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Well things are not going pretty well, there is still no real solution to the crash of 2008 in sight, right now we still have essentially bankrupt banks that ar

Well things are not going pretty well, there is still no real solution to the crash of 2008 in sight, right now we still have essentially bankrupt banks that are trading worthless assets in an artificially created market. Look at the charts in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_... for example, real average hourly wages are still lower than in the 1970s, gdp growth has largely decoupled from the real economy, large sectors of which have shrunk.

untog 12y ago
Well that's the core of the problem, isn't it? "Pretty well" is extremely relative. The US is recovering from the crash of 2008 better than most countries in the world. Unemployment is down and getting better, but as you say, household income is still not doing great. So what is "pretty well" in this context? Damned if I know.
- 001sky 12y ago
  So what is "pretty well" in this context? Damned if I know. If you have acess to capital at 0% interest rates, you are doing fine.
- sanderjd 12y ago
  Yes, I'm right there with you, and "pretty well" is purposefully vague. Listening to the news and often reading here, it's very easy to forget that 2015 is pretty close to the historical maximum of how things are going for humans worldwide, and far more so for humans living in the US. That's no reason to not advocate for improving the many many things that can be improved, but I find the widespread sense of deep foreboding completely maddening, and more useful for fostering division than improvement. To continue with your specific example, people I talk to seem largely unaware that the economy of the US has pretty much recovered from the crash. A lot of times this unawareness manifests in the thought that everything we've done since then and are still doing has been utterly and catastrophically wrong and we need to scrap it entirely and figure something else out. I don't think that's very useful. The other perspective is to say, that's great that the high level economic indicators have improved, but shouldn't we be seeing wage growth along with it? How can we tweak the system to see the gains spread more equitably? That is, it's not totally wrong, but it's not totally right either. What can we do to get closer to "totally right"? That's the sort of rhetoric I'd prefer to hear.

untog 12y ago

Well that's the core of the problem, isn't it? "Pretty well" is extremely relative. The US is recovering from the crash of 2008 better than most countries in the world. Unemployment is down and getting better, but as you say, household income is still not doing great. So what is "pretty well" in this context? Damned if I know.

001sky 12y ago
So what is "pretty well" in this context? Damned if I know. If you have acess to capital at 0% interest rates, you are doing fine.
sanderjd 12y ago
Yes, I'm right there with you, and "pretty well" is purposefully vague. Listening to the news and often reading here, it's very easy to forget that 2015 is pretty close to the historical maximum of how things are going for humans worldwide, and far more so for humans living in the US. That's no reason to not advocate for improving the many many things that can be improved, but I find the widespread sense of deep foreboding completely maddening, and more useful for fostering division than improvement. To continue with your specific example, people I talk to seem largely unaware that the economy of the US has pretty much recovered from the crash. A lot of times this unawareness manifests in the thought that everything we've done since then and are still doing has been utterly and catastrophically wrong and we need to scrap it entirely and figure something else out. I don't think that's very useful. The other perspective is to say, that's great that the high level economic indicators have improved, but shouldn't we be seeing wage growth along with it? How can we tweak the system to see the gains spread more equitably? That is, it's not totally wrong, but it's not totally right either. What can we do to get closer to "totally right"? That's the sort of rhetoric I'd prefer to hear.