i am just a kitten and not a big important economist or anything, but i think that maybe if you have to keep telling people over and over how the economy is great and they are better off than they used to be that probably the economy is not doing so great and people are probably not better off.
i mean, that’s usually the kind of thing you’d notice…
I wonder if much of the country (the ones that got to stay home and zoom and collect all regular pay, no commuting, business travel or fancy clothes, etc) actually ARE better off. So sad how these liberals say they care about poor people while never leaving the cocoon of their homes. The middle class has been decimated.
Look, I hate to burst your bubble, but I've been working remotely for over a year now, am most definitely NOT a liberal, have always been a homebody way before the world heard of covid, have adult children who were homeschooled, and am really tired of being dissed as part of "the Zoom class." Enough with the snide comments, already. I'm about to lose my job for not being vaccinated. Have I enjoyed not having to commute or deal with my dull, doughy coworkers face to face? Hell, yeah! Why do you hate me for that?
Nobody hates you for that. I freely admit, I am a relatively prosperous data-geek who has had not trouble working from, home, my company has done great and I have saved a lot of $. And I think Susanna is totally right. The govt should not be gearing any policy toward me at all. They should focus on saving the working class.
I don't think the government should be "saving" anyone, or gearing policy toward me or anyone else. I really wish the government would mind its own business, stick to its Constitutionally-granted powers, and leave everyone the hell alone.
Well, staying out of people's business is a way of saving them -- just as when thugs stop beating up their mugging victims is a way of saving the victims.
I've worked from home for over 5 years. Definitely NOT a liberal and definitely part of the middle class. Not sure I'm better off since inflation is real and prices ARE GOING UP which means it will take more dollars to buy something now and in the future than it did in the past. Inflation is a tax that Congress didn't have to vote on. Just remember that.
I know how you feel: I'm a 60+ single woman with 15 cats, I've been known to dye my hair various colors, and I'm a raging center-right 1A/2A supporting minarchist. While I used to get irritated when people make fun of leftwing crazies, calling them "lonely pink-haired cat ladies" (I've done the pink hair, but I'm not lonely), I know they're not talking about me so I just ignore it now. Or interject a faux-outraged "hey!" on Twitter... :)
Sorry about the possible job loss. Hopefully the court putting a hold on Brandon's mandate will help you and others in your position (my sister's facing the same thing).
Even those people who work from home are feeling the sting of this Carter part deux economy. People still need food, people still need gas, people still need utilities and everything is going up.
Probably so. Consider they didn't have to spend time or money on gas, dropped having to buy business casual wardrobe and the pure enjoyment of their superior status in the 'plebs bring me everything' club. Also think the Zoom class folk saved a ton of money not eating out / traveling, etc. Money saved is money earned.
Gaslighting at its finest. When will the equine excrement start piling into these writers’ lives so they understand what the rest of the country is experiencing?
The media has gotten away with the "say it enough times and it'll be true" method of propagandizing that it's their go-to when the masses get restless.
Oddly enough, I have quadrupled my net worth during the pandemic and am now worth close to $1 million, thanks to shorting the market as the pandemic hit, reversing it, and then buying into crypto at the right time as well.
Here's the thing: I *still* don't feel better off. I can't realistically buy a much nicer home with that wealth. My inflows (salary) are worth less and less due to inflation. And my worry about future inflation or raised taxes from Biden and co. leave me wanting to save even more money now (read: buy crypto) instead of spending it.
Things may not spiral into catastrophe, but *at best* we're going to be continued to have wealth sucked out of us via inflation, which will unfortunately hit the lower class and middle class the hardest.
I wish I understood this crypto thing better. So worried about our savings going poof right before retirement due to the recession that I feel must come out of this.
yes, I am worried that so many people who have retirement savings and investments may lose everything overnight because of this evil scheme happening in front of us.
