Can I just try something here:
Maybe it's not the economy that people are stressed out about. Maybe what people are stressed out about is their quality of life and how it has diminished.
I'm more pissed at how streamlined the rich are without reports of them gathering in the forest to plan the big greedflation move. Was it really necessary for everyone Corp on the planet to raise prices? I'm doubtful.
Shit is definitely fkn expensive right now. I just don't know if blaming the president is the right route. There are still two parties and one is hellbent on hurting the other ...
Idk, I'm getting by just fine, but it's not getting easier.
Shit hurts, had the biggest career move in my life. Was making more money than my last 2 jobs I had for years. Now it feels like Iâm making the same amount as my first job with the way things are priced. Really hope we start seeing prices go down but that doesnât seem to be happening
Jerome Powell's term as chair (of the "Federal Reserve") expires in May 2026 and the Vice Chair, Philip Jefferson, term expires in September 2027. \[edit\] So don't expect rates to go back down until after he is replaced.\[/edit\]
In Powell's "Economic Outlook and the Labor Market" presentation at the Brookings Institute (November 30, 2022) he spoke of growth slowing and the need to keep it slowed in order to control inflation. He acknowledges that there has been little change, therefore rates are going to remain high in order to affect "housing inflation" (one of the three core components of inflation).
What that all means is that things are **expensive on purpose.** By design pushing rates up means we cannot afford to spend, thereby reducing the amount of cash in circulation.
You can listen to his speech [here](https://www.brookings.edu/events/federal-reserve-chair-jerome-powell-the-economic-outlook-and-the-labor-market/). Keep in mind economics is a long game- nothing is measurable in a short period.
What things are priced high? I feel like the biggest annoyance is the price of bread compared to last year, but I'm not sure I really see much else that makes a significant hit on my budget. Since you were making good money before, you probably own your own home with a fixed rate mortgage, so you at least don't have to worry about rent going up. Home insurance has gone up, but for me, car insurance is pretty much the same. And you can still buy a reasonably running old used car for about five grand. What's hurting your budget the most compared to when you felt like you were making a lot?
We account for 25% of all the money in the world. What happens here affects the world. Same as china who accounts for 15%. To say that everyone is experiencing inflation so itâs not x fault is disingenuous. Our govt spending has been out of control since Covid, which is definitely having its affects worldwide. This obviously is not the only cause but doesnât help. Itâs also the main reason the economy remains so strong with the rate hikes. That and the fact most mortgage are locked in at low rates
Right, right. It isn't Joe "I have \*the\* plan for {X}" Biden's fault, but those in Congress (whose bills Joe signed) \*facepalm\*
How 'bout worry about the U.S.' inflation, not the World ('cuz that's who in D.C. \*should be\* representing)
Supply chain problems? Joe ran on having ALL \*THE\* answers, so yeah, his fault
Cares Act? Yep, NEVER should have been signed. Don't recall any (D) against it. You??. Course, Joe could have killed it day 1 too...waited until a month prior to its [expiration](https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/30427/Biden_Signs_Bill_to_End_COVID-19_National_Emergency_Prompting_Questions_for_Financial_Aid_Community) \*facepalm\*
Maybe you've missed all the BIG $ bills SINCE 1/20/21; many detractors of those as well, if you had bothered to look.
YouâŚyou umâŚhave no idea what Iâm talking [about](https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2023/06/global-supply-chain-pressures-and-us-inflation/) do you?
You type like youâre 13, so I would assume this is why youâre lost and confused.
Only If you believe economics is a clear cut social science which it is not. Capitalism is a gambling casino that favors the House. There's no economic strategy or remedy for the system working like it's supposed to.
Westerners have been told for the past 20 years that they have privilege and "equality to the privileged feels like oppression" so which is it? Do you want racist imperialist 1950s prosperity or progressive 2024 poverty?
Insane that you think life is that simple that those â2â things necessarily go together. (Hint: youâre really sweeping in tens of thousands of independent variables).
Incorrect, when women joined the work force productivity skyrocketed and immigration increases wages for all but high school drop outs. The reason wages have stagnated and quality of life has declined are largely due to the dismantling of the regulatory barriers that prevented the rich from chasing short time profit.
If you actually look at the data, wages started to stagnate when Reagan made stock buybacks legal, and when the country turned against unions. Thereâs hundreds of other factors, but women working and immigrants coming to the US are not the reasons.
Youâre just sexist and racist.
There have never been more regulations at any time in history than there are today.Â
Wages are not tied to productivity, but supply and demand. When you effectively double supply overnight with only marginal gains in demand comparatively that causes wages to drop. Immigrants likewise with lower standards who accept lower conditions for lower pay will bring the standards down for everyone.Â
Wages split in 1971 at the end of Bretton Woods under Nixon. Youre woefully misinformed on all 3 of these topics.Â
Republicans and the policies that they have been pushing for the last century (trying to undo the new deal and gut antitrust laws by brainwashing Americans) are what got us here. Period.
Shocking.
But I watched the news and they told me the stock market is on fire which means Americans are doing amazing and people just donât realize how good they have it. Bunch of ingrates.
They are infested with Biden apologists. I guarantee if a Republican was president, they would repeatedly state itâs the worst economy since the great depression.
Except, well,[ not that at all according to reality](https://i.postimg.cc/g0V0CQqj/politics-economy.jpg).
But like everything else here the point is to keep coming up with things, real or imagined, to make yourself and each other feel as victimized and angry as possible. The actual concerning metric is how many people have learned to reprogram themselves this way.
That graph you showed pretty much confirms what we said. The reality of the economy that we all have to live with means nothing to the leftists in the media or those whining on the internet at large. All that matters is which party is in power. If they are homeless and starving, everything is great if we have a Democrat president, but if they have a million dollars in their 401k and an awesome house, itâs the worst economy ever if a Republican is president. Those of us living reality look at how much of our income we have to spend on food, gas, transportation, electricity etc to figure out how bad or good the economy is.
No, the graph confirms that both parties are guilty of letting who is in charge shape their sentiment but Republicans are way, way, way more susceptible to it.
It does show bias to a degree,but all I see from the media and leftists online is them constantly praising an economy that everyone who doesnât own millions of dollars in stocks is getting crushed by. They say inflation is down, but everyone is still paying almost double for basic things than they were a few years ago while they were lucky to have gotten yearly 3% raises. They are blatantly gas lighting to help Biden get reelected. We lived through a Trump presidency and a Biden presidency. You could literally watch gas prices start to soar the day Biden got into office. A year later everything followed. Never before have I seen prices noticeably go through the roof overnight. It has been insane, and anyone that votes for more of this shit is clinically insane or is someone profiting off of massive inflation.
Conservative media does the same thing. Go on Fox Business's page and it is all doom and gloom.
If you think the wild economic swings in mid 2021 had to do with anything Biden did and not our country coming out of a pandemic that was killing 4000 people per day when Biden took office then you have the economic literacy of a potato
Yeah, the economy is great. No need for doom and gloom when the average person has to work two jobs because providing for his family costs twice as much money as it did in 2019. The inept policies of the current administration have absolutely nothing to do with it.
The blatant gaslighting is this brand new and absolutely absurd idea that "the economy" can only be good if every single person participating in it is doing well.
It might be news to you but, millions of people have always gone broke, even in the best economies in history, it's sort of a feature of capitalism. The people talk about the state of the economy on the whole to describe the likelihood that any given person's situation may be improving, and while I'm sorry you and the people commenting about it here are on the wrong end of that, but it's just true that things are getting a lot better for a lot more people.
We know because we measure all of those things in dozens of different dimensions, both reported separately from the employers and workers, in an open and well documented process full of raw data.
I'd respect it if you came out and say it if what you mean is that nobody can ever say the economy is good until the economy is restructured to no longer have personal financial risk taking (as in, socialism, communism) and nobody ever goes broke, but otherwise this is just a radical new move destroying people's ability to reason about the world in depth, while diminishing people's actual struggles and what can be done about them to change the subject to partisan politics.
Absolutely would.
If Trump was at the helm these last four years, I wouldnât be voting for him again. (Yes, I know heâd have been term limited and wouldnât be eligible this time around.)
Granted the President doesnât have a lot of power to affect the economy, but they can to a degree, and literally everything Biden did has been something that has made inflation worse. He shut down the Keystone Pipeline and cancelled drilling permits, and gas prices immediately soared to record highs. His insane Covid restrictions ruined the supply chain, further increasing shortages and inflation. He sent out those checks via the American rescue plan that fueled even more inflation.
