A message board, a digital mine, where Shrewds gather, for fortune design.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy❤
No. of Recommendations: 2
“The vast majority of the country, the normal people, have seen enough and want the
clown car to disappear into the MAGA vortex somewhere between reality and Orlando,” Michael Moore argued in a Substack essay on Friday. “The swift and explosive momentum for Kamala Harris is unlike anything that’s been seen in decades.”
The filmmaker said this analysis was based on “an aggregate of top polls” as well as “the basic conclusions I’ve come to by simply being around my fellow Americans who are shopping at Costco, having fun making TikToks and eating once a week at Chili’s.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/...
No. of Recommendations: 3
Alas, he is wrong.
There appears to be a solid 30% MAGA-heads who are racist xenophobes who will do whatever the convict tells them (i.e. a cult). The other 20% is some combination of "won't vote Dem no matter what", people naively buying into the "open borders" and "illegals voting" nonsense, think that they are worse off than 4 years ago, think that the world is worse than 4 years ago (and it's Biden's fault), and perhaps some others. Those latter are earnest people with a not-despicable perspective**.
Which is why this race is a lot closer than it should be. It should be a blowout for Harris, but it isn't. Barring some major news, it is going to be really close. Per fivethirtyeight, Harris seems to have a small lead. But it isn't much more than statistical error would be.
**I met one in the grocery store the other day. Wasn't fazed that 1poorlady was clearly Asian, wore a LARGE "Trump" button, and for some reason implored me to "save America for our children". 1poorlady stopped me from replying "that's why I'm voting Harris" by interjecting some pleasantries. She was a nice old lady, clearly addled by right-wing media. I'm sure I've encountered many more that weren't so overt.
No. of Recommendations: 5
can't help but ascribe this as a failure of proper support of american public education, over decades, finally coming to roost.
and by failure, i mean both types: wasteful public spending as well as redirected subsidies for the wealthy at charter schools.
many (~50%) citizens seem incapable of a threshold combination of
- grasp of science
- sense of logic
- capability to reason
even those few MAGA that make a living off STEM seem insufficiently well-rounded.
it seems the denigration of a balanced liberal education has been highly under-rated. (which i conjecture will ultimately unravel china even more drastically)
in the end, we are left with MAGA having false views of great personal prosperity under trump, and equally certain of being in absolute poverty now.
they want to double their tax breaks and salaries for that $80k pickup truck\suv, but can not understand why inflation exists (made by Dems of course).
they feel if the wealthy are better off, then automatically so are they, nevermind gini ratios.
No. of Recommendations: 3
No. of Recommendations: 0
in the end, we are left with MAGA having false views of great personal prosperity under trump,
https://thekidsguide.com/mike-huckabee/ - Bill Z---------------
Yeah, Huckabee hawks this on Fox almost as much as the My Pillow guy. I cringe when I see either one.
No. of Recommendations: 6
in the end, we are left with MAGA having false views of great personal prosperity under trump, and equally certain of being in absolute poverty now.
I mean, it's pretty a pretty simple heuristic though, right?
People look back at their situation just prior to the pandemic, and it looks pretty good. Gas prices were about $2.50, mortgage rates were about 3.5%, inflation was at about 2.3%, unemployment was low and GDP growth was solid. Not just in early 2020 before the pandemic - that pretty much describes most of the first three Trump years. Now, prices and interest rates are higher, we've gone through very high inflation (and the rate, even after falling a lot, is still higher than through most of the Trump years). High interest rates especially are tough on younger folks, who face dramatically higher costs of housing.
The "are you better off than you were four years ago" question is a wonderful rhetorical device, because it primes the voter to assign to the incumbent Administration blame for everything that happened during their time in office - whether it's the result of them doing a bad job or not. It's outcome oriented - not asking whether they like the policies or governing skills of the incumbent, but whether their personal situation is better or not. Only something as dramatically outside the control of the government as the pandemic breaks that heuristic.
That's why there's so many people that give the GOP higher marks on the economy. If there was a button that they could push to revert the macroeconomy back to Q4 2019, they'd push it in a heartbeat - and so that button gets mapped (in their minds) onto putting the GOP back into power.
No. of Recommendations: 5
People ARE better than four years ago. Four years ago many of us were still locked indoors, getting groceries delivered. Fast food joints were only offering carry-out. There were shortages of almost everything.
