Yeah, I don’t know if OP is in the USA, but having someone like Donald Trump elected to high office is 100% part of a crash already in progress. Inequality got so bad that democracy is not functioning. In a healthy society, Trump would be an unelectable laughing stock.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
We’re already there. The only reason we aren’t calling this a depression is that the stock market hasn’t been affected much.
But when 25% of Americans are functionally unemployed, it’s hard to argue we aren’t already largely ‘crashed’.
lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
24/7 propaganda, plus MSM helping all along the well, plus adding a little culture war(racisms, sexism, anti-immigration,evangelicalism) helped alot.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Also, not so fun fact, but this got me curious so I looked up the unemployment rate during The Great Depression: apparently then it was around 20% to 25% as well, so I feel like that reinforces the point I’m making a bit.
booly@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
apparently then it was around 20% to 25% as well
No, the unemployment rate was around 20-25% under the traditional definition. It’s currently 4.2% under that definition.
If you want to use this LISEP definition, fine, but recognize that it’s been above 30% for most of its existence, and has only been under 25% since COVID. Basically, if you go by the LISEP definition then you’re saying that the job market after COVID has been better than it has ever been before.
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The 1% own even more stock than they own outright money. You could replace “the economy” in every article with “rich people’s yacht money”. The stock market is 100% dissociated from reality and shouldn’t be used as a measure of general wealth by any means.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
most of billionaires money is in investment schemes, not actual cash as people think.
hobovision@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
From your own source on “true” unemployment, it’s the lowest it has been since they started calculating it. It peaked in 09 at 35% and again in COVID, but all through the early 00s it was between 28% and 30%.
You can’t use that number as evidence we “already crashed”, because as we’ve seen in other actual crashes it spikes up to 35%.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
When the definition of unemployed is changed to exclude the majority of working age people without jobs then it is no longer a helpful statistic.
That’s why we see people calculating real unemployment with other variables.
booly@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
When the definition of unemployed is changed to exclude the majority of working age people without jobs then it is no longer a helpful statistic.
U-3 has used the same definition of unemployed since 1940.
Whatever metric you want to use, you should look at that number and how it changes over time, to get a sense of trend lines. LISEP says the “true” unemployment rate is currently 24.3% in May 2025, which is basically the lowest it’s ever been.
Since the metric was created in 1994, the first time that it dipped below 25% was briefly in the late 2010’s, right before COVID, and then has been under 25% since September 2021.
Under this alternative metric of unemployment, the unemployment rate is currently one of the lowest in history.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I don’t know how to make you engage with reality.
Slaves arguing for their continued enslavement is just something i will never understand.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Hello friend.
This point has been discussed elsewhere in the thread. I hope you have a nice afternoon.
sartalon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And the stock market is just another way for the top percent to continue to siphon wealth.
htrayl@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Meh, please don’t quote unusual statistics without giving any context for how to interpet them.
For this value, it is calculated by:
Using data compiled by the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the True Rate of Unemployment tracks the percentage of the U.S. labor force that does not have a full-time job (35+ hours a week) but wants one, has no job, or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $25,000 annually before taxes.
24.3% is not that out of the ordinary - you can see historical data back to like, 1995 here.
Not saying this stat is useless, but the way you’ve chosen to use it is intentionally and inaccurately inflammatory.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I dunno, H.
I may be wrong in saying it’s indicative of a crash, and I’m okay with being corrected.
As to inaccurate or inflammatory, maybe it feels that way if you’re on the winning side of the equation.
I think we should be inflamed about this. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that thirty years of high functional unemployment being ordinary is an objectively bad thing, but when you couple it with the increasingly supercharged price gouging and inflation the US has experienced over the last several decades, things that seemed improbable before suddenly become feasible. (Like making fascists electable.)
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The fact that it’s pegged to 25k means that the number is much much higher. It’s not 24.3%. its 24.3% plus everyone who can’t afford to live at today’s prices.
That’s terrifying.
selokichtli@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Maybe in 1995 you could actually afford things while functionally unemployed? I mean, while the relative number is stable, the absolute numbers keep growing, and their situation keeps worsening. Here lies the inflammatory part.
