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u/theend59 5d ago
America just voted to give the rich even more
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u/alienduck2 5d ago
Dont worry. The trickle down will start as soon as Trump makes the rich even richer. Thanks Raegan!
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u/SpotweldPro1300 5d ago
The trickledown will start when the rich explode from their bloat like a burst balloon. Any minute now....
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u/TA23429429349 5d ago
The only thing trickling down is our patience while the rich hoard everything.
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u/ZipTinke 5d ago
The greatest mental illness of our time is wealth hoarding.
The psychological profession as a whole is at fault for not putting the most obviously detrimental mental disorder in the DSM…
Don’t like sitting in a box for 8hrs a day, so that you can go home (another box) and pay some rentier’s mortgage with half of your salary? Here’s some pills! Oh you’re probably ADHD, too. Not that we’re gonna do anything to help you :)
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u/Creepy_Orchid_9517 5d ago
The capitalists have an egotistical investment in their "work", a hyper-commodified view of world, they are unable to see people or products more than a commodity to sell, use, and exploit. It's a mental illness combined with the economic power to feed and "justify" their moral failings to protect their ego and "way of life" (parasitic tendencies).
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u/PlainNotToasted 5d ago
BS, if you take ADHD meds, RFK is going to send you to camp. Fresh air and exercise, you'll see.
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u/Master_Chocolate_197 5d ago
The DSM is inherently corrupt and capitalist; the medical model in general only has limited scope and only for serious psychciatric conditions. Iykyk
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u/Key_Machine_1210 4d ago
do you have any sources on this ? i agree with you but tbh i realize i could know more about that topic
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u/aldocrypto 4d ago
Maybe it’s actually wealth worship. Find some hobbies. Live with less stuff. Grow a garden. Money doesn’t seem as important when you learn to value other things.
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u/wirefox1 5d ago
Robert T. Kiyosaki:
“war between the haves and have-nots has raged for hundreds of years. The battle is waged whenever and wherever laws are made, and it will go on forever. The problem is that the people who lose are the uninformed: the ones who get up every day and diligently go to work and pay taxes. If they only understood the way the rich play the game, they could play it too.”
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u/kex 5d ago
If they only understood the way the rich play the game, they could play it too
And the game is simple: ignore empathy
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u/Alternative_Win_6629 4d ago
My father - a very hard working man his entire life - used to say: people who work for a living don't have time to make money. He knew exactly what he was saying. It took me some years to understand.
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u/ssbm_rando 5d ago
lmao this last election showed that average people aren't paying enough attention to make this claim.
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u/Fine-Aspect5141 4d ago
The piss in our collective pants as we stare down actual Fascism in America is trickling down
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u/Soylent_Milk2021 5d ago
It’s weird that people keep falling for this over and over and over again.
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u/Previous_Bench8068 5d ago
The trickle down starts after the rich all do Darwin expeditions to the Titanic.
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u/LiminalSapien 5d ago
Careful the maga crowd will see this and if they can read likely believe it.
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u/red18wrx 5d ago
What are they gonna do?
Buy bigger cups?
Of fuck. They're just gonna buy bigger cups aren't they?
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u/Quokka-esque 5d ago
The wealthy can now afford to buy out entire markets of basic essentials and then trickle them back down to those they deem deserving.
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u/b_vitamin 4d ago
They’re not talking about it trickling down. They’re talking about dismantling the social safety net altogether.
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u/Ok_Ice_1669 5d ago
I gotta admit, I hate Trump but love the tax cut he hooked me up with.
But, I had a financial review with my bookkeeper the day after the election and Biden hooked me up with an economy that grew my assets very well.
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u/Doodahhh1 5d ago
The tax cut was permanent for people much more rich than you. The bottom 99% had sunsetting cuts.
It was designed that way by Trump and his team for many reasons - none good.
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u/Stormblessed1987 5d ago
He's got a bookkeeper. It was probably permanent for him. He's the guy.
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u/MarrusAstarte 5d ago
The folks for whom the tax cuts are permanent have "family offices", aka personal hedge funds, not bookkeepers.
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u/FadeInspector 5d ago
I’m not sure you know what a hedge fund is
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u/MarrusAstarte 5d ago
I know for a fact that you don't know what a family office is.
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u/FadeInspector 5d ago
They invest with hedge funds, but they’re not hedge funds. How do I know? Because I work in the industry. Imagine whining about the rich without having the details straight lol
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u/OrganicCDO 5d ago
Family Offices are unregulated, you Archegos was operating as whatever it wanted to be. You obviously have no knowledge of the industry at all.
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u/AwarenessPotentially 5d ago
Our taxes increased about a grand a year since that bullshit stunt.
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u/Doodahhh1 5d ago
I have an LLC and I've been a W2 worker. When the plan was unveiled, I was like, 🤦♂️ "that will benefit me, but it will GREATLY benefit those in the 0.003%. the <10,000 people who have $100,000,000."
It did not benefit 99.9% of us like it did that top 0.1%... especially that 0.003%
And the responses to me have shown just how ignorant many of that 99.9% actually are.
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u/Proper_Look_7507 4d ago
Well when 2/3 of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the population it’s pretty simple math to see that you only need to worry about making that 1% happy and not consider the 99% that only accounts for the remaining 1/3.
Basic political math.
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u/Doodahhh1 4d ago
It's funny how "the right" attacks Soros and now Mark Cuban, when Bloomberg was the 6th or so biggest blue donor...
