As usual, you hit the nail on the head. Going to the grocery store, once only a chore, is now a practice of hard decisions and health trade offs. If the top can't be lowered then the bottom needs to be raised. How that's done is not easy and it will take political will that, I'm afraid, is missing.
There's lot of good policy for the taking that can help Americans feel more economically secure. Wages are a big part of putting inflation in the rearview, but security is more nuanced than prices and spans everything from paid family leave to access to retirement savings. We can do it!
Kathy Ann, I appreciate your analysis. I think that it’s the root cause of the discontent we’ve seen over the past 25 years, as the wealth gap has widened. Trump’s gift - finding the cracks and driving a wedge into them - is a formidable skill..
We’re experiencing a so far, non-violent version of the French Revolution, and the ‘sans-culottes’ are very unhappy. I wonder if they’ll ever figure out that the billionaires will not fix the problem that working-class Americans suffer.
Have you thoughts on practical measures on how to address these problems plaguing affordability?
Yes! I think it's about a portfolio of policy that address economic security, from the labor market to retirement security to market failures to much more. The analogy I give is that Trump is like a bad doctor. You show up feeling sick and rather than give you a diagnosis, he tells you how unfair it is you're not feeling well and that you should go on a bender, mortgage your house and gamble it all in Vegas, drink yourself ignorant. Come Monday, you still need to heal, and need a plan of care. That's what we can build.
It might be wise to take a cue from the Project 2025 approach. If our ideas remain scattered, and full of “hope” then there’ll only be hope an no coordinated action. As you suggest, a portfolio of policies, in this case, progressive, socially-oriented policies, laid out as a plan may strike the necessary chord.
There are plenty of good, humanitarian-social thinkers that could help vet and develop a reasonable, realistic, and thus, attractive plan.
Super curious your thoughts on the Bessent 3/3/3 idea, and how practically the administration could theoretically look to get there. While I disagree with the idea of taking away social services to do it (as that tends to be where the market often does not serve well), I wonder about the overall approach around reducing the deficit while growing GDP as we haven’t seen an example of that policy in the US in over a decade and a half. But I do worry that the growing deficit poses real risks like we’re seeing in the Eurozone, but maybe it’s more moot since we hold the almighty dollar?
Know this is a jumble of ideas but curious if there’s a thread here to pull on
As usual, you hit the nail on the head. Going to the grocery store, once only a chore, is now a practice of hard decisions and health trade offs. If the top can't be lowered then the bottom needs to be raised. How that's done is not easy and it will take political will that, I'm afraid, is missing.
There's lot of good policy for the taking that can help Americans feel more economically secure. Wages are a big part of putting inflation in the rearview, but security is more nuanced than prices and spans everything from paid family leave to access to retirement savings. We can do it!
Kathy Ann, I appreciate your analysis. I think that it’s the root cause of the discontent we’ve seen over the past 25 years, as the wealth gap has widened. Trump’s gift - finding the cracks and driving a wedge into them - is a formidable skill..
We’re experiencing a so far, non-violent version of the French Revolution, and the ‘sans-culottes’ are very unhappy. I wonder if they’ll ever figure out that the billionaires will not fix the problem that working-class Americans suffer.
Have you thoughts on practical measures on how to address these problems plaguing affordability?
Cheers and thanks!
Yes! I think it's about a portfolio of policy that address economic security, from the labor market to retirement security to market failures to much more. The analogy I give is that Trump is like a bad doctor. You show up feeling sick and rather than give you a diagnosis, he tells you how unfair it is you're not feeling well and that you should go on a bender, mortgage your house and gamble it all in Vegas, drink yourself ignorant. Come Monday, you still need to heal, and need a plan of care. That's what we can build.
It might be wise to take a cue from the Project 2025 approach. If our ideas remain scattered, and full of “hope” then there’ll only be hope an no coordinated action. As you suggest, a portfolio of policies, in this case, progressive, socially-oriented policies, laid out as a plan may strike the necessary chord.
There are plenty of good, humanitarian-social thinkers that could help vet and develop a reasonable, realistic, and thus, attractive plan.
Super curious your thoughts on the Bessent 3/3/3 idea, and how practically the administration could theoretically look to get there. While I disagree with the idea of taking away social services to do it (as that tends to be where the market often does not serve well), I wonder about the overall approach around reducing the deficit while growing GDP as we haven’t seen an example of that policy in the US in over a decade and a half. But I do worry that the growing deficit poses real risks like we’re seeing in the Eurozone, but maybe it’s more moot since we hold the almighty dollar?
Know this is a jumble of ideas but curious if there’s a thread here to pull on