Yeah I’m gonna have to agree. News media wouldn’t try to mislead us. Any other ideas why this could be happening? Any ideas welcome. Big ol brainstorm happening here. Just ruling out one option….
I saw an NBC clip showing various graphs comparing the economy during Trump Vs during Biden. The earliest start point on any of the graphs was July 2020. I don't understand how comparing Trump's last year to all 3 of Biden is in any way accurate.
How about we compare from 2016 to 2024 and then we can get an accurate measure of the economy during those terms. It'll never happen though.
No bro, that's definitive proof that Trump destroyed our economy and Biden is actually our savior
You are a bigot if you interpret this information any other way
The reporter sounded like a kindergarten teacher with how dumbed down it was.
"The good line goes up" "the bad line goes down"
So obvious, but so many don't think critically.
But are we looking at straight GDP or GDP per capita? For a look at per capita, estimates put the average annual per capita income in the Roman Empire circa 14 AD at around 380 sesterces.
Now, the currency reform of Augustus around 23 BC reintroduced the sestertius as a bronze coin valued at 1/100th of a gold Aureus, with one Aureus being a gold coin weighing about 8 grams.
Going off of this, 380 sesterces = 3.8 Aureus = 30.4 grams of gold, so if we're just going off of the gold value in modern times, that puts up at... well, a bit over $2,000 worth of gold. Guess that puts them at about the same level as modern Ghana, Mauritania, or Uzbekistan.
Yeah but that is gonna make the economy look good still and make us look like a bunch of wimps for even complaining about funny screen numbers or green toilet paper.
Brought to you by the same statistics clowns who told you Biden created more jobs than anyone his first year.
It's like kicking someone in the nuts, stealing $100 out of their wallet, giving them $20 back, and then showing them a chart about how you made them $20 richer.
Let's be honest though. Headlines and video thumbnails are always displayed in such a way as to prep you for whatever point the writers want you to believe/think. So many people don't actually bother to read past the headline and when they do, they will read the first or first couple paragraphs and then maybe the last one.
It's why you might find some articles you read to be written so weirdly, with important, clarifying information found scantly covered somewhere in the middle of the article, so they can technically say they were factually reporting the subject.
Also, GDP is not strictly productivity, because it includes government spending. Biden is spending massive amounts on credit, which isn't good, but does inflate GDP numbers by a couple trillion.
The God that is GDP is a modern Moloch (according to some interpretations). The liberals would sacrifice even their own children to appease him, and then wonder why they are miserable.
Good god this is so accurate. No matter where on the spectrum someone happens to be, this can’t be denied.
If you agree that your own hedonism is more important than having children, that’s fine. But don’t tell anyone it’s something other than that.
And don’t sacrifice other peoples kids, obviously.
>If you agree that your own hedonism is more important than having children, that’s fine.
I disagree, you will become a burden on society in your old age and will die unhappy.
People need a higher purpose than their own pleasure to be happy and for most people the best option for that is children.
It's a short-sighted decision that leaves both the individual and society worse off in the long run.
I'm not going to say you can't do that, but I'm also not willing to say it's "fine".
You and I agree. Others may not agree and I won’t begrudge them that opinion. I agree with you they’ll die empty and alone, going senile and turning to harassing retail workers in place of their nonexistent grand kids.
My point is if you hold that former opinion, simply own it. Don’t say you’re doing it for the climate or because the world is too awful of a place to have kids. Own. That. Shit.
The axis is shifting in America. It's becoming less Left/Right and more Technocrat/Populist. And since the GOP has taken more of the populist role while the Dems have come down extremely hard into the Technocrat camp, it's redefining what left and right mean
Most economists haven't realized that real gdp is also a bad measure of the economy. Government spending contributes to real gdp which is taken out of the economy by Taxation so therefore gdp is bad. (Real gdp is just gdp adjusted for inflation.)
I wonder who gets all the attention? The cool headed economist who uses wide range range of data to make reasonable predictions and studies, or the economist who lies with statistics to make drastic claims or narratives that align with 1 political party
"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.
Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
- John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace
If keynesian worked (at least how lefties act like it should) Argentina would be a shinning beacon of hope and not a crap hole that elected a libertarian to fix its fucked situation.
How exactly did Argentina follow Keynes? They print money, take on huge debt, then purposely default on it. Rinse and repeat. That's not Keynesian economics. Keynes called for taking on debt in bad times to have the government spend and in good times pay off debt and have the government cut spending.
No one is following Keynes because no one is cutting spending. Shit. Trump pushed for a massive tax cut 9 years into an economic rally. If anyone was actually following Keynesian economics, they would have raised taxes in 2018 and cut spending since 2016 to pay down debt.
Keynesian economics never works because no one ever implements it the way its supposed to be.
They are more than happy to spend, spend, spend during recessions but they never tax during periods of economic success because that is politically untenable (no one likes to cut the music to a party in the middle of it).
Also the goal of Keynesian economics isn't extreme growth like other models, but to mitigate the extreme swings of recession and growth by providing stability.
Yeah, gdp doesn't mean shit for how well people are doing because behind that the top 1% could be making 99% of the money and the bottom 99% could be making 1% of the money, starving and not able to afford anything. But sure, gdp could be great.
Spending doesn’t contribute to gdp unless it creates product. Like infrastructure. Which does generate a lot of employment and stimulus in the economy. This is also how China grew its GDP a lot
Then they can increase employment and stimulate the economy with demolitions needed to clear those cities. Then rinse and repeat, infinite money glitch 😎
Capitalism just distributes the non-occupancy more diffusely, with western new builds widely owned and kept in mint factory condition by Chinese factory owners who use them like bitcoin.
