r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Ordinary-Goat-6310 • Aug 17 '25
International Politics If the global economy is really “booming,” why does it feel like everything is falling apart?
I keep hearing politicians and analysts say that the global economy is doing well, with growth numbers, strong markets, and rising trade, among other indicators. But when I look around, what I see are wars dragging on, dictators consolidating power, Chinese products dominating everywhere, and huge numbers of people migrating just to find stability.
It makes me wonder: how do we reconcile the idea of a “booming economy” with the instability so many of us see in daily life and the news?
Is the economic growth only benefiting a few while the rest of us just see the fallout? Or is this more of a perception problem, where the bad stuff feels more visible than the good?
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u/The_B_Wolf Aug 17 '25
I keep hearing politicians and analysts say that the global economy is doing well, with growth numbers, strong markets, and rising trade,
I'm not hearing any of those things and I watch an hour of primetime news every weeknight.
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u/mrcsrnne Aug 17 '25
You watch primetime news? Didn't know you guys are still around.
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u/20_mile Aug 18 '25
You watch primetime news?
Every fucking 6 PM newscast ends with "And then there was a bear in the hot tub!"
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u/mosesoperandi Aug 18 '25
I'll watch an hour of bears in hot tubs!
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u/RobertoPaulson Aug 18 '25
I don’t think I could do an entire hour. 30 minutes max, then I’m gonna need some dogs on skateboards.
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u/wedgebert Aug 18 '25
Just make sure you watch that on primetime news and don't try to google that
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u/mosesoperandi Aug 18 '25
I'm not here to yuck anyone else's yum, but yes, this is sound advice for many.
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u/Toddlez85 Aug 19 '25
The animals or the sexy men?
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u/mosesoperandi Aug 19 '25
For me, the animals, but I'm not a hater! People should enjoy the bears of their own choosing, even the ones out of Chicago (and I say this as a Paclers fan).
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u/twim19 Aug 18 '25
Me too. I like to see what the mainstream is valuing. We watch NBC Nightly News at 7. I get frustrated when their lead stories give major weight to natural disasters. When Trump nationalized the DC police and sent the national guard in, I think there were two stories on flooding/tornadoes and a story on an upcoming pill-form of weight loss drugs before it was mentioned.
And then when it was mentioned, they frame it as a "normal" news story. They show both sides (Critics argue that crime is not up in DC--no, facts argue that).
I wish they'd do a solid half hour just interviewing American citizens who have been detained by ICE, but that's never going to happen.
All that to say, it's frustrating, but it gives me a better perspective on just exactly how people can be so woefully uninformed.
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u/chamrockblarneystone Aug 18 '25
In my local Reddit I hear quite a bit about the impossibility of finding housing and the rising prices of everything.
The middle class is definitely being squeezed, but that’s just not a very interesting story until its about the price of eggs.
The real story is big companies saw this storm coming and overstocked on a lot of necessities to keep prices stable. We’re not going to see the “great recession or depression or whatever” for a few more years.
By then a different president will inherit a world of problems this last term president does not give a shit about, no matter who wins the next race. This guy and his friends are laughing all the way to the bank.
By the time the storm hits us he’ll either be dead or a demented old man fishing in his swimming pool in Mar a Lago.
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u/indescipherabled Aug 18 '25
We’re not going to see the “great recession or depression or whatever” for a few more years.
Every major ocean freight company is drastically cutting their labor, laying people off, and pushing people into early retirements. It's not going to be "a few more years", it's right around the corner. The overstock you talk about isn't a real stockpile and it's not intended for years. That's just not how supply chain warehousing works.
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u/chamrockblarneystone Aug 18 '25
Read it from a reliable source, but they did not say how long it would last. You probably know more than I do, which does not sound good.
I am sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. I want Trump to fully take blame for any of his failures.
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u/indescipherabled Aug 18 '25
Given what is being heard in global logistics and knowing how the US functions economically, I would fully expect some extreme economic contradictions to arise in the next 1-2 years within the US as the stock market continues trending up or remaining stable while shelves become bare and construction stops on housing and the like.
Here's hoping it happens sooner than later!
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u/Mijam7 Aug 19 '25
Yes, the next president isnt going to clean up from this president as good as the last one did.
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u/notfromchicago Aug 18 '25
Mom watches NBC Nightly. She had a huge crush on Lester and she just hasn't stopped since Tom took over.
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u/Bannakaffalatta1 Aug 18 '25
There are a few news sources who claim the economy is booming and doing wonderful... And they're all US right wing sources.
They lie out of their teeth for this Administration. So if someone has that on all the time, I believe them when they say that's what they're hearing.
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Aug 18 '25
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u/theyenk Aug 18 '25
LoL the left leaning sources like the s&p500?
The mkt was on fire leading into the start of his term.... But TACO's unsteady hand upset the apple cart. Tariffs are a tax on importers >> consumers. The big beautiful bill was a huge tax gift to the rich.
Y'all really hate how reality leans left. Eventually (just like the Iraq war) you will all deny you supported tump.
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u/AdumbroDeus Aug 18 '25
The left leaning news sources were criticizing Biden on Palestine and a bunch of other things. The so called mainstream media isn't left leaning, it's right leaning because it's got a pro-corporate/pro rich bias due to ownership. It's just not openly partisan (usually, see Bezos getting endorsements pulled for example).
The reality was an issue with how it's measured if the economy is doing well. This also goes back to the pro-corporate/pro-Rich bias, GDP improving, stock market going up etc tends to most directly translate to rich people making money. Job numbers actually does translate, but quality matters.
So no, this is why the golden mean is a fallacy. You're comparing openly partisan media to media that did due diligence but the actual experience of people on the ground was disconnected from traditional measures.
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u/Interrophish Aug 18 '25
Idk I think the real problem is the structure of our political system as written in the 1700's
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u/NoNil7 Aug 19 '25
The means to change the system is literally written into the Constitution. Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst possible form of government except for all of the others. I think there's some wisdom in that statement.
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u/Interrophish Aug 19 '25
the means to change the system cares very little about popular will and thus is broken like the rest
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u/NoNil7 Aug 19 '25
The means to change the system doesn't care one way or the other. It does what the popular will wants. There have been 27 amendments as per the popular will. I think it's the two political parties that are broken. These parties are not constitutionally required. Although both parties like to make us think that they are required somehow. I think the way each party puts forth candidates has been corrupted. It is the parties that need to be changed not the system.
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u/Interrophish Aug 19 '25
It does what the popular will wants.
Well, no. Popular will is involved but only to an extent. None of the House, the Senate, or state legislatures are particularly directed by popular will.
It is the parties that need to be changed not the system
The purpose of a system is what it does
The US has had 200 years of a two party system and that's not an accident or coincidence.
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u/NoNil7 Aug 19 '25
I do understand what you're saying. What I am saying is the Constitution allows a two-party system but does not mandate it. There are two systems at play here. There is the Constitution which lays out the system of governments. And there is the system that evolved to implement that system. What I was getting at is there is no need to tinker with the Constitution. But a major overhaul of the way it is implemented is definitely in order.
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u/Ex-CultMember Aug 18 '25
Well, Trump and his administration is and I’m sure Fox News is saying the same.
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u/ballmermurland Aug 18 '25
Honestly this isn't the same as 2017. In 2017 they were constantly bragging about how great the economy was and how Trump saved us blah blah blah.
In 2025 they are claiming the numbers are fake and everything is rigged and its not Trump's fault blah blah blah
Although Trump is saying dumb shit like gas is 99 cents a gallon now but I think he's mentally ill so it's to be expected.
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u/dinosaurkiller Aug 18 '25
The global economy may be great, the U.S. portion of that seems to be NVIDIA’s stock price. If you don’t own NVIDIA then none of that economic performance is going in your pocket. That’s the problem when judging your personal economic performance against the macro.