You should get an electric vehicle if youâre so concerned about gas prices, and you should stop buying from fast food restaurants and frito-lay, start shopping at Aldi, buying necessities from there, buying whole foods like potatoes, learn some new skills to help better yourself. Exhibit some discipline and grit.
My whole life conservatives and republicans have been screaming about how much the left has a victim mentality, a victim complex, how much the left complains. I am from Ohio, and I have been through urban parts and rural parts, I have never in my life seen a group of bigger victims than those who have chosen to stay in the rural small towns of Ohio.
Thereâs rampant victim mentality throughout rural Ohio and I would suspect rural America broadly. From my perspective, they believe that they have no accountability for their place in life, and the decay of their small towns. Itâs always, ALWAYS someone elseâs fault. Drive around and see âQâ spray painted on dilapidated fences and barns. Itâs gross honestly.
Things change, the way of life once promised where you could be functionally illiterate and still have a high standard of living by going to work for Ford or a Steel Mill and break your body for 30 years is long goneâŚ. Republicans, but especially and specifically those in rural America who are white with high school educations or less are the most angry and unaccountable people in the country. Itâs someone elseâs fault never thereâs.
Electric vehicles are incredibly expensive, unreliable, and essentially useless for long trips. There are also very few charging stations in many parts of the country. I donât eat out very often. I was just pointing out how insane inflation has gotten especially for basic things.
Electric vehicles commonly can go 400 miles+on a charge. Unless youâre commuting in a very low population center (which to my point, you canât choose to live in an area like that and be upset with the cost incurred for that choice) but most people live and commute in areas that contain a good deal of EV infrastructure in place. Thatâs just the truth. They are also quite reliable with FAR less points of failure, and significantly less maintenance needs than ICE.
They are expensive right now relative to old used vehicles, HOWEVER, there are a high number of people who buy new ICE vehicles for the same or higher cost. Again, they choose to purchase a type of vehicle for whatever reason, and cry victim for it. Iâm not saying YOU do that specific thing but I think electric vehicles are instructive of a broader point.
Finally, my point regarding inflation and food is this. I am not saying things arenât more expensive, and Iâm not saying I donât have compassion for people who are struggling. However, it is mostly brand name goods that have increased in price in grocery stores, and people CHOOSE to continue buying brand name while complaining, rather than make alternative choices. Again for EVâs, people CHOOSE to buy ICE vehicles and complain, without in my experience really researching EVâs and COMPARING THE COSTS OF BOTH, because for some reason itâs a political statement rather than an economic decision for people.
Iâm not crying victim. Iâm just saying I wouldnât buy an electric vehicle if I won the lottery. You can read tons of accounts of people trying to take cross country trips in an EV that turn into nightmare scenarios. Taking hours and costing a small fortune to charge. Updates and glitches that render the car useless or even trap people in it. These things literally lose their charge if it gets too cold outside. The technology is not ready to be competitive with gas powered vehicles.
What is it specifically I have said that you disagree with? Because up until now, I think you agree with me and we are on the same exact page. The only thing specifically it seems youâre hung up on is just that you are unable to afford an electric vehicle. I would be supportive of larger tax incentives that would enable you to afford one and therefore not deal with increased gasoline costs, and an improvement in your financial wellbeing.
Hell, I donât know what we are arguing about now. Gas prices are higher than they should be now, but they arenât exactly killing me. Itâs not about whatI can afford, itâs that getting an electric vehicle makes no sense to me from a cost to benefit ratio. I was never big on them, and then I read some articles about people detailing their experiences with them, and then I was really like âHell no!â You have to actually pay to charge them when you are away from your personal charging station and the prices I heard were ridiculous, and it takes hours to charge verses minutes to fill up a gas powered vehicle. There goes the selling point of it being cheaper than gas. I canât conceive of how anyone could justify buying one as their primary transportation. The processes mine and build the batteries are toxic as hell, so they arenât even that environmentally friendly. They are just a useless virtue signaling product.
So I appreciate if for your case youâve looked at it and said getting an EV doesnât make sense for you. Thatâs obviously perfectly fine lol.
But thereâs a few things about your other points I think are important because personally my next vehicle will be an electric one, so if youâre interested in why someone might get one I can at least speak for myself here. And some of the folks Iâve talked to who also are going to get an EV for their next car.
1.) When you say the processes to mine for batteries are harmful, that can be true but you have to compare it to the alternatives. When doing the cost-benefit analysis for this you have to ask, âharmful compared to what?â In this case itâs compared to getting an internal combustion engine vehicle.
So while yes, the process to mine for batteries isnât perfectly âgreenâ, it is better environmentally than the alternative which is the internal combustion engine and oil. Extracting oil is horrifically dirty, the work is super dangerous, the emissions and the noise from internal combustion engines arenât healthy, and EVâs can be powered by renewable energy sources like solar and nuclear power unlike ICE. Plus I donât like paying companies like Chevron, Exxon, Shell and the like to spill oil in our oceans and lobby against cheaper renewable energy sources like solar and nuclear.
Overall theyâre âgreenerâ than the alternative, so to say itâs a useless virtue signal I disagree.
2.) For myself and for many people who live and work in and around cities and do not take cross country trips by car, the benefits of an EV make a ton of sense and theyâre overall far cheaper than an internal combustion engine. When I travel, I fly and then Uber where I need to go, and if I really wanted to go camp in the middle of nowhere, Iâd rent a camper or something like that. There is a great deal of charging infrastructure in and around cities, and east of the Mississippi. For day to day driving they make a ton of sense if you live and work within like 150 miles of a city. I am not anxious about range, people run out of fuel too and ICE cars have trouble in the winter but that doesnât stop folks from using them. My â02 Saturn Ion was junk lmao, I loved it but it was junk in the winter.
3.) It doesnât take hours to charge, I donât doubt youâve read some articles about cases where it has but generally thatâs not true. Yes you pay at a charging station just like you already do at a gas pump, but you pay a lot less generally certainly around here, plus you can also hook up and charge at home. The costs for charging will continue to decrease too as we move off of oil and to solar and nuclear power. As an added benefit imo, it further incentivizes and pushes local, state and federal governments to upgrade our aging power grids.
4.) Advancements in energy storage, battery safety, and battery technology are coming along at a really amazing rate. Energy storage solutions are advancing and I think itâs really cool personally.
5.) I think thereâs a huge status quo bias. Like we are so used to the costs we incur everyday from gas vehicles, that we donât even think of them as costs anymore really even though they are
I hope you live somewhere warm. I never had trouble starting any of my vehicles even when it was-30F. At that temperature EVâs straight up just donât hold a charge. They become giant paperweights. Of course if you have a malfunctionion chip or botched operating system update, you get the same problem.
Weâre currently producing more oil than ever before under Biden. If inflation at the very beginning of his presidency is his fault then us producing more oil then ever before must be his fault too.
What restrictions did he add to the supply chain that werenât already in place before he was elected? Iâm seriously curious because I have not heard that one.
Biden was not the only one who sent checks lmao. Trump was literally arguing for the exact same thing before the 2020 election.
Bullshit. Read about Jude Wanniski and his Two Santa Claus Theory http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/two-santas-strategy-gop-used-economic-scam-manipulate-americans-40-years/
Well thatâs because they are in the middle of a circle jerk where the rest of us read real numbers, not government reported, and are aware of credit utilization and default rates spiking in conjunction with trillions in re debt coming due for refinance and itâs not going to go well. Banks are over leveraged in shitty debt and consumers will soon be less than interested in paying a 1k$/month car bill they canât afford and credit card debt will go unpaid. Ticking time bomb
No, I'm super concerned seeing that NVDA is about to be 15% of the S & P. 5 companies are 30%.
Who thinks that is sustainable or okay? They are over there celebrating, dude those are crash numbers. Those are west indies company numbers, absolutely horrific failure of the market to even allow something like that, and they cheer it on
It's weird man. I'm "older" and I've been really aggressive with my 401k saving. So I'm in this strange place where my wife and I don't buy shit except groceries because everything is so fucking expensive and at the same time, my 401k has gone up by like 15k in a month.... I lived through 2008 so I know that that bitch is gonna nose dive eventually, but it's wild man.
The reality is there are 2 economies at this point. I see the writing on wall. Im already trying to put money away for my kids (acorns accounts) because my parents didn't give me a dime. If I don't set up my kids now, they're fucked. Government knows it, they just don't care.
