Anyway, I am starting to believe these "recession is on the way" articles as the top 1% trying to cause one so they can prevent the slow movement from slave wages to almost livable wages.
High inflation means that interest rates on all loans have to be higher for banks to earn back their principal. I'm not even counting the Federal reserve needing to race their core interest rate which they will. When capital becomes more expensive businesses are more likely to fail and less likely to be started.
Inflation leads to higher interest rates and lower lending. Reduced lending leads to economic contraction. Wage gains in real terms are primarily due to a supply and demand curve for labor. Most industries are having any wage gains erased by inflation.
This isn't a new phenomenon with the exception of the first contraction in the labor force participation rate in decades. Inflation of this nature is only halted by reduced economic activity. Without it, it continues until real wage growth is sharply negative.
By the way, if you're a reader of HN, you are almost certainly in the "1 percent" globally.
I know quite a few people in the tech sphere who, under other circumstances, might have taken some late career job (or just happily continued in their current role) who are taking their vests, retiring somewhat early, and maybe do a bit of consulting on the side. There are fewer opportunities and a lot of work environments are under a lot of financial stress these days.
Years ago, word of mouth directly from the user was good enough. Now, changes have to go through several levels of bureaucracy before it can even be looked at.
I have met new engineers though that seem to enjoy the current structure of modern software engineering with all its unit tests, code reviews, lint, etc. Perhaps they would not have enjoyed the more freewheeling era that I thrived on.
Ladle on top of this working with tight-ass (would a smile or joke hurt?), pedantic burnt out devs (no wonder women don't want to code) and I'm faced with an emotional struggle almost every day. My favorite words seem to be: "fuck this."
The primary force pushing people to not cash out tech stock and soft retire is because tech stocks peaked two years ago, and most are struggling to recover. I think working conditions and consulting opportunities are secondary concerns to most people in that position.
The fact is that between the salaries at many companies and stock appreciation the past decade+, many people are in a position to soft retire as you put it and they're doing so. And it's clear from talking to them the fact that their jobs aren't much fun any longer has a lot to do with it.
I was responding to why some people would choose not to do it. S&P500, Dow, and Nasdaq peaked 2 years ago. I know that's influenced people in my sphere to keep up the grind.
It's safe to discard this theory because it's not possible to have that kind of control through "the media" or otherwise. What's accurate is that articles like this get clicks and that's why they come into existence. This article is just a vehicle for advertising, and for every one you can find you can find an article from the same source that states the opposite or some other tangential theory.
Since the 1% are unlikely to be the ones writing the actual articles, you're going to have to have co-conspirator reporters, writers, editors, publishers. Being coerced by the 1% would in itself be quite a story, ha ha.
Perhaps though you can imagine though a more subtle, undetectable way in which the 1% are able to project their viewpoint via the media that doesn't involve co-conspirators.
Like the person you replied to though, I think Occam's razor suggests instead that these articles get clicks.
Editors are gatekeepers of what gets printed as part of their job description. Editors get paid more than reporters, and they report to people who get paid more than them. A major type of bias is what doesn't get reported.
The coersion is their paychecks, which isn't a big story.
You are making the same mistake as the person I replied to. It's not a conspiracy. It's institutional.
Not to mention the so-called "viewpoint of the 1%" appears to change almost daily, is contradictory, and often times critical of the very 1% that controls "controls the media".
"Mass Media" must also include Twitter, Meta, Google, Apple Music, Spotify, and other sources of content, news, analysis, etc. How many people does the 1% have in on their scheme?
Way better off figuring out how your local representative is taking $5,000 grift payments to expedite some shoddy development that'll collapse in 10 years or cause cancer than to spend time dwelling on such nonsense.
Edit: I can't find the video now but I found another recent video expressing a similar idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63aDL326IFA
Without one you cannot reduce inflation not the kind that we have right now. Inflation driven by an external price shock like the Arab oil embargo in 1970s is one example of one that can be alleviated without recession by bringing on supply.
This current state of inflation is direct result of a massive increase in the money supply caused by the government shoveling money out hand over fist. That money was printed. People were being paid without producing any goods. More money same amount of goods equals inflation.
A reduction in gross economic activity is the only way to halt the wage price spiral.
Every law passed by the federal government that increases spending including the IRA is actually making current inflation worse. (While there is something to be said for the IRA making investments that could ease inflation in the future there's absolutely nothing they are doing to help it now but plenty to make it worse.)
The belief that you can reduce inflation without a recession is based on wishful thinking with no examples in history. I studied applied economics in college and the first code I ever wrote outside of the class was inflation simulations in the early 2000s. At that time we thought that loose monetary policy was a thing of the past and we would never have such an irresponsible group of people advising economic policy. But unfortunately we did thanks to an obscure and unproven theory called MMT. It's the string theory of economics in the sense where a bunch of passionate people have dedicated their careers to it and nothing good has ever come of it.
Interesting. I've had the same thought for some time but hadn't seen anyone else voice this concern until now.