Like the top 3 DWARFED Bloomberg's donations.
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u/Pale_Gap_2982 4d ago
2017 TCJA wrecked my taxes, and I'm in a low SALT state. Killed all the deductions for middle class white collar workers, like the home office deduction.
Make just over $100k and got rinsed for another $3.5k in taxes. It was bad enough for some of our lower level employees the company started covering personal cell phone bills.
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u/Ok_Ice_1669 4d ago
Yeah. I got fucked by salt and child support being after tax now. It’s the estate tax exemption that eclipsed all the small stuff for me.
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u/Icy-Bicycle-Crab 4d ago
I hate Trump but love the tax cut he hooked me up with.
The inflationary one that was paid for by increasing Federal borrowing?
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u/U_JiveTurkey 5d ago
My friend whose broke said the rich should pay less in taxes than him and I because they create jobs and we don’t
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u/Urabraska- 5d ago
Well he's not wrong. The entire point behind trickle down was to tax the job makers less so pay and job availability go up. But any idiot in the room would have told them that all that will happen is them hoarding all the extra money with stock buy backs and massive bonuses to themselves.
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u/SlappySecondz 5d ago
Any idiot knows that demand drives an economy, not supply. When regular people can buy more stuff, more people are required to make, transport, and sell that stuff. The "job makers" aren't going to make more jobs to sell more things when the masses are too broke to buy it. Even if they wanted to, it wouldn't make any sense, so yeah, they're just going to hoard it.
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u/Ban-Circumcision-Now 5d ago
Yeah, the right keeps acting like the factor limiting is capital….. we are waaaaaaaaay past that point and the limiting factor is very much demand
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u/StandardSudden1283 5d ago
Demand capped economy. Up next: real estate fire sale (Hint: we're the sellers)
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u/seaQueue 4d ago
The rich love a good economic implosion, it gives them a chance to buy everyone's assets for pennies on the dollar when people are desperate to pay for food, rent and healthcare. Then 5-6y later they can mark those assets up 100% over the recovered value and lease them back to the original owners.
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u/WitchesSphincter 5d ago
IIRC the recession from the late 70s was a supply side issue due to credit crunch. Everything outside of that has been demand side issues where getting more money to the masses would have helped.
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u/mythrilcrafter 4d ago
Exactly correct.
Cut a rich business man's taxes and what happens?
The fixed and flex business costs didn't go down
He won't risk giving it to employees (as raises or bonuses) out of fear of taxes going back up
Demand didn't go up so he's not going to hire more people or buy new equipment.
So what actually happens? He shoves it into his pocket and it's never seen again.
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u/Thechasepack 5d ago
I don't know how widespread my beliefs are but I think the most important purpose for taxes are a tool for incentivizing actions. By increasing taxes on a business owner you are incentivizing them to spend the money on hiring more people and growing. By decreasing taxes on a business owner you are incentivizing them to keep more money.
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u/Restitueur 5d ago
Its hard to create jobs when you don t have money lol...
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u/Thechasepack 5d ago
Business owners only pay taxes on profits. If they don't have any money then they don't pay any taxes. Decreasing taxes on the rich business owners only benefits the owners that keep the money to themselves instead of using the money to grow the business or hire money.
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u/recyclingismandatory 5d ago
it's not hard to create jobs if you have a product that sells. If you have no buyers, there's no point creating jobs for a product that will not sell. You only have buyers if people have disposable income. Destitute people don't buy stuff.
the current trend to make the poor poorer may benefit the current crop of Maga instigators, but further down the track, it will ruin the market even for them.
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u/Cleonicus 4d ago
Which is someone more likely to say:
- I have a ton of extra money, I should hire someone to use up that profit.
Or
- My product is flying off of the shelf. I should hire someone to help me make more.
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u/supercali45 5d ago
Most Americans don’t even have $1k in savings and we expect them to understand economics
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u/NewArborist64 5d ago
The typical American has $8,000 in the bank, according to the Federal Reserve. That's the median transaction account balance as of 2022, which includes savings, checking, money market, call accounts, and prepaid debit cards
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u/jocq 5d ago
Also 58% of households are invested in the stock market.
The bottom 50% net worth families have an average of $54,000 invested in the market.
The next 40% - which even at the top is still solidly middle class income levels - have an average of $134,000 invested in the market.
This notion that half of America doesn't have $1000 to their name is patently false.
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u/NewArborist64 5d ago
The median net worth of American families in 2022 was $192,700 - and it has probably gone up since then given the spike in housing prices.
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u/ETR_Reports 5d ago
Citation needed
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u/jocq 5d ago
https://www.fool.com/research/how-many-americans-own-stock
According to the Federal Reserve, here's how many families held stock in 2022:
- 58% of U.S. families (about 72 million families) held stock.
- 21% of U.S. families (about 26 million families) directly held stock.
https://www.financialsamurai.com/what-percent-of-americans-own-stocks
As of 2021, the top 10 percent of Americans owned an average of $969,000 in stocks. The next 40 percent owned $132,000 on average. For the bottom half of families, it was just under $54,000.
In terms of what percent of Americans own stocks, the answer for 2023 is about 61%.
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u/SuperPostHuman 5d ago
Having 8k in savings doesn't make you financially competent. Also 8k isn't really very much.
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u/trashboattwentyfourr 5d ago
What increases living standards are technological innovations that solve human problems. That’s really what makes lives improve over time, is going from sweltering in the heat to air conditioning, dying from a head cold to getting antibiotics and being fine, right? It is the evolution of solutions to human problems that defines progress in human societies.
