American Politics

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2950545]2020 necessary income to buy the average American home- $53,000.

2024 necessary income to buy the average American home- $120,000.

[URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb7ebkDkwcI[/URL]

Time stamp- 5:15.

Again I don't need weird data sheets or peer reviewed studies. Just got to look at what homes are selling for in my neighborhood lately and what they were selling for in 2018-2020. American dream is over. USA turned into a nation of massive inequality. Will be a nation of renters instead of land owners. Corporations will be the only ones who can afford property. Mom and pop shops dead. Amazon and Walmart take over. A nation of Employees living off $15 bucks an hour and working 70 hours a week to make ends meet with no chance to build equity. If you own a home, can't sell because of high rates and your new home will cost an arm and a leg.

Who is to be held accountable? To me, clear answer is Biden. He did irreversible damage to the nation. Worst President ever. It feels like to me so many people didn't get their share of the pie when they were here for the baking and now they just want to see USA burn. How else could anyone vote for Kamala after what a horrific job Biden did?

Mayor Pete gets bullied around by the dock workers like a ***** and now they are holding the country ransom and we the people will pay the tribute one way or another. First it was UPS, then auto workers. This guy is a joke. Where is my 70% percent raise LOL?[/QUOTE]Don't worry. Just look at Spidy's links. Undoubtedly Kamala will bring the same energy and joy to the housing crisis as she did to the rural-high-speed-internet crisis! Three years after the legislation was passed, to bring broadband internet to the unserved masses at a measly cost of $1.1 million per household, she still hasn't gotten a single project off the ground. Our Border Czar and Broadband Internet Czar doesn't exactly have a history of accomplishment.

Undoubtedly there will be requirements for union labor and climate friendly construction which will run the cost of the houses way up. A lot of developers won't bite. The policy analysts say this is a sap to the middle class. It won't help the poor much. It will flush a lot of taxpayer dollars down the toilet and add to our national debt.

Now she could use the bully pulpit to reduce red tape for housing developments at the federal, state and local levels. Promote good fiscal policy (i.e. lower deficits) which would bring down interest rates over the medium-to-long term. And not raise taxes on the corporations and other businesses. That's an approach that Bill Clinton might have taken. Not Kamala though. She'll just throw a ton of the money at the problem and hope enough sticks so that it helps her get re-elected in 2028.

The government of the United States of America owns 198,955 Bitcoin currently valued at: 12.2 Billion USD.

[B]WHY?[/B]

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2950692]You don't see how the potus who's one and only economic legislation added $2. 5+ Trillion to the deficit yet produced 1 million fewer jobs with it than without it, had zero to do with even a 10 cent increase in wages while the Dems in Blue Cities and Blue States were the ones raising American workers' wages (contrary to what Trump and Repubs wanted), laid the groundwork for and exacerbated the COVID Pandemic that triggered all of the massive job losses, supply-chain destruction, inflation and skyrocketing opportunistic corporate price gouging you have seen ever since...


....(Trump's) policy and stewardship "results" were historically horrific. And by all indications he intends those "results" to be even worse the second time around.

If the cost of housing is out of reach in your neighborhood or double what it was prior to Trump's Pandemic when the ONLY driver for the economy was the superior economic conditions and trajectory Trump inherited from Obama-Biden after they rescued the economy and cleaned up the colossal mess the previous Repub potus left behind, it is because someone in your neighborhood has the money to buy what you don't have the money to buy. Askin' Ain't Gettin'.

Income inequality? Vote for Trump, vote for any Repub, vote for a useless third party candidate in any category, abstain from voting or do whatever it takes to put a Repub in any office if you want more and more income inequality far into the future. That is what Repubs do for a living.[/QUOTE]About 1/3rd of American voters believe this. It's been repeatedly rebutted in this thread. Another 1/3rd believe that Democrats stole the 2020 election from Trump through massive voter fraud. That's not correct either.

God help the United States of America.

As we enter the week that the non-partisan Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Social Security Administration is expected to announce the COLA (Cost-Of-Living Adjustment) for Social Security beneficiaries in 2025, it is time to remind yourselves and everyone you know that the history of the SSA COLA shows and proves beyond all reasonable doubt that it was under the Trump Administration and NOT the Biden Administration that the (literally) Cost Of Living in the United States of America first skyrocketed at a rate not seen since 1982!