Yeah, you just think your paycheck is barely covering the rent and your food and transportation expenses and you can't buy new winter coats for your kids. But we're sure it's because you buy yourself a coffee on the way to work. It's just a perception. Just like that heart attack you're imagining or the seizures you think you're having after getting jabbed to keep your job is just in your imagination. Trust us, we're experts. Trust the science.
the phony infrastructure bill adds a trillion in new debt spent for nothing productive to the 6 trillion passed out bc of the virus to pay off people to give up their liberty & to oust trump......
all that money is being spent on things made elsewhere.
no production, no economy.
the biden regime playing lbj or fdr isa bankrupting cabal,..... trillions more in entitlements taht must be funded????? whether they destroy the economy or not.
most economic polls are run by socialist economists asking guided
questions no wonder economists are wrong 90% of the time.
economic models are less right than climate and covid models.
For sure the work from home class that reads the NYT probably saved money by not buying new office clothes and eating lunches at home instead of their 25$ fancy salad. They probably believe that applies to every single american. Wonder where they took their data that "most" americans are in a better financial situation these days. That seems quite unlikely considering how many businesses were shut down for months and how many people lost their job in 2020. Just saying...
In light of the fact that nobody actually wants to work anymore, people must be better off. Printing and handing out money like mad will make people think they are well off -- until they notice the empty shelves and the sky-high prices on what remains.
I just checked, and the S & P is up 25% for the year. A lot of upper middle class people have money in the market, with their IRAS, including many with over a million. These folks look at their statements and feel they are rich. It gives them warm fuzzy feelings that make them very unlikely to complain about the current regime and situation. If most of these folks tried to access their money and spend it, there would be hyperinflation and a crash. But for now, they are happy and content, and the idea of prices going up 5 or 10% doesn't bother them one iota. These are the educated, professional classes and they are doing fine-- or so they think.
...and they are bought and paid for...well paid slaves to the uber wealthy....the upper middle class love their lifestyle and won't rock the boat lest it put their investments at risk.....this is the new way of slavery....the illusion of wealth, luxury and convenience and the mere desire and perceived need causes people to become slaves in essence.
Beyond insane. But gaslighting is what the CIA-directed media does best. Inversion, projection, and gaslighting, all the tools of those who have been creating mass psychosis in our western countries for almost two years now.
Actually, more like 6 years now (or 50-70 if you count all the more subtle stuff that got us here). Began with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrom) by the MSM. They managed to make half the country crazy with hate towards Trump, based on not much. They kept it pumped up for the entire 4 years he was in office, and by the end of that those people were ripe for the picking and a mass hyponosis/psychosis event. And that's when they started in on the covid19 fearmongering.
I have been traveling the country in my Airstream with my two English Setters. In some ways the degradation of our economy is something we see in food and gas prices. We are seeing Covid “campers” that are clueless but clearly they are trying to survive.
The stock market may be rising. But look at who owns the stock, the same corrupt politicians that are trying to socialize us.
And big pharma has been the winner in an exercise that makes me wish for the Nuremberg tribunals…
My guess is the Times' wealthy and self-absorbed subscriber base is indeed mostly doing fine, and those are the only people the Times writes for anymore.
Longtime daily reader, this spring I cancelled all my papers WSJ, Barrons, OC Register & LATimes... needed to purge the woke propaganda... feel so much better for it... Epoch Times looks like a more informative, compatible read...
Biden's annual income is 9 million, congress $194,000, with that income the economy must appear to be doing great, besides whats the harm in a little gaslighting, if the economy gets better Democrats will take the credit, if it doesn't they'll says its Trumps fault.
I'd like a definition of "spending power". Are they talking about giving us an advance on next year's tax return, that we'll probably have to go into hock and pay back if we had the lousy luck to make less money than before? Are they talking about the ability to buy increasingly-unavailable cheap overseas imports?
Because they certainly aren't talking about food, gas, or housing. My grocery bill has *doubled* over the last year.
Every time you go to the store the prices have gone up. Not just a bit but 20 or more percent. If you live on 450 $ a month that makes a big difference. You must not do the household shopping.
Why is the Fed is still easing in a great economy? Why are internet rates at zero and real inflation is 11-12% in a great economy. Interest rates should be around 8% at a minimum. The market is being manipulated.
You just think you're unhappy because you're a stupid woman and don't understand what real unhappiness is. Now get in the kitchen and make me dinner or I'll forbid you from seeing your friends or family for another year.