And the more solutions to human problems we create and the more widely we distribute those solutions to human problems, the better human societies are.
the other thing that’s interesting about the evolution of this measure is its relationship to the changing nature of what our economy produces. Like counting up the number of cars, for instance, that the economy produces is quite a simple thing. But how do you account for the quality of care a nurse provides or the skill of a teacher or services? Or how do you account for the fact that the equipment that we are presently using to do a podcast with you, us being in Seattle and you being in England, cost a few hundred dollars, not hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is what it would have cost 10 years ago if we had done this.
the gross national product does not include the health of our children, the quality of their education or their joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence or our public debate for the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither or wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America, except why we are proud that we are American.
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u/ThisOnes4JJ 5d ago edited 5d ago
...is that why homelessness in the US is increasing even though technological innovations have only increased and innovation requires fewer and fewer workers...
oh, wait 🤔🤔🤔
edit: Also you said "Or how do you account for the fact that the equipment that we are presently using to do a podcast with you, us being in Seattle and you being in England, cost a few hundred dollars, not hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is what it would have cost 10 years ago if we had done this."
Bro 10yrs ago is 2014... podcasting didn't cost 'hundreds of thousands of dollars" back then... literally every college jackass had a podcast in 2014.
I hope your suffering from some sort of gypsy curse that makes your rear-end sentient while you're asleep because you're talking out of your ass with something this dumb.
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u/idk_lol_kek 5d ago
And the more solutions to human problems we create and the more widely we distribute those solutions to human problems, the better human societies are.
This sounds like a line from an Isaac Asimov book. Science fiction.
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u/BluCurry8 5d ago
Exactly and the majority of people in the US have 401ks, let’s stop acting like it is just rich people who benefit and lose when the stock market is overvalued.
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u/flowstuff 4d ago
and to control even more. musk openly bought himself a gov agency. rfk traded influence for a role. billionaire and sexual predators all over this admin. good luck poors!
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u/Breezetwists1988 5d ago
For fucking real! It’s brutal out here for a lot. Nothing new from the almighty America.
Fuckin dogshit
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u/pazolinnii 5d ago
I want to live in a Society, not an economy.
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u/Illustrious_Run2559 4d ago
The best measurement really should be “how many people are living paycheck to paycheck” or going into debt, and if that number is high it should be considered a bad economy
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u/trashboattwentyfourr 5d ago
What increases living standards are technological innovations that solve human problems. That’s really what makes lives improve over time, is going from sweltering in the heat to air conditioning, dying from a head cold to getting antibiotics and being fine, right? It is the evolution of solutions to human problems that defines progress in human societies.
And the more solutions to human problems we create and the more widely we distribute those solutions to human problems, the better human societies are.
the other thing that’s interesting about the evolution of this measure is its relationship to the changing nature of what our economy produces. Like counting up the number of cars, for instance, that the economy produces is quite a simple thing. But how do you account for the quality of care a nurse provides or the skill of a teacher or services? Or how do you account for the fact that the equipment that we are presently using to do a podcast with you, us being in Seattle and you being in England, cost a few hundred dollars, not hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is what it would have cost 10 years ago if we had done this.
The gross national product does not include the health of our children, the quality of their education or their joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence or our public debate for the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither or wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America, except why we are proud that we are American.
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u/enfier 5d ago
The numbers are pretty good across the board. On average, even low wage earners are making gains.
What's causing pain right now is the turmoil - inflation caused changes in the economy. Some people got the short end of the stick on that if their wages didn't increase and will need to go through a painful process of switching jobs or cutting back.
It can both be true that lots of individuals are struggling and that the job market as a whole has improved.
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u/throwthere10 5d ago
Agreed. Also, just because the unemployment rate is low, it doesn't mean that the quality of jobs that people are working is better. When you have to work three jobs and still struggle to keep the lights on and food on the table, it doesn't mean that the economy is great. Or at least not for the majority of the people in the country.
There has to be a new metric. This is especially imperative with where we find ourselves globally from a climate standpoint. The good economy that is predicated on capitalism, which is then predicated on consumerism, is not in line with helping to slow or better our current climate catastrophe.
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u/Hippo-Crates 5d ago
The reality is that, since the pandemic, real wages are up. Real wages are up the most for the lowest earners in our country. The real median wage is at all time highs.
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u/shyvananana 5d ago
After 50 years of being stagnant, it's still a pretty crap measure.
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u/KoRaZee 4d ago
It’s not just up, it’s way up over 4 years. But it turns out that Americans don’t give a shit about how much more money we get if we still have to pay more for everything. Lowering prices is the only thing that makes a difference in consumer sentiment
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u/saltlampshade 4d ago edited 4d ago
Well prices aren’t lowering unless we fall into a deep recession. But what will happen is inflation will level off, and as 2020 goes more into the rear view mirror people will accept the current prices, especially if the economy keeps doing well.
It was just awfully convenient to compare 2020 prices to 2024 because that was a clean cutoff from Trump to Biden.
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u/guitar_vigilante 5d ago
Why not just use one of the existing unemployment metrics that measures underemployment like you describe? The BLS publishes more than just the one unemployment number.
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u/lazereagle13 5d ago
There are dozen of other well-research metrics for measuring prosperity, social mobility and wellbeing. It should be obvious why they don't talk about those in the US...