[B]Cost-Of-Living Adjustments:[/B]

[URL]https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]After 1983, COLAs have been based on increases in the CPI-W from the third quarter of the prior year to the corresponding quarter of the current year in which the COLA became effective.[/QUOTE]As we all see on that link and know, that standard measure of Inflation on which the COLA for next year is based and calculated is taken from the 3rd quarter of the previous year to the 3rd quarter of the current year and then applied to the following year.

[B]That means the 5. 9% COLA increase for 2021, the highest increase since 1982 (see the historical chart in the above link and the screenshot below) was calculated from the 12 months ending in September 2020, a FULL FOUR MONTHS before Joe Biden took and kept the Presidential Oath of Office (unlike Trump) after he defeated Trump in Trump's New Violent War Against America On American Soil.[/B]

That was a skyrocketing 4. 6 point increase from the 1. 3% of the year before. And it represented the lion's share of the mere 2. 8 point increase from that level under Biden for 2022 while Trump's huge increase was still lingering in the economy, followed by Biden's amazing and brilliant reduction of it (without even a minor recession) to a more normal 3. 2% the following year 2023 and, likely as predicted, an even more normal increase of about 2. 5% from 2024 for next year.

So anyone here or elsewhere who has a gripe about the skyrocketing Cost Of Living in the USA, how and why it got started, lodge your complaints with Donald J. Trump, not Joe Biden and certainly not Kamala Harris.

Increase in the price of housing has nothing to do with inflation. It is because to avoid inflation citizens of the United Staes of America are valuing real estate for a monetary premium. Real estate used to valued for its utility use.

But watch, the real estate market is about collapse as Bitcoin draws liquidity out of the real estate market because it is a superior asset to store wealth.

Arguing over inflation is like arguing over which bucket has the bigger whole in it. They both leak. Give me a bucket that does not leak.

[QUOTE=SubCmdr;2950923]Increase in the price of housing has nothing to do with inflation. It is because to avoid inflation citizens of the United Staes of America are valuing real estate for a monetary premium. Real estate used to valued for its utility use.

But watch, the real estate market is about collapse as Bitcoin draws liquidity out of the real estate market because it is a superior asset to store wealth.

Arguing over inflation is like arguing over which bucket has the bigger whole in it. They both leak. Give me a bucket that does not leak.[/QUOTE]I am for anything that makes people money. I absolutely support people making easy money off bitcoin.

That being said, I don't want the main point of my post being lost to a debate on why inflation and the housing market has gone up so much. I am not an expert on economics or real estate. I am simple hard working average American and one thing I have learned is not to speak strongly on things I don't extensively understand and if you do make it clear your not the expert.

The reality is housing and inflation has gone up to a frightening and shocking degree. We can debate all day as to who is to blame and why it occurred. My main point is that Biden and Democrats should be held accountable as this phenomenon occurred during their administration. When something this damaging happens to the country regardless of who really is to blame, the American people need someone to take the fall and it is only fair that Biden and the Democrats pay the price by losing the vote of independents. This sends a strong message to both Republicans and Democrats that if you fuck our shit up and cost us fucking money by negligent policies that destroy our ability as Americans to own property and afford decent healthy food and reliable convenient transportation, we will vote your ass out every time!

Personally, I feel Democrats are running the greatest game of deflection of responsibility through false narration in the history of civilized democracy. Their inability to take any accountability for the failures of this administration and to constantly focus their narrative on the demonization of political rivals is astoundingly effective. In my opinion, they have truly mastered the art of manipulation and media propagation to a degree which I did not anticipate, but had always heard was possible. After witnessing Biden's term as President, I now understand how the Soviet Union fell without a single bullet being fired. To watch what is happening and to see the majority of people care more about their race, sexuality, or national origin than being able to afford to live is truly remarkable.

As for my opinion, and yes it could be wrong- as I have stated before, there are just too many people struggling just to get through their day and make ends meet due to this recent inflation. These same people will vote for the party that eases their pain with the false narrative that everything that is wrong with their life is due to their race or national origin or some overly capitalistic economic policy and society has always been set up to oppress rather than elevate certain groups of people. Meanwhile, Democrats are funding policies which is eroding away the American dollar and the American dream by allowing Corporate America, Media, Hollywood, BlackRock, Military Industrial Complex to get whatever they want to keep their institutions rich and powerful and provide the country with an endless supply of serfs ready to fulfill the lord of the manor's bidding. The majority of Americans are desperately trying to blind themselves to this reality even as they watch everything around them become unattainable and unaffordable.