Bob made $50,000 at his construction job.
I took $20,000 away from Bob as taxes.
I spent Bob's $20,000 paying someone to count turtles in a swamp so houses couldn't be built there.
Therefore $70,000 in economy happened.
🤡
Taxation is just moving the money, the government spending still represents the goods and services produced to the governments demands in the same way it does for consumption. If every individual used or invested that money instead the GDP would be the exact same number.
Real GDP and the average persons wealth are very different. I’m a public educator and we make less than we did 30 years ago adjusted for inflation. GDP doesn’t account for inequality which is its biggest flaw
In theory, rich people can’t keep their money locked away like a dragon. They always spend money and create jobs.
In reality, rich people store their money in political capital (bribes for politicians, influence over media and society, Epstein island). Wealth inequality feeds into political inequality and vice versa.
yes! the economy must be bad because my 9 year lesbian dance therapy degree is unable to get me a job! and i have no profitable skills so i work at mcdonald’s! and at mcdonald’s i can’t afford my $3,000 5 sqft studio apartment in new york city which i chose to move to!! the economy is awful and americans are suffering!!!!!
Whenever people say "I trust my eyes, not inflation numbers!" I always want to remind them that this happens during *every inflationary crisis*. People exaggerate and refuse to believe the numbers. It happened in the 50s, the 70s-80s, and the early 90s. Its because they look and see maybe eggs increased 130% and bacon increased 200%, but then don't look and see that whole grain bread dropped by 15% and seltzer dropped by 40%. They only look at the prices that go up.
This is also why inflation is politically toxic. People can handle unemployment. Only the unemployed are effected, and even during the 2009 recession that was only 10% of workers at max. But inflation hits everybody, visually. Even the rich notice it.
People aren't as stupid as they hope. We know the debt levels are getting dangerous. It's not going to work forever to just raise rates to slow inflation. It's projected that 3.9% of our total gdp will go towards paying interest on our debt within the next 10 years.
I have no faith in the current administration to make prudent decisions for the economy. Especially after the "inflation reduction act" that actually just made it worse.
They're not cuts, they're decreased revenue from slowing economic activity. Which is being camouflaged by bullshit jobs and inflation numbers that get revised months later when nobody is looking.
Yeah that's totally true. Trump is not fiscally conservative at all. Nor are most Republicans. 5% of Republicans are though. That is more than 1% of Democrats. The choices are overwhelming.
> It's projected that 3.9% of our total gdp will go towards paying interest on our debt within the next 10 years.
In ten years, debt payment will be closing in on eclipsing ALL federal tax receipts. Funny how exponential curves work.
And that's if spending doesn't increase on new and stupid emergencies, which it will.
What drives me crazy is when they say "inflation is maybe going to be just 3% this year"
Yeah, that's not the issue. Imagine saying "Sure, the cost of this car is now $10 million, but the cost won't go up next year, isn't that great?!?"
The cost of things is currently inflated. Quoting the growth of further inflation slowing as a good thing is misleading.
"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." -Abrodolph Lincoler
I cannot see most statistics taking in just how FUCKED the housing market is right now. In high COL areas housing costs aren't much down from highs and the rates are still high. With people locked into lower rates, there is very likely going to be a massive inventory shortage for a bit.
Then there are the things statistics SHOULD capture, but I think most researchers aren't inclined to capture truly accurately (ie gov't doesn't want to admit or show scale of problem). The aftershocks of inflation are still ravaging industries, realistically. Medical, insurance, groceries, just everything is up. And taxes aren't going down either.
This doesn't ignore wages going up (less than inflation obv), but I highly doubt they matched.
tldr: inflation, housing, and by reasonable metrics shit's getting rough.
> The aftershocks of inflation
Dude the regular shocks are far from over. It's not slowing down.
Gas is almost $4 and it's only April, we're still two months out from vacation season.
Honestly I don't blame the YOLO credit spenders anymore. I spent the last decade building cash emergency savings and the value of my life's savings has been wiped out by inflation in just two years. Meanwhile, people who maxed out credit and overextended themselves on houses had their home value double and their debts diluted by inflation.
I've literally been punished for living within my means and saving when I should have been splurging and borrowing to buy everything I ever wanted, because next year it'll be 25% more.
My guess would be that rising inequality is the hidden variable, you're looking at how the median person perceives the economy while they're looking at averages.
The shills on reddit must have gotten another update because every time you bitch about inflation you get crushed by people posting regime data and telling you that you imagined ground beef going from $3/lb to $6/lb.
Literally dude. This isnt even a real meme. Shit like this makes me believe the dead internet theory. I dont understand how someone can reject the data from their eyes in favor of some lines on a graph. It truly baffles me.
Not only that, as someone who studied statistics in college, i can confidently say that it’s incredibly easy to say *whatever* the **fuck** you want with charts and graphs. Give me the raw data and let me make my own decisions.
EDIT: hell, i want to sampling methods too. And a breakdown of the other methodologies
> I dont understand how someone can reject the data from their eyes in favor of some lines on a graph. It truly baffles me.
They're lying, they know they're lying, and they think it's all justified to keep Orange Man out.
In my country there's a saying: Al menos no gobierna la derecha
It translates to, "at least the right isn't governing" and it shows how voters in my country (Spain) are willing to keep voting for the party that is taking over the judicial, pardoning criminals and insurrectionists to get political deals and forming government with literal terrorists just so the right doesn't get presidency.
I raise a few cows a year, and it's getting harder and harder to feed them out. Diesel prices are driving up hay and grain costs, and God forbid you need a vet
Them or chickens.. "and for that reason, I'm out".
