re: The economy is so bad that the number of jobs created last month busted forecasts by 100K

I'd drill into that number for a better view:













The reality is that the economy is concentrating at basically every level (i.e. individual, firm, industry, asset prices) but also young people are in fact getting huge raises as they get more experience in their careers. The low income earners now include rich people who are retired and are collecting government checks indexed to CPI and that money is clearly being spent. Same with welfare recipients. This website is mostly middle to high income earners that get raped by taxes and insurance and have kids that aren't self-sustaining so it's fairly easy to understand the armageddon sentiment. We've been grinding along below trend for 15 years and along with it, misery in general is way up. That's indicative of an unhealthy economy IMO. But there are pockets of health as well.

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$1.60 under Trump…$3.30 right now at the station less than a mile from me. Like I said, doesn’t really matter to me, I’m wealthy. My house is paid for and my cars and motorcycles. $977,000 in CD’s.

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Inflation is making life difficult for middle to low income working families.

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I agree that the media and the dems are way too quick to just quote aggregate stats and then declare that people are stupid for not thinking things are great.

But overall, things are actually pretty decent - and in certain pockets, they are spectacular. I think a lot of the white collar whining around her is nearly purely politically based. I can't think of a single professional I know (including myself) that isn't vastly better off now than they were 3, 5 and 10 years ago.

At first on here, it was bitch about markets being down (despite the fact that the original bitching was that markets were too high because they were on a QE sugar high). Then, when markets have gone to the moon (and housing hasn't "crashed" either - despite copious predictions to the contrary on both), we've had to shift the goalposts to just declaring the economy is "so bad".

We have plenty of real problems we can highlight and discuss, but it's dumb to just make shite up because you don't like who happens to be POTUS.

If white collar pros haven't consistently grown their income and wealth over the past 20 years, that's on them, not the rest of us.

One prediction I have is that the mega tech companies will start really letting older workers go. We watched Twitter fire 70% of their people or whatever and it seems to be working fine to me. Certainly at some point MSFT/AMZN/etc. will stop running charities and start making adults actually clock more than 20 hours/week...right?

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I can't think of a single professional I know (including myself) that isn't vastly better off now than they were 3, 5 and 10 years ago.

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10 years? Sure. 5 years? Yes. 3 years? No fricking way, for all the data and reasoning put forth multiple times. Nobody's making up anything, except maybe the government when they release their "data" only to revise it afterwards. Stop white knighting for these fools. At this point, I think you're just an idiot because I'd hate to think you actually believe your bullshite.

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10 years? Sure. 5 years? Yes. 3 years? No fricking way, for all the data and reasoning put forth multiple times.

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While I can’t speak for everyone, obviously, the majority of folks that I know and deal with professionally are at least as good today as they were 3 years ago.

Idk if I’d go as far as saying “vastly better off”, but certainly not worse off in the majority of cases.

10 years? Sure. 5 years? Yes. 3 years? No fricking way, for all the data and reasoning put forth multiple times. Nobody's making up anything, except maybe the government when they release their "data" only to revise it afterwards. Stop white knighting for these fools. At this point, I think you're just an idiot because I'd hate to think you actually believe your bullshite.
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Nope. I align with the comment you are responding to. Most in my circle are better off this year than last, as well as the previous few years. I have some young adult kids that are struggling from inflation. No argument there as inflation has taken a toll. My wealth has gone up every year for many hears regardless of president. Maybe you are doing it wrong?

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But overall, things are actually pretty decent

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They aren't devastating, but I would call "pretty decent" a bit of a stretch.



Real wages have been below Q1 2020 for most of the period since that time.

The average consumer's perception of this is driven by a few factors:

1. Grocery prices. Someone can spend $100 on regular groceries (ie: not just raiding the steaks) in Walmart and barely cover the bottom of their buggy. Pre-COVID, it was an entirely different story. We in the US have grown very accustomed to our food not costing a lot and that has changed so sharply that consumers aren't forgetting it. Everyone has to eat, so almost everyone feels it to a continually noticeable.

To explain this a little better we can look at USDA Food Plan Cost estimates for April 2019 vs even the Thrifty Plan costs for April 2024.

Looking at the costs for a family of four (Male and Female parents between the ages of 19-50 and two children between the ages of 6-11) we see:

2019's Liberal plan (most costly): ~$255/week
2019's Thrifty plan (cheapest): ~$150/week

2024's Thrifty plan (cheapest): ~$225/week

The difference between the two Thrifty plans is ~66.67% over five years, or ~13.3% increase per year (and that's not counting the impact of shrinkflation).

2. Pump prices. Consumers don't care about how the US is producing more oil than ever, they care that the prices at the pump are staying so high (see: refining capacity). This not only impacts their ability to get around, it helps keep inflation sticky as the prices of oil and gasoline impact everything.

3. Housing costs. The big talk is about how home prices are still high (both the asking price and the loan rates), but a lesser (but still greatly felt) impact is that of rent prices increasing. ( LINK) While housing prices are coming down in many areas, it's not because of excess supply but due to loan rates being more of a barrier to entry. As such, once rates start getting cut we can expect to see home prices quickly increase once again. This means that we are more likely to continue to see an increase in renters until we get some sort of real correction.

All of this is while the economy if bifurcating. Those who were able to invest a decent amount and/or buy a home prior to 2022 are in a much better position than those who were not. Inflation is continuing to rise and has been outpacing wages for most of the period from 2021-now (with real wages on the decline this year) and nothing looks to change that anytime soon. As long as that continues, the income level at which the bifurcation happens will continue to inch up the income ladder.

We aren't getting out of this without a recession or stagflation. Wages and Inflation are chasing one another in a cycle where the only way to bring that back down is by going through an economic downturn which increases the value of the Dollar. The longer that gets put off, the worse the eventual "correction" will be.

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But overall, things are actually pretty decent - and in certain pockets, they are spectacular

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Imagine being so stupid you actually think this economy is doing decent.

You do realize, they will do everything they can to prop up this economy for the “right now” crowd, because they know it will all come crashing during the next administration and they can blame the opposite party. (Ex. Releasing oil from the reserve stockpile which should only be used during a catastrophe, not because you need your poll numbers elevated).

Everything they do is for their own good. Everything. Nothing being done is sustainable and they know it, but they get the bootlickers to say, “ gee the economy is doing decent”.

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That’s the point. Don’t tell me I’m vastly better off than what I was 3 years ago. It’s not true. While my investing accounts may be slightly up from where they were 3 years ago, inflation robs that of being a win.

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Damn that’s crazy. Looking at my spreadsheet now my nw is up nearly 7 figs since 2021.

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Does that magic number on your screen increase your ability to produce/consume goods and services?

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Yes.