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Comment by pedalpete | Hacker News Reader

I think the most important number in this article is " 67% surge of card spending over last year in the seven days ended April 3".

They're taking a single week of spending, compared to a time when people were under serious threat of losing their income, and full of fear, and from that one number, they suggest that we've entered a boom cycle.

I'm not an economist, but I don't think the person who wrote this should be able to call themselves one either.

If they're going to go by this number, how about also including the numbers for 2019? Is the economy back to where it was? higher than it was then?

A major boom takes more than just stimulus from the government, otherwise, they'd just constantly be printing money.

I'd like to see reasoning behind the "boom" that is coming, beyond just that people are back spending money. That "should" only get us back to "normal".

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This presupposes that we take economists seriously to begin with.

I've met a few econ peeps in finance. All of them full of it and they knew it. Great peoples though. Spending a third of the time inebriated in some shape or form while making the best, most awful looking presentation about the micro-economics for a pitch to a huge fund. And it worked.

>A major boom takes more than just stimulus from the government, otherwise, they'd just constantly be printing money.

I disagree. Massive, massive investment in beneficial projects is what causes booms. The last great booms we saw in the States were both the result of massive public investment during and after World War II. This gave us large scale American industrial manufacturing boom of the 40s/50s/60s, and the research funded in 60s/70s/80s, would go on to produce Silicon Valley in the 90s and 2000s.

Its helpful to think about where money comes from. And what can be done with it. Private firms ripping off consumers doesn't generate anything at scale. Massive public investment, historically speaking, does.

> last great booms we saw in the States

The exact same booms were seen all over the world. It's probably due to innovation and sharply falling energy prices (oil, hydro and nuclear.)

A boom the 90s is probably attributed to IT-productivity, but mostly sharply falling labour prices due to Chinese manufacturing.

Overall, booms are probably due to falling prices in input factors. Subsidies alone just leads to increasing prices.

Next boom probably happens when AI can replace menial jobs.

It also helped that the American manufacturing was in good shape while the Europe was sortof ruined after the WWII but yes, this should provide enough economic momentum for things to start going moving again. The problem nowadays is that few have long term in mind, everybody’s in for quick gratification. Some things need to change before we can move forward.

Yes, I agree with your statement about "beneficial projects", I think of things like the US highway system, or the Hoover Dam, the projects that got the US out of the great depression. Or the spending on the Manhattan project, the Moonshot (is there another name for putting a man on the moon?) etc etc.

However, is there such large scale projects the current stimulus is going to? It is my impression that the money is going to individuals to try to pump money into the economy. That's money without direction, which I don't believe would have the same effect you are suggesting.

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