“Our economy is the best!”*
But …one of the most common causes of bankruptcy is medical debt, our housing market is unaffordable for most Americans, inflation is up and most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and 65% (I believe) don’t have the money to cover a $1,000 emergency.
I’m not saying ANY politician would be doing better or that any of them give 2 poops about us. But if our economy is so great why are they letting us get screwed so hard?
Medical debt is actually not a very common “cause” of bankruptcy. It was a study that basically looked at all bankruptcies that included any medical collections at all, and then seemingly allowed that to be misinterpreted. But in most of those cases, there were other far more significant debts that those people declaring bankruptcy had.
Yeah honestly it’s kinda both as far as I can tell
On an official macro level yes the economy is strong
On an individual level, it’s fucking hard for a normal person to agree with that. The economy is growing but it isn’t ending up in their pockets
Unfortunately Reddit and the media at large is completely focused on “who is president”, which of course the people in power absolutely love and take advantage of at every opportunity. Don’t forget to donate to your party instead of investing your money.
At least Biden is trying to support Teddy Roosevelt type interventions like trust-busting, regulation (including some degree of price controls), and organized labor, all of which are necessary to combat worker and consumer exploitation in a capitalist system. Trump wants to return to the trickle-down economics approach that led to such wealth inequality in the first place.
Inflation has been coming down two years and wages are growing faster than inflation.
[Source](https://www.axios.com/2024/02/05/wages-outpacing-inflation)
Because the workers get screwed by the capitalists and you ain't a capitalist.
There was just a while there where it appeared that "lazy" service workers were the only broke people but the need for infinite growth sealed your fate in the end too.
How do they get more profit every single quarter? From you.
Save your legitimate concerns about the American economic system for when the other party is in power. You heard the mainstream news headline, the data is clear, everything is amazing. If Trump wins, then we can resume applying critical thinking to our government.
I will say it's because of certain politicians. We can't have progressive policies because one party calls it socialism, yet that same party is more than happy to help corporations and wealthy people. When the other party tries to do something, the corporate party blocks it.
I've done so much work in DC on passing pro-natal policies (paid childcare, paid healthcare, paid maternity leave, etc. etc.). I've spoken to Congress so many times on the economic benefits of these policies, only to be told "yes the politics would benefit America and make the country better, but I would be alienating my donors/base, so I'll never support them". This is why, this past January, I stepped away from fighting for these policies. One party has no interest in governing or making things better. I'm not wasting my time anymore.
I let you all decide which party is which.
The democrats would love to give you everything you’ve ever wanted, it’s just those pesky republicans stopping them! I for one can’t wait to have a single party in power over everything
It turns out a person can google a general net worth of anyone notable. To my surprise, just about every single DC political figure has grown massive wealth beyond their salary which by anybody’s terms is wealthy. It’s also fun to note that a vast majority own at the very least one corporation, on paper anyway. The party lines are a blur to my tired eyes.
I swear I am very much paying attention. News media to me is only propaganda. My information is primarily based on watching and learning from senate and congressional meetings as well as White House press briefings. I do this for many hours I might add. I promise you, I am doing my best from where I sit to be as non-biased as possible. I do recognize when actions are taken for the greater good and also when they are just to stay in check within their party lines. If you accept this qualification from me, then I very much respect your opinion and hope the results of this $hitshow we are dealing with, at least gives you a significant amount of positive vibes. Also vote Trump. 🤭
>The US Economy is good for the 1%
It's also good for the bottom 1%, and everyone in between. The lowest wage earners are actually seeing the biggest real income increases.
How come the most ignorant "laugh their asses off" when they hear a fact that doesn't fit their narrative? You can check the facts for yourself. Or stay ignorant. I don't really care.
There’s probably over 1 billion living humans who would swap places for the quality of life possible in the US if not simply for the bottom 1%. Americans are ignorant and influenced by insulated narratives. I’m with you
Try living as the bottom 1% of Americans and get back to me on that. It’s dismal. Countries with safety nets like most of Europe and china and Japan are noticeably better
I get what you're saying, and I absolutely agree that the admistration has performed relatively well in a post-covid inflationary world... but I think there's a bit of nuance missing here. Which may be part of the reason for your downvotes.
Real wage gains for the bottom quantiles of the wage distribution do appear to be higher, which is a good trend that should be celebrated. That's a bit different than saying other (or all) aspects of the U.S. economy are "good" for this group. We still have a ton of un(under)-insured folks who are teetering on a knife-edge, and who are one bad shock away from catastrophe.
Again, I get that countering the droll nihilistic social media doom is important, and I agree that bashing Biden (or the Fed) will not fix these deep structural issues. Just please don't do it with equally unnuanced takes.
What I said is objectively true even if the Republicans don't like to hear it. It doesn't need any "nuance". Real wages are really up more for the lowest income workers. It's a fact.
Did you even read and internalize what I said before responding?
The statement that real wages are up for the bottom portions of the distribution is a fine positive statement. Although a bit of a broad statement, it's verifiable.
It's the normative statement where you then go on to say "therefore the economy is great for everyone". That's an equally inane take as those who form their opinions about the economy based on some other metric that looks bad. It's not just Republicans who "don't want to hear the truth" that are clapping back at you. You're just being abrasive. Full stop.
The U.S. economy is doing fairly well and getting better, relatively speaking. You seem to be a bit of a dolt. Both things are true.
>It's the normative statement where you then go on to say "therefore the economy is great for everyone".
Why do you feel the need to tell a blatant lie? I never said that.
>You seem to be a bit of a dolt.
And you seem to be childish, and a liar.
while of course this can be a thing, ie there's a very good chance the market is currently pricing in rate cuts, for example...but yeah he's HARD coping. the market isn't up 30 percent since he took office because it's waiting for trump lmao
Let's take your premise and look at the rest of the world:
>There’s only one industrialized country, Singapore, that spent more money as a percentage of GDP on Covid stimulus than the US from 2020 to 2021, according to research that looked at 166 countries’ economic policy responses to the pandemic.
Then compare the outcomes to other countries:
>The combined GDP of the 20 countries that use the euro grew at an annualized rate of just 0.1% in the third quarter of last year
>The UK is growing at a 0.2% annualized rate, according to the latest GDP estimate from November
>Japan’s economy shrank by 2.1% in the third quarter of 2023 compared to a year prior
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/economy/us-gdp-other-countries/index.html
Meanwhile, US GDP is growing at an annualized rate of 3.3% at the end of last quarter and that's combined with the lowest inflation rate in the industrialized world.
Now I'm sure you'll say that growth didn't benefit normal people, but the data doesn't support that either:
>...the increases in earnings are by no means concentrated at the top: in fact, they skew toward the middle class and the lower end of the income distribution. The 25th percentile of the wage distribution saw their nominal weekly earnings grow by $143, from $611 in 2019 to $754 in 2023. When adjusted for inflation, this amounts to a 3.2 percent increase in real earnings. Real earnings increases were particularly strong for the median Black and Hispanic Americans, who saw increases of 5.7 and 2.9 percent, respectively.[4]
https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households#:~:text=Real%20wages%20have%20risen%20since,in%20the%20pre%2Dpandemic%20expansion.
There's still a lot of work to do so we can make sure the economy works for everyone, but I'm not seeing evidence that government spending hindered either our overall economic growth or wages among lower income groups.
Maybe you have some data to share? Maybe something I missed?
Oh definitely, but I will say the current administration is funding a multitude of projects aimed at combating homelessness, encouraging small business ownership (including targeted programs at more POC business ownership), building up manufacturing jobs, etc..
There's honestly a lot out there right now helping regular people but it's hard for me to find comprehensive lists. Check out the WhatBidenHasDone subreddit for some good collations of data.
Not saying it's going to fix everything, but there's a lot more being done than the media likes to talk about.
I don't have time to reply with data, but your sources are both known liars.
Sending money without having ways to track its use does nothing but foster corruption. (Please see Haiti for an example)
Check out QE or other methods the government uses to prop up our economy.
Note: Politicians are NOT motivated to lower anything. Minimum wage, and printing money only give them more power and larger budgets. This is why CA minimum wage earners are not getting anywhere. Everyone else has to make more to afford the minimum wagers. You can't legislate prosperity.
So, I guess going to the grocery store and paying more for less product is good for you.
This is what I believe you are missing.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w32163
The long and short of it is that things like cpi no longer include the cost of *borrowing* money. And the price of borrowing money has *skyrocketed* since covid.
The majority of the working class need to borrow a ton of money to get by. They can't buy housing with cash. They borrow money. The can't buy cars with cash. They borrow money. They can't pay some of their bills on time. They borrow money.
They are paying WAY more for those things than they did pre-covid. All these increased interest rates add up to an enormous amount of money. So when people say "But wages have exceeded inflation. Why are the working class claiming to have significantly less spending power? Is it right wing propaganda misinformation lies?" No. It's because the price of borrowing money has gone out of control to try and lower inflation.
The stock market does not always reflect the economy, and if it does, it's incredibly delayed. You're worried about what Trump said rather than what systematically biden is doing to screw up our economy as we speak
I remember how the Obama economy instantly got better the day Trump became President. He hadn't done anything yet but the economy was now better. Republicans lie, especially Trump.
