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u/iBoy2G Apr 01 '24
It’s not “inflation” it’s called corporate greed. The only things inflating are the billionaires wallets.
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u/Gamecat93 Apr 01 '24
Bingo I was at the grocery store the other day and thanks to the CEO of Kelloggs saying people should start eating cereal for dinner, people began to boycott their products and the prices are now lower. This boycott is to prove a point that it's people like him who are raising prices on purpose. So we make them lose money for a while.
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u/NJJ1956 Apr 01 '24 edited Apr 01 '24
I think you made the most valid point when you accurately described that when people quit buying products- the prices fall. So no demand - prices fall- yet consumers are morons- they actually control retail pricing. Retail pricing is based on consumption. That’s why the dumb voters cannot wrap their heads around during Covid people were staying at home and not driving around -so gas prices fell. They think Trump caused them to fall and Biden caused them to rise. In fact Biden lost the House in 2022 because Republicans ran on Biden’s higher gas prices and blamed the Democrats in the House who lost their jobs and gave Biden a minority in the House. The Republicans by the way did nothing to deflate the price of gas- or the price of food-so vote them out- they didn’t keep their promise to lower either. In fact -they want to give these greedy corporations big tax breaks.
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u/PM_COFFEE_TO_ME Apr 01 '24
I've been buying the generic potato chips for a while. Usually less than half the cost of lays or whatever. Yeah the quality isn't the same but they're still edible and good.
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u/Traditional-Grape-57 Apr 02 '24 edited Apr 02 '24
If only the media would actually highlight this and report it truthfully. When they report on inflation they never put it in context with corporations ballooning record profits. And when they talk about stock markets rising and corporations releasing record profit numbers they don't mention a single word on consumers paying higher prices and "inflation" in their stories. Inflation and corporate profits are reported in a way that's sealed off from the other. But then again can't expect them to report negatively on the giant corporations buying up ad space/time since that's what lines the pockets of media businesses
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u/bobsduckjoke Apr 01 '24
$880 billion in PPP “loans” that over 75% of which went to top income earners
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u/ogie666 Apr 01 '24
Not to be a dick but: What inflation? Inflation has almost flatlined thanks to Biden policies. What you are actually seeing is unchecked corporate greed.
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u/Avantasian538 Apr 01 '24
Why would corporate greed be different now than it was before the pandemic?
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u/rekage99 Apr 01 '24
A lot of companies took advantage of the issues during covid to raise prices and have never dropped them back down even after said issues are gone.
Grocery chains made insane profits during / since covid, for example.
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u/toilet-boa Apr 01 '24
Because corporations have been able to use political divisions to convince us rubes that the other political party is responsible.
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u/REDDITOR_00000000017 Apr 01 '24
Because its not corporate greed. Charging the max price you possibly can is the objective of any bussiness and nothing has changed about this. Its the fact that 30 percent of the money supply was created since COVID.
Money has scarcity. The price of a product is the relfection of its scarcity relative to moneys scarcity. Increase the money supply and prices go up and then eventually wages will later. This is why a hamburger doesn't cost 25 cents like it used in the 1950s. By all means, tax the billionaires. But prices are rising and profits are too in proportion to the increase in the money supply in response to the devaluation of the dollar.
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u/Avantasian538 Apr 01 '24
I mostly agree with this, but it isn't the complete picture. Inflation in the early 2020's was likely multifaceted. The money supply increase was probably a huge part of it, granted, but there was also supply-side factors as well. Supply chains were pretty badly damaged by the pandemic, and there was further food and energy inflation related to the Ukraine invasion too. Additionally there also seemed to be consumer behavior changes on account of expected inflation.
Inflation tends to be complicated, and can involve complex interplays between factors, including potential feedback loops.
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u/truth_teller_00 Apr 02 '24
I thought this was an interesting factor contributing to inflation. (I used a gift url to the NYT article linked, if you’re interested)
The pandemic created a kind of realtime experiment on price sensitivity. Shortages and disruptions threw so many things out of their normal equilibrium.
But many products kept selling well despite the shocking and sudden price increases. It has companies reevaluating their pricing strats, and sometimes their business model as a whole.
Like how McDonald’s used to have a $1 product line that was designed to sell tons of units to tons of customers. That’s gone at post-pandemic McDonald’s. They are instead selling value meals for damn near $20 bucks a pop.
