What I do? Cool man. I’m sure you’re making the most brilliant of arguments that few people read, nothing else going on.
It is, in fact, possible to just disagree with someone without repeatedly firing off insults at other people. You’re acting as if anyone who doesn’t see this your way is intellectually dishonest or didn’t read your brilliance.
Lots of words that amount to your feels, no actual metric that shows objectively how the economy of today is as bad relatively as you say.
Not much to see here, just two of the highest earners who post here refusing to acknowledge what a bunch of middle/working class posters have said about the economic reality for most people. GDP is up and the rich are doing well, so everyone else is just caught up in their feels and needs to take a back seat, STFU, and vote for more of the same.
Really bad look here, and it’s convinced me that there is a 0.0% chance we fix any of this before it breaks. You two figure to be in the upper echelon of fucks given among the rich, and you can barely manage to give enough fucks to read this thread and accept that people you’ve been talking with for years who you know are intelligent might have a point. Just homework assignments to go dig up the same evidence that’s already been ignored.
If you can’t manage to give a shit, almost nobody rich will, and the wealthy sure as fuck won’t, so we’re going to continue racheting up the pressure in this country on the bottom 50% until it snaps. Homelessness will skyrocket, poverty will go up, the middle class will completely disappear, and wealth will continue to concentrate.
Very disappointing posting.
That’s rich coming from you of all people here. You’ve insulted the intelligence of several posters in this thread repeatedly, and you’ve gotten your feelings hurt because I’ve called you rich, smug, and said you post in bad faith. It’s fine when you dish it out, but we better put some respect on your opinions huh?
It’s almost like inequality has widened to unprecedented levels and people on opposite sides of the divide can’t see eye to eye. Funny how that works.
You’re conflating two different things here, and it’s the fundamental reason for disagreement:
Those things are different.
If you want to view things from a leftist point of view that we need to do more to support lower to middle class, that’s fine! I won’t even tell you that you’re wrong! Biden will likely have the same message!
You are getting too wrapped up in this emotionally, and keep assuming that people who agree with you on 90%+ of things are arguing in bad faith. Trust me, they’re not.
Sure, but it’s helpful to understand that a lot of folks are buying 1.5houses compared to a lot of their parents generation.
I’m not on team houses are cheap and I don’t even think the economy is doing excellent, although, relatively speaking worldwide, its doing incredible. This economy is very aggressive right now and I personally think we need to bink several miracles to keep things as good as they are now for the next 10 years like continuing to raise wages while somehow controlling inflation and maintaining a low UR because I do believe our abysmal savings rate is going to put pressure against us accomplishing all of those things at once. But AI might help.
A couple things, the data is a little cherry picked as the early 80s weren’t a great time to buy a house - just like it is now. If we look at 1995, the home price to income ratio is about the same as the early 80s but was a better time to buy due to the lower rates, but it wasn’t some magical home buying opportunity. Houses were a lot more affordable before 1980 for sure but I don’t think that’s an argument to make as you lacked a lot of the important health codes and safety measures that we take for granted today, and again, those houses were tiny asbestos ladened huts amongst other issues. Houses are much more expensive than in 2011 and very close to the same as in 2005 - and that didn’t end well but that is another story obv.
I don’t know if you’re trying to buy a house or if you already had bought one but I personally wouldn’t feel like i’ve missed out on some opportunity at these prices. I also think there is some buyers remorse starting to happen in the last year which may continue to grow.
I don’t think I’m conflating anything at all, remember this whole argument stems from what type of debate Biden should run: one about how great the economy is or one about how it’s broken for most people and needs to be fixed.
I’ll slightly tweak your #1 and #2.
How strong is the overall economy - how big is the pie to divide up?
How is it being divided?
The topline economic indicators are great, GDP is good. So #1 is strong. The point is that most people aren’t enjoying the rewards of that, a tiny sliver of our society is. So running on #1 while ignoring #2 is a recipe for disaster since most voters are victims of #2, not beneficiaries of it.
#2 usually has more to do with the average person’s lived experience than #1.
That’s a pretty big change from your initial opinion on this, which is good. I appreciate that. Hopefully he connects with voters in this regard, even though I doubt he does much for them if he wins.
I haven’t said people are arguing in bad faith, I think Wookie is arguing in good faith, but I assume Wook hasn’t read much of the thread. You didn’t read the evidence you keep insisting I go dig up again, and you’re insisting there isn’t any evidence. BS found something from a Nobel winning economist and iirc your entire response was to call it irrelevant with no actual reasoning or analysis. I’ve posted charts and data and explained the logic behind my position, and you handwaved it. You present crosstabs from a poll, I respond with other crosstabs from the same poll, and you say those are just crosstabs those aren’t reliable.
People corner you, you disengage, then a week later it’s a drive by post with a tweet proclaiming yourself obviously right. Rinse and repeat.
That’s why I have said you’re arguing in bad faith.
But are the 1.0 houses compared to their parents generation available and affordable? Only ones I’ve seen are in super HCOL areas so they’re not actually that cheap, and they’re in need of a ton of work, so it’s very unclear whether they’ll actually be cheaper after the work is done. So it appears the houses you described aren’t being built. That’s a big contributing factor here that’s out of the average person’s control.
I would argue that this is probably the longest stretch of starter houses being mostly unaffordable for a generation that we’ve seen in America. Part of the reason I’m so militant about this is because not only is nothing being done to fix it, powerful and wealthy people are coming out guns blazing to make it worse and lock it this way.
I completely agree that we need to bink several miracles or we’re fucked. I think that the way things are going, the middle class will cease to exist over the next decade, and that’s going to be very bad for society and the economy.