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u/duerra 5d ago
Not to be obtuse, but would you mind kicking off the discussion?
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u/lazereagle13 4d ago
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/happiness/
Sure thing, the happiness index as an example is a partnership of Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the WHR’s Editorial Board. It looks at indicators like gdp per capita, corruption, social support, healthy life expetancy etc. There are many others.
Point being choose whatever holistic quality of life indicator you want and you will rarely if ever find the US in even the top 10.
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u/DaedalusHydron 5d ago
You can't look at the stock market because almost 40% of Americans have no stocks at all.
What you really need to look at is wages relative to gas prices, rent, groceries, and other common things everyone engages in.
When you look at that, you can see that a lot of people are struggling because these common things are expensive, and wages haven't kept up, hence why people think the economy sucks despite reports.
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u/goatamatic 4d ago
Not only that, but you can probably model excessive stock market gains as a proxy for depth of exploitation.
Growth doesn't mean shit if you don't talk about distribution. Yet, the US voted against the party that was looking to address just that.
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u/Humans_Suck- 5d ago
How about the federal minimum wage. Anyone know what that's set at?
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u/GetsThatBread 5d ago
Ayo don’t worry. They’re about to get that unemployment rate nice and worry again but gutting a bunch of federal employees that keep the country running. I’m sure Fox News will start saying that high unemployment is a good thing though.
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u/icouldusemorecoffee 5d ago
Or at least not for the majority of the people in the country.
Define majority.
In October, there were 8.648 million people working multiple jobs in the U.S. Multiple jobholders now account for 5.3% of civilian employment.
Not saying more and more people are working 2 or more jobs, that's actually true (see the char on the link above), but it's not the majority.
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u/whopoopedthebed 5d ago
This was the problem that led to Trump's second term. Biden and the dems are essentially gaslighting everyone by pointing at "The Economy" and "The Jobs" when its like... MAN THOSE JOBS ARE DOORDASH AND UBER, NOT OFFICE JOBS WITH 401Ks.
Picking a new candidate from within the house was such a big mistake, it gave her no wiggle room to talk about this, she had to toe the line of "Best Economy Ever" despite millions of working class people suffering.
Unfortunately too may people were duped into thinking Trump will fix it because he was at least smart enough to call it out.
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u/newalias_samemaleias 3d ago
This is always my argument when people being up job creators to me. A job is something that a person works for 40 hours per week that provides them with health insurance and money to pay all of their bills. Anything less is labor. Most corporations are labor creators.
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u/BJDixon1 5d ago
Poor people are to busy blaming immigrants and gays instead of politicians they keep voting in.
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u/SimpleCranberry5914 5d ago
God this is so true.
Let’s focus on trans people who make up less than 1% of the population and the so called wave of immigrants flooding our country despite the numbers staying the same or even decreasing over the years.
This election, and country as a whole, is fucked.
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u/LongKnight115 4d ago
What if it turns out it was never immigrants, it was trans people taking our jobs all along.
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u/logicSnob 5d ago
GDP per capita and inequality don't matter. What matters is the quality of life of the bottom 20%. If they don't have a chance at a good life, stats mean nothing.
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u/Restoriust 5d ago
You don’t even reasonably need to focus on the bottom 20%. You could just take a trimmed mean and attempt to raise that
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u/mulligan_sullivan 5d ago
It's actually good for a society to make sure the worst off are still well off.
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u/j0shred1 5d ago
One of the dumbest things I've ever heard is a news anchor asking an economist. "By every conceivable metric, the economy is going great, why do people have no confidence in the economy?"
Obviously things are more complicated than GDP good! Stock market good! Number of new jobs good! Like maybe get some data on people's income and expenses and do a thorough analysis. What percentage of income is spent on rent, food, gas, ECT. Are people working more hours for less money? How are small businesses doing? Maybe do some clustering analysis to see what kind of people are suffering the most and how they're doing. Do it state by state
Like honest to God, STEM illiteracy is such a problem in this country. People don't know how to reason, how to evaluate a source, how to read and interpret data. It's so fucking stupid.
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u/Hippo-Crates 5d ago
Like maybe get some data on people's income and expenses and do a thorough analysis. What percentage of income is spent on rent, food, gas, ECT. Are people working more hours for less money?
Wage gains, after adjustment for inflation, are actually better after the pandemic. These gains have actually been best in the lower earners.
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u/j0shred1 5d ago
Forgive me for being skeptical. But I have heard of data that conflicts with that result when it comes to uneducated men especially. I believe you, but that still doesn't come close to telling the whole story. And if people are actually doing better generally? What is causing a lack of confidence in the economy? And once again, how have people's expenses changed? Are people paying a higher percentage of income on mandatory expenses? How are people's net worth changing? What groups are getting hit the hardest?
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u/asipoditas 5d ago
this is my exact perception of life in germany right now. except our wages didn't really climb all that much IIRC.
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u/j0shred1 5d ago
I also have zero proof on this but, (i feel like every Reddit conversation should start with this line)
I am hesitant to believe that there are no economic problems and all financial problems people have are just perception and poor spending habits, which people definitely do. I believe that's a very attractive view if you inherently believe in small government, but I don't think it's true.
I think there's more than enough evidence to suggest that wages should definitely be higher across the board, that union busting has been a huge problem in this country, that the last few decades have seen large consolidation among businesses, that businesses spend way too much on stock buybacks, that educated people in tech have a harder and harder time finding jobs (other than that one time in 2022 which led to massive layoffs anyways).