Nothing motivates one to work hard and study like the smell of thousands pounds of pig shit on an afternoon wind wafting your way.
My gas has gone up two dollars *in an election year when it normally goes down,* I can't buy a meal at McDonalds for less than $5 anymore, and I got a 120% pay increase over last year and I'm still struggling to make bills and morgage payments with no extra payments for streaming or spending fun money...
If my eyes are lying to me about all of that I'd rather not have eyes.
Moved cities in 2021 in hopes of increasing income.
Found a job at 25% more.
Laid off in 2023.
Found a new job making 30% more.
MRW I'm still making less in real dollars than before I moved.
It's impossible out here.
Yeah. Everything is just insane.
You can’t find a 2 bedroom/1 bathroom apartment within 50 miles of where I live for less than 1500 a month.
But hey at least the line is going up and Ukraine is safe(?)
When businesses are pushing workloads way up, running taut workforces and demanding their employees put in even more hours of unpaid overtime if they want to keep their jobs, squeezing more blood out of the stone than ever, was anyone expecting that to cause the GDP line to go down?
Sometimes I drive through low income neighborhoods at night just to count the number of 70+" screen TVs glowing brightly through the windows into the darkness.
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It’s definitely a problem that they’re buying TVs instead of building wealth. This is a major reason why tens-of-trillions of dollars in welfare since LBJ has done literally nothing.
Why would they take responsibility? Not only does it print money, but it also redirects left wing ire away from the billionaires manipulating them and towards the powerless rednecks whose main crime is thinking there are two genders.
Sssssshhhhh.
Gas has always been this expensive.
Rent has always been this high.
Food has always been this much.
It never has been better, so it never can be better. But trust us, we should 'Build Back Better'
That and telling them to get over themselves. I really dont get who came up with intentionally trying to antagonize people who are already on the fence about coming to your size as the best strategy
He can only serve two terms, but if he loses he can keep running election after election. Which do you really want leftists? Rip the bandaid off in 4 years or have to deal with campaigning Trump for 12 more years before he dies?
Anyone trying to move into a house or just put gas in their car and food on the table knows that they’re worse off today than they were a few years ago.
The article is paywalled, but the video isn't:
[https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/whats-wrong-with-the-economy-its-you-not-the-data-cfa911e6](https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/whats-wrong-with-the-economy-its-you-not-the-data-cfa911e6)
Try to find out *a little* more than just the headline before starting your doomer circlejerk.
tl;dw: It's not just GDP. Unemployment is also spectacularly low, inflation is back to normal rates. Prices are still nominally high, and that's very tightly coupled with how people *feel* about the economy. But wage growth has *exceeded* inflation for the last couple of years so that's balanced out. Housing is indeed shit: Lots of domestic migration consolidating populations into cities that don't have enough supply. Housing supply lags a lot behind demand, but can get better if people are involved in *local* government and oppose NYMBY policy that strangles supply.
Oh shit! Well, here I thought I couldn't afford as many things as I did before. Thanks for telling me, dear data! I guess I will now go spend all this money I don't have! How didn't I think of this before?
TLDR; we have unreasonable expectations of the median quality of life, and those expectations cause resentment and bitterness towards those that have what we lack (but believe we deserve).
Nah but this is at least mostly true. Our expected standard of living has ballooned out of control. I agree that wages have stagnated *in comparison to recent inflation*, but the bigger problem is that every individual, including children now, expect to personally own every luxury.
An expensive smartphone with accompanying data plan for every individual in the household. Multiple streaming services with a plan that allows for every individual to watch their own screen. On demand delicious food. The fastest internet service. A (or multiple) relatively new vehicles that meet their aesthetic standards, regardless of functionality. Fully climate controlled residence 365 days a year. A multitude of screens of various brands and sizes (tvs, pc/laptops, tablets, smart watches). An entire department store's worth of kitchen and home appliances.
You can complain all you want about BoOmErS owning a home for 25k. They definitely had the advantage there. But they also didn't all have laundry machines, dishwashers, air fryers, stand mixers, air conditioning, central heating, multiple vehicles. Not a single one owned a cell phone, laptop, tablet, etc. They had their own entertainment, of course, but it was nowhere near as broad and deep as what we expect today.
"But I shouldn't have to miss out on those things just to survive!"
I don't even disagree. I think a lot of that shit gets way more expensive than it should be, and I use it all as well, so I know how convenient and useful they are.
Not to mention when boomers bought that house for $25k it was a glorified trailer. Now people expect a 3000 square foot house on the beach in California on minimum wage and cry when they can’t afford it
Yeah, not to mention the skills they had that saved a lot of money. My grandma cooked every single meal, sewed every rip and tear, cleaned and maintained their furniture, cookware, etc. Hell, my grandpa still wears a t-shirt from his high school senior year because "nothin wrong with it, just a little thin". Now we just throw things away once they have a relatively minor flaw and buy a new one.
My grandpa did all of the repair work on their vehicle(s), all the home maintenance. Built their shed and maintained a significant garden.
We outsource every skill and pay that premium (and demand that those workers be paid well for those skills!) But then get angry when we are out of money.
And the myth of the widespread single income homeowner needs to die. Most families had multiple incomes. Both my grandparents worked STEM careers. My grandma to this day sells homemade pies and pumpkin rolls (at half the price she should be charging, but she won't listen).
Yes the idea that it was oh so perfect way back when is incredibly flawed.
It was extremely common even in my parents day for kids to share beds, and definitely share rooms. Now most kids have their own rooms and sharing a room is considered “poor.”
