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Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

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Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#331

Post by WalterBright »

grafmax wrote: post #231
gruez wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And it really is as simple as that. It really isn't, because your "simple" comparison is bunk. For one, it's measuring stock vs flow. Stock prices measure stock, eg. the size of a piggy bank. Salaries measure flow, eg. your annual salary. Directly comparing the two results is meaningless. It's easy to demonstrate this with the piggy bank example. If your salary was 50k/year, you saved 5k/year, then your piggy bank w…

People who have less flow and no stock can increase their savings less than those with stock and the same flow. Many are not able to save at all. Those without stock receive only flow. Those with stock receive both flow and stock, and those with more stock profit more from rising stock. So the relationship between stock and “flow” is absolutely relevant if we want to understand wealth inequality, because the working…

> People who have less flow and no stock can increase their savings less than those with stock and the same flow.

If they have savings they can buy stock. Nobody is sentenced to have savings only.

> with the ownership class accruing profit that they receive by virtue of ownership.

Anyone can buy stock with less than $100 and thereby join the ownership class.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#332

Post by whateveracct »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #265
kccqzy wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I have good health insurance I think your example illustrates how low people's expectation can be when it comes to calling health insurance "good" in the U.S. If I were asked to pay $3400 for urgent care or $250 for an ophthalmologist I would not consider the health insurance "good" for its intended purpose of insuring against medical expenses. (It might be good for other purposes like enabling you to invest wi…

Yeah, I wouldn't consider any HDHP (High-Deductable Healthcare Plan) to be "good insurance".

It is when you take into account the tax advantages of an HSA.

If you're like me and can shake off a few grand medical expense out of pocket, suddenly it's the best plan.

I have a HDHP and paid less than $10k all year for my family's medical expenses and we had a freaking baby lol.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#333

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

SoftTalker wrote: post #327
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wouldn't consider any HDHP (High-Deductable Healthcare Plan) to be "good insurance".

Why not? Do you expect to not pay any part of your normal, expected annual heath care costs? Insurance is for unexpected expenses that (a) you cannot foresee and (b) would be catastrophic to your finances. Thinks like major storm or fire damage to your house. A car accident that results in a total loss or worse, liability for someone's injuries. Your annual physical, eye exam, and dental hygiene vists, and other rout…

Insurance is for unexpected expenses that (a) you cannot foresee and (b) would be catastrophic to your finances

I do not agree with that view, and I'm not sure that is how it is used in the US at least. In the US, for many people, health insurance is the only realistic means to obtain any healthcare, not just catastrophic care.

I get injured at least annually due to mostly-outdoor physical activities, and have a chronic health issue or two, so the prospect of paying thousands of dollars out of pocket before my insurance even kicks in, doesn't sound great (and wasn't, when I had HDHPs for years).

I think the issue is that pretty much everything which isn't preventative care is considered "catastrophic" under this logic (because it requires paying hundreds or thousands out of pocket), even non-major issues, so "catastrophic" happens a lot.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#334

Post by SoftTalker »

Aurornis wrote: post #61
mathiaspoint wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God forbid we touch Obamacare though.

Did everyone just forget what it was like before Obamacare? Apparently you didn’t know anyone excluded for pre-existing conditions Obamacare also mandated coverage for basic care like your annual physical and many mental health conditions. It’s not perfect, but I guess it’s been long enough that people are forgetting how bad the situation was before.

> your annual physical

... should not be covered. This is a predictable, moderate expense. You can plan and save for it, or even skip it. An annual physical is of debatable value for a young, healthy person. Insurance is for unpredictable, financially devastating expenses that you cannot avoid.

If predictable stuff like annual physicals is covered, the "insurance" is just an inefficient savings account.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#335

Post by WalterBright »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #292
Epa095 wrote: post #138

I encourage everyone to do the following simple exercise: look at the main stock market in your country, and see how far back you must go for the main index to be half of what it is today. The answer is probably somewhere between 5 and 7 years. Then find salary statistics, and see how much the average salary has increased in the same time. The answer is probably somewhere between 20 and 30%. And it really is as simpl…

Go back 50 years, and 95% of Americans should be raising Cain. Of OECD countries, the US has ridiculous income inequality distribution and effective reductions in purchasing power over time. https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM Anecdotally: Someone would need to make $350k/yr to live where I grew up in a not great area where there were robberies, shootings, and thumping radios all the time. Also, where my blue-collar grandpa…

> income inequality distribution

Money in a capitalist society is not distributed, it is created.

The elephant in the room is the amount of money vacuumed up by the government which then disappears. Remember the Fire Aid for the LA fires victims? They raised $100m which disappeared without a trace. Then there's all that money for the California bullet train. Still no track laid.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#336

Post by GoatInGrey »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #76

I did some math a while ago on this topic: 40 million Americans live below the poverty line of $15,000 per year. [1] Total U.S. household net worth (excluding real estate) is around $54 trillion. [2] If every household above the poverty line donated 2.5% of their net worth annually to people living below the poverty line, we could erase poverty instantly. Here’s the math: 2.5% of $54 trillion = $1.35 trillion $1.35 t…

Throwing more dollars into a system with out of control costs will not resolve the fundamental cost issue. For the same reason that you can't out-exercise a terrible diet or out-earn a terrible business model, solving this problem will require addressing the cost component.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#337

Post by NotGMan »

qualeed wrote: post #113
NotGMan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) After how many years of 2.5% annual donation would their own wealth drop until they thenself become poor? Donating 2.5% means that you get poorer and poorer over time unless you can make more than that per year back. 2.5% of wealth also means non-liquid assets such as house, how do you donate that? Get credit? If you are middle class and your house etc is eg 1M$ net worth you are giving 25k$ per year. At 0.5M net…

You say: > .5% of wealth also means non-liquid assets such as house But they said: > Total U.S. household net worth (excluding real estate) The rest of your comment, to be honest, just sounds like you fundamentally don't like poor people and have some strong biases against them.

You are free to give them 2.5% of your money, see how it works out.

Reality supports my case.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#338

Post by BobaFloutist »

beezle wrote: post #311

Americans confuse need with 'nice to have' which leads to the "I don't have money for food/rent/hc" problem. You do not need cable tv or home internet. You do not need an iPhone or top end Samsung. There are many mid-range Android phones much cheaper that can add a MVNO phone plan for around $20/mo that has more than enough data for necessary internet. Key word: necessary. OTA HDTV is available to many millions at th…

I disagree with home Internet, I think that's pretty important these days.

The rest I largely agree with.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#339

Post by WalterBright »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #317
Epa095 wrote: post #138

I encourage everyone to do the following simple exercise: look at the main stock market in your country, and see how far back you must go for the main index to be half of what it is today. The answer is probably somewhere between 5 and 7 years. Then find salary statistics, and see how much the average salary has increased in the same time. The answer is probably somewhere between 20 and 30%. And it really is as simpl…

If the stock price is primarily reflective of real productivity, then stock market crashes would have to be caused by sudden drops in productivity. Are they?

There are waves and eddies in a river, but overall the water still flows downhill.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#340

Post by Henchman21 »

gruez wrote: post #323
rconti wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd drop the HOA first, I sure as _hell_ don't need one of those.

HOAs come with the house. You can't just cancel them like you can cancel your netflix subscription.

No, but you can get elected to the HOA and move to dissolve it. Of course this isn't always advisable, some HOAs aren't awful, and some actually provide necessary services to homeowners.
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