5 ms·

Meanwhile the economy is tanking. But yeah what a fantastic year it is to be a company worth trillions.

by 10xDev 10mo ago

cpursley 10mo ago
You don’t believe the recent economic numbers? I’m not disagreeing with you, just curious about other takes (and generally very skeptical of funny money printer go burrr economic things vs real economy meaning real output).
- MrOrelliOReilly 10mo ago
  There has been a lot of discussion on this recently in the blog-o-sphere. All conclusions I've seen so far are that the economy is basically fine and maybe people's expectations have risen (I'm oversimplifying). I'm also quite eager to hear different conclusions, because there is a lot of cognitive dissonance on the economy right now. - https://www.slowboring.com/p/you-can-afford-a-tradlife https://www.slowboring.com/p/you-can-afford-a-tradlife - https://www.slowboring.com/p/affordability-is-just-high-nominal https://www.slowboring.com/p/affordability-is-just-high-nomi... - https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-revolution-of-rising-expectations https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-revolution-of-rising-expec... - https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/vibecession-much-more-than-you-wanted https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/vibecession-m...
  - hansvm 10mo ago
    There's definitely an aspect of rising expectations (e.g., everyone and their dog having a late-model smartphone). There's also an aspect where some of that is mostly unavoidable (e.g., accessing my HSA now requires a very late-model smartphone -- something I can avoid complying with for now by just finding a better place to transfer my money, but it's a worrying trend -- to achieve the same QoL as in the early 2000s I have mandatory nontrivial overhead). It's really not just that though. A lot goes into it, but one observation is that the relative increases in wages and prices isn't distributed evenly. Some examples: - A lot of people are legitimately substantially better off than they would have been a few decades ago. I literally never have to worry about money anymore when thinking about our purchases (for everything but a house with a big yard, which we still can't safely [0] afford without moving). I'm not alone. - That's not true of everyone, even my next-door neighbors. I know people splitting a studio apartment and still struggling a bit. They have good jobs, and even splitting the apartment their post-tax, post-rent pay is $7.20/hr. That's fine enough I suppose, but they'll literally never be able to save for a home of any quality in the area in their entire lives using only a single income. It'll take them awhile to afford a home anywhere. - Suppose you have a couple young kids. That places hard bounds on how much money you need to make even for childcare to make sense to get up to two incomes in the first place. I've known plenty of people with PhDs and good jobs who quit to take care of the kids for financial reasons, supporting the household on just the higher-earner's pay. - A lot of small towns haven't seen the same increase in wages as the rest of the country but have seen the increase in prices. My hometown saw an increase from $10/hr to $20/hr in what a great wage is over the last 25 years. CPI only went up 1.9x in that time, but the same caliber of house went up 3x, and the staples people used to eat (like ground beef) went up more than 3x as well. They're correctly observing that they have less take-home money (because of 3x increased rent), that take-home money doesn't go as far (they can't eat the same foods they could 25yrs ago), and it definitely doesn't go as far if you want to do something like save for a house (it's an extra 4+yrs of post-tax, post-rent income to pay for a house, assuming you could devote all of it to savings instead of groceries and whatnot). I'm not sure exactly how to quantify who's struggling and why at a macroscopic level, but I guarantee they're real and that it's not just an increase in expectations. [0] It depends on your relative risk levels, but if you're not convinced the gravy train will last forever and are concerned about locking up all your assets in a depreciating vehicle then you need to be a bit more frugle with your choice of home.
- 10xDev 10mo ago
  Truth be told, it is more complicated than a "tanking" economy so you will get headlines like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62n9ynzrdpo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62n9ynzrdpo but that's because it is a K-shaped economy: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/07/stock-prices-fuel-christmas-us-economy https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/07/stock-price... thanks to the stock market and AI investment. The job market especially for entry level tech jobs is also essentially screwed whether that's due to AI or something else, who even knows anymore: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/12/16/us-unemployment-hits-highest-level-since-2021-as-labour-market-cools https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/12/16/us-unemployment...
- inerte 10mo ago
  Vibecession so good I remember we’ve been a quarter away from recession for the last decade.
fancyfredbot 10mo ago
I'm not sure that the rest of the economy really is "tanking" but OK. Are you implying it's distasteful to discuss success from a big company in such dark times? Google could really easily be a purely rent seeking business but they are innovating, and if you are worried about the economy then this should seem like good news.
andsoitis 10mo ago
> Meanwhile the economy is tanking. NYT: US GDP Grew 4.3%, surging in 3rd Quarter 2025 - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/business/us-economy-consumer-spending.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/business/us-economy-consu... WSJ: Consumers Power Strongest US Economic Growth in 2 years - https://www.wsj.com/economy/us-gdp-q3-2025-2026-6cbd079e https://www.wsj.com/economy/us-gdp-q3-2025-2026-6cbd079e The Guardian: US economy grew strongly in third quarter - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/23/us-economy-gdp-third-quarter https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/23/us-economy-...
- cj 10mo ago
  Meanwhile, consumer debt is at record highs. https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc
  - andsoitis 10mo ago
    > consumer debt is at record highs. While consumer debt is at or near historical highs, it is in and of itself not a problem (broader economic risk). What you need to look at as well is debt burden ratios and repayment behavior, not just raw totals. Household debt service ratio (the share of disposable income spent on principal + interest payments) is well below historical crisis peaks (e.g., 2007–2008), suggesting households are currently spending a smaller share of income on debt payments than in past stress periods. While total household debt is at record levels (~$18 trillion+), debt as a share of income or GDP has not reached past crisis peaks like 2008. That means debt growth hasn’t outpaced income growth as dramatically as in previous crises. However, delinquency rates, especially for credit cards and student loans, are elevated, nearing or exceeding long-run highs outside recessions. Mortgage delinquency rates remain lower than unsecured debt categories, but have ticked up slightly. Because they're relatively stable, it mutes broader systemic risk for now.
    - jeffbee 10mo ago
      And you didn't even mention the population.
vasco 10mo ago
By which measure?
stronglikedan 10mo ago
> Meanwhile the economy is tanking. Seems you're operating off of a flawed premise.

