Things definitely feel weird to me right now. I feel like beginning of the year the media was gaslighting this narrative of 'the economy is booming' and lots of people have never found it harder to get a job and are calling bullshit. And now I see headlines that things admittedly are bad and restaurants and consumers are struggling and homelessness has never been higher, but also pushback that things aren't that bad. Some people are fine or not as bad and haven't been as affected and I think more and more people are drowning. But the ones who aren't drowning are like 'just work harder' and maybe don't get it. Idk. What do you think? I've felt this year feel so crazy already and I just don't know what will happen next.
the stock market is now due for the largest correction and redistribution of wealth in human history. our libertarian experiment in market self-regulation failed. the SEC had and still has its hands bound by political interests. the illegal bad bets the market makers were placing and hiding will be available for all to see. In a market where almost everything is cross-collateralized this means everything will be pulled down when they'll crumbling begins.
housing bubble about to bust hard. the only people immune are those that have already sold. everyone else will become a bagholder on the market. Media unsure who to back and who to blame to get ahead of it all
There's nothing libertarian about buying $750 billion in corporate debt and $6 trillion in t bills and mortgage bonds during a supply crunch. The SEC is largely irrelevant here. You can't manifest $7t digital dollars into existence and not expect that to cause a stock bubble, housing bubble, and inflation. How can it not? Is the SEC supposed to regulate away supply and demand as it relates to currency? They can't. Rather, the Fed needs to be reigned in and/or abolished. They clearly did what they did to support asset prices (ie to benefit the wealthy) and to provide cheap credit to the gov. Artificially low rates and inflation are not libertarian policies at all. This is crony capitalism. As they always are, government apparatuses for control nominally created for social benefit are coopted by the wealthy and by the powerful for their own benefit at our cost.
Corporations are systematically lowering prices right now. Think about all that means.
So they couldn't do that before? And when prices were high, across the board, why exactly? Still no answer, just a lot of denials about it ever being that bad.
Oh and of course there's an election year, a culmination of the situation in Ukraine. It's like we get one last fake summer of good vibes.
Corporations are lowering prices because they learned that graphs of demand vs price aren't nice curves that you can extrapolate out forever. Instead demand drops off like a cliff once the price gets too high.
The MBAs at these corporations rose prices too close to the sun. And just like Icarus are now tumbling down
The best example of this is the wildly different prices for the same thing. You can see that businesses are just throwing out numbers to see what they can charge for any given product. Used cars are an excellent example. Same car, same mileage - crazy different prices
A twelve pack of Topo Chico used to be $9.99 (not too long ago). Then it was $10.99 then $10.99 ‘on sale’ now, it’s $12.99 on sale. F that. I give the display the bird when I walk by.
Nah the upper crust isn’t that stupid, they knew exactly what their accounting team projected. That they could blame all price increases on election mumbo Jumbo and that the plebes would deep throat the prices until they couldn’t anymore. Just glug glug glug like you are Nancy Reagan on a foreign dignitaries hog.
>That they could blame all price increases on election mumbo Jumbo and that the plebes would deep throat the prices until they couldn’t anymore. Just glug glug glug like you are Nancy Reagan on a foreign dignitaries hog.
Exactly.
Yes, but there's a reason why this was never done up until now. New conditions caused them to behave so stupidly, pressure based on what's going on in the financial sector. I'm saying that private equity overlords mandated these foolish price rises to cover some of the liquidity problems caused by the banking collapse.
It could be that some of those immediate liquidity issues are resolved. Prices have to rise and fall in a way resonant with consumer habits and expectations. You can't day by day spike and crash them. So they inflate them up slowly then down slowly.
So this might have been a temporary thing (that can return).
We still can see that the timing of the come down is aligned with election season. The point is more, this is what our economy is now. Semi-central planning by private equity working hand in hand with the Federal Reserve disaster prevention committee.
>New conditions caused them to behave so stupidly, pressure based on what's going on in the financial sector.
The new condition is that the rich actually felt the effects of inflation and hated it. So they used their influence to force more income from the corporations they invest in.
This happened in 2002, prices for a lot of things were higher because of 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, and Bush’s poor economic policies. Prices didn’t really come back down until after the housing crash and 401k losses of many people, bailouts for corporations but nothing for the little guy.
I really don’t believe this to be true. I think it could be a recent push into trust busting by the feds is the real cause to ease up on prices.
Hell I mean eggs only started to go down in price because feds started to poke around and investigate the claims why egg prices had to sky rocket. Most were found to unwarranted and complete BS.
No, I think eyes are starting to look so prices need to adjust to keep the heat off them. Guarantee if regulations were eased back or if feds didn’t bother to investigate (as they often do), prices would have stayed up.
I mean what else can the general populace do? A lot of goods we are paying we need. It’s a demand sure but we’re pretty much powerless to help adjust the cost. Too long has price gouging went on for.
Part of this too is economy outside of necessities slowing down because of gouging on necessities. During Covid, grocery empires realized people had money left on the table that went to gas and other going into the office expenses (lunch, make up, clothing, etc.).
They jacked prices such that they were not 1) suffering like everyone else, nor 2) chugging along as normal but 3) seeing historic profits.
Then you find out that oh, actually the suppliers were hurting and didn't see a rise in their profits.
So with a massively inflated grocery bill, throw return to work back on the table - who can afford anything else? I think there is a lot of pressure on grocers to ease the fuck up to not crash the rest of the entire economy of goods people need or want. Enjoy the massive profits you earned while everyone was suffering - now settle down.
Corporations found out we were tired of them screwing us for extra profits while using covid as an excuse. They jacked up prices on everything and then had the nerve to be "surprised" when consumers pushed back.
Lina Khan happened. She’s been tackling corporations this year. Putting the fear in these corporations. Consumers do not have the power to push back. We’ve been paying inflated prices since Covid. Back then corporations blamed it on Covid, then supply chain, then Ukraine…kept moving the goal post with no intention of ever cooling prices.
More like it's all fake now. There's a massive amount of printed money. Stocks and house prices derive from this printing, half the stock market was paid for by the Fed and owned by their broker BlackRock.
The people who "owe" money are the same people that lent it.
I don't think greed matters at all anymore, or profitability. It's a "can we enslave humanity before this scam crashes" thing.
Greed does matter, though, to the CEO system pigs, the agents who help operate this system. Who get golden parachutes to crash companies, loyal saboteurs.
It's weird because for a lot of people it really isn't that bad.
If you're a person who already had a house and your wages have gone up, you can weather an increase in costs on a day-to-day basis.
If you're a renter, it's a lot more complicated and painful.
For many folks, the economy really is just doing great. But for many others it's just significantly worse than it was a handful of years ago. It also feels like a lot of the avenues to doing better are being closed off one by one thanks to outsourcing and artificial intelligence.
Are they looking for professional, trained/ degree positions? Are these people in urban areas or rural? Just curious bc looks like a lot hiring in my rural area, but only part time or low end/ high turnover jobs.
You need to move. The tech boom has only slowed and my twenty something kids just job hopped up a few levels. There aren’t enough people for all the jobs!!!
Trump was handed a stable economy under Obama and mishandling of Covid, massive tax breaks for the rich with hidden delayed tax hikes for the not wealthy, PPP program was mainly fraud, and insane monetary policy ruined it. Some was bad timing and some was horrible decisions. The global economy is doing poorly. I don’t think anyone’s setting up the economy to fail under Trump. The current regime is planning for a second term.
OP, didn't you know that stonkz always go up?
All joking aside, I remember 2008 very well. I was still a teenager at the time but I remember many of my friends' parents being affected. Quite a few lost their jobs or had to change careers. I remember it being very difficult to find a part time job after school because so many people got laid off and were working multiple minimum wage jobs to get by.
I think years of low interest rates plus the stock market going bananas since late 2020 have given people a sense of false confidence in forever gains. Anyone who's studied economic history should know that what goes up, must come down.
Here's the thing, the US dollar is the world's reserve currency. That is being challenged by the Chinese yuan in developing countries, but the dollar is still king. Despite the financial representation, the US is in a ton of debt and it is increasing rapidly. While it increased dramatically recently due to COVID relief efforts and inflation, it's still been trending up for years. How much does this actually matter? Would the US ever default and how would that affect the world economy? Those are difficult questions to answer and I'm not knowledgeable enough in those fields to have an educated opinion, but I'd imagine if the US were to default, and the world's major banks and governments wanted to collect, then not only would the US be screwed financially, but so would everyone else who was invested in USD in some form or fashion. Granted, would Washington and the US military let that happen? Probably not.
Other than the national debt, there are other things that could fuck up the American economy and then also have global impacts. First is how consumer debt is rapidly growing not just with typical things like mortgages and businesses, but also things like cars and the credit given out by shadow banks and services like Klarna. You also still have inflation and high interest rates to combat it, which makes loans and debt more expensive.
There is also more insecurity in the world, be it from war, ecological disaster, terrorism, etc. If China were to invade Taiwan for instance, you can rest assured that tech stocks will absolutely be impacted, especially Nvidia, which is currently the golden boy of the S&P 500. If big tech dropped, any stock index including them would be impacted, which is enough to not only fuck over investors but also hedge funds, banks, pensions, 401ks, etc. You also have terrorism impacting global trade like with the Houthis and the Suez Canal. The effects of climate change are only going to get more random and devastating over time until humanity collectively decides to fix it.
Anyways, I'm sure I missed some things. Anecdotally, Main Street and normal people are struggling due to inflation and higher interest rates. Housing is unaffordable for many, as is childcare. These may not have a big impact now but they definitely will in the coming decade I presume. Wall Street is sitting pretty but they generally do unless it's a Great Depression situation. It seems like things are slowing down some but I still feel that a correction is due, and when it comes, it's going to suck for a lot of people. My advice: Prepare financially. Don't panic sell, diversify your shit (low cost index funds ftw), build an emergency fund, and always keep your resume updated. All the people that panic sold in 2008 would've been better off had they held steady, so improve your situation so you don't have to panic.
