anovikov

But why aren't they improving their lot A LOT, in line with the general economy? Well i am a coder and probably so are you. Why do you think job market, chances to get hired, and earning potential sucks for coders now? Who is to blame? Trump, Elon Musk, "late stage capitalism"? Who can we possibly protest against and what to demand? Nothing. It's just objective technological change, force of progress.

Yes that is a fair assessment. What are the downsides of it? More political idiocy, sure, that is a real one, as long as an average American can vote. Any other ones?

It doesn't mean some freemasons are grabbing all cash, or oligarchs. Most of the new wealth goes to "normal" rich and upper middle class. All of the top 10% are raking in big.

Perhaps because wages and jobs are becoming less relevant to overall success of economy and the society.

Savings rate is a tough thing to argue about because assets are up. People aren't motivated to save. They feel rich as it is.

Inflation adjusted gas prices are pretty much average over last 25 years or so (and lower than they ever been in 2005-2014 outside of about 9 months' recession).

Inflation adjusted house prices are lower than 25 year average, and about as low as during early covid bottom. And housing affordability is almost best in history, with a few short stretches in late 1990s being better.

US debt load is by far lowest in history (or at least ever since reliable tracking appeared around 1963), for every dollar in debt Americans hold 8 dollars in assets. If you force people to pay all of their debt, at once (which is impossible), it won't cause a domino effect. Government debt? US is not a socialist country. Government can go to hell. And, all branches of government together are only slightly in red vs assets they hold. And debt to GDP is stabe in the last 5 years, last was the covid jump, which by now is about half undone.

Also, and here is a major thing that never existed before, consumption is now to a large degree disconnected from employment. Almost half of consumption is funded by capital, not labor. So potential for vicious cycle where people lose jobs, consume less, companies lose revenue, lay off people, and more people lose jobs, rinse and repeat, is now weaker than ever before - it is not impossible, but less likely. I think we underappreciate how valuable for economy this is. Domination of employment-derived consumption in the past has been a persistent source of instability.

So social negativity we observe is all just vibes, magnified by social media to stir the crowd. There is no money to make by making people feel happy - they click much harder if they are angry or frightened.

Sure there is a problem about a segment of population feeling displaced/irrelevant, but this is mostly a public messaging, and to a smaller extent, law enforcement problem.

Since serious crime is also at all-times low, i doubt it can escalate into something serious.

What do you think might be wrong about the economy? If you don't read social media which is always negative (i do not). Every single metric i could think of, is fantastic, from employment to stock market to GDP growth to consumption of everything to private net worth. Inflation is high-ish sure, but this is what normally happens in a boom.

Due to power law of distribution of... everything, true meritocracy usually means a monopoly. This is still better than forced equality of outcomes, or government ownership.

OBBBA act made hiring non-US people for dev role virtually impossible from tax standpoint. Plus there are too many "overemployment" scammers and employers woke up to that.

wtf is this?

Food, clothing, and all sorts of durable and non-durable consumer goods. Now they are simply shrugged as insignificant and "not something that money is really spent on", but that wasn't the case 40 years ago. People just forget good stuff the moment it happens, and everything negative is magnified by social media.

Just take a recent example - eggs. Internet was in panic during a short-term price spike, now the prices are lowest in history (by far) and no one seems to notice.

It's kinda obvious, people will never complain about stuff that got cheaper, will always cherrypick the one that got more expensive. They will always keep complaining.

If we call "a human with AI" what it in fact is - a "meat proxy", then yes, they will absolutely survive because customers prefer talking to a human. This human isn't anyone with agency or decisionmaking power anymore, not an important stakeholder a SWE of 5 years ago used to be. They are like a domestic servant, mainly existing to boost the ego of their master and to make interactions with the system closer to what they are used to.

Turns out, not quite.

I mean, there are respectable billionaires here who commission museums and art galleries who never officially did anything (and who's real business is fraud call centers/boiler rooms or illegal gambling sites).

Seriously i saw violations SO bad i will no longer be surprised seeing anything at all. Only exception is child porn. A guy who was stupid enough to do it, got handcuffed and taken away and that was it.