O noes! The theme is gone!

To be 100% clear, I don't think either side gets the moral high ground about The Flag Thing. But lots of people on either side think they do---and the passion with which they hold that belief is indicative of the "belonging" thing I was talking about earlier.

How in the H.E. Double Hockey Sticks did I miss the mention of the flag-planting?

Having spent over a decade getting overly-educated at Ohio State I'm obviously a fan, but I was not the least bit bothered over the Michigan players waving/planting a flag. They earned it. I also didn't care when Baker Mayfield did the same thing years ago. It's a game, and honestly it's these extra things that make the rivalry even more fun down the road. The most despicable part of the whole thing was watching Ryan Day do absolutely nothing during the whole debacle aside from put his hands on his hips while he watched his coaching tenure go up in flames.

What should be a felony is losing to the team up north 4 years in a row.

Especially since now they aren't even cheating...

TheMillenniumRider:

I know wage growth has happened, but I do not believe that it has kept pace with inflation, let alone inflation plus some form of actual growth.

You don't have to believe it, but it did:

Inflation-adjusted weekly earnings for the bottom 10 percent of workers in the third quarter this year were up 7.3 percent from the same point in 2019, compared with 3.6 percent for workers at the top.

As the piece points out, it isn't universal, but that's the nature of a system with a floor of zero and no ceiling. Trump has been gaslighting people for a decade, and people still eat it up. That entire movement wants you to hate and fear something, so if it isn't people of color, women or the gays, it's things that don't exist.

If I'm guilty of anything, it's that I believe people are capable of critical thinking. I think I'm wrong about that. I like to think that people are willfully ignorant, and maybe they are, but perhaps they just don't care enough to learn things. I mean, if you really want to get in the weeds, presidents don't have a lot of levers to pull on inflation. There's not a reputable economist in the world who would attribute recent inflation to Trump or Biden. They will attribute it to a pandemic that caused widespread supply chain and labor issues. The inputs that cause inflation are complicated, sure, but this is high school economics. It's literally just supply and demand.

Presidents have some levers to pull for employment, but they're beholden to the whims of Congress, and they usually involve a lot of public works programs (Biden and Obama both pushed for, and got the infrastructure projects they wanted).

But getting back to the perceptions, the irony is not lost on me that the "**** your feelings" people acquire power by, yep, stoking your feelings. I get you're all leaning into perception as the reason for Trump's win, and you're not wrong. I'm just saying that those perceptions are not rooted in what's going on, and you can debate what reality means all day. There's still only one. No one is eating dogs.

GoBucks89:
I think society has in large part lost the ability to disagree with other people.

I think we can disagree, but not on everything. Racism, sedition, disregard for the Constitution, these are not negotiable things to me. And yeah, you can say it's not about those things, but that's why Trumpism focuses on the imagined things, so you can make it about those. And if you're a little racist but don't want to admit it, you can eat up those dog whistles too.

Jeff:

but perhaps they just don't care enough to learn things.

It couldn't be summarized any better than this.

Jeff:

Inflation-adjusted weekly earnings for the bottom 10 percent of workers in the third quarter this year were up 7.3 percent from the same point in 2019, compared with 3.6 percent for workers at the top.

According to the internet, the cumulative inflation from 2019 to 2024 is 23.4%. With the NYT saying that the inflation adjusted earnings are 7.3 higher for the bottom 10, does that mean they saw a wage increase of 1.073 X 23.4 = 25%? Or 1.036 X 23.4 = 24% for the top workers?

I can say without a doubt that I am not making anywhere near that much more today than I was in 2019. And I expect a whole lot of people are in the same boat that I am in.

The same Internets (or Google's AI, at least) says cumulative wage growth is 34%.

And sure, my raises in the last three years did not outpace inflation either. That's why the numbers are averages, not applicable to every human worker. Even Jesus said there will always be poor (sort of), but the existence of people not keeping up doesn't mean that on average people are.

This is why I struggle to believe that. I don't know anyone who has gotten north of 25% pay increase in 5 years time.

What was the data source, and what is the makeup of that data source? Do they weight the different categories equally in the data, or are they skewed to match the actual market composition of the jobs? There are so many ways to just slightly alter the data to make things look way better or worse. I obviously won' sit here and say no one has gotten the pay increases, cause there are certainly those that have, but where?

