The economy is doing great.
For the people who manage and control the economy.
I haven’t seen it in a while, but I remember Lemmings saying to switch “economy” with “rich people’s yacht money” in your head when reading financial or economic news.
Reminder, economies are meant to be lowly tools of a society that exist only to maximize the equitable and efficient distribution of goods and services within said society.
Our western, rigged market capitalism has metastasized to the point that our society lives in subsistence and subservience to that lowly, broken tool. To the point that when disaster strikes, our societal leaders rush out to their podiums to reassure
usthe capital markets that every possible measure will be taken to protect oursociety people childreneconomy, by which they mean preserving the capital value of the owner’s dragon hoards.Its perverse to watch, it’s insane, it’s ass backwards, but here we are. Our military protects our owner’s capital around the world, our police defend the owner’s capital domestically. Meanwhile our people that make up our society struggle to make rent, struggle to eat, and every population center has growing tent cities of citizens we throw away to die of exposure and police harassment for the crime of not producing capital value well enough for the owners of our economy.
Oh how I wish I could force all these economists working for private profit media writing all these “the economy is doing great, it’s the people suffering under it who are wrong” pieces to wear their headlines like sandwich signs and walk through their nearest tent city.
If the people who needed to hear any of that the most could understand a word of it, they would probably be nodding along in agreement and ready to do their part to make changes.
Or they would just call you an “elitist commie” and go take out another payday loan.
I’m well past hope in our lifetimes if I’m honest. I just go on my little frustrated scribes and vent my perspective to hold onto my sanity in an increasingly, from my doomer perspective, self-destructing world.
How do I get rid of this impending doom feel
Drugs
Heyo, national economies need to run at a deficit. The amount of debt needs to be maintained but running a negative is a good thing because the interest payments become stable capital injection. These regular, anticipated payments build the confidence of very conservative money managers to spend their own money. It’s trickle down but in a way that helps increase the likelihood of money being spent, which is basically the GDP. And the speed of people spending money in the system is a metric that central banks use to set interest rates.
It’s all connected and that’s why running a deficit, a (relatively) small one, is a good thing. Nations don’t use checkbook accounting.
I never said we should have zero debt, that’s a strawman. Most economist recommend a moderate amount of debt due to various positive effects (some of which you mention). So the real disagreement comes here:
It’s all connected and that’s why running a deficit, a (relatively) small one, is a good thing.
The implication being that you think the U.S. has a (relatively) small amount of debt. Now, I am willing to be convinced otherwise, but I do not think that the U.S. currently has a small amount of debt. Our debt to GDP ratio is higher than other developed nations, which is concerning.
I do concede that we aren’t in danger of a debt crisis on the scale of Greece or Sri Lanka. But ~$34 Trillion in debt needs to be part of the discussion when we keep praising the economy.
how much of this still applies when the debt is as big as the United State’s current debt? (genuine question)
At this point, I just use someone complaining about the national debt as a secret code for them saying “I have zero idea how economics works”.
