Isn't a recession mostly just shown by a fall in GDP? And you can fudge GDP and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with people's standard of living so therefore why should anyone really care?
Discussion
Yes, there's no longer a direct connection between overall national economic expansion/contraction and personal living standards.
That's why legislation that damages the economy is popular.
That just clicked in my head, this morning.
Nobody cares because it doesn't actually matter. 🤷♀️
ill steelman the opposite -
it does matter.
there are strong correlations between health outcomes, life expectancy, and crime rates vs country's GDP (don't know just assuming something like that) so
if I'm responsible for my country I should do what I can to avoid recession or limit its impact
This is too abstract, for most people.
If their nominal income doesn't get cut off or dramatically reduced, quickly, it didn't happen.
If you can't afford a housing, food etc while working during the 'good times' while would you care about it during the bad times? 🤷 Living standard here have been effectively stagnate since 2008. Most of the good times just inflated assets which most people don't own...when you think about it that way it's not hugely surprising people don't really care..
Here atleast during this recession adjusted for inflation the petrol is cheaper!
Petrol is usually cheaper in a recession.
We can expect widespread disinflation and eventual mean deflation, soon, at least in Germany.
The producers that were using the energy are closing or moving away, so energy will get cheaper.
That's what you would hope for but the money printer will just negate it surely? They are going to need the money printer to stop the riots by giving people some kind of 'social welfare'.
Exactly!
And it seems like most are too distracted to notice their living standard going down too.