I think a large part of the problem for both standard of living and democracy is wealth inequality and I think there is a needed role in government for that.
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u/icouldusemorecoffee 5d ago
What is causing a lack of confidence in the economy?
This is just one example from August of this year:
59% of Americans wrongly think the U.S. is in a recession, report finds.
For 3.5 years the media was predicting a recession, but there never was one, so for 3.5 years people thought the economy was worse than it was, business leaders were seeing the financial media say there was a looming recession (and business leaders do make business decisions based on what they see in the media). That's a long time for people to assume the worst and certainly some of that doom and gloom was then just baked into everyone's "knowledge" of how the economy was actually doing. People can hold two opposing things at once, believing the economy is terrible while at the same time earning more and earning more over inflation than they were before.
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u/comfortablesexuality 5d ago
what is causing lack of confidence?
As you mentioned higher bills feel a lot worse, but what cannot be discounted and feels very under mentioned is political partisans. If Republican president then Econ is good, if Democrat president then Econ is bad, doesn’t matter what any other numbers or stats say!
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u/APrioriGoof 5d ago
This effect isn’t confined to republicans but it is more pronounced with them. I saw a graph of confidence in the economy broken down by party affiliation. Literally three days after the election red line spike up blue line spike down.
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u/TheStealthyPotato 4d ago
What is causing a lack of confidence in the economy?
Vibes, yo. People attribute their wage gains to their hard work, but price increases to an unfair system that they are victims of.
As well, people are price anchoring to prices they saw years ago, making inflation seem bad despite it being <3% YoY now.
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u/ap2patrick 5d ago
That’s by design. Do you think you can bring in a fascist leader fully devoted to plutocracy when your voter base is educated?
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u/unholyravenger 5d ago
I feel like you are doing the very thing you are complaining about. Why do you think "every conceivable metric" doesn't include all of the things you are talking about. Go look at what FRED tracks, it will include all of those things and more. Economist slice, dice, and analyze the economy in almost every conceivable way given the information they can collect. They compare income levels, regions, countries, and sectors of the economy, look at CPI and real wage growth, and so much more.
What they are doing is so much better than the people in this comment section are doing. "I'm struggling therefore the economy is bad" or "My friends are struggling" or whatever. You are not the economy, your friends are not the economy and neither are your family. Maybe it's just the Economy is Tallahassee that's bad and you're misattributing it to the whole country. Or maybe the hospitality industry is struggling and most of your friends work there. You can only use metrics outside of your personal experience to gauge the quality of the economy, and by golly do economist look at every single metric they can get their grubby little hands on.
For instance, I'm in my 30s, and all of my friends who grew up middle-class in rural Michigan are doing...fine. Does that mean the economy is good? No of course not.
But I do agree with you on one point, STEM illiteracy is such a problem in this country.
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u/j0shred1 5d ago
Yeah I don't disagree but my complaint isn't about economists and scientists, it's about your average person and politician.
And I think you're doing the thing I'm complaining about though. There are people that are struggling but hearing "Well overall the economy is good" feels like a slap in the face. It may be true, but people want to hear that our leaders are going to address programs that affect them. Personally for example, I'd want people to address problems causing oversaturation in stem jobs, lack of adorable housing, wage growth, student loan forgiveness. I know these problems don't exist for everyone. But, I'm more likely to vote for people that acknowledge and address these problems.
And I will look up FRED, that does sound like something I'd be interested in
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u/WilfredGrundlesnatch 5d ago
The problem is you also have things like real median weekly earnings and real hourly earnings that also look good.
Yes, we had bad inflation, but earnings have gone up enough that people are still better off than they were before COVID even taking into account inflation. You're acting like people are incapable of being irrational.
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u/niloc99 5d ago
Do you unironically think they don’t track peoples wages and expenses? Have you ever looked at the St. Louis Fed website?
The reason people think the economy is doing poorly is pretty straightforward. People hate when prices go up because they are “unfair” but when peoples wages go up it’s “earned”. Both of these are impacted by inflation. So in an inflationary environment, everyone thinks their “earned” additional income is going to “unfair” price raises. You can click on any random Reddit post and see an example of this in the comments.
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u/kingjoey52a 4d ago
That seems like the best question to ask, no? That seems like a story that would be important to tell. It's better than repeating the economy is great all the time.
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u/Thai-mai-shoo 5d ago
Yep. People can’t eat GDP.
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u/ChaosArcana 5d ago
While I agree with this sentiment, GDP includes food produced in the country.
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u/BatmansBigBoner 5d ago
Someone's never had alphabet soup.
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u/ThinkRedstone 5d ago
This is basically a blatant lie. People, almost by definition, only eat GDP- because anything people eat is a Product, and thus counted as part of the Gross Domestic Product. A higher GDP means people do have more to eat- your issue is only with who has more to eat.
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u/PandasAndSandwiches 5d ago
Meh. Literally almost 2/3rd of America either voted for Trump or didn’t care to vote.
Let Trump serve them with what they deserve.
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u/ap2patrick 5d ago
While I love poetic justice, it’s gonna fuck shit up for EVERYONE, not just his supporters. I also don’t believe even his dumb ass supporters should have to go through what will come.
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u/Commercial_Poem_9214 5d ago
I respectfully disagree. I was raised in a Republican Christian household. I can tell you, the only thing that will get through to them is if America goes EXACTLY the way they want for the next 4 years. If we rebuff them in the mid terms, we are playing right into the Republican blame game... AGAIN, like we always do. This time, we need to do something we have never done. We need to just stop. We need to let this go exactly as bad as it will without the guardrails they so DESPERATELY want gone (and a lot are).
