Tantalum
Final Approach
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- Feb 22, 2017
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San_Diego_Pilot
A bump in the stock market is not the only measure of economic health. Plus, that quick rise up is all but lost.. check your 401K lately? There isn't any one single item that someone can point their finger at and say "THIS WAS IT" - however, we could have been more targeted with how we spent that stimulus money and it's still crazy to me that in the US an entity can force someone to shut down their legal business. WOW. "It's a free country, not"Really? Hyperbole much? Wasn't the S&P at a 5 year high at the beginning of '22, then Russia got weird. Sure there was a blip in march/april of '20 followed by a climb to a 5 year high. I had a blast during covid, some epic BBQs, great vacations, good beer, and new distillery opened up in my area. There was a spike in unemployment but, there were many people that were impacted that didn't want to work. Laziness is not a symptom of Covid. Many companies couldn't get applicants, let alone fill open positions ranging from hourly assemblers or individual contributor professionals to senior management. I think the worst thing that happened to me during Covid was that the ski resorts closed early for the season in the spring of '20. Sure, restaurants took a hit but, they also didn't want to fill the jobs that were open in other fields. Hell, with the expanded use of video conference I am better connected to my parents that are 3000 miles away now than I was pre-covid. I suppose if you just want to watch Fox or CNN, then the sky is falling and should probably become a hermit prepper. And I never recall being shamed for anything I did during Covid.
People are wondering now "how did this inflation get so bad??" but that's what happens when you send a big part of the work force home, flood cash into an economy and then have a supply chain that can't, or won't, keep up with the demand. Holistically, our economy right now is in the trash can - COVID, Russia, all had a hand to play in it. But it started with COVID.
By the way, if jobs can't get filled it's because the pay sucks. The typical home is now around $500K, with rents in most urban areas (where the jobs are) also around $2K or higher. You can't save up for a $500K house making $50K a year, even if you do the old "just make your coffee at home" shtick. You realistically now need to earn at least $100K a year in most places to live "comfortably" and responsibly. I'd gladly trade back our 2019 economy if you ask me.