fedoratoMar 14
Paul Cantrell

RE: https://sfba.social/@drahardja/116225009200255920

My unscientific, inexpert, underinformed gut analysis here is that the US has been in recession in any meaningful sense for about a year now, but there’s a few dozen billionaires playing ping-pong with each other’s money and the way we measure growth mistakes that for value creation.

Mar 14 at 2:04amWeb
Show threadPaul Cantrell3d ago
Check kiting but for corporate investments
Show threadVMar 14
@inthehands This has been an issue for a while - Biden had the 'vibecession' too.
Part of the problem is the LLM circlejerk inflating the metrics,
part of the problem is the metrics are bad in the first place, and if you look at how our economy is actually doing for *most americans* shit has been going bad for multiple decades, including multiple "K shaped Recoveries" (the rich get richer, poor get poorer, but the gdp goes up again so no recession) in a row.
Show threadVMar 14
@inthehands Inequality has gotten so severe in this country that most of "consumer spending", for example, is done by 10% of the population - which means when you read "we still had strong consumer spending for christmas" in the news - that means "rich people kept buying shit though, so it must be fine.", if 90% of people had to cut back severely, but those 10% kept or slightly increased spending, it would show up as the economy being "fine" in the metrics, currently, still.
Show threadVMar 14
@inthehands As someone who cares about math and statistics: I kinda fucking hate economics, as a field. (Mainly because it's emphasis on data *implies* and *presents as having* a lot of objectivity and rigor, which does not actually fucking exist if you look at their numbers and assumptions for too long.)
Show threadEdgarMar 14
@miss_rodent @inthehands And they don’t even know how to draw a graph…
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellMar 14

@miss_rodent @inthehands

We are so there together. I had more hope for the heterodox econs and they do insist on more mathematical rigor, but the problem I’m having is their stratification of the economy. Principally, they see four representative agents, government finance business and labor.

That kind of stratification is inappropriate. It works for government, but for all the other participants size matters.

Show threadDr. DirtbagMar 14
@miss_rodent @inthehands Food prices were stable from 2015 to 2020, then jumped and rose, while CEOs bragged about "pricing power" on earnings calls.
Show threadShadSterlingMar 14
@drdirtbag @miss_rodent @inthehands the metric I still want is how many median full-time incomes does it take to support a thriving family of 5
Show threadKevin Karhan Mar 14
@miss_rodent @inthehands EXACTLY THAT!
Kevin Karhan :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] if you remove all the *"#AIslop"* #PyramidScams the #USA is in a serious downward trajectory…

Infosec.Space
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellMar 14

@miss_rodent @inthehands

The more interesting number to focus on is one that economics doesn’t care about:

Affordability which is defined as income divided by cost of living.

The utility of that ratio is that the numbers game of correcting for inflation is irrelevant at that point. You measure dollars in income and dollars spent on the basics which can be a challenging, the same idea can applied to businesses, although it probably requires a little bit different interpretation

Show threadsusMar 14
@inthehands basically all actually job growth is in healthcare, no other sectors
Show threadTheNovemberFella ✊🏳️‍🌈 🇺🇦☸️🛰️🚀Mar 14
@inthehands 👍👍
Show threadStevenSavage (he/him)Mar 14
@inthehands I'd agree on the general shape of that idea. There's money pinging around but it's not going to a lot of people. We're being kept propped up by people handing cash back and forth.
Show threadTodd KnarrMar 14
@StevenSavage @inthehands not even cash, most of what they're trading is IOUs valued as if they were cash.
Show threadStevenSavage (he/him)Mar 14
@tknarr well said.
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellMar 14

@tknarr @StevenSavage @inthehands

One of the big issues I have about economics or macro economics, especially is that they don’t treat stocks as a pseudo currency. Cory Doctorow pointed out how stocks themselves become instruments of purchasing power of different kinds.

Show threadIanMar 14
@inthehands Wash trading for the ultra rich.
Show threadAuthor-ized L.J.Mar 14
@inthehands I'll never forget how I felt when I learned Microsoft counts its rental of compute capacity to OpenAI as both investment and income... it was like glimpsing a tiny corner of the tottering Jenga tower of bookkeeping that the so-called world economy rests upon.
Show threadPerson Who ExistsMar 14
@inthehands you don’t tend to realize a recession until you are half way through it is a statement my ec teacher said this year.
Show threadDonald BallMar 14
@inthehands This has basically been the story of the US economy since the Great Recession, imho. Waves of loose capital sloshing around desperately seeking outsized returns while labor stays mostly afloat on credit. Mostly.
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellMar 14

@donaldball @inthehands

It represents the choice of where government money printing is directed to.

From MMT, the federal government prints money into existence and only afterwards can it be taxed or saved into treasuries or used to purchase stocks or other assets, all of which generally returns some sort of wealth transfer mechanism called interest.

Low interest rates were greedily taken advantage of by tech. They used it to build out all the cloud platforms.

Show threadLuke KaniesMar 14
@inthehands 100% agree
Show threadKevin Karhan Mar 14
@inthehands if you remove all the "#AIslop" #PyramidScams the #USA is in a serious downward trajectory…
Show threadpatrislav ♾️ #RIPNatenomMar 14
@inthehands reminds me of the „two economists in a forest“ joke
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellMar 14

@patrislav @inthehands

🙄😂

Show threadThe CyberwitchMar 14
@inthehands the economy is great as long as you're looking at the numbers that they tell you are good numbers
Show threadBrad RosenheimMar 14
@inthehands That is a sensible analysis. #TheWorldIsFullOfBadAccountants