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US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

cnn.com

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Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#321

Post by HDThoreaun »

WalterBright wrote: post #309
HDThoreaun wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US economy was absolutely fucked for a large portion of that time period largely because of the lack of monetary policy. The economy has done much, much better since we introduced fiat.

Milton Friedman in "Monetary History of the United States" shows that fluctuations in the money supply were significantly more pronounced after fiat money began. The fed's enlightened hand on the tiller simply isn't as good as the blind actions of the free market.

fluctuations in the money supply are not necessarily a bad thing.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#322

Post by WalterBright »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #321
WalterBright wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milton Friedman in "Monetary History of the United States" shows that fluctuations in the money supply were significantly more pronounced after fiat money began. The fed's enlightened hand on the tiller simply isn't as good as the blind actions of the free market.

fluctuations in the money supply are not necessarily a bad thing.

If they have proved unable at smoothing the small fluctuations, how can they do better with the large ones? And they didn't - the Great Depression.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#323

Post by xedrac »

zer8k wrote: post #171
Waterluvian wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people get into a mindset that a 25 year mortgage is meant to be paid off in 25 years, so that mindset guides their entire frame of reference for how large a lifestyle to adopt. I’m not saying to rush through a mortgage. Do whatever you want. But consider not getting into a situation where you’re somehow struggling even though you’re one of the lucky few who can afford to even own a home. When times…

Paying off your mortgage with an interest rate less than inflation is a mathematically verifiable horrible idea. You're short the dollar deeply. Keep that short position for as long as you can because on a long enough horizon you'll be right so long as the Fed continues to manipulate the market. That doesn't necessarily mean lever up. But it does mean take that extra X% you'd put into your mortgage and place it in so…

> Paying off your mortgage with an interest rate less than inflation is a mathematically verifiable horrible idea.

This is often the case, but not always. It also doesn't account for the much better sleep I get at night, or the unshackled feeling I experience knowing I am debt free. There's an enormous psychological benefit that is not easily quantified.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#324

Post by jjav »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #320
jjav wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Manhattan is essentially the only walkable place in the country This is nowhere near true. Tons of suburbs are perfectly walkable to all kinds of stores and service you could want. I've lived in 6 places in the US and only one of them was not within convenient walking distance of plenty of stores, entertainment and services (and that one was because I chose a fairly rural area at the time). Yes you can find unwalka…

How long have you lived outside the US/Canada/Australia? I’d suggest that your definition of “walkable” is skewed by global standards. I don’t mean sometimes you can leave your car at home, I mean that you have no need for a car and even most people who can afford to choose not to own one and prefer to walk, bike, or take public transportation instead. The New York subway system is the only mass transit system in the…

> I’d suggest that your definition of “walkable” is skewed by global standards.

I'd say that's trending into No true Scotsman territory. If it isn't exactly like some elsewhere, it's not true walkability?

To me the definition is very simple: a home is walkable when I can get to my daily & weekly needs by walking. Enough supermarkets, restaurants, assorted shopping, entertainment, bars and plenty of services are all within walking distance.

> even most people who can afford to choose not to own one

I think this is throwing off your walkability definition. A home can be extremely walkable even when the residents own a car. Owning a car in the US is cheap and easy so even if I walk to 95+% of my needs (which I can), it's still nice to own cars for the edge cases. That

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#325

Post by sarchertech »

TuringNYC wrote: post #274
sarchertech wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $50k -> $1,049,800 You can't look at the price increase for the same house without accounting for the changes in the neighborhood and surrounding areas. A neighborhood increases in desirability, it now costs more to live in that nicer neighborhood. The population of a city increases, such that you now have to live farther away from the city to find comparably priced real estate etc... That's why I said if you want…

I agree with you about trying to control for neighborhood changes, I dont think that is done here. There is gentrification and that admittedly makes the numbers harder to compare. That said, I would totally disagree that the real apples-to-apples comparison would be to find an equivalent home further away. That literally proves my original argument -- that the current generation has to work the same for less. That ou…

You have to control for the city changing is well because that directly impacts the desirability of the neighborhood. In the extreme case, if a city has increased population, such that what used to be considered a suburb is now as dense and desirable as what used to be the city center, while you may be moving farther from the city center, you might not be farther from an area equivalent to the city center from decades ago.

In the case of New York, desirability of the city (not just the specific suburb you're comparing) has increased massively. The only way to find a comparable neighborhood, that is a comparable distance to a city center that is as desirable as Manhattan or Brooklyn was in the 1980, is to either look farther out or look at an area near a different city.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#326

Post by spiderice »

eurleif wrote: post #181
spiderice wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a logical fallacy. His view on Jews has no effect on whether his statements on nefarious bankers are true. You can quote me saying 1+1=2, even if 2 is my favorite number. Now if he’s being misleading and you have evidence of that, then his feeling toward Jews might explain why he is biased

You misunderstand the scope of formal fallacies, which only apply to formal arguments. Most arguments aren't formal arguments, and that's ok; they aren't supposed to be. Instead of proving a conclusion from a set of premises, they rely on heuristics to draw probabilistic inferences. In the context of a formal argument, the act of quoting Henry Ford would have been either the fallacy of appeal to authority (if the quo…

> which only apply to formal arguments

Um.. sorry.. but this is absolutely false. Logical fallacies apply to all logic. Period. Flawed logic isn't ok just because you're speaking casually.

Re: US inflation means families are spending $709 more per month than two years ago

#327

Post by eurleif »

spiderice wrote: post #326
eurleif wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand the scope of formal fallacies, which only apply to formal arguments. Most arguments aren't formal arguments, and that's ok; they aren't supposed to be. Instead of proving a conclusion from a set of premises, they rely on heuristics to draw probabilistic inferences. In the context of a formal argument, the act of quoting Henry Ford would have been either the fallacy of appeal to authority (if the quo…

> which only apply to formal arguments Um.. sorry.. but this is absolutely false. Logical fallacies apply to all logic. Period. Flawed logic isn't ok just because you're speaking casually.

The "formal" in "formal argument" does not mean "the opposite of casual". Rather, it refers to arguments which take a particular form: those that assume a set of premises, and use formal logical tools to prove a conclusion from those premises. To accuse an argument of containing a formal fallacy means: the tools you tried to use to prove that conclusion from those premises is defective, and you have not actually proven the conclusion.

However, proving a conclusion is only one possible thing that an argument may set out to do. Oftentimes, we are more interested in probabilistic evidence than in absolute proof. Thus, an argument which does not prove anything (and which would thus be fallacious if treated as a formal argument) can nonetheless be useful.

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