Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

census.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 97 posts

Re: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

#81

Post by linkregister »

vacri wrote: post #64
rdtsc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in general you're right, but with a some exceptions. Like say it depends on what part of economy we are talking about. If inflation, GDP numbers and so on, then those move slower. But stock market can react pretty quickly it seems. For example it can react to getting a hint of a possibly changing regulatory environments. A crashing or rapidly rising stock market will affect the economy quite a bit, especially…

Well, disasters and foreign economic threats aren't due to a politician's policy, and the regulatory environment usually doesn't change straight away (that requires legislation, not just a policy manifesto). War is a rare event as well, and it doesn't necessarily affect the wider economy - the war in Iraq and Afghanistan hasn't affected the US economy much, which quite happily went through a boom time in the early ye…

The war had enormous implications for the economy. Commodity prices were driven extremely high due to investor uncertainty about the Middle East oil supply. It got so bad that Congress had to pressure traders to stop hoarding massive amounts of crude oil in the hopes that the supply would be disrupted and the price would escalate. These commodity price rises fueled speculation into other asset classes, such as housing and loans.

As always there were some short-term positive Keynesian stimulative effects by increased government spending, but a massive run-up of the deficit did increase the cost of servicing the national debt, which might otherwise have been directed into productive enterprises, rather than the wasteful Iraq war which achieved negative progress.

Re: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

#82

Post by linkregister »

rmrm wrote: post #71
lotharbot wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It is completely dependent on it being the US stock market." Not really. It's only dependent on stock prices inherently reflecting all of the information buyers and sellers have about their expectations, including expected risk and reward. Trying to "time" the market basically means trying to find a signal other buyers and sellers haven't figured out, or at least not enough of them to cause prices to shift accordi…

My point was that entire countries economies and political systems sometimes fail. That hasn't happened in the US in the same way as it's happened elsewhere. But if it had, then "timing" the market, by which I mean selling it, would not have been suboptimal. Maybe I define market timing differently. Holding a healthy cash position for future investment and selling investments from time to time based on either their v…

Indeed, it doesn’t even always backtest well. There are several 10 and 15 year periods where negative real growth occurred in stock market indices.

Sure, with a 30-year horizon, everything smooths. But entering a market at the wrong time has severe implications.

That said, it is far more probable that a reluctant investor misses growth opportunities by failing to invest than by investing at the wrong time.

Re: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

#83

Post by ejnulls »

yorwba wrote: post #51
Consultant32452 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that you should have an interest in what you do for money is a new one and I think fairly unhealthy. It's part of the reason why we have so many young people with degrees in underwater basketweaving who can't find work in their majors. We're in the midst of an insane sociological revolution regarding "ability." 100 years ago it didn't matter if you had a 140 IQ because you were just out plowing the field the…

I think the unhealthy idea is that you should work in a field that you have no interest in, just because it pays more than underwater basketweaving, even if that'd still be enough to make a living and you'd enjoy it much more. After a certain fairly low threshold, having more money doesn't automatically make you more happy (i.e. you're already fed and clothed and have a place to sleep). Once you have crossed that thr…

Tbh, we'd likely have a much more equitable society if people only prioritized compensation for their careers.

Re: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

#84

Post by hidenotslide »

zappo2938 wrote: post #2

What happens when the US needs to start paying off the trillions in debt? I remember the last time things were good. It stopped being good quite rapidly. I don't know much about monetary and economic policy but I'm optimistically cautious. I can't imagine the US borrowing several trillion dollars to keep credit from freezing again.

Tldr: Government debt isn't like household debt. If anything you should be worried about growing deficits outside recessions, and even that just leads to some inflation.

There is no need to pay off the debt, as long as it grows slower than the economy it is shrinking in real terms.

Furthermore it serves an important purpose as a "risk-free" investment of US dollars and as a tool for monetary policy through open market operations. In fact there isn't enough outstanding debt for the second role, which is why during the financial crisis the Fed expanded its balance sheet to include mortgage backed securities.

Finally any country with its own currency can't really default on payments, except in a technical sense like the "debt ceiling". Instead if the government continues to run expanding deficits then inflation will rise and smooth things out, statistically reducing the debt. Think of it as everyone who owns dollars pays off a bit of their share of the debt.

Severe inflation like in the 1970's or worse is clearly harmful, but deflation is more harmful than moderate inflation. We have been running below policy maker goals of about 2% inflation for a while, despite the cries from deficit hawks that massive inflation is right around the corner due to QE.

Re: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

#85

Post by everheardofc »

zappo2938 wrote: post #2

What happens when the US needs to start paying off the trillions in debt? I remember the last time things were good. It stopped being good quite rapidly. I don't know much about monetary and economic policy but I'm optimistically cautious. I can't imagine the US borrowing several trillion dollars to keep credit from freezing again.

As long as it's not foreign debt and the country in question is not dependent on imports then it doesn't matter. They can always just borrow more.

Re: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

#86

Post by xiphias »

jdavis703 wrote: post #18
electrograv wrote: post #9

How is "all time high" income surprising, given that inflation essentially guarantees perpetually increasing dollar amounts of everything?

The increase is measured in "real terms" which means things like CPI are taken in to account. Further this number does decrease, for example during the last recession, so household median income is not directly correlated with inflation -- especially in this era of low inflation (compared to the mid-to-late 20th century inflation) that we've been in for a while.

The numbers would look more real with inflation statistics that are closer to reality:

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts

Re: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

#88

Post by astura »

electrograv wrote: post #21
jdavis703 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The increase is measured in "real terms" which means things like CPI are taken in to account. Further this number does decrease, for example during the last recession, so household median income is not directly correlated with inflation -- especially in this era of low inflation (compared to the mid-to-late 20th century inflation) that we've been in for a while.

Thanks for the explanation! For a layperson like myself in this field, this was not immediately obvious from the qualifier "real".

Here's the Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_versus_nominal_value_(eco...

Re: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

#89

Post by astura »

thatcat wrote: post #44
jdavis703 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The increase is measured in "real terms" which means things like CPI are taken in to account. Further this number does decrease, for example during the last recession, so household median income is not directly correlated with inflation -- especially in this era of low inflation (compared to the mid-to-late 20th century inflation) that we've been in for a while.

>(CPI) does decrease Does CPI decrease artificially based on subsidies to the indexed goods? For example with milk or any food with corn syrup, where the actual cost of production isn't reflected in the market price.

The quote was "this number does decrease." "This number" refers to median income. Income tends to decrease in a recession.

Re: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016

#90

Post by astura »

empath75 wrote: post #46
baron816 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to time the market is a well known suboptimal strategy. Just leave your money and try not to worry about it.

Unless you’re retiring in the next five years or something like that.

You aren't going to have 100% of your retirement in equities if you're going to retire in five years.
Post reply on HN