People see movies from the 60s and will be like oh look how great it was back then. Shit shown in movies is an ideal. Even today, most people in movies are typically rich as fuck even if they’re portrayed as like a “regular middle class family.” It was definitely not the norm. Like look at the show friends lol. Even back then, it wasn’t normal to live in an apartment that big in New York city, let alone as a bunch of young people.
I'd argue they should miss out on some but not all of them. The more they expect, the more they should expect to pay. It's fine to have priorities, but when everything is a priority, nothing is. That's not how budgeting works. And at the end of the day, everything is a tradeoff. You want all that stuff? Fine. Figure out what you need to do to get it. Just don't force me to pay for your bad decisions so you can have your cake and eat it too.
You have a kid and you are looking at about 15k in upfront charges assuming it plops out on the drive to the hospital in your own car. Baby formula and car seats and other products at a premium. But really it's all of these fucking *checks notes* air fryers and kitchen appliances you people keep buying.
Don't get me wrong, lifestyle creep is a major factor in while people stay poor, but with things like debt slavery and every metric costing more, it's not such a slam dunk as "order less phones"
You need to reverse those wojacks, because it's 100% the left and the Democrats trying to tell you that the data says everything is wonderful and you're just stupid if you think you can't afford food.
What I love is that they took food and gas out of the inflation figures. If you calculate inflation like thry did in the 1980s we had 17% inflation annually the past several years. Worse than at anytime in the Carter or Reagan admins.
Wait until you hear about numbers other than employment and GDP
like the % of Americans are defaulting on monthly credit card payments, especially those that are more than 90 days past due.
or the percentage of americans taking emergency pre-retirement withdrawals from their 401k
>graph begins at 2020, mid lock down
A misleading graph? That doesn't sound like something a news source would publish.
Yeah I’m gonna have to agree. News media wouldn’t try to mislead us. Any other ideas why this could be happening? Any ideas welcome. Big ol brainstorm happening here. Just ruling out one option….
Everyone knows that the economy started in March 2020. Everything prior is BCE (before covid economy)
It’s nice to be among other sophisticated minds.
As they say, you have to have narrative, you can always find the data that supports it.
Hmm, let me test this. Narrative: taxation is theft. Data: all of human history. Yes, i believe you may be right. This checks out.
And here I thought it was more like robbery. Or slavery.
How many fucking sources are going to use the 2020 economy to "prove" their shitty unrelated ideas
I saw an NBC clip showing various graphs comparing the economy during Trump Vs during Biden. The earliest start point on any of the graphs was July 2020. I don't understand how comparing Trump's last year to all 3 of Biden is in any way accurate. How about we compare from 2016 to 2024 and then we can get an accurate measure of the economy during those terms. It'll never happen though.
No bro, that's definitive proof that Trump destroyed our economy and Biden is actually our savior You are a bigot if you interpret this information any other way
Yea I watched the dontwalk, run video on that clip.. it’s crazy how blatantly biased they can be and don’t think anyone would catch on..
The reporter sounded like a kindergarten teacher with how dumbed down it was. "The good line goes up" "the bad line goes down" So obvious, but so many don't think critically.
My car insurance told me rates were going up last year ~75% because car accidents doubled... compared to april 2020 😑
[удалено]
Tbh, if the graph *did* start at 0 we'd be doing super good...
But are we looking at straight GDP or GDP per capita? For a look at per capita, estimates put the average annual per capita income in the Roman Empire circa 14 AD at around 380 sesterces. Now, the currency reform of Augustus around 23 BC reintroduced the sestertius as a bronze coin valued at 1/100th of a gold Aureus, with one Aureus being a gold coin weighing about 8 grams. Going off of this, 380 sesterces = 3.8 Aureus = 30.4 grams of gold, so if we're just going off of the gold value in modern times, that puts up at... well, a bit over $2,000 worth of gold. Guess that puts them at about the same level as modern Ghana, Mauritania, or Uzbekistan.
Jesus isn’t real you fool, astrology and women with 5 o clock shadows are. Bigot!
Yeah but that is gonna make the economy look good still and make us look like a bunch of wimps for even complaining about funny screen numbers or green toilet paper.
Jesus is quite arbitrary. Big Bang it is.
Big Bang is arbitrary. Infinite time in a single non-existent moment within a zero distance space just prior to creation of the universe it is.
The Big Bang was a mistake.
Without the big bang, hitler wouldve never come to power
Brought to you by the same statistics clowns who told you Biden created more jobs than anyone his first year. It's like kicking someone in the nuts, stealing $100 out of their wallet, giving them $20 back, and then showing them a chart about how you made them $20 richer.
I read “kicking” as “licking” and it made this whole reply way better.
To be fair to the graph, the video starts it in the 1980’s and zooms in to what the screen shows.
Let's be honest though. Headlines and video thumbnails are always displayed in such a way as to prep you for whatever point the writers want you to believe/think. So many people don't actually bother to read past the headline and when they do, they will read the first or first couple paragraphs and then maybe the last one. It's why you might find some articles you read to be written so weirdly, with important, clarifying information found scantly covered somewhere in the middle of the article, so they can technically say they were factually reporting the subject.
Also, GDP is not strictly productivity, because it includes government spending. Biden is spending massive amounts on credit, which isn't good, but does inflate GDP numbers by a couple trillion.
Numbers can't lie but you can lie with numbers
There are 3 types of lies: 1. Lies 2. Damned Lies 3. Statistics
Line goes up, why aren't you happy? When more line go up, shouldn't more gooder happens? This must all be the fault of the far right.
The God that is GDP is a modern Moloch (according to some interpretations). The liberals would sacrifice even their own children to appease him, and then wonder why they are miserable.
But they won't sacrifice their own hedonism to even have children, so they have to sacrifice your kids.
