Originally published at: Unexpectedly strong jobs report alarms media hoping for mass unemployment to kick in | Boing Boing
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But but, how are we supposed to make [massive] profits if we have to pay workers a living wage?!?
–Mr. A. Corporate Dickhead
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They keep harping on the coming recession-apocalypse, and it’s keeps not materializing… 
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That is about 99.8% of business journalism. Predict a catastrophe or a boom, rinse repeat until one of those things happen, then pretend to be sage and wise because you predicted it.
Here’s my prediction. In the next ten years there will be a recession, and the stock markets will reach new highs. The order is not clear, but will become clear when it happens.
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Just as good as the front pages of the Wall Street Times!
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Sure makes one suspect that there’s some covert advantage among the 0.1% if the general public mis-impression is one of ongoing economic dooooom. oh something about not providing employees with cost of living wage increases plus there’s a democrat in the whitehouse …?
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This is getting ridiculous. One way I judge how the economy is doing is to just look around as I’m going about my day. If I see lots of active construction, both residential and commercial, then the economy is fine. I see active construction everywhere right now. Hell, they’ve raised interest rates trying to bring housing prices down, too, and it hasn’t worked. Housing prices are still high. But sure, it’s about to all collapse.
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Checks notes… yep, there’s been somebody saying there’s going to be recession every month for the past several years now.
Ying and SIX MONTHS DOWN THE ROAD Yang!
Ohhh please. /s
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Well I can believe that it’s possible that housing prices will eventually drop a bit because mortgage rates are at a 23-year high and house prices are still insanely high in the U.S., so it seems inevitable that something has to eventually change in that sector. But that doesn’t necessarily speak to the health of the rest of the economy, and it’s certainly doesn’t mean that good jobs numbers aren’t something to celebrate.
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They will drop when state, local, and the federal government starts taking housing insecurity seriously instead of continuing to fuel it with tax breaks for builders who keep promising “affordable units” that don’t remotely match the need for affordable units… As long as housing is treated as a commodity to funnel money to the wealthy, the average person just looking to have a roof over their head is completely fucked.
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Ideally, yes. But that’s not what preceded the last big drop in housing prices back in 2007-2009. Sometimes insanely high prices are unsustainable even if all the folks in power are doing their darndest to keep prices inflated as high as they can.
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Hmm, maybe depends what you mean by “the economy”?
Became OTOH, a lot of people are struggling with inflation versus stagnant wages.
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“People are lazy and don’t want to work! Wait! Too many people want to work! Wait…!”
Round and round they go, trying to dance around their real fear.
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If it’s not proof that the problem with inflation isn’t the fault of the working class but the fault of capitalists trying to extract too much fucking profit, I don’t know what is. The capitalists would stop hiring if labor costs were too high and no profits were to be made. That’s not the case though is it?
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^^^this.
i was speaking with a merchant friend here at home and we were lamenting the shortage of certain ingredients. was it supply chain problems? inflation?
no. dude just says “nobody wants to work.”
all i could do was roll my eyes.
“then how did we add 336,000 jobs last month?”
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Fair, but labor has been struggling for decades regardless of how the overall economy has been doing. And we absolutely need to fix that (recent strikes are giving me hope of a renewed labor movement). But based on historic mass media measures of “the economy”, the economy is doing fine right now, and certainly better than when Biden was inaugurated. Those same media outlets don’t want it to be, because they want Republicans in power, so they’re desperately trying to say those historic measures are somehow showing an imminent recession.
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You mean the big market crash, which was in part based on speculation on the housing market? That crash?
Prices are high because people treat it like a commodity, not a human right…
This is why government SHOULD step in rather than let for-profit companies decide what kind of housing should be where and for who. They will not build in order to ensure people can have a roof over their heads. They’ll build in order to realize a profit and invest in more real estate. Because housing is considered a commodity not a human right.
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Yes, exactly. I’m not saying that was a good thing or that that’s what I want to happen. I’m just saying that that possibility is always out there when something is as out-of-whack as current house prices are, even if greedy investors and their government enablers don’t want it to.
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Right now on the CNN website, the main headline is literally “Why the shockingly good jobs report is going to cost you.” (Spoiler: Inflation! Inflation!)
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