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I hate sounding both old and weird but I cannot shake the feeling that much of the claims of economic health and growth in the US is... if not fake (I’m not tot

• kozikow 9y ago
  The top captures all the economic growth: http://time.com/money/4371332/income-inequality-recession/ http://time.com/money/4371332/income-inequality-recession/ .
  • rconti 9y ago
    This doesn't give me a great feeling for whether they're recapturing losses from the downturn (from which the rich 'suffered' disproportionately due to their heavy involvement in asset markets), or whether that 85% of the gains is in proportion to what they already took home in proportion of total dollars. It could be they're taking home 95% of the income so capturing 85% of the growth is actually relatively low. I just don't know.
    • linkregister 9y ago
      The poorest quintile suffered disproportionately, particularly minority workers.
      • rconti 9y ago
        I'm sorry, I meant in absolute dollar terms (which is why I put 'suffered' in quotes for the rich). That's not meant to minimize the fact that the poorest had the most actual suffering. (and, likely, on average, the greatest % decrease in earned income due to unemployment).
        • linkregister 9y ago
          I was speaking in terms of percentages. In absolute terms, it's almost a meaningless comparison because the highest quintile will almost always experience a larger dollar fluctuation.
          • rconti 9y ago
            The problem is the article terms the rich as getting "85% of the gains" which, while a percentage figure, is not a percentage of their wealth -- it's percent of actual dollar figures. So if we're trying to decide whether or not they disproportionately profited from the rebound, we'd have to figure out how it compared to their losses.
• shmerl 9y ago
  They should use the metric of purchasing power, not just an abstract "growth". If anything purchasing power seems to be dropping for a lot of people.
  • alphaalpha101 9y ago
    That still has a very consumerist bent to it. What about some real outcome-based measurements? Why aren't we measuring how well the economy performs by measuring how healthy people are? Or levels of malnutrition? Or happiness? Or stress? Or education? We should measure our economic progress by how well we're doing as people, not by how much extra shit rich people can buy.
    • shmerl 9y ago
      Let's rephrase it. When people can't buy necessities, they aren't doing well.
      • alphaalpha101 9y ago
        When people can buy necessities and luxury items but depression is at an all-time high, they aren't doing well either.
        • Godel_unicode 9y ago
          I'm curious how you know depression is at an all-time high given it has never really been measured before. Do you really believe people in the US are more depressed now than in the early 19th century, say? Consider that people includes Native Americans and African Americans.
        • thephyber 9y ago
          Theoretically economics could be about "utility", but in practice it's too subjective to measure what different humans value so we measure transactions because those largely use consistent measurable currencies. It's interesting that economics doesn't usually factor in how much value is created by things that has a transactional value near zero, such as: * a housewife maintaining a household, * a person who quits work to care for a dependent family member, or * open source software.
• Florin_Andrei 9y ago
  Maybe what that means is that the economy (or perhaps society in general) is/are changing in ways that are genuinely new, and our understanding of it is lagging behind.
  • 1_2__4 9y ago
    Yeah, that's what I was trying to say with my "charitable interpretation", you articulated it much better.
  • chiefalchemist 9y ago
    But why is it lagging, what feels to be, so far behind? Perhaps there's a reason to delay the truth? Because it's not pretty? Obama sold hope for 8 years. Trump is making America great again. This perception ponzi scheme can't keep going forever. Or can it?
• andrewmcwatters 9y ago
  All of the above might be great, but that doesn't mean the day-to-day or debt obligations of fellow Americans have improved.
• StanislavPetrov 9y ago
  >But I keep hearing employment is great, productivity is great, stock market is great The question you have to ask is, who are you hearing this from? The answer is: people with a vested interest in making you believe the economy is doing great, or people fooled into believing this by those with a vested interest. I suggest you closely examine the metrics used by those who claim the "economy is great". First these metrics are usually comparing year-over-year changes to point to "positive changes" in the economy. What they fail to announce is that the formulas they use to calculate these metrics are "adjusted" regularly to ensure that the numbers they seek are reflected. CPI is a perfect example. The FED claims that inflation has been very low, if not non-existent for years (good for workers, since their wages have fallen or remained stagnant for decades). Some have noted, however, that prices for most of the things people need to survive (food, rent, education, healthcare, insurance) continue to rise dramatically. How can this be? Well one way the FED lies with their numbers is through a mechanism called the "hedonic adjustment". If you paid $2 for a roll 60-sheet roll of toilet paper last year. This year you paid $3 for a 60-sheet roll this year, that's some serious inflation, right? Not according to the FED. The FED claims that the quality of the toilet paper is better now. Even though you are paying 50% more, the FED says the toilet paper is 50% better, so there is no inflation. How are these "hedonic adjustments" calculated? Arbitrarily by FED functionaries, in a black-box. Rising debt, falling and stagnant wages, higher prices, consolidation of wealth - these are the real conditions we face and why our economy is lagging. Many will look at you as if you are wearing a tinfoil hat if you question the "official numbers", but even casual scrutiny of the methods and metrics used (the ones they do release) will raise substantial doubts about their worth.
