81–90 of 477 posts
$100 are about $650 in todays money [1]. [1]: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100%24+from+1969
It's actually a lot more. 4.31% per year is likely what the US government reports. They traditionally under report inflation (although to a greater degree over the past 20 years). The bundle of goods used to measure inflation does not include housing and energy, which have been the primary sources of rising living costs (not to mention medicine, which I only just considered).
I feel like too many people get sucked into the idea of furthering their career, to the point that they forget to further their own life. What is the point of existence if we never get around to experiencing it? "It's not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed, it is the things we do not." - Randy Pausch
Hence the somewhat curious (and I think, very American) idea of the "Golden Years". If you put your head down and work hard, taking no vacations, until you're age 65, then you flip 180 degrees in the other direction and retire into a life of full-time leisure. So if you live long enough, it really won't be a waste; you cash it in all at the end! A Scandinavian psychologist somewhat recently proposed a typically Scand…
And this exact kind of thinking is what the societal overlords want you to subscribe to. Give them the best years of your life to get a degree of freedom later in your life, when the freedom won't matter anymore anyway, cause you'll be pissing in your diapers and be limited to a very small subset of things a healthy young person can do.
I see it this way: when you're retired and old, the overall potential of what you can do with your life is much lower than that of when you were in your 20s and 30s. Why is that? Because an old person with the same amount of time and money can do much less with those resources than a young person.
When you live your life like a run off the mill robot, living your life according to a set of societal expectations and rules set by other people, what's the point of such a life anyway?
PS. OP, I wasn't addressing you, in case you feel I've attacked your point, I am just furthering it :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Umm.. No. An ounce of gold is traditionally viewed as a months wages. And it hasn't changed much but there are some fluctuations. Interest rates and inflation are artificial constructs that are fiddled with to screw you out of your money.
I wasn't alive back then, but I think most full-time workers in USA made more than $40/month in 1969.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People buy things they can't afford, with money that they don't have, to impress people that they don't like I realized I could live off of $25000/yr and maintain a modestly comfortable lifestyle at the same time. I am on track to retire before I am 40. Anyone can do it. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-...
>>Anyone can do it. Correction: anyone who graduates without debt and starts their careers making good money can do it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Umm.. No. An ounce of gold is traditionally viewed as a months wages. And it hasn't changed much but there are some fluctuations. Interest rates and inflation are artificial constructs that are fiddled with to screw you out of your money.
I wasn't alive back then, but I think most full-time workers in USA made more than $40/month in 1969.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's actually a lot more. 4.31% per year is likely what the US government reports. They traditionally under report inflation (although to a greater degree over the past 20 years). The bundle of goods used to measure inflation does not include housing and energy, which have been the primary sources of rising living costs (not to mention medicine, which I only just considered).
What is the point of tracking inflation if you're not going to account for what's actually reducing (or increasing) the purchasing power of your currency?
$100 are about $650 in todays money [1]. [1]: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100%24+from+1969
It's actually a lot more. 4.31% per year is likely what the US government reports. They traditionally under report inflation (although to a greater degree over the past 20 years). The bundle of goods used to measure inflation does not include housing and energy, which have been the primary sources of rising living costs (not to mention medicine, which I only just considered).
Second, it's incredibly hard to accurately measure such a nebulous concept as inflation (because there's no such thing as a "general price level"), but it's pretty bold to definitively state that the CPI understates inflation. Measuring inflation is hard. We can buy an iPhone 5 for half what we paid for the first one in 2007--how do we quantify that price change in the CPI? Does a 2013 vehicle that costs the same as its 1995 counterpart represent high or low inflation? It's not just prices that change--quality changes and spending behavior changes. And then we have to take the wildly changing behavior of 300 million consumers, buying god knows how many products, and consolidate that into a single number.
Then that single number has to stand up to those same 300 million people, each of whom is biased by 4 billion years of evolution to be loss averse, to notice bad changes and grow accustomed to good changes, and, inevitably, lots of them will point to things that are much more expensive, unconsciously blind to all the things that have gotten cheaper, and claim that the CPI understates inflation.
They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I do love my job, though there is so much more I want to do with my life - so much more I could do that (as far as I can tell) would really help humanity. Unfortunately I'm locked into working because of student loans and overall cost of living. I try to do work in my free time but sadly 3 hours a night do…
I don't happen to believe the wage system is slavery (I do happen to believe we have a modern slavery system, but that's another story) "They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work." But then why don't the slaves leave? Unlike in the past, nobody is holding a gun to their head. One possibility, probably popular among entrepreneurial types, is the sla…
I think it's more a metaphorical "leave", as in "leave the rat race". Most people know they can leave their job, but leaving a chosen career path is a lot harder, especially for a less educated person, and particularly for blue collar workers. What are they supposed to do? Quit without savings and try to change careers? (That's the feeling, anyways. Not sure what the answer is.)
It's certainly possible. I do think people generally lack the courage to try, but even that is besides my point. I think if even if people did have the courage, most would not WANT to. The don't want to leave the rat race, even though they hate it, because the security is what they crave.
I feel like too many people get sucked into the idea of furthering their career, to the point that they forget to further their own life. What is the point of existence if we never get around to experiencing it? "It's not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed, it is the things we do not." - Randy Pausch
"I wish I worked more" - said no one ever on their death bed.
Sure, you need to find a balance, for yourself and friends and family. But where work is utterly separate from being alive I think something is broken. Just consider what dogs enjoy doing most: running after stuff and biting it. You could say, doing their job, that's what makes them fucking happy. Most animals are harder to read than dogs when it comes to happiness, but I really don't see dragging anyone "dragging their feet to work" except humans, and maybe some animals that lived too close to humans, or were caged by them.