"A big economic secret is that expectations are all that matters, and the vibecession and the subsequent vibespansion show that.
People are the economy, and vibes are good again."
-Kyla Scanlon, Bloomberg Oped Contributor, Jan 2024
Inflates the vibes of your economy, making them big and-
'People' may participate in a sequence of socially agreed upon transactions, structure, and automated processes regarded as the 'economy'- but while you could argue the economy is people, I'm fleetingly confident economists are people.
Having money, spending money, and saving money are three different states. To be financially stable, truly stable, is to be all three: You can pay for individual expenses as needed, you are covering your current general expenses, you are prepared for sudden unexpected expenses.
I think it would benefit econ majors to stop (in general, but also) speaking in such determinant language. Consider: if people are the economy, and "all" that matters are "expectations", does that not mean people are constantly under expectation? That to participate in the economy is to agree to play along, agree to invest and reinvest in perpetuity as opposed to save, have, and spend as needed?
Financial responsibility means being willing to shift where your money is, more to have, or more to save; saving money and having money are not the same thing. To save is to build interest, to wait for the piggy bank's need to shatter. To have is to be ready to spend.
The majority of Americans do not have $1000 available to them in a financial emergency. That's as of January 2024: 56% of those surveyed would have to figure something else out, such as credit cards, loans. The majority of Americans do not have $1000 to drop suddenly on a medical bills, let alone the frivolous shopping which keeps America's economy in motion.
Yet to an economist, no shopping is frivolous; it is only such if you are proportionally spending more of the money you have, relative to the amount saved. In theory, I have enough financial assets to buy a cute handbag right now. It would be foolish of me to, though, because the amount I have saved is hardly proportional.
So, what is the correct portion of money to save? However much one needs for stability and comfort, in either direction. If saving $100 every month made it so I didn't have $100 as needed, or indeed couldn't spend $100 as required, then I do not save. Rent takes priority over food takes priority over potential future need. And I'm not alone:
"It's definitely worse than it's ever been. Middle class people, lower middle class people, working class people, they cannot afford their rent."
-Cea Weaver, Coordinator for Housing Justice for All (NY), to The New York Times, Jan 2024
The more of people's money is spent on bills, the less they have, the less they save, if they even have anything to save at all.
In every one of the pictured-above miserable articles, the same bullshit capitulating of what expenses really 'matter' is done: worries of food, gas, rent costing more are brushed off as "well those would cost more anyways, the pandemic-" as if that somehow writes off the higher dollar number consumers are spending on life.
It does not matter to me to be told "well, if it weren't for Joe Biden, your groceries would cost even more money" if I already can't afford groceries. This expired store-brand meal shake tastes so much better knowing inflation is 3% less bad than it would've otherwise been!
I do not have money. My bills cost too much to have money, forget being able to save it. No amount of feeling good about that will let me spend more money I do not have.
Now, as for the people with income enough to sustain themselves and have a little left over for The Economy: shopping, subscription services, travel, experiences. Is there, perhaps, a valid reason anyone in that economic bloc would be less interested in spending money, as opposed to having or saving it?
'Vibes' Mean Emotions Economists Think Are Silly

Q: What are we not paying attention to that could cause disruption in the coming year?
"Global economists and monetary policymakers warn the 2020s will be more volatile than decades past β with more geopolitical conflict and economic/inflationary shocks.
So far, they have been right with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the global banking crisis, and the Israel-Hamas War. I'm watching for whether that tumult continues in 2024.
I'm also curious if 2024 is the year in which we begin to see artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT have turbo-charged impacts on productivity and the labor market."
-Courtenay Brown, Econ Reporter at Axios, Jan 2024
I'm pretty sure the tumult is here to stay, Courtenay. To economists, wars are just times at which money behaves differently, rather than people. Emotions are entirely secondary.
Yet people are the economy, aren't they? Just like how people are soldiers, warmongers, profiteers, and being slaughtered by the tens of thousands. Participating in the American economy right now is participating in the war. Our tax dollars are going to bombs and weapons used to kill innocent people overseas. If you're the kind of person to feel bad about that, it's understandable the vibes might be off.
If you're the kind of person to see profit in the war, to see a chance for economic bounceback, that makes anyone who's not all about war-profiteering a detractor with bad vibes. Just because people are dying doesn't mean it's time to stop spending money: otherwise people might start dying! Specifically, the sorts of people who have the ability to spend money.
Poor people dying is profit. Fewer mouths to feed. And those numbers look good without the human context behind them, the economy looks great except for all the people in it.
If the economy was truly unstable for economists, in a way that affected their immediate circumstance, they'd get out of the game. Yet all these ghouls see is the game, all they see are numbers going up and stare agape when none of us are as enthused as them.
So economists look at numbers. They see fewer people unemployed, they see apartments available, they see weapons sold, they see numbers. High numbers, numbers so high that America, whoever that is, is gonna be just fine!
The rest of us are seeing our fucking lives. We're seeing an uncertain future, not knowing if we'll be laid off suddenly, if our rent will spike, if gas will suddenly cost $6 a gallon. So we decide, informed by our emotions, that maybe we should hold onto what little resource we do have. The economy presupposes individuals keep pumping money in excess, made up for by their steadily increasing wealth, steadily improving job.
But working-class folks are juggling multiple dead-end jobs to barely afford rent, barely afford food if at all. The people who are doing well are those with preexisting resource to lean on in case of an emergency.
I don't have a friend around me who isn't malnourished. I don't know a person who hasn't had to change their spending habits, specifically reduce what they have so they can spend on what they need and save the rest for their inevitable next disaster.
The next flood, the next plague, the next genocide. These are weekly occurrences in these times of tumult. The economy is "doing better" only because all metrics to measure it leave out the human suffering of people financially barred from any life these bastards deem worth measuring.
"Bad vibes" around the economy are ending, because economists say if people don't stop feeling screwed they'll be financially screwed: Stop grieving and spend, things more important than life are at stake, like the economy.
"Vibes" are a stand-in for humanity, and you cannot vibe-check the dead.
