And an issue with just spending money is that we have to wait a year or two to figure out if the spent money was effective (unlikely?).
In terms of core policy reform beneath all of the money spending: the current administration seems to place much greater emphasis on capital projects (repairing and building new infrastructure, including energy infrastructure) than the previous one did.
The IRA is trying to address climate change, yes. But there's the problem of relying on government to have any idea of where to inject money to make the most difference, trusting the government to not just inject money wherever it benefits the most politically connected, and avoiding massive fraud (see the SBA loans during COVID). Not to mention the insane irony of something called the "Inflation Reduction Act" being a massive spending bill.
Point being: Number of bills passed and billions of dollars spent will be terrible metrics for how effective a politician is because of all those nuances.
Using Trump as an excuse for not passing any bills on immigration, LGBT rights, abortion, etc when he didn't hold any political position for 4 years is the very definition of ineffective leadership.
"Senior Senate Republicans are furious that Donald Trump may have killed an emerging bipartisan deal over the southern border, depriving them of a key legislative achievement on a pressing national priority and offering a preview of what’s to come with Trump as their likely presidential nominee.
In recent weeks, Trump has been lobbying Republicans both in private conversations and in public statements on social media to oppose the border compromise being delicately hashed out in the Senate, according to GOP sources familiar with the conversations – in part because he wants to campaign on the issue this November and doesn’t want President Joe Biden to score a victory in an area where he is politically vulnerable."
I'm just curious.. in your mind, what was the objective of storming the beach at Normandy? What do you think Americans were fighting to preserve?
That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
to my understanding, he wasn't afraid of splitting the vote and was vocal about it as far back as 2022. And apparently the R's that publicly slammed him did not want to call that bluff.
So... maybe?
Also this so-called immigration bill contained billions for Ukraine, Israel, etc. That along with the fact that most of the bill sought only to facilitate getting more migrants through the system more quickly, and of course the bill was DOA. Saying it was Trump who killed it is just conjecture, and reactions from Senate and House Republicans indicates there was zero support for the bill as written.
Interestingly the House passed an immigration bill in 2023 that the Senate never voted on. Along with the removal of all of Trump's border-related executive orders, it indicates that Democrats are not seriously interested in border security.
It all played out in public, just like everything with Trump. There is no need to lie shamelessly on HN, it won’t get you anything.
I'd rather listen to the thoughts of the Speaker directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii0tl8d5G3g
There is no chance Republicans would vote for that bill, they don't need Trump to persuade them.
> And an issue with just spending money is that we have to wait a year or two to figure out if the spent money was effective
That’s an issue with practically all legislation.
And continuing the trade war. Then people act surprised when inflation is high. Recently, I think Jay Powell has even called out congress and the president for continuing to spend.
Question out of curiosity, not a challenge. I don't follow US politics that closely.
TL;DR: 100% credit? Of course not. But has Biden's administration been more effective at advancing its policies through the legislative than the previous administration? IMO yes.
Slava Ukraine
Solar is immensely cheap to the point where it's often cheaper than arbitrary other surfaces. Their maintenance is very low, much more so than nuclear. And land is not an issue for the US or China, the two places where decarbonizing energy is most important. Both have massive swaths of desert that is uninhabited, and where the addition of shade will likely net benefit the local ecosystem.
I agree that solar panel creation produces a fair amount of pollution, but then, so does nuclear power generation. In both cases this can and should be dealt with safely.
Edit: Yea. That’s what I thought.
It's very possible to construct an argument (certainly I'd believe it) that it didn't actually affect inflation per se and that the inflation burst was transient and would have subsided anyway. It's absolutely not correct to say inflation wasn't "addressed".
Has it not? Mine has. Wages as a whole have. In fact wage growth has been historically robust for the last decade or so. Here's a FRED graph for "median usual weekly real[1] earnings", which correlates well to the kind of working class argument people usually make in this space: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Note how it has been going inexorably upwards since 2014 or so, and in fact the inflation burst turns out to be the correction to a very rapid spike in wages (due to pandemic assistance) that only corrects downward to the upward curve.
I really wish people who wanted to argue about inflation would do it with more numbers and less "lol".