Meanwhile the economy is tanking. But yeah what a fantastic year it is to be a company worth trillions.

by 10xDev 10mo ago

Meanwhile the economy is tanking. But yeah what a fantastic year it is to be a company worth trillions.

You don’t believe the recent economic numbers? I’m not disagreeing with you, just curious about other takes (and generally very skeptical of funny money printer go burrr economic things vs real economy meaning real output).

MrOrelliOReilly 10mo ago
There has been a lot of discussion on this recently in the blog-o-sphere. All conclusions I've seen so far are that the economy is basically fine and maybe people's expectations have risen (I'm oversimplifying). I'm also quite eager to hear different conclusions, because there is a lot of cognitive dissonance on the economy right now. - https://www.slowboring.com/p/you-can-afford-a-tradlife https://www.slowboring.com/p/you-can-afford-a-tradlife - https://www.slowboring.com/p/affordability-is-just-high-nominal https://www.slowboring.com/p/affordability-is-just-high-nomi... - https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-revolution-of-rising-expectations https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-revolution-of-rising-expec... - https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/vibecession-much-more-than-you-wanted https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/vibecession-m...
- hansvm 10mo ago
  There's definitely an aspect of rising expectations (e.g., everyone and their dog having a late-model smartphone). There's also an aspect where some of that is mostly unavoidable (e.g., accessing my HSA now requires a very late-model smartphone -- something I can avoid complying with for now by just finding a better place to transfer my money, but it's a worrying trend -- to achieve the same QoL as in the early 2000s I have mandatory nontrivial overhead). It's really not just that though. A lot goes into it, but one observation is that the relative increases in wages and prices isn't distributed evenly. Some examples: - A lot of people are legitimately substantially better off than they would have been a few decades ago. I literally never have to worry about money anymore when thinking about our purchases (for everything but a house with a big yard, which we still can't safely [0] afford without moving). I'm not alone. - That's not true of everyone, even my next-door neighbors. I know people splitting a studio apartment and still struggling a bit. They have good jobs, and even splitting the apartment their post-tax, post-rent pay is $7.20/hr. That's fine enough I suppose, but they'll literally never be able to save for a home of any quality in the area in their entire lives using only a single income. It'll take them awhile to afford a home anywhere. - Suppose you have a couple young kids. That places hard bounds on how much money you need to make even for childcare to make sense to get up to two incomes in the first place. I've known plenty of people with PhDs and good jobs who quit to take care of the kids for financial reasons, supporting the household on just the higher-earner's pay. - A lot of small towns haven't seen the same increase in wages as the rest of the country but have seen the increase in prices. My hometown saw an increase from $10/hr to $20/hr in what a great wage is over the last 25 years. CPI only went up 1.9x in that time, but the same caliber of house went up 3x, and the staples people used to eat (like ground beef) went up more than 3x as well. They're correctly observing that they have less take-home money (because of 3x increased rent), that take-home money doesn't go as far (they can't eat the same foods they could 25yrs ago), and it definitely doesn't go as far if you want to do something like save for a house (it's an extra 4+yrs of post-tax, post-rent income to pay for a house, assuming you could devote all of it to savings instead of groceries and whatnot). I'm not sure exactly how to quantify who's struggling and why at a macroscopic level, but I guarantee they're real and that it's not just an increase in expectations. [0] It depends on your relative risk levels, but if you're not convinced the gravy train will last forever and are concerned about locking up all your assets in a depreciating vehicle then you need to be a bit more frugle with your choice of home.