  • jxramos 9y ago
    I dream about the day when the CBO and the Fed lay out all their calculations in a Jupyter Notebook and some means of accessing the raw data used. I can smell the transparency there.
    • thadk 9y ago
      I haven't looked into this carefully but I believe the UK does this already in R: https://twitter.com/Rbloggers/status/846887304379744259 https://twitter.com/Rbloggers/status/846887304379744259
• rednerrus 9y ago
  I live in a city on one of the coasts and the growth right now is out of control.
• CaptSpify 9y ago
  Sure it's fake. Our economic models are so out of touch with reality, it's a wonder the system works at all. We treat digital goods the same as physical goods, we spend tons of money to prop up giant failing structures instead of letting them fall apart, we let those that make the most walk away without paying their fair share, we subsidize stuff that nobody wants and is harmful to us, and aren't even close to making anyone pay for externalities accurately. I feel like we're headed into a really deep economic downturn, but hey, at least we have plenty of golden parachutes for the rich!
  • nkozyra 9y ago
    > We treat digital goods the same as physical goods I'm struggling to see the impact this has on economic reality. Could you expound?
    • keenmaster 9y ago
      I took that as a reference to the decline of manufacturing in the United States.
      • nkozyra 9y ago
        Even so ... if we've supplanted manufacturing with non-tangible good production, what impact does that have on economic reality?
        • keenmaster 9y ago
          I agree. On the whole, with a service economy and comparative advantage, we should be better off as a result. Automation, however, is redistributing a greater share of wealth to those with capital. The adverse side effects of that phenomenon, which is unstoppable, are being conflated with outsourcing, which can be disincentivized. People know as a fact that things used to be better when there were more manufacturing jobs around. They are simply acting on what they know instead of confronting a novel problem with a novel solution. Rethinking education and the cost thereof would be a good place to start.
• tdeck 9y ago
  I've definitely heard that productivity isn't great, it's been growing very slowly for quite some time: http://www.npr.org/2017/06/02/531173429/understanding-the-productivity-paradox http://www.npr.org/2017/06/02/531173429/understanding-the-pr... https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/below-trend-the-us-productivity-slowdown-since-the-great-recession.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/below-trend-the-us-pro...
• lettergram 9y ago
  Alternatively, student loans are rediculously high. Every adult I know always pushes college, but had I been given a $100k loan to buy a rental unit at 18, I'd have turned that into $250k by the time I finished 5 years of school. Not to mention, I could have worked a 9 - 5, $25 / hr job, and bought a second or third... Perhaps school isn't the best in many cases. Now I pay $1k a month in student loan payments, on top of everything else. I'm in tech too, so it's not bad - but I can imagine the 95 / 100 who don't get a tech job are struggling
  • kiliantics 9y ago
    Where do you get a 9-5 job that pays $25/hr without going to college? I know adjunct professors that get paid less than that.
    • AFNobody 9y ago
      I got that starting w/o a degree in web dev...so...yeah.
    • Erik816 9y ago
      Adjunct professors make less money than just about anyone, college educated or not. Many skilled trades can easily make $25/hour. The median wage for an electrian, for example, is $25/hour based on a quick search. That will depend on location and experience, but college is not the only way to get a decent paying job.
      • BatFastard 9y ago
        Sure, but how many people are trained in skilled trades?
    • lettergram 9y ago
      That's the median starting salary for a lot of places. I was actually speaking to a UPS driver about how that was his starting salary..
      • 9y ago
• dajohnson89 9y ago
  What is the trend of consumer spending? A possibility is that people are developing bad spending habits.
• chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Let me add this to your theory (which btw I agree with). Fracking! It was allowed to hockey stick - despite the ecological damage - because without historically low fuel prices the US economy would be into the weeds. Ultra-cheap fuels is a (temporary?) fix to hide plenty of ills. Keep in mind, much of the hockey stick'ing happened under Obama, who was and still is perceived to be a green prez. Yet no one has really stopped to ask why is gasoline so cheap? Why would we sacrifice the planet for fossil fuel burning? The answer is simple: because we have to. p.s. Low oil prices also puts the screws to the Russian economy. That probably isn't a hig deal but it's certainly for some a nice bonus.
  • taw55 9y ago
    This is my current hypothesis. Been too lazy to look at the figures though.
