The Harris campaign has released their policy proposals [gift link]:
The most striking proposals were for the elimination of medical debt for millions of Americans; the “first-ever” ban on price gouging for groceries and food; a cap on prescription drug costs; a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers; and a child tax credit that would provide $6,000 per child to families for the first year of a baby’s life.
[…] Perhaps Harris’s most surprising policy announcement was her plan to ban “price gouging” in grocery and food prices. While details were sparse, the measure would include authorizing the Federal Trade Commission to impose large fines on grocery stores that impose “excessive” price hikes on customers, her campaign said.
When I was visiting family in the Dakotas last month, there were no end to the complaints that the small grocers in our small town were gouging, and they were. (Those complaining the loudest were, of course, the ones that were going to vote for Trump the hardest.)
…Harris endorsed a slew of measures to expand housing supply — including an expansion of tax credits to incentivize housing construction — but also a new $25,000 in federal down-payment assistance to more than 1 million first-time home buyers…
…Harris also pledged to work with states to cancel medical debt for millions of Americans, building on one of her signature policy issues as vice president. That effort could involve using federal funds to buy and forgive outstanding medical debt from health providers….
…Other policies endorsed by Harris in her five-page policy document included expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for lower-wage workers by up to $1,500, as well as extending subsidies for Americans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
Anyway, this is all good stuff, and I’m looking forward to the whole list after Harris’ speech in North Carolina today. But god damn are the brains of the people writing this story broken:
Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday unveiled an aggressively populist economic agenda, providing the most detailed vision yet of her governing priorities since becoming the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee…
In the weeks leading up to this announcement, at least two outside advisers privately suggested to the Harris campaign that she signal a move to the center by backing income tax cuts for middle-class households or a tax break for small businesses, according to the people aware of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private conversations…
“The days of pivoting to the center to win on economics are over, even though there are good economic reasons to do so, especially on fiscal policy,” said Bill Galston, a former Clinton policy aide.
Why are tax cuts for the middle-class “centrist” while caps on prescription drugs, elimination of medical debt, and tax credits for children “populist”? Middle-class folks pay for prescription drugs, often have medical debt, and they do have children. Middle-class 20-30 somethings can’t afford housing, and their parents really care about this issue. A policy is not “populist” simply because a poor person could benefit from it.
How the hell is this framing adding anything to our comprehension of Harris’ economic policies? The simple fact is that it isn’t, that broken DC brains think it matters whether some specific policy is “centrist” or not, and nobody else actually cares.
Shalimar
I care.
Not about that specifically. Just in general.
ssdd
The right-wing media freak-out is glorious.
https://mbouffant.blogspot.com/2024/08/someones-ox-being-gored-good.html
BR
Just like the other day they were all quoting Home Depot’s vague pronouncement about dark clouds over the economy (ignoring that Home Depot’s CEO and the company itself are the biggest corporate donors to Trump, so of course they’re going to say that), we’re going to be hearing from grocery and landlord groups as if they are impartial observers in the media.
Leto
As I said below, she’s gonna lose a few Juicer’s vote on this one.
Falling Diphthong
While I’m not sure how well it will work as legislation, I think the focus on price gouging is a good way to reframe the discussion of rising costs–when the corporations selling us food have record profits, then the problem isn’t that their costs are too high.
Jinchi
Yeah, the idea that “tax cuts for the middle class” is somehow centrist or conservative, instead of a bedrock of the Democratic agenda is just a measure of how deeply the Republican chant of “tax cuts!” has seeped into the political media, despite the fact that Republicans always mean “income”, “inheritance” or “corporate” tax cuts skewed to the very wealthy.
Republicans have a long history of increasing the taxes that middle class and poorer communities have to pay.
Butch
Quoting a Clinton aide about moving to the center…yeah, that gives the story credibility. Triangulate, anyone?
BR
The one thing I’m hopeful about, but I don’t know if this is true, is that enthusiasm in a presidential campaign works like an earthquake. (Yes this is a very Californian analogy.) There’s a sharp jolt at the epicenter, and then two waves of differing speeds radiate outward. When the people at the epicenter think it’s over, it may just be arriving at people further away, and the two waves separate in time and space.
This week the Harris campaign’s momentum has slowed at least in my perception, because they’re not doing many big events and are getting ready for the DNC. I wonder, though, whether the political earthquake is just now reaching the normies who are not news junkies.
WaterGirl
We’ll have a fundraising post up later today, but in the meantime, there is $115 left on the $5,000 Angel match for The Civics Center. If anyone wants to grab that, send me email or comment here.
Also looks like Satby’s buddy who is in surgery still needs $450.
(As I write this, their GoFundMe is at $750 toward a $1,200 goal.
RaflW
It turns out that some of the people most resistant to change are news people. They’re just incredibly conventional people. The opposite of ‘early adopters.’
They also get ahold of a notion, like that ‘populism’ is what Trump used in 2016 to win (not correct, but what they hawked to us), well then the surging liberal must be doing the populism better now.
It just feels like mass stupidity has taken hold in newser land. More evidence that they’re irrelevant — and should be made redundant, as the Brits might say.
WaterGirl
I am imagining a world where the media loses it’s grip on defining the narrative. Let’s make it so!
RandomMonster
Or not.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
It takes time for them to adjust and hopefully the election will happen before they do.
Long term, it’s hard to say that they’re weakened, but maybe.
WaterGirl
@Leto: I don’t understand your comment.
waspuppet
“Yeah but she doesn’t have enough details. Not that I read them. Anyway, when is she going to sit down for an interview with MEEEEEE?”
— Our wealthy media class
WaterGirl
@Baud: Oh, I don’t think the media will ever adjust.
But there are two sides, each holding the rope on this one.
And actually, there’s a third leg to this stool: key people getting ahead of the media before the media can frame a thing with their bullshit.
*key word in my original comment was “imagining”. First we imagine it, and then we conjure it up! :-)
RaflW
(@Leto) I don’t think price controls will work very well. But change my vote because I’m dubious of one policy? Silly.
Baud
@RaflW:
I agree, but It depends what it is. I believe many states have price gouging laws.
Jeffro
Is “populist” the new “soshulist” or “communist”? I can’t keep up.
Baud
BUT WHAT IS SHE GOING TO DO ABOUT CHEERIOS!!!!
RaflW
@Baud: I think threatening investigations and exposure for price-gouging behaviors is probably fine. Nixon-style price controls are a can of worms. We’ll see what details come out.
ssdd
@Baud: yup they do.
https://www.findlaw.com/consumer/consumer-transactions/price-gouging-laws-by-state.html
dm
@RaflW: Well see what the substance of the policy is, but i expect it won’t be “price controls” as much as “profit controls” — windfall profit taxes, for example.
