Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/opinion/happiness-inequality-prosperity-.html
263 comments
To further your analogy, it sometimes feels that the Maslow's hierarchy of needs is "hollowed out" at the bottom of the pyramid, and to keep the hollowing out disguised, companies and advertisers divert attention to the top of the pyramid i.e. "look how everything's awesome! Take your complimentary beer".
I’m confused by “hollowed out Maslows pyramid of needs”
I see the confusion. Based on Maslow's hierarchy (pyramid) of needs, one needs to start at the bottom (physiological) and build up from there like a foundation. Because factors, both internal and external to ones lives, erode at access to basic needs, ones life loses stability, hence the "hollowing" out part. A better metaphor would be turning Maslow's hierarchy/pyramid instead into a tower.
(in retrospect this wasn't one of my best thoughts)
(in retrospect this wasn't one of my best thoughts)
I think you're onto something, but it's that the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy are pretty much completely satisfied these days for all but the poorest people, so the meaning of those levels are eroded. Once upon a time, a good stew and a husk of bread were enough to make you feel genuinely satisfied with your life. These days a delicious greasy dinner with ice cream for dessert barely registers because you're chasing mates and self-actualisation and stuff.
Oh yes, I think I agree. It’s all very ego based but minimal long term or stability.
You make a few substantial points, but any use of the "single income earner" argument is incomplete if it doesn't acknowledge that _women were also working at home_ while their husbands were doing income-earning work.
It's not only income-earning work that counts against prosperity: it's all work. Studies indicate that men and women gained 6-8 hours of leisure from 1965-2003. There are probably caveats and addenda to that, and you make other good points, but please also consider non-income work in your arguments.
Ref: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/55560/1/508634636.pd...
It's not only income-earning work that counts against prosperity: it's all work. Studies indicate that men and women gained 6-8 hours of leisure from 1965-2003. There are probably caveats and addenda to that, and you make other good points, but please also consider non-income work in your arguments.
Ref: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/55560/1/508634636.pd...
So who does the work at home now? Both partners after they get home from work? That doesn't sound like a better deal to me.
There are fewer hours of work done at home now. The increase in leisure time reflects a decrease in total labor: income-earning labor, labor around the house, etc. Figures in [1] break it out a bit, although the years-reflected are a bit different than I used above. Search for "60.9" to find the relevant table.
[1]: https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/
[1]: https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/
That compares the 1960s to the 1980s. A lot has changed in 30 years. In particular Financialisation has increased dramatically. Are there any more recent figures?
Also, less work being done at home isn't necessarily a good thing. More people eating microwaved ready meals or takeaways probably means lower quality of life overall.
Also, less work being done at home isn't necessarily a good thing. More people eating microwaved ready meals or takeaways probably means lower quality of life overall.
My comment was a rebuttal to the "single income earner" argument which suggests that in the post-war era we labored half as much as we do today.
I've got no other points to defend. But I'm happy to look at any of your points, and I understand and accept the argument that hours of leisure time is not a direct measurement of well-being. (:
I've got no other points to defend. But I'm happy to look at any of your points, and I understand and accept the argument that hours of leisure time is not a direct measurement of well-being. (:
Labor force participation of women in 1950 was 33.9 while males 86.4. So while males worked much more, the framing that makes it sound like women did not worked at all is false.
Upper and middle class women did not worked, poorer women (significant part of population) did and had to work.
Upper and middle class women did not worked, poorer women (significant part of population) did and had to work.
I think you’re missing your parent comment’s point. Women who were not working for wages were usually still working in the home.
Can part of the increase of leisure time be explained by a drop in the number of children per family?
That's probably one of the caveats and addenda. So, my counterargument doesn't prove that life has gotten better--maybe an additional kid is "better" than six hours of leisure time by some calculuses. But it does rebut any argument that we used to get by one 40 hours per week per household of labor but now we need 80.
Edit: Of course, as parent notes the drop in number of children represents at most _part_ of the increase in leisure hours. We can definitely attribute part of it to things that are definitely modern advantages, like labor-saving devices such as dish-washing machines. The year 1965 is kind of a poor year for my argument, in that by that point most households had the most labor-saving devices: refrigerators that allow you to shop and cook days at a time, washing machines that saved many hours of labor washing clothes, etc.
Edit: Of course, as parent notes the drop in number of children represents at most _part_ of the increase in leisure hours. We can definitely attribute part of it to things that are definitely modern advantages, like labor-saving devices such as dish-washing machines. The year 1965 is kind of a poor year for my argument, in that by that point most households had the most labor-saving devices: refrigerators that allow you to shop and cook days at a time, washing machines that saved many hours of labor washing clothes, etc.
Person A says prosperity not increased for the middle-class since the 1970's, person B says it has.
Do they have to rely on historical data, or is there some experiment they could perform to determine who is right? For example, suppose I offered 10 people the opportunity to live like people lived in the 1970's. I would subsidise their housing and education costs, but they would pay more for clothes and food and air travel and phone calls. They would not have the internet and would only have a black-and-white TV with 4 stations and a gramophone record player for entertainment. If nobody accepted such an offer, would that settle the argument?
Do they have to rely on historical data, or is there some experiment they could perform to determine who is right? For example, suppose I offered 10 people the opportunity to live like people lived in the 1970's. I would subsidise their housing and education costs, but they would pay more for clothes and food and air travel and phone calls. They would not have the internet and would only have a black-and-white TV with 4 stations and a gramophone record player for entertainment. If nobody accepted such an offer, would that settle the argument?
I was in college in the 70s, so yeah, it was a fun time for me when I think back on it. Who wouldn’t want to hear Aerosmith live in a club with maybe 80 people there before their first album.
But I walked to class cold and wet on many days. Gortex hadn’t been invented and I couldn’t afford a car. When I got my first real job I bought a car, but I carried a toolbox in the trunk. Cars broke down frequently and with no cell phones you were on your own if the car stopped running. A car accident could kill you in a 35 mph crash. I also carried a state highway map and a city map of around 100 pages in a spiral bound book because there was no GPS.
The best medicine available seems primitive by comparison to today. I had classmates that wore leg braces due to childhood polio. People were still dying from rabies, TB, and even Smallpox. There were cholera pandemics. No MRI, no CAT scans.
I was studying programming. I had to walk to campus at night to punch cards. No internet, no terminal, just a place to drop off cards so that you could pick up your output in the morning.
I was middle class in the 70s so I had it much better than many others. Most of us grew up with a single wired phone in the house, only one full bathroom, one black and white TV that received three channels, no DVD, no CDs.
A VCR player in 1975 was big and heavy and cost over $5000 in today’s dollars so none of us owned one.
Ubiquitous discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice made it harder for many to be middle class like I was.
Even in the 1970s, life was still much much better for me than my parents that had grew up on small farms during the dustbowl days of the Great Depression.
But I walked to class cold and wet on many days. Gortex hadn’t been invented and I couldn’t afford a car. When I got my first real job I bought a car, but I carried a toolbox in the trunk. Cars broke down frequently and with no cell phones you were on your own if the car stopped running. A car accident could kill you in a 35 mph crash. I also carried a state highway map and a city map of around 100 pages in a spiral bound book because there was no GPS.
The best medicine available seems primitive by comparison to today. I had classmates that wore leg braces due to childhood polio. People were still dying from rabies, TB, and even Smallpox. There were cholera pandemics. No MRI, no CAT scans.
I was studying programming. I had to walk to campus at night to punch cards. No internet, no terminal, just a place to drop off cards so that you could pick up your output in the morning.
I was middle class in the 70s so I had it much better than many others. Most of us grew up with a single wired phone in the house, only one full bathroom, one black and white TV that received three channels, no DVD, no CDs.
A VCR player in 1975 was big and heavy and cost over $5000 in today’s dollars so none of us owned one.
Ubiquitous discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice made it harder for many to be middle class like I was.
Even in the 1970s, life was still much much better for me than my parents that had grew up on small farms during the dustbowl days of the Great Depression.
Perhaps the deficit of happiness can be better explained by one of Peter Thiel's most excellent reductionist observations:
Perhaps our dominant leftist culture's 'ideological stagnation index' is the unmeasured metric that could explain why we feel the way we feel despite technological progress.
Thiel on the same topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IER50pX-FuM&t=3m22s
[2] Technology Stalled in 1970
http://www.technologyreview.com/qa/530901/technology-stalled...
The countercultural in the '60s was the hippies. You know, we
landed on the moon in July of 1969. Woodstock started three
weeks later, and with the benefit of hindsight, that’s when
progress ended, and the hippies took over the country. [1][2]
Perhaps our dominant leftist culture's 'ideological stagnation index' is the unmeasured metric that could explain why we feel the way we feel despite technological progress.
Thiel on the same topic:
Today the counterculture is to believe in science and technology.
You know, our society, the dominant culture doesn’t like science.
It doesn’t like technology. You just look at the science-fiction
movies that come out of Hollywood — Terminator, Matrix, Avatar,
Elysium. I watched the Gravity movie the other day. It’s like you
would never want to go into outer space. You would just want to
be back on some muddy island. And so I think we’re in a world
where actually believing that a better future is possible that
you can have agency and work towards a better future, that is
actually radically countercultural.[1]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IER50pX-FuM&t=3m22s
[2] Technology Stalled in 1970
http://www.technologyreview.com/qa/530901/technology-stalled...
It's odd to me how the president from 1969 to 1977 and 1981 to 1993 was a republican, but the argument is that 'hippies' took over?
He's talking about the cultural left not the political one deployed to ensure voter turnout.
Perhaps this will add more context:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2011/10/end-future-peter-thie...
Perhaps this will add more context:
Today’s aged hippies no longer understand that there
is a difference between the election of a black
president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in
their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights
parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these
ideological conflations and commitments, the 1960s
Progressive Left cannot ask whether things actually
might be getting worse. I wonder whether the endless
fake cultural wars around identity politics are the
main reason we have been able to ignore the tech
slowdown for so long.[1]
https://www.nationalreview.com/2011/10/end-future-peter-thie...
I just see a lot of very bold assertions without statistical references to back them up.
“That’s when progress ended”, really? That alone is enough to discredit Thiel on the topic
You're not reading Thiel's full argument, it takes a while to appreciate it, you won't get it from a couple of sound bites. I've read a slew of his essays and watched his talks - it takes a while to absorb how different this interpretation of reality is.
I believe Thiel is correct in what he is saying and that is terrifying. It is going to take Westerners a long time to finally wake up and when it finally does it'll be jarring and immensely depressing.
I believe Thiel is correct in what he is saying and that is terrifying. It is going to take Westerners a long time to finally wake up and when it finally does it'll be jarring and immensely depressing.
Is there any way you could go into more detail on this or refer to some sources? In all honesty, your comment sounds vague and a bit esoteric, still interesting enough that I want to know if there some hidden truth to it. It can’t be that difficult
Peter Thiel is really a kind of philosopher - the venture capitalism is more of an outgrowth of something else than his primary focus. This is a person who reads widely, has big ideas and is consistently ahead of everybody else - his reputation is wholly deserved.
I've been following, causally at first, his ideas through books written about or by him, many hours of youtube videos and essays in and around the topics he talks about. It is difficult to distill this into a synopsis because although I can provide a TLDR it doesn't mean you'd get any predictive power of it.
I suggest doing your own homework and coming to your own conclusions. I think I'd give a lot for a photo of his bookshelves.
Here's a start.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2011/10/end-future-peter-thie...
A common theme in Thiel's thought is that 'reality is often very different from the mainstream conception of it'. Ron Unz wrote this essay which gives body to this belief.
http://www.unz.com/runz/our-american-pravda/
Another theme is that humankind is highly mimetic - meaning they have a desire to be copying each other. This comes out of the philosophy of René Girard and you'll have to read something of his to fully understand where we're going with this.
https://woodybelangia.com/what-is-mimetic-theory/
Watch this if you only watch one video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw-rxtwhzcY
Peter Thiel is at the intersection of an unusually large number of obscure and strange topics, that's the reason why he's ahead of the curve over and over. Things like Seasteading, Urbit, if you ferret away at the peripheral you start to see interesting stuff, some of which gets ferried back to the mainstream sooner or later he's not the only talent scout for weird ideas like this but there's surprisingly few people out there in these strange circles - I've found that I keep running into the same people over and over, only a few hundred of them I'd guess. I'm tired now, it's near GMT midnight but good luck on your quest!
A lot of Tyler Cowen's ideas intersect with Thiel, that's another good line of enquiry.
I've been following, causally at first, his ideas through books written about or by him, many hours of youtube videos and essays in and around the topics he talks about. It is difficult to distill this into a synopsis because although I can provide a TLDR it doesn't mean you'd get any predictive power of it.
I suggest doing your own homework and coming to your own conclusions. I think I'd give a lot for a photo of his bookshelves.
Here's a start.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2011/10/end-future-peter-thie...
A common theme in Thiel's thought is that 'reality is often very different from the mainstream conception of it'. Ron Unz wrote this essay which gives body to this belief.
http://www.unz.com/runz/our-american-pravda/
Another theme is that humankind is highly mimetic - meaning they have a desire to be copying each other. This comes out of the philosophy of René Girard and you'll have to read something of his to fully understand where we're going with this.
https://woodybelangia.com/what-is-mimetic-theory/
Watch this if you only watch one video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw-rxtwhzcY
Peter Thiel is at the intersection of an unusually large number of obscure and strange topics, that's the reason why he's ahead of the curve over and over. Things like Seasteading, Urbit, if you ferret away at the peripheral you start to see interesting stuff, some of which gets ferried back to the mainstream sooner or later he's not the only talent scout for weird ideas like this but there's surprisingly few people out there in these strange circles - I've found that I keep running into the same people over and over, only a few hundred of them I'd guess. I'm tired now, it's near GMT midnight but good luck on your quest!
A lot of Tyler Cowen's ideas intersect with Thiel, that's another good line of enquiry.
Those hippies brought us Apple computer and the Internet. What have conservatives contributed other than environmental destruction? Legit question.
I'm very far to the left, but the military made almost all the major inventions that silicon valley has packaged up for consumer use. The iPhone is nothing but a collection of technologies designed for war. GPS, small cameras, the internet, ect were all designed by the military not by Silicon Valley.
The hackers contracting in the 60s for the government and military were hardly conservative.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/arts/25conn.html
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/arts/25conn.html
The point though is that some people in SV think that a monoculture of liberals were/are behind everything and that is just not true. Technology is a full spectrum ideological bloodsport.
Ubiquitous discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice made it harder for many to be middle class like I was.
When I hear my parents talk about growing up in the segregated south in the 50s, there is nothing about it that makes me think - "wow life was so much better back then".
When I hear my parents talk about growing up in the segregated south in the 50s, there is nothing about it that makes me think - "wow life was so much better back then".
When people talk about how awesome the 60s were, it's usually because they were white middle-class or above in stable households and rising incomes.
The South in the 50s was definitely segregated, although the degree of prejudice varied. Whether white or black, life was likely not better than it is now.
But the OP was talking about the 70s and there is a world of difference. Once you get to the 70s the statement "wow life was so much better back then." becomes debatable for whites, at least.
But the OP was talking about the 70s and there is a world of difference. Once you get to the 70s the statement "wow life was so much better back then." becomes debatable for whites, at least.
Sorry, your narrative timeline is simply incorrect. Perhaps b/c you did not live in the USA?
Gore-tex was invented in 1969 but was hardly necessary. Wool has always worked extremely well and still does: polyester was pretty good except in northern USA. I lived in the south and wore predominantly cotton: Levi jeans and cotton t-shirts were our uniform in the summer; winter we bought a jacket and lived with it.
In 1971 I bought a used American car with everything on it for $300. My East Indian college roommate loved to ride in it and very quickly got a license and car of his own. I later drove my $300 car from Texas to New York via the Midwest and DC to graduate school. I later drove that car to work and school around DC. I had tools but rarely needed them except for maintenance. The car was extremely reliable and needed only tuneups and tires. I gave it to a friend when I bought another car.
You didn't (and still don't) need a cell phone. It was (and is) easy to get help from strangers.
A car accident can kill you at 35 mph but they usually didn't (and usually don't). Cars are safer now and I appreciate that, but they weren't _that_ unsafe: people would not have driven them otherwise.
You complain about carrying a map and a zip code book - you should still (I do), since your phone or network could fail at any time. But you don't b/c in your heart you believe that you can rely on the kindness of strangers!
Medicine today is not much better than it was back then. Trauma care _is_ improved (the lessons of Vietnam were absorbed). But antibiotics worked better back then than today and other than antivirals and statins, the use of drugs hasn't improved much. As someone once said, doctors got no respect until antibiotics came along and, were they taken away, doctors would not get much respect now.
The remnants of the polio epidemics was still present in students of the 1950s (Salk developed his vaccine in 1952 and I was vaccinated ~1957). I too had classmates with polio braces, but polio in the USA was stopped by the vaccination campaigns before the 1970s.
People didn't die of rabies in the 1970s unless it was untreated.
People didn't die of TB in the 1970s unless it was unattended and/or advanced before treatment.
Smallpox was wiped out and routine immunization halted in 1970. The only cholera pandemics were offshore USA (e.g., the El Tor pandemic in Indonesia->Pakistan in the '70's).
I too carried punch cards (I started in the 60's) and was glad to do so: programming turned into a career. 4 years later in the mid-70's I had a terminal and multiple computers available in a network.
