Yeah, even as a solid dem from my perspective this reads as “report how I want it to sound”. It falls flat.
That said; the economy is doing better (but unfortunately the kind of economic improvement that helps shareholders more than regular people), inflation slowed down, unionization is on the rise, fuel prices (temporarily, as always) are down…so that’s good.
But housing or every kind is still out of control. Record profits without commensurately rising wages. New cars are still fucking ridiculous money. We’re being subscribed to death.
So from an everyday perspective we are still getting fucked.
There’s not much Biden can do about late stage capitalism. We’re reaching the end game. Where companies take us for just nearly everything we have to where we “survive” enough to keep working and paying them but just barely.
Even just talking about it truthfully would be something. Sticking his head in the ground is just going to get us a dictator.
unionization is on the rise
How is this good, exactly? What problems need fixing in the US that unions are well poised to fix?
Low wages, poor or high cost benefits, termination for any reason the employer sees fit… unions can also fill in gaps with additional insurance, legal benefits, addiction programs, and more.
Are you not from the US?
E: quick trip thru your comment history shows possibly Finnish? With libertarian and possibly anarchist leanings. Pro-free market to a fault while completely ignoring the damage free markets do, and the fact that they’re never really free.
Pro-free market to a fault while completely ignoring the damage free markets do, and the fact that they’re never really free.
You are quite close to the truth of the matter. Free markets aren’t the problem, the fact that they’re often not really free is.
quick trip thru your comment history shows possibly Finnish?
Yep. We have a pretty catastrophic situation here in Finland because of unions that have been made too powerful by legislation. I’ll happily grant that they’ve done a lot of good work in Finland in the past, but really nothing positive in the last 4 decades at least. It has grown stale like most powerful things do when they’re let to linger without any accountability for too long.
I suppose you have a choice then. Let corporations run amok and sacrifice your well-being for profit as they do in the US, or in your case let unions take over and give people better lives at the expense of bureaucracy.
I prefer something in the middle after spending time in Europe and the US. EU quality of life is higher, as is upward mobility, longevity, and a bunch of other factors. FBFW that comes at the price of strong unions that make a lot of things difficult to do thanks to the bureaucracy.
I don’t think you really want truly free market. The first thing to be sacrificed is you for more profits.
Let corporations run amok and sacrifice your well-being for profit as they do in the US, or in your case let unions take over and give people better lives at the expense of bureaucracy.
This is a classic example of a false dichotomy. These are not the actual real-life options on offer.
EU quality of life is higher, as is upward mobility, longevity, and a bunch of other factors.
It’s possible that quality of life thing derives from politics, but it’s also possible that it’s happening for some other reasons. Also, you might not have the correct view of quality of life when it comes to EU vs USA. The problem is that USA is often depicted as a single entity which is compared to individual European countries. But really, it would make more sense to compare the entirety of EU to USA, or individual EU states vs individual US states.
But if you do compare it like that, it doesn’t look great for EU:
We have Scandinavia (where I live) and Switzerland. Scandinavia is grounded in capitalist free market economy, with varying levels of freedom and government intervention. Switzerland, of course, is one of the most free market/capitalist countries in the world – also often one of the happiest ones.
I don’t think you really want truly free market. The first thing to be sacrificed is you for more profits.
That doesn’t seem to happen in a free market, at least when competition is healthy. Companies are competing against each other in terms of employees and their product, which practically guarantees optimal outcomes for both.
Pandemic-disrupted supply chains are pretty much righted. Inflation is already back near normal levels. Labor shortages have eased. The Federal Reserve is poised to cut interest rates next year.
We’ll still get a thousand stories about a looming recession.
Inflation is back near normal, but prices are not, and wages have not shifted to match those prices (partially due to the government fighting “wage inflation”). People are still worse off than they used to be. I don’t think this is Biden’s fault, but here we are anyway.
Biden has called this out. A lot of companies are still raising prices or aren’t letting prices fall. They’re still saying “oh, this is inflation causing this” while their costs fall and their profits rise.
Biden can’t stop them singlehandedly. (He’s a President, not a Supreme Dictator.) But he can call them out on it and use what powers he has to bear down on them somewhat if they don’t stop.
