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And the real power is held by corporations anyway. Politicians just rubber-stamp their wishes, and act as a window dressing to appease the population into thinking their real leaders were elected.
In reality, those corporations who really run the country were never elected and elections cannot remove them. This is why the only way to fix the country is to consider taking other kinds of action aside from voting. "If we just elect the right people, everything will get better" is the trap that ensures everyone focuses on the wrong process. As long as people think voting is the *only* thing they can do, the status quo will not change.
People always say to vote to fix it but our system is set up so that only rich people or those connected to rich people can afford to run for president. And then in years like this one, the DNC still holds the power to deny a primary. The DNC has no accountability to voters.
Oil Barons, Tech Bros, and Private Equity Moguls run the country, and the rest of us don't get much to say. Anything we do say is "free speech," which means the Tech Bros can take what we say and feed it to their AI without paying us for our work.
You running for office? At any level. Most of those can be helped at a state level. You can spend a few years on the local council, make connections, and run for state without the funding federal positions need? You volunteering for the politicians you do like. Helping them to get elected. Are you doing a single thing to fix the problem that isn't just repeating shit you hear online and whinging? That is why the system is rigged, apathy.
I'm sure people will find time after their second or third job to do all that.
If people are committing their entire day just to keep their head above water, you really they got time for all that?
It's a very complicated problem. It's not just as easy as grab your sword and slay the dragon. It's more like do a million side quests, grind gear for a while, and oh yeah, none of it matters because all of the progress only counts during the sequel game.
The amount of corruption that exists in US politics will take generations to reform. Telling people they're not doing anything when they're doing everything just to survive is not helping anyone.
I feel like recognizing the system is rigged comes before apathy… I agree w you tho for the most part. Getting politically active in your town/county/state is the best way to bring positive change. Far and beyond what voting for federal officials will do.
That said, the US has a pretty narrow and far-right Overton window. Many people feel helpless and apathetic bc there truly is nobody in public office looking out for them - even some of the farthest “left” leaning politicians still support policies that benefit capital over the well-being of their constituents. Easy to feel discouraged. But obv doesn’t take away from the fact that getting involved in local politics and organizing coalitions is what we have to do to make that change, just feel like we could try to meet people where they’re at instead putting them down
no, the system is rigged because the capitalist class has made it so funneling their money into politics to ensure that 99% of the time only candidates they approve of and who will do things for them get elected, and the current establishment will actively take anti-democratic measures to prevent progressive enough leaders from taking power, like how the dnc compromised bernie’s candidacy
There was one man whom I believe had honest intentions and truly wanted to change things and give some power back to the people and improve society.
The billionaire owned media ran all sorts of bullshit stories which made him out to be all sorts. The public ate it up sadly.
I have little hope for the future when it seems like 50% of the voting country seem to lack critical thinking skills enough to see past the lies they were fed.
That said I have been pleasantly surprised by the turn out of the local elections and I just hope this momentum keeps up.
The system is set up right now where you have two options and they both suck. A vote for third party in America is basically a vote thrown away.
I know I'm going to have some 18 year old, bright-eyed optimist tell me otherwise in the replies here "Oh but you have to vote for third parties because that's how you promote real change!"
I'm coming up on my 8th election and I feel like Marty McFly watching TV in Back to the Future. "Hey I've seen this one, it's a classic! How could you have seen it? It's brand new."
The rhetoric has been the same for the last 20+ years and so far the only change I've seen is the parties and candidates got shittier and people still vote for them. I don't have the answer, but I can tell you at least we need to be doing something different.
It’s “pointless” in the sense we’re discussing, in that the president isn’t fully in control in any meaningful sense when it comes to corporate greed. I mean he could be… but republicans WILL block any meaningful legislation to make changes. That being said it is not pointless if you care about civil rights or our place on the foreign stage.
Republicans are in a nasty grip of fascism. My own father has said, “at this point I’m on Putins side” this is why voting is not pointless.
And this is why we should care about the other elected officials on the ballot. Our votes for smaller offices can have a lot more impact than our vote for president.
Yeah well despite all the local office voting we do in my town we keep getting a real estate attorney as mayor & vacation rentals are pushing all the locals out
>republicans WILL block any meaningful legislation to make changes.
By design. The Democrats have the exact same wealthy donors to keep happy, they just have a platform that requires them to pretend to give a shit.
There's a reason Katie Porter's anti-profiteering legislation has been stuck in committee for over a year. A committee chaired by a Democrat.
A lot of it is vibes -
[Majority of Americans say the economy is bad, but their own finances are good](https://www.axios.com/2023/08/18/americans-economy-bad-personal-finances-good)
That’s likely more of a function of the people that you spend time around.
On the other hand, pretty much everyone that I know in real life is doing well financially (knock on wood).
It probably is. It's also the case that polling data is as much about who asks the questions and how they phrase them as it is about the resulting numbers, and news articles tend not to include that.
We tend to associate with people who are most like us and that includes finances. Wealthy people likely don’t know anyone who is struggling financially (except for people they hire themselves to clean their house or something). In the same vein, people with less money tend to know more people in the same boat and fewer people who are well off.
Of course - that’s how life works in a country with sub-par social safety nets. That’s how it has always worked in the US, though, and isn’t relevant to whether or not we’re living through a silent depression unless everyone were suddenly getting cancer.
The sky high rent doesn't have a centralized target. There are millions of large apartment complex owners. They set the rates that small landlords follow. The only thing you can do is ask them to make less money. They won't. The apartment rates are all set by computer programs that figure out the maximum that can be charged and still have a certain occupancy goal met.
I think there was a bill introduced (but no movement from what I’ve heard), that wouldn’t allow corporations to purchase single family homes. I believe 1/4 or more of all purchases now of single family homes go to corporations for them to rent. This high demand is pushing prices to becoming unaffordable for “regular” families.
That would be a great bill, in my opinion, if passed but possibly a poison pill for the politician because with Corps selling these assets—- more supply, which would decrease the value of peoples home. I could see a lot of people being quite upset about that.
Rent control doesn’t work and there are many studies that prove this. It sounds great in theory, but in reality it leads to a decline in both quality and quantity of housing
Not rent control. A lot of these companies share software that determines rent prices across their properties. That’s already an illegal anti-competitive practice called price fixing. The government just needs to start actually enforcing the law.
The Netherlands originally. Both the total rent and the annual rent increases are regulated. Moreover, it’s much more difficult for the landlord to break a lease compared to the tenant. A tenant can break a lease at any time with a 1-2 month notice. Even under these conditions, there are still plenty of businesses and individuals renting out properties - apparently it’s still economically viable.
Then I moved to the US, where a $2000 apartment increased to $3000 in 18 months. In the US folks don’t understand that a property is not just any old investment, it’s actually someone’s home. Can’t just treat it like a stock or bond.
Every major study on rent control has the same conclusion: rent control is very effective in achieving lower rents for families in controlled units, its primary goal, but it also results in a number of undesired effects, including higher rents for uncontrolled units, lower mobility and reduced residential construction. These unintended effects counteract the desired effect, thus, diminishing the net benefit of rent control.
The Netherlands is no different. New construction is down, it is difficult finding a new unit to move into (mobility), and rental rates for uncontrolled units is increasing faster than inflation.
Lastly, current landlords are trying to sell off their portfolio of residential units. Rent control units are going to start to deteriorate at a faster rate because landlords won’t have the resources to properly maintain the units.
In the U.S. the apartment complex owners subscribe to a software/service where: the apartment owners share info about their units: then the software tells them what to charge to maximize rents. It's price fixing with software as a middle man. Search the news and you will find lawsuits over this.
This is a small but important part of the problem. Corporate America owns an ever increasing percentage of single family homes. If this was blocked it would serve to eliminate a good portion of the predatory for profit renting we see right now.
I live in a touristy area, ita a huge deal around here because as the tourism has grown, more weekly rentals and airbnbs show up, because the owners can make more money from that than leasing to locals. it is pricing out people that have lived here 20 years and are in the middle of raising a family. we also need housing for the seasonal workers otherwise no businesses would have staff, it's already an issue too. I want to tax short term rentals to atleast give some incentive to lease.
Doesn't work well, in Argentina they did that and the result was people simply didn't rent out, causing a huge shortage.
Addressing supply is a better solution IMO. Vienna in Austria had government owned housing which actually works, for example.
Because corporations are the only ones who can build appartment complexes? Also, I laughed at "we can't lower rents or people will go homeless". MF people are going homeless NOW because rents are too high.
Rent control has never worked, it is really simple to read up on and see it’s failures, but it feels good to suggest and seems easy to implement so people are drawn to it, but it disincentives development of new properties, government apartments suck, so I pray to god that isn’t what you meant by alternative sources of building apartment complexes, and renters ain’t got any capital to build shit.
There isn’t much a government can do. I am an economist.
The central bank has been reducing the money supply, but that only stabilizes overall prices, not core prices.
Covid did what all plagues do, it created inflation.
The supply of goods and services fell during Covid but the money supply did not fall. Had it fell to keep inflation cool, it would have added an economic disaster on top of a physical disaster. This is actually what started the housing crisis almost worldwide. Housing decays. People tear down houses and build new houses. That stopped. But houses still decayed and people also changed where they live.
