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A disaster is looming for American men

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#61

Post by mohamedattahri »

nabla9 wrote: post #41
tuna-piano wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll leave this here for those making the "technical unemployment" argument. After hundreds of years of virtually the same argument being made, I think the burden is on you to say why this time is different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment#Pre...

1) If you are climbing the S-curve, most of the journey looks like exponential growth. 2) It's less of unemployment argument than reduced value argument. Unemployment is result from the lower limit for the living wage. People in India can find work for $1 per day even in automated society. If we are willing to reverse wage increases, remove laws regulating working conditions and remove all kinds of welfare, we can ke…

Totally agree. I think the real issue is that education is not catching up.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#62

Post by lucozade »

c0nducktr wrote: post #33
nathanaldensr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it did make things easier, but then the fruits of that betterness were captured by the oligarch class. Our rapid progression toward a society of renters goes along with this.

Feudalism 2.0

> Feudalism 2.0

Well possibly. I'm British so my experience may differ but I happen to have read my great grandfather's diary, he was a carpenter during the Great War, spent a lot of time with my grandfather, he was in the RAF. My father was an immigrant, kicked out of Egypt by Nasser.

My life, for all the hours I work and the stress, is a bed of roses compared to anything they went through. In fact, I feel slightly guilty even comparing. My children, who I believe are entering a more difficult world than the one I was born to, can't really comprehend my upbringing let alone their immediate ancestors.

Feudalism 2.0? Maybe. But I'll take it Thank you. Sometimes you just have to take a step back and appreciate what you've got.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#63

Post by runako »

Kurimo wrote: post #52
runako wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, it takes nearly 2x the median household income to get something resembling that kind of life. In some cities. In other cities, that's just not true. Example: in Atlanta, GA, the median income is right over $55k. According to Zillow, that will get you a house in the $227k range. There are tons of single-family houses with yards in that price range (or even half that) in the city. I ran similar math for Dallas…

If you buy a house in the $227k range on a $55k income (With NO insurance and NO property taxes, the monthly payment would be ~$1,736.53), you will have to live very carefully to get by comfortably (considering $55k after federal/georgia taxes would net about $41,013.75, your monthly takehome would be $3,7k leaving you Zillow and other home pushers are interested in selling houses, not in the consequences for the buy…

I kind of figured that would be a pushback, but I wanted to use a reproducible source (nerdwallet is more aggressive than Zillow and comes up with a higher number). And per realtor.com ~$1800/mo is about right for all-in (insurance, tax, etc.) in the Atlanta area in that price range.

All that said, in Atlanta, 3 BR/2 BA houses are abundant in the under-$150k range. Or under $100k. It's really not approaching necessary to earn 2x the median income in cities like Atlanta to buy a house with a yard.

The point is the OP's math assumes one lives in a high-cost area, which is not the reality where most Americans live.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#64

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

jewel wrote: post #38
hrgeek wrote: post #19

Disaster is already here. In the 1950's you could raise a family with 2.3 children on a 40 hour work week. Today, families are struggling to make ends meet with 60-70+ hour work weeks. Technology was supposed to have made things more efficient. It seems to have had the opposite effect.

The average home size in the 1950s was just 953 square feet. Now it's 2500 square feet. You likely would have a single car. Your utility bill would be a lot lower (no internet, no cable, no air conditioning). You'd eat a lot of home-cooked meals, have a serious vegetable garden, would sew and mend your own clothes, etc. You wouldn't need to pay for your own clothes. I suspect it's quite possible to raise a family on…

talking about the home size is disingenuous, you might want to look at the lot size, not the home size, for example. Or do you think you would be able to have a 'serious vegetable garden' on today's postage stamp lots?

Schooling costs are also way, way, way higher than they were in the 50s, and there are no well paying manufacturing jobs to do if you aren't inclined to go to college.

I really doubt that you would be able to raise a family on a single income these days with the same standard of living you could have back then.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#65

Post by h4nkoslo »

dmode wrote: post #58
whenwillitstop wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shhhh! There is a massive labor shortage dont you know?

Are you suggesting that US is importing a vast army of truckers from Asia ?