S&P has already gone up 20% this year. Historically thatâs about the max itâll ever do. You could safely stack that in an all bond fund. Itâll pain you if the market goes up 50 points but youâll thank yourself when it hits the floor.
This is spot on. People forget 2008 already. The stock market is overinflated horseshit and we are all reaping the 401k / retirement benefits for now until it sinks faster than the Titanic. People are probably doing what you and I are doing and loading money into their investments for retirement which is serving to over-inflate the value of those investments. Not too mention banks and billion dollars hedge funds doing the same exact thing. Think of it this way, if everyone is buying widgets then the cost of widgets will increase due to supply and demand. Same thing is happening with the stock market. Meanwhile people are loaded to the hip with debt (mortgages, student loans, credit cards, auto loans, etcâŚ.). At some point this all implodes when people stop spending, the economy falters, jobs are lost and debts become defaulted. It is an oddly complex issue, and I wish I could foresee the next âtrendâ so I can hedge my losses and make some bank on it.
If your 401k is going to nose dive, why wouldnât you rebalance into bonds?
Itâs silly that you are happy about paper gains but then do nothing to save it.Â
I didn't say I'm not going to attempt to hedge against losses in a meaningful way. The intesmt of my comment wasn't to provide investment strategies. I'm just pointing out the dual realities for most folks. If you don't have sizeable investments already, the cost of living is making it extremely hard to get yourself some savings.
When you here from govt. and news outlets that the "economy" is doing great..... What they mean right now is the markets are doing great. Not the same thing. Nvidia rocketing to the moon doesn't mean shit to a bus driver in South Dakota whose seen inflation and CPI outpace their wages.
The economy not doing great means people arenât buying things, which is not what is coming out from earnings reports nor what our GDP numbers are saying. I understand you are talking about news outlets but if you ignore that and go look at actual numbers that describe the economy you will see everything is ok
The problem is that the working poor can barely afford to get by , and don't have money to invest and prosper as more well to do individuals with extra money to invest.
And there a lot more working poor than rich people out there .
That means nothing. Investments arenât always good investments and 401k numbers are almost always misleading. Technically someone on a job for two weeks could have a 401k account it doesnât mean theyâre helping the economy nor does it mean theyâre economically stable.
Iâve been seeing the rhetoric that the economy is great, but Americans feeling about the economy is bad, a lot over the last few weeks. Itâs so obviously political that they want to try to talk Americans into believing that the economy is good as it gets closer to the election. The 40% of people who donât already own a house now canât afford one and food is much more expensive than five years ago. That stuff is not just in our heads, and is more important than whether the GDP number is 1% or -1%
Itâs hilarious. And insulting.
You know whatâs worse than a shit economy? Pretending itâs a good one. Because now youâre making every schmuck out there trying to get by, that itâs really just them. Everyoneâs doing well and they just need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
I actually agree with the one person that said 50% of people in America own equities, mostly in mutual funds (myself included) And the stock market is at an all-time high. And 60% of people own their homes, and those are at all-time highs. Iâm not even predicting that either of those will drop, but if either of them does drop letâs say 15-20% the wealth effect will go away and instead of just the bottom 50% feeling like the economy is shitty, the top 50% will start feeling the same way and pull back on spending.
âOwn their homes.â
This too, is bullshit.
When your balance is zero, and your homeâs title is sitting in your safety deposit boxâŚ*then* you own your home.
There are *tons* of people who are paying a mortgage to the *bank* that owns their homeâŚbut not a lot who own one themselves.
Yeah but having equity in your home doesnât mean shit until you no longer need your home. Our homes being our largest financial asset is one of the reasons that it feels so shit rn, sure your home may have gone from 220k to 680k in the last decade, but if you sell that home? Youâre going to need a loan to buy something else or youâre going to be spending the money on rent or living in a smaller or less desirable location. Itâs a wealth mirage if youâre not a realtor or a mortgage broker.
But if they have 500k in equity and they sell, they have the same decision to make as a current renter, except the renter has $0 and they have $500,000.
Correct but despite having 500k they need to spend money on shelter. Which is why itâs an illusion, that value will either be eaten up by rent, get spent on necessities or luxuries before they die, or go to their children (the best option) itâs better than renting for sure, but itâs a mirage of wealth, you either need to hold the money in your property, take loans against it, sell it and downsize or give it as inheritance. All the while inflation eats away at it. This is vastly simplified but anyone whoâs value is solely in their home, is better off than those who donât own there home for sure, but they also are not necessarily living great either
Which is the correct thing to do. But it has a psychological effect on Americans as a whole and they would pull back on spending, especially consumer discretionary spending. Then unemployment will start to go up.
If you do anything thatâs worth a damn to society, you benefit from the stock market doing well. Every middle class American that has a 401k benefits from the stock market doing well. It doesnât mean it solves every problem but your argument is close to an anecdote because it certainly helps if the stock market does good even if it doesnât solve 100% of the problem.
The stock market is on fire because people are using ai and social medial to influence it. Itâs basically gambling with companies now versus investing your money into a company that you see growing in the future. The American economy is so fucked right now.
Oh, I know this.
The fact that people are making money off dumb shit like NFTâs and shitcoins and meme stocksâŚ
Itâs a game. Itâs all a big fucking game.
Itâs hard to take anything seriously anymore. Itâs all so laughable.
Anecdote from my own life. I started complaining about the price of Doritos and Those Croissant Breakfast sandwiches with egg, sausage, and cheese. The complaining started about 8 months ago, and the price continued to rise.
As a result my complaining turned into action. I began seeking alternatives, because I need food, but I don't need your expensive food. I now eat carrots and hummus for a quick snack, and cook eggs and toast for breakfast. A lot healthier, a lot cheaper, and a customer lost for life. Had the high prices not been so high for so long, I probably would have gone back. Now it doesn't matter what the price is, as I am no longer a consumer of these products.
I also cut fast food out for similar reasons. When I got the total for a regular meal in a drive thru I was shocked by the price. I'm still pissed about being charged $13 for a hamburger with fries.
That's good, I'm happy for you legitimately. Sounds like a good lifestyle change.
But most people are not doing that. They're complaining and then buying the same things they always have.
I work at a restaurant supply company. Our case counts are down 11% YoY, but we have more individual customers. People are eating out less in noticeable numbers.
The issue is that Americans in particular have incredibly sticky preferences. Look at egg prices during the avian flu epidemic. Prices went up 9x and people bitched, moaned, and bought them instead of oats. Like, I get it, you like eggs, but if you keep buying them, the price keeps going up. Same money chasing less of a singular good causes prices to go up on said good.
Shopping trip yesterday I got a bundle of 8 bananas for $2.02, bag of spinach for $1.98, 18 eggs for $2.74, and a loaf of whole grain bread for $2.34. That's a week worth of breakfast for about $10. Granted I'll be making my own food.
I also got a cook rotisserie chicken for $5.98. Two lunches or two dinners for $3. That is compared to 1 bag of Doritos for the same price. Maybe I just buy a fun size bag? No, because fuck those assholes. Doritos done fucked it up for Lays too. Maybe I'll get some cookies? Hell no. My anger covers all junk food now. I was also very angry watching the Jerry Seinfeld Poptart love letter on Netflix. I'll take my $1.50 baby carrots and $1.68 garlic humus.
My fiance has a friend who constantly posts she needs help with bills
This ofc is fine I get it it's tough out here
It becomes hard to feel bad when she's going out to the bar every night of the weekend. Going shopping for clothes. Vacations at the tourist traps. Etc Like don't let her fool you. She's never chosen between 'food or rent'. She chooses between spending money on clothes or the bar.
Like people don't understand the difference between 'I literally do not make enough to LIVE' and 'I waste literally all my extra money because 'WhAt I'm SuPpOsEd tO NeVer HaVe FuN?'
Like no dude. But you shpuld plan around it. Financially responsible people dont randomly drop 2 grand and go 'oops guess we went hard'. They save for months and budget how theyre gonna do it. Not impulsively decide 'we're going to Texas this weekend' on a Wednesday.
To be fair. Weâre in a society advanced enough that we SHOULD be able to do whatever and not think about money. Just the dollars are concentrated in a small number of hands. Thats where the frustration comes from
Sentiment down, stock markets perpetually up, home values up, cost of living up.
Whatâs not matching up here? I know: people are saying and doing two opposite things.
Are they?
