The world is starting 2024 on an optimistic economic note, as inflation fades globally and growth remains more resilient than many forecasters had expected. Yet one country stands out for its surprising strength: the United States.
After a sharp pop in prices rocked the world in 2021 and 2022 — fueled by supply chain breakdowns tied to the pandemic, then oil and food price spikes related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — many nations are now watching inflation recede. And that is happening without the painful recessions that many economists had expected as central banks raised interest rates to bring inflation under control.
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Part of the reason that economic growth has been so surprisingly strong in the United States is simple: The American government has continued to spend a lot of money.
Government expenditures as a share of overall output hovered around 35 percent in America in the years leading up to the pandemic, based on I.M.F. data. But in 2020 and 2021, they jumped above 40 percent as the government responded to the coronavirus with about $5 trillion in relief and stimulus to people, businesses, institutions, and state and local governments.
Both states and households have only slowly spent down the savings they amassed during those pandemic years, so the money has continued to trickle through the economy like a slow-release booster shot. On top of that, government spending has remained elevated as the Biden administration has begun to make sweeping infrastructure and climate investments.
This is because you don’t realise how bad life is elsewhere. You have a good home with running water and heating. That alone is something hundreds of millions can’t even dream of. Access to fresh drinking water alone puts you, as an American, way above many people.
American population is rich as fuck compared to the rest of the world.
https://usafacts.org/articles/us-households-with-plumbing-poverty/
But sure. Homes in colder parts of the U.S. can keep heated. They might have to use a wood stove and keep themselves in the one room the wood stove heats, but they can keep it heated.
Yeah, delusion is unreal… Americans…
You are the most American here thinking the rest of the world is some sort of savage tribe living in dirt and hunting mammoths bruh 💀
Please explain exactly how showing you the results of a census that explains that half a million people in America do not, in fact, have running water make me delusional?
Are you claiming I created the website I linked you to? Because that would be delusional.
First of all, half a million is a tiny proportion of US. It’s not even one city worth. Second, who are these people and where do they live? Are they your regular drug junkies who forfeited life in a modern society for their drug of choice? Or maybe they’re scientists living in a remote location? In any case these are not part of the general public and they are a very tiny proportion.
This is an extremely different situation when compared to India, for example. Where 91 million people don’t have access to drinkable water. That’s 91 million. And not just running water at home - any fresh drinkable water at all! And 746 million people don’t have access to sanitation facilities at home. Read: they don’t have a toilet and a bathroom. That’s double the US population! And pretty much half of Indian.
These oh so poor half a mil Americans… The US economy must be doing so bad!
I’m sorry… are you suggesting that someone deserves to not have running water if they use drugs? Should they also not deserve to have food? Should they just starve to death?
Play stupid games - win stupid prizes. Adults must face the consequences of their actions.
Why is no running water the consequence of addiction?
This kind of “be grateful for what you have” thought process is reductive, and only benefits the elite, corporations, and oligarchs.
If everyone thought that way we wouldn’t have labor laws or regulations. Every worker would be a happy peasant, living in abject poverty and squalor.
It is OK to want more, that’s human nature. But original point was that economy is not healthy. Which is completely false.
It’s not human nature, it’s the relationship to means of production between the capitalist and proletariat classes, turning the wheels of history.
There are no classes in a capitalist society.
Lmao
Their point was that the economy is detached from the citizens.
It doesn’t matter if the economy is doing well, that GDP is rising, etc. when the actual quality of life of the people is worse than it was before.
Quality of life in the US is among the best and economy is not detached. That’s the thing.
Don’t you guys not even have public transport or public healthcare? Vuvuzuela has that. No problems.
Who us guys? We have everything here in the UK.
Oh I assumed you were American! Well hey fellow Brit, sadly I got some bad news for you:
No we don’t, our public transport is dysfunctional due to endless strikes (which are due to shit pay and shit conditions) and the NHS is practically non-existent for dentistry, mental care and more due to years of neo-liberal austerity policies and “market solutions” that involve transferring money from our public purse to the fascists-to-be’s mates.
At least the US has brute force of capital to cushion it if you’re working some jobs and don’t have any serious health problems.
Here in the UK even senior software devs struggle to make rent. We live with exactly the level of public services the US has in practice and we have no money for alternatives. Absolute shithole country. Government is literally landlords. Only remaining export is Transphobia.
Cool story, bro. But, you see, I migrated to the UK 8 years ago from a poor Eastern European country with only €2,000 in my pocket and bought my own home in London 2 years ago. If you can’t afford life in the UK, the problem is with you. Sounds harsh, but that’s the reality. Yes, things could be better, but they’re better than in most of the world.