Maybe re-title this, “Why the DNC Definition of Good Economy Doesn’t Actually Include the Majority of Americans”. Instead the hosts play peek a boo with their cognitive biases while they pretend to ignore their political allegiance. I’m glad the comment section isn’t eating up the propaganda at least.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” ― George Orwell, 1984

The fact is that the measures we use for our economy, GDP growth, stock market, unemployment, really don't do a good job of painting the picture of how real people are actually living. 50 years ago, when wealth was distributed more evenly, having a job meant you were doing all right. You could afford a comfortable life. GDP growth meant more money in your pocket. Not so much anymore. The fact is that after 50 years of hollowing out the middle class, the average salary on the average job is not enough to live an avaerage life. It's barely enough to keep you alive and fed. GDP growth means a new yacht for some CEO. That's been the case for a while now, it's just that now it's finally gotten bad enough for everyone to notice.

I didn’t realize that the WEF owned The Atlantic

I’m making more money than ever from only paying my employees 1$ an hour. And they say the economy is doing bad.

I replaced the battery in my 21-year-old Honda a few days ago.The old one had cost $99 five years ago. The new one, which is a 3-year rather than 5-year battery was $229. In that same 5 years the tax assessment on my modest house doubled. My grocery bill doubled, and I am feeding 2 people where in 2021, I was feeding 3. Copays and deductables on my government-employer-sponsored health insurance have tripled. Sure it's nice to know the equity in my home is increasing, but it does me no good now, and it is curtailed by the growing list of maintenance issues that I cannot afford to have repaired and which are beyond my DIY skills and physical abilities as a 60-year-old woman. Perhaps I should sell the house and rent? Not possible. For the same price as my mortgage, I could find a studio apartment, however, my mortgage payment is 52% of my take-home pay. Rental agents require that take home pay be 3x the monthly rental. So I would simply be throwing out a $200+ application fee each time I inquired and was denied. You say the wealth gap has narrowed. The economy is better. You are wrong.

It may be the case that my perception is skewed due to absurd increase in groceries, but then there is the absurd cost of auto repairs and parts, the absurd increase in insurances and the absurd increase in heating costs. So how is that doing better for someone on a fixed income? I was around in the seventies and early eighties. I remember stagflation. I could still buy food, repair my car, insure it and heat my house. I will never be able to own a new car again or purchase another home. Yes, the economy is doing really well!

@ult1m4t30wn4g3

5 ай бұрын

The economy is doing really great! (if you're rich that is) Productivity and wealth creation is higher than ever! Although, the wealth gap is also getting larger, so if you're not already rich and getting richer, then you're poor and getting poorer. To solve the issues you're experiencing, you simply need to be rich instead of poor!

@direwolf6234

4 ай бұрын

that's what rondey dangerfield said .. 'it takes alot of money to be rich' ..@@ult1m4t30wn4g3

@cgrsworld

4 ай бұрын

I am so glad you mentioned insurance!! Groceries and car insurance are insane. My car insurance has increased TWICE in one year by $20 per month. They blame "market conditions". And I've never made a claim in the decades I've been with them. Groceries where I live (shopping at the 'cheap' place) are now $75 per bag. And the other thing that is killing me are all the damned subscriptions! Everything takes a subscription now. That's another $100/month easy. Our 'great' economy is NOT trickling down. @The Atlantic - please take note!

@Inaf1987

4 ай бұрын

Why can't Washington scrap biofuel subsidies? They only provide 12 units of energy for the 10 that are needed to make them, let's increase the supply of food to combat inflation. Another problem we have is labels on food items, they have early expiration dates so that we buy more from big food, would be better if these dates were determined by the government.

@direwolf6234

4 ай бұрын

and then there is the increased use of fertilizers & soil erosion .. usda does make the guidelines for expiration dates .. they are conservative and can usually go beyond it ...@@Inaf1987

Inflation has everything costing significantly more.....yet my income remained the same. It has forced me into making severe cutbacks for just the basic necessities of life. Reasonably comfortable and content prior to inflation.....now struggling to survive. Personally, I find it very insulting when political pundits keep trying to say that everything is going well and we should be happy.

