WTF is Wrong with the Economy?

Bibliography:
The Economics of Discontent by Jean Michel Paul
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
The Great Wave by David Hackett Fischer
Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin
Ages of Discord by Peter Turchin
Capital by Thomas Picketty
Why Nations Fail by Robinson and Acemoglu
False Economy by Alan Beattie
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
Crashed by Adam Tooze
The Road to Serfdom by Hayek
The Rise and Fall of Nations by Ruchir Sharma
The Growth Delusion by David Pilling
The Great Leveler by Walter Scheidel
End Times by Peter Turchin
The Leviathan and Its Enemies by Sam Francis
The Origins of Woke by Richard Hanania
The Absent Superpower by Peter Zeihan
Political Order and Political Decay by Francis Fukuyama
The Storm before the Calm by George Friedman
The Soul of France pt 1 by Fernand Braudel
Lost Connections by Johann Hari
The Master and His Emissary by Ian McGhilchrist
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
The Moral Animal by Robert Wright
The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
War, What is it Good for by Ian Morris

[dfaulted]

In the 80's and 90's Al Bundy and Homer Simpson were considered loosers. They had a stay at home wife, multiple kids, owned a house and a car, on a single salary.

Today they would be considered to have been successful.

That is how the economy is doing.

[jackmac]

1984 is the single most terrifying book I ever read. Not because of its brutality, or authoritarianism, or hopelessness, but because Orwell knew something about humans that almost nobody else seems to...
For the vast majority, perception of reality is dependant on consensus.
The normie mind NEEDS social acceptance to function, and that means they will always be easily manipulated by whoever understands this and has the means to exploit it.

For someone who is capable of perceiving reality independently, it means you'll always be subject to the stupidity of the mob, and there's nothing you can do about it. You are forever forced to witness but can do nothing to save society from itself.

[piobmhor]

I’m a boomer who can actually see what’s going on, unlike some of my peers. My parents grew up during the Great Depression/WW2 era, both were too young to join up by the end of hostilities. My Dad never finished high school and bought a house with the equivalent of one year’s salary punching a time clock in a factory. Although it was on a 25 year mortgage, it was paid out in 15. On one income, he raised my four brothers and myself while my mother was a stay-at-home who baked awesome cookies for us when we came home from school. When I was a teenager, my parents bought a cottage and boat for us to spend the summers at. Basically, it was a pretty decent middle-class lifestyle.

Fast forward one generation. My wife and I are both university educated and have good white-collar jobs. With no children, we managed to pay off our mortgage in time for retirement. Of my nephews and nieces, there are only two who have homes and will never be free from their mortgage until they sell. My older brother is still working at 67 because his son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren are living at his place due to their foreclosure. Of my great-nephews and nieces, that’s another story. The best they can hope for is to maybe make enough to get an apartment on their own without roommates. Forget owning anything, they’re just surviving, crippled with student debt.

When I was a kid in the 60s, we knew that by 2024 we wouldn’t be living on Mars or driving around in flying cars like the Sci-Fi movies of the day said we would, but we did honestly believe that each generation should have it better than the previous one. Something is drastically wrong.

[somedandy]

"Nothing. Nothing is wrong with the economy. Line Go Up. Stop complaining. Stop whining. Stop quiet quitting. Just make money harder. Stop noticing things.
Just Say 'No' to Noticing."
- Prosperity, Inc (with the endorsement of the Ministry of Truth)

[Slimane-rp]

roman empire: all roads lead to rome
whatifalthist: all problems lead to the rustbelt

[ToriHiragana]

I'll always remember my dad mentioning to me that when he was in elementary school (late 60s) the school janitor owned a home with a yard and his wife stayed home with the their four kids. I can barely afford my studio apartment and dog vet bills in Utah making 70k as a business manager

[breadfan]

I no longer believe hard work pays off.
I no longer believe that you shouldn't assume it is ignorance when it is most likely malice.
I now believe peaceful protest will not change anything.

