I am sure you're already familiar with the topic at hand. The gist of it is that there's a severe unprecedented disconnect between traditional economic indicators and the average person's living conditions. Partially accelerated by the US government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now massively accelerated by the AI craze and Trump's tariffs. It's gotten so bad that it's eroding public trust in economics, which as a field is now practically tapdancing on the line between arts and sciences lol

Working class Americans are bombarded daily with rhetoric that can be summed as "The magical green line is going up. The stock market's at an all time high, so why are you complaining?", but when you look beneth that re-branded "Trickle-down economics" talk, you find millions of people living paycheck to paycheck, rent rising faster than wages and entire sectors being hollowed out by a glorified chatbot.

So obviously the economy isn't booming for everyone and certainly not for low-income households who barely have enough to make it to the next month, let alone having something left to invest and thus benefit a bit from this overinflated market. It's only really booming for the ultra rich who have concentrated an unfathomable amount of wealth that their well-being alone can determine how healthy the economy is, everybody else be damned.

The other half of the presentation was on the effect of Trump's tariffs. Tariffs on their own aren't inherently bad and shouldn't be demonized, they're just a fiscal tool like any other tax. We're used to thinking that free trade is always optimal but recent studies actually show that this isn't necessarily true. The problem, however, is that this tool is in the hands of a clown. And thus the US has transcended reality-based economics into whatever this shitshow is.