@KoreyFoolStrike

5 ай бұрын

It's so simple, you have to be a political puppet not to understand it. F*** the Atlantic and these two pedantic assholes in particular.

@direwolf6234

4 ай бұрын

yes when you look carefully far too many of the pundits were born on 3rd base .. wealthy parents private schools elite universities professional connections .. they live in a different universe ..

@matturner6890

4 ай бұрын

Stop taking the party line about the latest war they're telling you how to feel about, then. That pfp is cringy. You're not helping any Ukrainian citizens with it.

@lamnol

4 ай бұрын

@@matturner6890 Ironic because the US funding wars is part of the economic issue

@cgrsworld

4 ай бұрын

100% agree!! Let the pundits swap places with us just for a day.

It’s not that the economy isn’t doing well. Only a select few are benefiting from this country’s growing largesse. This analysis is a snow job. Inflation is really corporate greed. Our groceries are ridiculously up. Car maintenance cost increased at the same rate. Home improvement is jacked out of site. Healthcare is bankrupting too many. There’s just comfort with too many not having enough. Workers are not seeing enough compensation for their efforts.

@cgrsworld

4 ай бұрын

corporate greed is spot on.

@Inaf1987

4 ай бұрын

Why can't Washington scrap biofuel subsidies? They only provide 12 units of energy for the 10 that are needed to make them, let's increase the supply of food to combat inflation. Another problem we have is labels on food items, they have early expiration dates so that we buy more from big food, would be better if these dates were determined by the government.

“by many standard measures the economy” what does this MEAN. if ppl can’t afford anything, then the economy is bad. why is this so hard to understand??

Egg heads. The increase in food prices comes as a result of a global food event. The assessment that food producers are "winners" is out of touch. Fertilizer price went up by a factor of three. Farmers are not "winning", they're operating on historically low margjns. Yes, everyone has a problem with profiteering middle men, but overall food is a low profit business. The Chinese are buying the entire crops before they even come out of the fields. Other countries with big dollar reserves are converting them to American food exports. The anxiety is real, people. It's not your imagination that there is global food insecurity, and that is what you feel.

Atlantic started doing parody!

Food is a non-elastic expense. We all need to buy it every week. But the tighter your budget the more a change in food prices affects your overall financial well being. There are many people for whom the change in food prices means the inability to travel to see family on the holidays or go on a vacation, go out to a restaurant, hold a big dinner for those you love, or even just buy your family's favourite food on a regular basis. In the case of English muffins (which my wife likes) that they mentioned, not buy them on a regular basis anymore. I couldn't help but feel that the people on this podcast, while smart and thoughtful, were too far removed from this reality to understand the stress this causes to large proportion of the population.

@acamiln8354

Ай бұрын

"Food is a non-elastic expense" Yes, it is.

@acamiln8354

Ай бұрын

I mean it IS elastic.

Costs for housing, interest payments, groceries, insurance, restaurant food, electricity, auto repair are much higher than they were just a few years ago , remain so, are not likely to come down. Regular folks have been hammered with this. How would they not remain stressed and grumpy about “their personal economics”?

Journalism has never been more grotesque

Maybe there is a relationship between incomes and costs - that under a threshold we feel the up and down changes accurately. BUT outside that threshold no matter what they do we don't feel it. A critically wounded man can recognize both that the bleeding has slowed and that it wont make a difference for him.

2/3 of Americans "own" their home - I suspect actual ownership is a lot lower, that 2/3 is folks rent-to-owning their home from the bank. And since everyone needs a place to live, having your home value go up does you no good unless it's going up faster than other places you could move to. Since all home prices are increasing, those net worth gains are on paper only, they don't do the owners any good. For folks that have children entering the housing market, the increase in home prices is a massive negative, those kids either can't move out or need big parental subsidies to do so. Increases in unrealizable paper wealth just don't make up for this. Also in most states, increasing home prices leads to property tax hikes, with no corresponding increase in income.

