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> There are no major economic indicators flashing red. High levels of corporate monopolization, high levels of stock buybacks, and low to no wage growth. Th

> There are no major economic indicators flashing red. High levels of corporate monopolization, high levels of stock buybacks, and low to no wage growth. They've been flashing for so long people don't even recognize them anymore.

ninetyninenine 2y ago
These aren’t red flags for stock market crashes just red flags for humanity. The status quo can have all these flags raised and still have rising stock prices rise.
- timewizard 2y ago
  Oh. The stock market and humanity are entirely separate? Cool. Let's end the stock market then. Humanity clearly doesn't need it, and it operates in conflict with it.
  - ninetyninenine 2y ago
    When did I say they are separate? I think you’re confused.
TulliusCicero 2y ago
Wage growth for lower income percentiles has actually been quite good in recent years IIRC.
- DonnyV 2y ago
  But they haven't kept up with inflation.
  - antisthenes 2y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. None of the wage growth has kept up with inflation, for any quartile of workers. Wages are still down 0.5 to 1.5 % from pre-Covid times adjusted for inflation.
    - ac29 2y ago
      Median real wages are higher than pre-covid: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q Do you have a source for your claim that they aren't?
      - TulliusCicero 2y ago
        Is that huge spike the stimulus money?
  - echelon 2y ago
    Inflation was totally self-inflicted. Both the Trump 2020 and Biden admins went crazy over stimulus when the worst of Covid had already been behind us. Pumping that much free energy into the economy cannot be undone with the simple wave of the austerity wand.
    - TulliusCicero 2y ago
      Some of it was stimulus, but some of it was logistical interruptions caused by covid. You can't just wave away how hard China shut down. Automakers struggling to source chips was not caused by too much stimulus.
    - danaris 2y ago
      This has been repeatedly debunked. Yes, there was a small amount of money pumped into the consumer economy ($2000/household). Yes, there were some supply shocks during the height of the lockdowns. No, those do not explain the persistent high prices. Unprecedented consolidation across all sectors made it easy for a much smaller group of people at the top to respond to a zeitgeist that expected inflation by keeping prices high after the supply shocks were over, and pocketing the difference. It didn't even require active collusion (though it wouldn't surprise me if there was at least a little).
      - echelon 2y ago
        > Yes, there was a small amount of money pumped into the consumer economy ($2000/household). Covid caused us to print $13 - $16 trillion dollars. That's more money than every war the US has ever participated in combined.
        immibis 2y ago
        Yep. Mostly straight to business owners. But that wasn't sold as "stimulus", it was sold as "a loan" which was then forgiven without repayment. When people talk about "stimulus" they usually mean the cheques to individuals.
simonsarris 2y ago
> and low to no wage growth Huh? There was "low to no wage growth" in the 80's and 90's. We do have wage growth now. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q Wage growth for over 25 no-college earners has been even better. > high levels of stock buybacks There's nothing economically dire, or even weird, about choosing buybacks over dividends in returning profits to shareholders. It just lets shareholders choose when to sell instead of doing it for them.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- aetherson 2y ago
  We've propagandized a generation of people into believing that there has been no wage growth for 40 years when the deal was actually that there were falling wages in the 80s, stagnant wages in the 90s, and growth since then (with a recession after 2008 that has been fully caught back up to since).
  - danaris 2y ago
    And is that wage growth consistent across all quintiles of earners? Or is it primarily concentrated in the upper quintiles? (I actually genuinely do not know the answer to this offhand.)
    - aetherson 2y ago
      It's varied a lot in that time period. When people claim that "wages have been stagnant," they're usually referencing this dataset: https://www.ibtimes.com/infographic-real-wages-production-nonsupervisory-employees-us-2784828 https://www.ibtimes.com/infographic-real-wages-production-no... Which is "real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees," and is the source of the graph that purports to show stagnation between 1973 and 2017 (it has in fact grown higher than 1973 since then). Why that particular graph? Well, it excludes wages for "the bosses" and such, so perhaps it shows something more like the average person's experience. But also, I think it's cherry-picked because it shows a particularly grim view. For example, here's the real median household income chart instead: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N And you see that it's by no means stagnant. If you want, you can find income by quintiles. In like the 90's and 2000's, the rise of inequality, top quintile earnings growth was much higher than bottom four. But that largely stopped in the 2010's and has actually reversed in the 2020's, with bottom quintile growth now the strongest. Long story short: income is complicated, there are a lot of ways to dice everything. But if you look into the claim that "wages have stagnated," you will overwhelmingly see the "real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees" data line. And regardless of how good or bad that particular choice of data is, it doesn't actually show stagnation -- it shows a big drop in the 70s and 80s, largely stagnant 90s, and then growth since then.
worik 2y ago
> High levels of corporate monopolization, high levels of stock buybacks, and low to no wage growth. Yes But the Elephant on the sofa is a deranged President threatening important trade partners Duh!

ninetyninenine 2y ago

These aren’t red flags for stock market crashes just red flags for humanity. The status quo can have all these flags raised and still have rising stock prices rise.

timewizard 2y ago
Oh. The stock market and humanity are entirely separate? Cool. Let's end the stock market then. Humanity clearly doesn't need it, and it operates in conflict with it.
- ninetyninenine 2y ago
  When did I say they are separate? I think you’re confused.

