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> A hard thing to wrap your head around in economics is the idea that two opposite things can be true at once. > Consumers are in the best shape they’ve been i
by leg100 6y ago
> A hard thing to wrap your head around in economics is the idea that two opposite things can be true at once.
> Consumers are in the best shape they’ve been in, ever.
> A huge portion of consumers think that’s bogus because they’re in the worst shape they’ve been in, ever.
> Both are true.
They're not. Workers, whether they've materially done well through the pandemic, or not, are sufficiently lucid to see that this all has to be paid for. And they're the ones who will pay for it.
Unlike the author, who is blindsighted by, and even marvels at, the "huge" numbers, unable to see more than a few months down the line.
A worker may be in a house that's booming in value with a tech salary and buying lots of nice things from Amazon and deliveroo but he can see the world outside.
Workers aren't atoms spread apart in a vacuum. They know people friends and family who aren't doing as well as themselves, or vice versa.
So there is no contradiction in terms. Things are bad full stop.
- julienb_sea 6y agoI'm not even sure what you are arguing. Things are not "bad full stop". The article pretty clearly points out that for large swaths of the economy things are absolutely just fine, that in aggregate things are just fine, that aggregate measures of debt and savings are both looking quite rosy. A few months down the line literally all of the economic issues will be better off as quarantines are lightened, as things reopen and new businesses are created to replace the old. The actual issue is going to be what society does with our national debt one day including the 3T we assumed as part of our stimulus for this one pandemic. This is not a "few months away" problem but a few decades away problem.
- leg100 6y ago> The article pretty clearly points out that for large swaths of the economy things are absolutely just fine, that in aggregate things are just fine, that aggregate measures of debt and savings are both looking quite rosy. That's manifestly untrue. Aggregate measures of debt are at an all time high, measuring across government, households and non-financials [1]. Household savings have gone up but that has to be placed in the context of massive state intervention. Essentially you're not only taking money from one hand and giving to the other but a massive mortgage has been taken out too, to come due on future generations at the expense of future GDP. [1]: https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/us-non-financial-debt-surges-to-record-high-more-is-to-come-07-07-2020 https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/us-non-fina...
- jellicle 6y agoIn aggregate 1000 people starving to death and one Elon Musk are doing "just fine".
- jddjheh 6y agoElon gained 10^11 when to not starve 10^5 might be enough. So he could offset 10^6 - milion people starving.