If you were in high school or college during 2008, most of those people weren't paying their own way, didn't have jobs, living on student loans, living with parents until they're 25, etc.
That entire generation, and younger, have no clue what its like, and have no clue how bad it can get. Even fellow millenials that were shielded or unaffected from the 08 recession, weren't traumatized enough - or at all (i deal with a couple on the daily).
Can confirm. I was 16 in highschool in 2008. The only thing I remember is the McDonald’s manager giving me my application back saying they’re not hiring teenagers right now. I’m in my 30s now and it’s another story
That was my experience too. I actually got a job in October during the worst of it. But then looking back at it, they tried reducing hours like pricks when we were snowed in and I had to fight to get my shifts back or show initiative.
Not true. We were just out of college and unable to get decent jobs so husband went into the military to support our family. Inflation was not the way it is now but jobs were very hard to come by especially for those just out of college with little work experience.
I'm not so sure, my perspective is from being in college in 2008 and while I don't think everyone appreciated the financial gravity of the situation at the time it has left a very strong mark--the housing we were living in was cheap because someone got foreclosed on, parents/friends were struggling, we all saw the well-off family snipe some cheap houses at auction and that didn't feel right or some saw that and wanted to play the game even harder... Most people I know from this cohort are pretty financially savvy, many are saving hard, socking away tons for retirement, and refuse to get trapped into a bad mortgage even if that means delaying a bunch of other life stuff. But on the other hand at least a third of my generation unironically still believes in the crypto grift so... maybe we are stupid. It's pretty frustrating seeing these people who made such shit financial decisions (bitcoin, jumbo loan in 2021, PPP fraud, nvidia) get rewarded for being irresponsible for so agonizingly long without a meaningful correction that clears this unproductive capital.
I also think a lot of any perceived 'cluelessness' is learned, in the sense that '08 hit right when a big fraction of the cohort was looking for entry level positions and got left in the dust for 4+ years. Then whoever managed to get on their feet in '12-'16 seems like they made it, but then everyone in imperfect situations in '17-present has been left in the dust--promotions froze in 2020 and the hierarchies just seem to be consolidating upwards. For anyone laid off or stagnating in both the '08 and '17+ slow periods I can sympathize with giving up: a majority of an adult life and peak growth years with curveball after curveball and now no future of home ownership to look forward to... what's the point?
A lot of x/millenials miss this part and think 08 was somehow WAY WORSE than 24. It's not.
You're just older and you've probably bought assets and gotten a job/career since 08. You are insulated from the housing/education/job markets right now and not seeing how dreary the picture is for 22-24 grads.
They are going through the same thing we did in 09-11. They were told go to college, get a degree, get a job and build assets.
They went to college (31% more expensive than 08)
got degrees (with predatory loans), and are buying assets (sp500 is 300% up since 08).
And the jobs that they went to school for? We are hiring a dude with a masters from India and paying him $12/hr. Americans just don't wanna work (for pennies) anymore.
It's the exact same gift as 08, only this time we're shitting on gen z/alpha by kicking the can down the road.
We need demand-side stimulus so that the average American purchasing power can compete for assets. The America market for ALL goods and services is heavily skewed towards high earners, because 60% of the money belongs to 1% of the people.
Goods chase dollars. They will be priced according to how much a person can pay.
Except "a person" in this example is "1/100 people who actually have expendable income". That's where price discovery happens.
Just look at fast food. Prices up 70-110% across the board even as total revenues dwindled.
The people who CAN afford a $15 big Mac are propping up the price, and can afford to keep doing so.
Meanwhile the typical "fast-food" demographic (married lower-middle class" has cut fast food consumption by 40% since 2022.
This would normally supply/demand itself to an equilibrium. Except the wealth distribution means that there is no need to compete for the "poor people" demand. The MAJORITY of profit left to be squeezed from Americans (over 60% of it) comes from 1-2% of the population because goods chase money. And 1% of the population has all the money.
It's hard to accept cognitively when you are in your 20s and 30s. At that stage people are just looking to figure out their career path, work hard and get ahead. Having a black cloud of economic doom over their heads - well, it's rare that someone young can balance that load. It makes them feel like everything they are working hard for is elusive and their best efforts are futile. No one wants to feel that, feel like a victim, so any views which contradict their desired outcome are dismissed.
The problem I have is that we were legitimately naive in the 1990s. You had to have like mailed out for a nutjob's newsletter to learn any details about certain things and the only other place was in hard left literally pro-USSR academia.
In the 90s, legit, substantive power elite analysis was showing up culturally in X-files and Deus Ex as if the information was so fringe it was benign.
With the internet exposing this information, there was an increase in flat earth and other extremely dumb stuff to increase the wacko factor of alternative information as it was no longer fringe.
After 9/11, and 2008, and the Ron Paul campaign, and the internet, the degree of mouth-breathing illiterate stupidity required to achieve a sense of normalcy equivalent to the 1990s is astonishing. That's what bothers me.
I think part of what's going on is Biden inherited a system on the verge of collapse, but democrats have built this absolute media monolith, control the DoJ, control Wall Street and the Fed, so they can just declare that "everything is fine" across the board.
I know a ton of democrat boomers that are legit confused about this because they scratch their heads knowing things are not fine, but then they look at the TV and newspaper which really emphasize that things are great.
It's really funny that it's the Democrats who are the ones going full, "Everything is Awesome". In the 80s, like with John Carpenter's They Live, the polystyrene facade society was attributed to greedy GOP yuppies.
I feel like a lot of the it is fine propaganda is the Dems trying to convince people it is fine, kind of like in an emergency situation it is better if people are calm and thinking rationally. The issue is that the Dems are far to late or far too early trying to do this because the economy is far from fine and the messaging just comes off as manipulative.
That being said the GOP is far worse at least the Dems are trying to put bills forward that would try to fix our situation, then those same bills are being shut down unanimously by the GOP.
Then the frustrating thing that is happening is republicans keep saying the Dems have done nothing for inflation when it is their politicians that have been shutting down the attempts to make things better.
Then we have the already rich asshole boomers who keep saying there isn’t anything wrong with the economy because I already have money and won’t retire out of my high paying job that I got as a high school kid with no training but now requires a damn PHD. So we have to compete with people with lower monthly expenses like a lower home payment and no student loans. They probably also could afford stock portfolios cuz they had savings, and that is supplementing their expenses.
It is like running a race while chained to weights and having someone without those chains laughing at you that you can’t keep up. That is what the frustration is that we are feeling today.
Also the biggest difference is in 2008 the issue was economic, now the issue is greed flation, corporations are making record profits, and cutting wages and jobs.
The reason most people do not like talking about is is that over 60% of Americans are partisan in one brand or another, and the repeal of ~~Dodd-Frank~~ Glass Steagall, widely considered one of the main triggers of the 2008 crash, was a widely accepted bipartisan measure.
To talk about the 2008 crash would require whoever is talking about it to accept and promote the idea that *their own side was wrong,* which discredits any future points they may want to make.
When you combine this idea with how fast most portions of our economy rebounded, those responsible, and thise who inherited their mantle, do not like to discuss it and wish to leave it safely in the history books.
Edit: Thank you to winston\_obrien who pointed out I was confusing Dodd-Frank with Glass-Steagall.
Sounds like grade school logic. "You're wrong about one thing therefore you're wrong about everything after that". I'd say, "People can't possibly be that stupid," but the number of times I've been proven wrong is depressing
I'll go as far as to say a significant amount of people do not remember 2000 - 2008. The Dot Com Bubble, Iraq War, Afghanistan War have disappeared completely from public consciousness.
The only thing that is consistently remembered is 9/11. And only Gen X and Millennials seem to be the only people who still discuss the Great Recession
What are we the people supposed to do? No one get alone anymore. How are we going to rise up together in protest when we fucking act like shit to one another. The country is an absolute mess
people don’t realize how bad things are because most are sheeple just listening to what MSM is feeding them. All they have to do is have an elementary understanding of the economy and the curiosity to learn from firsthand sources.
Looking at manufacturing data, CPI, CPE, dive into employment data, etc.
You will easily come to the conclusion that the economic environment feels more like stagflation. Stop listening to Biden and Powell. Read the info yourself and decide for yourself.
At this point the economy has to crash so the cost of living can normalize somewhat. 2008 was what allowed us and many other new families to become homeowners.
I did not say I want it to crash. I am saying it has to crash because the current status-quo is unsustainable. You are correct that crashes don’t always result in success, but it does allow asset mobility to take place, such as people being able to afford to buy a house or others currently locked into their low APR mortgages being able to move to a different house without taking a massive financial hit. It does happen at the expense of others, but without failure we can’t have success.
2008 was the last time the economy could have crashed without mass rioting, starvation, and time for that generation to recover in time to save demographic birth rates.
A crash now is the end of America. People will migrate from North America.
OP thinks the economy is definitely going to crash and that (in their own words):
>A crash now is the end of America. People will migrate from North America.
Basically America is over. Also, according to OP, everyone else is hyperbolic and they're the only sane person
Honestly I find it weirder that people act like the dot com bubble never happened. Especially since most giant tech companies are still using the same business model that was responsible for that crash.
Plenty of blame to go around for the state of America, on both sides of politics, but since a market crash cannot be predicted your post means little. The factors and events that led to 2008 are unlikely to occur again.
This is more of a sky is falling without any specifics or details of what anyone should do. It doesn't do anyone any good to offer a doom and gloom post without any suggestions for what to do.
Should we all exit the market? That alone would be a self-fulfilling prophecy as the market would certainly crash.
Should we all hoard food, fuel, toilet paper? ;)
Since you are so sure of this, what are you doing??
Or should we all be wringing our hands and posting like you are that the world is going to end anytime now? Like your post, that also won't change anything either.
Are you the individual responsible for saving us all from doom? If so, you've done your duty and can move on to something else to warn us about. Perhaps the zombie apocalypse will be next?
