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If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

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Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#561

Post by [deleted] »

TitaRusell wrote: post #554
tim333 wrote: post #305

As an occasional visitor to the US from England I was surprised by how expensive it's become. The US always used to seem cheaper than England I think largely because the government got out of the way so houses were cheap because you could build them, cars were cheap because you could import them, food was cheap because you could just grow stuff in huge fields whereas in England much of that was restricted. On my trip…

They're opening Action stores in the US because their CEO has noticed that it's a huge potential market. Cheap Chinese shit is like mana from heaven for the poor and couple that with Dutch frugality and America is saved.

[deleted]

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#562

Post by randomNumber7 »

burningChrome wrote: post #172
eBombzor wrote: post #72

I do feel this trend in my life. I have a job which I'm grateful for but nothing feels satisfying anymore, and I feel like it is much harder to connect to people or form deep relationships, especially in this field, unless you already have a clique in your workplace. On top of that, AI is generally a demotivating entity to the majority of people. Despite all the hype of Altman and whonots, I feel like people just don…

I sense your lack of hope and see it in a lot of younger people these days. I grew up in the 80's. College in the late 90's. Start of career in the mid aughts. Went through two dot com busts, and have seen a lot of shit. The one thing that my generation (Gen X) seemed to have was always some optimism for the future. Some hope that as bad as it is now? It will eventually get better. The economy will recover, tech jobs…

I remember New Year's Eve in 2000. It felt like people really believed in a better future and they looked forward to experience the new millenium.

In retrospective this looks like a depressing joke to me.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#563

Post by verteu »

seniorThrowaway wrote: post #401
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just speculation: The houses got expensive because homeowners wanted housing to be an investment, so they voted for laws that make it harder to build or densify housing. Cars are expensive because the government puts tariffs on perfectly good imports to protect the American car companies. The American car companies produce garbage, and even the electric car companies like Tesla and Rivian are producing super-high-tec…

Housing being expensive because of laws and zoning that constrain it's supply is often touted, but there is good academic research that that isn't the case. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zfsw4iotsn3nqs8vhu8kb/LMW-FAQ...

That's not the academic consensus. It's a non-peer-reviewed working paper that contradicts the academic consensus.

The authors are clear about this:

"The standard view of housing markets holds that differences in the flexibility of local housing supply - shaped by factors like geography and regulation - explain differences in how house price and quantity growth respond to rising demand across U.S. cities... Our conclusions challenge the prevailing view of local housing and labor markets"

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w33576/w335...

edit: I do think it's a good paper!

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#564

Post by xyzelement »

alphawhisky wrote: post #452
xyzelement wrote: post #75

I feel like this is an easily answerable question, but I can see this because I grew up an atheist (and travel in those typically atheist/educated/professional circles) and have become much more aware/educated in/embracing of religion later in life myself. If you compare apples to apples - say my average atheist friend who is a director in a FAANG and also my religious friend who is also a director in the same FAANG.…

That's crazy, because as a 25 year old in the US with religious family, I can promise you that churchgoing folks are the least generous people out there. I don't know what organized religion is like in other countries, but in the US churches are abused as tax havens, religious private schools are sucking up funding meant for disadvantaged children (in public schools), and the president is claiming the mandate of god…

I live in a very different reality I guess.

// religious private schools are sucking up funding meant for disadvantaged children (in public schools),

What does that mean. In our case we pay about 20k a year in town school taxes only to send our kids to a private religious school. So the fact that my kids go to a religious school literally makes my money available to educate other people's kids in the school.

// churches are abused as tax haveans

Anything can be abused I guess. My synagogue is constantly raising money for secular causes like disaster relief and feeding the homeless. The fact that a congregant gets 3k back in taxes on a 10k donation still means he's out 6.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#565

Post by [deleted] »

mcphage wrote: post #516
nslsm wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just to state the obvious: 2020 was the year of COVID, which played hell with peoples' social lives. No, it was government mandates that played hell with peoples' social lives.

> No, it was government mandates that played hell with peoples' social lives. What did the government mandate about your social life?

[deleted]

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#566

Post by anon291 »

bontaq wrote: post #409

My mom said, "whatever we built isn't working anymore," and I think that captures most of the sentiment. It's also funny to see the "the economy is roaring!" "incomes are up!". Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Can I afford a home? Work has if anything gotten worse in general. Remote's gone. Pay's less. ADHD maximum AI use required. Nobody can take a break. Pressure's on. 1.5 trillion more to the mi…

You should be building your family and friends instead of wondering when the government is going to find some project for the country to work on

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#567

Post by Henchman21 »

The answer to the question posed by the headline is simple:

The elites have built a propaganda machine / mind control device called "Social Media". Facebook, famously, sought to determine if they could influence people's emotions. They succeeded in manufacturing negative sentiment. This was then harness by the "elites" to wage class war against the rest of us.

They're gonna REALLY SURPRISED when the rope runs out and they find themselves hanging at the end of it. You can't endlessly create negative sentiment and expect positive results. That's lunacy.

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#568

Post by cguess »

websap wrote: post #422
nephihaha wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK's the same. The lockdown was a major driver of this.

The UK (at least London) is cheaper than Seattle, and far cheaper than NYC.

That's going to depend heavily on where you live in Seattle or NYC. London has some of the most expensive real estate in the world and I can say from experience that you get much more of an apartment for your money in NYC or Seattle than in London (lived in all three).

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#569

Post by uberstuber »

crooked-v wrote: post #377
tim333 wrote: post #305

As an occasional visitor to the US from England I was surprised by how expensive it's become. The US always used to seem cheaper than England I think largely because the government got out of the way so houses were cheap because you could build them, cars were cheap because you could import them, food was cheap because you could just grow stuff in huge fields whereas in England much of that was restricted. On my trip…

A big part of it is that literally almost every major US city has a self-inflicted housing shortage ( https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives... ), which then has cascading effects on every other part of cost of living.

sadly Austin is one of the best US cities at allowing new housing development

Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?

#570

Post by throw4847285 »

nathan_compton wrote: post #313
asdfman123 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree. I think we're deep into a spiritual crisis, a crisis of meaning . A lot of people are blind to the trend because those aren't easy things to measure. But if you're single, isolated, on dating apps -- or maybe caught in an unfulfilling marriage commuting from the suburbs to a job you resent -- there often doesn't seem much point to your own existence. Everything has been stripped of its meaning. The spi…

I don't know, I'm a die hard nihilist and atheist and I'm married, have kids, friends, and think life is beautiful and generally ok. I don't see why people need to believe in imaginary stuff and I don't really see how it makes people happy.

You don't sound much like a nihilist to me.
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