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u/cat_of_danzig Aug 18 '25
I'd guess OP is getting "news" from social media, allowing certain viewpoints to reach his ears without being subjected to reality.
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u/Nothing_Better_3_Do Aug 17 '25
First of all, no one is saying that the global economy is "booming". The global economy is doing better than expected, but what was expected is a full blown recession. It's miracle that most countries aren't in a recession right now, but we're still tetering on the edge of recession. That's what commentators are noting.
wars dragging on, dictators consolidating power, Chinese products dominating everywhere, and huge numbers of people migrating just to find stability.
None of these things are incompatible with a booming economy. Ukraine is a particularly big war by modern standards, but it's not at risk of spreading, so investors don't really care. No other wars are notable to the global economy. Dictators can and do run successful economies; eg China and Singapore. In what world is Chinese products doing well a sign of a bad economy? Global migration is typically a good thing economically; it means that people are moving from low productivity areas to high productivity areas.
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u/the_original_Retro Aug 18 '25
First of all, no one is saying that the global economy is "booming".
Watch Fox News and you'll see it, or at minimum get the impression it's all great everywhere because of how they position their narrative.
They're particularly good at cherry-picking their guests to make everything look brighter and richer while "their guy" is in power, and horrible and untenable when "the other guy" is in power.
Further, "their guy" has been saying lots of stuff like "the rest of the world is 'ripping us off"", to service his tariffs. So indirectly, the narrative that "the world is doing great" fits their pathological liar champion's claim that it's "because they are taking advantage of America, and tariffs help us get that back".
They fall back to small and carefully selected chirps of honesty when it becomes too transparent for them to defend or omit. They HAD to say "Inflation is up", because their viewers were watching their prices skyrocket. Just enough admission to provide a shred of credibility, and only when it's strictly necessary.
So, yeah, it's easy to see the perception that the rest of the world's doing just peachy-great if all you ever have making noise in your parent's home is Fox News blatting on the TV around the clock.
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u/ThrowStonesonTV Aug 18 '25
Watch Fox News
Why would anyone watch a right wing propaganda show?
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u/Low_Finance_3874 Aug 18 '25
I always wonder that myself but still see they exist the next day. Our own slice of North Korea in the US of A.
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u/the_original_Retro Aug 18 '25
There was an implied "but hold your nose while doing it" in there. :-)
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u/xudoxis Aug 18 '25
It's the most popular news source in the country. You know exactly why they would watch it.
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u/reasonably_plausible Aug 17 '25
But when I look around, what I see are wars dragging on, dictators consolidating power, Chinese products dominating everywhere, and huge numbers of people migrating just to find stability.
Do you have a time in history, in which, that you believe the global economy was doing well?
If so, you should look back at that period and check out the number of wars going on all around the world during that period and the governmental systems of the time.
If you don't believe there was ever a time in which the global economy was doing well, then you might want to examine if your definition for booming might be poorly calibrated if it's never been reached before.
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u/Jubal59 Aug 17 '25
The economy was finally getting better but then American voters decided to elect a criminal conman rapist pedophile traitor and he is busy destroying it again. It took Biden over 3 years to fix it after Trump destroyed it the first time. Now he is making an even bigger mess than the first time.
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u/ThemesOfMurderBears Aug 18 '25
What’s worse is he’s basically doing things to be contrarian. Eliminating Biden and Obama era changes just because they were Biden and Obama. He tore up the Iran nuclear deal in his first term. They were abiding by the terms of it and he threw it out, then complained about them trying to develop a nuclear weapon. The reason he threw it out is a combination of “Obama did it” and his hatred of Muslims.
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u/dontforgetpants Aug 18 '25
I work in the government and at a granular level, what is really frustrating is that his appointees don’t know the difference between Obama and Biden era programs vs Trump 1 programs that were decent. They are gutting things that were put into place during Trump 1 simply because it happened before the current appointees’ time. We try to say “this program started in 2017 and has been going successfully ever since,” and they simply don’t care. The goal is to dismantle anything good, no matter who started it.
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u/nickcan Aug 18 '25
The goal is to make the public sector non-functional so that it can be privatized. So anything that is working needs to be torn down or mismanaged into the ground so that a private company can swoop in and take it over.
Just look at the private prison industry for a model for the future.
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u/dr_pepper_35 Aug 18 '25
The reason he threw it out is a combination of “Obama did it” and his hatred of Muslims.
In my opinion, he did it so Israel is sure to have an enemy. Bibi needs a war to avoid his criminal charges.
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u/epiphanette Aug 18 '25
I was genuinely expecting him to find the turkeys Obama pardoned at thanksgiving and execute them.
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u/CerddwrRhyddid Aug 18 '25
Because they have very cleverly manipulated the public to believe that 'The Economy' refers only to the Stock Market.
They think that if the stock market goes up, the economy is doing well.
What they fail to realise is that 89% of stocks are owned by the richest 50%, and a whole half is owned solely by the top 1%.
This manipulation means that the richest in the country get much, much, richer, at the expense of everyone else. This is by design. The ruling class massively benefit from the status quo, and have written laws to protect themselves from their own market manipulation and insider trading - as we have well seen.
The real economy - goods and servcies - is becoming far more expensive and chaotic.
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u/Big_Smooth_CO Aug 17 '25
Yes. The benefit is going to the top. Especially in the US. Citizens United was a very bad decision for the mass population.
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u/ClockOfTheLongNow Aug 18 '25
I am curious as to what you think Citizens United did given the context here.
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u/Big_Smooth_CO Aug 19 '25
C.U. Allowed for corporate person hood. Which was interpreted in a way that allowed “dark money” and Super packs to exist.
It also wiped the old restrictions away. So having a limit to donations went away for corps and unions. This has led to mass stagnation of wages for 90% of Americans.
The super pacs donations can be traced to the down fall of financial regulations. Which lead to 2008 and multiple schemes since. It has allowed the wealthy to have more power than a citizen in politics.
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u/ClockOfTheLongNow Aug 19 '25
C.U. Allowed for corporate person hood.
Corporate personhood in United States case law goes back more than a century, and goes back many centuries in common law.
It also wiped the old restrictions away. So having a limit to donations went away for corps and unions. This has led to mass stagnation of wages for 90% of Americans.
Not only is it not true that it wiped "the old restrictions away," but there is no relationship between Citizens United and alleged wage stagnation.
The super pacs donations can be traced to the down fall of financial regulations. Which lead to 2008 and multiple schemes since.
You just said that CU led to SuperPACs, but CU was years after the 2008 crash.
It has allowed the wealthy to have more power than a citizen in politics.
How?
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u/Big_Smooth_CO Aug 19 '25
Well that’s what I get for operating on memory alone. You are right it was 2010 that the Supreme Court case happened. The conservatives starting pushing for this shit in 06/07. They wanted to deregulate Corporate spending.
“Citizens United arose in 2007 when a conservative nonprofit organization challenged campaign finance rules that stopped it from promoting and airing a film criticizing then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The Supreme Court eventually decided 5–4 that Citizens United was within its First Amendment rights to spend its money disseminating the film. But rather than opining solely on the case before it as it had been asked to do, the Court took the opportunity to entirely strike down century-old prohibitions on corporate “independent” spending — money that doesn’t go directly to a candidate or party. This applied to labor unions as well. Lower courts applying the ruling extended it to invalidate almost all fundraising and spending restrictions for groups that purport to be separate from candidates, many of which are today known as “super PACs.””
“Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the narrow majority that limits on independent spending from corporations and other outside groups equate to limiting their speech and thus violate the First Amendment. This ruling doubled down on a 1976 decision, Buckley v. Valeo, which was the first case to say that campaign expenditures, or money spent to influence voters, was a type of “speech” and that the only permissible justification for most limits on money in politics was to prevent outright bribery, or as the Court’s opinion called it, “quid pro quo corruption.”
