I think this resonates a bit with a recent Ezra Klein podcast on "what liberals misunderstand about authoritarianism", in which Anne Applebaum talks, among other things, about the crucial importance of an understandable narrative, involving a shared sense of purpose, and possibly an enemy to fight against. In her (and Ezra) opinion this is something that liberal societies, actually liberal governments specifically, fail to provide, often because, for better or worse, they underestimate its importance.
Agree that Biden's best move would be honesty - tell the American people that we are in for a period of belt-tightening for the national good. Unfortunately, people know that casting the blame on greedy corporations and focusing on core CPI, ignoring the spikes in food and energy prices, is false, and the lies sting more than the truth.
Disagree that the 3rd stimulus did not accelerate inflation. Of course it did. Printing $1.9T in March 2021, on top of the $3T Trump handed out, had no impact? That is a very tough claim to make, and reads like partisan bias.
Agree that the US needs to re-engage with its allies, particularly democracies. How about reviving the TPP? Or signing a US-UK trade deal? Announce a tech partnership with Israel? Instead, the Biden administration courts Iran, a regime that constantly and loudly insults the US and destabilizes the region. It makes the US looks weak and leaves allies feeling snubbed.
I'm not arguing that ARP didn't contribute to inflation. I'm saying that given what we've seen in inflation elsewhere in the world, it seems very likely that we would have had a significant inflation problem even if ARP had been much smaller. We still would have had the big shift in the composition of spending from goods to services, running up against supply chain constraints, and we still would have had the big rise in food and energy prices.
I think this resonates a bit with a recent Ezra Klein podcast on "what liberals misunderstand about authoritarianism", in which Anne Applebaum talks, among other things, about the crucial importance of an understandable narrative, involving a shared sense of purpose, and possibly an enemy to fight against. In her (and Ezra) opinion this is something that liberal societies, actually liberal governments specifically, fail to provide, often because, for better or worse, they underestimate its importance.
Agree that Biden's best move would be honesty - tell the American people that we are in for a period of belt-tightening for the national good. Unfortunately, people know that casting the blame on greedy corporations and focusing on core CPI, ignoring the spikes in food and energy prices, is false, and the lies sting more than the truth.
Disagree that the 3rd stimulus did not accelerate inflation. Of course it did. Printing $1.9T in March 2021, on top of the $3T Trump handed out, had no impact? That is a very tough claim to make, and reads like partisan bias.
Agree that the US needs to re-engage with its allies, particularly democracies. How about reviving the TPP? Or signing a US-UK trade deal? Announce a tech partnership with Israel? Instead, the Biden administration courts Iran, a regime that constantly and loudly insults the US and destabilizes the region. It makes the US looks weak and leaves allies feeling snubbed.
I'm not arguing that ARP didn't contribute to inflation. I'm saying that given what we've seen in inflation elsewhere in the world, it seems very likely that we would have had a significant inflation problem even if ARP had been much smaller. We still would have had the big shift in the composition of spending from goods to services, running up against supply chain constraints, and we still would have had the big rise in food and energy prices.