381–390 of 396 posts
If you're looking for a backpack that can survive just about anything, and don't mind a "tactical" look, check out Savotta: https://www.savotta.fi/collections/backpacks They're expensive, but last a lifetime or more.
I bought a north face backpack for college in 1998. It cost $60. It was an extravagant expense for me at the time and I felt horrible about it for weeks. That backpack is currently at college with my son, who used it all through high school as well. It is by far the oldest and most durable daily-use object I’ve ever owned.
First day of my college freshman year, I purchased a Targus backpack for the heavy ass gaming laptop I had back then. I still use it decades later. It has carried stuff inside it for tens of thousands of miles, seen lots of abuse, weathered all sorts of conditions, and is still in really good shape. Not a single tear. Every compartment, every feature works the way it did on day of purchase. I'm honestly amazed every…
I think Targus stopped making this model (maybe a trend towards smaller laptops), hopefully this one will keep working for a while before I need to find a good replacement.
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This isn't true for median purchasing power. You're looking at the federal minimum wage, not the median. Only about 1% of hourly workers earn $7.25 or less. Median earnings were $48,070 in 1975, measured in 2024 dollars, and $51,370 in 2024.
Median earnings in 1970 were closer to 56k in today's dollars. 1970-1980 was a recessionary period, followed by stagflation in the 80s. I hate when people use that time period as an anchor to show growth. It's like using 2009 as an anchor.
Still, real wages in 1975 were relatively high compared to previous decades. See table A-7 here: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-2...
Estimated median earnings for full-time male workers peaked in 1973 in the chart, until surpassing it in the 2010s. It's hard to find directly comparable data for earlier decades, but estimates put wages significantly lower. If you anchored to the 1920s, 30s, 40s or 50s instead, you'd just show even more growth in median wage. If you're saying we shouldn't compare to the 70s or 80s either, then what's left? Just years after 1990?
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The assertion that the CPI simultaneously overlooks downward product substitution and prices in product improvements in order to paint an overly-rosy picture is belied by the fact that most stuff is cheaper than it’s ever been. Thirty years ago, internet service was $2.95/hour (in 1996 dollars!), long-distance phone calls were 10 cents/minute, and a low-res 28” color TV with 5 channels cost a fortune.
> a low-res 28” color TV with 5 channels cost a fortune. Uh, back in 2000 (okay not quite 30 years ago, but getting close) I had a 36" Sony Wega which cost around $1500 with DirectTV and hundreds of channels. A 25" to 27" TV was more of a 1988 kind of thing (which is almost 40 years ago now). Being limited to 5 OTA channels was more of a 1980 thing. But again you can't really buy that Sony Wega anymore, even though t…
More households subscribe to services today, which inflates the "average expenditures" data cited below: 93% of 1988 households had a landline, 53% cable TV, and 63% newspaper. Compare with today's household services penetration: 98% mobile phone, 94% broadband, and 74% streaming media.
You’re right that this is less than the cost of internet + cell + streaming services today — these are ~50% higher than the 1988 bundle — but consider the differences: you can access almost any kind of content from almost anywhere. And you can consume it on a smart phone or TV that costs 75% less in real terms than that TV from 2000.
Meanwhile, real median household income grew from ~$65,130 in 1988 to $83,730 in 2024 — and furthermore, the tax burden on the middle class fell during this period.
Sources: https://www.bls.gov/cex/1988/Standard/cusize.pdf https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
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The assertion that the CPI simultaneously overlooks downward product substitution and prices in product improvements in order to paint an overly-rosy picture is belied by the fact that most stuff is cheaper than it’s ever been. Thirty years ago, internet service was $2.95/hour (in 1996 dollars!), long-distance phone calls were 10 cents/minute, and a low-res 28” color TV with 5 channels cost a fortune.
I don't care about internet service, long distance phone calls, or TVs. I care about shelter, groceries, healthcare, and education. I can forego the former, I must buy the latter.
I wonder if there's an advertising law angle here. If a company sells multiple products in the same product category, they really shouldn't be allowed to have them branded so that they seem like multiple companies. The main name/logo on these products should be required to have something that makes it clear that they're all from the same company. They can pick one of their backpack brands to keep (and eliminate/sell…
It reminds me of EIG (Endurance International Group), who at least at one point owned a large portion of major mainstream webhosts (including Arvixe, Bluehost, Hostgator, A Small Orange, Site5...). They "streamlined" them all into one big operation, with reliability and customer support going to shit for every host they bought. But they kept all the brands separate, so people kept bouncing from host to host, wondering why they were all so shit, not realising that they never actually switched providers.
Did they also buy Deuter and Osprey? What about Decathlon?
I don't know about backpacks specifically, but my general impression with Decathlon and their own brands has been that they somehow manage to be ridiculously cheap, while also being better made and lasting longer than many name brands that cost several times as much.