Has the U.S. economy reached a turning point? | Hacker News Reader

Has the U.S. economy reached a turning point?

fidelity.com

36 pointsMilnerRoute28 comments

Why is it when we talk about the economy we always talk about investors? The economy is about resource distribution. The whole point of this thing is to find optimal distribution of resources. By that metric the thing is currently pretty unhealthy.

An investment is supposed to be a way to allocate capital that serves the needs of someone so that they pay you for it. The "serves the needs of someone" part seems to be entirely overlooked as of late, and the goal now seems to be to monetize everything to beat monetary inflation, it seems to me the entire economy has devolved into a greater fool game.

People can't afford to live in homes. Take a moment to imagine how absurd such a statement is, but that's the world we live in. A combination of construction costs, restrictions on use and building, mortgage rates and municipal property taxes are making houses unaffordable, but someone out there is willing to buy them up and leave them empty.

I'd argue that the fact that the economy doesn't work for about half of all it's participants is a key indicator that the economy is doing very badly. This cannot continue, and we can keep massaging things to make numbers look good, talking about how well the balance sheets of corporations are looking, the reality out here in the real world is that nobody can afford anything and there's no way to get ahead anymore while maintaining your integrity. Something's going to give eventually.

Because the article is by Fidelity, this is advertising for customers.

People would stop working if you don't hand them some paper. But once you hand them some paper, they will start to produce something, the product move to next person, and you take some percentages out of every single one, everyone is happy, everyone has what they want. It is fascinating.

Housing is not healthy, and the commercial real estate sector is about to implode. This analyst is a bit too rosy. But I’d like to believe.

Consumer auto-loans aren't looking so hot, either.

Corporate profits will be impacted for a long time by rising rates.

"A year ago, income gains were being wiped out by high inflation. Not anymore. Since last year, inflation-adjusted hourly earnings have gone from worst to first, reaching the top quartile of all readings going back to 1965."

I hate it when company PR and advertising makes it to hacker news as “news.”

Every point in an economy is a turning point

It's pretty wild. I've been alive for 4 decades and paying attentions to media coverage of the market for 2 decades and there hasn't been a single month where the market was about to implode according to journalists.

I have about the same span and I've heard that this is the fall of "capitalism", whatever the hell that is, for the entire time as well.

Maybe this time they're right? I don't know

capitalism is a lot like masculinity - perpetually in crisis

I’ve been masculine for 4 decades and have never considered myself “in crisis” because of it.

Dear reader, unless you are the idea of masculinity itself, we're talking about two different things. Capitalism can be in crisis without all capitalists being in crisis.

We await your definition of either so no one else has to guess at what arbitrary things you're measuring.

I'd understand what dichotomy you're presenting if you could define either of them

The only thing wrong with capitalism is that it has some edge cases that we have not been good about regulating. It works very well if there is enough diversity and competition among suppliers and consumers.

The only interesting thing here is that even after multiple millennia of evidence that predicting the future is not possible, humans still want to predict or buy predictions.

It seems so. Currently, all signs point to us entering the second year of another massive bull run.

Layoffs are still rampant...

Edit: rajut, 100% spot on. If not tech, then what industry is better in the long-term?

Only in tech

Also in everything related to real estate transactions.

This is not a good article.

The smartest people I know are saying that the FOMC decided to pause and that means the recession is locked in.

When they are done hiking it means they will next slowly start to unwind.

Or rapidly unwind and start printing again if things really start to fail.

Consider the source.

I wonder what Fidelity’s net change in activity and profit is from two years ago to now.

That’s why stock market on in the rise last few days: people betting for the money printing again.

A turning point for the better? It certainly doesn't seem like it.

wasn't worried about the recession so far. now i'm scared.

the lady doth protest too much

Reply on news.ycombinator.com