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Top-level
 It's like the bait and switch of higher productivity. I know Keynes wanted a better world, where he imagined productivity would lead to 15 hr weeks with ample leisure and money to engage in life, but like most economists, he was missing a solid grasp of history and human nature. Mainstream economics has at best a tenuous grasp of the real and economic world 7 comments
The metrics gathered got re-defined a few times. The kind of data collected needs serious revision in some areas.  That's a hell of an understatement. We've got *store managers* sleeping in cars these days. It's a full-on stagflation crisis—wages down, layoffs widespread, cost of living through the roof—and no one's admitting it. Employment stats say if you work 1 hr a week, that's "employed". "The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994." https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts Yep. Getting paid poverty wages also, perversely, counts as “employed”. If there were a hypothetical unemployment figure that only counts Boomer-era blue-collar wages, that hypothetical unemployment rate would be 90+%. By “Boomer-era blue-collar wages” I mean enough to pay for a house, a car, the equivalent of a pension contribution, and the living expenses of a family of four, including food, health care, home goods, clothing, and school supplies. Why the hell people aren't angrily demanding that stolen prosperity be restored to us, I cannot fathom. Absolutely mind-blowing that all that has been taken from us, and people just shrug their shoulders. We all take signals from our surroundings. Media generally doesn't help and there is a certain loss of RL social cohesion. I think the labor movement will change this over time, but the situation is dire right now. |
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See also: “Inflation is down! The economy is doing great!” —US economists and politicians, completely detached from reality
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