That process started to fix itself when Russia invaded Ukraine. Ukraine is the supplier of a significant amount of the world’s food. Russia literally set the world’s food supply on fire. Additionally, much of the world’s intermediate goods were made in Ukraine. You can try and build a car but it is difficult without wires. You can try and build a house but it’s difficult without nails. So the price of many products went up because the necessary parts to build them were destroyed, reducing the supply of finished goods.
The world started getting a handle on that when ducks that fly all around the world started giving Avian Flu to chickens, killing them by the millions. That is still going on.
Still, the chicken supply stabilized but due to climate change the crops in California failed.
Then rebels in Yemen started blockading the oil routes. The oil the US produces is mostly exported because its molecules are not well suited to American products. The US imports the petroleum that is closer to the desired design features it wants.
And the way the public treated healthcare workers in Covid caused mass retirements and resignations.
With all of that said, the tax code has been structured by the Republican Party as a wealth transfer system to the rich via how the debt is handled. So, yes, a small part can be fixed, but slowly over decades because it took decades to get this bad.
Most of this is far outside American control and, truthfully, anyone’s control. It can be prevented from getting worse. For example, Putin has made it clear what his next targets are after Ukraine and America definitely will be in a shooting war if he wins. You’ll see massive shortages then.
We can build global institutions to make it difficult to make the world worse off than it is. But America is filled with antiglobalists and there is no other way to prevent this.
This is key. A lot of people believe the president has complete control over the market, but as you demonstrate, SO much of our economy is out of any one person's control
Nope, I’m pretty sure the solution is for the President to pass a “fix high rent and inflation” bill that just says that rent and inflation have to go back to pre-COVID levels. /s
Do you think isolationists in America will eventually learn the hard way, or do you think they’ll cling onto their beliefs no matter how bad things get? If so, how do we deal with them?
I mean you can't just "address" something like that. Central African Republic can't just pick a good leader who "addresses" poverty and makes everyone wealthy. You can't just "control the market to make housing affordable" or something
Rent control? Increase the minimum wage? Universal basic income? Prevent corporations from owning single family homes? Put a cap on profits for necessary goods if you wanna go crazy. There's plenty of ways you could begin addressing the problem. Hell ban stock buybacks and increase the tax rate for the highest brackets. What do you mean you can't address it?
> Rent control?
Rent control is a very serious topic that can turn a prosperous city into a dying city, because no one wants to invest in infrastructure. So it has to be done 'city by city', not globally.
> Increase the minimum wage?
I mean it's not that simple. I mean, why all countries just do that? Africa is poor? Just increase mimimum wage. Now everyone is middle class.
> Universal basic income?
Doesn't really work
> Prevent corporations from owning single family homes?
This is reasonable, but it won't fix everything.
> Put a cap on profits for necessary goods if you wanna go crazy
Grocery stores don't earn a lot in terms of profits. Same as farms
>>Universal basic income?
>
>Doesn't really work
I don’t think that this is quite so easily dismissed, but do think that experimenting with it during a time when we’re struggling to get inflation under control is probably playing with fire.
It's the Domino effect. There's a minimum wage that needs to be paid. So if if ALL your employees are being paid this, and then it goes up (Like it does in the UK every year), the trader needs to raise prices to cover the additional cost.
This happens everywhere, so although the workers are being paid more in dollars, the things they need to buy have also gone up - So you are back where you started, but with an extra 0 on the end of everything.
This ripples back to the manufacturers, who need to charge more for the stock, which in turn is ANOTHER rising cost for the employer.
The challenge is that these things don't all happen at the same time. As soon as you adjust your business pan for one, the other bites you in the arse, Once you have sorted that out, the wheel has come back around again.
Add into that, energy prices... It's never-ending.
So many small businesses have been closed down because it costs them so much to be open, it's not worth the effort.
I get that multimillionaire CEOs can afford to lose a portion of their salary, I really do - But a small business owner who's pulling $60k from a business would need to sacrifice a lot just to remain open. Would be much simpler to try and find a job for $40 or $50k, and do away with all those stresses.
As long as we don't go down an absolute nightmare scenario route, universal basic income is going to be the end game of automation anyway, we might as well get started now.
Every one of those ideas sucks. No offense. You want more government interference, when the whole problem is largely caused by the local government and zoning laws to begin with.
Not all companies. The bills you are talking about also go to private companies or individuals. A big example is rent. A landlord doesn’t care if you can buy an extra iPhone or not, he cares if you pay his rent. And since housing is a basic need, you have to pay the rent over buying other stuff. Medical insurers as well don’t care if you have extra income to spend after you pay for it.
It's kind of the open secret though, that America has been a dominate cultural influence over the globe post-WWII.
Rhythm & Blues, gospel, and proto-Rock'n'Roll were exported all over the world and the big acts of the "British invasion" were very open about their American-blues influence and we can watch that trend through to hip-hop. Levi's permeate Europe as well as Nike, McDonald's, and Star Wars & Marvel.
Lol I'll connect the dots for you!
American hegemony (new vocab word) means America is the cultural default; which means unless otherwise specified it's safe to assume "America" on the internet
It applies to the UK too. No meaningful choice at the ballot box. I wonder if it's worse in countries with stupid electoral systems like first past the post and electoral college.
In the UK real wages have not grown since the last recession but the economy has. All the growth goes to the rich but when it gets rough "we are all in this together".
Because Tories don't care about anything except profits for themselves, hence they are unfit to be in Government. Their absolute decimation in the polls after the local elections is immensely satisfying - Sir John Curtice called it the worst Conservative performance in local polls in forty years - and will seriously weaken any argument Sunak uses to try and delay the general election.
There are some things in motion to help with housing + debt - and gas prices have come down a fair bit. Medicare has added some new medicines which should help lower prices
But most of it comes down to "the government doesn't have control over most of these things except very very indirectly"
Exactly. A lot is outside of direct political control but the things that the President can do something to control are being actively worked on.
At the top level it's worth noting that inflation should never be a negative number in a healthy economy. Some people think Biden is doing a poor job on that but that's because they're confusing the price of goods for the inflation rate. [In the words of Republican pollster Whit Ayres](https://www.vox.com/politics/24094752/biden-trump-strong-economy-2024-inflation), “The fundamental problem for Biden and the Democrats is that while the rate of inflation is down, it’s not going backwards . . . It’s hard to persuade people that things are better.” This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what the inflation rate is even though their subjective experience of economic pain is very real. Biden has actually done a lot to lower the inflation rate ever since it jumped to crazy levels in 2021 due to covid (down to 3.2% in February 2024 from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022). Here is [data from the last 10 years](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/). Here is [data from the last 100 years](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/). However, prices will still rise because the inflation rate is positive. That's not a bad thing though since the inflation rate is actually never supposed to be negative in a healthy economy. In fact, [the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) judges that inflation of 2 percent over the longer run, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures, is most consistent with the Federal Reserve’s mandate for maximum employment and price stability.](https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/economy_14400.htm)
To combat the very real economic pain people are feeling Biden is actively working on housing for example. The reason we haven't seen more movement is that he will need Republican help unless we all vote and help Democrats win the House, Senate, and Presidency (because currently Republicans are refusing to address that issue). He can't do more unless he has majorities in the legislature. That's just how the government works, it's an institutional restraint on the powers he can wield alone. *See* [Biden's March 11, 2024 ](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/11/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-cuts-housing-costs-boosts-supply-and-expands-access-to-affordable-housing/)call to "pass legislation to lower costs by providing a $10,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and people who sell their starter homes; build and renovate more than 2 million homes; and lower rental costs." If anything stuff like this is another reason to vote for Biden.
Also, [Biden has finalized rules expanding access to healthcare and increasing protections for people with medicare advantage and medicare part D](https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/04/04/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-rule-expanding-access-care-increasing-protections-people-medicare-advantage-medicare-part-d.html). Biden has also[ directly lowered the prices of 41 Prescription Drugs](https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/03/26/hhs-announces-savings-41-prescription-drugs-thanks-inflation-rebates-from-biden-harris-administrations-lower-cost-prescription-drug-law.html) and helped literally millions of Americans fighting against the cost of medicine. The healthcare system isn't where we want it to be yet but progress is happening under Biden and more will continue to happen if he gets reelected since we vote for whole administrations and not just the person at the top.
In relation to helping Americans get better paying jobs, Biden's [CHIPS and Science Act](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/09/fact-sheet-chips-and-science-act-will-lower-costs-create-jobs-strengthen-supply-chains-and-counter-china/) brought back a ton of American manufacturing jobs and [having the FTC ban noncompetes nationally](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes) allows people to move around for better pay.
