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TSLA is having record deliveries which implies demand for a very expensive luxury product, which is what I consider Tesla to be, is at all time highs. This makes no sense if everyone has no money like you ready daily in the media.
TSLA's best-selling Model 3 keeps it (extremely) simple; it's priced in the vicinity of $40k - hardly what anyone would call a 'very expensive luxury product' (nor a reasonable measure/example by which to gauge your thread title specific to the US economy or wealth).
In fact, Musk just announced a future model which will be priced at/near $25k.
The key to that misleading article is "collective net wealth." Income inequality is huge, meaning that the big gains have gone to the uppermost wealthy with almost nothing trickling down onto the rest of us. Sure, the wealthy have plenty of income and wealth, which is jacking up the "net worth" numbers. "The median net worth of those in the richest quintile is $630,754. This allows them to afford a lifestyle that is vastly different than the bottom quintile. This group owns three times as much as the fourth quintile, and 10 times as much as the third." https://www.thebalance.com/american-...olitan-4135839
^^^^ THIS.
Fewer people are middle class. More people are poor. We have a country where the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
Wall St. has nothing to do with how the average person lives.
The key to that misleading article is "collective net wealth." Income inequality is huge, meaning that the big gains have gone to the uppermost wealthy with almost nothing trickling down onto the rest of us. Sure, the wealthy have plenty of income and wealth, which is jacking up the "net worth" numbers. "The median net worth of those in the richest quintile is $630,754. This allows them to afford a lifestyle that is vastly different than the bottom quintile. This group owns three times as much as the fourth quintile, and 10 times as much as the third." https://www.thebalance.com/american-...olitan-4135839
Why do you say it is misleading, it is reporting the data and says much of what you are alluding to - I don't think you read the whole article.
Quote:
But other parts of the economy have been slower to recover.
Government data released at the beginning of September shows the labor market is far from pre-coronavirus levels: Employers added 1.4 million jobs in August and the unemployment rate fell to 8.4%, but there are still 11.5 million more out-of-work Americans than there were in February.
And data compiled by Opportunity Insights, a research group, show that the employment rate among the country's highest earners has dropped by 1.6% compared to January, while employment among the lowest-earners is down 16.1% from January.
That's largely because the pandemic, and subsequent economic shutdown, hit the poorest Americans the hardest. According to Federal Reserve data published in May, about 39% of individuals with a household income below $40,000 reported losing their job in March.
Sounds like you are more interested in pushing your agenda of income inequality which is not what the article was about - specifically it was about net wealth not falling. Also if you look at the numbers in the article you cite, you would see that the net worth are more about education and age than income. It is people that worked a lifetime to retire comfortably that comprise much of that "richest quintile" - many of which have investments as their primary source of generating "income". Those people were where you are now and in 30 years you will be there also if work and save.
^^^^ THIS.
Fewer people are middle class. More people are poor. We have a country where the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few.
Wall St. has nothing to do with how the average person lives.
Your stats are way off - you are being fed misinformation - probably from the left. According to Northwest Mutual survey, 68% consider themselves as middle class. According to the data from pew research, the middle class by measure is about 52% of the country where as the poor comprise about 29% - so over half the country is middle class and 80% more are middle class than lower class. The middle class has shrunk some but more have moved to the upper class than to being poor.
Wall street has a lot to do with how many retirees live though since that is their income source.
Sounds like you are more interested in pushing your agenda of income inequality
It isn't my agenda, it's a fact! The article is misleading because it would be like looking at your neighborhood and declaring that the average value of housing has doubled because Jeff Bezos built a new $50 million mansion next door. While technically correct, the average value is very misleading, just like the "collective net wealth" number is very misleading. All the gains in net wealth have gone to very few people. "By contrast, from 1979 to 2018, worker productivity rose by 69.6 percent, but the wealth created by these productivity gains went predominately to executives and stockholders. Worker pay rose by only 11.6 percent during this period, while compensation for chief executives grew by an enormous 940 percent and the stock market grew by 2,200 percent." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/b...nequality.html
the only numbers that matter are your own ...no one is looking out for you but you ...you are responsible for your own financial well being .. who cares what anyone else has .... besides with a trillion dollar under ground economy many who appear poor ain't poor
Better metric than net worth: price of food, gas, cars, utilities, clothes & housing compared to median income.--We're all better off now than we've ever been....Commodity prices today are way behind those of 30 yrs ago when inflation is taken into account.
Some of us remember when owning a car or having a telephone or TV was a luxury. ...when you turned off the light when you left the room because you couldn't afford the electricity, and eating T-bone was only for very special occasions, maybe twice a year....And I'm talking about the "common man"- truck drivers, tradesmen, factory workers, not just the menial laborers & welfare cases.
Our economy works best when we have 20% of the population is poor. Just find some way of climbing out of that hole. There will always be someone else to climb into your hole.
You've misunderstood the Gini. Gini is a measure of disparity and not a measure of prosperity. It is just but one of the many economic measures of a country.
Your analogies are like saying a ruler is useless because you can't use it to measure weight. Duh!
Quote:
Originally Posted by EDS_
IMO The GINI Coefficient is grotesquely overrated.
1. Many cities across the first world with excellent GINI numbers have poor overall economies.
2. Sudan and Spain have very similar, "good" GINI numbers.
3. Slovenia and The Slovak Republic have even, "better" GINI numbers. Poland has fantastic GINI numbers.
4. PPP GDP in The US is DOUBLE the same in Poland.
5. Generally speaking worldwide successful big cities have poor GINI numbers, clearly becasue poor people are attracted to cities.
You've misunderstood the Gini. Gini is a measure of disparity and not a measure of prosperity. It is just but one of the many economic measures of a country.
Your analogies are like saying a ruler is useless because you can't use it to measure weight. Duh!
1. I understand The GINI Coefficient just fine.
2. My point was only that using GINI out of context - really as anything other than a data point - is really dumb and forces on the left use it as a stand alone battering ram every day. Much as you did in post the I responded to.
3. My analogies were only to point out The GINI is a weak, actually terrible, stand alone metric subject to abuse.
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