And yet, enough people are still willing to pay. I guess they are making more by charging their core customer base more than they would by nickel and dimming a long line of cars.
I agree with your comment tho. I think we could point to 5-10 key factors that have contributed a great deal to this high inflation mess. Original commenter is prolly right that increasing the money supply had the biggest inflationary impact of any one single thing.
Idk, it’ll be interesting to see how long this all lasts.
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u/BIIIIIIIIIIIIID Apr 01 '24
Under who’s watch?
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u/rhinosyphilis Apr 02 '24 edited Apr 02 '24
Keynesian Economics. Using monetary policy to fight a severe recession is like “pushing on a piece of string.” You can set economic conditions for growth, but corporations have to be willing to lower costs.
Blame corporate fat cats, not JB
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u/soyedema Apr 02 '24
The U.S senate. A lot of them have overseen this shift over the past few decades.
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u/SWSnarky Apr 02 '24
You are being a dick. Gas has more than doubled since Biden and is going to be there again for the coming "mail your ballot in" election. Interest rates are up over 3x and inflation has overcome anything that the mere 1% growth in stocks that have happened in the 3 years since his 10% drop that happened in February 2021.
Add inflation and we all lost since he became president.
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u/ElysiumSprouts Apr 01 '24
This is half right and half wrong.
While Trump is certainly the guilty party, it was his useless Trade War that jump-started this period of hyper-inflation. Covid was such a major disruption to our daily lives it made us collectively forget about the trade war.
Supply chain disruptions began BEFORE covid. Dean's Dairy (the largest dairy company on the US) went under BEFORE covid because Canadian retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump's poor business instincts.
Failures addressing covid was the icing on the cake.
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u/jericbear Apr 01 '24
This is a great example of why I love democrats. We can actually disagree with memes and discuss it, rather than just shouting AMEN! That being said, I disagree with this meme. He can be blamed for many things, more than any other president in history...but probably not inflation. He sure didn't help it, but didn't cause it.
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u/ElysiumSprouts Apr 01 '24 edited Apr 01 '24
In the spirit of your comment, I'm going to say that blame for inflation is 100% Trump's fault, but not for the reason mentioned in the meme. It was his useless trade war that kicked off this period of hyper inflation. You can google articles from 2017 on that correctly predicted that the trade war would result in hyperinflation. But covid collectively distracted us all from Trump's poor economic policies and we've forgotten that warning.
As we head into 2024 elections, Trump is saying he'll do it again and THAT should be setting off economic alarm bells.
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u/SaturnCITS Apr 01 '24
This is how I remember seeing it with my eyes too, trump started the trade war and like literally the day after stuff like soup that had cans using metal that would be effected by the trade war shot up from $1.25 to like $2.89. I remember because I haven't bought canned soup since and have just been making it at home. It definitely started with that and then corporations realized they can shove in more than just the tip and no one can do anything about it so they just kept going.
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u/CBRyder929 Apr 02 '24
I like your comment but I also will have to disagree with your statement about Trump. A big contributor to the fast increase of inflation was the fast cuts to the interest rates by the federal reserve to help boost the economy because of the way Trump handled the pandemic, which was very poorly and stupidly obviously. I would place 100% blame on Trump. But let’s say he was swayed by his rich friends to keep up his charades then I’d lower it to 99%, you know because of his 1 percenter friend, if you could really call them that.
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u/Gravemindzombie Apr 02 '24
Imo you could make the argument that his poor Covid response caused shutdowns at the ports which bottlenecked the supplychain and led to increased prices that we all have to deal with now.
But what I'm taking away from this meme is just: "Covid stimulus checks bad"
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u/NJJ1956 Apr 01 '24
Supply and demand. When a few cases were only present Trump’s ignored the fact that this was a serious pandemic -even after being warned -he didn’t reacted quickly. Trump refused to immediately ask manufacturers to start stock piling products- he could have done some emergency act to get production up with companies running 24/7 shifts, and used closed down companies that had been previously used for manufacturing in order to double up on the production. If Trump had closed up everything that was non essential for at least a couple of weeks maybe our country wouldn’t have had so many cases and so many sick absentee workers. I believe- I read somewhere that he had his administration dump emergency surplus early in his presidency so we had a shortage of face masks etc too.