10xDev 10mo ago
Truth be told, it is more complicated than a "tanking" economy so you will get headlines like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62n9ynzrdpo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62n9ynzrdpo but that's because it is a K-shaped economy: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/07/stock-prices-fuel-christmas-us-economy https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/07/stock-price... thanks to the stock market and AI investment. The job market especially for entry level tech jobs is also essentially screwed whether that's due to AI or something else, who even knows anymore: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/12/16/us-unemployment-hits-highest-level-since-2021-as-labour-market-cools https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/12/16/us-unemployment...
inerte 10mo ago
Vibecession so good I remember we’ve been a quarter away from recession for the last decade.

fancyfredbot 10mo ago

I'm not sure that the rest of the economy really is "tanking" but OK. Are you implying it's distasteful to discuss success from a big company in such dark times? Google could really easily be a purely rent seeking business but they are innovating, and if you are worried about the economy then this should seem like good news.

andsoitis 10mo ago

> Meanwhile the economy is tanking. NYT: US GDP Grew 4.3%, surging in 3rd Quarter 2025 - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/business/us-economy-consumer-spending.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/business/us-economy-consu... WSJ: Consumers Power Strongest US Economic Growth in 2 years - https://www.wsj.com/economy/us-gdp-q3-2025-2026-6cbd079e https://www.wsj.com/economy/us-gdp-q3-2025-2026-6cbd079e The Guardian: US economy grew strongly in third quarter - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/23/us-economy-gdp-third-quarter https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/23/us-economy-...

cj 10mo ago
Meanwhile, consumer debt is at record highs. https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc
- andsoitis 10mo ago
  > consumer debt is at record highs. While consumer debt is at or near historical highs, it is in and of itself not a problem (broader economic risk). What you need to look at as well is debt burden ratios and repayment behavior, not just raw totals. Household debt service ratio (the share of disposable income spent on principal + interest payments) is well below historical crisis peaks (e.g., 2007–2008), suggesting households are currently spending a smaller share of income on debt payments than in past stress periods. While total household debt is at record levels (~$18 trillion+), debt as a share of income or GDP has not reached past crisis peaks like 2008. That means debt growth hasn’t outpaced income growth as dramatically as in previous crises. However, delinquency rates, especially for credit cards and student loans, are elevated, nearing or exceeding long-run highs outside recessions. Mortgage delinquency rates remain lower than unsecured debt categories, but have ticked up slightly. Because they're relatively stable, it mutes broader systemic risk for now.
  - jeffbee 10mo ago
    And you didn't even mention the population.

vasco 10mo ago

By which measure?

stronglikedan 10mo ago

> Meanwhile the economy is tanking. Seems you're operating off of a flawed premise.