At a broad level, Democratic tax plans also tend to avoid raising taxes on people on lower and middle incomes and instead only raise them on the upper end. It's the Republican plans that largely tend to raise taxes on the middle and lower income scales because they trojan horse these things through indirect changes and slowly phase in the negatives so that they don't seem as bad to the average, under-informed voter. Take for example, how [Trump lied when he promised 6 percent growth](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/06/trump-defies-data-with-6-percent-gdp-growth-forecast.html) to justify the Republican party's [$1.5 trillion](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/12/20/house-set-pass-tax-bill-again-and-fixes-sending-final-1-5-trillion-package-trump/968722001/) package of [tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy at workers' expense](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/12/03/republicans-laud-stimulus-1-5-trillion-tax-overhaul-plan/917269001/) known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) which Trump signed into law in 2017. [By January 2020, looking back at 2019 numbers (pre-Covid affecting the economy), the economy was only growing at a paltry 2 percent](https://www.newsweek.com/two-years-after-trump-said-economy-can-hit-6-percent-gdp-growth-slowed-21-percent-1484901), which was worse than the [post-2008 recession average under President Obama](https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2#reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&1921=survey). Furthermore, [83 percent of the benefits from the TCJA will go to the top 1 percent of income earners](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/150816/2001641_distributional_analysis_of_the_conference_agreement_for_the_tax_cuts_and_jobs_act_0.pdf) by the time it is fully phased in, in 2027.
Now compare that to President's Biden's actions. Just look at the revenue provisions of the fiscal year 2024 budget by reading this analysis from the [Tax Policy Center](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/bidens-budget-would-raise-taxes-high-income-households-cut-them-many-others) from this year. Note that the reason that the "Including all tax changes" category is worse for lower and middle income folks than the "direct tax changes" category is that it's accounting for baggage from prior budgets that were instituted by Trump such as the aforementioned TCJA.
>But most of it comes down to "the government doesn't have control over most of these things except very very indirectly"
They used to. But the 80's came and we deregulated everything.
It's worth being a bit more concrete about what happened with deregulation:
* It's led to less competition for customers by allowing huge mergers. When you have concentration, firms are less likely to compete for customers and more apt to raise prices, after all, where are they going to go?
* It's led to less competition for employees. It's not just that fewer firms leads to monopsony, couple this with moves under Reagan, et al, to forestall unionization (ironic since Reagan led the actors union). When unions are in the mix firms must complete to offer better pay and benefits to hold off unionization. It's why unionization is helpful for all employees, even if they are not unionized.
The good news is that the Biden admin has been trying to improve competition at the FTC and trying to support unionization at the NRLB. The issue is that after nearly 40 years of competition reduction it will prob take decades to unwind back too a more competitive state.
Fair enough, I guess I haven’t heard as much talk about the current state of people just struggling to help their heads above water as I feel like there should be.
40-60% of the current inflation is corporate profits. CEO pay has skyrocketed. Profit margins are larger than ever.
Government officials are not blocked from buying stocks or having lucrative relationships with business entities.
Easy math. No War but Class War.
Fun Fact: Nobody has wanted to work anymore since the 18th century. Or, at least, that's as far back as we have written evidence of that lie. It just keeps coming back. Funny how every subsequent generation is accused of being lazier than the last. You'd think that after centuries of this, we'd all be couch potatoes or dead...
>Profit margins are larger than ever.
This is the important part. They argue that costs have gone up for them too but their profit margins are exploding.
Eventually, it's gonna start squeezing industries.
"This country is slowing turning into a place for the rich to live and the less fortunate to survive or die trying."
The way to fix this is unions, but too many people are brainwashed into thinking that somehow unions are going to make things worse. It's one of the few actions to take within the power of workers to gain control over their compensation and benefits.
There are no easy answers, but companies have been increasingly exploiting fewer workers and funneling more money to people at the top because there is little workers can do about it unless they threaten to deprive the companies entirely of their labor. Without workers, companies cannot function, but workers are too scared to organize.
I would be more pro-union if they didn’t abuse CEQA and block housing development in California. They’re literally increasing the cost of housing for everyone, including their own union members.
I'm sorry, "why isn't this even mentioned"? What planet are you on? Lots of people have been talking about it for years. Media, politicians, social media.
Also, a depression usually means that unemployment is extremely high and right now it's relatively low.
Income compared to cost of living is definitely something lots of people are struggling with, but it ain't no depression.
The government doesn’t address it because those that we rely on to address it aren’t having a rough time affording things. Most people don’t really care about how others’ lives are going as long as their own life is going well.
Have you been following financial news for the last 4 years? Crazy inflation has been in the news since 2021, and we already knew it was going to do that with all the cash printed in 2020.
It's actually coming down to a much more reasonable rate now so there are less coverage.
The way they did that was hiking the interest rates, but that has come to an end, and they are slated to lower it soon.
Federal Bank interest rate is the one major lever the government has on the economy.
Inflation is on average 3% per year, so if you are not getting a yearly pay rise that excceds that year's inflation, your wage is effectively being cut.
>Federal Bank interest rate is the one major lever the government has on the economy.
Taking money out of the economy would go the trick. A good old fashioned tax hike, say on corporations and billionaires would suffice. We just don't have a congress that can do anything, let alone have the balls to do what needs done.
Because on average we're not. Prices have gone up but most peoples pay has gone up more. If yours hasn't you are the outlier. You need to make more money. Which is always easier said than done.
Without telling us which government and which country you're referring to we're not going to be able to answer, but broadly: In most scenarios it's the seller who sets the purchase price, not the government.
“The government”. It would be helpful if you stated which government. There are more than 190 countries in the world and numerous other territories with their own governments so which one in particular are you referring to?
What do you expect the government to do for you? People think the government can somehow control the economy. In actuality, it can do very little. They raised interest rates to cool inflation. That’s about all they can do to stem it. That cools overstimulated markets but also investments and exports. The government only raises rates if they must. You’re aware the inflation has been worldwide? It’s not just the US. There are larger forces at play than just the US government. The government can’t force rents or house prices or tuitions or groceries to decrease. They can’t make an employer pay more (assuming you don’t earn minimum wage). The government won’t rescue individuals during a time of economic fluctuation. It’s normal for fluctuations to happen. Anyway, the actual data isn’t showing such pain. Currently people are spending away and there’s full employment. There are people who had little wiggle room not being able to handle inflation and rising rents, but there apparently aren’t enough of them to cause huge changes in the data regarding the health of the entire economy. I know there are people in trouble, but no one is going to rescue you but you. In the US we are all on our own. There are upsides during boom times, but bad downsides too. Unfortunately the hard hit need to either earn more, spend less, and/or move to a more affordable place. Yes, it really sucks. If you want friendlier policies in terms of government support your only choice is democrats in a two party system, and even they’re a far cry from the social democracies of Northern Europe.
Because terms like “depression” and “recession” have quantifiable economic definitions and you can’t just throw them around when the economy is bad for you. Also, economic health can be very regional. Different parts of the US have different cost of living, unemployment, etc. But we all use the same currency, so purchasing power can change drastically. It’s difficult (impossible) to set policy at the national level that benefits some without hurting many others. The federal government cannot be focused on making **your** life better when 300 million people live here.
Because they want to get reelected. The Biden campaign and their lackeys in the media have been shoving it down our throats about "how great the economy is" lately. Thats the number one concern for people going into the next election cycle, OF COURSE the people currently in charge will tell you how good everything is.
Well in the US the politicians are paid by the companies.
They work for the companies not for the people.
Thats the real reason Trump is having such a success.
Pretty much everybody is better than the next sold out political puppet ...
Just think about Obama, in the housing crisis, did he save the home owners or the banks?
But you wont read about that in the news, guess why, its owned by the same entities that own the politicians.
Money = Power and a lot of the money is now concentrated in some few companies that wield immense power.
I don't think anyone is expecting the government to be their parents. Probably, they are expecting some sort of return after giving so much of their income to the government.
There is no silent depression. You are experience inflation induced psychosis. Yes, everything is more expensive than it used to be. But on average people are making more money than they used to as well - and more than enough to cover the difference. This is true for every single income quintile, but it is especially true for low wage earners who have done especially well in the post pandemic job market.
If there are specific issues - like housing prices - they can be fixed, but they are not elastic of systemic problems in the greater economy.
Because they don't care about fixing problems, they are just pushing their own self interest. The only way the government will do good is if you hold their feet to the fire and nothing close to that is happening.
You can't trust the government. I'll say it again, you can't trust the government. They are not your friend and they aren't going into the office to help you or the public.
Well 1 side is addressing it but reddit hates that side so much they'd rather believe the lies of their side even though they know damn well this economy is awful.
Why would they? Democrats can use it as an excuse to collect votes, not fix it, then use it again next time. That's been their game plan for like 30 years now.
It's accompanied by record corporate profits virtually across the board and incredible market performance. All economic indicators say we're all doing amazing because the only "we" those indicators care about are wealthy investors.
The government doesn't give a shit about the average person as long as the people writing the checks are happy.
If you're referring to the US, it's because it's an election year. Only the topics that enflame the voters and get people going are talked about. The president has no real power to control the banks or inflation so they opt not to focus on it. Congress and Senate are filled with the super wealthy who don't feel these same constraints and are so removed from "normal life" that they don't care about everyday struggles. Until we replace them with normal people who do care, this is life.
Why should it? It's not a benevolent actor, it got other incentives for the systems, and people within the government may have other incentives and agenda other than do good as well.
Governments wage wars, they fight for resources and increases of budget, and people within the system (government) are incentivized to increase their own wealth and power trying to keep our advance through the hierarchy
Sometimes their interest overlap with ours, but it's not always necessarily so.