[1] "Real" means "inflation adjusted" in this context
I'm literally linking to FRED charts trying to have a numerate discussion about this stuff...
Can you cite some research or measurements or anything about this "perceived inflation" metric you're talking about? Like, where are the numbers? I'm pretty sure you just made it up, no?
Just linking a bunch of numbers does not make an argument. You have to actually talk and respond to the actual topic being discussed.
But in the real world, you do admit that current inflation as traditionally understood by centuries of economics is a little under 3% right now, right?
And absolutely not lol, the numbers are cooked up, as I said before. You are really really bad at reading comprehension.
To wit: you're just simply wrong here, and instead of arguing from a rational basis you're hiding behind your philosophical right to be wrong about whatever you want. And that's very distressing to see on a site like HN.
And now we're doing goalpost motion. This is how this always goes. Indeed, some things are more expensive and some things are less expensive. And that can change across regions and subeconomies, and even demographically to the extent that different groups spend in different ways. And this is interesting and important.
But it's absolutely not about "inflation" or "wages" and if you come back from an incorrectly-stated argument about inflation/affordability/whatever by saying "OK fine but this is actually about housing policy", you just look silly.
The fact that housing is expensive in some markets isn't a refutation that people are making more money, it just isn't.
EDIT:
But in fact FRED is great, so I generated your chart for you showing the ratio of the CPI urban rent metric to nominal (not "real" this time) hourly earnings: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qtNi
And.. you're kinda wrong here too. It's true that the chart is going upwards, but only by about 8-9% since 2006 (the earliest date where we have both data points). And very notably:
1. Most of the growth was from 2011-2018 or so, not a recent phenomenon at all
2. There was a huge dip during the pandemic (because of assistance programs, it's the same effect I mentioned upthread) that we've only just recovered from in the last few months. The recent rapid rise of "rent costs as a fraction of income" is just taking back all the boon people got earlier.
3. It's actually levelled off since 2023.
Again, there's data to this stuff, and it doesn't support your position.
There's a reason the GOP aren't touching most of the provisions in the first 3 Acts (especially with Vance as Veep). [0][1]
Vance is backed by Horowitz and Andreessen, and both heavily benefited from the IRA and CHIPS various provisions (but got hit by the capital gains tax changes that Biden proposed a couple months ago [2]).
The biggest issue was the Biden admin's inability to promote the impact of all of these. Biden hasn't been campaigning across America as much as his predecessors.
[0] - https://www.eiu.com/n/us-election-its-impact-on-industrial-p...
[1] - https://www.eiu.com/n/us-election-its-impact-on-us-trade-pol...
> MADLAND: Yeah, I talked to a lot of workers on the site, and this is this very large facility in rural Tennessee, a couple hours outside of Memphis. It's going to be a big electric vehicle battery and manufacturing construction in an area that had for 20, 30 years, really tried to spur investment, and nothing had happened. [...] So these big steps forward in their lives that you can see from these projects, which are good union jobs, constructing the big facility. Then when I also spoke to them and said, well, how or why do you think this project came to be? This project received many billions of dollars in loans from the federal government as part of these investments we're talking about. It also received significant state funding. And the workers to unanimously said, Well, I credit Ford, which is the big Ford Motor Company as a joint investment there. And then I would probe and push and they'd say, Well, I also credit my union for helping make this happen. I had to keep asking and asking before ever mention any elected officials that had anything to do with it. But their sentiment was, well, if any, elected official had anything to do with it. So I would like that and support them, but I have no idea about this.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-ford-ev-battery-plan...
https://apnews.com/article/ford-electric-vehicles-battery-te...
The issue was Biden was over-managed because of his reputation of "Bidenisms" for which he has been mocked about for decades [0][1]
This meant he kept campaigning to a minimum and was extremely managed.
It kept gaffes to a minimum but also severely decreased his media time.
[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-unspools-a...
[1] - https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/joe-biden-bi...
Budget deficits have been smaller under Biden though.
But I don't buy the point that current president is good because he is not as bad as previous in spending.
Seeing as Trump is a Republican, and that his spending and economy were on brand for the Republican party, I see no reason to assume covid was the sole cause. (Is it your opinion is that Trump is a RINO who runs the country like a Democrat, and covid disguised that?)
