@shooter Can you be any more dramatic? You were nowhere to be found when we had a correction under Grandpa Joe.
@shooter Can you be any more dramatic? You were nowhere to be found when we had a correction under Grandpa Joe.
Joe was a terrible president and I regularly said so. But Trump is worse. Maybe it's the teen raping, or the grifting, or the forever wars, or the racism, or the great increase in deficit spending, or the lies. Maybe... all of the above?
"You can't make someone listen to reason if they aren't willing to think"-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
@shooter Can you be any more dramatic? You were nowhere to be found when we had a correction under Grandpa Joe.
Joe was a terrible president and I regularly said so. But Trump is worse. Maybe it's the teen raping, or the grifting, or the forever wars, or the racism, or the great increase in deficit spending, or the lies. Maybe... all of the above?
you’ve had TDS since the first term, if not before. You weren’t here talking about how well things were going before your scientist friends shut down the globe because of the China virus.
-Nasdaq "market correction" of >10%
-Dow "market correction" of >10%
-S&P 500 "market correction" of >10%
-terrible jobs numbers
- over 33% increase in gas prices in 3 weeks
-rising, not falling, inflation numbers
-travel chaos
-neverending wars with no plans, acting like it's a video game
-insisting that affordability is a "hoax"
-blockade of Cuba
-A very obviously mentally inept POTUS, making bizarre stream-of-conscious unhinged rants on a daily basis.
-Churning the chaos, perhaps to make people forget about Epstein, as if credible accusations of him diddling teens can be topped by fresher nonsense.
Do we really have 2 years and 9 months of this to go? At his rate of decline, maybe he kicks the bucket before then.
https://twitter.com/njoyzgrl81/status/2036965679409021160?s=46
https://twitter.com/blueverse01/status/2037228390760231403?s=46
Yeah, it's not the greatest, but still light years ahead of Biden. It really is amazing how f#cking terrible Biden was. Trump institutes massive tariffs and decides to take over Persia and the economy is still light years ahead of Biden's disaster. Also, Hot Wheels, the S&P 500 was down 20% and Nasdaq down 33% in 2022. If you all survived that year, you'll make it through 2026😉
Light years better? It isn't better at all. You are one of the dumbest posters on this board. Can't even see past your propaganda
You are one of the dumbest posters on this board. Can't even see past your propaganda
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan.
POTFB
@arthur-dent put another way. Purchasing power is going up for both high and low income earners. When it was down for both during Biden.
Don’t obfuscate, it’s pathetic.
Interesting, I see high earners as more interested in investing than spending.
This ia one of the reasons why you will not hear me blame the rich for all which ails us.
@arthur-dent put another way. Purchasing power is going up for both high and low income earners. When it was down for both during Biden.
Don’t obfuscate, it’s pathetic.
Interesting, I see high earners as more interested in investing than spending.
This ia one of the reasons why you will not hear me blame the rich for all which ails us.
Purchasing power increasing does not necessarily mean rich people are purchasing more stuff.
Drive through a wealthy neighborhood and you’ll see a lot of 10 year old, well maintained cars. Acuras, Lexus, etc.
You can always save. I don’t care how destitute you tell others you are. My dad dragged me to the bank to deposit my birthday checks when I was 5 years old. And over and over again until I actually started liking watching that balance go up. As I got older I put it in the market. Low risk Index funds.
It’s simple stuff and when I hear things like “half of all Americans couldn’t access $1000 in an emergency” I think the correct response is to blame said Americans for being dumb.
In game theory, there are creators, players and spectators and any game is better than no game. The basic difference between the richest and the poorest is choice of game. The rich oscillate between the “game” of creator (business owner) and player in their games. The poor oscillate between spectator and player (worker).@arthur-dent put another way. Purchasing power is going up for both high and low income earners. When it was down for both during Biden.
Don’t obfuscate, it’s pathetic.
Interesting, I see high earners as more interested in investing than spending.
This ia one of the reasons why you will not hear me blame the rich for all which ails us.
Purchasing power increasing does not necessarily mean rich people are purchasing more stuff.
Drive through a wealthy neighborhood and you’ll see a lot of 10 year old, well maintained cars. Acuras, Lexus, etc.
You can always save. I don’t care how destitute you tell others you are. My dad dragged me to the bank to deposit my birthday checks when I was 5 years old. And over and over again until I actually started liking watching that balance go up. As I got older I put it in the market. Low risk Index funds.
It’s simple stuff and when I hear things like “half of all Americans couldn’t access $1000 in an emergency” I think the correct response is to blame said Americans for being dumb.
As people get older, they tend to gravitate toward spectatorship. Less physical activity, more medication, retirement, all forms of watching rather than playing.
Your father put you on a investment path that keeps your mind actively playing in your senior years.
We will always have economic and income inequality. That won’t change. The best way to deal with this is to increase economic mobility and the opportunity to move up in economic status. Yet that isn’t happening or is happening way too infrequently. With millions more retiring and leaving the work force rhan entering it, the opportunities for upward mobility are greater every day. Yet it is not happening. Kids of low-wage parents tend to stay low wage. We are now in multiple generations of low wage parents raising kids. Breaking this cycle depends on quality education which of course we don’t have. The United States lags behind the world in educational statistics. And the minorities here bear most of the crappy education burden.
