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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

#541

Post by lurking_swe »

throwmeaway222 wrote: post #372
Henchman21 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am with you there - the only HOA fees that absolutely need to exist is to service an elevator if it's a required part of your building. Other than that many HOAs exist to fund the lawsuit against the developer for 20 years. <- this part was just a joke

so who is in charge for organizing repairs/replacement of common area things? Fences, parking lots, elevators, roof, pool, dog park, interior carpets, re-painting walls, etc?

I guess i’m thinking of a condo HOA. Maybe some of that is less relevant in a neighborhood with single family homes?

I do agree some HOAs are awful. But many actually help keep a place from looking shitty and from collapsing like the condo tower in florida a few years ago.

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

#542

Post by burnt-resistor »

GoatInGrey wrote: post #329
burnt-resistor wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to say what a life is worth, which is part of the problem of for-profit healthcare. Their most recent quarterly call had their CEO apologize for providing too much care.

I don't think you're making contact with what the other commenter is saying. Explaining that a health insurer makes a little over $100 in profit per person over the course of a year is meant to disprove the argument that removing profit from the health insurance system is all it will take to make everything affordable. Philosophical arguments around the economic value of a life is separate from how to reduce costs of…

> Philosophical arguments around the economic value of a life is separate

No, you're missing the point that it's totally inappropriate to treat healthcare as a profit-center by arrogantly trivializing my response, gaslighting, and applying seriously sociopathic cognitive dissonance while avoiding the greater concern.

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

#543

Post by the_real_cher »

bluecalm wrote: post #451
the_real_cher wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The math in the statement is correct in the short term. If the risk-free rate is around 3% and the equity risk premium is about 4%, the expected return on stocks would be roughly 7% a year, which would double values in about 10–11 years using the Rule of 72. That doubling could occur for a time even without productivity growth, as companies can boost earnings through pricing power, cost-cutting, or financial engineer…

My point was that is that even without any economic growth stock indexes grow quickly because they are cumulative (that is include profits of companies by either dividend paid or stock buybacks). Some indexes are not fully cumulative but they are still close enough because companies often prefer buybacks to dividends these days (for good reasons).

Stonks always go up.

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

#544

Post by bluecalm »

the_real_cher wrote: post #543
bluecalm wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that is that even without any economic growth stock indexes grow quickly because they are cumulative (that is include profits of companies by either dividend paid or stock buybacks). Some indexes are not fully cumulative but they are still close enough because companies often prefer buybacks to dividends these days (for good reasons).

Stonks always go up.

They do in expectations of course. It's like saying "overall businesses make money and money accumulates over the years". You are rewarded for not spending your money right now. Taking some risks (risk premium over risk free rate) and not being an idiot (keeping your money in a bank or mattress or whatever). Market puts price on that reward. Unless you believe market is completely wrong about everything then yes - stonks will go up.

Sometimes I feel the reason for many political views presented on HN is misunderstanding of very basic of finance and economy. The whole discussion here that started with absolutely nonsense comparison (stonks go up faster than wages) is one example of that.

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

#545

Post by ziofill »

gruez wrote: post #450
ziofill wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree. Additionally, stock price is driven also by expectations of further growth, which in order to keep happening, something's gotta give so it must chip away at quality of the final product too (cheaper materials, cheaper manufacturing, etc) with a consequent enshittification. My parents, who live in Italy, could afford a stone house from the 1800s in their thirties. I live in Canada and everything's made…

>I fully agree. Additionally, stock price is driven also by expectations of further growth, which in order to keep happening, something's gotta give so it must chip away at quality of the final product too (cheaper materials, cheaper manufacturing, etc) with a consequent enshittification. ??? You're omitting some steps here. While "enshittification" probably happens to some extent, it's unhinged to suggest that's the…

I didn’t mean it’s the only explanation, but it sure is a knob that companies use to tune “growth” (or fake growth, for that matter), among other things like better technology.

