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Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

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Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#251

Post by jlawson »

sangnoir wrote: post #215
ciconia wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> scars you for life. You could also say being poor in childhood teaches you how to be frugal. I regard this as a healthy habit and better discipline I wish I had with money (coming from a middle-class family). Another way to look at frugality is just an aversion to spending money on whatever it is that society or mass media tell you you have to buy, an important and healthy attitude one can have, IMO.

It goes way beyond frugality - it is usually accompanied by a touch of hoarding (bought a new phone? Let's keep the old one even if it has a cracked screen, just in case ... .) A term I've seen bandied about for the collective symptoms is having a Scarcity mindset and it's based on insecurity/fear of unexpectedly running out of money (which was a frequent event in childhood) John Scalzi's classic "Being Poor" blog po…

>(bought a new phone? Let's keep the old one even if it has a cracked screen, just in case... .)

Never been poor; me and my whole family have always done this. I just forced them to get rid of their standalone DVD player. They have remote controls for devices going back to the 90's.

The cellphone example is even better; you'd be a fool to immediately dump your old phone. It's small and easy to store, and if your new phone craps out or gets lost or stolen you may very well have a use for another phone that works right now. I have phones going back 2 generations.

This is just frugality and contingency planning.

Scarcity mindset is more like, "I have $300, I need to spend it before it goes away". That's what keeps people poor.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#252

Post by paulywog »

duffyjp wrote: post #134
seunosewa wrote: post #42

Is it fair to conclude that fossil fuel price shocks are good for the planet? If everyone experiences them early then we will all reduce our carbon footprint for life and slow global warming?

I 100% welcome higher gas prices. Americans are so wasteful it's ridiculous. It'll hurt if you're currently in an inefficient car but once you get a hybrid / EV you won't care. I don't even look at the price filling up my Prius. SUVs that look like school buses and people commuting to an office job in full size trucks is madness.

I'm in the automotive industry and the biggest fan of EVs in general. I was even home-building an EV before I moved to the city.

I think we still have a lot to figure out with our charging infrastructure, in cities where often it's hard just to park. I want an EV badly, but it'd be a constant struggle to keep it charged.

There's also an issue with car companies generally not making the cars I want anymore, though I understand this is a me problem. There's not a nice plug-in hybrid small convertible, even if I could charge it.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#253

Post by abc_lisper »

ciconia wrote: post #191
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.

> scars you for life. You could also say being poor in childhood teaches you how to be frugal. I regard this as a healthy habit and better discipline I wish I had with money (coming from a middle-class family). Another way to look at frugality is just an aversion to spending money on whatever it is that society or mass media tell you you have to buy, an important and healthy attitude one can have, IMO.

This is fixable without suffering. Read a few books on the subject, and develop an appreciation of why money is important. Suffering is the last and blunt resort.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#254

Post by mcguire »

yunwal wrote: post #245
Gamemaster1379 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not logical or financially wise I'm taken aback by this statement. I am in an incredibly similar situation to your wife in terms of growing up and being successful today, and I do this. Granted, I think I'm at 3.5 months, but the point stands. Sure, the money isn't generating more wealth, but that amount is finite. It's a cushion that should effectively indefinitely and every dollar beyond is vigorously invest…

Stocks are liquid enough that you can sell enough to pay your credit card off before getting hit with interest. There's no reason to have 6 months worth of expenses in cash just sitting around unless you strongly suspect a crash.

The S&P 500 is down 21% since the beginning of the year.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#255

Post by olddustytrail »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #21
throwaway98797 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had this problem Easy solution take a few hundred from the bank and physical set it on fire keep doing it until you don’t care it’s illegal but it works

>take a few hundred from the bank and physical set it on fire keep doing it until you don’t care That sounds bad. Why not give it to a homeless guy or to charity or something? >it’s illegal Honestly, the central banks can go to hell. They can print way more money than you can ever burn, which they do, even far too much of it, bringing us to where we are today.

You are simultaneously saying that destroying money is a bad thing and that creating money is a bad thing.

There is no "natural" amount of money.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#256

Post by outworlder »

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…

> I own a cheap old car and prefer to fix it myself if I can (...) probably worth more than a professional would have cost.

Maybe! It all depends on whether or not you would actually do something more productive with the time. If you were to write a book or work on your company or take an extra job with those hours, sure, pay the professional. But if, instead, you were going to be watching TV instead, then you are way ahead. You have learned a skill, which can save you in the long run, even if you pay (you know if you are getting a good service and not being gouged, etc).

Having a cheap car – as long as it's not a lemon – is a good thing.

> I'm afraid to make investments fearing that the market could crash the second I enter it

Ok, that is a problem. Keep hoarding cash if it makes you feel better but take a portion and invest. Once you have managed to save enough to have 3-6 months expenses covered, you should be investing the rest. That's how you get out of shitty jobs, specially later in life. Markets generally recover and have for a century. If this stops we'll have bigger problems (and not investing doesn't shield you from them).

I basically agree with everything else you said.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#257

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

bitcurious wrote: post #41

My grandparents didn’t go hungry this year (after Russia’s invasion) because they had a cellar full of preserves. For them, it was part of a tradition of hunger, a “never waste food” mentality reinforced by WWII, and Holodomor prior, and WWI prior, and the experience of being serfs prior to that.

In the spirit of the article or at least the title one might say your grandparent's regular food wasting attitude has been scarred by WWII.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#258

Post by somebodythere »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #145
jodrellblank wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Lowest medicine costs in the OECD, blows every other developed country out of the water. America is the most expensive and Chile is the cheapest. " I just happened to have this RAND corporation ranking of "most expensive insulin in the world" from 2018 handy; America is first, Chile is second. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-i...

Looking at this it’s mind boggling how much the US is being overcharged vs all other countries. How are Americans putting up with paying 400%-900% more than any other country?

It's not "putting up with". What are they going to do otherwise, not take insulin?

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#259

Post by bombcar »

danuker wrote: post #70
usrn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you have a partner. If you're on your own you're absolutely fucked. Not only are you alone but everyone else is out to get you. When we have the crunch in the near future I could see me and my peers torching things. I don't even worry about this anymore; I look forward to it.

House prices more than doubled since 1965, yet incomes barely increased. https://wtfhappenedin1971home.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/un...

I wonder when dual-income households became the standard.

Re: Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life

#260

Post by nradov »

olalonde wrote: post #135
nradov wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

How does that make any sense? Aren't student graduates actually paid to do those residency programs? If it's too expensive to train them, can't they take a pay cut? How come no other profession requires federal funding for placing/training graduates? Makes absolutely no sense unless you uncritically accept the status quo.

Residents are paid an average salary of $64K. That's less than many entry-level STEM jobs, and they often work up to 80 hours per week. They can't afford to take a pay cut. And hospitals incur other costs for running residency programs which go beyond paying resident salaries.

Most other private sector professions don't require nearly as much postgraduate training before being allowed to work. Prospective lawyers usually take the bar exam less than a year after graduating from law school. Medicine is simply more complex.

What would you propose as an alternative to the status quo? The AMA has proposed a number of improvements, but perhaps there are alternatives?

https://savegme.org/

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