"Have nothing. Eat bugs. Be happy."

The usual metrics of economic health have always been misguided. GDP, inflation, employment rate, stocks and assets are all great metrics for rich people. Real measures of economic health are poverty rates, life expectancy rates, levels of health, inequality adjusted human development, you know things that actually impact all Americans as human beings not as consumers or workers. GDP in particular is an especially nasty metric of economics, world war or other major crises would help GDP blossom while also creating so much suffering and death.

CORPORATE GREED, CORPORATE GREED, CORPORATE GREED. That's what I blame. "Inflation" was a GREAT excuse to screw over regular folks.

The standard measures we use for the economy are for the economy, not the quality of a person's life. Obviously "number go up on chart" seems good at face value, but most people are still getting poorer. It's really not hard to understand.

"let them eat cake"

@direwolf6234

4 ай бұрын

from the day old rack ...

Before inflation went up during the pandemic, banks were offering mortgage refinancing with no closing costs. I did this on my modest condo and pay much less a month than I would if i were renting a similar place. As a result, I can live in an expensive city on a civil servant salary that is probably lower than you might think.

@direwolf6234

4 ай бұрын

timing is everything .. you hit the jackpot !!

Why A Good Economy Feels Like A Bad One, or Why The Atlantic Feels Like Propaganda

@CornyBum

4 ай бұрын

preach

December 30, gallon distilled water @ Wal-Mart was $.99. January 2, gallon distilled water @ Wal-Mart was $1.34. Will it kill me?...will it piss me off?...

This is like when Time magazine didn't put Ground Zero on the front cover after 9/11 and instead had a cover reading "why stress is good for you". The tone-deafness is worse than at a karaoke bar. End this rag of a publication already.

@1ireneaustin

4 ай бұрын

they are financed by Rothschilds and other NGOs . Their subscriptions don't pay for this crazy crazy gaslighting.

I don't give a shit about your stats, my food and energy costs are way up and not going down.

"lies are truth, war is peace, inflation is good, etc." Where, pray tell, have we heard this before? Anybody?

The doubled price of some goods is in the model? Because that’s what it is. People barely notice the year to year inflation but the extreme price gouging we are experiencing for food is outrageous.

I hope the public sentiment will improve as we get real wage increases. Over the last four years, wages have increased by 20% anc prices have increased by 20%. That frustrates people. Basically everything went up 20%. Along with the pandemic. It probably doesnt feel economically great yet because, remember real wages were higher in 2021 than now. Real wages are around where they were in early 2022. And although unemployment was alot higher then, still, most people were working and 2021 was a record year of job creation. In other words, if you were employed two years ago, your real wage maybe less today than two years ago. The swifter the real wage growth in the coming months, the better for the president's re-election chances. And also: It seems to me the essententials are food, gasoline, and shelter. The first two, wages are rising faster than inflation, by alot with gas and by a respectable amount with food because food inflation is only 2.7% and wage inflation is 4.1% (12 month period of Dec 22 to Dec 23.) Shelter is the thing that's depressing. Shelter, your apartment, that's important. It's disinflating now but still much too high Wage growth is staying around 4%. Inflation is 3-3.5% in both the year over year and the last six months annualized. We want real wage growth over 1% throughout 2024. And preferrably 1.5 or 2%.

How can you have a talk on the economy of any country and not point out the clear and distinctive global monopoly of all large corporations through a handful of asset management companies that band together and work as one proven by their unified actions and lack of competition. If you had studied business studies in school you would know that a monopoly on just say supermarkets would be a total disaster of the market. The monopoly is global, on every single market and industry. The game is over if you hadn't noticed and until every single monopoly is dissolved there is no economy its only a dictatorship. The game is over we lose. Now they can do as they please and no one can stop them. Buckle up, grab your popcorn and get ready to watch the show cause this is the end.

