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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   23862 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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The economy and stock market doing great , as much as I may hold my nose at joe.

The stock market is doing great, but how much of those gains does the inflation nullify? I looked up an inflation calculator, and our dollar today is only worth 82 cents compared to what it was worth in 2020.
Also, interest rates are starting to decline, but still remain really high.

And inflation is coming down

Inflation is slowing down, but we're not gonna have deflation. We're stuck with these inflated prices, and I'm not certain, but I don't think wages have risen to match, at least not in all industries. So many people basically just lost 18% of their purchasing power for both their previous assets and future as well.

Is the market as a whole actually doing great though? It seems to be mainly the 7 tech giants dragging the sp500 up.

I looked up an inflation calculator, and our dollar today is only worth 82 cents compared to what it was worth in 2020.

Okay, but the stock market is up 70% since January 2020.

We're stuck with these inflated prices, and I'm not certain, but I don't think wages have risen to match, at least not in all industries.

We're stuck with inflated nominal prices but we're not necessarily stuck with inflated real prices. Median weekly real wages are down significantly from pandemic exuberance but really not bad.

The housing market is of course fucked, but boomers are sitting pretty and that's who Pokemon goes to the polls.

Yes if you pick a time when the market crashed due to covid it is up a lot. If you pick from when Joe Biden took over (2021) and adjust for inflation…not that much. Net worth is up for families less than 1%.

I literally picked the first day of the first month of 2020, which is the year we were discussing. If I was picking the time the market crashed I'd have picked April 1, since when the market has gained 117%.

But sure, we can cherry pick another date if you prefer. The market is up 46% since January 20, 2021, still way more than inflation.

Which well isn’t really all that great for 3.5 years! It isn’t terrible but not great either.

You're quibbling over like 11.5% annualized vs 12.5% annualized if you start measuring in 2020 or 2021. The market has grown by a lot over the past few years no matter how you slice it.

We're stuck with inflated nominal prices but we're not necessarily stuck with inflated real prices

Are you saying that you think prices are going to go down? Or wages are going to catch up? I don't know enough about economics at all to necessarily know how these things tend to go.

I think wages are going to increase in real terms (i.e. faster than prices). That's the usual long term trend according to the graph I posted.

I hope you're right. But where I am, in tech, promised salaries increased for like a year, then dropped right back down once the companies started laying people off. They knew they could get away with it.

You got a pay cut?

Not quite. My company promised increased salaries in 2022, and did it for people who were promoted or hired that year. But then the rest of us never saw the increase. As for those folks who did get the initial pay increase, I'm not sure if they kept it. It's possible that the company simply replenished them less stocks subsequently. My company never actually tells you how much your target comp is, and more than half of your comp comes from stocks, so it's ambiguous.

It's pretty rare to see a nominal pay cut, although of course salaries for new employees fluctuate.

Surely your company does tell you your salary and target bonus and how many stock units you'll be given. Hopefully at least you got nice gains on the stock.

My company wouldn't do a nominal pay cut, but they can be nice and shifty when they want to be. They don't tell you your target bonus or stock, just your base salary. I did get good gains on stock for this year, but next year my compensation (stock included) shoots right back down again, because when they granted me stocks for next year, the stock price was already doing well, meaning they gave me fewer shares.

The stock market is doing great, but how much of those gains does the inflation nullify? I looked up an inflation calculator, and our dollar today is only worth 82 cents compared to what it was worth in 2020.

the market is also up a lot in real terms too. But as far as politics is concerned, a strong stock market plus high inflation is worse than flat market and low inflation. People see the headline. It's hard to explain to voters real vs. nominal. Also the media voter may be more negatively affected by inflation than benefit from rising stock market.

The other poster also picked a random time during Trump’s presidency where the stock market was low.

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