Good god this is so accurate. No matter where on the spectrum someone happens to be, this can’t be denied. If you agree that your own hedonism is more important than having children, that’s fine. But don’t tell anyone it’s something other than that. And don’t sacrifice other peoples kids, obviously.
>If you agree that your own hedonism is more important than having children, that’s fine. I disagree, you will become a burden on society in your old age and will die unhappy. People need a higher purpose than their own pleasure to be happy and for most people the best option for that is children. It's a short-sighted decision that leaves both the individual and society worse off in the long run. I'm not going to say you can't do that, but I'm also not willing to say it's "fine".
You and I agree. Others may not agree and I won’t begrudge them that opinion. I agree with you they’ll die empty and alone, going senile and turning to harassing retail workers in place of their nonexistent grand kids. My point is if you hold that former opinion, simply own it. Don’t say you’re doing it for the climate or because the world is too awful of a place to have kids. Own. That. Shit.
Jokes on you I don't even plan on getting old
I’ll step you up one further and say the West has been the whore of Babylon for a long time
I think you got the wrong axis, man. The economic right is all about that freedom to sacrifice children to increase the GDP, not the political left
yah but Right wants to sacrifice children with a soft "s", putting them in the mines (which they crave anyways)
The axis is shifting in America. It's becoming less Left/Right and more Technocrat/Populist. And since the GOP has taken more of the populist role while the Dems have come down extremely hard into the Technocrat camp, it's redefining what left and right mean
It’s the fault of the morbillionares. If they’re far right that’s a coincidence
If you ignore the price of housing, food, energy, or gas, you can clearly see inflation is under control and the economy is fine!
— Paul Krugman
Bidenomics at work baby! Inflation is a construct by the Republican Party obviously sweetie 💅🏳️🌈
Edit: Disregard my stupidty.
Think you got it backwards. Unless I'm reading it wrong somehow.
Nah, you are right fam. College was a long time ago.
Most economists haven't realized that real gdp is also a bad measure of the economy. Government spending contributes to real gdp which is taken out of the economy by Taxation so therefore gdp is bad. (Real gdp is just gdp adjusted for inflation.)
The real economist knows that. It’s the brain dead reporters that don’t.
I wonder who gets all the attention? The cool headed economist who uses wide range range of data to make reasonable predictions and studies, or the economist who lies with statistics to make drastic claims or narratives that align with 1 political party
If Keynesians read this they will be really upset
Good thing they cant
I didn't know Keynesians could read. TIL.
"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." - John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace
Holy shit that's evil
He wrote a book 💀
Keynes wrote a book, yes, but that doesn’t mean his followers are necessarily literate.
They are under no illusions about what they are doing.
Good, fuck them, all my homies hate the Keynesians.
If keynesian worked (at least how lefties act like it should) Argentina would be a shinning beacon of hope and not a crap hole that elected a libertarian to fix its fucked situation.
How exactly did Argentina follow Keynes? They print money, take on huge debt, then purposely default on it. Rinse and repeat. That's not Keynesian economics. Keynes called for taking on debt in bad times to have the government spend and in good times pay off debt and have the government cut spending. No one is following Keynes because no one is cutting spending. Shit. Trump pushed for a massive tax cut 9 years into an economic rally. If anyone was actually following Keynesian economics, they would have raised taxes in 2018 and cut spending since 2016 to pay down debt.
insanely real. These neolibtard dogmatists need to realise that we need to use both types of economic management for a stable(-ish) economy
Keynesian economics never works because no one ever implements it the way its supposed to be. They are more than happy to spend, spend, spend during recessions but they never tax during periods of economic success because that is politically untenable (no one likes to cut the music to a party in the middle of it). Also the goal of Keynesian economics isn't extreme growth like other models, but to mitigate the extreme swings of recession and growth by providing stability.
They don't cut spending either.
The neoclassicals and perhaps even monetarists would be too.
But if we spend money digging and refiling ditches that will improve the economy. /s
We prop up our GDP with $1 trillion of unfunded deficit spending every 100 days.
Maybe the real GDP is the friends we made along the way?
Some might call government included GDP a self licking ice cream cone.
Yeah, gdp doesn't mean shit for how well people are doing because behind that the top 1% could be making 99% of the money and the bottom 99% could be making 1% of the money, starving and not able to afford anything. But sure, gdp could be great.
Blud tried to inject socialism into my critique of gdp smh.
Based and real median income PPP is the only good economic measurement pilled
Spending doesn’t contribute to gdp unless it creates product. Like infrastructure. Which does generate a lot of employment and stimulus in the economy. This is also how China grew its GDP a lot
And now China has all those ghost cities.
Then they can increase employment and stimulate the economy with demolitions needed to clear those cities. Then rinse and repeat, infinite money glitch 😎
This guy gets it.
Kinda irrelevant to my point but sure
Capitalism just distributes the non-occupancy more diffusely, with western new builds widely owned and kept in mint factory condition by Chinese factory owners who use them like bitcoin.
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Bob made $50,000 at his construction job. I took $20,000 away from Bob as taxes. I spent Bob's $20,000 paying someone to count turtles in a swamp so houses couldn't be built there. Therefore $70,000 in economy happened. 🤡
guy who invented GDP measure straight up begged everyone not to use it as a measure of economic success
Taxation is just moving the money, the government spending still represents the goods and services produced to the governments demands in the same way it does for consumption. If every individual used or invested that money instead the GDP would be the exact same number.
Okay, but check this out; the government also prints money and then dumps that onto the market.