[dripduck]

My bad guys i just found 55 trillion dollars of lost wages under my pillow the economy should get better soon

[TheMyrmo]

It's a bizarre thing. In the same newscast, the news anchor tells me how awesome the economy is doing, then a few minutes later tells me about the homeless encampments. Someone is GASLIGHTING me, and I don't think people are living in tents on the sidewalk in an attempt to trick me into thinking the economy is bad.

[keithstewart]

I was born in late 1960 and can confirm that single earner families were the norm during my childhood. Most Moms were housewives.

[sirheisenberg]

Its worse here, our economy is like a flailing fish, fighting for its life. The normal state of the U.S. economy is actually very bad. Because of this it goes into convulsive spasms fighting to grow any way it can out of desperation. Tricks, gimmicks, rule changes try to stimulate the economy and prevent it from falling but they only bring temporary relief to people since, when you factor in inflation we are declining.

[iananderson]

My company has more managers than working employees. Said managers receive bonuses for our performance while not understanding our work.

[Tunda]

Apparently the economy is fine if you make over a couple hundred K and have owned your home and land for a decade. Those are the people who keep telling me there’s nothing wrong with the economy

[wolfpack]

Did we forget 5 years ago the managerial class was saying "our standard of living has to decrease". I think things are going exactly to plan. Their plan.

[Nsensei]

I had a huge tech project once where for successful completion we should have gotten 12 engineers or so.
Well, we got 7 managers and 4 engineers at the start. It was a complete dumpster fire. We had 5 hours of meetings, because every single manager wanted to have his or her own meeting to discuss things. After 5 hours of meetings you were expected to do your job, which would have needed you to work over 20 hours per day on technical stuff. Needless to say, after a few months it was evident even for managers (after us telling them every day) that this won't fly like this. So they brought in THREE engineers and 2 more escalation managers. So for a job that required 12 engineers, and a management intern we had 7 engineers and 9 managers, and it remained a mystery forever why we always missed every single deadline, and why we were always tired and overworked.

Oh, and the managers cost about double compared to the engineers.

[BrokenCircle]

I said this to my grandma...I've talked about it for years and like you said prior to trump was mocked, silenced, and ridiculed.

In the past 1 man worked and provided for a family of 4.

Now both parents work, can't afford one child, a house, or anything. We've basically been turned into wage slaves if you're not in the managerial class or above and even they live harder lives than people in another time.

[rneryverwatch]

So sick of the establishment not only lying to us, but sick of dealing with the proportion of the population that still believes it. And let me be clear... I'm not saying I know any better... not saying I'm better than anyone else. But I am saying I'm sick of putting up with all this ignorance and division. Great video.

[twojstary]

As an economist, I get really frustrated when people say that the standards of living are much higher now than in the past. If you look at the progression of average wages compared to median wages in real terms, you will get a fuller picture. Average wages increase, but median wages have remained more or less stagnant since the mid-70s in the US and the UK (mid-80s for most continental European countries). This is because income inequality has increased steadily over this period. If you consider people in the bottom 50th percentile, their real wages, for the most part, have actually decreased. All this while the cost of housing, education, and healthcare has grown more than the CPI. The average is being dragged up by the wealthy, who have seen incredible increases in their income and wealth.

[lancerogers]

Dude… they putting up fake job postings not to scam but to “prove” companies are hiring meanwhile, they’re finding the smallest slightest reason not to hire people

[splewy]

The problem with the economy is that the value of human labor has been plummeting relative to the value of capital for 50 years now. If you already own significant capital, this is great news. But if you don’t already own capital, it is becoming harder and harder to work to acquire it.

This is how we have such disconnects as simultaneously having a booming stock market, and a housing affordability crisis.

Our society is rapidly regressing towards a feudal Europe style system, where a tiny, non-working class owns everything, while the rest work their lives away to own nothing.