> The problem is, prices didn't fall (mostly due to corporate greed - corporate profits exploded in comparison with inflation [1])
Sure, but again this is a political problem. I don't the WH was promising prices would fall; I think the Fed was saying they'd get inflation back to 2% while also balancing their employment mandate. People may have expected prices to go down, but again that's a political problem.
Full agree on the greed thing though, and that would have been an easy out for the WH: somehow publicly punish gougers.
> and many people are worse off than they were prior to the pandemic, even after some of them got wage increases that in many cases didn't even come close to matching inflation.
I'm parroting here, but didn't wage gains outpace inflation? Do you have different data? Are there other ways in which people are worse off (there might be)? My current understanding is that inflation wasn't a big deal, wage gains outpaced it, but Republicans demagogued it.
> The Biden administration could have done more to combat this but didn't, and Trump campaigned on that failure
Agree! The Biden admin was uniquely bad at politics.
> The real issue is that the US desperately lacks any viable third party option which means, combined with the radicalization of the Republicans over the last decades, that there is no way of holding the Democrats accountable without electing ever more utter crazies.
You lost me here. I'm a fan of ranked choice voting and getting money out of politics, but any third party would be subject to all the corrupting dynamics affecting the other two.
Sure, but again this is a political problem. I don't the WH was promising prices would fall; I think the Fed was saying they'd get inflation back to 2% while also balancing their employment mandate. People may have expected prices to go down, but again that's a political problem.
Full agree on the greed thing though, and that would have been an easy out for the WH: somehow publicly punish gougers.
> and many people are worse off than they were prior to the pandemic, even after some of them got wage increases that in many cases didn't even come close to matching inflation.
I'm parroting here, but didn't wage gains outpace inflation? Do you have different data? Are there other ways in which people are worse off (there might be)? My current understanding is that inflation wasn't a big deal, wage gains outpaced it, but Republicans demagogued it.
> The Biden administration could have done more to combat this but didn't, and Trump campaigned on that failure
Agree! The Biden admin was uniquely bad at politics.
> The real issue is that the US desperately lacks any viable third party option which means, combined with the radicalization of the Republicans over the last decades, that there is no way of holding the Democrats accountable without electing ever more utter crazies.
You lost me here. I'm a fan of ranked choice voting and getting money out of politics, but any third party would be subject to all the corrupting dynamics affecting the other two.