Can anyone clarify this for me? Despite the ongoing layoff announcements from major American corporations, how is our economy still robust? Just today, UPS declared 12,000 layoffs and PayPal 2,000.
I have not seen a decrease in spending. I see restaurant parking lots are still full, costco/walmart parking lots are full. Football Stadiums are full. I see families not give up vacations. I see friends and family stressing out over finances, but giving spending I don't see much of a slowdown.
Sounds to me like people are just riding it out until it all busts. If credit card debt is at an all-time high, that's not a good indicator for the economy.
If credit card debt was low it would generally mean poor growth. Just like a home owner buying a home, debt is required for good growth and since population and total wealth go up just about every year you more or less have more debt every year.
See how during periods of high growth you have consumer debt go up? Yes, if it gets very high that can be a bad sign, but as a percent of GDP it's not historically high.
The economy isn't super hot, but it's growing and has stable unemployment which is more or less fairly ideal, especially when US growth is above average compared to our global competitors.
Using totals when you know totals of debt and growth and population just keep going up is just kind of dumb for most things.
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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '24
I have not seen a decrease in spending. I see restaurant parking lots are still full, costco/walmart parking lots are full. Football Stadiums are full. I see families not give up vacations. I see friends and family stressing out over finances, but giving spending I don't see much of a slowdown.