A bit of a rant there, but my main point is Americans need to hold Biden and Democrats accountable for the realities that occurred during THEIR administration. Don't let politicians off the hook and blind yourself with inconsequential false narratives! If Trump wins and he fucks the country up, I will preach the same shit every time.

[QUOTE=SubCmdr;2950923]Increase in the price of housing has nothing to do with inflation. It is because to avoid inflation citizens of the United Staes of America are valuing real estate for a monetary premium. Real estate used to valued for its utility use.

But watch, the real estate market is about collapse as Bitcoin draws liquidity out of the real estate market because it is a superior asset to store wealth.

Arguing over inflation is like arguing over which bucket has the bigger whole in it. They both leak. Give me a bucket that does not leak.[/QUOTE]If money is rushing to real estate as an investment in order to "avoid inflation", then wouldn't the subsequent higher prices for real estate and housing still have something to do with inflation?

Now, the Social Security COLA history I referred to previously that proves beyond all reasonable doubt that serious increases in the Cost Of Living in the USA began squarely under Trump, squarely in the midst of the Trump presidency and somewhere between four months and 16 months before Biden took office was not calculated and determined by the non partisan BLS and SSA factoring in the cost of housing exactly. But it did factor in a more general increase in costs for a significant sampling of American workers.

What is often the case is that real estate investments (and therefore prices) increase when stock market gains flatten and vice versa. But Bidenomics has been such a roaring economic success, all pistons in the economy are fully firing; jobs creation, wage increases, business investments, the stock market, real estate values, etc.

Insufficient supply is the big problem with rising housing costs now. The classic reason for inflation. And the Trump presidency did fuck all nothing to improve housing supply. Which I am sure his big plans and promises for "Infrastructure Week" will solve just as soon as one of the 4 he celebrated over 4 failed years actually materializes. LOL.

And all of this prompts the reminder that for every buyer who cries about the price of the house he wants to own being out of reach there is a seller and often an entire neighborhood of home owners who are damn happy about the increase in their real estate values.

[QUOTE=SubCmdr;2950923]Increase in the price of housing has nothing to do with inflation. It is because to avoid inflation citizens of the United Staes of America are valuing real estate for a monetary premium. Real estate used to valued for its utility use.

But watch, the real estate market is about collapse as Bitcoin draws liquidity out of the real estate market because it is a superior asset to store wealth.

Arguing over inflation is like arguing over which bucket has the bigger whole in it. They both leak. Give me a bucket that does not leak.[/QUOTE]It depends on whether you're a dollar based investor or bitcoin based investor. For people like me there's been inflation in the price of houses. For you there's been massive deflation, in just about everything.

Normally deflation is a bad thing. But not here. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say you may have paid an average of about $10,000 for BTC. And in your world, as a bitcoin based investor, housing prices have deflated about 75% since 2019. That is, a house that might have cost you 40 BTC in 2019 might cost 10 BTC today.

Good call SubCmdr, I wish I'd been as prescient.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2950834]As we enter the week that the non-partisan Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Social Security Administration is expected to announce the COLA (Cost-Of-Living Adjustment) for Social Security beneficiaries in 2025, it is time to remind yourselves and everyone you know that the history of the SSA COLA shows and proves beyond all reasonable doubt that it was under the Trump Administration and NOT the Biden Administration that the (literally) Cost Of Living in the United States of America first skyrocketed at a rate not seen since 1982!

[B]Cost-Of-Living Adjustments:[/B]

[URL]https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html[/URL]

As we all see on that link and know, that standard measure of Inflation on which the COLA for next year is based and calculated is taken from the 3rd quarter of the previous year to the 3rd quarter of the current year and then applied to the following year.

[B]That means the 5. 9% COLA increase for 2021, the highest increase since 1982 (see the historical chart in the above link and the screenshot below) was calculated from the 12 months ending in September 2020, a FULL FOUR MONTHS before Joe Biden took and kept the Presidential Oath of Office (unlike Trump) after he defeated Trump in Trump's New Violent War Against America On American Soil.[/B]

That was a skyrocketing 4. 6 point increase from the 1. 3% of the year before. And it represented the lion's share of the mere 2. 8 point increase from that level under Biden for 2022 while Trump's huge increase was still lingering in the economy, followed by Biden's amazing and brilliant reduction of it (without even a minor recession) to a more normal 3. 2% the following year 2023 and, likely as predicted, an even more normal increase of about 2. 5% from 2024 for next year.