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

#546

Post by WalterBright »

TFYS wrote: post #536
WalterBright wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately our society’s structure is such that only a small number of people can ever be wealthy. History says otherwise. The mass immigration to the US in the 1800s was all poor people arriving with nothing but a suitcase. They moved up into the middle class and beyond en masse. Middle class people live better than medieval kings.

That's not the definition of wealthy. Wealthy is a relative term. It's meaningless to say that a lower middle class person today is wealthy just because people 500 years ago could only dream of the things they have. If other people in the society they currently live in have a million times more, they are not wealthy. I'm sure you understand how capitalism works. If you do, you should understand that not everyone can…

> not everyone can be an owner

Anyone with $10 and a phone can be an owner of the means of production (by buying stock).

> It's meaningless to say

The meaning is the massive improvement in the standard of living due to free markets.

BTW, if being "poor" means being in the bottom quintile of income, there will always be "poor" people, regardless of how well they live.

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

#547

Post by ben_w »

grafmax wrote: post #366
WalterBright wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Workers savings doesn’t change the fundamental dynamic. Their savings are dwarfed by those of their bosses. So when stocks double, workers, even accounting for savings, benefit far less in absolute terms than owners. Assets under capitalism follow a Pareto distribution - a minority owns a majority of the wealth. And having $100 in savings doesn’t free someone from wage labor.

Indeed. At the bottom of the income ladder, $100 is critical. Lots of surprise bills can be more than that, and failing to pay them can cause further income reductions. This is why I support a strong welfare system: it lets everyone survive when things hit the fan.

But if you can put aside $100 per month, for a while now it's been possible to put even that little into the stock market. Exact growth is highly variable and depends on what you actually invest in, but it's not implausible that over 20 years, less than half a normal working lifespan, this would have turned $24k spend into $70k present value. It's not the millionaire's club, but it's a lot for someone who only had $100 they could stand to put aside each month.

I wouldn't recommend anyone puts their last $100 into the stock market, or even to let themselves dip bellow $1000 in cash at any point unless they're in an extremely low cost of living nation.

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

#548

Post by TFYS »

WalterBright wrote: post #546
TFYS wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the definition of wealthy. Wealthy is a relative term. It's meaningless to say that a lower middle class person today is wealthy just because people 500 years ago could only dream of the things they have. If other people in the society they currently live in have a million times more, they are not wealthy. I'm sure you understand how capitalism works. If you do, you should understand that not everyone can…

> not everyone can be an owner Anyone with $10 and a phone can be an owner of the means of production (by buying stock). > It's meaningless to say The meaning is the massive improvement in the standard of living due to free markets. BTW, if being "poor" means being in the bottom quintile of income, there will always be "poor" people, regardless of how well they live.

That's like saying anyone with legs can be a professional runner. In theory yes, but not in practice, not in a meaningful way.

Defining poverty as bottom quintile is also useless, yes. Defining poverty by comparing to the average or median income is the most useful definition. Someone earning less than half of average, for example. That tells you how well they can afford the limited resources of any society, as those track the average purchasing power.

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

#549

Post by dang »

bluecalm wrote: post #537
Epa095 wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard when people call me confused :-/ But I would edit it away if I could! But it seems like I can't edit this post anymore, should I be able to?

[flagged]

This was not a good moment to start the argument all over again.

Please don't harangue other users, regardless of how badly they're missing a point or you feel they are.

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

#550

Post by dang »

Epa095 wrote: post #535
dang wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please edit out swipes and name-calling from your posts to HN, as the site guidelines request: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . I realize you didn't start it, but we need commenters here to follow the rules regardless of what others are doing. (Otherwise we end up in a downward spiral: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... ) Edit: You did it elsewhere in this thread too - h…

It's hard when people call me confused :-/ But I would edit it away if I could! But it seems like I can't edit this post anymore, should I be able to?

The edit window has passed. But don't worry! all that matters is to correct things going forward.
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