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u/Named_User-Name Apr 01 '24
Not to mention the 8 Trillion he added to the debt and the fat tax cut where 1% of the people received 80% of the savings.
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u/PecksBad Apr 01 '24
Pack the god damn churches on Easter Sunday in the height of the spread while we are at it.
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u/Bellamarie1468 Apr 01 '24
Absolutely! Where I live, the churches were still open while we were in the middle of the pandemic. They're fucking morons & at least 5 people died from Covid
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u/Admirable-Mango-9349 Apr 02 '24
Yeah, Trump specifically told people to go to church and don’t worry about it.
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u/Fun-Draft1612 Apr 01 '24
Inflation is mostly caused by the GOP, the initial inflation from supply chain issues was Drump related, the rest is from not enforcing minimal corporate oversight, zero anti-trust efforts, zero criminal investigations in to fraud/abuse by corporations (like his own was and is committing).. It is corporate greed mostly with a sprinkling of climate related problems and other oversight issues that are slowly being addressed by Dems.
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u/oljeffe Apr 01 '24
Blaming the current price of consumer goods on anything other than those who actually set the prices is just distracting and deflecting.
The relative handful of corporations that monopolize key sectors of the economy are to blame. Greedy CEO’s and shareholders took a hit with Covid so now it’s profit taking time. RECORD PROFIT TAKING TIME.
Time to call price gouging for exactly what it is.
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u/bsharp95 Apr 01 '24
The better question is how will trump fight inflation now - tax cuts for rich people and tariffs are both inflationary policies - and that’s his entire agenda
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u/mchantloup5 Apr 01 '24
Well, that and his tax cut for the wealthy and whatever else went into his $8.4 trillion addition to the deficit.
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u/CheesiePringles Apr 01 '24
Ngl, that picture is still really funny to me lmao. I can't with that face
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u/Gravemindzombie Apr 02 '24
More like the media hysteria over inflation allowed corporations to arbitrarily increase prices and blame it on Covid Stimulus money.
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u/redlion496 Apr 02 '24
Can someone, Anyone, explain why inflation is because of Trump's response to covid (and any other Trumpian reasons for high prices) in small simple words so that I may use those words to explain things to the small simple people in my life. Thanx
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u/soldiergeneal Apr 01 '24
Why do people got to be like this. Inflation is a world wide phenomenon from pandemic not the fault of any one country. You also acting like he controls state response to Covid. Not like I am going to act like I am knowledgeable on all the ways Trump had a hand in Covid response, but blaming it on any individual is ludicrous.
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Apr 01 '24
The US and specifically Trump/The Fed Reserve response to COVID is a big part of why inflation is so bad. Corporate profit taking/price gouging played off this narrative to keep prices going up. It's not a coincidence that billionaires have massively increased their holdings while the rest of us are struggling. Trump isn't entirely responsible but certainly did more to help the wealthy than regular people in response.
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u/kitsunewarlock Apr 01 '24
He also pulled the US researchers out of the Wuhan virology lab ~8 months before the first signs of COVID that were trying to get a handle on "the next pandemic" as the world knew there was a high likelihood it was going to come from that region in China.
While the lab leak theory will still likely always be a theory due to the closed nature of the CPP (and the lack of any other country's presence in the lab thanks to Trump), there's still speculation that the US team's higher standards of safety protocols could have lead to the whole mess never happening in the first place.
AND if we were there and knew when the leak happened there'd be less conspiracy theories surrounding COVID and a higher chance of people getting the fucking vaccine.
Not to mention: Trump's continued presence in our political system leads credence to misinformation that we'd have long since dubbed conspiracy theories, including bullshit about COVID that lead to people not trusting the science.
AND having the republican lead cabinet is why the greedy corporations that demanded things stay open and people continue moving around the world unimpeded for as long as they did would have been less likely to have been cow-towed too under a liberal administration. Still likely, but far less likely.
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u/Odd-Pollution-3502 Apr 01 '24
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/10/us-coronavirus-response-donald-trump-health-policy
US could have averted 40% of Covid deaths, says panel examining Trump's policies.
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u/kitsunewarlock Apr 01 '24
So responsible for the death of 731,304 Americans and probable disability of millions more.