3 TV channels was plenty: I got the news and entertainment too, although after awhile I began to notice TV was turning into something akin to the "Bullshit Web" of today:
https://www.metafilter.com/175703/The-Bullshit-Web
VCRs were about $1000 in 1975 but they were available used for only hundreds of dollars. I have a used one that runs still today! In comparison my first CD player died after 3 years.
Neither discrimination nor bigotry nor prejudice were ubiquitous but they _were_ still present. Your description of prejudice fits the southern USA of the '50's, NOT the '70's.
Indeed my grandparents were small farmers (sharecroppers) and their and their children's (my parents') lives were hard. But the opportunities my parents had during their time were enormous and their lives were rich and memorable.
It probably remains true even today that antibiotics are man's most significant improvement of the last century.
But in summary I find your description of the 70s is off by fully 20 years.
Gore-tex was invented in 1969 but was hardly necessary. Wool has always worked extremely well and still does: polyester was pretty good except in northern USA. I lived in the south and wore predominantly cotton: Levi jeans and cotton t-shirts were our uniform in the summer; winter we bought a jacket and lived with it.
In 1971 I bought a used American car with everything on it for $300. My East Indian college roommate loved to ride in it and very quickly got a license and car of his own. I later drove my $300 car from Texas to New York via the Midwest and DC to graduate school. I later drove that car to work and school around DC. I had tools but rarely needed them except for maintenance. The car was extremely reliable and needed only tuneups and tires. I gave it to a friend when I bought another car.
You didn't (and still don't) need a cell phone. It was (and is) easy to get help from strangers.
A car accident can kill you at 35 mph but they usually didn't (and usually don't). Cars are safer now and I appreciate that, but they weren't _that_ unsafe: people would not have driven them otherwise.
You complain about carrying a map and a zip code book - you should still (I do), since your phone or network could fail at any time. But you don't b/c in your heart you believe that you can rely on the kindness of strangers!
Medicine today is not much better than it was back then. Trauma care _is_ improved (the lessons of Vietnam were absorbed). But antibiotics worked better back then than today and other than antivirals and statins, the use of drugs hasn't improved much. As someone once said, doctors got no respect until antibiotics came along and, were they taken away, doctors would not get much respect now.
The remnants of the polio epidemics was still present in students of the 1950s (Salk developed his vaccine in 1952 and I was vaccinated ~1957). I too had classmates with polio braces, but polio in the USA was stopped by the vaccination campaigns before the 1970s.
People didn't die of rabies in the 1970s unless it was untreated.
People didn't die of TB in the 1970s unless it was unattended and/or advanced before treatment.
Smallpox was wiped out and routine immunization halted in 1970. The only cholera pandemics were offshore USA (e.g., the El Tor pandemic in Indonesia->Pakistan in the '70's).
I too carried punch cards (I started in the 60's) and was glad to do so: programming turned into a career. 4 years later in the mid-70's I had a terminal and multiple computers available in a network.
3 TV channels was plenty: I got the news and entertainment too, although after awhile I began to notice TV was turning into something akin to the "Bullshit Web" of today:
https://www.metafilter.com/175703/The-Bullshit-Web
VCRs were about $1000 in 1975 but they were available used for only hundreds of dollars. I have a used one that runs still today! In comparison my first CD player died after 3 years.
Neither discrimination nor bigotry nor prejudice were ubiquitous but they _were_ still present. Your description of prejudice fits the southern USA of the '50's, NOT the '70's.
Indeed my grandparents were small farmers (sharecroppers) and their and their children's (my parents') lives were hard. But the opportunities my parents had during their time were enormous and their lives were rich and memorable.
It probably remains true even today that antibiotics are man's most significant improvement of the last century.
But in summary I find your description of the 70s is off by fully 20 years.
> A car accident can kill you at 35 mph but they usually didn't (and usually don't). Cars are safer now and I appreciate that, but they weren't _that_ unsafe: people would not have driven them otherwise.
Cars were a lot less safe in 1971, that is a fact. No air bags, no anti-lock brakes, no traction control. Older cars didn't have seat belts, shoulder belts were rare, cars weren't built to crumple, steering columns would impale you, etc.
Fact, not anecdote: In 1971 there were 4.46 fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled (MVMT). In 2015 it was 1.18 fatalities per MVMT.
So yes, in fact cars were three times as dangerous as today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
Cars were a lot less safe in 1971, that is a fact. No air bags, no anti-lock brakes, no traction control. Older cars didn't have seat belts, shoulder belts were rare, cars weren't built to crumple, steering columns would impale you, etc.
Fact, not anecdote: In 1971 there were 4.46 fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled (MVMT). In 2015 it was 1.18 fatalities per MVMT.
So yes, in fact cars were three times as dangerous as today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
1) What I stated was not anecdote: a car accident can kill you at 35 mph but they usually didn't (and don't).
2) I simply don't agree with your use of relative statistics, which reeks of alarmism. My doctors use such arguments in attempts to convince me to take statin drugs, which would at best extend my life for only a few days if I took them for 30 years. He always tells me that I'm "X times as likely to die from a heart attack" unless I take statins. I always remind him of the nature of his statistics, the side-effects of statins, and the non-present longevity payoff of taking them.
Once the number of fatalities per MVMT is below a certain value it ceases to be likely in the overall scheme of things and becomes unimportant.
Relative statistics ignore the prior probabilities - the fact that I'm unlikely to die driving in the first place. Yes, 4.46 deaths per MVMT is about 3 X 1.18, but both are low deaths per MVMT.
I may die from falling off a ladder or get eaten by a shark but neither is likely, nor am I now nor was I likely in the 70s to die in a car accident. Some other damn thing will most likely get me (that isn't anecdotal either).
2) I simply don't agree with your use of relative statistics, which reeks of alarmism. My doctors use such arguments in attempts to convince me to take statin drugs, which would at best extend my life for only a few days if I took them for 30 years. He always tells me that I'm "X times as likely to die from a heart attack" unless I take statins. I always remind him of the nature of his statistics, the side-effects of statins, and the non-present longevity payoff of taking them.
Once the number of fatalities per MVMT is below a certain value it ceases to be likely in the overall scheme of things and becomes unimportant.
Relative statistics ignore the prior probabilities - the fact that I'm unlikely to die driving in the first place. Yes, 4.46 deaths per MVMT is about 3 X 1.18, but both are low deaths per MVMT.
I may die from falling off a ladder or get eaten by a shark but neither is likely, nor am I now nor was I likely in the 70s to die in a car accident. Some other damn thing will most likely get me (that isn't anecdotal either).
Pretty sure you couldn't convince a teenager to give up Snapstagram or Instabook or whatever is the next thing. Must be that these bring prosperity to their lives :).
I think we have to go to even more basic questions: what do people think about when they say prosperity? Having more money? But is it having more money than today's average or having more money than they used to have?
One thing's for sure, I wouldn't say more tech = more prosperity. By this definition alone almost every person is the world lives a more prosperous life by virtue of having a $20 burner phone that they didn't have in the '80s.
No, prosperity is "financial success" and that's related to the people around you and to some basic standard, a baseline of the times you're living in.
I think we have to go to even more basic questions: what do people think about when they say prosperity? Having more money? But is it having more money than today's average or having more money than they used to have?
One thing's for sure, I wouldn't say more tech = more prosperity. By this definition alone almost every person is the world lives a more prosperous life by virtue of having a $20 burner phone that they didn't have in the '80s.
No, prosperity is "financial success" and that's related to the people around you and to some basic standard, a baseline of the times you're living in.
> No, prosperity is "financial success" and that's related to the people around you and to some basic standard
If that's the case, then prosperity is purely relative term (as I suspect the "basic standard" will be redefined every decade or so) and hence can never improve. To me, what you're describing sounds more like inequality than prosperity.
If that's the case, then prosperity is purely relative term (as I suspect the "basic standard" will be redefined every decade or so) and hence can never improve. To me, what you're describing sounds more like inequality than prosperity.
I would absolutely consider that offer. I get cheap housing, healthcare, and education and as an added bonus I get rid of social media and my nagging smartphone?
(Btw, TV was in color by the 70s and literal gramophones were long gone)
(Btw, TV was in color by the 70s and literal gramophones were long gone)
Knowing things exist and not having them and them not existing in the first place are two very different things.
Exactly, failing to keep up with the Jones has real impact on happiness. Absolute vs relative prosperity is like buying a top of the line new computer in 1995 or a used computer today built in 2010 that is vastly more powerful yet can’t run a lot of current software well.
One issue is we are constantly bombarded with things we don’t have. Basic cable has far more channels than existed in 1960 but the menu constantly shows every channel you don’t have while making menus harder to use.
One issue is we are constantly bombarded with things we don’t have. Basic cable has far more channels than existed in 1960 but the menu constantly shows every channel you don’t have while making menus harder to use.
Exactly, failing to keep up with the Jones has real impact on happiness. Absolute vs relative prosperity is like buying a to of the line new computer in 1995 or a used computer today built in 2010 that is vastly more powerful yet can’t run a lot of current software well.
A computer you bought in 2010 would be more than capable of running most modern non game software well.
https://www.computerhope.com/history/2010.htm
In fact, I was using a Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz Dell (circa 2009) running Windows 10 as my Plex Server until last week. It was only slow when trying to do something interactively while Plex was transcoding. It also ran PlexConnect to serve a Plex client to my 3rd gen AppleTV.
The 1st gen iPad was also released that year. I still have one (not my main iPad). I reset it last year. It can still be used for most of the streaming services - Netflix, Hulu, etc.
A computer you bought in 2010 would be more than capable of running most modern non game software well.
https://www.computerhope.com/history/2010.htm
In fact, I was using a Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz Dell (circa 2009) running Windows 10 as my Plex Server until last week. It was only slow when trying to do something interactively while Plex was transcoding. It also ran PlexConnect to serve a Plex client to my 3rd gen AppleTV.
The 1st gen iPad was also released that year. I still have one (not my main iPad). I reset it last year. It can still be used for most of the streaming services - Netflix, Hulu, etc.
Bingo. I have a 2009 Thinkpad that's still kicking; both it refurb'd. Does everything just fine for day-to-day purposes, and runs Alpha Centauri in WINE/DosBox like a boss.
For a couple years it was a dedicated seedbox. It's mostly by BTC-trade-only box these days, but if my desktop died I could re-image it and use it for 95% of my life without issue.
For a couple years it was a dedicated seedbox. It's mostly by BTC-trade-only box these days, but if my desktop died I could re-image it and use it for 95% of my life without issue.
I am mostly talking about games. Still, a good PC from 2010 holds up well, but low end PC’s from 2010 could have as little as 2GB of RAM which would have issues with a modern OS and a wide range of applications. Other issues where anemic SSD storage space, a HDD from 2010 holds up ok, but SSD’s tended to just barely work.
> I offered 10 people the opportunity to live like people lived in the 1970's
Do I also get a dozen brothers and sisters? Eat food, drink water and breath air without having to constantly worry about being them polluted or toxic?
> would only have a black-and-white TV with 4 stations and a gramophone record player..
Sure. I would rather have a gramaphone record player or cassete player (which is more like 70s i think) that played ABBA or BoneyM than a 4k lcd tv that plays Lady gaga or Justine beiber or what ever crap that is "trending" today.
Do I also get a dozen brothers and sisters? Eat food, drink water and breath air without having to constantly worry about being them polluted or toxic?
> would only have a black-and-white TV with 4 stations and a gramophone record player..
Sure. I would rather have a gramaphone record player or cassete player (which is more like 70s i think) that played ABBA or BoneyM than a 4k lcd tv that plays Lady gaga or Justine beiber or what ever crap that is "trending" today.
> Eat food, drink water and breath air without having to constantly worry about being them polluted or toxic?
Sorry but you have a very rosy view of the 1970s. Would you drink this water [0]? Or fill your car with leaded Gas [1]? Use asbestos in your building [2]? DDT on your fresh food? [3] Air quality around the world is vastly superior to the 70s (people are still suffering because of it [4]).
> than a 4k lcd tv that plays Lady gaga or Justine beiber or what ever crap that is "trending" today.
It's your choice. Your 4k TV today can still play Abba or boney M, and many other bands you couldn't afford. A record cost $3 in 1970, which adjusted for inflation is about $19. For the same (adjusted) cost as an album a month in 1970 you can have access to basically every artist from the 70s (Spotify) along with most TV shows (nrtflix/) and still have enough change for a beer to go with it. Nobody is forcing you to leave your TV tuned into listen to Bieber. There was also a deluge of crap in the 1970s that you just weren't exposed to. There is also plenty of great music being produced now that can easily be found.
[0] https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/3769068219/... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestosis [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT [4] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2076728-people-today-ar...
Sorry but you have a very rosy view of the 1970s. Would you drink this water [0]? Or fill your car with leaded Gas [1]? Use asbestos in your building [2]? DDT on your fresh food? [3] Air quality around the world is vastly superior to the 70s (people are still suffering because of it [4]).
> than a 4k lcd tv that plays Lady gaga or Justine beiber or what ever crap that is "trending" today.
It's your choice. Your 4k TV today can still play Abba or boney M, and many other bands you couldn't afford. A record cost $3 in 1970, which adjusted for inflation is about $19. For the same (adjusted) cost as an album a month in 1970 you can have access to basically every artist from the 70s (Spotify) along with most TV shows (nrtflix/) and still have enough change for a beer to go with it. Nobody is forcing you to leave your TV tuned into listen to Bieber. There was also a deluge of crap in the 1970s that you just weren't exposed to. There is also plenty of great music being produced now that can easily be found.
[0] https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/3769068219/... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestosis [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT [4] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2076728-people-today-ar...
> Sorry but you have a very rosy view of the 1970s.
Who said pollution did not exist back in 1970. Just that it was more feasible to get stuff that you know that is not polluted. From local produce or farmed yourself.
> Air quality around the world is vastly superior to the 70s (people are still suffering because of it?
Oh yea? Can you provide some citations. By what factor have the number of automobiles multiplied?
> Your 4k TV today can still play Abba or boney M.
You are missing the point. The point is that the technology to consume art is irrelavant if the art produced is low quality in itself. I mean, where is M-tv today?
>There is also plenty of great music being produced now that can easily be found.
Oh yea? Again, where is M-Tv then? It's been ages since a new song have really captured my attention.
Who said pollution did not exist back in 1970. Just that it was more feasible to get stuff that you know that is not polluted. From local produce or farmed yourself.
> Air quality around the world is vastly superior to the 70s (people are still suffering because of it?
Oh yea? Can you provide some citations. By what factor have the number of automobiles multiplied?
> Your 4k TV today can still play Abba or boney M.
You are missing the point. The point is that the technology to consume art is irrelavant if the art produced is low quality in itself. I mean, where is M-tv today?
>There is also plenty of great music being produced now that can easily be found.
Oh yea? Again, where is M-Tv then? It's been ages since a new song have really captured my attention.
> From local produce or farmed yourself.
There are plenty of ways to get locally farmed meat and vegetables. The fact that battery farmed chickens and industrially grown tomatoes are now easily accessible all year around in your local Walmart/Asda doesn't change the fact that I can go to my greengrocer and get fresh fruit and veg from 30 miles away.
> Can you provide some citations.
Yes, I did for everything I said in the previous post at the bottom. I even numbered them.
>art is irrelavant if the art produced is low quality...
> where is M-tv today
You don't have to judge by the lowest common denominator.
Just because the most popular music right now doesn't capture your imagination doesn't mean that 1) all popular music is bad, or 2) the older forms which you enjoy have been taken from you.
There are plenty of ways to get locally farmed meat and vegetables. The fact that battery farmed chickens and industrially grown tomatoes are now easily accessible all year around in your local Walmart/Asda doesn't change the fact that I can go to my greengrocer and get fresh fruit and veg from 30 miles away.
> Can you provide some citations.
Yes, I did for everything I said in the previous post at the bottom. I even numbered them.
>art is irrelavant if the art produced is low quality...
> where is M-tv today
You don't have to judge by the lowest common denominator.
Just because the most popular music right now doesn't capture your imagination doesn't mean that 1) all popular music is bad, or 2) the older forms which you enjoy have been taken from you.
> I can go to my greengrocer and get fresh fruit and veg from 30 miles away.
And you think that is free of toxins?
>Yes, I did for everything I said in the previous post at the bottom. I even numbered them.
No. You said air pollution around the world is vastly superior now. The link you provided said "People are dying from pollution sustain during the 70s". If you don't see the difference, then I wish you a good day and let us drop this conversation.
And you think that is free of toxins?
>Yes, I did for everything I said in the previous post at the bottom. I even numbered them.
No. You said air pollution around the world is vastly superior now. The link you provided said "People are dying from pollution sustain during the 70s". If you don't see the difference, then I wish you a good day and let us drop this conversation.
The 70s had a fair amount of pollution and crime above what we experience now. I'm guessing the OP didn't graduate with decades of student loans though. Or a five year loan for that car of theirs.
Really you would need people to live each of the lives and get them to judge afterwards rather than just ask what they would prefer when they only really have experience of teh current version.
Unfortunately you’re right. Nowadays, many people here in Germany can afford a house or an apartment in the big cities only if they get some money from their (grand)parents. I think one major reason for this is the free flow of capital globally.
