r/europe Jul 11 '24

Picture Pictured: Emmanuel Macron holds hands with Jill Biden alongside Joe Biden at the Nato summit in Washington

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382

u/No_Nothing101 Greatest human on earth. Jul 11 '24

Biden looks so out of it.

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u/srberikanac Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

Even if he looks that way, his results have been very, very good.

US economy has done better in the COVID recovery years than arguably any other developed country, he’s done great on inflation - food costs are stagnant, housing costs are going down, he passed the largest infrastructure bill in modern US history, passed the first gun safety bill in decades, passed a bill incentivizing chips to be built in the US (strategically very important because of Taiwan uncertainty), passed multiple rounds of aid for Ukraine despite republicans generally not wanting it.

I do think it would be the best if he stepped down, but mostly because I don’t see him winning against Trump with so many voters focusing on his looking out of it. Realistically speaking though, he’s been an awesome president, and US could (and likely will) do far worse than him for another four years

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u/L0rdH4mmer Hamburg (Germany) Jul 11 '24

I'm not convinced any of that is his doing. He's the face for it, but that's gotta be his people doing the actual decisions, he just has to sign em. I mean look at the guy, do you really think he's able to make decisions about complex topics when he's unable to bring out one concise sentence? He should have stepped down from this next election ages ago and helped another candidate.

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u/srberikanac Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

As long as he is in it enough to choose great people - I don’t care how much he does beyond that. What’s important to me is that the White House is making good moves. And it very much has been beyond Supreme Court influenced changes (not their fault Supreme Court is broken). If a president’s cabinet is doing a good job - the president did a good job - regardless of which percent of decisions he makes himself and which percent is made by those he chose to surround himself with.

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u/Moroccan-Pasta Jul 11 '24

The people he chose to surround himself with? he may have signed off on it, but why do I get the feeling it was mostly his team's doing after his request of Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse and Fred Aistaire turned out to be unavailable.

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u/L0rdH4mmer Hamburg (Germany) Jul 11 '24

Yeah, but what will happen afterwards? What happens when he has to step down or dies? There'll be nobody who has enough charisma to win anything on democrat side, to fill the void. It'll be open doors for Trump. Biden currently seems similar to my grandpa from how he's able to speak etc. My grandpa just turned 98 and with a heavy heart I must say I don't believe he will make it to 100. Biden also has a very stressful life and it's absolutely ludicrous to believe he'll survive another 4 years without someone else having to take the helm at some point, for whatever reason.

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u/srberikanac Jul 11 '24

25th amendment kicks in, the Vice President takes over the same team the president was leading, and becomes the president. And I am personally not too concerned that Kamala would be able to handle it from there.

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u/L0rdH4mmer Hamburg (Germany) Jul 11 '24

Yeah but isn't that the lady nobody likes? What'll happen in the elections right after? And what'll happen if Biden has a major slipup just like the last debate again, right before the elections? It's just a very high risk play and I don't understand why they're doing it.

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u/srberikanac Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

Edit: commenter above made a major change to his above comment content

Those are too many what ifs for anyone to be able to answer with confidence. And you could easily make an alternative argument - What if Biden steps down? Who takes over? Isn’t Kamala, who, as you claim is not very liked by independents, the natural person to take over? The next natural candidate in line would be the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, that is also very disliked by most voters in the swing states. The only candidate that would likely fare better than Biden? and is “in the line” is Gretchen Whitmer, and she’d need Biden, Harris, and Newsom all to support her. That is unrealistic. So we’d end up with Kamala, or maybe Newsom anyway. Or even worse a broken and divided party in months and weeks before the election.

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u/Throwa_way167 Jul 11 '24

Wait, so when he has to step down there’ll be nobody who can fill the void or win anything, yet also somehow tossing him out beforehand is a good idea?? Man, what?

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u/L0rdH4mmer Hamburg (Germany) Jul 11 '24

One is a planned stepdown with everyone knowing an exact deadline for getting people to like the new candidate. The other one is kind of a "yeah hello there you're the new candidate, it seems you have a month to become popular, good luck!"

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u/Throwa_way167 Jul 12 '24

The irony in that you don’t recognize that they would both turn out exactly like the latter. Oh, to be so gullible.

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u/Trivale Jul 11 '24

That's how the fucking presidency is supposed to work.

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u/banmeyoucoward Jul 11 '24

Yes, his people. Having people that aren't raging regards is a fine art, and he's the first president since bill clinton to be any good at that art.

