Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession - and most blame Biden
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/22/poll-economy-recession-bidenNo paywall link
https://archive.li/1Jc0c
Nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the US is in an economic recession, and the majority blame the Biden administration, according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian. The survey found persistent pessimism about the economy as election day draws closer.
The poll highlighted many misconceptions people have about the economy, including:
* 55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.
* 49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.
* 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.
Many Americans put the blame on Biden for the state of the economy, with 58% of those polled saying the economy is worsening due to mismanagement from the presidential administration.
The poll underscored people’s complicated emotions around inflation. The vast majority of respondents, 72%, indicated they think inflation is increasing. In reality, the rate of inflation has fallen sharply from its post-Covid peak of 9.1% and has been fluctuating between 3% and 4% a year.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
we're still working on finally having a "functioning democracy." We apparently don't have one.
I was told a couple of days ago that you can't have a democracy without "bodily autonomy"--abortion rights and gender reassignment surgery. JFK and FDR did not serve as presidents in a democracy. Not a democracy, it's some sort of autocracy. The tyrants. 
I've been told that "democracy" isn't about the system of elections and representation, it's really about the "values." Odd, I was taught we had a "liberal, representative constitutional democracy"--"liberal" were the values (freedom of worship, speech, association; due process; etc., etc.) and "representative" meant not direct majoritarian democracy (which can be very oppressive), "constitutional" meant we had fixed, written rules that could be changed but which were difficult to change because they were fundamental and required a lot of buy-in to alter since they *were* so basic and fundamental; while "democracy" meant that ultimately power rested with the people through a system of elections or polling.
But what do I know? I've just taught government to HS seniors a couple of years (when not doing my primary gig these days, being in the science classroom--but I'm certified for both and got the same score of 92/100 on the hours long certification tests on both).
Some people have confused form with content, process with outcome, goals with intent. Category errors like that are far worse than simple factual errors. Black-and-white thinking is a crime against thought. A democracy can be an imperfect democracy without being an absolute tyranny--FDR wasn't over a "democracy"? Hey, neither was Hitler or Stalin or Mao. The distinction? Three of the four openly hated capitalism--and FDR wasn't one of them. Still, American African-Americans were still freer than most under the other three. But if you turn up the contrast high enough, biased in the right way, FDR is indistinguishable from the actual tyrants.
Fuck 'em all. 
