4 ms·

I find this kind of article hilarious. "Numbers go up! You're not allowed to feel poor or think that there's a problem! Our number is bigger so you must be ri

I find this kind of article hilarious. "Numbers go up! You're not allowed to feel poor or think that there's a problem! Our number is bigger so you must be rich!" I saw this 10-20 years ago when economists were telling people that inflation is low despite their feelings about inflation. "Our math is correct and you ignorant folks should be grateful for how this economy is managed." Just because you can produce equations like physicists doesn't mean it's the same field. Ground truth in economics is just as much people as it is anything else.

gotohelldang 1y ago
[flagged]
ceejayoz 1y ago
Do you consider it impossible for propaganda to impact public perception?
wat10000 1y ago
That goes both ways, though. Just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean that's how it is. A lot of people's perceptions of economic performance are more connected to their opinion of the President than to any actual facts. How people feel matters, of course, but that doesn't mean that the numbers are wrong if they don't match. People's feelings about inflation are not ground truth about inflation, just ground truth about feelings.
- wormlord 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - wat10000 1y ago
    And the conservative "intelligentsia" point at people and say "it's the graphs which are wrong" to the point of rejecting basic medicine and sabotaging the economy because people feel aggrieved. I'm not happy with either one but at least the liberal one is connected to reality in some fashion.
    - wormlord 1y ago
      Sure yeah conservative leaders are evil most of us get that. My point is that if you want to WIN if you want to DEFEAT fascists you have to change tactics. You can't just ignore people's complaints and tell them they're wrong, they will go to the other side. Politics is transactional-- liberals think of quid pro quo as a dirty word, but why have democracy if you're not gonna get something out of it?
      - wat10000 1y ago
        I totally agree, but I'm not seeing any alternative approach being taken besides declaring that the numbers are incorrect and the feelings are the real facts. Much of our current political woes can be traced to widespread rejection of various facts. Figuring out how to remedy that (which has to include understanding that particular facts don't always give you the full picture, and people's feelings matter whether correct or not) is critical, but this sort of "lol stop talking about numbers you stupid scientists" response is not helpful.
        wormlord 1y ago
        Bernie is a good example of the alternative approach. I personally don't think he's radical enough, but he promises people things and makes people feel listened to. If you can establish a two-way street where people feel seen and heard, they will start to believe you again when you show them numbers. Of course you can see the response of the Democratic party to progressives like Bernie and AOC. The democratic party isn't going to win until they abandon the neoliberal technocrat schtick, literally nobody likes it. (also who knows if we will even have elections anymore so whatever)
  - watwut 1y ago
    It is right wing who are currently busy installing a fascist regime. And supporting far right fascist parties abroad. And yes, it is entirely possible for republican voters to be wrong and for republican politicians lie about economy enough.
    - wormlord 1y ago
      See my other response in the thread. It's not about being more right than fascists. Fascists always lie that's their main strategy. If you want to defeat them though you cant just keep acting like a bunch of technocrats. You must project power, you must provide something transactionally for voters and make them feel good, and you must go after anti-democratic elements viciously without fear of being perceived as "too partisan" or authoritarian.
wormlord 1y ago
Yeah this completely ignores the fact that many people would rather work on making things with their hands that they can physically see, rather than pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet. This article ignores alienation, cost of living, social atomization, enshittification, the police state, and many other factors that contribute to everyone feeling like shit. The liberal intelligentsia need to learn that voters don't care about their numbers and charts, education has been hollowed out and the populace is going to respond to material promises and aggression. Not "hmm well did you consult my graph??"
- watwut 1y ago
  The people you talk about are consistently voting for more police state, for more social atomization and for higher cost of living. They see empathy, help to others and cooperation as negatives. Those are just facts. As for working with hands rather then pushing numbers in spreadsheet, most people do not want to work as workers in factories - that is based on surveys. That includes tradesmen.
  - wormlord 1y ago
    Damn maybe if the democrats didn't kill any progressive or grassroots momentum, or ceded ground to conservatives on issues like the border (Kamala endorsing building the wall) they wouldn't have hollowed out their base of support and lost to fascists.
    - catlover76 1y ago
      [dead]
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  >many people would rather work on making things with their hands that they can physically see, rather than pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet. So why aren't they making bank in the trades? Why aren't they learning a craft? Why instead are they yelling that we should start digging coal again, an economically nonsensical thing to do? Nobody wants to buy coal, not even the people who happily buy oil and natural gas. Welders make good money. Plumbers are essential workers who literally keep shit flowing. Parts of my family work in construction, forestry, trucking, general contracting, all classic machismo jobs that pay well for effort and experience. All essential industries. All in constant need of more workers. The main problem seems to be that even the good "low education" jobs still require you to move to where people are. There are no jobs in dying towns because there is no economic activity in rural towns when the main income source is welfare.
CoastalCoder 1y ago
I'm not an economist, but it It sounds like you're maybe conflating (mathematical models of economics) with (economics statistics). It's one thing for their models to suck at fitting historical data or making bad predictions. But I think your real beef is that their empirical statistics are touted as characterizing the middle class' lived experience, but don't?
matheusmoreira 1y ago
Maybe they're just looking at the wrong numbers. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
owebmaster 1y ago
> I find this kind of article hilarious. "Numbers go up! You're not allowed to feel poor or think that there's a problem! Our number is bigger so you must be rich!" When US americans got filthy rich, can the US americans that did not made it rich with the help of globalization complain that the world is taking advantage of them? Go fight your oligarchs, start a revolution.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
In the 70's a middle class family had 1 car, a 1200 square foot house, ate out once a month, had less than a dozen sets of clothes per person (most of which were work clothes). They felt well off, because they were doing fabulously well compared to the 30's which were still lived memory. And because they felt secure. They did not feel in any danger of losing the essentials of housing, food, clothing and health care. Now we have a lot more, but we've lost that feeling of security vis a vis housing & health care.
- spacemadness 1y ago
  It’s always housing. We’re basically at economic war with each other. Home owners vs. non-home owners. Home owners get anxious when their house value doesn’t continue to rise past inflation. So they vote against policies that would help non home owners get into the market without drowning out of self interest.
  - drivingmenuts 1y ago
    Great line from Newsroom: we waged wars on poverty, not poor people … Kind of sums things up. Likely, we’ll never see that again. Not in my lifetime, anyway.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > They felt well off, because they were doing fabulously well compared to the 30's which were still lived memory. Also because they were doing well, compared to past experience, relative to those higher on the income distribution. That is, inequality narrowed throughout the post-war era until around 1980, when it turned around and shot up. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA While the long stagnant periods in wages (Noah marks the one from the mid 1970s to mid 1990s, but ignores the one from 2001 through about 2012, perhaps because he realizes that marking most of the last 50 years, accurately, as periods of wage stagnation, rather than falsely claiming that that ended in the 1990s, would undermine the rosy picture he is painting) are a problem, the distributional dynamics are probably the thing most closely associated with the perception of a hollowed out middle class.
spacemadness 1y ago
How anyone can look at housing costs and say everything is fine look the other way is insane to me. How delusional and/or out of touch do you have to be? And if you enter the market it’s nothing but massive stress and chasing promotions to simply pay some exorbitant mortgage.

