from Hacker News

Why Are People So Down About the Economy? Theories Abound

by washedup on 5/30/24, 3:13 PM with 29 comments

• by tracker1 on 5/30/24, 7:09 PM

  Because groceries, gas, rent, insurance are way up in terms of costs. Even with some seeing higher pay, the increased prices more than offset that so people feel worse. For 8-10% of the population may be doing the same or better, the rest are worse. That doesn't count for nearly 20% of adults being maxed out on credit.

  Most of these changes are in the past 4-5 years or so.

• by PaulHoule on 5/30/24, 3:38 PM

  Free link for free people: https://archive.ph/tASmV

  One thing it doesn't talk about is the emerging genre of YouTube video that attacks a business that fails at its brand promise. Disney, fast food restaurants (found out that Burger King changed the way they cook burgers in 2013 which explains why I though BK Burgers had gotten worse), airlines, video game publishers, etc. A lot of this negativity is deserved but there sure are a lot of it.

  No mention that a lot of software developers on HN seem to be experiencing a recession which is probably complicated by this tax law change:

  https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/section-174/

  I am also seeing a number of really promising startups like Upnext and Post.News going down. Investors just aren't interested in putting more in if they aren't getting Temu like results, but Temu only gets those results because it is willing to spend and spend.

  Another issue is that it's emotional and has to do with whether or not you like your job, whether you find the things you do meaningful, etc. If there was some economic adversity but people felt purpose overcoming it it would be one thing, if it is just private equity buying viable businesses and making them not viable by seeking profits that aren't there, that's another thing.

  There's also the relationship with China looming over everything for better and for worse.

• by throwaway22032 on 5/30/24, 7:12 PM

  In the UK it's pretty much that pre and post covid are just different worlds economically.

  It feels as if almost everything is 50-100% more expensive. Takeaways, cinema, restaurants, general labour (home repairs, materials, etc), the pub, etc.

  I don't rent but people tell me that rent is skyrocketing also.

  Government (local and national) seems to have different goals that make a lot of these issues worse.

  For example, policies that get landlords to sell up, policies that make running a small business much more expensive and difficult.

  It's usually all through side effects but it just fucks with the market.

  My local council charges more for diesel vehicles to park. Makes sense right? Except ~100% of vans are diesel fuelled, so now if you want a tradesman to fix your gutter that costs a shit load more for essentially no reason.

  There's also a clean air zone which means any older van has to pay £12.50 just to drive in at all. Not into Soho, into the entire 30 mile wide city. What's an older van you might ask? Nine years old. Yes, 9.

  Literally an hour of wages gone, again for essentially no reason.

  Is any of that in the inflation statistics? Probably not, it'll just show that people are either doing their own maintenance (less economically efficient) or leaving stuff to rot.

  Policymakers are completely out of touch with the people who actually get shit done. Brexit is a nice scapegoat but in reality we just have ridiculously overbearing regulation.

• by lurking15 on 5/31/24, 1:03 AM

  Kind of sick of this liberal view, when they're generally so in favor of trusting an individual's intuition and "lived experience" but when it comes to economic "lived experience" it's completely ok to reject and outright mock it.

• by JohnFen on 5/30/24, 4:40 PM

  My hypothesis is that it's a bit of "referred pain". There is a pretty broad nervousness and pessimism about the state of the nation generally, and I suspect that influences how people feel about the economy.

• by bequanna on 5/30/24, 8:02 PM

  Is this a serious question?

  The relentless increases in insurance, property taxes, food, clothing, etc have destroyed the purchasing power of all but the wealthiest Americans. Almost everyone is significantly worse off than they were only a few short years ago.

  The real question is: why is the media trying to gaslight the public into believing there is something wrong with you if you think the economy is bad.