So anyone here or elsewhere who has a gripe about the skyrocketing Cost Of Living in the USA, how and why it got started, lodge your complaints with Donald J. Trump, not Joe Biden and certainly not Kamala Harris.[/QUOTE]LOL. I hate to break this to you, but you're off by one year. The COLA adjustment for payments in 2021 was set off of YoY inflation at September 30,2020. And it was 1. 3%. The COLA adjustment for payments in 2022, set off of inflation at September 30,2021, was 5. 9%. And for 2023 it was 8. 7%, the highest since 1981!

Your data actually would argue for Biden and Democrats kickstarting inflation, with the American Rescue Plan passed in March, 2021. YoY inflation at 2/28/2021 was 1.7%. After those $1400 Biden checks hit in March, it was up to 2.6%. By May of 2021, YoY inflation was 5.0%, and it never dropped below 5% again until April, 2023. Democrats provided too much fiscal stimulus, and the Fed didn't offset that by raising interest rates and backing off quantitative easing. As a result inflation hit the USA months before other countries. Despite doling out trillions of dollars, the American working man lost ground, as the price of goods and services increased faster than wages. People lost purchasing power.

And that my dear Tooms is why the perception of the majority of people of Bidenomics is so different from yours.

Yes, logistics snafus, post COVID demand, and supply shortages played a part in boosting inflation too. But since you live by the sword, you must die by the sword. You believe only one variable explains economic performance, the party of the president. Thus, you must place all the blame for inflation on Biden and Democrats.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2951039]It depends on whether you're a dollar based investor or bitcoin based investor. For people like me there's been inflation in the price of houses. For you there's been massive deflation, in just about everything.

Normally deflation is a bad thing. But not here. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say you may have paid an average of about $10,000 for BTC. And in your world, as a bitcoin based investor, housing prices have deflated about 75% since 2019. That is, a house that might have cost you 40 BTC in 2019 might cost 10 BTC today.

Good call SubCmdr, I wish I'd been as prescient.[/QUOTE]Damn Bro!

You are keeping it 100 and understand completely. But personally I don't think it is over or too late to enter BTC. Just take a look at MSTR or COIN if you are Trafi investor. The projections are the the current bull market in crypto will end with BTC between 90,000 and 125000. The name of the game is preservation of wealth. If you have done that through Traditional Investments, you still have won the fight against inflation.

I wish more people understood what we are up against like you do. Maybe they would make different economic differences and hold our elected leaders to higher standards.

[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;2950971]A bit of a rant there, but my main point is Americans need to hold Biden and Democrats accountable for the realities that occurred during THEIR administration. Don't let politicians off the hook and blind yourself with inconsequential false narratives! If Trump wins and he fucks the country up, I will preach the same shit every time.[/QUOTE]Your rant is justified. But as I examine the The Constitution of the United States the power of the purse is in the House of Representatives. POTUS cannot spend what the House does not appropriate to the Executive branch.

My point brother is that we as individuals need to do more than just cast our vote at the ballot box. We need to vote with our money. We need to consume less, pay down our debt and place our wealth in the hardest money available. I urge you as a hard working citizen or the United Staes of America to at least investigate [B]Bitcoin[/B] for the portion of the wealth your wish to preserve from the ravages of inflation. Simply imagine if you put your money into a savings account and it doubled? How would that affect your life?

Start here: [I]The Bitcoin Standard[/I].

[B]Stack Sats![/B]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2951044]LOL. I hate to break this to you, but you're off by one year. The COLA adjustment for payments in 2021 was set off of YoY inflation at September 30,2020. And it was 1. 3%. The COLA adjustment for payments in 2022, set off of inflation at September 30,2021, was 5. 9%. And for 2023 it was 8. 7%, the highest since 1981!

Your data actually would argue for Biden and Democrats kickstarting inflation, with the American Rescue Plan passed in March, 2021. YoY inflation at 2/28/2021 was 1.7%. After those $1400 Biden checks hit in March, it was up to 2.6%. By May of 2021, YoY inflation was 5.0%, and it never dropped below 5% again until April, 2023. Democrats provided too much fiscal stimulus, and the Fed didn't offset that by raising interest rates and backing off quantitative easing. As a result inflation hit the USA months before other countries. Despite doling out trillions of dollars, the American working man lost ground, as the price of goods and services increased faster than wages. People lost purchasing power.[/QUOTE]That's what I get for posting very late at night. I concede your point about when the Social Security COLA is calculated.

However, I can not concede your point that the data argues that Biden's Trump's Pandemic Recovery Legislation "kick-srarted" the inflation of late 2020, into 2021 and the first half of 2022 before declining steadily ever since.

