this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 29 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Lmao.

Yet more people who make too much money to be connected to reality wondering why the commoners are complaining.

It's because the economy is not good for them. It's really that simple. Shit is expensive and most people did not get pay raises. Most of the ones that did get raises haven't gotten enough to tackle the increases in food, rent, and utility prices. People are working full time and slipping into homelessness through no fault of their own.

And we have this gaslighting bullshit blasted at us every day like we don't have eyes of our own and brains to think with.

[–] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Pretty obvious you didn't read the article.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Oh I did. And it's the same gaslighting that CNBC does. Of course unemployment is down, you need 3 jobs to afford rent. Of course the economy expanded, that's GDP, that's what it does unless we're really fucked.

It's obvious to me with your pattern of posting that you're trying to post pro Biden stuff without regard to reality.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It's obvious to me that what you're claiming the article is happy about, is the exact opposite of what the article is happy about.

The point of the article is, wage inequality is down, unemployment is down, wages adjusted for inflation are up.

The fact that you're gaslighting what the article says, in order to be able to argue against things that aren't what's in it, indicates to me that you probably don't have a real strong argument against what's actually in the article.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The article is asking why are people unhappy with the economy when X Numbers are good. God forbid someone answer that question.

[–] _tezz@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You said the reason people are upset is that

the economy is not good for them. It's really that simple. Shit is expensive and most people did not get pay raises. Most of the ones that did get raises haven't gotten enough to tackle the increases in food, rent, and utility prices.

The article states however that

Even accounting for inflation, wages are higher today than they were before the coronavirus pandemic, and the biggest wage gains have accrued among the lowest-paid workers, resulting in a dramatic reduction in overall wage inequality.

Are you saying that the author is lying? Can you provide any evidence to support this one way or the other? Because your position and the article can't coexist, only one can be true. One is an investigative report and one is a Lemmy comment. You must understand how this looks?

Biden sometimes deserves criticism for sure, but not here.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yes I am. It's a fun bit of disingneous writing. They heavily cite everything around that claim, but not that claim. Because all of that other stuff can be true while people are still struggling. And it's not that he hasn't done good things. It's that his campaign is gaslighting the country. 63% of Americans reported they still weren't able to buy as much as they used to in January.

This is what I posted elsewhere-

Here's Gallup actually asking the people and not an economist quoting the most generalized of statistics to cover up real conditions on the ground. It is entirely possible for the economy to grow, for unemployment to drop, and inflation to be less, while the working class is evicted en masse.

63% of U.S. adults say recent price increases have caused financial hardship for their family. This includes 17% who say it is a severe hardship affecting their ability to maintain their standard of living and 46% who report it is a moderate hardship but does not jeopardize their standard of living. Another 37% of Americans say inflation is not a hardship at all.

The current 63% saying rising prices are a personal hardship reflects a continuation of peak concern on this measure since Gallup started monitoring it in November 2021. In that initial reading, 45% reported a severe or moderate hardship. The rate inched up in 2022 even as inflation ebbed, perhaps reflecting the cumulative effect of higher prices rather than the rate itself.

Those in lower-income households (76%) are more likely than those in middle-income households (64%) and higher-income households (54%) to say price increases are causing them hardship. However, income differences are even more pronounced when looking just at those saying the impact is severe. Lower-income Americans (30%) are three times as likely as high-income adults (10%) and almost twice as likely as middle-income adults (16%) to characterize high prices as a severe hardship.

63% of people reporting something like that means that's their lived experience. Right or not, they don't want to see the president whining about people not understanding what he's done. And when the number is that high there's a very good chance the top level numbers are hiding things. Furthermore, wages would have had to go up a crazy amount this year to cover the inflation from the last few years. The last year the Census has data available for, 2022, reports a 2 percent decrease in wages against inflation. We get the 2023 numbers from them around September. This is all preliminary numbers from BLS which shows an increase of about 4.3 percent in the "working class". (production and nonsupervisory) Meaning they just barely broke past the 4 percent CPI inflation last year. The two years preceding were 8 and 4.7. And CPI doesn't include food purchases where there's been wild inflation for the last 3 years.

Tl;Dr - Yeah Zach Carter lied. He lied about that sentence and did a professional job of wondering why people could possibly be angry.

[–] _tezz@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't really think that the Gallup poll you linked refutes Carter's point, actually. Gallup and Carter are examining completely different data, and honestly, Gallup doesn't make a claim about what the cause is for these findings.

The poll states that 68% of Americans thought in December that the economy was worsening. But looking a little further, actually 64% of Democrats thought it was getting better, compared to only 8% of Republicans. It kind of feels like this is the actual information we should be concerned with in the poll, and that you're only giving me part of the information for some reason.

Regarding the CPI, it does track food and beverage as a core category.

https://bls.gov/CPI/questions-and-answers/

The CPI represents all goods and services purchased for consumption by the reference population (U or W). BLS has classified all expenditure items into more than 200 categories, arranged into eight major groups (food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communication, and other goods and services). Included within these major groups are various government-charged user fees, such as water and sewerage charges, auto registration fees, and vehicle tolls.

I agree we have a lot of work to do still, but I'm sure we can also agree that a significant portion of Americans are also not very informed and generally make poor financial choices.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's what you're going with? Over half the country is just making poor financial choices?

I'll give you that I mixed up core inflation and CPI.

[–] _tezz@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I mean yeah, you yourself are here arguing the wrong facts, and I assume you consider yourself educated. You think a high school graduate in Iowa is going to have received financial literacy education? I severely doubt it.

I also am actually going with the fact that the data you gave me is highly partisan in nature. Republicans are in another reality man. I think we'd be doing ourselves a disservice falling for their talking points.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

They didn't only survey partisan people. That's the percentage of people who responded and identified as Democrat/Republican. Political apathy polls also consistently sit at about half the country.

And campaigning on, "you're all just stupid" is a very brave move. That alone would answer the question the author so bravely poses and then ignores.

[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago

You live in Wall St or in reality?

Because in reality the proletariat are fucked rn, regardless of what Wall St says is happening

[–] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world -3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

And what pattern would that be?

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The posts and comments you make.

[–] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world -2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Such as? Am I being singled out because of my dislike of Trump? Because I can assure you it's a trait shared by a lot of people.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Lol no. You don't just dislike trump. You're trying to spin everything to look great for Biden too. Even this you can't help but throw Trump's name in here. And no you're not being singled out. I'm not following you around Lemmy. I just take your stuff as I find it and it's clearly biased.

[–] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world -2 points 7 months ago

Well it's nice to be followed I guess, and I appreciate your perception but I think you are discounting that I may have a liberal bent that falls in line with Biden. It doesn't look like you have anything specific.

[–] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Seriously? That's your rebuttal? 🤦🏼‍♂️

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev -5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

like we don't have eyes of our own and brains to think with.

You sound like a campaign commercial with an angry-eyebrowed white woman looking straight into the camera.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Oh? I was going more for the 1984 reference but maybe that's the problem.