Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

derekthompson.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

891–900 of 1001 posts

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

#891

Post by frm88 »

wat10000 wrote: post #299
krapp wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that so many Americans listened to and followed those religious nutjobs and they were able to sweep the government with such little effort suggests no such "secularization" ever took place. They're like people who see some pernicious "gay agenda" infiltrating all aspects of their lives just because they see two gay characters in a sitcom. Their fears are just projection. The power centers of the US have alwa…

The US was 90% Christian and 5% None just 35 years ago. Today it's 63% Christian and 29% None. That seems pretty rapid to me. It has not reached anything close to a majority yet, so the religious still hold great sway. And the perceived threat from their decreasing belief share pushes extremism.

Spain is 64% Christian of which 98% are Catholic. Yet they are the happiest according to the submitted article. None of this dcreasing believe share extremism.

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

#892

Post by bean469 »

WalterBright wrote: post #251
mbfg wrote: post #93

The top 10% of American families own close to 70% of america's wealth. So if "America" is rich. Those are the folks who are rich. 90% of Americans are not rich.

America's wealth is not a pie that gets divvied up. For example, Musk created the wealth he has. It wasn't distributed to him from others. > 90% of Americans are not rich. Compared to 250 years ago, about 99% of Americans are rich.

> For example, Musk created the wealth he has. It wasn't distributed to him from others.

The jokes write themselves

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

#893

Post by jjav »

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…

The US is not particularly rich. The GPD is way out there, but that doesn't mean anything. It is highly concentrated in a tiny fraction of 1% of the population.

And the bulk of the population who by global standards might be middle class in terms of dollar income, are nonetheless struggling with multiple jobs, huge health care and kids education costs, no vacations.

Who could be happy?

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

#894

Post by kelnos »

snikeris wrote: post #598
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything it's the opposite. Extremely low interest rates drove housing prices higher by making it easier to afford a higher price.

It’s not about the interest rate. It’s the availability of loans for unproductive purposes on a societal level. It raises the price even if you choose not to partake in said loans. When the money being lended is digital and not backed by anything it’s even worse.

You said "usury", which is a word that describes loaning money at an exorbitant interest rate. So it's no surprise GP thought you were talking about interest rates.

(Yes, I know "usury" has had other meanings, but this is the current, common definition, and if you're going to use a word in a way that's uncommon, you should be prepared for confusion.)

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

#895

Post by bean469 »

partiallypro wrote: post #80
david927 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Around 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. - 71% of adults say that their monthly debt payments prevent them from saving. When we say America, we can't just mean the 20% who are ok. It has to mean the 70% who aren't. America is not rich. It used to be. It is not now.

America is very very rich, the average person is much wealthier than the average European. 76% of Americans do not live paycheck to paycheck. That is a self reported stat and not reliable. It's a media sensationalist headline grabber which virtually every economist ignores. People don't like saying America is rich because it defies their beliefs, but the actual stats don't lie. Every American I know that has moved to…

> 76% of Americans do not live paycheck to paycheck. That is a self reported stat and not reliable.

Do you have any sources for this? The reason why I personally don't believe your claim is because every single US citizen I know lives paycheck-to-paycheck, quite literally

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

#896

Post by jjav »

HDBaseT wrote: post #765
Aurornis wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Gen Z home ownership is outpacing millenial home ownership at the same age. There's a lot of denial around this topic because everywhere you turn there's a Reddit post or news headline about how housing is impossible to afford. > Pay's less. Less than the narrow window of…

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…

> You don't own a home until you've paid it off.

That's not quite true. If you want to think that way, then you'd never own it because you'll always pay property taxes so the paying never stops.

But as soon as you buy a home it is your asset. Yes, you have a debt against it. But you are the owner. Go look up the owner in the county records and it is you.

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

#897

Post by kelnos »

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.…

Oh jeez, here we go again with this. Secularization isn't the problem. Isolation is the problem. Avoiding community and treating others as strangers to be feared is the problem.

