wants to impose a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods and a “universal’’ tariff of 10% or 20% on everything else that enters the United States.
Trump insists that the cost of taxing imported goods is absorbed by the foreign countries. The truth is that U.S. importers pay the tariff — and then typically pass along that cost to consumers in the form of higher prices. Americans themselves end up bearing the cost.
Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute have calculated that Trump’s proposed 60% tax on Chinese imports and his high-end 20% tariff on everything else would, in combination, impose an after-tax loss on a typical American household of $2,600 a year.
The Trump campaign notes that U.S. inflation remained low even as Trump aggressively imposed tariffs as president.
But Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said that the magnitude of Trump’s current tariff proposals has vastly changed the calculations. “The Trump tariffs in 2018-19 didn’t have as large an impact as the tariffs were only just over $300 billion in mostly Chinese imports,’’ he said. “The former president is now talking about tariffs on over $3 trillion in imported goods.”
And the inflationary backdrop was different during Trump’s first term when the Fed worried that inflation was too low, not too high.
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Trump would reverse an immigration surge that helped ease inflation
Trump, who has invoked incendiary rhetoric about immigrants, has promised the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history.
Many economists say the increased immigration over the past couple years helped tame inflation while avoiding a recession.
The surge in foreign-born workers has made it easier for fill vacancies. That helps cool inflation by easing the pressure on employers to sharply raise pay and to pass on their higher labor costs by increasing prices.
Net immigration — arrivals minus departures — reached 3.3 million in 2023, more than triple what the government had expected. Employers needed the new arrivals. As the economy roared back from pandemic lockdowns, companies struggled to hire enough workers to keep up with customer orders.
Immigrants filled the gap. Over the past four years, the number of people in the United States who either have a job or are looking for one rose by nearly 8.5 million. Roughly 72% of them were foreign born.
Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson of the Brookings Institution found that by raising the supply of workers. the influx of immigrants allowed the United States to generate jobs without overheating the economy.
In the past, economists estimated that America’s employers could add no more than 100,000 jobs a month without igniting inflation. But when Edelberg and Watson factored in the immigration surge, they found that monthly job growth could reach 160,000 to 200,000 without exerting upward pressure on prices.
Trump’s mass deportations, if carried out, would change everything. The Peterson Institute calculates that the U.S. inflation rate would be 3.5 percentage points higher in 2026 if Trump managed to deport all 8.3 million undocumented immigrant workers thought to be working in the United States.
A politicized Fed would make inflation-fighting harder
Trump alarmed many economists in August by saying he would seek to have “a say” in the Fed’s interest rate decisions.
The Fed is the government’s chief inflation-fighter. It attacks high inflation by raising interest rates to restrain borrowing and spending, slow the economy and cool the rate of price increases.
Economic research has found that the Fed and other central banks can properly manage inflation only if they’re kept independent of political pressure. That’s because raising rates can cause economic pain — perhaps a recession — so it’s anathema to politicians seeking reelection.
As president, Trump frequently hounded Jerome Powell, the Fed chair he had chosen, to lower rates to try to juice the economy. For many economists, Trump’s public pressure on Powell exceeded even the attempts that Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon made to push previous Fed chairs to keep rates low — moves that were widely blamed for helping spur the chronic inflation of the late 1960s and ’70s.
The Peterson Institute report found that upending the Fed’s independence would increase inflation by 2 percentage points a year.
I believe a lot of moderates didn't want to admit who they were voting for due to Trump being a horrible (in my opinion) person. Hopefully the Democratic party pulls away from the far left and makes a comeback next time around.
Hopefully the Republicans will resist the temptation to enact far right policies while they control, the House, Senate and presidency.
One of the comical thing about our politics is how the Republicans successfully paint Democrats as radicals when their party is the one that wants to fire the civil servants, overturn the long-enshrined right to abortion, abandon NATO, destroy the administrative state, and overturn elections. The Republicans get an amazing amount of mileage out of fringe issues like transgender rights. (I don't mean to sound dismissive of transgender rights, but the fact is that a very small number of voters are making voting decisions based on where the parties stand on that issue. Many Democrats are ambivalent about trans rights, and even among the majority of Democrats who support trans rights, it is not high on their list of top issues. But Republicans manage to convince people that an overwhelming majority of Democrats want to turn your little boy into a little girl. It says a lot about the influence of Republican media that hammers home these wedge issues all day every day.)