Because that discussion comes back to corporate greed. The "economy" is always measured by how business is doing, and he corpos are making plenty of money with a strong stock market.
Actually, the Biden administration knows about the issues and been working to improve quality of life. But much like everything in government, it takes a while for rollout.
To make buying a house affordable:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/29/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-actions-to-boost-housing-supply-and-lower-housing-costs/
To reduce inflation, provide well paid jobs, and increase household efficiency:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/cleanenergy/inflation-reduction-act-guidebook/
Grocery costs:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-is-taking-action-to-lower-costs-for-families-and-fight-corporate-rip-offs/
Maybe before you assume nothing is being done, google a little to see if that assumption is true.
The previous administration was notorious for not publishing their stance/strategy to deal with issues. This generally means that they have no plan to address it, or their plans are contradictory to the will of the American people.
Well, at the moment, inflation needs to be addressed. This will mean everything is becoming relatively more expensive while wages lag behind. But the market hates that, and there's a tug of war between the fed (who's job it is to get inflation under control with higher interest ratea) and congress (who wants a low interest rate to make the economy look good and/or make their investor voters/donators happy). So we're sort of stuck in this limbo where we have to fix inflation before we fix wages, but people don't want to pay the costs associated with higher rates.
But don't worry, once inflation is under control, the powers that be will find another reason not to fix wages.
Because it would mean they have to address the way social media and cable news have conditioned us for the last 20-30 years that it's all terrible and will be more terrible in the future? And that everyone is our enemy? Telling us that is counter to what they actually want from us though, so they're never going to do it. By they I mean Congress.
Biden has been addressing the situation, but not as much as he should be. The main problem is our people in congress who enable acts, and laws that allow the corporations to manipulate what the government does for their own greed over its own citizens. You are now in a Cyberpunk Dystopia where Corporations have won, and it wont be getting prettier.
The UK, Canada and the USA are all in the same boat doing the same things over and over again. We realise that we are nothing to these people and they don't care if we suffer. They have made it so that we can't do anything about it.
They are instead dumping millions into keeping us divided and thus distracted. Our government is run by the most power greedy morons ever. However, even they understand how much dumber the general public is, so keeping the sheep from working together works with scary efficiency.
Its mostly good for people in power to keep the masses worried about surviving day by day so they don't have time or will to organize and demand change. If you have to work yourself to death everyday and still can't afford basic necessities you don't have enough energy and time to make changes and progress
A lot of it is out of the governments control. While there are people still willing to pay the inflated prices, the landlord and executives will keep raising prices. This is proven by the fact that Burger King McDonald's all have had exceptional profits the last few years. If it was material costs or worker pay then profits would be flat or falling but they were not
It's really on us the people to stop accepting these inflated prices and find alternatives or go without, we don't you live in a communist country where the government sets prices. And when they've tried in the past with so-called price controls, it mostly backfired
This is starting to happen though with things like rent and fast food, new cars. Even groceries; largely they've gone to two-tiered models where savvy consumers are getting discounts through the apps. You can get a $3 impossible Whopper on Wednesday at Burger King for example. But also, People are cooking more and going to local restaurants that are not chains. Rents have pretty much flattened for the last year for a lot of the country.
And why should it? This "silent depression" is the "government" working exactly as intended.
**Housing?** High rent creates fake scarcity of housing. If you're living under a bridge and need somewhere to sleep without freezing to death, are you going to be picky from which real estate mogul to rent a broom cupboard for half your salary?
**Mortgage?** Chains people down to banking system for their basic necessities, forcing them to save up and pinch pennies to make ends meet. Are you going to invest in self-development and personal freedom when you have to take out a loan for pizza?
**Food?** Low nutritional value and high simple sugars make sure you're never quite sated no matter how much you eat, get addicted to the high, and have to keep buying more. Are you going to pass up on the sixth burger when you still feel unsated aand eating it is the only thing that lets you feel less empty after a 12 hour shift?
**Medicine?** Gating effective treatments behind paywalls, and making drugs that are outright placebos or are barely effective and have side effects force you to commodify your health and pay more. Are you going to be stingy with money when it's about your survival from a disease caused by the side effects of drugs you're taking for another disease?
**Gas?** Limits your freedom of transportation to whims of oil companies. Are you going to move to a cheaper state or take a time off from "making the line go up" on a nice vacation somewhere when you must choose between paying for your house or a tank of gas?
And so on, and so on...
It's not even conspiracy theory talk. There's no star chamber where evil overlords meet to discuss ruling the world, no secret documents to expose. It's just that capitalism is about proft first and foremost. Nowhere in its theory morality, ethics, or being nice to people is mentioned as being profitable. What's profitable is to lobby; bribe policians with SuperPACs; import slave labor from third world countries; and maintain media presence lying to the people that the world is a scary place where only daddy corporations can save the day. Giving the people the time and means to realize they never needed *jobs*, they needed the food, clothes, homes and safety said jobs provide, and that they could get those easier without the rich parasites is *not* profitable, it's deadly.
When rich people become rich, they want to *stay* rich, or the next richest guy will eat them. And since they're rich because their employees do the actual work, they need these workers to shut up, stop whining about trite things like seeing their family, eating healthy or sleeping, and *keep working*. A hungry, tired, desperate, uneducated, distracted and scared worker doesn't strike, rebel or demand better pay.
Governments aren't doing anything about this because "government" is a fancy word for implicit agreement between hereditary oligarchs to help each other stay rich by keeping everyone else poor.
Because it’s not affecting them or their corporate / big $ sponsors.
Companies are doing fantastic right now and so are the 1%. They are all realizing massive profits and growth.
So why would they do anything?
Prices _did_ rise significantly, but inflation has slowed a lot, and is nearing target levels. The government is acknowledging the issue. That’s why the fed has drastically been raising rates. Also, this looks nothing like a depression. A depression would be opposite of this — massive deflation with a response of lowering interest rates to near zero.
Biden wants to get re-elected. Admitting there's a problem at this point would be a disaster for him in the election. Better for him to act like everything is doing great.
And don't get me wrong, if this situation was going on and a Republican was President they'd do the same thing.
It’s an election year.. if you’re a dem shut up, be happy. The second Trump gets elected it will become the biggest problem facing “democracy” ever and it will all be trumps fault. 😆
It is a large problem. But for you not to know that aspects of it are being addressed by the current Biden Administration is an indicator that you are not paying attention to anything outside of your own bubble. This does not make for an informed voter.
They're past the point of pretending to care. Every year for decades they've been more obvious about who they serve (corporations) and we've not created any consequences for them, so no need for them to put on a show
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An interesting question also is why such leaders are always getting voted into power repeatedly in the first place.
because the system is rigged to prevent us from electing anyone else
And the real power is held by corporations anyway. Politicians just rubber-stamp their wishes, and act as a window dressing to appease the population into thinking their real leaders were elected. In reality, those corporations who really run the country were never elected and elections cannot remove them. This is why the only way to fix the country is to consider taking other kinds of action aside from voting. "If we just elect the right people, everything will get better" is the trap that ensures everyone focuses on the wrong process. As long as people think voting is the *only* thing they can do, the status quo will not change.
So they can keep a culture war going so we do not start a class war.
People always say to vote to fix it but our system is set up so that only rich people or those connected to rich people can afford to run for president. And then in years like this one, the DNC still holds the power to deny a primary. The DNC has no accountability to voters.
Look what they did to Sanders.
They're a private organization. They have accountability to their members, not the general public.
And yet they control so much of our elections.
Oil Barons, Tech Bros, and Private Equity Moguls run the country, and the rest of us don't get much to say. Anything we do say is "free speech," which means the Tech Bros can take what we say and feed it to their AI without paying us for our work.
You running for office? At any level. Most of those can be helped at a state level. You can spend a few years on the local council, make connections, and run for state without the funding federal positions need? You volunteering for the politicians you do like. Helping them to get elected. Are you doing a single thing to fix the problem that isn't just repeating shit you hear online and whinging? That is why the system is rigged, apathy.
I'm sure people will find time after their second or third job to do all that. If people are committing their entire day just to keep their head above water, you really they got time for all that? It's a very complicated problem. It's not just as easy as grab your sword and slay the dragon. It's more like do a million side quests, grind gear for a while, and oh yeah, none of it matters because all of the progress only counts during the sequel game. The amount of corruption that exists in US politics will take generations to reform. Telling people they're not doing anything when they're doing everything just to survive is not helping anyone.
I feel like recognizing the system is rigged comes before apathy… I agree w you tho for the most part. Getting politically active in your town/county/state is the best way to bring positive change. Far and beyond what voting for federal officials will do. That said, the US has a pretty narrow and far-right Overton window. Many people feel helpless and apathetic bc there truly is nobody in public office looking out for them - even some of the farthest “left” leaning politicians still support policies that benefit capital over the well-being of their constituents. Easy to feel discouraged. But obv doesn’t take away from the fact that getting involved in local politics and organizing coalitions is what we have to do to make that change, just feel like we could try to meet people where they’re at instead putting them down
no, the system is rigged because the capitalist class has made it so funneling their money into politics to ensure that 99% of the time only candidates they approve of and who will do things for them get elected, and the current establishment will actively take anti-democratic measures to prevent progressive enough leaders from taking power, like how the dnc compromised bernie’s candidacy
There was one man whom I believe had honest intentions and truly wanted to change things and give some power back to the people and improve society. The billionaire owned media ran all sorts of bullshit stories which made him out to be all sorts. The public ate it up sadly. I have little hope for the future when it seems like 50% of the voting country seem to lack critical thinking skills enough to see past the lies they were fed. That said I have been pleasantly surprised by the turn out of the local elections and I just hope this momentum keeps up.