The effect in its extreme form: people get evicted, buildings get built/renovated (“Luxusbeton”), int’l investors buy hoping for ever increasing prices, apts stay empty. Insane
The effect in its extreme form: people get evicted, buildings get built/renovated (“Luxusbeton”), int’l investors buy hoping for ever increasing prices, apts stay empty. Insane
As I walk around my Los Angeles neighborhood, I see about a dozen houses that appear to be completely unoccupied.
This is a bad side effect of low interest rates. If the interest rates were high, e.g. 5%, investing into unoccupied real estate would not be a viable investment.
That’s one major reason, for sure. Another big factor seems to be that people are moving their money out of their unstable home countries into save havens
It looks like now that we've had our basic needs met, our desires are for human contact, and not just stuff. Along comes Baumol's cost disease and makes things involving physically present people (like traditional education) much more expensive than things that don't (like chinese smartphones).
Unfortunately without a change of economic system it doesn't seem like this trend will change course.
Unfortunately without a change of economic system it doesn't seem like this trend will change course.
> In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner.
Has that really changed?
A manufacturing business in my area is currently hiring everyone who shows up to an interview. They pay they are offering isn't wonderful (at least if you concept of money has been warped by the IT industry), but you should expect to make around $40,000 per year to start. Perusing the real estate listings, I see a three bed, two bath detached home near to that business listed at $139,000.
Rule of thumb says you shouldn't spend more than three times your income on housing, but many suggest you can go as high as five times income. We're at 3.4 times income. It's not ideal, but it seems doable, especially if you want to live like it is the 1940s. The cost of cell phone each month can easily apply $50-100 more to your mortgage payment each month instead.
I will point out that our example job is one that you can walk into and start today. If you take a little more care and look around and risk a few rejections before finding work, there are plenty of jobs that pay considerably more. In those cases, one person buying a home should not be an issue whatsoever. A $45,000 income would provide the necessary amount for the three times income rule of thumb to buy this home in question.
Has that really changed?
A manufacturing business in my area is currently hiring everyone who shows up to an interview. They pay they are offering isn't wonderful (at least if you concept of money has been warped by the IT industry), but you should expect to make around $40,000 per year to start. Perusing the real estate listings, I see a three bed, two bath detached home near to that business listed at $139,000.
Rule of thumb says you shouldn't spend more than three times your income on housing, but many suggest you can go as high as five times income. We're at 3.4 times income. It's not ideal, but it seems doable, especially if you want to live like it is the 1940s. The cost of cell phone each month can easily apply $50-100 more to your mortgage payment each month instead.
I will point out that our example job is one that you can walk into and start today. If you take a little more care and look around and risk a few rejections before finding work, there are plenty of jobs that pay considerably more. In those cases, one person buying a home should not be an issue whatsoever. A $45,000 income would provide the necessary amount for the three times income rule of thumb to buy this home in question.
Households today spend more on cell phones and communication but also spend less on fine china, dress clothes and food. When you net out all the pluses and minuses households today spend much more on housing, healthcare, daycare, transportation (two cars, for two jobs) and education.
When you look closely the two bed, two bath detached home it’s likely in a school district that is underperforming and while the home may be slightly larger than those in the past it’s 30+ years old.
This is detailed elegantly in the Two Income Trap by Elizabeth Warren.
The thing that is crazy is that there is any debate in the subject. Real productivity growth has averaged 2% for the last 100 years in the US. Early in the last century they they were speculating that if productivity growth kept up at that rate their grandchildren would only need to work a couple of hours a week and what would they do with all their free time?
How did we get here?
When you look closely the two bed, two bath detached home it’s likely in a school district that is underperforming and while the home may be slightly larger than those in the past it’s 30+ years old.
This is detailed elegantly in the Two Income Trap by Elizabeth Warren.
The thing that is crazy is that there is any debate in the subject. Real productivity growth has averaged 2% for the last 100 years in the US. Early in the last century they they were speculating that if productivity growth kept up at that rate their grandchildren would only need to work a couple of hours a week and what would they do with all their free time?
How did we get here?
If you maintain a 1920s lifestyle today, you probably could work just a few hours a week.
Thing is, nobody wants that kind of a lifestyle.
Thing is, nobody wants that kind of a lifestyle.
Thing is, it doesn't make sense to want that lifestyle. It's not an option anymore, the same way living in a cave is not an option.
It would place you in pariah status, for one -- and a lifestyle is not just to putting food in the table or a roof above your head, it also includes making you eligible for a partner, able to raise kids to do OK in society, and so on.
It would place you in pariah status, for one -- and a lifestyle is not just to putting food in the table or a roof above your head, it also includes making you eligible for a partner, able to raise kids to do OK in society, and so on.
Pray tell, what is that lifestyle? What has changed?
People lived in homes both rented and owned, there were few big flats of apartments. They didn't have cars but used bikes and public transport.
They had comparable quality food if not better. Ate somewhat less meat. Slept better and longer. Worked similar or shorter hours. (with exceptions)
More worked physical jobs, but a sizable number ran office jobs.
They tended to be more locally sociable and active I suspect too.
Fewer went to get higher education.
People lived in homes both rented and owned, there were few big flats of apartments. They didn't have cars but used bikes and public transport.
They had comparable quality food if not better. Ate somewhat less meat. Slept better and longer. Worked similar or shorter hours. (with exceptions)
More worked physical jobs, but a sizable number ran office jobs.
They tended to be more locally sociable and active I suspect too.
Fewer went to get higher education.
> while the home may be slightly larger than those in the past it’s 30+ years old.
Pardon my naiveté, but is this a common bar? I didn't grow up poor and I'm _definitely_ not poor now, but I don't think I've ever lived in a house that was less than 30 years old. I didn't even realize that was desirable; my impression was that the stereotype of new construction is "classless, soulless cookie-cutter Levittown" (not saying that I agree with this notion, just that it was my understanding of how the property market treats housing).
Am I mistaken here? Or is this perhaps different between cities vs more rural areas, or suburbs? I've only ever lived in big cities.
Pardon my naiveté, but is this a common bar? I didn't grow up poor and I'm _definitely_ not poor now, but I don't think I've ever lived in a house that was less than 30 years old. I didn't even realize that was desirable; my impression was that the stereotype of new construction is "classless, soulless cookie-cutter Levittown" (not saying that I agree with this notion, just that it was my understanding of how the property market treats housing).
Am I mistaken here? Or is this perhaps different between cities vs more rural areas, or suburbs? I've only ever lived in big cities.
Suburbs built in the 1970s have the same problems as houses built today - rapid, low-quality construction, cheap materials, etc. They're temporary buildings. (Levittown, in fact, was built in the 50s!) At the very least, a new house is further from it's expiry date than an older house. You'll probably find better construction where land costs more (downtown cities) or pre-1950s buildings, but these are quite rare.
EDIT: As a reminder of the endless progression of time, a 30-year-old house would have been built in 1988.
EDIT: As a reminder of the endless progression of time, a 30-year-old house would have been built in 1988.
Meanwhile, in the fifties all the houses were new and all the school districts were better than average.
"all the school districts were better than average"
That might be a statistical impossibility:-)
That might be a statistical impossibility:-)
Depends. Suppose you take those new-fangled school districts just built in the fifties. Are they better than the global average? Likely. Are they better than the average school district in America? Possibly. Are they better than the average school in your state? Maybe. Are they better than all those new school districts? Definitely not.
gp actually answered that with "especially if you want to live like it is the 1940s".
There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is. People just flat-out underestimate how much work it takes to keep the infrastructure of the modern world in place and humming - traditional infrastructure, IT grids, distribution of goods and services (particularly maintaining an enormous fleet of wheeled vehicles).
I know a lot of people who are poorer than I am but spend more, because they just don't clamp down on things like car usage, sending money to their children, pets and ordering a daily coffee. The only thing that will force them to live a simple lifestyle is literally having no money.
Sometimes people maneuver into a position where they have no choice, because they make bad long-term lifestyle choices early on, but so far the evidence is that human demand for stuff and services is infinite. People use their spare hours to gather and consume more.
There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is. People just flat-out underestimate how much work it takes to keep the infrastructure of the modern world in place and humming - traditional infrastructure, IT grids, distribution of goods and services (particularly maintaining an enormous fleet of wheeled vehicles).
I know a lot of people who are poorer than I am but spend more, because they just don't clamp down on things like car usage, sending money to their children, pets and ordering a daily coffee. The only thing that will force them to live a simple lifestyle is literally having no money.
Sometimes people maneuver into a position where they have no choice, because they make bad long-term lifestyle choices early on, but so far the evidence is that human demand for stuff and services is infinite. People use their spare hours to gather and consume more.
> There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is.
Absolutely! I genuinely marvel every time I go into a supermarket. I can buy a huge variety of delicious foods from all the corners of the globe. 200 years ago a king couldn't eat this well.
Also, I have literal robots doing my housework! A robot cleans the floor. A robot cleans the dishes. A robot cleans my clothes. It's nice to take a step back and appreciate all this.
Absolutely! I genuinely marvel every time I go into a supermarket. I can buy a huge variety of delicious foods from all the corners of the globe. 200 years ago a king couldn't eat this well.
Also, I have literal robots doing my housework! A robot cleans the floor. A robot cleans the dishes. A robot cleans my clothes. It's nice to take a step back and appreciate all this.
>200 years ago a king couldn't eat this well
A kind 200 years ago couldn't eat this variety.
But they could eat very much better -- all free-range, well made, top quality cuts (not hastily made, lower tier BS, with all kinds of additives to increase self-life or make it appear more appealing in the shelves), made fresh on their own premises or bought from the best artisans.
And of course all prepared at their whim by their army of personal chefs, and served by an army of servers.
And they had all the time they liked to enjoy those things, with friends and family, not having to gulp them down between 60-hour work weeks...
A kind 200 years ago couldn't eat this variety.
But they could eat very much better -- all free-range, well made, top quality cuts (not hastily made, lower tier BS, with all kinds of additives to increase self-life or make it appear more appealing in the shelves), made fresh on their own premises or bought from the best artisans.
And of course all prepared at their whim by their army of personal chefs, and served by an army of servers.
And they had all the time they liked to enjoy those things, with friends and family, not having to gulp them down between 60-hour work weeks...
> And of course all prepared at their whim by their army of personal chefs, and served by an army of servers.
Math says that majority of people were among army of personal chefs and servers not among those being served. So, you are arguing by outliers.
Math says that majority of people were among army of personal chefs and servers not among those being served. So, you are arguing by outliers.
Parents were talking about kings, not about service people.
[deleted]
Reportedly Boris Yeltsin was so floored by a random American supermarket that it help spur him to end the Cold War: https://penetrate.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-randalls-grocery-...
If you find that interesting, in a similar vein, a walk through corn and soybean fields in Canada lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-walk-that-changed-t...
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-walk-that-changed-t...
>There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is
There's also a big denial about how luxurious 1940s living was compared to 1840s or the palaeolithic ages...
...and that's just as well, because it's not really relevant. Living standards and necessities are determined socially, in comparison with what others of the same era have (and expect people to have), not with comparison to the past.
Someone that lives in nice large cave in Malibu with rocks for furniture and self-made pottery, and a stock of food he has hunted himself, would be considered well-off in the cavemen era, but homeless today.
There's also a big denial about how luxurious 1940s living was compared to 1840s or the palaeolithic ages...
...and that's just as well, because it's not really relevant. Living standards and necessities are determined socially, in comparison with what others of the same era have (and expect people to have), not with comparison to the past.
Someone that lives in nice large cave in Malibu with rocks for furniture and self-made pottery, and a stock of food he has hunted himself, would be considered well-off in the cavemen era, but homeless today.
Leaving aside how arguable it is, this definition of living standards is not relevant to this subthread, which is about the claim that prosperity has not been increasing for decades, followed by an unfavorable comparison to the 40s/50s. By such a useless definition, the claim is tautological: of course prosperity can't have increased of living standards are defined as being eternally static. Incidentally, it's a subthread you started and a claim you made, so it's a little bizarre to see the goalposts being moved so dramatically.
> Living standards and necessities are determined socially, in comparison with what others of the same era have (and expect people to have), not with comparison to the past.
By this definition aggregate living standards can never improve (nor decline) over time.
By this definition aggregate living standards can never improve (nor decline) over time.
[deleted]
Ah yes. The poor are poor because of poor morals, instead of you, who is of good moral standing.
The poor are poor due to lack of money. This is caused by increasing costs of healthcare, education and houses, you know those basic things needed to live. And by a capitalistic class taking about 95% of all gains from productivity increases. Saying millions of people are poor because because of bad morals is disgusting and completely false.
The poor are poor due to lack of money. This is caused by increasing costs of healthcare, education and houses, you know those basic things needed to live. And by a capitalistic class taking about 95% of all gains from productivity increases. Saying millions of people are poor because because of bad morals is disgusting and completely false.
Ugh, poor money management skills have nothing to do with morals. It's fine to say someone has poor money management skills just like it's fine to say someone has poor C++ coding skills.
Creating a budget and sticking to it requires behavioral changes that take time to sink in.
It's extremely unlikely that you make the perfect amount of money to cover your exact needs that result in you being broke. It's much more likely that people adapt to a system of spending all money that comes in on whatever 'priority item' pops into their mind because they lack the skill and/or discipline of budgeting. This is evident in higher income people as well that suffer from lifestyle creep.
Again, this has nothing to do with morals. It's just a statement about the appalling lack of financial education in the vast majority of the US population.
Creating a budget and sticking to it requires behavioral changes that take time to sink in.
It's extremely unlikely that you make the perfect amount of money to cover your exact needs that result in you being broke. It's much more likely that people adapt to a system of spending all money that comes in on whatever 'priority item' pops into their mind because they lack the skill and/or discipline of budgeting. This is evident in higher income people as well that suffer from lifestyle creep.
Again, this has nothing to do with morals. It's just a statement about the appalling lack of financial education in the vast majority of the US population.
I think you and the original poster are in violent agreement Reread his post all of the way through.
I agree with your core thesis, but it could probably have been expressed better. In the USA there's a moral system that some people have that equates wealth to virtue. In my experience, it leads to conclusions that are generally dehumanizing and unempathetic of others, which is definitely not a long term sustainable foundation for a free society.
I thoroughly reject whatever it is you are suggesting. There is nothing immoral about wanting to enjoy a high standard of living.
Actually, I think the housing price expectations discrepancy is probably a function of where you live vs where the GP lives. Inflation-adjusted housing prices haven't actually risen all that much outside top-tier cities.
http://www.realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/
Given that a relatively small percentage of people live in these places, I get the feeling the perception of a housing price crisis is larger than the reality. I don't mean to say that housing isn't unreasonably expensive in some places, but that the issue likely receives disproportionate attention because it most strongly affects those who tend to write and read about issues like a housing price crisis (i.e. journalists, software developers, economists, etc. who often live in these expensive cities). The people dictating and participating in these conversations are those who are living in expensive cities.
For the typical poor person, I suspect the costs of higher education and healthcare are usually a bigger obstacle than housing costs. Though this is probably not the case for a poor person in San Francisco.
http://www.realestatedecoded.com/case-shiller/
Given that a relatively small percentage of people live in these places, I get the feeling the perception of a housing price crisis is larger than the reality. I don't mean to say that housing isn't unreasonably expensive in some places, but that the issue likely receives disproportionate attention because it most strongly affects those who tend to write and read about issues like a housing price crisis (i.e. journalists, software developers, economists, etc. who often live in these expensive cities). The people dictating and participating in these conversations are those who are living in expensive cities.
For the typical poor person, I suspect the costs of higher education and healthcare are usually a bigger obstacle than housing costs. Though this is probably not the case for a poor person in San Francisco.
Millions of people live in top tier cities and millions of people live in Nowhere, USA where housing is still ludicrously expensive in proportion to job prospects
This hits really close for me. I am a Seattle IT guy and looking at houses back near family in Michigan. Sure, houses are 2-4x more expensive here...but I will most certainly make 1/2 as much in the areas in Michigan that I would like to live...which is as far away from the Detroit metro as possible. And even if I can make that much I will be lucky to find a job. Here in Seattle people come to me to hire me!
Amen... but with Washington DC. Northern VA has literally the richest counties per capita in the US. Then I look at Eastern WA or Idaho and lose my shit. Montana, too, though the culture is terrible.
If only I could get a job there that didn't pay poor salaries...
If only I could get a job there that didn't pay poor salaries...
Remote work will someday change this but boy is that change slow to occur!!
You know, I've always heard that and thought it seemed reasonable, but when I actually started looking through the data I noticed that the top tier cities often have significantly lower median incomes.
The top tier cities also have higher mean incomes. The top tier cities tend to attract the outliers. If you are Mark Zuckerberg, you probably live in a top tier city. But almost nobody is able to say they are earning like Mark Zuckerberg. And if you are earning like Mark Zuckerberg, the cost of housing is the least of your concerns.
It seems for the normal every day average person, they actually make less money in a top tier city.
The top tier cities also have higher mean incomes. The top tier cities tend to attract the outliers. If you are Mark Zuckerberg, you probably live in a top tier city. But almost nobody is able to say they are earning like Mark Zuckerberg. And if you are earning like Mark Zuckerberg, the cost of housing is the least of your concerns.
It seems for the normal every day average person, they actually make less money in a top tier city.