ETA: looking at the state laws, I guess civil penalties (fines and the like) could be on the table, too.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
With regard to the media, Kamala’s success is kind of like Obama’s in that the media had expected Hillary to be the nominee and didn’t really have that much time to adjust to Obama. They have even less notice here.
Like I indicated, I’m interested in getting to the point where we can win the long game.
Leto
@RandomMonster: @WaterGirl: from yesterday’s thread, “Thursday Morning Open Thread: Space Cadet’s Assemble!” Comment 55:
A number of us have been talking about this for a while: corporate greed in terms of grocery prices. This has been happening since 2020 because COVID impacting the supply chain. Yes, the economy is doing better, people have a few more bucks in their pocket, inflation is down… but we still have fucking corporate greed/price gouging going on. And people like Ozark, and a few others, just routinely go: WeLL PrIceS go Up, dur! There’s economic papers written on this, there’s the “average American” who uses budget software to show that yep, shit is still way expensive yo, but we’re poo poo’d. That’s fucking insulting.
It’s more honest if you just come out and defend corporate greed, rather than people don’t have the “economic intelligence” to understand what’s going on. Is the economy better than in 2020? Yes. Do people have a few more bucks in their pocket? Yes. Is inflation down? Yes. But do we still have a lot of shit out of whack that needs fixing? Yes we do, and that’s part of what you see in those proposals. Basic kitchen table shit.
Baud
@Leto:
I hope Kamala will come out with a policy to deal with Ozark and people like him soon.
Kay
I love the 6000 tax credit for babies. It’s flexible and not complicated. People can use it for daycare or to help one parent stay home for a year or for both parents to take some months off or for a lot of other things.
Just don’t load it up with a bunch of qualifiers and bullshit. Please. KISS.
Baud
The nice thing about a tax cut for babies is they babies immediately inject that money right back into to economy.
Falling Diphthong
@WaterGirl: I’d hope to see more recognition that freedom of the press means you can pursue a story and the government can’t stop you. Like free speech means the government can’t shut you down but a website can refuse to entertain your posts.
Freedom of the press never meant a right to demand anyone you wanted sit for an interview, so you could ask them a series of “Donald Trump called you a poopy head. How do you respond?”
Leto
@Baud: Each states price gouging laws. Doesn’t take much to see that most states basically have no protection. Most common law is limiting the % of price change during a declared emergency. Outside of that, they’re pretty much free to do what they will.
Kay
It is just endlessly amusing to me that media LOVED Republican fake populism (that turned out to be tax cuts for rich people) but they are now going to promote the narrative that real populist policy is… socialism.
Lordy. Just no eithical or intellectual consistency at all. They just make it up on the daily.
Leto
@Baud: she did. A+
RandomMonster
Yes. Wingnuts are already trying to frame price gouging legislation as “Soviet-style price fixing” and such.
BR
@Leto:
Which comes back to antitrust — the reason the “free market” isn’t doing its job here is that all the way up and down the food chain — literally — it’s massively consolidated. From seed companies to tractors to grain distributors to feedlots to meatpacking to distribution to groceries. Each has 3-4 companies that control the whole industry. We need it to be more like 50 companies in each industry.
Maybe we need a really steeply progressive corporate tax to naturally disincentivize consolidation.
Kay
Biden did quite well for small business. Actually. Lots of activity there. Not that anyone at the Washington Post would know that or have any way of finding that out. They think we have been in a serious recession for the last 3.8 years.
Baud
@Leto:
We don’t know how much teeth the proposed federal law will have. I doubt it’s going to be price controls, although the Republicans will portray it that way.
Ksmiami
@dm: ok so this a relatively new thing, but grocery stores are using similar software that airlines use and minute by minute data feeds to actually perform surge pricing on certain foods and products based on timing, popularity, etc. That should definitely be banned. It’s one thing to have mark ups or mark downs based on inventory, daily fluctuations etc, but people are seeing prices change from the time they enter a store to when they are in line.
BR
@Kay:
It’s the “What’s the Matter with Kansas” storyline, except the media thinks it’s a playbook not a cautionary tale. The “working class votes for Trump” narrative because of “economic anxiety” and he “speaks to their concerns” but there it’s ok that it’s all vibes and not substance.
cain
@Baud: The SCOTUS has given them the tools.
In regards to price gouging, I assume that they don’t want to telegraph this but breaking up grocery store chains would be good. One thing that has been happening is market consolidation in supermarket chains and they still want to consolidate.
One way to stop corporate greed and gouging is breaking up bigger players. I feel like we haven’t been doing these kind of actions since the early 90s.
Also too, great points on messaging by the media – they truly don’t seem to understand populist vs centrist.
I don’t know if I want my taxes cut, I do want to see my taxes used to benefit me in doing things like above. Govt driving good things like lower medical costs, fairness in insurance, and looking out for my bank account are good reasons to keep my taxes where they are at. Cutting taxes so that govt is not funded to do the above seems dumb to me.
Kay
Remember you guys- the Harris Recession starts the moment she is sworn in, regardless of actual economic conditions. Right now we are still in the Biden Recession. That recession that never happened.
Baud
@cain:
Biden had reinvigorated antitrust. Lots of activity.
Baud
@Kay:
Her problem will be it’ll be hard for the economy to do much better, especially over four more years.
BR
@Kay:
I’ve been thinking that there may be a benefit to rip off the bandaid of a recession early into a potential Harris administration by doing a 1-2 punch of really aggressive antitrust actions and steeply progressive corporate taxes. That’ll hit corporate profits and cause a quick dip, but coupled with progressive spending programs the economy will be reconfigured and come out quickly and strong.
Scout211
Catherine Rampell at WaPo has concerns.
LOL
(Not linking to this screed, but it reads like similar ones on right wing sites).
Baud
@BR:
Antitrust actions don’t move that quickly.
SatanicPanic
I’ve been thinking about a conversation I’ve had with a friend of mine who does marketing in the music industry. He’s always complaining about how the retirement age management at his company wants to run ads that are text-heavy (this product does X and Y) and triumphalist (we’re #1!). He’s tried to explain to management that young people are not inspired by that stuff. Instead, they just want to know the company is “on their side”. Consumers want to feel like the company gets them.
The Harris campaign is putting this in action. Most of us don’t care to sift through policy details that may or may never become law. We just want someone who is going to guide things in the right direction.
Baud
@Scout211:
Trump has had no problem leaning in to being weird or a fascist.
K-Mo
I agree that this framing is adding little to our understanding, but there is a basic logic here.
It’s basically activist policy making (targeting aid to specific groups and activities) vs laissez faire stimulus (cutting taxes for wide groups). I’d also guess that since the latter is effectively pinned to various types of income it skews more to upper-middle income folks.
I have no idea of why the “populist“ or “centrist” labels are used though .
RaflW
@Kay: The Dow is +5,725.50 (16.47%) in twelve months. Unemployment is 4.3%, which is up a bit from the low of 3.4% but some of that is an increase in people seeking work – coming off the bench if you will. They can try to claim the economy is somehow bad, but it’s BS.
