• context [fae/faer, fae/faer]
    ·
    5 months ago

    i'm reading the transcript, seems to be "but if the economy is actually great then why are americans big mad about it?" in the form of ezra klein interviewing his wife for 90 minutes, with notable insights like "actually things are pretty expensive, like healthcare and housing, so maybe people don't like that"

    Back in September, the Economist put out this interesting model that pulled in a bunch of different bits of economic data, so things like the unemployment rate, inflation, gas prices, the S&P 500. And they used all that to predict how people would feel about the economy. And they showed that from 1980 to 2019. All these bits of data, they do predict how people feel about the economy.

    And then the pandemic hits and the model completely falls apart.

    By late 2023, the model is looking at low unemployment, it’s looking at falling inflation, it’s looking at a great stock market, and it predicts consumer sentiment. It’s going to be 98 out of 100, 98 out of 100. That is Joe Biden gets his face on a coin territory. Here, in reality, the actual consumer sentiment was 69. That is Joe Biden might lose re-election territory.

    yeah turns out extrapolating weighted multivariable economic regressions isn't much more reliable than haruspicy

    but it's funny, throughout the interview ezra klein keeps referring to "my theory"

    And part of my theory of this, having been an economics reporter during that period, is we just weren’t paying much attention to prices. We were paying so much attention to unemployment. [etc] And then the pandemic hits and everything scrambles for a while. And then inflation comes. And inflation makes prices salient.

    like the whole "theory" seems to be that people are simply noticing higher prices in a way that they (meaning himself, really) weren't before even though actually they're better off like the data shows

    there's some fun quotes in here, though:

    Sometimes, I think the problem with the greedflation thesis was simply the name. Greed made it sound like they were doing something evil, when what corporations do naturally is try to find the price at which they can balance market demand and the highest profits they can possibly make.

    margaret-thatcher thanks, ezra!

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      People think that what I do is evil, but the reality is I'm simply doing what crypt ghouls do naturally: developing the optimal hunting strategies to balance the local child population with the supply of succulent organ meat.

      • Beaver [he/him]
        ·
        5 months ago

        Ezra must think that the lesson of The Scorpion and the Frog is that you must simply accept that you're going to get stung every time you cross the river.

        • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
          ·
          5 months ago

          Fuck that's good. Like yeah I knew that liberals respect for other people was tenuous at the best of times, but it shocks me how little respect The Adults In The Room have for themselves.

      • context [fae/faer, fae/faer]
        ·
        5 months ago

        woke leftists like to ignore the incentives crypt ghouls actually have to maintain a robust, healthy local child population, not to mention the large financial donations they make to the children's hospital and organages. oops! i mean orphanages!

    • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      Sure everything has doubled in price, but your stock portfolio has also doubled in value, so you should be happy

      • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]
        ·
        5 months ago

        What, you don't own any stocks? Well that's just bad fiscal management! What have you spending all your money on?!?

        • DragonBallZinn [he/him]
          ·
          5 months ago

          I think that explains so much. They assume everyone is a shareholder first, a homeowner second, a side hustle owner third, and a worker last.

          • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]
            ·
            5 months ago

            I think they just take 25% of income going to savings for granted. Everyone has a 401k, an IRA, an emergency fund, and if they're really doing well, an investment account. "Savings* to these people are their fun money. It's what they dip into because the new phone just dropped and they want it now, not later. Or it's what they plan to spend on large purchases, and don't even begin to think about having to compromise their lifestyle to afford a new fridge or washing machine or bi-annual vacation. They have no concept of people whom have exclusively a couple thousand or tens of thousand--and some amount of equity in their home if they're lucky-- and nothing else to their name. For the bottom 3 quintiles of wealth in this country, any rise in the stock market is literally immaterial to their well-being.

            "When It Comes to the Value of Their Holdings, the Wealthy Far Outpace the Rest-- When measuring the value of stock holdings, wealthier Americans have more money invested in the market. Families in the top 10% of incomes held 70% of the value of all stocks in 2019, with a median portfolio of $432,000. The bottom 60% of earners held only 7% of stocks by value. The median middle-class household owned $15,000 worth of stock." -US News article

      • Abracadaniel [he/him]
        ·
        5 months ago

        if everything has doubled in price, then my stock portfolio doubling in value means it hasn't actually gained any value in real terms stonks-down