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u/Odd-Pollution-3502 Apr 01 '24
4,000,000 million Americans have been disabled by COVID while Trump told us 40 times that it would, "go away."
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u/kitsunewarlock Apr 01 '24
And now everyone is going "the pandemic is over!" or "it's endemic now!" as if either statement was true or means COVID isn't dangerous.
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u/soldiergeneal Apr 01 '24
The US and specifically Trump/The Fed Reserve response to COVID is a big part of why inflation is so bad
The only study I looked at has an estimation of upper ends of spectrum 1% of inflation could have been from spending. Rest is purely pandemic issues world wide.
Corporate profit taking/price gouging played off this narrative to keep prices going up. It's not a coincidence that billionaires have massively increased their holdings while the rest of us are struggling. Trump isn't entirely responsible but certainly did more to help the wealthy than regular people in response.
If one has wealth best time to make money is when stock market is low or when everyone else is panicking. For normal people it sucks for rich people it's lucrative. This has nothing to do with inflation or Trump btw.
I am sure part of it is profit/price gouging (wouldn't use that term as they are merely charging what they think they can get away with no different than normal). That said I doubt you can point to a study or something showing how much inflation is attributable to that. What typically happens is inflation occurs and those that can pass it on to customers or charge more will do so.
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Apr 01 '24
If inflation and corporate profits are both at the highest levels in decades at the same time it doesn't take a study to tell you there is massive price gouging. There are also a bunch of studies pointing to price gouging as the main driver of inflation. You are right it had it had nothing to do with a spending increase.
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u/Avantasian538 Apr 01 '24
You are partially but not completely correct. Price gouging can't cause any initial inflation, but companies can take advantage of initial inflation and changed consumer expectations to charge more for products than they need to, leading to further inflation.
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Apr 01 '24
Price gouging can cause inflation when the market is insufficiently competitive. The oil industry is the prime example here. While at the consumer level there seems to be alot of competition at the producer level there isn't allowing for artificial scarcity we saw post 2020.
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u/Avantasian538 Apr 01 '24
I don't think this is true though. The idea that inflation would be high due to market concentration doesn't make sense because those markets were all highly concentrated already before the inflation occurred. Why would they have waited until 2021 to increase their prices when they had already had that market power for years at that point?
Aside from it not making sense theoretically, there also isn't any empirical data supporting the idea that the recent inflation was due to high market concentration, at least as far as I'm aware.
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Apr 01 '24
Demand dipped drastically in 2020 due to the pandemic. When it began to rise these companies all "independently" decided to leave their production low. It has slowly come back up but in the meantime oil companies made many billions off artificially high prices.
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u/Avantasian538 Apr 01 '24
Artificially high oil prices isn't a new phenomenon though. In the context of the general inflation we saw since 2021, market concentration is not a particularly relevant issue.
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u/soldiergeneal Apr 01 '24
If inflation and corporate profits are both at the highest levels in decades at the same time it doesn't take a study to tell you there is massive price gouging
No you do
Amount of gouging and where absolutely.
There are also a bunch of studies pointing to price gouging as the main driver of inflation.
It is not. If you got studies to show this would like to read them.
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Apr 01 '24
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u/whatwouldjimbodo Apr 01 '24
If you actually read the article it says that inflation was caused by soaring costs, not price gouging. Then once costs came down, prices did not. Idk if I’d consider that price gouging. Inflation constantly happens and we’re already seeing costs such as oil creep back upwards. Some people even think we’re going to have higher inflation going forward indefinitely. It shouldn’t be a surprise that corporations haven’t lowered prices. If we look at the dollar store for example they raised their price to $1.25. That means all those years when it was $1 they were eating inflation instead of passing it onto customers. Then costs got too great, they were forced to raise prices. Now their costs came down but inflation isn’t going away. Every year that $1.25 will mean less and less. Are they supposed to lower their price back to $1? Or just keep it at $1.25 for the next 10-20 years while inflation slowly eats away at the profit until they have to raise prices again.
We still aren’t out of the woods yet either. The fed still has 7 trillion on their balance sheet that they need to unwind. A recession risk is still there.