BTW, the reason business hates Biden: Federal corporate tax revenue is darn near double what it was under Trump. $210bn under Trump in 2019. $410 billion under Biden in 2023. Which gets to some of what @BR is saying. We already are taxing business more (and closing loopholes and dodges).
Eolirin
@Baud: We can win the long game when we start taking white collar crime and corruption seriously enough to unwind the networks of rich people in control of our media outlets. They’re all engaging in bullshit that shouldn’t be legal, in addition to stuff that probably isn’t, like money laundering and anti-trust violations.
BR
@Baud:
I know actual corporate breakups don’t happen fast, but some amount of it is bully pulpit stuff — basically promise on day one to empower Khan to go after them even more aggressively and vow to block every merger that is proposed. That combined with a bill that requires government purchases and subsidies to not go to consolidated companies (in part or whole) and a quick shift can happen.
SatanicPanic
@Ksmiami: For real? Like you could put bananas in your cart thinking they’re $.25 a pound but arrive at the check out and it’s $.30 or something? If that’s the case that should be illegal.
Reminds me of when Best Buy got busted for setting up their website so that if you were in stores it would show you a different price than you’d see at home.
Leto
@BR: I agree with that. Consolidation among so many corporate sectors into just a handful of companies has proven as disastrous as we knew it would. This is part of the continued conservative project of deregulation that has led us to this point. Food, medicine, radio/television/moving into streaming services, energy, etc… They’ve led a full throated, concerted effort on this since the late 60s/early 70s, but ofc we can trace it back to the beginning of the New Deal and how they resisted that with FDR.
With that type of timeline involved, we know what type of timeline we ourselves face. It’s going to be a long, long slog, and it has to be ever vigilant.
@Baud: agreed, but I think the most important first step is at least recognizing the problem and saying, “This is a problem.” Saying, “Well ofc prices go up” is dismissive and dishonest. Yes, prices go up. But then there’s times when you have the audio transcripts of the investors meeting and they’re just laughing over how, “Yeah we’re raising prices even further just because we can, and because we know the consumer has no choice.”
I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to fix it. I trust Kamala/Dems to be able to come up with some type of solution. It’s not going to be the absolute best, but it’ll be a hell of a lot better than anything conservatives come up with. Part of why I’m voting is because I believe this part is the best party to address our concerns, on a whole host of topics. They’re the most competent.
Kay
@BR:
It’s not even “kitchen table” economics. It doesn’t even work with their dumb, oversimplified theory. Households have revenue and expenditures so if we stupidly want tp pretend the federal government is a household, tax cuts subtract from revenue. Expenditures subtract from revenue. So why would one be more fiscally responsible than the other? They should just admit they prefer and promote conservative economic theory. “We’re going to bring in less money and then not spend more” isn’t any more responsible than “we’re going to bring in more money and then spend more”.
BR
@SatanicPanic:
Here’s Walmart doing it:
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/17/nx-s1-5009271/electronic-shelf-labels-prices-walmart-grocery-store
cain
Speaking along these lines – Portland International Airport (PDX) re-opened after remodeling after I think like 3-4 years. Everyone says it’s beautiful but are upset that it costs 1 billion dollars and of course the scolds are out there saying we have all these problems and that 1 billion dollars could have gone to fix those. It’s the same mentality when people outside of India complain when India sends a rocket to the moon that they could have used that money to fix poverty. You can’t fix poverty by throwing money at it.
Back to PDX, 1 billion dollars created thousands of jobs, funded artists, craftsmen – in essence, it gave people an income while creating a beautiful space for travelers. The first impression you get when you come to Portland is our airport. It matters. I have flown to Las Vegas which has a terrible outdated airport. It never sets the mood right. Meanwhile, PDX has created a space for people who have anxiety, stress, but also happiness.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/pdx-portland-oregon-airport-terminal-renovation-reopening/index.html
I mean, we got stress therapy llamas – and our old friend, the darth vader unicycle with bagpipes hanging out at the airport!Love seeing that guy! :) We lost the old carpet but got the same pattern on hard flooring.
Just a wonderful thing. My friend was the project manager there and hopefully we’ll get a personalized tour!
Marmot
@RaflW:
Super weird. I mean, TFG absolutely ran with right-wing populism, but just assuming his Dem opponent must be doing the equal but opposite thing, that’s blank-wall stupid.
I’m talking about “populism” as railing against the elites in the name of the people, making wild promises. Standard definition. It ain’t simply appealing to people on the bottom.
Quicksand
Mark Penn, is that you?
K-Mo
@BR: I agree that the most effective approach is to address the underlying issues. Getting directly involved in price setting is a boondoggle.
OTOH I think talking about this stuff and cracking down on some egregious offenders (e.g. Martin Skreli) is good politics.
Kay
@RaflW:
Thanks. I had no idea. I love that because I’m just crazy enough to look at both revenue and expenditures when looking at a budget. The Washington Post and Republicans only look at expenditures, which seems..wrong to me? But I’m not an expert. Or a reporter.
Leto
@Ksmiami: I saw an article about that, and if you look at the state anti-price gouging laws that I linked above, a number of them have between a 7 and 30 day review of previous prices. I don’t see how that doesn’t run afoul of that. I think McDonalds was toying with that as well, although I don’t remember if they did try it. I know McDonalds AI experiment was a total disaster, so why Taco Bell is now trying to roll it out nation wide is a mystery.
cain
@Kay:
That’s always added by the GOP or centrist Dems.
I have a rant about Oregon’s unemployment software.
cain
@Kay:
Didn’t the polls of small businesses work against Biden? I swear we just need to brand everything with a “Made by Biden” or something.
BR
@Kay:
The other day someone said Harris should sit down with Matt Levine at Bloomberg to talk about the economy. Skip over all these political reporters who know nothing about it and talk to someone who isn’t going to fit everything she says into a nonsense political framing that was first baked in 1982.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
So say we all!
SatanicPanic
I’ve decided that this election I am going to try to be the change I want to see in the world. Instead of offering my opinions on the various proposals that the Harris campaign is putting out, I’m going to ignore them and say nothing. Because they don’t matter. The ultimate arbiter will be someone in the senate, so I will hold my thoughts until it gets there.
I may fail at this, because I do have thoughts on some of these things, but I will try.
Leto
@cain:
Believe Gil Scott-Heron already had that covered.
Kay
I did stop buying cereal even though there are only two of us now and I love cereal and we’re fine financially. I have the diet of a six year old. I just felt ripped off so instead I have a piece of toast. Come on. Their costs didn’t double to make some shredded wheat or Cheerios. I don’t enjoy being robbed.
cain
@Baud:
Good. We should expand the govt institutions and start going after businesses.
