Student Loan Debt?

[paulsharvey]

Not to distract the political talk...

but, one frustration with all the college expenses; its kinda like medical, but no other service I can think of; It is very hard to get a straight, it costs X amount to get this product. It seems like they will throw dozens of numbers around, like estimated tuition, estimated books/lab fees/misc additional fees. In the end, a college is a service provider, selling a product to willing adults. How about some dang transparency in pricing. Maybe they are worried they will scare people off if they say, $1200 before you ever take a class; it seems better to hit you with 6 random charges at $200 each.

 

[lilranch2001]

Distract away, during the lull in the discussion we began chatting about our fav hoppy beverage!

 

[Torvy]

This is a better measure of how the national economy is doing.

View attachment 848988

No, it's really not. Nominal GDP means little. Real GDP is a measure, but says nothing about the health of the economy. Economists look at the underlying factors. That's why the unemployment rate is meaningless. Why a .75% drop in labor participation is huge when the only reason it is close is because of an increase in government jobs. Numbers alone don't mean much. You need to understand what makes them up. Actual economists know the recent uptick is a paper tiger. The economy looked great right before every major downturn. (At least using metrics that are superficial).

 

[ultrarunner]

I don't know what to tell ya. Unemployment is at historic lows, stock market is at historic highs. We make average wages, our savings and retirement are at all time highs and growing. Our personal net worth has surpassed the pre-pandemic point by about 10%.

S&P500 is up around 27% since December 31, 2020.



View attachment 848964

I’m the the opposite… 2019 was great… all the pieces coming together and unparalleled economic activity in my city with new venues and business vying to move in…

Net worth down about 30% due to dropping Real Estate Value and rents are flat due to rent control and unpaid pandemic rent still protected from foreclosure by law…

Transients which were never ever a issue are daily issues.

My work retirement is not a stellar performer… the company target plan shifted me heavily to bonds…

Construction is scarce and lots of commercial foreclosure on the rise…

Layoffs in tech continue with thousands each week hitting the region hard.

 

[Torvy]

According to that chart, there's only about a 0.75% reduction in labor force participation.

That's actually huge when you realize that it matches the lowest point in 10 years and is only that high because of an artificial increase in economy draining government jobs. You have to look at the underlying reasons, not just a stat that fits a narrative. Get your investments in something stable. It's going to be a wild ride.

 

[jyoutz]

No, it's really not. Nominal GDP means little. Real GDP is a measure, but says nothing about the health of the economy. Economists look at the underlying factors. That's why the unemployment rate is meaningless. Why a .75% drop in labor participation is huge when the only reason it is close is because of an increase in government jobs. Numbers alone don't mean much. You need to understand what makes them up. Actual economists know the recent uptick is a paper tiger. The economy looked great right before every major downturn. (At least using metrics that are superficial).

I guess we will see in the future, but there’s a downturn every couple of decades so eventually this will happen. It still seems that gross production is a more meaningful indicator of a nation’s economic condition than a labor participation rate. That measure tells nothing about why someone isn’t in the workforce, but production is a direct measure of economic activity.

 

[Torvy]

Sorry mate. GDP is just one factor. It's like a stool. You can't just look at one leg and decide it's a good stool.

Here's real GDP since 1929. It almost never goes down. The only time with consecutive years going down was in the early 1930s. GDP is a trailing indicator. It tells you what already happened.

Labor Participation is much more useful than unemployment because unemployment is fickle. If people give up trying for work, unemployment will look better. If people take low paying jobs, unemployment looks better. If people get a PT or temp job, unemployment looks better.

Here's another...real median income. It's been flat. It had been growing steadily for 10 years. Coming out of an artificial downturn, it should have spiked up.

 

[jyoutz]

I’m not going to beat this anymore. All economic activity is up in the mountain states region. We aren’t experiencing bad times and most contractors and tradesmen have more work than they can do. Sales and businesses are busy and real estate is moving. I’m not going to call this bad times. I’ve seen bad times and this isn’t close. I work with people from throughout the nation, and I’m hearing pretty much the same from everyone. I have no doubt that the business cycle will have a downturn sometime in the future. Always has, always will. Always followed by a recovery.

 

[goeduck]

One of the reasons the economy started to pick up recently has to do with the reduction in Federal spending once the US House of Representatives changed hands in 2022 and new spending was cut back. That and higher interest rates made inflation slow down as a result. I would not say it is "booming" now, because it has a LOT of catch up to do since the lull that started in late 2021. It floundered for 2 years, so there is some bounce now. Time will tell.

 

[jyoutz]

One of the reasons the economy started to pick up recently has to do with the reduction in Federal spending once the US House of Representatives changed hands in 2022 and new spending was cut back. That and higher interest rates made inflation slow down as a result. I would not say it is "booming" now, because it has a LOT of catch up to do since the lull that started in late 2021. It floundered for 2 years, so there is some bounce now. Time will tell.

A CR means that the budget remains the same as the prior year. The country is operating on the 2023 budget currently, so that’s status quo, not a cut. There is no 2024 federal budget.