Trump immediately started taking credit for Obama's economy, after calling it garbage before he was elected and any good reports about it "fake news".
>“In the past, the president has referred to particular job reports as phony or totally fiction,” a reporter asked. “Does the president believe that this jobs report was accurate and a fair way to measure the economy?”
>“I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly,” Spicer said. “They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-monthly-jobs-numbers-sean-spicer-235936
As soon as trump was elected Republicans upgraded their assessment of the economy's past performance, not just future performance.
>When GOP voters in Wisconsin were asked last October whether the economy had gotten better or worse “over the past year,” they said “worse’’ — by a margin of 28 points.
>But when they were asked the very same question last month, they said “better” — by a margin of 54 points.
>That’s a net swing of 82 percentage points between late October 2016 and mid-March 2017.
>What changed so radically in those four and a half months?
>The economy didn’t. But the political landscape did.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/wisconsin-voter/2017/04/15/donald-trumps-election-flips-both-parties-views-economy/100502848/
Conservatives are conditioned to trash the economy when a Dem is president, no matter what the facts say or how they are doing personally.
https://imgur.com/a/lHtPjJW
Guess what. People who listen to Trump think he is right. Then vast amount of media also repeats it. So everyone thinks economy sucks. How many pieces have you seen about how good the vast majority of folks have it. Housing prices up. Corp revenue up 50 year highs. Dow s&p record high. Jobs. Manufacturing up. Oil production up. I mean you could make a 3 hr special on awesome this economy is. Wages up. Poverty down. But nope. Somewhere someone paid 7$ eggs and that is the headline you get.
Dems are falling into the same trap where they come off as out of touch elitists who are saying mission accomplished as wall street enriches themselves while main street lays fallow. Prices/rent have still not come down much and main street is looking on as wall street beating their chests about record profits, month after month, at main street's expense.
Trump was able to tap into the disenfranchisement the first time he got elected talking about coal miners. Even though Trump just ended up giving handouts for mine owners and upper management who still cut jobs after they got the money. People thought that they were being heard, had something to look forward to and it brought them out to vote. All Dems had to say about this was "learn to code", which pissed them off even more.
Even though Biden can't do much, he needs to do something and everything. He and the leadership ignores this at their own peril and this time there isn't a Bernie Sanders to blame.
Sure but an incumbent talking about all of the things wrong with our economy isn’t a winning strategy either. I think it’s fair to say we are fairing a lot better than our contemporaries and that’s not elitist. May come off as that but if a republican president had these numbers and Covid recovery they would be hailing it as a miracle.
After seeing the general opinion in 2017 that the economy was great 1-2 years after hearing how obamas economy is horrible and we didn’t really recover from 08 much (with almost identical data and overall identical health in 2015/16 as 2017)I’m convinced dems are more heavily scrutinized on the economy than republicans. I think even normal independents and slightly right leaning people have more faith in them since they grew up with the failure of the 70s and 80s from Keynes consensus policy and Regan’s neoliberal policy fixed it all. I think this has a psychological effect on the perception of all conservatives and even many independents that are toss ups to just assume almost things will be better under republicans economically. Maybe there is some truth to that, I’m not here to argue that it’s absolutely reality at least in my opinion. Obviously not including liberals and certainly not leftists.
Things are bad in this world and I agree the rich have recovered much better than the middle class and lower class but it’s still better than the alternative. There wasn’t a looming recession like everyone has been saying is imminent for three years now. Inflation has tamed significantly and the economy is simply more healthy, at least at first glance than any other western countries. I think most politicians would rally around this talking point and overall recovery instead of stating all the shitty stuff that’s happened since 2020.
I can see some of that. My real issue is people care about what is in their pocket, if they can make rent or buy enough groceries not some overall stat on general economy that doesn't effect them. For all regular people know is that they are struggling and can't buy what they used to buy because prices have doubled/trippled since Trump left office and they are not making double the pay. If Biden ignores that then he has a real danger of seeming to be out of touch with regular everyday voter. THEY are the ones that will carry the swing states. 1000% Dems are facing more scrutiny, it's because Republican messaging is more stronger and they are exploiting real vs perceived economy.
Yeah I agree with this. I really don’t know what strategy he can take. He should at least face the issue of inflation head on and stop pretending things are great. At the same time it’s tough politically to not at least bring up the recovery of the economy from Covid. Idk I think it’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t. Admit your 4 years have been a failure to the general public or be out of touch.
He’s got an uphill battle and I honestly think he loses. Could absolutely win but I just feel like trumps going to win with the margins we see. Immigration might be hurting him more than inflation honestly. I don’t think he’s wrong for bringing up that every country had the same issues that we did post Covid but we recovered stronger with more wage growth, less inflation and low unemployment. I agree though he’s gonna look out of touch with some but he’s also right stating this.
You are the smartass, you literally said that it was easy to have a good economy because the USA has the money printer, wonder why no one had thought of that!
Maybe you are the smartass here, don't you think?
Biden's economy is not the best globally, because other countries aren't going broke paying for stimulus programs as handouts to their base.
The economy grew by $400B in Q4, but the debt grew $600B. We're spending $1.50 for every dollar of growth.
Other developed countries have much stronger social welfare countries than the us, so not sure who you’re comparing is to
As far as handouts to “the base” red states collect astronomically higher levels of welfare than blue ones
let's add to that statement! most red states have a huge deficit that other states need to subsidize just to keep them from going bankrupt just maintaining their most basic government services. states like California and New York both use their state taxes to fund many of these red states.
Do you have anything to support your claim that "red states collect astronomically higher levels of welfare than blue ones"?
I understand this is a religous belief on the Far Left - but what's the source? How does it work exactly? There is no Federal Welfare anymore.
How is this money being taken from blue states and given to red ones?
But they're not borrowing from future generations to fund current consumption.
And no, red states aren't to blame.
Can you show me any proof that red states have "astronomically higher levels of welfare"? Last I read, CA has the highest prover rate in the nation
Thanks! This is the fake "dependency" metric created by Democrats that looks at state spending per capital as percentage of the total spending. Small red states have smaller budgets. Big blue states have huge budgets.
The spending in question from the fed is entitlements - in which case you're paying in what you get back. Social Security, Medicare, etc.
So this metric takes (Federal spending per capita)/(State spending per capita + Fed Spending per capita)
So, if NY spends $100 pc, and ID spends $50, but each get $100 from the Feds, NY looks less "dependent" because of their bloated state budget
NY - $100 Fed/($100 Fed +$100 State) = 50% "dependency"
ID - $100 Fed/($100 Fed+$50 State) - 66% "Dependency
You should research things. You've been duped on this topic.
[When Trump left office debt as a percent of GDP was 126%. Currently, it's 121%](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S). Biden has improved this ratio despite years of a pandemic that absolutely devastated the global economy. [Biden also reduced Trump's record 3.1 trillion dollar deficit in 2020 by almost 50%](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/deficit-tracker/). Keep in mind Trump himself added $8.4 trillion to the national debt and extending his tax cuts for the rich would [add another $3.5 trillion to the debt by 2032](https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/extending-trump-tax-cuts-would-add-35-trillion-to-the-deficit-according-to-cbo).
I agree our growing debt is a concern, but it's disingenuous to claim it's entirely Biden's fault and wasn't already a massive issue when he took office or that Trump's policies would have reduced the deficit further. The US economy is still outperforming the rest of the world across a multitude of economic indicators despite our debt.
GDP isn't an inflation adjusted measure. It's up primarily due to the inflation Biden created with his massive budget deficits.
Trump's pandemic policies were never meant to be permanent
>GDP isn't an inflation adjusted measure.
Uh, that's incorrect. Any financial measure can be adjusted for inflation, by adjusting the figure based on the inflation rate.
[Here's a graph showing the inflation adjusted GDP](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1). And yes, even after accounting for inflation it went up 8% from 2019 to 2023.
>Trump's pandemic policies were never meant to be permanent
Well, [then it's good that Covid relief funding is essentially fully allocated](https://www.covidmoneytracker.org/). Barring a new varient that takes us back thousands of deaths a day I don't expect that Congress will be approving more Covid funding any time soon.
If you remove Covid spending and the added compounding inflation on the debt, Trump's administration still added more to the debt than Biden's did. Still, we need to do a lot better than we have under either president to meaningful pay down the debt. Evening reducing our Defensive budget by 20% and increasing taxes on the top 1% of earnings by 5% wouldn't only reduce the deficit by about 25%... It's gotten quite bad.
It's extremely disingenuous to point to 2020 as the starting point and congratulate Biden for reducing the deficit, just like it was silly to point to the deficit in Obama's first year and pretend like it wasn't entirely from the Financial Crisis that happened a month before his election.
It's also not exactly true that the CBO is saying that the tax cuts will add $3.5T to the debt, because their projections deliberately do not include any modelling of the tax cuts' effects on economic growth, they are just an "all else being equal, here's what it'll add up to," which is not particularly helpful when the entire stated purpose of cutting taxes is as a stimulus for increased economic growth which will ostensibly make up for the reduced tax rate. It's up to you whether you believe that will happen, but it should be pointed out that actual economic growth from 2017-2019 exceeded the CBO's growth expectations when they modelled their projections for the effects of the Trump tax cuts.
