161–170 of 324 posts
It's funny how much life cycles. I do kinda remember a phase where people were eating a "healthier" breakfast of some kind of fruit, and when granola became popular, and when milk fat was considered the worst thing you could do to your body.
But now eggs are fine, again. Great, even.
> ordered breakfast: scrambled eggs back in the days when people ate eggs, and, more recently, banana and granola with skim milk. It's funny how much life cycles. I do kinda remember a phase where people were eating a "healthier" breakfast of some kind of fruit, and when granola became popular, and when milk fat was considered the worst thing you could do to your body. But now eggs are fine, again. Great, even.
> ordered breakfast: scrambled eggs back in the days when people ate eggs, and, more recently, banana and granola with skim milk. It's funny how much life cycles. I do kinda remember a phase where people were eating a "healthier" breakfast of some kind of fruit, and when granola became popular, and when milk fat was considered the worst thing you could do to your body. But now eggs are fine, again. Great, even.
I was immediately struck by this remark too. Were eggs particularly unfashionable in the early 1990s in the USA? Apparently so.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4632449/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/wellness/19...
> ordered breakfast: scrambled eggs back in the days when people ate eggs, and, more recently, banana and granola with skim milk. It's funny how much life cycles. I do kinda remember a phase where people were eating a "healthier" breakfast of some kind of fruit, and when granola became popular, and when milk fat was considered the worst thing you could do to your body. But now eggs are fine, again. Great, even.
I was immediately struck by this remark too. Were eggs particularly unfashionable in the early 1990s in the USA? Apparently so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most 'traditional' ways of life often aren't all that old. Definitely not millennia. (However they might still be a good idea. I don't know.) It also depends on how you translate the 'traditional way'. For example, on the one hand, for most of history people had about one surviving descendant per person, ie two kids that made it into adulthood to have their own kids. [0] On the other hand, they gave birth to many, ma…
You're relying on a typical misunderstanding of the past. The increases in life expectancy in modern times are owed almost exclusively to reductions in childhood mortality, not actual extensions of life. In the past it's not like people just hit 40 years old and keeled over. So for instance the Founding Fathers died at an average age of 72 including things like Hamilton being killed in a duel at 47 years old. Only 2…
I agree that most of medicine itself hasn't necessarily made much of a dent in average adult life expectancy at, say, age 30.
In any case, feel free to ignore that part of my comment. And concentrate on the part about the number of children.
Or you can replace the now missing part with: how much should you spend on clothing? Should you spend the same in inflation adjusted terms as your ancestors? Or should you spend the same in terms of proportion of overall income (or time, in case of home production)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's actually not (much) less true in other places. It's just that in eg the US the land is typically a lot more valuable, and people tend to mix up the value of the land (which doesn't really deprecate) and the value of the structure on top.
>> the value of the land (which doesn't really deprecate) Maybe in urban centers. But go out into the hills and you will find many towns where land prices tanked once the local resource industry moved on. It isn't just 18th century gold rush stuff. There are towns from the 80s that just emptied when the local industry moved on. https://justinmcelroy.com/2022/07/26/visiting-canadas-50-mil...
EDIT: Oh, I think you were talking about deprecation? Even in the downtrodden areas, land values going down isn't technically deprecation. It's just like a bar of gold sitting in your garage: its market price might fluctuate, but that has nothing to do with deprecation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are still ignoring opportunity costs. If you have $x, you can buy a house and save on $y rent. But you could also buy eg bonds, and make $z return per year. If z > y, going for the bonds is better. Free time and health don't even come into the picture here. [0] (Of course, taxes and regulations can make this more complicated. And there are systematic and idiosyncratic risks to take into account.) It's not automat…
Around here, houses appreciate in value. Quite significantly, actually. A house can gain 100k in value in just a few years. If you bought it, you're paying off the old price. If you're renting, rent increases every year to keep more or less in line with the accruing value. So while renters and buyers may both start out paying (eg) 20% of their income on housing, for buyers, this will typically go down (due to inflati…
To be even more proper, you'd need to allow the stock market investor to use leverage, just like the guy with the mortgage does.
Or, if you want to avoid the mortgage/leverage complication, we can compare someone buying a house outright with someone investing the same amount in stocks, and uses the returns to pay rent.
> Around here, houses appreciate in value. Quite significantly, actually. A house can gain 100k in value in just a few years.
Total returns on eg the S&P500 over the last few decades have been pretty good, too. And it's a much more diversified and liquid investment than a single house in a single location.
For some people in some places, buying a house might be better than buying stocks, for some others it might be worse. Results also depend on taxes and jurisdiction and personal preferences. But it's not automatic that buying a house is better than renting.
(1993). The hotel reopened in 1996 but Irving never returned. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-05-19-ls-5806-s...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are still ignoring opportunity costs. If you have $x, you can buy a house and save on $y rent. But you could also buy eg bonds, and make $z return per year. If z > y, going for the bonds is better. Free time and health don't even come into the picture here. [0] (Of course, taxes and regulations can make this more complicated. And there are systematic and idiosyncratic risks to take into account.) It's not automat…
Im guessing different people have different life priorities. So in some way its not correct to argue a point derived from an assumption/axiom other person doesn't believe in. >>Well, I assume renting is better for your health: I was significantly less stressed about all the water damage that we had about two years ago, because I knew it was ultimately my landlord's problem, not mine. Paid by your money. >> But the ov…
Yes, definitely. That's why I am saying that whether it's better to invest in owner occupied housing or in something else and using the returns to pay rent, depends on yields and prices and personal preferences. It's not automatic that buying a house to live in is better.
> Paid by your money.
Yes, definitely. Just like when I go to a restaurant, all the ingredients and the chef's labour is paid for by my own money.
Owning a house is a bit like having an extra part-time job with all the things you have to worry about and work on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Owning a home is always good no matter what the finance influencers tell you. In fact, earlier the better. Its not even the buying vs renting thing, renting is bad, you don't get to own anything at the end of the journey, and often the kind of things you have to put up with to save rent, or avoid getting homeless in case of of a job loss or other life crisis is just worth your mental health. Most of your life is spen…
Assuming fixed rate mortgage, in most places the rate at which rent can grow is faster than rate of property taxes+insurance can grow. So the cost of ownership will generally be cheaper than renting. Not to mention increasing equity in an asset with time
Bought the apartment in 2018, sold in 2024 (close to the bottom of the local-market slump). Still profited ~10% (before fees) compared to buying price. All that principal amortization payed for the downpayment (and some) of my much bigger current apartment.