Lots of bad economics in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/ji6j5t/truth/

We have a 2% inflation rate for a reason. It's to discourage most people from saving.

-- /u/Christmasplastic

That doesn't make any sense. Nobody wants to discourage people from saving, since the amount saved in the economy is equal to the amount invested, and investments drive long-term growth in the Solow-Swan growth model.

The main reason why have a 2% inflation rate is a business cycle reason. It is to keep leeway for recessions, so that the central bank can cut the nominal interest rate before hitting the zero-lower bound, which allows output and employment to bounce back to their usual levels.

Don't forget about inflation! The FED printed so much money this year your saving is literally not worth as much as it was.

-- /u/itwontdie

That's only true if you are financially ill-advised and you had your savings in cash. Otherwise, inflation only changes the nominal value of your savings, not their real value.

Also cash is always "literally not worth as much as it was" in an economy that is not currently experiencing deflation, but that doesn't tell you anything about the magnitude of the price change. The current projected inflation for the year 2020 is 0.62, which is negligible for most practical purposes.

I always point out to Trumpers that “if our economy is so great, how come it shit the bed within a month of a pandemic?”

-- /u/Grayfox215th

Because it's a huge exogenous shock. Economies around the world have plummeted because a worldwide pandemic reduces economic activity. The strength of an economy can have an influence on how well it is able to recover from the shock, but you have to expect at least some amount of bed shitting when people cannot leave their homes safely for more than a year.

Pre-pandemic, just under a quarter of Americans were unemployed, but currently? It's sitting at an estimated 53% real unemployment. Not the shit the bureau of labour statistics had been using since the 1800s that was specifically designed to make unemployment seem way less bad than it actually is, but true unemployment.

-- /u/-SENDHELP-

This user uses a definition of "real unemployment" that just corresponds to the number of people without a job. That means people who just have enough money to not work are counted as unemployed. It's obviously not an interesting measure to draw any conclusion, let alone policy implications.

For reference, here is the list of all the different unemployment metrics the BLS reports. They all have different usages (e.g the largest definition of unemployment includes people who would like to work but have not looked for a job recently, and part time workers who would like to work full time). The fact that the BLS is reporting all those different metrics is a sign of transparency and openness, not a sign that it is "hiding" the "true unemployment rate", whatever that means.

I didn't have time to look at the entire thread, I'm sure there are more gems like these. Feel free to RI other comments!