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Reverse Betteridge's law: Yes, this is a recession. You might not think it's a recession, and you might hate the word, but the conditions have been met. I'm no

Reverse Betteridge's law: Yes, this is a recession. You might not think it's a recession, and you might hate the word, but the conditions have been met. I'm not going to shed any tears on behalf of anyone near the top, they're going to be fine. Despite their high positions, they won't have a fall, unlike those already at the bottom.

happiness_idx 4y ago
those already at the bottom are at the bottom, the middle class will suffer. Thus leading to a widening of the gap in wealth inequality. You will own nothing and be happy.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  The middle class is a myth. If you need your income or assets to survive and can't use it to feast on your neighbors during a crisis with the other vultures then you're a peon like the rest of us. Just because you have to sell the jet ski and the SUV and might have to sell both houses because you over-leveraged trying to leech off of the rest of the working class doesn't mean you're being hurt more than the single mothers with two minimum wage jobs that are now homeless.
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    There used to be a way, essentially limiting exposure of yourself to just media and maintenance. If you actually owned the necessary assets and were able to get a big buffer. Typically you got there by not overleveraging or using debt instruments at all. These days it's getting ever harder to pull it off, if not impossible. Mostly because housing market jumped the shark. Selling assets can be a problem anyway since many of them actually depreciate hard. Jet ski and old fuel guzzling SUV likely nobody will want. The house, maybe, but it will get ever harder to sell them as buyers are starved of money and credit.
- solumunus 4y ago
  It seems like both are about to suffer greatly.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Well, the bottom is a not so solid cover over a, for all practically purposes, bottomless hole.
criley2 4y ago
"The conditions have been met" refers to the colloquial definition of a recession as 2 quarters of GDP contraction, which is not a technical measure, not respected or entertained by economists, not used by policy-makers, etc. It's like saying my camera is better than yours because mine is 40 megapixels. The experts know that this comparison is wrong, but for the lay person, it's easy and quick to use it. Regardless, the cooling off is engineered and necessary. The central bank created this "recession" (not yet? but probably soon regardless?) by raising interest rates extremely quickly because inflation is out of control, because globalized shipping has collapsed sufficiently that demand can't be met here or in most major economies. With unemployment at 3.5% and dropping and hiring still going strong, wages rising faster than at any point in most of our lives, I'm personally not worried about what will hopefully be light and necessary recession, even if the "2 quarters of negative GDP growth" is a bunk line, cooling off the economy until the global supply chains can resolve is obviously the only solution to inflation.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
  > With unemployment at 3.5% and dropping and hiring still going strong, wages rising faster than at any point in most of our lives, I'm personally not worried about what will hopefully be light and necessary recession, even if the "2 quarters of negative GDP growth" is a bunk line, cooling off the economy until the global supply chains can resolve is obviously the only solution to inflation. The best way to fool yourself into thinking that the country is moving in the right direction is to look at money metrics such as wages, GDP, savings etc. They deteriorate in a matter of weeks when shit hits the fan, so they are only backwards looking. The sad reality is that we are not using any new or novel products/services compared to 5 years ago. If you exclude the mRNA vaccines the pipeline of innovation is also empty. Where will the next bump in quality of life come from? We are still milking the internet by making copies of apps and websites .
  - VikingCoder 4y ago
    > The sad reality is that we are not using any new or novel products/services compared to 5 years ago. If you exclude the mRNA vaccines the pipeline of innovation is also empty. I'm sorry, but do you expect us to take this comment seriously? This is frankly absurd.

happiness_idx 4y ago

those already at the bottom are at the bottom, the middle class will suffer. Thus leading to a widening of the gap in wealth inequality. You will own nothing and be happy.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
The middle class is a myth. If you need your income or assets to survive and can't use it to feast on your neighbors during a crisis with the other vultures then you're a peon like the rest of us. Just because you have to sell the jet ski and the SUV and might have to sell both houses because you over-leveraged trying to leech off of the rest of the working class doesn't mean you're being hurt more than the single mothers with two minimum wage jobs that are now homeless.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  There used to be a way, essentially limiting exposure of yourself to just media and maintenance. If you actually owned the necessary assets and were able to get a big buffer. Typically you got there by not overleveraging or using debt instruments at all. These days it's getting ever harder to pull it off, if not impossible. Mostly because housing market jumped the shark. Selling assets can be a problem anyway since many of them actually depreciate hard. Jet ski and old fuel guzzling SUV likely nobody will want. The house, maybe, but it will get ever harder to sell them as buyers are starved of money and credit.
solumunus 4y ago
It seems like both are about to suffer greatly.
hef19898 4y ago
Well, the bottom is a not so solid cover over a, for all practically purposes, bottomless hole.

criley2 4y ago

"The conditions have been met" refers to the colloquial definition of a recession as 2 quarters of GDP contraction, which is not a technical measure, not respected or entertained by economists, not used by policy-makers, etc. It's like saying my camera is better than yours because mine is 40 megapixels. The experts know that this comparison is wrong, but for the lay person, it's easy and quick to use it. Regardless, the cooling off is engineered and necessary. The central bank created this "recession" (not yet? but probably soon regardless?) by raising interest rates extremely quickly because inflation is out of control, because globalized shipping has collapsed sufficiently that demand can't be met here or in most major economies. With unemployment at 3.5% and dropping and hiring still going strong, wages rising faster than at any point in most of our lives, I'm personally not worried about what will hopefully be light and necessary recession, even if the "2 quarters of negative GDP growth" is a bunk line, cooling off the economy until the global supply chains can resolve is obviously the only solution to inflation.

Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
> With unemployment at 3.5% and dropping and hiring still going strong, wages rising faster than at any point in most of our lives, I'm personally not worried about what will hopefully be light and necessary recession, even if the "2 quarters of negative GDP growth" is a bunk line, cooling off the economy until the global supply chains can resolve is obviously the only solution to inflation. The best way to fool yourself into thinking that the country is moving in the right direction is to look at money metrics such as wages, GDP, savings etc. They deteriorate in a matter of weeks when shit hits the fan, so they are only backwards looking. The sad reality is that we are not using any new or novel products/services compared to 5 years ago. If you exclude the mRNA vaccines the pipeline of innovation is also empty. Where will the next bump in quality of life come from? We are still milking the internet by making copies of apps and websites .
- VikingCoder 4y ago
  > The sad reality is that we are not using any new or novel products/services compared to 5 years ago. If you exclude the mRNA vaccines the pipeline of innovation is also empty. I'm sorry, but do you expect us to take this comment seriously? This is frankly absurd.