Biden

[SGOS]

We may be done with Trump for the most part, and I thought it might be a move in the right direction to have a thread about our new president's policies, rather than have everything he does related to Donald Trump some way.  I have yet to pick a bone with Biden, but this caught my eye today:

"Biden and the Fed Leave 1970s Inflation Fears Behind"
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/business/economy/biden-fed-inflation-covid.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20210216&instance_id=27152&nl=todaysheadlines&regi_id=129705843&segment_id=51719&user_id=33a2a6e6868fd65c48b0f219d16ed7c2

This Pandemic has taken a toll on small business and middle class incomes, and the government needs to do something to help.  We bailed out the bankers when they tried to snuff us, and I though that move might kill us, but it didn't.  The Bankers got rich, but a lot of us were hurt or lost everything we had.  As often the case when there's a large pile of money sitting on the table, the wealthy start eyeing it, and somehow it gets into their pockets justified by some shit about how it was necessary for all of us.

Now people are hurting, but we are beginning to see the light.  I have questions about this trillion dollar effort. I think I see both sides, but I'll be damned if I know which argument is right.  Remember the 70s?  Most here have read about it, but the inflation, traced back to LBJs war in Vietnam by some, was no small thing, and scared the shit out of a lot of people.  Me included, I never thought we would get as far out of the mess as we did, and the 70s were economic misery both for the middle class as a languishing stock market for the wealthy.  I had hoped to never see such misery again.

Bernie Sanders says, "Go Big," and Biden oddly agrees.  I like Sanders, but that doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about.  I've seen how the money is going to be spent, and it sounds worthy, but where it actually ends up troubles me.  That top 1% think it's theirs.

Another issue is that while many are hurting and desperate, the Market is soaring.  I have no idea what to make of that.  Is the economy all that bad?  The last thing I want is a lot of out of work people now burdened with 1970s inflation.  That could be the worst imaginable scenario.  Inflation hurts.  A little is fine, if people can keep up with it, but the runaway version of the 70s was sickening.  One thing I've noticed the government doing, and I think it's worse with Republicans, is fueling the economy using Keynesian economics when the economy, in this case the stock market, is already hot.  If economic fueling helps in bad times, lets do it during the good times!  Everyone loves those economic bubbles.  Well for awhile, anyway.

Fixing inflation was as depressing as living with it.  Carter appointed Paul Volker to the Fed, which was as wise a choice as he could have made, and people hated Carter for it.  Volker stopped the presses, while prices were accelerating upward.  It needed to be done, but ouch (and that's making it sound like a mild annoyance.  It was not just a child's owee).  Eventually, inflation was brought under control, and the Fed started printing money again under Regan, and everyone thought he must have fixed it, when he only happened to be there when it ended.

This fix may be necessary, but it probably comes with a price.  How big a price I don't know, but you can be assured that 1% at the top aren't going to paying that price.  It's going to be paid by those toward the bottom, who will be nickle and dimed to death.  And when the pain starts Bernie and Biden will be gone, and we will blame whoever else is in charge.

I hope a lot more thought goes into this.  The headline today made it sound like, "Hey, ain't this great!"  They did point out some concerns, but kind of with the attitude of don't worry your pretty little heads about it too much.  I remember the 70s.  The late 70s were horrible.  Maybe it was just hippies fault, huh?