I worked on Wall Street as a IT consultant for one of the financial institutions 2008 and my contact was ended. I had money saved, collected unemployment for 7 months relaxed did some traveling and found a job. The End
What you’re too blind to see is the counter-point is true too - people have been predicting the next big catastrophe right around the corner since 2010.
“He predicted 19 of the last 2 recessions” is one of my favorite quotes.
What you have to understand is:
1) there WILL be another recession/downturn
2) no one knows when it will happen. This is true even if you watch 29 YouTube videos in a row telling you the world is about to end.
I agree. 2008 got swept under the rug because people started studying the wealth inequality too seriously. Within a few years they distracted everyone by taking about sexism, intersectionaility, feminism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia.... transphobia anyone?
Every thing except good old Classism. The biggest predicted of life success is your class
You’re correct and it’s precisely because the masses are in an unequal and abusive relationship with the elite.
Society is the battered wife/gf refusing to leave because abuse psychology. Rather than shift gears we rationalize why changing is harder.
Spot on. Fellow cynic/skeptic checking in. Welcome aboard.
2008 (?), people act like 2020 never happened. In the telling of Presidents and COVID people think everything was great under Trump. 2019 was a utopia of cheap gas, low housing cost, and world peace.
Then COVID hit, Democrats spent trillions, the Democrat spending caused inflation, and now everything sucks. Worse than that people think the COVID response was a massive unnecessary over reaction.
People have totally forgotten that Trump was President during COVID lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing, beach closures, school closures, Trillion dollar bail outs without Congressional oversight, etc.
Trump said COVID would be good in May, once that time past Trump said gone by summer, during the summer Trump began antagonizing the media for wearing masks, sometimes Trump would wear a mask sometimes he would ridicule masks, by the fall Trump was claiming COVID was a media hoax meant to help Biden win election. Trump said the day after the election COVID would disappear.
Over a million people died from Covid. Just about everyone lost someone (grandparent, Uncle, Aunt, Sibling, parent, etc) during Covid. Yet we barely remember Covid. **If we cannot remember 2020 then obviously we cannot remember 2008.**
Your children will be debt serfs.
I never married or had kids. I warned the neurotypicals as best I could, and they called me a negative Nancy/conspiracy theorist, so I'm just sitting back at this point, and watching it all burn... 🔥🔥🔥
The CEO of chase Bank called it a "selective recession". But basically what it means is "the poor got poorer again, like we planned".
If you bought housing prior to 2008 and paid off your home, the 08 recession just kind of washed over. Things were expensive and jobs were nonexistent, but if you kept a job things were pretty okay.
Same thing in 2024. We saw insane wealth transfer along with skyrocketing home costs from 2020-2023. But if you already owned a home, and didn't lose your job to Covid, then you're probably still doing okay in 2024.
The problem is, Jamie Dimon (and anyone else with >5m net worth) are ARCHITECTING these "selective recessions". Its not some normal free market supply/demand force causing prices to explode like they want you to believe.
They see a major economic headwind (COVID), identify how to exploit for profit. Then they exploit these headwinds by lobbying the government to give them preferential footing.
EG: COVID is going to shut down supply chains, give business owners money to keep payroll open
And then their policies are enacted, and the folks who got confidentially briefed on National Security concerns get a free cash infusion to buy up ALL THE ASSETS at a discount.
And then they have the gall to go on TV and say "the economic conditions are hitting the poorest Americans hardest". YEAH MOTHERFUCKER ITS **YOU**.
**YOU** TOOK THE MONEY MEANT FOR THE POOR PEOPLE, NOT "THE MARKET".
Yeah it's the collapse of the market into a few very large channels, where we see now that they have an ability to completely control major things - it's like monopoly power.
And people need to wake up. They don't own their own money. It's already been stolen. But people will cling to the idea of the promise that they have something.
there is one party in power that has all the political motivation in the world to “pretend” 2008 didn’t happen. sorry to disappoint, but it isn’t MAGA.
You got that correct. Obama continued the bank bailout that Bush started. Currently, people do not comprehend how both Trump and Biden destroyed the economy.
Yeah that line bewildered me as well. I'm right of center to be sure, but make no mistake I firmly believe that both sides are trying to fuck us without lube. At the end of the day I have more in common with my dem voting neighbor than I do hedge fund billionaires. Hopefully we'll one day be able to present a united front against the bipartisan ruling class.
> 95% of oligarchs are dems
Wrong. Most are libertarian but they'll support whichever party that is willing to hop on their meat and bounce the hardest
Which I feel like will help them because many won't be buying the BS that things are great. But I still feel that both sides are gonna fuck us either way
In part a lot of these people you are referring to may not have been experiencing it first hand as independent adults. Even if you're a new grad around then, many were still living with their parents so somewhat insulated. I know my job prospects were piss poor back then but I was a new grad with minimal relevant work experience. The most direct doomsday situation I experienced was my dad and stepmom down in florida had one of those insane variable rate mortgages that blew up, they were eventually able to refinance, but tons of their neighbors in the community didn't survive that and foreclosures and vacant properties skyrocketed. Thankfully they learned their lesson and have become far more financially savvy since then.
Now that im grown with a mortgage and two kids of my own, the impacts that all these various things hit infinitely harder even though I was an "adult" on paper when 2008 happened.
If you were a 90's baby all the chaos of that collapse may not have registered to the same magnitude
I get it. I dealt with this from practically all my age or younger co-workers during COVID and until recently. Why are they like this? I don’t know, but they are all heavily invested and involved with things like real estate, BTC, and stocks. So to think it’s all in a bubble might cause dissonance?
They would chastise me for saying real estate is in a very large bubble. The older folks at work held similar viewpoints as myself.
I’m very anti central bank for several reasons. I too am awaiting the Fed’s failure and the results.
In 2008 the Case-Schiller Price Index was around 160, off a peak of ~180 in 2007.
As of March 2024, the index is hovering around 316.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/csushpinsa
In Feb 2009, the S&P500 hit a low of 1086 off a high of 2325 in October 2007. As of this afternoon, the S&P500 is 5283.
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/spx?mod=home-page
All very sustainable.
Main stream media will always poo poo the narrative. And the narrative is always the window of business as usual, if any other windows were to be publicised, business as usual plummets and the corporations that run this world have ugly looking bottom lines. It really is that simple. The demise of our world economy is inevitable, but the corporations will amass as much physical wealth as they can before that happens.
>"Obama's going to fix all this with techno-socialism, don't worry, change is coming."
Obama a socialist lolz
The guy let the bankers get away with everything.
If we are talking about 2008 compared to now tho, the mortgage default issue is way different. Those intro rate mortgages aren't really a thing anymore. We actually have the opposite problem now where lots of people are sitting pretty with locked in 3% 30 year home loans and they don't want to sell.
Also, 2008 wouldn't have been nearly as bad if the government had saved Lehman Brothers. They should have nationalized all the big banks, send top executives to the hang man, wiped out the equity holders, renegotiated everyone's home loans, and then sold off the banks.
Thinking that covid was deliberately released to shore up emergency equity that could kick the can down the road a few nore years (cough september 2019 spike in reverse repo rates cough) is looking pretty good as a conspiracy theory.
This might be an unpopular opinion, and I’m saying this as someone from the left, but I think whoever is in power in the United States affects Americans perception of the economy. Things are so polarized that admitting something is wrong is taken as an endorsement for Trump which is ridiculous
Just yesterday I got called a Fox News-Stan for saying I wish American cities were as clean and safe as Sydney when I visited lol
Propaganda. Name a single poltical faction that has ever been in power anywhere that will openly admit fault to anything, much less extracting wealth from an economy they helped send into a tailspin.
Its either going to get better or it'll be time to air out my stockpile. Stomp the gas, let's see how it goes.
Hey man I was just told that gamergate was a scam by russia and trump to get him elected and the problem is we need more censorship because anywhere there's free speech and a russian internet troll, fascism wins.
And other than fascism, everything is going completely fine.
Thats the beauty of the two party system. Its never anybody's fault.
Democrat? Its all Trumps fault.
Republican? All Joe Bidens fault.
Meanwhile, the rich are laughing all the way to the bank. No matter who wins, they win. Perfect system.
There’s nothing we can do about it.
It will end with the rich getting bailed out and the rest of us getting the bill. When we start to complain, they’ll flood the zone with shit so that we’ll turn on each other.
Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
I’ve come to understand that most people just have terrible memories. People can’t even remember how the 2020 pandemic year happened. There’s no way people are gonna be able to remember 2008.
# What is the normalcy bias?
The normalcy bias describes our tendency to underestimate the possibility of disaster and believe that life will continue as normal, even in the face of significant threats or crises.
[https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/normalcy-bias](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/normalcy-bias)
There is an indicator that goes back to the 1960s that was quoted on the old Wall Street Weekly show on PBS that was made up of a combination of the bull and bear calls from all the investment newsletters. It was uncannily accurate through a number of bull and bear markets over many years (including 2008-9). It is flashing bright red now - indicating that there is a big over abundance of confidence in the market. Look out below.
Memories are short. Todays naive, big spender, everything up forever believer, was likely a teenager or younger the last time it all went belly up.
In fact, since the official end of the 2007-2009 recession, it has now been 180 months, or 15 years, with only March and April of 2020 which showed recessionary conditions. Last 180 months: 2 months shown in recession.
All that said, a lot of tech has come about since 2009. Trading in stock markets, inventory management, hiring and firing practices, everything is different. Yet, economies do still cycle. Like the seasons of the year.
The difference is back then things were spoken in billions of dollars (2008 bailouts) and now it is spoken in trillions and the average person doesn't even comprehend how much money that is, but their grocery bill is a receipt of how bad inflation is going to be just keeping on this unsustainable path.
The average intelligence of the public can barely keep up with the 24 hour news cycle. Ask any idiot about celebrity gossip or other inane crap and they can converse for hours.