The first sentence of the second paragraph is spot-on, though I don't know that it's the candidates...more podcasters, AM radio, and all the other echo-chambers and fringe-mainstream sources that spend 23.5 hours per day spewing fear, shock, and outrage.
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I appreciate your response. it was both civil and had decent points.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-11-06/trump-s-first-broken-promise-will-be-3-mortgage-rates-election-2024
Trump’s First Broken Promise Will Be 3% Mortgage Rates
A cost-of-living backlash shaped the presidential election. But voters will be disappointed when they find out interest rates on home loans and big-ticket items won’t be coming down.
Inflation has been a crucial issue for voters.
Photographer: Adam Gray/Getty Images North AmericaListen
4:25
In many ways, Donald Trump was elected to a second presidency as part of a cost-of-living backlash, and unaffordable housing was at the center of Americans’ frustration. High home prices and the highest mortgage rates since the financial crisis meant that as much as a third of the country was effectively locked out of the homeownership dream. That, in turn, helped explain why Americans gave the economy such low marks in consumer sentiment surveys and political polls even as official inflation statistics cooled and the stock market boomed alongside gross domestic product.
The early signs from mortgage and bond markets aren’t encouraging on that front. Trump will have to dramatically moderate his agenda if he’s going to meet voters’ expectations and, even then, his promise to drive mortgage rates down to 3% or lower seems well out of reach in the absence of a sharp economic downturn.
At the time of writing, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes, a key reference for 30-year mortgages, was up 18 basis points to 4.45% and hovering near the highest since July (with even more dramatic superlatives not far off). Even before his victory was sealed, mortgage rates had surged toward 7% from close to 6% partly on his improving prospects, and home-loan applications had been declining.
The reasons behind the moves weren’t particularly surprising. Throughout the campaign, Trump spooked most mainstream economists with his comments about 60% tariffs on Chinese imports and duties of as much as 20% on all others. He also promised mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, which could dramatically curb labor supply in key fields such as construction and child care, in addition to the toll it would take on families. Add to that the eye-popping deficit math of actually implementing Trump’s various tax promises (expanding the 2017 tax cuts, no tax on tips, etc.) and you can understand why inflation concerns have resurfaced and fixed-income traders have demanded a premium for the emerging risk.
Trump is very good at finding scapegoats for America’s problems, and I have little doubt that he’ll try that again.
In his first presidency, he famously berated Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Twitter for not lowering interest rates amid his trade war with China. “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy,” he said, Powell or China’s President Xi Jinping. Trump may well train his threats on Powell once again if borrowing costs remain elevated, but I don’t think it will help. After all, mortgage rates aren’t set at the Fed. The central bank’s half-percentage-point interest rate cut in September was met with a run-up in borrowing costs, as markets weighed both an improving US economy and the prospect of a second Trump presidency. And Trump will find it hard to bully the invisible bond vigilantes driving yields higher.
It’s possible, of course, that bond markets are overreacting. On the issue of tariffs, for instance, Trump’s apologists argue that the attention-getting numbers that Trump has bandied about in the campaign were really just threats to gain leverage in negotiations with America’s trade partners. Under this theory, the bond yields — and mortgage rates — should come down once everyone figures out what the president-elect is up to. Maybe so, but that’s inconsistent with the words out of Trump’s own mouth.
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In an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait last month, Trump said: “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff, and it’s my favorite word.” And even if it really is gamesmanship, the ploy comes at the expense of first-time homebuyers who have been waiting patiently on the sidelines for years for an opportunity to enter the market. If Trump draws out the uncertainty or follows though with his threats, those buyers could be waiting for months or years more.
Mortgages may be the biggest household borrowing cost at stake, but they’re not the only one. His policy stance may also be reflected in auto loans and credit card rates, among others. Already, auto and credit card delinquencies are on the rise, especially among those ages 18-39. It is far from clear what the Fed itself would do about all of this, but it stands to reason that policymakers will at least slow the pace of cuts on its target rate while it awaits clearer signals, adding another weight on bond markets.
If Trump wants to fulfil the promises he made on the campaign trail, he’ll have to start by making peace with fixed-income markets. The sooner he does so, the better.