07-30-2019, 05:05 AM
Not written by me and I've opted to not include the author's name. The context should be fairly obvious.
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Ah, yes; somebody learned a new buzzword from Fox; GDP, and had to jump on social media to show how much he "just knew."
It's basically useless in today's world. Just making stuff means nothing in an age of technology.
https://www.forbes.com/.../why-we-should-ignore-gdp.../... (the full link did not survive the copy/paste)
One of the challenges of too many trump supporters is that they think they know much more than they actually do, and they love to jump on social media and regurgitate buzzwords and simple phrases, like "unemployment is at record lows," and "the stock market is great," without realizing that the numbers, in and of themselves, don't mean a damn thing without context.
Lots of people working doesn't mean a thing to those who are working in many of our service sectors, like retail, warehousing, truck driving, fast food, etc. It only means that lots of people are working, but means nothing when it comes to determining whether they're making any more money, or whether they're working more than one job, still only to tread water. Getting a $40 "raise," via a meager tax cut, really doesn't help a person who couldn't cough up $500 for an emergency, and who is making just a few dollars an hour more than they were doing similar work twenty years ago.
As to the stock market; only 50% of Americans own stock, and most of those don't own any appreciable amount. This is another one of those tired old horses that his supporters love to trot out, to "prove" that they "just know" everything is peaches and roses. 82% of the market's gains in 2017 went to less than 1%; the market is an indicator how well off rich people are. People working at Kroger, Amazon, Joe's Garage, Betsy's Diner, etc. (90% of American businesses employ under 100 people) don't give a damn about the market.
Ask the 44,000 Verizon laid off last fall, and the 2500 IT jobs they sent to India, when they used the tax cut money to repurchase shares of stock, how well the economy is doing. Ask the 10,000 AT&T workers laid off last fall, under the same circumstances, how well the economy is doing. Ask the farmers in the Midwest, who are filing bankruptcies in numbers not seen since the 2008 recession, as China buys more and more soybeans (a MI staple crop) and other ag products from Russia, how well the economy is doing. As the 10,000 workers laid off in the tourism industry how well trump's economy is doing. Ask the sales people in the luxury car and RV sales markets, where sales are slowing down (a reliable indicator of a coming recession; when rich people stop buying expensive goods, that's not good), how well the economy is doing.
One of the neat things about freedom of speech and social media is that it allows anyone who can scrape together $399 the ability to run to Worst Buy, and get a Chinese-made computer (MAGA, right?). That, along with a sweatshop-made MAGA hat, then magically transforms them into overnight "experts" on any subject they choose, from economics to trade to psychology to any branch of the sciences, etc.
They become "experts" even after not having read a serious book (like their hero King Donald) since See Spot Run.
Armed with their new-found "knowledge," they puff up their chest, and often in one or two sentences, proudly pound out profound declarations of what they "just know," without remotely realizing that what they're really doing is showing how little they understand.
===================================
Ah, yes; somebody learned a new buzzword from Fox; GDP, and had to jump on social media to show how much he "just knew."
It's basically useless in today's world. Just making stuff means nothing in an age of technology.
https://www.forbes.com/.../why-we-should-ignore-gdp.../... (the full link did not survive the copy/paste)
One of the challenges of too many trump supporters is that they think they know much more than they actually do, and they love to jump on social media and regurgitate buzzwords and simple phrases, like "unemployment is at record lows," and "the stock market is great," without realizing that the numbers, in and of themselves, don't mean a damn thing without context.
Lots of people working doesn't mean a thing to those who are working in many of our service sectors, like retail, warehousing, truck driving, fast food, etc. It only means that lots of people are working, but means nothing when it comes to determining whether they're making any more money, or whether they're working more than one job, still only to tread water. Getting a $40 "raise," via a meager tax cut, really doesn't help a person who couldn't cough up $500 for an emergency, and who is making just a few dollars an hour more than they were doing similar work twenty years ago.
As to the stock market; only 50% of Americans own stock, and most of those don't own any appreciable amount. This is another one of those tired old horses that his supporters love to trot out, to "prove" that they "just know" everything is peaches and roses. 82% of the market's gains in 2017 went to less than 1%; the market is an indicator how well off rich people are. People working at Kroger, Amazon, Joe's Garage, Betsy's Diner, etc. (90% of American businesses employ under 100 people) don't give a damn about the market.
Ask the 44,000 Verizon laid off last fall, and the 2500 IT jobs they sent to India, when they used the tax cut money to repurchase shares of stock, how well the economy is doing. Ask the 10,000 AT&T workers laid off last fall, under the same circumstances, how well the economy is doing. Ask the farmers in the Midwest, who are filing bankruptcies in numbers not seen since the 2008 recession, as China buys more and more soybeans (a MI staple crop) and other ag products from Russia, how well the economy is doing. As the 10,000 workers laid off in the tourism industry how well trump's economy is doing. Ask the sales people in the luxury car and RV sales markets, where sales are slowing down (a reliable indicator of a coming recession; when rich people stop buying expensive goods, that's not good), how well the economy is doing.
One of the neat things about freedom of speech and social media is that it allows anyone who can scrape together $399 the ability to run to Worst Buy, and get a Chinese-made computer (MAGA, right?). That, along with a sweatshop-made MAGA hat, then magically transforms them into overnight "experts" on any subject they choose, from economics to trade to psychology to any branch of the sciences, etc.
They become "experts" even after not having read a serious book (like their hero King Donald) since See Spot Run.
Armed with their new-found "knowledge," they puff up their chest, and often in one or two sentences, proudly pound out profound declarations of what they "just know," without remotely realizing that what they're really doing is showing how little they understand.