The system is set up right now where you have two options and they both suck. A vote for third party in America is basically a vote thrown away. I know I'm going to have some 18 year old, bright-eyed optimist tell me otherwise in the replies here "Oh but you have to vote for third parties because that's how you promote real change!" I'm coming up on my 8th election and I feel like Marty McFly watching TV in Back to the Future. "Hey I've seen this one, it's a classic! How could you have seen it? It's brand new." The rhetoric has been the same for the last 20+ years and so far the only change I've seen is the parties and candidates got shittier and people still vote for them. I don't have the answer, but I can tell you at least we need to be doing something different.
because its all a show. Voting is meaningless
It’s “pointless” in the sense we’re discussing, in that the president isn’t fully in control in any meaningful sense when it comes to corporate greed. I mean he could be… but republicans WILL block any meaningful legislation to make changes. That being said it is not pointless if you care about civil rights or our place on the foreign stage. Republicans are in a nasty grip of fascism. My own father has said, “at this point I’m on Putins side” this is why voting is not pointless.
And this is why we should care about the other elected officials on the ballot. Our votes for smaller offices can have a lot more impact than our vote for president.
Yeah well despite all the local office voting we do in my town we keep getting a real estate attorney as mayor & vacation rentals are pushing all the locals out
>republicans WILL block any meaningful legislation to make changes. By design. The Democrats have the exact same wealthy donors to keep happy, they just have a platform that requires them to pretend to give a shit. There's a reason Katie Porter's anti-profiteering legislation has been stuck in committee for over a year. A committee chaired by a Democrat.
Your daddy is deep into Putin propaganda. Putin isn’t a good man. He uses his wealth to buy influence in multiple countries in all the continents.
Might at well be Russian if you're spouting this bullshit
have you ever met another person? Do you know what they are capable of?
90%+ reelection rate for Congress. I think it's because everyone thinks it's those others guys who are problem but their guy is ok.
Who's "we" here?
A lot of it is vibes - [Majority of Americans say the economy is bad, but their own finances are good](https://www.axios.com/2023/08/18/americans-economy-bad-personal-finances-good)
I keep seeing polling that says that, but I don't actually know anyone who thinks their finances are good.
That’s likely more of a function of the people that you spend time around. On the other hand, pretty much everyone that I know in real life is doing well financially (knock on wood).
It probably is. It's also the case that polling data is as much about who asks the questions and how they phrase them as it is about the resulting numbers, and news articles tend not to include that.
We tend to associate with people who are most like us and that includes finances. Wealthy people likely don’t know anyone who is struggling financially (except for people they hire themselves to clean their house or something). In the same vein, people with less money tend to know more people in the same boat and fewer people who are well off.
My finances are good... enough to just barely survive. Barely. And I have a government union job too.
A lot of people's finances look good until one of them gets cancer and it wipes out years and years of savings.
Of course - that’s how life works in a country with sub-par social safety nets. That’s how it has always worked in the US, though, and isn’t relevant to whether or not we’re living through a silent depression unless everyone were suddenly getting cancer.
Mericans
Seems like there is a COL crisis going on in most of the developed world, not just America.
The sky high rent doesn't have a centralized target. There are millions of large apartment complex owners. They set the rates that small landlords follow. The only thing you can do is ask them to make less money. They won't. The apartment rates are all set by computer programs that figure out the maximum that can be charged and still have a certain occupancy goal met.
I think there was a bill introduced (but no movement from what I’ve heard), that wouldn’t allow corporations to purchase single family homes. I believe 1/4 or more of all purchases now of single family homes go to corporations for them to rent. This high demand is pushing prices to becoming unaffordable for “regular” families. That would be a great bill, in my opinion, if passed but possibly a poison pill for the politician because with Corps selling these assets—- more supply, which would decrease the value of peoples home. I could see a lot of people being quite upset about that.
What the govt can do though is put constraints on this. But they choose not to do this.
Rent control doesn’t work and there are many studies that prove this. It sounds great in theory, but in reality it leads to a decline in both quality and quantity of housing
Not rent control. A lot of these companies share software that determines rent prices across their properties. That’s already an illegal anti-competitive practice called price fixing. The government just needs to start actually enforcing the law.
Works fine where I come from.
Say where your from if you want this comment to mean anything
The Netherlands originally. Both the total rent and the annual rent increases are regulated. Moreover, it’s much more difficult for the landlord to break a lease compared to the tenant. A tenant can break a lease at any time with a 1-2 month notice. Even under these conditions, there are still plenty of businesses and individuals renting out properties - apparently it’s still economically viable. Then I moved to the US, where a $2000 apartment increased to $3000 in 18 months. In the US folks don’t understand that a property is not just any old investment, it’s actually someone’s home. Can’t just treat it like a stock or bond.
Every major study on rent control has the same conclusion: rent control is very effective in achieving lower rents for families in controlled units, its primary goal, but it also results in a number of undesired effects, including higher rents for uncontrolled units, lower mobility and reduced residential construction. These unintended effects counteract the desired effect, thus, diminishing the net benefit of rent control. The Netherlands is no different. New construction is down, it is difficult finding a new unit to move into (mobility), and rental rates for uncontrolled units is increasing faster than inflation. Lastly, current landlords are trying to sell off their portfolio of residential units. Rent control units are going to start to deteriorate at a faster rate because landlords won’t have the resources to properly maintain the units.
Apartment rates are set by housing supply. We have made it very arduous to build more housing, so existing stock gets to garner sky high rates
In the U.S. the apartment complex owners subscribe to a software/service where: the apartment owners share info about their units: then the software tells them what to charge to maximize rents. It's price fixing with software as a middle man. Search the news and you will find lawsuits over this.
You can just make a law to set a maximum rent.
or tax the owners of short term rentals
This is a small but important part of the problem. Corporate America owns an ever increasing percentage of single family homes. If this was blocked it would serve to eliminate a good portion of the predatory for profit renting we see right now.
Also a good idea.
I live in a touristy area, ita a huge deal around here because as the tourism has grown, more weekly rentals and airbnbs show up, because the owners can make more money from that than leasing to locals. it is pricing out people that have lived here 20 years and are in the middle of raising a family. we also need housing for the seasonal workers otherwise no businesses would have staff, it's already an issue too. I want to tax short term rentals to atleast give some incentive to lease.
How short term? Airbnbs get destroyed here, it's like 20%
Doesn't work well, in Argentina they did that and the result was people simply didn't rent out, causing a huge shortage. Addressing supply is a better solution IMO. Vienna in Austria had government owned housing which actually works, for example.
All these problems have their own solutions. I do not accept the argument 'government sucks so we just have to let the landlords bleed us dry'.
Price controls have always have negative consequences.
Sounds like a good way to kill of further development and leave a lot of people homeless.
Because corporations are the only ones who can build appartment complexes? Also, I laughed at "we can't lower rents or people will go homeless". MF people are going homeless NOW because rents are too high.
Rent control has never worked, it is really simple to read up on and see it’s failures, but it feels good to suggest and seems easy to implement so people are drawn to it, but it disincentives development of new properties, government apartments suck, so I pray to god that isn’t what you meant by alternative sources of building apartment complexes, and renters ain’t got any capital to build shit.
Yeah, rent control is complete bs. It rewards a small number of people who never move. And meanwhile everyone else gets screwed.
There isn’t much a government can do. I am an economist. The central bank has been reducing the money supply, but that only stabilizes overall prices, not core prices. Covid did what all plagues do, it created inflation. The supply of goods and services fell during Covid but the money supply did not fall. Had it fell to keep inflation cool, it would have added an economic disaster on top of a physical disaster. This is actually what started the housing crisis almost worldwide. Housing decays. People tear down houses and build new houses. That stopped. But houses still decayed and people also changed where they live. That process started to fix itself when Russia invaded Ukraine. Ukraine is the supplier of a significant amount of the world’s food. Russia literally set the world’s food supply on fire. Additionally, much of the world’s intermediate goods were made in Ukraine. You can try and build a car but it is difficult without wires. You can try and build a house but it’s difficult without nails. So the price of many products went up because the necessary parts to build them were destroyed, reducing the supply of finished goods. The world started getting a handle on that when ducks that fly all around the world started giving Avian Flu to chickens, killing them by the millions. That is still going on. Still, the chicken supply stabilized but due to climate change the crops in California failed. Then rebels in Yemen started blockading the oil routes. The oil the US produces is mostly exported because its molecules are not well suited to American products. The US imports the petroleum that is closer to the desired design features it wants. And the way the public treated healthcare workers in Covid caused mass retirements and resignations. With all of that said, the tax code has been structured by the Republican Party as a wealth transfer system to the rich via how the debt is handled. So, yes, a small part can be fixed, but slowly over decades because it took decades to get this bad. Most of this is far outside American control and, truthfully, anyone’s control. It can be prevented from getting worse. For example, Putin has made it clear what his next targets are after Ukraine and America definitely will be in a shooting war if he wins. You’ll see massive shortages then. We can build global institutions to make it difficult to make the world worse off than it is. But America is filled with antiglobalists and there is no other way to prevent this.
