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I think it's great to check media sensationalism, but I think there's a massive disconnect between the impacts of inflation on highly paid software engineers, a

I think it's great to check media sensationalism, but I think there's a massive disconnect between the impacts of inflation on highly paid software engineers, and most Americans. It's also a bit strange to see you view media as a completely separate entity from "decision-makers in companies". My experience has been that most decision makers in companies get most of their ideas entirely from the board and major investors. I recently left a publicly traded company, and pretty much every time our "leaders" met with the border and major investors they would come back singing a very different tune then they went in. But these same major investors and board members also have relationships with people running major media companies (which are also just companies), in many cases they may even be the same people. There's this trend I've seen on HN to just dismiss anything that seems wrong with the world, no matter the evidence, with "media sensationalism", as though we are living in fantastic times if it were for that pesky media distorting our views.

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kvathupo 3y ago
As the child of blue-collar parents, I'd agree that there's a lot of price anxiety in their neck of the woods. I'd also add that the statistics can be misleading: of the jobs added, many are in food services and front-line healthcare. For the former, the positions don't provide hours and pay poorly. Not a great area to be adding jobs in amidst high inflation and depressed lending.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
> I think it's great to check media sensationalism, but I think there's a massive disconnect between the impacts of inflation on highly paid software engineers, and most Americans. Thank you for saying this, it's exactly what was going through my head while reading that post. The very idea that money problems are in people's heads, while it can be true, people are panicking not because the media told them to but because they can see for themselves that they don't make enough money. If you've never been through it you may not understand. When we hit the recession in the early 90's my family quite literally did not make enough money to afford everything month to month (stepfather worked at a grocery store). We were slowly going into debt just to survive (bills, housing, food, gas).

deleted 3y ago

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kvathupo 3y ago

As the child of blue-collar parents, I'd agree that there's a lot of price anxiety in their neck of the woods. I'd also add that the statistics can be misleading: of the jobs added, many are in food services and front-line healthcare. For the former, the positions don't provide hours and pay poorly. Not a great area to be adding jobs in amidst high inflation and depressed lending.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

> I think it's great to check media sensationalism, but I think there's a massive disconnect between the impacts of inflation on highly paid software engineers, and most Americans. Thank you for saying this, it's exactly what was going through my head while reading that post. The very idea that money problems are in people's heads, while it can be true, people are panicking not because the media told them to but because they can see for themselves that they don't make enough money. If you've never been through it you may not understand. When we hit the recession in the early 90's my family quite literally did not make enough money to afford everything month to month (stepfather worked at a grocery store). We were slowly going into debt just to survive (bills, housing, food, gas).