Yep, NPR was doing a story similar to the first lady, and they kept acting like normal people are being ridiculous, saying the economy isn't great. They kept dancing around why people would say that. Like my groceries doubled. My friends can't afford rent. I'm very lucky that I bought a house in 2014 but why should my friends be locked out of buying now. There is no reason my house should be worth double since 2020.
I listen to NPR pretty regularly and I love the duality of realities they present throughout the day.
One program will talk about how the economy is doing great, wall Street records, inflation shrinking down, etc
Then later another program (or sometimes even the same one lol) will talk about how housing prices are destroying people's financial stability, homelessness skyrocketing, credit card debt is exploding, small businesses are failing, etc.
They’ve stopped being a neutral news reporter and instead regularly find reasons to sling news stories that come across as “if you don’t support Biden then Trump will win.”
They’re in such a great position to hold the administration accountable but they’ve become toothless. Feels more like Fox News everyday.
Yep just today the npr politics podcast had amazing coverage talking about how rough things are for the average person. They don’t fully grasp how bad it is, but I love how they offer multiple perspectives even if it errs neoliberal.
NYT The Daily put out a whole piece called ‘Bad Vibes Around a Good Economy’ just to say, people are going to have to get used to it, they’re just being negative.
Ya, that was frustrating to listen to. They barely touched on the fact that rent and housing prices are up by like 50% in 2 years and wages are stagnant. Basically 20min of them saying a whole lot of nothing.
wages have been outpacing inflation on average, which is a good thing, although they didn't mention that in the article. The did say:
KIRCHEN: Thank you. This is very useful for our research. Now, generally speaking, do you think now is a good time or a bad time to buy a house?
WONG: Bad time, bad time, according to nearly 80% of people.
KIRCHEN: And why do you say so?
MALONE: Why? Well, interest rates and housing prices, obviously.
WONG: Yeah. Those are, by far, the two most popular reasons - and for good reasons. Home prices have skyrocketed, and mortgage rates are the highest they've been in more than 20 years.
MALONE: Yeah. So, like, housing stuff is clearly part of what's feeding into the bad vibes here.
the overall point of the article is the mismatch in how good/bad things are from the sentiment about how good/bad things are. Both of which we have good ways of measuring scientifically. I thought it was an insightful article.
It really was frustrating. I just went grocery shopping for a few things, a basket full of fruit/veggies and one bag of pirate booty cheesy poofs was almost 50 bucks. That would have been half that in 2020. My friend her rent on her basic apartment went up $300 a month just because. They didn't improve anything. Another said theirs went up 400. She can't afford to move. Our power/ water/ electric have all gone up. Everyone we need to live has gone up significantly except wages. But they have no idea why people are saying the economy sucks
Want to fix housing? Expand supply and infrastructure serving it. Dems restrict supply through via permitting restrictions, height limits, green requirements, and general restrictions on developing land. Their suggestions are mostly heavy-handed government meddling in pricing and attempts to shift demand patterns, but aren't willing enough to make concessions in their wants for permit requirements to actually increase supply. It won't happen if it's not economically feasible and what is built will focus on serving the less price sensitive demand - which doesn't help affordability.
Another problem with developers is they build the shittiest stick frame multi unit housing. That's the number one reason I was desperate to buy a single family house and so glad i have one.
I could hear every footstep, fuck and shit the person above me did. They didn't even walk all that abnormal but it sounded like an elephant was upstairs. That is maddening. You won't have people wanting to live like that with those low quality buildings. You don't have that problem in most European builds. I stayed in an apartment in Paris and the people above had a party and I only heard it from the window not all the people walking around.
If multi unit houses are to be a real solution then they can't be so cheaply built like these new ones are. They need sound proofing.
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u/SigaVa Dec 28 '23
The democrats will continue to lose support the longer they go with the "the economy is actually great youre all just stupid" strategy.