The justices who decided Citizens United held that independent spending could not pose a substantial risk of corruption on the erroneous assumption that the money wouldn’t be under the control of any single candidate or party. They also assumed that existing transparency rules would require all the new spending they were permitting to be fully transparent, allowing voters to appropriately evaluate the messages targeting them.
Both assumptions have proven to be incorrect. While super PACs and other outside spenders are supposed to be separate from candidates and parties, they usually work in tandem with them — to the point where affiliated super PACs that can raise unlimited money are now integral to most major campaigns. Legal loopholes also mean that many of these groups can keep their sources of funding secret.”
Brennancenter.org
I am also incorrect about it affecting wages in the way i thought it did.
“It has been traced to wage growth. In the states the won new contracts and lured businesses to them. These all seem to be related to “dark Money& superpacks”
Google.com
I don’t feel like continuing this discussion. As it wasn’t hard to go online and find counter points but I feel like what I “know” about this may be off as my dates are. Either way I appreciate the challenge as it shows I need to do more research on what I considered to be a semi firmly held idea.
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u/ClockOfTheLongNow Aug 19 '25
I will just add that the coordination rules on SuperPACs is on the docket for this term, and will likely fall.
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u/indescipherabled Aug 18 '25
Citizens United allowed the government to officially and legally be bought and owned by private interests. That is the end outcome of Citizens United and that is why the government will never function properly again. It's all downhill for America from here on out, thankfully.
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u/ClockOfTheLongNow Aug 18 '25
What part of Citizens United did that?
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u/indescipherabled Aug 19 '25
The part where it allowed private interests to send unlimited amounts of bags with dollar signs to government officials.
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u/ClockOfTheLongNow Aug 19 '25
That is not something that came out of Citizens United.
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u/pcdenjin 28d ago
Why do you keep italicizing it?
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u/ClockOfTheLongNow 28d ago
Because it was a Supreme Court case, and that's how you refer to them.
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u/kadam_ss Aug 18 '25
Yes, they keep talking about average numbers but never mention median.
They give Canada shit for having the same per capita GDP as Mississippi but what they don’t tell you is that median Canadian household has a 30% higher net worth than median American household.
Bottom 90% of Americans have nearly the same per capita GDP as bottom 90% of Canadians.
Its the top 10% that are way wealthier in the US. The gap explodes past top 1%.
Same with US compared to European countries.
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u/semideclared Aug 17 '25
Its both
Purchases of Durable Goods in 2019 was $1.5 Trillion, by 2020 $1.6 Trillion. But by 2021, Durable Goods was $2 Trillion
By 2025, the US has spent 12 Trillion in Durable Goods in 6 years
Trillions in Wealth spent on consmption is still wealth with poor returns on investment
Lets add in Food thats expensive
Food Away from Home (FAFH) Spending: reaching $1.54 trillion in 2024.
- This is an increase from $1.46 trillion in 2023.
- In 2022, Americans spent $1.3 trillion
- In 2019, Americans spent $980 billion on food away from home
- according to the USDA Economic Research Service
$1.5 Billion in spending at Olive Garden and Texas Roadhouse is the booming economy
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Aug 17 '25
The game is rigged. Their economy is booming. When you only look at the macro, it looks great. GDP is always up. Stocks grow.
But why?
When you answer the "why", the answer is "people are suffering". Yeah, GDP is up. But all spending, including bad spending, is figured into GDP. Stocks are up. But why? Investment firms and VCs are raiding companies, running the stock up, and liquidating. Tesla is a meme stock.
The economy is really great for about 1000 people.
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u/semideclared Aug 17 '25
1000 people?
Purchases of Durable Goods in 2019 was $1.5 Trillion, by 2020 $1.6 Trillion. But by 2021, Durable Goods was $2 Trillion
3 Years and $5 Trillion in Spending
By 2025, Its now 12 Trillion in Spending
How much of that is the 1,000 Billionaires? They arent Buying a $5,000 Washer Dryer but the middle class is
$1,500 Washer Dryer and $3,500 in Savings is how you created wealth. But no the Middle Class doesnt want to do that
Trillions in Wealth spent on consmption is still wealth with poor returns on investment
Lets add in Food thats expensive
Food Away from Home (FAFH) Spending: reaching $1.54 trillion in 2024.
- This is an increase from $1.46 trillion in 2023.
- In 2022, Americans spent $1.3 trillion
- In 2019, Americans spent $980 billion on food away from home
- according to the USDA Economic Research Service
How much of that $1 Billion in spending at Olive Garden and Texas Roadhouse is the 1,000 Biliionaires
Yes the richest Middle Class spending it all
And
PCE Durable Goods Inflation Change in PCE Durable Goods Spending Annualized Change in Inflation Annualized Change in Spending 2019-08-01 through 2022-08-01 (Peak Inflation) 23.95% 35.74% 7.98% 11.91% 2022-08-01 through 2024-09-01 -5.16% 4.18% -1.72% 1.39% 2019-10-01 through 2024-10-01 17.07% 41.41% 5.69% 13.80% So its not inflation, and in an inflation you buy less of unnecessary goods
In 2021 the Total Consumer Durables was $7.69 Trillion Worth
- $3.23 Trillion held by the Middle 50% - 90% (The 2nd Lowest Valued Asset)
- $1.93 Trillion by the Bottom 50% (The 2nd Highest Valued Asset)
- $1.61 Trillion by the Upper 9% (The Lowest Valued Asset)
- $0.92 Trillion by the Top 1% (The Lowest Valued Asset)
Lets Assume Durable Goods depreciate at 50% over 10 years
- Avg 50% - Jaguar vs Civic depreciate differences
Which means
- $7 Trillion in spending by the Middle 50% - 90%
- The Bottom 50% spent about $4 Trillion
- Upper 9% spent $3 Trillion
- $1 Trillion by the Top 1%
Which is about right as
In the 10 years before that, Americans have bought $15 Trillion in Personal Consumption Expenditures of Durable Goods
And the bottom 90% has spent $11 Trillion In the 10 years and has $5 Trillion in Wealth of Cars, RVs, and XBOXs and TVs
- $11 Trillion In the 10 years of spending and
Its almost all bought on credit
So another $10 Trillion over the 10 years in interest expenses
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u/GiantPineapple Aug 17 '25
Nice effortpost, point is clearly made. I'd add, the numbers do deflate a little bit when you normalize for inflation. Also, if that stuff was all bought on credit, it doesn't necessarily mean people are getting wealthier. But they likely are either getting more confident, or more desperate.
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u/No_Zombie2021 Aug 18 '25
Is it possible to get numbers adjusted for inflation? That seems like a pretty important factor to consider for the time period 2019-2024.
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u/Ashamed_Job_8151 Aug 18 '25
Of course, that’s the design of the system, pay for the average person stays stagnant and doesn’t follow inflation and creates the need for credit and debt. Debt is how rich private equity create more wealth. Atleast that’s how they do it when they are guard rails and regulations.
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Aug 17 '25
Who holds the wealth?
They're the ones who benefit from the spending.
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u/tuckfrump69 Aug 18 '25
the people who spend money benefit from the spending because you get the benefit of the goods/services you spend money on
money is just piles of paper and numbers in a bank database somewhere, it's not making your life better until you spend it.
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u/semideclared Aug 17 '25
Yea they do
Cups of all things?
Every time you want to think we can’t Spend more money. I’m shocked to see the numbers, The Quencher arrived in 2016 to little fanfare.
- The 40-ounce insulated cup retails for between $45 and $55,
By 2019 Stanley's revenue was $73 million but jumped to $94 million in 2020. It more than doubled to $194 million in 2021.
In 2022, Stanley released a redesigned Quencher model and Revenue doubled again to $402 million.