If we are to compare eras and discover what's different I would suggest we ought to compare broad numbers not anecdotes. Even your example is suspect.
The real median income at present in the US is 31k meaning half make less. 45k puts you at the 59th percentile better than almost 2/3 of people. Clearly not everyone who wants to is earning 45k.
A median earner with a spouse and 2 kids is liable to take home less than 1100 every 2 weeks after taxes but your 45k earner will have more like 1400. They will get 3 paychecks in 2 billing cycles but will have to live on 2 most cycles.
Median rent is almost 900 a month. Health insurance for a family is going to run 500 usd says that their food will be 150 a week 2 crappy cars maybe 400 a month. Utilities at least 200. Communications at least another 100.
We are already at 2700/2800 without including clothing or detergent to wash them.
The real question is where is the person supposed to save the money to move from the apartment to the house in the first place. At 45k you are too well off to qualify for a lot of benefits except in areas that are very expensive to live in, but still too poor to support a household.
Incidentally areas where you can buy a three bedroom house outside of the crime ridden hood tend not to have a huge number of jobs so everyone go and move to Ohio isn't a tenable solution for the present economic situation.
The real median income at present in the US is 31k meaning half make less. 45k puts you at the 59th percentile better than almost 2/3 of people. Clearly not everyone who wants to is earning 45k.
A median earner with a spouse and 2 kids is liable to take home less than 1100 every 2 weeks after taxes but your 45k earner will have more like 1400. They will get 3 paychecks in 2 billing cycles but will have to live on 2 most cycles.
Median rent is almost 900 a month. Health insurance for a family is going to run 500 usd says that their food will be 150 a week 2 crappy cars maybe 400 a month. Utilities at least 200. Communications at least another 100.
We are already at 2700/2800 without including clothing or detergent to wash them.
The real question is where is the person supposed to save the money to move from the apartment to the house in the first place. At 45k you are too well off to qualify for a lot of benefits except in areas that are very expensive to live in, but still too poor to support a household.
Incidentally areas where you can buy a three bedroom house outside of the crime ridden hood tend not to have a huge number of jobs so everyone go and move to Ohio isn't a tenable solution for the present economic situation.
Your “median earner with a spouse and 2 kids” is quite different from the median household. The (gross) income in a median household is $59k.
The point was that one worker can't effectively pay for a household anymore.
But that's simply not true. It may be true in certain places. Two people probably can't realistically afford to buy in San Francisco, but it's big world out there. You don't have to live in San Francisco.
Not even in the 40s and 50s could you live anywhere you wanted, while owning a house on a sole income. Like today, the houses affordable to one income were only found in certain places and only those who were willing to move (or were lucky enough to have been born) where housing was affordable were able to own them.
From what I recall, the homeownership rate in the 1940s was only around 45%. Owning your home wasn't anywhere near as common as it is today. To say that people with one income could afford their home back then is simply cherry-picking those who could, ignoring everyone else.
Not even in the 40s and 50s could you live anywhere you wanted, while owning a house on a sole income. Like today, the houses affordable to one income were only found in certain places and only those who were willing to move (or were lucky enough to have been born) where housing was affordable were able to own them.
From what I recall, the homeownership rate in the 1940s was only around 45%. Owning your home wasn't anywhere near as common as it is today. To say that people with one income could afford their home back then is simply cherry-picking those who could, ignoring everyone else.
Many earners are part-time earners nowadays. If you want to make that point, you may want to look at the median income for full-time jobs ($50k for men).
> The real median income at present in the US is 31k meaning half make less.
You will find that the full-time median income is much closer to $50,000 though.
> Clearly not everyone who wants to is earning 45k.
But, in fact, as this is a full-time job, you are actually below the median. When you add in high school students working part time, then you're right, but that's not particularly meaningful.
> Median rent is almost 900 a month.
Seems high for the area in question, but regardless, since you are buying a home, I'm not sure why you would also pay rent to someone else?
> 2 crappy cars maybe 400 a month.
Maybe the person paying for the house needs one car to get to work. Why do you need two cars?
> Communications at least another 100.
A landline phone where the house is located is $23.50/month. Another $35/month if you want internet service. That's a long way from $100 and already way more than someone in 1940 would have. If you really want the 1940s house-buying experience, you don't need internet service.
> Incidentally areas where you can buy a three bedroom house outside of the crime ridden hood tend not to have a huge number of jobs so everyone go and move to Ohio isn't a tenable solution for the present economic situation.
I don't know about the economic situation in Ohio, but the place in question has exceptionally low unemployment and substantial job growth. That's why businesses like the one I mentioned have to hire everyone who shows up. If they didn't, they wouldn't have any employees.
I don't think anyone expects that you should be able to throw at dart at a map and be able to afford a home anywhere it lands. Not even people in the 40s and 50s could do that. They had to be quite discerning about where they settled in order to do so. That much remains true today.
You will find that the full-time median income is much closer to $50,000 though.
> Clearly not everyone who wants to is earning 45k.
But, in fact, as this is a full-time job, you are actually below the median. When you add in high school students working part time, then you're right, but that's not particularly meaningful.
> Median rent is almost 900 a month.
Seems high for the area in question, but regardless, since you are buying a home, I'm not sure why you would also pay rent to someone else?
> 2 crappy cars maybe 400 a month.
Maybe the person paying for the house needs one car to get to work. Why do you need two cars?
> Communications at least another 100.
A landline phone where the house is located is $23.50/month. Another $35/month if you want internet service. That's a long way from $100 and already way more than someone in 1940 would have. If you really want the 1940s house-buying experience, you don't need internet service.
> Incidentally areas where you can buy a three bedroom house outside of the crime ridden hood tend not to have a huge number of jobs so everyone go and move to Ohio isn't a tenable solution for the present economic situation.
I don't know about the economic situation in Ohio, but the place in question has exceptionally low unemployment and substantial job growth. That's why businesses like the one I mentioned have to hire everyone who shows up. If they didn't, they wouldn't have any employees.
I don't think anyone expects that you should be able to throw at dart at a map and be able to afford a home anywhere it lands. Not even people in the 40s and 50s could do that. They had to be quite discerning about where they settled in order to do so. That much remains true today.
You will find that the full-time median income is much closer to $50,000 though.
That's household income, not per-capita. It is heavily skewed by two-income households.
That's household income, not per-capita. It is heavily skewed by two-income households.
I'm talking about full-time personal income. You are right that household income, which includes households that only have part-time income (and other sources of income, like pensions), comes in at around the same amount.
>Maybe the person paying for the house needs one car to get to work. Why do you need two cars?
Sure, assuming the family doesn't have kids, the other person will never need to leave the house for errands, etc. (Or, you know, they don't want to be cooped up in the house all day.)
Sure, assuming the family doesn't have kids, the other person will never need to leave the house for errands, etc. (Or, you know, they don't want to be cooped up in the house all day.)
During the 40s and 50s the use of a car, even in rural areas, was normally reserved for a special trip once a week to run errands and get out of the house, if you were able to afford a car at all. The average family at the time wouldn't dream of wasting money on a second car, let alone the first one, to 'frivolously' get out of the house on a daily basis for pleasure. That money was needed to pay for the house.
It is entirely understandable that expectations have changed. I certainly don't think twice about hopping in my car any day of the week, and own two of them at that. But if expectations have changed, why would we want to even try to to apply 40s and 50s housing logic to modern times?
It is entirely understandable that expectations have changed. I certainly don't think twice about hopping in my car any day of the week, and own two of them at that. But if expectations have changed, why would we want to even try to to apply 40s and 50s housing logic to modern times?
Lets be real the second car is so the spouse can get a job too because otherwise the bank is taking the house.
The house was already affordable without the spouse needing a job, albeit with some possible unpleasantness like not being able to drive around for fun every day of the week. But if the spouse chooses to take a job, affording that house becomes really comfortable. Which only goes to show just how affordable housing really is.
Then there's another income to add to the equation
[deleted]
I think folks are spending quite a bit more on things they need which used to be much cheaper. Healthcare and higher education come to mind as expenses which have started to eat the average family's budget much more than in the past. The medicine is much better today than in the 50's of course.
We ought to include a full picture of required spending in relation to housing costs.
We ought to include a full picture of required spending in relation to housing costs.
On the other hand, essential costs like food and clothing have dropped substantially over time. In the 40s and 50s food and clothing accounted for approximately 50% of one's disposable income. Now it is closer to 30%.
But your comment does raise an interesting question: If I were to hypothetically spend $100,000 for an optional status symbol like a Ferrari or higher education and can no longer afford to own a home due to that purchase, does that indicate a problem with the housing market?
But your comment does raise an interesting question: If I were to hypothetically spend $100,000 for an optional status symbol like a Ferrari or higher education and can no longer afford to own a home due to that purchase, does that indicate a problem with the housing market?
People that can't afford housing don't buy Ferraris and they spend money on higher education because that is sold to the entire populace at large as the way to get ahead.
Further good jobs use it to distinguish between those who are worth looking at and those that aren't even where the education isn't truly required to do the job.
Also we really don't want to admit to ourselves that the biggest step up would be to go back in time and drop out of the right uterus.
Further good jobs use it to distinguish between those who are worth looking at and those that aren't even where the education isn't truly required to do the job.
Also we really don't want to admit to ourselves that the biggest step up would be to go back in time and drop out of the right uterus.
Spending on food, clothing, and housing does not factor into "disposable income".
Where would you factor it in then? "Disposable income is total personal income minus personal current taxes"[1] Where else would the money come from?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_and_discretionary_i...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_and_discretionary_i...
Huh. I'd always considered the definition of disposable income as the income that I would literally consider to be disposable, e.g. the money left over after I've covered everything I need (including housing, clothing, food and taxes) that I could set on fire and not change my current condition.
Per the wikipedia article of disposable income, I could afford a Ferrari (on a payment plan), but I would generally say I don't have the disposable income to afford a Ferrari because I still have to pay rent and feed myself.
Obviously the article defines that as discretionary income, I've always considered them to be equivalent terms.
Per the wikipedia article of disposable income, I could afford a Ferrari (on a payment plan), but I would generally say I don't have the disposable income to afford a Ferrari because I still have to pay rent and feed myself.
Obviously the article defines that as discretionary income, I've always considered them to be equivalent terms.
In common speech, your definition of "disposable income" is perfectly acceptable.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disposable%20inco...
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/disposab...
Note that the Oxford Dictionary uses GP's definition, probably to distinguish themselves from Cambridge :)
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/disposable_inco...
It's probably a case of a word used incorrectly, but so often that ends up assuming a different meaning.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disposable%20inco...
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/disposab...
Note that the Oxford Dictionary uses GP's definition, probably to distinguish themselves from Cambridge :)
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/disposable_inco...
It's probably a case of a word used incorrectly, but so often that ends up assuming a different meaning.
> after I've covered everything I need (including housing, clothing, food and taxes) that I could set on fire and not change my current condition.
Housing and taxes make sense because they're generally inflexible costs, but how does clothing fit into this? Unless you're sewing smocks out of burlap, the majority of most people's clothing expenses is fully discretionary in every sense of the word (even including work clothes, for those unfortunate enough to have their employer force them to dress a certain way). That isn't to say it's a waste of money, but it's discretionary in the same way that eating at nice restaurants or going to concerts is: something you spend not to survive, but to improve your quality of life in some way.
Housing and taxes make sense because they're generally inflexible costs, but how does clothing fit into this? Unless you're sewing smocks out of burlap, the majority of most people's clothing expenses is fully discretionary in every sense of the word (even including work clothes, for those unfortunate enough to have their employer force them to dress a certain way). That isn't to say it's a waste of money, but it's discretionary in the same way that eating at nice restaurants or going to concerts is: something you spend not to survive, but to improve your quality of life in some way.
These are standard economic terminology, not definitions made up by the article writer or wikipedia.. They're can be found in probably every introductory economics textbook from the past half century.
>A manufacturing business
That alone cuts out nearly half the country. The skilled labor economy has been hollowed out and is nearly extinct in most places. You and I live in similar places and the dream remains alive here, but it is long dead in the corner of the country in which I was raised.
That alone cuts out nearly half the country. The skilled labor economy has been hollowed out and is nearly extinct in most places. You and I live in similar places and the dream remains alive here, but it is long dead in the corner of the country in which I was raised.
It is true that you may have to move to find places where a single income can buy a house, but that has always been true. The necessity of having to move to find better economic conditions has been true since the dawn of humankind. It's why we left Africa, and eventually covered the globe.
It is not like in the 40s and 50s you could live anywhere you wanted either. In fact, the 40s and 50s is right in the heart of the urbanization movement that happened precisely because capital concentrated, exactly like what is happening in many major cities today, and regular people could no longer afford to live where they grew up and had friends and family, and were left with little choice but to leave their existing life and head for the city to start a new one.
It wasn't particularly pleasant. Most people don't crave that kind of adventure. Most people would rather stay near to friends and family and the life they know, but sometimes you don't get that option. That remains true today.
It is not like in the 40s and 50s you could live anywhere you wanted either. In fact, the 40s and 50s is right in the heart of the urbanization movement that happened precisely because capital concentrated, exactly like what is happening in many major cities today, and regular people could no longer afford to live where they grew up and had friends and family, and were left with little choice but to leave their existing life and head for the city to start a new one.
It wasn't particularly pleasant. Most people don't crave that kind of adventure. Most people would rather stay near to friends and family and the life they know, but sometimes you don't get that option. That remains true today.
The difference between then and now, is now the planet is full.
At some point there must be a paradigm shift in this line of thinking or very bad things will happen.
At some point there must be a paradigm shift in this line of thinking or very bad things will happen.
In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner.
> Has that really changed?
Yes. From http://www.mybudget360.com/the-magical-2-housing-ratio-betwe...:
> Back in 1950 the median home price cost a little above 2 times the annual median household income [2.2]
> in 1970 the ratio became more favorable to US households [1.7]
> After this point[..] prices remained fairly stable only because of the two income household, until 2000 [2.3]
> After this point, things went haywire. Even today after the [subprime mortgage crisis] the ratio is still out of sync with 50 years of data [3.3]
Keep in mind that this data is comparing housing prices to household income, not per-capita income.
> Has that really changed?
Yes. From http://www.mybudget360.com/the-magical-2-housing-ratio-betwe...:
> Back in 1950 the median home price cost a little above 2 times the annual median household income [2.2]
> in 1970 the ratio became more favorable to US households [1.7]
> After this point[..] prices remained fairly stable only because of the two income household, until 2000 [2.3]
> After this point, things went haywire. Even today after the [subprime mortgage crisis] the ratio is still out of sync with 50 years of data [3.3]
Keep in mind that this data is comparing housing prices to household income, not per-capita income.
> Rule of thumb says you shouldn't spend more than three times your income on housing
Is this a rural rule of thumb? Looking around me, I see people routinely paying 5-10 times their annual income to get a crappy city apartment and spending the majority of their income making mortgage payments. The alternatives, spending the majority of their income on rent or moving to an area where the majority of the income would vanish, do not seem better.
Is this a rural rule of thumb? Looking around me, I see people routinely paying 5-10 times their annual income to get a crappy city apartment and spending the majority of their income making mortgage payments. The alternatives, spending the majority of their income on rent or moving to an area where the majority of the income would vanish, do not seem better.
A conforming loan usually requires you to have a debt to income ratio of 43%. I'm definitely not in a rural area and you can buy a decent house in a slightly above average school system for $200K - if you live in the burbs.
Then you decide have your first child and every reasonable thing you said suddenly looks impossible.
I don't see why? The three times income rule already carries the assumption that you have children. When you get out to the five times income rule you are probably right that children are out of the question, but we're only sitting at 3.4 times income. With the potential to earn more with a little effort, bringing us closer to the ideal three times income.
Not even in the 1940s or 1950s could you buy a house with a week's pay. Housing has always been a substantial cost.
Not even in the 1940s or 1950s could you buy a house with a week's pay. Housing has always been a substantial cost.
Or you get a major illness, or you ever want to retire...
Living in Sydney Australia spending three times my income or less would be impossible. Didn't think it would be possible within decent travel of any city hub.
I'm sure there are places where housing is unaffordable, but that was also true in the 40s and 50s. The people in that time couldn't just live anywhere they felt like. They did have to move to specific places to find that housing that was affordable, just as is true today.
It's interesting how we are so quick to ignore the uncomfortable details about what home ownership in the 40s and 50s entailed, only focusing on the fact that it was possible, then thinking we can apply that to our ideal living situation in 2018.
It's interesting how we are so quick to ignore the uncomfortable details about what home ownership in the 40s and 50s entailed, only focusing on the fact that it was possible, then thinking we can apply that to our ideal living situation in 2018.
Ever compare a 1940s middle-class house to a middle-class house of today? They're tiny. They probably have one bathroom. The bedrooms will be small. The garage, if there is one, is probably not attached to the house. The household probably had one car. Maybe had a phone, maybe not. Such a lifestyle could still be afforded buy a single income earner if they would really live the way a 1940s family lived.
My father's house was built in the 1940's and is as you described.
It's now going for over $225k in a flyover state. He bought the place in the 80's for $72k on a $40k/yr salary - and the job he held to pay for it pays $44k/yr today. The exact same house is out of each for the exact same job today.
Housing has skyrocketed by all available metrics. The one that matters most of course is % of after tax income spent, and it's never been higher.