In 2020, 1poorlady had to undergo MAJOR surgery on an outpatient basis because keeping her in the hospital was deemed more dangerous than sending her home. Oh, I remember 2020 extremely well.
We are far better off today than four years ago. No contest. If that's the -rhetorical- campaign question.
No. of Recommendations: 3
People ARE better than four years ago. Four years ago many of us were still locked indoors, getting groceries delivered. Fast food joints were only offering carry-out. There were shortages of almost everything.
True, but as a rhetorical device the question is obviously intended - and almost certainly understood by most listeners - to compare economic conditions under Trump during the "normal" times before the pandemic rather than the unique circumstances of the actual lockdown. The economy did pretty well during the Trump years up until March 2020, which is why the electorate considers returning the GOP to power so favorably.
No. of Recommendations: 3
That's what the convict's campaign wants you to believe, sure. The budget exploded with the convict's tax cuts for the wealthy, adding trillions to the debt. But otherwise the economy was more-or-less stable.
However, if we neglect the COVID "unique circumstances", then we have to say that post COVID, inflation has steadily declined, the deficit is lower than it was before, more jobs have been created than at any time the convict was in office, etc. So it's still a 'win'.
I know the question is a rhetorical device, but then the answer still has to be "yes"...we're better off now than four years ago. You can't really ignore the "special circumstances" of the prior administration while including them in the current one. You either include it in both, or black-box it in both.
No. of Recommendations: 7
<<If there was a button that they could push to revert the macroeconomy back to Q4 2019, they'd push it in a heartbeat - and so that button gets mapped (in their minds) onto putting the GOP back into power.>>
Yeah, except that that’s not four years ago. It’s five years ago. One might argue that Trump shouldn’t be held responsible for the economic mayhem resulting from the pandemic (leaving aside the human mayhem), but why not? If outcome is all that matters, four years ago was a disaster.
I think the answer may be that the pandemic years were so traumatic that most Americans can’t bear to think about them. And can’t bear to recall the utterly sociopathic “leadership” that Trump inflicted upon us in that final, horrible year.
No. of Recommendations: 5
I know the question is a rhetorical device, but then the answer still has to be "yes"...we're better off now than four years ago. You can't really ignore the "special circumstances" of the prior administration while including them in the current one. You either include it in both, or black-box it in both.
The answer can clearly be "no." Prices are still remarkably higher than they were back in the pre-pandemic days - while the rate of inflation has fallen, the impact of those raised prices still lingers. Gas was about $2.50 back in the day (for example), and now it's $3.20. The fact that the rate of inflation is down to just slightly higher than the highest of the Trump years is of little comfort. Gas prices are "too high," so Biden's going to be blamed for it. So too with home prices - and interest rates! The fed funds rate is nearly double what it was during the Trump years, and mortgage rates are still several points higher, which puts a lot of pain on people looking to buy a home or finance any large purchase.
We're nearly two years after the pandemic, but I think there's a large slice of the electorate that would prefer to be back in the macroeconomy of late 2019 than late 2024. Which is why so many people are considering voting for Trump. Well, that and the border. They don't like how economic conditions have changed under the Biden Administration, and they don't like Democrats' general policy approach to border controls and enforcement - and both of those are super-high salience issues.
Albaby
No. of Recommendations: 1
Yeah, except that that’s not four years ago. It’s five years ago.
Sure - but it's just a rhetorical device. It's shorthand for, "were you happier with the way the economy affected you personally 'back in the day' before this guy was in charge, or do you prefer now?" The assessment that most voters will make is to compare the 'normal' Before Times status of the Trump years to the current 'normal' After Times present of the Biden years. And many are not liking that comparison.
That's the reason Trump isn't "toast," and the reason that the Democrats aren't doing better. There's a big swatch of voters that dislike Trump as a person, and perhaps as an Executive, but also think that for all his faults the economy was humming along better under his watch than Biden's. So they are torn between Trump's chaos and fears of a Harris economy turning out like Biden's (which, again, they do not like). They trust him more on the border and immigration issues as well, and the GOP has done a very good job of raising the salience on that issue (I've said before, they need to give Abbott a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue if they win).
No. of Recommendations: 2
You're still ignoring the "special circumstances" for the convict era, but including it in the Biden era. Sure, prices were lower 5 years ago. In most periods in our history, if you look at prices 5 years prior, they will be lower. The nature of inflation.
