I don't think hyper consumerism goes deeply enough to answer the question of why we saw prices change so rapidly. We printed trillions of dollars and flooded the economy with new money. We had extremely low interest rates, again creating more new money in the system. We stopped student debt payments, meaning people had more money in their pockets to spend. We also stopped evictions, though you would really have to be a special kind of asshole to skip paying rent so you can buy more random consumer goods.

Its worth noting that printing new money was the actual inflation, inflation is a measure of the increase in the money supply itself. Prices did go up, or you could say the dollar lost value, but price changes aren't actually inflation (prices are tracked by indexes).

Price rises are tied to higher energy costs, that are linked to the war in Ukraine.

Energy touches basically every corner of the economy. It seems like it'd be difficult to narrow down price increases to just one cause, especially a base resource.

It looks like US electricity costs are up around 10% since 2022. How do you peel that apart to know electricity prices changed first, and that that is what caused all other prices to go up?

I mean - you just said it didnt you? Energy touches basically every corner of the economy. Thats perfect. Yeah it does - and so it raises prices for everything.

Also why do you look at electricity? Its not just electricity, its everything. The war disrupted oil supply from Russia, which is something like 11% of global oil production. On top of it they disrupted supply chains globally.

Also, this is on top of the pandemic's economic hangover. This is pretty much up there from the first few searches on this topic, before you have to get into any detailed economic analysis.

I should have said energy there, I didn't mean to zoom in only on electricity. Oil priced are actually a worse comparison, I'm pretty sure oil is down since the war started.

> I mean - you just said it didnt you? Energy touches basically every corner of the economy. Thats perfect. Yeah it does - and so it raises prices for everything.

That doesn't show direction though. Energy impacts basically everything in the economy, but energy can also be impacted by the rest of the economy.

> Also, this is on top of the pandemic's economic hangover. This is pretty much up there from the first few searches on this topic, before you have to get into any detailed economic analysis.

Doesn't that go against the earlier comment that prices are tied through energy costs and directly linked to Ukraine?

I wouldn't put to much faith in top search results for what its worth. Those are almost never going to include detailed economic analysis. Most people don't click on detailed analysis, search engines won't promote those first.

>That doesn't show direction though. Energy impacts basically everything in the economy, but energy can also be impacted by the rest of the economy.

What direction? Sorry, direction of prices of energy? Direction of inflation.

Look, we seem to be debating the strangest things. Not only are there 100s of articles that discuss and establish this fact, it is the basis for every strategy to handle the situation.

>Doesn't that go against the earlier comment that prices are tied through energy costs and directly linked to Ukraine?

Yeah you are right. I added it in context of the larger forces driving inflation.

If you want to be focused on energy alone then it is the war on Ukraine. Here - theres a paper from Nature that decomposes the various factors of the price rise and finds that the war was responsible for 75% of the increase in prices.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02526-9#:~:text=T....

I suppose that should satisfy you?

The direction is inherent to the relationship between energy and other goods. While it’s true that energy has inputs, it’s an input for virtually everything.

Sources and sinks - where does the money go? What is it subsequently used for?

"Inflation" by itself has come to be synonymous with consumer price inflation. This rubs the Austrian in me the wrong way, but it is what it is. Personally I always make sure to use an additional term like "monetary inflation", "price inflation", and "asset inflation". For example, Trump created trillions of dollars in monetary inflation, succeeding at the goal of creating immediate asset inflation, which then a few years later caused massive price inflation.

I understand all of this; I voted for Harris, despite not particularly liking her (or Biden)

Trump talked about inflation, and his desire to fix it, constantly.

Harris did not.

Once again, Republicans Show Up and they win by default. Yes, his "plans" are nonsensical, but the opponents decided to forfeit the match!

This isn't true. Harris has talked about fighting inflation many, many times. The issue is nobody listens, ultimately republicans have been able to support the lie that they are the "party of economics". Past that propaganda piece, nobody cares.

As I tried to imply in my original post: Harris' talk about low inflation or fighting inflation loses on a technicality, which is that people tend to experience inflation as the current price not the rate of change in the current price. Thus, when Harris is talking about inflation fighting and inflation cooling down, you have a bunch of people who look at the price of eggs/pizza/houses and say, "this shit is still expensive, Dems are full of shit." They are not looking at the CPI, and calculating the year-over-year change.