It might not get all of them to stop (some might risk fines because the profits would be greater), but hopefully it will direct the anger towards the actual culprits - big companies taking advantage of past inflation to raise prices.
Biden can’t stop them singlehandedly.
No but since he couldn’t stop them he decided the working class would pay the price and had the Federal Reserve fuck over the American people.
The Federal Reserve is independent of the President. They technically answer to Congress, but in reality it’s to the big banks.
Powell was reappointed by Biden. Biden is responsible for what Powell does.
People are looking at inflation dropping, thinking that’s an immediate fix. They’re forgetting that inflation is a measure of velocity. The ground that prices gained isn’t being eaten back up unless inflation goes to an effective negative compared to income.
Those articles sure dont reflect the reality of me or anyone I know, by even a smidge
Personal feelings aside, those are the numbers. Empirical evidence that what people think is just plain wrong. Why? I suspect what Biden is saying is true.
Empirical evidence says I still have to skip grocery trips, and cant afford to fix my car.
So… I trust my lived in life over your numbers
Me and everybody I know are doing great. My empirical evidence seems to disagree with yours.
Too bad nothing can be done about that. If only someone, maybe a government agency, could collect all the data and determine how the country is doing as a whole.
Saying “the economy is turning up and things are getting better” when nothing changed is a lot different than saying “its all going to hell” when no one is struggling.
If you dont grok the difference, you were probably not at risk of the economy fucking you over like how people are frustrated about
~Yall this is NOT empirical, but anecdotal~. That said, I wish you prosperity and only happy feelings (:
edit: I am sarcasm blind, apparently
Everyone has personal experiences which shape their thinking, that doesn’t mean their thinking is correct or even any more true than someone else’s. I can trust that I feel what 2 feet is on a board, but it’s better if I measure it before I cut it.
If I want to measure a board, I don’t consult a magazine*. I use a tape measure.
Similarly, if I want to know how I’m doing financially, I’ll check my bank account balance before the network that continues to employ Jim Cramer.
*even if I were measuring in potrzebie, I would convert from the imperial units already on my tape measure instead of hunting down a copy of MAD Magazine issue 26. I respect Donald Knuth, but there are limits.
Oh wow. That CNBC article is conflating less inflation with deflation. And where they have to provide numbers they don’t tell you how that 1 percent decrease in chicken is after a huge run up. (And every other product in the grocery section there.)
I knew CNBC was an economic gaslighter but this is Fox News level of wordplay to make people think the opposite of what the actual information says. Even to the point of saying less inflation is deflation. Inflation is a measure of velocity. Going slower is not going in reverse.
And the Forbes one is a paywall.
The basic problem here is that while inflation is slowing and wages are rising, inflation being a net negative against wages for a single year isn’t enough. It’s not enough to make up all the ground lost to inflation over the decades, and the run away inflation we experienced recently. As a reminder, this is 2023. The Pandemic effectively ended in 2020. Three years ago. So what was net inflation in 2021 and 2022?
Well gee I actually have those numbers. 3.7 in 2021, and 7 in 2022. That’s net inflation, so inflation against median wage increase. The net inflation this year would need to be -10.7 to wipe out the difference created in those two years. We don’t have full numbers yet but it looks like about 5 percent median wage increase and 3 percent inflation.
So you have -2 net inflation this year. Yay. We’re still down by 8 points. But that’s okay it’s just a particularly big add to the 139 points we’re down since 1974.
That’s not why people are feeling pessimistic. Too much of the economic recovery is going to corporate profits and capitalist shareholders. The federal minimum wage is still half of a poverty wage, and the rent is still too damn high. The hyperinflation of the pandemic has made working for a living unsustainable. Taking inflation from 9% to 3% is great (setting aside for this conversation that any President shouldn’t really take credit for economic matters) but it’s reduce the rate at which a bad thing is getting worse. Existence is still unaffordable even with everybody employed. That’s not spin, that’s just the reality we’ve all been living in for a long time. The twin disasters of Trump and the pandemic put it all in stark relief, laying bare the grift of conservativism.
