Studies that can delve into how this worked to demonstrate that it truly did happen is so helpful. I feel like it's true, anecdotally, but I have to admit that I feel a bit gaslit by my own...
Studies that can delve into how this worked to demonstrate that it truly did happen is so helpful. I feel like it's true, anecdotally, but I have to admit that I feel a bit gaslit by my own employer complaining about the economy to give low wages while most of the financial statements by industry members (I'm deliberately not saying exactly what industry) scream about bumper (and I mean jumps in the region of +50% over the previous year) profits etc. etc.
I'm completely jaded at this point, as, I'm sure, are many others. If the social contract continues to be eroded on one side only, I cannot see why we will bother sticking to it in the near future. Why shouldn't I engage in petty shoplifting if the supermarkets are engaging in rampant profiteering at my and their suppliers' cost? Why shouldn't I engage in fiscal/financial fraud when my national tax agency is a ravening hound when faced with my unintentional infractions, but a doe-eyed puppy dog when it comes to dressing down Vodafone, or Google, or or or? Why do I bother voting when most politicians don't give a damn about my wellbeing or wishes and just want to be and stay in power? I just don't see how this is supposed to work. Do the corps all know things are going to shit and are just trying to get one last bag out of us before the whole system blows up?
If you are an American there are indeed huge differences between politicians. It Trump wins he will dismantle democracy and lay waste to the country. The only thing that a person can do to prevent...
Why do I bother voting when most politicians don't give a damn about my wellbeing or wishes and just want to be and stay in power?
If you are an American there are indeed huge differences between politicians.
It Trump wins he will dismantle democracy and lay waste to the country.
The only thing that a person can do to prevent that is to vote to reelect President Biden.
I am not going to ever defend voter apathy but I definitely think we are doomed for as long as people believe that voting is literally the only thing a person can do to stop our institutions from...
I am not going to ever defend voter apathy but I definitely think we are doomed for as long as people believe that voting is literally the only thing a person can do to stop our institutions from being totally co-opted. Voting is not the “only” thing you can do it’s the LEAST thing you can do to stop it.
And I have to say out of people who say what you do, and people who have totally lost faith in the system, I have a lot more confidence in the people who have totally lost faith in the system to actually start doing the most productive things (although it still isn’t very much faith).
not to dogpile a point too hard but I'd argue that social media posting is probably the least thing you can do, below voting. For some reason I have progressive friends that think otherwise...
not to dogpile a point too hard but I'd argue that social media posting is probably the least thing you can do, below voting. For some reason I have progressive friends that think otherwise though, but I feel like if social media posting is the only thing you do, you're almost not doing anything at all.
Unless the person in question is some amazingly charismatic rhetorician who has the ability to change, at a minimum, dozens of people’s minds about their most deeply held beliefs, then I honestly...
Unless the person in question is some amazingly charismatic rhetorician who has the ability to change, at a minimum, dozens of people’s minds about their most deeply held beliefs, then I honestly consider simply arguing about politics to be accomplishing nothing but that person’s own self indulgence.
True that, but they do have a non-zero affect, and it is cumulative as more and more people express the same or simelar ideas. It's little, but it's certainly not nothing.
True that, but they do have a non-zero affect, and it is cumulative as more and more people express the same or simelar ideas. It's little, but it's certainly not nothing.
"posting as praxis" is awfully convenient in that you don't have to do anything of real worth AND you get to drive engagement on an evil platform making the world a worse place. It's a total scam....
"posting as praxis" is awfully convenient in that you don't have to do anything of real worth AND you get to drive engagement on an evil platform making the world a worse place. It's a total scam. Discussion on sites like tildes are one thing but organizing doesn't happen here, and people that think that retweeting shit is going to do anything are sadly delusional.
Messaging and spreading information and opinions on current events is a great way to combat the sheer amount of apathy and ignorance that got us into this position. Is it as good as organizing...
Messaging and spreading information and opinions on current events is a great way to combat the sheer amount of apathy and ignorance that got us into this position. Is it as good as organizing fundraisers for local politicians? Not by a longshot, but compared to shrugging and going "eh I'm not really about politics" it's infinitely more productive. Literally giving a single shit is the biggest hurdle.
I don't think that I've ever heard anyone say that voting is the only thing you can do, though you do kind of pick up that sentiment a lot. But to play something of a devil's advocate, I think...
I don't think that I've ever heard anyone say that voting is the only thing you can do, though you do kind of pick up that sentiment a lot. But to play something of a devil's advocate, I think that voting is effectively all that a lot of people can do to participate in American democracy in an impactful way. People are extremely economically constrained, and with that come time restrictions. One cannot go out and canvas voters, attend local government meetings, or take the time to meet with their representitives if they do not have the time and access to do so.
I think this concept is probably one of the reasons that governments tend to be so conservative even though liberal ideas are so popular; if the people who need help the most do not have the ability to effectively organize, that means that the people who do are the people who are most invested in the status quo - people who live in abundance or are retired, for instance.
Trump will totally destroy those institutions. There is only 1 way to stop Trump: voting to reelect President Biden.
I am not going to ever defend voter apathy but I definitely think we are doomed for as long as people believe that voting is literally the only thing a person can do to stop our institutions from being totally co-opted.
Trump will totally destroy those institutions.
There is only 1 way to stop Trump: voting to reelect President Biden.
I try to be a voice of optimism. I think that people who think things are bad in the US haven't really seen what bad really looks like. Okay, the US isn't Norway and things aren't super great, but...
I try to be a voice of optimism.
I think that people who think things are bad in the US haven't really seen what badreally looks like. Okay, the US isn't Norway and things aren't super great, but on the whole things are objectively... not bad.
A strong economy. Sure, housing is unaffordable, and cost of living is outpacing income growth. But we don't have mass unemployment like South Africa, or runaway inflation and crumbling markets like Argentina and Venezuela.
Energy and resource security. We're self-sufficient and not in danger of freezing or starving, like the EU in 2022 when Russia cut off gas supplies or like Egypt worrying about its main fresh water source, the Nile, being dammed upstream by Ethiopia.
Defense security. We don't face any imminent existential threats, like Ukraine or Taiwan do.
We have a ludicrously strong foundation from which we can build the society we want. Many societies and their leaders envy the economic, industrial, scientific, and institutional inheritance we have.
There is no such thing as burning things down and restarting.
There are a million different far better ways to better this country than to vote for a milquetoast-at-best ratchet who's more concerned with reaching across the aisle (to the racists) than with...
There are a million different far better ways to better this country than to vote for a milquetoast-at-best ratchet who's more concerned with reaching across the aisle (to the racists) than with actually bettering the lives of his constituents.
Mutual aid. Education. Organization & unionization. Protests. All of these matter far more than any vote in the current, far-from-democratic system constantly levied against us every four years. There is no good reason for me to bother wasting my energy voting for a man who would tacitly enable genocide when there are so many other better things I could do, especially when the system is effectively designed to ensure my vote does not matter except in obscene, unrealistic aggregates.
