this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
26 points (88.2% liked)

News

38239 readers
2253 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Officials are trying to understand why consumer spending, the job market and overall growth have not responded to the most aggressive interest rates in decades.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MagicShel@programming.dev 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Caveat: I'm no economist.

Despite the clear desire to see mass layoffs and unemployment so we will slow all our damn spending, the usual club to make that happen isn't working. Labor is strong. Support for unions is strong.

To explain this, I'd look at what has changed. I believe stock buybacks have been extremely high of late and that would be my guess. The big companies aren't leveraged so, just like how the rates aren't affecting recent home buyers who bought before the hike, they also aren't hurting companies as much as would normally be the case.

Another possibility is lingering effects of boomers taking COVID as a sign to retire, creating a labor shortage and putting pressure on companies not to have a layoff because they are worried they might have trouble re-hiring folks when the economy cools off.

If anyone else has ideas, I'd be curious. I might not be right about the cause, but I'm right about looking at what is different right now.

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Since the article is quoting some of the top economists in the world, I would t let not being one really limit your options for commenting.

Here’smy hot take: economists have discussed sticky prices and sticky wages - which is a (imho) crappy way of describing effectively friction in economics. I wonder if what we are seeing here is sticky consumer spending. Normally we’d expect spending to react most quickly to interest rates and inflation, but people have gotten used to a certain level of spending and escalating debt, and so they might simply feel (or need to feel) unaffected by the fed changes.

Honestly, until we update the idea of an economic rational actor, I don’t think we’re going to get very far. In fact I think we risk getting further afield the longer we persist, and the more difficult it will finally be to realign everything.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Honestly, until we update the idea of an economic rational actor, I don’t think we’re going to get very far. In fact I think we risk getting further afield the longer we persist, and the more difficult it will finally be to realign everything

I agree. The idea of humans being rational is so divorced from reality it makes me wonder if economists know real people.

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

To be fair, they don’t get invited to a lot of parties.

[–] SCB@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Another possibility is lingering effects of boomers taking COVID as a sign to retire, creating a labor shortage and putting pressure on companies not to have a layoff because they are worried they might have trouble re-hiring folks when the economy cools off

This is so rarely brought up and is such a massive fucking deal that it's criminal not to discuss it.