After reading this news story that half of Americans are skipping meals because of affordability and a bad economy, I have to ask how are you all doing out there?
I heard from a real estate agent friend of mine that REOs, i.e. bank foreclosures on home mortgages, are going up like crazy, which is a sign of bad times, like the recession of 2007-08.
I have heard from others about rents not being paid, lack of jobs, etc.
Every day, there’s more news of corporate layoffs, moreso than usual.
I live in the economic bubble of the SF Bay Area, where tech wealth more-or-less insulates me and mine from the most serious consequences of a bad economy, but how are things elsewhere?
What’s weird to me is that economist are observing the official numbers and concluding that things aren’t that bad and the public is suffering some kind of mass psychosis, when the reality is just worse than reflected in their numbers completely escapes them.
Yes because economic metrics were never intended to show how the economy is doing for the average person. The entire field needs to be reworked from first principles before it has any value to us
That’s because they aren’t looking at numbers or statistics that are directly relevant to typical citizens. GDP isn’t the same thing as average wages or cost of living.
The economy is great if you’re disgustingly wealthy.
Yes, but they do look at stuff like the unemployment rate, wages, etc… But I don’t think it captures the lived experience of stagnation we’ve been having for the past several years, and even if there’s “job growth” it might not be good jobs and people might know that they’re chances of getting a good job are slim to none, etc… lots of little things that wouldn’t necessarily be reflected in these incredibly broad statistics.
But economics, as a practiced science, is about boosting GDP, not making the lives of individuals better, so I think it indicates that the entire field is deeply flawed.
“Economics” and “science” don’t belong in a sentence together
Unless there’s a “pseudo” immediately before the “science”…
Never forget that the capitalist economy thrives off of the exploitation of the working class.
UR is bs?
It kind of it is, because it doesn’t capture people who have given up on looking for work, either because they don’t think they can get a job, or think the jobs they can get are emotionally/physically worse than living off whatever systems they have access to.
The one you want to look at it if you want to understand society better is NEET–people Not in Education, Employment or Training…
I see economic indicators that I’ve never heard commented on.
We’ve been building storage places around here non-stop for several years. This is clear evidence that people are downgrading their living arrangements.
There are fewer flea market vendors and they’ll selling cheaper and cheaper. This leads me to believe the lower end of the income spectrum can no longer afford what was already stupid cheap. This is kinda true of garage sales, but those have always been the cheapest end of the used market.
People are leaving far less free shit on the curb. Either that or people are snatching it up faster. Not a good sign in either case.
Pay attention to the news reports talking about ‘K’ shaped economy, which is exactly what you’re talking about
That’s been a phenomenon for awhile now, there used to be more of a correlation between the economic data and the public perception of the economy. Things like low unemployment and wages outpacing inflation don’t necessarily result in improved consumer confidence like they used to.
Yes, but the academic question to ask if if people know something the numbers don’t.
Ahh logic. No longer a thing in the USA.