Why can't Washington scrap biofuel subsidies? They only provide 12 units of energy for the 10 that are needed to make them, let's increase the supply of food to combat inflation. Another problem we have is labels on food items, they have early expiration dates so that we buy more from big food, would be better if these dates were determined by the government.

this podcast makes me feel so on the margins of society. my daily food budget is 13 dollars Canadian per day. i use two of those 13 dollars for takeout: four coffees a week so i can sit in a cafe for 2-3 hours and be part of normal society; and one pizza a month. so, 11 dollars a day for all other food (including tea bags, spices, oil) isn't a lot when grocery prices are rising. this podcast makes it sound like a 12% increase in groceries makes people "irrationally" worried about money. but if you're on a fixed and limited income like i am, it's not so irrational. it means that even frozen vegetables are a food i have to portion out instead of eat as much as i want, and that fresh vegetables are not affordable unless they're on sale. [sadly, i live with housemates, so i do not have space to buy much in bulk using the fridge] --- some details: 11 dollars per day makes things like oranges into super-luxuries, apples and sweet potatoes and mushrooms into semi-luxuries. two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil is about 55 cents. a pound of carrots is a dollar. a head of quality garlic is 55 cents. but beans (from dry) and rice and potatoes and lentils need oil or butter and spices and some vegetable to help make it go down. (thankfully, oatmeal goes down with sugar and cinammon and peanut butter) i feel so on the margins when i hear him say that six dollars for English muffins is not so much money for him. for me, buying the nice bread for 4.54 is a special buy. i need to get the cheap 2 dollar bread.

@direwolf6234

4 ай бұрын

let's see $11/day x 30 days = $330/month for food .. you can eat pretty well for that .. if you buy the basic staples for $5 each of milk bread eggs potatoes cheese oranges apples chicken peanut butter jelly (10 items x $5 = $50/week) .. still leaves $130/month for any extras .. and where can you get 4 coffees and a pizza for that amount ??

@silpheedTandy

4 ай бұрын

@@direwolf6234 ah, yes, another person who likely isn't living through this situation, telling me that it should be easy, and putting the burden on me to justify why it's not easy. you underestimate how much five dollars can buy you, especially without a car. five dollars of oranges, apples, and cheese at regular price isn't a lot. your list does not include things like oil, spices, garlic, carrots, hot sauce, onions. these "extras" aren't cheap. the most economical foods are peanut butter, rice, dry beans and lentils. the next most economical foods are potatoes, bread. i have to eat cheese to get calcium, and i have to take vitamins. i've done the math using a spreadsheet, and a pared down staple diet at Wal-Mart that only uses these foods costs about 5 dollars per day. but that includes minimal oil and no hot sauce or spices, and it's difficult for me to choke down a repetitive diet without it. i also need hot drinks to focus on school [80 cents for 1.2L of decaf green tea with cloves, 60 cents for five glasses of cocoa powder dissolved in hot water]. i love garlic; that is 55 cents per bulb, which i can eat per day. olive oil and hot sauce per day is about 60 cents to help me eat a repetitive diet. a cup of frozen vegetables is about 60-80 cents; butter is about 30 cents for those vegetables. onions (bought in a 3 pound bag) are about 60-70 cents per onion. so adding these other things i want to eat daily to the pared down 5 dollars a day, it comes out to about 8 dollars a day for the "basic" diet. semi-luxuries like apples or oranges, cookies or coffee-made-at-home, olives, or the protein bars that i grab and go when i need to go to school and stay at school for many hours a day, these need to fit into the 3 dollars of "semi-luxury" budget that is past the 8 dollars. your overly quickly done "10 items for five dollars, you should be eating well, you're complaining for no good reason" deeply underestimates how much five dollars for each of those ten items can buy you, and doesn't think i should be allowed to have much olive oil, butter, spices, hot sauce, tea, cocoa powder, garlic, onions, protein bars, olives. these "extras" as you put them dont' fit into the 130$ a month so easily. if YOU actually had to live on 11 dollars of food per week [plus 2 dollars per week for four coffees per week], you wouldn't be so glibly and confidently dismissing my stressful situation, saying that i can "eat pretty well". i can't. it's stressful, and oranges are definitely luxuries. anyways, i'm done trying to justify to you, who likely lives on more than 11 dollars of food a day, why it's stressful. you can sit in your armchair and pull out some lazy numbers and declare that It ShOuLd bE eAsY and think that five dollars of each of those items are sufficient and hand-wave away that anything else i want should easily fit into the remaining 130$. you don't have to do the math and the hard thinking. i do.

