You are correct of course.
And the RW media is doing all the advertising it can to appeal to the emotional minds to make them think the economy is terrible when it is in fact quite qood and improving. That’s what I’m seeing anyway.
Christmas spending is a poor proxy for overall economic health.
This seems more important:
Household debt at record highs. Credit card debt at record highs. Non-housing debt at record highs. Housing debt at record highs. Delinquencies rising. Government deficits and debt at record highs.
You can make an economy look better than it is if you spend like a drunken sailor, which is what we have been doing. However, what can’t continue, won’t.
That doesn’t explain why people consider the economy right now to be bad, which is what this thread is about. In fact, it may indicate that folks are expecting raises, etc.
Do you have any sort of cite that says that Christmas spending doesn’t reflect economic health? Certainly, it improves the economic health of retailers, manufacturers, importers, and consumers who work at those places.
Oh . . . you mean spend like a Republican.
The federal deficit is down considerably from the past few years as you well know, which I suspect is behind your specific phrasing. And a considerable amount of that involves servicing the significant amount of debt added during the previous administration, which strangely Republicans didn’t seem to care about.
Or your economy can look strong because you have low unemployment, a manufacturing boom, and controlled inflation, which is what we have.
Christmas spending strikes me as emotionally based - a statement about how willing people are to spend money on a specific event at a specific moment in time. It could be because they feel wealthier, or it could be because their willingness to go into debt has changed, or it could be because they have confidence in their future income, or probably other complex reasons.
I gave lots of reasons earlier why people might not feel the economy is working for them. One thing is sure: When 84% of people are telling you the economy is bad, you don’t just have a messaging problem. A better idea might be to really dive in to why they feel that way. Maybe you are missing something they are feeling.
I think this was a notable cause for Clinton losing to Trump in 2016. She thought the economy was fine mostly but a great many people were not feeling it.
Okay. Let’s just ignore all the bad stuff, repeat the good stuff, say the electorate must be stupid and ignore the signals they are sending you. That should work out fine.
Sick burn, dude. Irrelevant and useless, but sick.
Scarying-sounding talking points like these are incredibly stupid, because pretty much everything measured in simple $ terms is pretty much always at record highs, because of economic expansion and inflation. It’s like saying the price of a loaf of bread is at record highs. Of course it is. Deflation would be an economic disaster.
Try the household debt to GDP ratio - 80% when Trump left office, now 73%.
I’m not going to pick apart all your talking points, but this is the most egregious:
Do we really need to remind you that what actually happens to the deficit under Republican administrations is the exact opposite of what they pretend happens? Here’s a nice snapshot of the economic record of Democrat vs Republican adminstrations.
Since World War 2
- Ten of the last eleven recessions have begun under Republican Presidents
- Since WW2, The US Economy has been in a recession for nearly 10 times as many months under Republican Presidents versus Democratic Presidents (113 months vs 11 months)
- More than twice as many jobs are created per year under Democratic Presidents than Republican Presidents (2.1 million jobs/year under Democratic Presidents versus 828,000 jobs/year under Republican Presidents.)
- Budget deficits as a percentage of GDP under Republican Presidents are collectively 9% higher than under Democratic Presidents
Since 1961
- GDP growth has been 44% higher under Democratic Presidents.
- Business Investment Growth has been 132% higher under Democratic Presidents.
- Unemployment has been 5% higher under Republican Presidents.
- Average increase in weekly earnings have been positive under Democratic Presidents and negative under Republican Presidents
Remind me?
Which party is the raise taxes and spend party and which is the cut taxes and spend party?
“We”?
Democrats obviously. Bush and Trump were notable for being frugal. Surely, if Trump wins in 2024, we can look forward to a balanced budget and lowering of the national debt. He’s absolutely the kind of guy who will get into government accounting and set it right. /s
That, but also that it sounds odd still when a Canadian looking at US issues tell us that it is a “we” problem.
OK, well, LMK if you find a cite that Christmas spending is inversely proportional to how people think their own situation is going. As I’ve written several times in this thread, people are saying that the economy is bad but acting like it’s just fine for then.
I get what you are saying but such cognitive disconnects are not new in the US. Many will tell you how awful the illegal immigration problem is but have probably never seen an illegal immigrant in their life. Or all the transgendered people being creepy in public bathrooms but they have never met a singe trans person in their life. We can find lots of examples.
I am doing fine but, I admit, when I see chicken wings in the store going for $5/lb I cringe (I remember them being half that not too long ago…like 2020). That’s just one example…lots of things are like that.
Actually, you do have a messaging problem if a large chunk are telling you the economy is bad simply because it has been drilled into their head by watching Fox every day.
You really think messaging is so strong that 84% of the people can be swayed from reality by Fox News? Fox’s top shows get less than 3 million viewers - less than 1% of the country.
Political junkies like us tend to have a very distorted view of how much Americans actualloy pay attention to this stuff. Lots of Americans can’t name their own Congressperson, may not know who their governor is, and only pay attention to politics around election season.
The left has been pushing various narratives for years that went nowhere or backwards: “The Great Reset”, “Build Back Better”, etc. Are the Republicans so much better at messaging that Fox News can convince 84% of the people to ignore what they are seeing with their own eyes?
It’s not.
Well okay then. It’s hard to argue with logic like that.