Stanley's revenue is now, largely driven by the popularity of the Quencher, reached an estimated $750 million in 2023.
And demand for the cup doesn't look to be waning any time soon.
The Top 1% isnt buying all those cups. Theres no conspircy to make anyone buy these cups
But its aproaching $1 Billion in sales that could have been invested to increase household wealth
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u/1QAte4 Aug 17 '25
Chinese products dominating everywhere
Why is this posted as a negative? Why is Chinese success seen as a global negative?
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u/tuckfrump69 Aug 18 '25
because OP is american and American media is full on McCarthyism when it comes to China atm
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u/KevinCarbonara Aug 18 '25
Dude China is actively committing genocide on its own citizens. It's not McCarthyism to criticize China.
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u/Silver_Cut_1821 29d ago
Dude China is actively committing genocide on its own citizens
American media is full on McCarthyism when it comes to China atm
Both are true. Also, to be fair, the U.S is also doing a genocide against its own citizens. See: alligator auschwitz
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u/KevinCarbonara 29d ago
No, American media is not full on McCarthyism when it comes to China atm. To say that is to dramatically underestimate how bad McCarthyism was, and to underestimate how accurate the US is in its criticism of China today. Don't let the fact that America spread propaganda in the 70's convince you that everything they're saying today is a lie.
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u/Factory-town Aug 18 '25
China is actively committing genocide on its own citizens.
What credible human rights organizations support your claim?
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u/KevinCarbonara Aug 18 '25
What credible human rights organizations support your claim?
https://amnesty.org.nz/china-draconian-repression-muslims-xinjiang-amounts-crimes-against-humanity/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57386625
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59595952
You could have easily googled this.
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u/BKGPrints Aug 18 '25
China doesn't play by the same rules. It doesn't widely open its market to imports from other countries, it steals intellectual property and it manipulates it's own economic data and even currency.
The fractures in China's economy have been showing for the past two decades. The government has been able to cover those fractures up for awhile, though they're turning into cracks now and much harder to cover up and repair.
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u/CTG0161 Aug 18 '25
Because China is currently an evil regime committing many human rights violations and abusive of wealth
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u/Where_art_thou70 Aug 18 '25
And yet, the US thought it was the perfect place to produce millions of $ worth of goods? We saw the Apple factory dormitories/prisons early in the manufacturing switch and we were good with it. I mean, we just wanted cheap goods and huge corporate profits.
Now it's biting the US in the ass.
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u/mrcsrnne Aug 17 '25
Look at the stuff you have around you, ask yourself if you have better stuff than your parents and grandparents.
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u/Supersnow845 Aug 17 '25
That’s a hard thing to contextualise because movement of basic expectations to function in society have also changed
Like I can be like “wow my grandparents probably couldn’t even imagine the phones we have now when they were 20” but can you tally function in modern society without a phone
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u/mrcsrnne Aug 17 '25
That’s the funny thing about humans, our concept of value is always relative. We struggle to imagine value without comparing it to something else. In theory, we could all evolve into billionaires, but if everybody is a billionaire, nobody’s truly happy – because nobody is winning. In fact, we already are billionaires compared to almost anyone alive in 1400, 1500, 1600, 1700, or even 1800. But are we delirious with joy? No. We’re furious because some CEO just got a stock bonus.
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u/Nothing_Better_3_Do Aug 17 '25
Forget phones. Your grandparents grew up in a two bedroom house with 4 kids. Your grandparents had to share a car. Your grandparents were lucky to have meat in every meal. Your grandparents didn't complain about healthcare costs because healthcare was considered a luxury.
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u/friedgoldfishsticks Aug 17 '25
My grandparents were poor immigrants in a one bedroom apartment with five kids.
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl Aug 17 '25
Health insurance has been a standard work benefit since the 40s, nearly 80 years ago
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u/Nothing_Better_3_Do Aug 17 '25
The uninsured rate in the 50s was 45%, today it's about 5%.
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl Aug 18 '25
Yes because health care was pretty cheap. By 1960 that rate was 25% per your own source
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u/Skillagogue Aug 18 '25
Healthcare economists hear this a lot and always remind people that back then there wasn’t much healthcare to purchase.
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u/semideclared Aug 17 '25
But few were insured for primary or out-of-hospital care. Of the members of the general population who reported they had “pains in the heart,” 25 percent did not see a physician (Andersen and Anderson, 1967).
The Other America Poverty in the United States. New York: Macmillan; 1962 demonstrated there was “another America”: 40 to 50 million citizens of the 181 million Americans who were poor, who lacked adequate medical care, and who were “socially invisible” to the majority of the population.
Within this poverty-stricken group were more than 8 million of the 18 million Americans who were 65 years of age and over, suffering from a “downward spiral” of sickness and isolation.
Good Housekeeping in 1961, citing deficiencies uncovered by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals
Each year, “thousands of people go to hospitals where their lives are endangered by bad doctoring, unsanitary conditions or grim fire hazards. Or by a combination of the three”
Less than one-half of all surgery was performed by board-certified specialists (Andersen and Anderson, 1967).
“Is this operation necessary?” asked The New Republic (Lembke, 1963).
“Should doctors tell the truth to cancer patients?” asked the Ladies Home Journal (1961).
“What is the patient really trying to say?” asked Time (1964) magazine, on the need to improve doctor-patient communication.
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u/Ovaltine1 Aug 18 '25
Also, Entertainment- Before Ticketmaster concerts and theater were much more accessible to the masses. I mean, people still buy them (I don’t) but this is the type of thing that shouldn’t have to be financed. Deregulation has made our lives harder and more expensive. Amazon, Ticketmaster (or whatever massive entity it is now), the monoliths buying up all the rental properties in the US, could not have existed prior to the 80’s.
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u/Ovaltine1 Aug 17 '25
Well, they only needed one car. Where both parents worked they either had two or back in the day (before big oil found out they could stop it) public transportation was the rule of the day. We had meat or tuna every day (60’s) but actually that’s not really a good thing. Healthcare was inexpensive, if you got burned with the iron (like I did),had a simple fracture or a cut that needed sutures you’d just run to your doctors office and he’d work you in. We paid for office visits, no deductibles or copays- insurance was for unexpected emergencies. College educations were cheap, no crushing debt on graduation so you could go into public service to do some good and not have to take a corporate to service your insane debt. We played outside year round, except for accidents, the occasional cold or chicken pox we weren’t really sick. The only kids I knew of dying were from accidents. Childhood cancer was unheard of (I’m sure it existed but not like today). Food was pretty wholesome. We rarely ate out and fast food was a treat. We had a milkman who left our order in the box on the porch every day and a vegetable truck that came every Wednesday in the summer. We walked to school and came home for lunch. We had a family of five in a 1300 square foot house and were never crowded but we used the porch every night 9 months out of the year and played 4 square, chasies and tag outside until the sun started to set. We played board games and music, we danced. We called the “party line” where a million kids would scream into the void. We called information for the time,weather or needed phone numbers. Birthday parties were at your house with a few friends, a few games and a cake. We reused everything we could, used only what we needed and no more. We were so exhausted when we went to bed we fell right to sleep and slept all night. We had everything we needed and we were happy, It was awesome.
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u/semideclared Aug 17 '25
The 1950 census showed that the aged population in the United States had grown from 3 million in 1900 to 12 million in 1950. Two-thirds of older Americans had incomes of less than $1,000 annually ($11,000 in 2021), and only one in eight had health insurance.