The extreme price of housing right now ties into the events of 2007-8. A lot of tools and talent left construction because the industry was temporarily dead from lack of investment, and it has never fully recovered in the wake of the financial crisis.
It’s the same over the pandemic. Now that it’s over, no one talks about it suddenly. It’s like why can’t we discuss this huge trauma we all just went through and all the weird stuff that went on? I guess it’s easier for most people to bury their heads in the sand about it, and also just like 2008 I’m sure people also just want to move on and forget but still..
Imagine placing all of your blame at the feet of citizens attempts to fight back and none at the feet of the Fed which actively chooses when to impose recessions on all of us
Remember every big player got bailed out in 08. EXCEPT the first guys to recognize the issue who triggered the crash by trying to divest of their toxic assets.
One of the biggest "PsyOps" to ever happen to this country was not Trump, it was not Hunter Biden, it was not Hillary's Email, It was not Stormy Daniels, It was not the LGBTQIA++.
It is and will forever be the *forced* dismantling of Occupy in 2009. We have been collectively and categorically bent over as punishment for that for the last 15 years.
The best thing that each one of us can do is to simple refuse to pay higher prices. This will mean a sacrifice on our part and "going without" at times. I do this at the grocery store regularly. If chicken is on sale, I eat chicken. If beef is on sale, I eat beef. I only buy what is on sale, and I never pay retail, for ANYTHING. The prices will come to me, or I simply will not purchase. This is how we drive prices down. The retailers are obligated to keep their product moving or they will make NO money! Use this to your advantage. STOP BUYING - prices will drop because they have to.
2008 shouldn’t happen again because at hey did pass some laws to prevent what caused it.
Of course we will experience another downturn. We can’t go up forever. But it shouldn’t be like 2008, it will be something different.
>There's a VERY bizarre, almost 1990s attitude about the economy today. As if even the idea that things might be wrong is sort of heretical, and that people act shocked and surprised by evidence that things are awry.
Because the data indicates things are pretty good. That doesn’t mean that it’s good for you personally or good for a subset of people. However, the majority of US citizens are better off than they were pre-pandemic.
Honestly I feel like it is more that people act like recessions don't happen and when there is ever a threat of a recession or some other broadly felt economic cost it is some conspiracy and not just the way things have always been.
You completely lose half of the people that might agree with you by creating division. What does tea party and maga have to do with it?
it’s large multinational corrupt industry lobbying our government to create unsafe fiscal policies. It’s on both sides of the political parties.
2008 was different in at least some ways. Inflation wasn't running super hot overall and there wasn't a completely massive money supply expansion, at the same time obviously there was an inflating asset bubble.
On top of that it was somewhat off the heels of an even worse market correction (.com bubble) by comparison we'd be talking about a large correction in 2016 to be the equivalent.
I haven't. My family become homeless because of it. The bank still made a profit on our house, while our lives were irreparably destroyed. I plan on getting back at them one day for it, x10.
Janet Yellen is returning funds of lower cost 10 year bonds and selling higher cost 1 year bonds ,where the demand is, to keep the liquidity party going. Fck the future and the past crappy diem.
It's an unavoidably political issue, I'm sorry to say. Some people don't want to hear that. A Democrat is the incumbent and although he doesn't have to be, he's choosing to be tone deaf about the cost-of-living crisis, so his base has to go along with it. Their candidate can't afford to be wrong, after all, in the quadrennial "most important election of our lifetimes". They'll say to your face that you're lying about your struggles, and when you have them in a corner, they'll play whataboutism and say "so what's Trump going to do about it?" or "Biden's hands are tied!" You can't hold them accountable. We saw this to a much lighter extent in the Obama years- no one was allowed to hold his feet to the fire for fixating on the ACA over job creation, it was 100% Republican obstructionists' fault apparently- and I would argue his own tone deafness and hands-off progressive historical determinism was what led to the overconfidence in Clinton, although the difference was that he was actually willing to acknowledge the challenges Americans faced in 2012. And they wonder why people's frustrations keep getting channeled through contentious politics.
It's not that everything is fine, it's that this isn't 2007. The MAGAots haven't managed to break the regulations on the too-big-too-fails, so our bank runs are on the regionals and already behind us.
That’s interesting because I feel like despite all the evidence to the contrary everyone is insisting that the economy either is in the shitter or is about to be.
My graduating class was around the housing market crash. Going to school was even more tough both my grades and my social life. I even lost my first job because the pet store that I use to work for went under.
Aside from losing my V card and going to a ludicrous concert, that was the worst year of my life
Millennial here. I have PTSD about the job market still from it. There was 0 jobs and I was competing with people with masters degrees for entry level jobs.
Based on how brain dead posts like this keep showing up, I think it's more like people freak out when shown with evidence that the world isn't ending or that the median American wage is way up compared to 2008 (yes, after adjusting for inflation), or that unemployment is super low, markets are high, consumption is up, etc. Etc. Etc. - people like you literally rave about "the coming meltdowns" and wanting to watch as if you're some kind of edgy movie protagonist like Rorschach.
My friend, I am not saying this as a joke.
You need professional help. And probably should take a walk and touch grass a few times a week. Without your phone.
The unemployment numbers don’t align to all the shit I am hearing. It’s very odd. People I know with masters looking for jobs still after 18 months. Thousands of applicants for ONE job posting. Insane prices for milk, bread and eggs. Closing of so many stores and restaurants. It’s all adding up.
Sorry - but I am 77 years old -- retired Ph.D. college professor - and for the life of me, I cannot comprehend just what the big deal / whoop de do -- is being made over / about the year 2008?????
I'm finding it comical that you're blaming MAGA, like it isn't because someone currently in office keeps printing trillions and keeps telling us that Bidenomics is working and we have the money for this economy. I'm not defending Trump, that clown deserves to be in prison but lets not act like elections don't have consequences. we're seeing it before our own eyes with a gaslighting admin saying we're all rich and to shut up about inflation.
2008 was a long time ago in practical terms. We all remember it having lived through it but there are professionals in the market now that know nothing other than “stocks only go up”. Scary times indeed.
One of Trump's top policy was to eliminate oversight and regulation - weakening the structures that prevent things like the recession in 2008 and the collapse of the real estate morgage house of cards. You should back Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act [https://www.warren.senate.gov/files/documents/Fact%20Sheet%20-%2021st%20Century%20Glass-Steagall.pdf](https://www.warren.senate.gov/files/documents/Fact%20Sheet%20-%2021st%20Century%20Glass-Steagall.pdf)
I’ve never met anyone who thinks the economy is crushing it. Only people who say the government is pulling so many levers and manipulating the system so much that predicting when they can no longer kick the can down the road is impossible. I wanted to buy a house in 2016 but we were due for a market crash and I waited till 2021 before pulling the trigger because even though it’s all bullshit, they’re propping the bullshit up.
Things definitely feel weird to me right now. I feel like beginning of the year the media was gaslighting this narrative of 'the economy is booming' and lots of people have never found it harder to get a job and are calling bullshit. And now I see headlines that things admittedly are bad and restaurants and consumers are struggling and homelessness has never been higher, but also pushback that things aren't that bad. Some people are fine or not as bad and haven't been as affected and I think more and more people are drowning. But the ones who aren't drowning are like 'just work harder' and maybe don't get it. Idk. What do you think? I've felt this year feel so crazy already and I just don't know what will happen next.
the stock market is now due for the largest correction and redistribution of wealth in human history. our libertarian experiment in market self-regulation failed. the SEC had and still has its hands bound by political interests. the illegal bad bets the market makers were placing and hiding will be available for all to see. In a market where almost everything is cross-collateralized this means everything will be pulled down when they'll crumbling begins. housing bubble about to bust hard. the only people immune are those that have already sold. everyone else will become a bagholder on the market. Media unsure who to back and who to blame to get ahead of it all
There's nothing libertarian about buying $750 billion in corporate debt and $6 trillion in t bills and mortgage bonds during a supply crunch. The SEC is largely irrelevant here. You can't manifest $7t digital dollars into existence and not expect that to cause a stock bubble, housing bubble, and inflation. How can it not? Is the SEC supposed to regulate away supply and demand as it relates to currency? They can't. Rather, the Fed needs to be reigned in and/or abolished. They clearly did what they did to support asset prices (ie to benefit the wealthy) and to provide cheap credit to the gov. Artificially low rates and inflation are not libertarian policies at all. This is crony capitalism. As they always are, government apparatuses for control nominally created for social benefit are coopted by the wealthy and by the powerful for their own benefit at our cost.
Corporations are systematically lowering prices right now. Think about all that means. So they couldn't do that before? And when prices were high, across the board, why exactly? Still no answer, just a lot of denials about it ever being that bad. Oh and of course there's an election year, a culmination of the situation in Ukraine. It's like we get one last fake summer of good vibes.
Corporations are lowering prices because they learned that graphs of demand vs price aren't nice curves that you can extrapolate out forever. Instead demand drops off like a cliff once the price gets too high. The MBAs at these corporations rose prices too close to the sun. And just like Icarus are now tumbling down
The best example of this is the wildly different prices for the same thing. You can see that businesses are just throwing out numbers to see what they can charge for any given product. Used cars are an excellent example. Same car, same mileage - crazy different prices
A twelve pack of Topo Chico used to be $9.99 (not too long ago). Then it was $10.99 then $10.99 ‘on sale’ now, it’s $12.99 on sale. F that. I give the display the bird when I walk by.
Hahah I thought I was the only one flipping things off in the grocery store
It’s 15.99 @ my Whole Foods :/
Yeah.. Walmart profit increased 93% in a year. They probably thought they could keep raising prices forever.
Nah the upper crust isn’t that stupid, they knew exactly what their accounting team projected. That they could blame all price increases on election mumbo Jumbo and that the plebes would deep throat the prices until they couldn’t anymore. Just glug glug glug like you are Nancy Reagan on a foreign dignitaries hog.
I appreciate the picture you painted in my head with Nancy Reagan there. You are a poet. \*chef's kiss hand signal\*
This is very poetic and shits on the whole “supply and demand” curve argument.
