Goldman Sachs identified a potential culprit for sour consumer sentiment readings: A decline in happiness.
The consumer sentiment index tracked by the University of Michigan hit record lows this year. The index fell 13% year over year in September, due to a drop of almost 8% from August alone.
Economists have widely questioned why sentiment has remained depressed since the Covid pandemic, even as the economy hummed along on paper. Goldman economist Joseph Briggs told clients this week that the downward pressure may stem from broader pessimism in society.
“Low reported economic sentiment likely reflects a more fundamental, downbeat assessment of the state of the world rather than the economy,” Briggs wrote to clients.
Its not the escalating COLA? It definitely isn’t the coming disel crunch. It’s just a sour mood?
You know what helps me when I am in a bad mood? Comfort food. Maybe this Goldman guy should advise that the government let the people eat cake. That sort of advice has always had a good outcome.
“Solid economy” 😂
IKR? Are these guys falling for Bessent-style blame-it-on-Biden nonsense?
We are both in a “golden age” while also suffering so cruelly under what Biden left the low-t admin to “deal with” (these phantom policies and situations are never given any specifics, of course) after he left, even nearly two years later.
I’m just waiting for the AI bubble to pop. It will go along nicely with the already rampant inflation, high gas prices, and shitty job market.
economy built on a solid foundation of serfs…
My grocery bill is something like THREE TIMES what it was just 6 years ago.
The stock market goes up and these chucklefucks think everything is fine. It’s not fucking fine!
Yeah, mine’s basically doubled most weeks from even 2 years ago. That’s even if I buy the cheapest stuff and reduce what I’m eating now overall. It’s like they think the past doesn’t exist and people can’t just examine or remember things from less than a decade ago.
Diesel hit record rates and these guys are claiming it’s about the vibes?
This from the same financial brain trust that suggested that curing sick people is bad for business.
Not just at record prices but also the LA to Dallas route is slowing down which is for those not in the know real fucken bad.
I guess I’m not in the know…what does this mean?
I was not either and looked it up.
They’re referring to that corridor being one of the largest in terms of supply chain for the rest of the county.
A slow down in that supply chain is an indicator of weak retail demand.
I can’t quantify anything for you, but it sounds like another indicator that the stock market doesn’t actually represent how well ‘the economy’ is doing.
I’ve been taking a wait-and-see attitude for a few years, honestly. To me, the stock market looks a lot like tulip-bulb mania. Stocks like Tesla and SpaceX seems absolutely insane to me. It’s like everyone is betting on everyone else vibing out on Elon’s bullshit, and thinking either they will continue to believe it, or continue to pretend to believe it, pumping up the stock to absurd levels of P/E ratios.
Same goes for virtually everything AI, and so many things are tied to AI now. When that rug pull happens, it’s going to fucking hurt.
The sad part is that the very minute the idle rich pull out of speculation on market bubbles, that’s when the layoffs roll through just about every company, even companies that are not really involved.
For all their talk about “leadership”, just about everyone running companies, even the small ones, just mimic one another. “If companies like Oracle lay off people, well, gosh, why aren’t we doing the same?” Someone may counter with “well, sir, we are in no way tied to Oracle or their business model or anything and our financials are just fine”, but MBA-brain is usually hard to be reached by actual facts.
As the other guy noted it’s basically one of the big routes for the movement of goods within the US also one of the longer ones. If it slows down it’s usually a right fucken bad sign and usually is a pretty solid real world economic indicator of how the economy is doing even if it’s a tad imprecise. I live right by where the CA 60 merged with the 10 which is a pretty major merger section and it has been getting increasingly sparce.
Basically to put it in other terms it’d be like living on the Adriatic during the late medieval era and watching Venetian ships coming to port less and less. You may not know what’s causing it exactly but you know it’s not good regardless.
You know what? Pizza party for the whole country. And you can wear jeans on Friday. You’re welcome.
(Limited to one (1) large pepperoni pizza, to share)
What about a Hawaiian shirt?
Whenever they talk about “the economy”, they’re talking about the economy for rich people. Not for you.
As long as they measure “the economy” with stock market highs and faulty job and inflation indicators they will remain “confused” and the people “irrational”.
I’m not sure the economists themselves realise this, because they’re wondering why regular people aren’t happy that rich people are doing well.
Perhaps rich people yacht money isn’t indicative of how well the average citizen is doing?
I visited a flea market today - a big one in my region - for the first time in a very long time. To my horror, it was 50% TEMU trash - all sales final. It was selling. It made me really, really sad. People buying cheap shit online, marking it up, and selling it to their neighbors. Maybe there is some not-garbage in there but a huge portion of it is just going to fail and end up in a landfill in a year… and this is becoming normal for these people. Things just wear out rapidly and get thrown away and they buy a replacement.
We’re killing each other and destroying ecosystems and the climate… so that we can make… this. We’re fucked.
I hate how people always throw this shit onto other people.
Yea I’m sure Cletus buying shit at a flea market is what’s killing us! It’s not Bezos going out for coffee on a 747
People need to stop shitting on their neighbours that’s exactly what the Epstein class wants.
We could all grow our own tomatoes jog to vacation and never turn on the AC and it would do fuck all for climate change.
