Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
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John Quiggin 
Trump on groceries
Donald Trump was asked a question about grocery prices during a town hall event in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on Monday October 14. WAPO reporter Philip Bump had the bright idea of publishing a literal transcript of his reply. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/15/heres-how-donald-trump-will-lower-grocery-prices/
The question, apparently pre-screened by the campaign, came from a Black woman standing behind him on the stage, reading from a card. This staging is fair enough and the issue is prominent. Both campaigns will have briefed their candidates with bullet-point answers.
Trump’s reply was 981 words long. 141 words (14%) can be charitably described as relevant to the question, though they are generic blather and did not include any of the specific proposals asked for. The remaining 840 words (86%) were fact-free rants about trade with China, Hannibal Lecter, immigration and election fraud.
Contrast Harris’s proposal to counter price gouging on food by retailers, eg here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/08/16/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-at-a-campaign-event-in-raleigh-nc/ You may or may not agree with this – if you ask me it’s a token measure to address a largely imaginary and media-generated problem, and would be a vulnerability in the hands of a serious opponent – but it is at least a substantive and feasible policy proposal, directly relevant to the issue.
By Trump’s recent standards, his grocery rant is exceptionally *focused*. In the few public events Trump has not cancelled. we have been treated to a greatest-hit singalong instead of questions, and musings on Arnold Palmer`s penis. American voters do not need expert knowledge to conclude that Trump’s current mental deterioration makes him unfit for any kind of paid employment, down to sweeping leaves in their gardens, let alone occupying the most powerful office in the world. The real candidates for the White House are Kamala Harris and JD Vance.
My prediction: after his election defeat, Trump’s criminal cases will be swiftly closed by an admission of unfitness to plead.
(Cross-cmmented on the Substack site)
James – howdy!!!!
I am in total agreement on the larger point – we need someone responsible in the White House.
I do not think it is a media-generated concern though, not at all. The backdrop here is that many people are quite rent- and mortgage-burdened. I think in some places, rents have gone up as much as a third in the last few years – which I think is insane.
So, even small jumps in food prices are really hurting people. (And, the jumps haven’t always been small. I have not noticed prices going down yet, though perhaps they are. I’ll try to pay more attention. I do almost all shopping at a big box store now – that just happened in recent years. And some things, like olive oil, have nonetheless had big jumps this year. Not that I am complaining for myself – not at all. But, that did happen…)
I do agree though that lowering food prices is something that needs thought – and, usually, I would not expect a president to be doing that anyway. And then, there is the topic of what Americans are eating, exactly.
Btw, folks, I have a book rec. I just finished an oral history of the WTO protest in Seattle – One Week to Change the World – and I really enjoyed it. (I recommend *not* reading it online, bc I had to keep checking back and forth to see who the people are. Maybe your memory is better than mine. Actually though, what you can do is open 2 versions, and just tab back and forth, that might work.)
As ever, feel free to pray for us, people – whatever you can spare!!
Kevin Drum has the evidence that food price inflation in the USA is imaginary; https://jabberwocking.com/grocery-inflation-is-over/
I suggested media herding as a possible explanation. Another is that responses to changes in food prices are asymmetric. When pizza gets dearer and tofu cheaper, we don’t substitute tofu for pizza as per Econ 101. We buy the same of both as before, don’t notice the savings on tofu, and grumble about the pizza.
Swings in food prices have been a feature of daily life since the days of Joseph and Potiphar if not earlier, often with much more serious effects. It`s well established that people die in famines not because there is no food but because the poor cannot afford to buy it.
Pray, fine. But build the bloody Ark first.
Inflation may very well have decreased or even stopped – I’ve seen many similar news stories. But the prices didn’t go down, I don’t think, and I think the inflation was more than the wage growth. I really do not think the concern is imaginary. I wince when I hear Dems here say things like that – it’s beyond tone deaf in our context. (And that would be a dumb reason to lose.)
I’d be interested to see a comparison of rent burdens in the US as compared to other places. I’ll go do a search. (But I do not always get results when I look … another topic.)
Meanwhile, no price hike could justify a vote for Voldemort. I hope I was not unclear about that! No no noooooo …
Well, on the one hand, the burden here is on the high side – but it’s high in Spain too, according to these guys (see Fig 3):
https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/how-do-us-renters-fare-compared-to-those-around-the-worl
So, maybe I’m full of cr*p. Though not totally. Also, it looks like I want to be French or maybe Austrian.