151–160 of 160 posts
A lot of the cost of housing is due to the 30 year fixed mortgage. When you subsidize something, it costs more and you get more of it.
My question is, what is the problem, really Take a look at Matt Yglesias's The Rent Is Too Damn High ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO); many "fun" municipalities like Seattle have restricted development to the point that housing is extremely expensive. If you move from Seattle to, say, Houston or Dallas, you'll probably see your effective rent shrink by 35 – 50%. Secondly: see Tyler Cowen's books The Great Stagn…
I agree, the issues are quite complex. I cited a fed paper in my reply below -- thanks for taking the discussion up a notch. Something I'd like to understand better is why capital (and not labor) is capturing a higher share of firms' overall income than in past years. As I noted in my reply, the decline of savings means this is a double-whammy for people, as they get hit on the front end with lower upfront cash payme…
Actual capital - machinery - has taken it as hard as has labor. This leads many to think that the increases may be closer to rents than profits. It's also harder to say what the effect of online is; for people under ... what, 25-30?, "likes" on the Internet act as a form of currency that may verge on real currency at the edges.
2. Healthcare: With Obamacare, I am pretty optimistic that people will not be scared to stay hostage to their employer and the pre-existing conditions nightmare will end soon yada yada. But the healthcare in US is expensive because: higher prices for services themselves, higher costs to administer the system, or more utilization of these services. Also the health care system is "dysfunctional" because the system of third-party payments from insurers removes the patient as a major participant in the financial and medical choices that affect costs.
3. People are not given enough exposure on how to manage their finance. People have no clue about their personal finances till they are drowned with several debts(study loan, credit card etc) in their twenties and thirties.
In this consumerism society, the concept of buying and instant gratification is stronger than the concept of saving.
However somebody can start from here: 1. Spend less than you earn and start saving from the day you start making money.
2. Spend some time on net and find deals. There are some really good deals available for everything.
Just ex: You can get a phone plan for $10/month (unlimited talk and text no internet though) and $25/month(unlimited talk, text and data) from Republic wireless. Only caveat is, the plan is limited to android and you have to buy the phone for $299.00 upfront.
Few fellows have taken disciplined approach and retired in their thirties and forties.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2013/10/03/how-mr-mone...
Well, things have changed since our grandparent's generation. A college degree used to be a guaranteed ticket to a decent job, and even many blue collar jobs were much better paying and less abusive. Now being 30 years old and living with your parents is not that odd. Now, debt, unemployment and inflation are soaring (if you want to see how bad it really is, visit cities like Detroit or the non-wealthy areas of Chica…
Paternal Grandpa as it turns out was in some labor unrest in the Mid-Continent oil labor-strike ( with actual Wobblies! ) and that is why he went into carpentry. Violent business; gunfire, explosives. Wow. Grandpa? Really?
I was in gummint contracting from 2004-2009. It's not good in there. A few contracts are really large but it's not a good business any more. healthcare.gov is sadly probably more typical than not.
I think we're somewhat frog-boiled in luxury myself. Really look at what was the style in 1960; it was pretty spare - about what you'd have now if you were quite poor. I got new clothes basically once a year - from Sears, and they came on a train six weeks later. From Sears to Amazon in three decades...
The... uh .. Vietnam War made young men have more options then, but we don't wanna go there...
I think the higher returns constitute "winner take all" - and that means competition is actually less. Each option is much like the other, so the winner can leverage out the losers - winner take all. Of those, some fraction will persist. If innovation is heat to Schumpeterian change, then the heat is up. The rest is just endless laying off of risk through contracts/contracting.
But the basic thing is - you'd just expect more growth at the right of the curve.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) Those are false choices. If rent is $2,000/month, a mortgage would be far more than $1,500. Just an example, my rent is near $2k in SF, an equivalent sized unit on my block just sold for $700k. If you could put 20% down (just save $140,000!), a 30-year mortgage would be $3,500/month -- 75% more than renting. 2) Get a new healthcare plan through Healthcare.gov. The out-of-pocket maximum is $12,700 for a family plan…
> 4) Call around and get a deal, my phone plan is $65/month Which provider are you with?
I have dedicated the last 5 years to discovering what is going on so I will try my best to condense it down.
