Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 9 2024 07:03pm)

Biden and the Democrats did push for, and ultimately got, yet another round of covid stimulus in the spring of 2021 - at a time when vaccines were already rolling out at a good pace, summer was around the corner and it was clear that we were increasingly leaving covid behind. And his treasury secretary as well as the FED very publicly declared that the early inflation was just "transitory" and wouldn't be cause for concern. Lo and behold, inflation was there to stay, surged even higher and ultimately had to be reined in with painfully drastic interest rate hikes.

So there is a pretty good argument to make that Biden and his administration are responsible for having exacerbated the post-covid inflation. Yes, some degree of inflation was always gonna be inevitable, but Biden clearly made it worse. To quantify this: inflation in the US stood at 7.5% in January 2022 while it stood at 5.1% in the eurozone. I picked Jan 22 as the reference point since it's the last month before the war in Ukraine, which had a bigger economic impact on Europe (and many developing countries) than the US.

Quote (thesnipa @ 10 Jul 2024 14:14)

sure, but i said "specifically". biden and trump both enacted policy that pumped inflation, and at the same time the largescale inflation is mostly due to factors outside of either's control. money printing is only responsible for a much smaller part of inflation than 2 other factors, supply chain disruption and corporate profiteering.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 10 2024 10:18am)

Do you have a source which quantifies the corporate greed factor? The comparison between the US and the eurozone suggests that nearly one third of the inflation seen in the US in the aftermath of covid was US-specific and hence not caused by supply chain disruptions or corporate greed. (Assuming that Europe was affected by those to roughly the same degree as the US.)

Quote (thesnipa @ Jul 10 2024 11:27am)

on a source for greedflation, ive been seeing a lot of diagrams for months. but when i googled it i found 100 copy paste articles from left, right, and center saying "the fed concludes greedflation not driving inflation". so the group of people who pumped money into the economy to partially cause inflation, but wont take any blame for it, did a study and found corporations are actually super interested in pricing goods at the exact right price to be fair to consumers. lol sure. ill do some more looking if i get time.

as to the latter, i dont know how we could say that, for a few reasons:

1. the US wasnt the only country that gave out stimulus checks
2. the us could have more supply chain vulnerability than other places, or less, tbh idk
3. the us has historically had more greedy corporations, not less, so that would actually serve my point

Quote (thesnipa @ 10 Jul 2024 17:27)

as to the latter, i dont know how we could say that, for a few reasons:

1. the US wasnt the only country that gave out stimulus checks
2. the us could have more supply chain vulnerability than other places, or less, tbh idk
3. the us has historically had more greedy corporations, not less, so that would actually serve my point

Quote (Mondain @ Jul 8 2024 03:51pm)

Too Big To Rig

Quote (bogie160 @ 10 Jul 2024 18:02)

Of course not, they're interested in maximizing profit, but that calculation necessarily takes supply and demand into account. If people will continue to pay higher prices for eggs / milk / whatever they'll continue to price accordingly. If volume falls off and selling more for less makes sense, I'm sure they'd do that too. They aren't going to intentionally sell at a higher price such that they make less money. That can happen, but it should iron itself out over time. Groceries (what people are most upset about) are a highly competitive business. It's really hard to fathom how widespread collusion would even be possible.

Quote (bogie160 @ Jul 10 2024 11:02am)

Of course not, they're interested in maximizing profit, but that calculation necessarily takes supply and demand into account. If people will continue to pay higher prices for eggs / milk / whatever they'll continue to price accordingly. If volume falls off and selling more for less makes sense, I'm sure they'd do that too. They aren't going to intentionally sell at a higher price such that they make less money. That can happen, but it should iron itself out over time. Groceries (what people are most upset about) are a highly competitive business. It's really hard to fathom how widespread collusion would even be possible.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 10 2024 11:03am)

1. Some covid stimulus was necessary at the start of the pandemic, so that people wouldn't starve and the economy wouldn't completely collapse. But afaik, Europe did not have an extra round of covid checks in the spring of 2021.
2. The US has a larger economy than Europe and produces more commodities/natural resources by itself.
3. I would say the difference is smaller than perceived. People always think of the US as the land of unmitigated corporate capitalism and Europe as the land of socialism/social democracy, but that's too simplistic. Also, US investors hold significant shares of a ton of European corporations and would push for profit maximization.

Quote (thesnipa @ 10 Jul 2024 18:49)

doesnt the EU aid package for covid stimulus go currently through 2026?

Quote

as to US in EU, we do have corporate interests there, but most of the goods are entirely different and less profitable to meet EU standards and demand.

we do have a larger producer economy, and we import many more raw goods for that production which are subject to supply chain and then the costs are added into inflation. i work in an industry severely disrupted to this day, we've had to go with a lot of more expensive EU or US made components and jacked up our prices.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 10 2024 01:30pm)

Yes, but that's EU funding going to the member states, not stimulus checks going from the governments directly to the people or to specific companies.


Hmmm, fair enough. Maybe my personal perception is also biased in this regard since I live in the most industry-heavy country of Europe. But there are indeed large regions in Europe which are focused on farming or services, rather than industrial production. But then again, so do the US.