Statement from Jerome Powell • Hacker News Board

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#581

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 12:39 PM UTC

fooey wrote: post #145

neom wrote: post #54

So I'm sitting here as a Canadian wondering what the American people are going to do? I understand a lot of what the President of The United States says - I even agree with some of it, the problem is I don't feel like we're engaging with the American people anymore. I really wonder where you guys are headed and what it means for the rest of us, I spent 15 years in the states, built a public company there, I really li…

There's basically nothing the American people can do short term. The US government is entirely non-responsive and only nominally representative. Barring a wave of Republican retirements in the House, the absolute soonest there are any guardrails are after the 2026 midterms when a new congress is seated in 2027.

There are still some things. A handful of court cases have gone against the trump admin and they have (in many cases) respected them. For example, the suits against national guard deployments in chicago. Donating to organizations using the courts to leverage the law against the trump administration does have material effects.

The senate can also still hold some things up. If you have a senator who keeps voting for trump's judicial appointments or you have a senator who is in leadership then yelling at them to stop letting trump's judicial appointments sail through is important. The fact that the dems are not using every procedural step to slow down the process is ridiculous.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#582

Post by TimorousBestie » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 12:41 PM UTC

kasey_junk wrote: post #561

jacquesm wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nothing. In a sane country Trump would have been impeached many months (or even years) ago and would have never managed to get a second chance at this. If the continuation of the USA hinges on Powell the man should be given a spot on mt. Rushmore, but I don't think that it is going to happen. Congress and the senate are for the most part filled with people that are too afraid to act. And in the meantime a lot of…

He was impeached years ago…

When a sentence has two clauses connected by “and” both of them must be true for the whole sentence to be true.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#583

Post by garbawarb » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 12:53 PM UTC

et-al wrote: post #46

What's a pleb supposed to do now? Convert every paycheck to BTC, gold, or EUR?

I assume there are some stocks that would benefit this? Maybe foreign stocks if the dollar declines?

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#584

Post by ta9000 » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 12:59 PM UTC

Loudergood wrote: post #405

ta9000 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly I don’t think Trump 1 vs Trump 2 admin wise are the same. Many people were duped. They’re idiots, but not malicious idiots.

Plenty of them are malicious idiots. See quotes of them saying "They're hurting the wrong people"

You mean Boehbert, a congresswoman? Yeah she’s pretty awful.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#585

Post by ratrace » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #176

zamadatix wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more obvious something seems the more valuable steelmanning becomes, precisely because if the only steelman arguments you get (if any) are propaganda at best (instead of reasons you just hadn't considered) then you can be that much more confident your outrage is based in reason rather than feelings. My guess is there won't be many coming up with steelman arguments for this one though anyways. Inviting propaganda…

I understand the theory of steelmanning, but in cases like this it's just an high-brow version of the "both sides" style of journalism where you pretend like both sides are similarly plausible and deserve equal consideration. At the extremes, the steelmanning can turn into a game of giving the other side more consideration. > Inviting propaganda is good, let the obviously weak arguments come front and center to be lo…

Have you considered that maybe you just want to live in an echo chamber?

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#586

Post by estearum » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC

IAmGraydon wrote: post #453

estearum wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posting online literally is political activity. You think the hordes of young men who put Trump into power were convinced by mass public demonstration? No: posts on the Internet.

Young men put Trump in power? Afraid not. The demographic data shows that if it was narrowed down to one group, it was poorly educated white Christians over the age of 50.

I mean election victories are typically both multicausal and overdetermined. Poorly educated white Christians over the age of 50 form the GOP base, but especially a GOP win in the popular vote requires far more than that.

Parties focus so much on swing voters for a reason, and a lot of these swing voters are in fact swung by what they see online.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#587

Post by justin66 » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:13 PM UTC

pixelatedindex wrote: post #218

derangedHorse wrote: post #144

I dislike the existence of the Fed, but I dislike the idea of the executive branch being in control of monetary policy even more. I'll be tuning in to see how the case progresses.

Do you have an alternative to the Fed? Likes and dislikes has nothing to do with it. Or let me ask you another way — why do you dislike the Fed?

> Do you have an alternative to the Fed?

The appears to be difficult for a lot of people to like, but the Fed still exists because the people who bitch and moan about the Fed can never voice an alternative that wouldn't immediately destroy everything if it were implemented.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#588

Post by 0ckpuppet » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

fyredge wrote: post #445

Aurornis wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

You're missing some history that pushed former Democratic vorers to vote Trump. Taxpayer funding of NGOs that were writing grants to organizations that were effectively censoring onlinespeech. This and the Disinformation Board, and the direct phone calls from US senators and Congressmen to takedown opposition ideas n social media was a direct attack on the First Amendment by the Democrats. Yes Trump's FCC threats over Jimmy Kimmel were also wrong, but he didn't have a government agency doing it to citizens. Trump ended that system. Also, DNC threw working class under the bus and chastise them for leaving the party that screwed them. If sports team politics is what you're hearing, you're being lied to.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#589

Post by thechao » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

Anamon wrote: post #572

baubino wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are (and have been) taking to the streets. Americans tend to think that a protest must involve everyone otherwise it’s pointless. They don’t realize that protests typically involve a tiny fraction of the population. The more, the better of course, but stop sitting around waiting for it to get big. Either get out there now or find other ways to contribute. There’s plenty to be done.

There was a study a while ago, analyzing previous events to estimate which percentage of a population needs to become active to effect meaningful change. The number was surprisingly low, I think less than 5%.

It's about 3%, and the study had major flaws in its context; large westernized countries are out of scope. I don't remember paper, but I just lost this argument to a lawyer.

Re: Statement from Jerome Powell

#590

Post by topocite » Mon, Jan 12, 2026, 1:22 PM UTC

class3shock wrote: post #419

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.

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.

Curtis tried to make these statements on the downside of neoliberalism + postmodernism but I don't think he did a very good job based on the discussion on these films.

I think his work is just too stylized. He has such an interesting style that it overwhelms the message. I barely remember what his messaging is in films. Just the interesting visuals and ominous music.

If you read Undoing the Demos by Wendy Brown and Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition together you will understand exactly what he is going for. As a film it doesn't really work that well though beyond a kind of depressing entertainment. The themes are too subtle and philosophical along with most people don't have the background knowledge to really make sense of his points.