Are the Democrats afraid of losing an election?
Nonapod writes:
The administration seems to be behaving awfuly brazenly (or brazenly awful) for a president with such evidently low approval ratings. I guess they don’t care that so many people hate them? They just keep doubling down. They’ve all but openly declared war on American citizens. It’s surreal.
I believe that they don’t care all that much, for several reasons.
The first is that they learned from Obamacare that if they push through an unpopular program by hook or crook, it becomes very hard to dislodge. So they will push through programs they think benefit and enhance their own power, whether the people want them or don’t want them. It is all about power.
The second is that they think they have control of all the institutions, and that their propaganda machines will be able to calm down enough people that they can continue with their power grabs.
The third is that they think they can control the voting process in their favor. There are many many avenues for this. One is of course MSM propaganda, another is the control of social media (see for example this recent announcement about Google and YouTube). Another is weaponizing the DOJ and lawfare. Another is the ability to win elections by fraud, especially elections that are at all close.
In light of all this, I’m actually somewhat surprised that the Biden approval polls have gone down as much as they have. Of course, I think that Biden’s approval ratings should be around 1% at this point (or at any point, actually). But I realize how strong the Democrats’ propaganda machine remains.
The real question is whether reality will be stronger, and whether that will happen soon enough to avoid further disaster.
“The first is that they learned from Obamacare that if they push through an unpopular program by hook or crook, it becomes very hard to dislodge. So they will push through programs they think benefit and enhance their own power, whether the people want them or don’t want them. It is all about power.”
Precisely. With the Left (and the national Democratic Party is now almost entirely controlled by the Left), the ultimate end is always power, control and hegemony. Those who believe otherwise (including many ordinary voters who constantly vote Democrat) are utterly naive.
The thing is: the Left plays the long game, and often plays it quite well. They knew passage of Obamacare would damage them politically in the short term. They didn’t care, because they believed, once passed, it would never be repealed or overturned and it would help entrench their power in the long run. They were right.
They are operating exactly the same way now (albeit more brazenly). Yes, they may very well lose the House and Senate next year, maybe the Presidency in 2024; maybe even another SCOTUS seat (if Breyer decides not to retire but then dies during the next Republican President’s term, much like RBG). But they believe all of the above will be merely a temporary set back in the long run, in a cultural war they are largely winning.
I fear they are correct.
No. The Democrats are not afraid of losing an election. They don’t need to be afraid. And they enjoy letting the rest of us know it.
Because Biden and his whole crew are people who’ve never learned the rudiments of economics, they seem to be genuinely surprised that their idiotic policies are driving prices up rapidly. This might be the one thing which will convince more people not to vote for Democrats for anything.
I think they are convinced that this is a lifetime opportunity. They have successfully used Trump as a boogie man to scare Democrats into voting for this agenda they don’t understand. The teachers’ unions have the kids indoctrinated so they assume the future is theirs. Vouchers are the way out but white suburban woman are opposed and it is racism, of course, but they can pretend to be “antiracist” while they hold blacks at bay. The public school thing might be a bridge too far.
I think you’re pretty much right in your points. And it’s certainly true that despite all their advantages the Dems may still end up losing bigly in the ’22 midterms.
I suspect that the biggest problem for Biden and the Dems in the coming year is continued inflation. This is because it doesn’t really matter what the media or the administration claims, inflation is something that impacts everybody. It can’t be papered over or downplayed. Everybody sees it and everybody shares in the pain of it. It’s effectively like a giant tax on everybody, a true flat tax in many ways. Inflation will continue to be great millstone around the Dem’s necks, dragging down their approval ratings beyond the margin of fraud and the margin of information suppression.
I don’t think the dems need their propaganda machine wrt current events. The approval rating is the die-hard TDS voter for whom nothing else mattered or matters. Nothing. Add to them habitual democrat voters and….you win.
That Trump isn’t running is irrelevant. And if he were running, it would also be irrelevant.
Nonapod:
“[I]nflation is something that impacts everybody.”
Not so.
It doesn’t impact the fat cats and the freeloaders.
It wipes out the middle class.
Liberalism / Progressivism has become a religions cult that is indoctrinated in our educational institutions, reinforced by Hollywood and the press, and with the social media echo chamber, one that reinforces a way of thinking with a terrifying feedback loop leading to greater and greater excesses to virtue signal.
They just don’t see reality. And when their is a set back in their world view, it must be due to evil, cheating behavior. And any means necessary is appropriate to fight evil.They know they are on the predestined arc of history on their path to Nirvana. This explains a lot of the Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Add to this how feckless and lack of spine the GOP Establishment has, and how hard they fought Trump.
“It doesn’t impact the fat cats and the freeloaders.”
That’s not entirely true. One of the ways you fight inflation is by raising interest rates and THAT is something that terrifies the fat cats. The financial system that has developed over the last 40 years is built on low interest rates.
Mike
Long-term I agree with neo’s analysis. However, I think the 2022, 2024 elections are different.
The Biden administration has been such a disaster — in general polls, not just conservative estimates — I believe the Dem leadership has noticed and are correctly fearful of the upcoming elections.
They are not entirely stupid or fanatical. They remember Donald Trump won in 2016 despite their tremendous confidence. Some may even know where the bodies are buried in the 2020 Biden victory.
But what else are they going to do at this point but brazen it out and hope, hope, hope they can budge Manchin and Sinema sufficiently to pass the big $3.5 trill bill (which I’ve read has since been negotiated down to $1.9 trill)?
The financial system that has developed over the last 40 years is built on low interest rates.
You only saw abnormally low federal funds rates during 2002-03 and during the period running from 2007 to the present. The Fed can reduce the growth rate of monetary aggregates as they did in 1981 and 1982, allowing interest rates to find their level. That will contain the inflation.
I agree with Mike Bunge on interest rates. What might avoid inflation is a severe recession. Some observers are predicting just that.
It doesn’t impact the fat cats and the freeloaders. It wipes out the middle class.
It injures people who are net creditors and people invested in fixed income securities.
What might avoid inflation is a severe recession. Some observers are predicting just that.
Monetary controls which had as a byproduct an ordinary recession would do the trick. Don’t need a rerun of 2008-09.
I postulate that the left does not care about Biden’s popularity because they know, based on past experience that they can merely steal or fabricate enough votes to push their candidates over the top. Although in the past they feigned outrage at the very suggestion that they cheated in order to maintain a facade of legitimacy (“There is no gambling in this establishment, monsieur! That would be illegal!”), it has come to the point that they no longer care what popular opinion is as long as their candidates prevail when the votes are counted. (Hat tip to Joe Stalin, whose clearsighted analysis of the relative merits of voting versus counting votes is the touchstone of modern leftist politics.) Voting for communist dictators has traditionally been in the 99% range, according to those who count those votes. See how valuable “democracy” is?
“they will push through programs they think benefit and enhance their own power, whether the people want them or don’t want them. It is all about power.” neo
True. Yet for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That has not appeared to hold true in the political realm because those most opposed on the right have been playing by the rules.
The most certain means of creating a rebellion is to seize power and then ruthlessly enforce it. When enforcement starts to operate outside the spirit of the law, a reaction starts to build of equal character.
Every organization on the left are compulsively fomenting a terrible reckoning.
Ray SoCal,
“They just don’t see reality.
An inability or refusal to see reality only delays its arrival, while increasing reality’s effects. The longer the delay, the greater the refusal, the more deeply will reality impose itself.
“Don’t need a rerun of 2008-09.”
I’m not sure an “ordinary” recession is something to be expected in today’s economic climate. The amount of money the federal government has been dumping into the economy since the 2008-2009 crisis has been, I believe, unprecedented in U.S. history. Throw in the fact the folks currently controlling federal economic policy are a mixture of incompetent, ignorant, and genuinely deluded.
Mike
I am not an economist. I note comments above saying a recession would tame inflation. Might, but this is not normal times. Supply disruptions make it a different ball game. I think that we are in a recession (have read that some economist think that now), interest rates will rise, and so will inflation. We are going to be in a world of hurt.
I note comments above saying a recession would tame inflation. Might, but this is not normal times.
Controls on the growth of the money supply tame inflation. The effect of the controls are stewed through exchanges in the real economy and you have an interim period of declining production and consumption as expectations, planned expenditure, and allocations are adjusted to respond to the reduced trajectory of monetary growth. Inflation is a monetary phenomenon and the people to contain it would be the Fed’s Board of Governors.
They were able to use Trump to show how much they can mobilize to make anyone who runs lives a living hell and then some…
More than anything else, a person who would take up that mantle would be focused on what that entails and encompasses…
before anything comes into play, who will take up the gauntlet against Sheriff George of Nottingham?
In Tolkien’s narrative, we really come in at the last chapter and last hours of the death of the dragon Smaug, we forget the 171 years prior…
Given their ages and how things grind around and how confused people argue rather act with one will, the repercussions are beyond their natural deaths…
…they know, based on past experience that they can merely steal or fabricate enough votes to push their candidates over the top.
stan:
I’m not so pessimistic. Stealing one presidential election, when people weren’t generally expecting it, is different from stealing multiple elections at multiple levels when people are somewhat on guard.
______________________________
In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, 56% of respondents said, “It’s likely that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including 41% who say it’s ‘very likely.’”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secrets/biden-2020-win-tainted-56-say-it-was-a-cheaters-paradise
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One can become complacent with the saying, “If it’s not close, they can’t cheat.” Nonetheless, the bigger the margin, the harder the steal.
IMO Democrats are way, way over their skis with their radical left agenda. A lot of Americans have noticed. We are not powerless.
I would note how many on this blog, who may have thought they were sufficiently cynical, are now even more so.
I suspect that’s true of the majority of Americans, even some Democrats.
“I suspect that’s true of the majority of Americans, even some Democrats.”
Huxley,
I wish that were true, but as Neo mentioned previously, none of the D voters I know are no where close to anything resembling cynicism. More like happy as pigs in shit. We all see the shit, but not them.
“Controls on the growth of the money supply tame inflation.”
Yeah, in normal circumstances. But how truly abnormal is the current economy?
Try this: https://www.macrotrends.net/1319/dow-jones-100-year-historical-chart
That’s an inflation-adjusted chart for the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It shows the DJIA in 1982 was virtually the same as it had been in 1915 and since 1982 the DJIA has gone up, I think, 1,200%, Has the real economy grown by 1,200% over the last 39 years? How out of sync is our financial system with our underlying economic reality?
Mike
physicsguy:
I’ve seen polls which indicate some Democrats are changing. Clearly that Rasmussen poll on election fraud included some Democrats.
But I suspect these Democrats are mostly not the deep blue, middle-to-upper-class types that neo and I tend to run into.
There are polls which say Democrats are losing blacks, hispanics and the working-class.
“We all see the shit, but not them.” physicsguy
A refusal to see the shit will not save them from it staining their souls. A stain that cannot be rubbed off.
“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties… In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.” Thomas Jefferson
Murphy basically converted NJ nursing homes and group homes into german extermination camps and seems like he’ll get away with it
There is only one thing preventing them from having permanent power. That is the SCOTUS. Ironically, there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent them from packing the court. If they do that, they will be able to criminalize all opposition.
But, they are afraid to take that step, even though many of the radicals are pushing hard to get them to do so. I think they understand, at some level, that they could face an armed rebellion, if they do so.
I wonder if they are not afraid because they still have voting under their control.
avi- I agree but you forgot to add Wolf ( and his Dr Levine) Cuomo and Gretchen in a combined meeting to do this.
physicsguy:
Although the Democrats I know are not anywhere near to changing their politics, and not one of them has said anything to me that expresses regret about their 2020 votes, one thing I can say is that none seem happy about what’s going on. The reasons for their unhappiness are unclear, although some of it has to do with COVID. Are they unhappy that the vaccinations aren’t 100% protective? Or is it just that they are unhappy about those stubborn people who refuse to be vaccinated? Are they unhappy about the economy – have they even noticed that? Are they unhappy that Trump is still taking up space on this earth? Or do they feel a vague and unvoiced disquiet about possibly having been wrong to vote for Biden?
I haven’t a clue, and I haven’t pushed it because they also seem highly reluctant to talk about the reasons they are unhappy. But it is very clear to me that most of them are quite unhappy about the state of the world right now.
“We all see the shit, but not them.” physicsguy
Jerry Nadler apparently managed to soil himself at a Dem presser last year; “Washington D.C. September 23rd, 2020 – House Democrats held a news/press conference at The White House, during which Jerrold (Jerry) Nadler s—s himself and then tries to waddle off the stage.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzJNZYuSqoU
Nadler’s up to his old tricks again today: “Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-The Moon) made the Democratic position clear Thursday: If you’re not with us, you’re terrorists.
During his opening statement for the Attorney General Merrick Garland hearing, Nadler said there was no difference between the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and parents who are angry about what is being taught in schools. . . . Nadler, a partisan loon who spent the past four years stirring up every conspiracy theory against President Trump, claimed there was a ‘broader pattern’ here, including ‘the growing threats of violence against public servants.’
https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/democrats-aim-to-make-anyone-who-disagrees-with-them-an-enemy-of-the-state/
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday complained that the media is not doing a good job of “selling” President Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation — the same bill she has been unable to sell to her own party.
“Well I think you all could do a better job of selling it, to be very frank with you,” the California Democrat said during a weekly press briefing, after being asked how Democrats can do a better job on messaging.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/12/nancy-pelosi-gripes-media-not-helping-sell-3-5t-bill/
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If Democrats aren’t afraid, they must be at least worried. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard to sell the $3.5T bill.
There’s no reason to suppose it’s going to get easier as Biden’s polls drop.
MBunge
Yugely out of sync. In fact I think it’s toast. Just a matter of time…
The basic premise of Wall Street can’t even be found today. To your point, the pricing mechanism is completely broken. Quantitative Easing is one of the whirling dervishes of the 1,200% and there are many others.
Skip
“they still have voting under their control”
Yup. Look at NH. We could not even get the simplest election governance changes in place. Sununu and his Atty Gen and Election Czar… crickets.
It was – unintentionally – hilarious hearing President Brandon in Scranton PA the other day assert that the democrat party cares about ‘the middle class’.
The modern democrat party is mostly composed of leftists who HATE the middle class. Their Marxist/Socialist ideology is literally MURDEROUS to the bourgeoisie middle class.
But these days democrats don’t care about elections. They know they can steal as many ‘votes’ as they need to ‘win’ seats.
Virginia democrat gubernatorial nominee will – somehow – be deemed to receive hundreds of thousands more ‘votes’ than his Republican opponent.
Elections don’t matter. At most all they do is create eddies in the great river of sleaze, corruption, treachery, and mismanagement that flows through the Imperial Capital.
So what’s there to worry about?
They didn’t rig the Trump vote because they feared his power in Washington — his four years showed mainly how impotent he was in office. Partly due to how easy it has always been to distract Trump with the Easy Win. Partly because the system is so secure now that even a magical virtuous Reforming President could not do much. The real reason they made sure to roll him was that they were literally viscerally allergic to him.. and his WHITE flyover supporters. That is all.
They fear what still remains of the People. Not elections. Elections are nothing.
Elections are nothing.
Zaphod:
I’m not there yet.
If Trump was impotent in office, the country was curiously running a lot better than it is now.
“The reasons for their unhappiness are unclear, although some of it has to do with COVID.”
Neo, this might seem really childish and stupid but they’re unhappy because they really and truly believed that Donald Trump was 100% responsible for each and every single COVID death in the United States. They believed with every fiber of their being that if Hillary had been elected in 2016, she would have fixed the COVID problem in a week.
They may never verbalize it but Trump being gone and COVID still being a major problem creates a strong sense of cognitive dissonance within them.
Mike
@huxley:
“the country was curiously running a lot better than it is now.”
Granted. It’s impossible to argue with that.
Under Trump and under W we gave Repubs the House, Senate and White House.
Nothing changed, they simply do not have the same sense of danger we feel.
A podcast interview with City Journal and Victor Davis Hanson pretty much explains everything.
Why there are few of us.
Why the institutions don’t protect us.
It’s amazing. But terrifying.
https://www.city-journal.org/10-blocks
The Death—and Life?—of Citizenship
huxley (4:41 pm) said, “They [Dems] are not entirely stupid or fanatical.”
Suggested correction: “They [Dems} are not entirely stupid.”
The degree of “fanatical” is a function of the center and width of the Overton Window.
My individual Overton Window hasn’t moved, even if the zeitgeist’s Overton Window has yanked theirs astonishingly and depressingly leftward.
I recommend the same for our side’s individual Overton Windows.
The degree of “fanatical” is a function of the center and width of the Overton Window.
M J R:
Is there an app for adjusting that?
Good to see you. I haven’t noticed you in a while.
MBunge:
I don’t think that’s the explanation for most of the people I know. Now that Trump’s out of power, I think they blame those who refuse to be vaccinated, and they think those people are all Trump supporters. So in a way they are still blaming Trump.
Elections don’t matter in Hong Kong any more so that must be true for everywhere on Earth. None are citizens, all are just subjects or abject objects. Not even individuals, just part of the masses. Close enough for Xi?
What I believe now, I would have thought impossible 10 years ago:
– The establishment GOP fought Trump hard, and the fact he had ZERO Recess appointments, where it would have only taken one GOP Senator to break ranks, speaks Volume. How Ryan lied to Trump, and did little, not to mention McCain “Build the dang wall” to get elected, that then changed his mind once elected.
– Social Media banning Trump, a former President?
– The blatant election cheating to get Biden that has mental issues as President?
– The propaganda campaign against cheap treatment for Covid, and even pulling medical licenses for prescribing Ivectrin? How many people died unnecessary due to this?
– The cover up on Covid Vax side effects?
– CRT being pushed by private companies.
We are going from a high trust society, to a medium trust society I read in an article, and that has really resonated with me. The progressives are using the high trust to their advantage through blatant lying, and they and their institutions are losing a HUGE amount of trust, and once that trust is lost, it’s hard to regain. Our elites have shown themselves to be incompetent and corrupt.
>huxley on October 21, 2021 at 6:06 pm said:
>
>I would note how many on this blog, who may have thought they were sufficiently
>cynical, are now even more so.
There is only one thing preventing them from having permanent power. That is the SCOTUS. Ironically, there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent them from packing the court. If they do that, they will be able to criminalize all opposition.
No, they won’t, because the Court will then be promiscuously defied.
That’s an inflation-adjusted chart for the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It shows the DJIA in 1982 was virtually the same as it had been in 1915 and since 1982 the DJIA has gone up, I think, 1,200%, Has the real economy grown by 1,200% over the last 39 years? How out of sync is our financial system with our underlying economic reality?
The salient metric for the Dow is the trailing p/e ratio. This ratio has a higher set point than it did prior to 1974, but still fluctuates around a set point.
Overton Window… did someone mention Overton Window?
*throws more rocks*
Forgeddabout moving it… Drive a bus through the effing wall! 😀
“The salient metric for the Dow is the trailing p/e ratio.”
Yeah, I’m not financial a expert or anything but I can look at numbers.
The DJIA on January 2, 1981, was 972.78. The DJIA on January 8, 2021, was 30,606.48. Even if you factor in inflation, there is absolutely no way to connect that rise in stock value (and the accompanying massive expansion of the financial services industry) to anything in the real, underlying economy. Population growth doesn’t explain it. Global trade doesn’t explain it. Computers don’t explain it. The internet doesn’t explain it.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know when it’s going to happen. But I cannot believe a stock market that obviously and egregiously disconnected from actual economic performance won’t eventually result in a catastrophe from which an easy recovery is impossible.
Mike
Here’s an article that might explain what’s going on economically, focusing on the tremendous govt. intervention caused by COVID i.e., the government’s response to COVID, which caused some fiercely artificial (or unnatural) imbalances, along with the FED’s response to the financial pressures that developed.
I don’t know enough about the topic but it seems to focus on how the relationship between supply and demand has been derailed and then goes on to suggest how the current imbalances might be fixed.
It’s not very optimistic….
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/250-billion-fund-cio-blasts-washingtons-soviet-style-central-planning-disassociating
Meanwhile, it’s getting truly nasty out there, as Kyrsten Sinema is now in the crosshairs of this well-orchestrated, massive hit campaign. (Naturally the NYT is doing its part…):
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/5-sinema-advisors-quit-accuse-her-selling-out-big-donors-left-wing-backlash-intensifies
In a nutshell: she wants to try to save the country and that is simply not allowed.
MBunge. I expand your point. Trump was responsible for everything bad which happened or which could be imagined or asserted happening.
Even a dem voter, even a TDS voter, can’t escape the human feeling–it’s inherent do it isn’t inserted or extracted–that the longer between cause and effect, the shakier the proposed link
So they need their cognitive dissonance to cover up the unease.
huxley (9:11 pm), thanks for the one-on-one, and for the amusing riposte.
I’ve been here all along, even contributing occasionally. I’m nowhere as prolific as are you and a few of our other regulars; I do appreciate your comments and those of most others commenting here.
Between neo’s careful research and subsequent posts, and the insights I get from the comments (including some excellent ways to express things I’m already thinking), I regard this blog as the premier do-not-miss website for me.
Anyway, great “see”ing ya, friend huxley!
I don’t get the tactics against Sinema. The governor of Arizona is a Republican. If Sinema resigns, Democrats lose the Senate. What’s the point of accusing her of corruption?
“In a nutshell: she wants to try to save the country and that is simply not allowed.”
Well it’s been pre-sold down the river… She’s engaged in Tortious Interference. Can’t have that.
I hate to consider the pressures being brought to bear upon Sinema and Manchin. Perhaps I am an alarmist, but they damn better have tip-top security protecting them.
I don’t believe Democrats are thinking about the long game right now. Passing the $3.5T budget bill IMO could well turn us into Mexico with the Dems as PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) for the next fifty years.
I think that’s the goal and if Biden weren’t such damaged goods, it would practically be in the bag. So near, yet so far.
OTOH if they can’t pass the bill, the Biden administration continues its failure spiral and the Republicans take the White House, Democrats will have to wait years for another chance this good.
Democrats are not in a patient long-game mood. They know Trump or someone like him is in the wings, ready to wreak havoc on Dem strategy. I’ve read enough Democrats who express open anger that Obama, the Messiah, didn’t push harder when he could and advised patience to his followers (though it didn’t look like that on our side).
When Biden became POTUS, Democrats saw the chance to run the table NOW. And today they see it all slipping away.
Yes, I think Democrats fear losing the 2022/2024 elections.
I wonder if Democrats are feeling like a lot of Republicans felt in 2017. Then, I was starting to realize that Obamacare was not going to be repealed and Republicans were likely to lose in 2018.
Democrats may be going through the same thing. The agenda they thought they were going to get is not happening and they’re likely to lose in 2022. I doubt very seriously that many Democrats regret voting for Biden. Maybe they regret nominating him.
“What’s the point…”
How ’bout intimidation? Thuggery?
(They’ve been known to work from time to time…)
Nor have these things been exactly discouraged by “Biden”.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/4/biden-plays-down-kyrsten-sinema-bathroom-harassmen/
And in the Virginia elections, you KNOW the Democrats are in trouble when they pull out their bogus anti-semitism card on any criticism of George Soros saturating Democratic candidates with cash.
https://twitter.com/ElaineLuriaVA/status/1450924146733498368
https://twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1451026998759985155
H/T
Ron Coleman twitter feed.
Other indications that they’re in trouble in Virginia (or might be):
https://twitter.com/ElaineLuriaVA/status/1450924146733498368
Bauxite (10:59 pm) said, “I doubt very seriously that many Democrats regret voting for Biden. Maybe they regret nominating him.”
Fine point here, hinging on the word “they”, referring to “many Democrats”.
Whether it refers to Democrats generally or to Democrat primary voters (before the prize was prematurely handed to Biden) specifically, it sure seems to me that it was not “Democrats” nominating him, but it was whomever comprise the left wing cabal that’s orchestrating just about everything we’re now witnessing.
MB: “The DJIA on January 2, 1981, was 972.78. The DJIA on January 8, 2021, was 30,606.48. Even if you factor in inflation, there is absolutely no way to connect that rise in stock value (and the accompanying massive expansion of the financial services industry) to anything in the real, underlying economy.”
What you say is true but there are reasons.
The IRA and 401K laws made investing easy. Buying index funds means money continues to flow in regardless of cmpany performance. The stock market is so important politically that it isn’t allowed to fall. You may be underestimating inflation. Money printing drives people out of cash and bonds into stocks, real estate and crypto. Low interest rates force even the elderly to buy risk assets instead of holding cash so as to avoid eroding value.
Many financial advisors say you should avoid cash and bonds due to inflation. Buy stocks, real estate, crypto, precious metals, fine art instead. Go into debt (reasonably). You’ll pay back with cheaper dollars.
This outlook might be wrong but a crash is not a done deal. The market may not be going up … just tracking inflation.
The best thing I’ve read about the 2020 elections: what went wrong; why it was mostly legal but unethical, though there were actions that were indeed illegal but railroaded through; and some of the steps being taken to end the dubious practices.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17833/what-happened-2020-election
By J Christian Adams.
“The best thing…”
However Adams does NOT talk about how ballot counting was stopped—SIMPLY STOPPED—in four swing states (was it four? five?) at practically the same time, in the early hours of “the morning after” the election.
The curious thing thing about that is that Trump was ahead BEFORE the stoppage and he, somehow(!) fell behind AFTER “ballot counting” resumed, losing EACH state by mere percentage points.
EACH STATE.
(Of course, one could claim that this sort of thing happens all the time, right? Ergo nothing to see here, nothing at all.)
Not to speak of Fox News calling Arizona so early for Biden….
Not to speak of the unspeakable garbage that was Georgia….
Not to speak of Nevada (the Harry Reid State)…
“…unethical…”, he says…
This is what I find the most problematic—heck the most DAMAGING—in this article and its precursor, Mollie Hemingway’s disclosure (and I admire MH immensely, as well as Adams, though the MH is on a far higher level).
Of course there was chicanery. Certainly manipulation. No doubt the laws were perverted and altered.
But to claim that this was not out and out thievery is frankly irresponsible.
For example: Whatever happened to that post by the non-Trump supporter who after crunching the numbers concluded—and explained why in great detail—that 2020 could not possibly have been an honest election? (I thought I had it bookmarked but I can’t find it…and I wonder whether it’s even accessible at t his point; that is, whether it’s been placed in the ninth level of Google Archive Hell.)
PhysicsGuy @ 6:13 – “I wish that were true, but as Neo mentioned previously, none of the D voters I know are no where close to anything resembling cynicism. More like happy as pigs in shit. We all see the shit, but not them.”
Not all of them. I know at least one lifelong Dem who just voted Repub in the VA governors race. There aren’t many we can reach, but we still try to reach the ones we can.
Barry Meislin @ 5:40
The post you refer to may be The Deep Rig by Patrick Byrne, a non-Trump supporter. I have the book, recommend it.
Not much of a report but. I deliver Meals on Wheels. about fifteen different households. Of the two whose TV choices I could see, both were Fox.
I have dealt with some people who were TDS and were prog/lib before that. Not that they were activists; instead they parroted the prog/lib talking points with every indication in body language and intonation that they Believed and would continue to Believe no matter effing what.
The smug, jut-jawed insistence on up is down and good is bad and global warming caused Petoskey to be cooler than Cleveland in the late nineteenth century and we’re all gonna die of Covid, even those with natural immunity and if we don’t. we’re not holding up our end. It is infuriating, even if you don’t recall that these people vote.
So if push comes to shove, the sympathy for the innocently misinformed may be in short supply.
But we know what they do indeed fear, let me spell it for you: G U N S. They keep trying to get rid of them and they keep losing in court. Sillynois is the latest. Makes no difference, no one will surrender a single gun. Lets GO Brandon.
“Buying index funds means money continues to flow in regardless of company performance. The stock market is so important politically that it isn’t allowed to fall.”
This is pretty much my view as well. It’s the old balloon metaphor. If you keep pumping air into a balloon, it will continue to expand until it pops. But every time our stock market balloon “pops” or comes close to it, we’ve just bought a bigger balloon and kept right on going.
But, as the old saying goes, things that can’t go on forever…won’t. The only question is can we change things before we run out of balloons.
Mike
After coffee this morning I’d like to rephrase the question to one I see as easier to answer. Do Democrats fear losing their power? My answer is yes based on an old quote from a play about a real event.
“Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
Henry IV
I for one, though I fear for the future of the country I love, sleep just fine as I have stolen nothing, nor lied my way into what little power I have.
Yeah, I’m not financial a expert or anything but I can look at numbers.
You’re looking at the wrong numbers. The stock price over time is going to be a function of the market’s understanding of the discounted present value of the company’s earnings stream. The p/e ratios of major stock indices do vary over time, but they tended for four generations to fluctuate around a set point of 14. During the period running from 1990 to the present, they’ve been persistently high, typically around 22.
During the period running from 1985 to 2003, the monetary policy stance was not entirely determined by the Taylor Rule, but it was largely so. Alan Greenspan said as much explicitly and Taylor has said that monetary policy in that era was conducted the way he preferred. The phase change occurred during a period of rules based policy. It was only around 2002 that the Fed began to make ad hoc maneuvers and only in 2008 that they began to use unconventional policy tools. Interestingly, p/e ratios in the era of ‘quantitative easing’ haven’t exceeded those of the period since 1990 generally.
Note, the Fed’s most consequential task is maintaining price stability, something they did rather well from 1990 to 2019.
Telemachus thanks…
Not entirely certain that he’s the guy though (since it seems that he DID support Trump, though I could have gotten that wrong), so I’m not sure. Possibly…
Anyway, here’s a link to a video of some sort:
https://ellacruz.org/2021/08/21/watch-patrick-byrnes-the-deep-rig-movie-how-a-fraud-cost-a-nation-a-presidency/
And at the expense of re-opening a most revolting can of worms, here’s something that came up on a DuckDuckGo search that included “statistics”. Once again, FWIW…and, of course, “caveat emptor”:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/still-unexplained-caught-pennsylvania-results-show-statistically-impossible-pattern-behind-bidens-steal/
The real problem? The Democrats have gone full RABID…and about half the country either isn’t aware OR agrees with ’em…
“You’re looking at the wrong numbers.”
Dude, you’re saying a whole bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the basic question I’m asking. Let me break it down for you.
Over the last 40 years, the U.S. economy has grown. The U.S. stock market over the last 40 years has also grown, but its increase is so far above and beyond the country’s actual economic growth as to stagger the imagination. The performance of the market over the last 40 years has also been radically different than the performance of the market for at least the 70 years before that.
Talking about p/e ratios and the Taylor Rule doesn’t address my basic concern in ANY way. To me, the U.S. stock market (and our whole financial system) appear to have little if any connection to the underlying economic realities of the country. Is that true? Has that always been the case? If it is true and has always been the case, why has the stock market grown so much more in the last 40 years than the 70 years before that? If it is true and has not always been the case, is the current dynamic of a stock market VASTLY overvalued compared to the real economy sustainable? If it is not true, why does it appear that way?
Mike
When people end up having to scrape by on food, then we’ll see his poll numbers head for about 20%, which is the hard core portion of his party. Depending on the nature of that scraping by, it might be lower.
There are many Dems who are retiring, some because they don’t want to lose or be in a minority, and others like the leaders who are just getting old!
What effect this will have on the party’s behavior re cheating is unknown. But it may make the party more willing to go for a Hail Mary on the filibuster or SCOTUS packing!
Republicans need to start banging the drum loudly that cheating, rules changing, or packing are hills they will die on, because they would signal the inevitable death of America!
Dude, you’re saying a whole bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the basic question I’m asking. Let me break it down for you.
I understand your question. Your question is misconceived. The salient datum would be the trajectory of corporate earnings among the set of companies from which the index is composed, not any other component of gross domestic product.
Bauxite —
I don’t get the tactics against Sinema.
She must come back into the fold or be CAST OUT.
My long-time observation is that leftists don’t “do” second-order effects. Sure, there are probably subtle strategists out there who plot things five moves in advance, but the average leftist activist only thinks about what they want NOW and the whole concept of unintended consequences is a mystery to them.
I didn’t know, all this time he was actually Art Dude. An education, almost. 🙂
Bryan Lovely,
First order effects are all that is taught in Community Organizing to the base level student from the work books I’ve seen. And to their leaders only the power and money that flows from those 1st order actions is of any importance. Works well locally I suppose but on a larger stage there is an audience beyond an auditorium or meeting room.