This isn’t what people mean when they say the economy is good… They are always referring to jobless rate, consumer confidence, debt ratios, inflation rate ect.
They don’t mean the structural failures of the system you are referencing so it’s not fair to pretend they are somehow saying the structural failures are good.
Yes, they are referencing the things the ruling class wants you to think means the economy is good.
Ok maybe but it’s still dumb to pretend you can’t both think the “economy is good”, in the sense that everyone uses that phrase, at the same time as agreeing the structural failures of capitalism, especially with respect to income distribution, are bad.
You don’t get to pretend that good and bad are some absolute descriptors for the sake of points scoring when the comment was obviously not using them as such.
The equally dumb counter point would be “what it’s a bad thing more people have jobs?”
Reading your first paragraph kind of makes me chuckle. You are so close.
Although I don’t think it’s structural failures of capitalism, the ruling class will exploit any system in place.
Some inequality is fine. That bar chart is a lot more equal than I would have thought.
Your argument is with the English language not anyone’s actual policy position.
Sigh….maybe you are not that close
Good fucking lord you’re a dumb asshole, aren’t you?
Jesus Christ you mouthbreathers! When people say “the economy is good,” they mean that economic conditions are improving. They don’t mean that we have arrived at utopia and all economic problems have been solved. Everything you claim to think is bad about the economy is better than it used to be. The only people who are really seeing things get worse in this economy are privileged morons who are so useless that they can’t find success despite being born with every advantage and living in a world of 4% unemployment. Your problem is that’s your peer group.
That was one factor along with the race to the bottom of states bidding against each other to offer the car companies more subsidization and less regulatory oversight
And COL
Things continue to get worse for people earning 15k-35k, as their rent and food continues to take up higher and higher proportions of their incomes. But your answer is to point to small wage increases that do not consider cost of living, and to call people privileged and useless.
You are not a good or smart person.
It should standout that people are now talking about the top 20% not doing better the last few years. Previously who had ever talked about the 20%? People have been talking about the 1% incessantly for years. For a couple years the stats look a little different for the 20% - barely - while the wealth (not income) share of the top 1% has continued along the trend.
What else is happening? Some of the poorest people have moved from welfare and unemployment to low paying jobs. This isn’t necessarily an increase in the standard of living and even where it is, the narrative of “economy is getting better for the poorest people” is being used as a cudgel against the next most poor. What bad form of you to complain while someone just moved from receiving unemployment to delivering on DoorDash!
At any rate, I’m not saying “the economy” is horrible, but unemployment numbers and even income distribution don’t tell the whole story and can even be deceiving.
Someone like bobman absolutely cannot comprehend that Doordash minus expenses = less than minimum wage minus commute expenses
This kind of disagreement is almost always one of scale. It’s objectively true that overall the economy is “getting better” than during Covid. It’s also objectively true that for several classes the economy is not getting better. It’s just depends on the scale one is referring too.
Similarly, it matters if macro or micro economic trends are being addressed.
Bobman cannot fathom that anyone would say the economy was bad unless it was bad for them personally
That really says it all right there
Another thing, and this may just now be changing, is that for the last few years food and rent inflation has been higher than overall inflation, so the larger a percentage of your expenses are for food and rent, the higher inflation has been for you.
These people know this. But they pretend they don’t. And ignore when it’s pointed out. Every time.
This is a point not mentioned in the press nearly enough. It’s the main reason why inflation is so much harder on the poor.
If you can’t make rent a lower portion of your income, that’s the meritocracy at work. So says bobman. In his most recent post ITT, even.
Bobman, I know you will think this is impossible, but I am saying this while having reduced my rent/income ratio from a quarter to an eighth of my income since 2021. Surely a human is only capable of saying such a thing if they’re not capable of helping themselves, or breathing through their nostrils
It’s hard to blame people who believe in the meritocracy. It’s so deeply engrained in our culture. It’s like Americans who think there is an American dream.
Both are a total myth, but they are drummed into people from birth from every angle. It’s like asking a Christian to stop believing in god.