In terms of a 'shorter' business cycle view (less than 10 year perspective) to what is wrong is that we are not in a recession but in a deleverage. We haven't had one of those since WW2 so most people don't know what it is and think it is a recession. A deleverage is a once in a 100 year massive transfer of wealth event. I have put resources on what a deleverage is at the end of this reply.
The long term problem is that the Fed is a private bank. This means that the US Government and American citizens do not control the Fed. Forget the façade that makes them look like a branch of Government, especially the whole Presidential appointment of the Fed Chairman. It is a private bank that gets to print money and sell it to the US Government that American citizens are forced to use. That means that the US Government and American citizens are slaves with no control over their future. Each dollar printed is a debt burden on the American people and a debasement of the current currency value. Essentially think of printing money as a way that the Fed transfers wealth from your pocket into theirs. Furthermore, I believe that the Fed manipulates the economic cycle to create wealth transfer events that they reap the benefits of.
For further information look to the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0
http://www.tullettprebon.com/documents/strategyinsights/tpsi...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mII9NZ8MMVM
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/047...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to have missed my point entirely. SRO means "single room occupancy" -- in other words a room like a dorm room where the bathroom is down the hall and shared with the rest of the floor. It's basically a walk-in closet with a bed and maybe a sink. My point was that when I lived in the Bay Area, $1k (or more) bought you a slum in SF of a sort that doesn't even exist in many places. So do not assume a studio apa…
Well, without actually knowing where his money is going (thus why I asked) it's impossible to say. I had no trouble digging up apartment listings for Seattle studios (or bigger) under $1,000, but who knows if he's in one of those or in something more expensive. I think you may have missed my point as well: being financially insecure as a single man making $110k/year is weird, and has to be due to individual circumsta…
But, when it comes down to it, I see absolutely no reason for you to dismiss his question simply because you think he has a personal problem. Whether he has a personal problem or not, there are things wrong with the big picture. I don't think it is a less legitimate question just because the asker happens to have a high income. It seems rather ass-holish to reply at all if you have no plans to talk about the thing he asked about and are merely taking this as an opportunity to talk trash about him as an individual.
Of course, that's just my personal opinion. Lots happens on HN that I don't like. I don't run the place, so whatever.
Carry on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, without actually knowing where his money is going (thus why I asked) it's impossible to say. I had no trouble digging up apartment listings for Seattle studios (or bigger) under $1,000, but who knows if he's in one of those or in something more expensive. I think you may have missed my point as well: being financially insecure as a single man making $110k/year is weird, and has to be due to individual circumsta…
I am aware of that aspect. But having been a military wife and lived in different places, I think you are mistaken to say that "if you have X amount of money and not enough, it is just a personal problem." His remarks imply he has high-ish medical expenses. In a European country, that likely would not be a factor. And any place you live, your choices in where to live are not as wide open as you imply. Choosing to pay…
He's making something like twice the median income of the US. Whatever his financial problems are, they're not remotely representative. Since his question is based on the assumption that his woes are due to widespread problems, I think it's entirely relevant to point out that they are not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for your reply. Maybe it has to do with WWII. After WWII, the US was the only great economic power left undamaged. Our industries supplied the world, and they boomed. That wealth trickled down to many people in the US. Now, decades after WWII, other countries around the world have developed their own industry, driving down global prices and wages. As a result, perhaps the average global worker is better off, b…
> I wonder how much of comfort is attitude or perspective. I also happen to be a single man living in a high-rent city (Palo Alto). My income is about $30,000. I live in a shitty small apartment in a run down part of SF, and my annual rent is $20,000. Either you're talking net income, PA is way cheaper than I've been led to believe, or there's some factor I'm missing
The mass systems industrial revolution created the huge increases in wealth and wellbeing seen in the 20th century. This revolution began around 1900 when the marriage of science and industry was finally consummated, but it was mostly over by the 1990s. That means that there's minimal primary technological innovation now, so returns to investments in industry and infrastructure are nearly zero. The next industrial revolution is the robot revolution, but it's only just getting started now, all human systems will be transformed, and vast amounts of new wealth will be created in decades to come.
The world has been accumulating huge levels of debt for 25 years, this is debt that cannot possibly be repaid, but the accumulation is still continuing. Most of the world switched from industrial capitalism to financial capitalism (the capitalism of the Medici) in the 1990s with the end of the mass systems industrial revolution; one result is the rapid rise of oligarchies in many countries including the U.S., Russia, and China.