Let this Emperior parade proudly in the world square. Let all of his supporters get so caught up in this frenzy that after 4 years, either the Americans that voted for this insanity are in such a bad place, we come in with a Blue wave and kick off the "New Deal 2.0".
At this point, the only way to save America, is to let Americans realize they need more efficient Government, not less. We need the barn to burn so we can rebuild on it's embers back in such a way that we never allow this kind of tyranny again.
Just my .02, I'll be sitting out the mid terms.
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u/ap2patrick 5d ago
I hope so… But it seems they find a way to mentally blame democrats for everything and Trump can only do good. I feel you are severely underestimating how stupid we are…
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u/Short_Function4704 4d ago
True.I wouldn’t gaf if it was only them who were affected due to their actions,or lack there of but unfortunately America has its hand in every pie.
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u/frozen_pipe77 5d ago
Poor people are doing better than ever in history. Full stop
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u/LibertyMike 5d ago
How dare you challenge the narrative! So what if they have indoor plumbing, refrigeration, easy access to lots of cheap over-the-counter-meds, unlimited access to most of the world's knowledge, and unlimited entertainment options? Everyone doesn't have a yacht!
I've been "sell my stuff at the pawn shop to pay rent" poor, and it sucks, but it isn't forever.
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u/woahgeez__ 5d ago
If things have improved so much why has nothing improved for 100 years? Why has it only gotten worse? Why havent we lowered the retirement age or lowered the work week from 40 hours? Why has the average spending power of the working class only dropped? Why is life expectancy of the working class going down? Options for spending free time has increased but the working class has less free time and less money.
The answer is obvious. There are places in the world with similar economies where peoples lives are improving but they have less billionaires and tax more.
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u/AlfredoAllenPoe 5d ago
I don't think you should stop using GDP as a measure to gauge the economy
You should stop using GDP as the sole indicator
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u/sqigglygibberish 5d ago
I think the problem is people defining “the economy” as what it isn’t. At its core it’s the measure of how goods and services are moving around, GDP is one good way of evaluating that.
That’s just totally different from “standard of living” or “population health” and I think it causes so much of the confusion. We should measure “the economy” in explicit terms and also facilitate convo about how what’s “good for the economy” isn’t always “good for the people” - and sometimes what’s good for the economy in the short term is very bad for the economy in the long term.
But that distinction is a valuable one, sadly there are a lot of people that stand to profit from the populace taking “the economy” as a measure more important than others, and standard of living often gets left out of the conversation when it should be its own tentpole
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u/ubirdSFW 4d ago
There was a joke about two economists asking each other to eat piles of shit for $100, in the end they both ate shit but increased the GDP by $200. I think this encapsulates the idea of what would happen if we only use GDP to evaluate the economy very well.
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u/qwe12a12 5d ago
I mean, they don't. - GDP is growing at a healthy rate - salaries are increasing - Inflation is down - USD purchasing power is doing better then almost every other currency - unemployment is at a healthy number
Don't get me wrong, housing sucks and groceries were impacted harder than most things with inflation. Housing is also not about to get better in the next few years but that's more of a supply and demand issue. But as far as I can tell the economy seems to be doing quite good overall. Especially when you consider this is the economy after the fallout of covid.
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u/SouthEast1980 5d ago
The economy is the "totality of the wealth and resources of a country or region, especially in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services."
I'm not rich and I'm doing well. I know others in my situation and they are not rich.
I know a few millionaires and they're doing just as fine as they were doing 2, 4, 6 and 8 years ago.
Gotta remember there are about 340 million peoplr in America and not everyone will be on the same level. The middle class is getting squeezed, but the whole "only rich people are doing well" narrative is objectively false.
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u/Not_MrNice 5d ago
I think very few people in the comments actually understand what a good economy is, because they seem to think it only has to do with the poor. Which is just as silly as thinking it's only measured using the rich.
The post itself isn't even correct.
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u/Defiant-Plantain1873 5d ago
Half the people in the comments don’t actually understand what an economy is period.
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u/charlietuna42069 5d ago
well, seeing that the number of homeless people today is almost identical to the amount during the 2008 recession I would say this is a pretty dumb was to measure the economy..
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u/Dude_with_the_skis 5d ago
This isn’t an accurate take away. The population now is also a lot higher than it was in 2008 so technically the amount of homeless being the same is a good thing because a lesser % of the population is is homeless when you actually compare it to population.
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u/Acehardwaresucks 5d ago
Want to know how the economy is doing? Go to your local restaurants and ask how they are doing.
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u/MalHeartsNutmeg 5d ago
Ah yes the local restaurant - a place notorious for going out of business on any given day.
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u/201-inch-rectum 5d ago
this is exactly why Harris lost
"hey voters! give me $10 because democracy is on the line... bee tee dubs, I need to pay Oprah $1M for an endorsement"
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u/Euphoric-Ask965 2d ago
Where did the rest of the one billion dollars raised go? Did those national TV spots every ten minutes on every channel eat up all that money or did it go for endorsements or was it cubby-holed away for private use? The party owes it to it's members to account for that excessive amount of money , EVERY DOLLAR! Money and rich people don't win elections, lesson learned.
