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Being frugal is for the rich

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Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#261

Post by nickthemagicman »

sokoloff wrote: post #116
nickthemagicman wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a patently false statement. Inflation has been 3% a year for decades and wages have stayed flat. Your example of home furnishings has been improved by industrialization. Property value have skyrocketed, vehicle prices have skyrocketed, college, healthcare... Things you NEED have become way more expensive. Luxury goods have gotten cheaper.

>Inflation has been 3% a year for decades and wages have stayed flat. Every time I read this claim and go looking for data, I find data that says that real wages are roughly flat, which means that they have kept pace with inflation. (That's the definition of real wages: that they are in inflation-adjusted terms.) It seems a common journalistic (and often political) talking point to say exactly what you said, which ma…

Median wages have decline by 4% since 2000.

Median wealth has fallen by 28% in a decade.

The middle class has been reduced by 11% since 1971.

Even in the chart you posted, things people NEED have become steadily more expensive while wages have remained flat.

Student loan debt has skyrocketed over 200% since 1990 which is needed in most cases for a good job.

How is this not decline?

* http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middl...

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#262

Post by mdekkers »

KingMob wrote: post #102
T2_t2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they also had less. This is the ... I'm not sure of the right word, paradox? duality? ... anyway, the problem/benefit of globalisation, that it leads to cheaper stuff. We all have more today, even on less money. Thought experiment: ask yourself when it was better to be poor: 1950, or 2018. In 1950 you could... go to the library? In 2018, even the very poor likely have a mobile phone, the internet, a games cons…

The plummeting costs of technology over time make it a poor barometer for measuring wealth. Instead of mobile phones and TVs, look at bigger items like health care, housing, and education, all of which have gotten more expensive (in the case of education, astoundingly so) even as inflation-adjusted wages have decreased.

Instead of mobile phones and TVs, look at bigger items like health care, housing, and education, all of which have gotten more expensive

Indeed. I can do without my TV. In fact, I turn it on only once or twice a week for a few hours. I can do without a flagship mobile. In a pinch, I can get a cheap-o no-name brand for important calls.

Housing, health-care, education - these are all key moneypits that are more expensive, for less in return. Don't even get me started on pensions. For as long as I have been actually aware of pensions as a thing, all I have heard is how the fund was lost, raided, payouts going down, pensionable age going up, and without exception, those tat subside off their pension only live in abject poverty, often making choices between eating or heating.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#263

Post by your-nanny »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #224
your-nanny wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might help, actually. Your assumption is that what the rich do with their mmonet doesn't actually hurt the poor; but it can. Itcab be used to purchase narratives and political influence in ways deeply harmful

You're still focusing your attention on supposed bad behavior of the rich rather than the wellbeing of the poor. If you think the poor need something, like say more funding for inner city schools, then say that and suggest a reasonable tax, perhaps a tax on luxury goods that would disproportionately affect the wealthy. Or if there's a specific bad behavior, such as pharmaceutical advertising, talk about that. But jus…

But rich people largely advocate against policies that favor poor people, like generous welfare and equitable taxation. Rich people advocate for policies that protect their status and the value of their properties and investments. They advocate against redistributive inheritance taxes, so that their own children continue to have enormous advantages over anyone else. They advocate policies that guarantee they can continue to extract wealth from rents rather than productive avtivities, dragging down the economic well being of all. And the rich are more likely to cheat on their taxes, try to bribe officials, or flat out disregard the law. And the rich have disproportionate power to do so, and work very hard to make it stay that way.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#264

Post by your-nanny »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #224
your-nanny wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might help, actually. Your assumption is that what the rich do with their mmonet doesn't actually hurt the poor; but it can. Itcab be used to purchase narratives and political influence in ways deeply harmful

You're still focusing your attention on supposed bad behavior of the rich rather than the wellbeing of the poor. If you think the poor need something, like say more funding for inner city schools, then say that and suggest a reasonable tax, perhaps a tax on luxury goods that would disproportionately affect the wealthy. Or if there's a specific bad behavior, such as pharmaceutical advertising, talk about that. But jus…

Sometimes wealth is the problem.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#265

Post by your-nanny »

manigandham wrote: post #207
your-nanny wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so fantasies are soooooo appealing.

If it's a fantasy then perhaps you're not spending your time wisely...

It is a fantasy because the way the real world works means that people operate under constraints such that they do not actually have productive uses of their time, or that their time is already allocated toward necessary obligations, such as caring for children, or for parents.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#267

Post by Dowwie »

wemdyjreichert wrote: post #230

I started saving at about 6. My dad did the numbers to show me how much I could have by retirement. After inheriting a little from my grandparents and saving that too, and after saving as much of my income as possible, it paid off (literally).

You make it sound as if this were an entirely deliberate practice of self control on your part. :) Were there safeguards that protected you from yourself?

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#268

Post by peacetreefrog »

thelibrarian wrote: post #219

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots…

I don't think this is true in a world where people can borrow money.

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#269

Post by jaclaz »

refurb wrote: post #186
mcguire wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. The median home value in 1940, adjusted for inflation to 2000, was $30,600 ($2,938 pre-adjustment).[1] The median income for a man was $9,948, using the same inflation factor of 10.406639 ($956, unadjusted).[2] The median home sales price in 2015 was about $300,000[3] while median household income was $54,000.[4] [1] https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/valu... [2] https://www.npr.org/2…

You're ignoring that the percentage of people living in cities has gone up by 50% (56% -> 75%) from 1940 to 1990 (couldn't find later data). The size of homes has also gotten much bigger. So the $30,000 home in 1940 (in today's dollar) wouldn't look anything like a $300,000 home today. I'd be more interested to learn what a townhouse in Manhattan cost in 1940 and 2010.

And you need to count in something else, the actual changes in living standards.

Nowadays the cost (for a new house) for "utilities" (water, electricity, heating, A/C, etc.) plants/hardware is a considerable factor, as a rough estimate 20-30% of the construction costs, and a large house in the 40's would probably have had one single bathroom/WC (if any[1]) for a 3 bedrooms home.

jaclaz

[1] In rural parts it was not so unusual to have an external loo

Re: Being frugal is for the rich

#270

Post by candiodari »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #225
KingMob wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plummeting costs of technology over time make it a poor barometer for measuring wealth. Instead of mobile phones and TVs, look at bigger items like health care, housing, and education, all of which have gotten more expensive (in the case of education, astoundingly so) even as inflation-adjusted wages have decreased.

There's a simpler test here. If you weren't sure what color your skin would be, what income bracket you'd be born into, what level of health you'd have at birth, or even what country you'd be born in, would you rather be born in 2018 or 1950?

I don't think it's that simple. When I was 15 without a doubt I would have said today.

And now at 30 I'm pretty convinced that I would have liked 1950 better. Why ? Because the space and that I know that for 30+ years my life would consistently improve, maybe even 50+ or 60+, including an actual pension etc, even if I was born black. The basic standard would be different, but the constant improvement wouldn't. I mean I'd miss my PS4 and iPad, except of course I wouldn't, not really.

Maybe I'll change my mind again.

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