861–870 of 1001 posts
It must be hard to remain sane, let alone happy, after 2 terms of Donald Trump.
I don’t think this discussion is complete without mentioning Trump, if not as an outright cause, at least a symbol and a symptom. The level of toxicity and cynicism and nihilism that has been brought to the foreground every day is really something to see.
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…
I’m Canadian, but frequently travel in the US. Over the past year I am also shocked at US prices. It used to be that everything in the US was about 25% cheaper (makes sense as their dollar is worth more). Lately I’ve noticed that everything is priced the same. And I mean exactly the same. On work trips over the past year I’ve had to buy tools at Home Depot, supplies at IKEA and Walmart, groceries, hotel, etc. I was i…
Canada CAD$298: https://www.homedepot.ca/product/milwaukee-tool-m18-18-volt-...
First drill I opened.
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Home "ownership" is misleading. You don't own a home until you've paid it off. Younger people are getting into more debt, for much longer in order to be able to survive. When we start comparing the numbers (i.e, house paid off, even reflected as a percentage paid off, relative to age) the numbers reveal the real crisis. Anecdotally, I know tons of 20-30 year olds getting into the property market (with insane levels o…
To be pedantic what most people consider ownership is a revocable land lease from the state government which you forfeit if you fail to pay protection money to the gov. True ownership is non-existent.
Why? The military power owns things by enforcing their ownership. This is, in fact, the true ownership.
You have to pay taxes to own land so the power which is on your side can prevent another power to re-own it.
If you don't pay taxes to the power which is on your side, why would it allow you to own stuff and provide free protection? Out of good will?
That's how the world works, ownership without the power behind it is non-existent, as well as power without the money behind it is non-existent. When there are enough powers balancing each other, stable systems emerge, and we all can enjoy some few decades of peace and prosperity.
All of my life experience up to 2016 suggested that about 1% to 3% of us are seriously bad eggs, people who will cheerfully and thoughtlessly screw over everyone around them for even the smallest perceived advantage or political "win." In the 2016 election it began to appear likely that this figure is closer to 30%. That impression was reinforced -- cast in concrete, really -- in 2024. So yes, I'm sadder, because I h…
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It doesn't track cost of living? The way it's calculated is all about cost of living! In the US, the official inflation numbers are based on a "basket of goods" meant to be representative of a typical person's spending. Housing currently makes up about a third of the basket, while luxury items are a fairly small percentage. Here's a pretty well-written summary, albeit with numbers from 2022: https://www.pewresearch.o…
It’s also been toyed with and twisted since about 1983. The actual standard of living for Americans has generally been falling since then.
How are you measuring the "actual standard of living?”
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Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that's, like, the point of life or something, or something one ought to expect. It kinda snuck up on us, actually, until one day we were like "whoa, are we... on the verge of 'making it'?" Then a couple years later, not so much. The point I intended was that we were doing pretty great , and on paper should be doing even better now , but are actually doing less-great (though, stil…
Don't get mortgages/private schools/expensive cars or hobbies that you can't manage comfortably with 2/3 of your income (or if in faang-level than 1/3 to 1/2 max). Even less if you need to pay for your own healthcare outside of working contract. I know its very luring, but its a one way trap into misery and ruined life one way or another. Doesn't matter how well current economy is doing, what are projections etc. tha…
And private schools aren't the killer. Daycare is. Daycare's gotten stupidly expensive, and with so many families where both parents are working it's necessary in order to take care of children younger then nine or so who can't be by themselves at home. Most people don't live near family that can take care of those kids these days, so it's either professional childcare or nothing.
As for expensive hobbies? Dude everything's fucking expensive now. Gaming's gone from $129 for a PlayStation 2 and $40 for a game ($234 and $72 in 2026 money) to $649 for a PlayStation 5, $70 for a game, $30 for the three additional packs that were split from the base game to drive up profits, and $10 every month for PlayStation Network access. Want to go collecting vintage sports jackets? Good luck outwitting the scalpers buying them all in secondhand stores for $15 and then selling them on Etsy for $120. Want to get into crocheting? Either brave the yarn from sketchy Chinese online shops that likely won't even hold up to a single hook or pay $20 for a roll of it at Michael's or Hobby Lobby because every other crafts store was murdered by private equity. Collecting Pokemon or Magic The Gathering cards? You're lucky if the store display box isn't empty from scalpers filching them all to resell the meta cards online for 20% more. Learning an instrument? With the recent closings of so many luthiers and the wood import shortage from tariffs buying even the shittiest guitar is like $175 now, where as six years ago you could get one for $100.
That's not even getting into how many more bills and monthly subscriptions there are now compared to twenty five years ago that suck people's money away.
All of my life experience up to 2016 suggested that about 1% to 3% of us are seriously bad eggs, people who will cheerfully and thoughtlessly screw over everyone around them for even the smallest perceived advantage or political "win." In the 2016 election it began to appear likely that this figure is closer to 30%. That impression was reinforced -- cast in concrete, really -- in 2024. So yes, I'm sadder, because I h…
Would it make you feel better to learn that that's not really true. Its just that you don't know anything about public policy and are moderately economically successful so you are isolated from the problems that your political beliefs were/are causing. And when this expressed itself in politics instead of learning why others were unhappy, you instead just call them names and declare them all "shitheels". So all you h…
Or are you just strawmanning for effect?
It does come across as a comment not in line with: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
America is rich, Americans not so much. We've strip mined the middle class since the 1970s. Good jobs were outsourced. Then we used immigration to make sure that the good paying jobs were unavailable for most native born citizens. Now they import H-1Bs and L-1Bs to use as indentured servants and scab workers to undermine whoever is left with a job. Then on top of that a shitty healthcare system that only extracts wea…
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It is Taoist/Buddhist translator Red Pine (Bill Porter) who once said something along the line of; if the Taoists and traditional Buddhists where in charge, we wouldnt have built the world like we have today. It would be angled towards happiness and satisfaction rather than growth of the machine. Taken at an absolutists stance you could easily push that argument down (are you against ALL of modernity?!). But the over…
In this case, we might not have an advanced civilization with modern medicine and technology. Herbs for healing, candles for lighting, letters for communication. (Perhaps I wouldn't be alive without modern medicine. I suppose it's not easy to be dead and happy.) Don't get me wrong, I love Taoism and Buddhism. But, from what I understand, they are not very pro-civilization and pro-progress.
Every time I read one of these it’s the same. No one ever even tries to look at quality of life measurements, or cost of living relative to income, or measurements of precarity (e.g. How secure is my job? How secure is my housing?). What I think everyone in this country knows intuitively is that relative quality of life is constantly getting worse, there’s no indication that it will improve any time soon, and there a…
I mean there’s that quote from Bezos: “ When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right” Sure a single anecdote is unreliable, but common feelings of a generation probably point to the data not capturing reality well