51–60 of 359 posts
From previous: " In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white…
From previous: " In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white…
In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…
IMO, the winning strategy is to be weird.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…
> I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent No, you wouldn’t. As income goes higher, long-distance transportation becomes (a) more comfortable and (b) smaller as a fraction of income. De-camping to Washington State and commuting to San Francisco doesn’t make sense at $200,000; it does at $1 or 2 million.
The locals hate it when you do this because you screw with their low CoL so please don't shove it in their face by being politically active as well.
With the rapid destruction of soon-to-be-depleted resources and worsening climate change I argue that "Baby Recovery" is a very misleading titling of birth rate decline; the next generation will likely have a better quality of life if there are _fewer_ of them, not more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd suggest that the later was the more common. I doubt that was the case. According to the CDC[1], less than 15% of teenage births were to unmarried teenagers in the 1950s. In 1960, the birth rate for teenagers aged 15-17 was a quarter that of teenagers aged 18-19. 1. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr49/nvsr49_10.pdf
"Births" ... not pregnancies. There is a monumental difference. We know about the births because they are vital stats. But for the pregnancies, at best, we know about the reported pregnancies, the girls who went to doctors and those doctors contributed to the stats. That doesn't cover the girls who did not see doctors nor those who, for whatever reason, did not carry the child to term. >> less than 15% of teenage bir…
People survived just fine. Life isn't all rainbows and unicorns. Raising a kid as a young couple who are only together for the kid probably sucked a lot less in 1958 because there was a heck of a lot less economic pressure (and bad finances make everything else worse).
With the rapid destruction of soon-to-be-depleted resources and worsening climate change I argue that "Baby Recovery" is a very misleading titling of birth rate decline; the next generation will likely have a better quality of life if there are _fewer_ of them, not more.
That is ridiculous. Wages have never been higher, and there have never been more people. There are incredibly strong network effects from having more people (in cities, etc), and the benefit of international trade relies on more people to enable better specialization. All kinds of incredibly important markets, like semiconductors (including computer chips, solar power) and even mining rely on having a lot of people t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In pretty much every analysis involving housing costs, I try to mention that percentage of income spent on housing is not a great metric. A better metric is absolute income minus housing costs. All else being equal, I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent, because that remaining 25% would be a heck of a lot of money. I doubt this metric would significantly change the conclusions of this ar…
> I would gladly earn $1 million per year and spend 75% of it on rent No, you wouldn’t. As income goes higher, long-distance transportation becomes (a) more comfortable and (b) smaller as a fraction of income. De-camping to Washington State and commuting to San Francisco doesn’t make sense at $200,000; it does at $1 or 2 million.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering the ratio of career gains that go to those working in a few expensive cities, even if this is largely selection effects, I'm not sure this paints a very rosy picture of the society we're creating. I'm reminded of how few heads of EU states are parents https://www.marketwatch.com/story/do-childless-leaders-mean-...
This stage of the demographic transition is a huge problem, IMO. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a ratchet (as in, it only moves in one direction): Basically, two incomes are useful, so both people in a relationship pursue careers. Now they have more money to compete on the housing market. This seems like a good move, so others follow suit. At first this is largely a win for people who pursue this r…
Given that Zillow home value 'estimates' are poor, often all over the map in areas with near idential homes, I would not take anyting they offer up with more than a grain of salt.