These are measurable, objective things that people are getting wrong:
By huge margins, they believe inflation is still rising (it’s falling), that it has outstripped wage growth (wages have outpaced prices), and that they have become less wealthy (they’ve become much wealthier).
These are core facts about the US economy. I don’t think it’s okay to say ‘they answered incorrectly because they’re worried about other things that weren’t being asked about’.
A functioning democracy is predicted on having a rational electorate. But the repeated evidence of the last several years is that huge numbers of American voters seem unable to grasp the objective facts and reality of the country and world that they live in. For a long time we’ve all focused on the right-wing extremist angle to this - climate change denial, anti-vaxxers, 6 January denial, and so on. But the next US election is going to be centred around the economy, yet it seems like a lot of voters (drawn from both left and right?) are being influenced by a subjective worldview of the US economy that differs from objective measurable reality. They’re going up vibe themselves into a Trump presidency.
Inflation is “falling” in the sense that it’s going up less fast than it was. It’s still rising, but at a slower pace when compared to the same period last year. Americans are not wrong to think inflation is still a problem. It may be objectively “falling” but do not mistake this for deflation, which is not occurring.
This kinds of makes ops point. The us actually usually targets an inflation rate around 2-3%. The fact that we are close to those numbers means, at least if we trust the way it’s measured, inflation has been largely brought under control.
Inflation is “falling” in the sense that it’s going up less fast than it was. It’s still rising, but at a slower pace when compared to the same period last year.
You seem unsure here about the difference between inflation and prices. Inflation is the rate of change of prices.
Positive inflation means that prices are rising. Inflation is falling because prices are rising slower than they were a year ago. You seem to think that ‘falling inflation’ would lead to falling prices - it would not.
Falling prices would be a very bad thing. That’s something called deflation and tends to be associated with economic crashes like the 1930s. If prices were falling, people would put off spending money on anything except essentials because they’d be able to buy things cheaper tomorrow, which tends to lead to a self-reinforcing economic depression and mass unemployment.
Deflation is necessary to revert to the correct mean of prices if they were not skewed by subsidies and other regulatory manipulation of the market. Deflation may be “bad” in the same sense that it’s bad to break somebody’s leg, but sometimes doctors have to do that to get the leg to heal correctly. We are in need of deflation to bring prices closer to the real mean and restore the ability of lower economic quintiles to actually live.
The layperson’s meaning is prices going down. The above post is absolutely the correct view for everyone in the bottom 80% of income or wealth. Individual items deflate in price all the time and wanting prices to fall is a perfectly rational personal view.
If the price of one thing falls, that’s isolated. If the price level - the price of all things - falls, then that’s deflation and it’s historically been one of the most destructive economic events that can happen to an economy and to ordinary people and their jobs and livelihoods.
Wanting the price level to fall is far from rational, and the fact that people might think otherwise in spite of the historic precedents is exactly the sort of mass irrationality I am worried about.
COVID highlighted a good bit of futility and pointlessness. As a well as a feeling of being locked in a cage with 30-40% of the country that’s just insane
So I guess it is rosey now for someone. Probably won’t hold and I know people who have personally suffered a nervous breakdown, without adequate care, as a result. People are fucking tired.
And let’s not even get started on climate change and the future for our children given how pathetic people acted during an acute crisis.
Not really surprising that people changing to better paying jobs are getting paid more. But when you are forced to change jobs to buy food, it’s gonna sour your opinion of the market. Or that wages have increased for those in industries with strong unions that have done things like strikes to get those benefit, many are not gonna consider that an indicator of the economy as a whole even if it’s been done over several industries.
Also, the wage increases have largely being high schooler or less workers (according to this article) that no longer were able to fill positions otherwise, which for some reason a lot of people don’t seem to think are real jobs nor is it going to influence the opinion of influencers’ opinion of the economy as a whole.
The article is paywalled, but is there are talk about the testing methodology used? Because if I really wanted to, I could find the poorest american cities, survey people there, and then use statistics about the country as a whole to make them look “unable to grasp objective facts”. It’s foolish to blindly trust statistics without understanding how they were gathered.
I get looking at things like that goes against the blinding arrogance of a neoliberal philosophy, but does it really stand up to reason that people wouldn’t know if they’ve become wealthier, if you’re even bothering to ensure they’re defining wealth in the same way your statistics are?