@direwolf6234

4 ай бұрын

can you apply for food stamps or other assistance ??@@silpheedTandy

@matturner6890

4 ай бұрын

@@direwolf6234 way to reveal that your maid buys your groceries or you're just being a dick to a fellow regular poor person. If so, why??

@mrwri

4 ай бұрын

Maybe don't order takeout? How does it cost you 13 dollars a day to eat. You don't need to sit in a cafe to be "normal". A lot of the language you are using sounds very much like addict behaviour.

I haven't watched the video yet but the title makes me think its just going to try to gaslight me.

for the top 10% that controls 80% of the wealth (and owns 80% of the stocks & bonds) the economy is and has always done well .. the idea of gross economic indicators being 'positive' has little to do with everyday people's lives when the median salary in america is $78,000/yr .. who remembers the movie 'trading places' .. ?? get some CEOs to live on that for a year ...

Home improvement is jacked!

yield curve has been inverted for over a year. if that doesn't signal a depression coming i don't know what is. also most holiday purchases were done with "buy now, pay later" schemes and financing...that's supposed to be a healthy economy? or maybe the fact that financial elites were conspicuously selling their stock shares for cash? 2:47 "inflation is going down" nice wordplay. the RATE of inflation went down, the damage is already done and wages have not gone up enough in response.

not only the topic was very interesting but i need to mention it, this was one of the most pleasing podcasts to listen to, I loved the sense of humor and how the conversation was held on the same level, and most importantly, for me - person with ADHD, no one was disturbing anyone, cutting into their steam of words! It makes me so stressed listening to a conversation where one person is interrupting and ending someone else's sentences. Thanks The Atlantic, would like to hear more of those two.

@worldadventuretravel

4 ай бұрын

TL/DR: "Don't believe your lying bank accounts/bills." -The Atlantic Just when you think State media gaslighting has gone as far as it can, THIS horseshit airs. The only thing sadder is that there are actually still people dumb enough to believe it.

I was always taught by my parents that you dont want the price of houses to be high, that it's in fact a very selfish thing to buy a house and then hope the price goes up so much that you make millions, because you make those millions off the struggle of people less able to afford even a simpler home just because they were already worse off. I now own the same property my parents owned, I hope the price drops, not because I'm an idiot and I want to kneecap myself, but because the younger generation is literally losing their minds being told to just work harder as those who hold land keep holding it as the prices go to the moon. Nearly globally we are pulling a crypto scheme but for housing and we see it as a good thing as society breaks around it. Also re groceries, I know the economy isnt horrible, but it also isnt a firestorm as we'd come to expect from decades of bubbles upon bubbles. When you buy a handful of groceries you would prior buy as just inexpensive necessities and get the same bill as if you'd stocked your fridge with everything you needed it makes you pause for a moment. Now of course this is part of anti inflationary measures, but we can only hope that those measures have their intended effects soon otherwise people are going to be starving and losing their minds because not only is everything expensive but the most necessary of necessities is becoming more and more of a struggle and shock.

@lamnol

4 ай бұрын

Your parents sound broke. Real estate changed my life

English muffins at Trader Joe’s have been $2 for six for as long as I can remember in NYC. Why’s is there a discrepancy regionally about something so simple with so few ingredients?