It's now going for over $225k in a flyover state. He bought the place in the 80's for $72k on a $40k/yr salary - and the job he held to pay for it pays $44k/yr today. The exact same house is out of each for the exact same job today.
Housing has skyrocketed by all available metrics. The one that matters most of course is % of after tax income spent, and it's never been higher.
Unless you've already accounted for inflation, that $72k house (assuming it was bought in 1985) actually cost about $172,000 in 2018 dollars.
That means the house's value increased by about 30% over the past 33 years. I don't know the specifics of the situation, but some of that 30% is probably from increased economic development in the area it's in. Some may also be from improvements made to the house.
Regardless, phrasing it as "house used to cost $72K and now costs three times that" is inaccurate and misleading.
The other part of the problem is that the income for the same job has only increased by $4,000/year in the past thirty years, while it should have increased by about $50,000 over the same time to keep pace with inflation.
That's a much more serious problem than increased housing costs.
Disclaimer: I am not an economist so my understanding of the situation might be horribly flawed. Please correct me if that's the case.
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
That means the house's value increased by about 30% over the past 33 years. I don't know the specifics of the situation, but some of that 30% is probably from increased economic development in the area it's in. Some may also be from improvements made to the house.
Regardless, phrasing it as "house used to cost $72K and now costs three times that" is inaccurate and misleading.
The other part of the problem is that the income for the same job has only increased by $4,000/year in the past thirty years, while it should have increased by about $50,000 over the same time to keep pace with inflation.
That's a much more serious problem than increased housing costs.
Disclaimer: I am not an economist so my understanding of the situation might be horribly flawed. Please correct me if that's the case.
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
Have you adjusted for inflation?
The other thing people were more willing to do in the 1940s was move to where they could afford to live.
It was much easier to find places like that, though.
The rust belt was booming then. There were more options. Now for the best opportunity you have to take a risk and live in the major cities with astronomical housing prices or long commutes.
The rust belt was booming then. There were more options. Now for the best opportunity you have to take a risk and live in the major cities with astronomical housing prices or long commutes.
It never ceases to amaze me that people seem to be under the impression that there's no good jobs anywhere that isn't the coast. Oh well, I guess we silly flyovers can just keep this affordable and comfortable living situation to ourselves.
You've missed my point, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough, from parent:
> The other thing people were more willing to do in the 1940s was move to where they could afford to live.
Where can you move today that offers affordable living and a good, steady job? Lets say you were on the expensive east coast and wanted a cheaper, more affordable place to live, with work. You'd consider Pittsburgh or Detroit, maybe. Both tick the boxes - affordable, plenty of good, union jobs, enough to own a home and build a family.
Does Pittsburgh fit that bill today? The answer is unequivocally no. Sure, housing prices are down compared nationally - but the last 10 years have seen a boon in housing prices here. Flipping is happening like crazy. Rents have increased. But wages have not - because cost of living adjustments punish employees in places like Pittsburgh.
I assume you're coming from a tech perspective. It's easy for that to skew your PoV. Think of it as the lay person. It's a much riskier prospect today.
Pittsburgh is one of the worst cities in the country for retaining recent college graduates (Pitt, CMU, Duquesne, etc). Why? The job market simply isn't large enough.
> The other thing people were more willing to do in the 1940s was move to where they could afford to live.
Where can you move today that offers affordable living and a good, steady job? Lets say you were on the expensive east coast and wanted a cheaper, more affordable place to live, with work. You'd consider Pittsburgh or Detroit, maybe. Both tick the boxes - affordable, plenty of good, union jobs, enough to own a home and build a family.
Does Pittsburgh fit that bill today? The answer is unequivocally no. Sure, housing prices are down compared nationally - but the last 10 years have seen a boon in housing prices here. Flipping is happening like crazy. Rents have increased. But wages have not - because cost of living adjustments punish employees in places like Pittsburgh.
I assume you're coming from a tech perspective. It's easy for that to skew your PoV. Think of it as the lay person. It's a much riskier prospect today.
Pittsburgh is one of the worst cities in the country for retaining recent college graduates (Pitt, CMU, Duquesne, etc). Why? The job market simply isn't large enough.
Pittsburgh is a single city, though. There's a fair number of cities that do fit that bill - Des Moines, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Omaha, Cincinnati, etc etc. Pittsburgh is in an awkward point where it's trying to become more of a tech hub, but the jobs haven't started popping up to actually fill that void quite yet.
I am coming from a tech perspective, but most of my friends and family are not. Their stories aren't wholly dissimilar - those of us who were in tech could afford homes faster than those who are not, but most everyone who is aiming to achieve that goal isn't having a problem doing so around here.
I am coming from a tech perspective, but most of my friends and family are not. Their stories aren't wholly dissimilar - those of us who were in tech could afford homes faster than those who are not, but most everyone who is aiming to achieve that goal isn't having a problem doing so around here.
Mortgage interest rates were about 12% in the 80's, and as high as 18%(!) in 1981. At 20% down, the 30yr fixed mortgage would have been $600/mo at 12% vs $900/mo today at 4.5%.
Interest rates is mainly the issue. Money is insanely cheap right now (and has been for many years) making assets rise in value. Bump a mortgage to 14% like it was in the early 80’s and you’d see the home price cut in half.
I remember being a kid in the 80’s and getting 5.4% on a savings account!
I remember being a kid in the 80’s and getting 5.4% on a savings account!
I suppose the way you finance the purchase of said house is different today and as a result the price is different too.
I think a lot of my age group would be happy to buy such houses if there were any available. Where I'm from there are none, and if there are, they still sell for over half a million.
Nobody is questioning the economic growth from 40s to 80s (Golden Era). Its the growth (and inequality) after that period that is in question. The concern now is the economic prospects for the millennial and future generations.
The first post in this thread explicitly compares the present to the 40s. It seems somewhat unreasonable to expect ams6110 to foresee you moving the goalposts.
The original post refers to the golden era as well and its decline.
"Prosperity has been increasing in the 20th century, but has not increased for a few decades."
No goalposts are changing.
> In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Such a house now would be on the verge of bankruptcy.
I dunno, it feels like responding to that with a comparison of a household in the 40s to one today is fair.
I dunno, it feels like responding to that with a comparison of a household in the 40s to one today is fair.
Please, please direct me to such a housing market. I am desperate to find such a home.
Do you just want a house in a old neighborhood or an affordable one in an old neighborhood? San Diego has quite a few of the former.
I dont get the desire for huge houses - finding a nice 1500sqft home is hard - yes the extra space is great, but I gotta heat and cool that space.
Beyond that - in 1948, radio was something everyone hard, Television was a luxury, a home phone was pretty universal, owning a car less so, even electric coffee pots were seen less often - no smart phones, tablets or home computers - though many had a typewriter. People wrote letters frequently, as long distance phone calls were a luxury.
Beyond that - in 1948, radio was something everyone hard, Television was a luxury, a home phone was pretty universal, owning a car less so, even electric coffee pots were seen less often - no smart phones, tablets or home computers - though many had a typewriter. People wrote letters frequently, as long distance phone calls were a luxury.
The thing is though the whole "kids these days with their fancy TV and cable and monthly bills!" is almost becoming outdated, and was only a "thing" for a few decades.
Now I can replace all of that with a single device and single monthly bill - a device I need to have professionally anyways to participate in most of the economy.
My slightly younger millenial friends probably have monthly recurring expenses not a whole lot more % of income wise than the 1940's. They pay for a cellular data package and have a relatively modern phone, and that's about it. A 52" flat-screen TV is less than the cost of a radio in the 1940's today - it's just not relevant.
Now I can replace all of that with a single device and single monthly bill - a device I need to have professionally anyways to participate in most of the economy.
My slightly younger millenial friends probably have monthly recurring expenses not a whole lot more % of income wise than the 1940's. They pay for a cellular data package and have a relatively modern phone, and that's about it. A 52" flat-screen TV is less than the cost of a radio in the 1940's today - it's just not relevant.
I'd argue that the MRC that most people in the 20-35 range pay is probably about 25% more than it would have been in 1948 - in 1948, most people might take a couple magazines, the newspaper, and of course, their phone service.
There is a convincing argument however to me, that the poor of 2018, have a better existence and are better connected to the world that the poor of 1948.
There is a convincing argument however to me, that the poor of 2018, have a better existence and are better connected to the world that the poor of 1948.
My dad (born 1957) grew up in a tiny farmhouse, 6th of 8 kids, and had an outhouse until I believe 8th grade. Meaning my oldest couple aunts and uncles moved out before they had indoor plumbing.
Admittedly, they were pretty poor, but most people couldn't even imagine living in those conditions anymore. At the time it wasn't unusual.
Admittedly, they were pretty poor, but most people couldn't even imagine living in those conditions anymore. At the time it wasn't unusual.
If knowledge and intelligence keep progressing while nothing is done about housing, I can imagine the educated poor resorting to ever more extreme "out of the box" solutions:
Why do we live in houses? Partially to meet certain basic necessities:
- shelter from adverse temperature (too hot or too cold outside), adverse weather (rain, snow, wind): outside walls and roof
- a place to wash, a mirror to inspect yourself, a toilet: bathroom
- a place to sleep: bedroom
- a place to eat: a table and chairs
- a place for work: a desk and a chair
- privacy: a lock on the door to prevent theft, or violence
- a place for leisure or inviting guests: living room
Out of poverty leisure is likely to be sacrificed, but it may be possible to live a much cheaper life if these functionalities can be compactly (and probably inadequately) substituted. What features can be portably arranged into a suit? Imagine a kind of space suit -not intended for actual space- with smart temperature control say inspired on a rete mirabile [0] to exchange mass (say import oxygen and export carbon dioxide, while conserving heat), humidity etc, depending on outside and inside measurements. This would probably necessitate a cheap helmet to keep the conditioned air inside (during adverse outside conditionns). It should be weather proof too. It should require little clean-up, or alternatively the suit should be lightweight enough so an it can be carried or washed while the extra is worn. A big problem for homeless people is theft and violence. So the suit should have intelligent motion detectors, and possibly communicate to other high-tech low-lifes to share news of danger, in order to allow sleep. Sanitation will probably be commercialized cubicles of bathrooms. Similarily workspace will probably be measured in desks (with a selectable height limit for your stuff) and archives, and these will be stored as trays by an automated system, such that you can enter one of the vacant rooms, login, select one of your desks or boxes, after which your tray/desk is loaded in front of you, exactly as you left the contents on the desk the previous time. You rent the room at some price per hour, but also each desk or volume of boxes at their respective rates for storage.
[0] Rete mirabile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_mirabile
But I believe we will fix the housing issue in a more fundamentalist way.
Why do we live in houses? Partially to meet certain basic necessities:
- shelter from adverse temperature (too hot or too cold outside), adverse weather (rain, snow, wind): outside walls and roof
- a place to wash, a mirror to inspect yourself, a toilet: bathroom
- a place to sleep: bedroom
- a place to eat: a table and chairs
- a place for work: a desk and a chair
- privacy: a lock on the door to prevent theft, or violence
- a place for leisure or inviting guests: living room
Out of poverty leisure is likely to be sacrificed, but it may be possible to live a much cheaper life if these functionalities can be compactly (and probably inadequately) substituted. What features can be portably arranged into a suit? Imagine a kind of space suit -not intended for actual space- with smart temperature control say inspired on a rete mirabile [0] to exchange mass (say import oxygen and export carbon dioxide, while conserving heat), humidity etc, depending on outside and inside measurements. This would probably necessitate a cheap helmet to keep the conditioned air inside (during adverse outside conditionns). It should be weather proof too. It should require little clean-up, or alternatively the suit should be lightweight enough so an it can be carried or washed while the extra is worn. A big problem for homeless people is theft and violence. So the suit should have intelligent motion detectors, and possibly communicate to other high-tech low-lifes to share news of danger, in order to allow sleep. Sanitation will probably be commercialized cubicles of bathrooms. Similarily workspace will probably be measured in desks (with a selectable height limit for your stuff) and archives, and these will be stored as trays by an automated system, such that you can enter one of the vacant rooms, login, select one of your desks or boxes, after which your tray/desk is loaded in front of you, exactly as you left the contents on the desk the previous time. You rent the room at some price per hour, but also each desk or volume of boxes at their respective rates for storage.
[0] Rete mirabile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_mirabile
But I believe we will fix the housing issue in a more fundamentalist way.
Of course the plots generally seem to have been much larger. None of this sixteenth of an acre stuff.
And that's where all your money is going, to buy that sixteenth of an acre. The house itself is only a very small part of the cost in many of the metro areas beset by housing crisis.
And that's where all your money is going, to buy that sixteenth of an acre. The house itself is only a very small part of the cost in many of the metro areas beset by housing crisis.
Timely support of your point: http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/population-immiseration... Prosperity stopped increasing in the late 70's, by a variety of measures (some of them even biological/medical).
If we peg the 1970s as when things changed, that is about the time that Bretton Woods/the gold standard ended and growth in GDP growth stopped being a proxy for per capita growth of energy use.
Hard to know if that was cause or effect though, it seems unlikely that the monetary system changed because everything was going well. It does suggest the modern monetary system is a bit of a lemon.
EDIT scratch that, it is madness to say it is causal. But it does do a great job of hiding symptoms.
Hard to know if that was cause or effect though, it seems unlikely that the monetary system changed because everything was going well. It does suggest the modern monetary system is a bit of a lemon.
EDIT scratch that, it is madness to say it is causal. But it does do a great job of hiding symptoms.
I'm hardly an expert so I'll welcome someone who is to correct my mistakes. However, the main problem with the gold standard was that it's too easy to corner the market in gold. As new economies gain traction, they have to purchase gold to back up their currencies. However, at the time the liquidity in gold was very, very low because everybody was hording it. This caused the price to spike. Occasionally large amounts of gold would be sold, causing huge dips in the price. Because the currencies were bound to the price of gold, this caused instability in the currencies.
Something like the gold standard works well if you have a zero sum game. As one economy does well, another suffers. Wealth is transferred from one economy to another. However, it doesn't work like that. Especially as Japan was starting to kick into high gear, overall wealth increased.
Lots more interesting reading if you care to dig into what both the US and the USSR were doing with gold reserves at that time. My own impression is that the gold standard was unsustainable and would have resulted in catastrophe if they had persisted. Others clearly disagree. ;-)
Bretton Woods comes with its own problems, though. Making capital available in order to bootstrap growth is kind of an obvious solution from an economic perspective, but I think that making capital too available allows bad actors to play a lot of funny games. (Bad actors being those who optimise for their own gain while intentionally or unintentionally screwing everybody else over). In the west there was a lot of deregulation in the late 90s and early 2000s as well, which has made the problem worse.
Even now, I think that the economic policies of most countries are positively loopy. You've got most of the western world hovering on a knife's edge of personal bankruptcy and most of the growth tied up in extracting even more money from the common people. In Japan (where I live), we've got Abenomics, which is just Reganomics in disguise -- we'll give rich people a lot of money and they will disperse it to the poor people (really, they will... I promise). There is a massive national debt, which isn't actually that bad because taxes are low, but now they've loosened the rules on personal debt and... will normal people actually be able to pay the bills?
So I wouldn't say that Bretton Woods is really at fault, but I'll agree that the subsequent economic policies that Bretton Woods enabled are making it pretty easy to ignore the underlying problems that appear to be getting worse. Whether it all blows up on us in the near future?... No idea.
Something like the gold standard works well if you have a zero sum game. As one economy does well, another suffers. Wealth is transferred from one economy to another. However, it doesn't work like that. Especially as Japan was starting to kick into high gear, overall wealth increased.
Lots more interesting reading if you care to dig into what both the US and the USSR were doing with gold reserves at that time. My own impression is that the gold standard was unsustainable and would have resulted in catastrophe if they had persisted. Others clearly disagree. ;-)
Bretton Woods comes with its own problems, though. Making capital available in order to bootstrap growth is kind of an obvious solution from an economic perspective, but I think that making capital too available allows bad actors to play a lot of funny games. (Bad actors being those who optimise for their own gain while intentionally or unintentionally screwing everybody else over). In the west there was a lot of deregulation in the late 90s and early 2000s as well, which has made the problem worse.
Even now, I think that the economic policies of most countries are positively loopy. You've got most of the western world hovering on a knife's edge of personal bankruptcy and most of the growth tied up in extracting even more money from the common people. In Japan (where I live), we've got Abenomics, which is just Reganomics in disguise -- we'll give rich people a lot of money and they will disperse it to the poor people (really, they will... I promise). There is a massive national debt, which isn't actually that bad because taxes are low, but now they've loosened the rules on personal debt and... will normal people actually be able to pay the bills?
So I wouldn't say that Bretton Woods is really at fault, but I'll agree that the subsequent economic policies that Bretton Woods enabled are making it pretty easy to ignore the underlying problems that appear to be getting worse. Whether it all blows up on us in the near future?... No idea.
Just an FYI, the Bretton Woods system was the gold tied system that lasted until the 70's and was discarded for a fully fiat system. From context it seems you're using the reference incorrectly to mean this post gold standard system.
Thanks for that! All this time I thought that Bretton Woods was the name of the meeting that stopped the gold tied system :-P Like I said, it's not my area of expertise. I appreciate the correction.
Indeed, though reading the article a bit more closely, it has a certain subtext of "look workers, money doesn't buy happiness, that's why we, the elites, stopped paying you any more. Learning the lesson!"
