The evidence offered is that the economy is doing well, people are traveling, and there is some technological innovation happening. As though that were unique. He then dismisses certain other, less convenient evidence, like consumer sentiment, and simply doesn't bring up any other changes in the macroeconomic climate over the last 100 years. I would like to know what about the balance of evidence is unique enough to draw an equivalence between the 2020s and the 1920s. Otherwise, this sounds a little like a kind of numerology where similarly numbered years must resemble each other.
It's all the vague similarities - pandemics, wars, economic boom suspiciously looking like a bubble (be it the fact that many people can no longer afford housing, or that anyone and their grandfather is investing somehow).
So nothing conclusive, but if we had conclusive metrics to point to that could indicate an economic bust is coming, we would be able to implement policies to prevent them.
isn't this pretty common to most analyses of past events and attempts to make proxy analyses for the future? If we had all of the facts organized and known we would be able to prevent all crashes, etc, would we not?
And apparently many people here on HN want to discredit the author's conclusions because they dont agree with them personally.
I don't know what the author of the article is drinking. Me and most of my relatives are in a significantly worse financial position since 2020. Wage growth has hardly matched the wild pace of inflation. Saving money is much harder. Decent jobs are hard to come by. It feels like an erosion of the middle class.
Your experiences are anecdotal but may not be the average... the relative number of people in homelessness has reduced from the 90's to today, that is certainly good.. (It has had a slight peak recently post pandemic).
Purchasing power has climbed, hunger has reduced, I think all of these are important metrics to consider...
I think people are much more polarized and that social media has brought out terrible polarity, but it doesnt necessarily mean the average person is not living better than 30 yrs ago.
> I don't know what the author of the article is drinking
I think that's a bit harsh. The author runs a successful podcast, for a number of years now. I value his opinion, he usually backs up his opinion with numbers. I do sympathize with you, in the sense that I'm also earning less than I used to.
The data disagrees with you. Tech isnt doing well post pandemic but average real wages are up and most people report being in a better financial position than they were pre covid.
> The evidence offered is that the economy is doing well
I don't know if that's even well-defined based on the evidence presented - "a massive stock market boom".
The (USA) economy is doing OK, especially when compared to other countries that have made other policy choices and are faring even worse. But "stock market go up" is not the same thing at all as "most people doing better".
"High house prices" is also not a unambiguously wonderful thing. e.g. if you need to buy a house.
Likewise Low Unemployment is not great if all the jobs are no-benefits gig work and you need three of them to pay off your massive student or medical debt.
Lack of good consumer sentiment indicates this gap.
And this oversimplifying to the point of meaninglessness is why I'm sceptical of the article's point.
since we 'invented' numbers and assigned 'meaning' to them, it makes more 'sense' to tack experiences to frequencies/periods that are easy to represent and seem to mean more than they do by virtue of being 'right at the edge'