Why are you treating those as exclusive options? Voting for the best candidate that can beat trump in no way prevents you from protesting, or providing mutual aid. Denying a despot the...
Why are you treating those as exclusive options? Voting for the best candidate that can beat trump in no way prevents you from protesting, or providing mutual aid. Denying a despot the presidential office is a pretty high priority item.
I answered this more thoroughly here, but suffice to say that I only have so much energy to spend on activism, and I do not consider voting for a do-nothing who doesn't care to represent me to be...
I answered this more thoroughly here, but suffice to say that I only have so much energy to spend on activism, and I do not consider voting for a do-nothing who doesn't care to represent me to be a worthwhile way to utilize my time. I will make far more meaningful of an impact doing other things; participating in a system designed only to provide the illusion of change is, by comparison, pointless.
If you have the energy to vote as well as doing other things, bully for you. I'm glad. But I must prioritize.
As an EU citizen, voting for me was never more than showing up, going in a booth, stamping some papers and going out. More or less 10m spent doing it. Maybe grab a coffee or breakfast on the way...
As an EU citizen, voting for me was never more than showing up, going in a booth, stamping some papers and going out. More or less 10m spent doing it. Maybe grab a coffee or breakfast on the way there/back.
Why is it that in the US voting is such an exhausting affair?
Decades of intentional voter suppression. Usually along racial lines, but now also targeted at educated urban/suburban populations likely to vote for pols who favor income redistribution, racial...
Decades of intentional voter suppression.
Usually along racial lines, but now also targeted at educated urban/suburban populations likely to vote for pols who favor income redistribution, racial and gender equity, unions, public services, pollution control, and other socially beneficial policies.
It's done through underfunding of polling locations, limiting hours of operation, minimizing the number of locations, and making them as inaccessible as possible, as well as restrictions on absentee voting. It's not uncommon for people to wait in line most of a day to cast their votes, and then get turned away because the location is closing. There are also increasingly onerous requirements to prove eligibility to vote - identity, residency, citizenship, lack of criminal status... and felony criminal penalties for errors.
There's no nationwide federal voting standardization; every state has its own election laws and personnel, gets to roll its own ballots, voting and tabulation machines, and set up their own rules for in-person or mail-in voting. Most states use volunteer poll workers who don't receive much training.
It's practically become a cliché: "If voting doesn't do anything, why would they make it so difficult?"
[Really, folks, just as a matter of general principle and "fuck you, fascists", show up and vote against anyone who wants to make voting harder.]
This depends on which state it is. For California, I've always found it quite easy, and it got even easier after switching to vote by mail. I don't have to actually mail it since there is a...
This depends on which state it is. For California, I've always found it quite easy, and it got even easier after switching to vote by mail. I don't have to actually mail it since there is a dropbox at the local library, within walking distance.
I hate to just disagree on location, but here in the deep south a lot of people were disqualified for mail in voting on a variety of (bullshit) reasons. I waited in line for an hour+ to vote, and...
I hate to just disagree on location, but here in the deep south a lot of people were disqualified for mail in voting on a variety of (bullshit) reasons. I waited in line for an hour+ to vote, and will do so again, but I'm done with milquetoast presidentional candidates who will say they are forwarding progress while killing children in foreign countries.
We just don't have the support systems here to vote, especially cause a lot of the politicians want to disenfranchise POC and stay in power
None of those things are mutually exclusive with voting. Voting takes around an hour per year and is a tremendously effective means of harm reduction as we work towards structural change. “But...
None of those things are mutually exclusive with voting.
Voting takes around an hour per year and is a tremendously effective means of harm reduction as we work towards structural change.
“But both parties create harm,” yep, but not equally. It’s a trolley problem. You and I didn’t create this stupid political system we live under. We didn’t tie the people to the tracks or send the trolley barreling down the hill. But here we are, the trolley is rolling, and ignoring the trolley or refusing to participate won’t make it go away. It just means more people die.
Pulling the lever isn’t an endorsement of the trolley. And Voting for harm reduction isn’t an endorsement of our stupid two party system any more than using the internet is an endorsement of your ISP or having a credit card is an endorsement of Equifax. It’s just the reality of living in our present moment.
Every human has a finite supply of energy with which to pull from and create change. Every action takes energy to do. Voting is no exception. I don't care that Biden is less outright harmful than...
Every human has a finite supply of energy with which to pull from and create change. Every action takes energy to do. Voting is no exception.
I don't care that Biden is less outright harmful than Trump. It is a waste of my time to vote for him, especially when it's exclusively because he's not Trump, because that means he has no incentive to be better — so long as he's technically less terrible, he can do whatever he wants and still get votes. He is not accountable to us, and never has been.
Furthermore, I very strongly disagree that voting is "tremendously effective." In my mind, it is among the least impactful things you can do. Posting on social media was mentioned elsewhere in this thread as a particularly low-impact means of activism, and it is honestly the only thing I can currently think of less productive than voting. Be it from gerrymandering, first-past-the-post, the electoral college, Citizen's United – hell, the very founding of this nation as one in which only land-owning white men could vote – this system is designed to make us lose.
Make no mistake, I will not sit idly by and watch things go to hell, but my supply of energy too is finite, and it is better spent on other methods. If Biden wants my vote, he will have to earn it first.
If the difference between a Trump and Biden administration is anywhere close to "least impactful" in your life that's great, but that is a tremendous privilege. It's not a "technical" difference,...
If the difference between a Trump and Biden administration is anywhere close to "least impactful" in your life that's great, but that is a tremendous privilege. It's not a "technical" difference, it's a very substantial difference that massively impacts the well-being of tens of millions of people in the US (at a minimum), to say nothing of the more global impact of things like climate policy. Biden's first term climate policies have single-handedly improved the US's emissions trajectory by ~20-30% ... unless Trump takes office and immediately reverses all of them.
If your ethos is "I don't care that x is less harmful than y" then I don't think you and I will ever see eye to eye. I tend towards the utilitarian viewpoint of doing what I can each day, within the circumstances I've been given, to reduce harm and suffering. I feel that letting the trolley run over people because I don't like the choice I've been given is a self-centered dead end. The idealism of my teens and 20s is gone. I have to live in the world as it exists, not as I wish it to be. There are no perfect choices. I feel there's very little value in watching a disaster I could have helped prevent unfold and telling myself "well at least I haven't compromised."
I know our electoral system is fucked. I know it's unfair. Trust me. I hate it. But hating it doesn't make it go away or change how much its machinations impact us all.
Clearly it's a difference of perspective, and that's okay. You're allowed yours. The only part of your post I'll take actual issue with is this:
My supply of energy too is finite, and it is better spent on other methods.
I simply do not believe that your entire year is so completely packed with high-impact activism that spending <1 hour filling in a bubble is something you do not have the time or energy for. Based on your posts you've spent more time than that on Tildes in just the past few weeks.
It's fine if you don't want to vote because you don't care about the outcome or don't want to compromise, but please at least be honest about it.
I won't mince words: It is really, really bold of you to presume you know my life so well as to make this assumption about it based off nothing more than my activity on Tildes. I would hope you...
