zaphod
A lot of great speculation that has absolutely nothing to do with how the economy is doing right now, which is what I thought we were talking about.
Also, and I cannot emphasize this enough: the stock market is correlated with economic health but does not measure it directly. In the first half of 2023 the stock market was erratic due to rising interest rates while the real economy--measured by unemployment rates, salaries, etc--was quite healthy. Conversely, the post-2008 recovery was anemic at best for the non-rich while the stock market rallied to all time highs. There's a reason I've never once mentioned the stock market while making the case that the economy is healthy.
Put another way: your predicted future slump in tech stocks does not therefore mean the economy more broadly will suffer.
And that's assuming your prediction plays out, and that remains to be seen. After all, I'll bet you were predicting that Facebook is on the decline, and yet they announced a truly astonishing quarter.
And again, none of this is relevant to the state of the economy right now.
I'll be honest, I don't understand your point.
What does the value of those company's stocks (which it's worth noting are rallying in response to those layoffs) have to do with my point that the underlying causes of the layoffs in tech cannot be extrapolated to the broader economy, and thus action in that sector should not be used as a proxy for overall economic health?
It's almost like they cherry pick data that fits their preconceived notions...
Correction: Parts of Canada. It's a big country with a lot of places in between Vancouver and the GTA.
I did the math and it would take me roughly 90 years to pay off a 2 bedroom fixer-upper.
Where?
There have been a quarter million layoffs at tech companies at every level for the last year or so.
Pro-tip: Tech isn't the whole economy. Over-indexing on that one sector--and SV tech companies in particular--is incredibly myopic.
That's not to say it doesn't suck for people in the industry (which includes me, by the way), but tech is just one sector that's experiencing some very specific dynamics (e.g. rising interest rates killing VC investment, overhiring during COVID, the need to goose share prices after stocks reverted to the pre-COVID mean, etc) that should not be extrapolated when considering the broader economy.
In tech by any chance?
Gas prices are down. General cost of living is stabilized. Unemployment is extremely low and the percentage of eligible workers on the sidelines is dropping. Wages are up for the lowest income levels and continue to climb despite slowing inflation. Black households, in particular, have seen a significant narrowing of the income gap, more so than they've seen in many many years. The percentage of women in the workforce is up and salaries are climbing for them as well. In fact, the post-COVID recovery has been wildly successful when you compare it to post-2008 with respect to the improvements for the poorest among us, which is precisely the opposite of what you're claiming.
Yours is purely an appeal to anecdote. The data is clear. Unfortunately, as study after study has shown, data can't compete with vibes, and we just spent the last two years with the MSM (not to mention social media...) telling everyone a recession was around the corner.
The marital equivalent of "it's a republic not a democracy". Or: If you don't agree with me, you don't deserve to have a say.
Oh god, I'm old...
Fascism is also an ideology of fear. It requires an enemy that's both weak and existentially threatening in order to frighten and divide people.
For the modern right that enemy is now the trans community. And make no mistake, it's cynical and deliberate. Alt right figures sought and found the enemy they needed to galvanize voters, and now they're stoking that fear as best they can.