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Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

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Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#111

Post by ravenstine »

cs137 wrote: post #12

I worked in a grocery store in the late '90s, and the older customers (who grew up in the Great Depression) always carried penny pouches, because they remembered a time when one had to keep track of cents to survive. This is how I know that, even if we miraculously fixed our medical system tomorrow and outlawed private health insurance by a constitutional amendment, we'll still have, thirty years from now, 60-year-ol…

The generation of the Great Depression didn't have ubiquitous forms of usury. With credit cards, personal loans and student loans, I imagine the future stinginess of Millennials will be short lived.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#112

Post by vishnugupta »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #24
doix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes you penny wise and pound foolish while always having to look over your shoulder monetarily speaking. Could you explain what you mean? I grew up pretty poor, single income PhD student/post-doc salary family with two kids. Eventually my father got a proper position at a university, but until then we were pretty poor. My parents used to sleep on the floor, we had almost no furniture(I remember playing footbal…

>Could you explain what you mean? Sure. I realize I waste a lot of time in supermarkets, shops or online stores, browsing/walking around and comparing prices just to penny pinch on low value things, when the savings I would make would have no meaningful impact on my yearly net worth, but the time and mental energy wasted browsing/walking around comparing prices could have better return on investment if used on other…

> "education will get you far in life, so beat those books and get good grades"

In India at least, this is a time tested way to escape poverty. Doing well in academics and get into STEM you will greatly increase your odds. Not for nothing India has millions of coaching centres and some of the most valued ed-tech startups. The poor can and do mortgage their house, land etc., to send their kids to good school and college.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#113

Post by nradov »

deathanatos wrote: post #103
dymk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on where you want to buy. SF? Probably not going to happen. Almost anywhere else? Houses are plenty affordable.

I'm not in SF. The last listing I looked at was 800 sq ft, run down, literally "as-is" property: $500k valuation from Zillow (it's listed for less … but not by much). That's about $2500/mo, in mortgage alone. Decent properties, in suburban areas, at ~$1M. Ir rural areas, yeah, they're cheaper … and salary would get "adjusted" the moment I try that.

Here's a decent 3-bedroom single family house in suburban Cleveland for $395K.

https://apps.realtor.com/mUAZ/313q9jxa

That's just one example but you can find thousands of similar listings all over the country. Outside of high-cost coastal areas, housing is still fairly affordable in most of the country.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#114

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

The paper fails to consider:

1. the cotemporaneous rise of (this iteration of an) environmental movement during exactly the same time period as the "price shocks" for gasoline that it considers. This has almost certainly had a significant impact on the zeitgeist for the cohort the study is considering, and it doesn't take much imagination to believe that it is a much more substantive impact.

2. studiously avoids an international comparison. The 78-80 "shock" caused by the Iranian revolution had impacts on gasoline prices everywhere, and even if (as the paper notes) the USA is a much more car-centric culture than elsewhere, certainly people were driving a lot in Europe during that period too. If the effect is real, you should be able to demonstrate it there too.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#115

Post by baal80spam »

Markoff wrote: post #89
varispeed wrote: post #51

I know someone who immigrated from a former communist country. She talked how they lived in extreme poverty and now despite having great job and substantial savings, she pretty much lives the way she learned. For instance cooking the same food her parents used to cook from whatever they managed to find, only wearing used clothing. When her phone was stolen and she had to buy a new one, she literaly cried for a week t…

I perfectly understand her, I am in similar position despite being in top 3% earners in Czechia I will refuse to buy overpriced goods I know they are cheaper in other shop. I have 4 years old phone, wanted to upgrade for really long time, but I don't see the value in new one worth spending that much money for flagship just because I want compact phone with good camera and battery (Pixel 4A was closest price wise, but…

Can almost fully relate and I also grew up in a communist country (Poland).

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#116

Post by nradov »

olalonde wrote: post #97
daniel-cussen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors say they are the only profession that saves lives. Well they're the only profession allowed to save lives. And the only profession making money saving lives. Charging for saving lives. Price discriminating to save lives. What happens when they make a mistake in what someone is able to pay? EDIT (I tried replying but can't yet): The basic solution to make medicine cheaper is supply more medics. In Chile anybod…

> The basic solution to make medicine cheaper is supply more medics. It's shocking how little this is talked about... This is so obviously the root of the problem. People like to blame the free market but there is no free market in medicine. Corporatism is to blame for artificially restricting the supply of doctors and artificially restricting who is allowed to render medical services, both of which benefit the corpo…

Actually the primary bottleneck in the supply of new doctors is lack of federal (Medicare) funding for residency slots. Every year, students graduate from US accredited medical schools but are unable to enter clinical practice because they can't get matched to a residency program. Ask Congress to increase funding.

https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fun...

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#117

Post by scottLobster »

twoquestions wrote: post #104
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #2

Being poor in general, during your childhood, scars you for life. It makes you penny wise and pound foolish, adverse to taking risks in your career and investments, can destroy your confidence in yourself, while always having to look over your shoulder monetarily speaking. Habits that even after you remove poverty from your live, you still feel the the anxiety and triggers in your head.

True facts, this. My spouse never had to wonder where the electric or gas money was coming from, even though their family is really frugal despite making really good money, and I'm still surprised at their decisions that I irrationally describe as extravagant even though they're better decisions all told. Even though I have a great job now and have for years, I still find myself shying away from good things that I re…

Coming from the more well-off side, it makes friendships with people on the other side harder as well. By chance a good chunk of my social circle in college was less well off than me, and while we liked playing games together I got weird looks for buying shirts new at Macy's or Michelin tires. It just seemed to rub them the wrong way, like they thought I was trying to show off or rub something in their face even though I'm just upper-middle-class and buying what I saw as the best product for what I needed. It's not like I was showing up in a new Lexus or something. Some of them also expected me to drive them everywhere even though they had working cars of their own, and that got rather toxic after a while.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#118

Post by [deleted] »

tootie wrote: post #20
cs137 wrote: post #12

I worked in a grocery store in the late '90s, and the older customers (who grew up in the Great Depression) always carried penny pouches, because they remembered a time when one had to keep track of cents to survive. This is how I know that, even if we miraculously fixed our medical system tomorrow and outlawed private health insurance by a constitutional amendment, we'll still have, thirty years from now, 60-year-ol…

My grandma did this. Never left a penny on the sidewalk, always took the bread from a breadbasket home. Even my parents absorbed some of that behavior despite being born in the next generation.

[deleted]

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#119

Post by freeone3000 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #102
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most first world countries have a solution for this already. Even second and third world countries have implemented this solution.

Part of the cost is equipment, too. Have you seen the regulations that medical equipment must meet? And the certifications that equipment requires? I’m not talking about big ticket items like MRI machines. I mean just blood pressure cuffs.

I promise you, Canada and Germany and Chile and France also have MRI machines and blood pressure cuffs.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#120

Post by tablespoon »

quartesixte wrote: post #73
Markoff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> always took the bread from a breadbasket home Care to explain it to non native speaker from Europe? Is it some bakery chain and she took home some cheap/free leftover bread?

Some restaurants give a free basket of bread with a meal as a sort of appetizer. Most people either consume all of it or just leave the leftovers.

Ah, so it's just that the OP wrote something that was prone to be misparsed.

I read "breadbasket home" as a compound noun and guessed it was some kind of food bank or something, but "home" was really an adverb modifying took. So what was meant was something like "My grandma ... always took [home] the bread from a [restaurant] breadbasket..."

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