Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

There are certainly aspects that aren't great today, and things like debt could cause problems DOWN THE ROAD (will, in fact).

But the state of the US economy TODAY looks pretty good, to me.  Not fabulous, certainly not terrible, just decent.  But public perception often is different from that.

And I don't buy the notion the reported economic figures are "wrong" any more than usual in the past.  I understand they are estimates, but I think they are pretty accurate.

Again, you are conflating what I said. 

I didn't say the numbers were wrong.  I said people don't trust the government, and their reporting of such.  They can be accurate, and folks still not believe them.  There is no credibility there.

So you can relieve yourself of belaboring the point.  I, personally, am doing pretty OK myself.  Some I know are definitely not, but much of that is of their own making.

You said they don't believe the figures FOR GOOD REASON.

That certainly indicates you think there is good reason not to believe them, which suggests they are incorrect.  Why would folks not believe figures if they think they are correct?

God*amn you are annoying.  You'd make someone a good wife, I swear.

The good reason is the govt lies about so much other stuff, there is no credibility in just about anything they say.  So people don't believe them, naturally, even if said thing is actually true.  Dismissed out of hand, yada, yada.

Need I go on?

Along with high interest rates, this seems concerning to me.  I've been here before -- in 2008, coincidentally.  Not fun.


https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/credit-cards/features/maxed-out-inside-americas-credit-card-debt-crisis-and-what-we-do-next/

this has been an issue for a decade or two
perhaps it's getting much worse
I would guess the number of bankruptcies is an indicator of the economy and has a negative affect. 

Judge warns Trump of jail time after finding him in contempt for gag order violation   | The Hill
Judge warns Trump of jail time after finding him in contempt for gag order violation   | The Hill

The famous Reagan question to me is not relevant, as I personally might be doing better (and I am) while the country could be doing worse (I don't think it is).

For me, the COVID period, which extended into January 2021, was quite uncertain and troubled, the economy was barely recovering and a lot of small businesses were not making it, and didn't.  I know gas prices were low, great, but that was due to lack of demand.  Now we have higher gas prices of course, they aren't at record levels by any means, due to higher demand, and US oil production continues to set records.

That is a LOT better than if we were still importing most of our oil and sending money somewhere else.

Confidence in Biden economic decision-making near record low: Gallup | The Hill

This is interesting, to me.  Most REPORTED economic statistics are pretty positive.  And yet Americans by and large don't feel that way.  I know we're not used to inflation at this level, but one can go back a few decades when inflation at 5% was fairly "normal" and we say figures above 10% during the early Reagan era.

IMHO it's inflation. (And interest rates, but that's also sorta another way of saying inflation.)

Most other metrics, the economy is humming pretty well. GDP, unemployment, wages, etc. 

But inflation is something that people see. Every single day. Everywhere around them. And even if they're doing better (i.e. got a raise / new job / etc) it seems like anything good that happens to them personally is just trying to keep pace with inflation, so it has the personal feeling of a pretty hollow victory. 

And then you see news stories talking about how inflation is coming down, but what you don't see is news stories about how prices have returned to ~2021 levels. No, they're 20%(ish?) higher now for a bunch of things, and now we're supposed to accept that as the new normal and be excited that they're not continuing to go up at the rate they were. 

-----------------

As an aside, a great book I recently read was Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely. While not based on inflation, a lot of what he discusses in there are related to inflation. Psychologically, we "anchor" prices based on some level we think they should be. It is REALLY hard to reset those anchors. Which is why everyone is so up in arms with inflation. It's not that 2021 prices were "right" or "cheap", it's that we anchored based on them and now they're higher so we're all a little pissed off about why everything is now so expensive. 

I agree, "we" are not used to inflation.  Many here lived through high inflationary periods that lasted much longer.  When I first started working, I was getting significant raises every 9-10 months, which seemed nice except inflation was raging.

The current inflation rates reported are "OK", but we're not going back down of course in terms of much getting cheaper.