Given that the US economy has recovered from covid dramatically better than the economies of all other major nations, I am not inclined to assume that the US economy is currently in poor hands. On the contrary, it sure seems to be in the best hands that exist anywhere in the world.
as I said I don't think checking historical trends is excuse for current policy.
> Seeing as Trump is a Republican, and that his spending and economy were on brand for the Republican party, I see no reason to assume covid was the sole cause
first two years of his presidency deficit was relatively low
> Given that the US economy has recovered from covid dramatically better than the economies of all other major nations, I am not inclined to assume that the US economy is currently in poor hands. On the contrary, it sure seems to be in the best hands that exist anywhere in the world.
this is a loaded question. Recovery was in expense of inflation, rise of debt. One would need to do some quantitative calculation to see if current situation is result of actual policies (and which policies: Trump's or Biden's), or just economy is flexible itself and if result could be better and if spendings were justified(or went to real estate market and stocks).
I wasn't excusing current policy. I was making the case that Trump's economic failures were due in large part to Republican Party policies, not just to covid.
>first two years of his presidency deficit was relatively low
It took him a while to overcome Obama's economic policies, but he was certainly making headway in damaging the US economy and increasing deficit spending by the time covid hit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Donal...
>this is a loaded question.
Well, that's a novel use of the term "loaded question". It wasn't even a question at all; it was a simple statement of my opinion.
>One would need to do some quantitative calculation...
Fortunately, the field of economics is dedicated to doing quantitative calculations and making assessments like these.
Economists strongly favor policies that Democrats tend to adopt (especially demand-side economics: think lower taxes for the poor and higher taxes for the rich and for businesses, relief of personal debt, a stronger safety net for the unemployed, cheaper and more accessible healthcare, more spending on public services that aid economic development such infrastructure and education, etc.) and oppose economic policies that Republicans tend to adopt (especially supply-side economics: lower taxes for the rich and for businesses, union busting, a weaker safety net for the unemployed, healthcare that preferences insurance companies, reduced spending or even outright privatization of public services that aid economic development such as the postal service, etc.).
could you give citation, who are those economists? Or all of them? Or majority?
You are making very many unobvious statements with chatgpt confidence.
There are other places as well, but this is the most accessible one I know of for people without access to economics publications.
since you failed to provide citation, further discussion is not interesting to me.
I formed my understanding of economists' opinions on policy by reading data like this. It's highly educational, very easy to read, and not biased and cherry-picked like articles and opinion pieces are.
If pure data in a highly accessible format not good enough for you, it sounds like nothing would be.
Plenty of peer funds did the same thing.
Even if Trump wins in November, most of the provisions in the acts I mentioned will be retained, especially given that a Thiel and A16Z acolyte is Veep and an early MS alum is cabinet track.
This is a MASSIVE change in the VC/PE industry which has concentrated on various flavors of SaaS for the past decade+.
An entire ecosystem of research grants, commercialization grants, and private sector deal flow has now restarted in the sectors above that hasn't been seen in the past decade.
But I believe in market economy, and to me it looks like VC/PE didn't invest into hardware much because didn't believe in positive ROI in current condition.
Not exactly.
It was because of the upfront cost and lack of deal flow.
Before the various IRA and CHIPS provisions passed, you might get $200k at most from grants to commercialize research in the Energy or Hardware space. The rest would be fronted from the private sector so you're looking at an additional $800k-1M of private money at the pre-seed/seed stage. On top of that, deal flow was weak, so it's harder to fund later series or get good exits during an M&A event.
This is a very high upfront cost so obviously SaaS made sense due to much higher margins.
After IRA and CHIPS, you could expect to see an additional $300-500k in grants, which means my upfront cost in funding is lower.
Furthermore, the government is providing tax credits and grants to private sector players to minimize the amount of upfront money they need to spend (say) building a Battery Recycling plant or a Chip Packaging factory.
This means there is now much more money sloshing in these segments as a significant portion of my upfront risk has been subsidized by the US government. That money can now be deployed in either funding research projects commercializing into startups, re-investing in existing players to help their own M&A strategy, and funding additional research in the spaces above.