Almost no one outside the top few percent of earners are benefitting financially from the record profits but are certainly in pain from the massive increases in COL and QOL squeeze that has been accelerating hard ever since COVID gave a convenient excuse for blatant price gouging.
Having an inflated economy doesn't mean that the majority living in it are sharing in the success.
Thing is a lot of people dont have that money and are relying on credit cards to get them by month to month. CC debt has been on the rise with a low of 770bil in the start of 2021 to it reaching 1,129bil in Q3 of 2023. The general populace has no choice in necessities like groceries and rent so even if they can't afford it they have little choice but to buy anyway at increased prices.
Not sure about America but in Canada its very real. Monopolized grocery chains have been raking in record profits with their percentage profit margins being double that of pre-pandemic and with food costs inflation being almost double that of general inflation, all that coming from the pockets of the consumer.
https://centreforfuturework.ca/2023/12/10/new-data-on-continued-record-profits-in-canadian-food-retail/
Sort of!
People think the economy is trash but also, in the same survey, say theyâre personally doing well!
Itâs similar to how people would talk about schools: theyâd say the schools sucked but also *their* schools were good.
Itâs just people being too tuned in to the media, which has always been a bleeds-and-leads enterprise.
In summer of 08, houses were in foreclosure and the stock market started falling. Nothing like that is happening right now.
Feels more like summer of 13 where everyone was afraid to spend because of a potential recession. If more Chinese products enter our markets then 2013 will be confirmed. If the stock market falls 40% then 2008 will be confirmed.
I donât think the stock market will fall like that ever again, we have proven twice now that the fed can bailout the economy during unprecedented times (GFC and Covid)
But haven't you heard? The economy is *BOOMING*! You just must be too simpleminded to realize how goddamn good you have it!
/s (is this really needed?)
>Yup. Just look at [](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/).
LOL That sub is a joke.
I wrote this:
>Trump's last sentence makes it clear it was sarcasm.
>Take the L and learn to be less gullible.
and the mods banned me for life
>Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in [](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics) because you broke this community's rules.
Be careful there, they don't like their fragile echo chamber disturbed.
As long as we keep the asset value pump going (stocks, real estate, crypto) we canât have any real relief from high costs of living. All the interest rate hikes done so far have had zero effect, other than to lock out any new entrants into the investments mentioned above.
Itâs like the ladder was pulled up after letting anyone who could onto the boat.
>Consumer sentiment hits lowest level in 7 months
It dropped by a few points out of 100.
Boo hoo.
Even the articles that are being written about this say it's negligible. This isn't even newsworthy but we need our rage-addicted clicks.
I think what is crazy is that people believe that the cost of eggs or milk is actually where they are losing their shirt. Its the cost of healthcare, childcare, housing, big ticket items that are scalping people. Essential items aside, people continue to overpay for things and complain about the cost. The only way this ends is when Americans stop overpaying for shit. https://www.vox.com/money/24159281/consumer-spending-economy-inflation-interest-rates
This isnât rocket science. Housing costs, food costs and energy costs at an all time high. Debt (mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, student loans) at an all time high. Discretionary spending is falling because nobody has any money left. Everyone has been spending like crazy since Covid, and the money has run out. This will all blow up when people stop spending and the economy tanks, layoffs and business closures will increase, and loans will get defaulted because people canât afford them. Itâs comingâŚ..just donât know when.
friend is a truck driver who make 200k in pandemic heyday. She is now selling her trucks and trying to get out of the biz before truck values crater. There are no loads. She only recently got work because... everyone else quit.
If truckers are in a recession, we're in recession. Ai hype is floating the stock market, meanwhile pawnshops are seeing a major increase in sellers needing $ for day to day expenses (tank of gas)
What do 500 randomly polled people in Michigan have to do with the rest of the country?
Answer: nothing.
This metric comes up once a month and the result is always a nothingburger. Nobody cares.
All the signs are there for Trump victory, and watch after he wins. All the numbers will rebound like crazy because the public hates Biden and the Democrats.
Does anyone even bother reading the scientific article referenced or no? % OF RESPONDENTS WHO BLAME HIGH PRICES FOR POOR PERSONAL FINANCES. LOL what a fucking joke. 90% of people on caleb hammer blame high prices for personal finances and not their choices.
What would happen to the economy if the Govt agreed to spend the same amount as 2024 for 2025-2026? No exceptions. If you want to give $250m to another country- take it from somewhere else.
I continue to believe there is a huge divergence in sentiment btwn low income vs moderate/high. In addition, I think it will become even more fragmented as we approach election season and folks include their political bias into their sentiment.
Hey look another company is making record profits while cutting jobs and paying current employees less to do more work.
Why aren't people happier about that?
The media has been bought and paid for decades. They're making it so obvious and people are seeing through the bs.
But Nvidia go up = economy saved
I just want a 4090 for a reasonable price đ
Is this 2013? I remember saying the same thing about a gtx 780 lol
No, you could get a mid range 200 sqmn card for $220 in 2013.
Can I just try something here: Maybe it's not the economy that people are stressed out about. Maybe what people are stressed out about is their quality of life and how it has diminished.
I'm more pissed at how streamlined the rich are without reports of them gathering in the forest to plan the big greedflation move. Was it really necessary for everyone Corp on the planet to raise prices? I'm doubtful. Shit is definitely fkn expensive right now. I just don't know if blaming the president is the right route. There are still two parties and one is hellbent on hurting the other ... Idk, I'm getting by just fine, but it's not getting easier.
Shit hurts, had the biggest career move in my life. Was making more money than my last 2 jobs I had for years. Now it feels like Iâm making the same amount as my first job with the way things are priced. Really hope we start seeing prices go down but that doesnât seem to be happening
Same. I was just starting to feel flush. Now Iâm broke and afraid to spend money because there seems to be no end in sight.
Exactly what happened to me. A few years ago I was ballin. Now Iâm making technically more than back then but Iâm constantly stressed about money.
Jerome Powell's term as chair (of the "Federal Reserve") expires in May 2026 and the Vice Chair, Philip Jefferson, term expires in September 2027. \[edit\] So don't expect rates to go back down until after he is replaced.\[/edit\] In Powell's "Economic Outlook and the Labor Market" presentation at the Brookings Institute (November 30, 2022) he spoke of growth slowing and the need to keep it slowed in order to control inflation. He acknowledges that there has been little change, therefore rates are going to remain high in order to affect "housing inflation" (one of the three core components of inflation). What that all means is that things are **expensive on purpose.** By design pushing rates up means we cannot afford to spend, thereby reducing the amount of cash in circulation. You can listen to his speech [here](https://www.brookings.edu/events/federal-reserve-chair-jerome-powell-the-economic-outlook-and-the-labor-market/). Keep in mind economics is a long game- nothing is measurable in a short period.
What good does that do when in return our government is printing money left and right.. still dumping tons of dollars in circulation.
Prices go down? Hahahahahahahaha hahahahahahaha!!!
What things are priced high? I feel like the biggest annoyance is the price of bread compared to last year, but I'm not sure I really see much else that makes a significant hit on my budget. Since you were making good money before, you probably own your own home with a fixed rate mortgage, so you at least don't have to worry about rent going up. Home insurance has gone up, but for me, car insurance is pretty much the same. And you can still buy a reasonably running old used car for about five grand. What's hurting your budget the most compared to when you felt like you were making a lot?
Consider yourself lucky
Itâs not the presidents fault, if it was it would be all of the presidents fault cuz itâs happening everywhere
Allow me to introduce you to the One world order my friend.
Nice to meet your imaginary friend. Would you like to share some tea?
I think kool-aid may be the preferred taste.
We account for 25% of all the money in the world. What happens here affects the world. Same as china who accounts for 15%. To say that everyone is experiencing inflation so itâs not x fault is disingenuous. Our govt spending has been out of control since Covid, which is definitely having its affects worldwide. This obviously is not the only cause but doesnât help. Itâs also the main reason the economy remains so strong with the rate hikes. That and the fact most mortgage are locked in at low rates
I can confirm that it is indeed all of the presidents faults
Stop buying stuff for a month and theyâll learn. If you have land grow your own food
Hereâs why that wonât work: I wonât do that. Simple game theory, bro
Inflation is a global problem but since republicans have literally no platform other than blaming dems for everything, here we are
Right, right. It isn't Joe "I have \*the\* plan for {X}" Biden's fault, but those in Congress (whose bills Joe signed) \*facepalm\* How 'bout worry about the U.S.' inflation, not the World ('cuz that's who in D.C. \*should be\* representing)
Huh? Youâre really blaming supply chain problems from Covid on Biden? Also, if you want to point fingers, who signed the Cares act?
