Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession

[John J.]

Gaslighting behaviors don't have to be conscious behaviors.... They are aggressive behaviors that have been selected for.

Your evidence? That, specifically, gaslighting behaviours are selected for?
Which chromosomes are involved? Is it inherited from the father, mother or both?
In cases of (usually, not solely) men who gaslight their partner in a coercive relationship, are you claiming their relatives have a predisposition to gaslight their partners?

Or are you claiming that all human behaviours are selected for, therefore gaslighting behaviours are selected for?
Is spousal abuse selected for? Or collecting trading cards?

I'm not going to agree to disagree with someone who doesn't understand the science.

Your proximal behaviour is having the- presumably unintended- proximal effect of me thinking you're being rude, as well as being mistaken.

 

[jesseconnell]

based on that chart inflation is increasing. isnt that what +4% means?

Inflation is a first derivative, "inflation increasing" is talking about the second derivative. A change form +4% to +3% would be a decrease in inflation, even though it's still positive inflation. That change would be saying, "the currency is losing its purchasing power at a slower rate than it was before". To use a car analogy:

A positive inflation rate is like moving forward, a negative inflation (deflation) would be going in reverse.
A high inflation rate is moving forward fast (and it's kind of subjective).
An increase in inflation is like speeding up, a decrease inflation is like slowing down.
Compared to two years ago, inflation rate has decreased, but it's still a positive value. (It typically is - deflation is much less common than inflation.)

 

[FatPhil]

Your evidence? That, specifically, gaslighting behaviours are selected for?

Anyone else notice that the repeated emphasis that children often engage in what-he's-calling-gaslighting-but-no-one-else-is implies that fewer adults engage in it. Which is a form of selection - gaslighting as a strategy doesn't seem to be a favourable one. So that's selection *against*, rather than selection *for*.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Your evidence? That, specifically, gaslighting behaviours are selected for?
Which chromosomes are involved? Is it inherited from the father, mother or both?

Chromosomes? Hmmm

Maybe a cooling off period is in order.

​

 

[John J.]

Nothing new really, but I've just e-mailed the following to the Guardian's "global reader's editor", Elisabeth Ribbans, who I think is the person to contact re. general points of fact. Copied in Lauren Aratani, the author of the Guardian article cited in the OP.

(Title) Guardian US article "Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden", Wed. 22 May 2024 by Lauren Aratani

Dear Ms. Ribbans,
Along with a few others I have been discussing the above article, which can be found online here

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/22/poll-economy-recession-biden.

The author, Ms. Aratani, states that the article is informed by a Harris poll commissioned exclusively for the Guardian.
As far as we can establish, the relevant poll is the May 2024 poll whose results are accessible here

https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Wave-222_Banner-4_Newsletter-combined.pdf.

Our concern is that the results found in that PDF don't appear to support the headline/ main contention of the article, nor do the results support some other points made in the article:

(1) The May 2024 Harris Poll results PDF that we have access to doesn't ask respondents if they think the US is in a recession.
(2) There are no questions concerning beliefs about the S&P 500 stock market. There is no reference at all to the stock market.
(3) Respondents are not asked to estimate levels of unemployment.
(4) There are no questions about who might be to blame for any negative, or perceived negative, indicators or findings.

Almost all the questions ask respondents to rate how concerned they are about various issues.
They do not ask respondents for quantitative, or relative, estimates about anything as far as I can tell.

We would be very grateful if you (or Ms. Aratani) would be able to advise us regarding the following:

-Are there relevant Harris Poll results which informed the 22 May Guardian US article which are not in the above-linked PDF?
If so, is it possible for us to view them?

In the unlikely event that the Harris Poll results that we already have are complete, there must be substantial doubts about the claims of the 22 May article.

Thank you, in anticipation of your efforts,
and Regards to Ms. Aratani, whose interesting analysis motivated our interest, ( etc. etc. )

Content from External Source

We can live in hope...

 

[John J.]

Chromosomes? Hmmm

Well, if you're going to continue being passive-aggressive, yes, "genes" would be more specific.
Not that you can point to any evidence to support your contention.

A cooling-off period was, I feel, implied by my using the phrase "...agree to disagree", to which you responded in an uncharitable manner.

 

[jesseconnell]

I have a nit to pick with talking about inflation "increasing" vs "decreasing". (This applies to many/most economic indicators/measurements/statistics.) Loose language can imply knowledge that doesn't exists (intentional or otherwise).

