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Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

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Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#131

Post by pipes »

lumb63 wrote: post #95
chung8123 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that can be produced and consumed all over seems to have been averaging down (from US perspective) but things that cannot be done somewhere else or have strong limits on their production (services, housing) have inflated a lot. We had inflation with a pool of items I think.

Globalization over the last several decades has greatly reduced inflation and allowed the first world to “gain” far more wealth than would have actually happened otherwise. For instance, 70 years ago, more American cars were built in America. The money that consumers paid for cars went to American companies. This caused increased demand for (American) workers, which increased workers’ wages, and thus their spending p…

You are really drifting in to largely discredited mechantilism there, the belief that money should not flow out of the nation.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mercantilism.asp#:~:tex....

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#132

Post by AndrewKemendo »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #110
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take this as a teaching opportunity Here's who can't practically afford that: Someone with 3 kids working 80 hours a week in service or truck driving. Or someone that is disabled. Or someone that has severe mental health issues. There are quite a few prerequisites that you assume exist that just don't in a poor American household and the primary one that doesn't exist is time. Beyond the time you need to plan, s…

This is the poor people are too stupid and helpless argument. It is not true. Your list of reasons is really just betraying how little you think poor people are like yourself. You are portraying them as helpless animals. Also, lack of motivation as a reason they can't boil an egg, so they just go hungry instead? Do you even care about reality or just scoring internet points?

These are not dumb people, they are my friends and neighbors who are being systematically oppressed.

Unless you're working a blue collar job in America you don't see this

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#133

Post by pipes »

sgift wrote: post #68
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. A cheap lamp on a table does little good when I can afford neither the table, the roof above it, nor the food to serve at that table.

Each time people start asking pointed questions about wealth distribution and the economic system you can almost count down the hours until one of these newspapers makes a "oh, look how much more of x you can get now than before". And I get it. It's great that everyone can have a TV for 1/100 of what it cost in 1950 or whatever, but it does not solve the very obvious issues. People have problems paying rent, they hav…

Until the very recent inflation increase, food has been cheaper than ever. It's been making up less and less of household budgets for decades.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/92689-over-the-past-100-yea...

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#134

Post by bumby »

pipes wrote: post #131
lumb63 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globalization over the last several decades has greatly reduced inflation and allowed the first world to “gain” far more wealth than would have actually happened otherwise. For instance, 70 years ago, more American cars were built in America. The money that consumers paid for cars went to American companies. This caused increased demand for (American) workers, which increased workers’ wages, and thus their spending p…

You are really drifting in to largely discredited mechantilism there, the belief that money should not flow out of the nation. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mercantilism.asp#:~:tex... .

Devils advocate: what are the limits of this? I.e., does it imply any arbitrarily boundary of commerce is invalid?

It strikes me that most people would feel like spending money on your own family/tribe/community may be reasonable despite what mercantilism says as an economic concept.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#135

Post by jollyllama »

kortilla wrote: post #59
johnklos wrote: post #31

Considering that the amount of computing that could be rented for the price of a house every month could now be bought for $20, this isn't surprising. What's surprising is that with all these resources made available to the world, we still have systems that allow hoarding of wealth to such a degree that most people can't afford to own a home and many can barely afford rent and food.

Homeless people have cell phones. Why do you think great advancements bringing down the price of computing would solve housing?

I was thinking about this recently. People will get evicted before not paying their cell phone bill, now. This would have been unthinkable 15 years ago.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#136

Post by bumby »

somewhat_drunk wrote: post #43
johnklos wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not racist for bringing it up - it's racist for blaming immigrants when it's the wealthy buying up and hoarding land and property, coupled with an out of control healthcare system, stagnant wages while corporate profits are huge, and lobbyists keeping politicians from meaningfully changing anything. I couldn't take you seriously, anyway. 2.7 million illegal border crossings have zero to do with 1.6 million housi…

>2.7 million illegal border crossings have zero to do with 1.6 million housing units Only if you assume all 2.7 million people are now homeless. Price is a function of supply and demand. Obviously, increasing the number of people within a system without commensurately increasing housing will result in upward pressure on housing prices. You could argue that the system-wide effect is minimal, but you would need data to…

Like most large systems, economies are complicated. A counter-point is that unskilled immigration also drives down many essential costs, like food and construction. Immigrants tend to work for less and are disproportionately represented in the agriculture, construction, and meat-packing industries. So in some ways they may increase demand costs while also bringing down supply costs.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#137

Post by redblacktree »

pipes wrote: post #133
sgift wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each time people start asking pointed questions about wealth distribution and the economic system you can almost count down the hours until one of these newspapers makes a "oh, look how much more of x you can get now than before". And I get it. It's great that everyone can have a TV for 1/100 of what it cost in 1950 or whatever, but it does not solve the very obvious issues. People have problems paying rent, they hav…

Until the very recent inflation increase, food has been cheaper than ever. It's been making up less and less of household budgets for decades. https://seekingalpha.com/article/92689-over-the-past-100-yea...

Now do housing.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#138

Post by derefr »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #110
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take this as a teaching opportunity Here's who can't practically afford that: Someone with 3 kids working 80 hours a week in service or truck driving. Or someone that is disabled. Or someone that has severe mental health issues. There are quite a few prerequisites that you assume exist that just don't in a poor American household and the primary one that doesn't exist is time. Beyond the time you need to plan, s…

This is the poor people are too stupid and helpless argument. It is not true. Your list of reasons is really just betraying how little you think poor people are like yourself. You are portraying them as helpless animals. Also, lack of motivation as a reason they can't boil an egg, so they just go hungry instead? Do you even care about reality or just scoring internet points?

> Also, lack of motivation as a reason they can't boil an egg, so they just go hungry instead?

You haven't heard of depressed people? A lot of homeless people are depressed, which is why they don't work.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#139

Post by Nextgrid »

jollyllama wrote: post #135
kortilla wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless people have cell phones. Why do you think great advancements bringing down the price of computing would solve housing?

I was thinking about this recently. People will get evicted before not paying their cell phone bill, now. This would have been unthinkable 15 years ago.

The price of a cell phone bill will make no difference to someone in an eviction situation and a cell phone is pretty much essential to participate in society today.

Rich people can virtue-signal all day long about how they live without a phone, but if you're poor and a potential employer or benefits office asks you for a phone number to process your application you can't afford to risk losing or delaying the opportunity.

Re: Amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it (2017)

#140

Post by derefr »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #122
ryeights wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a bit confused then… what exactly do you propose the average American should put in their sandwiches—your suggestion—at a $40/mo budget? Eggs and lentils?

Anyone in the US can go to a library and borrow a cookbook for free. If you are out of ideas you can do that too.

Great, now I need to own a car and afford gas to drive 40mi to the nearest library. (More importantly, now I need to have a kitchen to cook in.)

You realize that there are people who are homeless and who live in areas that don't have any support systems for homelessness (e.g. homeless shelters), right?

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