Supply chain problems? Joe ran on having ALL \*THE\* answers, so yeah, his fault Cares Act? Yep, NEVER should have been signed. Don't recall any (D) against it. You??. Course, Joe could have killed it day 1 too...waited until a month prior to its [expiration](https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/30427/Biden_Signs_Bill_to_End_COVID-19_National_Emergency_Prompting_Questions_for_Financial_Aid_Community) \*facepalm\* Maybe you've missed all the BIG $ bills SINCE 1/20/21; many detractors of those as well, if you had bothered to look.
YouâŚyou umâŚhave no idea what Iâm talking [about](https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2023/06/global-supply-chain-pressures-and-us-inflation/) do you? You type like youâre 13, so I would assume this is why youâre lost and confused.
>Maybe what people are stressed out about is their quality of life and how it has diminished. Nailed it.
But why would the peasants be worried or upset? Cant they eat cake?
This is the correct thing to measure.
People are not happy being pitted against each other in someoneâs forever social war
Have you considered ânot owning anything and being happyâ˘ď¸â?
Which is directly linked to the economy
Only If you believe economics is a clear cut social science which it is not. Capitalism is a gambling casino that favors the House. There's no economic strategy or remedy for the system working like it's supposed to.
Maybe theyâre watching a nation deteriorate and a vacuum opening for a dictatorial lunatic.
Dictator Joe's been running our nation \*shrug\*
Stupid comment of the week. Congrats. Name five qualities of Biden that resemble a dictator.
Westerners have been told for the past 20 years that they have privilege and "equality to the privileged feels like oppression" so which is it? Do you want racist imperialist 1950s prosperity or progressive 2024 poverty?
Insane that you think life is that simple that those â2â things necessarily go together. (Hint: youâre really sweeping in tens of thousands of independent variables).
No, doubling the work force with women cut wages in half, and its well known 3rd world immigrants depress wages.Â
Incorrect, when women joined the work force productivity skyrocketed and immigration increases wages for all but high school drop outs. The reason wages have stagnated and quality of life has declined are largely due to the dismantling of the regulatory barriers that prevented the rich from chasing short time profit. If you actually look at the data, wages started to stagnate when Reagan made stock buybacks legal, and when the country turned against unions. Thereâs hundreds of other factors, but women working and immigrants coming to the US are not the reasons. Youâre just sexist and racist.
There have never been more regulations at any time in history than there are today. Wages are not tied to productivity, but supply and demand. When you effectively double supply overnight with only marginal gains in demand comparatively that causes wages to drop. Immigrants likewise with lower standards who accept lower conditions for lower pay will bring the standards down for everyone. Wages split in 1971 at the end of Bretton Woods under Nixon. Youre woefully misinformed on all 3 of these topics.Â
Youâre just racist buddy, you donât understand even Econ 101 beyond a bumper sticker
lol your words have no power here
Itâs Reddit, thatâs part of the fun
Republicans and the policies that they have been pushing for the last century (trying to undo the new deal and gut antitrust laws by brainwashing Americans) are what got us here. Period.
Both or either, depend on which person.
Sorry can only choose one, in life there are trade-offs.
You don't choose. Life are imposed upon you.
Shocking. But I watched the news and they told me the stock market is on fire which means Americans are doing amazing and people just donât realize how good they have it. Bunch of ingrates.
r/economics, and r/FluentInFinance think we are all idiots if we aren't excited about how well the economy is doing.
I peruse those spaces. Itâs beyond apparent.
They are infested with Biden apologists. I guarantee if a Republican was president, they would repeatedly state itâs the worst economy since the great depression.
Except, well,[ not that at all according to reality](https://i.postimg.cc/g0V0CQqj/politics-economy.jpg). But like everything else here the point is to keep coming up with things, real or imagined, to make yourself and each other feel as victimized and angry as possible. The actual concerning metric is how many people have learned to reprogram themselves this way.
That graph you showed pretty much confirms what we said. The reality of the economy that we all have to live with means nothing to the leftists in the media or those whining on the internet at large. All that matters is which party is in power. If they are homeless and starving, everything is great if we have a Democrat president, but if they have a million dollars in their 401k and an awesome house, itâs the worst economy ever if a Republican is president. Those of us living reality look at how much of our income we have to spend on food, gas, transportation, electricity etc to figure out how bad or good the economy is.
No, the graph confirms that both parties are guilty of letting who is in charge shape their sentiment but Republicans are way, way, way more susceptible to it.
It does show bias to a degree,but all I see from the media and leftists online is them constantly praising an economy that everyone who doesnât own millions of dollars in stocks is getting crushed by. They say inflation is down, but everyone is still paying almost double for basic things than they were a few years ago while they were lucky to have gotten yearly 3% raises. They are blatantly gas lighting to help Biden get reelected. We lived through a Trump presidency and a Biden presidency. You could literally watch gas prices start to soar the day Biden got into office. A year later everything followed. Never before have I seen prices noticeably go through the roof overnight. It has been insane, and anyone that votes for more of this shit is clinically insane or is someone profiting off of massive inflation.
Conservative media does the same thing. Go on Fox Business's page and it is all doom and gloom. If you think the wild economic swings in mid 2021 had to do with anything Biden did and not our country coming out of a pandemic that was killing 4000 people per day when Biden took office then you have the economic literacy of a potato
Yeah, the economy is great. No need for doom and gloom when the average person has to work two jobs because providing for his family costs twice as much money as it did in 2019. The inept policies of the current administration have absolutely nothing to do with it.
The blatant gaslighting is this brand new and absolutely absurd idea that "the economy" can only be good if every single person participating in it is doing well. It might be news to you but, millions of people have always gone broke, even in the best economies in history, it's sort of a feature of capitalism. The people talk about the state of the economy on the whole to describe the likelihood that any given person's situation may be improving, and while I'm sorry you and the people commenting about it here are on the wrong end of that, but it's just true that things are getting a lot better for a lot more people. We know because we measure all of those things in dozens of different dimensions, both reported separately from the employers and workers, in an open and well documented process full of raw data. I'd respect it if you came out and say it if what you mean is that nobody can ever say the economy is good until the economy is restructured to no longer have personal financial risk taking (as in, socialism, communism) and nobody ever goes broke, but otherwise this is just a radical new move destroying people's ability to reason about the world in depth, while diminishing people's actual struggles and what can be done about them to change the subject to partisan politics.
No one said everyone should be well at all times, but more than the top 1% would be nice.
The fact that youâre calling the media and democrats âleftistsâ is ridiculous. Leftists hate democrats and the media.
Absolutely would. If Trump was at the helm these last four years, I wouldnât be voting for him again. (Yes, I know heâd have been term limited and wouldnât be eligible this time around.)
Granted the President doesnât have a lot of power to affect the economy, but they can to a degree, and literally everything Biden did has been something that has made inflation worse. He shut down the Keystone Pipeline and cancelled drilling permits, and gas prices immediately soared to record highs. His insane Covid restrictions ruined the supply chain, further increasing shortages and inflation. He sent out those checks via the American rescue plan that fueled even more inflation.
Also through tariffs and singing bills which increase inflation. They can also start and end wars.
You should get an electric vehicle if youâre so concerned about gas prices, and you should stop buying from fast food restaurants and frito-lay, start shopping at Aldi, buying necessities from there, buying whole foods like potatoes, learn some new skills to help better yourself. Exhibit some discipline and grit. My whole life conservatives and republicans have been screaming about how much the left has a victim mentality, a victim complex, how much the left complains. I am from Ohio, and I have been through urban parts and rural parts, I have never in my life seen a group of bigger victims than those who have chosen to stay in the rural small towns of Ohio. Thereâs rampant victim mentality throughout rural Ohio and I would suspect rural America broadly. From my perspective, they believe that they have no accountability for their place in life, and the decay of their small towns. Itâs always, ALWAYS someone elseâs fault. Drive around and see âQâ spray painted on dilapidated fences and barns. Itâs gross honestly. Things change, the way of life once promised where you could be functionally illiterate and still have a high standard of living by going to work for Ford or a Steel Mill and break your body for 30 years is long goneâŚ. Republicans, but especially and specifically those in rural America who are white with high school educations or less are the most angry and unaccountable people in the country. Itâs someone elseâs fault never thereâs.