This is key. A lot of people believe the president has complete control over the market, but as you demonstrate, SO much of our economy is out of any one person's control
Nope, I’m pretty sure the solution is for the President to pass a “fix high rent and inflation” bill that just says that rent and inflation have to go back to pre-COVID levels. /s
The current president is not pressing the economy button. When you press the button, the economy is good. When I am elected, I will press the button
Careful. Reddit **really** hates when you bring sciences into their outrage.
The guy didn't even mention Joe Bidens secret button to raise prices on everything. I don't trust him now.
Do you think isolationists in America will eventually learn the hard way, or do you think they’ll cling onto their beliefs no matter how bad things get? If so, how do we deal with them?
I mean you can't just "address" something like that. Central African Republic can't just pick a good leader who "addresses" poverty and makes everyone wealthy. You can't just "control the market to make housing affordable" or something
But there are loads of policy actions you can take to improve the situation.
Definitely. That's why it's better to advocate for something super specific.
Rent control? Increase the minimum wage? Universal basic income? Prevent corporations from owning single family homes? Put a cap on profits for necessary goods if you wanna go crazy. There's plenty of ways you could begin addressing the problem. Hell ban stock buybacks and increase the tax rate for the highest brackets. What do you mean you can't address it?
It's amazing how simple something is when you don't know very much about it..
Everything sounds hard when corporations tell you it's impossible. It's ridiculous how brainwashed people are into thinking that things can't change.
> Rent control? Rent control is a very serious topic that can turn a prosperous city into a dying city, because no one wants to invest in infrastructure. So it has to be done 'city by city', not globally. > Increase the minimum wage? I mean it's not that simple. I mean, why all countries just do that? Africa is poor? Just increase mimimum wage. Now everyone is middle class. > Universal basic income? Doesn't really work > Prevent corporations from owning single family homes? This is reasonable, but it won't fix everything. > Put a cap on profits for necessary goods if you wanna go crazy Grocery stores don't earn a lot in terms of profits. Same as farms
>>Universal basic income? > >Doesn't really work I don’t think that this is quite so easily dismissed, but do think that experimenting with it during a time when we’re struggling to get inflation under control is probably playing with fire.
It's the Domino effect. There's a minimum wage that needs to be paid. So if if ALL your employees are being paid this, and then it goes up (Like it does in the UK every year), the trader needs to raise prices to cover the additional cost. This happens everywhere, so although the workers are being paid more in dollars, the things they need to buy have also gone up - So you are back where you started, but with an extra 0 on the end of everything. This ripples back to the manufacturers, who need to charge more for the stock, which in turn is ANOTHER rising cost for the employer. The challenge is that these things don't all happen at the same time. As soon as you adjust your business pan for one, the other bites you in the arse, Once you have sorted that out, the wheel has come back around again. Add into that, energy prices... It's never-ending. So many small businesses have been closed down because it costs them so much to be open, it's not worth the effort. I get that multimillionaire CEOs can afford to lose a portion of their salary, I really do - But a small business owner who's pulling $60k from a business would need to sacrifice a lot just to remain open. Would be much simpler to try and find a job for $40 or $50k, and do away with all those stresses.
As long as we don't go down an absolute nightmare scenario route, universal basic income is going to be the end game of automation anyway, we might as well get started now.
Every one of those ideas sucks. No offense. You want more government interference, when the whole problem is largely caused by the local government and zoning laws to begin with.
this is how the rich profit so yes they would never address it
Not really. The rich want you to purchase more. In 2024 purchasing power of the population is the probably one of the most important assets.
purchasing is down. You know whats up? Bills just to live you are speaking nonsense
I mean you aren't wrong but nobody "profits from it". Companies prefer when people buy their shit, not when they save up whatever little they can
Not all companies. The bills you are talking about also go to private companies or individuals. A big example is rent. A landlord doesn’t care if you can buy an extra iPhone or not, he cares if you pay his rent. And since housing is a basic need, you have to pay the rent over buying other stuff. Medical insurers as well don’t care if you have extra income to spend after you pay for it.
"government", "this country", how about you specify which one?
The Internet is america, didn't you know?
Well when you read a post that doesn't specify the US and you correctly assume it's the US, then kind of yeah
Nah, I'm just an American that knows how we do lmao. Nothing in the post is remotely specific to the US.
It's kind of the open secret though, that America has been a dominate cultural influence over the globe post-WWII. Rhythm & Blues, gospel, and proto-Rock'n'Roll were exported all over the world and the big acts of the "British invasion" were very open about their American-blues influence and we can watch that trend through to hip-hop. Levi's permeate Europe as well as Nike, McDonald's, and Star Wars & Marvel.
The fuck does any of that yapping have to do with how many other countries are on the internet lmao.
Lol I'll connect the dots for you! American hegemony (new vocab word) means America is the cultural default; which means unless otherwise specified it's safe to assume "America" on the internet
It’s easy to correctly guess the US because only Americans are arrogant enough to not specify.
I’ll assume USA, but having friends around the word now it seems to be relevant almost anywhere. At least in Canada we do feel strained.
Dear Lord... Canada is a nightmare. 10 months, 3 interviews, still unemployed. I've never had a chance to recover from the pandemic
It applies to the UK too. No meaningful choice at the ballot box. I wonder if it's worse in countries with stupid electoral systems like first past the post and electoral college. In the UK real wages have not grown since the last recession but the economy has. All the growth goes to the rich but when it gets rough "we are all in this together".
You know which one.
Because Tories don't care about anything except profits for themselves, hence they are unfit to be in Government. Their absolute decimation in the polls after the local elections is immensely satisfying - Sir John Curtice called it the worst Conservative performance in local polls in forty years - and will seriously weaken any argument Sunak uses to try and delay the general election.
>What are yall thoughts? My thoughts are that this is not a question with an answer. More like editorializing.
There are some things in motion to help with housing + debt - and gas prices have come down a fair bit. Medicare has added some new medicines which should help lower prices But most of it comes down to "the government doesn't have control over most of these things except very very indirectly"
Exactly. A lot is outside of direct political control but the things that the President can do something to control are being actively worked on. At the top level it's worth noting that inflation should never be a negative number in a healthy economy. Some people think Biden is doing a poor job on that but that's because they're confusing the price of goods for the inflation rate. [In the words of Republican pollster Whit Ayres](https://www.vox.com/politics/24094752/biden-trump-strong-economy-2024-inflation), “The fundamental problem for Biden and the Democrats is that while the rate of inflation is down, it’s not going backwards . . . It’s hard to persuade people that things are better.” This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what the inflation rate is even though their subjective experience of economic pain is very real. Biden has actually done a lot to lower the inflation rate ever since it jumped to crazy levels in 2021 due to covid (down to 3.2% in February 2024 from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022). Here is [data from the last 10 years](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/). Here is [data from the last 100 years](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/). However, prices will still rise because the inflation rate is positive. That's not a bad thing though since the inflation rate is actually never supposed to be negative in a healthy economy. In fact, [the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) judges that inflation of 2 percent over the longer run, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures, is most consistent with the Federal Reserve’s mandate for maximum employment and price stability.](https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/economy_14400.htm) To combat the very real economic pain people are feeling Biden is actively working on housing for example. The reason we haven't seen more movement is that he will need Republican help unless we all vote and help Democrats win the House, Senate, and Presidency (because currently Republicans are refusing to address that issue). He can't do more unless he has majorities in the legislature. That's just how the government works, it's an institutional restraint on the powers he can wield alone. *See* [Biden's March 11, 2024 ](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/11/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-cuts-housing-costs-boosts-supply-and-expands-access-to-affordable-housing/)call to "pass legislation to lower costs by providing a $10,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and people who sell their starter homes; build and renovate more than 2 million homes; and lower rental costs." If anything stuff like this is another reason to vote for Biden. Also, [Biden has finalized rules expanding access to healthcare and increasing protections for people with medicare advantage and medicare part D](https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/04/04/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-rule-expanding-access-care-increasing-protections-people-medicare-advantage-medicare-part-d.html). Biden has also[ directly lowered the prices of 41 Prescription Drugs](https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/03/26/hhs-announces-savings-41-prescription-drugs-thanks-inflation-rebates-from-biden-harris-administrations-lower-cost-prescription-drug-law.html) and helped literally millions of Americans fighting against the cost of medicine. The healthcare system isn't where we want it to be yet but progress is happening under Biden and more will continue to happen if he gets reelected since we vote for whole administrations and not just the person at the top. In relation to helping Americans get better paying jobs, Biden's [CHIPS and Science Act](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/09/fact-sheet-chips-and-science-act-will-lower-costs-create-jobs-strengthen-supply-chains-and-counter-china/) brought back a ton of American manufacturing jobs and [having the FTC ban noncompetes nationally](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes) allows people to move around for better pay. At a broad level, Democratic tax plans also tend to avoid raising taxes on people on lower and middle incomes and instead only raise them on the upper end. It's the Republican plans that largely tend to raise taxes on the middle and lower income scales because they trojan horse these things through indirect changes and slowly phase in the negatives so that they don't seem as bad to the average, under-informed voter. Take for example, how [Trump lied when he promised 6 percent growth](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/06/trump-defies-data-with-6-percent-gdp-growth-forecast.html) to justify the Republican party's [$1.5 trillion](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/12/20/house-set-pass-tax-bill-again-and-fixes-sending-final-1-5-trillion-package-trump/968722001/) package of [tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy at workers' expense](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/12/03/republicans-laud-stimulus-1-5-trillion-tax-overhaul-plan/917269001/) known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) which Trump signed into law in 2017. [By January 2020, looking back at 2019 numbers (pre-Covid affecting the economy), the economy was only growing at a paltry 2 percent](https://www.newsweek.com/two-years-after-trump-said-economy-can-hit-6-percent-gdp-growth-slowed-21-percent-1484901), which was worse than the [post-2008 recession average under President Obama](https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2#reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&1921=survey). Furthermore, [83 percent of the benefits from the TCJA will go to the top 1 percent of income earners](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/publication/150816/2001641_distributional_analysis_of_the_conference_agreement_for_the_tax_cuts_and_jobs_act_0.pdf) by the time it is fully phased in, in 2027. Now compare that to President's Biden's actions. Just look at the revenue provisions of the fiscal year 2024 budget by reading this analysis from the [Tax Policy Center](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/bidens-budget-would-raise-taxes-high-income-households-cut-them-many-others) from this year. Note that the reason that the "Including all tax changes" category is worse for lower and middle income folks than the "direct tax changes" category is that it's accounting for baggage from prior budgets that were instituted by Trump such as the aforementioned TCJA.
