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S&P 500 - All time high DJIA - All time high Unemployment rate - Near all time low (for last 20 years) Number of US small businesses - All time high US GDP

S&P 500 - All time high DJIA - All time high Unemployment rate - Near all time low (for last 20 years) Number of US small businesses - All time high US GDP - All time high [Sources] https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-unemployment-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-une... https://www.sellerscommerce.com/blog/small-business-statistics/ https://www.sellerscommerce.com/blog/small-business-statisti... https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP

sfblah 1mo ago
How well I remember people pointing to the scoreboard in early 2008...
- BeetleB 1mo ago
  How well I remember someone predicting 7 of the last 2 recessions... Yes, one day, we'll have a recession. It doesn't mean the doom prophets were correct.
  - sfblah 1mo ago
    Agreed, but look at it the other way. Do you really think we'll never again have a recession? Some people genuinely believe that.
    - JumpCrisscross 1mo ago
      > Some people genuinely believe that Sure. They’re in the same category of wrongness as Zitron. If someone said they follow the newsletter of a guy who claims we’ll never have a recession again, I’d quietly note that.
hypfer 1mo ago
I mean I wish you a lot of fun playing this discussion game online, but I kinda fail to see the point of it. Someone could now of course say "hey, but are your sure that these are really the metrics we should be looking at?", which could then be countered with a "well of course! This is how one measures a recession, no?" And that could go on forever, achieving absolutely nothing.
toomuchtodo 1mo ago
Bloomberg: It Won’t Take Much to Burst the Stock Market Bubble - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-08-20/us-stock-market-bubble-ai-boom-won-t-prevent-a-sharp-correction https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-08-20/us-sto... | https://archive.today/O9sQE https://archive.today/O9sQE - August 20th, 2026 > First, the favorable impact of the artificial intelligence investment boom on economic activity and earnings will likely diminish significantly in 2027. That’s because what’s relevant for growth is how much investment is increasing, not its level. The increase in investment in 2026 will almost certainly be the peak. There aren’t sufficient resources — construction workers, electrical generation capacity, or chip manufacturing capacity - to increase investment by the same magnitude in 2027. Nor are the dominant hyperscalers likely to have the free cash flow and balance sheet capacity to sustain a bigger increase in investment in 2027 compared with 2026. > Second, as the growth of investment spending slows, the growth in earnings of hyperscaler suppliers will falter, profit expectations will diminish and price-earnings ratios will shrink. The “picks and shovels” providers will suffer a double whammy - slower demand growth and profit margin compression. On the way up, higher demand leads to wider profit margins that sustain equity market valuations. On the way down, the outlook for earnings deteriorates quickly as the shortfall of demand relative to expectations is exacerbated by a collapse in profit margins. > Third, as the investment cycle matures, the focus will shift to the returns that the hyperscalers are expected to earn on their massive investments. I suspect it will be difficult for the AI hyperscalers to generate sufficient revenue ($2 trillion or more per year) to generate the returns needed to justify an AI capital base that is likely to reach $5 trillion. (I'd encourage you to read the entire piece, it was written by Bill Dudley, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and is too much to quote in its entirety) Nearly 25% of U.S. workers are functionally unemployed, economic analysis finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403381 - August 2026 (7 comments) 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937288 - July 2026 (274 comments) 49% of young adults live at home, up 12 points since 2019. An economist says the fallout will reshape marriage, kids, and home-buying - https://fortune.com/2026/07/09/half-young-adults-live-home-financial-support-parents/ https://fortune.com/2026/07/09/half-young-adults-live-home-f... | https://archive.today/1uB8d https://archive.today/1uB8d - July 9th, 2026 (Federal Reserve survey: https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2026-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2025-executive-summary.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2026-economic-we...) The housing crisis is pushing Gen Z into crypto and economic nihilism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46079617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46079617 - November 2025 (4 comments) Why millennials feel hopeless about the economy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062082 - November 2025 (15 comments) Most Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44119317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44119317 - May 2025 (9 comments) [Report: https://www.lisep.org/mql https://www.lisep.org/mql] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statist...