If a CEO went from 100k to 250k and his amount is averaged in with the McDonald's worker who went from 25k to 26k, and this is done without any weighting, then there might be some data misrepresentation. Obviously CoasterBuzz isn't an accurate sample, but has anyone here increased their pay by 25%?

TheMillenniumRider:

Obviously CoasterBuzz isn't an accurate sample, but has anyone here increased their pay by 25%?

You know whose wages likely went up (pure speculation, I'm not wasting more time than it takes to type on this silliness)?

Those at the very bottom.

All of those initiatives to get minimum wages increased. We took people who really weren't making it, and helped them just kind of not make it...

...and then they voted Trump.

I mean going from $10 an hour to $15 an hour is a 50% wage increase. But it doesn't suddenly mean things are affordable to you.

Data is fun like that.

EDIT - ok, I lied, I ended up looking it up:

The statistics are clearly racist.

Were the statistics black?

Lord Gonchar:

I mean going from $10 an hour to $15 an hour is a 50% wage increase. But it doesn't suddenly mean things are affordable to you.

Totally neglected to figure in that sort of math. If someone was getting min wage and is now getting like 14-15 they got a 100% increase, yet they are still way too poor to do much of anything with that.

Well, the problem is, and I welcome anybody to correct me, is that if you raise wages at the lower end, it leads to the following:

• Increased cost of goods
• Job losses

I'm not saying I approve of those things happening, because there are a myriad of other factors at play. Companies, especially publicly-held ones, are not just going to watch their profit margins erode. They're either going to make cuts or they're going to hike prices. Aren't there a lot of job cuts that have taken place in California due to their minimum wage hike for fast food workers?

Listen, I'm all for increased wages, but there's nothing stopping the companies affected from just hiking the cost of goods. I think the solution lies elsewhere, such as severe tax penalties for companies exploiting loopholes in the system and market. Venture capital firms want to buy up housing? Tax the ever-living daylights out of them. Housing shouldn't belong to corporations. The healthcare industry? Tax their profits severely unless they bring costs down, be it providers, insurers, etc. Companies that do mass layoffs while profitable? Tax them heavily on their profits and use the money to fund unemployment.

I realize some of this may come off as simple, and it's probably weird to read this coming from someone who leans conservative, but it's the path forward that I think we need to take. Hiking wages alone is not going to solve the pinch some people are feeling.

As noted above and as we have discussed previously, we are talking about averages. To me, you need to compare December 2019 to today. And looking over longer period of time is also important in terms of overall policy. Some people selectively look are narrow time periods that are consistent with what they want the narrative to be.

In terms of inflation, numbers reported are averages as well. Comparing the price of given basket of goods over time. But a 2.5% CPI change doesn't mean everything in that basket increased by 2.5%. Some increased by more than that. Some less. And others may well have gone down in price. That matters because not everyone buys equal/proportionate quantities of good in that basket. May well be the case in terms of what any given person's spending was over the relevant time period, some people experienced more inflation and others less. Won't necessarily provide much comfort to someone experiencing higher inflation to hear the average is less than that.

sirloindude:

Well, the problem is, and I welcome anybody to correct me, is that if you raise wages at the lower end, it leads to the following:

• Increased cost of goods
• Job losses

There is more at play here, as you did mention further down your post. Why can I purchase a big mac anywhere in the world for roughly the same price, while the wages those workers make vary wildly? Additionally, one of the cheapest fast food companies (In N Out) has some of the highest fast food wages. Higher wage is not equal to higher cost of goods. Shoot, lets do the giant Texas gas station, Bucees, their starting pay is close to $20/hr, but their bags of chips and junk food are the same price as the Kwik-E-Mart paying minimum wage to its people.

sirloindude:
but there's nothing stopping the companies affected from just hiking the cost of goods

Here lies the problem, why do they hike the cost of goods? Is it because they are unwilling to take less money out of the business for shareholders?

sirloindude:
Venture capital firms want to buy up housing? Tax the ever-living daylights out of them.

I said this exact thing in some thread some time ago, own more than 2 homes? Then you get massive crippling property taxes on those additional homes.

sirloindude:
The healthcare industry? Tax their profits severely unless they bring costs down, be it providers, insurers, etc.