Biden is struggling because he’s trying to play old politics. We’ve crossed the rubicon. Going back to normal isn’t enough for people to feel hopeful, and reducing the rate of collapse isn’t leadership. Biden thinks being at the helm while the ship slowly rights itself is the same as leadership, and there are enough people attacking him from the extreme other side that nobody is particularly happy with him.
That’s not why people are feeling pessimistic
Everything you said is absolutely true and I agree with what is and should be happening.
However, the article is saying that surveyed people think the economy is crashing and unemployment is high.
I think it’s fair for Biden to say, “hey, you fuckers keep telling me you want capitalism. This is what capitalism looks like. This is success in capitalism. It’s up to the unions at this point in a capitalist system.”
Even though like you said it isn’t working. But not for the reasons why media makes it seem, which is what turns people to the right thinking that more extreme capitalism and deregulation will fix it!
The looming recession talk is over. They’re ready to start making real money in the stock market again and are tired of the impact the recession talk had this year. It’s no surprise that it’s been about bang on a year since the recession talk started as we came into 2023 and the stock market hit record highs as we’re coming into 2024.
It was all fabricated for… reasons. Big orgs wanted to lay people off for some reason. Investment bankers wanted to gobble up securities for cheaper. Real estate firms wanted to drive down the real cost of homes (higher interest rates = lower sale price but higher cost to families, firms benefit by paying cash). They wanted it so they made it happen. They no longer want it so it’ll end.
Indeed. Much as though I like my payments from JP Morgan, Jamie Diamon was one of the first to scream recession. He did that to increase his own wealth, not any other reason.
That’s true but peoples wages haven’t gone up at a rate that keeps pace so everyone still feels poor and can’t buy the things they need. That’s the big issue. That’s not been fixed and there is no plan to fix it. Now we all just have to wait around until our wages start to increase but we all know how long that takes.
The problem is that there is no way to fix it without fucking shit up worse. Attempting to create deflation is bad for everyone as the economy will stop growing which will lead to job loss. A recession is another way to get it done, but then that would require high levels of unemployment, and still won’t bring prices down.
We’re seeing the best possible outcome right now where inflation is down and wages are rising faster than it, and housing prices are coming down, meaning we are on track for the issue of unaffordability to go away. The Fed seems to have pulled off what most people thought was impossible: a soft landing.
We’re possibly witnessing something absolutely amazing. This is not to detract from the struggles people are experiencing, but the fact that they don’t recognize how much better off they are then how it could have been is disappointing.
When I read the Forbes link I provided, I see that wages kept place with inflation for the last 2 and a half years. When I look at the news, I see unions getting wage consessions. Inflation was a factor, but that’s been mitigated
You’re speaking as if the majority of American workers are in a union.
It is true that the success of unions on wages effects the wages of non union workers,
Yes but when union membership is only at 10% what impact are you really talking about nationwide?
The 10% of union wages should still impact the rest of the industry, so the 10% of the workforce getting raises and concessions will force other companies to increase wages or benefits, even if it isn’t as much as the unions’ increases.
Rapidcreek was attempting to make the case that working class conditions are stable and rising. His points of union gains ignore vast swaths of people’s material reality. Unions gaining ground in the past year is a great point, one I am not denying, however those gain are a very small fraction of the already small fraction of unionized workers.
Many of the contracts left many workers out of improvements. The UPS contract won by Teamsters for example was very vocal about how it ended a two tier pay scale system, but in reality it just created a new one for part time workers hired after the contract was signed. That’s not to diminish from the gains made, but UPS’s current model requires a huge segment of their work force to be part time, as they have high volume rush periods where inbound/outbound needs to be recieved/shipped quickly as their floor space cannot accommodate the volume. Those part time workers are essential so why should they be payed at a lower scale than full time employees? Many of those part time workers aren’t as involved in union organizing and Teamsters have done a poor job bringing them into the fold, so when they vault their 85% approval of the contract, they neglect to mention what percentage didn’t participate.
That is one example of how many of the gains won aren’t what they appear at face value. Mainstream media also does a poor job reporting these nuances in labor fights. So again yes things are improving, but definitely not for everyone and it’s not the rosy picture Rapidcreek was trying to paint.