Let me share an anecdote: I worked on a project to estimate household-level price sensitivities to the market basket of goods commonly used in CPI calculations. (My employer had shopper-card/upc/transaction-level data from tons of major grocery chains across the USA with which to attempt this project.) I tried to read through the docs on how CPI is calculated, and let me tell you: major snoozefest, and I consider myself "a numbers guy."

I doubt the run-of-the-mill American can accurately define inflation. Consequently, "look at how we fought inflation" is the wrong campaign slogan.

"The Rent is too Damn High" is still a well-recognized meme. I doubt many people remember the gentleman's name or what he was running for. But the message worked! It's got to be simple and focused.

Slogans are important. Everyone knows MAGA, it's on the hat, but can you name Harris, Biden, or Clintons?

Clinton's was I'm With Her, wasn't it? Not sure about the others off the top of my head. TBF I'm With Her isn't nearly as compelling as Make America Great Again.

Right, I'm With Her - alienating anyone who's not sexist and votes for policy, not genitalia.

People are suffering and the Dems ran on 'things are going great'. To the people suffering that feelz/vibez like 'our version of great DNGAF about you'. It's easy to see how that could be a less than optimal message for a candidate for election.

The issue is that she's part of the current administration and the current dominant party. That's all people care about. They look at who's in charge and vote the other way. It's really that simple.

That seems to imply that things can't get worse.. much much worse

Oh, they will get worse, much worse. But the simpletons who think the president is in charge of egg prices or whatever will never comprehend that. Maybe if it gets bad enough people will learn then.

> Harris has talked about fighting inflation many, many times.

There was this Biden admin. push to not call things a "recession" due to technicalities that probably pissed people off? "Inflation" means 'higher prices' and "recession" means 'economy things suck right now'.

Where are the long form interviews that cover the policy from her point of view?

afaik, Inflation in the us i quite low. Isn't it almost at the target? So why would she have a policy?

To beat a dead horse, the working class cannot afford grocery or rent. If you say that inflation is not that bad, in their mind you dismiss their suffering and dismiss them entirely.

I'm saying that because inflation is what we're discussing.

I have no trouble believing many people are worse off, which sucks. And many politicians should care more and try to do more.

But: 1) I would attribute that to low wage increases for several decades, not the last 4 years. 2) there's no easy fix for these things. 3) Putting inflation in a global perspective is meant to show how this is not mainly Biden's fault, since he doesn't control the rest of the world.

I did not hear this, and neither did the median voter. Perhaps that is down to our choice of media diets, but we should take such things as constants when considering political outcomes.

I did hear Trump loudly, constantly, inaccurately talking about Grocery prices.

> The reality is post-covid was an inflationary period because of hyper consumerism

That was just an outgrowth of high monetary supply during COVID to shore up the numbers and prevent economic collapse due to a steep and sudden drop of economic activity. All that money couldn't be immediately mopped up as soon as the economies opened up, so it sloshed around for a while longer.

> You can't put extreme tariffs like 200% and expect prices to come down.

I used to believe this, but the truth is we haven't been able to import food, energy or homes from China for a while. That leaves autos, and it's very hard to predict how auto tariffs would affect inflation, since people have always purchased more expensive cars over cheaper ones, for a variety of reasons. Meanwhile for stuff you and I care about like computers, well most of what you are paying for is software, which is all made here. Services like health care and education are insensitive to tariffs, and since grocery stores have to provide health care to some employees all the same, it affects prices for goods. Home prices rising is supported by both parties, and besides inflation the government basically guarantees market returns but risk free in owner-occupied real estate in this country.

I wish what you were saying were true - that bringing tariffs down to zero would eliminate inflation - but if it were that simple it would have been done already.

Its not just China. Those tariffs he's advocating for are broadly speaking, against all imports[0]

>Trump proposed a 10% tariff on all U.S. imports and a 60% levy on Chinese-made products, which if enacted would affect the entire economy by pushing consumer prices higher and stoking retaliatory levies on American exports. Trump also threatened to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico.

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-suppliers-importers-prep...

I'm not arguing that bringing tariffs down to 0 will just magically eliminate inflation. But certainly, and without debate, the tariffs Trump proposes will grossly increase the price of goods for consumers.

