Longest bull market in history

[Recursion]

Longest month-on-month job growth streak in history. Among the largest wage gains in history for the bottom half of the income scale. Unheard-of low unemployment. And this run goes back a few years. But everybody is constantly pissed off. (Yes, I'm pissed off about Trump now, but people were pissed off about the essentially identical hot economy under Obama too.)

Do we secretly want to be poorer? Back in recession?

EDIT: to expand. I was worried after the election that people would suddenly wake up and realize the economy is actually pretty good. But it hasn't happened; if anything people have gotten more and more miserable and worried as the actual objective economic conditions keep getting better. How long can that go on?

[Soxfan58]

1. Thank you

President Obama!

[Recursion]

2. Except, nobody thanked him. It was a damn change election

I still don't for the life of me understand how you run a change election with 4% unemployment and the then-largest year-on-year wage increases for the poorer 50% of the country having just happened, but people were pissed.

[bearsfootball516]

9. People who's jobs were in danger voted for him...

Then when their factory jobs left and they were unemployed, they blamed him because they expected him to be some cure-all savior. It's not his fault that the factories closed, but they blamed him anyway.

Or Joe Smith was making $30 an hour, then his factory closed and lost his job. Because he didn't have a college education to fall back on, he had to settle for a job bagging groceries making $10 an hour. None of that was Obama's fault, but because he was the president at the time, they blame him.

[Recursion]

13. Except, the numbers show that isn't what happened mostly

Wages were higher for the poorest half of the country in 2016 than 2008, so Joe Smith (at least "the average Joe Smith" ) got a better-paying job.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

3. I think we are tired of the numbers saying we should be happy

when wages are stagnant and those avail jobs are usually part time wo benefits at all. That's not how a good economy translates to us here on the ground i guess.
I.E. A glut of shitty jobs isnt what pays the mortgage or car note. I disagree that wages have gone up to a level that is life sustaining, those meager wage increases brought a lot of states from like 7.25....to 8.00. Not a barn burner of a jump in my working career. Marginal wage increases doesnt create an economic boon when your grocery items jump 25% per every 6 months and gas alone has gone up a dollar or more.

[Recursion]

4. Nope, largest wage growth in history over the past 4 years

Stagnant wages aren't the problem, because wages haven't been stagnant. They've grown more than at any point in the past, and were much stronger for the bottom 50% than any wage growth before.

It's not stagnant wages, then. What is it?

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

6. Going from 7.25 to 8.00 isnt a boon.

sorry. It is in fact a wage increase, but, its eaten up immediately by rising costs.

[Recursion]

10. No, that's real wages, adjusted for inflation

People do actually think about these things

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

14. And I live working several jobs and have for years.

With degrees. I know my own experience, and It irks me when some numbers are trotted out to somehow justify that our middle class jobs are gone and somehow wall streets happiness should translate/indicate how happy and grateful we should all be.

[Recursion]

18. I'm sorry to hear that, and that sucks, but there's fewer people like you now than earlier

The percent of the workforce with multiple jobs has been falling for 20 years now. I keep hearing people saying this, but then why doesn't that show up in the actual data?

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

21. In your world maybe. Thanks for saying that though.

I think you "travel" at your own peril to think things are rosy job-wise, bc the printed word says so. Lots of crapola jobs out there, and somehow if Americans don't work slave hours for cheap...we are ungrateful, or not taking full advantage of 'really good' job reports/situations.
. P.S...give it a few more weeks when those tariffs start biting in, and seasonal summertime type/golf course work (ex.) jobs dry up for the year.. God help us all.

[LanternWaste]

31. Americans taking multiple jobs has effectively reversed a decade-long decline

Odd that. A spike in the number of Americans taking multiple jobs that has effectively reversed a decade-long decline. The Labor Department reports that 7.6 million workers held multiple jobs last month, up 2% from 7.4 million in July 2017.

(Bureau of Labor Statistics-- data is there)

[Recursion]

33. Exactly: people talk about multiple jobs just as much after the spike as they did before

Look back at 2015-2016. If anything people talked about it more back then.

