Hacker News Reader

Comment by TurkishPoptart | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Shambles or no, the American economy is doing better than every other major economy in the world.

Stock market numbers going up appears to be unrelated with the cost of living crisis that we are in.

Agreed. Pick a different number, then. Unemployment, inflation, GDP growth per capita? On all of these the US is doing better than all other major economies.

Honestly, I think you're being willfully ignorant here and missing the point. Those "good numbers" are divorced from reality and this is the least affordable time for working people in American history. Our money is worth less than it used to be, and we have far less of it to buy the necessary things for life. Rent, interest rates, food, and gas are at record prices, and there is no plan in site to make things better for working people.

I didn't say American numbers were good. They aren't. I said everywhere else was worse.

Life is simply far less affordable for working people than it was two or three years ago, and I think we're past the point of being able to blame the affordability and inflation crisis on Covid.

We're not past the point of being able to blame it on the war in Ukraine. Energy and food costs are a huge part of inflation, and those were and still are being impacted by the war.

China is doing much better compared to the US.

IIT denial. This is literally simple case of aggregate GDP projection of PRC ~5% > US ~2% that comments in this thread seem to be butt hurt over. PRC with deflation, export pressures, debt, deflation, youth unemployment IS STILL doing significantly better than US because they aren't the existential problems PRC collapcists make them out to be.

PRC isn't an export dependant country at 20% export:GDP (dependant would be 40%+, PRC peak was 32%), while export dropping from historic highs (+1T in export value in last 4 years / +30%, more than 10 years prior to that) aka PRC underwent the largest pulse of globalization in recent history and export is dropping from absurd historic highs - and PRC retaining more % of exports relative to most, while not even relying on it.

PRC national debt is ~75% of GDP vs US ~120%, total aggregate debt PRC ~270% vs US ~760%. It's significantly more managable problem than US, who let's not forget just printed 5 trillion to deficit spend way out of recession.

There's good deflation and bad deflation. Arguable PRC is good deflation, because it's mostly cost of goods coming down due to excess supply from largest global manufacturer having excess inventory.

Youth unemployment = 80%, AKA ~9M graduates getting employed. Many STEM/skilled/technical. That's a absurd amount of new jobs and talent to drive economy. Multiple times more than US. Broad unemployment also ~5%, so it's an issue that literally fixes it self, kids wait, either get jobs they want or end up working ones they don't.

And PRC doing this while _DELIBERATELY_ slapping local govs, and three redlines on real-estate and broadly deleverage. Useful idiots misread PRC responsibly rebalancing economy as PRC economic collapse, and then pikachu face when PRC still grows at 2x US, because all of these are largely managable problems that PRC has economic headroom to manage and still grow at respectable pace.

20%+ unemployment for young workers and GDP growth is shrinking. Falling exports. Local municipalities on the verge of bankruptcy with over $9 trillion in debt? With deflation making that debt much worse. How is that better than the US?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-06-02/the-ne...

https://fortune.com/2023/08/08/china-economy-youth-unemploym...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-exports-fall-at-steepes...

Not at the moment it isn't. It's looking quite precarious right now due to the deflation threat.

Really. live in rural china and compare that life to rural US, you will not be singing that tune.

China now has a lot of economic issues, also economists are now saying it will no longer overtake the US as the largest economy with in 10 years as originally forecast.

Based on what metric? Deflation is worse than inflation. Shrinking trade exports are deadly for an export based economy that doesn’t have a robust consumer base or service sector. China is now decoupling its service sector of law firms, accounting firms and consultants. Extrapolate those trends and you would expect China to be increasingly decoupling from the global trade network after decades of open integration and the growth/wealth that comes with it.

Most recently their economy is showing significant slowdowns in growth. [1]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-q2-gdp-growth-slo...

That is neither here nor there; this article is about American cost of living

china is facing a 20% unemployment rate with its youth population. Thats even with heavy age discrimination at 35. Honestly its not better.

whats the alternative? Trump? I'll take the sleepy senior over the unstable senior any day. Besides its not like the president sets the economic plans these days. Their only influence is on government spending. Fed controls the interest rate which affects a broader segment of the economy.

Can you name what was so volatile under Trump? We had no new wars under Trump. No new military engagements. We were planning withdrawals. The economy was doing fine. People say things were volatile under Trump, but I have found that this is only true if you're addicted to the 24/7 news cycle. For most American's day to day, life under Trump was just as boring as life under Biden / Obama / Bush / etc.

I mean.. when Trump was in office, things were good. My local grocery store couldn't even find enough workers they were hiring disabled people (which is great... everyone deserves the ability to make a living). Now everything is expensive and people seem unhappy; not to mention new military engagements in Europe of all places.

What was so volatile? American democracy. Constitutional law.

The economy matters, but some things matter more.

In what way was constitutional law volatile during Trump's term?

Trying to overturn the results of the election via fake electors, "find the votes" in Georgia, pressuring the Arizona governor, pressuring Pence to accept the fake electors...

