The world is starting 2024 on an optimistic economic note, as inflation fades globally and growth remains more resilient than many forecasters had expected. Yet one country stands out for its surprising strength: the United States.
After a sharp pop in prices rocked the world in 2021 and 2022 — fueled by supply chain breakdowns tied to the pandemic, then oil and food price spikes related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — many nations are now watching inflation recede. And that is happening without the painful recessions that many economists had expected as central banks raised interest rates to bring inflation under control.
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Part of the reason that economic growth has been so surprisingly strong in the United States is simple: The American government has continued to spend a lot of money.
Government expenditures as a share of overall output hovered around 35 percent in America in the years leading up to the pandemic, based on I.M.F. data. But in 2020 and 2021, they jumped above 40 percent as the government responded to the coronavirus with about $5 trillion in relief and stimulus to people, businesses, institutions, and state and local governments.
Both states and households have only slowly spent down the savings they amassed during those pandemic years, so the money has continued to trickle through the economy like a slow-release booster shot. On top of that, government spending has remained elevated as the Biden administration has begun to make sweeping infrastructure and climate investments.
Getting real tired of constantly seeing news articles saying “The economy is healthy! The US has never been richer.”
Meanwhile, cost of food has never been higher. Rent has never been higher. People are still getting laid off left and right.
I feel like I am being gaslit by economists. Are economists all just yes men who are afraid to tell their clients that their practices are unsustainable?
Believe it or not, layoffs are lower than average, according to data going back to 2000: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL
I think it’s because layoffs (especially in tech) are getting a lot of attention in the news now.
But I agree with you about food prices.
I mean, believe it or not the rate of people dying from infectious diseases decreased in 2020 compared to where it was at in 1918
Like, I guess I’m glad we’re doing better than 2008 and 2020 and other meltdown years like that, but with years like that weighing on the average better than average doesn’t mean much
The poster compared it to average and you spun that to bring compared to the worst years. Wow.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/us/politics/biden-food-prices.html
Ugh, I swear every single issue with this administration is just “We understand there is a problem, but you can’t expect us to do anything about it!”
Really, it’s Congress who should be trying to tackle the issues but they don’t want to make decisions so they’ve basically relinquished their powers to the President who can only govern by executive decision and the Supreme Court who were supposed to be the ones making decisions on unclear laws. At the end of the day, the President only has so much power and Congress is where people are failing to do their jobs.
I am so incredibly fucking tired of hearing this bullshit excuse over and over and over. Yes, Congress sucks and should do more, no, that does not excuse the Biden administration’s unwillingness to play hard ball with investigations and law suits and executive orders and the million and two other things they could be doing.
“But the courts would ju-”
I don’t care and neither do a lot of other voters. If a court throws your executive order out, change a superficial word or two and issue it again, and make them throw it out all over again. If a court enjoins you from doing something that needs doing, put on a silly hat and keep doing it, and tell the court “no, this is totally different, I’m doing it while wearing a silly hat, your order didn’t mention anything about this silly hat.” And when they enjoin your silly hat, get a silly wig and keep doing what needs doing.
Under our current laws a determined executive branch can move a hell of a lot faster than judicial or congressional oversight can, they just need to be willing to go for it. Until I see dozens of attorneys for federal agencies sitting in jail cells for contempt of court, don’t tell me this administration is really trying because they’re just not.
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Sounds like you’re okay with Fascism as long as the party you like is in power.
a) a democratically elected authoritarian government is not fascism. If I said “throw all the Mormons into prison camps and conquer Alberta for their tar sands, and if a court tells you no break out the silly hats and insinuate the judge is mormon” that would be fascism.
b) I’m not okay with it, but compared to sitting around wringing our hands while things get worse it seems like the lesser of two evils.
Yes, the lesser of two evils, the thing that brought us to our current situation in the first place. How about no evils? How about we actually hold those we elect accountable rather than just letting them throw up their hands and hope the President does something.
I know you and I are only two people but shouldn’t we encourage dialogue and finding common ground? I know one party is out of their mind right now but taking their agency from them and saying you don’t know what to do because your stupid and I know better doesn’t help, it breeds more discontent.
I agree with holding those we elect accountable, which is why I’m holding Biden accountable for the fact that his administration hasn’t been trying hard enough to help people. I breezed last it for the sake of the conversation here, but I absolutely believe our legislature can and should do more, and there’s some things even I will admit are going to require congress (e.g. I think we really need higher taxes on the wealthy and I don’t think there’s anything the president alone can do about that), but there are tons of things the administration could be doing that they’re not.
I’m not sure exactly what this means in the context of this conversation, but I like answering this question when it comes up,
Yes, I think we should encourage dialogue and finding common ground, and actually I think I am, just in a more long term way. See, I have tried debating with Republicans to change their minds, and I have tried negotiating with Republicans to see if they would be willing to support policies I want in exchange for policies they want, and I have seen elected leaders do those things as well, and, well, look at how that’s turned out for us. So, I have become deeply convinced that they either can’t or don’t want to empathize with us or be fair to us, they just want to dominate us and take all the stuff they can consume and own. With that being the case, I think the only way we get them to behave better is to make them believe that it’s in their own interest to do so. Put another way, I think in the short term we need to make it so unbelievably painful for them to keep being bigoted and selfish that they’ll want to act tolerant and charitable whether they genuinely feel that way or not. Long term, we’ll all find that it’s a lot easier to just skip to the part where we treat each other with respect instead of going through the effort of fighting each other first, and I think that’s the only way this world gets better.
