It’s completely nuts that unemployment is at 3.6%, air fare and hotel prices sky high due to demand and yet we are in a recession?
Can someone explained this to me?
Seems to be what talking heads are saying - a recession that impacts the rich. Seems like absolute BS of course. Working class will always be fucked, guillotines etc
So my girlfriend and I hadn’t ordered delivery in a few months, or eaten any restaurant food. We were both exhausted and hungry the other day and decided to splurge on fajitas from one of our favorite spots. We looked on Door Dash and it would have been $54 plus tip, so we said nevermind we’ll pick it up. Went to the restaurants site and they have a page to order from and they offer delivery. It was like $38 including tip.
The order was fulfilled by Door Dash lol.
I think that the top 25% or so are doing great and traveling a ton, the bottom 50% or so are really screwed and most of the 25% in the middle are screwed but don’t realize it yet. I also think there are supply shortages on hotel rooms due to a shortage of migrant workers that handle seasonal surges, and on flights due to covid outbreaks in the airline industry. So those may be supply related increases in price.
Also a lot of middle class people were paycheck to paycheck but spending some of that on discretionary stuff, but now rents are up and food and gas are up, and they’re paycheck to paycheck on necessities only.
My buddy and I usually golf 15-20 times a year. So far this year we’re at 0. We could have, in theory, but we saw the writing on the wall and tightened up our spending.
I don’t think I can explain it, but reading a bit of the commentary on the Atlanta Fed website and the recent change in their GDP figure is driving by two things:
- A manufacturing report that suggests declining production of new goods
- A housing report that suggests declining new construction
My amateur take on that is that inflation just continues to take a big bite into the US economy. With consumer prices rising manufacturers are slowing production of new goods and the combination of price inflation plus higher interest rates is slowing the demand for new houses. I guess that with really high inflation you can have high employment and high prices, but actual declining demand in big chunks of the economy. Housing, in particular, has been an Achilles heel for the US economy since forever. If the US isn’t churning out McMansions in the desert the whole economy falls apart. Not great.
You haven’t eaten any delivery in months?!
I heard a stat that in the 70’s there were three recessions but none of them were in nominal dollars. Americans spent more in each if those recessions it was just that the dollars they spent bought less goods due to inflation.
So this makes sense, but also begs the question are we heading into another wage driven 70s style stagflation. Ancedotly I can tell you that most of the people I know, blue collar type wage workers are either getting raises at there present job or funding new jobs that pay them more. Rather or not the equates to higher standard of living I don’t know. For my family not much as changes we are accustomed to saving about half of our income anyways so our standard has not changed
We elected Democrats, they passed huge spending bills (COVID relief) and the middle class benefited. This is how it’s supposed to work.
i dont think theres any way demand could cause airline prices to rise 50% higher than they were pre-covid. its almost all on the supply side, all the russia/ukraine shit plus theres a huge shortage of pilots right now, a bunch of them took early retirement packages during covid plus a bunch of pilots are hitting the mandatory retirement age of 65 every day, combined with covid regulations means there are a bunch of flights getting delayed/cancelled which means a bunch of planes sitting on the ground which is leading to higher prices.
Middle class hates the Biden/Dems overall performance on the economy so far and Americans are more bearish on the economic outlook than at any time since 2009. Poor and middle class wages are shrinking and there’s a wave of unemployment coming. Electorate recognizes current Dem party is too inept to try and fix the structural issues with the economy (will be reflected in the upcoming electoral rout).
Dems obviously aren’t fully to blame for what’s happening, but they have done a dogshit job of doing anything to help everyday people.
Whut?
Production and nonsupervisory employees
Real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees decreased 0.5 percent from
April to May, seasonally adjusted. This result stems from a 0.6-percent increase in average hourly
earnings combined with an increase of 1.1 percent in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners
and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).
Real average weekly earnings decreased 0.5 percent over the month due to the change in real average
hourly earnings being combined with no change in average weekly hours.
From May 2021 to May 2022, real average hourly earnings decreased 2.5 percent, seasonally adjusted.
The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 0.6 percent in the average
workweek resulted in a 3.0-percent decrease in real average weekly earnings over this period.
so this is the narrative, but the only thing progressives have suggested is more of the things democrats have done (raise minimum wage, more free shit, increase taxes etc)
so arguing that’s not working is just funny to me, carry on
Real wages are declining when compared to inflation. People are having lots of bad experiences due to the labor shortage and supply chain issues. For example, getting terrible service basically everywhere you go because there aren’t enough employees or getting told that it is going to cost 35% more year over year to put a new A/C into your house. Getting rent or home insurance increased 25% year over year. etc.
Biden could have definitely helped the labor shortage by swinging open the border or expediting overseas visas.
I think my least favorite term over the past year is “labor shortage”.
I talked about it some too. Capital strike is a far better term
When did Dems do any of those this legislative term? They did COVID relief for free stuff I guess, but pulled a lot of thst back since (child tax credit, etc). Student loans still completely unsolved, guessing a matter of time before the courts end the current plan of stalling.
We are short 2,000,000 immigrants than if Covid/Trump never happened.
No clue about dinar.