61–70 of 94 posts
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The social elevator works well enough to expect that one's children will do well if you provide them with the tools they'll need (which are basically a good education and love and support).
Is that an assertion? I don’t know that is necessarily always true in modern America.
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>Inequality doesn't materially harm anyone as long as it's caused by the rich Asset inflation disagrees with you. You end up in a situation where you make more money, and you can buy more stuff, except stuff in a few particular but important categories. For example physical properties.
The term you're looking for is "real wages". Obviously I'm not claiming that someone making the same nominal wage in 1980 as they do now in 2026 is just as well off. That would count as "getting poorer". US median real wages, for reference: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
If you want to refute the argument, you have to find a graph of wages normalized in terms of the cost of a starter home in areas with active economies. But I suspect that is going to be hard.
As someone that thinks of myself as a low-caste, middle class American it's interesting seeing all of these people listed in the article making less than me
the thing that doesn't compute for me is that the definition of upper middle class here is 5-15x the federal poverty line, ok, but in 1970 the federal poverty line was like ~$3k (and ~$22k today) 10x in 1970 (~33k/year) in nyc you could buy a 2,000 sqft apt for like 2.75x your salary [1] today, that same apartment is like >10x - so while perhaps more people are earning "upper middle class" incomes, what that gets you…
Should "upper-middle class income" refer to your income regardless of COL, or should it refer to an arbitrary measure of what you can buy with it?
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That's the whole point. When people hear "the middle class is shrinking" they intuitively believe people are slipping down a rung and joining the ranks of the working poor. The data doesn't back that up. The middle class is shrinking, but more people are moving up a rung than falling down one. Which isn't to say that you're wrong about wealth inequality increasing. The share of wealth controlled by the ultra wealthy…
> more people are moving up a rung than falling down one. How do you figure that? Do we have any data that backs that up?
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> more people are moving up a rung than falling down one. How do you figure that? Do we have any data that backs that up?
You are commenting on the article that contains data that backs that up.
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>Inequality doesn't materially harm anyone as long as it's caused by the rich Asset inflation disagrees with you. You end up in a situation where you make more money, and you can buy more stuff, except stuff in a few particular but important categories. For example physical properties.
Note that a similar effect has now moved into traditionally consumer markets as well. It started showing at the grassroots with hoarding toilet paper and whatnot during the first Grump catastrophe, but has now solidified with things like completely fucking up the market for computing hardware. I think I liked it better when the elites mainly conspired while playing mega golf - having that as the social attractor made…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The term you're looking for is "real wages". Obviously I'm not claiming that someone making the same nominal wage in 1980 as they do now in 2026 is just as well off. That would count as "getting poorer". US median real wages, for reference: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
That doesn't account for the growing asymmetry in the CPI. In the CPI, the asset bubble really only shows up as housing and perhaps transportation. Meanwhile consumer goods go down to compensate (as you'd expect from CPI being in the feedback path for the monetary creation "operational amplifier"). So we're left with everyday expenses continuing to be affordable (eg food, toiletries) while life expenses become ever m…
the thing that doesn't compute for me is that the definition of upper middle class here is 5-15x the federal poverty line, ok, but in 1970 the federal poverty line was like ~$3k (and ~$22k today) 10x in 1970 (~33k/year) in nyc you could buy a 2,000 sqft apt for like 2.75x your salary [1] today, that same apartment is like >10x - so while perhaps more people are earning "upper middle class" incomes, what that gets you…
Few people had air conditioning. Cars might last 100,000 miles, if you got a good one. They performed poorly, got awful mileage, and crushed the passenger compartment if you got into an accident.
Many people smoked, and people died younger. Medicine wasn’t as good.
Rich kids might have a giant set of books called an ‘encyclopedia’. It was about the only way to learn things that were outside your circle, there was no internet.
TV came in 3 channels, and you had to be sitting in front of it when your show came on. There was no way to record a show for later viewing.
Of course race relations were much worse then. So were things for women and others. Job advancement wasn’t the same as it is today.
I wouldn’t go back for anything. The poorest people today ( even the homeless, who seem to often have really nice tents and weather gear, relatively ) have it better than in 1970.
I don’t care what things cost. Practically everybody is richer today.
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That doesn't account for the growing asymmetry in the CPI. In the CPI, the asset bubble really only shows up as housing and perhaps transportation. Meanwhile consumer goods go down to compensate (as you'd expect from CPI being in the feedback path for the monetary creation "operational amplifier"). So we're left with everyday expenses continuing to be affordable (eg food, toiletries) while life expenses become ever m…
Yes, if you cherry pick a few things that are disproportionately going up in price and say inflation should be calculated based solely on those things then you can make the numbers look worse. Or the reverse if you cherry pick things that are going down in price. I don't think either of those would be a more reasonable approach than looking at CPI.