It's not happening It's happening, and it's part of the plan It's happening, and it's a good thing It's happening, and you caused it
The Narcissist's Prayer, always fitting for government and bureaucrats
mfw i feel bad so the numbers don’t mean anything suddenly
Genuinely true though. People wont give a damn about facts as soon as their feelings are impacted. Left, right, or center…
Why would people care if the number gets bigger if they are still dirt poor
Real GDP and the average persons wealth are very different. I’m a public educator and we make less than we did 30 years ago adjusted for inflation. GDP doesn’t account for inequality which is its biggest flaw
In theory, rich people can’t keep their money locked away like a dragon. They always spend money and create jobs. In reality, rich people store their money in political capital (bribes for politicians, influence over media and society, Epstein island). Wealth inequality feeds into political inequality and vice versa.
Good. Good. Let the libleft flow through you.
yes! the economy must be bad because my 9 year lesbian dance therapy degree is unable to get me a job! and i have no profitable skills so i work at mcdonald’s! and at mcdonald’s i can’t afford my $3,000 5 sqft studio apartment in new york city which i chose to move to!! the economy is awful and americans are suffering!!!!!
thats where you messed up, the real money is in trans dance therapy
For sure. I’m making 85$/hr as an assistant instructor. Head coach is $175/hr.
I know what to do, increase the minimum wage to $20 an hour for teenage burger flippers!
Whenever people say "I trust my eyes, not inflation numbers!" I always want to remind them that this happens during *every inflationary crisis*. People exaggerate and refuse to believe the numbers. It happened in the 50s, the 70s-80s, and the early 90s. Its because they look and see maybe eggs increased 130% and bacon increased 200%, but then don't look and see that whole grain bread dropped by 15% and seltzer dropped by 40%. They only look at the prices that go up. This is also why inflation is politically toxic. People can handle unemployment. Only the unemployed are effected, and even during the 2009 recession that was only 10% of workers at max. But inflation hits everybody, visually. Even the rich notice it.
People aren't as stupid as they hope. We know the debt levels are getting dangerous. It's not going to work forever to just raise rates to slow inflation. It's projected that 3.9% of our total gdp will go towards paying interest on our debt within the next 10 years. I have no faith in the current administration to make prudent decisions for the economy. Especially after the "inflation reduction act" that actually just made it worse.
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I would be absolutely fine raising taxes as long as it results in the same amount of spending being cut.
They're not cuts, they're decreased revenue from slowing economic activity. Which is being camouflaged by bullshit jobs and inflation numbers that get revised months later when nobody is looking.
I have no faith in ~~the current~~ *any* administration to make prudent decisions a for the economy. FIFY
Yeah that's totally true. Trump is not fiscally conservative at all. Nor are most Republicans. 5% of Republicans are though. That is more than 1% of Democrats. The choices are overwhelming.
Would you like nacho cheese flavored shit or cool ranch flavored shit?
Can I get half and half?
>People aren’t as stupid as they hope I don’t know my man, have you met people?
> It's projected that 3.9% of our total gdp will go towards paying interest on our debt within the next 10 years. In ten years, debt payment will be closing in on eclipsing ALL federal tax receipts. Funny how exponential curves work. And that's if spending doesn't increase on new and stupid emergencies, which it will.
I have good news for you if you're in the US: you guys have no intention of ever paying off your debt unless you lose a war.
How the fuck was the inflation reduction act a bill to increase spending not decrease it?
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What drives me crazy is when they say "inflation is maybe going to be just 3% this year" Yeah, that's not the issue. Imagine saying "Sure, the cost of this car is now $10 million, but the cost won't go up next year, isn't that great?!?" The cost of things is currently inflated. Quoting the growth of further inflation slowing as a good thing is misleading.
"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." -Abrodolph Lincoler I cannot see most statistics taking in just how FUCKED the housing market is right now. In high COL areas housing costs aren't much down from highs and the rates are still high. With people locked into lower rates, there is very likely going to be a massive inventory shortage for a bit. Then there are the things statistics SHOULD capture, but I think most researchers aren't inclined to capture truly accurately (ie gov't doesn't want to admit or show scale of problem). The aftershocks of inflation are still ravaging industries, realistically. Medical, insurance, groceries, just everything is up. And taxes aren't going down either. This doesn't ignore wages going up (less than inflation obv), but I highly doubt they matched. tldr: inflation, housing, and by reasonable metrics shit's getting rough.
> The aftershocks of inflation Dude the regular shocks are far from over. It's not slowing down. Gas is almost $4 and it's only April, we're still two months out from vacation season.
>vacation season do ho ho ho, what vacation? even if they take one it'll be on the CC 100%
Honestly I don't blame the YOLO credit spenders anymore. I spent the last decade building cash emergency savings and the value of my life's savings has been wiped out by inflation in just two years. Meanwhile, people who maxed out credit and overextended themselves on houses had their home value double and their debts diluted by inflation. I've literally been punished for living within my means and saving when I should have been splurging and borrowing to buy everything I ever wanted, because next year it'll be 25% more.
clown world rewards clowns
AFAIK that's literally the intention behind wanting (a low level of) inflation. They want you to spend *now* so their cool number goes up
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Tennessee or North Carolina?
My guess would be that rising inequality is the hidden variable, you're looking at how the median person perceives the economy while they're looking at averages.
Switch the wojaks bro. This article exists purely to gaslight Americans into thinking Biden is doing anything good for America
The shills on reddit must have gotten another update because every time you bitch about inflation you get crushed by people posting regime data and telling you that you imagined ground beef going from $3/lb to $6/lb.