Too many in the top tier of corp-gov-media troika think they can still operate by the Karl Rove play book and fail to see their disconnect from reality that's slapping workers in the face.
'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."
Their hubris and certainty in defining reality is comical at this point and as helpful as the crew of the Titanic passing hors d'oeuvres to passengers scrambling for life boats.
Think of how much better off you would be if the economy was roaring, people were free and prices for food, housing and gas were reasonable. Sheesh Josh.
Suggestion for family Thanksgiving: To all those who think the Biden economy is fabulous, feed then paper cutouts of filet mignon and crab legs. Feed the sane ones regular scaled down dinner. Reality v fake discussion will be well illustrated for the feeble minded goob and his followers.
dog food, newspaper for a coat, burning cow dung for heat and we are all "fed, clothed and sheltered" How much more Soviet state organ pravada like is the NYT going to get? its anyones guess.
I dunno, people can be incredibly dumb and spit in the face of empirical data. I mean isn't that what a large portion of this blog kind of covers? Consider the way many people steadfastly belive kids can't play outside anymore despite copious data that most of the world is safer than its ever been, and safer than when those people were kids.
A real problem is that reality is what you make of it, and even if you are better off if you don't feel that way you're going to act and feel similar to as if you weren't. Which makes the facts moot.
I don't know anyone in a better financial position now than in the autumn of 2019. Even people who have been promoted or taken on new jobs. Anecdotal perhaps, but this includes senior engineers, heads of marketing and sales departments, and medical professionals.
These comments seem to come from those elites ensconced in their bubble of financial shenanigans that allows them to say this in full belief and intention instead of the rest of us who work and struggle to make ends meet.
If you like 'likes' I suggest you format all posts like this one where all you have to do is scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the heart. When the default is "share" it's more clicks, first to close a pop-up that jumps out at you. I find myself not bothering. Maybe I'm lazy, but I do repost many of your articles on my Facebook, and am not put off by doing a few clicks and a copy/paste when motivated.
Well if you don’t need food, gas or free will, things are great.
👆🏻This.
I wonder if much of the country (the ones that got to stay home and zoom and collect all regular pay, no commuting, business travel or fancy clothes, etc) actually ARE better off. So sad how these liberals say they care about poor people while never leaving the cocoon of their homes. The middle class has been decimated.
Look, I hate to burst your bubble, but I've been working remotely for over a year now, am most definitely NOT a liberal, have always been a homebody way before the world heard of covid, have adult children who were homeschooled, and am really tired of being dissed as part of "the Zoom class." Enough with the snide comments, already. I'm about to lose my job for not being vaccinated. Have I enjoyed not having to commute or deal with my dull, doughy coworkers face to face? Hell, yeah! Why do you hate me for that?
Nobody hates you for that. I freely admit, I am a relatively prosperous data-geek who has had not trouble working from, home, my company has done great and I have saved a lot of $. And I think Susanna is totally right. The govt should not be gearing any policy toward me at all. They should focus on saving the working class.
I don't think the government should be "saving" anyone, or gearing policy toward me or anyone else. I really wish the government would mind its own business, stick to its Constitutionally-granted powers, and leave everyone the hell alone.
Exactly. All they are doing is harming workers. Just maybe they could stop doing that.
Hear hear! ( or is it here here?)
Well, staying out of people's business is a way of saving them -- just as when thugs stop beating up their mugging victims is a way of saving the victims.
Maybe government should just stay out of everybody's business and stop endless interventions that distort everything.
And they never do things that they should be doing: making sure there's free and fair competition, rule of law, etc.
I've worked from home for over 5 years. Definitely NOT a liberal and definitely part of the middle class. Not sure I'm better off since inflation is real and prices ARE GOING UP which means it will take more dollars to buy something now and in the future than it did in the past. Inflation is a tax that Congress didn't have to vote on. Just remember that.
I know how you feel: I'm a 60+ single woman with 15 cats, I've been known to dye my hair various colors, and I'm a raging center-right 1A/2A supporting minarchist. While I used to get irritated when people make fun of leftwing crazies, calling them "lonely pink-haired cat ladies" (I've done the pink hair, but I'm not lonely), I know they're not talking about me so I just ignore it now. Or interject a faux-outraged "hey!" on Twitter... :)
Sorry about the possible job loss. Hopefully the court putting a hold on Brandon's mandate will help you and others in your position (my sister's facing the same thing).