As opposed to when The Resistance in 2016 tried to overthrow the election results via faithless electors. Stacey Abrams is an "election denier" to this day. As are many Democrats when you ask them about the results of the Bush v. Gore election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_electors_in_the_2016... On December 14, the Unite For America campaign released a video[36] published on YouTube and other media addressed directly to Republican electors urging that each of them individually, plus 36 of their colleagues (at least 37 Republican electors in total), vote for a Republican other than Donald Trump for President. The video featured numerous public figures,[37] including Debra Messing, Martin Sheen, and Bob Odenkirk, urging Republican electors to prevent a Trump presidency, expressing several times the message: "I'm not asking you to vote for Hillary Clinton". In electing an alternative Republican, the featured speakers ask the elector to become an "American hero" by using the elector's constitutional "authority" to give "service and patriotism to the American people" through a vote of "conscience."[36] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/michael-moore-appeals-gop-el...

Sure, but what about during his term in office? IIRC, the claims that his term was volatile started in 2016 without grounds.

That was during his term in office!

Sure, at the end, but I heard the same claims of volatility during the entirety of his term. It's not like the claim of volatility suddenly appeared after the Jan 6 stuff.

The harsh reality is that adult life is an endless series of "lesser of two evils" choices.

Given the alternatives to Biden, which specific policies do you believe would improve the lives of the lowest economic classes?

1. Cut interest rates 2. Stop printing billions to defense contractors for Ukraine 3. invest in small business and entrepreneurial training 4. Stop ESG-based investing

1. Would be nice but that can potentially cause inflation to rapidly grow again. It should go down but it would need to be gradual once inflation has fully stabilized. And it’s not just the US that’s suffering heavily under high inflation. 2. Dropping support for Ukraine would signal to China that we wouldn’t have the stamina to support Taiwan if they were attacked. It was only a few years ago that a massive chip shortage hamstrung our economy and nobody wants to repeat that. Dropping support won’t have much significant fiscal impact, either. Most of the billions spent thus far is really the US clearing out older inventories. 3. We already do with tax incentives and other mechanisms. What exactly are you asking for unchecked COVID loans that were forgiven en mass? 4. Do you have figured that indicate ESG-based investing is a net negative and costly to the US? That redirection of such funds would have a notable economic impact?

> 2. Dropping support for Ukraine would signal to China that we wouldn’t have the stamina to support Taiwan if they were attacked. It was only a few years ago that a massive chip shortage hamstrung our economy and nobody wants to repeat that. Dropping support won’t have much significant fiscal impact, either. Most of the billions spent thus far is really the US clearing out older inventories.

It's even worse than this IMO. What this acquiescence would signal to "lesser" nuclear powers is that Pax Americana is truly over. That is a problem. I believe the most likely outbreak of nuclear war is between Pakistan/China/India instead of the classic USA/Russia/China. If you want peace, keep Pax Americana. It's the least evil of all evils.

> 1. Cut interest rates

So you would nominate a new Fed Chair who will raise inflation?

> 2. Stop printing billions to defense contractors for Ukraine

Imperialist Russia preys on weakness, you and David Sacks are the weakest links. What precedent does that set for all other nuclear powers which have imperial ambitions?

I am sure Turkey's control of the strait is very annoying to Moscow. How is that going to work out in the long run?

> 3. invest in small business and entrepreneurial training

So more of this?

>> The government, through the Small Business Administration, gave out nearly $790 billion in PPP loans between March 2020 and May 2021, when the program ended, public records show. Of that amount, $757 billion has been forgiven. [0]

How much of this crony-socialism led to inflation?

>> PPP loans cost nearly double what Biden's student debt forgiveness would have. Here's how the programs compare. [0],[1]

> 4. Stop ESG-based investing

Why? Show your work with a 20 year investment horizon.

---

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ppp-loan-forgiveness-student-lo...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money

the President follows the deeply inclusive and infallible directions of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), whose grace touches every poor Americans' checkbook via UBI, fedTokens and a Smart Phone with iris bioinformation keychain.

Cool. Conspiracy Bingo. I like this game. I am just waiting on Clinton is a lizard person and I have Bingo!

This goes way, way beyond partisan politics.

“Late stage capitalism” is a term that more and more people are going to become familiar with in the coming years as profit-driven corporations continue to plunder basic necessities like housing and healthcare and put them behind paywalls that fewer and fewer can afford.

The US government has done a good job historically of keeping food prices low enough to prevent mass starvation since that’s a major leading indicator of civil unrest, but the rent is too damn high and it’s only gonna get uglier.

High rent is caused by limitations on market activity. It is caused by zoning and regulations that prevent building housing, or make building housing more expensive.

You are blaming capitalism for a problem that is entirely created by poor government regulation.

But hey, if you prefer, check out what life is in like in late stage socialism. There they built walls to keep people in instead of to keep people out.

Right or wrong, many people will see it this way…under Trump the economy was good for average Americans and under Biden it’s the worst it has been in decades. Joe and Jane Sixpack don’t care about GDP or the government’s official unemployment or inflation numbers. They see the price at the gas pumps and in the grocery store and their dwindling bank account balances.

Rent, food, and fuel inflation has been brutal for most Americans.

In other words, "it's the economy, stupid"

(That phrase was used by James Carville to help Bill Clinton get elected in 1992)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com