How long did it take after the industrial revolution to convince the power that be that they would have to pay for decent education and living conditions? A hundred year maybe? With the information age they just managed to convince us once again that they don't have to. So hopefully it won't take a hundred years this time, but I am not holding my breath.
Prosperity is shockingly hard to measure for something so quantifiable - nothing quantifiable alone works as a standard. If everyone has their weight in gold but are near starving that isn't prosperous. Similarly if food becomes cheap enough it utterly fails to be a meaningful indicator because everyone has enough. Even currency can fail - if Star Trek replicators and free energy were available it would certainly qualify as prosperous even if economic value chains break for many things due to sheer lack of things to trade for.
Thus we have weird and shapeable metrics of varying use even without pushing an agenda. What do you call a tiny supercomputer that were previously unavailable to even governments more expensive healthcare and housing? Using 1940s terms a homeless person with a cellphone would be the richest man in the world as it would be priceless given the ungodly expense and time to catch up to it.
Utility is technically the true way to measure but good luck unambiguously quantifying it, much less in a way everyone could agree with.
Thus we have weird and shapeable metrics of varying use even without pushing an agenda. What do you call a tiny supercomputer that were previously unavailable to even governments more expensive healthcare and housing? Using 1940s terms a homeless person with a cellphone would be the richest man in the world as it would be priceless given the ungodly expense and time to catch up to it.
Utility is technically the true way to measure but good luck unambiguously quantifying it, much less in a way everyone could agree with.
> outside of IT which still has it good
I don't know if I'd say IT has it good. IT just doesn't have it bad the way the rest of workforce does.
This assumes IT as a technical/business role, not just "tech" in general that includes software devs and hardware engineers. The python gurus and embedded systems analysts are doing okay, it's the cable monkeys and tier 1-2 support folks feeling the pinch.
I don't know if I'd say IT has it good. IT just doesn't have it bad the way the rest of workforce does.
This assumes IT as a technical/business role, not just "tech" in general that includes software devs and hardware engineers. The python gurus and embedded systems analysts are doing okay, it's the cable monkeys and tier 1-2 support folks feeling the pinch.
Do you have statistics to back up your claim?
To me it sounds like the American Dream, not so much like American reality of the 40s and 50s. Let me remind you that a) this was mainly about white middle class, and b) even among the white middle class this dream did not regularly come true ("Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller).
To me it sounds like the American Dream, not so much like American reality of the 40s and 50s. Let me remind you that a) this was mainly about white middle class, and b) even among the white middle class this dream did not regularly come true ("Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller).
Here's a famous TED talk by Hans Rosling that shows a lot of the trends continuing into the last few decades: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_...
I think this is the relevant graph [0] for what you're speaking about - price changes of selected US goods and services from 1997-2017.
[0]: https://imgur.com/a/JVjIQ8r
[0]: https://imgur.com/a/JVjIQ8r
>giving your kids an education
Only if you insist on universities. You can get an education almost for free on the internet.
Only if you insist on universities. You can get an education almost for free on the internet.
What a weird comment. There are a huge number of fields where you simply can't avoid "insisting" on universities. Try being a particle physicist outside a university lab. Try being any kind of medical professional without going to med school. Try being a lawyer with going to law school.
I'd be surprised if those careers represented more than 1% of the workforce combined. Do 100% of parents need to provide money to their adult offspring on the slim chance they decide that they are going to enter into a field that expects a degree but is not lucrative enough to justify paying for said degree by oneself?
You've found the outliers, but the vast majority of people will never find themselves in that kind of work to begin with.
You've found the outliers, but the vast majority of people will never find themselves in that kind of work to begin with.
Most of the people without any higher education are the ones in the bottom half of the population making less than 31k.
Not to be confused with higher education leading to a higher income. As we have seen, incomes have not risen with increasing rates of attainment. People today are making almost the exact same amount of money (inflation adjusted) as people were 40 years ago, back when having a higher education was quite rare.
It is true that people who are born successful are successful in what they do, be it the workplace or academia, and as more people seek to attain a post-secondary education the share of those on the most successful end of the spectrum with higher education grows, but that's not particularly useful information to those who were not born successful.
If 100% of the population had higher education, 50% of the population would still be making less than $31k. I live in what the OECD calls the most education nation in the world, where well over half of the population have a higher education, and the median income is still almost exactly what you shared here ($33,600 to be precise).
It is true that people who are born successful are successful in what they do, be it the workplace or academia, and as more people seek to attain a post-secondary education the share of those on the most successful end of the spectrum with higher education grows, but that's not particularly useful information to those who were not born successful.
If 100% of the population had higher education, 50% of the population would still be making less than $31k. I live in what the OECD calls the most education nation in the world, where well over half of the population have a higher education, and the median income is still almost exactly what you shared here ($33,600 to be precise).
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Rightly or wrongly, in much of the US parents consider private schools (elementary/middle/high schools) the only option.
Prosperity sure has increased all the way up to 2018 in the US, whether you like it or not. The median person today lives with luxuries that a Rockefeller was privy to 100 years ago.
God bless coldtea, I almost went batshit crazy when I read the article. Do not be fooled, we are in the worst growth period in recorded history. Just think about it, the WW1 and WW2 periods were better. Bullshit article.
The article cites income increase but doesn't talk about the necessary factors even if you're only talking numbers:
1) real inflation (ie, cost of living has skyrocketed due to rent/medical) outweighs any income increases.
2) overall wealth was not accounted for - in fact many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, probably far more than at any corresponding postwar period in the US.
In short "prosperity" != income. Ignoring things like cost of living and the high possibility of surprise bankruptcy due to medical emergencies lead to a very inaccurate picture.
1) real inflation (ie, cost of living has skyrocketed due to rent/medical) outweighs any income increases.
2) overall wealth was not accounted for - in fact many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, probably far more than at any corresponding postwar period in the US.
In short "prosperity" != income. Ignoring things like cost of living and the high possibility of surprise bankruptcy due to medical emergencies lead to a very inaccurate picture.
Well said, and the easiest metric you could look at w/r/t cost-of-living is the average income : house price ratio. What was once withing reach for most educated workers is now often a fantasy for the rich. Unfortunately it is also what the lion's share of paychecks is often spent on.
Real GDP per capita covers this. Inflation encompasses cost of living. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA Missing a breakdown by quartile, but it's the right metric
Does GDP per capita actually compare to median income? Sounds more like it uses mean income which is skewed by extremes (e.g. high earners).
This. An incredibly rich top 0.1% percent could skew GDP per capita a lot, but a happiness index not so much.
Simplifying things to the extreme, take 100 people where half of them earn $1 and are unhappy and half $2 and are happy. Give one person a $150 raise-- you just doubled the GDP but at best increased happiness by 1%.
It is no secret that a small percent of people have been getting very rich [1].
[1]: https://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/i...
Simplifying things to the extreme, take 100 people where half of them earn $1 and are unhappy and half $2 and are happy. Give one person a $150 raise-- you just doubled the GDP but at best increased happiness by 1%.
It is no secret that a small percent of people have been getting very rich [1].
[1]: https://money.cnn.com/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/i...
It would be weird for happiness to increase with prosperity. Think how much more stuff we have than people in the stone age. We should all be delirious with joy, all the time, if we expected happiness to increase with material wealth.
Any description of happiness that makes sense would have to say that it's some sort of local comparison, across various axes: how am I doing compared to previously/expectations/other people?
This is why when you acquire some new gadget, you say you're happy. You can now mow your lawn, which you couldn't before. Going forward, you expect to be able to mow your lawn. If your lawnmower breaks, you're sad. If it doesn't, a working lawnmower was already priced in.
This is why billionaires like Elon can be unhappy, too. Otherwise they would be bouncing off the walls giddy with joy all the time.
Any description of happiness that makes sense would have to say that it's some sort of local comparison, across various axes: how am I doing compared to previously/expectations/other people?
This is why when you acquire some new gadget, you say you're happy. You can now mow your lawn, which you couldn't before. Going forward, you expect to be able to mow your lawn. If your lawnmower breaks, you're sad. If it doesn't, a working lawnmower was already priced in.
This is why billionaires like Elon can be unhappy, too. Otherwise they would be bouncing off the walls giddy with joy all the time.
This is why happiness can only be reached by learning to appreciate what you have. You're much better off pondering how lucky you are to have, and how miserable you'd be without, the things you already have, rather than how happy you'd be with things you don't. The latter is an illusion.
That is excellent advice on an individual basis, but I don't think that is the point when the goal is to try and establish a broader perspective and evaluate a societal shift.
I mean that is exactly what a manager tells you when they cut hours, increase work, and dumpster workplace morale. They have very obvious financial incentive to provide less for the same output and there is no determinable metric of what is "reasonable". You're much better off in this case in actively searching for a better job if it is affecting your day to day life negatively.
People seem to forget that consistently throughout history that the societal shift has fallen so far negatively that it has resulted in the final resort of being solved by violent revolution.
I mean that is exactly what a manager tells you when they cut hours, increase work, and dumpster workplace morale. They have very obvious financial incentive to provide less for the same output and there is no determinable metric of what is "reasonable". You're much better off in this case in actively searching for a better job if it is affecting your day to day life negatively.
People seem to forget that consistently throughout history that the societal shift has fallen so far negatively that it has resulted in the final resort of being solved by violent revolution.
Exactly this.
The human psyche has its pluses and minuses. The fact is, humans are never satisfied with what they have, they always want more.
This is good when it comes to driving progress. We’d never have gone to the moon if we were satisfied with just colonizing the earth.
At the same time, it’s the root of a lot of unhappiness. People have grand expectations for their life - and fall into depression if they never reach them, despite the fact their life is far richer than most people experience.
The human psyche has its pluses and minuses. The fact is, humans are never satisfied with what they have, they always want more.
This is good when it comes to driving progress. We’d never have gone to the moon if we were satisfied with just colonizing the earth.
At the same time, it’s the root of a lot of unhappiness. People have grand expectations for their life - and fall into depression if they never reach them, despite the fact their life is far richer than most people experience.
Sounds like Stoicism.
> We should all be delirious with joy, all the time, if we expected happiness to increase with material wealth.
I actually do think it's plausible for happiness to increase with material wealth, but not because we're delirious with joy now, but rather because life was really, really, _really_ fucking horrible for the vast majority of human history (by our standards today).
Significantly, we can't actually measure happiness, and have to rely on "reported happiness", which is pretty much by definition anchored to expectations and thus not appropriate for long-term comparisons. Your point applies here: you wouldn't expect reported happiness to change directionally, on average.
I actually do think it's plausible for happiness to increase with material wealth, but not because we're delirious with joy now, but rather because life was really, really, _really_ fucking horrible for the vast majority of human history (by our standards today).
Significantly, we can't actually measure happiness, and have to rely on "reported happiness", which is pretty much by definition anchored to expectations and thus not appropriate for long-term comparisons. Your point applies here: you wouldn't expect reported happiness to change directionally, on average.
People adjust.
In 100 years, people will look back and say things like, "How did they survive 100 years ago? Some countries didn't even have decent governments, let alone proper healthcare for everyone. Some people lived on the streets. People could just walk up to you and kill you! Bang! You're dead.
Now that we've got personal electron shields and everyone is guaranteed food and medical care, people should be a lot happier than back then."
But in the end, it's all relative. We look at what we have and what we didn't have, we're thankful for it, and we go on. People in third-world countries are happy, too, despite not having all the modern conveniences.
And there are plenty of miserable people because people are people, in the end.
In 100 years, people will look back and say things like, "How did they survive 100 years ago? Some countries didn't even have decent governments, let alone proper healthcare for everyone. Some people lived on the streets. People could just walk up to you and kill you! Bang! You're dead.
Now that we've got personal electron shields and everyone is guaranteed food and medical care, people should be a lot happier than back then."
But in the end, it's all relative. We look at what we have and what we didn't have, we're thankful for it, and we go on. People in third-world countries are happy, too, despite not having all the modern conveniences.
And there are plenty of miserable people because people are people, in the end.
> Think how much more stuff we have than people in the stone age. We should all be delirious with joy, all the time, if we expected happiness to increase with material wealth.
I don’t see how the second sentence follows from the first. Can you explain? What rate of increase are you assuming?
I don’t see how the second sentence follows from the first. Can you explain? What rate of increase are you assuming?
Say there is some function connecting some measure of wealth to some measure of happiness. And the function would be monotonically increasing.
Well, the measure of wealth in the modern era ought to be orders of magnitude bigger than it was in the stone age. Back then people had control over something like 10 items. There were no property laws to ensure you kept them, either. If you got a minor cut it could get infected and kill you, there was no modern medicine. Your wife had a massive 5% chance of dying each time she gave birth, and that was a lot of times.
Whatever you thought the function was, the value ought to be much, much higher now than then.
Well, the measure of wealth in the modern era ought to be orders of magnitude bigger than it was in the stone age. Back then people had control over something like 10 items. There were no property laws to ensure you kept them, either. If you got a minor cut it could get infected and kill you, there was no modern medicine. Your wife had a massive 5% chance of dying each time she gave birth, and that was a lot of times.
Whatever you thought the function was, the value ought to be much, much higher now than then.
> Well, the measure of wealth in the modern era ought to be orders of magnitude bigger than it was in the stone age.
This is what I don't understand. Why should this make happiness "orders of magnitude bigger"? Isn’t it possible happiness has increased, just not by orders of magnitude?
This is what I don't understand. Why should this make happiness "orders of magnitude bigger"? Isn’t it possible happiness has increased, just not by orders of magnitude?
I think the point is that since we have OOM more wealth, we are looking at some sort of asymptotic behaviour, right?
So if you expected wealth to be connected to happiness, and the connection is linear, you would expect happiness to be similarly off the scale.
It doesn't seem to be the case, so maybe it's something like a logarithm, so there's still an upward slope but it's barely anything.
So if you expected wealth to be connected to happiness, and the connection is linear, you would expect happiness to be similarly off the scale.
It doesn't seem to be the case, so maybe it's something like a logarithm, so there's still an upward slope but it's barely anything.
> how am I doing compared to previously/expectations/other people?
This is a twisted way to view happiness. Wouldn't you be happier if you helped others succeed? Feel connected, part of something you really believe in?
Happiness is so much more than prosperity. Money helps you avoid death. Happiness exists on an entirely different foundation.
This is a twisted way to view happiness. Wouldn't you be happier if you helped others succeed? Feel connected, part of something you really believe in?
Happiness is so much more than prosperity. Money helps you avoid death. Happiness exists on an entirely different foundation.
This also ignores increases in costs of living, such as housing, and the destruction of concepts like 'career paths' where someone would be with a company for a long time and build economic and social value within a given area.
Indeed, claims for increase in prosperity seem pretty illusionary.
Headline: Most Americans are one paycheck away from the street
Subheading: Some 63% of people can’t deal with a $500 emergency
The website is CBS Market, fairly respectable, draws on several plausible studies.
Link: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-are-one-pay...
Headline: Most Americans are one paycheck away from the street
Subheading: Some 63% of people can’t deal with a $500 emergency
The website is CBS Market, fairly respectable, draws on several plausible studies.
Link: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-are-one-pay...
This has largely been debunked -- the questions asked were not about their access to sufficient funds. For example, the median American household has $1000 per month in disposable income ("beer money") after all typical living expenses. This fact alone should immediately raise questions about the assertion that the majority of households can't afford $500 in one-time cost, emergency or not.
The major source for this assertion is that most American's don't have $500 in savings accounts. Which is true. What is also true is that a large percentage of Americans with plenty of emergency cash don't even have a savings account -- it is an anachronism from a bygone era. Most Americans no longer own savings bonds either.
My emergency cash is in a checking account, like many Americans, so by the measure used in this article, I am completely broke.
The major source for this assertion is that most American's don't have $500 in savings accounts. Which is true. What is also true is that a large percentage of Americans with plenty of emergency cash don't even have a savings account -- it is an anachronism from a bygone era. Most Americans no longer own savings bonds either.
My emergency cash is in a checking account, like many Americans, so by the measure used in this article, I am completely broke.
A Bankrate[1] survey found that only 37% of respondents could cover a <=$1,000 emergency with savings (note: savings, not a "saving's account"). They did, however, add that another 23% could cover the expense by spending less on other things.
Given that, I'd say a large percentage of Americans do not have plenty of emergency cash. That's not to say most of America is "one paycheck away from the street" like the parent comment quoted...
[1]: https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/survey-how-american...
Given that, I'd say a large percentage of Americans do not have plenty of emergency cash. That's not to say most of America is "one paycheck away from the street" like the parent comment quoted...
[1]: https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/survey-how-american...
A Bankrate[1] survey found that only 37% of respondents could cover a <=$1,000 emergency with savings (note: savings, not a "saving's account"). They did, however, add that another 23% could cover the expense by spending less on other things.
The exact wording of the question is going to have a significant impact on the results and what they mean. In the real world, if I incur an unexpected $500 expense I'd put it on my credit card, which would get automatically paid from my checking account at the next billing cycle. It's not clear if that would incorrectly categorize me as not being able to afford it.
The exact wording of the question is going to have a significant impact on the results and what they mean. In the real world, if I incur an unexpected $500 expense I'd put it on my credit card, which would get automatically paid from my checking account at the next billing cycle. It's not clear if that would incorrectly categorize me as not being able to afford it.
