It's a good piece and I agree it's stupid to tell people who are unhappy with the economy things are actually good.
But I found the piece too dismissive of inflation. Both data and many conversations I've had tell me people are pissed about higher prices. In some cases, socialist proposals like public childcare are a clear answer. In other cases such as housing, left proposals for public housing can stand to be better fleshed out and publicized. High food prices present an opportunity - I imagine efforts to stabilize food prices would be quite popular. And energy prices, specifically at the pump, present a big challenge for us. Long term we need to transition to renewables and public transit, but in the short term high gas prices mean pain for a lot of workers.
I agree with you. I don't mean to be dismissive of inflation, but rather to be critical of more centrist/right-wing analyses and policy prescriptions around inflation: that it was the result of too much government spending, or that the correct policy response was interest-rate hikes. The piece I link to by Andrew Elrod presents I think a compelling analysis of the recent inflation and what ought to have been done about it, including selective price controls and use of public stockpiles to bring prices down in times of shortage: https://jacobin.com/2023/08/federal-reserve-inflation-rate-hikes-price-shocks
I've always found several striking disconnects in the "Vibecession" debate:
1. That the macroeconomic factors they focus on describe a "good economy."
2. That a "good economy" translates to good approval ratings for the incumbent administration.
3. That Biden's legislation resulted in this "good economy."
4. The only possible reason people would feel otherwise is because they've been convinced by social media.
I've already seen Stancil in particular go from "these graphs show the economy is improving" to "these graphs show the economy is *good*" to "Joe Biden should get the credit for this great economy. Whyever is he not???" Even if he's right on the macro-points, he gets himself bogged down in one or sometimes all of the above disconnects. If he has a genuine interest in pinpointing why people feel pessimistic about the economy *now* despite the macroeconomic indicators being better than 2019, he should probably stop assuming that the only reason people may feel this way is because they watched a handful of TikToks or Twitter memes.
Just speaking from my own experience of an educated millennial that entered the job market in 2008, I've never felt a "good" economy because housing is prohibitively expensive in the city. Combine this with the pandemic-era realization that so much of the ritual of work, like commutes to an office, isn't actually necessary and that the source of the inflation wasn't actually supply-chain-scarcity as we were all told but rather just plain old cartel gouging... it doesn't matter how low unemployment is or how flat inflation got. We all feel ripped off. And that's not even getting into the precarity of gig work, multiple jobs or poor working conditions. To the extent that media drive narratives, if it's not forging that narrative right out of the gate, the most it's going to do is cement already existing biases. In other words, it's not that TikTok is making people feel the economy is bad. It's that those who feel the economy is bad watch TikTok videos that echo that sentiment.
The only bright spots I really feel is labour militancy. So yeah, don't be doomer, but don't give "Bidenomics" any credit either.
Yes, I agree with this. Stancil runs a lot of different claims together. There *might* be something interesting in the fact, which Stancil has emphasized, that consumer sentiment seems to have recently diverged from certain macroeconomic indicators for the first time in decades. But I definitely don't think we can draw the conclusions about e.g. media brainwashing that he does. And it doesn't to my mind have any bearing on the left's strategic calculus.
It's a good piece and I agree it's stupid to tell people who are unhappy with the economy things are actually good.
But I found the piece too dismissive of inflation. Both data and many conversations I've had tell me people are pissed about higher prices. In some cases, socialist proposals like public childcare are a clear answer. In other cases such as housing, left proposals for public housing can stand to be better fleshed out and publicized. High food prices present an opportunity - I imagine efforts to stabilize food prices would be quite popular. And energy prices, specifically at the pump, present a big challenge for us. Long term we need to transition to renewables and public transit, but in the short term high gas prices mean pain for a lot of workers.
I agree with you. I don't mean to be dismissive of inflation, but rather to be critical of more centrist/right-wing analyses and policy prescriptions around inflation: that it was the result of too much government spending, or that the correct policy response was interest-rate hikes. The piece I link to by Andrew Elrod presents I think a compelling analysis of the recent inflation and what ought to have been done about it, including selective price controls and use of public stockpiles to bring prices down in times of shortage: https://jacobin.com/2023/08/federal-reserve-inflation-rate-hikes-price-shocks
I've always found several striking disconnects in the "Vibecession" debate:
1. That the macroeconomic factors they focus on describe a "good economy."
2. That a "good economy" translates to good approval ratings for the incumbent administration.
3. That Biden's legislation resulted in this "good economy."
4. The only possible reason people would feel otherwise is because they've been convinced by social media.
I've already seen Stancil in particular go from "these graphs show the economy is improving" to "these graphs show the economy is *good*" to "Joe Biden should get the credit for this great economy. Whyever is he not???" Even if he's right on the macro-points, he gets himself bogged down in one or sometimes all of the above disconnects. If he has a genuine interest in pinpointing why people feel pessimistic about the economy *now* despite the macroeconomic indicators being better than 2019, he should probably stop assuming that the only reason people may feel this way is because they watched a handful of TikToks or Twitter memes.
Just speaking from my own experience of an educated millennial that entered the job market in 2008, I've never felt a "good" economy because housing is prohibitively expensive in the city. Combine this with the pandemic-era realization that so much of the ritual of work, like commutes to an office, isn't actually necessary and that the source of the inflation wasn't actually supply-chain-scarcity as we were all told but rather just plain old cartel gouging... it doesn't matter how low unemployment is or how flat inflation got. We all feel ripped off. And that's not even getting into the precarity of gig work, multiple jobs or poor working conditions. To the extent that media drive narratives, if it's not forging that narrative right out of the gate, the most it's going to do is cement already existing biases. In other words, it's not that TikTok is making people feel the economy is bad. It's that those who feel the economy is bad watch TikTok videos that echo that sentiment.
The only bright spots I really feel is labour militancy. So yeah, don't be doomer, but don't give "Bidenomics" any credit either.
Yes, I agree with this. Stancil runs a lot of different claims together. There *might* be something interesting in the fact, which Stancil has emphasized, that consumer sentiment seems to have recently diverged from certain macroeconomic indicators for the first time in decades. But I definitely don't think we can draw the conclusions about e.g. media brainwashing that he does. And it doesn't to my mind have any bearing on the left's strategic calculus.