I too wondered thatā¦it seems to be a popular way of dealing with unpleasant news these days, rather than the actual issue.
Also quite a popular exercise these days.
Well, news and other people playing games with the accounting donāt help people make decisions or assertions.
I have frequently brought up the fact that our personal experience with the economy influences how we view economic policy.
My business is doing better in the past couple of months than any time post-Covid.
My investment portfolio is up and I it is not due to the AI boom or other hot stocks.
But in the past few days I have been seeing a pattern of losses in part of my portfolio which was selected as hedge against problems in the US economy, All of the funds I am in which are invested in international stocks are losing money.
Not going to propose any theories. Not going to ask my advisors to change anything, but I am expecting to see some changes when they make next months adjustments. Perhaps the fund which is all Canadian stocks which was purchased last month will be gone.
This piece came out yesterday. There are several general articles discussing it out there, but I am only linking the original piece.
It sounds like your business perhaps best serves customers who are insulated from economic woes, in the top 10% of affluence. From the article:
One essential aspect of this weirdness is the economy is strongly bifurcated: AI is booming, but the rest of the economy isnāt. Another aspect is that in many ways the economy feels āfrozenā: while there have been no mass layoffs so far, people who have lost their jobs or are just entering the work force are finding it very hard to get new jobs. Third, while the economy is growing thanks to AI spending, itās a K-shaped expansion: People who were already affluent are becoming more so, but the less well-off are under severe pressure. For example, there are clear signs that middle-to-low income consumers are struggling: car loan and credit card delinquencies are rising, and grocers report that shoppers are buying cheaper varieties of food. At the same time, the affluent are spending freely: the top 10% of the income distribution now accounts for nearly half of all consumer spending.
Thatās good news, that you are not involved the possible AI tech bubble. Again, from the article:
Aside from the question of whether this is a bubble, itās important to be aware that the top 10 percent of households own 87 percent of equities, while the bottom half own almost no stock at all and gain nothing from a rising market. Hence the following chart
That has not gone unnoticed. 
It is obvious that some do speak from a place of privilege. I do not feel like I was any poorer under the previous administration. However, even if I was, no amount of money could pay me to ignore the sufferings of others. I am willing to depart from some of it if it would help carry some of the burden. Money truly is not everything, unless we are on the bottom rungs, in which case, a little will go a long way.
I grew up on one of the bottom rungs.
There need not be any shame in being poor but there is nothing great about it either.
Many of the people I grew up with, who were racially, religiously and ethical diverse, remained poor but others did not. I am amazed by the number of people I met after I was no longer poor that also had been poor and were no longer.
None of us had receive much help from anyone else in changing our status. Every I have met has a different story and most of them were driven by a desire not to be poor. Some did not become driven until they were adults, others were more aware of being poor at a younger age,
The amazing things about having been poor is the idea of being poor again is not frightening because escaping poverty can be repeated. And hard work and risk taking improves oneās odds of avoiding poverty.
I have also know people who have always lived a life of privilege and many of them are poor in spirit and limited in their accomplishments.
I knew the grandson of a former president of the New York Stock Exchange who was obsessed by having a company he owned become listed on the NYSE. He had several which failed or he was ousted from by investors.
When one of his companies was successfully listed, it was delisted and he was charged with fraud.
I had thought that Aretha Franklin had coined this quote, but it looks like it belongs to many: āIāve Been Poor, and Iāve Been Rich. Rich Is Better!ā 
They may not own any directly, but if they happen to work at a company that has a retirement plan or have a 401(k), IRAs, etc. that are in mutual funds they do own stocks (and likely bonds) that āenjoyā both the booms and the busts of the markets.
The amount of financial illiteracy in this country is insane. I question if there is a way out with everyone climbing on the AI train. It becomes the blind leading the blind.
Having been food bank poor living in a motorhome myself as a child, I think that dynamic changes with society, age and responsibility. I would have easily dusted off any catastrophic financial issues till my mid 40ās, and even then I had been smart enough to manage my affairs to ensure my children would not go hungry. But as my professional and personal responsibilities increased so did the risks to others, that no amount of personal resiliency can correct.
I am not driven by any desire to be rich or not be poor, but to provide the same level of opportunity and success to my children, my subordinates, my co-owners and by distant extension fellow Americans, that I myself have benefited from. It may sound self aggrandizing or like virtue signaling, but my life is not about me and my success or failures, or resiliency, but instead that I give more than I take from society so it continues forward. I believe the true purpose of a man is 1. Be physically and emotionally fit 2. Protect and advocate for others. 3. demonstrate excellence and integrity to future generations.
Nobody needs a Scrooge Mc Duck swimming in their pool of cash because they raised the price of insulin for shareholders, instead of a stock buyback program, ensure all employees of a company have dental coverage first, etc.
There is a point when someone reaches an age or level of responsibility (yes, having children is a choice) just to name a few, where escaping poverty cannot be repeated. I may never go hungry and my children may never go hungry or lack opportunity, but that does not mean I am not responsible for my choices being detrimental to others lives simply for my ineptitude or choice to pursue greed.
I would assert that any and all recoveries availed to ones āhard work and risk takingā have diminished in the recent decades, because we as a society have traded religion, virtues, core American values, etc. for greed, consumption, likes and a host of other personal dopamine triggers. A diminishing of the 3 items listed above, have only made things worse as people look inward for themselves, instead of outward to community, society and humanity.
I believe you are taking for granted in your claim, something that was available for yours and my generations, but is increasingly diminished for current and future generations. I also assert part of the reason it is being diminished, is due to choices and cultural changes from yours and my generations.
We do not need more of those who take, more than they give. Fāk those who would choose be the next Ozymandias.