I simply do not believe that your entire year is so completely packed with high-impact activism that spending <1 hour filling in a bubble is something you do not have the time or energy for. Based on your posts you've spent more time than that on Tildes in just the past few weeks.
It's fine if you don't want to vote because you don't care about the outcome or don't want to compromise, but please at least be honest about it.
I won't mince words: It is really, really bold of you to presume you know my life so well as to make this assumption about it based off nothing more than my activity on Tildes. I would hope you would take my word for it when I tell you about how my life works and what energy I have to spend on various things.
I know me. I know I find voting stressful, frustrating, wasteful, and every election year drains me further, and that's before counting the depression and diabetes I'm stuck with for life that massively reduces my ability to do things in general. If a candidate can't convince me that they represent actual, meaningful hope, it is not worth the mental toll for me to vote.
Furthermore, when I say I find voting unimpactful, I am not speaking to my personal life exclusively. It is not privilege that drives that opinion, it is the fact that there are gobs of issues with the U.S. that mean my vote has pathetically little impact on anyone. Elections are decided by money, not people, here.
I apologize for my combative tone at the end. That wasn't my intention but now I see how it can read that way. I was not actually basing my "you have one hour per year free to fill out a bubble"...
I apologize for my combative tone at the end. That wasn't my intention but now I see how it can read that way.
I won't mince words: It is really, really bold of you to presume you know my life so well as to make this assumption about it based off nothing more than my activity on Tildes. I would hope you would take my word for it when I tell you about how my life works and what energy I have to spend on various things.
I was not actually basing my "you have one hour per year free to fill out a bubble" off of your Tildes activity. My assumption was based on it being nearly universally true, barring rare edge cases that in all likelihood do not apply here (e.g. being held hostage). So I made an educated guess that it applies to you too.
I know me. I know I find voting stressful, frustrating, wasteful, and every election year drains me further, and that's before counting the depression and diabetes I'm stuck with for life that massively reduces my ability to do things in general.
I completely hear all of this, including the debilitating depression, a journey I know all too well. I must imagine that diabetes complicates that further, and I'm so sorry that you have to cope with that.
Furthermore, when I say I find voting unimpactful, I am not speaking to my personal life exclusively. It is not privilege that drives that opinion, it is the fact that there are gobs of issues with the U.S. that mean my vote has pathetically little impact on anyone. Elections are decided by money, not people, here.
We're awash in money corrupting and swaying things, I totally agree. Votes are generally still what decide races, though.
The delta of outcomes between better candidates winning and worse candidates winning is enormous. One vote doesn't usually determine an election, but sometimes it does quite spectacularly. So voting isn't mutually exclusive with any other form of activism, is free, typically takes under one hour per year, and can make a huge impact, especially on the state and local level. There really isn't any downside at all; ergo it is worth spending <1 hour per year voting to add our voice to the collective push that can reduce harm.
This isn't really true anymore: The last two republican presidents didn't win the popular vote. Money and political tactics (like gerrymandering) decide national elections. Sometimes votes...
This isn't really true anymore:
Votes are generally still what decide races, though.
The last two republican presidents didn't win the popular vote.
Money and political tactics (like gerrymandering) decide national elections. Sometimes votes actually do decide smaller elections, but the context here is presidential elections.
A related point: Votes largely do not decide which candidates we get to vote for. The choices are preselected for you by money, the media and the DNC/RNC.
I don't blame people who are disillusioned by the simulacrum of choice that currently passes for democracy in the US.
Trump, though, he's a different kind of dangerous, there's good reason to be emotional about voting for anyone but him.
This is mixing up different things. Voting absolutely does matter in the aggregate. How many votes each side gets determines who wins each state. The voting algorithm for US presidential elections...
This is mixing up different things.
Voting absolutely does matter in the aggregate. How many votes each side gets determines who wins each state.
The voting algorithm for US presidential elections is complicated and means that the popular vote getter might not win, but it's still the case that more votes is better and that's why there are such extensive get-out-the-vote campaigns, mostly in competitive states.
For the individual voter, their vote is unlikely to matter in non-competitive states. But the thing that makes them non-competitive is lots of people voting for the most popular party in that state.
Money can make a difference, but candidates can spend a lot without getting anywhere. If money were decisive, Bloomberg would probably be president.
Trump didn't win because of money. He got the nomination because some Republicans really liked what they saw on TV. A lot of that news coverage was free. (We could discuss why Republicans were susceptible to his dubious charms, but it was absolutely true that he was popular, among Republicans.)
He won the election largely because chance events in the news resulted in Hillary Clinton being less popular on election day.(Remember James Comey and the emails?) The Republicans were surprised too. It's disconcerting that close elections are effectively random, but that's how close elections work
You are right that most people individually have very little say about who gets elected. But this would still be true for national elections with any election system, however fair, because the country is very large and you are small in comparison. To have significant influence, you would have to influence a lot of voters.
And yet, the system doesn't work if people don't participate. If young people voted more there would be very different results.
You basically wrote the reply I would have written. Just one caveat: This can be true for federal and electoral college races, but even in federally non-competitive states there are important,...
You basically wrote the reply I would have written. Just one caveat:
For the individual voter, their vote is unlikely to matter in non-competitive states.
This can be true for federal and electoral college races, but even in federally non-competitive states there are important, hotly contested state and local races.
I'm not saying people shouldn't vote, or that votes don't matter, though you seem to be trying to characterize it that way. I'm not talking about an individual spending money, I'm talking about...
I'm not saying people shouldn't vote, or that votes don't matter, though you seem to be trying to characterize it that way.
Money can make a difference, but candidates can spend a lot without getting anywhere. If money were decisive, Bloomberg would probably be president.
I'm not talking about an individual spending money, I'm talking about the whole machine. Money absolutely decides elections. There are other important factors of course, but money and the influence it buys is the largest by a big margin. Trump would not have been president without the help of powerful people and organizations.
Maybe most notably the right wing media behemoth with a Murdoch shaped head, but also the Evangelical political machine, the federalist society and so on.
It would be nice to imagine that it's as simple as "the people decide", but that's not reality and we won't change it by sticking our heads in the sand.
I agree that "the people decide" is simplistic, but "money decides" is also simplistic. There are systems, but they involve both people and money, in combination. The influence of Fox News has...
I agree that "the people decide" is simplistic, but "money decides" is also simplistic. There are systems, but they involve both people and money, in combination.
The influence of Fox News has (etc.) comes from its audience. They'd be nowhere if people didn't watch. And nobody would watch if they didn't say things people wanted to hear. Also, churches are organizations composed of people, and they get money from donations. This flow of money is controlled by church members.
So I think it's inaccurate and misleading to attribute it to "money," and leaving out the people. People are involved in many steps along the way.
(In complex systems, though, the output of the Ouija board might not have any simple relationship to the inputs.)
This seems like semantics. Yes of couse churches and media conglomerates and corporations and etc. are made of people. I'm pretty sure that's not what "the people" is meant to mean in the context...
This seems like semantics. Yes of couse churches and media conglomerates and corporations and etc. are made of people. I'm pretty sure that's not what "the people" is meant to mean in the context of elections in a representative democracy.
