Am I the only one who notices this? (U.S.A edition)

[MC.Morrado]

Has anyone noticed something has been constantly off since Covid-19?

 

We have been in a recession since Covid-19 and have never recovered. The media says nothing is wrong and that the economy is doing great? They say things like all-time unemployment (constant layoffs and various retail chains going out of business), most social media trends seem to be AI-generated in order to sell people crap or test the limits of a lack of critical thinking, and AI has been accelerating the number of layoffs. Saying things like 'peace through strength' yet another war on the horizon. Nothing has really changed since 2020 when looking at the real world besides the pandemic being over. At this point I stopped watching the mainstream news years ago.

 

When walking around I notice that brick and mortar stores look empty compared to five years ago (pre-pandemic).... If they're even still open I walk around seeing abandoned buildings everywhere. And I drive by two Rite Aid's that are closing recently. The only places unphased by this silent Great Depression 2.0 is fast food, resturaunts, and grocery stores (essential places like during Covid-19, where non-essential services struggle).

 

These are just my personal observations of the real world as an autistic gamer who isn't on social media and mostly goes on the internet to play games on Steam and do college classes online. I don't do much online shopping. What do you guys think of this strange pattern? What are your real-world observations?

 

Disclaimer: this is only a discussion about physical retail, or rather it's decline.

[saintlouisbagels]

The problem with personal experience is that they are not accurate to statistics.
Which is also why misinformation is so easily spread. "How can things be good when everything is so bad? FAKE NEWS"

[Donut417]

17 minutes ago, MC.Morrado said:

The media says nothing is wrong and that the economy is doing great?

They base this off the stock market which is still doing ok ish. They dont look at things like the enormous amounts of consumer debt, student loans and there's been reports that these buy now and pay later plans have a lot of debt attached to them. 

 

17 minutes ago, MC.Morrado said:

When walking around I notice that brick and mortar stores look empty compared to five years ago (pre-pandemic)....

Remember a lot of people went to working from home due to the pandemic. Im sure a lot of those people also started shopping online. My co worker orders all his groceries online and either does pickup or delivery. My best friend works in IT from home and it sounds like he rarely leaves the house. Thats just how it is now days. Between not leaving the house or not having the time. My sister does Walmart Plus so she can pick her groceries up, because with a full time job, two kids that she has to drive to school and not to mention they are in band. She doesnt have time to shop in store to often. 

 

19 minutes ago, MC.Morrado said:

And I drive by two Rite Aid's that are closing recently

I mean why go to a drug store when you can go to the same store you get your groceries? Hell our local CVS is closing. Because they are not making enough money. Why? Because A) They dont take Medicaid (I live in a poorer community so...... ) B) They dont take Priority Health which is big in Obama care and Medicare Advantage plans. The largest group who were using CVS was the ones living in the Senior Apartments around the corner. So if you dont take poor people insurance and old people insurance you kind fucking yourself. I use to use CVS for my meds, but I had to go on Medicaid for a time so I moved my scripts to Walmart. 

 

 

Something my mom said that makes sense. Every 20 or so years we have a major shift in the economy where a lot of places close. Companies get wayyyyyy too big and go under. Look at Sears / Kmart. They merged, got too big and bloated and boom they closed. Also you have a lot of private equity firms who buy companies, take out all the value and let the company die. That's kinda what happened with Red Lobster. 

 

At the end of the day the economy is ever changing. As a business you either get with the program or you get left behind.

[YellowJersey]

Everything's going great so long as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. What are you, a communist? [/sarcasm]

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, MC.Morrado said:

 The media says nothing is wrong and that the economy is doing great?

I don't know what media you are reading, but mine is constantly telling me that the world is shit.

[BillBill]

13 hours ago, MC.Morrado said:

Has anyone noticed something has been constantly off since Covid-19?

 

We have been in a recession since Covid-19 and have never recovered. The media says nothing is wrong and that the economy is doing great? They say things like all-time unemployment (constant layoffs and various retail chains going out of business), most social media trends seem to be AI-generated in order to sell people crap or test the limits of a lack of critical thinking, and AI has been accelerating the number of layoffs. Saying things like 'peace through strength' yet another war on the horizon. Nothing has really changed since 2020 when looking at the real world besides the pandemic being over. At this point I stopped watching the mainstream news years ago.

 

When walking around I notice that brick and mortar stores look empty compared to five years ago (pre-pandemic).... If they're even still open I walk around seeing abandoned buildings everywhere. And I drive by two Rite Aid's that are closing recently. The only places unphased by this silent Great Depression 2.0 is fast food, resturaunts, and grocery stores (essential places like during Covid-19, where non-essential services struggle).

 

These are just my personal observations of the real world as an autistic gamer who isn't on social media and mostly goes on the internet to play games on Steam and do college classes online. I don't do much online shopping. What do you guys think of this strange pattern? What are your real-world observations?

 

Disclaimer: this is only a discussion about physical retail, or rather it's decline.

