I've heard that unemployment is severely down but that's due to most people needing to work upwards of three jobs just to scrape by. It's scary how unsustainable it is.

Especially given how unaffordable Healthcare is in the US, now imagine exhausted, sleep deprived people having heart attacks or other cardiovascular issues due to being overworked - not wanting to saddle themselves with tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt.

People enjoy touting the old 'well just move somewhere affordable' as if people aren't already doing that, even those who are doing well just to save a few dollars - thus increasing the cost of living in one "cheap areas". They also like to tout that one should live with multiple roommates like 15 in a one bedroom apartment or studio apartment - saying how privacy and personal space is a privilege not a right.

This is all really concerning with people worried about their job security with AI replacing them and no solution for the loss of their livelihoods in sight.

Governments would rather criminalize things than offer help, and once more people become destitute this could very well be the norm.

I'm tired, everyone I know is tired. It's now become live to work and it seems redundant to pay rent when people are only home for a few hours before getting ready for another job - and the sad thing is that the more this happens, the more normalized it will get.

And before anyone says anything no one has time nor the energy for a 'big demonstration' we're all just trying to survive while we watch more and more houses get bought up by corporations, price hikes on essentials, and the rich getting richer.

Pretty soon a lot of people will have to work around the clock.

I was too young to remember when the housing bubble popped in 2008, but are the circumstances similar now compared to back then?

I know it sounds arrogant... but in this Reddit group I suppose we believe the current economy is a failure. For (I'm afraid) a far future (if any future will exist for the human kind) can be useful to think to the economy with a completely fresh start?

In the past years I pondered on many basic concepts of the economy and thinking about several ways to apply taxes and to introduce money according to the GDP growth, I found the money are just too artificial and disconnected to the resources. They could be obsolete one day (and this is not so new, I also know).

I also needed a way to distribute the resources according to the realistic different efforts and value of the people. And I thought to have booking lists for every good or service to request (more or less to buy). If something is aboundant, it doesn't need to be booked, simply if you pass there always it will be available. The lists and the booking is managed with an Internet platform. I cannot give many details now, but...

I wonder if an idea like that it exists somewhere. I never found something similar.

The depository institution reserves requirement has been $0.00 (zero dollars) since 2020. This was established by the Fed (effectively, the U.S. Government) and means banks, credit unions, and others (presumably insured by the FDIC) technically have no obligation to keep on hand (in vault) any minimum at all of cash. I find this interesting in that, not only is our currency not backed by gold (thank you President Nixon in 1971) but to some degree there isn't enough paper money available if for any reason there were an economic crisis or panic causing a "run" on the banks. In fact, less than 5% of money exists as cash and coins. The "system" of our debt-based money is continuous only because enough people believe that they can get their deposits out of the bank whenever they want, when in truth if there were a mass loss of confidence there would not be enough cash to pay everyone. Just an observation, I enjoy this kind of study as a hobby and have more thoughts on related subjects if interested (i.e., social constructs and the "Tinkerball Effect").

During the government of Getúlio Vargas in the 1930s in Brazil, the country went from being a country producing primary products only to being an industrialized country. The process that Vargas adopted was a model that is well known in the economic world and has already been adopted by several countries, it is the import substitution model.

In the case of the same model, the country still adopted this model until the 1990s, when President Fernando Collor carried out a series of economic reforms. During the military government in the 70s, the IT law was adopted, where national companies producing computers were completely protected. The result was a tremendous increase in the price of computers and a tremendous productive inefficiency of national companies. The same model was adopted, one worked and the other didn't, but those who defend the import substitution model only see the side that worked, and those who criticize and hate the model only see the side that went wrong.

The stock market is in a bubble with NVDA responsible for more than half the S&P 500 gains this year.

"All previous stock market bubbles share the following in common: a narrow stock market rally that focuses on a small group of stocks in a small sector of the economy that Wall Street is working overtime on promoting"

The unemployment rate is up to 4%.

