New York has a slightly lower violent crime rate than Florida, do people ask if Desantis has done enough on crime. New Yorks violent crime rate is better than most of the other states in the nation. Alasksa, Tennessee, and Arkansas are over twice the rate of New York.

What you describe in your example is a person with a generic policy dispute. They don't believe universal mail-in ballots are appropriate( I assume you are referring to 77) in PA. And just because they want that rectified(reversing a piece of legislation that was passed with bipartisan support), does not mean they have "questions" about the 2020 election. That's a big stretch in perspective and 2 different people. Come up with better example. The benign person in your example wouldn't "question the election", they would accept the results and seek to reform the law. They get lumped in as election deniers because they are supporting people who continue to lie about the results of the election.

Another strong jobs report today. Unemployment at near record lows. Infrastructure investment will help create jobs and keep the economy moving. A slowdown is inevitable no matter who is in power because the Fed has to hike rates to quell inflation. The Fed is independent and the chair of the Fed was nominated by Trump.

So what, exactly, are you hoping the GOP will do for the economy? What are their economic policies that you like? Where can I read about them?

Expected response: either more deflection or <crickets>

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"Go yell at an M&M"

To the thread. You are all right. There is no crime, no inflation, no looming war. I can't believe I've been so misled.

The stock market is off 20% on the year.
Bonds are off 17%
Inflation is at 8%
And housing is completely unaffordable.

This is the worst era for savers and investors (except slum lords) since the early 80s.

To be clear...

Trump is responsible for a healthy part of this.


But the government response to COVID (largely a Democrat thing) also played a major role.

The response to COVID may have saved millions of lives.

But it also caused a 25% real erosion in the real wealth of those who saved for retirement with stocks, bonds, CDs and cash.

The party of corruption, lies, stupidity and hatred (the current GOP) is not a solution.

But there needs to be a legitimate alternative to the Democratic party.

Lots of people, myself among them, wrote you lengthy thoughtful replies, quoted statistics and asked you challenging questions. No-one claimed there is no crime or inflation (though I personally don't think there's a looming war). Your response is deeply lame and completely inadequate.

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Called it.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

No argument from me that a multi-party system would be healthier. But is your main gripe really that we should have been able to coordinate a response to COVID that save millions of lives and left everyone's savings completely intact. Even though no-one anywhere in the world was able to do that? Again, David Frum's "He had a hat" joke upthread seems so so apt.

Someone approaching retirement now might have started saving in the early 80s. The S&P is up 2,500% since then. If you were retiring tomorrow I appreciate it sucks to imagine retiring with X in January and seeing that become Y in 11 months. But anyone in that situation should take a step back, divorce their emotion from the math and realize how lucky they are. They got 5 numbers and won the lottery by being invested in the US all their lives. They didn't get the powerball by withdrawing it all in January. It's not a tragedy. And if they're that close to retirement and eating those types of losses they should also fire their FA.

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Yup.

JFHJR's flaccid response is reflection of the shallowness of today's GOP. The "Party of ideas" is no more, it is now the party of fear and grievance.

Let's also note that it's a bit unfair for someone to complain about high housing prices in this context. For many people, their biggest asset, by far, is their house (not their stock portfolio). The price of housing is a problem for people just entering the housing market, but has been a huge boon to those who have been saving all along -- by buying a house.

we are now into the "loser talk" stage of death. The denial is now over. We are now in the "well, yeah we fucked it up but what are you going to do about it" phase.

This follows 2 years of "nothing that we have done about it has caused any of this" phase. But now we want to know what YOU are going to do about it.

Did I mention Jan 6th and abortion? OK covered.

And don't forget, the party of blame everyone else for your problems.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

I started in the early 80s, and am now retired. One retirement investment idea is to keep enough in relatively stable and readily accessible investments to tide one over during a downturn in the market. Too many people are forced to sell off depreciated assets near market bottoms. Let it ride and assume that the historical gains will average out the lows by the time you need those market-invested funds. So, don't fire your FA unless your "now" retirement funds are in the market.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I'll answer though you obviously didn't direct the question at me and I don't speak for who you responded to.

