SFBayDuck
Footballguy
Well this thread got fun the past couple of pages. Used to be the worst parts were just the thinly-veiled partisan complaints about the vibecession, which are all pretty harmless in the grand scheme of what has largely been good discussion. But it's now full on junior high lunchtime in here complete with name calling. Sweet.
Things aren't perfect. They never are. But they're pretty damned good.
Unemployment is rising a little, but outside of the Covid-spike has basically been under 4% for two presidential terms.
REAL wages are higher than ever (other than the drop from artificial covid highs), and have risen consistently since 2014. That's with the big inflation spike we saw, that has dropped back down near target levels. No, prices aren't coming back down. That's not how growth works. We all know that guy griping about how gas only cost $.30 gallon in 1960 (when he got like 11 miles per gallon). Of course that guy never mentions that the very same year they spent about 17% of their income on food, which is down to 10-12% now.
US stock markets area at all time highs. For the 62% of Americans that own equities, that seems like a good thing. Same with all-time highs in home equity for the 65% of Americans that own a home.
Now both of those might mean that for the 35-38% left out, things are tougher. No doubt, and many of us have kids in their teens and twenties that are going to face some challenging times as they start careers and families. But didn't many of us? The challenges might be slightly different, but it can be hard out there to get started. I started my career, in tech, about 12 months before the dot com bubble burst. Bought my first home with no money down and a sweet 5/1 interest-only ARM a few years later - you can guess how that went. But having things be hard isn't a new phenomenon, considering my grandfather told me (once, he wasn't about to complain about it) about the tent he lived in outside of Oakland when he got married during the depression, with a chest full of wedding china their only belongings outside of a few changes of clothes. He worked hard (blue collar) bought a home, raised four kids, and retired to his garden and wood shop.
We'll have another recession. Maybe it'll start tomorrow, maybe 5-10 years from now. And it will be painful for a lot of people, likely even a bunch of us. But look how often they used to happen, and how long they lasted. Two or three a decade were normal! Compare that to the last 40+ years. We've had a grand total of a few months of recession since the beginning of 2010!
We should strive to make things better for our kids and theirs. We aren't allowed to talk about our opinions on how to do that here, which quite frankly is fine by me as it's rarely a productive exercise.
But I'm screaming into the interwebs void here, not under any delusions that anything I (or anyone else) posts will change a single mind. All good, staying grounded in reality and the data makes me feel better. Have a great Sunday, all!
Things aren't perfect. They never are. But they're pretty damned good.
Unemployment is rising a little, but outside of the Covid-spike has basically been under 4% for two presidential terms.
REAL wages are higher than ever (other than the drop from artificial covid highs), and have risen consistently since 2014. That's with the big inflation spike we saw, that has dropped back down near target levels. No, prices aren't coming back down. That's not how growth works. We all know that guy griping about how gas only cost $.30 gallon in 1960 (when he got like 11 miles per gallon). Of course that guy never mentions that the very same year they spent about 17% of their income on food, which is down to 10-12% now.
US stock markets area at all time highs. For the 62% of Americans that own equities, that seems like a good thing. Same with all-time highs in home equity for the 65% of Americans that own a home.
Now both of those might mean that for the 35-38% left out, things are tougher. No doubt, and many of us have kids in their teens and twenties that are going to face some challenging times as they start careers and families. But didn't many of us? The challenges might be slightly different, but it can be hard out there to get started. I started my career, in tech, about 12 months before the dot com bubble burst. Bought my first home with no money down and a sweet 5/1 interest-only ARM a few years later - you can guess how that went. But having things be hard isn't a new phenomenon, considering my grandfather told me (once, he wasn't about to complain about it) about the tent he lived in outside of Oakland when he got married during the depression, with a chest full of wedding china their only belongings outside of a few changes of clothes. He worked hard (blue collar) bought a home, raised four kids, and retired to his garden and wood shop.
We'll have another recession. Maybe it'll start tomorrow, maybe 5-10 years from now. And it will be painful for a lot of people, likely even a bunch of us. But look how often they used to happen, and how long they lasted. Two or three a decade were normal! Compare that to the last 40+ years. We've had a grand total of a few months of recession since the beginning of 2010!
We should strive to make things better for our kids and theirs. We aren't allowed to talk about our opinions on how to do that here, which quite frankly is fine by me as it's rarely a productive exercise.
But I'm screaming into the interwebs void here, not under any delusions that anything I (or anyone else) posts will change a single mind. All good, staying grounded in reality and the data makes me feel better. Have a great Sunday, all!
