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If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

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Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#771

Post by [deleted] »

cvoss wrote: post #345
tim333 wrote: post #305

As an occasional visitor to the US from England I was surprised by how expensive it's become. The US always used to seem cheaper than England I think largely because the government got out of the way so houses were cheap because you could build them, cars were cheap because you could import them, food was cheap because you could just grow stuff in huge fields whereas in England much of that was restricted. On my trip…

The US has an enormous land area and the cost of living varies dramatically across it. Intense pockets develop where the high paying jobs are, and everyone wants to cram in there to compete for those jobs, and then they're competing for the housing there, so the prices skyrocket, so the jobs have to pay higher still. Wealthy as the average person may be, the poverty slope is very steep in such places. The SF / Bay Ar…

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Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#772

Post by HDBaseT »

tzs wrote: post #454
tim333 wrote: post #305

As an occasional visitor to the US from England I was surprised by how expensive it's become. The US always used to seem cheaper than England I think largely because the government got out of the way so houses were cheap because you could build them, cars were cheap because you could import them, food was cheap because you could just grow stuff in huge fields whereas in England much of that was restricted. On my trip…

In constant dollars cars are actually pretty much the same as they were 40+ years ago when you compare similar types and trim levels. A new Honda Civic for example costs about the same when you take into account inflation as the Civic I bought in 1989. The average price people are paying for a new car now is (in constant dollars) about twice what it was back when I got that '89 Civic, but that is because a larger per…

A 1999 Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla, assuming serviced regularly (and competently) could easily be on the road today.

I genuinely do not believe a 2025 car will usable on the road in 2035 (a mere 9 years), yet known 15 or 20 years from now. They are all too hamstrung by technology and whilst some of the technology is an improvement, a vast majority if malicious.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#773

Post by [deleted] »

thephyber wrote: post #628
Taikonerd wrote: post #107

The article is smarter than the title makes it sound. He's not seriously proposing that being rich makes you happy. And he notes that there's a big drop around 2020 specifically , which long-term trends don't explain. Just to state the obvious: 2020 was the year of COVID, which played hell with peoples' social lives. And I think it's been pretty well-proven that happiness is largely driven by the strength and quality…

2020 / Covid did A LOT of things, not just scramble our social lives. There was a pretty large check from the government to workers (which supercharged some people risk-taking in stocks, crypto, events betting, sports betting). It became the year of WallStreetBets and meme stocks. White collar people were working from home, which eliminated tedious commutes but also blended together work and home life. I’m pretty sur…

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Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#774

Post by smallmancontrov »

pjscott wrote: post #733
grafmax wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inflation adjusted wages are actually up over the long term Inflation is a tool for monetary policy. It doesn't track cost of living. For example, if luxury items become more affordable, but housing prices rise, inflation-adjusted pay doesn't capture this kind of negative effect on the working class.

It doesn't track cost of living? The way it's calculated is all about cost of living! In the US, the official inflation numbers are based on a "basket of goods" meant to be representative of a typical person's spending. Housing currently makes up about a third of the basket, while luxury items are a fairly small percentage. Here's a pretty well-written summary, albeit with numbers from 2022: https://www.pewresearch.o…

Nope. CPI is an excellent differential indicator -- "how much did a typical person's cost of living rise this year" -- but it's a terrible integral indicator if you compound it because it's blind to the difference between forced and voluntary substitution. If essentials inflate faster than wages, money_in=money_out drives a reduction in nonessentials -- forced substitution -- and the CPI basket adjustments launder the forced substitution into voluntary substitution.

Well, "launder" is a strong word that the hardworking bureaucrats at BLS do not deserve, but the people who use CPI as a deflater so that they can wave around graphs "proving" that things have never been better absolutely deserve it, so I'll keep it in.

Bonus meme: the American Dream was not to Owner Imputed Rent a house.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#775

Post by marcus_holmes »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #473
bontaq wrote: post #409

My mom said, "whatever we built isn't working anymore," and I think that captures most of the sentiment. It's also funny to see the "the economy is roaring!" "incomes are up!". Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Can I afford a home? Work has if anything gotten worse in general. Remote's gone. Pay's less. ADHD maximum AI use required. Nobody can take a break. Pressure's on. 1.5 trillion more to the mi…

I'd also add that healthcare is serious shit-show as it currently stands and the best strategy is to just stay as healthy as you possibly can to avoid having to go to the doctor, if you can even find one who will see you. Remote work is an interesting one. Before you had 8-9 hours a day of serious social activity, and if you were lucky, people you enjoyed. Even if you didn't enjoy the people, you were at least social…

> Before you had 8-9 hours a day of serious social activity

This is a major difference between US and Euro workplaces that I have noticed. In the USA, there is plenty of time for chat with colleagues, and everyone stays at work longer. In Euro workplaces it tends to be more focused on work and then everyone goes home at 5.