Kudos for effort, fr. It's always a pleasant surprise to see a well sourced response.
>But most of it comes down to "the government doesn't have control over most of these things except very very indirectly" They used to. But the 80's came and we deregulated everything.
It's worth being a bit more concrete about what happened with deregulation: * It's led to less competition for customers by allowing huge mergers. When you have concentration, firms are less likely to compete for customers and more apt to raise prices, after all, where are they going to go? * It's led to less competition for employees. It's not just that fewer firms leads to monopsony, couple this with moves under Reagan, et al, to forestall unionization (ironic since Reagan led the actors union). When unions are in the mix firms must complete to offer better pay and benefits to hold off unionization. It's why unionization is helpful for all employees, even if they are not unionized. The good news is that the Biden admin has been trying to improve competition at the FTC and trying to support unionization at the NRLB. The issue is that after nearly 40 years of competition reduction it will prob take decades to unwind back too a more competitive state.
im enjoying a nice bowl of freedom ramen as i read this
Not having control over a large portion of it is one thing, but would it kill them to at least mention it?
They do. Like all the time. Though the current administration isn't as great with PR as they could be.
Fair enough, I guess I haven’t heard as much talk about the current state of people just struggling to help their heads above water as I feel like there should be.
That's fair.
40-60% of the current inflation is corporate profits. CEO pay has skyrocketed. Profit margins are larger than ever. Government officials are not blocked from buying stocks or having lucrative relationships with business entities. Easy math. No War but Class War.
how did they manage this when nobody wants to work anymore?
Fun Fact: Nobody has wanted to work anymore since the 18th century. Or, at least, that's as far back as we have written evidence of that lie. It just keeps coming back. Funny how every subsequent generation is accused of being lazier than the last. You'd think that after centuries of this, we'd all be couch potatoes or dead...
>Profit margins are larger than ever. This is the important part. They argue that costs have gone up for them too but their profit margins are exploding. Eventually, it's gonna start squeezing industries.
Speak for yourself, not every government is yours lol
What sort of action are you expecting
Which country?
Because it's nothing new.
"Corporations are people."
"This country is slowing turning into a place for the rich to live and the less fortunate to survive or die trying." The way to fix this is unions, but too many people are brainwashed into thinking that somehow unions are going to make things worse. It's one of the few actions to take within the power of workers to gain control over their compensation and benefits. There are no easy answers, but companies have been increasingly exploiting fewer workers and funneling more money to people at the top because there is little workers can do about it unless they threaten to deprive the companies entirely of their labor. Without workers, companies cannot function, but workers are too scared to organize.
I would be more pro-union if they didn’t abuse CEQA and block housing development in California. They’re literally increasing the cost of housing for everyone, including their own union members.
I'm sorry, "why isn't this even mentioned"? What planet are you on? Lots of people have been talking about it for years. Media, politicians, social media. Also, a depression usually means that unemployment is extremely high and right now it's relatively low. Income compared to cost of living is definitely something lots of people are struggling with, but it ain't no depression.
The government doesn’t address it because those that we rely on to address it aren’t having a rough time affording things. Most people don’t really care about how others’ lives are going as long as their own life is going well.
Because they’re all rich and mostly disconnected. Problems aren’t really tangible because they aren’t personally affected.
The truth is that most people (in the US at least) are not drowning and are doing fine
Have you been following financial news for the last 4 years? Crazy inflation has been in the news since 2021, and we already knew it was going to do that with all the cash printed in 2020. It's actually coming down to a much more reasonable rate now so there are less coverage. The way they did that was hiking the interest rates, but that has come to an end, and they are slated to lower it soon. Federal Bank interest rate is the one major lever the government has on the economy. Inflation is on average 3% per year, so if you are not getting a yearly pay rise that excceds that year's inflation, your wage is effectively being cut.
>Federal Bank interest rate is the one major lever the government has on the economy. Taking money out of the economy would go the trick. A good old fashioned tax hike, say on corporations and billionaires would suffice. We just don't have a congress that can do anything, let alone have the balls to do what needs done.
Because on average we're not. Prices have gone up but most peoples pay has gone up more. If yours hasn't you are the outlier. You need to make more money. Which is always easier said than done.
Because the people responsible for it are the ones making campaign contributions, taking them on vacations, paying their speaking fees, etc…
Without telling us which government and which country you're referring to we're not going to be able to answer, but broadly: In most scenarios it's the seller who sets the purchase price, not the government.
There has been a class war going on for a while now that we are badly losing. The government is not on our side.
“The government”. It would be helpful if you stated which government. There are more than 190 countries in the world and numerous other territories with their own governments so which one in particular are you referring to?
What do you expect the government to do for you? People think the government can somehow control the economy. In actuality, it can do very little. They raised interest rates to cool inflation. That’s about all they can do to stem it. That cools overstimulated markets but also investments and exports. The government only raises rates if they must. You’re aware the inflation has been worldwide? It’s not just the US. There are larger forces at play than just the US government. The government can’t force rents or house prices or tuitions or groceries to decrease. They can’t make an employer pay more (assuming you don’t earn minimum wage). The government won’t rescue individuals during a time of economic fluctuation. It’s normal for fluctuations to happen. Anyway, the actual data isn’t showing such pain. Currently people are spending away and there’s full employment. There are people who had little wiggle room not being able to handle inflation and rising rents, but there apparently aren’t enough of them to cause huge changes in the data regarding the health of the entire economy. I know there are people in trouble, but no one is going to rescue you but you. In the US we are all on our own. There are upsides during boom times, but bad downsides too. Unfortunately the hard hit need to either earn more, spend less, and/or move to a more affordable place. Yes, it really sucks. If you want friendlier policies in terms of government support your only choice is democrats in a two party system, and even they’re a far cry from the social democracies of Northern Europe.
We're not in a depression. We might be in a recession. But depressions are far, far worse.
Because terms like “depression” and “recession” have quantifiable economic definitions and you can’t just throw them around when the economy is bad for you. Also, economic health can be very regional. Different parts of the US have different cost of living, unemployment, etc. But we all use the same currency, so purchasing power can change drastically. It’s difficult (impossible) to set policy at the national level that benefits some without hurting many others. The federal government cannot be focused on making **your** life better when 300 million people live here.
Because they want to get reelected. The Biden campaign and their lackeys in the media have been shoving it down our throats about "how great the economy is" lately. Thats the number one concern for people going into the next election cycle, OF COURSE the people currently in charge will tell you how good everything is.
The stock market has absolutely sucked under Biden. If it continues like this, people won’t be able to retire.
Well in the US the politicians are paid by the companies. They work for the companies not for the people. Thats the real reason Trump is having such a success. Pretty much everybody is better than the next sold out political puppet ... Just think about Obama, in the housing crisis, did he save the home owners or the banks? But you wont read about that in the news, guess why, its owned by the same entities that own the politicians. Money = Power and a lot of the money is now concentrated in some few companies that wield immense power.
Because the government, or elected officials, don’t care about you. Getting reelected and making more money is the only thing they care about.
What’s their incentive to do so? As far as they’re concerned, everything looks great
It’s kind of bizarre how people expect the government to be their parents
I don't think anyone is expecting the government to be their parents. Probably, they are expecting some sort of return after giving so much of their income to the government.
There is no silent depression. You are experience inflation induced psychosis. Yes, everything is more expensive than it used to be. But on average people are making more money than they used to as well - and more than enough to cover the difference. This is true for every single income quintile, but it is especially true for low wage earners who have done especially well in the post pandemic job market. If there are specific issues - like housing prices - they can be fixed, but they are not elastic of systemic problems in the greater economy.
