The Cheapest Generation • Hacker News Board

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#121

Post by jbl » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:08 PM UTC

MengYuanLong wrote: post #57

Swizec wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> younger generations don't see a house or a car as a symbol of status or wealth, merely as something to be used, as a necessity And then there are fixies - impractical bikes that cost 700 euro simply because they are cool. Whereas you can get a practical bike for less than 200 euro. Maybe it is that we are cheap, so those things that cost beyond a certain threshold (like cars and housing) just need to work, whereas…

You may feel fixies are impractical but they carry benefits. The primary one being better power transfer. Second, you can often make a cheap fixie by finding an old frame, refurbishing it, and replacing the rear hub. Yes, you can buy them for $700+ but unlike iPhones, there are a number of ways to obtain one for cheap. Further, a bike that costs less than $200 is certainly not a bike I would buy for commuting. Having…

I disagree re: steel frames. All of my bikes are steel, from my race bike (yes, actually raced... well, in the past) to my city bike. The race bike weighs in right around where the aluminum bike it replaced came in.

Steel rides great. Cheap steel will weigh more than cheap aluminum, but is not that much heavier once you factor in yourself and what you carry.

The nice thing about steel is that it's repairable, rides nicely, and fails gracefully (should it fail at all).

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#122

Post by bencpeters » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:08 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #106

api wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what both the left and the right are propagandizing the middle class to do: lower expectations. In some cases, it means lowering our expectations to below those of our parents. Think about that for a minute. Find me a corporation or an entrepreneur who thinks like this. Imagine a CEO saying this to shareholders and the board: "We didn't make our goals this quarter, and many in our industry also showed…

...lowering our expectations to below those of our parents. Go read the article I linked to. We are richer than our parents. We own more and bigger houses and cars than they owned. To fix your analogy: "Next quarter's numbers will be higher, and shareholders are just going to accept 10% growth rather than 20%. Expecting 20% growth forever is unrealistic." If you want to argue that growth should have been higher than…

We consume more than ever, but does that mean we're richer? (especially in terms of wealth per unit work, given that this generation has vastly more participation of women in the workforce). The fact that we have bigger houses and more cars doesn't mean anything if we're having to take on more debt, or devote higher percentages of our income to them. And at least for your "average" middle class family there are often two wage-earners now...

Also, wrt growth, the argument I would make is that for much of the last 30 years, most of the economy's growth has not been shared with the middle class. Some of this is undoubtedly structural - the technology revolution has put a higher premium than ever on those with highly developed skills/education and there are certainly workers who have just been left behind. But if you look at the data, the wealth gains over the last 30 years have pretty overwhelmingly been concentrated in the VERY top of the income distribution (I hate to use the rhetoric of the Occupy movement just because it is very inflammatory to a lot of people, but it really is a top 1% phenomena). If this inequality could be mostly explained by education/skills, you'd expect something more like the top ~20% to be vastly pulling away from the bottom 80% of the distribution.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#123

Post by CWuestefeld » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:10 PM UTC

fceccon wrote: post #97

CWuestefeld wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunglasses, unfortunately, are in a stranglehold market. You either spend $20 and get colored glass or spend $200 and get an actual product I've found pretty much the opposite. I've owned 3-4 pairs of expensive sunglasses in my life, and all but one of them was crap. I'm convinced that the price differential is for nothing but a designer name. My favorite sunglasses ever I paid $25 for at Rite-Aid, and I liked it so…

What else do I need? I think the parent says the cheaper sunglasses lacks UV protection.

Well, that rack at Rite-Aid is full of glasses that claim to have UVA and UVB protection. Is the concern that these claims are false? Or that the degree of protection is insufficient?

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#124

Post by thaumaturgy » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:11 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #74

thaumaturgy wrote: post #48

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that 78 hours of minimum wage work could pay the rent in 1980, compared to 109 hours in 2010 [1], along with the other associated cost-of-living increases over the last three decades that have come without comparable increases in wages. I doubt that most people who felt financially secure and could afford a new car wouldn't want to own a new car. Nobody really enjoys drivin…

Minimum wage is a silly thing to look at. In 1980, 10% of men and 22% of women earned min wage. In 2010, this fell to 5% and 7%. http://www.statista.com/statistics/185536/share-of-workers-p... Further, a look at hard data (for both the bottom 20% and the middle 20%) shows that people today are more likely to own a car than in 1981, and have more house per person than in 1989 (no data on square footage exists in 1981)…

Upvoted you for being the only response with numbers so far, even though I disagree with your conclusion.

The average price of a new car in 1980 was $7,200 [1]. In 2010, it's $28,400 [2]. That's an almost 300% increase.

Federal minimum wage in 1980 was $3.10 [3]. In 2010, it's $7.25, a 130% increase. That's lagging pretty far behind new car prices.

You point out that fewer people are earning minimum wage now than in 1980, but I would counterpoint that more people are unemployed now than in 1980 -- by almost double in terms of the real numbers of unemployed people (but "only" a rate increase from 7.1% to 8.4%) [4].

Although car ownership did increase from 1980 to 2010 [5], total new passenger car sales actually fell from 1980 to 2010 [6], which is closer to what the original article was actually discussing, and would support the conjecture that there are simply more cars on the road now than in 1980.

Further, the inflation-adjusted income of people aged 25 to 34 has stayed roughly level from 1980 to 2010 [7], which pretty well jives with so much of what I've read everywhere else that shows a tremendously overall weakened buying power amongst the youth demographics -- which, again, was what the article was trying to be about.

So, in summary: the price of a new car has gone up a lot but wages have not, especially if you're young. I'm pretty confident that this might be a factor in why young people aren't buying new cars.