That black box of COVID has numerous effects, some of them economic. How has the Biden team dealt with the aftermath? Quite well. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but more jobs, inflation steadily decreasing (note that deflation would probably be bad, and that's the only way prices will drop significantly), higher wages for many workers, etc, etc. So I still have to answer, 'yes', it's better today than four years ago.
Is it better today than 10 years ago? Maybe not. I wouldn't mind going back to the Obama era. But that, of course, isn't the rhetorical device.
IMHO, that device only works if either a) it's actually true, or b) people aren't aware enough to realize it isn't true.
The border is a separate thing, and a legitimate talking point. The convict and his Goebbels-like side kick (Miller) were inhuman in that regard. Biden reversed a lot of that, and rightly so. But he probably didn't take the border as seriously as he should have. Or maybe, as you often say, he couldn't tackle everything at once, and so had to prioritize. Economy first, border fourth or fifth. There can be valid debate on that ranking.
No. of Recommendations: 4
If outcome is all that matters, four years ago was a disaster.
Absolutely. It is largely responsible for the inflation for which Biden is taking the blame. If the convict had won is 2020, the inflation still would have happened. Maybe even worse, since the convict mostly was denying there was even a problem (and his staff was utterly incompetent).
No. of Recommendations: 12
Prices are still remarkably higher than they were back in the pre-pandemic days.Prices rose 8% during Trump's term, which means that monthly expenses for a family of 4 could easily have increased from $4,000 to $4,320 while the convict was President. If the wages for the family did NOT increase by that $320 a month, they would have been stressed and been living paycheck to paycheck. Inflation has been a problem in EVERY 4-year Presidential term throughout history. The way American people have been able to keep up through a hundred years of rising prices is a hundred years of rising wages.
The last 4 years have seen unusually high inflation due to Covid-related supply chain imbalances, I'll grant you, but
wages have kept up since March 2023. See this blue line (wages) rising above the black line (inflation) on this chart of the Biden years?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-g...It's because rising wages have been beating rising prices for the past 18 months that we see packed restaurants, full flights, and packed hotels every time we travel. This is the middle class, not the rich. Consumer spending is at an all time high, and Amazon's last Prime Day had record sales.
And take a look at what the latest Michigan consumer sentiment survey for September says about the health of the American consumer:
"Consumer sentiment rose to its
highest reading since May 2024, increasing for the second consecutive month and lifting about 2% above August. The gain was led by an improvement in buying conditions for durables, driven by more favorable prices as perceived by consumers. Year-ahead expectations for personal finances and the economy both improved as well.
Year-ahead inflation expectations fell for the fourth straight month, coming in at 2.7%. The current reading is the
lowest since December 2020 and is well within the 2.3 - 3.0% range seen in the two years prior to the pandemic. ... consumers fully recognize that inflation has softened over the past two years. Consumers voiced fewer concerns this month over high prices for durables, vehicles, and homes, as well as their personal finances.
Ref: Sep. 2024 Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey -
https://data.sca.isr.umich.edu/fetchdoc.php?docid=...
No. of Recommendations: 8
Mark Cuban agrees with you, and so do I. Trump, as usual, is skating away from his share of the
blame for inflation. And the trump tax cuts were highly inflationary as well. Tax cuts normally reserved as a means to ramp up a struggling economy. trump constantly telling everybody how great his economy was, so why were tax cuts needed ? That was inflationary. more dollars chasing the same amount of goods.
And trump pitched major bitch about the Fed having to lower rates when he was President. If the trump economy was booming, as he always says, why were rate cuts needed? Wasn't that like pouring gas on a fire ??
trump is full of it.
quick vid of Cuban discussing oil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSrXinrvaEI
No. of Recommendations: 17
"It's because rising wages have been beating rising prices for the past 18 months that we see packed restaurants, full flights, and packed hotels every time we travel. This is the middle class, not the rich. Consumer spending is at an all time high, and Amazon's last Prime Day had record sales"
That is exactly what I see when out and about, prosperity. Four of us went out last Friday, in one of the reddest counties in the State, and the restaurant was packed, had 1/2 hour wait to get a table, and it is nothing special. I was sure to make a couple of tongue in cheek comments like: yeah, this Country is 1 step away from a zombie apocalypse, nobody can afford food anymore !
This doomsday apocalypse "weave" that trump spews is insulting.
