The US economy tops the world….

[mister_coffee]

Not because we are slow and stupid. It just takes time for positive economic indicators to translate into better results in the Real World.

Best example of this was in fall of 1992. The widespread perception was that the economy was in the toilet, but the numbers actually started turning around in September of 1992, but that didn't translate into a perceptible change for regular folks until 1993, by which time George H.W. Bush was out of office.

It is important to keep in mind that both the US Government and US Economy are gigantic things and you can't turn them around on a dime. It takes years for a change in direction to distribute through all of the secondary nodes and start making a noticeable difference. It is reasonable to expect that any policy changes will take two to three years to manifest themselves in the real world. And even that assumes that the policy changes are good ones and are implemented well.

Having said all that, I think the inflation number is unrealistically low and a statistical artifact, largely caused by the fact that petroleum prices are down this last quarter. So when you average everything out it comes to 2.4%, but that hides still-substantial growth in food and consumer goods prices. I think that we should reasonably expect high structural inflation in the next few decades. One reason is that offshoring manufacturing to China is played out -- that alone took several percentage points off the inflation rate in the last twenty years. Another reason is that we are committed to enormous capital investments in infrastructure in the coming decades, after about forty years of benign neglect. Both of those things are going to drive inflation to higher levels.

[Fun CH]

Says the guy who talks about Trump and links to media articles about Trump ad nauseam. I told you a long time ago to talk about Biden admin achievements and lose the TDS.

It's you and the TDS media echo chamber making money off of Trump news that you support who have given him all the "oxygen" and now you say that's "tragic". It seems the partisan division that you all help foster is one reason that the perception we are not doing so well is pervasive.

In other words, you wish for rain and then complain about it when it rains.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/07/business ... index.html
"So, why the sour mood?

In short: Inflation, housing and bitter national politics."

[Rideback]

The numbers are terrific, but as the saying goes they are invisible to the naked eye. In this case, the blockbuster news of the Israel/Hamas conflict as well as the Speakership battle have sucked all the oxygen out of the economic news cycle. Trump himself has managed to capture a gigantic amount of news ongoing since he left office which has pushed the economic successes that Biden's admin has had below the fold.

It's tragic that people aren't getting that news, aren't understanding that our economy is booming, that infrastructure is being put in place because of Biden's policies, that our world stature has grown by leaps and bounds. So, yes the media has a whole lot to do with the economic successes going unnoticed but also as consumers we all need to pay better attention to the work going on to make the economy strong.

[just-jim]

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So we’re all slow and stupid? Sure!

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Considering the real numbers…..if you can’t see it, then, evidently, yes.
(maybe you have a ‘better’ set of numbers?)
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[dorankj]

So we’re all slow and stupid? Sure!

[mister_coffee]

Perception generally lags the numbers by about three or four months.

[dorankj]

Yep! We’re spectacular, stupid people just don’t understand how great things are.

[Fun CH]

"The U.S. arms industry is enjoying a windfall. U.S. military equipment sales to foreign countries shot up 49% to $205.6 billion in the last fiscal year, the State Department said in January. America's largest defense contractors, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, received record orders.Feb 24, 2023"


https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... 8GarkbJ1WQ

[just-jim]

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Heather C Richardson’s Oct 27 column. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.c ... er-27-2023

“…. the economy continues to add jobs at record rates—more than 13.9 million since President Joe Biden took office—along with yesterday’s stunning report that U.S. economic growth grew at an annual pace of 4.9% in the third quarter of this year, puts the U.S. economy at the forefront of most of the world. And inflation is back in the range that the Federal Reserve prefers—it’s at 2.4%, close to the Fed’s target of 2%.”

Yet, reality seems to be a victim of perception, as some want to believe otherwise about the economy….

“ In contrast, consumers give high marks to the Trump years, when average growth before the pandemic was 2.5% and the U.S. added only about 6.4 million jobs…..
….There is a crucial divorce here between image and reality. Americans think our economy, currently the strongest in the world, is in poor shape. They mistakenly believe it was better under Trump.”

She goes on to discuss various dis-information efforts and other reasons for the disconnect between reality and perception.
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