Thanks, Purrl!
Even those people who work from home are feeling the sting of this Carter part deux economy. People still need food, people still need gas, people still need utilities and everything is going up.
I heard someone describe them as the “pajama class”
They tend not to have children so maybe they aren’t feeling the squeeze as bad
No, many of them do have children. Who do you think attends all the private schools?
Probably so. Consider they didn't have to spend time or money on gas, dropped having to buy business casual wardrobe and the pure enjoyment of their superior status in the 'plebs bring me everything' club. Also think the Zoom class folk saved a ton of money not eating out / traveling, etc. Money saved is money earned.
Prices are increasing. My wages aren't. I assume I'm not alone.
If you don't eat, drink, drive, live in a house or wear clothes everything is fine.
Gaslighting at its finest. When will the equine excrement start piling into these writers’ lives so they understand what the rest of the country is experiencing?
I figured the excrement was bovine but maybe we need a study to determine the origins?
Oh yes. Maybe pig excrement would fit even better, since it is the most foul of all.
Chicken excrement is pretty fowl. Also combustible in high enough concentrations.
True!
Yes, but Sheep Dip sounds like something you could put on a potato chip.
Mmmm. Mutton go fondue!
They're being paid to look the other way and do the most harm to society. Their salaries are more important than actually being honest with people.
I guess. But how can they live with themselves.
Sociopaths manage somehow.
They do. But I can’t believe all the writers in
MSM are sociopaths. I think they haven’t outgrown what they learned in college.
I’m guessing it’s all part of the plan. Tell people all is good while you continue to wreck everything.
The media has gotten away with the "say it enough times and it'll be true" method of propagandizing that it's their go-to when the masses get restless.
Listen! They're shouting "let's go, Brandon!"
Exactly.
Outrageous. I’m getting poorer and poorer. Feeding my family nutritious foods is getting more expensive. And I cook everything from scratch.
Is Alpo in the CPI yet?
I don't know about dog food, but cat food prices have gone up along with other groceries. My cat's food costs more per ounce than mine.
Oddly enough, I have quadrupled my net worth during the pandemic and am now worth close to $1 million, thanks to shorting the market as the pandemic hit, reversing it, and then buying into crypto at the right time as well.
Here's the thing: I *still* don't feel better off. I can't realistically buy a much nicer home with that wealth. My inflows (salary) are worth less and less due to inflation. And my worry about future inflation or raised taxes from Biden and co. leave me wanting to save even more money now (read: buy crypto) instead of spending it.
Things may not spiral into catastrophe, but *at best* we're going to be continued to have wealth sucked out of us via inflation, which will unfortunately hit the lower class and middle class the hardest.
I wish I understood this crypto thing better. So worried about our savings going poof right before retirement due to the recession that I feel must come out of this.
yes, I am worried that so many people who have retirement savings and investments may lose everything overnight because of this evil scheme happening in front of us.
This is the same vibe as the Biden regime boasting about how your 4th of July cookout would cost $0.16 less in 2021.
How about Thanksgiving dinner, Joe?
Wait till they slap a tax on your heating bill...
My heat source is propane. It's already taxed to the hilt by the crooks.
So sorry... I guess I’m next... cold is the worst...
I mean, these people are still publishing a failing dinosaur newspaper so what do you expect from them.
Yeah, you just think your paycheck is barely covering the rent and your food and transportation expenses and you can't buy new winter coats for your kids. But we're sure it's because you buy yourself a coffee on the way to work. It's just a perception. Just like that heart attack you're imagining or the seizures you think you're having after getting jabbed to keep your job is just in your imagination. Trust us, we're experts. Trust the science.
I just bought a lb of Oscar Meyer bacon and it cost $9.99…nothing to see here folks. Suck it up
$15.99/lb here. Not the fancy Oscar Meyer rich man's bacon either. ; )
Yowza
Yep. I see full grown men crying over it in the grocery aisle. We ladies stuff our bacon emotions.