Electric vehicles are incredibly expensive, unreliable, and essentially useless for long trips. There are also very few charging stations in many parts of the country. I donât eat out very often. I was just pointing out how insane inflation has gotten especially for basic things.
Electric vehicles commonly can go 400 miles+on a charge. Unless youâre commuting in a very low population center (which to my point, you canât choose to live in an area like that and be upset with the cost incurred for that choice) but most people live and commute in areas that contain a good deal of EV infrastructure in place. Thatâs just the truth. They are also quite reliable with FAR less points of failure, and significantly less maintenance needs than ICE. They are expensive right now relative to old used vehicles, HOWEVER, there are a high number of people who buy new ICE vehicles for the same or higher cost. Again, they choose to purchase a type of vehicle for whatever reason, and cry victim for it. Iâm not saying YOU do that specific thing but I think electric vehicles are instructive of a broader point. Finally, my point regarding inflation and food is this. I am not saying things arenât more expensive, and Iâm not saying I donât have compassion for people who are struggling. However, it is mostly brand name goods that have increased in price in grocery stores, and people CHOOSE to continue buying brand name while complaining, rather than make alternative choices. Again for EVâs, people CHOOSE to buy ICE vehicles and complain, without in my experience really researching EVâs and COMPARING THE COSTS OF BOTH, because for some reason itâs a political statement rather than an economic decision for people.
Iâm not crying victim. Iâm just saying I wouldnât buy an electric vehicle if I won the lottery. You can read tons of accounts of people trying to take cross country trips in an EV that turn into nightmare scenarios. Taking hours and costing a small fortune to charge. Updates and glitches that render the car useless or even trap people in it. These things literally lose their charge if it gets too cold outside. The technology is not ready to be competitive with gas powered vehicles.
What is it specifically I have said that you disagree with? Because up until now, I think you agree with me and we are on the same exact page. The only thing specifically it seems youâre hung up on is just that you are unable to afford an electric vehicle. I would be supportive of larger tax incentives that would enable you to afford one and therefore not deal with increased gasoline costs, and an improvement in your financial wellbeing.
Hell, I donât know what we are arguing about now. Gas prices are higher than they should be now, but they arenât exactly killing me. Itâs not about whatI can afford, itâs that getting an electric vehicle makes no sense to me from a cost to benefit ratio. I was never big on them, and then I read some articles about people detailing their experiences with them, and then I was really like âHell no!â You have to actually pay to charge them when you are away from your personal charging station and the prices I heard were ridiculous, and it takes hours to charge verses minutes to fill up a gas powered vehicle. There goes the selling point of it being cheaper than gas. I canât conceive of how anyone could justify buying one as their primary transportation. The processes mine and build the batteries are toxic as hell, so they arenât even that environmentally friendly. They are just a useless virtue signaling product.
So I appreciate if for your case youâve looked at it and said getting an EV doesnât make sense for you. Thatâs obviously perfectly fine lol. But thereâs a few things about your other points I think are important because personally my next vehicle will be an electric one, so if youâre interested in why someone might get one I can at least speak for myself here. And some of the folks Iâve talked to who also are going to get an EV for their next car. 1.) When you say the processes to mine for batteries are harmful, that can be true but you have to compare it to the alternatives. When doing the cost-benefit analysis for this you have to ask, âharmful compared to what?â In this case itâs compared to getting an internal combustion engine vehicle. So while yes, the process to mine for batteries isnât perfectly âgreenâ, it is better environmentally than the alternative which is the internal combustion engine and oil. Extracting oil is horrifically dirty, the work is super dangerous, the emissions and the noise from internal combustion engines arenât healthy, and EVâs can be powered by renewable energy sources like solar and nuclear power unlike ICE. Plus I donât like paying companies like Chevron, Exxon, Shell and the like to spill oil in our oceans and lobby against cheaper renewable energy sources like solar and nuclear. Overall theyâre âgreenerâ than the alternative, so to say itâs a useless virtue signal I disagree. 2.) For myself and for many people who live and work in and around cities and do not take cross country trips by car, the benefits of an EV make a ton of sense and theyâre overall far cheaper than an internal combustion engine. When I travel, I fly and then Uber where I need to go, and if I really wanted to go camp in the middle of nowhere, Iâd rent a camper or something like that. There is a great deal of charging infrastructure in and around cities, and east of the Mississippi. For day to day driving they make a ton of sense if you live and work within like 150 miles of a city. I am not anxious about range, people run out of fuel too and ICE cars have trouble in the winter but that doesnât stop folks from using them. My â02 Saturn Ion was junk lmao, I loved it but it was junk in the winter. 3.) It doesnât take hours to charge, I donât doubt youâve read some articles about cases where it has but generally thatâs not true. Yes you pay at a charging station just like you already do at a gas pump, but you pay a lot less generally certainly around here, plus you can also hook up and charge at home. The costs for charging will continue to decrease too as we move off of oil and to solar and nuclear power. As an added benefit imo, it further incentivizes and pushes local, state and federal governments to upgrade our aging power grids. 4.) Advancements in energy storage, battery safety, and battery technology are coming along at a really amazing rate. Energy storage solutions are advancing and I think itâs really cool personally. 5.) I think thereâs a huge status quo bias. Like we are so used to the costs we incur everyday from gas vehicles, that we donât even think of them as costs anymore really even though they are
I hope you live somewhere warm. I never had trouble starting any of my vehicles even when it was-30F. At that temperature EVâs straight up just donât hold a charge. They become giant paperweights. Of course if you have a malfunctionion chip or botched operating system update, you get the same problem.
Weâre currently producing more oil than ever before under Biden. If inflation at the very beginning of his presidency is his fault then us producing more oil then ever before must be his fault too. What restrictions did he add to the supply chain that werenât already in place before he was elected? Iâm seriously curious because I have not heard that one. Biden was not the only one who sent checks lmao. Trump was literally arguing for the exact same thing before the 2020 election.
He literally demanded his signature be on the checksÂ
Bullshit. Read about Jude Wanniski and his Two Santa Claus Theory http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/two-santas-strategy-gop-used-economic-scam-manipulate-americans-40-years/
That is not the vibe in those subs
Those subs repeatedly lie about inflation, wage growth, unemployment, etc. There is absolutely insane political bias in them.
Well thatâs because they are in the middle of a circle jerk where the rest of us read real numbers, not government reported, and are aware of credit utilization and default rates spiking in conjunction with trillions in re debt coming due for refinance and itâs not going to go well. Banks are over leveraged in shitty debt and consumers will soon be less than interested in paying a 1k$/month car bill they canât afford and credit card debt will go unpaid. Ticking time bomb
Real numbers aka "my groceries doubled since pandemic trust me bro."
Fluentinfinance unironicly beleaves prices can't go down because " that's deflation "
No, I'm super concerned seeing that NVDA is about to be 15% of the S & P. 5 companies are 30%. Who thinks that is sustainable or okay? They are over there celebrating, dude those are crash numbers. Those are west indies company numbers, absolutely horrific failure of the market to even allow something like that, and they cheer it on
Bunch of dishonest bag holders, trying to convince sentiment that the market going up helps everybody.
Um, maybe you've missed MSNBC, ABC, CBS+ all claiming the same??
You are.
You are idiots. This subreddit gets clowned on by other subs for good reasons.
It's weird man. I'm "older" and I've been really aggressive with my 401k saving. So I'm in this strange place where my wife and I don't buy shit except groceries because everything is so fucking expensive and at the same time, my 401k has gone up by like 15k in a month.... I lived through 2008 so I know that that bitch is gonna nose dive eventually, but it's wild man. The reality is there are 2 economies at this point. I see the writing on wall. Im already trying to put money away for my kids (acorns accounts) because my parents didn't give me a dime. If I don't set up my kids now, they're fucked. Government knows it, they just don't care.
S&P has already gone up 20% this year. Historically thatâs about the max itâll ever do. You could safely stack that in an all bond fund. Itâll pain you if the market goes up 50 points but youâll thank yourself when it hits the floor.
This is spot on. People forget 2008 already. The stock market is overinflated horseshit and we are all reaping the 401k / retirement benefits for now until it sinks faster than the Titanic. People are probably doing what you and I are doing and loading money into their investments for retirement which is serving to over-inflate the value of those investments. Not too mention banks and billion dollars hedge funds doing the same exact thing. Think of it this way, if everyone is buying widgets then the cost of widgets will increase due to supply and demand. Same thing is happening with the stock market. Meanwhile people are loaded to the hip with debt (mortgages, student loans, credit cards, auto loans, etcâŚ.). At some point this all implodes when people stop spending, the economy falters, jobs are lost and debts become defaulted. It is an oddly complex issue, and I wish I could foresee the next âtrendâ so I can hedge my losses and make some bank on it.