mixmastamyk 1mo ago
They haven’t allowed a recession to happen since ~2009 when they massively inflated their way out of the worst of the last one. Learned to have the cake and eat it too. The only problem is after a few rounds of this the currency becomes worthless, and we’re well on our way. Inflation is a major component of those numbers rising.
- LogicFailsMe 1mo ago
  And that's when we pay off the national debt for pennies on the worthless dollar. The pro move would be to stop lending the US money, but that's not going to happen.
  - adventured 1mo ago
    The US doesn't require that you lend it money, it possesses the global reserve currency. It'll take it from you via currency debasement. That's a world problem whether the world likes it or not. There is still no viable (realistic) alternative, and that includes the Euro, Yen, Yuan, gold, Bitcoin. There are no lenders outside or inside of the US for $20 trillion in new debt over the next decade. Monetization is the only path. If you mean lend the US money in regards to holding or using USD (while it's being debased as it is now), then sure. And if the world tries to shake off the USD, well, Iran & Venezuela (oil transactions assist USD dominance) would like a word. I'm not suggesting defending the USD reserve position via military action is moral, I'm suggesting it's certain to occur.
    - mtrovo 1mo ago
      [dead]
    - pocksuppet 1mo ago
      The US possesses the global reserve currency because everyone lends it money. If they didn't, it wouldn't. The USD is the global reserve currency because it's the one with all the lending!
- tonyedgecombe 1mo ago
goatlover 1mo ago
And yet with all that, Democrats are likely to retake the US Congress because a majority of Americans are experiencing an affordability crisis.
- joering2 1mo ago
  Yet with all what? AI stock pushing indexes high and US stock market being cheap because dollar lost 30% of volume in last few years so the whole world is trying to profit from short ride? Record low unemployment because gas and groceries are so expensive most people work 2 or 3 jobs just not to end up homeless? Democrats are going to retake because ballroom and gold arch does not affect gas or grocery price. They will retake because Republicans proved they are extremely soft on corruption. Not only they allow POTUS & Fam. steal billions from taxpayers, they are not stopping it and some even profit themselves. Dems will retake because we have a dangerous version of plutocracy mixed with socialism, where one person on the top (POTUS) unilaterally decides that US Government will take a free chunk out of Intel, or that 20 billion of taxpayers money will go to help Argentina or Brazil or Japan. That's why.
SturgeonsLaw 1mo ago
You know what they say, what goes up must continue to go up forever
GolfPopper 1mo ago
Turkey weight a week before Thanksgiving - All time high
iamacyborg 1mo ago
Now look at what’s happening in the bond markets
sov 1mo ago
while im not necessarily a doomsayer about a recession, im not sure any of these are adequate buttresses against one the s&p doesnt tend to go down until a recession is either imminent or happening, and modern economic policy may even prevent that due to the vastly expanded wealth disparity the unemployment rate isn't really the tool it once was--if you include two groups that count as "employed" by the US unemployment rate--people seeking full time jobs but working only 1-34 hours a week, and people earning below the poverty line (under 26k pre-tax anually), the functional unemployment rate climbs to 24.9%--higher even than any month in the post-covid period of 2022-2024 (inclusive). yes, more small businesses than ever, but growth last year was almost non-existent. and it generally proxies vs able-bodied adults, which would have seen an increase larger than the businesses. gdp is high but much of that is ai company shuffle and debt-to-gdp ratio is rising once again--now the highest it's been since the 2020 massive covid bump birth rates are broadly down as well, likely stemming from cost of living, and birth rates do tend to predict recessions. it's fine to point at numbers but they don't really mean anything in isolation