Inflation doesn't necessarily have momentum, although gazing at a chart might make it seem like it does. For example, consider this chart:



It's pretty natural to look at it and conclude that the thing it's measuring is decreasing. However, I just made that in a spreadsheet, the time series is the difference between the running total of heads vs tails in simulated coin tosses. There's definitely no momentum here, it's just random, and I did refresh a few times until it looked like more trend-like. It's true to say "it has decreased" (and more true if this is qualified with a time frame).

Like I said in the first sentence, I'm nit-picking, but only in part. Looking at charts the brain wants to find patterns, it wants to fill in a narrative to explain what it's seeing - sound familiar? I'm not claiming inflation has no momentum, but whatever momentum is there is probably complicated. I'm sure to talk intelligently about it gets into the tall weeds quickly.

I suspect a lot - maybe most - people hear "is inflation increasing or decreasing" but interpret this as "is the economy getting worse or better". I also suspect there's an automatic tendency towards economic pessimism, and polls just show this.

 

[Dan Burt]

But I think you did the hard work, it's a very delicate task to lead someone down a path that will obviously be difficult for them. I'm sure I wouldn't have the patience to see it through.

Mick taught me that patience. I have been reading threads here that would make me want to scream, and Mick just kept calmly bringing facts and explaining things. I have taken that approach as my own...Lol

 

[Mendel]

From the Harris Poll newsletter:

Article:

What’s going on here?

• Personal finances skew economic perceptions: Two-thirds (66%) say it’s difficult to be happy about positive economic news when they feel financially squeezed each month.
• Wary eyes cast distrust toward the media: Nearly two-thirds (62%) think the economy is worse than the media makes it out to be.

Source: https://theharrispoll.com/briefs/america-this-week-wave-222/

 

[John J.]

From the Harris Poll newsletter:
Article: What’s going on here?

• Personal finances skew economic perceptions: Two-thirds (66%) say it’s difficult to be happy about positive economic news when they feel financially squeezed each month.
• Wary eyes cast distrust toward the media: Nearly two-thirds (62%) think the economy is worse than the media makes it out to be.

Source: https://theharrispoll.com/briefs/america-this-week-wave-222/

On the Harris Poll webpage Mendel links to, it also says

• Over half (55%) of Americans believe the U.S. economy is shrinking this year (It’s growing).
• Nearly half (49%) believe the S&P 500 is down for the year (It’s up).
• The same number (49%) believe unemployment is nearing a 50-year high (It’s a 50-year low).

Content from External Source

-which is pretty much what is claimed in the Guardian article.
The Guardian item was published 22 May, a week before the Harris Poll newsletter (29 May) but I guess the Guardian had the right to publish first, having commissioned the poll.

This implies that the poll results that we have access to,
https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Wave-222_Banner-4_Newsletter-combined.pdf,
are incomplete (or perhaps even part of a different poll).
If the linked-to results are complete, and the basis of the Guardian article, it's hard to see how Harris Poll could come to their conclusions (e.g. that over 55% of Americans believe the economy is shrinking) on the basis of those results.
But this (at the moment hypothetical) over-interpretation of the poll results would be down to Harris Poll, not the Guardian.

 

[John J.]

Download the Data

This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by The Harris Poll from May 24th to 26th, among a nationally representative sample of 2,125 U.S. adults.
Download

Content from External Source

links to https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Wave-222_Banner-4_Newsletter-combined.pdf
Which doesn't seem to have any questions that directly correspond to what's in that summary.

I was pretty much convinced that the Harris Poll PDF that Phil found contained the data that was behind The Guardian's claims, and that this meant either Harris Poll or (probably more likely in my imagination) The Guardian were overstating the case (in claiming that a majority of US citizens believe the US is in recession), as it 's hard to see how this conclusion could be drawn from the questions and responses recorded in the PDF.

So,

Nothing new really, but I've just e-mailed the following to the Guardian's "global reader's editor", Elisabeth Ribbans, who I think is the person to contact re. general points of fact. Copied in Lauren Aratani, the author of the Guardian article cited in the OP.

E-mailed The Guardian (text of e-mail in above post), and to my surprise they've replied (on the 13th, almost forgot to post it)

Thank you for getting in touch about this. The link you have provided is not to the poll in question. I've spoken to the reporter and my understanding is that Harris has not published the poll its website. The reporter has gone back to them to see if this is a possibility, but I can't see that it's been done yet.

Content from External Source

-Which seems a fairly straightforward reply. My suspicion that the folk at The Guardian were making unfounded claims was probably misplaced; we just don't have access to the data for their survey (which I thought we did).