Specifically with regard to Trump in 2016, the funders of Republican candidates were blindsided. Trump was not the candidate that the elite business interests backed in the primary. Local...
Specifically with regard to Trump in 2016, the funders of Republican candidates were blindsided. Trump was not the candidate that the elite business interests backed in the primary. Local Republican voters defeated Cruz.
Biden was not my first choice in the primaries. I think your characterization of him in your first paragraph is completely inaccurate. The list of other things Americans can do to improve the...
Biden was not my first choice in the primaries. I think your characterization of him in your first paragraph is completely inaccurate.
The list of other things Americans can do to improve the country - other than voting - will never happen if Trump or another Republican gets into the White House.
I'm not American, as it happens, but I don't think there's much special about US politicians atm, the same tactics are being invented/copied/used in all directions around the world, unfortunately.
I'm not American, as it happens, but I don't think there's much special about US politicians atm, the same tactics are being invented/copied/used in all directions around the world, unfortunately.
Your boss is involved in politics. Your landlord is involved in politics. You should be involved in politics. Voting is the least important part of politics. It's essential, but it's kinda like...
Your boss is involved in politics.
Your landlord is involved in politics.
You should be involved in politics.
Voting is the least important part of politics. It's essential, but it's kinda like showing up at the end of the game rather than the beginning. Often the battle was already decided in the first 3/4 of the game.
My local mayor, one city council seat, and two school board positions ran unopposed this year. I intend to remedy that once I start sleeping through the night more than 50% of the time. And this story plays out across the nation.
And your local city/county can pass local ordinances that make huge differnences...like car bans. Or building more parks. Or banning plastic bags from retail outlets.
Hear hear! Get active locally!!! I joined my local planning commission. I am 35 years younger than the second youngest commissioner (and I'm not that young), the only renter present, and the only...
Hear hear! Get active locally!!!
I joined my local planning commission. I am 35 years younger than the second youngest commissioner (and I'm not that young), the only renter present, and the only person who is still working. We just rezoned the entire town to allow for additional housing to be built, a big thing for renters here. There were a number of issues that were only maintained because I spoke up, because I'm a renter. The other commissioners were open to my changes, but had I not been in the room there wouldn't have even been a dialogue about it. These decisions impact our day to day lives and are being made by folks who will be dead before the outcomes of their decisions come to bear.
Local activism and organizing and community building is the only way out of this mess. This is awesome to hear, and is one of the things that gives me hope. There's so many people finally getting...
Local activism and organizing and community building is the only way out of this mess. This is awesome to hear, and is one of the things that gives me hope. There's so many people finally getting fed up with nothing getting better that are deciding to pick up a shovel, and I'm so excited to see what that energy will bring.
This is a strong reason to do away with primary elections and move to ranked-choice voting. Candidates drop out during primary season long before voters in most states have the opportunity to vote...
Often the battle was already decided in the first 3/4 of the game
This is a strong reason to do away with primary elections and move to ranked-choice voting. Candidates drop out during primary season long before voters in most states have the opportunity to vote for them.
100%. I'm even somewhat in favor of eliminating party affiliation on ballots in a ranked-choice ballot. Names only, possibly with a short accompaying "voter guide" that has the ballot candidates...
100%. I'm even somewhat in favor of eliminating party affiliation on ballots in a ranked-choice ballot. Names only, possibly with a short accompaying "voter guide" that has the ballot candidates with a brief chart showing their support/opposition/conflicted of say 5-10 key issues.
If you can't bother to learn about and remember whom you're voting for, you probably shouldn't be...you know?
Political parties already pass out fliers with their list of their endorsed candidates outside polling places in parts of the US (because for several local/regional races, particularly for things...
Political parties already pass out fliers with their list of their endorsed candidates outside polling places in parts of the US (because for several local/regional races, particularly for things like judges, they do indeed not list which party each canidate is affiliated with bc they usually aren't in any official capacity).
My long time boss and somewhat of a friend has gotten more and more difficult to relate to as time has gone on. He's only a year older than me but complains constantly about not being able to hire...
My long time boss and somewhat of a friend has gotten more and more difficult to relate to as time has gone on. He's only a year older than me but complains constantly about not being able to hire good people but then when posting salary ranges, he places them comically low. Most of his logic, at least as far as I can tell, revolves around what we were being paid back in the late 00s and early 10s. It's so detached from actual reality and generally speaking I keep my mouth shut because I really dont have the patience to deal with countering his Fox News right wing talking points.
Here's the Twitter thread and the paper. It might help to explain what one would expect according to standard economics. When prices go up due to a shortage, the money has to go somewhere. It...
It might help to explain what one would expect according to standard economics. When prices go up due to a shortage, the money has to go somewhere. It might be retailers or wholesalers or suppliers. The question is who has the most bargaining power in the supply chain, which comes from having something to sell when other sellers don't. (Ticket scalpers are an example.)
What tends to happen in the electronics industry is that existing manufacturers profit when there's a shortage. New fabs are built, but there's a lag, and as the new factories come online, the shortage ends and profit margins drop dramatically due to oversupply.
The paper talks about something different going on:
We argue that market power by some corporations and in some sectors – including temporary market power emerging in the aftermath of the pandemic – amplified inflation. It made price increases peak higher and remain more persistent than they would have been in a world with less market power. To be clear: corporate profits were thus not the sole driver of inflation, nor are dominant corporations to blame for the energy shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But we argue that their market power exacerbated the fallout – and that this is not sufficiently captured in the prevailing macroeconomic debate or in workhorse models. We also highlight that, unlike what seems to be commonly claimed, profit margins do not have to rise in order for profits to contribute to inflation. In an energy shock scenario, if costs were equally shared between wage earners and company owners one would expect the rate of return to fall as firms do not increase prices fully to make up for higher costs, and wage earners do not fully keep up with inflation. But this is not what happened. A stable rate of return – for example, as seen in the UK – suggests pricing power by firms, which allowed them to increase prices to protect their margins.
Price increases being amplified. What's doing the amplification? Why do they argue that profit margins could fall when there's a price increase? I have to get going, but maybe read the paper.
I believe this is why. They are saying inflation is amplified because wage growth has been depressed relative to inflation in comparison to previous inflationary periods.
if costs were equally shared between wage earners and company owners one would expect the rate of return to fall as firms do not increase prices fully to make up for higher costs
I believe this is why. They are saying inflation is amplified because wage growth has been depressed relative to inflation in comparison to previous inflationary periods.
I used to overly focus on this but then there is the other side of the coin too. "Corporate" haven't exactly come from Mars or Pluto, they are also a part of this same society and represent this...
I used to overly focus on this but then there is the other side of the coin too. "Corporate" haven't exactly come from Mars or Pluto, they are also a part of this same society and represent this society to a great extent. If "greedflation" is indeed happening, that means society as a whole is becoming greedy.
You figure that because corporations aren't any abstract entities existing in some vaporware (although people like to think that way as it's easy to shift responsibilities and blame on this...
