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Most of the US economy is in a recession

businessinsider.com

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Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#151

Post by bluegatty »

chneu wrote: post #128
bluegatty wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gulf states are US allies that can much more easily be hit + cause damage. They are Iran's regional enemies, that the US is effectively defending them from. Spooking the their leaders + population puts a huge amount of pressure on Trump. Iran has been successful in hitting Patriot and THAAD radars, those are massively expensive, years to replace. If those go down, then Iran can 'terrorize' the region at will incl…

I'm expecting China to go after Taiwan any day now. Im assuming they're waiting for the US to move more resources to the ME so they can get a jump.

Probably not, they are preparing but that does not mean they will ever do it.

Xi just faced a mutiny and had to put top generals away.

Key people in China military oppose the plans.

Even as they near readiness with some things, others remain far behind, and untested.

It's an extremely risky move and they don't take those kinds of risks.

Island landing 100 km away = Chinese D-Day means absolutely enormous casualties, and no guarantees of success.

If they lose that fight, CPP will be overthrown, that sounds dramatic, but those are the stakes at that level esp. with casualties.

The #1 objective is to infiltrate and take it without a fight, and/or cause pain and get citiznes to take the 'easy pill' and Taiwan slowly comes into China fold without ever any incident at all.

Barring that a blockade would be the thing, and then only usa could even hope to run it, it would be a sight to see, and very hard for us to do as China has long range weapons now and many things specifically designed to keep USN away from 1st island chain, means they can strangle Taiwan into submission with no invasion.

But if that happens, USN closes gulf and Malaca straigths, probably goes into S. China Sea. Very bad. China needs food and fuel to import.

It's very complex and China is not a monolith, many actors, it's authoritarian yet citizens are not dummies, they protest all the time we just don't hear about it.

Probably the chances are most acute 2029-early 2030s. This is from former Australian PM Kevin Rudd how is Western World's #1 non-Chinese China expert.

Xi is playing against bad headwinds though and the direct opportunity may not resent itself.

If they 'thought like us' and were a bit more decisive and risky, yes, 'now' would be a grand time to do it, wouldn't it? But no.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#152

Post by kccqzy »

plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #44
kccqzy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why care about oil when alternate fossil-fuel-free technologies have become mature? This could very well be the last straw to push many nations (except the U.S.) to massively buy Chinese solar panels and Chinese EVs to be oil independent.

Because policies are not made by rational decisions but by lobbyists...

That’s a United States phenomenon.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#154

Post by enoint »

tencentshill wrote: post #81
alexpotato wrote: post #75

I'm always somewhat puzzled by debates around "are we in a recession?" b/c we have so many REAL TIME metrics around what people are actually doing. e.g. credit card companies have excellent data on the amount that people are spending on. Is that not enough to determine if people are spending more or less than in the past? I understand there are seasonal trend etc etc but even "how is spending on travel this year comp…

The people who are spending the most in the economy don’t need credit.

Yet more often they use credit cards than the rest of the population.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#155

Post by s1artibartfast »

lovich wrote: post #106
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Realizing that GDP growth can be achieved while average joe on Main Street is struggling This is most GDP growth across human history until the Industrial Revolution with the exception of maybe a half dozen civilisations.

What did your response have to do with your quote? We can have the most growth ever as a civilization and still have the common person lose out. The Industrial Revolution also famously had a lot of people pushed into impoverished situations while robber barons or the highland clearing lords won out, despite the GDP of those respective countries increasing.

The connection is that GDP/Recession has never been about mainstreet or average joe.

Recession is usually bad for Joe and mainstreat, but the opposite is not implied. It is ignorant to think it is or was defined by the average experience.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#156

Post by conductr »

compootr wrote: post #78
conductr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realizing that GDP growth can be achieved while average joe on Main Street is struggling. The billionaires doing well masks everyone else struggling to afford groceries. In general, people are kind of calling BS on what the definition should be because we are all collectively feeling that things are doing poorly but no one is quite willing to recognize it due to the definitional stuff.

gdp isn't and will never be a measure for social wellbeing. it's just economic output :)

I think that’s what’s changed though, as GP asked, people want to define recession as closer to the social wellbeing than a metric like gdp that is divorced

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#157

Post by YinglingHeavy »

SlinkyOnStairs wrote: post #134
amazingamazing wrote: post #98

2023 - "The US is already in a 'rolling recession'": https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/recession-mi... 2024 - vibe cession: https://www.businessinsider.com/consumers-pessimistic-on-eco... 2025 - "a recession in 2025": https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/2025-stock-m... people just so desperately want the USA to be in a recession it seems.

> people just so desperately want the USA to be in a recession it seems. You've got it the wrong way around. People are desperate to explain why their experience of the economy; Which for most people is "not good", doesn't match the formal economic metrics and definitions of a "recession". Constant layoffs, horrible job market, even worse housing market, and the lingering inflation. The other half of this is of cours…

Less: "its a bubble"

More: "labor market and consumer spending is less meaningful than ever before"

The masses are unable to truly internalize the latter.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#158

Post by conductr »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #155
lovich wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did your response have to do with your quote? We can have the most growth ever as a civilization and still have the common person lose out. The Industrial Revolution also famously had a lot of people pushed into impoverished situations while robber barons or the highland clearing lords won out, despite the GDP of those respective countries increasing.

The connection is that GDP/Recession has never been about mainstreet or average joe. Recession is usually bad for Joe and mainstreat, but the opposite is not implied. It is ignorant to think it is or was defined by the average experience.

I feel it’s also ignorant to think it shouldn’t be defined by that experience. Our metrics have been misleading or we just need better ones and/or possibly a new word for how average joe talks about “recession”. A purely academic definition that has no basis in reality seems pointless to me.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#159

Post by FireBeyond »

suriya-ganesh wrote: post #84
nradov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just go pick up your own take-out food. Like do these customers not have working cars or even bicycles? I understand that there are customers who are stuck at home due to disability or caregiver responsibilities but those are a tiny niche. I've seen able-bodied young people spending a fortune on delivery services, which is just stupid.

I recently moved out of new york to new jersey. don't have a car. my options now are either buy a car, pay insurance, maintenance etc. north $1,500/mo for the convenience of going to the grocery store or, get a subscription for all these services ~ $200/mo. and save myself the time spent back and forth doing grocery shopping. I cook 90% of my food. not all solutions involve owning a car.

> my options now are either buy a car, pay insurance, maintenance etc. north $1,500/mo for the convenience

Huh? Decent car payment at $300-500/month, insurance at $200/month, and I'm wondering what $1,000/month of car "maintenance" looks like, considering $250/month will get you a full tank of a gas a week.

Re: Most of the US economy is in a recession

#160

Post by Xixi »

iso-logi wrote: post #149
stephen_g wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are vulnerable in Australia though because we have to move food large distances from farms to cities and are unusually road-dependent for those kind of distances (most countries use much more freight rail). Large diesel price rises are going to be extremely painful for us. And electricity and manufacturing too, since we have no real gas reservation policy and the exporters were allowed to build enough capacity to…

Diesel price rising can be easily fixed though. The Government collects 51.6 cents per litre on Fuel and Diesel, they'd need to just temporarily cut back on some of their obscene fuel margins to keep everything within steady-state. The question is, will the Government do so?

But what if there's not enough diesel?

That's what at stake here, with oil exports from the Middle East dwindling... Oil price might not even go up that much, or for that long, if the economy crashes hard enough.

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