1. Housing prices may finally come down to reasonable levels.
2. Savings rates are up.
3. I bonds inflation rate might go even higher.
4. The dollar is king.
5. Unemployment is still relatively low.
6. Your used car is worth more.
7. Student loan forgiveness is coming.
Jaybird
Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com
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on Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024"and you don’t know what they intended" No, I don't KNOW what they intended. Did they intend to hang…
on Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024A violent, armed mob storms the US capitol on the day they are certifying the election results that…
on Missing the Forest for the Trees on SpringfieldAfD, National Front/Rally, Brothers of Italy, Law and Justice, and plenty others seem to be doing fi… on Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024I'm not sure what they intended, but the violence well a hell of a lot less than 2015. "During that…
on Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024Galileo's assassin's we subtle, you've gotta give them that. "Make it look like a heart attack." And… on Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024and Galileo! on Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024Also: Jesus. on Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024Actually they do. Unless you happen to think MLK doesn't qualify . . . or Lincoln ...
on Missing the Forest for the Trees on SpringfieldYou pretended that “York, PA is a hotbed of racism.” Huh? What are you even talking about? on Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024So it was only the 11th highest of the largest 100 in 2019. I'm pretty sure that bumping it up to 4t…
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Clare Briggs: Yes, A Few Weeks Make a Difference
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on Missing the Forest for the Trees on Springfield on Open Mic for the week of 9/16/2024
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From the “liberal” WaPo. Yes so very liberal on some things and completely business friendly/ pro big business. Socially liberal/fiscally conservative. In many ways they are old school New England repub’s.Report
I guess you just really wanted to use that talking point, but putting aside questions of whether it’s true in general, it certainly doesn’t apply here. “Recessions actually aren’t so bad” is a pro-Democratic talking point right now, since Democrats are in power and will (arguably at least somewhat fairly for once, given that the unnecessary stimulus fueled the inflation) take the blame for it. Plus the most explicitly political point in the piece is the presentation of Biden’s illegal student loan handout as a good thing.Report
The great thing about having money (wealth, not income, as we discussed the other day) is you can figure out ways to benefit whichever way things are moving. If you don’t have money, you get screwed either way.Report
Back in July, we discussed the changing of the definition of “recession” away from “2 consecutive quarters of negative growth”.
We are now discussing whether recessions can have upsides.
For example: your used car is worth more.Report
“We are now discussing whether recessions can have upsides.”
What do you mean… we?Report
We, as a society.
(I can find you an article in the Washington Post if you’d like to see one.)Report
One person writing an article does not make a societal discussion.
I mean, I can find lots of articles that’d say lots of things and if I then insisted they constituted societal discussions, you’d quickly point out how non-representative the ideas presented in them are.
But, sure, build a bogey man and then tell us how awful we are for denying the bogey man’s existence AND being the bogey man AND misunderstanding the bogey man.Report
That might be true if it were an opinion given by a couple of nuts in the comments of a blog, but what if it were an article in a major newspaper?
Would you prefer to have more examples of people arguing that recessions aren’t that bad in newspapers of sufficient stature? (Or, for this particular recession, arguing that about this particular recession?) Like, I suppose that I could look for some…Report
Major newspapers post lots of articles representing lots of opinions and perspectives.
I bet I could walk down the streets of Manhattan tomorrow and ask 100 random people about this article or the idea that recessions have upsides and 99+ of them would look at me like I was crazy.
But maybe we just live in different societies.Report
Report
This is a weird article.
Housing prices may finally come down to reasonable levels. – This isn’t about a recession, it’s about inflation. Higher mortgage rates might help bring down prices, but they’ll increase the monthly payments, so this isn’t necessarily a win for consumers.
Savings rates are up. – Again, the text is about inflation. And 3% yield is less than 8% inflation.
I bonds inflation rate might go even higher. – Again, inflation, and again, not necessarily a win.
The dollar is king. – Why did I itemize my analysis? This one’s also largely related to inflation. At least it’s a positive.
Unemployment is still relatively low. – This isn’t a trait of typical recessions, but it is good.
Your used car is worth more. – This is related to inflation and supply chain problems. If you’re looking to trade up, then good news, used car prices are up 7.8%, but bad news, new car prices are up 10.1%.