sfblah 1mo ago

How well I remember people pointing to the scoreboard in early 2008...

BeetleB 1mo ago
How well I remember someone predicting 7 of the last 2 recessions... Yes, one day, we'll have a recession. It doesn't mean the doom prophets were correct.
- sfblah 1mo ago
  Agreed, but look at it the other way. Do you really think we'll never again have a recession? Some people genuinely believe that.
  - JumpCrisscross 1mo ago
    > Some people genuinely believe that Sure. They’re in the same category of wrongness as Zitron. If someone said they follow the newsletter of a guy who claims we’ll never have a recession again, I’d quietly note that.

hypfer 1mo ago

I mean I wish you a lot of fun playing this discussion game online, but I kinda fail to see the point of it. Someone could now of course say "hey, but are your sure that these are really the metrics we should be looking at?", which could then be countered with a "well of course! This is how one measures a recession, no?" And that could go on forever, achieving absolutely nothing.

toomuchtodo 1mo ago

Bloomberg: It Won’t Take Much to Burst the Stock Market Bubble - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-08-20/us-stock-market-bubble-ai-boom-won-t-prevent-a-sharp-correction https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-08-20/us-sto... | https://archive.today/O9sQE https://archive.today/O9sQE - August 20th, 2026 > First, the favorable impact of the artificial intelligence investment boom on economic activity and earnings will likely diminish significantly in 2027. That’s because what’s relevant for growth is how much investment is increasing, not its level. The increase in investment in 2026 will almost certainly be the peak. There aren’t sufficient resources — construction workers, electrical generation capacity, or chip manufacturing capacity - to increase investment by the same magnitude in 2027. Nor are the dominant hyperscalers likely to have the free cash flow and balance sheet capacity to sustain a bigger increase in investment in 2027 compared with 2026. > Second, as the growth of investment spending slows, the growth in earnings of hyperscaler suppliers will falter, profit expectations will diminish and price-earnings ratios will shrink. The “picks and shovels” providers will suffer a double whammy - slower demand growth and profit margin compression. On the way up, higher demand leads to wider profit margins that sustain equity market valuations. On the way down, the outlook for earnings deteriorates quickly as the shortfall of demand relative to expectations is exacerbated by a collapse in profit margins. > Third, as the investment cycle matures, the focus will shift to the returns that the hyperscalers are expected to earn on their massive investments. I suspect it will be difficult for the AI hyperscalers to generate sufficient revenue ($2 trillion or more per year) to generate the returns needed to justify an AI capital base that is likely to reach $5 trillion. (I'd encourage you to read the entire piece, it was written by Bill Dudley, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and is too much to quote in its entirety) Nearly 25% of U.S. workers are functionally unemployed, economic analysis finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403381 - August 2026 (7 comments) 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937288 - July 2026 (274 comments) 49% of young adults live at home, up 12 points since 2019. An economist says the fallout will reshape marriage, kids, and home-buying - https://fortune.com/2026/07/09/half-young-adults-live-home-financial-support-parents/ https://fortune.com/2026/07/09/half-young-adults-live-home-f... | https://archive.today/1uB8d https://archive.today/1uB8d - July 9th, 2026 (Federal Reserve survey: https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2026-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2025-executive-summary.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2026-economic-we...) The housing crisis is pushing Gen Z into crypto and economic nihilism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46079617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46079617 - November 2025 (4 comments) Why millennials feel hopeless about the economy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062082 - November 2025 (15 comments) Most Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44119317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44119317 - May 2025 (9 comments) [Report: https://www.lisep.org/mql https://www.lisep.org/mql] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statist...

mixmastamyk 1mo ago

They haven’t allowed a recession to happen since ~2009 when they massively inflated their way out of the worst of the last one. Learned to have the cake and eat it too. The only problem is after a few rounds of this the currency becomes worthless, and we’re well on our way. Inflation is a major component of those numbers rising.

LogicFailsMe 1mo ago
And that's when we pay off the national debt for pennies on the worthless dollar. The pro move would be to stop lending the US money, but that's not going to happen.
- adventured 1mo ago
  The US doesn't require that you lend it money, it possesses the global reserve currency. It'll take it from you via currency debasement. That's a world problem whether the world likes it or not. There is still no viable (realistic) alternative, and that includes the Euro, Yen, Yuan, gold, Bitcoin. There are no lenders outside or inside of the US for $20 trillion in new debt over the next decade. Monetization is the only path. If you mean lend the US money in regards to holding or using USD (while it's being debased as it is now), then sure. And if the world tries to shake off the USD, well, Iran & Venezuela (oil transactions assist USD dominance) would like a word. I'm not suggesting defending the USD reserve position via military action is moral, I'm suggesting it's certain to occur.
  - mtrovo 1mo ago
    [dead]
  - pocksuppet 1mo ago
    The US possesses the global reserve currency because everyone lends it money. If they didn't, it wouldn't. The USD is the global reserve currency because it's the one with all the lending!
tonyedgecombe 1mo ago

goatlover 1mo ago

And yet with all that, Democrats are likely to retake the US Congress because a majority of Americans are experiencing an affordability crisis.

joering2 1mo ago
Yet with all what? AI stock pushing indexes high and US stock market being cheap because dollar lost 30% of volume in last few years so the whole world is trying to profit from short ride? Record low unemployment because gas and groceries are so expensive most people work 2 or 3 jobs just not to end up homeless? Democrats are going to retake because ballroom and gold arch does not affect gas or grocery price. They will retake because Republicans proved they are extremely soft on corruption. Not only they allow POTUS & Fam. steal billions from taxpayers, they are not stopping it and some even profit themselves. Dems will retake because we have a dangerous version of plutocracy mixed with socialism, where one person on the top (POTUS) unilaterally decides that US Government will take a free chunk out of Intel, or that 20 billion of taxpayers money will go to help Argentina or Brazil or Japan. That's why.

SturgeonsLaw 1mo ago

You know what they say, what goes up must continue to go up forever

GolfPopper 1mo ago

Turkey weight a week before Thanksgiving - All time high

iamacyborg 1mo ago

Now look at what’s happening in the bond markets

sov 1mo ago

while im not necessarily a doomsayer about a recession, im not sure any of these are adequate buttresses against one the s&p doesnt tend to go down until a recession is either imminent or happening, and modern economic policy may even prevent that due to the vastly expanded wealth disparity the unemployment rate isn't really the tool it once was--if you include two groups that count as "employed" by the US unemployment rate--people seeking full time jobs but working only 1-34 hours a week, and people earning below the poverty line (under 26k pre-tax anually), the functional unemployment rate climbs to 24.9%--higher even than any month in the post-covid period of 2022-2024 (inclusive). yes, more small businesses than ever, but growth last year was almost non-existent. and it generally proxies vs able-bodied adults, which would have seen an increase larger than the businesses. gdp is high but much of that is ai company shuffle and debt-to-gdp ratio is rising once again--now the highest it's been since the 2020 massive covid bump birth rates are broadly down as well, likely stemming from cost of living, and birth rates do tend to predict recessions. it's fine to point at numbers but they don't really mean anything in isolation