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 3 weeks ago
I stopped working a year ago. Burnt out, broken down, and various physical ailments just broke and depressed me. Moved back in with family to help support my useless ass. Shit sucks and it ain’t going to get any better. But I’ll turn up to every local protest I can cuz this GOP shit is bullshit.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Im at 42 weeks. My life plane is heading straight down and the rudder is not responding.
AA5B@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Best way to recover from a spin is push the yoke to straight down and rudder opposite the spin.
minorkeys@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If the economy doesn’t need 25% of the populace to keep functioning…what happens?
LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Can you ELI5 why the stock market isn't affected much?
kernelle@0d.gs 3 weeks ago
If we look at historic crashes, they had major catalysts causing mass sell orders. Right now markets have had time to adjust because the speed of decline has been very slow.
Markets are also largely speculative, many stocks are traded way above their fundamental value (think Microsoft, tesla, or coca-cola). These will probably be hit the hard, algorithms will default to what a stock should be and drop hard. But these companies might have the strongest chance to bounce back as well.
Companies with the strongest books will be safer, but many more risk taking companies won’t be as lucky. This is part of what due diligence of a stock will tell you, but also probably one of the hardest parts of investing.
As long as decline is slow, stability can be found. But when uncertainty rises fast, so does the unstability of the stock market. Catalysts such as the public losing confidence in banks causing a bank run, companies downsizing at unseen scales to cut costs, or global political instability are possible.
TLDR: it needs to get way worse, very quickly for the market to crash
SolidShake@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So many jobs 🫲🍊🫱
snowe@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Really weird reading an article that interviews someone you’ve worked for (who is a billionaire themselves).
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The biggest issue is the need for families to have two incomes to support a houshold. Unemployment would plummet if single incomes foe the working class were feasible again,since unemployment is based on looking for employment.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That ship sailed under Reagan, and it’s never getting back to port, sadly. Thanks to him, families now needed two incomes.
Then, Bush and Clinton came along, and you needed not only two incomes, but two college degrees. Now, with Dubya, Obama, and Trump, not even that’s enough, and they’re capping student loans instead of regulating student loan interest, so your only real shot at being a doctor now is being born in the right zip code.
America, baby. Dig it.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
In the event of an actual crash, a lot of these “nevers” will get re-evaluated. The New Deal consisted of a lot of “nevers” that all got passed because people didn’t want a repeat of the first Great Depression; I’d expect a similar snap-back after the second Gilded Age finally burns itself out.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I hope you’re right.
SolidShake@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The new deal though is not a good deal lmao. It will literally make the rich gen richer and poor get poorer. Like I’m middle class American but still rely on summer and after school programs for my kids. What am I supposed to do when that goes away? Magically afford a daycare? Or is my 10yr or 6yr old supposed to get a job?
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
now even degrees arnt guaranteed in jobs, alot of these need grad degrees/graduate level certification to have even a chance.
selokichtli@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
ReaGaNoMiCS!!!
Buelldozer@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
You can blame Reagan for a lot of things but not this and frankly even if it somehow was all his fault the Clinton Administration could have undone it.
The economy was already in trouble by the end of Lyndon Johnson’s final term in 1969. The Nixon Administration implemented some large changes trying to fix it but was unsuccessful. The Carter Administration also tried with very limited success. It wasn’t until the 1st Rise of Tech in the 80s during the Reagan Administration that things managed to get moving again. The Clinton Administration caught a lucky break with the 2nd Rise of Tech in the 90s so the streak got extended to right about 2001.
The amusing part is that Johnson, Nixon, and Carter bear no blame for the economic woes while Reagan and Clinton deserve no credit for the economic successes. They just happened to be the guy in the Oval when things happened.
Its a good chunk of the reason that everyone from Wall Street to the US Federal Government is trying so damn hard to make AI happen. They want a 3rd Rise of Tech, or something like it, in order to re-float the economy.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
This is part of my problem. My wife has medical issues and can't work which is exaserbated by our higher than typical medical costs. It sucked before but we managed and now it seems like the end.
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
But but billionaires would be slightly less obscenely rich then, oh no!