[1]: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1980.html -- might not be a good source, I'm open to suggestions for something better.

[2]: http://www.ehow.com/facts_5977729_average-cost-new-car.html; this number seemed high to me, but http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2010-07-12-carprices12_S... corroborates it.

[3]: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

[4]: http://www.nidataplus.com/lfeus1.htm

[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle#United_States -- because I questioned the partisanship of your source.

[6]: http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_stat...

[7]: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=77

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#125

Post by stephengillie » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:14 PM UTC

jswinghammer wrote: post #20

ganley wrote: post #7

Aside from those whose livelihood depends on car sales, who have an obvious incentive not to believe it, why is it so hard to believe that people might simply not want to own a car? The whole tone of this article seems like: It appears that millennials don't want to own cars, but that can't be right, can it? If I could get away with not owning one, I certainly would. As it is, I spend as little time in it as possible…

Well this is written from the perspective of economists who lack imagination. If consumers don't spend money on cars then they will just spend it on other things. It means car companies will get smaller, less influential, and probably go out of business in many cases. I assume the public doesn't have the stomach for another round of bailouts for car makers but it's not like we were consulted about that anyway so who…

If consumers don't spend money on cars then they will just spend it on other things.

Not necessarily true. Half the comments in this thread are saying that consumers don't spend money on cars, and don't spend it on other things, because NOBODY HAS MONEY.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#126

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:16 PM UTC

LockeWatts wrote: post #107

mojuba wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or rather, his living in NYC particularly has a lot to do with his age, social status and preferences. People like him prefer big cities because they don't want to own cars. So it's the other way around.

Do you have any basis for that claim?

[deleted]

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#127

Post by krschultz » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

npsimons wrote: post #104

hnal943 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right about smart phones, but I'm not so sure about housing. Credit is ridiculously cheap, and housing everywhere is on sale. If you have a job, why wouldn't you buy as much house as you can afford?

why wouldn't you buy as much house as you can afford? Because you may not have a job next month? You don't need the space? You have better things to spend the money on? Bigger houses come with bigger energy bills? While I do agree that the biggest factor here is economics (if people can't pay, they won't), I also think that there are other non-insignificant factors. Some of it is getting away from cars and houses as…

Bigger utilities, bigger insurance costs, bigger property taxes, bigger maintenance bills, bigger repair costs. That's all lighting money on fire just like rent, but most people discount it.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#128

Post by bencpeters » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

mfringel wrote: post #73

MengYuanLong wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may feel fixies are impractical but they carry benefits. The primary one being better power transfer. Second, you can often make a cheap fixie by finding an old frame, refurbishing it, and replacing the rear hub. Yes, you can buy them for $700+ but unlike iPhones, there are a number of ways to obtain one for cheap. Further, a bike that costs less than $200 is certainly not a bike I would buy for commuting. Having…

So, for those of us who know nothing about bikes, why are steel frames suboptimal for commuting?

They aren't, IMO. They don't weigh much more (and seriously what kind of commute do you have that weight matters that much? This isn't the tour de france...)

The ride of a decent steel bike is much softer (less harsh) than an aluminum bike. An old steel 10 speed with tension shifters (less fiddly/adjustment prone) is my idea of a perfect commuter bike...

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#129

Post by JonnieCache » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:21 PM UTC

tatsuke95 wrote: post #120

api wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what both the left and the right are propagandizing the middle class to do: lower expectations. In some cases, it means lowering our expectations to below those of our parents. Think about that for a minute. Find me a corporation or an entrepreneur who thinks like this. Imagine a CEO saying this to shareholders and the board: "We didn't make our goals this quarter, and many in our industry also showed…

> "We didn't make our goals this quarter, and many in our industry also showed reduced sales numbers. It is clear that we need to reduce our expectations. Next quarter's numbers will be lower, and shareholders are just going to have to take a loss." Uh, they do say that all the time . I tend to agree with the other poster: our expectations are too high. It's a product of having witnessed one of the greatest runups in…

What incentive do we have then, to not forcibly extract that wealth from the previous generation? To me it seems that if we need to de-leverage, why on earth should we pay these people their pensions? All the intergenerational trust and good faith is already gone anyway.

Note: the views casually related above may or may not represent the actual considered opinions of the management.

Re: The Cheapest Generation

#130

Post by krschultz » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 3:23 PM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #60

JoelSutherland wrote: post #25

In 1985 the average age of a car on the road was about 6 years. In 2012, the average age is over 11 years. This has a number of obvious implications on new-car purchasing behavior of young people: 1. It's much easier to buy a used car now since they have more years of service in them. 2. Getting a hand-me-down from a relative is possible. 3. Culturally, getting a new car is much more rare so there is less pressure to…

With every passing year, cars become less substantial, and more like delicate metal cages surrounded by plastic fairings, and protecting their inhabitants with vinyl ballons. I just can't fathom parting with my hard-earned money for such a creation.

The newer cars are far safer, it seems every 5 years we bump up the crash test standards.

If you've seen a modern ski helmet after a hard hit, it looks destroyed. You wonder how it helped at all. But the destruction of the helmet absorbs some of the energy. A 'sturdy' helmet would just pass that right through to the head. Helmets are now effectively single use.

Cars are almost the same way. It's seemingly silly how easily modern cars are totaled. But they are crumpling and absorbing energy - while maintaining the passenger compartment's integrity. Older cars simply folded up. Often times the passenger compartment was the weakest point - i.e. the first thing to crush. That makes modern cars fairly disposable after major accidents, but I'd vasty prefer the safety of a modern car.