I can't give up my bacon...yet. But now I eat less of it.
the phony infrastructure bill adds a trillion in new debt spent for nothing productive to the 6 trillion passed out bc of the virus to pay off people to give up their liberty & to oust trump......
all that money is being spent on things made elsewhere.
no production, no economy.
the biden regime playing lbj or fdr isa bankrupting cabal,..... trillions more in entitlements taht must be funded????? whether they destroy the economy or not.
most economic polls are run by socialist economists asking guided
questions no wonder economists are wrong 90% of the time.
economic models are less right than climate and covid models.
For sure the work from home class that reads the NYT probably saved money by not buying new office clothes and eating lunches at home instead of their 25$ fancy salad. They probably believe that applies to every single american. Wonder where they took their data that "most" americans are in a better financial situation these days. That seems quite unlikely considering how many businesses were shut down for months and how many people lost their job in 2020. Just saying...
In light of the fact that nobody actually wants to work anymore, people must be better off. Printing and handing out money like mad will make people think they are well off -- until they notice the empty shelves and the sky-high prices on what remains.
I just checked, and the S & P is up 25% for the year. A lot of upper middle class people have money in the market, with their IRAS, including many with over a million. These folks look at their statements and feel they are rich. It gives them warm fuzzy feelings that make them very unlikely to complain about the current regime and situation. If most of these folks tried to access their money and spend it, there would be hyperinflation and a crash. But for now, they are happy and content, and the idea of prices going up 5 or 10% doesn't bother them one iota. These are the educated, professional classes and they are doing fine-- or so they think.
...and they are bought and paid for...well paid slaves to the uber wealthy....the upper middle class love their lifestyle and won't rock the boat lest it put their investments at risk.....this is the new way of slavery....the illusion of wealth, luxury and convenience and the mere desire and perceived need causes people to become slaves in essence.
Just wait 'til the next 2008. Just around the corner, from what I've seen...
Don't believe you lying eyes, folks. You didn't just pay $75 to fill you gas tank.
Just paid $50 last nite for 1/2 tank of gas... inflation nation...
Beyond insane. But gaslighting is what the CIA-directed media does best. Inversion, projection, and gaslighting, all the tools of those who have been creating mass psychosis in our western countries for almost two years now.
Actually, more like 6 years now (or 50-70 if you count all the more subtle stuff that got us here). Began with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrom) by the MSM. They managed to make half the country crazy with hate towards Trump, based on not much. They kept it pumped up for the entire 4 years he was in office, and by the end of that those people were ripe for the picking and a mass hyponosis/psychosis event. And that's when they started in on the covid19 fearmongering.
I have been traveling the country in my Airstream with my two English Setters. In some ways the degradation of our economy is something we see in food and gas prices. We are seeing Covid “campers” that are clueless but clearly they are trying to survive.
The stock market may be rising. But look at who owns the stock, the same corrupt politicians that are trying to socialize us.
And big pharma has been the winner in an exercise that makes me wish for the Nuremberg tribunals…
They are coming.
My guess is the Times' wealthy and self-absorbed subscriber base is indeed mostly doing fine, and those are the only people the Times writes for anymore.
Longtime daily reader, this spring I cancelled all my papers WSJ, Barrons, OC Register & LATimes... needed to purge the woke propaganda... feel so much better for it... Epoch Times looks like a more informative, compatible read...
Maybe the vaccine has a mind-scrambling “opposite-day” side effect for a certain segment of the population?
Biden's annual income is 9 million, congress $194,000, with that income the economy must appear to be doing great, besides whats the harm in a little gaslighting, if the economy gets better Democrats will take the credit, if it doesn't they'll says its Trumps fault.
You people, according to Brandon, just don’t know about the supply chain. You are all pathetic losers and need to get informed (my words.)
"made-up prices" really like hmm which ones? Gas, food how about utilities? SHEESH you can NOT make this stuff up!
This is proof that the media is the government's propaganda arm. If you needed more proof.....
I'd like a definition of "spending power". Are they talking about giving us an advance on next year's tax return, that we'll probably have to go into hock and pay back if we had the lousy luck to make less money than before? Are they talking about the ability to buy increasingly-unavailable cheap overseas imports?