No. of Recommendations: 5
The last 4 years have seen unusually high inflation due to Covid-related supply chain imbalances, I'll grant you, but wages have kept up since March 2023. See this blue line (wages) rising above the black line (inflation) on this chart of the Biden years?Sure - but there was a non-trivial amount of time when wages
didn't keep up. When prices were rising so fast that they outpaced any wage increases. That period lasted about
two full years (from April 2021 to April 2023). And voters
hate that. As put by
Vox (not a right-wing source):
Yet in the public mind, the new economic agenda was largely overshadowed by a problem the reformers had not anticipated: the highest inflation in four decades. It was the neoliberals who had warned about this, while the progressives were caught flat-footed, as was the Biden administration.
“People don’t like inflation and we got a lot of it,” economist Adam Ozimek told me. This was a global phenomenon and not primarily caused by Biden’s policies, but the administration was slow to adjust and made it somewhat worse. “The stimulus was way too large, it came out all at once, and they proceeded to follow it with a variety of spending packages,” Ozimek said. He added that the economy is now in a good place after hefty interest rate hikes, but that we took a “chaotic path” getting there.
In the end, Biden’s economic policy ended up historically unpopular.https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/377170/kamala-h...Yes, wages have finally caught up. But as Bush 41 learned, voters' sense of the economy tends to get locked in well before the election, so late changes in the economy don't help much. And honestly, given the choice between real wages rising slowly but pretty steadily with low inflation (as during the pre-pandemic Trump years), and real wages being stagnant over the long term but with very high inflation, most voters will prefer the former. Voters hate inflation, and they hate periods of economic pain.
Plus, because so many economists (including some Democratic economists) were warning that the stimulus that the Administration was putting in place with the ARP and the BIL and the IRA would cause higher inflation, and the Administration's dismissal of those concerns (remember MMT?), the Democrats have virtually no political tools to deflect voter blame. And, of course, there's interest rates - which are unambiguously higher than during the Trump years, and are particularly painful for those looking for housing or cars or other big ticket items.
So voters aren't being obtuse here. They genuinely did not like the way the economy performed during the Biden years, and explaining to them that the period of declining real wages due to high inflation was eventually undone by a period of rising wages that brought things back to stagnant
doesn't make them feel better about it. It might be an amazing accomplishment of monetary policy by the Fed - but it's also not something voters enjoyed going through, and that makes it hard for Democrats to get their confidence on the economy. Especially since they're still living with higher interest rates.
No. of Recommendations: 6
"Absolutely. It is largely responsible for the inflation for which Biden is taking the blame"
People need to think long and hard about handing over the Country to trump's "leadership".
He has gone bankrupt 6 times ( I think ). He bankrupted 3 casinos. Wrap our collective heads around that, in a business in which "the house always wins", trump went bankrupt 3 times.
That takes a special kind of "genius".
I truly want at least 2 somewhat rational political parties in America.
But MAGA has to be voted out.
Bloomberg fact check of trump at Chicago:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-s-in... "Trump said the tariffs his administration imposed on imports brought in “hundreds of billions of dollars just from China alone.” But China isn’t paying. Importers are responsible for the duties, and ultimately US businesses and consumers pay through higher costs."
"One academic study in 2019 concluded that consumers and US companies were paying most of the costs of Trump’s tariffs, and that after factoring in the retaliation by other countries, the main victims of Trump’s trade wars had been farmers and blue-collar workers in areas that supported Trump in 2016."
"A Bloomberg Economics analysis earlier this year found that Trump’s vow to impose 60% tariffs on imports from China and 10% duties on those from the rest of the world would likely send inflation above the Federal Reserve’s target and pressure the central bank to raise interest rates. Just before Trump took the stage, Bloomberg News reported that the European Union has prepared a list of American goods it could target with tariffs if Trump follows through on his threat to hit the bloc with punitive trade measures."
No. of Recommendations: 15
According to a new AP poll, Trump has lost his edge over Harris on who would handle the economy better. They're essentially tied with Trump at 43% vs Harris 41% on this question (which is within the margin of error.) And this is in line with the latest Michigan consumer sentiment survey where Americans are feeling a lot better about their own personal finances.
https://apnews.com/article/harris-trump-economy-po...Based on Trump's latest Bloomberg interview, he may be suffering from dementia or it could be just total incompetence and ignorance. The Bloomberg journalist John Micklethwait asked
M. Should Google be broken up?
Trump: (Deep sigh) I just haven't gotten over something the Justice Department did yesterday, where Virginia cleaned up its voter rolls and got rid of thousands and thousands of bad votes. And the Justice Department sued them, that they should be allowed to put those bad votes, those illegal votes, back in and let the people vote. So I haven't gotten over that. A lot of people have seen that, and they can't even believe it.