Best case, Biden wins and we do nothing for four years to fix this, then hopefully we get some change after that. But it may already be too late.
And the bottom earners have been doing better by the vast majority of available data. This is a case that can be still sold, and has already been shifting towards that message in the past few weeks. The vast majority of historical precedent and data we have says things are good.
I haven’t changed my opinion one fucking bit on you arguing about things from the left either. Your evidence has been read, it’s not compelling. Sorry that you disagree with that, but at some point you’re not arguing anymore, you’re just being a jerk.
We’ve repeatedly been through why that’s not actually the case, and that’s why it’s not going to be sold successfully to bottom earners.
I don’t believe you read it, because so far the depth of your argument against it has been calling it irrelevant or not compelling. You have no reasoning behind it, which means you either can’t refuse it and won’t admit that, or you didn’t read it. Bad faith either way.
You crossed that line a long, long time ago, and you’re too self-absorbed to realize that. So when you start getting your feelings hurt by people calling out your bad faith, your smug attitude, your bias, and your disregard for people who are struggling, and demand people treat you nicer, it’s laughable because you crossed the line into being a condescending and insulting jerk way before anyone else did and in way harsher ways.
So if you ever find yourself wondering, that is why nobody likes you.
I mean, we have. And the “data” you’ve shared lacks any sort of context and completeness. It’s literally you picking out specific things you don’t like, claiming they’re overriding anything else based on not much more than feelings.
Your evidence keeps getting ignored because of a mixture of irrelevancy or the fact that it’s really your feelings over actual data. That’s why wookie asks you for objective data. You’re so caught up in making a class argument that you’re applying it when it simply doesn’t work. The right argument is to say “yeah things aren’t good enough yet”, not this.
My feelings aren’t particularly hurt CW, I’m just trying to not make this place a shithole. I’ll cop to not being a perfect poster and even to being a jerk sometimes, but you’re way out of line here.
You’re right about one thing: there’s a lot of disappointing posting going on lately.
You’re just wrong about who’s doing it.
I’ve posted data several times, so has BS, and you keep ignoring it. You have made zero attempts to refute it with any substance, and you have repeatedly lied and said we never posted any.
You’ve been out of line for months, multiple times I’ve asked you to knock it off and every time you’ve gone right back to it. You’ve been disrespectful and insulting, and I’m not going to sugarcoat that for you. You think it’s way out of line to bluntly describe your posting style, the character you’ve displayed in this argument, and how that makes people think of you, but that it’s just not perfect posting or a little jerkish to display that character in the first place.
That perfectly illustrates the point.
Collectively, you had one of the best opportunities around 2011-2012 to buy a house with an avg salary being at 58K and the average home price at 166K = 2.86 H to I ratio. But more people are making more money now and that’s reducing the availability thus increasing the demand.
But home prices have been easing since 2022 and it’s expected to continue and cycle back.
If you had a real argument you would have been able to refer to it specifically around 5 times over for all the insults you’ve fired off my way. The fact that you don’t for me or Wookie doesn’t exactly help your case. No amount of ‘you’re smug and everyone hates you’ is going to change that.
The real irony here is that we’re not even in that much disagreement. The fundamental issue remains, I’m saying the economy is good based on the facts we have today and you don’t think it’s good enough. That’s fair. I’d say the economy still good based on any sort of reasonable historical comparison and not running on that is foolish.
That level of disagreement shouldn’t lead to this intense of a reaction, and I’m sorry for my role in that because I’m not blameless. This clearly is a touchy topic for you, but I’d ask you be more respectful in the future. If you want to call out any sort of behavior of mine in the future as inappropriate, go for it, but the namecalling should stop now.
Also, if most were able to get the income to buy a starter home, unventory would go to 0 until prices matched the buyers and sellers. The ones who couldnt find a house would end up buyung a pic of a rock for 40k or something.
All else equal, spending is expected to slow and that should cause more home sellers to cash near the top which would cause imventory to open up again - even if unemployment remains low.
Also, if things get as ugly as you suggest with the economy, you will certainly have another buying opportunity assuming your finances are less affected.
But everything always looks different in the rear view mirror, especually home prices. And the next time home prices fall 30% people still wont be interested for what ever reason that isnt being factored in today. Becuaae youll never have low prices with high demand like that. Its they way its always been.
I apologize for the insults, you have gotten under my skin with your tactics in this thread and I responded poorly and I’m sorry. I would, however, appreciate it if you would stop strawmanning and lying about what I’ve said, and what I’ve posted, and stop asking me to repost stuff that you’ve already ignored.
Since I cannot engage with you without losing my patience and getting out of line while you use those tactics that trigger me, I’m done responding to you on this subject unless/until you address the previous points substantively. I think that’s for the best, otherwise we’re going to go around in circles forever and it’ll keep getting nasty.
Unfortunately most people were still recovering from 2008-09 then and couldn’t buy. I was making $15-20K a year then working three jobs going into debt to stay afloat, ended up switching to poker in 2014 and using that year to get out of the debt I racked up. Not everyone had it that bad for that long, I chose a stupid career path (broadcasting) that was bad before 2008-09 and even worse after.
The problem though is that it’s not in homebuilders best interest to build a lot of houses at an entry level price point, and we have a huge shortage. The demand is there.
I’m not confident it’ll cycle back - I don’t think we’re going to see entry level houses drop by 30%, unless institutional buyers are blocked out somehow.
By definition the CPI does not capture the “true situation” of any single person. But I haven’t seen any sort of rigor applied to the claim that the CPI is now particularly inaccurate for huge swathes of the population.
Surely there’s a enterprising economist out there that’s written up a paper about this that we can all review.