gotohelldang 1y ago

[flagged]

ceejayoz 1y ago

Do you consider it impossible for propaganda to impact public perception?

wat10000 1y ago

That goes both ways, though. Just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean that's how it is. A lot of people's perceptions of economic performance are more connected to their opinion of the President than to any actual facts. How people feel matters, of course, but that doesn't mean that the numbers are wrong if they don't match. People's feelings about inflation are not ground truth about inflation, just ground truth about feelings.

wormlord 1y ago
[flagged]
- wat10000 1y ago
  And the conservative "intelligentsia" point at people and say "it's the graphs which are wrong" to the point of rejecting basic medicine and sabotaging the economy because people feel aggrieved. I'm not happy with either one but at least the liberal one is connected to reality in some fashion.
  - wormlord 1y ago
    Sure yeah conservative leaders are evil most of us get that. My point is that if you want to WIN if you want to DEFEAT fascists you have to change tactics. You can't just ignore people's complaints and tell them they're wrong, they will go to the other side. Politics is transactional-- liberals think of quid pro quo as a dirty word, but why have democracy if you're not gonna get something out of it?
    - wat10000 1y ago
      I totally agree, but I'm not seeing any alternative approach being taken besides declaring that the numbers are incorrect and the feelings are the real facts. Much of our current political woes can be traced to widespread rejection of various facts. Figuring out how to remedy that (which has to include understanding that particular facts don't always give you the full picture, and people's feelings matter whether correct or not) is critical, but this sort of "lol stop talking about numbers you stupid scientists" response is not helpful.
      - wormlord 1y ago
        Bernie is a good example of the alternative approach. I personally don't think he's radical enough, but he promises people things and makes people feel listened to. If you can establish a two-way street where people feel seen and heard, they will start to believe you again when you show them numbers. Of course you can see the response of the Democratic party to progressives like Bernie and AOC. The democratic party isn't going to win until they abandon the neoliberal technocrat schtick, literally nobody likes it. (also who knows if we will even have elections anymore so whatever)
- watwut 1y ago
  It is right wing who are currently busy installing a fascist regime. And supporting far right fascist parties abroad. And yes, it is entirely possible for republican voters to be wrong and for republican politicians lie about economy enough.
  - wormlord 1y ago
    See my other response in the thread. It's not about being more right than fascists. Fascists always lie that's their main strategy. If you want to defeat them though you cant just keep acting like a bunch of technocrats. You must project power, you must provide something transactionally for voters and make them feel good, and you must go after anti-democratic elements viciously without fear of being perceived as "too partisan" or authoritarian.