+1We will always have economic and income inequality. That won’t change. The best way to deal with this is to increase economic mobility and the opportunity to move up in economic status. Yet that isn’t happening or is happening way too infrequently. With millions more retiring and leaving the work force rhan entering it, the opportunities for upward mobility are greater every day. Yet it is not happening. Kids of low-wage parents tend to stay low wage. We are now in multiple generations of low wage parents raising kids. Breaking this cycle depends on quality education which of course we don’t have. The United States lags behind the world in educational statistics. And the minorities here bear most of the crappy education burden.
Adding to that, employers and employees of the more or less immediate future will require at the bare minimum conversancy with AI, an additional aspect of education.
The process of adopting computer technology took the business world a couple of decades. ChatGPT was premiered in late 2022. AI is currently capable of performing roughly 50% of work hours. Joe Plumber himself can create a voice agent in an hour that “mans” his telephone 24/7, not only saving him all of that labor cost, but increasing the number of customers who don’t call a competitor instead.
Anyone at any level of a business who isn’t willing to adapt or capable of adapting instantly becomes a “2nd class citizen“ in the rapidly evolving AI world.
Meanwhile, my meager portfolio is down about 5% from it's pre-invasion high (as of yesterday).
Mine is down about 2.8% and would be lot less if I had followed my gut instincts when told me to sell everything in my and my wife's IRAs when the war started.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who know binary and those who don't.
Meanwhile, my meager portfolio is down about 5% from it's pre-invasion high (as of yesterday).
Mine is down about 2.8% and would be lot less if I had followed my gut instincts when told me to sell everything in my and my wife's IRAs when the war started.
Trying to time stuff like that is how people actually get buried. As much as it sucks, this is short term relative to most people's investing timeline ahead of retirement.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan.
POTFB
The spike in prices under Biden was mitigated by an equal spike in wages. That doesn't appear to be happening now. And anecdotally, the lower working class people I encounter have had enough of Trump. Their lives my not be substantially worse than before, but they sure aren't any better, and the near future prospects appear dim.
I don't know how many times I can keep beating this same drum. Nearly 40% of American adults have zero invested in the market. Nearly 30% have no savings at all, and another 40% on top of that have savings, but less than $1000. One-third of American households don't own their home, and 60% of those who do don't own it free and clear. Fancy metrics don't matter to these people. Economic indicators don't matter to these people. The numbers they see when the fill up their gas tank or buy a loaf of bread, they matter.
I’m not sure there is much Trump can do about Americans being poor savers and managers of money.
As to @unclemark absurd claim. Real wages have grown more under Trump by any metric. I’m not what hell he thinks he’s talking about.
While average is going up, it is because high wage earners are rocketing up. From Google AI:
Real average hourly earnings in early 2026 show a "K-shaped" divergence, with higher-income workers experiencing better wage growth (around 4.0%–4.5% annually) compared to lower-income workers (closer to 1.5%–3.5%). While nominal wages have grown, inflation and high living costs have created a bifurcation, where top earners sustain spending, while middle- and lower-income households face diminishing purchasing power.
Forbes +4
Key Aspects of the K-Shaped Wage Trend
- Diverging Fortunes: Data suggests wage growth for the top income quartile has held up better, declining less than that of the lowest-income quartile.
- Real Wage Decline: While nominal wages for the bottom 10% surged in 2020-2022, recent inflationary pressures have caused real wage growth for lower-income groups to underperform relative to previous pandemic-era gains, with some estimates showing a decline to 1.5% annually.
- Industry Disparity: The "upper stroke" of the K features higher earners in sectors like finance and professional services, while the "lower stroke" affects industries with more part-time or lower-paid workers, often hit hard by rising cost of living.
- Persistent Trends: Despite some periods of catching up by low earners, the K-shape has returned, with expectations that this, according to Bank of America and Business Insider, it will remain through 2026, causing widening inequality.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (.gov) +4
Recent Data (Early 2026)
- Wages vs. Costs: According to a Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland report, real hourly wages for the bottom half of the distribution remain below pre-pandemic trend lines.
- Spending Impact: As reported by NPR, lower-income consumers are cutting back on discretionary spending due to high costs, whereas top earners continue spending, further reinforcing the K-shape in the broader economy.
- Overall Average: According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) as of Feb 2026, total real average hourly earnings increased 1.4 percent over the previous 12 months, but this average masks the significant disparity between income groups.
NPR +4
We've talked ad nauseum about how much blame or credit a President should get as it relates to economics. But, for all of the flaws of Trump, the one you cannot in good faith argue is that real wages have grown under his tenure (to this point). That is a fact and real wage growth was markedly better than Obama in that specific category.
We can debate what proportion of credit he deserves or how his policies aided or detracted from the real wage growth, but that was a clear black eye under the previous Democratic administrations. Again, that doesn't neccesarily mean it was entirely the President's fault, but I think we need to at least acknowledge facts when they are there.
Meanwhile, my meager portfolio is down about 5% from it's pre-invasion high (as of yesterday).
Mine is down about 2.8% and would be lot less if I had followed my gut instincts when told me to sell everything in my and my wife's IRAs when the war started.
Trying to time the market is a fool's errand.