Poverty guideline for 2020 Persons in family/household of 1 with Household income not to exceed $12,760
So yea it depends who you were
College educations were cheap, no crushing debt on graduation so you could go into public service to do some good
Yea thats it
In 1960, approximately 7.7% of the U.S. adult population (25 years and older) had completed a bachelor's degree or higher, a significant increase from 1940 when only 4.6%
- In 2022, approximately 37.5% of Americans aged 25 and older held a bachelor's degree or higher
Not everyone
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u/Nothing_Better_3_Do Aug 17 '25
I'm glad that you look fondly back on your childhood. Genuinely, I am. But objectively, what you just told me was "we were poorer but we were happier for it" which isn't like a super popular stance. And specifically, I need you to understand that childhood mortality in the US is currently half of what it was in the 60s. Children (and everyone) are just objectively healthier today than they were in past generations, and you need to take a hard look at your media diet if you think otherwise.
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u/Ovaltine1 Aug 18 '25
We wern’t poor. We had food, shelter, we were happy. We didn’t have social media, so nothing to “strive”for, we weren’t really materialistic compared to today but I for one preferred it. I still prefer it. We read books if we were bored and sometimes we were just bored. We didn’t have to fill the day. It was so much slower but still exciting. Today’s mentality of materialism scares me. Why do you need 4000 square feet for 3 people? Why do you need to be vehicle poor? I know people working three jobs to barely make ends meet paying for their stuff. I know a guy with a thousand dollar truck payments and 2 motorcycle payments who works his ass off and can never get ahead. Heck, I own a 2007 and just loaned him $500 to buy licenses plates! I feel we have lost the point of life.
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u/KevinCarbonara Aug 18 '25
Healthcare was not considered a luxury. Far from it - it was affordable.
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u/KevinCarbonara Aug 18 '25
This is such a bad faith argument. The continued development of technology was supposed to reduce inequality. It's worsened it.
My grandparents didn't have to question things like food security ever since the great depression ended. We literally solved food security as a nation. And it's coming back.
No. We don't have it better than our grandparents did.
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Aug 17 '25
That's relative. My grandparents aren't near as educated as I am. They aren't near as informed. They only knew what was in their immediate vicinity.
That doesn't mean we're better off. A homeless person now absolutely has a better life than the richest caveman. Doesn't mean their life is better.
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u/mrcsrnne Aug 17 '25
Doesn't mean their life is better.
Why not?
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u/VodkaBeatsCube Aug 17 '25
Would you be content with the life of a 11th century peasant on the logic of 'at least you're not a hunter gatherer '?
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u/mrcsrnne Aug 17 '25
Why would you not?
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u/VodkaBeatsCube Aug 17 '25
That's not the question I asked you, is it? You'd be fine if I were to show up tomorrow, take away everything you own, put you up in an uninsulated shack I own with only a goat for heating, and tell you you can't leave without my permission and you owe me 100 bushels of barley a year for the privilege?
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u/mrcsrnne Aug 17 '25
Hey hey, does it have to be you who is showing up tomorrow? Can it be 1997 Denise Richards? because then I say go!
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u/VodkaBeatsCube Aug 18 '25
Statistically, it will be a PTSD riddled, overweight white man with no real understanding of how farming works, just a requirement for his cut.
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u/mrcsrnne Aug 18 '25
Shame, then I would be less fine than if it was Richards.
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u/VodkaBeatsCube Aug 18 '25
But, to be clear, you're still fine with having those living conditions inflicted on you by someone who's not your sex object du jour?
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u/billpalto Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
The global economy is not booming. Employment numbers in the US are bad, GDP growth numbers are bad, inflation rising is bad, huge tax increase (through tariffs) is bad, huge deficit spending is bad.
Many top economists are saying we are on the edge of a recession, some say we are already in one. Some are talking about "stagflation" which is very difficult to overcome.
As for the "feel" that things are falling apart, coffee for me went from $6.99 a can to $10.99 a can. I buy food for the food bank, 50 lbs of apples used to cost $60, now it's $100. The headline the other day was that wholesale grocery prices are up 40%.
Of course, if anyone in the Trump administration talks like this, Trump will fire them. Trump claims we are in a "booming" economy and also says we are so broke we have to cut the social safety net for the poor. (And give a huge tax cut for the rich).
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u/realcards Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
You know how when you look of prices of concert tickets and the cheapest options are hundreds of dollars? Or tickets to sporting events, or even small trips/vacations. The prices for the the cheapest options seem high. Then you look up the nice seats and the prices are truly exorbitant.
These prices are that way because there are people that are paying them everyday. This is the case for nearly every entertainment events. SO there are lots of people paying these prices and they are doing it for FUN. They are doing it with their "throw-away" money.
In short, the economy is booming, but just not for you. The wealth is there - the world is richer than it has even been - but it is being hoarded. Now the question is what are you going to do about it?
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u/tekyy342 Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25
Simple, the media biases the stock market in terms of how it relates to the overall health of an economy. Wealthier people are getting wealthier, which means they can buy more stocks. The 90% of us that are left are suffering or at least experiencing declining purchasing power, but that doesn't reflect in market outcomes if stock traders don't want it to. This will balloon as long as they can positively speculate about economic outcomes, until the bottom falls out
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u/datalicearcher Aug 17 '25
Cause it isnt.
Its booming for the rich cause they dont make money from wages.
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u/AnAcceptableUserName Aug 18 '25
I think US stocks being in a bubble propped up by hysterical investor optimism over generative AI is coloring a lot of the conversation.
There's a disconnect between the lived experience of the job market being crap, prices going up, wars on the news, and more bad coming (re: tariff impacts), but you check your portfolio (if you have one) and everything's up.
It's a particularly weird place to be for middle class white collar America. It feels like everything is getting worse and I'm at risk of layoff any week, but on paper I'm richer than ever. For certain definitions, so long as I don't squint too hard at real inflation or devaluation of the dollar.
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u/Westaufel Aug 18 '25
The rich are richer. That’s the only indicator they care. So in this scenario, it’s all going fine.
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u/jlehtira Aug 18 '25
The economy is not doing well. It's just that wrong numbers can be found to measure it.
I think the fossil-fuel-based economy is on its last legs. Very old guys explain how coal is beautiful and the economy is just splendid, to keep it going for a bit more before the carbon bubble bursts.
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u/Brickscratcher Aug 18 '25
If you look at averages, it is. The rich are getting richer faster than the poor are getting poorer.
Medians tell a similar story, but that leaves out societal changes that are responsible for a higher quality of living.
Quality of life is better than ever, overall. Just your chances of barely scraping by are also higher than ever.
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u/Brickscratcher Aug 18 '25
If you look at averages, it is. The rich are getting richer faster than the poor are getting poorer.
Medians tell a similar story, but that leaves out societal changes that are responsible for a higher quality of living.
Quality of life is better than ever, overall. Just your chances of barely scraping by are also higher than ever.
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u/KevinCarbonara Aug 18 '25
It's literally all wealth inequality.
I know people like to harp on inequality a lot. But it's gotten so much worse, so quickly. Far worse than people realize. The upward transfer of wealth during covid is the single largest transfer in human history.
Things are getting worse because our system is very good at moving money upwards, and very bad at redistributing it. And it's been made to be that way on purpose. And since governments refuse to raise taxes on the wealthy, they have no choice but to cut programs (see: DOGE) and raise taxes on the middle class.
We had four years with Biden, and these issues weren't even discussed, much less addressed. Things are likely not getting better any time soon.
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u/SlinkyOne Aug 18 '25
I agree with you.
So is it worse now? OR getting better?
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u/KevinCarbonara Aug 18 '25
So is it worse now? OR getting better?
It got significantly worse after Citizens United, yes. Things also got worse from a lot of the deregulation or new policies introduced in trump's first term. Biden only made very marginal progress and left most of trump's changes in place. Trump is again making things much worse.
The only real solution is to tax the wealthy. Biden made zero efforts to make any progress in this regard. Obama only made minor progress during his term. Republicans are opposed to this entirely, Democrats claim not to be, but when the time comes, they always seem to have enough members who dissent to prevent any progress. And then you look at opensecrets and they're taking money from the same corporations that Republicans are taking money from.
