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Statement from Jerome Powell

federalreserve.gov

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Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#531

Post by watwut »

Aurornis wrote: post #429
JeremyNT wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is ample ability to change events, but people must believe they can act and act together, as they have for centuries of democracy and for all human history. This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. They certainly can't claim they didn't know what they would get, and they seem unconcerned by any of these actions that many of us find terrifying. It is difficult to see how we can democracy o…

> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false. Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? It's a quintessential fact of politics that voting for a candidate is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything that candidate does in the future. It's a premise that is obviously false when…

Yes, Trump is now unpopular. But.

> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with?

If we are talking about past culpability, this one does not works at all. Trump is being exactly who he was and what he campaigned on. This is not the case of someone switching up after being elected. This is case of who openly or tacitly supported Trump, because they thought they will personally benefit on top of having fun of watching liberals suffer.

By tacitly I mean all those bad faith "both sides" and "Trump is dove, Harris is aggressive". As an example, Latino Trump voting men were attracted by the misogynistic and male dominance content. They thought they wont be personally affected. Rural people still cheer to occupation and terrorization of cities ... and still think they are the only true Americans. They though they will be able to keep their farms like the last time. And so on and so forth.

People knew full well what is going on when they were hiding behind euphemisms about conservatives and blamed liberals when those said the truth. They just liked the project and thought they will be affected only a little.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#533

Post by immibis »

cal_dent wrote: post #203

The US drift into Adam Curtis' broad thesis in hypernormalisation(a) continues apace I see. Great to see J Pow putting up a fight but I fear this is all going one way. (a) >We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They don't care. We say we care but do nothing.

At least some selection mechanisms are still working. Every time he does something like this, the world dumps a bunch more US currency.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#534

Post by watwut »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #514
JeremyNT wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is ample ability to change events, but people must believe they can act and act together, as they have for centuries of democracy and for all human history. This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. They certainly can't claim they didn't know what they would get, and they seem unconcerned by any of these actions that many of us find terrifying. It is difficult to see how we can democracy o…

This is disingenuous and a way to rationalise your feelings by blaming trump voters. Firstly, it’s a two party state and choice is limited. People vote for the least worst option, or for a candidate that shares at least some of their values. Second, many people did not vote. Third, approval ratings show that many trump voters do not approve of his actions. Fourth, where did “annex Greenland, abduct Maduro, remove ind…

It is totally ok to blame Trump voters. They literally wanted this to happen and it happened. OK, they did not wanted the "bad thing A" to happen, they only wanted the "evil things B and C" to happen. Usually based on what affects them personally.

> People vote for the least worst option, or for a candidate that shares at least some of their values.

Voting for Trump because you share his values is not exactly defense, something positive or even respect worthy. Yes, equally people voted for Hitler because they shared values. This commonality of values is why they are culpable and we can blame them.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#535

Post by padjo »

rvz wrote: post #60

So this is the bar for the next country to surpass the US as the world's economic super-power, if this continues it's most likely going to be China to surpass the US. An opportunity for the EU to stop its bureaucracy and cleanup its act. If it cannot convince anyone that they are next, then one can argue that democracy is completely finished. If this nonsense continues it will be the UAE + Saudi Arabia + China, cutti…

> stop its bureaucracy and cleanup its act

What does that mean? Do you have any idea what the EU is?

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#536

Post by Terr_ »

cal_dent wrote: post #442
class3shock wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first watched a bunch of Adam Curtis stuff I thought it a long winded way of stating bad things have happened and have resulted in these bigger, overarching, bad things. Thinking about it now 10 years later it feels alot different. The pervasiveness of tolerance of lies and fakeness has gone so far past anything I could have imagined being a big contributor to that.

For me, the key lies in the "We know they lie. They know we know they lie.". I'd argue that the transparency of lies is a fairly immature theme, relative to the long arc of history. Probably post-Iraq WMD is where I think it really started to ramp up and the emergence of virality/segmentation aspect of social media has really revved it up.

I would view that kind of lying as show of force: "Everybody knows it, but nobody can do anything about it, we are above even these rules."