Human rights are investment opportunities.

Looks like the atlantic is following in the la times footsteps.

Gaslighting propaganda from The Atlantic.

@1ireneaustin

4 ай бұрын

per usuelle

Did bottom end wages increase the most or did bottom end wages increase the most relative to inflation in the past years? It doesn't matter if they went up the most especially since that's also a function of where they started. Also, is corporate profit considered a "wage" (probably not). How much did corporations rake in relatively to everyone else, meanwhile a lot of Americans are having to pay for that... for what exactly? So the business can maintain their self set goals? If things society considers as basic needs for each individual isn't actually obtained by each individual, then that's what drives the mind to consider if the economy is bad or good. You give people a high enough wage to have their own home, buy food, and have transportation, and not have to work until depression and you wouldn't have these problems. But no, we'd rather pamper the corporations and write policy for them. Corporate media is ridiculous and you will pay eventually.

So, the average (ignorant) person is more concerned with the price of Doritos than the prospect of being ruled by a mad king. Maybe democracy isn't what it's cracked up to be.

Mysterious propaganda illusions prevail herein.

It's no mystery. American and the world economy is still unsustainable and unfair with huge disparities. Nothing changed, we put a tape piece on a breach. We need big big things going on to change the population sentiment

I expected better from the Atlantic Do you professional, college degreed, liberals ever interact w people who work in the service industry or gig economy? Delivery drivers, food service folk, cleaning staff? Even health care & education people? There was no mention of student loans in your story. Nor medical costs. Plus, wealth & poverty are relative measures. Our inequality is off the charts. How are the working class supposed to feel good when our boss, Jeff Bezos, makes more in an hour than we will in a lifetime. Also, our life expectancy, in the US, is going down. Hard to feel cheery when more people than ever are dropping dead around you

By every metric we are in collapse. Please find a real job instead of propaganda which is the job you have now. I used to subscribe and pay annually for the Atlantic. Now they are so far blue coast nonsense. We KNOW the economy is horrible! You can't change that by changing all the metrics to skew toward your paradigm. I have 2 degrees, one a doctorate. I was in all AP courses and so if you think I''m an uneducated person you would be WRONG. These young people right now have no jobs, no future, can't buy a home and can't start a family. Inflation is so out of control. Your inflation numbers are all manipulated and all truly knowledgeable and objectively critical persons' analysis of the current situation is that the inequality has grown to staggering heights not seen since the 1920s.

TAX THE RICH

Y'all are so beyond irrelevant.

Can't wait to watch @HasanAbi 's reaction to this

double speak

As of now, this video has 115 likes and 301 dislikes, according to the web browser extension Return KZread Dislike.

The people making these videos are so out of touch. Food and housing, the two most basic needs, are ridiculously expensive.

We do need to keep in mind that inflation is occurring world wide. Not just in the USA.

Two extremely out of of touch people who purely look at NUMBERS and are paid by WEF. Propagandaaaaaa

Hmmm, propaganda.

Trump is telling everyone things are very bad. That is a very important input. It’s a Trump issue.

@Rockyzach88

5 ай бұрын

Nah, it's not just the cult that is saying this. Unfortunately he will benefit from this though.

@nunyabiznes7446

4 ай бұрын

I'm a lefty. The economy fucking sucks right now. Wages compared to cost of living have me barely breaking even most months, and in a lot of ways I'm one of the lucky ones. Biden's achievements don't mean squat to the average voter if all of society feels like a company town.

@CornyBum

4 ай бұрын

You're telling yourself Trump is responsible for all this. That is a very important input. It's a Trump Derangement Syndrome issue.

@Rockyzach88

4 ай бұрын

Get help.@@CornyBum

@CornyBum

4 ай бұрын

@@Rockyzach88 no u

"Why you're powerless and have to agree with us - and that's a GOOD thing"