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Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

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Re: Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

#161

Post by missedthecue »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #154
rhexs wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be tricky if you don’t speak Japanese though. Do they have multilingual optometrists that cater to tourists? I suppose Tokyo is big enough you can probably find one of anything.

French people are rich enough to be proficient English speakers, as are people in Tokyo. Seems like it'll probably work out. I spent about a week in Japan, split between Tokyo and Nagasaki, and had no problem, having not even tried to learn any Japanese, except that I couldn't get the right train stop because I couldn't even recognize the characters, much less read them.

Apparently Japan has fewer bilingual citizens than even the USA.

Re: Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

#162

Post by falcolas »

elzbardico wrote: post #121
falcolas wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother, a baby boomer ('48), worked as a waitress part time to pay her way through college in her 20's. My dad worked for ma'bell, and earned somewhere around $150k in today's dollars as an high-school-educated lineman when he retired (and was then hired back on to train). And that's with a fully funded pension plan. So, even if they were in the workforce earlier (they weren't, I (as a genX) was working part time…

Sorry for nitpicking, but 48 is not a boomer. She is a Gen X. Boomers are the folks born after WWII and before the oil crisis.

1948 is actually roughly within the OG "baby boomer" group, since it represents babies born to WWII veterans when they returned home to their wives. WWII ended in September 1945.

And while there are variations on the years per generation, here's the breakdown per Wikipedia. The baby boomer generation runs from 1946 to 1964, X from 1965 to 1980, Millenials 1981 to 1996.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation

As an aside, the "First Oil Crisis" was in '73, so even by your definition she's a boomer?

Re: Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

#163

Post by [deleted] »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #86
arcticbull wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual, there's a few chart crimes in here. Chart 1 shows CPI and inflation adjusted wages on the same graph? Why? Inflation adjusted wages already take into account CPI. There's no sensible reason to plot these two on the same graph. The caption is "wages are up 80% but that didn't keep up with living costs" - you cannot draw that inference from this graph. This graph actually shows that in fact wages grew faster…

> Housing is another red herring, of course, because the average new American home is 2x bigger now than it was in the 70s. Roughly speaking 1 square foot of the average home costs exactly the same as it used to in the 1970s. [1] And the average family has become smaller. So yes, housing is more expensive in big cities but that's because of zoning as Mr. Andreessen will tell you. Just because houses have gotten bigge…

[deleted]

Re: Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

#164

Post by missedthecue »

willcipriano wrote: post #80
hot_gril wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always see the healthcare cost to consumer compared to other countries, but that isn't the true cost to society if the govt is subsidizing the rest. AFAIK the US healthcare is still truly more costly. Monopolies or something, idk.

The US government spends more on healthcare per capita than any other OECD nation. We are just being robbed.

Americans also consume a lot more healthcare. And doctors and nurses earn 2x more than in other countries. An NHS nurse makes something like $33k a year. In the US it's going to be $60-70k before overtime.

Re: Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

#165

Post by andrew_ »

fallingfrog wrote: post #113
andrew_ wrote: post #28

My parents are boomers and frequently talk about the 2020s being 70s dejavu. My father entered his 20s in in 1968, and the tail end of his 20s in a deep recession and purchased a modest home in 1976 at a blistering 14% on 30 year fixed. His experience in the Midwest did not match with the assertions in the article.

Rents really are higher though.

very true. in my area it's related to Zillow and the iBuyers swallowing property and inflating rent artificially.

Re: Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

#166

Post by [deleted] »

bilegeek wrote: post #35
xqcgrek2 wrote: post #2

This is the stuff that can cause or facilitate revolutions.

It bears repeating[1]: the mob doesn't replace the king; the court does, using the mob to do it. Nothing will get better under a revolution unless we're EXTREMELY, infinitessimally small chance lucky. [1] https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?t=878

[deleted]

Re: Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

#167

Post by notch656a »

missedthecue wrote: post #164
willcipriano wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government spends more on healthcare per capita than any other OECD nation. We are just being robbed.

Americans also consume a lot more healthcare. And doctors and nurses earn 2x more than in other countries. An NHS nurse makes something like $33k a year. In the US it's going to be $60-70k before overtime.

I'd be curious to see what portion of US health care goes to salaries of licensed health care workers, and how the relates to labor costs of various middle men and administrators, as well as regulatory compliance people.

Re: Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

#168

Post by WalterBright »

telchior wrote: post #59

One of the items this article doesn't cover is healthcare spending, which has increased between 2 and 8 times since 1980 (depending on whether you're looking at individual spending or share of GDP). Here's a decent collection of charts: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe... It has been shocking to me to see how cheap and effective healthcare can be in other countries, from an emergency visit…

Healthcare costs increased in step with inflation until 1968, when the rate increased dramatically and never slowed down.

What happened in 1968? LBJ's Great Society massive efforts at free medical care started.

The same thing happened with college tuition. Government attempts to reduce its costs resulted in greatly expanded costliness.

The most expensive things in the world are government provided "free" stuff.

Re: Gen Z have 86% less purchasing power compared to baby boomers in their twenties

#169

Post by symlinkk »

falcolas wrote: post #112
krustyburger wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of low-mileage 90s cars are on the market. If you’re being sincere, just filter by low mileage and single owner and you’ll find your dream car.

Gimme something with '20's safety and fuel economy, and '90's features otherwise. Or, even better, an electric car without the computer screen on the inside. I remember 90's cars safety and gas mileage, and I emphatically don't want that.

Yeah that’s the expensive stuff. The touchscreens and other tech crap is cheap
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