Certain types of expenses cannot be put on credit card though.
Like the other study, you're mixing up the phrasing. The question they asked was 'How would you pay for an unexpected expense'? It was not, 'Could you for an unexpected expense using just your savings'?
I'd be in the 'reduce spending' camp since I try to avoid touching my savings.
I'd be in the 'reduce spending' camp since I try to avoid touching my savings.
The 37% makes sense, as that almost perfectly aligns with disposable income data if you assume relatively few people save their disposable income at that percentile (also likely true). Most people I know in that zone would put it on a credit card.
One usually-not-mentioned premise is that even though goods’ costs have typically been going down over time as physical product technology improves, many services (the majority of developed economies) are relatively unaffected by improvements in technology because they rely almost exclusively on labor. Rising inequality will make services more expensive to those on the poorer end. Poor people don’t struggle to get smart phones or food, they struggle to get daycare, medical care, education, etc.
There was an interview I listened to once by a lady that grew up in the early 20th century. One of the things she said was, "I never dreamed I would be rich enough to own a car, or poor enough that I couldn't afford a servant"
Labor has become vastly more expensive than it traditionally was, while physical goods have gotten much cheaper. (Housing excluded, obviously)
Labor has become vastly more expensive than it traditionally was, while physical goods have gotten much cheaper. (Housing excluded, obviously)
How is this the case while the average wage has not even kept up with inflation?
Firstly, wages grew much more rapidly until 1970. Secondly, even since then in the US wages have not fallen in real terms, they have just been level with inflation.
The phenomenon where labour gets more costly despite no gains in productivity because on average society has become wealthier is called Baumol's cost disease (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease). While a servant is not much more efficient than they were 100 years ago, they cost a lot more because there is now better alternative uses for their labour that bid up their price.
The phenomenon where labour gets more costly despite no gains in productivity because on average society has become wealthier is called Baumol's cost disease (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease). While a servant is not much more efficient than they were 100 years ago, they cost a lot more because there is now better alternative uses for their labour that bid up their price.
Blue collar labour is about to get very expensive. Observers in the trades are all saying the same thing: it's beyond bleak. The aptitude is gone.
Employers everywhere are saying the same thing - we can't find anybody competent at this form of labour. The normal response on HN will be "raise wages" - which we do and we tell them we can pay a lot more if they can perform ... except we still can't find anybody who has their shit together to the point they're capable of earning themselves a minimum wage. The opportunity costs of hiring create a situation where hiring anybody is a losing proposition - making employers very conservative despite the market braying for new workers. We want to hire because we want to make money, we'd do it if we could.
We can get people 'available to work' but they're so inept they can't be employed productively or even trained up because the snobbery of poverty is real and - a value judgement I know but it has to be said - prospective employees are also typically unusually unreliable people with smartphone, videogame or drug addictions, distracted, zero attention span.
I despise that arrogant middle class perspective of those who believe you just need to throw warm bodies at blue collar work. It does not work. It hasn't been true for a long time. "The world needs ditch diggers too" doesn't operate in a world where the ditch digger is using a mechanical excavator and is paid $60+ per hour is competing with an idiot using the excavator who will cost tens of thousands if he busts a pipe or hits something valuable. Literal shovel ready jobs do not exist! Tyler Cowen describes this in his book, Average is Over - the situation is not what politicians and most people think it is.
There's was a natural aptitude or blue collar culture that went unappreciated that is simply missing today. Now people are going to pay for that expertise in a way nobody had to before. Most blue collar workers operate together with a collection of machinery to augment their effort which is very expensive - a joinery guy installing a kitchen I saw last month had 20k of Festool tools laying around him, that's not even his workshop - the barrier to entry is getting higher all the time.
People have been saying labour compensation would occur (migration, middle class adaption, upskilling, machine replacment, houses built in factories) would occur for over a decade now and it hasn't happened in a meaningful way at scale and now the average age of a plumber in some states is near 60.
If you want to send in the Androids to do work, now would be a good time Silicon Valley... I suspect it's not really happening.
In a nutshell - just as infrastructure has been physically neglected in the West - so too has the skillset of the workers that maintain it. Where are the AR Platforms that teach a framer how to toenail studs into place? Has anybody here heard of companies producing such modules?
In ten years things are going to look very dire for the typical white collar worker, probably a good portion of the population is going to go bankrupt and lose their property - potholes and lots of anger.
As you've mentioned when the middle class lost all their servants to the factories and farms because the wages were higher - suddenly women who never had to clean or cook had to learn those skills - this was one of the drivers behind electrical home tools for cleaning and cooking (most cooking books were invented around this time says the Gastropod food podcast) and the feminist political movements. I think this will happen again and automation will occur but it's on the scale of decades, not years.
tldr; This gets worse before it gets better.
Employers everywhere are saying the same thing - we can't find anybody competent at this form of labour. The normal response on HN will be "raise wages" - which we do and we tell them we can pay a lot more if they can perform ... except we still can't find anybody who has their shit together to the point they're capable of earning themselves a minimum wage. The opportunity costs of hiring create a situation where hiring anybody is a losing proposition - making employers very conservative despite the market braying for new workers. We want to hire because we want to make money, we'd do it if we could.
We can get people 'available to work' but they're so inept they can't be employed productively or even trained up because the snobbery of poverty is real and - a value judgement I know but it has to be said - prospective employees are also typically unusually unreliable people with smartphone, videogame or drug addictions, distracted, zero attention span.
I despise that arrogant middle class perspective of those who believe you just need to throw warm bodies at blue collar work. It does not work. It hasn't been true for a long time. "The world needs ditch diggers too" doesn't operate in a world where the ditch digger is using a mechanical excavator and is paid $60+ per hour is competing with an idiot using the excavator who will cost tens of thousands if he busts a pipe or hits something valuable. Literal shovel ready jobs do not exist! Tyler Cowen describes this in his book, Average is Over - the situation is not what politicians and most people think it is.
There's was a natural aptitude or blue collar culture that went unappreciated that is simply missing today. Now people are going to pay for that expertise in a way nobody had to before. Most blue collar workers operate together with a collection of machinery to augment their effort which is very expensive - a joinery guy installing a kitchen I saw last month had 20k of Festool tools laying around him, that's not even his workshop - the barrier to entry is getting higher all the time.
People have been saying labour compensation would occur (migration, middle class adaption, upskilling, machine replacment, houses built in factories) would occur for over a decade now and it hasn't happened in a meaningful way at scale and now the average age of a plumber in some states is near 60.
If you want to send in the Androids to do work, now would be a good time Silicon Valley... I suspect it's not really happening.
In a nutshell - just as infrastructure has been physically neglected in the West - so too has the skillset of the workers that maintain it. Where are the AR Platforms that teach a framer how to toenail studs into place? Has anybody here heard of companies producing such modules?
In ten years things are going to look very dire for the typical white collar worker, probably a good portion of the population is going to go bankrupt and lose their property - potholes and lots of anger.
As you've mentioned when the middle class lost all their servants to the factories and farms because the wages were higher - suddenly women who never had to clean or cook had to learn those skills - this was one of the drivers behind electrical home tools for cleaning and cooking (most cooking books were invented around this time says the Gastropod food podcast) and the feminist political movements. I think this will happen again and automation will occur but it's on the scale of decades, not years.
tldr; This gets worse before it gets better.
But they have, and then some. The datum you're referencing misses out on compensation as a whole. Compensation includes a wide array of factors such as insurance, paid time off, sick leave, and various other perks and benefits. This [1] is the graph you should be considering. That is Nonfarm Business Sector: Real Compensation Per Hour. And just to be completely clear "real" means that that graph is indeed inflation adjusted.
"Nonfarm Business Sector" is defined as "a subset of the domestic economy and excludes the economic activities of the following: general government, private households, nonprofit organizations serving individuals, and farms. The nonfarm business sector accounted for about 77 percent of the value of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2000."
[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB
"Nonfarm Business Sector" is defined as "a subset of the domestic economy and excludes the economic activities of the following: general government, private households, nonprofit organizations serving individuals, and farms. The nonfarm business sector accounted for about 77 percent of the value of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2000."
[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB
Well, consider you pay the dealership $80-120/hr for the mechanic's time, but the mechanic gets only $30-40 of that.
The billed rate is not just for the mechanics time. It also has to cover the non billable support staff and other fixed costs. The dealership is not taking home $80 an hour.
I am pretty sure everyone, except for the 1%, struggle to get daycare, medical care, and education.
Think outside your US bubble please. What you say is not even remotely true in most European countries.
Probably more like the top 10%.
You might want to visit Europe at some point. That's a very specific US problem. (Europe's not problem-free, but access to daycare/medical care/education is much easier to obtain there)
Sort of. It is probably better but if you don't have stable living conditions, which many people don't, that affects everything else. So you can say that people have access to daycare, but if you involuntarily have to move around a lot that is a real overall decrease in quality of that daycare.
Inequality dramatically matters in any realm where there is a finite resource. I do not comprehend how articles are written with the idea that relative wealth has no effect on prices.
People feel happier when they feel secure. We have nicer gadgets now but life is also more stressful because finding a stable long-term career is more difficult.
Exactly right! Prosperity doesn't mean anything without security. It does't mean anything if you know that you can lose it all the moment you exhale, or you could lose it all by getting sick. DH Lawrence wrote about this the last time inequality was this high (1928).
https://kalliope.org/en/text/lawrence2001061123
https://kalliope.org/en/text/lawrence2001061123
Indeed, thinking about my own life, I hoard wealth because of the risk of an event such as a medical emergency, unemployment, or my kids not being able to launch their own careers.
I find this interesting and it reminds me of a friend of mine who is Finnish. After college, she moved back to Finland, knowing she wouldn't make as much money there as she would in the USA.
But she also mentioned she wouldn't need to. There, she didn't have to worry about saving money for her kid's college and a medical emergency was affordable without touching into life savings. Buying a house was the big she could think of saving money towards.
But she also mentioned she wouldn't need to. There, she didn't have to worry about saving money for her kid's college and a medical emergency was affordable without touching into life savings. Buying a house was the big she could think of saving money towards.
It's easy to understand why people may not believe that prosperity has increased across the board. I also used to believe this, but after looking at the data I'm not entirely sure what it is that drives our perception. This [1] paper from the urban institute is something I found precisely when looking to put specific numbers to the hollowing out of the middle class and the overall decline, or at least stagnation, of prosperity.
The paper does describe that hollowing out in clear detail. In 1979 the middle class controlled 46% of all income and the upper/rich classes controlled 30%. Today (as of 2014) the rich and upper class control 63% and the middle class's share of society has been reduced to 26%. There's even been a chiseling out in the size of the middle class declining from 38.8% to 32%. And that's pretty much where most articles tend to leave off the state of economic change. It's all true and it sounds pretty grim.
But context, as always is, is everything. This is the change in the size of each economic group from 1979 to 2014 as a percent of the total population:
- Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8%
- Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4%
- Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32%
- Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1%
- Poor or Near-Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8%
The reason the top's share of income has increased is because people are moving, at an incredibly rapid pace, from the lower classes the upper classes. Statistics like this are certainly subject to biased interpretation and 'massaging' - though I think the paper is extremely transparent in their methodology. But if one is curious about the source, wiki has a section on the political stance of the Urban Institute [2]. I found this all eye opening to the point that it actually changed my worldview. Economically we are doing something very right.
[1] - https://www.urban.org/research/publication/growing-size-and-...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Institute#Political_stan...
The paper does describe that hollowing out in clear detail. In 1979 the middle class controlled 46% of all income and the upper/rich classes controlled 30%. Today (as of 2014) the rich and upper class control 63% and the middle class's share of society has been reduced to 26%. There's even been a chiseling out in the size of the middle class declining from 38.8% to 32%. And that's pretty much where most articles tend to leave off the state of economic change. It's all true and it sounds pretty grim.
But context, as always is, is everything. This is the change in the size of each economic group from 1979 to 2014 as a percent of the total population:
- Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8%
- Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4%
- Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32%
- Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1%
- Poor or Near-Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8%
The reason the top's share of income has increased is because people are moving, at an incredibly rapid pace, from the lower classes the upper classes. Statistics like this are certainly subject to biased interpretation and 'massaging' - though I think the paper is extremely transparent in their methodology. But if one is curious about the source, wiki has a section on the political stance of the Urban Institute [2]. I found this all eye opening to the point that it actually changed my worldview. Economically we are doing something very right.
[1] - https://www.urban.org/research/publication/growing-size-and-...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Institute#Political_stan...
I wouldn't define $100k for a family of 3 as upper middle class. And a big part of what defined class is how much control you have in your life. If you have to work 80 hours a week and get $100k that's far different than working 40 hours a week and getting $100k. Another thing is how secure your position is. Are you at risk of being outsourced? Is your job going to be automated? Are you in construction with temporary employment that can disappear at any time? Do you live in an area where you have other employment prospects and your children have the opportunity to have a good education and make good friends?
All of these are more important for the class discussion than a snapshot of income, in my opinion. What is probably happening is that long term wealth is building in certain zip codes, where the chances of success are larger and larger compared to other zip codes, also why it costs so much more to live in a handful of urban areas than other places. The competition for these high performing places causes quite a bit of insecurity.
All of these are more important for the class discussion than a snapshot of income, in my opinion. What is probably happening is that long term wealth is building in certain zip codes, where the chances of success are larger and larger compared to other zip codes, also why it costs so much more to live in a handful of urban areas than other places. The competition for these high performing places causes quite a bit of insecurity.
I wouldn't define $100k for a family of 3 as upper middle class
If your household income is $100K, you're close the 4th quartile of income.
https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-pe...
Many households in the US see six figures as an unattainable dream.
If your household income is $100K, you're close the 4th quartile of income.
https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-pe...
Many households in the US see six figures as an unattainable dream.
I think the point is that there is more to 'class' than money. If you're a single income family in a low cost part of the country where the working person is pulling in $100k working 40 hours a week in a stable and secure job, then you're definitely upper middle class.
If on the other hand you're a dual income family in one of the more expensive parts of the country and both of you work 60 hour weeks in a very insecure job market to clear a combined $100k then you're probably not upper middle class.
If on the other hand you're a dual income family in one of the more expensive parts of the country and both of you work 60 hour weeks in a very insecure job market to clear a combined $100k then you're probably not upper middle class.
Prosperity is a proxy for consumption. We measure it and then we pursue it. We are so convinced that we've shortened financial wealth down to wealth, and have completely forgotten there are different type of wealth. For example, spiritual wealth.
Happiness is subjective. And if the science is correct, it's independent of consumption. Western culture and power structure is wired to create financial wealth, not dismiss it.
Happiness is subjective. And if the science is correct, it's independent of consumption. Western culture and power structure is wired to create financial wealth, not dismiss it.
> Happiness is subjective. And if the science is correct, it's independent of consumption.
This is true after a certain point. It's independent of consumption, but there's an amount of wealth we need to attain to meet a baseline of material needs that's are simply necessary.
As the grandkid of a woman who couldn't afford shoes, a living space or sometimes even food when she was young, I can attest that my grandma's (and my family's) life got much better and happier once they were able buy food, clothes and a house. My grandma is very happy now that she can travel and get to be marveled by the beauties of our home country with money she saves and my aunts/uncles give her.
As much as we shouldn't pursue material wealth for the sake luxury, superficiality and consumerism, we shouldn't dismiss it as completely unliked from happiness because up to a point it is the source of lots stability and security.
This is true after a certain point. It's independent of consumption, but there's an amount of wealth we need to attain to meet a baseline of material needs that's are simply necessary.
As the grandkid of a woman who couldn't afford shoes, a living space or sometimes even food when she was young, I can attest that my grandma's (and my family's) life got much better and happier once they were able buy food, clothes and a house. My grandma is very happy now that she can travel and get to be marveled by the beauties of our home country with money she saves and my aunts/uncles give her.
As much as we shouldn't pursue material wealth for the sake luxury, superficiality and consumerism, we shouldn't dismiss it as completely unliked from happiness because up to a point it is the source of lots stability and security.
No doubt there's a baseline. There's also a point of diminishing return. Few have a lot. A lot have little. And both camps are less and less happy. This can't go on forever.
Humans are social animals. One of the primary drives of most social animals is to get as high up in the status/dominance hierarchy as possible, since this improves an organism's access to mates. Status and dominance are relative to other members of the species and, thus, unrelated to the absolute level of an organism's access to food and other resources.
Except that pretty much no social animal with dominance hierarchy has a ranking function as simple as "status=mates". Most animals track the cost(e.g. more stress, higher metabolic rate) of high status vs the rewards. Which means that in an environment of abundance, the cost often exceeds the rewards.
There's also the phenomenon of reverse hierarchies (essentially, lower ranking members band together to keep anybody from dominating them). Which has at the very least been proposed as an explanation for altruistic behavior in humans, too.
And then there's the point that happiness is not related to status, or access to mates, or even access to resources beyond a certain point.
The world's a bit more complicated than ev. psych suggests.
Edit: No matter if you agree or disagree, Boehm's paper is certainly an interesting read. https://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/boehm.pd...
There's also the phenomenon of reverse hierarchies (essentially, lower ranking members band together to keep anybody from dominating them). Which has at the very least been proposed as an explanation for altruistic behavior in humans, too.
And then there's the point that happiness is not related to status, or access to mates, or even access to resources beyond a certain point.