The decline of physical retail AKA brick and mortar stores. Most of the time you can purchase stuff online for a lower price. Bargain shopping online is a good way to save money. Also many people are busy to the point. That it is easy for them to get things delivered. People in rural areas might have to travel a far distance to get to a major store or shopping mall. Price and convenience are the main reasons. 

[atxcyclist]

Why do you constantly make threads complaining about the U.S.? Doesn’t that ever get tiring?

[MC.Morrado]

1 hour ago, atxcyclist said:

Why do you constantly make threads complaining about the U.S.? Doesn’t that ever get tiring?

This thread isn't a complaint. This is just an observation on brick-and-mortar retail. I'm kind of neutral on the whole retail apocalypse. As long as I can still buy what I need in-person it isn't too bad. Just a trend started by the pandemic.

 

Besides, I don't have a whole lot to be positive about. The economy should not be measured by something as meaningless as GDP, the numbers don't make any sense when comparing people's living standards today.

[Skipple]

17 hours ago, MC.Morrado said:

We have been in a recession since Covid-19 and have never recovered. The media says nothing is wrong and that the economy is doing great?

What you are pointing at is the noted difference between traditional economic indicators and general market sentiment. Ever since 2022, general economic market indicators have been positive (save, the influence of the whole tariff debacle) however economic sentiment (consumer confidence) has never really fully recovered. This has been a noted anomaly and discrepancy by economists for the past few years with a handful of valid theories to explain it.

While there isn't a totally agreed upon definition of what a recession is, two quarters of negative GDP growth is the most agreed upon definition that I know of. By that, no, the United States is not in a recession. 

[TudorF]

I'm from Europe. This downward vibe felt like it started sometime between 2006-2007. I have a theory that the financial crash was just an outlet for that negative vibe that was already in the air a few years prior. The 2008 crisis was just an outlet for a general loss of confidence in that neoliberal bluesky growth-to-infinity collective illusion. And it blew right in the most vulnerable parts of the financial system, where there was overleverage due to general overconfidence.

Then the system used whatever necessary to freeze the crisis and keep things afloat. The crisis never really got solved, just cryogenised.

 

Meanwhile the mobile revolution took off and big tech became the new drivers of 'growth' and the new horizon of hope for a techno-utopian future, in which technology would be the answer to any of our problems. They rode this mass illusion until about the mid-2010s when a new phone stopped being big news and the web became stagnant and stale. Then they desperately jumped on the AI bandwagon, to make sure they will keep their stock valuations high and keep the 'tech boom' train still running.

 

The Covid crisis came on the heels of what looks like a domino effect of previous crises from 9/11 to 2008 that just kept pushing things to more extreme conditions.

So all these distortions and deformations we see today in the economy, media, culture are the result of accumulated breakage and adaptations to an abnormal situation that became the "new normal". Hence the feeling of alienation that some get, like they're no longer finding the beacons of stability they once had.

 

And that's considering that a lot of effort went into smoothing the line of descent into a worse situation so that the illusion of stability can still be advertised.

[atxcyclist]

1 hour ago, MC.Morrado said:

This thread isn't a complaint. This is just an observation on brick-and-mortar retail. I'm kind of neutral on the whole retail apocalypse. As long as I can still buy what I need in-person it isn't too bad. Just a trend started by the pandemic.

 

Besides, I don't have a whole lot to be positive about. The economy should not be measured by something as meaningless as GDP, the numbers don't make any sense when comparing people's living standards today.

Walmart and Costco trounced small brick and mortar shops over a decade ago, the pandemic was a springboard point for online shopping to be embraced fully. The difference is that Walmart and other big retailers have the funds to implement working online transactions while the remaining small brick and mortars don’t. Best case scenario is smaller retailers fulfilling through Amazon, Walmart, NewEgg, and others rather than deploying their own sales sites.
 

No, the economy is absolutely based on that, but realistically the performance of the economy “bottom line” shouldn’t be a significant factor regular citizens care about and vote for. The issue is that certain political ideologies treat everything like a business that has to perform for shareholders, when in reality a modern society costs money to provide services necessary to provide modern expectations: Healthcare, housing, clean water, transportation infrastructure, and etc. 

[Donut417]

3 hours ago, MC.Morrado said:

The economy should not be measured by something as meaningless as GDP, the numbers don't make any sense when comparing people's living standards today.

The point of GDP is to show the size and strength of a given economy. Thats it. Also in my opinion there really isn't a good indicator for living standards. Because the economy of each state, county and city could be different. For example Michigan is big in manufacturing so when NAFTA was signed in to Law it cause huge disruptions in our economy. 

 

The numbers I look to is consumer spending. If people are buying shit then the economy is doing OK ish. The other thing to consider, if enough people feel we are in a recession then we are in a recession, because when people think we are in a recession they stop buying stuff. They hold on to their money for dear life. In the end that will cause an economic down turn. 

3 hours ago, MC.Morrado said:

Just a trend started by the pandemic.

It wasn't started by the pandemic, all the pandemic did is make it go faster. Retailers who didnt figure out a good online presence have been in decline for a while.