It’s the fucking corporations and fucking mega rich that are profiting by raping the planet then dumping the cost into us as if me taking 5 min showers is what the real problem is!
Every time you blame the average person trying to survive you absolve assholes like Musk Thiel and the rest of the billionaire pieces of shit.
I’m in no way blaming the average person. I am lamenting the state of things. I likely blame them less than even you do.
I doubt any of these vendors are living large. They look like they are scraping by only slightly better than the people they are reselling their TEMU trash to. People survive however they can. I can forgive a lot in the name of keeping your family fed and sheltered.
It’s the rich fucks hoarding the wealth and the powerful doing literally whatever they want with little to no consequence. That’s the heart of the problem.
Dateline 1860: Slave Sentiment Low Despite Record Plantation Profits — Economists Baffled
Good. Withhold on buying new applicances, or any non-essential purchases. Don’t buy cars. Don’t eat out. Buy and prepare foods and refrain from sweets, bagged and boxed goods. When you can walk, use a bike or just stay home if you don’t need to go to work or run essential errands. Don’t take trips abroad or fly. Refrain from all social media use that pushes ad traffic when possible.
Tips: A lot of ethnic stores, like Indian markets, sell big bags of things like legumes, rice and various flours that are dirt cheap. Hell, eat vegan. Fuck livestock farmers. You’ll do good for the animals and the planet.
Focus on the things that really matter in life - each other. Make friends spend time with family. Break free from the need for consumeristic, material bullshit. I’m seriously contemplating giving up my mobile device and reverting back to a flip phone. Join clubs, study things, acquire new skills. Enrich your like instead of doping yourself up on technology. If you use technology, use it to learn things, not just a 24/7 stream of shit news. Go to bed on time and get some sleep.
Even if you can’t directly participate due to being imprisoned by a capitalistic grind (which we could actually break free from at any time, it just takes all of us at once to not comply, eg not working , paying bills, squatting in our living spaces), donate money to action networks like the DSA.
Let all of this BS collapse in on itself. Deliberately crash the economy. Twist the arm of the capital class. The only way they’ll surrender is if you run the value of their stolen assets into the dirt. It’s either that or violent overthrow.
Look at this way. We’re all going to be living in a third world anyway, where they’d prefer we die. Do it before they extract any more wealth from us and complete their mission. They’re counting on us to comply.
How do I boost a comment on lemmy
To be sure, Briggs said inflationary pressures are likely also hurting confidence. But he said “lower happiness” at large can partially explain the continued disconnect between sentiment and other measures of the economy’s performance, such as gross domestic product growth or stock market performance, that offer rosier views.
It’s almost shocking how out of touch they are. The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks according to a 2024 article.
Briggs also cited a connection between lower overall happiness readings and decreasing trust in institutions. He found that lower trust in these bodies caused a “disproportionate amount” of the decline in net happiness in recent years.
Given the connection to non-economic variables, consumer sentiment readings may not improve even if the economy continues chugging along, Briggs said. As a result, consumer sentiment may become a less useful predictor of economic dynamics, he said.
It’s like a parody, or something the onion would write. Economists aren’t serious people.
This economist isn’t… Others are pointing out more relevant things like inflation, anemic job growth. Lower sentiment is well explained if you adjust your metrics a bit: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
Even better, if you narrow that down to the wealthiest 1%, those people control 50% of all stock in the US.
Nobody can afford anything they want because they have to spend all their money on necessities. But by god ✨ the economy ✨ sure is looking good, so what’s the problem???
Any metric in which Economy Strength isn’t directly correlated to livelihood, success, and happiness is a bullshit metric.
It is correlated, just not to ours.
Solid economy? WTF are they smoking? Shit has never been more expensive.
Shit has never been more expensive.
That’s what makes it a solid economy: the Epstein class makes record profits because the costs are so damned high. They can afford to eat the increased expense because their paycheck is enormous at the expenseof the wage workers’ stagnant wages of over 20 years.
Sure, the workers’ quality of life goes down. But, if/when the workers die off, they’ll be able to afford to gobble up more of the Earth. Heck, climate change is a problem that needs to be solved with less CO² being dumped into the airCan’t image a better way of doing that than culling the proletariat. If anything, they’re too poor to afford healthcare.
There’s also the fact that a large part of that class is Silicon Valley, and an alarming chunk of them are mildly to all-in on the “AI will eventually birth God” train. Why wouldn’t they be? It’s an emotionally stunted tech-kiddy’s fantasy - you’re going to save Earth and all you have to do is play on the computer and hang out with your rich friends every so often.
it’s wild isn’t it? these fucks watch the stock markets climb and can’t be bothered to look at the HUGE, STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS and flashing warning lights as the debt spikes…
The economy is solid, because the people only get paid 40% of their productivity. The rest goes to the rich, and they are “the economy”.
Never forget to mentally replace “the economy” with “rich people’s yacht money” if you want to make sense of these kinds of articles
Oh I think it’s way way lower than 40%.
In other words, the term “the economy” actually means “rich people’s yachts”.
It’s solid if you’re a billionaire
“lower happiness” is a symptom, not a cause.