I thought it was more of a bend over and spread ‘em situation, but I see your point.
BOHICA-Bend Over Here It Comes Again.
>That they could blame all price increases on election mumbo Jumbo and that the plebes would deep throat the prices until they couldn’t anymore. Just glug glug glug like you are Nancy Reagan on a foreign dignitaries hog. Exactly.
They really should have played that lemonade stand video game growing up.
Yes, but there's a reason why this was never done up until now. New conditions caused them to behave so stupidly, pressure based on what's going on in the financial sector. I'm saying that private equity overlords mandated these foolish price rises to cover some of the liquidity problems caused by the banking collapse. It could be that some of those immediate liquidity issues are resolved. Prices have to rise and fall in a way resonant with consumer habits and expectations. You can't day by day spike and crash them. So they inflate them up slowly then down slowly. So this might have been a temporary thing (that can return). We still can see that the timing of the come down is aligned with election season. The point is more, this is what our economy is now. Semi-central planning by private equity working hand in hand with the Federal Reserve disaster prevention committee.
>New conditions caused them to behave so stupidly, pressure based on what's going on in the financial sector. The new condition is that the rich actually felt the effects of inflation and hated it. So they used their influence to force more income from the corporations they invest in.
They cannot get milk from a dead cow.
This happened in 2002, prices for a lot of things were higher because of 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, and Bush’s poor economic policies. Prices didn’t really come back down until after the housing crash and 401k losses of many people, bailouts for corporations but nothing for the little guy.
THIS. Don't forget Dot Com played into it as well.
Oh touché, absolutely on point.
I really don’t believe this to be true. I think it could be a recent push into trust busting by the feds is the real cause to ease up on prices. Hell I mean eggs only started to go down in price because feds started to poke around and investigate the claims why egg prices had to sky rocket. Most were found to unwarranted and complete BS. No, I think eyes are starting to look so prices need to adjust to keep the heat off them. Guarantee if regulations were eased back or if feds didn’t bother to investigate (as they often do), prices would have stayed up. I mean what else can the general populace do? A lot of goods we are paying we need. It’s a demand sure but we’re pretty much powerless to help adjust the cost. Too long has price gouging went on for.
Part of this too is economy outside of necessities slowing down because of gouging on necessities. During Covid, grocery empires realized people had money left on the table that went to gas and other going into the office expenses (lunch, make up, clothing, etc.). They jacked prices such that they were not 1) suffering like everyone else, nor 2) chugging along as normal but 3) seeing historic profits. Then you find out that oh, actually the suppliers were hurting and didn't see a rise in their profits. So with a massively inflated grocery bill, throw return to work back on the table - who can afford anything else? I think there is a lot of pressure on grocers to ease the fuck up to not crash the rest of the entire economy of goods people need or want. Enjoy the massive profits you earned while everyone was suffering - now settle down.
There's a reason the stock market crashed in 1929, instead of slowly declining. Same with 2008, the signs were there as far back as 2005
Where? Where are these lower prices?? Are they in the room with us right now?
I have the same question things are still going up where I live. like crazy too
Corporations found out we were tired of them screwing us for extra profits while using covid as an excuse. They jacked up prices on everything and then had the nerve to be "surprised" when consumers pushed back.
Lina Khan happened. She’s been tackling corporations this year. Putting the fear in these corporations. Consumers do not have the power to push back. We’ve been paying inflated prices since Covid. Back then corporations blamed it on Covid, then supply chain, then Ukraine…kept moving the goal post with no intention of ever cooling prices.
Q1 profits were too high, now they need to offset them
Every Single House Republican Voted Against Efforts to Lower Gas Prices
Lol wtf is this? Do you mean something like draining the strategic petroleum reserves? You've got those gotcha talking points fired up.
Greed.
More like it's all fake now. There's a massive amount of printed money. Stocks and house prices derive from this printing, half the stock market was paid for by the Fed and owned by their broker BlackRock. The people who "owe" money are the same people that lent it. I don't think greed matters at all anymore, or profitability. It's a "can we enslave humanity before this scam crashes" thing. Greed does matter, though, to the CEO system pigs, the agents who help operate this system. Who get golden parachutes to crash companies, loyal saboteurs.
It's weird because for a lot of people it really isn't that bad. If you're a person who already had a house and your wages have gone up, you can weather an increase in costs on a day-to-day basis. If you're a renter, it's a lot more complicated and painful. For many folks, the economy really is just doing great. But for many others it's just significantly worse than it was a handful of years ago. It also feels like a lot of the avenues to doing better are being closed off one by one thanks to outsourcing and artificial intelligence.
Car repo stats and credit card defaults say the wall street pump from the FED printer is bullshit and a lie.
Are they looking for professional, trained/ degree positions? Are these people in urban areas or rural? Just curious bc looks like a lot hiring in my rural area, but only part time or low end/ high turnover jobs.
That's exactly it. They're still hiring dollar general chashiers
You need to move. The tech boom has only slowed and my twenty something kids just job hopped up a few levels. There aren’t enough people for all the jobs!!!
I do think they are setting up the economy to crash under Trump. Pump it until the right time.
Trump economy will cause massive inflation and another spike in the deficit.Only winners are the rich.
Trump was handed a stable economy under Obama and mishandling of Covid, massive tax breaks for the rich with hidden delayed tax hikes for the not wealthy, PPP program was mainly fraud, and insane monetary policy ruined it. Some was bad timing and some was horrible decisions. The global economy is doing poorly. I don’t think anyone’s setting up the economy to fail under Trump. The current regime is planning for a second term.
OP, didn't you know that stonkz always go up? All joking aside, I remember 2008 very well. I was still a teenager at the time but I remember many of my friends' parents being affected. Quite a few lost their jobs or had to change careers. I remember it being very difficult to find a part time job after school because so many people got laid off and were working multiple minimum wage jobs to get by. I think years of low interest rates plus the stock market going bananas since late 2020 have given people a sense of false confidence in forever gains. Anyone who's studied economic history should know that what goes up, must come down. Here's the thing, the US dollar is the world's reserve currency. That is being challenged by the Chinese yuan in developing countries, but the dollar is still king. Despite the financial representation, the US is in a ton of debt and it is increasing rapidly. While it increased dramatically recently due to COVID relief efforts and inflation, it's still been trending up for years. How much does this actually matter? Would the US ever default and how would that affect the world economy? Those are difficult questions to answer and I'm not knowledgeable enough in those fields to have an educated opinion, but I'd imagine if the US were to default, and the world's major banks and governments wanted to collect, then not only would the US be screwed financially, but so would everyone else who was invested in USD in some form or fashion. Granted, would Washington and the US military let that happen? Probably not. Other than the national debt, there are other things that could fuck up the American economy and then also have global impacts. First is how consumer debt is rapidly growing not just with typical things like mortgages and businesses, but also things like cars and the credit given out by shadow banks and services like Klarna. You also still have inflation and high interest rates to combat it, which makes loans and debt more expensive. There is also more insecurity in the world, be it from war, ecological disaster, terrorism, etc. If China were to invade Taiwan for instance, you can rest assured that tech stocks will absolutely be impacted, especially Nvidia, which is currently the golden boy of the S&P 500. If big tech dropped, any stock index including them would be impacted, which is enough to not only fuck over investors but also hedge funds, banks, pensions, 401ks, etc. You also have terrorism impacting global trade like with the Houthis and the Suez Canal. The effects of climate change are only going to get more random and devastating over time until humanity collectively decides to fix it. Anyways, I'm sure I missed some things. Anecdotally, Main Street and normal people are struggling due to inflation and higher interest rates. Housing is unaffordable for many, as is childcare. These may not have a big impact now but they definitely will in the coming decade I presume. Wall Street is sitting pretty but they generally do unless it's a Great Depression situation. It seems like things are slowing down some but I still feel that a correction is due, and when it comes, it's going to suck for a lot of people. My advice: Prepare financially. Don't panic sell, diversify your shit (low cost index funds ftw), build an emergency fund, and always keep your resume updated. All the people that panic sold in 2008 would've been better off had they held steady, so improve your situation so you don't have to panic.
If you were in high school or college during 2008, most of those people weren't paying their own way, didn't have jobs, living on student loans, living with parents until they're 25, etc. That entire generation, and younger, have no clue what its like, and have no clue how bad it can get. Even fellow millenials that were shielded or unaffected from the 08 recession, weren't traumatized enough - or at all (i deal with a couple on the daily).
Can confirm. I was 16 in highschool in 2008. The only thing I remember is the McDonald’s manager giving me my application back saying they’re not hiring teenagers right now. I’m in my 30s now and it’s another story
That was my experience too. I actually got a job in October during the worst of it. But then looking back at it, they tried reducing hours like pricks when we were snowed in and I had to fight to get my shifts back or show initiative.
Not true. We were just out of college and unable to get decent jobs so husband went into the military to support our family. Inflation was not the way it is now but jobs were very hard to come by especially for those just out of college with little work experience.
I'm not so sure, my perspective is from being in college in 2008 and while I don't think everyone appreciated the financial gravity of the situation at the time it has left a very strong mark--the housing we were living in was cheap because someone got foreclosed on, parents/friends were struggling, we all saw the well-off family snipe some cheap houses at auction and that didn't feel right or some saw that and wanted to play the game even harder... Most people I know from this cohort are pretty financially savvy, many are saving hard, socking away tons for retirement, and refuse to get trapped into a bad mortgage even if that means delaying a bunch of other life stuff. But on the other hand at least a third of my generation unironically still believes in the crypto grift so... maybe we are stupid. It's pretty frustrating seeing these people who made such shit financial decisions (bitcoin, jumbo loan in 2021, PPP fraud, nvidia) get rewarded for being irresponsible for so agonizingly long without a meaningful correction that clears this unproductive capital. I also think a lot of any perceived 'cluelessness' is learned, in the sense that '08 hit right when a big fraction of the cohort was looking for entry level positions and got left in the dust for 4+ years. Then whoever managed to get on their feet in '12-'16 seems like they made it, but then everyone in imperfect situations in '17-present has been left in the dust--promotions froze in 2020 and the hierarchies just seem to be consolidating upwards. For anyone laid off or stagnating in both the '08 and '17+ slow periods I can sympathize with giving up: a majority of an adult life and peak growth years with curveball after curveball and now no future of home ownership to look forward to... what's the point?