You figure that because corporations aren't any abstract entities existing in some vaporware (although people like to think that way as it's easy to shift responsibilities and blame on this entity). Corporations are composed of people, not bots. If a corporation does something, there is always a human element behind it.
Shareholders and CEOs are humans too. And the way shareholding works today, even regular employees can become shareholders (owners of a small part of this entity called corporation).
I've had this discussion with some of my friends who hold an idea that anyone making over a certain amount must be an evil puppy kicker. I work closely with many CEOs and Presidents of massive...
I've had this discussion with some of my friends who hold an idea that anyone making over a certain amount must be an evil puppy kicker. I work closely with many CEOs and Presidents of massive corporations, and I do see empathy.
But what I also see is a warping of priorities based on shareholder interests. Shareholders are abstracted from operations and the human cost rarely factors into their dividends or stock valuation. That isn't to say that employee quality of life is ignored. The initiatives we see rarely address employees bank accounts. That is an expensive and permanent change. Rather we see free college or one time investment into local communities. Programs that can be easily shut down and where costs can be tightly controlled.
Sure, but a corporation itself is not a human, and there is a power in the aggregate of people that make up a corporation. The corporation itself sort of is an abstract entity in a way, in that it...
Sure, but a corporation itself is not a human, and there is a power in the aggregate of people that make up a corporation. The corporation itself sort of is an abstract entity in a way, in that it provides a single 'face' to a large group of people- and that corporation, in many cases, often doesn't even represent its own employees well, especially as you go further down the hierarchy of workers.
Plenty of people involved IN the operations of a corporation can see that it is abstracted. The abstraction is often how it becomes easy for workers to be treated poorly, or for decisions to get made without considering human impact, etc.
Sometimes it mostly just represents the interests of those at the top, so to say it reflects society as a whole I believe is a shaky idea. It may indeed reflect the parts of society that need change (greedly capitalist interests among other things)
Even when corporations are "punished" often said punishment is abstracted away from the humans that may be responsible. Trust me, when I "blame corporations" for XYZ, I'd still like their humans at the top to be held accountable, and they rarely are. But to say it represents some regular every day low-rung worker just trying to get by? Meh.
But shareholders in aggregate don't really have any decision-making capabilities. Even mutual funds, which can own decent chunks of a given corporation, don't engage in direct demands of the board...
But shareholders in aggregate don't really have any decision-making capabilities. Even mutual funds, which can own decent chunks of a given corporation, don't engage in direct demands of the board in most cases. The employees report to their bosses, their bosses report to the C-suite, the C-Suite reports to the Board, the Board reports to the Shareholders, and at each step there's a theoretical responsibility to something else, but it never quite answers the question of whose feet should be held to the fire if the Corporation does something wrong.
Institutional investors do engage with the boards of the companies they own (not all of the companies, but enough to cover a substantial portion of their AUM, like 67%+). Sometimes these...
Institutional investors do engage with the boards of the companies they own (not all of the companies, but enough to cover a substantial portion of their AUM, like 67%+). Sometimes these engagements amount to what many would consider "demands", though in practice they tend to be more like "adopting this board structure, disclosing this risk oversight process, or restructuring executive pay will make us more likely to support the directors on the respective nom, audit, or comp committees".
I think the majority of the wealthy (wealthy, not just rich) are just criminally out of touch. When you're insulated from the trivial challenges most people face, you forget they exist. If you...
I think the majority of the wealthy (wealthy, not just rich) are just criminally out of touch. When you're insulated from the trivial challenges most people face, you forget they exist. If you don't live it, it may be hard to understand that folks may need to work multiple jobs just to keep a shitty apartment and eat shitty food. And if you don't see that, then the waitress on her third shift of the day acting a little snarky may seem entitled or lazy. But that is the problem with wealth inequality, it makes us residents in two wildly different worlds.
I don't exactly agree with you, but I think there's some worthwhile discussion to be had here. I do agree corporations don't exist in a vacuum, we are buying what they're selling after all. I...
I don't exactly agree with you, but I think there's some worthwhile discussion to be had here. I do agree corporations don't exist in a vacuum, we are buying what they're selling after all.
I remember someone on here a bit ago talking about this topic in terms of typical grocery spending as a percent of paycheck per country. I wasn't able to pull up the reference easily, but they were more or less saying that even though our food costs raised quite a bit, we're still spending like 16% of our checks on groceries whereas other countries folks may spend as much as half their check. So you could argue that we're greedy relative to other regions of the world. We could extend this argument to a number of other industries, like fast fashion, electronics, and meat consumption.
However, from the article:
This surge in profits happened as wage increases largely failed to keep pace with inflation, and workers suffered their largest fall in disposable incomes since the second world war.
We're seeing profits soar as our paychecks stagnate across the board, I don't think wanting our share of the fruits of our labor qualifies as greedy. I'm sure many like myself still have corpo bosses telling us to do more with less amid that as well, compounding the frustration.
Studies that can delve into how this worked to demonstrate that it truly did happen is so helpful. I feel like it's true, anecdotally, but I have to admit that I feel a bit gaslit by my own employer complaining about the economy to give low wages while most of the financial statements by industry members (I'm deliberately not saying exactly what industry) scream about bumper (and I mean jumps in the region of +50% over the previous year) profits etc. etc.
I'm completely jaded at this point, as, I'm sure, are many others. If the social contract continues to be eroded on one side only, I cannot see why we will bother sticking to it in the near future. Why shouldn't I engage in petty shoplifting if the supermarkets are engaging in rampant profiteering at my and their suppliers' cost? Why shouldn't I engage in fiscal/financial fraud when my national tax agency is a ravening hound when faced with my unintentional infractions, but a doe-eyed puppy dog when it comes to dressing down Vodafone, or Google, or or or? Why do I bother voting when most politicians don't give a damn about my wellbeing or wishes and just want to be and stay in power? I just don't see how this is supposed to work. Do the corps all know things are going to shit and are just trying to get one last bag out of us before the whole system blows up?
Edit: formatting.
If you are an American there are indeed huge differences between politicians.
It Trump wins he will dismantle democracy and lay waste to the country.
The only thing that a person can do to prevent that is to vote to reelect President Biden.
I am not going to ever defend voter apathy but I definitely think we are doomed for as long as people believe that voting is literally the only thing a person can do to stop our institutions from being totally co-opted. Voting is not the “only” thing you can do it’s the LEAST thing you can do to stop it.
And I have to say out of people who say what you do, and people who have totally lost faith in the system, I have a lot more confidence in the people who have totally lost faith in the system to actually start doing the most productive things (although it still isn’t very much faith).
not to dogpile a point too hard but I'd argue that social media posting is probably the least thing you can do, below voting. For some reason I have progressive friends that think otherwise though, but I feel like if social media posting is the only thing you do, you're almost not doing anything at all.
Unless the person in question is some amazingly charismatic rhetorician who has the ability to change, at a minimum, dozens of people’s minds about their most deeply held beliefs, then I honestly consider simply arguing about politics to be accomplishing nothing but that person’s own self indulgence.