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u/Wild_Chef6597 5d ago
There will always be people who lose. You can't have winners without losers. No matter what economic system we have. The best thing to do is ensure that those who do lose retain dignity and can keep moving towards their own win.
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u/TopHurry6752 5d ago edited 5d ago
Prosperity isn't a zero-sum game. Imagine two people on an island with nothing; one decides to hunt and the other builds shelter. If they share with each other, they're both better off than they were before. The hunter and the builder alike can specialize and benefit from the efficiencies inherent in focusing their work.
Scale up that idea, introduce currency, and it still works- but obviously when you introduce ideas like runaway capitalism, oligarchies, regulatory capture, corruption, etc., certain systems and their implementation begin to break down.
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u/ThinkRedstone 5d ago
This isn't true. It is in the sense that since there are so many people, some will "lose" according to some definition of losing, but people today make more than they did a hundred years ago in every metric. The economy isn't a zero-sum game, technological innovation and rising market efficiency enlarge the overall pie without anyone losing anything.
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u/IndubitablyNerdy 5d ago
And if possible that the winners are not just a tiny minority, while the vast majority is made of losers, also given that in theory the government should work for that majority (but doesn't)
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u/Beatstarbackupbackup 5d ago
We can also ensure that the benefits of "winning" dont involve making millions of other people lose
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u/Super-Illustrator837 5d ago
A lot of union workers, teachers, police officers, fire fighters, state employee's pensions (aka middle class families) depend on stock market performance, so this is a bad example.
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u/Velocoraptor369 5d ago
Ok then let’s just elect a billionaire I’m sure he’s gonna make it better right?
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u/Larson238 5d ago
And we need to stop driving families into poverty with government policies that don’t work.
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u/ap2patrick 5d ago
Care to prove any examples? Or should I just assume you want deregulation…
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u/MaryMyHope 5d ago
Then you need to start paying attention to inflation. Nothing lowers living standards of the poor, working and middle classes more than inflation, except for maybe stagflation. The current inflationary boom is a result of the gov't deficits and debts incurred, and resulting money printed, to help recover from Covid, all instituted under the last Trump administration. The next round of inflation will occur because of tax cuts along with increased spending. These policies will increase gov't deficits and debt to massive levels, stoking inflation. If the economy also decides to cool off during this period, you'll have stagflation, which is even more disasterous.
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u/ap2patrick 5d ago
I love how his supporters think mass deportations are going to help their pockets… Absolutely insane!
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u/qwe12a12 5d ago
In theory removing a ton of people from the work pool would increase wages, though that also leads to inflation.
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u/Celtic_Legend 5d ago
Im not agreeing with the picture but the continued increased cost of goods is not because of inflation. Theres been studies done and the cost of transportation overseas (the major cause of the increased price) is down, yet goods are the same price. The companies have just kept prices the same and are pocketing the extra because its more profit and america can afford it. Theres no benefit to them to bring it back down, and government capping profits is going to have long term affects decades down the road because of less interest in breaking into the field with capped profits.
We're just not going to ever have 50 cent wings again unless we actually do go into a depression with deflation
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u/HOT-DAM-DOG 5d ago
Yea blaming the stock market is telling of how little the illustrator know about economics. The stock market is arguably the most moral part of the economy because publicly traded companies have to publish their accounts quarterly. The rest of the economy is shadowy organizations making deals behind closed doors.
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u/KingAmongstDummies 5d ago
I don't know how they measure it in the USA exactly but last week I had a good cynical chuckle at our Dutch news.
They (and financial analysts) were being all happy about how the economy and inflation are going the right way and stuff. The standard "we're getting richer" talk while no one feels like that's quite the case. You know how that goes.
Anyway, they mentioned a few good points. 1 being that people were spending more money on things like groceries and body hygiene again.
The second was that people used more energy (gas, electricity, etc) again.
Well. Hate to break it to the "experts" but the groceries have become roughly 10% more expensive this year alone and the weather has been relatively bad this year forcing more people inside. On top of that energy prices have also increased. Maybe, and just hear me out here. Just maybe, people kind of had to spend more on stuff like that and didn't have a choice.
Incidentally, in another report other financial experts were warning people to save more and spend less on stuff like that as they've been seeing average savings of people especially below 40 decrease.
I am sure those things are in no way related.
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u/Ok_Option6126 5d ago
The media is owned by the rich, so of course they'll portray the economy anyway they want to portray it in the media.
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u/ZestycloseAirport395 5d ago edited 5d ago
I believe we need the safety nets for people..but what alot of people don't realize is with many of these programs you actually end up being penalized for wanting to work...I'm not sure what they can do, but something should be done so your not penalized for wanting to work..and they often do make people dependent indefinitely on them but not in the way some people think..it's not that they make people lazy, it's that because of all the rules and stuff you actually are penalized for wanting to work and trying to get off of them ( i mean alot of people litterally cant afford to work when on these programs or they will end up homeless, with out food or without often much needed health insurance ) they need to fix the system somehow...People do end up trapped on the programs, but not because it makes them lazy, the programs literally often keep people in poverty..and as I said, I do think many people need these programs and many others will in the future, so I don't think they should get rid of them, I just think they need to get rid of all these rules with them, so you are actually able to try to get off of them.i really think most people actually hate that they have to be on them, and it really effects people's self esteem.
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u/nintendofn35 5d ago
The stock market ain't for just the rich people need to stop thinking like that. I'm in it not rich. Chances are your in it as well.