TulliusCicero 2y ago

Wage growth for lower income percentiles has actually been quite good in recent years IIRC.

DonnyV 2y ago
But they haven't kept up with inflation.
- antisthenes 2y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted. None of the wage growth has kept up with inflation, for any quartile of workers. Wages are still down 0.5 to 1.5 % from pre-Covid times adjusted for inflation.
  - ac29 2y ago
    Median real wages are higher than pre-covid: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q Do you have a source for your claim that they aren't?
    - TulliusCicero 2y ago
      Is that huge spike the stimulus money?
- echelon 2y ago
  Inflation was totally self-inflicted. Both the Trump 2020 and Biden admins went crazy over stimulus when the worst of Covid had already been behind us. Pumping that much free energy into the economy cannot be undone with the simple wave of the austerity wand.
  - TulliusCicero 2y ago
    Some of it was stimulus, but some of it was logistical interruptions caused by covid. You can't just wave away how hard China shut down. Automakers struggling to source chips was not caused by too much stimulus.
  - danaris 2y ago
    This has been repeatedly debunked. Yes, there was a small amount of money pumped into the consumer economy ($2000/household). Yes, there were some supply shocks during the height of the lockdowns. No, those do not explain the persistent high prices. Unprecedented consolidation across all sectors made it easy for a much smaller group of people at the top to respond to a zeitgeist that expected inflation by keeping prices high after the supply shocks were over, and pocketing the difference. It didn't even require active collusion (though it wouldn't surprise me if there was at least a little).
    - echelon 2y ago
      > Yes, there was a small amount of money pumped into the consumer economy ($2000/household). Covid caused us to print $13 - $16 trillion dollars. That's more money than every war the US has ever participated in combined.
      - immibis 2y ago
        Yep. Mostly straight to business owners. But that wasn't sold as "stimulus", it was sold as "a loan" which was then forgiven without repayment. When people talk about "stimulus" they usually mean the cheques to individuals.

simonsarris 2y ago

> and low to no wage growth Huh? There was "low to no wage growth" in the 80's and 90's. We do have wage growth now. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q Wage growth for over 25 no-college earners has been even better. > high levels of stock buybacks There's nothing economically dire, or even weird, about choosing buybacks over dividends in returning profits to shareholders. It just lets shareholders choose when to sell instead of doing it for them.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aetherson 2y ago
We've propagandized a generation of people into believing that there has been no wage growth for 40 years when the deal was actually that there were falling wages in the 80s, stagnant wages in the 90s, and growth since then (with a recession after 2008 that has been fully caught back up to since).
- danaris 2y ago
  And is that wage growth consistent across all quintiles of earners? Or is it primarily concentrated in the upper quintiles? (I actually genuinely do not know the answer to this offhand.)
  - aetherson 2y ago
    It's varied a lot in that time period. When people claim that "wages have been stagnant," they're usually referencing this dataset: https://www.ibtimes.com/infographic-real-wages-production-nonsupervisory-employees-us-2784828 https://www.ibtimes.com/infographic-real-wages-production-no... Which is "real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees," and is the source of the graph that purports to show stagnation between 1973 and 2017 (it has in fact grown higher than 1973 since then). Why that particular graph? Well, it excludes wages for "the bosses" and such, so perhaps it shows something more like the average person's experience. But also, I think it's cherry-picked because it shows a particularly grim view. For example, here's the real median household income chart instead: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N And you see that it's by no means stagnant. If you want, you can find income by quintiles. In like the 90's and 2000's, the rise of inequality, top quintile earnings growth was much higher than bottom four. But that largely stopped in the 2010's and has actually reversed in the 2020's, with bottom quintile growth now the strongest. Long story short: income is complicated, there are a lot of ways to dice everything. But if you look into the claim that "wages have stagnated," you will overwhelmingly see the "real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees" data line. And regardless of how good or bad that particular choice of data is, it doesn't actually show stagnation -- it shows a big drop in the 70s and 80s, largely stagnant 90s, and then growth since then.

worik 2y ago

> High levels of corporate monopolization, high levels of stock buybacks, and low to no wage growth. Yes But the Elephant on the sofa is a deranged President threatening important trade partners Duh!