Summers is talking about hypothetical future job losses in, eg, trucking. I am talking about present unemployment caused by excess labor in sectors like agriculture, food processing, food service, nursing, construction, etc.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#66

Post by 2AF3 »

knieveltech wrote: post #18
tdb7893 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all just this century's Luddites

Nonsense. I encourage you to point out a single industry that has cropped up in the last 50 years that generates large numbers of high paying jobs that aren't subject to being automated away. In 1985 people freaking out about computers and networking was luddite behavior. Where are the 3.5 million currently un-filled jobs waiting for the truck drivers who are about to lose their careers en masse?

plus millions who who support truckers, truckstop workers etc

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#67

Post by falcolas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #48
falcolas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 70's, middle-class "comfortable" consisted of a 16-30,000 sqft house with a yard, two cars, and remarkably good job stability (pensions, etc). Today, it takes nearly 2x the median household income to get something resembling that kind of life. Granted, you're still considered middle class at that level of income...

> In the 70's, middle-class "comfortable" consisted of a 16-30,000 sqft house with a yard, two cars, and remarkably good job stability (pensions, etc). I think you are off of what you intended by an order of magnitude on that house size. (And a bit high for reality even after correcting for that error.) Tangentially related: https://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf

Yeah, one order of magnitude. I hate doing that.

I don't think it's too high, though. My parents built something on the order of 5,000 sqft in the early 70's for around $15,000 (including the 5 acres of land), adjusted for inflation that's under $150,000. My Mom was able to put herself through 4 years of college by waiting tables part time.

Yeah, we had it good. Why? My dad's blue collar job burying and splicing telephone lines for Ma'Bell.

It really was a different time. That same job today comes with no job security and remarkably similar wages as it was 40 years ago, even as the cost of living and inflation has increased tenfold.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#68

Post by falcolas »

runako wrote: post #63
Kurimo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy a house in the $227k range on a $55k income (With NO insurance and NO property taxes, the monthly payment would be ~$1,736.53), you will have to live very carefully to get by comfortably (considering $55k after federal/georgia taxes would net about $41,013.75, your monthly takehome would be $3,7k leaving you Zillow and other home pushers are interested in selling houses, not in the consequences for the buy…

I kind of figured that would be a pushback, but I wanted to use a reproducible source (nerdwallet is more aggressive than Zillow and comes up with a higher number). And per realtor.com ~$1800/mo is about right for all-in (insurance, tax, etc.) in the Atlanta area in that price range. All that said, in Atlanta, 3 BR/2 BA houses are abundant in the under-$150k range. Or under $100k. It's really not approaching necessar…

Not really, once you include the other costs of living (and having children).

$1.8k housing, plus $500 for property taxes and insurance, $1,000 for two vehicles (payments, insurance (damned teenage drivers), gas, maintenance), $500 into savings for household emergencies, $800 to feed four, $100 per person for clothing, the occasional ice cream, paying off medical deductables... and you're quickly looking at needing over $5,000 a month gross just to get by.

5,000 / 0.7 * 12 = $85,000

Toss in 10% savings and 10% retirement, and you're well over $100,000.

Sure, you can cut corners and live off a lot less than that, but I'm comparing it to the standard of living had by people 40 years ago.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#69

Post by toomanybeersies »

justinlardinois wrote: post #4

Is this only a problem for men? And if so why? I can't help but think that an article this short can't be anything more than fluff.

Possibly part of the reason that it could be seen as a problem that affects men more than women is that women are generally employed in more social roles, which tend to not be automated away so quickly, e.g. hair dressers, baristas, teachers, nurses, human resources.

Baristas are a very good example of this. The whole coffee making process can be pretty much automated, but isn't because people like to see a person making their coffee.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#70

Post by tdb7893 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #51
tdb7893 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all just this century's Luddites

You should actually read up on the Luddites. Their main goal was better treatment of workers; smashing machines was just their preferred means of protest. The image of the backwards anti-tech fetishist was a propaganda smear by the industrialists at the time, which was so successful that people are still buying it now.

I have already been told this many times in the past (firstly when I learned about them originally from my history teacher). I need a new word for people that irrationally fear technology but technophobe just looks weird to me.
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