[Recursion]

5. This guy had an interesting point about it

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/7/31/17632348/wages-lagging-inequality-income-recovery-recession-wage-puzzle-economics

We are well-trained to recognize the fallacy in the statement “workers should be happy that average incomes grew strongly.” Most people would quickly respond: “That is misleading because you are looking at average growth, which might tell you more about how the very high earners are doing than how middle-income workers are doing.” But we seldom ask whether the reverse might be true — if the disappointments many observers have been expressing in the average wage numbers may reflect the opposite phenomenon.

Put another way: Could recent wage growth be stronger at the low end of the wage scale than in the middle or upper middle of the distribution? In fact, that’s exactly what appears to be the case, at least partially.

In the past three years, workers in the bottom two-fifths of the income distribution have seen comparable or faster real wage growth than they did in the late 1990s. Higher earners, meanwhile, have seen much slower wage growth than they did in the 1990s.

This trend is clear in the data but little understood among the broader public. In the three-year period I am focusing on, we have seen some narrowing of inequality, measured as wages at the top relative to the bottom (the 90-10 ratio), although there has been a continued widening of inequality relative to the middle (the 90-50 ratio).

Mission accomplished: we pretty significantly raised wages at the lower end of the income scale. But that seems to actually make a lot of people upset.

[uponit7771]

11. +1, they should be looking at median wage growth

[Recursion]

15. OK, but, why does wage growth at the lower half of the wage scale make people unhappy?

I thought that was what everybody was screaming for?

[uponit7771]

16. It could be 100% growth but 100% growth from 1$ isn't something to do a cartwheel about. When lower

... end wages reaches parity or near parity with production then folk can do a dance.

[BigmanPigman]

8. The stock market is still high and unemployment low...

but like you said that benefits the stock holders and their tax cuts do not create more jobs nor do they "trickle down". When I was a teacher I had no contracted raises for 5 years and was told to be grateful that I wasn't pink slipped like others. With inflation and no raises I basically took a pay cut each year and it permanently effected everyone's final retirement pensions. Great economy...NO! Stagnant wages, ridiculous health care costs and no affordable housing is where the 50+% of Americans find themselves. The Dems are running their midterm campaigns on these very real issues.

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. Where are you getting your stats?

https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/mobile/real-average-hourly-earnings-unchanged-from-june-2017-to-june-2018.htm

"For production and nonsupervisory employees, real average hourly earnings decreased 0.2 percent over the 12-month period ending in June 2018. Combining the change in real average hourly earnings with a 0.3-percent increase in the average workweek resulted in no change to real average weekly earnings over this period."

[Recursion]

12. From 2017 mostly; inflation kicked in the past few months

2014-2017 saw huge nonsupervisory wager increases, bigger than the 1990s, much bigger than the part inflation ate these past few quarters.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

17. "There are jobs available"

If you're willing to work 3 40 hour jobs to make what an auto worker used to make doing a straight 8 and home. You can put lipstick on a pig...but it's still a pig. Thats just how i see it. Im sure theres some fabulously successful people out there who have different life experiences, but, I can only go by my own. And respectfully, when it comes to getting sweaty and going to work, I'm no slouch.

[Recursion]

19. The percent of the workforce with multiple jobs has been going down, not up

It's down to like 3.5% from 5% 20 years ago. It sounds like we're making progress on that, at least?

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

23. Like i say...the printed word is often mis-leading.

don trump is our president, and somehow we have to believe no one else is lying to us? I dunno. Just know my own experience.

[Recursion]

25. See, that sounds like "alternative facts" to me (nt)

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

27. Respectfully, as does yours to my life. Things can change wildly depending on where

you live. Maybe you don't do the shopping every week at your house, but, I do. The economics are really right in my face, and like I said, Im not slouch to doing what it takes. Be well.

[Recursion]

20. But then again that's a great example: we have seen a 1-year fall in real incomes

But people aren't less confident about their economic future than they were last year, which came at the end of an historic rise in real incomes that was spread across the entire income distribution.

[yallerdawg]

22. This "bull market" started when we elected a Democrat to fix the Great Recession.

So, the learning we are not doing is the part where we give the keys back to the people who drove us into the ditch last time!

Deregulation. Unheard of deficits and debt. Tax reductions while increasing spending!

A deliberate, calculated political goal of reversing everything the Democrats (that black man) did to fix it 10 years ago!

Storm warning!

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

24. Red skies at night sailors delight

Red skies at morning, sailor take warning.

