It’s getting really late to move toward egalitarian de-growth
Economists are the enemies of the people.
Oh God
fuck off
The people are tired of experts, I see.
Experts at a made up system they like to pretend its a natural phenomenon and its used as an excuse to keep people poor.
An astrologist might be an expert on their field but you wouldnt argue that astrology isnt bullshit. Would you? Thats the same with economy, we made it up, its as true as we want it to be.
Capitalism is like a religion and economists are its priesthood.Economics isn’t capitalism, economics is just as present in socialist… ugh. I don’t know why I even feel compelled to bother. It just goes in one ear and out the other.
I over-simplyfied, apologies.
Doesnt change the fact that the economic theory we are sold over here is aligned with neoliberal/capitalist ideals. Nor that its all made up bullshit used to impose policies on people and justify their conditions and the only reason it works the way it does is because some assholes chose it to be that way a couple hundred years ago and those who most benefit from it havent allowed us to make any meaningfull change to it.
Funny you didnt felt “compelled” to argue against that part.
In one ear…
Experts at widening the wealth disparity
There’s not a cabal of economists who are sitting in a board room plotting to oppress the proletariat. Economists are largely academics, and like most experts, they are mostly ignored by the powerful in society.
Not a cabal but there’s ideological groups preaching different models that aren’t necessarily based on good empirical data, which are then used to create economic policies that affect people’s lives. When you have groups that offer polar opposite opinions on what would happen when say the interest rates lever is moved, and therefore how it should move. Moving the lever in one of the advised directions might cause the proletariat to lose their shirts vs the other. It may not have been intentional, evil-hands-rubbing advice, nevertheless the effect could still be the same. Heck we very well know that increasing interest rates is supposed to result in inflation reduction via a proportion of people losing their jobs and homes. You can probably see how Joe might see this as someone wanting to actively harm them. Especially when 2/3 of the inflation was driven by Joe’s boss, some economists’ advise that Joe’s expected to take even more hurt to compensate. If that advice was based on engineering-level rigor that’s proven to work beyond doubt, it would be easier to swallow. But it isn’t. It feels like the field has an outsized effect on people’s lives for its standards of rigor. And so there’s plenty of room for ideology or opinion in the gaps and that ideology can and does tilt towards favoring different people in the economy. I think this is what people see and given their state conclude economists bad.
Not a cabal but there’s ideological groups preaching different models that aren’t necessarily based on good empirical data, which are then used to create economic policies that affect people’s lives.
Ah, I see you’ve met the Austrian cult of ‘economics’
Everyone in a boardroom is typically a university educated economist. The CEO of Mcdonalds didnt go to a culinary school.
Everyone in a boardroom typically has an MBA, which generally involves only marginal and niche courses in econ, which is largely an abstract discipline.
Does that mean I’m getting a 3.3% raise?
GDP measures the value of the final goods and services produced in the United States (without double counting the intermediate goods and services used up to produce them). So, it doesn’t have a thing to do with your salary
Workers are the ones that produce the goods and services. We made the economy grow, yet we aren’t the ones that see the direct benefits of this growth. Do you think this is fair?
I think your first two sentences make a good point, but I also don’t think it’s fair to ask the question in your third when all the guy was doing was explaining the definition of GDP rather than making a value judgement about it.
Well yeah, I asked the question to find out their position. It doesn’t read as neutral to me, but I’m biased, so I want to make sure.
So basically it means nothing to the average person?
I mean, more or less. When discussing GDP, you’re discussing things at such a massive scale that only the details of the details filter down. Like the speed of the Earth - obviously it matters, but no one living here is going to notice on their daily walk that the Earth has sped up or slowed down by 100 mph. It’s a tool (ideally) for discerning growth and potential courses of action for large-scale decision-makers, like the government.
But doesn’t GDP also take into consideration real estate and military spending, two things America very much spends dickloads of money on? In an ideal scenario, it would be an accurate measure, but because housing prices are so high and military spending is basically going infinite at this point in the US, you could argue it’s a worthless metric because of how inflated it can be.
If you’re not then you should be looking for another job. Nobody is going to just give you anything, you need to go get it.
Switching jobs can’t counter market power, whenever employers have it, which is probably the vast majority of cases. Unions can.
People too lazy to find a higher paying job when they’re being underpaid are also likely too lazy to actually organize.
Unions don’t appear out of thin air. They require a ton of grassroots effort.
And I have never not gotten at least a 15% pay increase by switching jobs. It’s the most effective way to increase your pay today, even with unions.
You wanna tell that to my software developer friend who literally cannot find work right now? He worked for facebook and spotify and got laid off.
good job, Joe
Sweet, when do I get my check?
throughout november and december 2023, and january 2024
if you had investments in the S&P500 that is
Cool, now someone hire me
Can you go a workday without punching anyone or taking off your pants?
Meanwhile, tech companies continue to lay off tens of thousands. Great american economy.
What is up with that? Any good reasons behind that?
In most cases, they hired and grew at an irresponsible rate in 2021-2022
Just compare the growth in employees in Microsoft in 2021-2022 compared to the 5 previous years or so
Of course, the employees are not to blame for that and should not pay for that, but that’s how they roll I guess…
I love looking for tech oriented jobs here in Seattle. /s
Don’t shit on my seattle! /s never been
It’s a shame that Aunt Teefa burned it down in the race riots of 2020. /s
Definitely come check it out if you can. Pike Place is actually fun to check out (ignore the ‘first’ Starbucks because it is just a coffee shop). Seattle Center, which you can get to by bus, scooter or monorail (it put us on the map!), has a decent amount of shit to do. Check out some of the neighborhoods outside of downtown like Queen Anne (Kerry Park), Capital Hill, Fremont, International District, etc. And if you want to venture out of the city, you can take a ferry to Vashon or Bainbridge or if mountains are more your style, head east to hit up a shit ton of them.
Screw all that. Come to Ballard and get drunk.
Absolutely. If you like beer at all, there are like two dozen breweries there. I just wish it did not take so goddamn long to get there. I say that as someone who lived there off and on for like five years. I miss going to the Sloop.
Hey, light rail in 2034, baby!
Remember when the economy doing good didn’t just mean record billions for the already billionaires? Me neither…
Ok
Remember to always replace ‘The Economy’ with ‘Rich People’s Yacht Money’.
CEOs: Cool, so… More layoffs then?
The economy? You mean rich peoples investments?