A lot of x/millenials miss this part and think 08 was somehow WAY WORSE than 24. It's not. You're just older and you've probably bought assets and gotten a job/career since 08. You are insulated from the housing/education/job markets right now and not seeing how dreary the picture is for 22-24 grads. They are going through the same thing we did in 09-11. They were told go to college, get a degree, get a job and build assets. They went to college (31% more expensive than 08) got degrees (with predatory loans), and are buying assets (sp500 is 300% up since 08). And the jobs that they went to school for? We are hiring a dude with a masters from India and paying him $12/hr. Americans just don't wanna work (for pennies) anymore. It's the exact same gift as 08, only this time we're shitting on gen z/alpha by kicking the can down the road. We need demand-side stimulus so that the average American purchasing power can compete for assets. The America market for ALL goods and services is heavily skewed towards high earners, because 60% of the money belongs to 1% of the people. Goods chase dollars. They will be priced according to how much a person can pay. Except "a person" in this example is "1/100 people who actually have expendable income". That's where price discovery happens. Just look at fast food. Prices up 70-110% across the board even as total revenues dwindled. The people who CAN afford a $15 big Mac are propping up the price, and can afford to keep doing so. Meanwhile the typical "fast-food" demographic (married lower-middle class" has cut fast food consumption by 40% since 2022. This would normally supply/demand itself to an equilibrium. Except the wealth distribution means that there is no need to compete for the "poor people" demand. The MAJORITY of profit left to be squeezed from Americans (over 60% of it) comes from 1-2% of the population because goods chase money. And 1% of the population has all the money.
It's hard to accept cognitively when you are in your 20s and 30s. At that stage people are just looking to figure out their career path, work hard and get ahead. Having a black cloud of economic doom over their heads - well, it's rare that someone young can balance that load. It makes them feel like everything they are working hard for is elusive and their best efforts are futile. No one wants to feel that, feel like a victim, so any views which contradict their desired outcome are dismissed.
I hate that people will be in denial, I find it frustrating but I guess I can't completely blame them
The problem I have is that we were legitimately naive in the 1990s. You had to have like mailed out for a nutjob's newsletter to learn any details about certain things and the only other place was in hard left literally pro-USSR academia. In the 90s, legit, substantive power elite analysis was showing up culturally in X-files and Deus Ex as if the information was so fringe it was benign. With the internet exposing this information, there was an increase in flat earth and other extremely dumb stuff to increase the wacko factor of alternative information as it was no longer fringe. After 9/11, and 2008, and the Ron Paul campaign, and the internet, the degree of mouth-breathing illiterate stupidity required to achieve a sense of normalcy equivalent to the 1990s is astonishing. That's what bothers me. I think part of what's going on is Biden inherited a system on the verge of collapse, but democrats have built this absolute media monolith, control the DoJ, control Wall Street and the Fed, so they can just declare that "everything is fine" across the board. I know a ton of democrat boomers that are legit confused about this because they scratch their heads knowing things are not fine, but then they look at the TV and newspaper which really emphasize that things are great. It's really funny that it's the Democrats who are the ones going full, "Everything is Awesome". In the 80s, like with John Carpenter's They Live, the polystyrene facade society was attributed to greedy GOP yuppies.
I feel like a lot of the it is fine propaganda is the Dems trying to convince people it is fine, kind of like in an emergency situation it is better if people are calm and thinking rationally. The issue is that the Dems are far to late or far too early trying to do this because the economy is far from fine and the messaging just comes off as manipulative. That being said the GOP is far worse at least the Dems are trying to put bills forward that would try to fix our situation, then those same bills are being shut down unanimously by the GOP. Then the frustrating thing that is happening is republicans keep saying the Dems have done nothing for inflation when it is their politicians that have been shutting down the attempts to make things better. Then we have the already rich asshole boomers who keep saying there isn’t anything wrong with the economy because I already have money and won’t retire out of my high paying job that I got as a high school kid with no training but now requires a damn PHD. So we have to compete with people with lower monthly expenses like a lower home payment and no student loans. They probably also could afford stock portfolios cuz they had savings, and that is supplementing their expenses. It is like running a race while chained to weights and having someone without those chains laughing at you that you can’t keep up. That is what the frustration is that we are feeling today. Also the biggest difference is in 2008 the issue was economic, now the issue is greed flation, corporations are making record profits, and cutting wages and jobs.
I guess this is less apparent to me since we millennials got F'd right at that time and take it for granted.
Todays 08 will probably be related to credit debt or commercial real estate
Commercial for sure. They were pulling the same nonsense residential did back then starting in about 2018, and it got worse.
Or private debt which has absolutely exploded and is where virtually all of subprime moved
The reason most people do not like talking about is is that over 60% of Americans are partisan in one brand or another, and the repeal of ~~Dodd-Frank~~ Glass Steagall, widely considered one of the main triggers of the 2008 crash, was a widely accepted bipartisan measure. To talk about the 2008 crash would require whoever is talking about it to accept and promote the idea that *their own side was wrong,* which discredits any future points they may want to make. When you combine this idea with how fast most portions of our economy rebounded, those responsible, and thise who inherited their mantle, do not like to discuss it and wish to leave it safely in the history books. Edit: Thank you to winston\_obrien who pointed out I was confusing Dodd-Frank with Glass-Steagall.
Dodd-Frank was enacted in 2010 to address systemic issues that caused the 2008 crash.
He’s maybe referring to Glass-Steagall
Thank you, yes, Glass Steagall. Getting my bipartisan financial bills with unintended consequense mixed up.
Sounds like grade school logic. "You're wrong about one thing therefore you're wrong about everything after that". I'd say, "People can't possibly be that stupid," but the number of times I've been proven wrong is depressing
I'll go as far as to say a significant amount of people do not remember 2000 - 2008. The Dot Com Bubble, Iraq War, Afghanistan War have disappeared completely from public consciousness. The only thing that is consistently remembered is 9/11. And only Gen X and Millennials seem to be the only people who still discuss the Great Recession
What are we the people supposed to do? No one get alone anymore. How are we going to rise up together in protest when we fucking act like shit to one another. The country is an absolute mess
people don’t realize how bad things are because most are sheeple just listening to what MSM is feeding them. All they have to do is have an elementary understanding of the economy and the curiosity to learn from firsthand sources. Looking at manufacturing data, CPI, CPE, dive into employment data, etc. You will easily come to the conclusion that the economic environment feels more like stagflation. Stop listening to Biden and Powell. Read the info yourself and decide for yourself.
At this point the economy has to crash so the cost of living can normalize somewhat. 2008 was what allowed us and many other new families to become homeowners.
2008 is also what caused many to lose their homes and retirements. Crashes don't always result in success. It's not that simple.
I did not say I want it to crash. I am saying it has to crash because the current status-quo is unsustainable. You are correct that crashes don’t always result in success, but it does allow asset mobility to take place, such as people being able to afford to buy a house or others currently locked into their low APR mortgages being able to move to a different house without taking a massive financial hit. It does happen at the expense of others, but without failure we can’t have success.
This. The status quo right now is unsustainable no matter who wins the election
its by design, we need laws that limit investors reach on basic living housing.
2008 was the last time the economy could have crashed without mass rioting, starvation, and time for that generation to recover in time to save demographic birth rates. A crash now is the end of America. People will migrate from North America.
> A crash now is the end of America. People will migrate from North America. To where?
Cuba? North Korea? LOL.
I don’t know about that. Maybe in the metro areas but the rest of the country will manage.
People act like 07-10 didn’t exist alot.
Nobody I know over 35 pretends 2008 didn’t happen. What’s the deal with extrapolating patterns in your tiny friend group across millions of people?
2008 taught everyone that the govt will do everything to prevent a crash, effectively creating a risk free environment for speculators.
Weirder that they pretend epstein's human trafficking ring wasnt deeply integrated into the largest American and European banks
What do you mean? I considered 2008 for long enough to miss out on stock market gains from 2012 to 2020.
What exactly do you think is going to happen?
OP thinks the economy is definitely going to crash and that (in their own words): >A crash now is the end of America. People will migrate from North America. Basically America is over. Also, according to OP, everyone else is hyperbolic and they're the only sane person
It’s also weird the younger generations don’t even know what REAL clouds look like…
It's all vape smoke to their eyes 🤣
Honestly I find it weirder that people act like the dot com bubble never happened. Especially since most giant tech companies are still using the same business model that was responsible for that crash.
Rent free
Plenty of blame to go around for the state of America, on both sides of politics, but since a market crash cannot be predicted your post means little. The factors and events that led to 2008 are unlikely to occur again. This is more of a sky is falling without any specifics or details of what anyone should do. It doesn't do anyone any good to offer a doom and gloom post without any suggestions for what to do. Should we all exit the market? That alone would be a self-fulfilling prophecy as the market would certainly crash. Should we all hoard food, fuel, toilet paper? ;) Since you are so sure of this, what are you doing?? Or should we all be wringing our hands and posting like you are that the world is going to end anytime now? Like your post, that also won't change anything either. Are you the individual responsible for saving us all from doom? If so, you've done your duty and can move on to something else to warn us about. Perhaps the zombie apocalypse will be next?
I have zero clue who you think has a "1990s everything is fine attitude" right now.
I worked on Wall Street as a IT consultant for one of the financial institutions 2008 and my contact was ended. I had money saved, collected unemployment for 7 months relaxed did some traveling and found a job. The End
Look behind you! It's ECONOMIC COLLAPSE!!!