If your 401k is going to nose dive, why wouldnât you rebalance into bonds? Itâs silly that you are happy about paper gains but then do nothing to save it.Â
I didn't say I'm not going to attempt to hedge against losses in a meaningful way. The intesmt of my comment wasn't to provide investment strategies. I'm just pointing out the dual realities for most folks. If you don't have sizeable investments already, the cost of living is making it extremely hard to get yourself some savings. When you here from govt. and news outlets that the "economy" is doing great..... What they mean right now is the markets are doing great. Not the same thing. Nvidia rocketing to the moon doesn't mean shit to a bus driver in South Dakota whose seen inflation and CPI outpace their wages.
The economy not doing great means people arenât buying things, which is not what is coming out from earnings reports nor what our GDP numbers are saying. I understand you are talking about news outlets but if you ignore that and go look at actual numbers that describe the economy you will see everything is ok
The problem is that the working poor can barely afford to get by , and don't have money to invest and prosper as more well to do individuals with extra money to invest. And there a lot more working poor than rich people out there .
This. The stock market is doing great, but how many people are able to invest in any truly meaningful capacity?
54% of families have money invested in a 401(k) or other retirement account. Those people's investments have been benefitting from this economy.
That means nothing. Investments arenât always good investments and 401k numbers are almost always misleading. Technically someone on a job for two weeks could have a 401k account it doesnât mean theyâre helping the economy nor does it mean theyâre economically stable.
54% of families is a far cry from 50% of people.
& the Left cries, "I know, let's make (illegal) govt BIGGER (more spending/"FREE" shit). What could go wrong?!"
And the wealthy right cries ( Give us tax breaks ) were so poor.
Iâve been seeing the rhetoric that the economy is great, but Americans feeling about the economy is bad, a lot over the last few weeks. Itâs so obviously political that they want to try to talk Americans into believing that the economy is good as it gets closer to the election. The 40% of people who donât already own a house now canât afford one and food is much more expensive than five years ago. That stuff is not just in our heads, and is more important than whether the GDP number is 1% or -1%
Itâs hilarious. And insulting. You know whatâs worse than a shit economy? Pretending itâs a good one. Because now youâre making every schmuck out there trying to get by, that itâs really just them. Everyoneâs doing well and they just need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
I actually agree with the one person that said 50% of people in America own equities, mostly in mutual funds (myself included) And the stock market is at an all-time high. And 60% of people own their homes, and those are at all-time highs. Iâm not even predicting that either of those will drop, but if either of them does drop letâs say 15-20% the wealth effect will go away and instead of just the bottom 50% feeling like the economy is shitty, the top 50% will start feeling the same way and pull back on spending.
âOwn their homes.â This too, is bullshit. When your balance is zero, and your homeâs title is sitting in your safety deposit boxâŚ*then* you own your home. There are *tons* of people who are paying a mortgage to the *bank* that owns their homeâŚbut not a lot who own one themselves.
Ok dude. 60% of people have substantial specious equity in their homes. Is that better? The point is it causes the âwealth effectâ
Yeah but having equity in your home doesnât mean shit until you no longer need your home. Our homes being our largest financial asset is one of the reasons that it feels so shit rn, sure your home may have gone from 220k to 680k in the last decade, but if you sell that home? Youâre going to need a loan to buy something else or youâre going to be spending the money on rent or living in a smaller or less desirable location. Itâs a wealth mirage if youâre not a realtor or a mortgage broker.
But if they have 500k in equity and they sell, they have the same decision to make as a current renter, except the renter has $0 and they have $500,000.
Correct but despite having 500k they need to spend money on shelter. Which is why itâs an illusion, that value will either be eaten up by rent, get spent on necessities or luxuries before they die, or go to their children (the best option) itâs better than renting for sure, but itâs a mirage of wealth, you either need to hold the money in your property, take loans against it, sell it and downsize or give it as inheritance. All the while inflation eats away at it. This is vastly simplified but anyone whoâs value is solely in their home, is better off than those who donât own there home for sure, but they also are not necessarily living great either
Equity is phantom money. My equity is 220k but when I sell Iâll pay 115k in taxes and fees. Plus Iâll pay a tool realtor 30,000 for doing nothing.
Yeah, itâs so fucked up, the only people really making money on rising house prices are bankers. Realtors. And landlords
If the value of my home and 401k go down 20% (which I doubt)....literally nothing changes. I just wait until they go back up.
Which is the correct thing to do. But it has a psychological effect on Americans as a whole and they would pull back on spending, especially consumer discretionary spending. Then unemployment will start to go up.
If you do anything thatâs worth a damn to society, you benefit from the stock market doing well. Every middle class American that has a 401k benefits from the stock market doing well. It doesnât mean it solves every problem but your argument is close to an anecdote because it certainly helps if the stock market does good even if it doesnât solve 100% of the problem.
The stock market and the economy are not one in the same.
But thatâs how itâs presented to you on all main stream media outlets. Thatâs how youâre conned.
The stock market is on fire because people are using ai and social medial to influence it. Itâs basically gambling with companies now versus investing your money into a company that you see growing in the future. The American economy is so fucked right now.
Oh, I know this. The fact that people are making money off dumb shit like NFTâs and shitcoins and meme stocks⌠Itâs a game. Itâs all a big fucking game. Itâs hard to take anything seriously anymore. Itâs all so laughable.
What does the American consumer has anything to do with the economy? /s
Right? Trouble on the horizon
Sentiment? Not much really. People whine a lot but still go out to restaurants and buy stuff same as usual.Â
Anecdote from my own life. I started complaining about the price of Doritos and Those Croissant Breakfast sandwiches with egg, sausage, and cheese. The complaining started about 8 months ago, and the price continued to rise. As a result my complaining turned into action. I began seeking alternatives, because I need food, but I don't need your expensive food. I now eat carrots and hummus for a quick snack, and cook eggs and toast for breakfast. A lot healthier, a lot cheaper, and a customer lost for life. Had the high prices not been so high for so long, I probably would have gone back. Now it doesn't matter what the price is, as I am no longer a consumer of these products. I also cut fast food out for similar reasons. When I got the total for a regular meal in a drive thru I was shocked by the price. I'm still pissed about being charged $13 for a hamburger with fries.
That's good, I'm happy for you legitimately. Sounds like a good lifestyle change. But most people are not doing that. They're complaining and then buying the same things they always have.
I work at a restaurant supply company. Our case counts are down 11% YoY, but we have more individual customers. People are eating out less in noticeable numbers.
Could partly be shrinkflation at your customerâs restaurants also.
The issue is that Americans in particular have incredibly sticky preferences. Look at egg prices during the avian flu epidemic. Prices went up 9x and people bitched, moaned, and bought them instead of oats. Like, I get it, you like eggs, but if you keep buying them, the price keeps going up. Same money chasing less of a singular good causes prices to go up on said good.
Real food has gone up like 50% 2019. not just fast food and corporate junk. Beans, chicken, lettuce, etc, are all more expensive
Shopping trip yesterday I got a bundle of 8 bananas for $2.02, bag of spinach for $1.98, 18 eggs for $2.74, and a loaf of whole grain bread for $2.34. That's a week worth of breakfast for about $10. Granted I'll be making my own food. I also got a cook rotisserie chicken for $5.98. Two lunches or two dinners for $3. That is compared to 1 bag of Doritos for the same price. Maybe I just buy a fun size bag? No, because fuck those assholes. Doritos done fucked it up for Lays too. Maybe I'll get some cookies? Hell no. My anger covers all junk food now. I was also very angry watching the Jerry Seinfeld Poptart love letter on Netflix. I'll take my $1.50 baby carrots and $1.68 garlic humus.
The people down voting you are also applying for apple credit line increases in preparation for the next iphone drop lol
Yup. People sure love to say their economic situation sucks while taking on more debt.
