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Opinion: Are things about to get better? Incredibly, new signs suggest the answer is yes.

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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By Paul Waldman
Columnist
Today at 1:22 p.m. EDT



Even as Democrats engage in a vigorous round of breast-beating, recrimination and self-flagellation after their predictably poor showing in Tuesday’s elections, there’s one thing they can agree on: Everything is awful.
Opinions to start the day, in your inbox. Sign up.
We’re still limping through the coronavirus pandemic, almost two years on. President Biden’s approval ratings are weak. Congress is mired in the unsatisfying slog of legislating.
But what if things are about to turn around — for Democrats, but mostly for the country? What if this is the moment we’ll look back on as a real inflection point?
It feels strange to say so, particularly as someone who has been relentlessly pessimistic for the last five years or so. But let’s consider today’s news.

First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report for October, showing that the economy created 531,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.6 percent. In addition, previous months’ numbers were revised based on more complete data: The BLS reports that there were 235,000 more jobs created in August and September than they had previously reported.


Let me remind you that just six months ago, a monthly report showing that a mere 266,000 jobs had been created in April was greeted as though it was one of the greatest economic catastrophes in American history. Reporters and pundits called it “dismal,” “disastrous,” “a huge letdown” and “a significant slowdown.” But it now appears that while we still have a ways to go before the effects of the pandemic recession are over, the economy is recovering quite nicely.
We’ve been in this position before: Earlier this year, when coronavirus vaccines began to roll out but before the emergence of the delta variant, we thought the pandemic would soon be behind us and the economy would surge back. Now it looks like it may really happen.

Developments on the pandemic front also look extremely promising. While over a thousand Americans a day are still dying from covid, the vast majority of them unvaccinated, the numbers are heading in the right direction: New infections are occurring at less than half the rate they were two months ago.



Other developments suggest that we could — and it’s important to stress could — be at a key point in our efforts to beat back the pandemic.
The Biden administration released details of its vaccine mandate for large private employers, and although it won’t take effect for two months, it promises to accelerate the country’s slow march toward sufficient levels of immunity. We know how this will go because we’ve seen it over and over: A lot of attention will be paid to a small number of refusers loudly saying they won’t take the vaccine, but, in the end, when their jobs depend on it, almost everyone will.

The result will be millions more Americans vaccinated, and thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lives saved.
Meanwhile, Pfizer has announced that a newly developed therapy to be taken early in the onset of covid was shown in a study to reduce hospitalizations by 89 percent; none of the people taking the drug in the study died. The therapy is a set of pills patients take at home, making it easy to administer. If it turns out to be as effective as it appears, the result could be a dramatic reduction in deaths.


All that creates an opportunity for the Biden administration to make a new and powerful argument to the public: If we make this push, we can defeat the pandemic. Not someday, but now.

As Leana S. Wen argues, we can frame the next wave of vaccinations as a way to free ourselves from the need to wear masks all the time, which nobody likes even if most of us do it. It’s important for people to understand that what we do now can be not just something we must suffer through, but a final step on the path to liberation. The message we can take, and the reality it represents, should be not “Suck it up, people,” but “Victory is at hand, if we reach for it.”
Here’s one more reason this could be a turning point: Every day we get closer to Congress passing both the infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better bill, two enormously important measures that will have demonstrable positive effects on the country and individual Americans’ lives.


Yes, they’re not everything many of us hoped for. But they’re still among the most consequential pieces of legislation in decades.

Put all that together, and it starts to seem like the sun may be emerging from the clouds.
That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of reasons to feel that things are still awful. The Republican Party just showed again the eternal power of White backlash. Democracy is imperiled in much of our country. The Supreme Court is yanking our laws to the right. We continue to suffer from historic levels of inequality. Climate change threatens a miserable future for all of us. Donald Trump is probably going to run for president again.
But there are also reasons to think that things might, in some meaningful ways, actually be getting better. It never hurts to hope.

 
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5 million jobs in 10 months. Record DOW, super low unemployment, rising wages. You better believe things are getting better!
All the same things you were so optimistic about with Trump before the pandemic right? All the same metrics All the same positivity right?

Yeah I know, 3 posts.
 
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By Paul Waldman
Columnist
Today at 1:22 p.m. EDT



Even as Democrats engage in a vigorous round of breast-beating, recrimination and self-flagellation after their predictably poor showing in Tuesday’s elections, there’s one thing they can agree on: Everything is awful.
Opinions to start the day, in your inbox. Sign up.
We’re still limping through the coronavirus pandemic, almost two years on. President Biden’s approval ratings are weak. Congress is mired in the unsatisfying slog of legislating.
But what if things are about to turn around — for Democrats, but mostly for the country? What if this is the moment we’ll look back on as a real inflection point?
It feels strange to say so, particularly as someone who has been relentlessly pessimistic for the last five years or so. But let’s consider today’s news.

First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report for October, showing that the economy created 531,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.6 percent. In addition, previous months’ numbers were revised based on more complete data: The BLS reports that there were 235,000 more jobs created in August and September than they had previously reported.