SatanicPanic
@BR: Ah interesting. It seems to suggest that companies wouldn’t want to try the scenario I was envisioning, but I could see how it could get there.
cain
@BR:
One thing they could do is manage the cannabis industry so that we don’t see market consolidation in a way we’ve seen elsewhere. Once cannabis is no longer schedule A, we are going to see some massive consolidation as all the bit players start getting bought out by larger players and big pharma.
I don’t trust pharmaceutical companies at all as they will work on trying build scarcity in the access of cannabis in order to gatekeep it. I mean, shit we saw that with just corn in the 90s with Monsanto.
Eolirin
@Baud: If we hold the Senate and Harris gets measures through to provide lower housing costs and more rental assistance, while the overall economy may not end up doing much better, people will feel it more, especially people under 40.
Leto
@RaflW: I was told, reliably by Faux News, that the black boot thugs were coming for meeeeeee! You mean, that was a lie? They were coming for the all tax cheats, which seem to reside in most large corporations and the top 1%? Where’s my fainting couch and smelling salts…
BR
@Eolirin:
I think the proposal to build 3 million more housing units is a good step but way too small — 10-15 million might be a more reasonable target given population growth and costs.
cain
@RaflW:
Tech workers are hurting right now. The last 3 years have been nothing but tech companies like Google, Meta, and others laying off thousands of workers and they are all out there trying to get jobs. AI has really fucked things over. I’m hoping that eventually they’ll realize that AI is not what they think it is.
I seriously think tech workers need to start forming a union. I used to hate the idea, but then I was more centrist back in the 90s. I don’t know if the country has moved so far to the right that I’m a flaming liberal or I’ve moved left (and I have) and the country is still kinda the same but with more insane players.
K-Mo
@Leto: Personally I wish they would be more aggressive in linking the step-up in prices we experienced in 21-22 (which is effectively over) to the miraculous economic recovery we achieved. 20 million unemployed people went back to work and an economy that had been shut down by the Trump administration roared back to life. We would have liked to avoid it, but a bout of inflation has historically occurred during recoveries.
Jeffg166
Nineteen years ago I was buy a large container of coffee for $3 to $4. After Katrina hit the price doubled supposedly because New Orleans was the point of entry for coffee. The price of coffee never went back down. In the latest round of gouging it was into the $14 range. Plus the container is now smaller.
RaflW
@cain says “You can’t fix poverty by throwing money at it.”
Please show your work.
Maybe I’m talking about alleviating poverty and you’re saying something different. But there’s evidence that, for example, a universal basic income works (gift link).
HumboldtBlue
The Daily Show has the JD Vance background story you want to hear.
JD Vance: The Forgettin’ Man | The DailyShowography
Leto
@Kay: one of the fun things about my accident was that all the exercise I did to help me stay fit… just stopped. So things that I had basically been running away from finally caught to me. Like my glucose levels! I’m officially a diabetic now. I have to really pay attention to carbs, fiber, and sugar levels, which means a lot of white bread products are out. In turn if I’d like to have a sandwich, or a slice of toast, I need to buy the healthier bread. Went from $2 a loaf to almost $6.
But on the cereal front, Grape-Nuts still wins out on being one of the best bang for your fiber buck. Granted both Avalune and the kid describe eating it as akin to just going to the road, filling your bowl with rocks/gravel, pouring a bit of milk on, and then grinding your way through… I love it. Ate it as a kid, still love it now. Small win and all.
RaflW
@cain: That google is near record-levels of profit yet laying people off says a lot about the greed inherent in our system. Not sure what we do to try to fix that, though. Not price controls!
cain
@Kay:
One thing about this whole tax cuts thing is that we’ve now decided that we don’t want to spend money on anything. My PDX post is an example of that. We don’t think big, we whine about any kind of expenditure to help society. Free lunches at school? Whining because those on social security don’t want to pay for it. We don’t want to do anything related to infrastructure. They’ve winnowed everything down to household and everything outside is extra cost and they don’t want that.
Richest nation in the world, and we’re losing our leadership in all sectors. But it’s ok, because we got nuclear weapons so we just need to act tough and people will still respect us. There is a reason why we are no longer brain draining from other countries.
zhena gogolia
@Leto: I love it too. I can’t eat it right now because of tooth issues. 😢
KatKapCC
@ssdd: ROFL “Soviet-style price controls”. Cool story, broski.
Leto
@cain: some tech workers are. As we’ve spoken about here, a lot of that sector is controlled by libertarian edge lords, and they run those companies with those values. But the past few years, especially post COVID, has seen a renewed interest in unions, as well as some of those workers doing the hard work to get them.
Here’s the wiki page for it. There’s also a lot of good reporting on what’s happening as well. I know tech workers are a smaller overall percentage of the entire workforce, but like you said, the tech industry has just been fucking brutal these past 5 years.
K-Mo
@RaflW:
Re corporate taxes: BINGO.
Re the Dow: Yup.
Re unemployment: This is a warning flag. We have reached our soft landing with a little bump and it’s time for the Fed to hit the gas.
KatKapCC
@Leto: But why does any of this mean she’s going to lose the votes of people on this site? Unless that was complete sarcasm.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
It’s all tactics and positioning with these mainstream media folk. They can’t be bothered to give a damn whom these policies will affect and how.
cain
@RaflW:
I was talking about Indian poverty not poverty here. The complexity of poverty there is along multiple fault lines based on religion, caste, and social standing.
To fix poverty in India, you need to fix a lot of things inherited by colonialism and a horrible caste system that determines the worth of a person based on the caste they were born in.
In the U.S., I’m very pro UBI and actually would like to do away with welfare programs (in a way that makes sense) with it’s myriad of gate keeping restrictions.) in favor of it.
Eolirin
Market consolidation is a far more nuanced and complicated subject than some of the comments here are giving it credit for.
Breaking up companies and preventing further consolidation can be part of a solution, if it’s applied in the right contexts, but it’s not a workable solution at all in others; we do not need our want 50 consumer grade computer operating systems, having too many cell phone network operators would fragment frequency bands in a way that would degrade network functionality, certain markets are so low margin that minor shocks would put most of the market out of business if there were too many players, etc.
Additional regulatory methods are needed to deal with varied circumstances.
Though broadly, a progressive tax on profits at a very high level at the high end, coupled with changes to the rules for things like stocks, dividends and shareholder rights, would go a long way toward pushing value back to consumers (and also labor!). I think most normal people would be very behind the idea that you can make money through industry and the value of a product, but not too much money, because that then means you’re ripping people off.
Though we can also get there by making labor and consumer protections stronger too. Can hit it from either side.
Jess
Because the first is giving people’s “own” money back to them, and the second is giving “their” money away to losers.