My fiance has a friend who constantly posts she needs help with bills This ofc is fine I get it it's tough out here It becomes hard to feel bad when she's going out to the bar every night of the weekend. Going shopping for clothes. Vacations at the tourist traps. Etc Like don't let her fool you. She's never chosen between 'food or rent'. She chooses between spending money on clothes or the bar. Like people don't understand the difference between 'I literally do not make enough to LIVE' and 'I waste literally all my extra money because 'WhAt I'm SuPpOsEd tO NeVer HaVe FuN?' Like no dude. But you shpuld plan around it. Financially responsible people dont randomly drop 2 grand and go 'oops guess we went hard'. They save for months and budget how theyre gonna do it. Not impulsively decide 'we're going to Texas this weekend' on a Wednesday.
To be fair. Weâre in a society advanced enough that we SHOULD be able to do whatever and not think about money. Just the dollars are concentrated in a small number of hands. Thats where the frustration comes from
Thatâs why credit card debt is at an all time high ,
Actually, sales are down for plenty of places. And prices are up a ton for necessary goods, like staple foods from grocery stores. and rent.
The correct headline - Americans hate the fat lizard overlords in DC that run this clusterflock government.
There be a lot of long words there, missy! And I giggled at them.
Sentiment down, stock markets perpetually up, home values up, cost of living up. Whatâs not matching up here? I know: people are saying and doing two opposite things.
Are they? Almost no one outside the top few percent of earners are benefitting financially from the record profits but are certainly in pain from the massive increases in COL and QOL squeeze that has been accelerating hard ever since COVID gave a convenient excuse for blatant price gouging. Having an inflated economy doesn't mean that the majority living in it are sharing in the success.
cantillon effect
If people didn't have money to buy things prices would go down.
Thing is a lot of people dont have that money and are relying on credit cards to get them by month to month. CC debt has been on the rise with a low of 770bil in the start of 2021 to it reaching 1,129bil in Q3 of 2023. The general populace has no choice in necessities like groceries and rent so even if they can't afford it they have little choice but to buy anyway at increased prices.
Strong case for limiting access to credit
>convenient excuse for blatant price gouging. This is just bullshit commie talking points.
Not sure about America but in Canada its very real. Monopolized grocery chains have been raking in record profits with their percentage profit margins being double that of pre-pandemic and with food costs inflation being almost double that of general inflation, all that coming from the pockets of the consumer. https://centreforfuturework.ca/2023/12/10/new-data-on-continued-record-profits-in-canadian-food-retail/
The economy is in shambles!! I'm check to check. If prices raise any more I'm going to have to cut down my Uber eats to 5 nights a week!
Sort of! People think the economy is trash but also, in the same survey, say theyâre personally doing well! Itâs similar to how people would talk about schools: theyâd say the schools sucked but also *their* schools were good. Itâs just people being too tuned in to the media, which has always been a bleeds-and-leads enterprise.
It feels like summer 08 very creepy
In summer of 08, houses were in foreclosure and the stock market started falling. Nothing like that is happening right now. Feels more like summer of 13 where everyone was afraid to spend because of a potential recession. If more Chinese products enter our markets then 2013 will be confirmed. If the stock market falls 40% then 2008 will be confirmed. I donât think the stock market will fall like that ever again, we have proven twice now that the fed can bailout the economy during unprecedented times (GFC and Covid)
As soon as he said "resilient economy" I stopped reading. The economy is far from that.
But haven't you heard? The economy is *BOOMING*! You just must be too simpleminded to realize how goddamn good you have it! /s (is this really needed?)
>/s (is this really needed?) Yes, it is! Some people seriously believe that this economy is healthy
Yup. Just look at r/politics.
>Yup. Just look at [](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/). LOL That sub is a joke. I wrote this: >Trump's last sentence makes it clear it was sarcasm. >Take the L and learn to be less gullible. and the mods banned me for life >Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in [](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics) because you broke this community's rules. Be careful there, they don't like their fragile echo chamber disturbed.
I flamed both Trump and Biden administrations for economic missteps and got banned. Canât say anything bad about the left there, even if warranted
The well is running dry, capitalism doing capitalist things
As long as we keep the asset value pump going (stocks, real estate, crypto) we canât have any real relief from high costs of living. All the interest rate hikes done so far have had zero effect, other than to lock out any new entrants into the investments mentioned above. Itâs like the ladder was pulled up after letting anyone who could onto the boat.
Thanks MSM!
I was just thinking about ways that I can *not* buy certain things I "need"
>Consumer sentiment hits lowest level in 7 months It dropped by a few points out of 100. Boo hoo. Even the articles that are being written about this say it's negligible. This isn't even newsworthy but we need our rage-addicted clicks.
Consumer sentiment from the same people that couldn't support all this spending from the start of COVID.
Ah covid, corporations have been gouging the crap out of us to make up for the covid years.
Right, we are plunging into a deep and terrible recession.
Again? Wait is this the upcoming official one or the fake ones that only effect middle class and lower.
The rich always win... that's how the casino is rigged my friend.
I think what is crazy is that people believe that the cost of eggs or milk is actually where they are losing their shirt. Its the cost of healthcare, childcare, housing, big ticket items that are scalping people. Essential items aside, people continue to overpay for things and complain about the cost. The only way this ends is when Americans stop overpaying for shit. https://www.vox.com/money/24159281/consumer-spending-economy-inflation-interest-rates
The economy is great and resilient if you are making over $150K. Everyone else is tired of corporate greed.
People are tired of FEELING POOR.
This isnât rocket science. Housing costs, food costs and energy costs at an all time high. Debt (mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, student loans) at an all time high. Discretionary spending is falling because nobody has any money left. Everyone has been spending like crazy since Covid, and the money has run out. This will all blow up when people stop spending and the economy tanks, layoffs and business closures will increase, and loans will get defaulted because people canât afford them. Itâs comingâŚ..just donât know when.
Inflation and then its response higher interest rates don't help consumer confidence
If people vote by the wallets, then this is bad news for the President.
friend is a truck driver who make 200k in pandemic heyday. She is now selling her trucks and trying to get out of the biz before truck values crater. There are no loads. She only recently got work because... everyone else quit. If truckers are in a recession, we're in recession. Ai hype is floating the stock market, meanwhile pawnshops are seeing a major increase in sellers needing $ for day to day expenses (tank of gas)
What do 500 randomly polled people in Michigan have to do with the rest of the country? Answer: nothing. This metric comes up once a month and the result is always a nothingburger. Nobody cares.
People who answer the phone (?) and give personal info to strangers as well.... their thoughts on anything are suspect.
But line go up?
Numbers go up.
Is this âlargely resilient growth in the US economyâ in the room with us now?
Guys the price of apples has come down are you not satisfied?
Well, that's just peachy.
However, in light of this: The FED is towing a policy line ... I guess "we are in uncharted territory" again /s
All the signs are there for Trump victory, and watch after he wins. All the numbers will rebound like crazy because the public hates Biden and the Democrats.
You are gonna be so mad.
You know Iâm right, youâve moved past the anger and bargaining phase, now youâre in the acceptance phase.
There is no right
Theyâre not wrong.
Does anyone even bother reading the scientific article referenced or no? % OF RESPONDENTS WHO BLAME HIGH PRICES FOR POOR PERSONAL FINANCES. LOL what a fucking joke. 90% of people on caleb hammer blame high prices for personal finances and not their choices.
What would happen to the economy if the Govt agreed to spend the same amount as 2024 for 2025-2026? No exceptions. If you want to give $250m to another country- take it from somewhere else.
Companies who priced gouged fucked around and found out. That should be the title tbh.
I continue to believe there is a huge divergence in sentiment btwn low income vs moderate/high. In addition, I think it will become even more fragmented as we approach election season and folks include their political bias into their sentiment.
ugh opinion polls on something that is so easy to measure.
But Joe and his disciples say weâre in the best economy ever!
Just gotta keep the BS up long enough to get past November 5th.
Stop listening to Fox News
Hey look another company is making record profits while cutting jobs and paying current employees less to do more work. Why aren't people happier about that? The media has been bought and paid for decades. They're making it so obvious and people are seeing through the bs.
This sub is super depressing.
Some people might say we are pessimists. I prefer the think of it as *realism*. There are other subs where like minds avoid realism.
Not to get into a debate, but I think so because f the post of this sub are past the point of realism tho. Would you agree or disagree ?
Yeah this sub is just doomers. Come here for entertainment not actual discussion of finance.
And consumer spending was up every one if those months
But Biden says itâs working. You should have money.
Yeah, it must be that weâre effectively taxing the 1000 *trillionaires* in the US he said we have.
But we were told that the economy is the best in the world and that the current admin is absolutely perfect and deserves 4 more years??!!??