The most extreme example I've worked in was in Dublin, where there was an explicit "you are given 8 hours of work, and 8 hours to do it in. If you need to stay longer than that then you must be incompetent", and the entire office, everyone, emptied into the pub at 5pm. All the socialising and "cooler chat" happened over pints of Guiness in the pub. The folks with kids would have one or two and then go home, or not drink at all and then go home. The less attached folks stayed on for several. But everyone came to the pub at 5, regardless.

I've worked with German colleagues who were ex-large-consultancies and they all said the same thing about working in the USA; that Americans spend a lot of their day chatting and stay in the office much longer. It drove the Germans crazy, "they would be so much more efficient if they just stopped talking and did the work!".

I'm not holding Europe up as an example to emulate; I don't think Europeans are that much happier at the moment, particularly the UK, but I wanted to push back on this idea as work == social space.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#776

Post by projektfu »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #754
burningChrome wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sense your lack of hope and see it in a lot of younger people these days. I grew up in the 80's. College in the late 90's. Start of career in the mid aughts. Went through two dot com busts, and have seen a lot of shit. The one thing that my generation (Gen X) seemed to have was always some optimism for the future. Some hope that as bad as it is now? It will eventually get better. The economy will recover, tech jobs…

> " The one thing that my generation (Gen X) seemed to have was always some optimism for the future. " The vibe among Gen X was that the west was going to get invaded / nuked by the Soviets or economically crushed by the Japanese.

Until the dot com boom, we all thought we were going to be lucky to manage a store at the mall.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#777

Post by tempaccount5050 »

tharkun__ wrote: post #702
tempaccount5050 wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is me. I'm not anti-social by any means, and I like people, but constant chatter around me drives me nuts. So I put my headphones on and now I'm unapproachable. It's tough.

This. And on top of that, headphones at office suck, at least for me. They don't drown out enough even with large, well insulated cups. So you add noise cancelling. Which drowns out more but not everything. In fact it keeps some very annoying stuff around that is suddenly actually audible VS being drowned out without the headphones. And having noise cancelling on for 8 hours straight for days in a row actually create…

Get a pair of Sony WH-1000MXs. The noise cancelling is nearly perfect.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#778

Post by amluto »

traderj0e wrote: post #655
Aurornis wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also funny to see the "the economy is roaring!" "incomes are up!". Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Can I afford a home? Gen Z home ownership is outpacing millenial home ownership at the same age. There's a lot of denial around this topic because everywhere you turn there's a Reddit post or news headline about how housing is impossible to afford. > Pay's less. Less than the narrow window of…

Yeah, a house is always affordable to someone , and it's not like all the single-family homes are owned by huge landlords renting out. Some areas have become more sought-after, so young adults there are finding that they can't afford to buy a house where they grew up.

> Yeah, a house is always affordable to someone

It’s actually not true that a house is affordable to the person living in it.

First, plenty of people own houses, paid-off even, but have little else in the way of income or assets, and, other than not wanting to move, they might be much better off if the home magically turned into cash.

Second, taxes. In the US, in HCOL markets, selling your house may involve large amounts of capital gains tax, and in California, you risk losing your low Property 13 basis.

I suspect that, in markets like Palo Alto, a lot of houses are owned by people who could not credibly afford those houses if they were to sell and then decide to buy an equivalent house next door.

Sure, someone can afford your house, but that’s a nearly vacuous statement.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#780

Post by autoexec »

bsder wrote: post #675
jcranmer wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Yes, real wages have been on the rise for the past few years. With the exception of the somewhat artificial COVID peak, median real wages are the highest on record: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

The "inflation basket" keeps getting rejiggled to hide things. Rent as percentage of income is up. Groceries as percentage of income is up. Medical insurance as percentage of income is up. etc. People aren't stupid. They can see and feel this. Yes, it's nice that computers and phones are super cheap and powerful. That doesn't help people eat .

> Yes, it's nice that computers and phones are super cheap and powerful.

It was nice, but that's quickly changing now that the consumer market is being ignored by chip makers who'd rather sell to companies building data centers

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