Maybe read the article? It covers all this, and points out that secularization has been going on for far longer than this happiness crisis. Your assertion just doesn't fit the data.

And let's stop with the whole "just have kids and you'll be happy" garbage. It's lazy thinking, and such a tired argument, and falls flat in the face of actual data. As for anecdotes, I know plenty of people with and without kids with levels of happiness that run the gamut. There's plenty to be happy about with or without kids, and also plenty to be unhappy about with or without kids.

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

#898

Post by imtringued »

Lammy wrote: post #521
randomNumber7 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money should only have the purpose of realizing ones goals, it has no purpose in itself. The whole society has lost its goal when the only target is to maximize money.

It was inevitable as soon as enough people believed that spending money is necessary to live. Money is the next stage of life. As individuals, people's only truly limited resource is their attention, their time, and so the same is true of Humanity as a singular whole. Money is a way to coerce another person's attention toward an endeavor that benefits the spender, like paying the chain of farmers/pickers/processors/d…

It's not about believing. It's about a lack of alternatives.

There is no real meaningful competition between money systems. Every nation has one national money system and it's a government mandated monopoly.

Your options are basically complete autarky or using the national money system with nothing inbetween. Even if you were to use a cryptocurrency, you'd still need to pay taxes in USD.

Then there is the fact that cryptocurrencies don't really meaningfully change the rules either. You're supposed to accumulate them forever and profit off of latecomers joining in it at inflated prices. Meaning the supposed competition just amplifies the worst part of money that people would rather get away from.

Anyone who earns an income from work is by definition going to be a "latecomer" by the end of their career. Basically, you're defining yourself by the first few years of your career, e.g. buying thousands of dollars worth of BTC in 2013. By 2026, there is not much point buying more BTC.

Money is given an inherent bias towards the past being more important than the present or the future, which thereby inevitably causes the collapse of the future, which then becomes the collapsed present through the simple passage of time.

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

#899

Post by grafmax »

pjscott wrote: post #733
grafmax wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inflation adjusted wages are actually up over the long term Inflation is a tool for monetary policy. It doesn't track cost of living. For example, if luxury items become more affordable, but housing prices rise, inflation-adjusted pay doesn't capture this kind of negative effect on the working class.

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…

CPI is an aggregate measure which munges a bunch of things together under a single statistic.

In fact, the cost of necessities has overall risen faster than the cost of discretionary goods. This has been generally true since the mid-1990s; prior to that, inflation differences were much smaller across income groups despite lower income groups spending more of their income on necessities. In some periods like the post-COVID housing and energy price shocks, the differential effect of real inflation on basic necessities has been even greater.

Even "small" effects compound over time. For example, when someone in a low bracket loses 10% purchasing power after many years, the net economic stress they experience is much greater than for someone at a high bracket. Differential inflation of necessities vs discretionary goods magnifies this.

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

#900

Post by kelnos »

something765478 wrote: post #428
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you can cherry pick famous scientists from the past to support your point, especially when it's an historical fact that theism was the default for centuries. But this is a straightforwardly transparent attempt at apologetics. It looks weak when it goes up against answersingenesis.org, and a rabidly (maybe not literally, yet, but give it time...) culture of opposition to basic science, such as vaccination, a…

> It looks weak when it goes up against answersingenesis.org, and a rabidly (maybe not literally, yet, but give it time...) culture of opposition to basic science, such as vaccination, among many evangelicals. But that's a problem with American evangelicals, not religion as a whole. The earliest universities were sponsored by the church; and the works of ancient scholars were preserved by Catholics and Muslims. > Ult…

> In the United States, medical malpractice is the third leading cause of death.

No it's not; this claim comes from a flawed study that even the BMJ's then-editor-in-chief has admitted was poorly researched. And even if the numbers were accurate, the number is for medical errors, not malpractice. It's an important distinction that matters to your point.

Post reply on HN