Fair Economist
@BR: The problem with a housing proposal is that the block to housing construction is at the local level, through zoning and building codes. California has been struggling with this since 2016 when the state legislature turned YIMBY. The state will pass a law favoring construction, but localities will figure out some way to block it and nothing much happens. As a for example, the state passed SB-9 allowing R1 lots to be subdivided and a second house built. Municipalities in response passed code changes to make the second house unbuildable – one common one is that the new house can’t have any windows that can see windows of existing houses (meaning no windows, oh, and did I mention that the same municipalities require every bedroom have a window?)
At this point I think we have to move zoning and housing code powers to the state level. Just too many bad actors at the local levels. But Harris doesn’t have that option – nothing she does is going to get all that many new houses built. She’d be ill-advised to promise the 10-15 million we need, because she won’t be able to deliver.
New Deal democrat
I haven’t read the prior comments, but I just wanted to pop in to say that Harris is targeting the two big economic sectors that have continued to hit ordinary people the hardest:
1. Grocery prices, which are very visible and clearly evidence price gouging (I mean, really, soda prices have *doubled* since before covid and haven’t come down at all???).
2. Even more importantly, house prices. Between interest rates and post-covid price increases, housing is more unaffordable today than it has *ever* been, so long as modern statistics have been kept – and that includes the early 1980s. Younger people in particular are being (economically) killed by prices and mortgage rates combined. It was Biden’s one big economic blind spot, so targeting this with federal incentives and rebates is both good policy and smart politics.
K-Mo
@Jeffg166:
Price of coffee has been volatile and is currently about double what it was 20 years ago.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000717311
Leto
@cain: again, goes back to how effective conservatives have been on messaging about this. And you’re right, it’s just whining. But I believe (cue music) that we’re starting to turn that corner. I think with with the multiple large bills Biden was able to get through congress that are bringing manufacturing jobs back, rebuilding infrastructure, that we’re laying the investments for the future. I think people are starting to see some of the glimpses of hope/promise. It’s why it’s so g-d vital that we elect Harris/Walz, and every damned D that we can, to grow that spark into a roaring blaze.
Jeffro
@RandomMonster: ok good deal
its tough to keep up with wingnut-ese!!
BR
@Eolirin:
We may not want 50 operating systems but it wouldn’t hurt to have 20 or 30 but various API standards that keep things in check. And it’s not the case that having too many mobile network operators would cause such a problem in the current nanocell, spectrum sharing, dynamic roaming, dual-eSIM era.
Fair Economist
The media is trying to raise a ruckus about “price controls”. But price controls are an *inevitable* result of the level of monopoly power and pricing collusion we have today. The market does not work when there are only three major companies that collude on price levels. It’s like your electricity utility at that point – the government has to regulate or even set the prices.
Leto
@KatKapCC:
😀
I’m GenX, what else did you expect?
Kay
@Leto:
I love Grape Nuts too. The whole range of grainy cereals. I would probably buy trashy bread but my husband is a bread snob and really fitness-conscious so we get the 6 dollar bread too.
I just reached the point with cereal where I was “oh, hell no. Enough” I put it back on the shelf. I sometimes hit Aldi if I go to certain court where there’s an Aldi so I might try their generic cereal brands.
Pittsburgh Mike
Most of these are good ideas, but price controls on groceries? That’s a moronic idea: it’s a low margin business that’s hardly responsible for big hits to people’s living costs. And if you’re upset about mom & pop stores, well, the FTC isn’t going to be investigating any of them at all — they’d need a staff as large as the total grocery industry’s employment to do so.
Won’t buying medical debt just incentivize people to skip paying for insurance and just wait for the USG to bail them out? That money would be better off making the ACA more affordable by cranking up subsidies.
BR
@Fair Economist:
Yeah, I agree there’s too much NIMBYism that’s blocking it. But the Builder’s Remedy is working here in CA — I see it here in Southern California where wealthier cities tried to do exactly what you say and block the state bill, and using the Builder’s Remedy developers are putting up 5 story apartment buildings anyway and homeowners are putting in ADUs like crazy. There’s still a need for more single-family homes, and I don’t know the solution there except to subdivide lots of old houses and do modular/pre-fab on them.
Hoodie
Housing starts have been falling for the past year but not because of a glut of housing. We’ve had a housing shortage for several years. The current problems are mostly interest rates, which the president can’t control, but also include the inability of many people to make a down payment. The down payment subsidy for first time homebuyers could be very popular, especially if the fed starts cutting rates. It is also a way of attacking generational wealth disparities, a lot of which lie in the ownership of real estate. It could also be a wedge issue to separate the home building/real estate industry – which is huge – from other corporate interests.
The anti price gouging initiative might be a bit gimmicky, but it could at least help reframe the problem as corporate greed more than underlying inflationary pressures. This narrative also plays well with the actual inflation numbers. I don’t think a lot of people have a sense of the potential negatives of price controls, as most voters were not around during the Nixon administration. This aspect seems mostly symbolic, as there is little or no chance of anything like price controls.
All in all, this seems like a good messaging approach going forward. Harris has made a point of talking about increasing opportunity, and this dovetails nicely with that.
Leto
@Kay: absolutely agree. Avalune and I buy health conscious cereal because there’s a number of times where we want just a quick breakfast in the morning. Her for getting out the door to work (“Ain’t nobody got time for that!”), me because I just don’t have the energy/will to do something as simple as make eggs. The kid still likes his trashy cereal, even though he can literally see what his future holds directly in front of him.
@zhena gogolia: ooof! Hope you get relief soon!
RaflW
BTW, this column from John Stoehr on Harris so far stiff-arming the press is sooo good. A sample:
Tiny quibble, I’d not call Cillizzard a reporter, he is at best (cough) a pundit, but minor detail aside, read the whole thing!
Eolirin
@Leto: MS’s gaming divisions are starting to unionize in a big way, and because they’ve entered into a labor neutrality agreement with CWA that covers the entire company, I’m hoping it’ll spread from there.
If MS ends up highly unionized across its core engineering groups, and it’ll be much easier for them to end up that way than anyone else, I think it’ll have an impact on the other large tech companies.
Hoodie
@Fair Economist: That’s no doubt a problem in CA, but I doubt that it is anywhere near that bad in other parts of the country. My son, who works in financing multi-family developments, says the biggest problem right now is financing rates. They make a lot of deals unworkable.
eemom
@Scout211:
Thank you. I almost threw up when I saw that this morning. Rampell is what passes for “left” at the shitscum WaPo, second in shitscummery only to the Fascist Times.
Maybe there are reasonable economic arguments to be made against this; I have no idea because I know nothing about economics. But a headline that brandishes trump’s insane lies as a weapon against Harris?? FUCK Rampell. FUCK all of them.
Baud
@eemom:
Good to see you.
Leto
@Hoodie:
These proposals are still in line with Biden policies, but also with what she was talking about back in 2020 with her first presidential race. Which leads back to mistermix’s main topic of, after the press tried to dismiss her for 3 1/2 years, now they’re trying to grok who she is? What her positions are? GTFO of here with that nonsense.
cain
@K-Mo: Climate change is going to make it worse.