> even a freshman economics student can point that out

And that freshman would be more educated than 1/3 of the country.

I don't mean that as an insult to 1/3 of the country. Trump wins because he messages in a way that EVERY person can understand. A huge portion of the country will disagree with his approach, but that's vastly different than relying on people to understand concepts they've never had exposure to.

"You can't put extreme tariffs like 200% and expect prices to come down."

See Smoot Hawley - it passed in 1930, and deflation accelerated. Economy is a complicated system.

Any other notable events that happened in the 30s that could have driven deflation? Could tariffs be linked to that event? (To be less coy, the great depression occurred in the 1930s. Counter tariffs led to less exports, which further hurt the economy. The arrow of causality is indirect, tariffs -> counter tariffs -> worse economy -> deflation) [1]

Recent example: Gas prices deflated during covid. Why? Massive reduction in driving and buying of gasoline.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Smoot-Hawley-Tariff-Act

"Smoot-Hawley contributed to the early loss of confidence on Wall Street and signaled U.S. isolationism. By raising the average tariff by some 20 percent, it also prompted retaliation from foreign governments, and many overseas banks began to fail. (Because the legislation set both specific and ad valorem tariff rates [i.e., rates based on the value of the product], determining the precise percentage increase in tariff levels is difficult and a subject of debate among economists.) Within two years some two dozen countries adopted similar “beggar-thy-neighbour” duties, making worse an already beleaguered world economy and reducing global trade. U.S. imports from and exports to Europe fell by some two-thirds between 1929 and 1932, while overall global trade declined by similar levels in the four years that the legislation was in effect."

> they just like Trump and will fill in the gaps to justify it.

You've hit the nail on the head. They "like Trump." They find him charismatic and entertaining. Democrat politicians are boring and starched. Politics is show business. Why can't the Democrats learn that?

Democrats like charismatic candidates too.

Anyway, the two party system seems to breed extremes. I'd like to see ranked choice, same day, primaries, and abolishment of the slavers' electoral college.

> Democrats like charismatic candidates too.

Yes, we like charismatic candidates, but we don't run them.

In all sincerity, Jon Stewart is highly electable. More realistically, I think Pete Buttigieg would dominate the podcast circuit in a way that Kamala Harris dared not even try.

> In all sincerity, Jon Stewart is highly electable.

And in all sincerity, I think he'd be a good president too. He isn't interested in running, however, so the point is moot.

They can't learn this because this ideology is populism, and a lot (most?) educated people are against this type of campaigning.

However, we must admit it is effective and it would do the democrats good to be more populist. It's just hard to be populist without resorting to emotional appeals, propaganda, fear mongering, misinformation, etc.

> this ideology is populism,

That's not what I'm saying. Populism represents an ideology about policy, i.e. do what the people want. My argument that "Politics is show business" is about the presentation of a campaign, not its content. One can use a persuasive presentation to market any policy viewpoint, populist or not.

Trump's campaign has alternately incoherent and destructive policy proposals, but the narrative he presents is exquisite (without being necessarily true): "A popular and successful businessman selflessly sacrifices his own comfortable lifestyle to bring common sense to politics by sweeping away greedy bureaucrats and wasteful institutions, along the way surviving assassination attempts, criminal charges, and a malign media campaign to discredit him." It's a great story, with heroes and villains. It's easy to get swept up in that story and want to be part of it. Certainly Trump's experience as a TV star has given him insights into crafting a narrative that engages with people.

The Democrats' have sensible policy but virtually no narrative. At best (as someone tweeted, can't find original source now) the Democrats are in the position of defending imperfect institutions. The Dems blow loads of money on ad buys, but what they need is writers to create a story that engages people emotionally.

THIS. Voting in America seems completely disconnected from rational policy discussion, people don't seem to care anymore. The average voter gets so caught up in the sensationalism and the most controversial candidates seem to appeal strongly to both Boomers and GenZ. Sadly, I think any successful Democratic candidate in the future will need to appeal to voters in this way.

National elections are essentially yes/no referenda because all the issues average out in aggregate. Issues make for months of tv though.

Gen X broke hard for Trump. Few in that generation agree with any of the culture nonsense the current Dems support. She couldn't give us her opinion on taxpayer funded gender reassignment surgery for illegal aliens in prison? Come on, hard pass. Millenials keep dems afloat at this point.