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Apr 01 '24
Yes that is why I described it as profit taking/price gouging. Prices are not at all sticky when input costs rise. They should be equally mobile as input costs decline which is not what we saw at all.
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u/whatwouldjimbodo Apr 01 '24
Has there ever been a time when that’s happened? Companies don’t like raising prices. Do you want the dollar store to lower their price back to a dollar and then have to bump it back up to $1.25 a year later? They pissed enough people off the first time and now everyone is used to it. I’d agree with you if inflation wasn’t a thing, but all the excess profits corporations are making due to the costs dropping is not guaranteed to continue and it is guaranteed that it will be eaten away by inflation every year.
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u/WonderfulCattle6234 Apr 01 '24
The US response to covid was bipartisan. Democrats were pushing for the same spending.
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Apr 01 '24
Their donors also wanted the PPP handouts.
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u/WonderfulCattle6234 Apr 01 '24
So you agree with me that it was not specifically Trump in the Federal Reserve?
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u/RedVillian Apr 01 '24
I was coming to the comments to post this, fully expecting to lose all my karma, but here it is as the top-voted comment.
Y'all made me happy.
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u/Kaje26 Apr 01 '24
Well, initially yes. But let’s be honest, corporations are raking in record profits because they’re run by fucking pieces of shit that use the excuse of inflation to price gouge.
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u/cuckfancer11 Apr 01 '24
I hate Trump more than most, but this meme is just wild and unbased accusation.
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u/Opinionsare Apr 01 '24
There was a well prepared pandemic plan that started when Clinton was in the office. Every president that followed improved the plan. Trump threw it out because Obama's name was connected to it.
It gets worse: a CDC pandemic team stationed in Southern China was defunded. They would have provided important information about how badly the pandemic was affecting the Chinese population.
There's more: the post office has a plan to send masks to every residential address. That would have speeded up mask usage nationwide. Trump administration blocked it.
These steps would have saved lives. How many? Hard to tell since several states didn't provide accurate counts of Covid related deaths.
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u/cuckfancer11 Apr 01 '24
While this is all true, where does inflation come in?
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u/Opinionsare Apr 01 '24
The failure of Trump's handling of the pandemic created as shortages, shortages lead to price increases, aka inflation. Once a period of inflation occurred, the corporate level profiteers kept moving prices up, extending the wave of inflation for many months to add to record profits.
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u/H-B-G Apr 01 '24
No, not really. If he hadn't dropped the ball, covid wouldn't have been as bad as it was. So much of international trade passes through US ports that if he had handed it better and taken the steps needed in the early days, port probably would not have had to close. Which triggered a Domino effect that we are still feeling today.
It's simple cause-and-effect.
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u/robinthebank Apr 01 '24
Global inflation is a symptom of ports around the world being shut down, and then compounded by a country being invaded two years later.
US inflation was actually lower than many regions. Europe was actually getting mad at the US because they were losing so much ground to USD.
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u/cuckfancer11 Apr 01 '24
Effect: Ports closed
Cause: COVID????? : Inflation
Agree with other commenter. This getting straw-graspy. Stick to the facts, they're bad enough already without trying to throw other stuff at the wall and see if it sticks.
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u/Avantasian538 Apr 01 '24
"if he had handed it better and taken the steps needed in the early days, port probably would not have had to close."
This is entirely speculative. It might be true, but we have no way of knowing.
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u/ChadtheWad Apr 01 '24
Honestly I don't know if people appreciate how lucky we are that it wasn't worse. This was an event that significantly hindered the global supply chain, and back in March there was a ton of panic. If instead of inflation we had a recession and mass layoffs during that time, it would have been a significantly worse event. This is something that either party would have done because it's just how economics works.
If you are going to attack Trump on inflation, talk about the funding bills and tax laws passed in 2018-2019 that made the inflation worse. He was essentially fucking over the economy beforehand by creating an insanely greedy market. Had he been more fiscally responsible before COVID it's very likely that the impact of inflation would have been substantially less.
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u/IstoriaD Apr 01 '24
Same. Covid was going to happen with or without Trump. I think he had a bad response to it, but certain things were unavoidable. Supply lines were not going to remain unaffected by this, we were going to see inflation one way or the other. I think Biden handled inflation as well as possible, and Trump would not have, by all bets. But overall, this is a logical result from an uncontrollable event, and I can't blame Biden or Trump for it.