RaflW
@Kay: Some of the Aldi cereals are fine. The one item that no off-brand company has ever been able to substitute well is Cheerios. Aldi’s Bran Flakes are probably my first choice. I think their “Chex” substitute are fine, too.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
I haven’t eaten cereal in 20 years. That stuff is awful for you, regardless of the box label.
Ken
I confess, one of them was me. I called one of the campaign offices to get a yard sign, and casually mentioned to the person on the phone that Harris should say something about economic policy, and sure enough the next day she did it.
I’m even more successful at persuading the Sun to rise every morning.
UncleEbeneezer
@SatanicPanic: I applaud this. I’m going to do a variation that seems to work well for Republicans: Celebrate and signal-boost the policies I love (and explain to others why they are better than Trump’s non-policy), but just keep the disagreements or concerns I have to myself.
In addition to the fact that it will be the Senate, not President Harris that will likely determine policy outcomes on most issues, I’m pretty much fine with anything Harris proposes and don’t see any real upside, and a whole lot of downside to getting into debates over policy stances I may not 100% agree with. To me, it’s time to get in formation (and has been for several months) and win this damn election and then we can get back to our circular firing squad performances over picayune policy details that nobody else cares about, once she’s sworn in. To me, this approach of holding our tongues and being only positive is what “just win baby” and “going low” actually means.
3Sice
Breakfast cereal consumption is in long term decline. So each unit sold has to carry more of the production cost to hold a margin. Price goes up, selection goes down.
Leto
@Eolirin: I still play World of Warcraft, and still regularly peruse the r/wow subreddit, so I’ve been following both their unionization efforts, as well as MS buying ActivisionBlizzard. Which is to say, yeah, I agree that if MS can be unionized, then it’ll probably be a tipping point for the rest of the industry. Ofc I’m also thinking about if that happens, will MS (and the rest of the tech lords) eventually try to relocate to the Southern states, ala Boeing? Lol… just a thought.
p.a.
@New Deal democrat: This is soooo wrong. If my grandparents didn’t have these benefits available, I don’t see why today’s utes should! That’s why I always tell my doctor: just treat (issue X) the way it was treated in 1907.
p.a.
Here in RI it was as scarce (at least) as t.p. at the height of the first covid wave. Sometimes GN Flakes were stocked, but, no. Not the same.
Ken
Couldn’t control. But now that the Supreme Court has given its OK to the President doing anything at all provided it’s called “official duties”, who knows what’s possible?
Also, “I’ve fired the entire Federal Reserve Board and replaced them with my loyalists” sounds like something right out of the Project 2025 playbook.
Baud
@p.a.:
Grape Nuts must have a lot of fiber.
Ken
@Kay: Grape Nuts are good, and I buy a box every year or so, but I always forget the trick until after my first bowl. That trick being, they keep expanding after you swallow, so a serving is a lot less than a full bowl.
matt
I think the grocery price gouging thing is smart – it goes after the real culprits in the big Republican inflation whine-fest we’ve been hearing for the last several years and gives her a ready made answer any time it’s brought up.
Leto
@p.a.: When I was in tech school, back in 1998, I went to see the medic with a cyst in my right wrist. Turns out it was a ganglion cyst. His recommended course of action? Follow the same plan that 18th century sailors used to use: smack it with a wooden plank. Or leave it alone, and it’ll eventually go away. I chose the first method: I smacked it on a number of hard surfaces. Cinder block walls. My desk. Metal beams. Did it hurt like hell? Yeah. But I don’t have that cyst.
Edit: I would try Grape-Nut Flakes, but the sugar to fiber ratio isn’t in my favor.
Jess
I’m sure someone has already linked to this, but I want to do my bit to make sure everyone sees it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY_chqyaRHo&t=3s
Centre for Climate Reporting: “We went undercover in Project 2025. Our investigation uncovered details of the highly-confidential second phase of Project 2025 being led by a Trump insider, with plans to feed hundreds of top-secret battle plans directly into the Trump transition team.”
KatKapCC
@Pittsburgh Mike: Spoken (er, written) like someone who has never lived paycheck to paycheck and hasn’t had to carry a calculator in one hand while they shop because they’re down to a two-digit bank balance and don’t get paid for four days. If an item you need used to cost 5-6 bucks and now costs 11-12, then yeah, that can cause a big hit if you have no extra money after your rent and bills are paid.
Eolirin
@BR: It would have prevented cell phones from working for most of the history of cell phones.
And no, 20 operating systems even with coherent API surfaces is a terrible idea. That’s kind of like what happened with Android forks and firmware differences and it’s been a security nightmare.
But if you’re really unhappy with those examples; we don’t want parallel systems of power transmission lines. You don’t want to see 10 competing railroads running track next to each other.
And there are further complications when a business is functioning as a middle man. Any given community can only support so many grocery stores; competitive pressures won’t really drive down retail prices that much, especially in this context when online competition is not as viable, and you can only realistically support two or three options in driving distance, and the dynamic with retail pricing is complicated by supplier consolidation. There’s a complex dance of only being able to drive consumer prices down by leveraging scale in the face of rent seeking by consolidated suppliers, who managed to consoldiate by leveraging their own scale to undercut competition.
There are similar problems faced by health insurance dealing with drug companies and provider groups.
And when it comes to scale in food production, costs go up if you do the right things to minimize bad behavior. We need to be ready to subsidize that if we want to deal with ecological problems.
So it’s never going to be as simple as let’s just break up all the big companies. It’s a tool. One of many. It should still be used carefully, even if more frequently.
Where things like progressive taxation of profits and stronger regulation of dumping negative externalities so they’re not without cost, more labor protections, etc, can be applied more globally and with less concern.
Eolirin
@Pittsburgh Mike: Any investigation of price gouging won’t be looking at the grocery stores, it’ll be looking at the food producers; coca cola is at fault when the cost of soda doubles for no good reason, not Aldis.
TBone
@Pittsburgh Mike: even if no one else calls bullshit, I will. Using the language of the oppressor (price controls) is just obeying in advance. The policy of leveling the playing field between corporations’ greedy, monopolist profiteering and the consumers is called regulation. Regulated capitalism. For starters.
Also the “incentivizing” argument is a racist trope used for aeons. Language of the oppressor again.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: It does! 😂
NotMax
@Leto
Far more pernicious, IMHO, are usurious credit card interest rates.
@Leto
When I worked at an ad agency which handled most of General Foods’ accounts there wasn’t much budget for advertising Grape Nuts on TV. Except during the winter months when monies would be devoted to ads in select TV markets for hot Grape Nuts. The latter even had its own code when placing ads: Grape Nuts was GN, hot Grape Nuts was HG. Dunno if hot Grape Nuts is still a thing.
As for fiber, old enough to remember the since discontinued Kellogg’s Concentrate cereal (In the gold box)?