Let me remind you that just six months ago, a monthly report showing that a mere 266,000 jobs had been created in April was greeted as though it was one of the greatest economic catastrophes in American history. Reporters and pundits called it “dismal,” “disastrous,” “a huge letdown” and “a significant slowdown.” But it now appears that while we still have a ways to go before the effects of the pandemic recession are over, the economy is recovering quite nicely.
We’ve been in this position before: Earlier this year, when coronavirus vaccines began to roll out but before the emergence of the delta variant, we thought the pandemic would soon be behind us and the economy would surge back. Now it looks like it may really happen.

Developments on the pandemic front also look extremely promising. While over a thousand Americans a day are still dying from covid, the vast majority of them unvaccinated, the numbers are heading in the right direction: New infections are occurring at less than half the rate they were two months ago.



Other developments suggest that we could — and it’s important to stress could — be at a key point in our efforts to beat back the pandemic.
The Biden administration released details of its vaccine mandate for large private employers, and although it won’t take effect for two months, it promises to accelerate the country’s slow march toward sufficient levels of immunity. We know how this will go because we’ve seen it over and over: A lot of attention will be paid to a small number of refusers loudly saying they won’t take the vaccine, but, in the end, when their jobs depend on it, almost everyone will.

The result will be millions more Americans vaccinated, and thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lives saved.
Meanwhile, Pfizer has announced that a newly developed therapy to be taken early in the onset of covid was shown in a study to reduce hospitalizations by 89 percent; none of the people taking the drug in the study died. The therapy is a set of pills patients take at home, making it easy to administer. If it turns out to be as effective as it appears, the result could be a dramatic reduction in deaths.


All that creates an opportunity for the Biden administration to make a new and powerful argument to the public: If we make this push, we can defeat the pandemic. Not someday, but now.

As Leana S. Wen argues, we can frame the next wave of vaccinations as a way to free ourselves from the need to wear masks all the time, which nobody likes even if most of us do it. It’s important for people to understand that what we do now can be not just something we must suffer through, but a final step on the path to liberation. The message we can take, and the reality it represents, should be not “Suck it up, people,” but “Victory is at hand, if we reach for it.”
Here’s one more reason this could be a turning point: Every day we get closer to Congress passing both the infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better bill, two enormously important measures that will have demonstrable positive effects on the country and individual Americans’ lives.


Yes, they’re not everything many of us hoped for. But they’re still among the most consequential pieces of legislation in decades.

Put all that together, and it starts to seem like the sun may be emerging from the clouds.
That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of reasons to feel that things are still awful. The Republican Party just showed again the eternal power of White backlash. Democracy is imperiled in much of our country. The Supreme Court is yanking our laws to the right. We continue to suffer from historic levels of inequality. Climate change threatens a miserable future for all of us. Donald Trump is probably going to run for president again.
But there are also reasons to think that things might, in some meaningful ways, actually be getting better. It never hurts to hope.

Gold.
My first thought was the scene from vacation where the wife tells chevy chase they should turn back.
 
Cons are just pissed the market is doing well. Because they were told otherwise and can’t wrap their heads around it.

I'm not pissed that the market is doing well. My 401(k) looks great!

And the prospect of retiring is looking better and better. Not just because of the stock market, but Mrs. Tradition (no pics) is a realtor and she's slaying it this year, too.

 
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Cons are just pissed the market is doing well. Because they were told otherwise and can’t wrap their heads around it.
Don’t pay attention to the party of the president, pay attention to the actions of the Federal Reserve.

It's official: The Federal Reserve is winding down its aggressive pandemic-era stimulus measures, a process Wall Street nerds call "tapering." But what, exactly, does that mean?
The short answer: Money has essentially been free for the past year and a half, thanks to the Fed's double-barrel shotgun approach to economic stimulus — interest rates near zero and a massive investment in bonds that keeps yields near rock-bottom. When the Fed eases off the stimulus pedal, borrowing could grow more expensive, making businesses pay more, which means less profit, which means Wall Street is...sad.
 
Don’t pay attention to the party of the president, pay attention to the actions of the Federal Reserve.

It's official: The Federal Reserve is winding down its aggressive pandemic-era stimulus measures, a process Wall Street nerds call "tapering." But what, exactly, does that mean?
The short answer: Money has essentially been free for the past year and a half, thanks to the Fed's double-barrel shotgun approach to economic stimulus — interest rates near zero and a massive investment in bonds that keeps yields near rock-bottom. When the Fed eases off the stimulus pedal, borrowing could grow more expensive, making businesses pay more, which means less profit, which means Wall Street is...sad.

But Wall Street is not sad. The market continues to break record highs.
 
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Economic trends are fickle. I quit celebrating and getting depressed over economic news since Reagan. Just listen to our conservative friends.

Booming market. Millions of jobs created. No, we have/will have terrible inflation.

So, we want a failing market, stagnant job situation so we won't have inflation.

I give up.
 
Economic trends are fickle. I quit celebrating and getting depressed over economic news since Reagan. Just listen to our conservative friends.