Assuming you are using a site similar to this one to cite month-by-month inflation rates, the rate of Inflation began its upward trajectory starting in November 2020 and increased month-by-month, never looking back, for the next several months before Biden's stimulus legislation you referenced was in the system long enough to have generated higher inflation:

[URL]https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/[/URL]

[QUOTE][b]Tiny12 -[/b] After those $1400 Biden checks hit in March, it was up to 2.6%.[/QUOTE]I am not familiar with an economic principle where the month-by-month rate of Inflation moves steadily upward from 1. 2% in November of one year to 2.6% in March of the next year due to stimulus that has not even entered the economy until that very month of March.

However, if Trillions more than that had been introduced into the economy beginning in the previous year, yeah, I am familiar with that principle.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2951120]That's what I get for posting very late at night. I concede your point about when the Social Security COLA is calculated.

However, I can not concede your point that the data argues that Biden's Trump's Pandemic Recovery Legislation "kick-srarted" the inflation of late 2020, into 2021 and the first half of 2022 before declining steadily ever since.

Assuming you are using a site similar to this one to cite month-by-month inflation rates, the rate of Inflation began its upward trajectory starting in November 2020 and increased month-by-month, never looking back, for the next several months before Biden's stimulus legislation you referenced was in the system long enough to have generated higher inflation:

[URL]https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/[/URL]

I am not familiar with an economic principle where the month-by-month rate of Inflation moves steadily upward from 1. 2% in November of one year to 2.6% in March of the next year due to stimulus that has not even entered the economy until that very month of March.

However, if Trillions more than that had been introduced into the economy beginning in the previous year, yeah, I am familiar with that principle.[/QUOTE]

The American Rescue Plan (ARP) provided $1.9 trillion in stimulus to an an economy with a GDP of $23 trillion. That's 8.3% of GDP. That's huge. GDP, which is reported quarterly, was only down 1% at the end of 2020. In other words, GDP was only off 1% from the pre-COVID level a year earlier. At March 31, 2021, GDP was actually up 1.8%. Furthermore, there was an overhang of personal savings from COVID relief during 2020, waiting to be spent. The ARP added to that. Larry Summers, Clinton's Treasury Secretary and economic advisor to Obama, described the ARP in March, 2021 as "the least responsible macroeconomic policy we've had in the last 40 years." Jason Furman, economic advisor to Obama, pilloried it too.

The first $1400 payments from the ARP were direct deposited the weekend of March 13. Additional payments and other forms of stimulus provided by the ARP rolled out through the rest of 2021. From your link, here's what happened to YoY CPI inflation,

December, 2020 1.4%
January, 2021 1.4%
February, 2021 1.7%
March, 2021 2.6%
April, 2021 4.2%
May, 2021 5.0%
June, 2021 5.4%

For comparison, in June, 2021, YoY inflation in the EU was 1.9%.

Why the bump up in March? Well, maybe an observation of acquaintance of mine who's political ideology is close to yours might help. He lauded the ARP because he and a couple of his buddies were able to take their $1400 payments and buy big screen TV's. You just got some free Biden Money, why not spend it? Again, the payments started hitting around March 13.

You said, "However, if Trillions more than that had been introduced into the economy beginning in the previous year, yeah, I am familiar with that principle." Fair enough. I agree, as did Republican Senators who went against Trump and House Democrats who wanted to send out $1900 checks in December, 2020. The $1.9 trillion ARP was the gasoline that initially caused the fire to go out of control.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2951039]It depends on whether you're a dollar based investor or bitcoin based investor. For people like me there's been inflation in the price of houses. For you there's been massive deflation, in just about everything.

Normally deflation is a bad thing. But not here. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say you may have paid an average of about $10,000 for BTC. And in your world, as a bitcoin based investor, housing prices have deflated about 75% since 2019. That is, a house that might have cost you 40 BTC in 2019 might cost 10 BTC today.

Good call SubCmdr, I wish I'd been as prescient.[/QUOTE]Well, bitcoin is a crypto but not all crypto is bitcoin. A lot of people got taken with cryptos that were not BTC. It is easy to con people with a crypto scheme because of the lack of regulation. On top of that, there is no FDIC so you may be holding your BTC in a company that goes under and you lose it. Then there are the physical issues with BTC and phones. People have their phones hacked, stolen, or lose them. So a smart person has to consider the risk and the benefit.

