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I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

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Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#71

Post by neaden »

ozlikethewizard wrote: post #65
neaden wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% disagree with this and don't think it is particularly close? Sure there are some specific locations that are much more expensive, and there are some locations that are much cheaper. Overall if you want the same things it is way more affordable today than the 80s and 90s. But our standards have risen a lot and things that used to be considered middle class are now considered poor.

Anything that could be considered in the base layers of Maslov's heirarchy is certainly less affordable. Food, shelter, health, education. Sure lots of consumer goods have got cheaper, but if you've got a big TV and no house to put it in are you actually any richer?

Let's take these one at at time

1. Households in 1980 spent a large share of their income on food then today, and CPI tracks food expenditure and it's below wage increases. So this one is a victory for today vs the past.

2. Shelter is difficult because we expect much more today than the past, houses have gotten much much larger. One big issue is interest rates, which were about twice as high in the 80s than in recent times. If you want to buy a small house without air conditioning and other amenities that are now standard you can do it cheaper than what you would have paid back then. So another victory for today.

3. Health is once again hard, because a lot of the increased cost is for things that weren't around back then. We can just call this one a draw

4. Education. This is the one that is most clearly an increase above inflation. Some of this is due to decreased funding by governments, some due to admin bloat, but mostly it's just that labor is getting more expensive and education is a very labor focused sector. So victory for the past.

So overall I have to say you are incorrect, the past was more expensive than now and less affordable for a middle class person. I also have to say I find this whole thing kind of odd, I was born in the 80s and remember what it was like, I would not want to switch places with my parents economically.

Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#72

Post by wang_li »

neaden wrote: post #56
syel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to call it satire actually

So you're making fun of people who think the past was more affordable?

He has a belief that is mainly supportable only if he cherry picks specific examples that don't contradict his belief system.

Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#73

Post by _DeadFred_ »

megaman821 wrote: post #19

Even with these cherry-picked examples, plug in how things actually were. That $8,200 station wagon with at 48 month loan and the terrible 80's loan rates of 10-12% would be like $750/month now. Most of those cars wouldn't make it to 50k miles without a major repair. There were almost no safety features, seat belts weren't required to be worn and you could drink and drive. This weird fetishization of the past is a me…

And that major repair? Water pump that dad changed in like 30 minutes. Or engine rebuild he did with friends and some beers or did for the lady down the street for the cost of parts. Do people even help eachother fix eachother's cars anymore? We used to be a society helping. Now it's go to a mechanics shop that normally starts with the process of them seeing if they can scam you.

The fetishization of basic progress is wild. We EXTPECT our society to progress. People went from horses (where they literally had to shovel shit) to cars. 2026 'now we have seatbelts' is some bullshit progress metric for an entire ass society and isn't the 2026 hyped/sold/expected. That you have to reach to pulling up that example (versus my 'shoveling horse shit to having jet airplane looking 1950s/60s cars) shows things kinda suck. In exchange you can't fix the car and have to take it in. You can't just help out the single mom down the street and check out her problem for her. Tires are so expensive they have to go on the credit card and be a planned expense (my parents with hardly any money didn't have to live off credits cards to cover incidentals).

'Guys, things can't be bad, we have these amazing things called seatbelts now (invented in 1959)'.

Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#74

Post by megaman821 »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #73
megaman821 wrote: post #19

Even with these cherry-picked examples, plug in how things actually were. That $8,200 station wagon with at 48 month loan and the terrible 80's loan rates of 10-12% would be like $750/month now. Most of those cars wouldn't make it to 50k miles without a major repair. There were almost no safety features, seat belts weren't required to be worn and you could drink and drive. This weird fetishization of the past is a me…

And that major repair? Water pump that dad changed in like 30 minutes. Or engine rebuild he did with friends and some beers or did for the lady down the street for the cost of parts. Do people even help eachother fix eachother's cars anymore? We used to be a society helping. Now it's go to a mechanics shop that normally starts with the process of them seeing if they can scam you. The fetishization of basic progress i…

Well anything can sound dumb, when you simplify it to something dumb. We have multiple airbags, anti-lock braking, seatbelt pretensioner, collision avoidance, crumple zones, fuel pump automatic shut off, backup cameras, rollover testing, ... Vehicles do an amazing amount of things to keep their occupants alive in a crash.

Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#75

Post by insane_dreamer »

megaman821 wrote: post #19

Even with these cherry-picked examples, plug in how things actually were. That $8,200 station wagon with at 48 month loan and the terrible 80's loan rates of 10-12% would be like $750/month now. Most of those cars wouldn't make it to 50k miles without a major repair. There were almost no safety features, seat belts weren't required to be worn and you could drink and drive. This weird fetishization of the past is a me…

meh. Yes cars are safer now. But this is about affordability. And cars lasted much longer back then and were much easier and cheaper to maintain. You could get second hand cars that would still run for years, and you or a friend could fix them yourself. Drinking and driving has nothing to do with affordability so I don’t know what you’re going on about.

Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#76

Post by gadders »

pjc50 wrote: post #16
gadders wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pensions used to be great when you had final salary ones.

Unfortunately people stopped smoking. (the downside of 20th century work on increasing life expectancy is that most of it happens in retirement, making pensions much more expensive) edit: I have not done the maths, but I would not be surprised to discover that the total average pension paid to someone retiring at age 65 in 2026 was much more than the total average pension paid to someone retiring at age 65 in 1986, w…

I'd retire later if I got a higher pension rate.

i.e.

Opt to retire at 65, but you get a defined contribution pot

Opt to retire at 70, you get final salary pension.

Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#77

Post by FeloniousHam »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #75
megaman821 wrote: post #19

Even with these cherry-picked examples, plug in how things actually were. That $8,200 station wagon with at 48 month loan and the terrible 80's loan rates of 10-12% would be like $750/month now. Most of those cars wouldn't make it to 50k miles without a major repair. There were almost no safety features, seat belts weren't required to be worn and you could drink and drive. This weird fetishization of the past is a me…

meh. Yes cars are safer now. But this is about affordability. And cars lasted much longer back then and were much easier and cheaper to maintain. You could get second hand cars that would still run for years, and you or a friend could fix them yourself. Drinking and driving has nothing to do with affordability so I don’t know what you’re going on about.

> And cars lasted much longer back then and were much easier and cheaper to maintain.

I lived through those "amazingly affordable" decades, and while the engines were simpler (if you're driving a '68 Caprice 327 V8 without all those pesky environmental gadgets), no way they were more reliable. What was reliable was oil leaks, and burning oil. My parents popped a bottle of champagne when the station wagon hit 100k miles! 100,000 miles is table stakes for auto reliability these days.

My father was a quite capable home mechanic, but most people weren't. I guarantee you cars spent more time in the shop then than now.

Go to a car show and compare the interior of anything from this Golden Era to Nissan Versa somebody else mentioned, and tell me you'd take the old thing.

I have nostalgia for the decades I grew up in, but it's for the people I loved and simpler life of a child, not the stuff.

Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#78

Post by FeloniousHam »

megaman821 wrote: post #74
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that major repair? Water pump that dad changed in like 30 minutes. Or engine rebuild he did with friends and some beers or did for the lady down the street for the cost of parts. Do people even help eachother fix eachother's cars anymore? We used to be a society helping. Now it's go to a mechanics shop that normally starts with the process of them seeing if they can scam you. The fetishization of basic progress i…

Well anything can sound dumb, when you simplify it to something dumb. We have multiple airbags, anti-lock braking, seatbelt pretensioner, collision avoidance, crumple zones, fuel pump automatic shut off, backup cameras, rollover testing, ... Vehicles do an amazing amount of things to keep their occupants alive in a crash.

+ all the complexity that makes the stuff coming out the backend less polluting

Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#79

Post by readthenotes1 »

neaden wrote: post #71
ozlikethewizard wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that could be considered in the base layers of Maslov's heirarchy is certainly less affordable. Food, shelter, health, education. Sure lots of consumer goods have got cheaper, but if you've got a big TV and no house to put it in are you actually any richer?

Let's take these one at at time 1. Households in 1980 spent a large share of their income on food then today, and CPI tracks food expenditure and it's below wage increases. So this one is a victory for today vs the past. 2. Shelter is difficult because we expect much more today than the past, houses have gotten much much larger. One big issue is interest rates, which were about twice as high in the 80s than in recent…

My great granddaddy spent the summer of 1918 in a shack on the farm, sequestered by his parents to protect him from the Spanish Flu.

No tv, no radio, no electric lights, no HVAC, no Internet.

It cost nothing for him to live there other than the food delivered by someone paid a pittance to leave a plate on the porch.

Comparing to past prices usually ignores current affordances we take for granted.

I myself suffered from owning a 9-in black and white TV until I was 31.

I'm not sure exactly what the cost was, but I'm pretty sure it was in line with a low end 36-in LED nowadays

Re: I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

#80

Post by _DeadFred_ »

megaman821 wrote: post #74
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that major repair? Water pump that dad changed in like 30 minutes. Or engine rebuild he did with friends and some beers or did for the lady down the street for the cost of parts. Do people even help eachother fix eachother's cars anymore? We used to be a society helping. Now it's go to a mechanics shop that normally starts with the process of them seeing if they can scam you. The fetishization of basic progress i…

Well anything can sound dumb, when you simplify it to something dumb. We have multiple airbags, anti-lock braking, seatbelt pretensioner, collision avoidance, crumple zones, fuel pump automatic shut off, backup cameras, rollover testing, ... Vehicles do an amazing amount of things to keep their occupants alive in a crash.

Current year - 2026

Consumer vehicle Anti lock breaks - 1971 Consumer vehicle Airbags - 1973 Consumer pretensioner - 1981 Start of crumple zone incorporating - 1950s Consumer fuel pump shutoff /inertia switch - 1975 First roll over testing - 1938 Backup camera - iteration on mirrors/rear window

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