Betty
@Kay: That is what people are feeling. You know you are being ripped off. Some policy to address the abuse of consumers makes sense. I trust her economic advisers, Deese and Bernstein. They did well for Joe.
p.a.
I think an economist said “… what is believed to be true in effect is true.”
This is the big economic hurdle for Dems. Of course Murdoch-media will lie. But Murdoch’s fellow travellers in the MSM have a long and sordid history of just following that lead. Stupid or evil? Doesn’t matter. It’s always the whack-a-mole of: what’s going up in price this month? Fuck the actual numbers and trends! item X is more expensive! Item X is down now? Ohhh ohhh look at item Y. Let’s interview this typical (head of the town’s Republican Committee) consumer about Y!
🤞🏻Harris & Dems end-around of the media game can overcome the b.s.
brantl
A policy is not “populist” simply because a poor person could benefit from it.
It is for these assholes, they’ve adopted the Rethuglican’s COMMIE!!! framing for anything like that.
Elizabelle
@Kay: If you have Lidl near you, their Oat Hoops are a good Cheerios dupe, and gently priced.
ETA: out of luck. Lidl in ten states only. Nearest to you is Pennsylvania. Atlantic coast from Georgia to NY? And farthest west is western GA.
cain
@3Sice: cereal consumption will die when Gen Xers die off.
NotMax
@Baud
Schoolyard jest back in the day.
And coming full circle to politics, a true oddity.
:)
cain
@Baud:
As a kid in the late 70s, I just had a hard time understanding the name “grape nuts” – I thought it was the seed in the grapes and I was just like ‘I don’t wanna have that..’
Eolirin
@Leto: MS is acting really pro-union right now even though they completed the Activision acquisition enough that they probably could start trying to back out of it some, so I don’t think they will. Rest of the industry who knows, but it’s quite hard to hire for these kinds of companies without an educational pipeline and enough of an ecosystem to sustain employment churn, and that’s pretty heavily concentrated in the West Coast.
Also, MS has a history of trying to get ahead of broad cultural trends in how they present themselves, at least since Brad Smith was elevated to President of the company. I think this is a signal they see being union friendly as being an effective recruitment and PR tool, owning to a general shift in attitudes. So I really do think we may be at the beginnings of a sea change there.
SatanicPanic
@UncleEbeneezer: This is even better! I will do this myself.
I like that Kamala Harris is talking about increased housing production and I will tell people how glad I am that she’s going to bring us more new housing. If anyone asks how, I’ll say “you’ll see!”
@BR: Since making ADU’s by right they’re now 18% of new construction in CA. It’s been a pretty great policy.
NotMax
@cain
“Ever eat a pine tree?”
Ken
I’m sure there are some hotdish Grape Nuts recipes out there. “Layer potato slices, cream soup mixture, and grape nuts in casserole”, that sort of thing.
eemom
@Baud:
Thanks! You are one of the best commenters here, imvho.
Fair Economist
@BR: There is some building due to the state housing reforms, but it’s roughly the same level as the past few years. If it weren’t for the reforms, it would probably be down (due to “build-out”) but overall it’s still disappointing.
Builder’s remedy and the commercial re-zone have squeezed a few buildings out of my extremely NIMBY city council, so I’m grateful for what we’re getting even if it’s not nearly enough.
Kay
@Pittsburgh Mike:
I wondered about the medical debt too. I don’t really like the debt forgiveness proposals (student loans) because I think they’re unfair and will be perceived to be unfair.But apparently it’s already going on all over the country:
They’re buying the debt from collection at vastly reduced rates. I don’t think it’s intended long term. I think they want to clean it up and then use other policy to prevent it. I’m okay with that. It’s probably good for providers because it’s debt that would have been written off or discharged in bankruptcy, so they’re getting paid something rather than nothing, which was their other option :)
O. Felix Culpa
@Leto: Why?
TBone
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/planned-parenthood-conservative-activist-leonard-leo/
Kay
@Pittsburgh Mike:
The reason medical debt is special is because when people owe it the provider can and will refuse to treat them (except emergency room care) so for rural people or urban people in health care deserts they just can’t go to the doctor – they don’t have unlimited new practices to go to every time they rack up a debt and are therefore shut out.
gvg
@Fair Economist: A window in every bedroom is a fire safety code and should stay no matter what. It is supposed to open large enough for a person to get out of too, which is surprisingly tricky, especially with overweight people.
When I was a foster mom we had some reminders. I had to buy rope window ladders for upstairs bedrooms, and I was glad to. In fact, I was interested in the slide tubes, but they were harder to get. This is one of the issues the people who want us to build up, ignore. Small kids can panic and parents know that.
Leto
@NotMax: credit card rates and fees. Ugh. Get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau involved, although we’ll see how that goes post-Chevron. Regarding hot nuts: I’ve heard of them, but didn’t try it that way. I like my cereal cold. When Grape-Nuts get hot, they dissolve, and at that point it’s oatmeal. I’m a grits guy :P
@Eolirin: I hope so. Tech workers need all the help they can get. Wasn’t it Marvel’s VFX studios who recently unionized? Good for them as well. We’re all stronger together.
Eunicecycle
@Baud: it also takes the argument away from Rs that Democrats hate babies!
Eolirin
@Kay: We need to spend a whole lot less time worrying about what’s fair and a whole lot more time worrying about what’s right.
So much about the economy, even just when it comes to student loan debt, is fundamentally unfair. Graduating into the 2009 recession has had lifelong financial consequences, just as a matter of timing. Choosing the right major just before a big shift in demand. So much of the level of success depends on dumb luck.
And debt is a huge burden on people’s lives. Anything that can be done to help with that is just the right thing to do. Even if it means some people get more than others, even if some people benefit who maybe don’t need it, even if some people were reckless in running up that debt and then get bailed out. It doesn’t mean we should ignore fixing the underlying issues either, they’re both important, but our system makes it too easy to get drowned by debt, and to suffer massive life alerting consequences from it, for us to hesitate in trying to help people get out of it. We shouldn’t hold up the relief until we fix all the problems. We should be working on both and doing everything we can on both.
hueyplong
I don’t understand anyone here being irritated that the WP calls some of Harris’ ideas “populist.” Our choices are “populist” or “socialist” (which = communist). So what they’ve done is a relative win.
Remember, “populist” is also what they traditionally call Trumpian ramblings that they’re trying to normalize.
Sure, none of these terms actually have definitions consistent with the above, but we’re talking about WP usage and not what pedants call “vocabulary.”