Booming market. Millions of jobs created. No, we have/will have terrible inflation.

So, we want a failing market, stagnant job situation so we won't have inflation.

I give up.

Stability is the sweet spot. We don't have that now.
 
T
Don’t pay attention to the party of the president, pay attention to the actions of the Federal Reserve.

It's official: The Federal Reserve is winding down its aggressive pandemic-era stimulus measures, a process Wall Street nerds call "tapering." But what, exactly, does that mean?
The short answer: Money has essentially been free for the past year and a half, thanks to the Fed's double-barrel shotgun approach to economic stimulus — interest rates near zero and a massive investment in bonds that keeps yields near rock-bottom. When the Fed eases off the stimulus pedal, borrowing could grow more expensive, making businesses pay more, which means less profit, which means Wall Street is...sad.
That’s fine. I’ve just heard enough how Biden was going to destroy the economy which is nonsense. More jobs. Unemployment down. People out and spending. I guess Republicans were full of crap again.
 
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It’s been a few months since we have had active duty troops deployed at large. Not to worry, we will need to send troops to the South China Sea soon and then the market will drop like OP Mom’s panties on a Tuesday morning.
 
It’s been a few months since we have had active duty troops deployed at large. Not to worry, we will need to send troops to the South China Sea soon and then the market will drop like OP Mom’s panties on a Tuesday morning.
We never ended our illegal invasion of Syria.

For some reason the jihadist shitstorm that Obama fomented with the Gulf monarchies in Syria, and that Trump never got us out of, is still going on.

We still have troops there now, literally stealing the country's oil to pay local mercenaries in our bizarre partition of that country.

Remember when the press used to cover Code Pink? I guess that stopped being cool after Bush left office...
 
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I have a.ways been impressed by the lack of understanding most Americans have regarding its economy.
Americans Re pissed the economy isn’t performing performing better as it recovers from the pandemic....hellsbwlls, the economy is still trying to work out the kinks from the housing bubble, stock market debacle over 2007-2008! Since then, we have had at least one unnecessary tax cut and a pandemic outbreak that has affected the supply chain of the entire wirld! (Not just the Ynited States!) jeeebus keeerist boys and girls...there are more than us and yourselves to consider here! Phuquin’ Americans are so short-sighted, it amazes me we can wake ourselves up every morning!
It’s called living in reality. Listening to the political noise out there ( including the news sources of your choice) is doing no one a favor! Living in a cocoon is not beneficial, long term, for one’s eye-sight.
 
If your kids are gone and you got everything you want and are just waiting for 401(k) to double one more time it’s great.

if you want to buy a house or need a reliable car maybe not as good.

if you live check to check and you use lots of gas to get to work?

hsve 3 or 4 teenagers at home and buying groceries?
 
The committee recognizes that the pandemic and the public health response have resulted in a downturn with different characteristics and dynamics than prior recessions,”

That growth seemed poised to continue until the declaration of the coronavirus as a pandemic, a move that triggered 95% of the U.S. economy being put into shutdown and sent the unemployment rate, which had been at a 50-year low, soaring to 14.7%, its worst in post-World War II history.

Whoops! Someone didn't read their own link!
 
The committee recognizes that the pandemic and the public health response have resulted in a downturn with different characteristics and dynamics than prior recessions,”

That growth seemed poised to continue until the declaration of the coronavirus as a pandemic, a move that triggered 95% of the U.S. economy being put into shutdown and sent the unemployment rate, which had been at a 50-year low, soaring to 14.7%, its worst in post-World War II history.

Whoops! Someone didn't read their own link!
Um, yes I did.

The U.S. entered a recession in February, according to the official economic arbiter​


In making the declaration, the committee determined that a “clear peak in monthly economic activity” occurred in February. The peak in quarterly activity happened in the fourth quarter of 2019.

How about this one from the WSJ?

 
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Um, yes I did.

The U.S. entered a recession in February, according to the official economic arbiter​


In making the declaration, the committee determined that a “clear peak in monthly economic activity” occurred in February. The peak in quarterly activity happened in the fourth quarter of 2019.

How about this one from the WSJ?

YOUR link says it was because of the pandemic. YOU are trying to gaslight due to YOUR case of tds. Good luck with that.
 
No. The link says it was worsened by the pandemic but started in February.
That's only because you choose not to read. Look at the quotes I pulled from YOUR link. Let me help you. When they use the word "resulted" they are indicating cause.

Anyway, don't bother responding. You won't open your eyes and I'm watching football. Have a great day.
 
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Just waiting for it to beat inflation..
You are so hoping for inflation. Things are going well with the economy, though you guys said it would be a disaster. Just one more lie your side believes. Inflation is your new scare word. You're pathetic.
 
If your kids are gone and you got everything you want and are just waiting for 401(k) to double one more time it’s great.

if you want to buy a house or need a reliable car maybe not as good.

if you live check to check and you use lots of gas to get to work?

hsve 3 or 4 teenagers at home and buying groceries?
Everyone on HROT is filthy rich!
 
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