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What the Upper-Middle-Class Left Doesn’t Get About Inflation
(www.theatlantic.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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politics
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The issue with this thesis, as with the other theories on this topic who want to pin this conversation on arrogant, disconnected economists, is that the data don’t seem to support any such hypotheses. If sentiment is linked to uniquely bad rates of inflation experienced by the poor, why isn’t there a greater divergence in the sentiment numbers between rich and poor? Sentiment is down for everyone, even people for whom the economy seems to be doing quite well.
This is why economists have largely settled on the vibes theory. While I do have some skepticism of it myself, these populist alternatives in the media and online just don’t have much, if any, supporting evidence.
Exactly. instead of writing this whole mountain of speculation, they could have google "food price inflation" and compared that to other inflation, and see the numbers are mostly the same.
Working blue collar people are hit hard, yes they are getting raises, but housing is still unaffordable. Yes wages are up, mainly for blue collar workers, but these wages were low to begin with.
Tech firms, and large white collar employers have either had mass layoffs or keep threatening mass layoffs. The middle class feels like it's been in a recession for several years. Wages in the middle class have been stagnant.
For the rich. The stock market isn't fun anymore, it's been gamed. Fewer companies listed. Mostly gamed by a couple of giant investors, so it's fixed. Can't invest money into China. Though the housing market is hot, it's not a great investment, as it takes years to build from greenfield.
You can spin a compelling narrative for any of these but if you want to make a real case then there needs to be a real assessment of the data. Whenever I’ve investigated these types of ideas, I haven’t found them to be very well-supported.
I general I do think the best hypothesis is that people are telling the truth about how they are doing, but the data are somehow missing exactly what is going on. But we need more than speculation to demonstrate exactly what it is.