Because they certainly aren't talking about food, gas, or housing. My grocery bill has *doubled* over the last year.
SPENDING POWER! Spending power. spending. power.
Yeah, sorry, not feeling the power.
Every time you go to the store the prices have gone up. Not just a bit but 20 or more percent. If you live on 450 $ a month that makes a big difference. You must not do the household shopping.
Why is the Fed is still easing in a great economy? Why are internet rates at zero and real inflation is 11-12% in a great economy. Interest rates should be around 8% at a minimum. The market is being manipulated.
You just think you're unhappy because you're a stupid woman and don't understand what real unhappiness is. Now get in the kitchen and make me dinner or I'll forbid you from seeing your friends or family for another year.
I'll tell you how you feel. I'm an expert.
I don't know if this is more of a marker of journalistic fraud or a comment on how dumb the masses are.
Too many in the top tier of corp-gov-media troika think they can still operate by the Karl Rove play book and fail to see their disconnect from reality that's slapping workers in the face.
'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."
Their hubris and certainty in defining reality is comical at this point and as helpful as the crew of the Titanic passing hors d'oeuvres to passengers scrambling for life boats.
personally I'm in a better spot because I worked my ass off and got a promotion...
Think of how much better off you would be if the economy was roaring, people were free and prices for food, housing and gas were reasonable. Sheesh Josh.
yeah an other than your liberty, and getting a tax deduction (salt) for paying off the local commies your taxes go up, and boosters must be taken.
I don't think Josh has a family.
There are some of us who seize opportunity and will always win. That’s what keeps me going.
How about when the seized opportunity is at your expense? The going gets a little more dreary Rose.
Everything Biden has done has been at my expense. I get it. Believe me I get it.
...💕compassion to everyone who is hurting in their own individual way💕...
Are you George Costanza's boss?
Suggestion for family Thanksgiving: To all those who think the Biden economy is fabulous, feed then paper cutouts of filet mignon and crab legs. Feed the sane ones regular scaled down dinner. Reality v fake discussion will be well illustrated for the feeble minded goob and his followers.
MSM: who are you going to believe, our reporting or your own lying eyes at the gas pump?
MSM: Our ratings are great... Just look.
Why do you continue to pee on my leg and tell me it's raining?
Who are you gonna believe, your lying eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and fingers or our manufactured illusion of reality?!
That old Richard Pryor quote is set to be the theme of the winter.
Get hip people, Fed Money printing is a tax on people who are bad at math. Stealing out in the open.
dog food, newspaper for a coat, burning cow dung for heat and we are all "fed, clothed and sheltered" How much more Soviet state organ pravada like is the NYT going to get? its anyones guess.
Well..no, I am not better off. I actually only bought stuff I had coupons for as I feel very poor right now.
Different planet and out of touch with us mere mortals I guess.
I dunno, people can be incredibly dumb and spit in the face of empirical data. I mean isn't that what a large portion of this blog kind of covers? Consider the way many people steadfastly belive kids can't play outside anymore despite copious data that most of the world is safer than its ever been, and safer than when those people were kids.
A real problem is that reality is what you make of it, and even if you are better off if you don't feel that way you're going to act and feel similar to as if you weren't. Which makes the facts moot.
I don't know anyone in a better financial position now than in the autumn of 2019. Even people who have been promoted or taken on new jobs. Anecdotal perhaps, but this includes senior engineers, heads of marketing and sales departments, and medical professionals.
These comments seem to come from those elites ensconced in their bubble of financial shenanigans that allows them to say this in full belief and intention instead of the rest of us who work and struggle to make ends meet.
My spending power has gone through the roof because I bet against the dollar using BTC.
Election night BTC: 15k
Today BTC: 66k
If you like 'likes' I suggest you format all posts like this one where all you have to do is scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the heart. When the default is "share" it's more clicks, first to close a pop-up that jumps out at you. I find myself not bothering. Maybe I'm lazy, but I do repost many of your articles on my Facebook, and am not put off by doing a few clicks and a copy/paste when motivated.