These are measurable, objective things that people are getting wrong:
These are core facts about the US economy. I don’t think it’s okay to say ‘they answered incorrectly because they’re worried about other things that weren’t being asked about’.
A functioning democracy is predicted on having a rational electorate. But the repeated evidence of the last several years is that huge numbers of American voters seem unable to grasp the objective facts and reality of the country and world that they live in. For a long time we’ve all focused on the right-wing extremist angle to this - climate change denial, anti-vaxxers, 6 January denial, and so on. But the next US election is going to be centred around the economy, yet it seems like a lot of voters (drawn from both left and right?) are being influenced by a subjective worldview of the US economy that differs from objective measurable reality. They’re going up vibe themselves into a Trump presidency.
Inflation is “falling” in the sense that it’s going up less fast than it was. It’s still rising, but at a slower pace when compared to the same period last year. Americans are not wrong to think inflation is still a problem. It may be objectively “falling” but do not mistake this for deflation, which is not occurring.
This kinds of makes ops point. The us actually usually targets an inflation rate around 2-3%. The fact that we are close to those numbers means, at least if we trust the way it’s measured, inflation has been largely brought under control.
You seem unsure here about the difference between inflation and prices. Inflation is the rate of change of prices.
Positive inflation means that prices are rising. Inflation is falling because prices are rising slower than they were a year ago. You seem to think that ‘falling inflation’ would lead to falling prices - it would not.
Falling prices would be a very bad thing. That’s something called deflation and tends to be associated with economic crashes like the 1930s. If prices were falling, people would put off spending money on anything except essentials because they’d be able to buy things cheaper tomorrow, which tends to lead to a self-reinforcing economic depression and mass unemployment.
Deflation is necessary to revert to the correct mean of prices if they were not skewed by subsidies and other regulatory manipulation of the market. Deflation may be “bad” in the same sense that it’s bad to break somebody’s leg, but sometimes doctors have to do that to get the leg to heal correctly. We are in need of deflation to bring prices closer to the real mean and restore the ability of lower economic quintiles to actually live.
The layperson’s meaning is prices going down. The above post is absolutely the correct view for everyone in the bottom 80% of income or wealth. Individual items deflate in price all the time and wanting prices to fall is a perfectly rational personal view.
If the price of one thing falls, that’s isolated. If the price level - the price of all things - falls, then that’s deflation and it’s historically been one of the most destructive economic events that can happen to an economy and to ordinary people and their jobs and livelihoods.
Wanting the price level to fall is far from rational, and the fact that people might think otherwise in spite of the historic precedents is exactly the sort of mass irrationality I am worried about.
Oh, so I will get to retire? Neat.
COVID highlighted a good bit of futility and pointlessness. As a well as a feeling of being locked in a cage with 30-40% of the country that’s just insane
So I guess it is rosey now for someone. Probably won’t hold and I know people who have personally suffered a nervous breakdown, without adequate care, as a result. People are fucking tired.
And let’s not even get started on climate change and the future for our children given how pathetic people acted during an acute crisis.
Not really surprising that people changing to better paying jobs are getting paid more. But when you are forced to change jobs to buy food, it’s gonna sour your opinion of the market. Or that wages have increased for those in industries with strong unions that have done things like strikes to get those benefit, many are not gonna consider that an indicator of the economy as a whole even if it’s been done over several industries.
Also, the wage increases have largely being high schooler or less workers (according to this article) that no longer were able to fill positions otherwise, which for some reason a lot of people don’t seem to think are real jobs nor is it going to influence the opinion of influencers’ opinion of the economy as a whole.
The article is paywalled, but is there are talk about the testing methodology used? Because if I really wanted to, I could find the poorest american cities, survey people there, and then use statistics about the country as a whole to make them look “unable to grasp objective facts”. It’s foolish to blindly trust statistics without understanding how they were gathered.
I get looking at things like that goes against the blinding arrogance of a neoliberal philosophy, but does it really stand up to reason that people wouldn’t know if they’ve become wealthier, if you’re even bothering to ensure they’re defining wealth in the same way your statistics are?
https://kbin.social/m/Neoliberal/t/672769/-/comment/3894980