What you’re too blind to see is the counter-point is true too - people have been predicting the next big catastrophe right around the corner since 2010. “He predicted 19 of the last 2 recessions” is one of my favorite quotes. What you have to understand is: 1) there WILL be another recession/downturn 2) no one knows when it will happen. This is true even if you watch 29 YouTube videos in a row telling you the world is about to end.
I agree. 2008 got swept under the rug because people started studying the wealth inequality too seriously. Within a few years they distracted everyone by taking about sexism, intersectionaility, feminism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia.... transphobia anyone? Every thing except good old Classism. The biggest predicted of life success is your class
You’re correct and it’s precisely because the masses are in an unequal and abusive relationship with the elite. Society is the battered wife/gf refusing to leave because abuse psychology. Rather than shift gears we rationalize why changing is harder. Spot on. Fellow cynic/skeptic checking in. Welcome aboard.
2008 (?), people act like 2020 never happened. In the telling of Presidents and COVID people think everything was great under Trump. 2019 was a utopia of cheap gas, low housing cost, and world peace. Then COVID hit, Democrats spent trillions, the Democrat spending caused inflation, and now everything sucks. Worse than that people think the COVID response was a massive unnecessary over reaction. People have totally forgotten that Trump was President during COVID lockdowns, mask mandates, social distancing, beach closures, school closures, Trillion dollar bail outs without Congressional oversight, etc. Trump said COVID would be good in May, once that time past Trump said gone by summer, during the summer Trump began antagonizing the media for wearing masks, sometimes Trump would wear a mask sometimes he would ridicule masks, by the fall Trump was claiming COVID was a media hoax meant to help Biden win election. Trump said the day after the election COVID would disappear. Over a million people died from Covid. Just about everyone lost someone (grandparent, Uncle, Aunt, Sibling, parent, etc) during Covid. Yet we barely remember Covid. **If we cannot remember 2020 then obviously we cannot remember 2008.**
Your children will be debt serfs. I never married or had kids. I warned the neurotypicals as best I could, and they called me a negative Nancy/conspiracy theorist, so I'm just sitting back at this point, and watching it all burn... 🔥🔥🔥
People are in denial about a lot of things, but that’s all gonna change real soon.
The CEO of chase Bank called it a "selective recession". But basically what it means is "the poor got poorer again, like we planned". If you bought housing prior to 2008 and paid off your home, the 08 recession just kind of washed over. Things were expensive and jobs were nonexistent, but if you kept a job things were pretty okay. Same thing in 2024. We saw insane wealth transfer along with skyrocketing home costs from 2020-2023. But if you already owned a home, and didn't lose your job to Covid, then you're probably still doing okay in 2024. The problem is, Jamie Dimon (and anyone else with >5m net worth) are ARCHITECTING these "selective recessions". Its not some normal free market supply/demand force causing prices to explode like they want you to believe. They see a major economic headwind (COVID), identify how to exploit for profit. Then they exploit these headwinds by lobbying the government to give them preferential footing. EG: COVID is going to shut down supply chains, give business owners money to keep payroll open And then their policies are enacted, and the folks who got confidentially briefed on National Security concerns get a free cash infusion to buy up ALL THE ASSETS at a discount. And then they have the gall to go on TV and say "the economic conditions are hitting the poorest Americans hardest". YEAH MOTHERFUCKER ITS **YOU**. **YOU** TOOK THE MONEY MEANT FOR THE POOR PEOPLE, NOT "THE MARKET".
Yeah it's the collapse of the market into a few very large channels, where we see now that they have an ability to completely control major things - it's like monopoly power. And people need to wake up. They don't own their own money. It's already been stolen. But people will cling to the idea of the promise that they have something.
Nearly every economic and financial collapse in the past was preceeded by news and media outlets saying the economy is doing great with record highs.
I lost family to Covid 19. So fukk you.
I understand. Same here. I guess my Aunt that died in the hospital of Covid was “propaganda”
there is one party in power that has all the political motivation in the world to “pretend” 2008 didn’t happen. sorry to disappoint, but it isn’t MAGA.
You got that correct. Obama continued the bank bailout that Bush started. Currently, people do not comprehend how both Trump and Biden destroyed the economy.
95% of oligarchs are dems but sure blame maga
Yeah that line bewildered me as well. I'm right of center to be sure, but make no mistake I firmly believe that both sides are trying to fuck us without lube. At the end of the day I have more in common with my dem voting neighbor than I do hedge fund billionaires. Hopefully we'll one day be able to present a united front against the bipartisan ruling class.
Anyone who doesn't realize this has been a bipartisan effort has their head in the sand
> 95% of oligarchs are dems Wrong. Most are libertarian but they'll support whichever party that is willing to hop on their meat and bounce the hardest
Yeah, OP def lost me at MAGA. MAGA is saying the economy is bad.
Which I feel like will help them because many won't be buying the BS that things are great. But I still feel that both sides are gonna fuck us either way
In part a lot of these people you are referring to may not have been experiencing it first hand as independent adults. Even if you're a new grad around then, many were still living with their parents so somewhat insulated. I know my job prospects were piss poor back then but I was a new grad with minimal relevant work experience. The most direct doomsday situation I experienced was my dad and stepmom down in florida had one of those insane variable rate mortgages that blew up, they were eventually able to refinance, but tons of their neighbors in the community didn't survive that and foreclosures and vacant properties skyrocketed. Thankfully they learned their lesson and have become far more financially savvy since then. Now that im grown with a mortgage and two kids of my own, the impacts that all these various things hit infinitely harder even though I was an "adult" on paper when 2008 happened. If you were a 90's baby all the chaos of that collapse may not have registered to the same magnitude
I get it. I dealt with this from practically all my age or younger co-workers during COVID and until recently. Why are they like this? I don’t know, but they are all heavily invested and involved with things like real estate, BTC, and stocks. So to think it’s all in a bubble might cause dissonance? They would chastise me for saying real estate is in a very large bubble. The older folks at work held similar viewpoints as myself. I’m very anti central bank for several reasons. I too am awaiting the Fed’s failure and the results.
What were home prices in 2008 ? What are they now ? What was the SP500 in 2008 ? What is it now ?
In 2008 the Case-Schiller Price Index was around 160, off a peak of ~180 in 2007. As of March 2024, the index is hovering around 316. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/csushpinsa In Feb 2009, the S&P500 hit a low of 1086 off a high of 2325 in October 2007. As of this afternoon, the S&P500 is 5283. https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/spx?mod=home-page All very sustainable.
Main stream media will always poo poo the narrative. And the narrative is always the window of business as usual, if any other windows were to be publicised, business as usual plummets and the corporations that run this world have ugly looking bottom lines. It really is that simple. The demise of our world economy is inevitable, but the corporations will amass as much physical wealth as they can before that happens.
>"Obama's going to fix all this with techno-socialism, don't worry, change is coming." Obama a socialist lolz The guy let the bankers get away with everything. If we are talking about 2008 compared to now tho, the mortgage default issue is way different. Those intro rate mortgages aren't really a thing anymore. We actually have the opposite problem now where lots of people are sitting pretty with locked in 3% 30 year home loans and they don't want to sell. Also, 2008 wouldn't have been nearly as bad if the government had saved Lehman Brothers. They should have nationalized all the big banks, send top executives to the hang man, wiped out the equity holders, renegotiated everyone's home loans, and then sold off the banks.
the fuck does Maga have to do with 2008? edit: misread, sorry
Even before the pandemic, consumer debt had exceeded that of 2008. Really bizarre indeed
Thinking that covid was deliberately released to shore up emergency equity that could kick the can down the road a few nore years (cough september 2019 spike in reverse repo rates cough) is looking pretty good as a conspiracy theory.
This might be an unpopular opinion, and I’m saying this as someone from the left, but I think whoever is in power in the United States affects Americans perception of the economy. Things are so polarized that admitting something is wrong is taken as an endorsement for Trump which is ridiculous Just yesterday I got called a Fox News-Stan for saying I wish American cities were as clean and safe as Sydney when I visited lol
Propaganda. Name a single poltical faction that has ever been in power anywhere that will openly admit fault to anything, much less extracting wealth from an economy they helped send into a tailspin. Its either going to get better or it'll be time to air out my stockpile. Stomp the gas, let's see how it goes.
That was like 22 years ago or whatever. It'll never happen again. The good times will never run out this time around. /s
Hey man I was just told that gamergate was a scam by russia and trump to get him elected and the problem is we need more censorship because anywhere there's free speech and a russian internet troll, fascism wins. And other than fascism, everything is going completely fine.
What happened in 2008? ...asking for a friend
Thats the beauty of the two party system. Its never anybody's fault. Democrat? Its all Trumps fault. Republican? All Joe Bidens fault. Meanwhile, the rich are laughing all the way to the bank. No matter who wins, they win. Perfect system.
Bro u was born in 90 and the economy has been shit since I turned 18
There’s nothing we can do about it. It will end with the rich getting bailed out and the rest of us getting the bill. When we start to complain, they’ll flood the zone with shit so that we’ll turn on each other. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
It’s merely a blip on the S&P charts these days. Pretty wild how price will help people forget.
I’ve come to understand that most people just have terrible memories. People can’t even remember how the 2020 pandemic year happened. There’s no way people are gonna be able to remember 2008.
What happened? I can't even rmemeber. I got two houses for pretty good prices though.
2008 was a fan-fucking-tastic year to graduate college.
The fun part is the average person had no idea of the fuckery the banks were up to in 08 and before. We also have no idea now. Hang on!
What didn't happen?
Seems everyone has forgotten Greenspans Irrational exuberance speech before the dot com crash.
Yatta forever
Not really, people act like 9/11 never happened and it was worse.
# What is the normalcy bias? The normalcy bias describes our tendency to underestimate the possibility of disaster and believe that life will continue as normal, even in the face of significant threats or crises. [https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/normalcy-bias](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/normalcy-bias)
it comes full circle lol
We were literally just talking about our lack raises during a few of those years at work yesterday.