True that, but they do have a non-zero affect, and it is cumulative as more and more people express the same or simelar ideas. It's little, but it's certainly not nothing.
"posting as praxis" is awfully convenient in that you don't have to do anything of real worth AND you get to drive engagement on an evil platform making the world a worse place. It's a total scam. Discussion on sites like tildes are one thing but organizing doesn't happen here, and people that think that retweeting shit is going to do anything are sadly delusional.
Messaging and spreading information and opinions on current events is a great way to combat the sheer amount of apathy and ignorance that got us into this position. Is it as good as organizing fundraisers for local politicians? Not by a longshot, but compared to shrugging and going "eh I'm not really about politics" it's infinitely more productive. Literally giving a single shit is the biggest hurdle.
Yeah, that's why I say "almost" not doing anything. I just hate the slactivism that I see amongst my progressive peers.
I don't think that I've ever heard anyone say that voting is the only thing you can do, though you do kind of pick up that sentiment a lot. But to play something of a devil's advocate, I think that voting is effectively all that a lot of people can do to participate in American democracy in an impactful way. People are extremely economically constrained, and with that come time restrictions. One cannot go out and canvas voters, attend local government meetings, or take the time to meet with their representitives if they do not have the time and access to do so.
I think this concept is probably one of the reasons that governments tend to be so conservative even though liberal ideas are so popular; if the people who need help the most do not have the ability to effectively organize, that means that the people who do are the people who are most invested in the status quo - people who live in abundance or are retired, for instance.
Trump will totally destroy those institutions.
There is only 1 way to stop Trump: voting to reelect President Biden.
I try to be a voice of optimism.
I think that people who think things are bad in the US haven't really seen what bad really looks like. Okay, the US isn't Norway and things aren't super great, but on the whole things are objectively... not bad.
We have a ludicrously strong foundation from which we can build the society we want. Many societies and their leaders envy the economic, industrial, scientific, and institutional inheritance we have.
There is no such thing as burning things down and restarting.
There are a million different far better ways to better this country than to vote for a milquetoast-at-best ratchet who's more concerned with reaching across the aisle (to the racists) than with actually bettering the lives of his constituents.
Mutual aid. Education. Organization & unionization. Protests. All of these matter far more than any vote in the current, far-from-democratic system constantly levied against us every four years. There is no good reason for me to bother wasting my energy voting for a man who would tacitly enable genocide when there are so many other better things I could do, especially when the system is effectively designed to ensure my vote does not matter except in obscene, unrealistic aggregates.
Why are you treating those as exclusive options? Voting for the best candidate that can beat trump in no way prevents you from protesting, or providing mutual aid. Denying a despot the presidential office is a pretty high priority item.
I answered this more thoroughly here, but suffice to say that I only have so much energy to spend on activism, and I do not consider voting for a do-nothing who doesn't care to represent me to be a worthwhile way to utilize my time. I will make far more meaningful of an impact doing other things; participating in a system designed only to provide the illusion of change is, by comparison, pointless.
If you have the energy to vote as well as doing other things, bully for you. I'm glad. But I must prioritize.
As an EU citizen, voting for me was never more than showing up, going in a booth, stamping some papers and going out. More or less 10m spent doing it. Maybe grab a coffee or breakfast on the way there/back.
Why is it that in the US voting is such an exhausting affair?
Decades of intentional voter suppression.
Usually along racial lines, but now also targeted at educated urban/suburban populations likely to vote for pols who favor income redistribution, racial and gender equity, unions, public services, pollution control, and other socially beneficial policies.
It's done through underfunding of polling locations, limiting hours of operation, minimizing the number of locations, and making them as inaccessible as possible, as well as restrictions on absentee voting. It's not uncommon for people to wait in line most of a day to cast their votes, and then get turned away because the location is closing. There are also increasingly onerous requirements to prove eligibility to vote - identity, residency, citizenship, lack of criminal status... and felony criminal penalties for errors.
There's no nationwide federal voting standardization; every state has its own election laws and personnel, gets to roll its own ballots, voting and tabulation machines, and set up their own rules for in-person or mail-in voting. Most states use volunteer poll workers who don't receive much training.
It's practically become a cliché: "If voting doesn't do anything, why would they make it so difficult?"
[Really, folks, just as a matter of general principle and "fuck you, fascists", show up and vote against anyone who wants to make voting harder.]
This depends on which state it is. For California, I've always found it quite easy, and it got even easier after switching to vote by mail. I don't have to actually mail it since there is a dropbox at the local library, within walking distance.
I hate to just disagree on location, but here in the deep south a lot of people were disqualified for mail in voting on a variety of (bullshit) reasons. I waited in line for an hour+ to vote, and will do so again, but I'm done with milquetoast presidentional candidates who will say they are forwarding progress while killing children in foreign countries.
We just don't have the support systems here to vote, especially cause a lot of the politicians want to disenfranchise POC and stay in power
Yes, the difficulty of voting in some US states is terrible. I just wanted to explain that it varies substantially by state.
None of those things are mutually exclusive with voting.
Voting takes around an hour per year and is a tremendously effective means of harm reduction as we work towards structural change.
“But both parties create harm,” yep, but not equally. It’s a trolley problem. You and I didn’t create this stupid political system we live under. We didn’t tie the people to the tracks or send the trolley barreling down the hill. But here we are, the trolley is rolling, and ignoring the trolley or refusing to participate won’t make it go away. It just means more people die.
Pulling the lever isn’t an endorsement of the trolley. And Voting for harm reduction isn’t an endorsement of our stupid two party system any more than using the internet is an endorsement of your ISP or having a credit card is an endorsement of Equifax. It’s just the reality of living in our present moment.
Every human has a finite supply of energy with which to pull from and create change. Every action takes energy to do. Voting is no exception.
I don't care that Biden is less outright harmful than Trump. It is a waste of my time to vote for him, especially when it's exclusively because he's not Trump, because that means he has no incentive to be better — so long as he's technically less terrible, he can do whatever he wants and still get votes. He is not accountable to us, and never has been.
Furthermore, I very strongly disagree that voting is "tremendously effective." In my mind, it is among the least impactful things you can do. Posting on social media was mentioned elsewhere in this thread as a particularly low-impact means of activism, and it is honestly the only thing I can currently think of less productive than voting. Be it from gerrymandering, first-past-the-post, the electoral college, Citizen's United – hell, the very founding of this nation as one in which only land-owning white men could vote – this system is designed to make us lose.
Make no mistake, I will not sit idly by and watch things go to hell, but my supply of energy too is finite, and it is better spent on other methods. If Biden wants my vote, he will have to earn it first.
If the difference between a Trump and Biden administration is anywhere close to "least impactful" in your life that's great, but that is a tremendous privilege. It's not a "technical" difference, it's a very substantial difference that massively impacts the well-being of tens of millions of people in the US (at a minimum), to say nothing of the more global impact of things like climate policy. Biden's first term climate policies have single-handedly improved the US's emissions trajectory by ~20-30% ... unless Trump takes office and immediately reverses all of them.
