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The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

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Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#191

Post by toomuchtodo »

megaman8 wrote: post #190
toomuchtodo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could literally print nearly free wealth, inflation free, if we just opened up land for development. It's a win win win. Doesn't neighboring real estate value decline as you put more capacity on the market? You can't print real estate wealth anymore than you can print dollars without consequence. At the end of the day, all of this "value" is trying to get dibs on the output of labor today (housing prices are usu…

True, but the total wealth increases. Money is just a proxy for the things we want. the things we want are the actual wealth. When you can buy 50" LCD screen for 200$ instead of 700$, you've got more wealth, same for land: that's Progress.

> When you can buy 50" LCD screen for 200$ instead of 700$, you've got more wealth, same for land: that's Progress.

Great example! More to the point, total wealth is useless, just as GDP is useless as a measure of citizen wellness and happiness (US GDP was 18.57 trillion USD in 2016). It's the distribution that matters and where we're utterly failing. Your example is not progress when necessities inflation (housing, food, education, and healthcare) races ahead of other consumer expenses and incomes in general, unless one is expected to watch that 50" TV in a van down by the river.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/blogs/lookout/fed-official-heckle... (March 11, 2011)

> Reuters reports that New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley was heckled at a speech in Queens today when he suggested that the rising cost of food is offset by how cheap iPads are. "Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful," he said referring to Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) latest handheld tablet computer hitting stories on Friday. "You have to look at the prices of all things," he said. This prompted guffaws and widespread murmuring from the audience, with one audience member calling the comment "tone deaf." "I can't eat an iPad," another quipped.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#192

Post by poulsbohemian »

WalterSear wrote: post #154
unstuckdev wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "I'm not defending it, but there isn't Trader Joe's or Aldi of college yet (slightly better than average generic product with low/no frills)." Community college.

Not 'slightly better' though, IME.

FWIW: many community colleges in my area are beginning to offer BA/BS degrees. I've seen data that shows students who get their two-year degree are often able to get into better 4-year schools than they would have had they applied straight from high school. Certainly given the cost, community colleges make a great deal of economic sense, though are perhaps held back by reputation.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#193

Post by CocaKoala »

phkahler wrote: post #97

He misses what I consider a major issue. The price of college education is going up much faster than the cost of providing it. If you look at tuition vs what a professor is paid, one goes up much faster than the other. If you look at housing costs things don't add up either - renting an apartment seems to be a source of revenue for the schools. These are the obvious places the schools are making a ton of money - wher…

> I can't imagine students paying $4 a couple times a day for a Starbucks coffee when they're paying with borrowed money. This is just grossly irresponsible.

When I was in college, undergrads would have to purchase a meal plan, which could take a few forms. You could have a designated number of meals, and buy things from the cafeteria that qualified as a meal (one entree, one side, one drink), or you could have balance of food dollars which could only be spent on campus. There were also plans that involved a mix of those two types of currencies, but the better plan was to get the food dollars (which were called Declining, for whatever reason), and use that to buy food, because that gave you more flexibility. You could spend Declining at the cafeterias, at the corner store, at the Starbucks on campus, it was literally cash that you could only spend on the campus and only on food.

At the end of the academic year, though, your balance gets zeroed out, no matter how much you have left in Declining. So every year starting in April or so, people would start buying stuff in bulk from the corner store or from the Starbucks just to get something out of the money that was going to evaporate. My senior year, my girlfriend spent like two hundred dollars on coffee beans and gave them to people as presents, because what else was she going to do? I myself spent like sixty bucks on fifteen pounds of sour patch kids.

No reason to not buy that four dollar coffee every day when the money's already spent and you're not getting it back.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#194

Post by snovv_crash »

vinay427 wrote: post #76
gambiting wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if I understand it correctly, for some unfathomable reason American health insurance policies usually have a deductible on them - so even if you are insured, you could still be paying few thousand dollars out of your pocket, no? That's insane.

Lots of insurance plans in other industries have deductibles in other countries, and the US certainly isn't unique in this respect. For example, deductibles are the norm in health insurance plans in Switzerland, which has a system not all that different from that in the US.

In Switzerland the deductible is annual, not per visit. Once you hit that cap, everything is free (except voluntary cosmetic stuff).

