[MisterBastahrd]

Of course we aren't in a recession. It's why the business class has been losing their goddamned minds. They keep attempting to force us into one so that they can slow down the economy and get a Republican in the White House again, but companies are having so much fun gobbling up record profits via record markups that interest rates aren't mattering as much as they should. We have an entire new generation of C-suite executives who have no clue how to play along. When else in recent television history has a well-functioning economy been met with consternation by the hosts and guests?

[Dylan16807]

Unless you think inflation doesn't matter, the economy has only been well-functioning for the last couple months, and was in big trouble for the previous year and a half.

[MisterBastahrd]

Inflation is the tool that the Fed was attempting to use to slow down the economy. Q1 and Q2 only look bad because they kept raising rates nonstop. Hell, Q4 of 2021 saw 7% growth.

[Dylan16807]

You're saying they're not trying to slow down the economy to lower inflation, but rather inflation is the tool to slow down the economy with???

[MisterBastahrd]

What exactly do you think raising interest rates contribute to? Yes, prices are going higher, but they're trying to use the tools available to force hiring to slow down because it's impacting the market with increased wages.

[Dylan16807]

> What exactly do you think raising interest rates contribute to?

Not inflation... the whole point of this is to make inflation go down.

If raising interest rates would cause inflation, why did they start after inflation spiked? Why did inflation go back down after they raised rates? Why are they saying everything they're saying?

If inflation slows down the economy, and they want to slow the economy and openly admit that, why are they claiming to fight inflation?

Am I completely misunderstanding your argument? I'm so confused.

[MisterBastahrd]

They are using interest rates to slow down hiring and increasing wages because of increasing prices. They are essentially trying to make borrowing as hard as possible to increase unemployment. Not everyone is going to quit borrowing. Especially companies who are currently experiencing hypergrowth. But in any event, increasing interest rates are going to increase prices.

In other words, their mechanism for regulating inflation is broken and it's just causing more price increases to occur. Wages have been so stagnant for so long and employees are so incredibly tired of wealth hoarding by the upper class that people are refusing to take jobs for comparative wages that they would have flocked to in 2008.

And I'm all for it. Because prices have outstripped wages for a very long time and we're supposed to just sit here and figure out how to borrow ourselves to death.

[mardifoufs]

What a completely weird conspiracy theory. Are you saying big tech execs are republicans? This is literally just blue maga qanon rhetoric. They said the exact same about "the elite" sabotaging trump back in 2020 by tanking the economy since it was doing too well for him to lose.

[SantalBlush]

The GP is correct. Executives have been warning about a so-called recession since spring 2022, and it's naive to think they're doing it to keep the public informed--that's not really their thing.

They've been trying to induce a slowdown because the unemployment rate is too low, and they don't want to raise salaries. Unionization is gaining traction across the country, and executives need to exert their bargaining power however they can. This has nothing to do with conspiracy, it's a part of the day-to-day business.

Look at the actual data. The economy is doing fine.

[mardifoufs]

I'm not saying the economy isn't correct. I actually agree that it's doing just fine, regardless of all the doomerposting about it that has been so popular lately. I'm just saying that the "exec conspiring to elect the GOP" part is completely insane imo.