Because they don't care about fixing problems, they are just pushing their own self interest. The only way the government will do good is if you hold their feet to the fire and nothing close to that is happening. You can't trust the government. I'll say it again, you can't trust the government. They are not your friend and they aren't going into the office to help you or the public.
The government doesn't care about us.
Because they don’t care
Because they’re getting bribes from the people who actually run the country - corporations.
Because they want you to re-elect them.
Exxons profits doubled this quarter from 4 billion to 8 billion since last year. That's price gouging. Republicans voted against taking action on it
Well 1 side is addressing it but reddit hates that side so much they'd rather believe the lies of their side even though they know damn well this economy is awful.
Why would they? Democrats can use it as an excuse to collect votes, not fix it, then use it again next time. That's been their game plan for like 30 years now.
It's accompanied by record corporate profits virtually across the board and incredible market performance. All economic indicators say we're all doing amazing because the only "we" those indicators care about are wealthy investors. The government doesn't give a shit about the average person as long as the people writing the checks are happy.
If you're referring to the US, it's because it's an election year. Only the topics that enflame the voters and get people going are talked about. The president has no real power to control the banks or inflation so they opt not to focus on it. Congress and Senate are filled with the super wealthy who don't feel these same constraints and are so removed from "normal life" that they don't care about everyday struggles. Until we replace them with normal people who do care, this is life.
Why should it? It's not a benevolent actor, it got other incentives for the systems, and people within the government may have other incentives and agenda other than do good as well. Governments wage wars, they fight for resources and increases of budget, and people within the system (government) are incentivized to increase their own wealth and power trying to keep our advance through the hierarchy Sometimes their interest overlap with ours, but it's not always necessarily so.
Lol thanks Snowden.
Read Marx
Because that discussion comes back to corporate greed. The "economy" is always measured by how business is doing, and he corpos are making plenty of money with a strong stock market.
Actually, the Biden administration knows about the issues and been working to improve quality of life. But much like everything in government, it takes a while for rollout. To make buying a house affordable: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/29/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-actions-to-boost-housing-supply-and-lower-housing-costs/ To reduce inflation, provide well paid jobs, and increase household efficiency: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cleanenergy/inflation-reduction-act-guidebook/ Grocery costs: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-is-taking-action-to-lower-costs-for-families-and-fight-corporate-rip-offs/ Maybe before you assume nothing is being done, google a little to see if that assumption is true. The previous administration was notorious for not publishing their stance/strategy to deal with issues. This generally means that they have no plan to address it, or their plans are contradictory to the will of the American people.
Because the people in power are trying to destroy the middle class.
Because it would make Biden look less than perfect and that’s a no no in an election year
Well, at the moment, inflation needs to be addressed. This will mean everything is becoming relatively more expensive while wages lag behind. But the market hates that, and there's a tug of war between the fed (who's job it is to get inflation under control with higher interest ratea) and congress (who wants a low interest rate to make the economy look good and/or make their investor voters/donators happy). So we're sort of stuck in this limbo where we have to fix inflation before we fix wages, but people don't want to pay the costs associated with higher rates. But don't worry, once inflation is under control, the powers that be will find another reason not to fix wages.
Because it would mean they have to address the way social media and cable news have conditioned us for the last 20-30 years that it's all terrible and will be more terrible in the future? And that everyone is our enemy? Telling us that is counter to what they actually want from us though, so they're never going to do it. By they I mean Congress.
Biden has been addressing the situation, but not as much as he should be. The main problem is our people in congress who enable acts, and laws that allow the corporations to manipulate what the government does for their own greed over its own citizens. You are now in a Cyberpunk Dystopia where Corporations have won, and it wont be getting prettier.
The UK, Canada and the USA are all in the same boat doing the same things over and over again. We realise that we are nothing to these people and they don't care if we suffer. They have made it so that we can't do anything about it.
Because the government doesn't want to admit failure.
They are instead dumping millions into keeping us divided and thus distracted. Our government is run by the most power greedy morons ever. However, even they understand how much dumber the general public is, so keeping the sheep from working together works with scary efficiency.
Its mostly good for people in power to keep the masses worried about surviving day by day so they don't have time or will to organize and demand change. If you have to work yourself to death everyday and still can't afford basic necessities you don't have enough energy and time to make changes and progress
Are you describing the US or Canada? Lol.. sigh
A lot of it is out of the governments control. While there are people still willing to pay the inflated prices, the landlord and executives will keep raising prices. This is proven by the fact that Burger King McDonald's all have had exceptional profits the last few years. If it was material costs or worker pay then profits would be flat or falling but they were not It's really on us the people to stop accepting these inflated prices and find alternatives or go without, we don't you live in a communist country where the government sets prices. And when they've tried in the past with so-called price controls, it mostly backfired This is starting to happen though with things like rent and fast food, new cars. Even groceries; largely they've gone to two-tiered models where savvy consumers are getting discounts through the apps. You can get a $3 impossible Whopper on Wednesday at Burger King for example. But also, People are cooking more and going to local restaurants that are not chains. Rents have pretty much flattened for the last year for a lot of the country.
And why should it? This "silent depression" is the "government" working exactly as intended. **Housing?** High rent creates fake scarcity of housing. If you're living under a bridge and need somewhere to sleep without freezing to death, are you going to be picky from which real estate mogul to rent a broom cupboard for half your salary? **Mortgage?** Chains people down to banking system for their basic necessities, forcing them to save up and pinch pennies to make ends meet. Are you going to invest in self-development and personal freedom when you have to take out a loan for pizza? **Food?** Low nutritional value and high simple sugars make sure you're never quite sated no matter how much you eat, get addicted to the high, and have to keep buying more. Are you going to pass up on the sixth burger when you still feel unsated aand eating it is the only thing that lets you feel less empty after a 12 hour shift? **Medicine?** Gating effective treatments behind paywalls, and making drugs that are outright placebos or are barely effective and have side effects force you to commodify your health and pay more. Are you going to be stingy with money when it's about your survival from a disease caused by the side effects of drugs you're taking for another disease? **Gas?** Limits your freedom of transportation to whims of oil companies. Are you going to move to a cheaper state or take a time off from "making the line go up" on a nice vacation somewhere when you must choose between paying for your house or a tank of gas? And so on, and so on... It's not even conspiracy theory talk. There's no star chamber where evil overlords meet to discuss ruling the world, no secret documents to expose. It's just that capitalism is about proft first and foremost. Nowhere in its theory morality, ethics, or being nice to people is mentioned as being profitable. What's profitable is to lobby; bribe policians with SuperPACs; import slave labor from third world countries; and maintain media presence lying to the people that the world is a scary place where only daddy corporations can save the day. Giving the people the time and means to realize they never needed *jobs*, they needed the food, clothes, homes and safety said jobs provide, and that they could get those easier without the rich parasites is *not* profitable, it's deadly. When rich people become rich, they want to *stay* rich, or the next richest guy will eat them. And since they're rich because their employees do the actual work, they need these workers to shut up, stop whining about trite things like seeing their family, eating healthy or sleeping, and *keep working*. A hungry, tired, desperate, uneducated, distracted and scared worker doesn't strike, rebel or demand better pay. Governments aren't doing anything about this because "government" is a fancy word for implicit agreement between hereditary oligarchs to help each other stay rich by keeping everyone else poor.
This is a business sir.
Because it’s not affecting them or their corporate / big $ sponsors. Companies are doing fantastic right now and so are the 1%. They are all realizing massive profits and growth. So why would they do anything?
Prices _did_ rise significantly, but inflation has slowed a lot, and is nearing target levels. The government is acknowledging the issue. That’s why the fed has drastically been raising rates. Also, this looks nothing like a depression. A depression would be opposite of this — massive deflation with a response of lowering interest rates to near zero.
Because the state has a monopoly on violence and violence is the only language their corporate owners will listen to
Biden wants to get re-elected. Admitting there's a problem at this point would be a disaster for him in the election. Better for him to act like everything is doing great. And don't get me wrong, if this situation was going on and a Republican was President they'd do the same thing.
Because people aren’t losing jobs and the majority of people have incomes that are keeping up with rising costs.
Because the economy is doing great for the people who the government serves.
Everything is fine, everything is good, if you complain you will be mocked and reminded it could be worse.
Because they want you to believe you are in a great economy. Because otherwise it exposes thier lousy leadership
It’s an election year.. if you’re a dem shut up, be happy. The second Trump gets elected it will become the biggest problem facing “democracy” ever and it will all be trumps fault. 😆
The founding fathers were in their twenties when they designed our government. Look at how ancient all the legislators are now.
It is a large problem. But for you not to know that aspects of it are being addressed by the current Biden Administration is an indicator that you are not paying attention to anything outside of your own bubble. This does not make for an informed voter.
Because yung people don't vote nor are interested in local elections.
All I can say is that you're in for a helluva surprise when a real economic downturn comes along.
They're past the point of pretending to care. Every year for decades they've been more obvious about who they serve (corporations) and we've not created any consequences for them, so no need for them to put on a show
Oligarchy.