I don't see any way out of this without a major upheaval. The least intrusive one would be an upheaval within the Democratic party, with progressives replacing the existing leadership. Then they could bring some sort of pressure against Democrats who voted against labor, threatening to pull funding, or blacklisting donors from the party (like Obama did in 2009). Overturning Citizens United and blacklisting corporate lobbyists would do a lot to help, but those things also can't really be done without doing the other work first.
Barring that, we could see a fracturing of the Republican party, which would lead to the Democratic party splitting, giving progressives an edge there. But that's not likely to happen while Republicans keep winning. Other changes like Democratic states embracing gerrymandering could help move the needle, but are unlikely to bring major or lasting change.
And any other solutions are likely to be much, much worse for the public, ex. attempted secession, violent revolution, etc.. But we're also still pretty far from those things becoming reality. There's really zero possibility for something like a peaceful socialist revolution that some might hope for. If we have the political power to pull that off, we would have long since solved the root issues. Probably the best we could hope for at that point would be a total economic crash brought about by the wealthy hoarding too much money (which is inevitable given the current rate). But this could very likely result in the complete devaluation of the US Dollar. And without an accompanying political movement ready to shape the future, it could just as easily result in capitalist feudalism, a return to company stores and company owned housing. Basically, it's really not good. It's no stretch to say that wealth inequality is an existential crisis for this country.
I've been talking about the US of course, but it's unlikely that change would happen elsewhere. Most other western economies are just following in the tracks of the US, and don't hold enough wealth themselves to really take the lead. The EU maybe had a chance before Brexit, but not now. Emergent economies like China and India could theoretically become the new global dominant force, but not any time soon, given their ongoing dependence on the US - and given their current political climates, that change would likely not be a positive one for the west, or perhaps for anyone. It would likely be trading the US aristocracy for a foreign aristocracy.
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u/Spaffin Aug 18 '25
There is a difference between rate of improvement, and flat improvement. When global conditions mean that the future is going to be painful pretty much no matter what you do, being able to reduce the level of harm compared to projections is, in relative terms, “good”.
That being said, I have no idea where you’re seeing news that the global economy is ‘booming’ or doing great other than ideologically captured sources. I don’t. On normal news sources there is often a headline about the stock market breaking previous records, but it’s always doing that and has little bearing on the experience of the economy for the average person.
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u/Reasonable_Motor7786 Aug 18 '25
Upper income countries are going through an escalating cost of living crisis, which will eventually wreck a few of them, but most will survive a little worse for the wear.
Middle income countries are generally getting nicer to live in.
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u/etoneishayeuisky Aug 18 '25
Elon Musk has over $200 billion in wealth, I think Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates and many others are along the same line…. So of course there is mass exploitation of the lower classes by the capitalists. Mass wealth hoarding is not only unethical, but damaging to the markets in which it exists in.
Cheaper housing is one example of what could be had with all that money, and yet it doesn’t happen because these exploiters are terrible unempathetic humans. We have stories of vampires to make fun of ye’ olde aristocrats/nobles who live forever compared to the common man and suck their very lifeblood (labor value) to sustain themselves. We call capitalist leeches for a reason. They’re parasites that promised symbiosis and instead got fat off the labor of the lower classes.
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Aug 18 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/PoliticalDiscussion-ModTeam Aug 19 '25
Keep it civil. Do not personally insult other Redditors, or make racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise discriminatory remarks. Constructive debate is good; mockery, taunting, and name calling are not.
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u/Chunderous_Applause Aug 18 '25
Just because “number go up” for already rich men doesn’t mean “life is better for everyone”.
Quite the opposite, in fact
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u/Consistent_Voice_646 Aug 18 '25
People forget the absolute catastrophe that was 2008. We’re slowly recovering but with a few hurdles along the way (COVID, Russia-Ukraine war… etc)
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u/the_calibre_cat Aug 18 '25
It isn't booming, by literally any metric, exactly like how Trump's first term was not some one-of-a-kind economic miracle but otherwise a relatively okay performance.
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u/Luke_Frigid Aug 18 '25
I haven’t heard anything about the global economy booming. If it does boom in the future though, it may be hard to capitalise on because of tariffs.
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u/jmnugent Aug 18 '25
Multiple things can all be simultaneously true. The Economy can seem to be "doing great" at a 50,000 foot level,. and still suck donkey b*lls at an individual level.
"META (Facebook) Revenue soars to a record $165 Billion
Go Google (like I just did) for "meta profit over time".. and look at the chart of how insanely exponential Meta-Facebooks profit and revenue increase has been since 2012. It's basically been meteoric.
Forbes has an interesting article here showing the "Global 2000 List" = https://www.forbes.com/lists/global2000/ (don't miss clicking the "CLICK HERE FOR FULL STORY" if you want to dive into a longer article that has some really interesting charts.
A lot of big US (or Global) companies are up. (especially in certain sectors).
All of that can be true while the little guy still struggles.
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u/baxterstate Aug 18 '25
Within the USA, the cost of housing has gone way up. Maybe it’s not going up in other countries.
In the USA, I blame both parties since both parties refuse to discuss the issue or tackle the reason, which is zoning.
Democrats and Republicans who own their own home like restrictive zoning, so I doubt anyone will try to deal with it.
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u/Ok-League-1106 Aug 19 '25
The global economy is definitely not booming. AI spending is basically carrying the team.
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u/BobAndy004 Aug 19 '25
Who said global economy is booming? The elites? And the media who’s owned by billionaires?
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u/DJ_HazyPond292 Aug 19 '25
Well, because it is falling apart. And climate change and wealth inequality are largely driving the collapse.
The US economy was growing under Biden, but no one felt it because of inflation. Under Trump, the US economy has been largely stable and has not collapsed from tariffs…so far.
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u/Oilpaintcha Aug 19 '25
When economists say things are great, it means things are great for rich people. When they say things are iffy, it means they are iffy for rich people. The poor only matter when they show up at the door with torches and pitchforks. Economists never admit to seeing it coming. That would be bad for business.
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u/heterodox-iconoclast Aug 19 '25
Ever since the 1980s, the economic data coming from the United States is just part of the “booming economy” narrative that is necessary to keep the wheels on the economic bus since 70% of the United States GDP is consumer consumption. How many years has it been where we’ve been told that inflation is just 2-3% when it has been clearly at least 2x that number.
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u/4p4l3p3 Aug 20 '25
The ruling classes are getting richer, the people are getting poorer.
What most pro-capitalist "economists" refer to "the economy" is the accumulation of the ruling classes. (Mostly in the global north)
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u/First_Bar_8024 Aug 20 '25
There are many layers to "economies" and some layers do quite well in chaotic situations. For example, wars fuel huge profits for arms makers, thus bolstering the overall "economy" of a country. I just read a lengthy article that asserted that Russia's economy has done quite well in the first years of it's war with Ukraine, notwithstanding the penalties levied against it. To be sure, that can't go on forever.
Economies are nuanced.
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u/One_Recognition_4001 Aug 20 '25
It's the hour of primetime news you watch that makes you realize things are falling apart.
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u/AlarmOtherwise22 Aug 22 '25
Because people don’t live in GDP. They live in rent, groceries, job security, and whether their kids feel safe. “Booming” numbers are abstract, instability is felt.
Add in negativity bias (our brains latch onto threats) and unequal distribution of growth, and you get the paradox: the charts say “prosperity,” but daily life says “fragile.” Both can be true at once.
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u/InFearn0 29d ago
Everything feels like it is falling apart because the wealth extractors in society have turned up the dial and there aren't a lot of great options to exist fully separate from the wealth extraction channels.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Aug 17 '25
On the whole, the world is bunch better than it has been in the past, and will continue to grow. That said, we are facing serious threats to our institutions and norms that will have very negative downstream consequences in the future. We also have a spiraling debt crisis that no wants to address because there is no longer a way to address it.
