The Fed has been engaged in multi-administration financial manipulation to prop up the U.S. economy, and if any of it were illegal, we’d never know—because the Fed is the sole arbiter of what gets reported. The numbers are cooked, and they have to be, because the lived experience of massive swaths of the U.S. population no longer aligns with the economic narrative being pushed. This isn’t just statistical smoothing or optimism bias—it’s likely a level of manipulation so vast that it qualifies as an economic crime against humanity. When people are told they’re thriving while they feel themselves drowning, that’s not just bad policy; it’s systemic gaslighting on a civilization-wide scale.
Some of these examples don’t hold up to scrutiny. One basic issue is that the problems with metrics you identify have always been problems, so they cannot explain the increase in dissatisfaction in recent years.
For example, it’s true that more expansive measures of unemployment show more pain than U3 does. But these measures are also at or near multi-decade lows.
Or take private wealth: yes, wealth inequality is high in the US. But it hasn’t gotten worse since the pandemic. Bottom 50% and bottom 90% shares have risen a bit.
True median wage, if you remove the top 1,000 earners, is closer to 35,000. The top earners/hoarders have been the beneficiaries of 93% of the growth in wealth since the start of 2020. So things have gotten noticeably worse in recent years, and the metrics used to measure these things that have always been a problem, and still do nothing to illuminate these issues.
The wealth disparity between top and bottom makes the years leading up to French Revolution look rosey/fair in comparison.
My numbers may be outdated, but I've seen nothing showing the bottom percentages of earners have seen increased wealth in the past 5 years.
Great article. A few points. The point about private riches and communal immiseration is a great one and also why I am a bit skeptical of the story being pedaled of European weakness relative to the US. Another important thing that I would add is that the phenomenon you describe is, I think, related to the much vaunted by some "decrease in carbon/resource intensity of advanced economies". The amout of resources used per GDP is of course lower if you have a large edifice of transactions adding nothing to material wellbeing, but who cares about that?
An interesting take and I think a valid one at that. The political and structural changes inherited from the multi decade Fed/Greenspan put are coming home to roost now. Whilst I think there is a middle ground to be found between “the data is being fine tuned to sell a false narrative” and “we can’t expect the data to be perfectly representative”, the reality is that there is some level of politically (at a nonpartisan level) motivated cherry picking when developing and sharing data.
I think your point about services is pertinent as the increasing reliance on services and finance as the drivers of the US (and many other advanced economies) is supported and underpinned by the market sentiment that is supported and fostered by the release of data in question. In terms of confidence alone, significant deviations from the “it’s all ticking along” narrative would likely hollow out a good chunk of asset valuations, something which has huge consequences for regular folks relying on asset valuations for retirement, businesses for investment and then the political class who will have to cope with the fall out.
Thanks for a really engaging piece and I look forward to reading more.
The Fed has been engaged in multi-administration financial manipulation to prop up the U.S. economy, and if any of it were illegal, we’d never know—because the Fed is the sole arbiter of what gets reported. The numbers are cooked, and they have to be, because the lived experience of massive swaths of the U.S. population no longer aligns with the economic narrative being pushed. This isn’t just statistical smoothing or optimism bias—it’s likely a level of manipulation so vast that it qualifies as an economic crime against humanity. When people are told they’re thriving while they feel themselves drowning, that’s not just bad policy; it’s systemic gaslighting on a civilization-wide scale.
Some of these examples don’t hold up to scrutiny. One basic issue is that the problems with metrics you identify have always been problems, so they cannot explain the increase in dissatisfaction in recent years.
For example, it’s true that more expansive measures of unemployment show more pain than U3 does. But these measures are also at or near multi-decade lows.
Or take private wealth: yes, wealth inequality is high in the US. But it hasn’t gotten worse since the pandemic. Bottom 50% and bottom 90% shares have risen a bit.
True median wage, if you remove the top 1,000 earners, is closer to 35,000. The top earners/hoarders have been the beneficiaries of 93% of the growth in wealth since the start of 2020. So things have gotten noticeably worse in recent years, and the metrics used to measure these things that have always been a problem, and still do nothing to illuminate these issues.
The wealth disparity between top and bottom makes the years leading up to French Revolution look rosey/fair in comparison.
My numbers may be outdated, but I've seen nothing showing the bottom percentages of earners have seen increased wealth in the past 5 years.
Great article. A few points. The point about private riches and communal immiseration is a great one and also why I am a bit skeptical of the story being pedaled of European weakness relative to the US. Another important thing that I would add is that the phenomenon you describe is, I think, related to the much vaunted by some "decrease in carbon/resource intensity of advanced economies". The amout of resources used per GDP is of course lower if you have a large edifice of transactions adding nothing to material wellbeing, but who cares about that?
An interesting take and I think a valid one at that. The political and structural changes inherited from the multi decade Fed/Greenspan put are coming home to roost now. Whilst I think there is a middle ground to be found between “the data is being fine tuned to sell a false narrative” and “we can’t expect the data to be perfectly representative”, the reality is that there is some level of politically (at a nonpartisan level) motivated cherry picking when developing and sharing data.
I think your point about services is pertinent as the increasing reliance on services and finance as the drivers of the US (and many other advanced economies) is supported and underpinned by the market sentiment that is supported and fostered by the release of data in question. In terms of confidence alone, significant deviations from the “it’s all ticking along” narrative would likely hollow out a good chunk of asset valuations, something which has huge consequences for regular folks relying on asset valuations for retirement, businesses for investment and then the political class who will have to cope with the fall out.
Thanks for a really engaging piece and I look forward to reading more.
Trump inherited a shit economy delayed by money printing. He’s going to have a rough few years as he fights the recession we should have had in 2021
We could ask management and investors to take a hair cut instead.