Surviving four years without starting a new boots on ground war (also Trump gets credit for that)
Calling out china on its bs (also Trump gets credit for that)
In practical terms the big differentiating factor between Biden and Trump terms is that trump is soft-pro-putin and Biden is anti-putin. And trump freed some black prisoners who probably shouldn't be in jail anymore
Moving forward, Biden is likely to be pro-taiwan and trump has been making anti-taiwan rhetoric
Modern politics is such a hole - we are praising a politician for not starting a war.
> Calling out china on its bs What does it mean?
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/joe-biden-age-conditi...
- 'he' managed to allow a record number of people to illegally cross the borders and helped those people along by flying them to non-border states
- 'he' oversaw one of the largest increases in costs of living in recent memory
- 'he' certainly won when it came to using executive orders to push through policies which 'he' - most likely correctly - thought would not otherwise make it through the house and senate.
- 'he' did not allow silly things like the supreme court stop him from attempting to buy voters by cancelling their student loan debt.
- 'he' oversaw one of the largest armaments transfers to an adversary when 'he' ordered the withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan without leaving a token force of a few thousand behind to make sure those weapons and material were either shipped out or destroyed. To put this in contrast with a well-known historical armaments transfer to an adversary: the 'Iran-Contra' deal relates to a $30 million sale of missiles to Iran in 1986 and the use of $18 million of that money to fund the "Contra's" - anti-communist insurgents fighting the communist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. $30 million in 1986 is equivalent with $86 million in 2024. Biden's withdrawal left the Taliban with at least $7 billion worth of material but possibly more - the estimate goes from a minimum of $7 billion to more than $10 billion.
- 'he' was a master in creatively (ab)using government agencies to push through his agenda, e.g. by using OSHA to get companies with 100+ employees to force those employees to get one of the experimental COVID vaccines.
Etcetera. A lot was done during Biden's presidency so in that sense 'he' was an effective president. It is up to the beholder to decide whether a lot of 'good' was done during 'his' presidency. I use quotes around 'he' and 'his' because it is as of yet unclear how much of the above 'achievements' were actually Biden's work and how much was done only in his name.
Are you aware this is actually what multiple RNC candidates were doing?
> 'he' did not allow silly things like the supreme court stop him from attempting to buy voters by cancelling their student loan debt
This is moronic. Farmers receive the most subsidies, is the RNC buying their votes by enacting policy? You could call literally anything "buying votes"
Your post is beyond biased, it's contradicting itself.
Sure, they flew migrants to 'sanctuary cities' - remember the panic on Martha's Vineyard when a few of them showed up and remember how quickly they were shuffled away by the virtuous inhabitants of that island - to demonstrate the magnitude of the problem. They were very vocal about it and did it out in the open, inviting press and publishing widely about their intents. That is not what I referred to. I was referring to the secretive night flights ordered by Biden's government, something along these lines:
https://homeland.house.gov/2024/04/30/new-documents-reveal-a...
a subpoena of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) [...] identified over 50 airport locations, including our nation’s capital, used by DHS to help process into the country more than 400,000 inadmissible aliens through the administration’s unlawful Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) mass-parole program. The program was officially launched in January 2023, and the documents obtained by the Committee cover the period from January-August 2023—accounting for roughly 200,000 of these individuals.
> This is moronic. Farmers receive the most subsidies, is the RNC buying their votes by enacting policy?
Apart from the fact that both parties are in on the farm subsidy racket - the main difference being that the 'democrats' specifically target 'farmers of colour' through the 'black farmer relief program' [1] - there is a clear difference in that those programs have been going on for decades while the 'student loan debt forgiveness' scheme popped into existence at just the right time to attract voters for the upcoming elections.
And yes, of course my post is biased, I am after all playing devil's advocate to defend the 'effective' Biden presidency in ways most likely not intended by the parent poster.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/us/black-farmers.html
And? You are aware that promising to do things for voters that aren't being done yet is not exactly a Machiavellian scheme. It's how a policy gets started. Do we just not do anything because that would be new and scary?
I know you're pretending to play devils advocate but you are transparently being critical of politicians doing the bare minimum of their job because they have a D next to their name. Devils advocate means you are taking a position you don't agree with for the exercise of it. You are making bad faith statements about a party you visibly hate.
Blue=good Red=bad