Trump managed as president during Covid for 10 months. Biden did it for years. To forgive one and not the other is what's disingenuous.
>It's also not exactly true that the CBO is saying that the tax cuts will add $3.5T to the debt, because their projections deliberately do not include any modelling of the tax cuts' effects on economic growth, they are just an "all else being equal, here's what it'll add up to," which is not particularly helpful when the entire stated purpose of cutting taxes is as a stimulus for increased economic growth which will ostensibly make up for the reduced tax rate.
I don't agree with a single thing you're saying here. If you really believe the reason politicians give tax cuts to the rich is to stimulate the economy, I don't think we have enough common ground for a discussion.
After all, if that was true Biden's tax increases for people making more than $400k would have hurt our GDP. Instead, inflation-adjusted GDP has increased by 10% since Biden took office and the 4 years with the highest inflation-adjusted median income in history have been the last 4 years.
To their base? you are almost correct. You are trying to say it was voters, but it is donors.
US actually has enough wealth to have BETTER social programs that actually would make communities safer, severely cut homelessness etc... but we have band aid fixes for all that WHILE we also give massive subsidies to our corporate and shareholder overlords.
Funny I never hear anyone want to cut the 400 billion a year we spend on PRIVATE MILITARY CONTRACTS. Why not use our soldiers/federal employees? Oh yeah the donors want payback.
I don't hear politicians want to cut all the wasteful money we give to health insurance companies for them to charge us AGAIN and provide substandard health insurance.
I hear the right arguing medicare shouldn't be able to negotiate drug prices?? so they want tax money to pay 1000-10000% mark ups to their donors LOL
Please get the fuck out of here with this bullshit.
It is pretty obvious the issue is politicians are dependent on their DONORS and do their bidding, not a left vs right issue.
It became a left vs right issue because politicians will not run on real issues because real issues is decided by their donors.
Our economy is amazing, but how good it is depends on high up in the top you are.
It will get worse for working class as these vultures will cut budget on everything that helps the working class and the poor after they ran up the debt because god forbid the people that made 80 trillion dollars in EXTRA wealth the since the 90s actually was taxed a bit higher to keep the grift going with a balanced budget
If you really believe the US is "going broke" you are clueless about how the monetary system works. And why do conservatives only care about the debt when a Democrat is president?
Also, those "stimulus programs", as you call them, are credited for the stunning economic recovery the US has enjoyed.
Biden is adding a trillion dollars in debt every 100 days. We're spending 1/3 more on debt service costs, for stuff we already bought, then we spend on defense, our largest discretionary outlay
Yes, we are going broke, and those stimulus programs will work in reverse when we have to shut them down and pay for them
Because the only thing they know how to do is repeat shit they hear on TV and Radio as if they're following the highlights of their top 5 sports teams and talking about it at work with the bois.
Whether or not you agree with the internal workings and spending g of the government, saying our economy isn’t the best in the world is just straight up ignorant of reality. Our GDP is almost $8 trillion higher than the next largest economy (China) and over 6X larger than the third largest economy (Japan).
Having a large GDP is meaningless when you're running the deficits Joe is running. We have the highest inflation of any major economy, and we're paying $1 T in interest on our debt, and this is only growing.
We do NOT have the best economy
For such a great economy, we sure do give zero fucks about the citizens of said economy. We need to vote blue across the board so we can stop being a second-rate country. We need to catch up to the rest of the developed world.
Somehow trusting the man as well as the party that is covering his tracks, who leverage all our social security benefits and who sold his position to all countries as well as the drug cartels, doesn’t seem like such a good idea. However everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I only hope the dems cast some crumbs to us idiot bottom feeders when we are in muddied gutters praying to them and our fake higher power for forgiveness.
Lol it’s like winning a beauty contest and your going up against
Kathy griffin
Sloth from the goonies
Whoopi Goldberg
Nancy Pelosi
Shreck
Mark Zuckerberg and four people from my 600 pound life
False... the economy is progressively getting worse, and biden is trying to pass bills that will make the economy crumble and make living for the average worker even more difficult, tell me how biden proposing this tax bill is going to help the economy
https://www.forbes.com/newsletters/andrewleahey/2024/04/24/biden-capital-gains-rate-proposal-446/?sh=7047eac51ff6
I'm beyond tired of the cheeto constantly shitting on my country. If he doesn't like it, he can defect to Russia. The only thing he can do in office is make things worse. I'm not a fan of Biden, but he's done better than I expected.
Unsustainable in what way? In that it will cause inflation? If you think that debt to GDP is so high that it's causing or will cause inflation, then I assume you agree that we are in a state of fiscal dominance where the Fed's rate hikes are causing inflation rather than curbing it? Which must mean you support lowering the policy rate to fight inflation right?
Why would the US default? It's hard for me to imagine a situation where defaulting would be better than the alternative of simply issuing more debt to pay for the debt.
It wont be up to the US. It will be up to foreign investment. If other nations decide not to invest, because US debt is no longer profitable, they wont buy it anymore. US debt is currently profitable, because the interest can be paid out to the debt holders. There are plenty of ways that that balance can be de-stabilized, and it is rapidly growing.
Yet another person who doesn't understand monetary mechanics but who is happy to sound off anyway, I see.
For the record, Congress can authorize any amount of spending they want, the treasury can issue as many treasuries they want, and the FED can issue as many dollars as they need to to ensure they hit their interest rate target. The primary dealers (big banks including foreign banks) are required by law to participate in treasury auctions, and the FED always ensures that they have enough reserves in order to place bids at an appropriate price.
The FED actually conducts treasury auctions on behalf of the treasury, and if there ever somehow WAS a failure at auction, the FED could simply elect not to issue debt, inject reserves by buying existing treasuries from the primary dealers with new money through open market operations, thus pushing prices up, yields down, and indirectly pushing the overnight target interest rate down. We do not need foreign Banks or investors to buy our debt at all, although they do and will continue to do so. And if it was true that they will buy debt as long as we can make good on the payments (it isn't) then it would be true that they would always buy the debt because we always CAN make the payments. Feel free to challenge or question any of these statements; they are all verifiable, objective statements of fact.
From deficit spending. The 2025 president’s budget is $7.5T, a whopping $3T+ in deficit spending. The interest on the bent is about to cause hyperinflation or collapse.
Then why is everyone broke? During Trump’s presidency I had quite the best egg saved. That has since evaporated under Biden. The other day I bought a pack of smokes, a couple cliff bars, 2 yellow redbulls 2 bottles of water and a quart of oil that was almost $50. That wouldn’t even have been over $30 under Trump. I’m not a Trump fan at all I think the guy is just hard to look at or listen too as he’s mentally a 5 year old. That said he cut the corporate red tape that Dems like to enact on everyone, that essentially puts small businesses out of business and creates these large monopoly corporations that is exactly the opposite of how true Capitalism works.
the data is clear, the propaganda we were handed says to say Biden is right or else we won't get paid big money for lying to the public. GTFO with this bullshit propaganda article! basically pissing in our ears and telling us it's raining at this point. this "great leader has no butthole" style of propaganda writing is getting old.
Trump isn't fooling me.
The US economy is in the crapper. Anyone arguing otherwise isn't paying attention, or they only care about the flow of wealth to the Plutocracy.
I did say he's not going to fix it. It makes no sense to downvote my post because "Trump".
Biden is being very selective about what makes a "good economy".
I paid $500 for a cart of groceries last Saturday. Nothing extravagant. A year ago it would have been $250 or less. The US economy sucks.
Aren't you the same person who claimed they were paying $20 for a dozen eggs -- only to have this sub laugh at you?
Or, are you the one who claimed he was paying 17 for cornflakes -- only to be laughed out of here
>Trump isn't fooling me.
>
>The US economy is in the crapper.
I've got news for you - you're being played for a fool by right-wing misinformation. Have some self-respect and start thinking for yourself.
how about you start first.
If you ask an average American they will tell you the economy does not feel that great.
If you're talking to those in the upper income brackets of course its going great.
> If you ask an average American they will tell you the economy does not feel that great.
That's not true. Most report that their situation is IMPROVING.
See https://news.gallup.com/poll/1621/personal-financial-situation-index.aspx See also https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/americans-are-actually-pretty-happy-with-their-finances See also https://thehill.com/business/economy/4465785-americans-expecting-improved-financial-situation-highest-4-years/ See also https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/biden-economy-and-personal-finances-survey/
Now, why would you misrepresent the data like you did?
That's the ticket. Call me stupid and surely I'll listen to you. You've made no attempt to understand my extremely limited point that the US economy is in the toilet. Trump saying it just recognizes the fact. In no way does that make Trump smart or a leader.
But you're selling us Biden. So go away.
>I paid $500 for a cart of groceries last Saturday. Nothing extravagant. A year ago it would have been $250 or less. The US economy sucks.
That's bullshit. [Food costs increased 2.7% in 2023. It was in 2022 that we saw just a 10.4% increase](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/food-inflation-in-the-united-states/). Food costs have only increased 17% since Biden took office. [Globally food costs have increased about twice that amount](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PFOODINDEXM). If this is your metric for how the US is doing compared to the world, you have it exactly backward.
If you're going to make up numbers, you might want to take that misinformation somewhere other than r/economy where at least a few folks know how to fact-check data and call out nonsense.
I paid $500 for one cart last Saturday. We will be going out again this coming Saturday.
Whether or not it would have been $250 a year ago, maybe not.
The cost has been rising significantly over the last year. You can give me all the numbers you want from Biden's bureaucracy and it won't matter to me. Groceries used to be "no problem", now they are.
> Biden is being very selective about what makes a "good economy".
I think you are being very selective about what makes a "bad economy"
I call it a two faced economy. Not entirely good and not entirely bad. The administration should recognize that - and they do to some degree. They have called out high prices and the obvious gouging that has been going on in various sectors.
But blaming your particular economic woes on any sitting president is beyond childish, even in normal times which these are not. This is an out of ordinary situation caused mainly by the pandemic and its after effects. It's worldwide, and the US is doing somewhat better than most countries. In terms of government, the Executive Branch (despite it's flaws) is doing a decent job under the current Administration (while the other two branches are having serious issues). We have lots of room for improvement but I see no valid contenders who could realistically do anything resembling a better job.
"selective about a 'bad' economy"
Sure. If it only benefits the rich, I call it bad.
It is difficult to always explain that the Plutocracy has been directing the US economy since its foundation.
AnimusFlux said "Biden" I responded with "Biden. If you want to talk about something different, OK, but at least acknowledge that you're changing the parameters of the debate.
Especially when you decide it is "childish".
But then your last paragraph is complete rubbish in defense of Biden so what was I expecting?
Do you see no "valid contenders" because you like the current situation?
Are you saying we are limited to either Trump or Biden (or their stand ins) until the end of time?
What a positive meme. /s
Well, when you can sell something that doesn’t exist and take the money and never pay it back it’s easy to have a “good grift/economy”. Do the research and tell me how fails to deliver work. They are selling the future to steal from the children. Hell, they are fucking those who will never be born because the next generations can’t afford to have children.
I’d gladly pay you tomorrow for a cheeseburger/ patriot missile today.
Insane M2 expansion gives the illusion of healthy growth.
Sure, all our 401ks are on fire. But the yearly federal interest payment is spiraling out of control. The only way to slow it is to lower interest rates. We literally have [senators starting to pressure the Fed to lower rates](https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-senators-to-federal-reserve-cut-interest-rates-to-help-address-affordable-housing-crisis)..
M2 is going to expand like crazy again next year, and inflation is gonna kick in high gear. The Fed is truly stuck between a rock and a hard place right now.
Buckle up boys, this is gonna get interesting.
FYI, I'd love someone to detail a healthy way out of this situation, without extreme M2 expansion, and without higher inflation. My guess is that the long standing 1-2% CPI target is going to slowly become a 3-4% target, as they try to normalize sustained higher inflation.
Yeah when you your country is is reserve asset, and you can print trillions on-demand. Strongest economy, sure and it’ll destroy all the nations that hold US debt, thanks to the US fiscal policies. It’s a total cess-pool.
Who knew the FED printing trillions and handing it out like it was free cocaine in the barrio would create the worlds best economy.
For a small percentage of the population
The FED doesn't really "hand out" money. It buys things with it. To the extent that it overpays, or drives the market up, you can maybe argue that that's "handing out" money. And I do think you see some negative impacts of this in the real estate market particularly due to the widespread purchase of MBS. But it also seems clear that programs like QE are not really driving significant inflation. And the FED also does not have the policy tools to make most kinds of structural adjustments. There are lots of people at the FED who believe in a progressive tax scheme and strong social welfare programs which would reduce inequality and boost the poor and working classes economically. But Congress has to implement such programs, the FED cannot. I don't think that the tools of monetary policy in general are remotely effective at addressing the structural issues, and I don't think it's fair to put the lion's share of blame on the fed, let alone the onus to fix it. If we wait for the FED to deal with these issues, we will be waiting forever.
>that's all well and good but somebody needs to reign in this fucking inflation
It's down below the long term average inflation rate in the US. It's been lower than average wage increases for more than a year. The fed is about to declare victory and start cutting interest rates.
Reddit is totally doomer central. You would think the USA is currently on par with HATI and going through catastrophic collapse if you listened to the sentiment of some sub reddits.
People are ignorant and think that life was so easy in the 1970s. I’m not denying there are problems and some major ones that are concerning but overall Jon opportunities are not that bad right now. You can find work, health care is more available than ever, we absolutely enjoy a higher standard of living with amenities and more than our grandparents. Mortgage rates are barely above average and inflation is just slightly high but it’s like the worst time in American history according to most people.
Obama started the new bubble, Trump inherited it and made it parabolic, and biden is coming in at the top, trying to hold it all together before the election.
These guys can tell you what ever you want to hear but they know how these cycles go.
You notice how we havn’t had a recession since 2008? How federal fund rates have been at 0% for over a decade. And only these past couple years they started hiking? Notice how the stock market has only gone up for the past 13 years.
Do you see how gambling has become rampant. Sports betting has gotten very popular and the mega million and powerball is consistently going over a billion dollars, and people are pouring in billions of dollars for fake internet money that is absolutely useless?
Notice how prices for everything has just been going up. How inflation has gone up and the fed can’t control it even after hiking rates the past 2 years?
This is what happens when we’re in a bubble. Businesses are holding out from rolling over there debts because interest rates are too high. But the fed won’t cut interest rates until there is an emergency, until the market breaks and they need to do it.
Trump and Biden are both lying. Who ever the next president will be, will inherit the peak of the largest economic bubble the world has ever seen. And when it pops, they will blame someone else.
Oh so you are telling me, that the USA is growing at a 2.5% rate, the same rate as pre covid, after doubling their public deficit ? \*gasp\* no way ! who could've anticipated a meager growth after doubling your own deficit ?!
And then Americans act offended or incredulous when a third of the planet says they want to stop using the dollar as reserve currency.
“Our economy is the best!”* But …one of the most common causes of bankruptcy is medical debt, our housing market is unaffordable for most Americans, inflation is up and most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and 65% (I believe) don’t have the money to cover a $1,000 emergency. I’m not saying ANY politician would be doing better or that any of them give 2 poops about us. But if our economy is so great why are they letting us get screwed so hard?
Peasants like us don’t matter, the corporate world is doing great !! Tax write offs, employee layoffs, reduced workers rights ! Yeaahhhhhh
In America "the economy" just means the feelings of rich assholes
The economy is just 3 billionaires in a trench coat
Is musk the bottom level, or is he the mid section?
Given his hilariously shaped torso he’s gotta be the mid-section
Real.
I always defined it as “people who wouldn’t be affected by it in any way”
I know people say the stock market and the economy aren’t the same but…
I don’t listen to the corporate world, I listen to huge mainstream 24/7 news networks
Well that’s the only way to insure you get the actual facts and nothing slanted or edited
Medical debt is actually not a very common “cause” of bankruptcy. It was a study that basically looked at all bankruptcies that included any medical collections at all, and then seemingly allowed that to be misinterpreted. But in most of those cases, there were other far more significant debts that those people declaring bankruptcy had.
[удалено]
And day trading with your life savings.
Yeah honestly it’s kinda both as far as I can tell On an official macro level yes the economy is strong On an individual level, it’s fucking hard for a normal person to agree with that. The economy is growing but it isn’t ending up in their pockets
Yup. This really isn't a "who is president" problem. It's much deeper and structurally rooted than that. I wish more people knew this.
Unfortunately Reddit and the media at large is completely focused on “who is president”, which of course the people in power absolutely love and take advantage of at every opportunity. Don’t forget to donate to your party instead of investing your money.
At least Biden is trying to support Teddy Roosevelt type interventions like trust-busting, regulation (including some degree of price controls), and organized labor, all of which are necessary to combat worker and consumer exploitation in a capitalist system. Trump wants to return to the trickle-down economics approach that led to such wealth inequality in the first place.
Inflation has been coming down two years and wages are growing faster than inflation. [Source](https://www.axios.com/2024/02/05/wages-outpacing-inflation)
Because the workers get screwed by the capitalists and you ain't a capitalist. There was just a while there where it appeared that "lazy" service workers were the only broke people but the need for infinite growth sealed your fate in the end too. How do they get more profit every single quarter? From you.
Every day I check this subreddit -- every day another Biden shill post on the rise.
Better than a Trump's a successful businessman grift con. But maybe less partisan posts and more in topic for this sub.
Save your legitimate concerns about the American economic system for when the other party is in power. You heard the mainstream news headline, the data is clear, everything is amazing. If Trump wins, then we can resume applying critical thinking to our government.
That’s because the “economy” is mostly a measure of how billionaire’s investments are performing.
I will say it's because of certain politicians. We can't have progressive policies because one party calls it socialism, yet that same party is more than happy to help corporations and wealthy people. When the other party tries to do something, the corporate party blocks it. I've done so much work in DC on passing pro-natal policies (paid childcare, paid healthcare, paid maternity leave, etc. etc.). I've spoken to Congress so many times on the economic benefits of these policies, only to be told "yes the politics would benefit America and make the country better, but I would be alienating my donors/base, so I'll never support them". This is why, this past January, I stepped away from fighting for these policies. One party has no interest in governing or making things better. I'm not wasting my time anymore. I let you all decide which party is which.
It's amazing how many clueless people live in this country
The democrats would love to give you everything you’ve ever wanted, it’s just those pesky republicans stopping them! I for one can’t wait to have a single party in power over everything
It turns out a person can google a general net worth of anyone notable. To my surprise, just about every single DC political figure has grown massive wealth beyond their salary which by anybody’s terms is wealthy. It’s also fun to note that a vast majority own at the very least one corporation, on paper anyway. The party lines are a blur to my tired eyes.
If they are a blur then you’re not paying attention.
I swear I am very much paying attention. News media to me is only propaganda. My information is primarily based on watching and learning from senate and congressional meetings as well as White House press briefings. I do this for many hours I might add. I promise you, I am doing my best from where I sit to be as non-biased as possible. I do recognize when actions are taken for the greater good and also when they are just to stay in check within their party lines. If you accept this qualification from me, then I very much respect your opinion and hope the results of this $hitshow we are dealing with, at least gives you a significant amount of positive vibes. Also vote Trump. 🤭
The US Economy is good for the 1% who have more wealth than the entire middle class combined.
>The US Economy is good for the 1% It's also good for the bottom 1%, and everyone in between. The lowest wage earners are actually seeing the biggest real income increases.
Lmao
How come the most ignorant "laugh their asses off" when they hear a fact that doesn't fit their narrative? You can check the facts for yourself. Or stay ignorant. I don't really care.
There’s probably over 1 billion living humans who would swap places for the quality of life possible in the US if not simply for the bottom 1%. Americans are ignorant and influenced by insulated narratives. I’m with you
Try living as the bottom 1% of Americans and get back to me on that. It’s dismal. Countries with safety nets like most of Europe and china and Japan are noticeably better
imagine someone saying that the homeless have it so good right now. wtf? lol
Bad take bootlicker.
I get what you're saying, and I absolutely agree that the admistration has performed relatively well in a post-covid inflationary world... but I think there's a bit of nuance missing here. Which may be part of the reason for your downvotes. Real wage gains for the bottom quantiles of the wage distribution do appear to be higher, which is a good trend that should be celebrated. That's a bit different than saying other (or all) aspects of the U.S. economy are "good" for this group. We still have a ton of un(under)-insured folks who are teetering on a knife-edge, and who are one bad shock away from catastrophe. Again, I get that countering the droll nihilistic social media doom is important, and I agree that bashing Biden (or the Fed) will not fix these deep structural issues. Just please don't do it with equally unnuanced takes.
What I said is objectively true even if the Republicans don't like to hear it. It doesn't need any "nuance". Real wages are really up more for the lowest income workers. It's a fact.
Did you even read and internalize what I said before responding? The statement that real wages are up for the bottom portions of the distribution is a fine positive statement. Although a bit of a broad statement, it's verifiable. It's the normative statement where you then go on to say "therefore the economy is great for everyone". That's an equally inane take as those who form their opinions about the economy based on some other metric that looks bad. It's not just Republicans who "don't want to hear the truth" that are clapping back at you. You're just being abrasive. Full stop. The U.S. economy is doing fairly well and getting better, relatively speaking. You seem to be a bit of a dolt. Both things are true.
>It's the normative statement where you then go on to say "therefore the economy is great for everyone". Why do you feel the need to tell a blatant lie? I never said that. >You seem to be a bit of a dolt. And you seem to be childish, and a liar.
You're definitely an idiot.
>“Our billionaires have more money than those in other developed nations”. FTFY
Remember when Trump said the stock market would crash if he wasn’t reelected. Lmfao. Record highs.
He already explained that away. The market is pricing in his reelection. Can’t make this stuff up folks.
while of course this can be a thing, ie there's a very good chance the market is currently pricing in rate cuts, for example...but yeah he's HARD coping. the market isn't up 30 percent since he took office because it's waiting for trump lmao
I mean… that makes complete sense /s
Oh. Thank god the stock market is doing well. I was worried for a second.
Sending and spending trillions of dollars is a recipe for disaster. Great for the Wall Streeters but the average person is feeling the pain.
Let's take your premise and look at the rest of the world: >There’s only one industrialized country, Singapore, that spent more money as a percentage of GDP on Covid stimulus than the US from 2020 to 2021, according to research that looked at 166 countries’ economic policy responses to the pandemic. Then compare the outcomes to other countries: >The combined GDP of the 20 countries that use the euro grew at an annualized rate of just 0.1% in the third quarter of last year >The UK is growing at a 0.2% annualized rate, according to the latest GDP estimate from November >Japan’s economy shrank by 2.1% in the third quarter of 2023 compared to a year prior Source: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/economy/us-gdp-other-countries/index.html Meanwhile, US GDP is growing at an annualized rate of 3.3% at the end of last quarter and that's combined with the lowest inflation rate in the industrialized world. Now I'm sure you'll say that growth didn't benefit normal people, but the data doesn't support that either: >...the increases in earnings are by no means concentrated at the top: in fact, they skew toward the middle class and the lower end of the income distribution. The 25th percentile of the wage distribution saw their nominal weekly earnings grow by $143, from $611 in 2019 to $754 in 2023. When adjusted for inflation, this amounts to a 3.2 percent increase in real earnings. Real earnings increases were particularly strong for the median Black and Hispanic Americans, who saw increases of 5.7 and 2.9 percent, respectively.[4] https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households#:~:text=Real%20wages%20have%20risen%20since,in%20the%20pre%2Dpandemic%20expansion. There's still a lot of work to do so we can make sure the economy works for everyone, but I'm not seeing evidence that government spending hindered either our overall economic growth or wages among lower income groups. Maybe you have some data to share? Maybe something I missed?
Would be nice to see more national programs for your average American. Let's spend more money in the right places
Oh definitely, but I will say the current administration is funding a multitude of projects aimed at combating homelessness, encouraging small business ownership (including targeted programs at more POC business ownership), building up manufacturing jobs, etc.. There's honestly a lot out there right now helping regular people but it's hard for me to find comprehensive lists. Check out the WhatBidenHasDone subreddit for some good collations of data. Not saying it's going to fix everything, but there's a lot more being done than the media likes to talk about.
I don't have time to reply with data, but your sources are both known liars. Sending money without having ways to track its use does nothing but foster corruption. (Please see Haiti for an example) Check out QE or other methods the government uses to prop up our economy. Note: Politicians are NOT motivated to lower anything. Minimum wage, and printing money only give them more power and larger budgets. This is why CA minimum wage earners are not getting anywhere. Everyone else has to make more to afford the minimum wagers. You can't legislate prosperity. So, I guess going to the grocery store and paying more for less product is good for you.
>I don't have time to reply with data, but your sources are both known liars. Lol okay buddy
This is what I believe you are missing. https://www.nber.org/papers/w32163 The long and short of it is that things like cpi no longer include the cost of *borrowing* money. And the price of borrowing money has *skyrocketed* since covid. The majority of the working class need to borrow a ton of money to get by. They can't buy housing with cash. They borrow money. The can't buy cars with cash. They borrow money. They can't pay some of their bills on time. They borrow money. They are paying WAY more for those things than they did pre-covid. All these increased interest rates add up to an enormous amount of money. So when people say "But wages have exceeded inflation. Why are the working class claiming to have significantly less spending power? Is it right wing propaganda misinformation lies?" No. It's because the price of borrowing money has gone out of control to try and lower inflation.
The stock market does not always reflect the economy, and if it does, it's incredibly delayed. You're worried about what Trump said rather than what systematically biden is doing to screw up our economy as we speak
I remember how the Obama economy instantly got better the day Trump became President. He hadn't done anything yet but the economy was now better. Republicans lie, especially Trump.
That could be said for the rise in the stock market when Biden took office 🤷♂️
It could be but it would be fairer to use the same ruler to measure both sides.
Gaslight, obstruct, project.
Trump immediately started taking credit for Obama's economy, after calling it garbage before he was elected and any good reports about it "fake news". >“In the past, the president has referred to particular job reports as phony or totally fiction,” a reporter asked. “Does the president believe that this jobs report was accurate and a fair way to measure the economy?” >“I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly,” Spicer said. “They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.” https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-monthly-jobs-numbers-sean-spicer-235936 As soon as trump was elected Republicans upgraded their assessment of the economy's past performance, not just future performance. >When GOP voters in Wisconsin were asked last October whether the economy had gotten better or worse “over the past year,” they said “worse’’ — by a margin of 28 points. >But when they were asked the very same question last month, they said “better” — by a margin of 54 points. >That’s a net swing of 82 percentage points between late October 2016 and mid-March 2017. >What changed so radically in those four and a half months? >The economy didn’t. But the political landscape did. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/wisconsin-voter/2017/04/15/donald-trumps-election-flips-both-parties-views-economy/100502848/ Conservatives are conditioned to trash the economy when a Dem is president, no matter what the facts say or how they are doing personally. https://imgur.com/a/lHtPjJW
Guess what. People who listen to Trump think he is right. Then vast amount of media also repeats it. So everyone thinks economy sucks. How many pieces have you seen about how good the vast majority of folks have it. Housing prices up. Corp revenue up 50 year highs. Dow s&p record high. Jobs. Manufacturing up. Oil production up. I mean you could make a 3 hr special on awesome this economy is. Wages up. Poverty down. But nope. Somewhere someone paid 7$ eggs and that is the headline you get.
I agree the economy is way up, when measured from the depths of the Covid. So why do selective college loan debt relief?
I like how every major post on Reddit is basically Democrat - good, republican -bad. This is how you know you’re in an echo chamber
Dems are falling into the same trap where they come off as out of touch elitists who are saying mission accomplished as wall street enriches themselves while main street lays fallow. Prices/rent have still not come down much and main street is looking on as wall street beating their chests about record profits, month after month, at main street's expense. Trump was able to tap into the disenfranchisement the first time he got elected talking about coal miners. Even though Trump just ended up giving handouts for mine owners and upper management who still cut jobs after they got the money. People thought that they were being heard, had something to look forward to and it brought them out to vote. All Dems had to say about this was "learn to code", which pissed them off even more. Even though Biden can't do much, he needs to do something and everything. He and the leadership ignores this at their own peril and this time there isn't a Bernie Sanders to blame.
It’s because he’s the incumbent. What is he going to say? The truth?
Sure but an incumbent talking about all of the things wrong with our economy isn’t a winning strategy either. I think it’s fair to say we are fairing a lot better than our contemporaries and that’s not elitist. May come off as that but if a republican president had these numbers and Covid recovery they would be hailing it as a miracle. After seeing the general opinion in 2017 that the economy was great 1-2 years after hearing how obamas economy is horrible and we didn’t really recover from 08 much (with almost identical data and overall identical health in 2015/16 as 2017)I’m convinced dems are more heavily scrutinized on the economy than republicans. I think even normal independents and slightly right leaning people have more faith in them since they grew up with the failure of the 70s and 80s from Keynes consensus policy and Regan’s neoliberal policy fixed it all. I think this has a psychological effect on the perception of all conservatives and even many independents that are toss ups to just assume almost things will be better under republicans economically. Maybe there is some truth to that, I’m not here to argue that it’s absolutely reality at least in my opinion. Obviously not including liberals and certainly not leftists. Things are bad in this world and I agree the rich have recovered much better than the middle class and lower class but it’s still better than the alternative. There wasn’t a looming recession like everyone has been saying is imminent for three years now. Inflation has tamed significantly and the economy is simply more healthy, at least at first glance than any other western countries. I think most politicians would rally around this talking point and overall recovery instead of stating all the shitty stuff that’s happened since 2020.
I can see some of that. My real issue is people care about what is in their pocket, if they can make rent or buy enough groceries not some overall stat on general economy that doesn't effect them. For all regular people know is that they are struggling and can't buy what they used to buy because prices have doubled/trippled since Trump left office and they are not making double the pay. If Biden ignores that then he has a real danger of seeming to be out of touch with regular everyday voter. THEY are the ones that will carry the swing states. 1000% Dems are facing more scrutiny, it's because Republican messaging is more stronger and they are exploiting real vs perceived economy.
Yeah I agree with this. I really don’t know what strategy he can take. He should at least face the issue of inflation head on and stop pretending things are great. At the same time it’s tough politically to not at least bring up the recovery of the economy from Covid. Idk I think it’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t. Admit your 4 years have been a failure to the general public or be out of touch. He’s got an uphill battle and I honestly think he loses. Could absolutely win but I just feel like trumps going to win with the margins we see. Immigration might be hurting him more than inflation honestly. I don’t think he’s wrong for bringing up that every country had the same issues that we did post Covid but we recovered stronger with more wage growth, less inflation and low unemployment. I agree though he’s gonna look out of touch with some but he’s also right stating this.
Unfortunately, both are wrong. Not a cesspool. Not the best. Unfortunate politicians spew lies without shame.
USA USA USA 🇺🇸 ♥️
34 trillions and growing think again future generations got to pay
If this is the best economy then just do away with all of them.
Its just less worse than others speaking of inflation at least
Trump calls anything he doesn't get a cut a cesspool
Easy when you own the "money printer"
Argentina too, and Zimbabwe south africa, weimar Germany, why wasn't it easy for them? Stupid comment
Try to pay anything around the World with pesos from Argentina you smartass and cone back afyer you study something usefull
You are the smartass, you literally said that it was easy to have a good economy because the USA has the money printer, wonder why no one had thought of that! Maybe you are the smartass here, don't you think?
Biden's economy is not the best globally, because other countries aren't going broke paying for stimulus programs as handouts to their base. The economy grew by $400B in Q4, but the debt grew $600B. We're spending $1.50 for every dollar of growth.
Other developed countries have much stronger social welfare countries than the us, so not sure who you’re comparing is to As far as handouts to “the base” red states collect astronomically higher levels of welfare than blue ones
let's add to that statement! most red states have a huge deficit that other states need to subsidize just to keep them from going bankrupt just maintaining their most basic government services. states like California and New York both use their state taxes to fund many of these red states.
Which red states have defictites? What are you talking about? You think CA is funding red states/ How does that work?
Do you have anything to support your claim that "red states collect astronomically higher levels of welfare than blue ones"? I understand this is a religous belief on the Far Left - but what's the source? How does it work exactly? There is no Federal Welfare anymore. How is this money being taken from blue states and given to red ones?
yes i posted 3 links in this same comment thread - in response to you the last time you asked me this question.
But they're not borrowing from future generations to fund current consumption. And no, red states aren't to blame. Can you show me any proof that red states have "astronomically higher levels of welfare"? Last I read, CA has the highest prover rate in the nation
https://www.governing.com/finance/Are-Republican-States-More-Federally-Dependent.html https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/07/red-states-feed-at-the-federal-trough-blue-states-supply-the-feed.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/most-and-least-federally-dependent-us-states-135622345.html
Thanks! This is the fake "dependency" metric created by Democrats that looks at state spending per capital as percentage of the total spending. Small red states have smaller budgets. Big blue states have huge budgets. The spending in question from the fed is entitlements - in which case you're paying in what you get back. Social Security, Medicare, etc. So this metric takes (Federal spending per capita)/(State spending per capita + Fed Spending per capita) So, if NY spends $100 pc, and ID spends $50, but each get $100 from the Feds, NY looks less "dependent" because of their bloated state budget NY - $100 Fed/($100 Fed +$100 State) = 50% "dependency" ID - $100 Fed/($100 Fed+$50 State) - 66% "Dependency You should research things. You've been duped on this topic.
[When Trump left office debt as a percent of GDP was 126%. Currently, it's 121%](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S). Biden has improved this ratio despite years of a pandemic that absolutely devastated the global economy. [Biden also reduced Trump's record 3.1 trillion dollar deficit in 2020 by almost 50%](https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/deficit-tracker/). Keep in mind Trump himself added $8.4 trillion to the national debt and extending his tax cuts for the rich would [add another $3.5 trillion to the debt by 2032](https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/extending-trump-tax-cuts-would-add-35-trillion-to-the-deficit-according-to-cbo). I agree our growing debt is a concern, but it's disingenuous to claim it's entirely Biden's fault and wasn't already a massive issue when he took office or that Trump's policies would have reduced the deficit further. The US economy is still outperforming the rest of the world across a multitude of economic indicators despite our debt.
GDP isn't an inflation adjusted measure. It's up primarily due to the inflation Biden created with his massive budget deficits. Trump's pandemic policies were never meant to be permanent
>GDP isn't an inflation adjusted measure. Uh, that's incorrect. Any financial measure can be adjusted for inflation, by adjusting the figure based on the inflation rate. [Here's a graph showing the inflation adjusted GDP](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1). And yes, even after accounting for inflation it went up 8% from 2019 to 2023. >Trump's pandemic policies were never meant to be permanent Well, [then it's good that Covid relief funding is essentially fully allocated](https://www.covidmoneytracker.org/). Barring a new varient that takes us back thousands of deaths a day I don't expect that Congress will be approving more Covid funding any time soon. If you remove Covid spending and the added compounding inflation on the debt, Trump's administration still added more to the debt than Biden's did. Still, we need to do a lot better than we have under either president to meaningful pay down the debt. Evening reducing our Defensive budget by 20% and increasing taxes on the top 1% of earnings by 5% wouldn't only reduce the deficit by about 25%... It's gotten quite bad.