I think the point of that article is to point out the absurdity of the top level comment that implies these economic articles never talk about how prices are still high.
He figured it out boys. Time to get a real degree, the business major scam isn’t working anymore.
Because if people stop spending out of recession fears, then the economy will trully tank.
Rich people’s yacht money is increasing, so the economy is strong. That’s where all the money is, so that’s what drives the indicators.
Every year is a year where costs of food and costs of living have never been higher because they never go down.
Economists are zealous advocates for their employers. Which is fine. If I hire a lawyer I expect them to be on my side. The only problem is when we pretend that they aren’t just saying what their employer wants them to say.
These are statements that are literally almost always true. Prices always rise by design and there are always some companies going through hard times and paying people off.
Maybe you have an argument that it’s “unsustainable” and there is no doubt that the previous period of inflation is still putting massive pressure on people’s finances, but at the same time the outlook is good for the economy.
It might be tough to hear that because you are struggling, but you are not the economy, and where you are right now is not necessarily where you’ll be down the road in a year.
I mean prices of many food items have risen way faster than the rate of inflation within the past couple years.
A grocery run that was once $100 in 2020 is now $150 or more today.
Meanwhile household debt is sky rocketing because those families can’t afford their necessities anymore and have little recourse but to put it on credit cards.
Meanwhile families are hitting the streets at record levels while layoffs are happening across the board.
Meanwhile tent cities are popping up all over the country at levels never seen before in the last 50 years.
Sick take bro /s
This is because you don’t realise how bad life is elsewhere. You have a good home with running water and heating. That alone is something hundreds of millions can’t even dream of. Access to fresh drinking water alone puts you, as an American, way above many people.
American population is rich as fuck compared to the rest of the world.
This kind of “be grateful for what you have” thought process is reductive, and only benefits the elite, corporations, and oligarchs.
If everyone thought that way we wouldn’t have labor laws or regulations. Every worker would be a happy peasant, living in abject poverty and squalor.
It is OK to want more, that’s human nature. But original point was that economy is not healthy. Which is completely false.
Their point was that the economy is detached from the citizens.
It doesn’t matter if the economy is doing well, that GDP is rising, etc. when the actual quality of life of the people is worse than it was before.
Quality of life in the US is among the best and economy is not detached. That’s the thing.
Don’t you guys not even have public transport or public healthcare? Vuvuzuela has that. No problems.
Who us guys? We have everything here in the UK.
Oh I assumed you were American! Well hey fellow Brit, sadly I got some bad news for you:
No we don’t, our public transport is dysfunctional due to endless strikes (which are due to shit pay and shit conditions) and the NHS is practically non-existent for dentistry, mental care and more due to years of neo-liberal austerity policies and “market solutions” that involve transferring money from our public purse to the fascists-to-be’s mates.
At least the US has brute force of capital to cushion it if you’re working some jobs and don’t have any serious health problems.
Here in the UK even senior software devs struggle to make rent. We live with exactly the level of public services the US has in practice and we have no money for alternatives. Absolute shithole country. Government is literally landlords. Only remaining export is Transphobia.
It’s not human nature, it’s the relationship to means of production between the capitalist and proletariat classes, turning the wheels of history.
There are no classes in a capitalist society.
Lmao
https://usafacts.org/articles/us-households-with-plumbing-poverty/
But sure. Homes in colder parts of the U.S. can keep heated. They might have to use a wood stove and keep themselves in the one room the wood stove heats, but they can keep it heated.
Yeah, delusion is unreal… Americans…
Please explain exactly how showing you the results of a census that explains that half a million people in America do not, in fact, have running water make me delusional?
Are you claiming I created the website I linked you to? Because that would be delusional.
First of all, half a million is a tiny proportion of US. It’s not even one city worth. Second, who are these people and where do they live? Are they your regular drug junkies who forfeited life in a modern society for their drug of choice? Or maybe they’re scientists living in a remote location? In any case these are not part of the general public and they are a very tiny proportion.
This is an extremely different situation when compared to India, for example. Where 91 million people don’t have access to drinkable water. That’s 91 million. And not just running water at home - any fresh drinkable water at all! And 746 million people don’t have access to sanitation facilities at home. Read: they don’t have a toilet and a bathroom. That’s double the US population! And pretty much half of Indian.
These oh so poor half a mil Americans… The US economy must be doing so bad!
I’m sorry… are you suggesting that someone deserves to not have running water if they use drugs? Should they also not deserve to have food? Should they just starve to death?
Play stupid games - win stupid prizes. Adults must face the consequences of their actions.
Why is no running water the consequence of addiction?
You are the most American here thinking the rest of the world is some sort of savage tribe living in dirt and hunting mammoths bruh 💀