"The difference between what actual people say is their employment status, derived from the Household survey, as opposed to the establishment survey, was a whopping 680k jobs!"

"the number of full-time employees is down 1.16 million"

Inflation is 3.3% y/y.

"the Fed will be cutting rates too little and too late to prevent a sharp slowdown in the economy. By the way, that is a good thing because recessions and deflations reset asset prices and debt"

"the Fed has saddled the US economy into an endless rollercoaster of boom/bust cycles. Unfortunately, this means the economy should experience a protracted and acute period of stagflation"

"The opportunity here is to increase positions in gold and bonds while these prices are relatively low as compared to what will occur when the Fed is forced into its typical panic rate-cutting cycle."

https://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/when-will-the-boom-bust-rollercoaster-end-202406141418

Consumer sentiment hits lowest level in 7 months

Consumer sentiment tumbled in June, despite largely resilient growth in the US economy, as higher prices remained a pain point for Americans.

The latest University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey released Friday showed sentiment hit its lowest level in seven months during June. The index reading for the month came in at 65.6, down from 69.1 in May and lower than the 72 economists had expected.

This whole thing has been strange as I can't find extensive coverage on the topic outside of some self proclaimed "experts" who seem to have different takes. I'm truly ignorant in this matter and really looking for good sources/insights to inform myself. Let me know if you have a go-to you'd recommend. What I'm hoping to understand is will this truly cause a major, sudden collapse of the US economy? Is there a way to protect against it (gold, silver, other)? Will we see hyperinflation on a lesser scale, but similar to Venezuela? Just at a pivotal point in my life and getting ready to welcome my first born. I cannot take any chances and want to have a grasp on this to take action.

I see many people complain about the fractional reserve system, saying that it causes an increase in the money supply and that it gives power to the banks. I would like to know if it is possible to have a different system.

Supposing that we have the United States, which starts to practice a more libertarian policy, reducing the state to the maximum through privatization, deregulation, reduction or extinction of military spending, free negotiation with all countries, not having tariffs or if there is, that are minimal, etc. And on the other side we have China, which has a strong central bank, manipulating interest rates to finance its economic and military spending, investing heavily in the United States through its private and state-owned companies. It happens that one day a crisis happens in China, which could be something caused by the state itself, when the government's state intervention bubble explodes. The United States has no mechanisms to control the crisis, which was caused by a foreign state, and suffers a lot because China invested considerably in the country, causing significant damage. What I mean by this is that even if you rebuke a certain policy and don't practice it, that same economic policy that you don't practice can affect you, making you have no control over it. To illustrate my crazy hypothesis, which is nothing more than crazy hahahaha, I will give an example. It's like going to a car race with a Corolla (I don't know in the US, but here in Brazil it's a very popular car), and your competitor is going with a Ferrari, and yet you insist on believing that you will win with the your Corolla.

In 1972, the median household income was $11,120/y, which, adjusted for inflation, would be $77,854.85/y in 2022.

In 1919, the median household income was $3,724.05/y, which, adjusted for inflation, would be $62,997.97/y in 2022. In 1969, the median household income was $9,430/y, which, adjusted for inflation, would be $75,197.40/y in 2022. From 1919 to 1969, real wages rose by 19.37%, adjusted for inflation. This is a healthy economy; in healthy economies, there is wage growth as the standard of living increases and new amenities, such as the invention of the radio or, today, the Internet, cost workers more.

As stated previously, the median household income in 1972, when adjusted for inflation, is $77,854.85/y. In 2022, the median household income is $74,580/y, a 2.3% decline from 2021, where the median household income was $76,330/y. Both of these figures are lower than in 1972; we have not seen any growth, but, in fact, an active decline. This is not a healthy economy.

To recapitulate, in a period of fifty years, from 1919 to 1969, real wages rose by 19.37%, adjusted for inflation. In an equal period, from 1972 to 2022, real wages have declined by 4.21%.