You mean the paywalled link and the gaslighting CNBC article? The government’s own numbers put median wage increase vs inflation at -8 for the 2021-2023 period.
Americans are not stupid. You will not convince them the economy is good by spitting out some numbers twisted from the data. They feel it. They know how easy or hard it is to make ends meet. They know their rent goes up every year while their wages do not.
And the harder is gets, the more radical the population becomes. Establishment democrats like Biden will not be able to maintain the status quo. Normally I wouldn’t care but their incompetence has consequences. A Trump victory at this point may signal the end of the US as we know it. We cannot continue to stay asleep at the wheel.
Your purchasing power has fallen over 20% in the last 3 years. We’re talking and average of around 7% real inflation per year. Not the official “~3%” the government puts out. That’s over 3x higher than average over the last 4 decades.
The economy has been bad, but that doesn’t change that it is getting better on many important metrics. These are leading indicators, predicting what will be, but the effects that people are feeling are more like lagging indicators that are reacting to the past and present. Hopefully we see these predictions play out in the next year before the election and into the next presidency.
What we’re going to see is a slight boost in the coming months as the federal reserve lowers the interest rate (by coincidence, also an election year 🤔)
But with the interest rate going down, the main barrier holding us back from higher inflation is being torn down. What will be the consequences of this? Prices will rise.
I think they are betting that the Ukrainian war ends in the next few months. If not ends, at least becomes a frozen conflict. This would remove a large inflationary pressure from the global system.
It’s a gamble. Perhaps they even are negotiating with Russia behind the scenes. Russian high-level officials were spotted flying to DC last week.
We’ll have to see. Hopefully they can end the war and lower interest rates. That would in effect give a large boost right before the 2024 election. Is that enough to pry the election away from Trump? I don’t know. Biden is incredibly unpopular (even more unpopular than Trump at this same time! One of the least popular presidents in history).
When it comes to “literal starvation” or “overthrow the shackles of oppression” I have a fair idea of what a lot of locals will choose.
The problem is the goal of “overthrow the shackles of oppression” may be a valid goal with class self interest in mind…
But that desire can be manipulated into accomplishing the opposite. And the populist right has shown their ability to harness the fear and insecurity that is growing in this country.
We desperately need a renewed leftist movement that the average American can get behind. Without some sort of mass movement soon, I see things getting worse before they get better.
We desperately need a renewed leftist movement that the average American can get behind.
I hope unions accomplish this. All our political parties are unwilling to.
They forget that the second option is followed by feudalism. Do they want to be serfs? Because they will be literal property of the aristocratic classes if they elect Trump and let him destroy the constitution.
Fuedalism may seem like a utopian pipe dream with what is possible. Imagine a transition to an authoritarian surveillance capitalism state (something like China).
With AI, they can even read your thoughts. You get booked into the police because of something you posted online anonymously, they interrogate you while they read your thoughts. You believe in communism? Terrorist -> prison.
These things can happen faster than we expect. Hitler took Germany from a democracy to a hell hole in less than a decade.
It looks like all countries in the world are slowly converging on a mixture of the US and Chinese system. Capitalist corporations endowed with power by the state. No free market - a few large companies are easier to control. Strong executive power and theater democracy. Large prison populations.
Also, this isn’t unique to Trump. The Democrats would bring us to the same destination, just slower. We need a new left. A mass movement like the mass protests of the 60s. That has historically been the only thing that can bring real and significant positive change to the American people.
I prefer not to depend on feelings. My feelings can sometimes be wrong… isolated data is not a prefered indicator, because it must be interpreted to be meaningful.
I’ve put several links in this string that should address your point.
Feelings decide elections, not numbers. And a large majority of Americans do not have confidence in the economy.
These people, living day in and out under the system intuitively understand their position, even if they can’t spit out figures at you. They recognize their lives are harder than their grandparents. They recognize they are working for less year after year.
Many of us are privileged- I know I am. We make good money working from home, not having any issues paying our expenses and saving for the future.
But we cannot let that privilege blind us into believing misleading optimistic figures. We are on the edge of a precipice, both economically, financially, and militarily. If the left doesn’t do something soon, we will lose the next decade to fascism.
