The Presidency of Not So Jacked Up Joe Biden: We Beat Medicare!

[commonWealth]

@eyebooger

Well that’s not great, what are you seeing elsewhere in your circle?

Everyone with rich parents who are helping them are doing great. Everyone without that is struggling big time. For a lot of my friends and cousins my age (late 30s or younger), owning a home is a pipe dream. Most who own got significant help from their parents - like if not six figures worth, close. Sometimes just straight up cash, sometimes paying off debts for them, etc.

@eyebooger

I just can’t understand how Biden bragging about the economy right now is anything but monumentally insulting to the vast majority of voters who carried his ass to the White House, and who he will absolutely need later this year.

Yep. It’s bad enough that he has been shitty on immigration, an important issue to my wife and I. It’s bad enough that he is mostly going with “vote harder, but we won’t nuke the filibuster,” on abortion. I can do without him telling me the economy is great. He should save that shit for the $25K a plate fundraisers - the economy is great for those people.

@eyebooger

Yes, inflation has cooled off. Yes, unemployment is low. Congratulations, you’re like 2% of the way there to fixing the broken economy for young people. Now shut the fuck up and fix the rest.

They’re not going to fix the rest, that’s why…

@MrWookie

Does anyone here think the economy today, or even during peak inflation of 2022, is worse than 2008? Because, like, how in the hell is consumer sentiment worse in 2022 than in 2008?

I don’t know how consumer sentiment is defined or whatever, but let me put it this way. In 2008 I knew it was shitty, I knew it was gonna suppress my generation’s income for life to graduate into it, I knew people were losing jobs and homes, and that was awful. But I expected it to get better, and for my generation to be able to reach the “American Dream.” Work hard, buy a house, have a reasonably comfortable middle class life, retire.

I now know that the main problems with this economy will not be fixed ever, that millions will be trapped as renters, and I don’t expect to get any significant amount from social security ever. So my outlook is pretty bleak, and while I know I may get out of the permanent renter class, I also know it’s not a given despite being highly intelligent and hard working. In order to have a chance to escape the permanent renter trap, I’m trying to put in around 3,500 hours this year and similar next year, and my wife plans to work 60+ hours a week plus a side hustle after graduating - it shouldn’t have to be that way.

And we’d both like to have kids, but we have no clue if we’ll ever be able to afford them. So that’s shitty, too.

So my sentiment about this economy is that it fucking sucks. The current situation is better than 2008, sure, but it’s never getting back to anything resembling a decent “normal” for the average person.

[goofy]

@commonWealth

But I expected it to get better, and for my generation to be able to reach the “American Dream.” Work hard, buy a house, have a reasonably comfortable middle class life, retire.

While Wookie makes a good point about the 2008 economy, I think this is possibly a good explanation for the disconnect. I don’t recall thinking 15 years ago that my generation would have to win the lottery to be able to buy a home; far from there being a crunch, real estate had just cratered in most of the country. Now for tons of people it’s like, oops! Should have been born ten years earlier to have actually had money to strike back then because you sure as shit can’t buy a home now!

[commonWealth]

Yeah, like I was playing poker with a kid in his early 20s, and he said he came down to the Borgata to play in the $800, $2M guaranteed tournament because he figured winning a low buyin tournament for $400K+ was the only way he’d ever be able to own a home.

He’s probably right.

[CaffeineNeeded]

@riverman

Upper middle class people (so basically all Dems in power) simply prefer to stick their fingers in their ears, which not coincidentally is exactly what benefits their donors. Companies fucking love low wages and no benefits, keeps people desperate.

I am begging you to actually look at data that shows real wages increased more in low to middle income people.

[CaffeineNeeded]

Anyways it’s not complicated.

Voters are dumb and swayed by propaganda. Democrats should probably engage in propaganda supporting their cause, especially when they have the facts on their side

[riverman]

People are telling you why the data is more nuanced and you’re choosing not to listen.

[Surf]

Data aside, I’m a doctor married to someone with a masters degree and we can’t afford to live in a house next door to either our parents who were school teachers or lowest rung professor when they bought respective houses, so I have no choice but to believe that lots of hard working people are priced out of home ownership which obviously going to make them unreceptive to idea the economy is doing really well

[commonWealth]

@riverman

People are telling you why the data is more nuanced and you’re choosing not to listen.