The other issue I have is people think it is a safe haven from the world going to shit, and it really is not. If you look at market crashes, BTC crashes too whereas if you are short, your investment will go up in value.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2951222]The American Rescue Plan (ARP) provided $1.9 trillion in stimulus to an an economy with a GDP of $23 trillion. That's 8.3% of GDP. That's huge. GDP, which is reported quarterly, was only down 1% at the end of 2020. In other words, GDP was only off 1% from the pre-COVID level a year earlier. At March 31, 2021, GDP was actually up 1.8%. Furthermore, there was an overhang of personal savings from COVID relief during 2020, waiting to be spent. The ARP added to that. Larry Summers, Clinton's Treasury Secretary and economic advisor to Obama, described the ARP in March, 2021 as "the least responsible macroeconomic policy we've had in the last 40 years." Jason Furman, economic advisor to Obama, pilloried it too.

The first $1400 payments from the ARP were direct deposited the weekend of March 13. Additional payments and other forms of stimulus provided by the ARP rolled out through the rest of 2021. From your link, here's what happened to YoY CPI inflation,

December, 2020 1.4%
January, 2021 1.4%
February, 2021 1.7%
March, 2021 2.6%
April, 2021 4.2%
May, 2021 5.0%
June, 2021 5.4%

For comparison, in June, 2021, YoY inflation in the EU was 1.9%.

You said, "However, if Trillions more than that had been introduced into the economy beginning in the previous year, yeah, I am familiar with that principle." Fair enough. I agree, as did Republican Senators who went against Trump and House Democrats who wanted to send out $1900 checks in December, 2020. The $1.9 trillion ARP was the gasoline that initially caused the fire to go out of control.[/QUOTE]So your and Larry Summer's solution to avoiding any potential significant inflation, that turned out to not produce any noticeable decline in critically important factors like jobs creation, housing sales, wage gains, GDP Growth (zero recession, domestic or global), stock market gains and, most critically important of all, to lead the world in creating demand for regenerating global supply-chains that were flat dead (as ONLY America could do. The EU was not going to lead the world in regenerating flat dead global supply-chains or recover the world from ANYTHING), was to sit around from January 20,2021 until, oh let's say March, April or maybe May 2021 just to find out what the first, second and third revision on 4 Q 2020 GDP Growth came in at before negotiating and presenting a fully fleshed out and oh so conservative Recovery Legislation in response to the worst Pandemic near total global shut down in more than 100 years?

Oh and while we are sitting around and maybe playing golf waiting for that 3rd or 4th revision on 4 Q 2020 GDP Growth just so we know how much to the dime to create that first Recovery Legislation, how many Americans are still dying every day from Trump's Pandemic? Fewer than before? A shrinking number or rising number, considering thousands more Americans had become infected by then and were now carrying it to thousands more Americans every day, many of whom were FOLLOWING their cult leader's dismissal of the need to get vaccinated? And how would thousands if not hundreds of thousands more infected, carriers and dead Americans while we were playing golf effect that glorious 4 Q 2020 GDP Growth figure? What did your and Larry's Psychic On Retainer have to say about that?

And all of this was also supposed to be happening while there was no way to know if a new and challenging mutation and variation of the deadly virus would emerge (which it did, BTW) by mid 2021 anyway, that for all anyone knew could easily have thwarted the effectiveness of every vaccine already on the market and being instructed to be avoided or resisted by the cult leader of at least 47% of the electorate?

While getting ANY money to recover from ANYTHING was hanging on by a few House members and a couple of Senators that threatened to be reduced to an unworkable deadlock by the week if not the day and hour due to that same cult leader to virtually ALL of the ones in the opposition craving to destroy the country even more in the next 4 years so he can have another Crack at it? If not sooner?

After everyone saw and experienced the long, slow, painfull process of Obama-Biden pulling us out of the previous Great Repub Historic Economic Disaster because their economic recovery legislation was "too little" to prevent a Repub Congressional showdown, slow walk, delay, obstruction etc, etc, etc every working day for almost 8 grueling years?

Seriously? That is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

You gents need to get your heads out of the safely academic text books and into the real world.

The decisions Biden and the Dems made were exactly what was needed to effect the historic, remarkably fast and relatively painless recovery from one of if not the worst Great Repub Economic and National Security Disasters of All Time.

There is zero evidence that any Repub or congregation of Repubs could have done a better job of it and plenty of evidence that, when faced with the disastrous consequences of their typically disastrous economic policy and stewardship results, they will absolutely make everything much, much worse.