Leto
@O. Felix Culpa: summary recap of thread:
I was being sarcastic
People who are being dismissive of the overall rise in grocery prices since 2020/2021 are being dishonest
People who think this is some type of Soviet-style “price controls” are also being dishonest
Overall we all like that Kamala is bringing attention to the normies that the corporations are still trying their best to gouge us every chance they get
We also trust the Dems to actually try to put policy in place to help us all. Might not be the perfect unicorn each of us dream of, but it’s a far sight better than anything conservatives have
We’ve also been discussing breakfast cereals (Grape-Nuts), and the tech sector’s attempt to unionize. If anyone else wants to chime in, they can.
jowriter
@Kay: Me either. We go back and forth between our house in downeast Maine and Westchester County, NY. When the price of Cheerios hit $7 for a small box in our NY market, earlier this year, I just walked on by. In Maine, our market sells a comparable generic for $2.99. I stock up when I’m here. Seven bucks for cereal is beyond the damn pale.
KatKapCC
@Kay: Medical debt is different because no one chooses it. Most medical debt comes after accidents, emergencies, illnesses, etc. No one chooses to get hit by a car, or caught in a house fire, or to develop uterine cancer. And we know those hospital bills are absurdly inflated and that you don’t get to know anything at all about what a hospital visit or medical treatment will end up costing you before it happens. People go bankrupt, end up unhoused, etc, because of medical debt, and it is absolutely wrong and it is a very good thing for the government to help with that.
Leto
@jowriter: something we haven’t mention is that shrink-flation is still a thing. That $7 box of Cheerio’s is smaller than its previous 2020 counterpart. That’s across the board on so many things. And yes, generic to more things.
Kay
@Eolirin:
Oh, I agree. Make student loan debt dischargable in bankrupcty. We have a whole expert debt court system already in place. It works too, unlike a lot of our justice system.
“Forgiving” it willy nilly isn’t even fair as between current debtors and future debtors! I don’t think it makes any sense on any level. I have no idea why a debtor 1 year out of college gets it and an entering freshman that year won’t get it when she’s 1 year out of college.
Eunicecycle
@Jeffg166: and Tic Tacs! I guess Trump pulling out the 2 sizes of Tic Tacs the other day was supposed to demonstrate shrinkflation, but he couldn’t remember the word so he just kept saying inflation. And of course one was a big container and one very small, so it didn’t demonstrate shrinkflation.
jowriter
@Leto: I was onto this years ago, when I had kids in the house and they loved their Doritos (ugh). I watched the air-enhanced chip bags offer fewer and fewer chips for more and more $$. It was infuriating. No one was paying attention. It just incensed my Yankee sensibilities.
zhena gogolia
@cain: I assume it’s by analogy with grapeshot.
waspuppet
@Kay: They don’t make it up. Republicans tell them what to say and they say it.
Ksmiami
@SatanicPanic: that’s exactly what is happening. Grocery stores are using the advantage of rfid and big data analytics to shift pricing fast af. And yes it’s a huge problem.
Ksmiami
@jowriter: oatmeal is cheap and much healthier anyway
Sister Golden Bear
@cain:
THIS.
Unfortunately, I don’t see a lot of hope of unionizing, since tech workers on the whole have “temporarily embarrassed billionaire” syndrome. I think one big reason SV is so ageist is that many companies don’t want older workers who’ve seen the “rise and grind” bullshit and see through it.
Kay
@Eolirin:
The Student Loan Bankrupcy Act. Uses the existing federal bankrutpcy courts. Has a test for eligibility and income and asset limits like Ch 7 bankruptcy. I agree one mistake at 19 in choosing a college or major and getting ripped off shoudn’t be a drag for 20 fucking years. Discharge it under the same concept as bankruptcy (which is in the constitution!) because we want people to take risks and fall and get back up because we’re vibrant innovators! :)
Most people pay their student loans. This makes more sense to me than a “forgiveness” approach which people are going to hate and isn’t a long term solution.
Ksmiami
@K-Mo: that’s the effect of global warming- same with chocolate and oj. These are commodities that have very specialized growing needs and they’re being disrupted by AGW.
Leto
@jowriter: Wasn’t just you! Def incensed this Southern gentleman’s sense of honor and fairness! We’d commonly grouse over the amount of air in each bag. I think that’s why Pringles are so popular. Can’t air that can! Filled to the top! Haha
E.
@BR: I worked in a large grocery store until just a few months ago. Dealing with pricing is an enormous headache and very labor intensive. I think the savings will be large and, as always, more of the poor will enter the ranks of the very poor.
Leto
@Kay: well while they figure out how to unfuck the clusterfuck they created, to the absolute benefit of the private financial sector, we’ll continue forgiveness because as you said… this shouldn’t drag on for 40 fucking years. This isn’t indentured servitude.
Sister Golden Bear
@Leto: As someone who works in Silicon Valley, unfortunately there are not a lot of unionization efforts in CA among the folks we’d think of a “tech workers” (Instacart shoppers ain’t it.)
There’s a variety of reason, including “temporarily embarrassed billionaire” syndrome is widespread even if you’re not at a start-up, i.e. people think that they’ll hit it big (options, career advancement, etc.) if you just do the massive work hours bosses expect — widespread lip service to “work life balance” is… lip service. As I said in another comment, tech companies seemingly favor young workers in part because they don’t see through this sort of bullshit.
Plus SV is a small place and it’s all too easy to get blackballed. One reason so few discrimination, sexual harassment lawsuits get filed. You might win your case, but you’ve essentially killed your career.
And given how brutal the tech job market has been the last five years, almost no one wants to rock the boat because either they want to keep their jobs, or else be able to try to find a job.
That said, I see a lot of frustration and anger, especially among other workers my age. Not sure where that’s gonna lead eventually. For Olds like myself, it’s generally resigning ourselves to finding careers outside of tech, since we have to eat and put a roof over our heads.
sdhays
@BR: Now that sounds like a good idea, in general. Ignore the reporters who report “politics” without bothering to actually know anything and talk to reporters who have an actual “beat”.
O. Felix Culpa
@Leto: Akshully, I only needed point number one, although it did take me a while to catch up on the thread. I had not picked up on the sarcasm. Thank you for your summary, nonetheless.
Kay
Colin Flanagan is Sherrod Brown’s campaign director for NW OH. He wants to bring Sherrod’s brother, Charlie Brown (Charlie is the former AG of West Virginia, so that’s bizarre) and do a meet and greet in our county.
Mr. Flanagan is a very punchy person. Has a lot of attitude. So he writes “all are welcome – sisters mothers, brothers – media are unwelcome”
lol
TBone
@Eolirin: 💙
TBone
@Leto: the ice cream sandwiches I bought should be called ice cream nuggets or ice cream fingers now.
Crapification everywhere.
TBone
@Kay: free college for all then. Seems fair.
TBone
@Leto: 💙
tam1MI
@RaflW: From the article:
It is beyond heartening to see the press corp’s unconscionably vile treatment of Joe Biden come back to bite them in the ass.
Bravo and keep treating them with the contempt they deserve, Kamala!
Villago Delenda Est
My nym. Again and again.
Wipe the Village out.