And telling us we’re too stupid to understand how good we have it!

[CaffeineNeeded]

@riverman

People are telling you why the data is more nuanced and you’re choosing not to listen.

No, they aren’t. They’re purely vibes and are wrong. There hasn’t been one data point criticism of my assertions here. The closest we’ve gotten is talk about a state sourced student loan

[CaffeineNeeded]

@commonWealth

And telling us we’re too stupid to understand how good we have it!

Voters in general are dumb af, not here.

[eyebooger]

@CaffeineNeeded

They’re purely vibes and are wrong.

Well, hopefully someone in the Biden 2024 campaign HQ can manage to show the 85% of young people in all those purple states who think the economy sucks the error of their ways.

[CaffeineNeeded]

If things keep going well, consumer confidence will continue to rise. Convincing people of a true thing that is a result of your work shouldn’t be controversial. Hell if it wasn’t true Biden should be spinning shit as much as possible.

Also like fuck yes Biden as the incumbent should be trying to convince people things are good. I’m flabbergasted this is controversial

[Surf]

My personal anecdotal experience of what I hear seems that the current issue isn’t at the low part time minimum wage area because there lots of people support was coming from various government entitlements like subsidized housing/medicaid/food stamps/etc. But now the gap between that and say being a teacher has drastically narrowed and the teacher isn’t qualifying for entitlements and very well may feel even more financially insecure then the folks who do get entitlements.

[Melkerson]

Hot take incoming:

I’m sure this is partially (?mostly) due to my home ownership privilege, but I think home ownership is overrated.

If you have a mortgage, instead of renting the house you’re just renting the money. Rent is rent. There are also costs associated with home ownership besides debt service (e.g. maintenance, taxes, insurance). Sure you’re building equity in a home, but if you rent for less you can save the difference and invest in a different vehicle.

I’m sure in some markets renting is probably economically a better option. I get that there is something comforting about never having to move unless you want to and customizing your space, but in the end I think the rent vs buy decision ends up being clouded by feels instead of being just straight up cost/benefit analysis. I’m sure plenty of people are striving to achieve something that is objectively worse for them financially.

Flame on.

[riverman]

It’s an incredible form of forced savings.

Also a fixed rate mortgage basically fixes your nominal housing cost which is pretty great.

[Surf]

@riverman

Also a fixed rate mortgage basically fixes your nominal housing cost which is pretty great.

And where else is someone going to get handed 100s of thousands at some low percent (that can only ever get lower) to invest. Like if I could get a mortgage at 2.75% and buy an index fund with it instead of a house then doing that and renting sounds pretty nice

[commonWealth]

@Melkerson

but if you rent for less you can save the difference and invest in a different vehicle.

This assumes rents will stay stable and/or grow at a slower pace than home prices and wages.

@riverman

Also a fixed rate mortgage basically fixes your nominal housing cost which is pretty great.

This is the key. Rent will almost certainly outpace inflation for a long time to come. I suspect that for most renters, it will accelerate enough to eat up any wage growth and prevent them from saving up for a down payment/anything else they would save for.

More and more single family homes are being bought up to turn into rentals, if you think renting is fine/better just ask yourselves what the end game there is in late stage capitalism. Hint: it’s not to provide a sweet deal on housing to the working/middle class.

[riverman]

Historically single family houses have barely beaten inflation even before accounting for maintenance and insurance.

I think that’s going to change though. All the good jobs are in like 20 cities and many of them are full of NIMBY bullshit and / or out of land. The jobs are going to stay there, and housing costs will keep increasing.

[goofy]

Another key: mortgage interest is tax deductible.

[commonWealth]

@riverman

Historically single family houses have barely beaten inflation even before accounting for maintenance and insurance.

I think that’s going to change though. All the good jobs are in like 20 cities and many of them are full of NIMBY bullshit and / or out of land. The jobs are going to stay there, and housing costs will keep increasing.

Yep, and rent has badly outpaced wage growth and more and more houses are becoming rentals.

Plus the more single family homes turned into rentals, the fewer single family homes hitting the market to buy, and hence upward pressure on housing prices for buyers.