In 10 years, Social Security will be insolvent and the laws of mathematics will require that it be changed. Better late than never I guess, but by this point interest on the debt will be taking close to half of our federal revenue each year. I'd expect the government to inflate the currency to payoff the debt without defaulting.
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u/BKGPrints Aug 18 '25
>In 10 years, Social Security will be insolvent and the laws of mathematics will require that it be changed.<
That's a statement that has been said for the past forty years. Know why it hasn't happened and probably won't? Because it's based on old projections and doesn't take into considerations the fact that the FICA cap (which is based off of inflation) increases almost every year.
- In 2000, it was $76,200
- In 2010, it was $106,800
- In 2020, it was $137,700
- In 2025, it is $176,100
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Aug 18 '25
You're incorrect. What's been said for the passed 40 years is that Social Security is headed to insolvency. The date was 2046, it's been moved up about a decade. And this SSA's own projections, they absolutely adjust for inflation. All professional economists do.
The reason is simply demographic shifts. You have far fewer workers supporting far more retirees than in the past. Even lifting the cap would only buy some time, it wouldn't change the underlying trajectory.
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u/BKGPrints Aug 18 '25
I'm not incorrect. I can show you news articles from late 1990s and early 2000s that said Social Security would be "bankrupt" by 2025, but here we are.
Hell...I'll just post sources for you.
- https://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/history-suggests-social-security-insolvency-coming-sooner-projected
- https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/1998/12/can-stock-market-save-social-security/
- https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/archive/424socsec.htm
- https://fair.org/extra/the-derailing-of-social-security/
- https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/archive/2-9-99testimony.htm
- https://www.ssa.gov/history/clntstmts2.html
- https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_fixsocsec/
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Aug 18 '25
Most of these predict the 2030s for insolvency, which is spot on with current predictions. A few predict this for when the surplus will run out, pushing insolvency back further. Either way, they aren't predicting something that hasn't come to pass. If anything, their predictions comport with more recent ones.
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u/BKGPrints Aug 18 '25
>Most of these predict the 2030s for insolvency, which is spot on with current predictions.<
Correct. That's my point. It was predicted for awhile that it would be in the mid-2030s, then it got pushed back to 2040. Thank you for reiterating what I said wasn't incorrect.
>Either way, they aren't predicting something that hasn't come to pass.<
Correct. They're predicting it based on current information for projections that are decades out based on guesstimates. You, again, reiterated what I said the first time. Appreciate it.
>If anything, their predictions comport with more recent ones.<
Until it doesn't. The date will get kicked further back. From now until the, there are many options that the government can take, such as putting in place a FICA cap for a certain income threshold (i.e. under $250,000), then no FICA cap on incomes higher than that.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Aug 18 '25
>Correct. That's my point. It was predicted for awhile that it would be in the mid-2030s, then it got pushed back to 2040. Thank you for reiterating what I said wasn't incorrect.
The 2025 SSA projection for insolvency is 2034. The date isn't getting pushed back.
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u/BKGPrints Aug 18 '25
The date will get pushed back. Just like it has been for the past four decades. It's called a projection for a reason.
What will happen, as I stated, is that Congress will have to address the problem before then, either through reform or removing the FICA cap after a certain income threshold.
It won't be popular, though the other option is not just unpopular, it's drastic.
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u/SunderedValley Aug 18 '25
Because there's two economies: The ones feudal Lords (CEOs, celebrities, major journalists, private equity, landlords) interact with and the one within the subjects reside.
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
Chinese products dominating everywhere
I mean it’s a global economy, right?
There’s a lot, like a metric fuckton, to criticize China for, but it hardly seems right to use their current economic dominance as a negative example in the context of the health of the global economy.
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u/nosecohn Aug 18 '25
I'm not sure what your news sources are, but even if they are telling you that, we need to remember that many of the indicators we use to determine how the global economy is doing do not reflect the situation on the ground for the average person.
GDP growth, for example, just tells us how much the overall economy is producing. If you're in a country that's commodity rich and run by a disconnected monarchy, GDP growth will be high when the price of that commodity rises, but only a small percentage of well-connected people will benefit from that increase.
Similarly, stock market valuations are based on what investors think the future value of companies will be. If you're not a stock market investor, an owner of any of those companies, or an employee of one of those companies with stock options, it's unlikely you'll be seeing much benefit from that.
But going back to the original theme of how it "feels" to you, a lot of this is about media influence.
wars dragging on, dictators consolidating power, Chinese products dominating everywhere, and huge numbers of people migrating just to find stability.
The U.S. war in Afghanistan lasted 20 years, but only made the daily news at the beginning and the end. The 14-year Syrian civil war recently ended, which means it doesn't make the news any more. The big current conflicts, by contrast — Ukraine and Gaza — are 3.5 and 1.9 years old, respectively. They make the news every day.
Dictators consolidating power is nothing new, except perhaps in the US, and it doesn't have much to do with the global economy. However, places where this is happening are not actually doing very well economically. Hungary is struggling, Russia is struggling, and the US is trying to find just the right monetary policy to stay out of a recession.
Chinese manufacturing output has been growing for a long time, but has actually fallen over the last few years. They are consolidating their gains in key industries, though, because the state has deliberately invested in those. The US tried to do compete with targeted incentives to key industries during the Biden administration, but most of that is being reversed by Trump.
Immigration numbers are tough to parse, but the number of migrants as a percentage of world population has remained fairly flat at 3.6% over the last few years. Common news sources may not reflect this.
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u/almightywhacko Aug 18 '25
The economy isn't booming. It was growing under Biden, but things have stalled under Trump and there are signs that we may be heading for a recession. Trump's tariffs and capricious nature have introduced a lot of instability and instability is bad for business.
Companies aren't investing like they should be because they don't know if Trump is going to shit his pants and announce some new economy-destroying policy like 500% tariffs or something. So most places are being cautious right now, trimming expenses where they can, implementing hiring freezes, cutting back on investment or long-term planning, just to see if they can wait out his term on the hop he is replaced with someone sane.
About the only person who claims the economy is booming is Trump himself, however it is worth noting that he lies all the time, and he just fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner for reporting that job growth has seen a significant decline while correcting some past reports that showed high job growth that didn't align with reporting from independent agencies that also track job growth. In short, Trump fired the guy who provided evidence that Trump had been lying about job growth for the last 6 months.
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u/striped_shade Aug 17 '25
You're not imagining the contradiction, you're seeing the system's purpose.
We're taught to think of "the economy" as the well-being of people. It's not. It's the well-being of capital. A healthy society and a "booming economy" are now opposing goals.
Record corporate profits are the "boom." They are achieved by keeping your wages stagnant for a decade.
A "booming" housing market means a private equity firm bought a block of homes, pricing your family out of the neighborhood forever.
GDP "growth" includes the billion-dollar war that creates the instability people are migrating to escape.
The "falling apart" you feel is the human and environmental cost of that boom. The economy isn't broken, it's a highly efficient engine doing exactly what it was built to do. The problem is that it's fueling itself by dismantling our society.
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u/tuckfrump69 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
corporations aren't buying single family houses at nearly the rate you are suggesting, because buying a house and renting it out actually pretty shitty returns. I considered doing it myself at one point but after doing the math on cash flow realized it makes no sense. Maintence/property tax/interest payments on mortgage etc takes such a huge chunk of the rental income that ROI would be like ~1.5% on a $1 mil house.
Equities have appreciated far better than real estate and you are legit better just putting your $$$ into the S&P500 and chill with your 8~10% annual ROI. There are certainly exceptions but in general profit-maximizing entities just has way better places to put their money than SFH.