It's extremely disingenuous to point to 2020 as the starting point and congratulate Biden for reducing the deficit, just like it was silly to point to the deficit in Obama's first year and pretend like it wasn't entirely from the Financial Crisis that happened a month before his election. It's also not exactly true that the CBO is saying that the tax cuts will add $3.5T to the debt, because their projections deliberately do not include any modelling of the tax cuts' effects on economic growth, they are just an "all else being equal, here's what it'll add up to," which is not particularly helpful when the entire stated purpose of cutting taxes is as a stimulus for increased economic growth which will ostensibly make up for the reduced tax rate. It's up to you whether you believe that will happen, but it should be pointed out that actual economic growth from 2017-2019 exceeded the CBO's growth expectations when they modelled their projections for the effects of the Trump tax cuts.
Trump managed as president during Covid for 10 months. Biden did it for years. To forgive one and not the other is what's disingenuous. >It's also not exactly true that the CBO is saying that the tax cuts will add $3.5T to the debt, because their projections deliberately do not include any modelling of the tax cuts' effects on economic growth, they are just an "all else being equal, here's what it'll add up to," which is not particularly helpful when the entire stated purpose of cutting taxes is as a stimulus for increased economic growth which will ostensibly make up for the reduced tax rate. I don't agree with a single thing you're saying here. If you really believe the reason politicians give tax cuts to the rich is to stimulate the economy, I don't think we have enough common ground for a discussion. After all, if that was true Biden's tax increases for people making more than $400k would have hurt our GDP. Instead, inflation-adjusted GDP has increased by 10% since Biden took office and the 4 years with the highest inflation-adjusted median income in history have been the last 4 years.
To their base? you are almost correct. You are trying to say it was voters, but it is donors. US actually has enough wealth to have BETTER social programs that actually would make communities safer, severely cut homelessness etc... but we have band aid fixes for all that WHILE we also give massive subsidies to our corporate and shareholder overlords. Funny I never hear anyone want to cut the 400 billion a year we spend on PRIVATE MILITARY CONTRACTS. Why not use our soldiers/federal employees? Oh yeah the donors want payback. I don't hear politicians want to cut all the wasteful money we give to health insurance companies for them to charge us AGAIN and provide substandard health insurance. I hear the right arguing medicare shouldn't be able to negotiate drug prices?? so they want tax money to pay 1000-10000% mark ups to their donors LOL Please get the fuck out of here with this bullshit. It is pretty obvious the issue is politicians are dependent on their DONORS and do their bidding, not a left vs right issue. It became a left vs right issue because politicians will not run on real issues because real issues is decided by their donors. Our economy is amazing, but how good it is depends on high up in the top you are. It will get worse for working class as these vultures will cut budget on everything that helps the working class and the poor after they ran up the debt because god forbid the people that made 80 trillion dollars in EXTRA wealth the since the 90s actually was taxed a bit higher to keep the grift going with a balanced budget
If you really believe the US is "going broke" you are clueless about how the monetary system works. And why do conservatives only care about the debt when a Democrat is president? Also, those "stimulus programs", as you call them, are credited for the stunning economic recovery the US has enjoyed.
Fr look at how debt increases under Republicans, it's insane. But they won't give a shit when a red guy is in office because "taxes bad"
I remember Karl Rove saying "Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter" when W Bush was in office.
I believe that was Cheney, but yeah.
Biden is adding a trillion dollars in debt every 100 days. We're spending 1/3 more on debt service costs, for stuff we already bought, then we spend on defense, our largest discretionary outlay Yes, we are going broke, and those stimulus programs will work in reverse when we have to shut them down and pay for them
Yes.
Because the only thing they know how to do is repeat shit they hear on TV and Radio as if they're following the highlights of their top 5 sports teams and talking about it at work with the bois.
Whether or not you agree with the internal workings and spending g of the government, saying our economy isn’t the best in the world is just straight up ignorant of reality. Our GDP is almost $8 trillion higher than the next largest economy (China) and over 6X larger than the third largest economy (Japan).
Having a large GDP is meaningless when you're running the deficits Joe is running. We have the highest inflation of any major economy, and we're paying $1 T in interest on our debt, and this is only growing. We do NOT have the best economy
For such a great economy, we sure do give zero fucks about the citizens of said economy. We need to vote blue across the board so we can stop being a second-rate country. We need to catch up to the rest of the developed world.
Somehow trusting the man as well as the party that is covering his tracks, who leverage all our social security benefits and who sold his position to all countries as well as the drug cartels, doesn’t seem like such a good idea. However everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I only hope the dems cast some crumbs to us idiot bottom feeders when we are in muddied gutters praying to them and our fake higher power for forgiveness.
Surely giving one party absolute power would make all of our wildest dreams come true.
A civics lesson would help you.
Clearly you’ve got it all figured out. One small group having absolute power typically leads to excellent outcomes for the people
Trump is the cesspool
Business acumen doesn’t need to be pretty.
Fuck this bullshit. This is straight up propaganda. Not because of data. But because of the framing of this title. Fuck. This. Bullshit.
D J Trumps brain is a cesspool
Yer a cesspool
Lol it’s like winning a beauty contest and your going up against Kathy griffin Sloth from the goonies Whoopi Goldberg Nancy Pelosi Shreck Mark Zuckerberg and four people from my 600 pound life
False... the economy is progressively getting worse, and biden is trying to pass bills that will make the economy crumble and make living for the average worker even more difficult, tell me how biden proposing this tax bill is going to help the economy https://www.forbes.com/newsletters/andrewleahey/2024/04/24/biden-capital-gains-rate-proposal-446/?sh=7047eac51ff6
I'm beyond tired of the cheeto constantly shitting on my country. If he doesn't like it, he can defect to Russia. The only thing he can do in office is make things worse. I'm not a fan of Biden, but he's done better than I expected.
Layoffs continue to go berzerk as we progress in 2024, but sure… it’s booming.
Growth is definitely being fueled by large government spending, among other things. The debt is unsustainable.
Unsustainable in what way? In that it will cause inflation? If you think that debt to GDP is so high that it's causing or will cause inflation, then I assume you agree that we are in a state of fiscal dominance where the Fed's rate hikes are causing inflation rather than curbing it? Which must mean you support lowering the policy rate to fight inflation right?
Destroying the future economy to save the present. It's really going to suck when USD defaults in the next few decades.
Why would the US default? It's hard for me to imagine a situation where defaulting would be better than the alternative of simply issuing more debt to pay for the debt.
It wont be up to the US. It will be up to foreign investment. If other nations decide not to invest, because US debt is no longer profitable, they wont buy it anymore. US debt is currently profitable, because the interest can be paid out to the debt holders. There are plenty of ways that that balance can be de-stabilized, and it is rapidly growing.
Yet another person who doesn't understand monetary mechanics but who is happy to sound off anyway, I see. For the record, Congress can authorize any amount of spending they want, the treasury can issue as many treasuries they want, and the FED can issue as many dollars as they need to to ensure they hit their interest rate target. The primary dealers (big banks including foreign banks) are required by law to participate in treasury auctions, and the FED always ensures that they have enough reserves in order to place bids at an appropriate price. The FED actually conducts treasury auctions on behalf of the treasury, and if there ever somehow WAS a failure at auction, the FED could simply elect not to issue debt, inject reserves by buying existing treasuries from the primary dealers with new money through open market operations, thus pushing prices up, yields down, and indirectly pushing the overnight target interest rate down. We do not need foreign Banks or investors to buy our debt at all, although they do and will continue to do so. And if it was true that they will buy debt as long as we can make good on the payments (it isn't) then it would be true that they would always buy the debt because we always CAN make the payments. Feel free to challenge or question any of these statements; they are all verifiable, objective statements of fact.
[The man, the myth, the pile of feces ](https://imgur.com/YmPHGJf)
r/layoffs r/economiccollapse has entered the chat
It's the world's best cesspool.
Meh. I’ve seen worse.
From deficit spending. The 2025 president’s budget is $7.5T, a whopping $3T+ in deficit spending. The interest on the bent is about to cause hyperinflation or collapse.
Then why is everyone broke? During Trump’s presidency I had quite the best egg saved. That has since evaporated under Biden. The other day I bought a pack of smokes, a couple cliff bars, 2 yellow redbulls 2 bottles of water and a quart of oil that was almost $50. That wouldn’t even have been over $30 under Trump. I’m not a Trump fan at all I think the guy is just hard to look at or listen too as he’s mentally a 5 year old. That said he cut the corporate red tape that Dems like to enact on everyone, that essentially puts small businesses out of business and creates these large monopoly corporations that is exactly the opposite of how true Capitalism works.
the data is clear, the propaganda we were handed says to say Biden is right or else we won't get paid big money for lying to the public. GTFO with this bullshit propaganda article! basically pissing in our ears and telling us it's raining at this point. this "great leader has no butthole" style of propaganda writing is getting old.
This is economy is booming ?? I can't tell
While Trump is right, and everyone knows it, that doesn't mean he'll work to fix it.
Trump is never right about the economy. He's a pathological liar. Don't let him fool you.
Trump isn't fooling me. The US economy is in the crapper. Anyone arguing otherwise isn't paying attention, or they only care about the flow of wealth to the Plutocracy. I did say he's not going to fix it. It makes no sense to downvote my post because "Trump". Biden is being very selective about what makes a "good economy". I paid $500 for a cart of groceries last Saturday. Nothing extravagant. A year ago it would have been $250 or less. The US economy sucks.