crime,

Crime barely needs addressing. GOP scare mongering notwithstanding. See my post above. To the extent the current historically low crime levels are deemed too high the right response is to continue to do the only thing that has always proved effective to reduce crime - improve the economy. Crime goes up in the Summer (more when it's hotter). It goes up when there's economic dislocation and anxiety. We're just emerging from a once in a lifetime pandemic that shook the world economy like a snow globe. The right response? Take a beat. Wait. See where we actually are and respond deliberately if at all.

the border,

Pass a comprehensive immigration plan that Ds have been pushing for for decades. Right size our legal immigration so that we don't have to deal with the inflationary pressure caused by a stupidly tight job market and don't have the hypocrisy of GOP congress members and candidates bitching about illegal immigration while employing illegal immigrants in their business ventures. Fix all of that then "get tough" on the border. I'm not averse to a nation wide asylum seeker distribution compact but TX etc. have to back immigration reform first. The only reason we don't make progress on this issue is that the GOP would rather maintain a permanent (though for 80% of the country non-existent) "crisis" on the border to make political hay.

inflation,

Wait it out. Sorry, not sexy enough for you I'm sure but that's the reality. We're doing better than most peer countries. We should be grateful. Vote for whatever's behind the curtain if it makes you feel better but there is no answer here.


gas prices,

Exactly what we're doing. Increase domestic production and accelerate the shifty away from a resource the price of which we'll never control. Of course, Americans want cheaper gas yesterday and will vote for whoever pretends they have a plan to achieve that but they're lying. Our current course is the correct one.

nuclear war,

The Biden admin has rebuilt NATO, re-established the moral leadership and soft power of the US. I'm not comfortable with a heightened risk of nuclear war but I'm far more comfortable with that marginally increased risk that I would be with a GOP congress cutting off funding to Ukraine, handing an ally over to fucking Russia and putting the stability of the rest of Europe fully in play. I still can't believe the GOP has become the party of geneflucting to Putin. How did we get here? What happened? What would Reagan say?[/quote]
To summarize:

Crime: barely needs addressing

Border: It's the Rs fault

Inflation: Suck it up, we're better than everyone else

Gas prices: Increase domestic production???

Nuclear war: We need more endless war.

OK. I'll agree with everything you said if you agree to vote for the candidates who will increase domestic gas production.

Tyler try again. Repubs mostly do not have solutions because they kowtow to big business, religious right and folks that lost jobs because labor is cheaper elsewhere. I’ll grant you answers aren’t easy. But most nut jobs now emerging from repub ranks could not graduate top of their classes in anything other than lying.

Thank you Joe Biden!



https://www.politico.com/...s-biden-oil-00064251

Do you ever keep reading an article after you read the section that confirms your bias?

My bias is to facts.

The fact is domestic oil production is up about 20% since Biden took office. The fact is the Biden administration has granted leases at a far faster rate than Trump or Obama. The fact is producers are sitting on 10,000+ leases that sit undeveloped. The fact is America is the world's largest oil producer. The fact is that the vast majority of oil produced in America is not on Federal lands. The fact is the Federal Government has very little control over domestic oil production.

Did you read this far in the article?



Facts, not silly talking points you heard on Fox.

yep.....whenever we have what could be a worrying drop in the S&P i just zoom out and look at the 5y or "all years" plot.

This administration sucks at messaging.

we have an economy where everyone who wants a job has a job. Most of the low paid jobs now pay about 20% more than they did pre-pandemic. A lot of people have more money than they did a couple of years ago either from the higher saving during covid, tax cuts, more people having jobs or something else. But apparently the economy is doing really badly? Gas prices are not that different to 10 years ago, just not in a pandemic or recession driven dip. most people taking a long term view would plan on gas prices being around this level on a long term basis. Even the talk of a recession is a bit false. There is a difference between the Fed applying the brake and an unplanned economic slowdown or crash.

Do you ever get tired of being a tool?

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Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)

Yes.

I heard on Detroit radio the Nov 14 is the day Trump declares if he will run again. The polling suggests if he does he will almost certainly win the nomination. Him vs Biden puts Biden ahead with about the same margin in the 2020 election. Most people don't want Biden to run again either but given the choice vs Trump, Biden has a slight edge. I guess it would not take much to change that.

These are discouraging times.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

If the Dems even consider Biden they're idiots.

If the choice is Biden vs losing to Trump I would chose Biden. Trump just is so bad. Winning again for him would be such validation that one wonders what he would try to get away with. Not that he needs any validation to act badly

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

7.7%

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek