A new Harris poll for The Guardian found that the majority of Americans believe that the U.S. is in a recession.
This is patently untrue.�
The U.S. is experiencing an ...
Man, the way they calculated this statistic is so misleading, and counter intuitive to the claim it’s ridiculous.
The only reason for “real wage growth” is shown as outpacing inflation is because they aren’t counting people who lost their job because of COVID as a loss of income, but as someone exiting the job market.
Basically “wages” increased because the majority of people who lost their jobs were low income earners, leaving more white collar jobs to represent wage earnings.
It’s in the article you linked as a source… Did you not read it?
As the figure shows, average real wages rose sharply at the onset of the pandemic, but that’s because the bottom dropped out of the labor market when millions of lower-wage workers lost their jobs. Average real wages then fell sharply in the pandemic recovery as many of those lower-wage workers returned to work, pulling down the average.
The problem with economic studies is that they are usually made by people trying to argue one point or another, it’s not the same as scientific study where proving or disproving your hypothesis is an academic benefit either way.
It makes it easy to quantify, something unlike “wages out pacing inflation”, you just have to redifine some terms, and then something like thousand of lay offs becomes a net positive instead of a bleak reality.
rest of my sources show very real and very public pushes for measures that could meaningfully address the stagnation if they were passed into law. If effort is what people are clamoring for, there seems to be no shortage of it.
I think that’s a fairly subjective interpretation. Is a bill being written and endorsed by part of the party an indication of “real effort”?
I think the problem a lot of people hold, myself included, is that the democratic party lacks the leadership that turns “real effort” into law.
When republican leadership lays out their political agenda their whips make sure that their members in the Senate and the House (to a lesser extent post Jan 6) toe the line. If you don’t make the party’s position a priority then you lose your committee memberships, or are passed over for funding.
I think the problem is that the DNC leadership’s only qualifier is seniority, so the “progressive” party is being helmed by ancient millionaires who were only really progressive by comparison during the regan era.
They seem to be blaming Democrats for the fact that Republicans exist and are intransigent.
I can see your point, but this also ignores the fact that a lot of powerful Democrats are basically center right on the political compass and have been effectively captured by corporate interests, and have been for decades.
You could argue that their commitment to third way politics has caused the current political situation where conservatives feel confident enough to be this intransigent in the first place. I personally feel that democratic leadership would rather have someone like Trump in the Whitehouse than someone like Bernie Sanders.
I mean, if you’re a Congressional representative in a non-leadership position and you can’t get past the filibuster, I’d argue drafting a bill to address a problem is just about the best you can do. So yes, I’d argue that’s doing a very good job. I don’t hold it against the bill drafter that they have to deal with institutional inertia and a multi-party, bicameral federal bureaucracy.
Right, but the argument is about the democratic party as a whole not the few individuals with no power within the party that are doing a good job.
In that regard, the true question is, do those powerful Democrats represent the center of gravity of the voting population that put them there? Or, more simply, is the average Democratic voter centrist or progressive? If the average Democratic voter is centrist, then we could argue that these leaders are simply representing the will of their constituents.
I don’t think it’s that complicated. With the two party system the main hurdle is just securing the support of the DNC. Once you’re established the choice is the incumbent or a conservative. So I think most elected officials may have represented their constituents level of progressive ideas at the time they were first elected. So in a party where we claim to be progressives, the elected officials are conserving the status quo of when they were first elected 30 years ago.
In short, there are more voters who agree with the moderate wing of the party than who disagree with it.
I get that, but I tend to believe American politics has the propensity to have the cart lead the horse. If the cart spent over a decade screaming at the horse that Democrats are the reasonable party, and reasonable people have to make concessions to conservative to make that progress, no matter how unreasonable those conservatives are…then of course a large portion of the constituents will still hold those beliefs in the long run.
Third way politics was not invented by the democratic constituents, stop the steal was not invented by conservative constituents. The unfortunate reality of America is that most of the people voting are being influenced by the leadership of political parties instead of the political parties being influenced by the constituency.
Which is why the rest of my commentary addressed the party, its leadership structure, and its voters…
Okay, so you are conceding the point about the democratic party making a "real"effort about wages then?
think that’s grossly oversimplifying things, to the point where I’m not even sure it’s worth investing more effort in a response.
Entrenched encumbrancey is a fairly simple well known issue in American voting… I think your just just avoiding the argument.
think the problem with arguing against a metaphor is that it’s grounded in how you, specifically, see the problem. I simply can’t argue against how you see things, nor do I intend to try.
Lol, as opposed to what? Do you sincerely think that what you believe to be the problem is anything other than a belief? I’m just being honest and not trying to make it seem that my views represent the only realistic depiction of American politics.
give human beings way more credit than that, especially in aggregate. The exact same could be said about you being influenced by some kind of outside group
You think the American people collectively came up with the concept of third way politics? It’s been a theory in politics since the 50’s, was popularized in the 80-90s in Australia and in America by Bill Clinton.
I’m sure you’d argue that your beliefs are sincere and informed by evidence and experience. If you’re taking the position that your beliefs are legitimate, but everyone else’s beliefs are influenced by propaganda, then you and I are seeing the world very differently.
I’m not coming up with political theory…of course my beliefs are influenced by others people’s ideas, so are yours. The idea of political discourse is engaging in those ideas with others to better understand them.
not sure this is worth either of our time anymore. Best of luck.
Probably should have known better when you didn’t even bother to read your own sources. Go kick rocks.
Man, the way they calculated this statistic is so misleading, and counter intuitive to the claim it’s ridiculous.
The only reason for “real wage growth” is shown as outpacing inflation is because they aren’t counting people who lost their job because of COVID as a loss of income, but as someone exiting the job market.
Basically “wages” increased because the majority of people who lost their jobs were low income earners, leaving more white collar jobs to represent wage earnings.
.
It’s in the article you linked as a source… Did you not read it?
The problem with economic studies is that they are usually made by people trying to argue one point or another, it’s not the same as scientific study where proving or disproving your hypothesis is an academic benefit either way.
It makes it easy to quantify, something unlike “wages out pacing inflation”, you just have to redifine some terms, and then something like thousand of lay offs becomes a net positive instead of a bleak reality.
.
I think that’s a fairly subjective interpretation. Is a bill being written and endorsed by part of the party an indication of “real effort”?
I think the problem a lot of people hold, myself included, is that the democratic party lacks the leadership that turns “real effort” into law.
When republican leadership lays out their political agenda their whips make sure that their members in the Senate and the House (to a lesser extent post Jan 6) toe the line. If you don’t make the party’s position a priority then you lose your committee memberships, or are passed over for funding.
I think the problem is that the DNC leadership’s only qualifier is seniority, so the “progressive” party is being helmed by ancient millionaires who were only really progressive by comparison during the regan era.
I can see your point, but this also ignores the fact that a lot of powerful Democrats are basically center right on the political compass and have been effectively captured by corporate interests, and have been for decades.
You could argue that their commitment to third way politics has caused the current political situation where conservatives feel confident enough to be this intransigent in the first place. I personally feel that democratic leadership would rather have someone like Trump in the Whitehouse than someone like Bernie Sanders.
.
Right, but the argument is about the democratic party as a whole not the few individuals with no power within the party that are doing a good job.
I don’t think it’s that complicated. With the two party system the main hurdle is just securing the support of the DNC. Once you’re established the choice is the incumbent or a conservative. So I think most elected officials may have represented their constituents level of progressive ideas at the time they were first elected. So in a party where we claim to be progressives, the elected officials are conserving the status quo of when they were first elected 30 years ago.
I get that, but I tend to believe American politics has the propensity to have the cart lead the horse. If the cart spent over a decade screaming at the horse that Democrats are the reasonable party, and reasonable people have to make concessions to conservative to make that progress, no matter how unreasonable those conservatives are…then of course a large portion of the constituents will still hold those beliefs in the long run.
Third way politics was not invented by the democratic constituents, stop the steal was not invented by conservative constituents. The unfortunate reality of America is that most of the people voting are being influenced by the leadership of political parties instead of the political parties being influenced by the constituency.
.
Okay, so you are conceding the point about the democratic party making a "real"effort about wages then?
Entrenched encumbrancey is a fairly simple well known issue in American voting… I think your just just avoiding the argument.
Lol, as opposed to what? Do you sincerely think that what you believe to be the problem is anything other than a belief? I’m just being honest and not trying to make it seem that my views represent the only realistic depiction of American politics.
You think the American people collectively came up with the concept of third way politics? It’s been a theory in politics since the 50’s, was popularized in the 80-90s in Australia and in America by Bill Clinton.
I’m not coming up with political theory…of course my beliefs are influenced by others people’s ideas, so are yours. The idea of political discourse is engaging in those ideas with others to better understand them.
Probably should have known better when you didn’t even bother to read your own sources. Go kick rocks.