[Recursion]

26. The tax cut and the tariffs worry the hell out of me

Though I think we won't see major damage until the fall or so.

I was mostly worried Trump would point to the current numbers and take credit (he has) and people would suddenly realize the economy is actually pretty good (they haven't).

[GeorgeGist]

28. Racism is a hell of a drug.

[elleng]

29. Largest wage gains, I question the numbers on this, as lots of people are pissed,

and not for NO reason.

9 years, I think I heard.

[Recursion]

30. The biggest jumps were 2015 and 2016

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-household-incomes-soared-in-2015-recording-biggest-gain-in-decades/2016/09/13/a832da44-79e0-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html

Which, again, leaves me speechless on how this turned into a "change" election with a populist theme. This was supposed to be the sort of economic performance that made people happy. But it hasn't.

[elleng]

32. Right, and trump didn't just 'happen.'

Think WV, Wisc, Mich, PA.

[justgamma]

38. Faux snooze

told them that the only jobs President Obama created were low wage, part time jobs so they were able to dismiss all the good he did. Also, the largest middleclass tax cut in history turned into "he raised your taxes".

[mahatmakanejeeves]

34. Not 1982 - 2000?

Closing milestones of the Dow Jones Industrial Average
....

Milestone highs and lows
....

• 1982–2000: Bull market. The Dow experiences its most spectacular rise in history. From a meager 777 on August 12, 1982, the index grows more than 1,500% to close at 11,722.98 by January 14, 2000, without any major reversals except for a brief but severe downturn in 1987, which includes the largest daily percentage loss in Dow history.

[Recursion]

35. S&P, I believe, not DJIA (nt)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

36. I remember the events of August 1982. I was driving around between Albany, NY, and Vermont

when that was happening. The Dow jumped eleven points on August 13. Good golly.

A Look Back at a Great Bull Market

August 13, 2002 | TOM PETRUNO | TIMES STAFF WRITER

Twenty years ago on this date, the stock market began what would become one of the most momentous climbs in Wall Street's history.

The great bull market of the 1980s, which became the even greater bull market of the 1990s, was born Aug. 13, 1982, when the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 11.13 points, or 1.4%, to 788.05.

It was evident to probably few investors at the time, of course, but the previous day the Dow finally had bottomed after mostly languishing for the previous six years--a victim of high inflation and high interest rates, weak corporate profits and a general sense that American power was on the wane.

True to historic form, the bull market began while the economy still was mired in recession, and while many investors were sure that stocks would never again have appeal. But inflation was on the decline, the Federal Reserve was slashing interest rates, and many companies were in the midst of wrenching cost cutting that would set the scene for the profit boom of the mid-to late-'80s.

[Recursion]

37. Just in time for some tariff-induced inflation to take a bite out of those earnings

Man, I hope this doesn't repeat the Nixon/Ford economy

[Awsi Dooger]

39. S&P today reached first new all-time high since January

That was intraday. It has dropped slightly in the past hour after some news of a foreign currency collapse. I don't believe it will close at a new high.

Regardless, I'm glad I invested more after that February downturn instead of taking all the advice here and elsewhere to panic and sell.

The economic perception is going to limit the scope of the November wave. That is simply logic. If it keeps going up and sentiment is high we won't reach the currently expected gains.

Along those lines I don't mind a pullback this fall

[Recursion]

40. Except that tether seems to be broken

Just like it makes zero political sense that 2016 could have been a "change" election

[Awsi Dooger]

41. Actually it made perfect sense in the wake of the 2014 midterms

The warnings were everywhere, in one devastating late 2014 article after another. I pointed it out on many sites. Somehow we chose to ignore it, and pretended those midwestern states with all the working class white voters were still in our hip pocket:

"Working-class white voters continued their decadeslong defection from the Democratic Party.

https://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/2014-american-voter-elections-113883

[Recursion]

42. Right: the economic numbers at the time made that make no sense

Their wages were going up and their unemployment was going down, which previously has always been a predictor against that kind of backlash.

[Recursion]

43. No to mention the fact that we won voters concerned about "jobs" or "the economy" by 12 points

I'm not sure that there's ever been a cultural backlash with that large of an electoral impact before.

[Awsi Dooger]

44. Dow futures now plummeting

Straight line downward after these political developments