Student loan forgiveness is coming. – I’m not going to address this because it’s more a political matter than economic.Report
The article is written from, and aimed at, the very narrow demographic of upper middle income/ college educated people in their prime income earning years.
The choice of framing, the listed items, all reflect the worldview of someone who is gainfully employed, owns a home, trades in their car every couple years, has savings and a retirement account and so on.
Nothing wrong with that per se. But adopting a generalized posture written from a particular perspective is always grating, filled with in-group signaling and exclusivity.Report
Agreed. Likely the same demographic (and only demographic) that still buys newspapers.Report
“Employment is a lagging indicator” is something I hear when unemployment is high all the time.
Oh, we’re no longer in a recession! Look at our GDP! Employment is a lagging indicator!
It doesn’t tend to get trotted out at the beginning of recessions. Are we even in a recession? What’s the official definition of recession anyway?Report
This isn’t a conventional recession. We know that. It was driven by an economic shock we’ve never seen before, then had a bounce-back with increases in employment and higher low-end wages, but with supply chain weaknesses. None of this is organic, so there’s no reason to expect the usual leading or lagging economic indicators.Report
Most of these points are just nonsense.
1. When housing prices go down because mortgage rates have gone up, that doesn’t make them any more affordable. The causal chain goes like this: Interest rates go up => Houses become less affordable at old prices => prices go down to bring houses back to previous level of affordability. I guess if you happen to have a house worth of cash sitting around, then falling house prices help you, but in that case you’re probably not getting financial advice from a columnist in the Washington Post.
2. The increase in interest on savings accounts is well below the inflation rate.
3. Series I Bonds pay a real return of 0. Any increase in the return is entirely offset by inflation, and vice-versa. Rising rates are not a good thing.
4. Fair enough, this one is legit, if you have the money to spare and are inclined to spend it in this manner.
5. For now, but the recession hasn’t really started yet.
6. Used car prices have gone up, but not as much as new car prices. So if you want to trade in your used car for a newer used car, it’s a wash. If you want to trade it in for a new car, this is a bad thing.
7. Probably not actually happening, due to the fact that it’s blatantly illegal and the Court isn’t packed with Biden cronies, but even if it were, it would probably hurt more WaPo Business section readers than it would help.Report
C’mon, I made almost all of these points above.Report
Oh. So you did! Good work.
I would have pushed back more on Chip’s response. It’s not really a class thing; most of these points just don’t make sense for anyone.Report
Your #1 touches on something that I’ve been worrying at over the last month or so.
When we last bought a car, we sat down at the guy’s desk and he asked us “how much are you looking to pay a month?”
I’m sure that he had plans if the answer was $500/month, $300/month, and maybe even $125/month (sure, it’s for 150 months, but only $125!).
We got set up with our credit union so we did not need to finance through the dealership. But there are going to be people who will be out shopping for a mortgage who are making the cold hard calculus of “how much can we pay a month”.
Here’s a simple mortgage calculator. Play with the knobs, if you want.
Let’s say that your upper limit is $2000/month. Let’s say that you’re putting down zero dollars.
An interest rate of 5.1% lets you purchase a house for $290,000 and have a payment that squeaks just under $2000.
$1,978.72 (but that includes PMI.)
An interest rate of 2.9% lets you purchase a house for $370,000 with no money down and pay $1,977.55/month (including PMI).
2.2% is $80,000 worth of house.Report
Oh, and if you were hoping to sell your house for $370,000?
The people hoping to buy it will only be able to get mortgages for $290,000.
I imagine that Blackrock will be able to meet your price… they can rent it out to the poor SOB who can’t afford a house.Report
To that point, Business Insider has figured out how to make a tweet go viral:
Report
I’m old enough to remember when you could live a secure, solid, middle-class life with a $10,000 job and a $30,000 house. According to an on-line inflation calculator I used, both of these numbers would today be multiplied by 10, so this may still be close to accurate in most places. I have carried the house = 3X income ratio in my mind forever, but it is probably wrong now, at least in much of the country.Report
8. Hamilton tickets are cheaper on the secondary market.
9. You might be able to get a reservation at I Sodi in the West Village
10. Great time to reupholster the seats in your Cessna
11. You can acquire that UK start up you always wanted.Report