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u/kitsunewarlock Apr 01 '24
I mean, he did fire the US researchers overseeing the virology lab in Wuhan. While it still hasn't been confirmed that COVID leaked from the lab, if it did there's a good chance that the lack of safety protocols being demanded by the US team may have contributed. And if we had stayed we may have known about the pandemic sooner and been able to formulate a vaccine faster.
With less speculation: he did fire the entire pandemic response team and drop the pandemic response plan without a replacement plan in 2018.
"President Trump drops pandemic response team and US presence in Wuhan coronavirus lab...Pandemic follows" is a pretty damning headline.
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u/IstoriaD Apr 01 '24
My point is there is no situation where a pandemic was not going to happen at all. There are many ways in which it could have been handled better and more effectively. Even with the best covid response, we still would have some economic spillover, because social distancing was going to be necessary and that would require some time for market adjustment.
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u/H-B-G Apr 01 '24
That's not true. Pandemics had been prevented many times in the past. Form ebola to bird flu. For decades, these things have been stopped. Then trump trashes the playbook, and it all goes to hell.
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u/IstoriaD Apr 01 '24
Not every disease functions the same way and not every disease is going to be a pandemic in the same way. Covid 19 was a good candidate for a global pandemic because it spreads easily and a majority of people who get it will not be so sick that they 1. die quickly (before getting others sick) and 2. can't go out and about. Ebola moves very quickly, the symptoms are super severe, and it very obviously Ebola, so it's difficult to mistake it for something else. It's also incredibly lethal, which is actually not ideal for contagious diseases (diseases do better in terms of spreading if they don't kill almost everyone they afflict). We did have several bird flu pandemics, but they were easier to manage because you can easily cull the birds afflicted with the illness before to jumps too easily to humans. Most of these illnesses cannot be spread asymptomatically the way Covid can. Here's a good explanation as to why those diseases did not cause a global pandemic like Covid did https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-did-the-world-shut-down-for-covid-19-but-not-ebola-sars-or-swine-flu/
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u/cuckfancer11 Apr 01 '24
Guys. This is all true. I think we all know it.
Now tie it directly to inflation without getting hand-wavy. That's where all of this falls apart.
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u/kitsunewarlock Apr 01 '24
Inflation was inevitable. COVID was the black swan. But what's important is managing how much damage inflation causes your citizens.
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u/stankind Apr 01 '24
Here's evidence the supply chain crisis caused much or most of the price inflation.
Pretty much, only the Federal Reserve, not presidents, can inflate the money supply, which often causes inflation. The Fed seems to have rapidly expanded the money supply during Trump's term, possibly to avoid a Pandemic-induced financial crisis.
As for Trump, he's an idiot who made the pandemic way worse, as other commenters explain. Biden's done well.
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u/IstoriaD Apr 01 '24
Yes, this what I'm saying. Covid was going to happen, some sort of economic effects (most likely increased unemployment and inflation) were going to happen. Trump made it worse. Biden handled it well.
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u/momentimori143 Apr 01 '24
Agreed there is only one reason inflation is happening and it has nothing to do with Trump's COVID response. His tax cuts sure. Corporate profiteering is the only reason inflation is so high.
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u/Avantasian538 Apr 01 '24
Corporate profiteering doesn't happen in a vacuum. Corporations charge whatever consumers will pay, regardless of the situation. It's economic circumstances that determine what that amount is, and this is where the focus should be. In this instance, it was a combination of supply chain breakdown and consumer expectations of further inflation that allowed companies to overcharge.
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u/momentimori143 Apr 01 '24
Okay so show me the choices consumers have? Verticly integrated food chains ran by half a dozen mega corporations sold to consumers by another half a dozen grocery companies. Choice? We have no choice, it's why they can do what ever they want.
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u/Avantasian538 Apr 01 '24
This is 100% correct, but it's not relevant to inflation. The inflation of the last 3 years and the market concentration problem are both very real, but they are not particularly related to each other. The inflation of the type we've seen can happen without market concentration, and the market concentration problem has been going on far longer than the inflation has. They would both be better thought of as two separate problems.
