Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#61

Post by pvnick » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 8:59 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #37

pachydermic wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Recession" means that GDP is shrinking, not growing. That's the definition of that word: noun: recession; plural noun: recessions 1. a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. So technically, the recession is over. There's not much room for interpretation there unless you choose a different definitio…

Even though pvnick was incorrect about their claim that the recession isn't over, we should try to look past that. Their more important claim was that people have forgotten what it's like to have enough money. It's hard to dispute that. In the tech sector, most of us have "enough" money, but it's not the case anymore for the vast majority of people in the US.

> Even though pvnick was incorrect about their claim that the recession isn't over

I was not, please see my reply adjacent to your's

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#62

Post by spiralpolitik » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 8:59 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #31

I'm really worried about our economic future. I think job creation has been decoupled from economic growth. That's terrifying for the lower class today, and will eventually be terrifying to nearly everyone. I also think central banking has lost its effectiveness. We've had 6 years of 0% interest and money printing -- the pedal is to the metal -- but labor participation for working-aged citizens is stuck at a low not…

Indeed. It's hard to have a comsumption based economy if 99% of the population have no money to spend on things.

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#63

Post by DrJokepu » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 9:01 PM UTC

eyeareque wrote: post #51

This makes me want to ask: Where did all of the money go? It had to go somewhere, right?

Money is not wealth. It's a (very efficient) mechanism for exchanging wealth. "Where did all the wealth go?" would be a better question to ask. The answer is that nothing in life has inherent value, only perceived. If the perception changes, wealth can be lost (or gained).

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#64

Post by happyscrappy » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 9:03 PM UTC

glesica wrote: post #58

happyscrappy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as long as one persons wage is falling that's a recession? That makes the word meaningless.

Pretty sure that's not what I said. I said that would be a recession for that person , in other words, from the point of view of that one, individual person. Of course you've over-extended my point. I wasn't talking about individuals, I was talking about fairly large groups of people.

Sure you can say specific industries are in recession but if you don't qualify it that implies the entire economy.

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#65

Post by glesica » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 9:03 PM UTC

pentelkuru wrote: post #53

glesica wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes about 10 minutes on Google to conclude that, regardless of any technical definition of a "recession", the economy is terrible unless you you're in a handful of industries or happen to make your money by owning the means of production (shocking that the group for whom the system is named always seem to do just fine...) Here's a good example: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor... Some…

>> We never left the recession; The OP suggested the American economy is still in a recession, which is false. Not according to any obscure "technical definition" of recession, but according to the only widely accepted definition of the word. > Over-aggregating and being pedantic about technical definitions adds nothing to the conversation His post opens with a statement that is plainly false. Spreading misinformatio…

> The OP suggested the American economy is still in a recession

I didn't read it that way. Whether we are technically in a recession or not, from the perspective of many, many people, we never left the recession. The rest of the comment makes it clear that this was the correct way to read it. Arguing over the throwaway usage of a rhetorically convenient (albeit not technically accurate) term is a waste of time.

Pvnick lost no credibility in my eyes, despite the fact that I know the definition of a "recession", because I recognized the point being made and was able to see through the terminology.

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#66

Post by dubfan » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 9:03 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #52

pvnick wrote: post #9

"The recession is over" has always struck me a political double-speak. We never left the recession; mainstream America just collectively forgot how it felt to have enough money. We have become accustomed to the 60 hour work weeks for folks fortunate enough to have jobs, chronic unemployment for those unfortunate enough to work outside of tech, the cheaper processed food, the increasing debt, and the lower standard of…

>mainstream America just collectively forgot how it felt to have enough money. Yeah, no more easy line of credits for deadbeats and people with zero collateral who want to flip a home they can't afford and sell at a price that won't work. Banks shouldn't provide insurance for investing. > We have become accustomed to the 60 hour work weeks for folks fortunate enough to have jobs This kind of thing happened way before…

I've been seeing a lot of these types of articles lately, trying to convince how bad off the American worker is and how those fat cats in the 1% are siphoning all of the wealth away. I've also noticed a recent uptick in socialist-populist activity. I'm not sure which is the cart and which is the horse but it seems like articles like this have a specific political agenda in mind.

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#67

Post by eyeareque » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 9:04 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #55

eyeareque wrote: post #51

This makes me want to ask: Where did all of the money go? It had to go somewhere, right?

Its actually imaginary points. It doesn't have to go anywhere.

Sure, but if someone lost their house and the bank took it, wouldn't that mean the banks ate up all of the assets?

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#68

Post by bmm6o » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 9:06 PM UTC

tjradcliffe wrote: post #50

pvnick wrote: post #9

"The recession is over" has always struck me a political double-speak. We never left the recession; mainstream America just collectively forgot how it felt to have enough money. We have become accustomed to the 60 hour work weeks for folks fortunate enough to have jobs, chronic unemployment for those unfortunate enough to work outside of tech, the cheaper processed food, the increasing debt, and the lower standard of…

You've unfortunately sparked a fairly pointless litany of quibbling about language, which I don't think was your intent. The problem is that GDP is a lousy measure of median economic well-being, which is what matters most in social policy, yet it is the overwhelmingly popular summary statistics for (mean) "economic well-being". The problems with using arithmetic means rather than medians are so large and well-known t…

> You've unfortunately sparked a fairly pointless litany of quibbling about language

Perhaps unfortunate, but very predictable. We have to agree on the definitions of the words we're using otherwise we're just monkeys at keyboards. And starting from a false premise is one of the worst ways to construct an argument.

As an aside, I'm always intrigued when people use words whose meanings they don't really comprehend. I think it's interesting how we try to infer meaning from contexts and how rarely we actually check that model against reference sources.

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#69

Post by forrestthewoods » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 9:10 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #13

forrestthewoods wrote: post #10

Absolute trash analysis. Worse than garbage. I say worse because the analysis is so catastrophically wrong that the complete inverse could be true. It's using average. Average is a terrible data point. I think if you replace 'average' with 'median' you'll have something more useful >95% of the time. Maybe more. For example, it is widely circulated that the gains have all gone to the rich. Well the losses also went to…

I downvoted you for your trash analysis. I will be back this evening (1:45PM here at the moment) and I will cite sources until you scream for mercy. The loss of wealth for the average American (note I didn't say MEDIAN lol) is well-established at this point.

I failed reading comprehension 101 so I don't think this is required. But I'm always interested in reading interesting links if you have anything you'd still like to share.

Re: Americans are 40% poorer than before the recession

#70

Post by hnnewguy » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 9:12 PM UTC

pvnick wrote: post #56

pachydermic wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Recession" means that GDP is shrinking, not growing. That's the definition of that word: noun: recession; plural noun: recessions 1. a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. So technically, the recession is over. There's not much room for interpretation there unless you choose a different definitio…

Your narrow technical definition of the word "recession" is by no means universally accepted [1] [2]. In addition, as another post adjacent to your's points out, there is a common meaning used by everybody outside of economic-savvy circles that refers to periods of general economic difficulty. It is this definition which is more important because this is what the technical definitions of recession attempt to formaliz…

>And the tendency to play semantics and say "since GDP hasn't fallen for two successive quarters the recession is over" when the economy is clearly still in shambles ignores the real struggle of millions of Americans who are not seeing the benefits of our "recovery," other than hearing about it on the news.

The formal definition of recession as two quarters of falling GDP isn't prone to semantic arguments, while your soft definition, talking about "real struggle" and "what Americans see" is.

That's why we choose the former.