Thus, insurance actually acts like insurance, like car insurance or fire insurance, there to catch you in a bad situation, not to give you discounts on your day-to-day expenses.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#195

Post by poulsbohemian »

kartan wrote: post #44

I very interesting article. This kind of numbers should be on the news all the time (like global warming) so people focus more on them instead of what is the last Twitt from the president. > "Get rich or die trying" I have always seen this as USA's major flaws. You are not supposed to have a good life but to risk everything for riches. This was working when the rest of the world was under-developed. USA citizens had…

There was an article in the NY Times last week (posted on HN as well) lamenting the loss of hobbies / personal time. To me it was evident the reasons, even though they were not discussed in the article, and I posit they are the same reasons as yours statement about this "Get rich or die trying" mentality. People don't engage in hobbies/leisure and have adopted this mentality out of fear. If you can't make it to the richer side of society, the alternative is a bad one. We do not have a safety net to speak of in this country, and every study shows that what constitutes an average life here is one full of poor health, poor diet, dull work if it can be found, etc. You can see it in the rising suicide rates! So of course anyone with a clue is going to drop their hobbies and bust tail to try to get ahead. As wealth inequality continues its increase, you'll only see more of this desperation.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#196

Post by dsr_ »

miscreanity wrote: post #168
maxxxxx wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" The price of college education is going up much faster than the cost of providing it. If you look at tuition vs what a professor is paid, one goes up much faster than the other. " That's the most important question. Same applies to health care. Where does the money actually go and how has that changed over the last 50 years? Everybody immediately complains about their favorite scapegoat but there is no comprehensiv…

Regulation inevitably squeezes it into government one way or another. The only long-term beneficiaries are the government itself which constantly requires more funding through any means possible, and those involved in regulatory capture - typically banks and large corporations. It is important to note that relaxation of regulation is important as well, since the direction of that easement usually favors banks and big…

It seems likely that your grandfather was quoting someone else, or perhaps he published the quip widely.

The earliest reference I see in Google is from 1992, with an Arizona anti-Semitic pamphlet.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#197

Post by andyman1080 »

stephengillie wrote: post #176
nerdponx wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the obvious places the schools are making a ton of money - where does it go? This is exactly the reason why I don't donate to my alma mater, neither should most people. Less "alma mater" and more "greedy mater who funnels taxpayer money into a growing bureaucracy".

I decided not to donate to my college when I saw them moving an entire historical house up a hill. They're a major research university with a $3 billion dollar endowment, a Pac-12 football team, and the largest employer in Washington State after its own government. I'm pretty sure my $100/month has more utility to more people at a food bank, than it would at that school.

Curious, which historical house?

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#198

Post by randomdata »

afpx wrote: post #45

Does anyone know why wages aren’t increasing? Unemployment is almost at a 50-year low.

Wage increases require both difficulty in hiring someone at a lower price as well as a need to do the job at a higher price.

50-year low unemployment may affect the former, but that does not mean that the jobs are worth doing at a higher rate. Like with the price of anything, there is always a point where something is no longer worth buying. A job may pencil out at $10/hr, but not $11/hr, and so as soon as wage pressure pushes for $11/hr, the job potential simply disappears.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#199

Post by cjmb »

RobertoG wrote: post #107
phkahler wrote: post #97

He misses what I consider a major issue. The price of college education is going up much faster than the cost of providing it. If you look at tuition vs what a professor is paid, one goes up much faster than the other. If you look at housing costs things don't add up either - renting an apartment seems to be a source of revenue for the schools. These are the obvious places the schools are making a ton of money - wher…

I don't think he is missing it, it's kind of the point of what is saying: the price is disconnected of the cost, it's a function of the money available to the customers who are, also, a captive market. In standard economic teaching, Is not this what happens when there is a cartel acting?

Hey, OP of the article here, didn't realize someone submitted it here too!

Yeah, this is exactly a rephrasing of the point I was trying to get across.

Re: The Bermuda Triangle of Wealth

#200

Post by megaman8 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #191
megaman8 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the total wealth increases. Money is just a proxy for the things we want. the things we want are the actual wealth. When you can buy 50" LCD screen for 200$ instead of 700$, you've got more wealth, same for land: that's Progress.

> When you can buy 50" LCD screen for 200$ instead of 700$, you've got more wealth, same for land: that's Progress. Great example! More to the point, total wealth is useless, just as GDP is useless as a measure of citizen wellness and happiness (US GDP was 18.57 trillion USD in 2016). It's the distribution that matters and where we're utterly failing. Your example is not progress when necessities inflation (housing,…

believe me, i find it equally frustrating that all the crap we don't need is getting cheaper and cheaper with more progress. And yet, the bare essentials of life which are so important, aren't making any progress at all: shelter and medical insurance, etc.
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