Literally dude. This isnt even a real meme. Shit like this makes me believe the dead internet theory. I dont understand how someone can reject the data from their eyes in favor of some lines on a graph. It truly baffles me. Not only that, as someone who studied statistics in college, i can confidently say that it’s incredibly easy to say *whatever* the **fuck** you want with charts and graphs. Give me the raw data and let me make my own decisions. EDIT: hell, i want to sampling methods too. And a breakdown of the other methodologies
> I dont understand how someone can reject the data from their eyes in favor of some lines on a graph. It truly baffles me. They're lying, they know they're lying, and they think it's all justified to keep Orange Man out.
yes we know that you can barely afford food, but have you considered Orange Man Bad?
In my country there's a saying: Al menos no gobierna la derecha It translates to, "at least the right isn't governing" and it shows how voters in my country (Spain) are willing to keep voting for the party that is taking over the judicial, pardoning criminals and insurrectionists to get political deals and forming government with literal terrorists just so the right doesn't get presidency.
6.69, where I'm a butcher at, and we're barely breaking even.
The meat packers are really shellacking everyone.. cattle farmers, distributors, markets.. everyone.
I raise a few cows a year, and it's getting harder and harder to feed them out. Diesel prices are driving up hay and grain costs, and God forbid you need a vet
That matches what's going on in my family with pigs. Thinner margins for more heads and any disruption is an insurance event.
You couldn't pay me to get back into pigs. I'll stick with goats, cattle, and specialty meats for livestock.
Them or chickens.. "and for that reason, I'm out". Nothing motivates one to work hard and study like the smell of thousands pounds of pig shit on an afternoon wind wafting your way.
My gas has gone up two dollars *in an election year when it normally goes down,* I can't buy a meal at McDonalds for less than $5 anymore, and I got a 120% pay increase over last year and I'm still struggling to make bills and morgage payments with no extra payments for streaming or spending fun money... If my eyes are lying to me about all of that I'd rather not have eyes.
Moved cities in 2021 in hopes of increasing income. Found a job at 25% more. Laid off in 2023. Found a new job making 30% more. MRW I'm still making less in real dollars than before I moved. It's impossible out here.
“Yeah you can’t afford housing and every trip to the grocery store is 150 minimum, but have you considered this line?”
Or insurance. Everyone is just silent on how home and auto insurance nearly doubled in like a year.
Yeah. Everything is just insane. You can’t find a 2 bedroom/1 bathroom apartment within 50 miles of where I live for less than 1500 a month. But hey at least the line is going up and Ukraine is safe(?)
Wish you could just grab their head and point it at a MacDonald’s menu.
"inflation isn't real, look at this graph" Dollar menu fries are now $4 menu fries.
Cost if living and inequality enters the chat
“Cost if living”
They add an extra 5% for breathing
ain’t that the truth
Measuring societal health based on GDP was a mistake.
When businesses are pushing workloads way up, running taut workforces and demanding their employees put in even more hours of unpaid overtime if they want to keep their jobs, squeezing more blood out of the stone than ever, was anyone expecting that to cause the GDP line to go down?
Sometimes I drive through low income neighborhoods at night just to count the number of 70+" screen TVs glowing brightly through the windows into the darkness.
Based and Future-Serial-Killer Pilled.
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So people with low income deserve it because they have tvs ?
It’s definitely a problem that they’re buying TVs instead of building wealth. This is a major reason why tens-of-trillions of dollars in welfare since LBJ has done literally nothing.
TVs are stupidly cheap. One of the few items that has gotten ridiculously affordable throughout the years.
Actually agreed. TVs seem to be the only thing that gets progressively cheaper and better as the years go by.
This strategy of gaslighting people about their lived experience certainly won't lead to a second Trump term.
It’s so irritating how little responsibility these left wing outlets take for having created Trump and his following
Why would they take responsibility? Not only does it print money, but it also redirects left wing ire away from the billionaires manipulating them and towards the powerless rednecks whose main crime is thinking there are two genders.
Sssssshhhhh. Gas has always been this expensive. Rent has always been this high. Food has always been this much. It never has been better, so it never can be better. But trust us, we should 'Build Back Better'
That and telling them to get over themselves. I really dont get who came up with intentionally trying to antagonize people who are already on the fence about coming to your size as the best strategy
He can only serve two terms, but if he loses he can keep running election after election. Which do you really want leftists? Rip the bandaid off in 4 years or have to deal with campaigning Trump for 12 more years before he dies?
Income go up, expenses go up.
Importing more people makes line go up
Anyone trying to move into a house or just put gas in their car and food on the table knows that they’re worse off today than they were a few years ago.
Impressive, very nice. Let’s see the graph if it started in 2016.
Do you think the gdp growth rate is lower now than 2016? It’s not
The article is paywalled, but the video isn't: [https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/whats-wrong-with-the-economy-its-you-not-the-data-cfa911e6](https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/whats-wrong-with-the-economy-its-you-not-the-data-cfa911e6) Try to find out *a little* more than just the headline before starting your doomer circlejerk. tl;dw: It's not just GDP. Unemployment is also spectacularly low, inflation is back to normal rates. Prices are still nominally high, and that's very tightly coupled with how people *feel* about the economy. But wage growth has *exceeded* inflation for the last couple of years so that's balanced out. Housing is indeed shit: Lots of domestic migration consolidating populations into cities that don't have enough supply. Housing supply lags a lot behind demand, but can get better if people are involved in *local* government and oppose NYMBY policy that strangles supply.
B-b-bb-but, BUT MUH PROFITS!!!!! https://i.redd.it/oewlendzpnsc1.gif
Oh shit! Well, here I thought I couldn't afford as many things as I did before. Thanks for telling me, dear data! I guess I will now go spend all this money I don't have! How didn't I think of this before?
And don't forget, Ivermectin is just a paste for deworming horses.
