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The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

theamericangenius.com

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Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#91

Post by laidoffamazon »

patwolf wrote: post #35

I found a similar article from June of 2022 about the stripper index signaling a recession, so clearly it's not a very good indicator. A stripper is typically a short-term career, so it wouldn't make sense to rely on observations made over such a short period. Maybe things are just returning to normal after a boom, and none of the interviewed people were around pre-boom. The personal savings rate, https://fred.stloui…

How is the personal savings rate a good indicator? It went up during the great recession and spiked during the last recession in 2020. If anything high savings is a counter-indicator.

Not to mention that we are seeing a generational shift in the labor market right now - the baby boomer part of the population pyramid is finally deciding to retire and is probably not going to save as much as they were when they were building their nest egg.

Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#92

Post by tombert »

ziddoap wrote: post #59
tombert wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because OnlyFans has been around for eight years doesn’t imply that it’s been popular for that long. Sample size of one, but I personally had not heard of it until 2020, after some YouTuber drama, and I am a somewhat terminally online human. I suspect it didn’t reach broad cultural awareness for a fair bit longer than that; I don’t remember any people IRL talking about it until OF talked about not allowing adult…

> Just because OnlyFans has been around for eight years doesn’t imply that it’s been popular for that long. Sure, but it's been popular longer than the time period talked about in the article. And, as I mentioned, I think the markets are somewhat distinct.

Are they actually distinct?

Pretty much my entire life (and certainly since I was a teenager from experience) it has been trivial to get porn for free on the internet. I thought people paid for OnlyFans (and strippers) because it feels more "interactive"?

Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#93

Post by laidoffamazon »

blululu wrote: post #79
ethbr1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho, inflation has a lot less to do with the perception than bimodal income separation. Either you're "fine" or you're very much not fine. Which is why you get people talking past each other.

Nah, inflation sucks across the board. The human mind and human society don’t really react well to things changing so fast. And since losses weigh higher than gains, and everything needs to be renegotiated, nobody feels good about the outcome even if they come up even. This holds for people at the top and people at the bottom.

Wages have outpaced inflation for like a year now, it's really not a huge deal anymore.

Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#94

Post by tschwimmer »

lupire wrote: post #68
015a wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entertainment in general; another great example of this is ticket prices for concerts and drink prices inside the venues. Obviously drink prices have always been high, but a pint of domestic beer has been very steadily creeping up by $1-$2 a year since 2020; effectively double today relative to even 8 years ago. I just paid $250 for pit tickets to see an artist I like at a mid-tier venue. A similarly popular artist i…

Entertainment is crazy cheap. $10/month for video. $25 for local theater show. What's expensive is exclusive access to prestige on trend live performance.

You and GP are both right. There's a huge divergence in entertainment pricing. Stuff you can do at home (movies, tv, video games, books and social media) is dirt cheap and may be getting cheaper.

"Outside" entertainment is getting vastly more expensive. Average hotels are charging eye watering prices the world over. Concert tickets are astronomical. Restaurant prices and fees are out of control. Any type of rental, tour or other type of activity on vacation feels extortionate. Airline tickets are hundreds or thousands of dollars for a tiny economy seat.

I think this is largely driven by monetary and fiscal policy that disproportionately benefits the rich (Paycheck Protection Program, low interest rates). If you give people who are poor more money, I believe they will spend it on things that stabilize and improve their day to day lives so you'd expect to see inflation in things like food and medicine. If you give money to people that are already stable, they will spend it on things the things that we see are having very high inflation: improved housing, vacations, luxury goods.

Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#95

Post by saalweachter »

wink wrote: post #83
btbuildem wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the percentage matters; it's the difference between money being and not being spent. It's not my scene, but I am guessing this correlates with highly disposable income -- people who make too much too easily so they can throw it away just as freely. If that stops flowing, I think it's a decent indicator of a general slow-down.

Yeah sure, but naively I'd still assume "tips for pizza delivery people" would be a much better indicator as it would be a much broader target audience. Then again, maybe it's too mundane again and with the tipping culture (as far as I have heard about it) there is much less spread in tips than where I live.

Do you think the guys writing this article would rather interview a dozen pizza delivery people or a dozen strippers?

Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#96

Post by ziddoap »

tombert wrote: post #92
ziddoap wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because OnlyFans has been around for eight years doesn’t imply that it’s been popular for that long. Sure, but it's been popular longer than the time period talked about in the article. And, as I mentioned, I think the markets are somewhat distinct.

Are they actually distinct? Pretty much my entire life (and certainly since I was a teenager from experience) it has been trivial to get porn for free on the internet. I thought people paid for OnlyFans (and strippers) because it feels more "interactive"?

>Are they actually distinct?

I mean, I don't have data, so I don't know. My intuition and anecdotal experience says yes, they would be.

To start with an example: when I used to go out on the town with some buddies, we might end up at strip club at the end of the night after the bars close. OnlyFans wasn't out at the time, but I can guarantee that we wouldn't cap our night off by group-watching OnlyFans.

I have also had some rowdier nights with account managers trying to win over my business who would take me out to a higher end strip club. Again, I cannot imagine them taking me back to a hotel for a cozy OnlyFans viewing.

But I think it boils down to the completely different experiences. One is delivered through a monitor, one is physically there in front of you.

Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#97

Post by ziddoap »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #90
ziddoap wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OnlyFans has been around since 2016. The entertainers in the article are talking about a steep decline in the past ~year.

No, they haven't. The first tweets about this (when this bullshit "indicator" went viral on Twitter) were in 2021.

In this specific article, which is all I've read on the subject, they talked about the latest YoY and post-covid. I did not see any references to 2021.

Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#98

Post by tombert »

ziddoap wrote: post #96
tombert wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they actually distinct? Pretty much my entire life (and certainly since I was a teenager from experience) it has been trivial to get porn for free on the internet. I thought people paid for OnlyFans (and strippers) because it feels more "interactive"?

> Are they actually distinct? I mean, I don't have data, so I don't know. My intuition and anecdotal experience says yes, they would be. To start with an example: when I used to go out on the town with some buddies, we might end up at strip club at the end of the night after the bars close. OnlyFans wasn't out at the time, but I can guarantee that we wouldn't cap our night off by group-watching OnlyFans. I have also…

Yeah, fair, upon thinking about it I think OnlyFans more exists to simulate a "long distance girlfriend" instead of a "stripper", which can have similar but still different roles.

Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#99

Post by laidoffamazon »

ziddoap wrote: post #97
laidoffamazon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they haven't. The first tweets about this (when this bullshit "indicator" went viral on Twitter) were in 2021.

In this specific article, which is all I've read on the subject, they talked about the latest YoY and post-covid. I did not see any references to 2021.

The evidence is tweets.

Re: The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement

#100

Post by btbuildem »

resource_waste wrote: post #40
btbuildem wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you can't understand, why such strong opinions? Read up about basics of nutrition, about how poverty and obesity are correlated, what "food deserts" are, the differences between processed and healthy foods, etc.

Funny you mention that. Its my expertise. Food Deserts are defined in a way that is unhelpful, I live in a food desert in one of the richest counties. I have 0 grocery stores within 1 mile. But I have 6 grocery stores within 3 miles. Go ahead with the conventional sayings: Tell me the fallacious remark about McDoubles being the healthiest cheapest food ever. Go ahead and say something incorrect like processed foods a…

No one will push against the claim there's far too many calories available, on average, in Western countries. That consumption is the automatic answer to anything that ails, it could be argued as well.

It reeks of ignorance and obstinate privilege to claim people are too rich to care about food [1] [2], that having to travel 3 miles to get food is not a barrier to access [3] [4]. Saying that processed foods are more expensive than fresh is an outright lie [5][6][7].

The HN discussion forums are one of the last remaining places where we can expect civil and informed online discourse. Please try and keep with that spirit.

1: https://www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/press-room/53-millio...

2: https://gitnux.org/food-bank-statistics/

3: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/food-bank-use-highest-in-cana...

4: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-are-food-dese...

5: https://foodispower.org/access-health/food-deserts/

6: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9967271/

7: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/healthy-vs-...

8: https://www.aier.org/article/why-unhealthy-food-is-cheap-and...

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