There is an old joke about ten blind people examining an elephant. Each dealt with a particular part and described the elephant based on his own interaction. So from the snake like animal described by the person touching the tail to the horned behemoth described by the tusk toucher, each had their own description.
These were actual empirical interactions and therefore accurate but wrong. I tend to forget what the moral of that story was, maybe get the whole picture before making a conclusion, but that is a good start.
Remember they were dealing with a real animal, not a fictional one made up by liars.
In today's America we have far too many "blind" people drawing conclusions from a small part of the American experience and some drawing them from fictional accounts.
So is America racist? Some part of it is. Is America privileged? Some part of it is. Having conflicting views is the result of how we interact with it and who we listen to.
Jumping to conclusions is part of the problem. Has inflation increased? Yes but how much of a problem is it? Some act like any inflation is a horrible thing. Of course deflation is also terrible. The fact that it was predictable and expected as we increased economic activity while also increasing minimum wage is ignored by many.
It also doesn't matter to the person who sees that the cost of filling up their truck has increased. One of the things that is going on although the data is still early, is that many women who were working and paying for day care, have decided to permanently leave their low paying jobs.
Those jobs don't pay for the day care, clothes and clothes needed to work. Is this a long term trend reversing the back to work trend of the past?
Too early to tell, but there are ways to make money in our gig economy that don't require full time jobs which can fit into a persons lifestyle.
I think the trend recognizes that and will probably continue. I think its a good thing for Americans if perplexing to economists.
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