The article is a discussion of how inflation rates have dropped, wages have risen faster than prices, and how deflation is really damaging.
This is a strange article
Most people’s understanding of “inflation” is “how much am I paying for my stuff,” not the rate of increase (economic definition.) Krugman’s actually ahead of the curve, because he points out that when you say “inflation is down,” people are likely to say “no it isn’t,” because they’re still paying higher prices for stuff because of the previous inflation. He even cottons on to the idea that people feel like they earned their increases in wages, but inflation “happened to” them, so the pain of the second isn’t offset by the first.
But then he goes off into crazy town trying to say that the Republicans were making some kind of economic argument when they said they want inflation to go back down (by the “how much am I paying” metric). My guy: They are not talking metrics. They are not talking policies. Stop taking them seriously. They are saying Trump will make eggs cheap again when he will not, and when he doesn’t, they will say “lol Dems fault” and none of the followers will care.
Stop taking them at their word about things and taking their nonsense as economic arguments.
Thing nobody talks about is that life must be affordable for kids under 30 if birth rates are to remain sustainable. All the bullshit about economic policy and pricing doesn’t matter long term when no one can afford to have a family with life balance and mental stability that only come from an excess income margin. Every western country is failing at this fundamental aspect of sustainability. All the theories will fail in progressively larger steps until someone addresses this key aspect of society. There must be an achievable path to a balanced life for a below average person. The USA is vast. Only 5% of land on the USA is occupied. There is absolutely no reason for housing to be unobtainable even for the poorest of people. If that was doubled, it would have no significant impact on other land uses. The housing market is completely artificial. Address the issue of outsourcing as a trade deficit against the individual, family, county, region, and state. If you do business that excludes your neighbors and community, you should be held accountable for extracting wealth, creating dependency, and barriers to participation in the local market.
Our current system is on perfect track to mirror Rome when the Italian peninsula was abandoned from the mass consolidation of wealth that wound up abandoning Rome for Constantinople. The problems were not because of the emperors, the emperors were the result of a consolidation of wealth. The rise of populism caused the wealthy to fight massive civil wars. That is the next phase unless some Teddy Roosevelt figure can cripple the oligarchy and consolidated corruption of this dystopian timeline. Eras of memorable names are the worst times to be alive.
According to “Betteridge’s law of headlines” the answer to “Should we?” is “No” which would then mean “Death to America”. NYT with the hot take of the week lmao.