Worse still is when it's an "affirm the falsehood to show you have been dominated by our threat of punishment" scenario:

> 'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.' He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'

> Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.

> 'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.'

-- 1984 by George Orwell

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#537

Post by watwut »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #518
mapontosevenths wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder where you guys are headed. You need to know only two facts about America to guess that: * Fifty three percent of Americans now read below the sixth grade level. * As (ostensibly) a representative Democracy America's fate is dictated by the majority of it's citizens. Our future is to become a broken nation governed by middle-school student level thinking. The only way to build a better America is to build a…

> Fifty three percent of Americans now read below the sixth grade level. I don't know what to think when I see these quotes. Are you writing a local newspaper opinion piece about the "decline of America"? How is it meaningful to this discussion? It's like a poison blowdart shot from behind the stage curtain that kills the messenger. By the way, I Googled for the equivalent stat about Canada: "48-49% having skills bel…

This talking point never contains international comparison nor historical comparison. Most people using it do not even know what "sixth grade level" actually is. They just know it means "a little".

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#538

Post by socksy »

danaris wrote: post #511
fyredge wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a fallacy, simply an opinion you disagree with. But one which I strongly agree with. I'm not American, and though I may not agree completely with the politicians I voted for, I have not been blindsided yet. The second election of Trump is a symptom of Americans either unable or unwilling to look beyond single issues or sports team politics. To then turn around and act surprised is just a way to convenient…

If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works. We only have two parties. (Technically, there are some third parties, but they're effectively worse than negligible—voting for them is guaranteed to either do nothing or harm the cause you're interested in, unless the candidate is already a member of a major party and merely cross-endorsed.) This means that if you care about…

> If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works.

This is incredibly unlikely, given how pervasive American politics is, and how much the results of the American elections affects the rest of the world. Additionally, having a two party system is unfortunately pretty common.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#539

Post by tosapple »

Tanoc wrote: post #485
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure being out in the street really does much. Gives the jack booted thugs an excuse for a little recreational violence. A general strike might have an effect, but I'm not sure how you organize such a thing.

A general strike at the level required to change things requires roping in unwilling participants as well. Probably on the scale of breaking infrastructure like payment systems or over the road shipping. If nobody can ignore current events because it's not just impacting but impeding and quickly degrading their quality of life they'll get angry. However just so long as people can go home and play their videogames, or…

The only option is to vote, if you block roads you will be labeled a domestic terrorist. Insurrection act? Things may get alot worse.

What are they going to do with all these holding cells when the immigrants are gone?

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#540

Post by piva00 »

Aurornis wrote: post #188
renegade-otter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has enough power to help someone else. No one has the power to save America from itself. The cavalry is not coming, and this fire is going to take its course. One day, maybe we will rebuild from scratch.

> One day, maybe we will rebuild from scratch The current situation is bad, but this is just doomerism. The current administration will end. Trump can't live forever. His approval rating is already low and falling. We're in for a bumpy ride, but then it's going to start reverting toward the mean. Not necessarily back to the way things were, but periods of extreme like this are followed by a reversion to the mean more…

I don't think you can really state that right now as certainty, it's becoming part of the illusion of continuity, this administration has shown how fragile the institutions holding American democracy together are.

The Pandora's box has been opened, it's not doomerism to see how unprecedented actions have been taken by this administration and not be sure of what's come next, you've never lived through something like that.

I had much more trust in your institutions a year ago, after 2025 I really do not believe the USA will be able to revert toward the mean anytime soon. The ultimate test for it will be the midterms, if the election this year goes well without a hiccup it might signal there is some institutional power still left in American democracy; on the other hand if there are hiccups, meddling by the federal government, and its allies (including the rich elite behind a lot of these people), it will just cement my opinion that the USA's democracy is in a death spiral.

But don't be so trusting, the cracks are obviously showing and are being exploited, just wishful thinking won't help at all your society at this moment, it's better to be a bit more doomerist and act against these actions rather than just "trusting the process" because if you end up losing the process the bottom will fall out.

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