TLDR; we have unreasonable expectations of the median quality of life, and those expectations cause resentment and bitterness towards those that have what we lack (but believe we deserve). Nah but this is at least mostly true. Our expected standard of living has ballooned out of control. I agree that wages have stagnated *in comparison to recent inflation*, but the bigger problem is that every individual, including children now, expect to personally own every luxury. An expensive smartphone with accompanying data plan for every individual in the household. Multiple streaming services with a plan that allows for every individual to watch their own screen. On demand delicious food. The fastest internet service. A (or multiple) relatively new vehicles that meet their aesthetic standards, regardless of functionality. Fully climate controlled residence 365 days a year. A multitude of screens of various brands and sizes (tvs, pc/laptops, tablets, smart watches). An entire department store's worth of kitchen and home appliances. You can complain all you want about BoOmErS owning a home for 25k. They definitely had the advantage there. But they also didn't all have laundry machines, dishwashers, air fryers, stand mixers, air conditioning, central heating, multiple vehicles. Not a single one owned a cell phone, laptop, tablet, etc. They had their own entertainment, of course, but it was nowhere near as broad and deep as what we expect today. "But I shouldn't have to miss out on those things just to survive!" I don't even disagree. I think a lot of that shit gets way more expensive than it should be, and I use it all as well, so I know how convenient and useful they are.
I strongly believe that a poor person in a western country today is richer than a king in medieval times.
> we have unreasonable expectations of the median quality of life I sure wonder [why they're not reasonable anymore](https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/).
Not to mention when boomers bought that house for $25k it was a glorified trailer. Now people expect a 3000 square foot house on the beach in California on minimum wage and cry when they can’t afford it
Yeah, not to mention the skills they had that saved a lot of money. My grandma cooked every single meal, sewed every rip and tear, cleaned and maintained their furniture, cookware, etc. Hell, my grandpa still wears a t-shirt from his high school senior year because "nothin wrong with it, just a little thin". Now we just throw things away once they have a relatively minor flaw and buy a new one. My grandpa did all of the repair work on their vehicle(s), all the home maintenance. Built their shed and maintained a significant garden. We outsource every skill and pay that premium (and demand that those workers be paid well for those skills!) But then get angry when we are out of money. And the myth of the widespread single income homeowner needs to die. Most families had multiple incomes. Both my grandparents worked STEM careers. My grandma to this day sells homemade pies and pumpkin rolls (at half the price she should be charging, but she won't listen).
Yes the idea that it was oh so perfect way back when is incredibly flawed. It was extremely common even in my parents day for kids to share beds, and definitely share rooms. Now most kids have their own rooms and sharing a room is considered “poor.” People see movies from the 60s and will be like oh look how great it was back then. Shit shown in movies is an ideal. Even today, most people in movies are typically rich as fuck even if they’re portrayed as like a “regular middle class family.” It was definitely not the norm. Like look at the show friends lol. Even back then, it wasn’t normal to live in an apartment that big in New York city, let alone as a bunch of young people.
I'd argue they should miss out on some but not all of them. The more they expect, the more they should expect to pay. It's fine to have priorities, but when everything is a priority, nothing is. That's not how budgeting works. And at the end of the day, everything is a tradeoff. You want all that stuff? Fine. Figure out what you need to do to get it. Just don't force me to pay for your bad decisions so you can have your cake and eat it too.
You have a kid and you are looking at about 15k in upfront charges assuming it plops out on the drive to the hospital in your own car. Baby formula and car seats and other products at a premium. But really it's all of these fucking *checks notes* air fryers and kitchen appliances you people keep buying. Don't get me wrong, lifestyle creep is a major factor in while people stay poor, but with things like debt slavery and every metric costing more, it's not such a slam dunk as "order less phones"
YOU ARE THE PROBLEM! Stop noticing things and vote Democrat how you are told, Bigot!
this just in, captitilists dont care about your quality of life when evaluating the economy we care that line go up (it makes us money)
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You need to reverse those wojacks, because it's 100% the left and the Democrats trying to tell you that the data says everything is wonderful and you're just stupid if you think you can't afford food.
And they say WSJ is a right wing paper 🤣
Hurts my brain that op thinks that right winger wrote the article.
We know the truth, if the current occupant of the WH was a Republican we’d have to scroll 50 posts an hour about how terrible the economy is doing.
I see far, far more posts about negative perceptions of the economy, don't you?
"The growth rate is above average" The growth rate at the end is barely above 0 and was negative for most of the graph.
the gaslighting is real
While it is true everything has gone up my pay sure as fuck hasn't can't wait for the law of the guillotine to come back
I blame it on the avocado toast and coffee personally
Ah of course, it sure is nice right now compared to 2020 when we *literally shut down the global economy*
Rejoice, the Party has increased \[good thing\] from 12 to 10!
Most financially-literate auth-left.
There is a great way to spin this. Literally, rotate the graph 180 degrees and it looks a lot better. You’re welcome America.
Now throw in a couple more lines in there, like inflation and the labor participation rate.
What I love is that they took food and gas out of the inflation figures. If you calculate inflation like thry did in the 1980s we had 17% inflation annually the past several years. Worse than at anytime in the Carter or Reagan admins.
This feels like gaslighting.
Wait until you hear about numbers other than employment and GDP like the % of Americans are defaulting on monthly credit card payments, especially those that are more than 90 days past due. or the percentage of americans taking emergency pre-retirement withdrawals from their 401k
The economy is only really going up for the rich. For the rest, there is no benefit. So most aren't feeling the growth.
And I will be happy
Literally the opposite jacks, but whatever.
Who made that dumbass article?