If your ethos is "I don't care that x is less harmful than y" then I don't think you and I will ever see eye to eye. I tend towards the utilitarian viewpoint of doing what I can each day, within the circumstances I've been given, to reduce harm and suffering. I feel that letting the trolley run over people because I don't like the choice I've been given is a self-centered dead end. The idealism of my teens and 20s is gone. I have to live in the world as it exists, not as I wish it to be. There are no perfect choices. I feel there's very little value in watching a disaster I could have helped prevent unfold and telling myself "well at least I haven't compromised."
I know our electoral system is fucked. I know it's unfair. Trust me. I hate it. But hating it doesn't make it go away or change how much its machinations impact us all.
Clearly it's a difference of perspective, and that's okay. You're allowed yours. The only part of your post I'll take actual issue with is this:
I simply do not believe that your entire year is so completely packed with high-impact activism that spending <1 hour filling in a bubble is something you do not have the time or energy for. Based on your posts you've spent more time than that on Tildes in just the past few weeks.
It's fine if you don't want to vote because you don't care about the outcome or don't want to compromise, but please at least be honest about it.
I won't mince words: It is really, really bold of you to presume you know my life so well as to make this assumption about it based off nothing more than my activity on Tildes. I would hope you would take my word for it when I tell you about how my life works and what energy I have to spend on various things.
I know me. I know I find voting stressful, frustrating, wasteful, and every election year drains me further, and that's before counting the depression and diabetes I'm stuck with for life that massively reduces my ability to do things in general. If a candidate can't convince me that they represent actual, meaningful hope, it is not worth the mental toll for me to vote.
Furthermore, when I say I find voting unimpactful, I am not speaking to my personal life exclusively. It is not privilege that drives that opinion, it is the fact that there are gobs of issues with the U.S. that mean my vote has pathetically little impact on anyone. Elections are decided by money, not people, here.
I apologize for my combative tone at the end. That wasn't my intention but now I see how it can read that way.
I was not actually basing my "you have one hour per year free to fill out a bubble" off of your Tildes activity. My assumption was based on it being nearly universally true, barring rare edge cases that in all likelihood do not apply here (e.g. being held hostage). So I made an educated guess that it applies to you too.
I completely hear all of this, including the debilitating depression, a journey I know all too well. I must imagine that diabetes complicates that further, and I'm so sorry that you have to cope with that.
We're awash in money corrupting and swaying things, I totally agree. Votes are generally still what decide races, though.
The delta of outcomes between better candidates winning and worse candidates winning is enormous. One vote doesn't usually determine an election, but sometimes it does quite spectacularly. So voting isn't mutually exclusive with any other form of activism, is free, typically takes under one hour per year, and can make a huge impact, especially on the state and local level. There really isn't any downside at all; ergo it is worth spending <1 hour per year voting to add our voice to the collective push that can reduce harm.
Edit: phrasing
This isn't really true anymore:
The last two republican presidents didn't win the popular vote.
Money and political tactics (like gerrymandering) decide national elections. Sometimes votes actually do decide smaller elections, but the context here is presidential elections.
A related point: Votes largely do not decide which candidates we get to vote for. The choices are preselected for you by money, the media and the DNC/RNC.
I don't blame people who are disillusioned by the simulacrum of choice that currently passes for democracy in the US.
Trump, though, he's a different kind of dangerous, there's good reason to be emotional about voting for anyone but him.
This is mixing up different things.
Voting absolutely does matter in the aggregate. How many votes each side gets determines who wins each state.
The voting algorithm for US presidential elections is complicated and means that the popular vote getter might not win, but it's still the case that more votes is better and that's why there are such extensive get-out-the-vote campaigns, mostly in competitive states.
For the individual voter, their vote is unlikely to matter in non-competitive states. But the thing that makes them non-competitive is lots of people voting for the most popular party in that state.
Money can make a difference, but candidates can spend a lot without getting anywhere. If money were decisive, Bloomberg would probably be president.
Trump didn't win because of money. He got the nomination because some Republicans really liked what they saw on TV. A lot of that news coverage was free. (We could discuss why Republicans were susceptible to his dubious charms, but it was absolutely true that he was popular, among Republicans.)
He won the election largely because chance events in the news resulted in Hillary Clinton being less popular on election day.(Remember James Comey and the emails?) The Republicans were surprised too. It's disconcerting that close elections are effectively random, but that's how close elections work
You are right that most people individually have very little say about who gets elected. But this would still be true for national elections with any election system, however fair, because the country is very large and you are small in comparison. To have significant influence, you would have to influence a lot of voters.
And yet, the system doesn't work if people don't participate. If young people voted more there would be very different results.
You basically wrote the reply I would have written. Just one caveat:
This can be true for federal and electoral college races, but even in federally non-competitive states there are important, hotly contested state and local races.
I'm not saying people shouldn't vote, or that votes don't matter, though you seem to be trying to characterize it that way.
I'm not talking about an individual spending money, I'm talking about the whole machine. Money absolutely decides elections. There are other important factors of course, but money and the influence it buys is the largest by a big margin. Trump would not have been president without the help of powerful people and organizations.
Maybe most notably the right wing media behemoth with a Murdoch shaped head, but also the Evangelical political machine, the federalist society and so on.
It would be nice to imagine that it's as simple as "the people decide", but that's not reality and we won't change it by sticking our heads in the sand.
I agree that "the people decide" is simplistic, but "money decides" is also simplistic. There are systems, but they involve both people and money, in combination.
The influence of Fox News has (etc.) comes from its audience. They'd be nowhere if people didn't watch. And nobody would watch if they didn't say things people wanted to hear. Also, churches are organizations composed of people, and they get money from donations. This flow of money is controlled by church members.
So I think it's inaccurate and misleading to attribute it to "money," and leaving out the people. People are involved in many steps along the way.
(In complex systems, though, the output of the Ouija board might not have any simple relationship to the inputs.)
This seems like semantics. Yes of couse churches and media conglomerates and corporations and etc. are made of people. I'm pretty sure that's not what "the people" is meant to mean in the context of elections in a representative democracy.
Well, rule by "the people" is something of a myth, like the divine right of kings once was. (But it's our myth.)
Specifically with regard to Trump in 2016, the funders of Republican candidates were blindsided. Trump was not the candidate that the elite business interests backed in the primary. Local Republican voters defeated Cruz.
Biden was not my first choice in the primaries. I think your characterization of him in your first paragraph is completely inaccurate.
The list of other things Americans can do to improve the country - other than voting - will never happen if Trump or another Republican gets into the White House.
I'm not American, as it happens, but I don't think there's much special about US politicians atm, the same tactics are being invented/copied/used in all directions around the world, unfortunately.
Lifelong American. There is a BIG difference between the two parties.
Your boss is involved in politics.
Your landlord is involved in politics.
You should be involved in politics.
Voting is the least important part of politics. It's essential, but it's kinda like showing up at the end of the game rather than the beginning. Often the battle was already decided in the first 3/4 of the game.
My local mayor, one city council seat, and two school board positions ran unopposed this year. I intend to remedy that once I start sleeping through the night more than 50% of the time. And this story plays out across the nation.
