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Notes -
I used to post stuff like Scott's article before COVID, because from the viewpoint of an Xer who lived through the late 70s and early 80s, redditors complaining about how great things were for the Boomers were really annoying. It was true then, I think. But it's not true now. Before COVID, house prices were rising but more slowly and interest rates were crazy low. Now interest rates are higher and house prices even higher. Unemployment was falling then, it's rising now. Real wages had been rising for a long time then, they fell precipitously and are rising slightly more slowly now and are still below trend. And that's with higher unemployment, which typically makes wages look higher (because the unemployed aren't factored in and usually unemployment eats at the bottom of the market).
i do think there's some manipulation going on too -- both for financial reasons (the big uptick in "AI is a bubble" stories shortly before NVidia reported earnings seemed quite suspicious to me), and political reasons (Democrats want sentiment to be bad). I said earlier I think a good test is going to be holiday spending. So far, it looks better than sentiment, but only modestly so.
Spirit? Meaning? These have been dead longer than I've been alive. They're not what's causing bad vibes.
X to doubt. They have been dead for the intellectual class for a long time, the last few decades is when the same nihilistic worldview has spread to the masses.
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