Comment by m000
7 hours ago
People need to stop asking what's better for the "economy" and start asking what's better for themselves. If the two don't align, it should be tough luck for the "economy", not the people.
7 hours ago
People need to stop asking what's better for the "economy" and start asking what's better for themselves. If the two don't align, it should be tough luck for the "economy", not the people.
"The economy" is often just another way of saying "everyone in aggregate."
Of course "the economy" is a vague, undefined term. But it's easy to think of various specific measures like median household income or the unemployment rate that capture this dynamic.
So regarding your final sentiment, I think that often "the economy" and "the people" are the same thing. If something raises the unemployment rate, that will bad for "the economy" and also "the people."
This is an incredibly blinkered view. The economy is important, but there are many other factors as to whether a given policy is overall good for the citizenry or not.
Sure, but I don't think I claimed that economic factors are the only thing that can be considered when evaluating policy. Maybe it came off that way because my comment was focused on the jobs issue being discussed.
I guess I did not express it well, but I wanted to highlight that "the economy" and "the people" are not in opposition. "The economy" is a vague term that usually approximates something like "the material well being of everyone in aggregate." There are lots of other things one might value besides material well being, but "the people" and the "the economy" and not opposed forces.
Hasn’t it been known for a while now that wages are decoupled from the Economic gains that have been happening since the 80s? That gap is just going to the billionaire class now. Source:
https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
Elon Musk and I are doing quite well financially, in aggregate.
Obviously how wealth is distributed is a hugely important factor, which a "good" economy does not necessarily take into account.
This is why it's not productive to discuss issues using vague, undefined terms like "the economy."
Wealth inequality is a well defined economic measure and I see no reason why one couldn't use it as a yardstick when evaluating an economy, same as we use the unemployment, inflation, GDP, median household income, and so on. And indeed many economists do use it, and there are many well regarded books and papers that examine wealth distribution.
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