Huh I keep hearing the economy is actually doing well. I guess it’s just the people in the economy that are suffering.
Basically. However there are signs that is starting to recover like places lowering their prices. Home Depot has their best Memorial Day pricing I’ve seen in years.
Are the prices actually coming down? Or are they shrinking the products or selling inferior goods?
General question, not just for home depot
That is a good question. Hadn’t noticed any obvious shrinkflation yet but I wouldn’t doubt it. Anything is possible these days.
If we all just stop paying our debt, they can’t do anything.
The Gang Gets Repossessed
Well they said “all”, so more like " the gang causes a massive global financial collapse."
The solidarity issue version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: If enough of us cooperate, we can get away with it, but if we don’t hit that mass, we’ll get fucked for it. The strictly dominant strategy is to defect, because the outcome isn’t as bad if the others defect too.
The difference is that the Prisoner’s Dilemma deals in absolutes (two players with the same two choices) whereas the issue at hand has nuance (some of us have more debt, some less, some ot us can more easily shoulder the initial burden imposed by being the first to get sent to collections, the outcome doesn’t strictly depend on total cooperation or even on numbers alone).
Also, the Prisoner’s Dilemma assumes the prisoners have no way of communicating and no loyalty toward each other. We can communicate and coordinate.
Wooo! Is it warm in here or am I just excited.
Not the economy
Actually, unlike the bullshit articles we’re fed that conflate the stock market and the economy… spiraling debt is a pretty serious marker of an unhealthy economy.
Granted it’s a really fucking late sign and basically just indicates consumer goods are becoming out of reach price-wise.
People not being able to afford healthcare, housing, and necessary consumer goods like food and clothing? What? This is news to me! Have they tried not eating avocado toast? If they worked 15 minutes extra per day they’d be a billionaire in a year. People these days are so lazy and entitled!
Common interest rates of 30% plus, predatory offers, hell I get real checks in the mail from local loan companies. All you have to do is sign and deposit and you are to their ridiculous terms. The free market needs reigned in.
They keep the interest rate high to stop people from buying things. But the things we need to buy are food and the demand isn’t going to fall. so people are using credit more than ever and they have no way to pay it back. The stocks have gone up but only because all these companies are in a position to skew us all now.
Consumer spending fuels economic growth…Job and wage growth helped counter the hit to consumers wallets from rising inflation, but a continued slowdown or reversal there could tip the scales…“While these indicators do not necessarily predict a recession, especially with a robust labor market, a weakening in employment conditions could exacerbate household financial instability,” said Gregory Daco, EY chief economist. “The combination of subdued job growth, sluggish income progression, and diminished savings could lead to increased delinquencies and a potential retrenchment in consumer spending.”…retail spending unexpectedly stalled in April in a sign of consumer fatigue and worry. Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, has said its customers are spending more on necessities and less on discretionary goods like home furnishings and electronics.
Why does no one talk about the cost of housing? Housing is astronomically expensive, and the more people have to spend for housing, the less they will have to spend on everything else.
Bankruptcy for the win
Young people have always sucked at handling credit cards. This isn’t new.
I’m 35. We took out a refi and paid off our credit card debts in 2019, and we were doing financially great for probably the first time in our adult lives. In the course of the last year, we’ve nearly maxed out most of our credit cards on living expenses. It’s not only that the cost of living jumped up, but that our wages haven’t gone up with it and our combined student loan load is like $1000/mo. There’s also the creeping understanding that we’re one big unexpected expense from disaster. I was really looking forward to taking the kids on their first real trip or something, but I guess we’re just going to stay here and play Vidya until they’re adults. But hey, glad to hear that the economy’s doing great.
This is new - being alive is seriously difficult to afford right now.