You see taking where I see earning.
I gave up the ideology which supports that thought process decades ago.
Yes it is harder for younger people to succeed but a lot of that is due to unforeseen byproducts of advances in our society. Almost every reform brings with it new obstacles and it often takes generations to realize where the harm was done. And that is often to late to remedy the damage.
There are still people who succeed by hard work and risk taking, but they must be better, stronger and brighter than in the past. And it has been harder to learn the skills which support success.
No, it was a societal post. You are only taking when you choose to take from others instead of earning based on your own merits. It is only a problem when you take from society more than you give. If it is not obvious to others, then it is really only something you can determine.
I disagree and assert it was foreseen and knowingly ignored for the personal gain of a few. We can go back as far as the bible and other historical texts to identify the risks to humanity.
I assert the majority of obstacles were knowingly created, in exchange for the benefit of a few in power.
Mostly because those with increased power are less likely to yield it, resulting in the needed corrections. This is why we still have insider trading for members of congress and why many boards of directors are impotent to remove a corrupt CEO.
I vehemently agree and disagree. I believe the virtues of hard work and risk taking are the same, but the opportunities are diminished. Two distinctly different issues and problems, as it is one thing to create, train, educate, and instill the virtues of hard work, integrity, etc. into a person. It is something completely different to get Stanford to acknowledge that they need to accept someone based on the virtues you just pointed out, versus a legacy admission with sub standard performance, to make just one single example.
I assert the list of diminishing opportunity is proportional to the number of vitreous Americans entering society. One cannot claim one or the other alone is the core issue, but both are the root problem.
I highly agree with your argument. Well said.
True, but those company perks are fewer and farther between these days, and might still only apply to the top 10% of households originally mentioned owning the 87% of equities. 
The sad fact is that is the employees own money most of the time. Company matching is even more rare.
If you cannot afford to get a cavity filled because your employer does not offer dental, where TF is someone going to find the money to put into a 401K to get the match? For the 401K to work, you have to actually have disposable income to put into it.
Pensions allowed the āgreatest generationā to save, because it separated their retirement from their income. If you could not live on X% of your salary after 20, 25, 30 years, then you had to save more like a responsible adult. Fees were also handled by the pension funds as your benefit was set, compared to the fees (expense ratios) of a 401K plan or the popular government Thrift Savings Plan where the money comes from the individual.
The military pushed the BRS onto newer members (2016?) providing more options for separating early, and a 4% match. But a reduced pension if you stayed till 20, and you eat the fees on that investment $ for the rest of your life.
Greed, greed, greed where wall street meets main street.
I had a big city public school education. It was superb even in an area of public housing and slums. The teachers were bright, the curriculum well thought out and all of the students in a grade studied the same information, at the same time in every school in the city.
When the womenās movement came about in the 1960ās and opportunities for women expanded, there was a change in who was willing to teach in public schools. Most of the teachers who could choose other more lucrative occupations did so.
And the students suffered.
Those talented women desired greater opportunities and it is a good thing that they got them.
The common curriculum also was revised to provide āgreater relevanceā and teachers who were not capable of making decisions about what they teach and were not as bright were forced to make decisions which their predecessors had made for them. It was not immediately obvious that this was going to create problems.
My wife, who was not a good teacher, taught in a big city school system without a common curriculum and it made her job harder. That school system has had its studentās poor performance all over the news in recent years.
One cannot reject the issue of relevance out of hand, but other than in smaller towns and cities has there been the return to older, more traditional course content.
Ahem, ahemā¦ back to current economy, please.
Some current items, not intended for panic but to inform ecommerce Sellers so that they can adjust where neededā¦possibly starting with expectations:
Primarily because their family failed them, due to reliance on an external organization in the formation of their human being. If one relies solely on an external group to ensure the success of crafting a human being, that lineage is destined to fail.
I would assert other factors have equally been detrimental like the increased single parent rate when women were allowed to leave abusive relationships. Decreased middle class income killing off the homemaker roles to aid in creating better children. Increased fatherless rate is another one. Cowards walking away from their responsibility has damaged this country badly. Latchkey kids is overwhelmingly common in my generation, and now compared to your generation. I would go so far to assert that children in the 1950ās did not even need a physical school to go to and have similar economic opportunity to those in the average school due to having a dedicated homemaker to raise them.
The outcomes are clear in the math. If you have the economic stability to have a dedicated homemaker, the chances of having successful offspring increase over that of the best schools.
Schools are not the scapegoat for bad societal choices and moral outcomes in society, parents are. Many should not create more humans, and instead make better ones.
I have several family friends who can spend hours a week on sports, religion, video games, but their 5th grade kids do not know their basic multiplication tables, how to capitalize at the beginning of a sentence or someoneās name, or where Canada is located on a globe, but they can tell me what sports teams are winning, quotes from Jesus/Mohammed/Buddha, and how to not die so fast playing Fortnite.
Schools are not the core issue with our childrenās/societal problems. It is an issue, but not the core issue compared to garbage parents and societal pressures on good parents.
The best body shops in the world cannot make a badly damaged car new again. The key is not wrecking the car in the first place, and that is the responsibility of the driver, not a reflection of the body shop. A body shop can be good or bad, but no body shop can make a better driver.
Actually you can, based on demographics of income for two parents in a family based on rural versus urban economies. A core difference in American life compared to when you were raised when the percentage of rural versus urban America was vastly eschewed rural. Your ability to have this electronic dialogue, only exists because America changed to an urban industrial economy. The idea that a Little House on the Prairie school system will return, is laughably absurd when we consider the need for family.
Iāll defer to @papy 's AHEM
It is hard to stop a whole train of thought in under two minutes 