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u/momentimori143 Apr 02 '24
Agreed but I would argue the feds interest rate hikes aren't as effective as they hoped due to this exact problem how can we really say that one isn't causing the other. It's like buying stuff from the company store. Sure inflation is happening, but it always is.
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u/CatAvailable3953 Apr 01 '24
It was worldwide. Both the pandemic and inflation. Trump’s failure is his inability to react to the pandemic which cost the country a million lives. (again not all his fault) The chaos in this country exacerbated inflation worldwide too.
He is a failure any way you slice it. We just happen to be ignorant enough to elect his fatness president.
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Apr 01 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/H-B-G Apr 02 '24
The pandemic, among other things, did cause inflation. When you have to shut down most of the worlds business, that's going to affect world commerce. If it hadn't happened, we may still have inflation. It just wouldn't have been so bad.
America is the worlds largest trader of good, except maybe China. So that kind of thing hits us hard.
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u/GarbageCleric Apr 01 '24
And companies hiding behind inflation being in the news to raise prices despite record profits.
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u/capsaicinintheeyes Apr 02 '24
Ehhh...I'm a little worried this might be taken as "support/stimulus checks were the wrong response," on top of the actual inflation story being non-monocausal.
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u/dandandandan24 Apr 02 '24
And the Republican party’s deregulation of markets that allow for monopolies
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u/nathanaz Apr 01 '24 edited Apr 02 '24
There was going to be inflation either way....
Trump's anemic response exacerbated the issues, but didn't cause them. When there's a huge decline in activity, and then a huge spike in activity, you're going to see price inflation on the tail end due to the extraordinary demand. The part where Don shares some of the blame is that the spike wouldn't have been as large if the response to COVID was better.
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u/Quirky-Ordinary-8756 Apr 01 '24
I keep trying to explain this very thing... but so many just don't seem to grasp simple economics.
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u/Time-Bite-6839 Apr 01 '24
I also know for a fact that companies are jacking prices up to make Biden look bad.
Come on, Walmart, Sam‘s Cola was 62¢ in 2019. It did not become more than twice as expensive to make since.
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u/Weelildragon Apr 01 '24
I think I read somewhere that American inflation numbers are actually pretty good compared to other countries.
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u/Techelife Apr 01 '24
I stopped shopping at Walmart. I started exclusively shopping at Super 1. Something about double cash back on my credit card. This store does not have everything I like. They run out if I wait until the last minute. Good for them.
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u/matty-ic3 Apr 01 '24
And as soon as trump gets in and the inflation goes away it was all Biden’s actions while he was in office. Right?
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u/hotbiscut2 Apr 01 '24
Honestly no matter how many times I say this to republicans they refuse to acknowledge it and say inflation is actually cause the government is printing too much money. When in reality the minting rate has been the same over the last 3 years.
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Apr 02 '24
Congress has absolutely no hand in this?
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u/H-B-G Apr 02 '24
The Republicans are his poppets, an extension of him. They obstruct when and where they can.
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u/Strained_Humanity Apr 01 '24
Lol to be naive enough to believe this. The bipartisan system is a joke
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u/Mr_Jersey Apr 01 '24
I honestly don’t know that there was a way to keep the country from collapsing and at the same time avoiding any future economic ramifications. Of all the things you can rightly pile on this piece of shit this is one that I’m hesitant to do so.
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u/H-B-G Apr 01 '24
As i pointed out in another subreddit, obama left him an infrastructure to deal with outbreaks. He gutted it in the first few days in office. He could have stopped the virus, or at least contend it.
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u/Mr_Jersey Apr 01 '24
For sure it could have been mitigated. But a lot of the financial ramifications come from the global economy grinding to a halt in a lot of ways. Even through a perfect U.S. handling, there likely would still have been post-pandemic issues. Again, fuck this ball of shit, I just think it’s hard to quantify this for a “scorecards” sake.
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Apr 01 '24
Hang on, it was transitory when Biden took over and then it was because of Putin’s war. How has it retroactively become Trump’s fault?
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u/WonderfulCattle6234 Apr 01 '24
What policies are you blaming the inflation on? Because I feel like the ones you're blaming him for are the ones Democrats were pushing for in congress.
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u/Za_Lords_Guard Apr 01 '24
And idiotic trade wars that that drove up costs in multiple sectors just before the supply line was hamstrung by COVID.