The real measure of a real economy ...

Summary of the Thread

1. The title of the thread suggests a "real measure of the economy".

2. Max asks... OK what is the proposed measure of the economy?

3. Bobsal says economy and social conditions are linked (Max silently agrees with this).

4. InfraBlue suggests that the economy should be measure by something than "what rich people are doing"

5. Bobsal asserts there is "no linkage between GDP and social spending". He then makes the claim that it depends on the political party in control.

6. Max goes and checks the actual data. The data suggests that Bobsal's claim is mathematically false.

7. Teufal suggests that all Americans are idiots and assholes (which I only include, because people seem to like that stuff).

8. Bobsal says something unrelated about stock market and unemployment.

9. Max asks again. How exactly should we measure the economy and suggests that economic measures already include all levels of society.

10. Bobsal starts a rant about Obama and Bush.

To me the main question remains... what is the proper way to measure the economy.

It seems to me that it should be objective, non-partisan (applied equally no matter which party is in power). And, it should reflect on the quality of life across every level of society.

It is my belief that the unemployment rate is a pretty important metric. There are partisan battles about how to measure unemployment... but it is a matter of comparison. It is clear the same measure should be used no matter who is in the White House.

I also think the GDP is a pretty important metric for almost every American (with the possible exception of the very lowest economic class). There are other metrics like CPI, and housing costs as percentage of income, that I think are pretty valuable.

Does anyone else want to actually comment of "real measures of a real economy"?

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You forgot the "once upon a time" and the "lived happily ever-after"!

I'm so done with your shenanigans.

Then headlines should be based on those metrics.

I was just tossing out a political cartoon and he wanted lecture on Maxenomics.

GDP

If GDP is up, it is usually tied to the Stock Market which indicates whether company profits are up or down. So, in general, if stock market is up, GDP is up which means economy is usually up. So, yes, the economy is really an indicator of how rich people are doing.

I'm sorry to say that poor people do not have any real impact on the economy. There is a lot of room left to discuss how poor people are doing though. It is certainly something that could and should be addressed.

I do a lot of rehabilitation work with returning soldiers trying to get them reintegrated into normal society again. It's sad how they have been, not forgotten, but just misplaced.

Get ready for the full Max experience.

White Americans are this. Teufal is smart.

Wait... Are you saying that all Americans are White?

I think you might be pushing this liberal bullshit a little far.

Only someone who enjoys abusing their white privilege would use the term "liberal bullshit".

I don't know if you are White or not... but if you are, then that is funny!

If you are claiming that some races are more intelligent than others... it doesn't work. I get that you are being politically correct (by saying that White people are less intelligent). It is still wrong.

When I was in education school (to become a teacher) my student teaching assignment was in Quincy, MA. This is an very diverse urban school district. It had a large Asian population in addition to African-American and Hispanic students.

Here I learned something that surprised me. The "positive" racism caused as many problems as the negative racism. The Asian students were expected to be good at math... and they were pushed by family, by community and by general stereotype to excel at mathematics.

Of course, in any random group of students (Asian or not) some kids are going to be good at math, and some kids will have difficulty. This caused real stress and even mental health issues when they were assumed to be brilliant even though they were struggling. As teachers, we had to recognize and address this as part of the needs of our student population.

It tuns out that telling a group of kids that they are more intelligent based on their race is not a good thing either.

It's worse than I thought.

Geez Glitterbag.... anytime people start throwing **** around, you seem to pop up. When generally happens is that you jump into the **** throwing mess and start throwing ****, and then you whine about the obvious results of your behavior.

If you really didn't like shitshows, you would stop enthusiastically jumping into the middle of them.

It'll get better!

Does anyone else want to talk about the real measure of a real economy?

That is what I am here for.

Most anybody else would start a new topic. Have you considered it?

"It was American writer and novelist Pearl Buck (1892-1973), best known for her novel, The Good Earth (winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1932), and recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature that wrote: “Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.” The daughter of a missionary, she spent a large part of her life in China. When she returned to America she became a passionate advocate for mixed-race adoption, minority groups, and women’s rights."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_S._Buck

'We were shocked': RAND study uncovers massive income shift to the top 1%

The median worker should be making as much as $102,000 annually—if some $2.5 trillion wasn’t being “reverse distributed” every year away from the working class.

Just how far has the working class been left behind by the winner-take-all economy? A new analysis by the RAND Corporation examines what rising inequality has cost Americans in lost income—and the results are stunning.

A full-time worker whose taxable income is at the median—with half the population making more and half making less—now pulls in about $50,000 a year. Yet had the fruits of the nation’s economic output been shared over the past 45 years as broadly as they were from the end of World War II until the early 1970s, that worker would instead be making $92,000 to $102,000. (The exact figures vary slightly depending on how inflation is calculated.)

The findings, which land amid a global pandemic, help to illuminate the paradoxes of an economy in which so-called essential workers are struggling to make ends meet while the rich keep getting richer.

“We were shocked by the numbers,” says Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist who came up with the idea for the research along with David Rolf, founder of Local 775 of the Service Employees International Union and president of the Fair Work Center in Seattle. “It explains almost everything. It explains why people are so pissed off. It explains why they are so economically precarious.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/90550015/we-were-shocked-rand-study-uncovers-massive-income-shift-to-the-top-1?