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Is everything falling apart?

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#551

Post by brnaftr361 »

jaqalopes wrote: post #7

I think some things are falling apart but not everything. If you had the foresight/luck/guidance to get into a stable white collar career, find a partner, and buy a house before 2022 I think you're on "the train". This train is currently pulling away from a burning station containing everyone else who hasn't done those things yet. It's still possible to escape the station by running down the tracks but at this point…

Except there's a mob outside with pitchforks, and the conductor and engineer are part of it[1], and everybody in it has the same look on their face, "You really thought you could get away?" as the air brakes hiss into their fail-state, and everyone on board the train realizes the red herring of the burning station didn't work out.

[1]: https://coloradosun.com/2022/04/08/bnsf-railway-attendance-p...

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#552

Post by ozzythecat »

shagie wrote: post #448
rabuse wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just doesn't seem to be the case with the peers I know, and covid made everything worse for morale. Nobody really wants to work anymore, service speed has fallen off a cliff in my area (South Florida), staff shortages are still in effect, nobody wants to have kids/get married, etc.

> Nobody really wants to work anymore In many parts of jobs that have public facing people, the perceived increase in the lack of civility has made those jobs much more difficult to accept for any length of time. The combination of job loss, retraining for jobs that don't deal with the public, and acceptance of austerity (including moving back in with one's parents in some cases) to have an extended duration of no in…

I’d like to make a meta response to your post not about specific points you raised but how you made your point.

I’ve been a fairly progressive or at least liberal my whole life. I also like to look at what the data tells us.

I’m not certain that looking at “data” means we have real facts. At best, we have some quantitative representation that fits the narrative being pushed by its creators.

Within progressive circles, I’ve seen data showing that the new generations are placing family on hold because they can hardly afford things, despite having “well paid” jobs. Other data shows that these millennials are all living with their parents. But then there’s another study saying something completely different. People slice and dice whatever information they have to fit whatever narrative.

I’ve personally become less willing to engage in conversation or debate when someone comes in and claims to have the data refuting what everyone is seeing with their own eyes and living day to day.

It’s like in Seattle. We have homicides, shootings about every week. A woman was recently beaten with a baseball bat at a transit station. But then the local government and its outsourced “activist” advisors say we cannot and should not lock up the suspect (who confessed) because he’s a minority, and minorities have faced systemic racism, etc etc. and the real solution is to increase taxes on billionaires. “I have some data, therefore I know more and I’m right and everyone else is wrong.” No thanks.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#553

Post by stjohnswarts »

America hasn't always been the 1950s. We'll survive a bit longer. There is polarization but it's not as much as the far left and far right would like you to think (that basically the world is burning down). Although Putin may burn it all down for us if he has a terminal illness like some people are proposing. That's the only significant threat I see to American and civilization itself. I mean it's a strange game. We can't cave to him but if we don't he may be the suicidal dictator with nukes that we were always worried about.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#554

Post by asah »

dv_dt wrote: post #433
karpierz wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. Pension funds inherently depend on increases in production. Population growth is one factor, but technological development can also increase production. > The other near-ponzi scheme is the real estate market. In my city of Toronto, average real estate prices have gone from 2x average income in 1972 to 16x average income today. Hello from a V…

Pension funds depend on increased in production, but are run on common management strategies locking them into broadly supporting large corporations - which actually run less efficiently overall in improving production than small to medium sized companies. Also imho, the public stock markets have decoupled from having a good effect on being able to promote good fundamental value creation behavior on public companies.

You sure about that claim re SMB vs enterprise? There's millions of local businesses that engage in very slow innovation, including restaurants, laundromats, etc.

Meanwhile the SP500 have all gotten religion about innovation as a driver for productivity increases.

(Not arguing just asking)

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#555

Post by YATA1 »

rotexo wrote: post #385

Hits close to home. Several years ago, people from one end of the political spectrum mistook me for another person on the opposite end of the political spectrum and doxxed me. I haven’t been able to correct the record to any real extent, and I basically live in fear that the whole situation will flare up again, and all it will take is for one crazy person with a lethal weapon to find me and make me pay, and that’ll b…

And some people laugh at the notion of staying anonymous online.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#556

Post by BeFlatXIII »

TimPC wrote: post #211

I'd argue that the greater risk of things falling apart is economic rather than political. We've built our society on two near-ponzi schemes that are in danger of falling apart. The first is pension funds which are paid into by current workers to pay out for past workers. Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from t…

On the flip side, a collapse in real estate prices would be an excellent entry to the property ladder for people who previously couldn't afford it.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#557

Post by Minor49er »

throwaway602ee wrote: post #307
4ggr0 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the thing which bothers me the most is that people don't even try to educate themselves. What do you think my reaction was, when I first heard of trans-people as a young teenager? Of course I laughed a bit and wondered why people think that genders are fictional and why a man would ever be able to be a woman. But with time I got more curious, educated myself, thought about it, and I think I understand it pretty…

> Yeah, the thing which bothers me the most is that people don't even try to educate themselves. Nuance is really important. I mean, I even agree with some of the concerns from social conservatives about transitioning and self-identification and "social contagions" and such. We should try to understand as well as we can, and not push anything on people they may not have felt themselves. It's important to not tell som…

Are you having a conversation with yourself? Your posts follow an uncommon, yet identical formatting and phrasing

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#558

Post by TimPC »

11101010001100 wrote: post #477
TimPC wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might come out in the wash if you ignore the fact that you have to live somewhere. Property taxes and upkeep on a house tend to work out cheaper than skyrocketing rents over the long run. Home upgrades return value on the property. Having freedom to develop the place you live into something you like is incredibly valuable as well.

I agree there value in the freedom. My point is simply on paper, housing is as expensive as every other asset (well, maybe not art). Of course, the real question is if housing should even be considered an asset in the first place.

The Georgist answer is that the structures on the property should be assets and that taxes should reduce the land value to $0 and be updated regularly to capture the gains in the land value. That's the theory I ascribe to although I think transitioning from our current society to a Georgist one is incredibly difficult.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#559

Post by lotsofpulp »

giantg2 wrote: post #278
refurb wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pensions are all insured in the US

Do you have a source? I wonder if that covers all pensions or just public pensions? Or if that requirement is newer and didn't exist when the companies went under 50 or so years ago.

Even taxpayer funded DB pension recipients have had to accept benefit cuts, such as former employees of Detroit and Rhode Island.

If the entity that owes you does not have the power to print money, then there is always a risk of non payment. And how much of a bailout you get depends on your political weight.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#560

Post by Tepix »

oicU00 wrote: post #252
ravenstine wrote: post #111

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

Oh yeah no doubt; I collate trends into reports for rich investors. Lately they have been focused on youth trends, and some numbers are wacky. 40% point drop in 16 year olds getting a license since the 80s as urbanization puts people closer to stuff and ride share appeared. Youth participation in sports, especially full contact sports, had been going down since before covid which just accelerated it, leading to forec…

> ...and some numbers are wacky. >

I guess teaching kids to trust in science and not in imaginary friends is slowly paying off.

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