| ▲ | kadoban 7 hours ago |
| Inflation is high, so interest rates need to go up to try to slow that, but the economy isn't doing amazing already, and higher interest rates won't help that. Not to mention the US debt is _high_ as hell and bond yields mean that's more expensive. And the country is run by a broken fool who has no interest or ability to fix any of that. |
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| ▲ | ThunderSizzle 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The country has been _run_ by fools for 26 years. Congress has had 26 years to do something about the fiscal situation, and we've had four presidents, and the fiscal responsible side of the electorate is never listened to. Both sides are to blame - neither will fix the problem. Obama could've made that his goal - he was competent, had a lot of political good will, and many people were frustrated at the bailout policy Bush did, but instead it was inflationary printing (quantitative easing), Obamacare and Cash 4 Clunkers (which the used car market still hasn't recovered from). I never voted for him - I didn't view him as honest, nor did he seem to indicate that he liked America, but was rather just a good talker - but I think he could've been a great president given a less radicalizing agenda. He was probably the best situated president in terms of timing to fix the debt problem, but instead it was a good time for divisive politics. By the time Obama finished, it became clear neither party actually cared about the fiscally conservative Ron Paul supporting voting block. |
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| ▲ | bothers an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > Both sides are to blame — the one side after they fsck the country sideways, every goddamn time. | |
| ▲ | hsbalanxvxjsmab 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I would love to hear what was "radical" or "divisive" about Obama's policy. A significant portion of the country disliking him because of his skin color doesn't make his policies "radical" | | |
| ▲ | aftbit 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | A universal health care mandate were both radical and divisive, and the popular nickname for the ACA today is "Obamacare". I happen to think the policy was a good idea, and voting to keep it in play was the best vote of John McCain's career ... but it was definitely both radical and divisive. Now, much of the "mandate" has been stripped away, health care remains a mess, and access is far from affordable, but you can't really blame that one on Obama. | | |
| ▲ | doom2 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > A universal health care mandate were both radical and divisive It seems quite ironic, given the frequent complaints about the inability of Congress to either govern effectively or fix health insurance (for many and various definitions of "fix"), that the ACA was so divisive. At least it got passed! Yet given the opportunity twice (2017-2019, 2025-2027), a politically viable alternative hasn't been offered up by opponents of the ACA, let alone being able to fully repeal it. | |
| ▲ | hsbalanxvxjsmab 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Lol cool so health care is your definition of "radical" and "decisive". Hint: it's neither of these things and the only reason it was considered as such was because Obama was black (see tan suit). Seems like we need a few more years of woke cause you still can't see the obvious |
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| ▲ | AnimalMuppet 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why specifically 26 years? I agree that Congress has been increasingly useless, leading to more and more rule by presidential decree in order to have a government that runs at all, but there wasn't a step function 26 years ago. | | |
| ▲ | program_whiz 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | its because prior to that (2000 Bush era), congress and president had a plan to payoff debt and had a balanced budget plan in place to avoid over spending. |
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| ▲ | almost_usual 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Long term bond yields are not directly tied to the Fed funds rate. The problem is the debt purchased by the Fed during QE had extremely low yields (COVID era) the reserves held by banks created by the Fed during QE now cost more to service by the Fed. |
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| ▲ | hdgvhicv 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It’s worse than no ability to fix it — he caused a large part of it for unclear reasons |
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| ▲ | Supermancho 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > he caused a large part of it for unclear reasons Technically it was Besset, but Trump gave him the reigns. The purpose seems to be to radically debase the dollar and setup a crises that requires an entitlement cut (Social Security) for "the good of the economy" while also expanding military spending at the same time. | |
| ▲ | base698 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Covid? Half the money printed happened under his watch the first admin. Biden continued the other half. Now we have yet another war to make matters worse. What are you proposing be done to fix it? | | |
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| ▲ | stymaar 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| QE without public debt sterilization is going to appear as the costliest macroeconomic mistake of the early 21st century. |
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| ▲ | AnimalMuppet 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Disagree, fairly strongly. In 2008, four trillion dollars evaporated. In order to keep the economy from completely crashing, the Fed created $4T using QE and such tricks. The result was 15 years of flat. No inflation for 15 years. If inflation shows up a decade and a half later, that probably wasn't the fault of how QE was done. |
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| ▲ | pixl97 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yay stagflation! |
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| ▲ | rayiner 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > And the country is run by a broken fool who has no interest or ability to fix any of that. Trump will be gone in three years, but you'll still have an electorate that wants more free stuff while also getting tax cuts. There is zero appetite for fiscal reform in the U.S. The geometric growth rate of U.S. debt has been consistent since 2010 and will remain so when AOC is President: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-debt-does-the-us-have/... |
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| ▲ | nemomarx 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | You really really just need to raise taxes. Just find a way to sell that to the public (focus on the rich or large corporations or whatever outgroup you want basically) | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Our budget deficit is $2 trillion. To close it, you need to significantly raise taxes on the fattest part of the income curve, which is the top 25%. They have $10 trillion of income. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in.... An across the board 200 basis point increase would close the deficit. That would raise their taxes to 38% at the low end to 46% at the high end, which is perfectly fine. The problem is that the top 25% isn’t an “out group” in either coalition. You have Facebook PMs who vote blue and guys who own a small plumbing company who vote red both making $1 million+ annually and neither wanting their own taxes to go up. Then there are the guys below them looking up. Over 10% of the country will be in the top 1% of earners at some point in their life. So the guys pulling in a few hundred K as a senior engineer or construction manager don’t want their taxes to go up either. | | |
| ▲ | what 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > taking half of someone’s money is totally fine Okay. Then let’s also reduce what’s spent welfare/benefits by a similar amount, at least we’re not taking money they worked for. | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 18 minutes ago | parent [-] | | No, U.S. benefits are at a typical level for an OECD country. The problem is the taxes. U.S. taxation is only 25% of GDP, versus 40% in western Europe. We could raise taxes $3 trillion annually and still be at the level of one of the more responsible European countries like the U.K. |
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| ▲ | apparent 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Disagree. We have a spending problem, not a tax revenue problem. No matter how much the govt brings in, it will want to spend an increasing amount more. | |
| ▲ | ifyoubuildit 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is there anything that can't be solved by bigger government? |
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| ▲ | gloryjulio 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There is also insane amount of debt from ai related investment. China's free model is crushing the ai margins while these companies need to pay their debt and obligations. The debt bomb clock is ticking. The next few years would be fun. |
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| ▲ | ihsw 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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