Is the US economy actually in rough shape or are things starting to shape up? It’s evident Americans are living in a multitude of economic realities depending on the economic data they interpret or more tangible elements of their lifestyles, such as their spending habits, income, and whether they rent or own property.
Writer, educator, and finance TikTok creator Kyla Scanlon is able to pick up on the misconceptions many people have about the economy by just reading the comments sections of her videos:
“People feel like it’s not important to understand the economy. And then number two, it’s always semantics, right? Like if inflation is going down, people will think that means that prices are going down. But that’s not the case. And so there’s all sorts of points along the economic timeline where it’s something like that, where it’s just there are moments of confusion.”
Catch Yahoo Finance’s full interview with Kyla Scanlon with Josh Lipton and Julie Hyman, where they talk everything economics, social media, and Scanlon’s new book “In this Economy? How Money and Markets Really Work.”
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Asking for a Trend.
This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
Video Transcript
You look at your comments a lot, you interact with people a lot.
What’s sort of the biggest misconception that you’ve discovered that people have about the economy?
I mean, I, I think overarching it’s that people think they’re not a part of the economy, they think it’s something separate than them.
And that can be a little bit confusing because you are a part of this broader system.
Like if you buy a cup of coffee as an economic transaction.
And so I think that’s one thing like people feel like it’s not important to understand the economy.
And then number two, it’s always semantics, right?
Like if inflation is going down, people will think that means that prices are going down, but that’s not the case.
And so there are all sorts of points along the economic timeline where it’s something like that where it’s just there are moments of confusion, it’s not anybody’s fault, it’s just we haven’t properly explained it properly just really quickly axios this week said like inflation doesn’t mean the same thing anymore.
It doesn’t actually mean the rate of change and now just means prices.
Yeah, Jared.
I mean, come on.
Uh Jared Bernstein of the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors stepped in on, on Twitter about that.
And I, I think that was more just like uh maybe not a troll per se, but it was something in the Felix Z.
He, he knows exactly what inflation is, but I think it is a good point where um because of the way that we perceive inflation, you know, the concept of reflexivity has a little bit of a role here where what our perception is does kind of become reality.
And so I think that’s the broader thing with inflation is it sort of becomes what we think it is, even if it’s not exactly that.
As confusing as that sounds, we read the book.
Get less confused.
Yeah, hopefully.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Appreciate it.
This book is called in this economy, how money and markets really work.
And it is available now.