Or just nationalize it, we are after all the only developed country who can't seem to figure out universal healthcare. Wonder why that is?

sirloindude:
Companies that do mass layoffs while profitable? Tax them heavily on their profits and use the money to fund unemployment.

Another stellar solution, but why does this problem exist in the first place? Along with healthcare, privatization of prisons, privatization of any public service really, and wages, etc etc. All of it just keeps ringing back to greed of shareholders and of top management. If you want to have private companies that are driven primarily on profit margins, fine, keep it out of the sector of required services. (Housing, healthcare, schooling, utilities, food) I might have missed one or two, but if it is a basic need for survival or existence, then no one else should be able to turn a profit off of it. Profits just cause an increase in costs and a drive to en****tify the product. Is that word in the dictionary yet? It should be, its a perfectly cromulent word.

TheMillenniumRider:

Here lies the problem, why do they hike the cost of goods?

Because they cost more to produce. Supply and demand (again).

TheMillenniumRider:
Obviously CoasterBuzz isn't an accurate sample, but has anyone here increased their pay by 25%?

It doesn't really matter, because averages, but I checked any mine was up 22% over that period (not counting equity or bonus, which is another convenient way to skew actual compensation in tech), so definitely underperforming inflation. While I'm not OK with that, I can still accept where the averages are, and understand the underlying factors driving the economy.

Oh, that made me think of more irony. Trumpies like to talk about personal responsibility and "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," but still insist that they can save you, which says you don't have to pull yourself up.

Nope, that's not it. Not that I'm a "Trumpie", but I think the overall feeling (hope?) is that he'll reduce the size of the federal government (draining the swamp, as it were), thus getting it the hell out of our lives. It'll come as no surprise that I have little trust in government in general, but I know it's necessary...just not as the overbearing entity it currently is with its hands in the regulation of...well, seemingly everything.

TheMillenniumRider:

Obviously CoasterBuzz isn't an accurate sample, but has anyone here increased their pay by 25%?

Sheepishly raises hand.

Jeff:

And if you're a little racist but don't want to admit it, you can eat up those dog whistles too.

"Mild Racism"

Jeff:

Because they cost more to produce. Supply and demand (again).

I guess I sort of phrased that question wrong, moreso given the other context of my post. But why do some companies hike the price of goods when other don’t. Specifically from my post McDonalds vs In N Out. They both produce substitute products, and use similar inputs, yet one can magically sell for roughly half the cost and pay the labor 50% more.

Vater:
overbearing entity it currently is with its hands in the regulation of...well, seemingly everything.

I would love to see smaller government, however as has been demonstrated many times over, companies will destroy the country to make an extra buck, which really should read as people will destroy the country to make an extra buck. Remove environmental regulation, companies will trash the environment, etc. Sadly widespread regulation is needed for the betterment of society.

Strangely enough the party of small government is all about regulation. Abortion, tariffs, porn, trans stuff, bodily decisions, etc. many things that were trending towards deregulation are moving back towards being regulated. Both parties are all about regulation, just depends where that regulation applies I suppose. One party wants to control the population and the other seeks to control businesses and higher level departments.

But the bribery is the biggest problem, and one that needs to be resolved yesterday.

Vater:

I think the overall feeling (hope?) is that he'll reduce the size of the federal government (draining the swamp, as it were), thus getting it the hell out of our lives.

He literally did the opposite in his first term (like most presidents, except Clinton). Again, a whole lot of cognitive dissonance on behalf of the voting public.

But I also would like to unpack this "government in our lives" thing. I'll put aside for a moment that Republicans are hell bent on regulating what you do in the bedroom, the bathroom, the library, the theater and under the care of your doctor. We are objectively less free than we were thanks to their efforts. Another reason it seems pretty weird to expect fake-conservatives to get government out of our lives.

Still, what exactly is it that government is doing (aside from the above) that is fundamentally interfering with our lives? Reagan started this thing where he sowed mistrust of government, unless of course he was running it. Two generations later, that sentiment has stuck. And don't say "taxes," because we have a relatively low individual tax burden relative to most of the world, and unreasonably low corporate taxes.