Up for CPI and chained CPI.
Figure 1: Instantaneous inflation (T=12, a=4) for PCE deflator (black), for PCE deflator market prices (pink), CPI (blue) chained CPI (red), HICP (green). Red dashed line at PCE inflation target; implied CPI target is 2.45 ppts. Calculations per Eeckhout (2023). Source: BLS, BEA, European Commission, and author’s calculations.
What the hell? Manchin, Sinema and Kelly(!) vote down Biden’s nominee for the National Labor Relations Board. This leaves Trump to appoint the majority member to the board, ensuring that it becomes paralyzed and useless. Unions will be toast, in accord with Elon Musk’s desires. Manchin and Sinema will be gone in January but Kelly will be there at least until 2028.
And Democrats wonder why the working class has deserted them. They can’t seem to deliver.
It’s sad to see how feeble and senile the old man in the White House has become. He doesn’t even have the juice to get his NLRB nominee appointed by his own party. Trump goes around the world making deals with foreign leaders months before he becomes president while Biden sits back in his rocking chair as an invisible nobody.
You certainly won’t see such weakness in the next administration. Apparently Joni Ernst, after first expressing doubts, has already buckled under the Musk threats regarding the Hegseth nomination. Ernst has gotten a lot of mileage recounting her personal experience with sexual assault but now she is dutifully disparaging the Hegseth accusers. The fear in Republican senators is palpable. Even the nuttiest and least qualified Trump nominees are going to get a pass.
these figures are not good.
I think this is one time it would be good to see say three and six month annualised figures to see where the trend is
Why is this the Democrats’ fault? Manchin and Sinema are independents; Sinema (basically) got booted from the party because she was cozying up to the Republicans to try to be the next John McCain, and Manchin, in the past, has been a Democrat for historical purposes only. Plus, they’re both leaving; there are no reprisals anyone can hang over their heads to keep them in line, no options for horse trading on votes they might like to see.
And it’s not like the Republicans treat the working class *better* than the Democrats do; let’s assume someone besides the Democratic party has agency here. Anyone who votes Republican because they think the Rs will treat lower-income people better is a fool, and you can’t argue based on fools being rational.
Way off topic – merit vs seniority in Democratic politics:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/younger-democrats-are-challenging-senior-members-committee-jobs-rcna183515
The Pelosi battle was ultimately settled gracefully. The Biden presidency ended not so gracefully. The youngs in the House are not giving up, and you can’t blame them. The olds lost when they should have won. Time for a change.
Bernie has announced he won’t run again, and obviously because of his age, but as a personal choice. Bernie might actually have beaten Trump.
bernie would not have won had he been given the task to create a presidential campaign in august. that was also not a reasonable expectation of kamala. that was democrats own goal. i also think the democrats very much underestimate the animosity towards a female president. it was enough to keep a female democrat from election….twice.
democrats need to part ways with the old crowd. at least the old crowd needs to step aside from leadership positions. there is an entire generation of 50 somethings that have effectively been sidelined by a bunch of baby boomers who feel entitled to leadership due to seniority, not merit. this is why the cupboard is pretty bare right now on the democratic side. biden, pelosi, sanders, clinton. none of them should have an effective say in how we operate going forward. i am not saying they should not be able to contribute ideas, but those ideas should not have a weighted advantage.
old people stick to their ways and don’t change. republicans of today believe in very little of republican conservatism from 10 years ago. the party changed. trump is not a conservative republican. those guys are not important to the party anymore. democrats also need to change and adapt.
“…enough to keep a female democrat from election….twice.”
Both times beaten by the same misogynist-rapist-serial-adulteror-felon who took away women’s reproductive choice. That’s who we are now.
he was the perfect foil for a female nomination. a more moderate personality would not have rallied the misogynists in the same way trump did. agreed. that’s who we are now.
By the way, the youngs among House Democrats include at least one 66-year-old. It’s not like booting the geriatric set from power will leave us un the hands of neophytes.
It is unlikely that anyone could have beaten Trump even if they had started a year earlier. Harris wasn’t beaten because she didn’t have time to introduce herself to the public. She was beaten because Trump is an inveterate liar and the public believed him.
Trump himself has said that he won for two reasons — the price of groceries and the border. Both of these were based on flat out lies. He repeatedly said that bacon and eggs were up 500% but in reality food inflation over the last year was at a low 1.7% He said that immigrants were murdering people when the reality is that violent crime had come down dramatically from its peak in Trump’s last year in office and crime among immigrants was lower than native born. He said that immigrants were eating people’s pets and the public believed him.
Brandolini’s law says “The amount of energy needed to refute bulls..t is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.” He calls it the bulls..t asymmetry principle. It is almost impossible to counter a person who is so immoral as to blatantly lie without shame, especially when there is a compliant press who regurgitates it without serious challenge.
Lying is rewarded and there is little defense against it. Sanders or anyone else would have done no better than Harris. The lying is going to continue throughout Trump’s presidency and the public is going to believe it.
and this is why I have waged a war on misinformation on this blog for a number of years. I believe the issue of misinformation is one of the biggest obstacles the usa must overcome if it is to maintain leadership standing in the world. trump has demonstrated that if you repeat a lie enough times, people will believe it-or at least parts of it. hitler played the same game. Biden had the country operating under normal inflation, super low unemployment and record economic and market milestones. and yet trump led half the country to believe we were in some kind of depression. misinformation has consequences. that is why I despise the ilk like rick stryker, econned, bruce hall, ltr, covid, etc. they deliberately lie. and the future of the nation is harmed in the process. all for political points.
Good luck with that. You can cite all the figures you want and post your FRED charts and then Trump says “Bacon is up 500%” and people believe him because he is a reality show celebrity. It’s nigh impossible to refute a person who looks right into the camera and lies. You knew this on day one of his first administration when he looked into the camera and said that he had the largest inaugural crowd ever and people looking at the crowd comparisons on TV would doubt their own lying eyes.
Macroduck: “The Pelosi battle was ultimately settled gracefully.”
Not quite so graceful. Pelosi is leading the charge to keep a 74-year-old geezer on the powerful Oversight Committee in opposition to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. These oldsters just won’t give up.
The owner of the LA Times, billionaire Soon-Shiong, blocked a Harris editorial endorsement. The owner of the Washington Post, billionaire Bezos, blocked a Harris editorial endorsement.
And today both billionaire Zuckerberg and billionaire Bezos donated $1 million each to the Trump inaugural slush fund.
Even the billionaires are running scared. What chance to we mere mortals have?