The last time this happened, voters didn’t credit Bill Clinton. That may be a bad omen, or a good one.

If the stock market chose presidents, Joe Biden would be a shoo-in for reelection in 2024. The market rallied this month amid growing optimism about the economy, with the S&P 500 zooming 1.9 percent Tuesday on news that the consumer price index rose only 3.2 percent in October (compared to 3.7 percent in September). Stocks rallied again Wednesday on news that the producer price index fell 0.5 percent. Commentators are no longer debating whether the economy will experience a “soft landing” (i.e., a reduction in inflation without recession). The only question now is when it will arrive. The S&P 500 seems to have decided it’s already here.

But the stock market doesn’t choose presidents. Voters do, and polls continue to show they think the economy is in terrible shape. A Financial Times–Michigan Ross Nationwide Survey conducted November 2–7 is absolutely brutal on this point.

  • hakase@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Exactly. Your downvotes here only prove the financial illiteracy/intentional misinformation rampant across lemmy.

    Not to mention that the average person should be putting their retirement savings mostly into mutual funds, so when the market goes up it should benefit the average person directly as well as indirectly.

    • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      And do you have any criticism for the rampant misinformation being spread by major politicial parties, for-profit media empires, exclusive schools and giant corporations the world over, as they promise “this time, neoliberalism is really going to work”, even as they stake their fortunes on it failing yet again?

      • hakase@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Do you have anything relevant to the conversation to say, or just typical whataboutism?

        Relevant username.

        • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          That is completely relevant to the conversation. If you can’t even manage a token “trickle down is bullshit” then we know the “knowledge” you’re about to bless us poor idiots with is just self-serving garbage.

    • BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf
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      1 year ago

      The average person doesn’t have retirement savings dude, that’s the whole problem. 80% of the country lives paycheck to paycheck.

    • stewie3128@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Mutual funds generally underperform the SP500 as a whole, as well as most broad-spectrum ETFs, and carry an expense ratio 5x higher than VG/Schwab ETFs just for fun. And that’s not even accounting for the class-A shares that a lot of financial advisors steer their retail clients into.

      No, the “average” person should be putting whatever retirement money they can scrape together into index funds via Roth and/or traditional IRA, then regular retirement investments. But most “average” people can’t afford to even sock away 6 months’ worth of expenses in an emergency fund because healthcare costs and anything associated with raising kids has gone up a gazillion percent in the last 40 years while real wages have stayed stagnant.

      Oh, also try buying a house while facing all of that AND student loans that Republicans are too pig-headed to let the government forgive even a fraction of.

      “Financial illiteracy” isn’t the problem here, reality is.