unemployment, jobs, labor force, etc.
Last month the unemployment rate was 4.6%. This is lower than it was at any time during both of President Obama's terms in office. It's lower than at any time between 1971 and 1996!
An unemployment rate of 4.6% is great! So why is everybody gloomy about the economy? There's over 10 million job openings and only 7 million unemployed. It's probably not been so easy to find a job since most of us were born.
After-tax corporate profits are at a record high, both in terms of dollars, and in terms of proportion of the economy. Stock prices are at record highs. Rich people ain't never been so rich.
For workers, median inflation-adjusted weekly earnings are higher than they were before the pandemic, and about 10% higher than they were 10 years ago (after taking inflation into account). Workers ain't never been paid so well. [Although at the moment, wage increases aren't quite keeping up with inflation.]
Why the gloom?
There's apparently three sources of gloom: (1) inflation, and (2) shortages of goods & labor. And these are related to each other -- shortages cause prices to increase. And (3) COVID still exists and we're still fighting over what to do about it (if anything).
But the first two of these are caused by the same thing -- the massive $6 trillion increase (40% increase) in the circulating money supply over the past two years. Which was a response to the third thing -- helping us to bridge the economic gaps caused by COVID.
More money all around, what's there to be gloomy about! I read the other day that the typical checking account has 50% more cash in it compared to before the pandemic. This is roughly true of my own checking account, according to my budget spreadsheet. I can't speak for each of you, but in the aggregate we all have a lot more cash than we did before.
More money in our pockets, more profits, higher stock prices, higher wages, plentiful jobs.
Yet, we're gloomy about it. People are complaining about higher prices, businesses are complaining about shortages of goods and labor. And we're still fighting over what to do, if anything, about COVID.
Business owners seem particularly upset that a few million people have left the labor force, and blame this on all the COVID aid, and can't wait for those few million people to run out of savings and return to the labor force. But maybe those few million people left for good, having retired early and/or decided to care for dependents and/or started their own small businesses. There's no sign in the statistics that people are depleting their savings. And those few million are only 2% of the previous labor force. They aren't the reason for the labor shortage. And businesses are having record profits anyway, why the gloom?
Trying to look objectively at stuff -- the economy is booming, the only things that are different from previous economic recoveries are (1) the continued prevalence of COVID and fighting over what to do about it (if anything), and (2) our misinformation-stuffed, purposely-divisive social media.
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Looking at Biden's polling numbers, he's got the lowest approval rating of any President at this point in his first term except for Trump four years ago. And Trump was presiding over an economic expansion at that time, although he didn't have to deal with COVID until later.
It seemed to me that Trump was the first President to benefit from social media, the first to truly play social media like an instrument, but it also left him permanently handicapped, he would never be truly popular, because he won by riling people up, not by being popular himself. Social media brought forth Trump, as Trump played social media like a concert pianist.
Maybe nobody can truly be popular anymore under our misinformation-stuffed, purposely-divisive social media regime. No matter how well the economy is doing. Maybe if we didn't have COVID to argue about, we'd still be arguing about everything else.
I used to be able to predict political outcomes pretty well based on GDP growth over the previous year. That relationship started to fall apart in 2016, got worse in 2020, and now seems irrelevant. We've had the strongest GDP growth in 20 years, with record profits, and a strong labor market, yet Biden gets zero credit for it.
We don't even give ourselves credit for it. Nobody believes it. What information can you believe anyway?
An unemployment rate of 4.6% is great! So why is everybody gloomy about the economy? There's over 10 million job openings and only 7 million unemployed. It's probably not been so easy to find a job since most of us were born.
After-tax corporate profits are at a record high, both in terms of dollars, and in terms of proportion of the economy. Stock prices are at record highs. Rich people ain't never been so rich.
For workers, median inflation-adjusted weekly earnings are higher than they were before the pandemic, and about 10% higher than they were 10 years ago (after taking inflation into account). Workers ain't never been paid so well. [Although at the moment, wage increases aren't quite keeping up with inflation.]
Why the gloom?
There's apparently three sources of gloom: (1) inflation, and (2) shortages of goods & labor. And these are related to each other -- shortages cause prices to increase. And (3) COVID still exists and we're still fighting over what to do about it (if anything).
But the first two of these are caused by the same thing -- the massive $6 trillion increase (40% increase) in the circulating money supply over the past two years. Which was a response to the third thing -- helping us to bridge the economic gaps caused by COVID.
More money all around, what's there to be gloomy about! I read the other day that the typical checking account has 50% more cash in it compared to before the pandemic. This is roughly true of my own checking account, according to my budget spreadsheet. I can't speak for each of you, but in the aggregate we all have a lot more cash than we did before.
More money in our pockets, more profits, higher stock prices, higher wages, plentiful jobs.
Yet, we're gloomy about it. People are complaining about higher prices, businesses are complaining about shortages of goods and labor. And we're still fighting over what to do, if anything, about COVID.
Business owners seem particularly upset that a few million people have left the labor force, and blame this on all the COVID aid, and can't wait for those few million people to run out of savings and return to the labor force. But maybe those few million people left for good, having retired early and/or decided to care for dependents and/or started their own small businesses. There's no sign in the statistics that people are depleting their savings. And those few million are only 2% of the previous labor force. They aren't the reason for the labor shortage. And businesses are having record profits anyway, why the gloom?
Trying to look objectively at stuff -- the economy is booming, the only things that are different from previous economic recoveries are (1) the continued prevalence of COVID and fighting over what to do about it (if anything), and (2) our misinformation-stuffed, purposely-divisive social media.
-----
Looking at Biden's polling numbers, he's got the lowest approval rating of any President at this point in his first term except for Trump four years ago. And Trump was presiding over an economic expansion at that time, although he didn't have to deal with COVID until later.
It seemed to me that Trump was the first President to benefit from social media, the first to truly play social media like an instrument, but it also left him permanently handicapped, he would never be truly popular, because he won by riling people up, not by being popular himself. Social media brought forth Trump, as Trump played social media like a concert pianist.
Maybe nobody can truly be popular anymore under our misinformation-stuffed, purposely-divisive social media regime. No matter how well the economy is doing. Maybe if we didn't have COVID to argue about, we'd still be arguing about everything else.
I used to be able to predict political outcomes pretty well based on GDP growth over the previous year. That relationship started to fall apart in 2016, got worse in 2020, and now seems irrelevant. We've had the strongest GDP growth in 20 years, with record profits, and a strong labor market, yet Biden gets zero credit for it.
We don't even give ourselves credit for it. Nobody believes it. What information can you believe anyway?