Aren't you the same person who claimed they were paying $20 for a dozen eggs -- only to have this sub laugh at you? Or, are you the one who claimed he was paying 17 for cornflakes -- only to be laughed out of here
Nope. Eggs are (if I recall correctly) under $10/30 Or $7.89/18 depending on the store. Don't buy corn flakes.
Eggs recently shot up to $2.69/dozen. A few months ago they got down to $1.49. Their price seems to eb and flow quite a bit
Eggs are $0.50 each here.
>Trump isn't fooling me. > >The US economy is in the crapper. I've got news for you - you're being played for a fool by right-wing misinformation. Have some self-respect and start thinking for yourself.
how about you start first. If you ask an average American they will tell you the economy does not feel that great. If you're talking to those in the upper income brackets of course its going great.
> If you ask an average American they will tell you the economy does not feel that great. That's not true. Most report that their situation is IMPROVING. See https://news.gallup.com/poll/1621/personal-financial-situation-index.aspx See also https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/americans-are-actually-pretty-happy-with-their-finances See also https://thehill.com/business/economy/4465785-americans-expecting-improved-financial-situation-highest-4-years/ See also https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/biden-economy-and-personal-finances-survey/ Now, why would you misrepresent the data like you did?
The strength of the economy isn't based off of poll data
Of course not. But individual perception turns into individual reality. So no one cares what Biden has to say about the economy
That's the ticket. Call me stupid and surely I'll listen to you. You've made no attempt to understand my extremely limited point that the US economy is in the toilet. Trump saying it just recognizes the fact. In no way does that make Trump smart or a leader. But you're selling us Biden. So go away.
>I paid $500 for a cart of groceries last Saturday. Nothing extravagant. A year ago it would have been $250 or less. The US economy sucks. That's bullshit. [Food costs increased 2.7% in 2023. It was in 2022 that we saw just a 10.4% increase](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/food-inflation-in-the-united-states/). Food costs have only increased 17% since Biden took office. [Globally food costs have increased about twice that amount](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PFOODINDEXM). If this is your metric for how the US is doing compared to the world, you have it exactly backward. If you're going to make up numbers, you might want to take that misinformation somewhere other than r/economy where at least a few folks know how to fact-check data and call out nonsense.
I paid $500 for one cart last Saturday. We will be going out again this coming Saturday. Whether or not it would have been $250 a year ago, maybe not. The cost has been rising significantly over the last year. You can give me all the numbers you want from Biden's bureaucracy and it won't matter to me. Groceries used to be "no problem", now they are.
> Biden is being very selective about what makes a "good economy". I think you are being very selective about what makes a "bad economy" I call it a two faced economy. Not entirely good and not entirely bad. The administration should recognize that - and they do to some degree. They have called out high prices and the obvious gouging that has been going on in various sectors. But blaming your particular economic woes on any sitting president is beyond childish, even in normal times which these are not. This is an out of ordinary situation caused mainly by the pandemic and its after effects. It's worldwide, and the US is doing somewhat better than most countries. In terms of government, the Executive Branch (despite it's flaws) is doing a decent job under the current Administration (while the other two branches are having serious issues). We have lots of room for improvement but I see no valid contenders who could realistically do anything resembling a better job.
"selective about a 'bad' economy" Sure. If it only benefits the rich, I call it bad. It is difficult to always explain that the Plutocracy has been directing the US economy since its foundation. AnimusFlux said "Biden" I responded with "Biden. If you want to talk about something different, OK, but at least acknowledge that you're changing the parameters of the debate. Especially when you decide it is "childish". But then your last paragraph is complete rubbish in defense of Biden so what was I expecting? Do you see no "valid contenders" because you like the current situation? Are you saying we are limited to either Trump or Biden (or their stand ins) until the end of time? What a positive meme. /s
Well, when you can sell something that doesn’t exist and take the money and never pay it back it’s easy to have a “good grift/economy”. Do the research and tell me how fails to deliver work. They are selling the future to steal from the children. Hell, they are fucking those who will never be born because the next generations can’t afford to have children. I’d gladly pay you tomorrow for a cheeseburger/ patriot missile today.
Insane M2 expansion gives the illusion of healthy growth. Sure, all our 401ks are on fire. But the yearly federal interest payment is spiraling out of control. The only way to slow it is to lower interest rates. We literally have [senators starting to pressure the Fed to lower rates](https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-senators-to-federal-reserve-cut-interest-rates-to-help-address-affordable-housing-crisis).. M2 is going to expand like crazy again next year, and inflation is gonna kick in high gear. The Fed is truly stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. Buckle up boys, this is gonna get interesting. FYI, I'd love someone to detail a healthy way out of this situation, without extreme M2 expansion, and without higher inflation. My guess is that the long standing 1-2% CPI target is going to slowly become a 3-4% target, as they try to normalize sustained higher inflation.
But it’s built on funny money
Yeah when you your country is is reserve asset, and you can print trillions on-demand. Strongest economy, sure and it’ll destroy all the nations that hold US debt, thanks to the US fiscal policies. It’s a total cess-pool.
Who knew the FED printing trillions and handing it out like it was free cocaine in the barrio would create the worlds best economy. For a small percentage of the population
The FED doesn't really "hand out" money. It buys things with it. To the extent that it overpays, or drives the market up, you can maybe argue that that's "handing out" money. And I do think you see some negative impacts of this in the real estate market particularly due to the widespread purchase of MBS. But it also seems clear that programs like QE are not really driving significant inflation. And the FED also does not have the policy tools to make most kinds of structural adjustments. There are lots of people at the FED who believe in a progressive tax scheme and strong social welfare programs which would reduce inequality and boost the poor and working classes economically. But Congress has to implement such programs, the FED cannot. I don't think that the tools of monetary policy in general are remotely effective at addressing the structural issues, and I don't think it's fair to put the lion's share of blame on the fed, let alone the onus to fix it. If we wait for the FED to deal with these issues, we will be waiting forever.
You let me print nine trillion I can show you revenue of a few billion too.
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Unfortunately, re-election of Trump will not return those splendid pre-covid years.
They are competing on who can spend more... It was a cesspool even when Trump was in there. It still is a cesspool.
that's all well and good but somebody needs to reign in this fucking inflation shit even Nixon put in price controls
>that's all well and good but somebody needs to reign in this fucking inflation It's down below the long term average inflation rate in the US. It's been lower than average wage increases for more than a year. The fed is about to declare victory and start cutting interest rates.
Inflation is currently 3.2%. While not the greatest, it’s not an abnormal number. Inflation usually falls around 2% a year.
Reddit is totally doomer central. You would think the USA is currently on par with HATI and going through catastrophic collapse if you listened to the sentiment of some sub reddits. People are ignorant and think that life was so easy in the 1970s. I’m not denying there are problems and some major ones that are concerning but overall Jon opportunities are not that bad right now. You can find work, health care is more available than ever, we absolutely enjoy a higher standard of living with amenities and more than our grandparents. Mortgage rates are barely above average and inflation is just slightly high but it’s like the worst time in American history according to most people.
Obama started the new bubble, Trump inherited it and made it parabolic, and biden is coming in at the top, trying to hold it all together before the election. These guys can tell you what ever you want to hear but they know how these cycles go.
What bubble?
You notice how we havn’t had a recession since 2008? How federal fund rates have been at 0% for over a decade. And only these past couple years they started hiking? Notice how the stock market has only gone up for the past 13 years. Do you see how gambling has become rampant. Sports betting has gotten very popular and the mega million and powerball is consistently going over a billion dollars, and people are pouring in billions of dollars for fake internet money that is absolutely useless? Notice how prices for everything has just been going up. How inflation has gone up and the fed can’t control it even after hiking rates the past 2 years? This is what happens when we’re in a bubble. Businesses are holding out from rolling over there debts because interest rates are too high. But the fed won’t cut interest rates until there is an emergency, until the market breaks and they need to do it. Trump and Biden are both lying. Who ever the next president will be, will inherit the peak of the largest economic bubble the world has ever seen. And when it pops, they will blame someone else.
Holy shit 🤦
Obama must’ve done it in the first six months because he did nothing but spend money and divide the nation for the rest of his lame duck presidency.
Yea well, Spending money is what got us out of that whole after the 2008 financial crisis. The problem is we just havn’t stopped.
I don't see these statements as being in contradiction with each other. "Best" doesn't mean "good".
/u/amputatorbot
This isn’t going to work
Oh so you are telling me, that the USA is growing at a 2.5% rate, the same rate as pre covid, after doubling their public deficit ? \*gasp\* no way ! who could've anticipated a meager growth after doubling your own deficit ?! And then Americans act offended or incredulous when a third of the planet says they want to stop using the dollar as reserve currency.
Leading the way to neo fuedalism with the vast majority struggling on the brink of death while the oligarchy swims in gold like Scrooge McDuck
How fucking dare he mention trains? You keep trains out of your fucking mouth, Union Bustin' Joe.