Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

Dude, lets be real here: most people would say the economy is shit, while still being comfortable with their lives. Anyone's general assessment of the economy based on gut, is meaningless. Unless you were on food banks/stamps, you were doing pretty good for all intents and purposes.

This statement is ridiculously out of touch.

There is a massive amount of evidence that Americans basically think everyone else is having a terrible time, but asked to review their own living situation things are going well. Here’s a decent summary from late 2024: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/23/opinion/biden-trump-vibec...

Instead of engaging in the data, opponents usually yell the equivalent of what you put “You’re just out of touch!” Or throw in an anecdote like “well my cousin is having a terrible time!”.

What’s going on the US is weirder than a “normal” economic problem. That’s what makes it so frustrating and politically polarizing.

Sorry but quoting the NYTimes as evidence would be no different from a Republican quoting Fox News as evidence to you.

Here's an old quote from the author, the esteemable Paul Krugman

“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”

Here's another mea culpa from Paul Krugman (he was wrong about globalization).

What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization https://archive.md/DrJKm

If you stick up a liquor and kill a couple of people you go to jail for life. If you advocate for polices that destroy the local economies of middle America with all the ills that ensue...social breakdown, drug addiction/overdoses, crime etc. Well you get to write a mea culpa and then head off to a nice dinner at your favorite NY restaurant I guess.

I linked this article because it summarizes why the data is weird and links to multiple sources, and frames the problem in a way that can be engaged with in a relatively short format.

I find it telling that instead of arguing with data, points presented, or any source of counter argument, you act like the only argument in this article is “it’s right because I say so.”

Much easier to dismiss a position as “can’t be right because you were wrong on something before” than actually think I guess.

Clearly the American people did see a problem with inflation and voted accordingly. And no matter how they try to spin it to support a particular political narrative, that won't change. There are so many ways to spin the numbers to make them support an argument. I'm not an economist so am in no position to assess (and I'm guessing neither are you). But given the track record (bias) of the NYT, I'm always going to be a bit suspicious.

Honestly I wasn’t even approaching this with right vs left in mind. I spend most of my voice on this subject talking down my liberal friends off a cliff. The right and the left tend to think the economy has never been worse and it’s all X fault.

Here’s the same jist from the economist: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/10/17/americas-econom...

If you want the thoughtful, smart, very right wing source on it, then check out the Cato institute: https://www.cato.org/commentary/americans-grim-views-decent-.... Which tries to explain it as basically “people get really mad about inflation even if technically as a whole they are better off”. But the Cato economists still concede that overall the economy is/was doing extremely well and things are improving for people that by standard economic measures looks really good.

So far we've mentioned 3 parties in this scenario...the NY Times, Cato Institute and the voting public. There used to be a time where we'd give priority to the "experts" despite how consistently wrong they seem to be about almost everything. I think what's changed is we now have so many credible sources for comparison, that they are no longer able to gaslight people. So their opinions, quite rightly, have far less value than they used to. So yeah, I'II go with the voting public on this one.

"What we uncovered shocked us. The bottom line is that, for 20 years or more, including the months prior to the election, voter perception was more reflective of reality than the incumbent statistics. Our research revealed that the data collected by the various agencies is largely accurate. Moreover, the people staffing those agencies are talented and well-intentioned. But the filters used to compute the headline statistics are flawed. As a result, they paint a much rosier picture of reality than bears out on the ground..."

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-...