wormlord 1y ago

Yeah this completely ignores the fact that many people would rather work on making things with their hands that they can physically see, rather than pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet. This article ignores alienation, cost of living, social atomization, enshittification, the police state, and many other factors that contribute to everyone feeling like shit. The liberal intelligentsia need to learn that voters don't care about their numbers and charts, education has been hollowed out and the populace is going to respond to material promises and aggression. Not "hmm well did you consult my graph??"

watwut 1y ago
The people you talk about are consistently voting for more police state, for more social atomization and for higher cost of living. They see empathy, help to others and cooperation as negatives. Those are just facts. As for working with hands rather then pushing numbers in spreadsheet, most people do not want to work as workers in factories - that is based on surveys. That includes tradesmen.
- wormlord 1y ago
  Damn maybe if the democrats didn't kill any progressive or grassroots momentum, or ceded ground to conservatives on issues like the border (Kamala endorsing building the wall) they wouldn't have hollowed out their base of support and lost to fascists.
  - catlover76 1y ago
    [dead]
mrguyorama 1y ago
>many people would rather work on making things with their hands that they can physically see, rather than pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet. So why aren't they making bank in the trades? Why aren't they learning a craft? Why instead are they yelling that we should start digging coal again, an economically nonsensical thing to do? Nobody wants to buy coal, not even the people who happily buy oil and natural gas. Welders make good money. Plumbers are essential workers who literally keep shit flowing. Parts of my family work in construction, forestry, trucking, general contracting, all classic machismo jobs that pay well for effort and experience. All essential industries. All in constant need of more workers. The main problem seems to be that even the good "low education" jobs still require you to move to where people are. There are no jobs in dying towns because there is no economic activity in rural towns when the main income source is welfare.

CoastalCoder 1y ago

I'm not an economist, but it It sounds like you're maybe conflating (mathematical models of economics) with (economics statistics). It's one thing for their models to suck at fitting historical data or making bad predictions. But I think your real beef is that their empirical statistics are touted as characterizing the middle class' lived experience, but don't?

matheusmoreira 1y ago

Maybe they're just looking at the wrong numbers. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

owebmaster 1y ago

> I find this kind of article hilarious. "Numbers go up! You're not allowed to feel poor or think that there's a problem! Our number is bigger so you must be rich!" When US americans got filthy rich, can the US americans that did not made it rich with the help of globalization complain that the world is taking advantage of them? Go fight your oligarchs, start a revolution.

bryanlarsen 1y ago

In the 70's a middle class family had 1 car, a 1200 square foot house, ate out once a month, had less than a dozen sets of clothes per person (most of which were work clothes). They felt well off, because they were doing fabulously well compared to the 30's which were still lived memory. And because they felt secure. They did not feel in any danger of losing the essentials of housing, food, clothing and health care. Now we have a lot more, but we've lost that feeling of security vis a vis housing & health care.

spacemadness 1y ago
It’s always housing. We’re basically at economic war with each other. Home owners vs. non-home owners. Home owners get anxious when their house value doesn’t continue to rise past inflation. So they vote against policies that would help non home owners get into the market without drowning out of self interest.
- drivingmenuts 1y ago
  Great line from Newsroom: we waged wars on poverty, not poor people … Kind of sums things up. Likely, we’ll never see that again. Not in my lifetime, anyway.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> They felt well off, because they were doing fabulously well compared to the 30's which were still lived memory. Also because they were doing well, compared to past experience, relative to those higher on the income distribution. That is, inequality narrowed throughout the post-war era until around 1980, when it turned around and shot up. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA While the long stagnant periods in wages (Noah marks the one from the mid 1970s to mid 1990s, but ignores the one from 2001 through about 2012, perhaps because he realizes that marking most of the last 50 years, accurately, as periods of wage stagnation, rather than falsely claiming that that ended in the 1990s, would undermine the rosy picture he is painting) are a problem, the distributional dynamics are probably the thing most closely associated with the perception of a hollowed out middle class.

spacemadness 1y ago

How anyone can look at housing costs and say everything is fine look the other way is insane to me. How delusional and/or out of touch do you have to be? And if you enter the market it’s nothing but massive stress and chasing promotions to simply pay some exorbitant mortgage.