All of this talk is already 1 or even 2 years obsolete. While people were arguing about soft vs hard landing shit the stock market rallied to all time highs, they created an entirely new AI/Tech bubble and everything now hinges on whether or not that bubble will crash.
Bad data about the real economy, if and when it comes at all will be completely irrelevant to the mainstream economic analysis going forward.
I find it challenging to envision how the tech bubble could sustain the economy. Essential needs must be met, and people must be able to afford basic necessities such as housing and food. The US economy is moving towards a state where these necessities are no longer accessible for the majority of individuals. As Lenin once noted, every society is three meals away from chaos.
We just subtly redefined the economy. It no longer involves provision of essential goods and services to actual people. It's all a scoreboard of stock prices and interest rates.
Cults never change: we're all going to transcend and become ~~beings of pure energy~~ Nevada Limited Liability Corporations that no longer need food or housing because we can subsist on ~~Lord Kalutika's Golden Light~~ eternal 9% annualized paper growth.
This is why GDP is such an irrelevant measure. In the US it includes financialization. Rents are included as "product." Insurance is "product." Tech industry vaporware investment is "product." They define things that most definitely are not being produced as "product" and say look how much we produce the economy is great! It's just made up
It's even worse than that because a lot of the GDP comes from the industries that are actively harmful to society. Private health insurance is a perfect example, it's an industry that profits of basic needs of the people, and it's making the working majority poorer and less healthy. Yet, it bolsters the GDP on paper.
Right, and once the economy becomes disconnected from the actual needs of the people it loses all meaning.
There's lots of work being done so people are being paid, it's just that this work is not productive so the money generated by other actually productive sectors of the economy is essentially being put in a big pile and lit on fire
everything now hinges on whether or not that bubble will crash
*when that bubble will crash
Look at Nvidia, ridiculous
"AI" has got to be the most transparent grift I can remember
Crypto. Nfts. Ai. The trifecta of absolute bullshit that's actively made things worse
I wasnt really old enough to follow what we going on, but I think the .com bubble was like this. "get a website! E-commerce! Unlimited weatlh and beauty" and somehow no one stopped to consider that while E-commerce might be convenient, it wasn't going ot create much in the way of new markets. And then in 99 everything crashed and the end of history ended for the first time.
Yea except if you look at the price of actually needed stuff it’s been skyrocketing constantly so the tech bubble has only delayed the inevitable for finance bros and no one else
enjoy my $2000 check man, don’t spend it all at once
But it was only $1400 after you promised $2000.
somehow the impending crash will make housing more expensive, not less
Death to America
Rule number one of anglonomics: the economy is good? Excellent, that adds value to property values!
The economy is bad? Oh no, but at least property values are going to go up.
I inherited 20,000 bucks a year ago and it's pretty much all gone down, between car payments and medical expenses and two vacations and a dental emergency and food and gas going up. Reading this makes me feel not as bad, but I also didn't have to pay rent and could easily have spent less by budgeting better and such... I did spend a fair amount on weed but funnily enough that's like the one thing that has stayed stable in price.
funnily enough that's like the one thing that has stayed stable in price.
Government price fixing works folks.
The feds should legalize weed solely so they can use it like TVs to keep the CPI down lol
I've decided a while ago that I won't ever be able to save for retirement so now I'm working on technical skills for the revolution.
technical skills
Time to start 3D printing guns fellas.
Somebody get Paul Krugman on the horn and tell him.
"horn" being literal since he still doesn't have an email
"On the horn" meaning "call on the phone" is in my head because the other day I watched Buckaroo Banzai (a 1984 movie) and the Secretary of State uses it to dress down security guards who won't let him pass in a "Don't you know who I am?" moment.
I haven't gotten a raise in two years (despite getting a promotion) and my rent has gone up 70% in the past 4 years. I've been effectively priced out of ever owning a home where I live. All this to say my partner's chud dad is old and my partner has to manage some of his finances occasionally. Just one of his accounts made $500K so far this year. Our only chance at owning a home is to bank on a generational wealth transfer that could take a decade or more. It's a fucking joke.
It's nuts to me that parents making that kind of money don't just buy houses for their kids. Like how fucking cruel can you be?
expected coming from the country that kicks out 18yr olds from home like sacks of shit and insist on driving huge suvs to the detriment of their kids
this was always so weird to me. My parents at least have an excuse that they're as broke as I am so I don't expect it from them lol but I have a friend whose parents are retired and have like, literally millions spread across different accounts and they refuse to help him out with anything. it's not like they have a bad relationship either, it's just a "pull yourself up by the bootstraps, kiddo" kinda thing.
Is the economy just a Weekend at Bernie's situation now?
personally I don't hink there was ever any recovery after the 07-08 collapse and the feds have been at best shuffling numbers around to make it look like things aren't going to hell
Over on facebook I'm being served lots of discussions about why Furiosa is doing poorly in the box office "It's because racist antisemite grandpa isn't in it!" "It's because woke!" "It's because people are sick of girl power!" but in between the mewling chuds is a simple, common thread; Folks can't afford to go to the movies.
personally I don't hink there was ever any recovery after the 07-08 collapse
Folks can't afford to go to the movies.
YES! Just really glad to see someone say these things. They're my first thought whenever i see anything articles about the "economy" or why movies (that they spend 2x to 3x more money making) aren't making enough money.
Which is wild because 75% of the top 50 of the highest grossing films of all time came out in the last decade. It's almost like the current ultra budget movie production cycle is unsustainable.
The last time I went to the movies with my wife it was deadass $50 for a large drink and large popcorn. I haven’t been to the movies since.
The 08 crisis truly never went away. You can't just wipe out that much equity accumulated over decades and expect it to bounce back by 2019 enough for you to say "this is all covid's fault now." It has had ups and downs but the overall trend since the subprime collapse has been decline.
I totally agree. Even the more privileged folks in my sphere are avoiding going out, a complete failure of the bourgeoisie to uphold the social contract of what they call "the middle class." It'll be interesting how that continues to evolve
I almost went and saw furiosa today but it was going to be ~$35 just to sit down so I said nah.
Dw Nvidia stock will save us. The sign of a healthy economy is when one stock goes up a lot
pretty much
I guess the question is how long can they keep pulling levers until it finally collapses?
Seems like they made an art of kicking the can down the road. Hard to say how long they can keep this going, but the longer it goes the harder the crash will be.
If only the people who can't pay their credit card debt knew how great the economy is doing...
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to the US government for destroying the US economy once again