M: The question was about Google, President Trump.
The while session was like that.
M: You’ve gone from the dollar to Macron
Trump: (Engages in vigorous hand-semaphore) It’s called the weave. It's all these different things happening.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a62...Yeah, all these disconnected things happening in his mind that come out of his mouth as total BS, lies and verbal diarrhea.
No. of Recommendations: 7
UpNorthJoe:
...the main victims of Trump’s trade wars had been farmers...And Orange Jesus rained money on them in subsidies. Billions.
So Americans paid twice: once on higher prices of imported goods and a second time through government handouts.
Direct farm aid has climbed each year of Trump’s presidency, from $11.5 billion in 2017 to more than $32 billion this year — an all-time high, with potentially far more funding still to come in 2020, amounting to about two-thirds of the cost of the entire Department of Housing and Urban Development and more than the Agriculture Department’s $24 billion discretionary budget...The bulk of the money in election year 2020 went to big farms in swing states, plus Texas and Georgia.
Are there more than a couple of sycophantic Trump-leaning economists who actually believe -- and can support with data -- that across the board tariffs are effective or good for the economy?
No.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/us/politics/tru...
No. of Recommendations: 6
"Direct farm aid has climbed each year of Trump’s presidency, from $11.5 billion in 2017 to more than $32 billion this year — an all-time high, with potentially far more funding still to come in 2020, amounting to about two-thirds of the cost of the entire Department of Housing and Urban Development and more than the Agriculture Department’s $24 billion discretionary budget..."
But as albaby correctly points out, the narrative out there is that inflation is Biden's
fault, in the voters minds.
And it is sooooo easy to find facts that show trump had a large hand in the inflation spike,
yet for a large # of people he skates away from that responsibility untouched.
Truly amazing, in a dystopian way, lol.
No. of Recommendations: 2
But as albaby correctly points out, the narrative out there is that inflation is Biden's
fault, in the voters minds.
And it is sooooo easy to find facts that show trump had a large hand in the inflation spike,
yet for a large # of people he skates away from that responsibility untouched.
Truly amazing, in a dystopian way, lol.
It's not that amazing, though. The inflation spike happened while Biden was in office. Most people will attribute things as the responsibility of the person sitting in the Oval Office when they happen, regardless of whether the seeds were sown for the events long ago (or by other people).
But it's also due to other factors. Biden was publicly warned by a number of economists - including Democratic economists - that the American Rescue Plan was too big, and would lead to inflation. Biden didn't want to repeat the error of the Obama-era rescue plan (which was too small), so he erred on the side of big. That $1.9 trillion of spending was soon followed by the Infrastructure package ($1.2 trillion) and the rebranded Build Back Better ($0.9 trillion). Again, Biden wanted to avoid the mistakes of the ARREA, and wanted to fulfill promises to increase spending on infrastructure and fighting climate - but that meant that there were a bunch of non-crazy economists that were saying very publicly it was too big. And that was after Manchin took a buzzsaw to the original proposals (remember the $6 trillion BBB proposal? Or the $2.5 trillion BBB that was the compromise version).
So while the inflation spike isn't entirely Biden's fault (after all, it was a global phenomenon), certainly some part of it is. And his Administration did themselves no favors by being largely dismissive of concerns about inflation, both before the fact and after prices started rising. Rebranding the BBB as the IRA didn't help.
No. of Recommendations: 7
<<But as Bush 41 learned, voters' sense of the economy tends to get locked in well before the election, so late changes in the economy don't help much.>>
FWIW, I actually did a rigorous econometric analysis of this topic some years ago, and the finding was the opposite. It showed that voters had fairly short memories and that most of the impact came from real income growth in the year preceding the election.
No. of Recommendations: 1
So Americans paid twice: once on higher prices of imported goods and a second time through government handouts.
Quibble. Americans did NOT pay through government subsidies. Not yet. As Reps tend to do, they put it on the VISA. Future generations will be paying for it if we can ever get Reps to raise taxes (not optimistic). Today's Americans just saw the deficit spike, and the debt continue to rise. [and Reps claim to be the budget hawks]
No. of Recommendations: 5
And the rescue plan, and other actions, very likely enabled our "soft landing" (economically) after COVID. Much of the rest of the world didn't do as well as we did, and we had a POTUS and several governors denying we had a problem at all.
Alas, we can't expect the average voter to dig that deep.
So I'll repeat, the answer is "yes" to "are you better off than four years ago". A resounding "yes". In almost every way.
No. of Recommendations: 5
<<there was a non-trivial amount of time when wages didn't keep up. When prices were rising so fast that they outpaced any wage increases. That period lasted about two full years (from April 2021 to April 2023). >>
And yet Dems did comparatively well in the Nov. 2022 elections. I'm wondering if maybe the fact that the Dem presidential nominee is, you know, a woman of color might factor in here in a nontrivial way, with a lot of the "it's the inflation" and "it's the migrant invasion" stuff serving as convenient self-justifying rationalizations to more than a few voters who would apparently opt for almost anyone, even a sclerotic fascist, over a brown female.
No. of Recommendations: 0
And yet Dems did comparatively well in the Nov. 2022 elections. I'm wondering if maybe the fact that the Dem presidential nominee is, you know, a woman of color might factor in here in a nontrivial way, with a lot of the "it's the inflation" and "it's the migrant invasion" stuff serving as convenient self-justifying rationalizations to more than a few voters who would apparently opt for almost anyone, even a sclerotic fascist, over a brown female.
Maybe. The operative word there is "comparatively." They did well only in relation to the drubbing that was expected, due to those adverse feelings about the economy. It's probably more to do with: i) Dobbs; and ii) poor candidates in the Senate races that the Dems clung to than with voters being happier with the economy then than now. Those were lifelines that allowed the Democrats to cling to more seats than they expected, despite a six point swing in the House midterm popular vote (from 53-45 in 2018 to 47-50 in 2022).
That's not to say that there's not self-serving justification over a brown female. Just that voters are also unhappy about high prices and interest rates.
No. of Recommendations: 3
I'm wondering if maybe the fact that the Dem presidential nominee is, you know, a woman of color might factor in here in a nontrivial way,
No need to wonder.
No. of Recommendations: 1
" The way American people have been able to keep up through a hundred years of rising prices is a hundred years of rising wages. "
Just had lunch with some folks who reminisced about their early teens, the ladies remembered earning .25 cents an hour for babysitting.
High school, I pumped gas for $1.15/hr. (Texaco- you can trust your car to the kid who wears a star))) plus a nickel commission per quart of oil I sold. I probably floated a few engine valves for people who prolly didn't need that quart.
What's a babysitter earn these days?
We pay our dog sitter $50/night.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Reality check: plug past prices into an inflation calculator and see the current value. For many/most things, not really much REAL difference.
But for an old guy like me it is hard not to think that everything is WAY more expensive now.
I had a good job in high school bagging groceries at an Air Force commissary. Tips only, but I would make $2 to $2.50 most of the time. Good money in the mid 60's.
Even earlier I had worked in various agricultural related jobs: peach drying yard, peach cannery, tomato packing shed, onion and garlic dehydrating factory. All good paying jobs for a teenager.
https://www.usinflationcalculator.comBut $50 a night for a babysitter sounds VERY expensive.
No. of Recommendations: 1
But $50 a night for a babysitter sounds VERY expensive.
Running the inflation calculator in reverse, $50 a night for a babysitter today is about $5 for the mid-1960's you mention (well, 1965 to be precise).
So - does $5 for a night of babysitting back in the day seem very expensive?
No. of Recommendations: 0
So - does $5 for a night of babysitting back in the day seem very expensive?
The inflation calculator is a good reality check. : )
No. of Recommendations: 5
We pay our dog sitter $50/night.
Yet another Biden failure... <sigh/>
WTH
No. of Recommendations: 0
<i<So - does $5 for a night of babysitting back in the day seem very expensive?
<
Depends on how far back in the day you’re talking about.
In 1964, I agreed to a night of babysitting for a 10 year old boy who ate popcorn and puked all over his parents’s leather couch. I cleaned it up ( oh what a stinking mess) but never told the parents about it. Why get the kid in trouble? He didn’t mean to puke.
Still, I never agreed to babysit there again.
No. of Recommendations: 1
...more than a few voters who would apparently opt for almost anyone, even a sclerotic fascist, over a brown female.
Hmm, "sclerotic"? Yes, stiff, rigid and uncompromising, yet also with remarkably thin skin (the opposite of sclerotic)!