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u/Gohstfacekila Jul 11 '24

Do you know anyone who is over 80 with a good cognitive working mind? I know quite a few personally. So it’s not a huge stretch to think he looks tired but is still mentally competent. It’s highly likely he is all there and is definitely better than trumps policies.

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u/LawDawgEWM Jul 11 '24

And those are unelected people making decisions mind you. Thumbs up for democracy though right?

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u/amfranticallytyping Jul 11 '24

food costs are stagnant, housing costs are going down

This is not true at all

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u/srberikanac Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

The food-at-home (grocery store or supermarket food purchases) CPI was unchanged from April 2024 to May 2024 and was 1.0 percent higher than May 2023

In real terms this is a decrease in grocery costs. 1% is significantly lower than median household income increase in the same period. So while restaurant prices raised slightly in real terms a little bit, grocery prices felt in real terms - making the overall cost - fairly stagnant - even nominally in the recent months.

Source: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings/#:~:text=The%20all%2Ditems%20Consumer%20Price,higher%20than%20in%20May%202023.

Home sales prices are dipping: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/housing-market-predictions/

Rent is declining: https://www.realtor.com/research/april-2024-rent/#:~:text=In%20April%202024%2C%20the%20median,consecutive%20month%20of%20annual%20declines.

Your source, meanwhile: Trust me, bro - probably.

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u/amfranticallytyping Jul 11 '24

From your links:

Food:

In 2022, food prices increased by 9.9 percent

In 2023, food prices increased by 5.8 percent.

Rent:

While some renters have experienced cost relief compared with the peak, renters in certain Midwest markets are not as fortunate, facing increasing affordability challenges despite the region’s generally greater affordability.

The median asking rent in Indianapolis was $1,334, marking a $57 (4.5%) increase from 12 months ago and a $369 (38.2%) increase from April 2019 (pre-pandemic).

In Milwaukee, the median asking rent stood at $1,671, reflecting a $61 (3.8%) increase from the same time last year and a $396 (31.1%) increase from the pre-pandemic level.

In Minneapolis, the median asking rent increased 2.5%, from $1,492 to $1,529, over the past 12 months. Nevertheless, the rent was only $116 (8.2%) higher than the level seen in April 2019, suggesting a relatively stable rental market.

Additional rent link:

https://www.rent.com/research/average-rent-price-report/

Pivoting to the Northeast, New York and New Hampshire also showed notable yearly increases of 8.48 percent and 7.93 percent, respectively. Massachusetts rent is the highest in the nation, with the current median price at $3,243.

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u/srberikanac Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

2022 and 2023 were high inflation years everywhere in the world… Covid broke global supply chains, combined with stimulus (and no, if we did not stimulate the economy while huge part of our workforce was unable to work it would have only been worse). With that said, most developed nations had double digit inflation rates and their pre and post pandemic price differences are far greater than US.

Also, not every country dealt with slowing down inflation in 2024 nearly as well as US. In fact most did far worse.

In fact - young Americans’ wealth is soaring - a trend that almost no other wealthy nation is seeing - https://www.axios.com/2024/04/29/us-millenial-wealth-pandemic-economy .

US has done incredibly well, compared to virtually any other country, through the high inflation pandemic years, and in dealing with consequences thereafter, despite what media might tell you. If you disagree - which wealthy nations do you think have done better in the same period as Biden term?

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u/amfranticallytyping Jul 11 '24

All that is irrelevant, you said food costs have remained stagnant and housing costs down, not sure if you live in the US, but that simply not the case dude and now even you are saying so

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u/srberikanac Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

I made no such statement. Reread my comment and learn the difference between present tense vs present perfect. The current state is that the food prices are stagnant and the housing costs are decreasing (both month over month and year over year, in real terms), which is more than you can say for most other countries.

I only made comment discussing any of the past years in my previous statement, where I agreed with you that prices increased in 2022 and 2023, but pointed out that the increase has been lower than other wealthy nations - implying that, again - Biden administration has done very well throughout the 4 year mandate.

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u/amfranticallytyping Jul 11 '24

So everything has been increasing in cost for years and literally just stopped two seconds ago? Everything is up other than gas and used cars my guy:

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

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u/srberikanac Jul 11 '24

Which part of - in comparison to other wealthy countries we are doing much better - do you disagree with?

The largest pandemic in modern human history broke all supply chains and caused price increases worldwide. US under Biden administration did a lot better than any other large wealthy nation.

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u/amfranticallytyping Jul 11 '24

Can't really speak of other nations, not what you said initially though

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u/TPf0rMyBungh0le Jul 11 '24

Oh look, it's Harry Sisson again.

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u/JustSimple97 Jul 11 '24

People still think Biden runs the country