And your local city/county can pass local ordinances that make huge differnences...like car bans. Or building more parks. Or banning plastic bags from retail outlets.
Hear hear! Get active locally!!!
I joined my local planning commission. I am 35 years younger than the second youngest commissioner (and I'm not that young), the only renter present, and the only person who is still working. We just rezoned the entire town to allow for additional housing to be built, a big thing for renters here. There were a number of issues that were only maintained because I spoke up, because I'm a renter. The other commissioners were open to my changes, but had I not been in the room there wouldn't have even been a dialogue about it. These decisions impact our day to day lives and are being made by folks who will be dead before the outcomes of their decisions come to bear.
Local activism and organizing and community building is the only way out of this mess. This is awesome to hear, and is one of the things that gives me hope. There's so many people finally getting fed up with nothing getting better that are deciding to pick up a shovel, and I'm so excited to see what that energy will bring.
This is a strong reason to do away with primary elections and move to ranked-choice voting. Candidates drop out during primary season long before voters in most states have the opportunity to vote for them.
100%. I'm even somewhat in favor of eliminating party affiliation on ballots in a ranked-choice ballot. Names only, possibly with a short accompaying "voter guide" that has the ballot candidates with a brief chart showing their support/opposition/conflicted of say 5-10 key issues.
If you can't bother to learn about and remember whom you're voting for, you probably shouldn't be...you know?
Political parties already pass out fliers with their list of their endorsed candidates outside polling places in parts of the US (because for several local/regional races, particularly for things like judges, they do indeed not list which party each canidate is affiliated with bc they usually aren't in any official capacity).
What you describe here could be called anomie if you're interested in reading more.
Thanks, that is an interesting link!
My long time boss and somewhat of a friend has gotten more and more difficult to relate to as time has gone on. He's only a year older than me but complains constantly about not being able to hire good people but then when posting salary ranges, he places them comically low. Most of his logic, at least as far as I can tell, revolves around what we were being paid back in the late 00s and early 10s. It's so detached from actual reality and generally speaking I keep my mouth shut because I really dont have the patience to deal with countering his Fox News right wing talking points.
Here's the Twitter thread and the paper.
It might help to explain what one would expect according to standard economics. When prices go up due to a shortage, the money has to go somewhere. It might be retailers or wholesalers or suppliers. The question is who has the most bargaining power in the supply chain, which comes from having something to sell when other sellers don't. (Ticket scalpers are an example.)
What tends to happen in the electronics industry is that existing manufacturers profit when there's a shortage. New fabs are built, but there's a lag, and as the new factories come online, the shortage ends and profit margins drop dramatically due to oversupply.
The paper talks about something different going on:
Price increases being amplified. What's doing the amplification? Why do they argue that profit margins could fall when there's a price increase? I have to get going, but maybe read the paper.
I believe this is why. They are saying inflation is amplified because wage growth has been depressed relative to inflation in comparison to previous inflationary periods.
I used to overly focus on this but then there is the other side of the coin too. "Corporate" haven't exactly come from Mars or Pluto, they are also a part of this same society and represent this society to a great extent. If "greedflation" is indeed happening, that means society as a whole is becoming greedy.
How do you figure that corporations “represent” society?
You figure that because corporations aren't any abstract entities existing in some vaporware (although people like to think that way as it's easy to shift responsibilities and blame on this entity). Corporations are composed of people, not bots. If a corporation does something, there is always a human element behind it.
Shareholders and CEOs are humans too. And the way shareholding works today, even regular employees can become shareholders (owners of a small part of this entity called corporation).
I've had this discussion with some of my friends who hold an idea that anyone making over a certain amount must be an evil puppy kicker. I work closely with many CEOs and Presidents of massive corporations, and I do see empathy.
But what I also see is a warping of priorities based on shareholder interests. Shareholders are abstracted from operations and the human cost rarely factors into their dividends or stock valuation. That isn't to say that employee quality of life is ignored. The initiatives we see rarely address employees bank accounts. That is an expensive and permanent change. Rather we see free college or one time investment into local communities. Programs that can be easily shut down and where costs can be tightly controlled.
Sure, but a corporation itself is not a human, and there is a power in the aggregate of people that make up a corporation. The corporation itself sort of is an abstract entity in a way, in that it provides a single 'face' to a large group of people- and that corporation, in many cases, often doesn't even represent its own employees well, especially as you go further down the hierarchy of workers.
Plenty of people involved IN the operations of a corporation can see that it is abstracted. The abstraction is often how it becomes easy for workers to be treated poorly, or for decisions to get made without considering human impact, etc.
Sometimes it mostly just represents the interests of those at the top, so to say it reflects society as a whole I believe is a shaky idea. It may indeed reflect the parts of society that need change (greedly capitalist interests among other things)
Even when corporations are "punished" often said punishment is abstracted away from the humans that may be responsible. Trust me, when I "blame corporations" for XYZ, I'd still like their humans at the top to be held accountable, and they rarely are. But to say it represents some regular every day low-rung worker just trying to get by? Meh.
But shareholders in aggregate don't really have any decision-making capabilities. Even mutual funds, which can own decent chunks of a given corporation, don't engage in direct demands of the board in most cases. The employees report to their bosses, their bosses report to the C-suite, the C-Suite reports to the Board, the Board reports to the Shareholders, and at each step there's a theoretical responsibility to something else, but it never quite answers the question of whose feet should be held to the fire if the Corporation does something wrong.
Institutional investors do engage with the boards of the companies they own (not all of the companies, but enough to cover a substantial portion of their AUM, like 67%+). Sometimes these engagements amount to what many would consider "demands", though in practice they tend to be more like "adopting this board structure, disclosing this risk oversight process, or restructuring executive pay will make us more likely to support the directors on the respective nom, audit, or comp committees".
I think the majority of the wealthy (wealthy, not just rich) are just criminally out of touch. When you're insulated from the trivial challenges most people face, you forget they exist. If you don't live it, it may be hard to understand that folks may need to work multiple jobs just to keep a shitty apartment and eat shitty food. And if you don't see that, then the waitress on her third shift of the day acting a little snarky may seem entitled or lazy. But that is the problem with wealth inequality, it makes us residents in two wildly different worlds.
I don't exactly agree with you, but I think there's some worthwhile discussion to be had here. I do agree corporations don't exist in a vacuum, we are buying what they're selling after all.
I remember someone on here a bit ago talking about this topic in terms of typical grocery spending as a percent of paycheck per country. I wasn't able to pull up the reference easily, but they were more or less saying that even though our food costs raised quite a bit, we're still spending like 16% of our checks on groceries whereas other countries folks may spend as much as half their check. So you could argue that we're greedy relative to other regions of the world. We could extend this argument to a number of other industries, like fast fashion, electronics, and meat consumption.
However, from the article:
We're seeing profits soar as our paychecks stagnate across the board, I don't think wanting our share of the fruits of our labor qualifies as greedy. I'm sure many like myself still have corpo bosses telling us to do more with less amid that as well, compounding the frustration.