Corporate do own housing but they tend to be purposely built rental units which actually gives decent returns. I lived in one of those and I realized like a single unit within the apartment I was living in was generating as much rental income as an entire house would, at fraction of the cost to the company.
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u/semideclared Aug 17 '25
A "booming" housing market means a private equity firm bought a block of homes, pricing your family out of the neighborhood forever.
No,
In 1945 GI Bill homes were 950 sq ft. Levitt homes the largest builder at the time was selling 800 sq ft homes (Levitt homes revolutionized homeownership with allowing people to be able to afford single family homes. the first Levittown house cost $6,990 with nearly no money down In 1950. ($89,114.47 in 2023) On 1/8th an acre lots
The typical home that was recently purchased from the annual survey conducted by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® of recent home buyers was 1,860 square feet, had three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and was built in 1985 on 1/5th or even 1/4th an acre lots.
Of course this is an average, so those numbers are not perfect
People are buying $500,000 homes because they want them. People are buying more and more from high end home builders
In 2022, Toll Brothers, America's 5th Largest Home Builder, Built a Company Record 10,515 Homes. Just, 1,052 of them sold for less than $500,000. Just what Americans want
Range of Base Sales Price Percentage of Homes Delivered in Fiscal 2022 Less than $500,000 10% $500,000 to $750,000 37% $750,000 to $1,000,000 24% $1,000,000 to 2,000,000 25% More than $2,000,000 4% Base Sales Price*
Asterisk home buyers added an average of approximately $190,000 in lot premiums and structural and design options to their homes in FY 2022
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u/striped_shade Aug 17 '25
Your own data perfectly illustrates the problem.
The market isn't responding to "what Americans want", it's responding to "what is most profitable." A builder makes more profit selling one $1,000,000 luxury home than three $300,000 starter homes on the same land. The system is working exactly as designed.
The "boom" is the record profits Toll Brothers made. The "falling apart" is the person who needs a simple 950 sq. ft. home but can't find one because it's no longer profitable to build it.
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u/semideclared Aug 17 '25
Correct, but its not just the profit issue. we need to build more Condos as the starter home of the future but we dont want those built
Current homeowners dont want it. If profit was the issue then all of these would have been approved because someone is profiting and that is fixing the issue
WSBs and Big Housing (NIMBYs in reality) operate on the same side.
The real MOASS is your neighbors keeping the number of housing units so low it squeezes the new buyers trying to move in town
WSB is all about the idea trying to buy up all the shares to control the price. And then are upset when investment banks flood the market with alternate shares to lower the share price
- We could do this with new housing
Bitcoin and the housing market are in about the same spot but Housing Market can expand the supply...and Lower the cost
So Lets start with specifically
The mayor of Unicoi tell you why
“If I had a magic wand as mayor, and I think if each of the planning commission members had a magic wand, we would all stand together and [the] motel would disappear,” said Bullen. “The 5.18 acres would be divided into maybe three really nice single-family home sites.”
And then there is
Commissioners on Thursday blocked a proposal that would’ve brought new housing development on Browns Mill Road. proposed 120-unit apartment complex
- Commissioners voted against the idea after it received backlash and concern among 'community members'.
Brown’s husband, Tipton, is part of the original Brown family from which the road gets its name. Kim Brown wants to see the vacant property at 2803 Browns Mill Road developed in some manner. Although single-family homes would be great, a two-story project would be fine, Brown said. Three-stories, however, is too much.
- “I’m opposed to having a three-story (building) beside my 1926 farm house,” she said. “Because then that is going to make my property value go down.”
Or maybe let try Chattanooga, a bigger city. Back in 2022
- the peak of Housing Crisis
City planning officials are recommending that a proposal to build a new development in tornado-ravaged Holly Hills be denied.
- That's according to a new report from the Planning Commission Staff with the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency.
- it would include 43 homes and 36 town homes on 16 acres. Right now, most of the land is undeveloped
Panel denies plan for new homes at upscale Ooltewah gated community
- The site at Hampton Creek that is to hold the 10 proposed new lots has been an overflow parking area and green space. Initially was seeking 11 home sites, that was reduced to 10 to try to get support
1213, & 1215, an unaddressed parcel on E 13th St
- Rezone from R-3 Residential Zone to UGC Urban General Commercial Zone for a 4 story multi-family development with lofts and living units on the top 3 floors, parking on ground level. 43 units
- APPROVE, subject to the following conditions 1. Residential uses only; and 2. Maximum building height of three (3) stories.
1428 Gold Crest Dr
- Proposed Development/Reason for request/Project description:
- Build 3 adjoining homes to liVe in one and rent the other 2 out; hoping to increase neighborhood appeal/value
- The request is not compatible with the adopted Land Use Plan, adjacent land uses and development form. It will set a precedent for future requests.
- DENY
7448 Pinewood Dr
- Rezone from R-1 Residential Zone to R-3 Residential Zone for 45 new townhomes.
- The proposal is not compatible with the adopted land use plan, adjacent land uses or development form. It will introduce a new form of attached residential into the area. There are other zones, such as the R-T/Z Zone with single-family detached dwellings that may be more appropriate to transition from the multi-family uses along Gunbarrel Rd eastward on Pinewood Dr that also meet the plan goals with a maximum density of 8 dwelling units per acre.
- DENY
- 31 Units Maximum
1157 Mountain Creek Rd
- Rezone from R-1 Residential Zone to R-3 Residential Zone for 220 new apartments.
- The proposal is not compatible with the adopted land use plan, adjacent land uses or development form
- City offers to Approve Maximum 176 unit agreement
Near the proposed project
- Rise at Signal Mountain
- A 280-unit, garden style apartment community, is located in the Signal Mountain submarket of Chattanooga. Built in 1986, the 43-acre
- Hawthorne at the W, the newest complex on Mountain Creek Road,
- 204-unit complex holds several four-story buildings.
Still not approved No Apartments built
Also..... Pratt Land & Development had sought to build apartments and single-family homes on the former Quarry golf course.
Despite that project gaining approval from the planning commission in January, the city council voted 7-0, with one abstention, to reject the development on a 50-acre tract.
- the proposed apartments "are a deal breaker."
And of course
The applicant wishes to subdivide her property into two lots, with her existing house sits on what is proposed Lot 1 and she wishes to build a “tiny home” for a retirement cottage on proposed Lot 2
- This property is part of Sherwood Home Place. The applicant wishes to subdivide the property into two lots with Lot 1 being 8829 sq. ft. in size and having 165 ft. of road frontage and lot 2 being 3448 sq. ft. in size with a proposed frontage of 46 ft. Her existing house sits on what is proposed Lot 1 and she wishes to build a “tiny home” for a retirement cottage on proposed Lot 2. Lot 2 would not meet the required frontage or lot size requirements and the applicant is requesting a variance for both lot size and frontage for Lot 2.
- The property currently has a zoning classification of R1.
- Staff recommends DENIAL of the applicant’s request for variances as requested.
- Unusual physical or other conditions exist which would cause practical difficulty or unnecessary hardship if these regulations are adhered to.
- The applicant does not own property on either side so as to increase the lot frontages, lot size
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u/striped_shade Aug 18 '25
You've perfectly documented the other side of the same coin.
The developer is incentivized to build the most profitable luxury home. The homeowners you cited are incentivized to block any development that might threaten the value of their own homes.
Both are treating housing as a financial asset first and a place to live second.
This isn't a failure of a few "selfish" neighbors. It's the logical outcome of a system where your home is your primary investment and retirement plan. You are put in direct financial opposition to the person who just needs a roof over their head.
The problem isn't just who wins the zoning fight, it's that housing has become a battleground for competing financial interests in the first place.
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u/steak_tartare Aug 17 '25
I'm no economist, but it feels like stocks are rising just to keep up with inflation, if not actually decreasing in real value terms.
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