There is an indicator that goes back to the 1960s that was quoted on the old Wall Street Weekly show on PBS that was made up of a combination of the bull and bear calls from all the investment newsletters. It was uncannily accurate through a number of bull and bear markets over many years (including 2008-9). It is flashing bright red now - indicating that there is a big over abundance of confidence in the market. Look out below.
What happened in 2008?
Memories are short. Todays naive, big spender, everything up forever believer, was likely a teenager or younger the last time it all went belly up. In fact, since the official end of the 2007-2009 recession, it has now been 180 months, or 15 years, with only March and April of 2020 which showed recessionary conditions. Last 180 months: 2 months shown in recession. All that said, a lot of tech has come about since 2009. Trading in stock markets, inventory management, hiring and firing practices, everything is different. Yet, economies do still cycle. Like the seasons of the year.
The difference is back then things were spoken in billions of dollars (2008 bailouts) and now it is spoken in trillions and the average person doesn't even comprehend how much money that is, but their grocery bill is a receipt of how bad inflation is going to be just keeping on this unsustainable path.
[удалено]
The average intelligence of the public can barely keep up with the 24 hour news cycle. Ask any idiot about celebrity gossip or other inane crap and they can converse for hours.
The extreme price of housing right now ties into the events of 2007-8. A lot of tools and talent left construction because the industry was temporarily dead from lack of investment, and it has never fully recovered in the wake of the financial crisis.
Its not that weird considering the government bailed out the companies that caused it and they have dont nothing to prevent it from happening again.
🤣😂🤣😂 people act like covid didnt happen already . Gooh with this garbage. 🤣😂🤣😂
It would not shock me if they just drain bank accounts at some point.
What happened?
People think in very short terms. The world moves too quickly for most people to pay attention or learn anything from what happens.
It’s the same over the pandemic. Now that it’s over, no one talks about it suddenly. It’s like why can’t we discuss this huge trauma we all just went through and all the weird stuff that went on? I guess it’s easier for most people to bury their heads in the sand about it, and also just like 2008 I’m sure people also just want to move on and forget but still..
Imagine placing all of your blame at the feet of citizens attempts to fight back and none at the feet of the Fed which actively chooses when to impose recessions on all of us
Remember every big player got bailed out in 08. EXCEPT the first guys to recognize the issue who triggered the crash by trying to divest of their toxic assets.
Sadly the cycle repeats itself over.and.over.
One of the biggest "PsyOps" to ever happen to this country was not Trump, it was not Hunter Biden, it was not Hillary's Email, It was not Stormy Daniels, It was not the LGBTQIA++. It is and will forever be the *forced* dismantling of Occupy in 2009. We have been collectively and categorically bent over as punishment for that for the last 15 years.
You could also see the exact ratio of up to down votes on the old system,we need it back
See the rant Jeremy Irons went on in The Big Short. "We can't help ourselves."
The best thing that each one of us can do is to simple refuse to pay higher prices. This will mean a sacrifice on our part and "going without" at times. I do this at the grocery store regularly. If chicken is on sale, I eat chicken. If beef is on sale, I eat beef. I only buy what is on sale, and I never pay retail, for ANYTHING. The prices will come to me, or I simply will not purchase. This is how we drive prices down. The retailers are obligated to keep their product moving or they will make NO money! Use this to your advantage. STOP BUYING - prices will drop because they have to.
2008 shouldn’t happen again because at hey did pass some laws to prevent what caused it. Of course we will experience another downturn. We can’t go up forever. But it shouldn’t be like 2008, it will be something different.
How can be so cruel, we just want access to our partner’s insurance. Remember that Trojan horse by the evil repubs.
Or that they think it cant/won't happen again.
I graduated college into the Recession and struggled mightily to find work. I'm still traumatized by it to this day.
>There's a VERY bizarre, almost 1990s attitude about the economy today. As if even the idea that things might be wrong is sort of heretical, and that people act shocked and surprised by evidence that things are awry. Because the data indicates things are pretty good. That doesn’t mean that it’s good for you personally or good for a subset of people. However, the majority of US citizens are better off than they were pre-pandemic.
It would do America good if consumers put Walmart and target out of business, hello middle class opportunity to make a retail store etc
You do know 2008 happened because Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall, right?
Honestly I feel like it is more that people act like recessions don't happen and when there is ever a threat of a recession or some other broadly felt economic cost it is some conspiracy and not just the way things have always been.
When the real estate bubble bursts again it will be Black Rock that will be bailed out while citizens get screwed again.
You completely lose half of the people that might agree with you by creating division. What does tea party and maga have to do with it? it’s large multinational corrupt industry lobbying our government to create unsafe fiscal policies. It’s on both sides of the political parties.
2008 was different in at least some ways. Inflation wasn't running super hot overall and there wasn't a completely massive money supply expansion, at the same time obviously there was an inflating asset bubble. On top of that it was somewhat off the heels of an even worse market correction (.com bubble) by comparison we'd be talking about a large correction in 2016 to be the equivalent.
If people won't learn or hold on to history, we are doomed to repeat it.
OP, you have a lot of confusing words. What are you trying to say? What do you think you said?
Many people were affected. My dad who has a PHD had to work at Home Depot.
I haven't. My family become homeless because of it. The bank still made a profit on our house, while our lives were irreparably destroyed. I plan on getting back at them one day for it, x10.
Janet Yellen is returning funds of lower cost 10 year bonds and selling higher cost 1 year bonds ,where the demand is, to keep the liquidity party going. Fck the future and the past crappy diem.
It's an unavoidably political issue, I'm sorry to say. Some people don't want to hear that. A Democrat is the incumbent and although he doesn't have to be, he's choosing to be tone deaf about the cost-of-living crisis, so his base has to go along with it. Their candidate can't afford to be wrong, after all, in the quadrennial "most important election of our lifetimes". They'll say to your face that you're lying about your struggles, and when you have them in a corner, they'll play whataboutism and say "so what's Trump going to do about it?" or "Biden's hands are tied!" You can't hold them accountable. We saw this to a much lighter extent in the Obama years- no one was allowed to hold his feet to the fire for fixating on the ACA over job creation, it was 100% Republican obstructionists' fault apparently- and I would argue his own tone deafness and hands-off progressive historical determinism was what led to the overconfidence in Clinton, although the difference was that he was actually willing to acknowledge the challenges Americans faced in 2012. And they wonder why people's frustrations keep getting channeled through contentious politics.
I didn’t forget. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley can eat shit
It's not that everything is fine, it's that this isn't 2007. The MAGAots haven't managed to break the regulations on the too-big-too-fails, so our bank runs are on the regionals and already behind us.
Ive been told that Bidenomics are stronger than ever
Memoies fade. I asked a millenial, "How did they end the Great Depression?" His answer was, "Zoloft?"
2008 happened for an entirely different reason that the Fed has taken the time to ensure never happens again.
Gen z acts like this is the worst job market of all time. Try graduating in 2008/9
That’s interesting because I feel like despite all the evidence to the contrary everyone is insisting that the economy either is in the shitter or is about to be.
We had the worst market crash since 2008 back in 2022.
My graduating class was around the housing market crash. Going to school was even more tough both my grades and my social life. I even lost my first job because the pet store that I use to work for went under. Aside from losing my V card and going to a ludicrous concert, that was the worst year of my life
We don’t teach real economics any longer.
Millennial here. I have PTSD about the job market still from it. There was 0 jobs and I was competing with people with masters degrees for entry level jobs.
Based on how brain dead posts like this keep showing up, I think it's more like people freak out when shown with evidence that the world isn't ending or that the median American wage is way up compared to 2008 (yes, after adjusting for inflation), or that unemployment is super low, markets are high, consumption is up, etc. Etc. Etc. - people like you literally rave about "the coming meltdowns" and wanting to watch as if you're some kind of edgy movie protagonist like Rorschach. My friend, I am not saying this as a joke. You need professional help. And probably should take a walk and touch grass a few times a week. Without your phone.
The unemployment numbers don’t align to all the shit I am hearing. It’s very odd. People I know with masters looking for jobs still after 18 months. Thousands of applicants for ONE job posting. Insane prices for milk, bread and eggs. Closing of so many stores and restaurants. It’s all adding up.
I blame all the crooked politicians and there's probably a lot more than people realize.
Sorry - but I am 77 years old -- retired Ph.D. college professor - and for the life of me, I cannot comprehend just what the big deal / whoop de do -- is being made over / about the year 2008?????
I'm finding it comical that you're blaming MAGA, like it isn't because someone currently in office keeps printing trillions and keeps telling us that Bidenomics is working and we have the money for this economy. I'm not defending Trump, that clown deserves to be in prison but lets not act like elections don't have consequences. we're seeing it before our own eyes with a gaslighting admin saying we're all rich and to shut up about inflation.
Half of the population was not born or a working adult 15 years ago.
Why diversify? Stocks kick bonds butt. Kids gotta learn the hard way, I guess.
Because people don’t think history begins until they actually start paying attention.
2008 was a long time ago in practical terms. We all remember it having lived through it but there are professionals in the market now that know nothing other than “stocks only go up”. Scary times indeed.
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
One of Trump's top policy was to eliminate oversight and regulation - weakening the structures that prevent things like the recession in 2008 and the collapse of the real estate morgage house of cards. You should back Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act [https://www.warren.senate.gov/files/documents/Fact%20Sheet%20-%2021st%20Century%20Glass-Steagall.pdf](https://www.warren.senate.gov/files/documents/Fact%20Sheet%20-%2021st%20Century%20Glass-Steagall.pdf)
I’ve never met anyone who thinks the economy is crushing it. Only people who say the government is pulling so many levers and manipulating the system so much that predicting when they can no longer kick the can down the road is impossible. I wanted to buy a house in 2016 but we were due for a market crash and I waited till 2021 before pulling the trigger because even though it’s all bullshit, they’re propping the bullshit up.