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Kel Varnsen's avatar

Browbeating people with macro economic data will do little to change that their own household economy isn’t doing so hot.

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Permanently Confused@68's avatar

'Zactically correct.

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pstokk's avatar

The point of Krugman and others is that most households are doing pretty well, and that they indicate that when polled, but that they insist that the economy is terrible anyway.

Nobody is browbeating households that happen to not be doing well. But statistically most households are doing well compared to pre-pandemic trends.

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Kel Varnsen's avatar

People may be spending more because stuff costs more.

Krugmans assertion that people must be doing well because consumer spending is doing well seems a bit flawed

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pstokk's avatar

Pretty sure Krugman knows how to analyze consumer spending data in real terms and according to previous levels.

In any case I believe his primary line of argument was about real wage trends.

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Kel Varnsen's avatar

I generally like and agree with Krugman. But he is not immune from error His views on free trade were a big one.

And as far as wages. Yes some are up. But average people only saw single digit increases. The numbers are skewed as always by the wealthiest and their obscene pay increases.

If you are an average person sitting at the kitchen table paying your bills, any increase you may have seen was more than gobbled by inflation and greedflation

Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating for more Republican voodoo economics quite the opposite -that would be way worse

But these opinion pieces that we are supposed to feel good about the macro economy and just shut and and accept the not so great micro economy are not the way to win people over

Even one of Biden’s top economic advisors Jared Bernstein has admitted they are not doing a good enough job getting bidenomics to the masses

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pstokk's avatar

Again, wage increases have outpaced inflation recently. More so for lower levels of the income scale. The data is readily available. Krugman is not wrong about the data.

If, anecdotally, you know people who have not been included in the trend, that does not mean the trend doesn't exist.

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Permanently Confused@68's avatar

NONE of us are included in the trend! Well, 71% of us anyway. Jesus. Shit's expensive. Period. Toyota gets $200 bucks an hour to work on my truck. What the actual hell?

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pstokk's avatar

I'd be interested to see your source for 71%. You mean 71% whose wages or income generally haven't kept pace with recent inflation?

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