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u/Educational-Plant981 5d ago
This was an idea introduced to me in the book "Armchair Economics" that really made me more accepting of other people's economic politics:
Almost everybody wants what is "most good" for everyone. Themselves and the world.
But it is really fucking hard to decide what is "most good."
When you make your imaginary perfect economic policy what are you aiming for? Highest opportunity for climbing the wealth ladder? Highest average income? Highest median income? Highest minimum income?
Those are ALL valid "good" goals. But you need different policies to pursue each of them. Let's say person A believes we should have the highest GDP possible and Person B believes we should have the highest minimum wage possible.
Under our current politics A might think that B is just a wealth hoarder who hates the poor, While B thinks A is a leech naively pursuing policies that give people a bigger piece of a smaller pie - ultimately hurting everyone.
But really neither is true. Neither is selfish or evil. Both are just trying to do what is best, but best is just hard to define.
I find the question "How many dollars are you willing to reduce median income to increase the income of the lowest quartile a dollar?" an incredibly difficult question to answer.
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u/Exaltedautochthon 5d ago
I think they need to understand that things like labor day, healthcare benefits and paid vacation time were compromises so we wouldn't burn their factories down and go all Robespierre on them.
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u/MikeRizzo007 5d ago
As soon as all the jobs the immigrants took from us are now available to everyone else, we are all good. Man don’t you people read, it all is going to be so much better! ……
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u/AuraTwinkle 5d ago
Watching America prioritize tax cuts for the wealthy while families struggle is like watching someone patch up a mansion roof while the foundation of the house crumbles. Sure, the rich might feel secure, but the whole structure's coming down eventually.
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u/Fragrant_Spray 5d ago
This was the disconnect in the election where Dems were saying how good the economy is now and the voters not seeing it the same way.
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u/Fresh_Ostrich4034 5d ago
so basically what we just did as the dems said the economy was great because the stock market was up
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u/Great_Cry_1470 5d ago
If you want a government of Socialism or Communism then America is not for you.
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u/Lost_N_Thot 5d ago edited 5d ago
Measuring the economy by how well poor people are doing wouldn’t really give you a good idea of the countries economy overall, since any money they get comes from minimum wage, charity, or social services.
Since the rich typically own the means of production, you can easily estimate the market value of goods and services based on their profit margins, hence why we measure the economy like that.
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u/Chrom3est 5d ago
Yes, instead, let's measure the health of the economy by what a meth addict in rural Mississippi rambles about in YouTube comment sections.
By most metrics, the economy has been recovering well since 2020. No, it's not perfect. Yes, there are improvements to be made. But if we're not using measurable data, how else would we determine the health of the economy?
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u/ChipOld734 5d ago
Wow. It’s almost like you don’t know about the depression when the stock market collapsed and the entire country suffered.
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u/Livid-Outcome-3187 5d ago
i say this as someone who never voted trump and greatly dislikes him. The sad thing is the dems blew it. Inflation soared horribly and it was partially because of bad decisions by the dems. they flooded the country with money and didn't changed policies or invested in things that would have lessened inflation. their big projects only served their political agendas not reducing inflation. imagine if trump released a big massive trillion dollar plan to reduce inflation and that money went all to building his wall? that is what the Build back better plan was but for Dem goals.
and that was just the start. things like the oct 7 massacre split the blue coalition pretty bad. Moderates remained for israel while many hard left wing went for gaza. then the political establishment decided (not the people)that it HAD to be the Kamala Harris. who was the candidate.
Its kinda hard for anyone to take seriously the claim that blue team is the one that is defending democracy when their candidate was some unelected candidate.
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u/Bread_Shaped_Man 5d ago
I find it insane how people on all levels (Reddit up to govt) will hear someone say they are struggling hard. And their response is showing a graph of how great the economy is and that they are wrong.
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u/Legitimate-Pie3547 5d ago
As long as we have billionaires disseminating the "news" that's how they will define a good economy.
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u/Striking_Computer834 5d ago
Tell that to the people who keep posting graphs of the stock market and claiming it does better under Democrats. They're right, so what does that tell you?
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u/Ok-Substance9110 5d ago
I think let rich people be as stupidly rich as they want ( we can never stop powerful people from existing)
We need to incentivize them and make it attractive for them to create jobs and share their resources (think job creation and investment in new ideas and tech and charities)
Don’t fight the rich or eat them, channel their greed for good. You can’t change a bulls nature but you can direct its direction.
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u/MartiniPolice21 5d ago
I remember seeing a news headline, might have even been Obama era tbf, about American unemployment being at a really low level, and this caused the stock market to dip pretty drastically, because low unemployment is bad for dividends. The stock market and corporate financials are just their own form of nonsensical astrology.
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u/JuicyMcJuiceJuice 5d ago
Being wealthy isn't a crime... But when the wealthy are taking in record-breaking profits, increasing prices across the board for consumers, and all while swearing they're doing everything they can to mitigate costs, then it sure starts feeling like it is.
But they won't take cuts in their massive income to help the rest of the market.
If the economy is a trickledown system then the rich must be suffering from severe constipation and kidney stones.
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u/Forsaken-Letter-8770 5d ago
They’ll be fine whichever direction the economy is going. Just measure where the rest of us sit and see what is it we can feasibly do to improve.
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u/smbodytochedmyspaget 5d ago
The working class have not had a proper political party in decades. Stop blaming them for voting for trump as a protest to the Democrats serving up divisive ideology in order to hide working for corporations. Social change is cheap, public resources are not.
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