    • chiefalchemist 9y ago
      I've definitely read things on how much fracting has increased, especially in the last 5 to 10 years. We talked a good green game but it was the economy that won out.
• cat199 9y ago
  do not worry, central committee will fix it in the next 5 year plan.
• xelxebar 9y ago
  Is it possible even in principle to calculate things like CPI-U from publicly available raw data? It would be really cool to have access to time series prices for broad swathes of goods amd from various locations across the country/world. I'd be interested in playing with that data to see if the official numbers are reproducible. Also, it'd be cool to see how well one could predict future prices of certain goods, like toilet paper. We probably also want data on the spending habits of various locations and demographics.
• PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  Official US government "unemployment" rates only include people who are "jobless, looking for a job, and available for work". This means that the graduate who can't find work, gives up, and goes back to his parents' basement is not unemployed. The guy who can't work anymore due to injury or chronic illness, barely surviving on disability, is not unemployed. The man begging for change outside the subway, who doesn't look for work because no one will hire someone who can't get clean clothes or a shower, is not unemployed. They are, rather, "not in the labor force." Keep this in mind when you hear someone saying that unemployment is down. Source: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#concepts https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#concepts
  • thephyber 9y ago
    The old U3 vs. U6 argument gets tired quickly. It's not a conspiracy that the government still relies heavily on U3 -- it's just more useful for what the government does and it's more accurate than U6 measurements. U3 is the official measurement because it has a long history and it's useful for simplifying policy decisions. It's also fairly accurate because it's largely based on unemployment insurance claims forms, which have to be re-filled every 1-2 weeks. U6 is also an BLS measurement[1] but it not as useful. It contains far more noise and is far harder to get an accurate count (because many of the constituent groups can't be surveyed without random samples). U3 will probably continue to be used as the "official" measurement so long as there are significant tradeoffs to moving to U6. [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
    • PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      I'm sure it has its uses, but when the news publishes an unemployment percentage that does not actually describe the percentage of people who are unemployed, that's deceptive and dishonest. I dunno if it's down to malice or just bureaucratic incompetence, but it's false either way. > It's also fairly accurate because it's largely based on unemployment insurance claims forms, which have to be re-filled every 1-2 weeks. That's even worse. You can only claim unemployment insurance for a few months after losing your job. Claiming that's more accurate because it's easier to measure is like the joke about the guy who lost his keys in the bushes, but is looking for them under the streetlamp because it's easier to see.
• neilwilson 9y ago
  It's doing great for those who the people that matter think matter. Eventually somebody will say "let them eat cake" and heads will start ending up on spikes. It's been the same process throughout history: an aristocracy forms, they become blind to the suffering around them, heads on spikes.
• taurath 9y ago
  Everyone young is rushing to the cities in order to make any sort of decent living but finds that housing costs are so high it doesn’t really matter much. Those staying in rural America can maybe afford housing but they have no stability. The stability factor is really the key - I know of few people that expect to be in the same job in 5 years, and everyone stretching for housing to try to get some longer term stability are on a knifes edge. That’s at least my perspective from where I’m standing.
• Feniks 9y ago
  Define people? You can look up the statistics but the wealthy top 5% have been doing very VERY well these last 30 years and everything continues to be great. People aren't wrong when they say how amazing it is that Trump managed to bankrupt himself.
• eighthnate 9y ago
  > But I keep hearing employment is great, productivity is great, stock market is great, and yet it seems like most anecdotal evidence I see and read about suggest this is all hollow, and things are actually really bad for the average American. Stock market and the incredible rebound of housing prices are great if you are older/wealthier and own assets. There is no denying that if you were wealthy and an asset owner, you did incredibly well. But if you are young with student loans or an average joe with a few thousand in the 401k, then it isn't going to affect you much. The years since the financial crisis was primarily about bailing out the big banks and the wealthy asset owners. If you are an young or an average person, you are doing even worse now since medical costs have increased. The ACA ( obamacare ) was about transferring the burden of medical costs from the elderly and sick to the young and healthy. If you are older, wealthier and owned a lot of assets, the past 8 years have been the best years of your financial life. The S&P 500 rose from 600s to 2500s and looks to be headed to 3000. Everyone else has fallen behind. Stagnant wages and increasing medical insurance costs.
• cJ0th 9y ago
  Maybe decision makers are too data driven? Whatever they do has to be justifiable and most people don't argue against numbers. So trying to optimize aggregated or averaged numbers looks like a sensible approach. The problem, however, is that aggregated numbers don't tell much about the gap between rich and poor and averages don't describe individuals. As a result, there is a gap between reality and what people believe the data tells us.
• BatFastard 9y ago
  Lets just say the rich are doing well.