I understand. The fact is, however, that the economy is doing well by all measurements. These are figures, not optimistic, just numbers. The US came out of the pandemic economic depression robustly. Also, the fact is that the top percentile has accumulated wealth at unprecedented rates. I suspect we are on the cusp of a generational shift when higher paid older workers retire to be replaced by younger workers. That can never happen fast enough for the younger.
the top percentile has accumulated wealth at unprecedented rates.
YES, THAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM
Yes, a large one…
I understand. The fact is, however, that the economy is doing well by all measurements.
The only measurement that counts to any voter is the one on their own bank statement. Tell them the economy is doing great all you want. It may even be true. If they’re having to decide which utility bill to not pay this month, they’re unlikely to give your data greater weight than their datum.
And he responded. Are those the end of your argument? Because as other poster said, statistics can be used to lie just as well as inform. You are familiar with this, correct?
If you have the stomach for getting in to the nitty gritty, pick one of your metrics and ill explain patiently why theyre bullshit.
(Good) Statistics don’t lie, but they can deceive.
So, you want me address your data without addressing mine? I’m not going to get into an hour debate on a chat board for no ther reason but it bores me. Sorry.
“I don’t want to put in the work but I’ll go through the effort of letting you know I’m not doing work instead of just ignoring you”
You can simply ignore people if you’re just going to use a lot of words to say nothing.
deleted by creator
No one has been talking about a recession lately. The stories have all been shit is too expensive for the majority of Americans.
And…well…they’re true.
Depends on how much of your income goes toward food.
Our food spend has tripled if not more over the past couple years.
If that was 2% of your net income, then spending 6% on food now isn’t so bad.
If food spend was 10% of your net income, then switching to paying 30% of your income is a big fucking problem.
We’ll still get a thousand stories about a looming recession.
You haven’t noticed? They’ve moved on to this election cycle’s migrant caravan. Like fucking clockwork.
Sure as fuck feels like it’s already here for half the country.
Alternatively, “The Economy Is Booming And Everyone Is Doing Better, Here’s Why This Is Bad News For Biden!”
Well, consider me an a shitload of people I know and see stories about daily “nobody”
A new pet peeve. Not slamming, or blasting, but RIPPING. He tore these fuckers’ jugulars out y’all!
Once non sensational headlines start getting more clicks, they’ll make them less sensational. More people want it that way I guess?
Yelling at cloud not effective, gotta pump up that headline.
“Bidenomics”
Opinion rejected. It’s the same neoliberal trash that’s defined American since Reagan, and Republicans want to do an even worse job at.
Did you even watch 1 minute of the video?
Bidenomics
Opinion Rejected
“Rejecting” someone you probably agree with because you can’t take a second to understand their position.
Noice.
It’s a very simple and time saving system.
Let the term “Bidenomics” cross your lips without at least audible scare quotes, get your opinion invalidated.
Dare ya to watch 1 minute.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
President Biden criticized news coverage of the U.S. economy as he faces growing backlash from voters over his handling of inflation.
In brief remarks Saturday before boarding the presidential helicopter, Biden expressed confidence in the economy and ripped the reporters for the way it has been portrayed.
The economy has roared back from the COVID-19 recession under Biden, who enacted legislation for trillions of dollars of economic relief and investments shortly after taking office in 2021.
Biden and his Democratic allies have largely blamed the media and Republican critics for skewing the public’s views on the economy by exaggerating recession fears and dismissing record-setting job growth.
Pandemic stimulus and restrictions also fueled a surge in home prices and rents, deepening an affordable housing crisis that began long before COVID-19.
Many voters are also struggling with the long-term changes to their jobs and industries caused by COVID-19, along with the lapse of economic relief programs that temporarily lifted millions of Americans out of poverty.
The original article contains 473 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
If Biden wants the media to cover him better he needs to do what Republicans do: give them a simple message. The other day I saw a Biden “I did that!” sticker on a national park fee payment station. Blatantly untrue? Yes. But it’s simple and people aren’t going to research or even think about whether park fees are Biden’s fault.
