Today's economic data dump produced a whole crop of good numbers. Disposable income is up 2.3% from a year ago. Total compensation (salary + benefits) is up 4.8%. Consumer spending is up 2.2%. All adjusted for inflation, of course—which clocked in at a nice, low 2.1%. And yesterday's GDP report showed healthy growth of 2.8%. There's just no bad news anywhere.
26 thoughts on “Today’s economic news is all blue skies”
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It’s a good thing we shat all over the guy who delivered all this economic growth and prosperity. That’ll teach future politicians to not do any of that again.
Seriously. That, and the Fed actually managed to engineer that soft landing that Kevin has been mocking for over a year now.
I'm skeptical on that subject. I think the economy is so strong it managed a soft landing despite the Fed.
In my view Biden has been an excellent president. However, he is old, he is slowing down, and the odds are too high that if he got a second term he wouldn't be competent by the end of it. In short, the fact that he has been an excellent president in his first term does not persuade me that he would be an excellent president through a second term.
I think that choosing retirement was the wisest thing he could do, and I hope he is beginning to accept that he did the right thing by stepping aside. He's going to be able to relax and spend time with his grandchildren, which he can't do much of while being president. He should be honored for the job he's done and for being wise enough to quit while he was ahead.
+1
Data, schmata! I heard a guy on the NBC evening news yesterday say, "The economy still sucks." That's good enough for me . . . and apparently for tens of millions of voters, too!
Nice job, media!
"There's just no bad news anywhere."
Just wait a week to a week and a half ...
The bad news is that it’s all a bunch of lies. The economy was destroyed by Biden, everyone knows it. Fortunately, once Trump is elected in a landslide (even in California if God did the counting) the economy will immediately recover and, magically the economic numbers released today will be the real numbers even before Trump is installed leader. Thank God we’ll be rid of Biden and have a real leader who can get things done quickly. We can all hail victory and hail Trump as our Leader.
(Just practicing)
That's actually no joke. If that sonofabitch wins, he will take credit for the Biden economy, just like he took credit for the Obama economy the last time. And the media thinks it's "not their job" to inform people that government policy takes three to six years to kick in, so we're always giving credit or blame to the wrong administration.
You could have stopped with ‘the media thinks it's "not their job" to inform people’. Basically, they now just report that Rightwinger said this and Liberal said that, and we’re done here.
In an economy with such enormous wealth inequality, "per-capita" statistics arouse immediate and deep suspicion.
Do better.
Low income wages have risen quite a bit in this recovery. The overall economy has done well and the people 'at the bottom' have done very well.
TheMoreYouKnow....
Presenting *that* data would be an example of "do better".
Kevin has, from time to time. Income by quantiles just isn’t reported as frequently.
Even though the balance has returned, things cost more.
I remember, for instance, gasoline being $.33 a gallon. So even though I have the same purchasing power things feel more expensive, sizes got smaller, going out to eat costs at McDonalds cost what a nice dinner, without the drinks, cost 20 years ago.
So people don't feel better.
Interestingly, the drinks cost about the same if they have alcohol; but the sugar drinks cost more.
It's behind a paywall, but The Economist just endorsed Harris.
+1.
"Trump has received backing from the New York Post." What about the National Enquirer? lol.
Well then, victory assured. Phew, what a relief.
33 cents a gallon? Are you talking about the '60s?
Back then, I had a job that paid $1 an hour.
Adjusted for inflation gas prices are what they were in 1975:
https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/average-gas-prices-through-history/
But people want their income to rise and prices stay the same.
+1
and I just got a raise!
+1
It doesn't matter how the economy is doing; what's important is that the infotainment media and the Foxy Disinformation Media have been painting it as on the verge of a major recession ... for four years now.
Who are folks going to believe? The news that consumes them, or their own lying eyes? When the Felon tells them that bacon has quadrupled in price and people are "starving because they can't buy bacon!!" ? When gasoline prices keep going down -- $2.68 this morning -- and he says they're $10 a gallon?
Surveys consistently show that folks think Congress members are lying, cheating criminals -- excluding their own guy. Rarely have people been less likely to believe their own eyes and experience, in favor of what they're told that they want to hear.
Has there ever been a time with as big a discrepency between the actual state of the economy and the way so many people "feel" ? Why is this ? If Trump wins it will be because people "feel" the economy is bad when it manifestly is not.