The Ignorant Voter!

[RANT]

• Question: Which party has caused the inflation we are in now?
• Question: Which party has caused the highest gas prices?
• Question: Which party has the highest budget deficit?
• Question: Which party has the highest crime rate?

Yesterday’s elections hinged on those questions which most voters have no idea what the answers are.

Did anyone actually researched the answers?

I know I did.

I Googled “crime rates in the past 20 years”* and you know what I found? During the Obama’s administration the crime rate was: 5.03 per 100 thousand population, 4.76, 4.71, 4.73, 4.53, 4.44, 4.95, & 5.39. Under Trump’s administration it was 5.32, 5.01, 5.07, & 6.62. How many of you knew that the crime rate was higher under Trump than Obama?

Then I Googled “budget deficit for the pass 20 years”** and you know what? The Republicans have increased the deficit more than the Democrats, the two years of Trump’s budget was 3.13 Trillion dollars (2020 ) and the last year of Trump’s budget (2021) the deficit was 2.7 Trillion dollars while the last year of Obama’s budget (2016) the deficit was 0.67 Trillion dollars while Biden’s first budget deficit (2022) is 1.38 Trillion dollars. How many knew that the Biden’s deficit was half of Trump’s?

Next I Googled “what is causing the high gas prices” and the first thing that popped up was a Forbes article…

High demand for crude oil and low supply pushed gas prices upward this year. And though the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates five times so far in 2022—and is planning on more raises in the near future to nudge prices down—there are other factors at play internationally.

Crude oil, the natural resource used to produce gasoline and diesel fuel, has seen dramatic changes to its supply throughout the pandemic. When Covid-19 first hit worldwide and fewer people were on the roads, major oil-producing companies cut back on their oil production.

The war in Ukraine has hurt the global supply of oil. Russia, which produces about 10% of the world’s oil, is being sanctioned due to its invasion of Ukraine. The United States has completely banned Russian oil imports, further squeezing global supply.

Gee, government really does not have anything to do with the cost of oil. Oil is traded as a commodity, in other words it is determined by the laws of Supply and Demand. When the demand goes up and the supply goes down the price goes up. You do remember that there is a war going on that disrupted supply? If you want to blame anyone about the high price of gas blame Putin.

Lastly the economy. This one is a little harder to determine because it is very complicated, I Googled “what is causing the inflation” and as you might imagine the price of gas came up as one of the major causes. Investopedia had a pretty good article about inflation and so did NBC News…

The inflation rate has exceeded the 40-year high previously set in December, but what remains unclear to many is what is really causing that inflation and when it will come to an end. Obvious to many is that the pandemic has put its thumb on the economic scale, but what exactly is causing the purchasing power of the dollar to falter remains murky.  

That’s not just an issue for the average person, however. While most economists tend to acknowledge the same causes of inflation, many disagree which elements are most driving the price increases that continue to vex American consumers.

Supply chain issues, surging demand, production costs, and swaths of relief funds all have a role to play, they say, but politics tend to cause one to point the finger at the supply chain or the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 as the main culprits.

[…]

The White House has also noted the inflationary challenges faced by other countries, arguing this is not an issue of policy but a difficult period driven by the pandemic that many nations are facing.

“Over the past six months, price increases in the United States and Europe have basically run neck and neck,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last month when the January inflation numbers were released. “In December, the E.U. saw its highest recorded inflation on record. Germany saw its highest inflation, in December, since reunification. And so, while there are differences country by country, this is a global phenomenon and driven by these global issues.”

So inflation is world wide, not just limited to us and both the Democrat and Republican states are affected equally. If it was something that politics caused it would be limited to here in the U.S.

If we modify the Google search to include corporate profits “how has corporate profits is causing the inflation” the Economic Policy Institute website says,

Corporate profits have contributed disproportionately to inflation. How should policymakers respond?

[…]

Since the trough of the COVID-19 recession in the second quarter of 2020, overall prices in the NFC sector have risen at an annualized rate of 6.1%—a pronounced acceleration over the 1.8% price growth that characterized the pre-pandemic business cycle of 2007–2019. Strikingly, over half of this increase (53.9%) can be attributed to fatter profit margins, with labor costs contributing less than 8% of this increase. This is not normal. From 1979 to 2019, profits only contributed about 11% to price growth and labor costs over 60%, as shown in Figure A below. Nonlabor inputs—a decent indicator for supply-chain snarls—are also driving up prices more than usual in the current economic recovery.

So how many of you watched or read about any debates? How many of you actually did research before you voted or did you just go by what you saw in the political ads? Or did you vote your “gut feelings” or for a party? I watched the town Board of Education debate which I found very informative on who I voted for, one candidate is on the Republican Town Committee... that was a definite no, no for me. (Two won and the third was not elected)

I voted the party line but I also did my research and knew that the Republicans were counting on you to be an uninformed voter. The deciding factor for me as most of you probably already know we the anti-LGBTQ and anti-women legislation coming out of Republican states.

As a voter and citizen we have certain obligations and one of them is to be an informed voter. To research the issues. To understand the world around us. To follow the news and not just from one source. To understand the major issues in the world today.

• The economy.
• Inflation.
• Refugees.
• Social issues.
• War.

These are all interrelated and feed off one another, COVID and the Russia/Ukraine wars, the unrest in the Middle East and Africa, the drug wars in Central America they are all interdependent of the our immediate world around us.

Being an informed voter takes work and time, how many of you do take the time or do you just brush off you civic responsibility? As a result we get the election results from yesterday’s election.

...is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government...

Thomas Jefferson Paris Jan. 8. 1789.

[/RANT]

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* The last year of crime data is for 2020, the 2021 data will be coming out around this time each year.

** The outgoing president passes the next year’s budget. So Trump’s last budget was for 2021.