“The economy sucks and it’s the president’s fault” is a simple message. But:
The U.S. unemployment rate was just 3.7 percent in November — barely above the pre-pandemic level of 3.5 percent, which was a five-decade low. Annual inflation has also fallen sharply from a peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022 to 3.1 percent in November, and the economy has defied widespread predictions of a recession.
These numbers will just be ignored. They don’t fit in a headline or even an unpaid tweet. And I find people’s natural reaction to numbers is to distrust them. “Yeah, but that’s not the real unemployment/inflation/GDP/etc”.
As for what that simple message can be, I have no idea. “Rising employment, plummeting inflation” might be an option, I dunno. But he needs to get someone in charge of messaging who will simplify things.
The economy is doing great. Except for one thing. It’s all being sucked up by the people who are already rich.
Everything we do to help just gets sucked up by the megacorporations and the already rich. I’m sure you know the feeling.
The economy is doing great. Except for one thing. It’s all being sucked up by the people who are already rich.
Biden’s supporters don’t see why this is a problem.
“My numbers are dropping! This is not my fault! Release more articles telling them the economy is great and it’s all in their heads!”
Translation: “we spent all this time massaging CPI and GDP, yall better report how great the economy is now!”
When they report that the economy is great, always ask for whom…
If you have to tell people how great the economy is, it’s not that great.
The problem is the economy is good in metrics but not for the individual. Corporate greed is leaving most Americans worse off despite the “good” economy
I think this is one of the things Trump got right: there should be a more adversarial relationship between politicians and the press. Of course Trump was adversarial because he wanted to do awful things, and also he wanted to set up a state media apparatus, but still.
Well, Trump was adversarial to certain media outlets. Others, like FOX News, were All-But-State TV. They’d parrot whatever he said as the god given truth and he’d parrot whatever they said as truth. If Trump said that the election was stolen and COVID was no big deal, that’s how FOX reported it. If they said that vaccines were dangerous and that immigrants were replacing “real Americans” (read: white people), he’d parrot that right back.
Also, adversarial relationships are good to a point. Biden is asking the media to cover things honestly. Trump was calling the media “The Enemy Of The People” and threatening to go after them (or encouraged his supporters to go after them) unless they fell in line. There’s a huge difference between those two adversarial relationships.
Do we have to label calling people on their shit “adversarial”? To me that word has a connotation of reacting unreasonably.
One might just call it “reporting” 😉
I have the same connotation with word adversarial…
What the hell are you talking about? Trump did massive damage to journalistic integrity as a whole. You ever hear the words “fake news” before he used it?
Trump did massive damage to journalistic integrity as a whole
Not nearly as much damage as access journalism (e.g. Maggie Haberman style palace intrigue stories) did. The press and politicians being buddy-buddy is a disaster for journalistic integrity.
You ever hear the words “fake news” before he used it?
I did. The first time I heard it was on the PBS NewsHour, second half of 2016. Trump didn’t really start using the term until 2017/late 2016, IIRC. They were using the term to describe news sites that felt like “official” news sites but were not journalistic, using social media to spread and get ad revenue.
To be clear, I’m not saying that Trump’s press strategy was good. Overall it was harmful; but the adversarial nature specifically was good.
The poor and uninformed are the last to see improvement. That doesn’t mean things aren’t getting better. Yet they are most likely to vote against their self interests.
The poor and uninformed are the last to see improvement.
And the first to catch hell when things go to shit. When wages start to rise, the fed considers it a disaster to be averted.
“Just stick with us, don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news.”
—Trump
"Start reporting it the right way”
—Blue Trump
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I think he’s actually saying the opposite.
Media reports say the economy is doing great because corporations are making record profits
Meanwhile wages continue to stagnate and prices continue to rise.
The economy isn’t great just because rich people are making more money. It’s only great when consumers have real purchasing power and are paid a good enough wage to circulate that money back into the economy.
That could make some sense.
why all the complaints
if someone mentions voting for someone other than biden you are instantly a trump lover and if you mention voting for someone else other than democrat or republican you are are a biden hater
maybe there should be better reasons for voting other than shirt color or letter or name