The world's a bit more complicated than ev. psych suggests.
Edit: No matter if you agree or disagree, Boehm's paper is certainly an interesting read. https://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/boehm.pd...
I think this paper is one of the most interesting results in this regard:
> Money and Happiness: Rank of Income, Not Income, Affects Life Satisfaction
> https://www.jstor.org/stable/41062232
Of course, the relation is not perfect because there are probably more than half a dozen other major things that can go wrong; most prominently disease, relationship and work situation.
I could imagine that dissatisfaction due to disease also largely comes from comparison with others. If everybody is healthier, then more minor diseases have a stronger negative effect on life satisfaction; so not much is gained.
Work satisfaction might have improved, but the hedonic treadmill probably also diminishes the returns in that case.
I could imagine that relationship satisfaction has decreased with the loss of the classical gender roles and culture regulating all of that. E.g. it is known that premarital promiscuity results in decreased marriage satisfaction:
http://nationalmarriageproject.org/wordpress/wp-content/uplo...
> Money and Happiness: Rank of Income, Not Income, Affects Life Satisfaction
> https://www.jstor.org/stable/41062232
Of course, the relation is not perfect because there are probably more than half a dozen other major things that can go wrong; most prominently disease, relationship and work situation.
I could imagine that dissatisfaction due to disease also largely comes from comparison with others. If everybody is healthier, then more minor diseases have a stronger negative effect on life satisfaction; so not much is gained.
Work satisfaction might have improved, but the hedonic treadmill probably also diminishes the returns in that case.
I could imagine that relationship satisfaction has decreased with the loss of the classical gender roles and culture regulating all of that. E.g. it is known that premarital promiscuity results in decreased marriage satisfaction:
http://nationalmarriageproject.org/wordpress/wp-content/uplo...
> Which means that in an environment of abundance, the cost often exceeds the rewards.
The problem is that environments of abundance basically do not exist, because the population of a species quickly grows to consume any excess. The situation that humans in the developed world face is novel. We are not evolved to deal with abundance because abundance has only ever occurred during the brief gap between when we invented a new technology and when the population has expanded to fill the new, larger ecological niche which that technology enabled.
The problem is that environments of abundance basically do not exist, because the population of a species quickly grows to consume any excess. The situation that humans in the developed world face is novel. We are not evolved to deal with abundance because abundance has only ever occurred during the brief gap between when we invented a new technology and when the population has expanded to fill the new, larger ecological niche which that technology enabled.
Uh, yes, they do exist. The example of human cultures that comes to mind are Melanesians which IIRC had relative abundance of natural resources. In the animal kingdom, Bonobos are probably the prime example.
And IIRC, in both cases the reaction to abundance wasn't overpopulation, but the development of a sharing trait. (Because it reduces the cost incurred by unnecessary competition)
In the case of Melanesians, they were at some point taken over by relatively resource-poor Polynesians. (Inequality will cause trouble). Bonobos escaped that problem since they have no competitors in their natural habitat, and they evolved a somewhat interesting mechanism to cope with any of the smaller conflicts that might pop up. (E.g. access to favorite food instead of just normal food). If you're not familiar with it, I recommend reading up on it :)
And IIRC, in both cases the reaction to abundance wasn't overpopulation, but the development of a sharing trait. (Because it reduces the cost incurred by unnecessary competition)
In the case of Melanesians, they were at some point taken over by relatively resource-poor Polynesians. (Inequality will cause trouble). Bonobos escaped that problem since they have no competitors in their natural habitat, and they evolved a somewhat interesting mechanism to cope with any of the smaller conflicts that might pop up. (E.g. access to favorite food instead of just normal food). If you're not familiar with it, I recommend reading up on it :)
I would love to read a link about the Melanesians if you have one.
The only way a population doesn't expand to consume available resources is if there is something else which is controlling population growth. For many species, that would be predation. But humans are an apex species, so that's not a factor.
Disease is another possibility. The bubonic plague kept European populations below the malthusian limit for a long time in Europe. But not long enough to really have an effect on our evolved traits. Generally speaking, it's difficult for disease to be a significant problem without agriculture and the population density that it allows. But the consensus is that people who lived in agricultural societies pretty much universally had poor diets (ie, they were living at the Malthusian limit).
The other major factor that would prevent human populations from reaching the Malthusian limit is violence. But violence is usually committed for the purpose of increasing or maintaining status. Either by killing competitors within the tribe or by stealing women and resources from other tribes.
The only way a population doesn't expand to consume available resources is if there is something else which is controlling population growth. For many species, that would be predation. But humans are an apex species, so that's not a factor.
Disease is another possibility. The bubonic plague kept European populations below the malthusian limit for a long time in Europe. But not long enough to really have an effect on our evolved traits. Generally speaking, it's difficult for disease to be a significant problem without agriculture and the population density that it allows. But the consensus is that people who lived in agricultural societies pretty much universally had poor diets (ie, they were living at the Malthusian limit).
The other major factor that would prevent human populations from reaching the Malthusian limit is violence. But violence is usually committed for the purpose of increasing or maintaining status. Either by killing competitors within the tribe or by stealing women and resources from other tribes.
what about lions?
"get as high up in the status/dominance hierarchy as possible,"
I don't think that's true. A lot of people are OK with getting high enough to have a life they view as decent. Only very few want to get as high as possible.
I don't think that's true. A lot of people are OK with getting high enough to have a life they view as decent. Only very few want to get as high as possible.
Everywhere I look, I see people struggling to drive a nicer car, have nicer clothes, live in a better neighborhood, etc. That is all status seeking.
Everywhere I look, I also see people not struggling in that way. And they generally seem happier than the ones trying desperately to climb the ladder.
This argument I see to often really ignores the strength of the power law that exists in the US and other countries. In the Nordic states for example, there is still a power law but people are much happier than here because the power law is much weaker. People in the US have a severe lack of access to basic needs and in fact their access to basic needs has eroded in the last few decades comparatively.
Humans are also security focused rational animals, and if we can believe that there really is enough for us and no one will take it away, then happiness might be for all. Perhaps UBI will make us all happy
> if we can believe that there really is enough for us
What I am saying is that humans are not wired for the concept of "enough".
We have already had something similar to UBI in the form of fossil fuels and the abundant energy they provide, which have tremendously lowered the cost of the bare essentials in the developed world in the last 100 years. You can go into any super market in the US and buy a days worth of calories for about $3. And then you can go into a Walmart and buy a complete wardrobe for about $200. If you want to get crazy and provide yourself with the utter luxury of gasoline powered personal transportation (not a thing available to any human being until about 100 years ago), you can buy a pretty good car on Craigslist for about $1000.
But rather than use the excess provided by cheap and abundant energy to just chill and enjoy the good times, all I see is people (myself included :P) tripping over themselves to buy nicer clothes, and nicer car, or a house in a nicer neighborhood. So I'm having a hard time seeing how people will act differently with UBI. That said, I think something like UBI will be necessary to keep the masses from revolting against the rich. I just don't see it bringing universal happiness.
What I am saying is that humans are not wired for the concept of "enough".
We have already had something similar to UBI in the form of fossil fuels and the abundant energy they provide, which have tremendously lowered the cost of the bare essentials in the developed world in the last 100 years. You can go into any super market in the US and buy a days worth of calories for about $3. And then you can go into a Walmart and buy a complete wardrobe for about $200. If you want to get crazy and provide yourself with the utter luxury of gasoline powered personal transportation (not a thing available to any human being until about 100 years ago), you can buy a pretty good car on Craigslist for about $1000.
But rather than use the excess provided by cheap and abundant energy to just chill and enjoy the good times, all I see is people (myself included :P) tripping over themselves to buy nicer clothes, and nicer car, or a house in a nicer neighborhood. So I'm having a hard time seeing how people will act differently with UBI. That said, I think something like UBI will be necessary to keep the masses from revolting against the rich. I just don't see it bringing universal happiness.
I like the idea, and it would be interesting to see just how much i can reduce my monthly living costs by
Star Trek is interesting to consider. Most see it as a sort of utopia, one that people could only dream of. And it's certainly portrayed as such. Yet "poor" is not really a measure of what you have, but a measure of what you don't have. In our Star Trek society imagine the state of mind and affairs for the hoards of Star Fleet officers unable to find promotion and instead left to meaningless toil while somebody else calls all the shots.
Well actually that's hardly even touching on the issue. Consider those that can't even get into Star Fleet! There'd be entire movements from these "poor" individuals indignant at the inequities in society. Star Trek rarely tackled this issue as it was always intended to be an optimistic, not necessarily realistic, view of the future. However, it did indirectly delve into these issues in one episode - Tapestry. A brief clip of it. [1] A longer cut of the ending scene there. [2]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHoPLhpw2g4
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGvUDvZ7KyU
Well actually that's hardly even touching on the issue. Consider those that can't even get into Star Fleet! There'd be entire movements from these "poor" individuals indignant at the inequities in society. Star Trek rarely tackled this issue as it was always intended to be an optimistic, not necessarily realistic, view of the future. However, it did indirectly delve into these issues in one episode - Tapestry. A brief clip of it. [1] A longer cut of the ending scene there. [2]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHoPLhpw2g4
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGvUDvZ7KyU
UBI will make us a huge proportion of people serfs unless it is accompanied by wealth transfer. It is at best a temporary (on the order of 100-200 years) solution.
We don't have 200 years experience with the market economy itself, so it seems if UBI is a 200 year solution that's pretty good.
What’s a permanent solution, in your view?
I find the idea of prosperity==happiness a bit silly. Being satisfied with the quality of life you have does not equate happiness.
The list is quite long but to name a few: horrible personality disorders,childhood trauma,relationship issues(opposite sex,parent,society,coworkers,etc...),physhical health ailments and so on... All these can become obstacles to happiness and throwing money at them to the most part does not help overcome these issues.
Here is my question: 1) isn't happiness a bit overrated? 2) is happiness really all that important? 3) if prosperity is happiness then why are there so many happy poor people in 3rd world countries?
The list is quite long but to name a few: horrible personality disorders,childhood trauma,relationship issues(opposite sex,parent,society,coworkers,etc...),physhical health ailments and so on... All these can become obstacles to happiness and throwing money at them to the most part does not help overcome these issues.
Here is my question: 1) isn't happiness a bit overrated? 2) is happiness really all that important? 3) if prosperity is happiness then why are there so many happy poor people in 3rd world countries?
I am not onboard with the idea that humans need to be happy 100% of the time.
I am going to be unhappy, even frustrated trying to improve things or create new things (as an artist or engineer). Healthy unhappiness, as I see it, is required for evolution/human-advancement.
I am going to be unhappy, even frustrated trying to improve things or create new things (as an artist or engineer). Healthy unhappiness, as I see it, is required for evolution/human-advancement.
In a poor country with low inequality, rising national income should make people happier, and of course reducing poverty is a good in and of itself. But in a wealthy, unequal country like today’s America, gains in national income can decouple from well-being.
The problem is the individual cannot perceive this. The typical person cannot perceive unemployment falling a few tenths of a percent or personal income rising a quarter of a percent. if income is rising as fast an inflation, then it may be impossible to notice. You can buy a bigger Iphone and Netflix, but healthcare, rent, and tuition keeps going up.
The problem is the individual cannot perceive this. The typical person cannot perceive unemployment falling a few tenths of a percent or personal income rising a quarter of a percent. if income is rising as fast an inflation, then it may be impossible to notice. You can buy a bigger Iphone and Netflix, but healthcare, rent, and tuition keeps going up.
Happiness happens when one can live in a stress-free environment.
Nowadays, we have a lot of stress, because the requirements an individual has to fulfil in order to survive have skyrocketed.
Nowadays, we have a lot of stress, because the requirements an individual has to fulfil in order to survive have skyrocketed.
Prosperity may have increased a lot for those at the top, but there's never been so many people living on freeway on-ramps until now. For the low end, it keeps getting worse-and-worse in the real world while academic happy-clappy about how "great" everything is. UBI or French Revolution 2.0, so far the majority of rich have chosen social upheaval, Holocene exinction and climate obliteration.
What is your view based on? I'd have assumed that absolute number of homeless would increase over time, but the rate of homelessness would be declining. I was surprised to see that, at least from this [1] research, that we are progressing fast enough that even the absolute number of homeless are also declining! Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from those data is that though absolute homelessness is decreasing, the number of homeless people moving to shelters is increasing. This means data that uses shelters alone as a metric could easily be quite misleading.
You also have to keep in mind that areas such as California have some of the highest homeless rates in the entire nation, so if your perception happens to be based on areas such as this - it's going to be skewed. It'd be like gauging prosperity by looking at what's happening in Monaco.
[1] - https://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/health-ca...
You also have to keep in mind that areas such as California have some of the highest homeless rates in the entire nation, so if your perception happens to be based on areas such as this - it's going to be skewed. It'd be like gauging prosperity by looking at what's happening in Monaco.
[1] - https://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/health-ca...
Homelessness in the UK at least has been rising every year for the last 7 years.
Everything I know and read gives me the impression that while the world's poor are better off today than they ever have been, their overall share of the wealth and bargaining power is ever decreasing since the post-WWII years.
People now have smartphones and expensive TV's and financed cars but all the important things in life are consolidating in fewer and fewer hands.
GDP increases higher and higher, and the actual economic gains go to fewer and fewer people in ever larger amounts.
Education and healthcare has become prohibitively expensive, the financial services industry concocts ever more complicated financial instruments to disguise their greedy quarterly-focused predatory profiteering.
House prices and rent in places where the jobs can be found are skyrocketing, made worse by a free-for-all of foreign property purchases.
The products we used to buy and own and now being leased out to us and our control over devices we have in our own homes has been slowly and quietly taken away from us. We are not even allowed to fucking legally repair shit we've paid for a lot of the time.
Bribery and corruption have even been legalised in the US and the group that can reverse that obscene series of decision are the ones benefiting from it.
The copyright industry is basically a cartel of middle-men at this point, doing nothing other than causing the stagnation and loss of our cultural history.
And to top it all off every 'free' western nation is spying on its own citizens and arming its police all in the name of 'terrorists', despite terrorist attacks being rare occurrence.
I feel like all we have done with our progress is create a new aristocracy and pave the way for a new type of feudalism.
People now have smartphones and expensive TV's and financed cars but all the important things in life are consolidating in fewer and fewer hands.
GDP increases higher and higher, and the actual economic gains go to fewer and fewer people in ever larger amounts.
Education and healthcare has become prohibitively expensive, the financial services industry concocts ever more complicated financial instruments to disguise their greedy quarterly-focused predatory profiteering.
House prices and rent in places where the jobs can be found are skyrocketing, made worse by a free-for-all of foreign property purchases.
The products we used to buy and own and now being leased out to us and our control over devices we have in our own homes has been slowly and quietly taken away from us. We are not even allowed to fucking legally repair shit we've paid for a lot of the time.
Bribery and corruption have even been legalised in the US and the group that can reverse that obscene series of decision are the ones benefiting from it.
The copyright industry is basically a cartel of middle-men at this point, doing nothing other than causing the stagnation and loss of our cultural history.
And to top it all off every 'free' western nation is spying on its own citizens and arming its police all in the name of 'terrorists', despite terrorist attacks being rare occurrence.
I feel like all we have done with our progress is create a new aristocracy and pave the way for a new type of feudalism.
Taking breaks from social media, particularly Twitter, has increased my happiness. Social media platforms are blackholes of negativity. They're also addictive and very empty because of lack of real interaction. Sometimes I feel like I'm living life vicariously through other people's photos, videos, and memes. It's uncanny.
So happiness and poverty are relative. Isn't that obvious to anyone who has ever traveled, studied other cultures, or even our own culture? I know that's not the norm, but it's a fairly obvious observation. Many of the people in America's ghettos have, in absolute terms, much more wealth than much of the developed and developing world, yet they are much less happy than many of the latter people. Each cohort is comparing themselves with the people around them, not with people in far away countries. In America, poor people are surrounded by hate and cruelty, constantly in fear for their lives and livelihood. This is usually not the case in places where people are happy yet make much less in absolute terms (although sometimes it is even there). There's much more to life than money, especially when money is tight.
Where is the explanation, let alone the data, to support the claim that happiness has not increased? There’s a compelling data driven chapter in Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now that makes the opposite argument. It also makes a compelling argument that people aren’t bothered by inequality in itself. It’s an amazing book that everyone should read and has genuinely changed my world view for the better.
Why would anyone assume that there is connection between prosperity and happiness? The less you have, the less you want - the more happier you are.
Aspirational marketing works. We have stuff, we just all want more stuff a notch above the stuff we have. The glamour advertising for watches feeds belief were entitled to a $20,000 Chopard.
It doesn't help that the disparity in pay board to shop floor is wider than back in the day of servants.
Redirecting mental effort to no material life is hard. Plus the economy tanks when we don't spend.
It doesn't help that the disparity in pay board to shop floor is wider than back in the day of servants.
Redirecting mental effort to no material life is hard. Plus the economy tanks when we don't spend.
A majority of Americans simply are not prosperous.
Having nice things, TV, mobile phones and other similar items reflects the overall product of industry. Those are technically luxuries.
All good, and welcome, but wealth, security needed for happiness us a different thing.
Wealth, in the basic human sense, is all about time and how much of it is availiable for people to assign purpose, rather than have that purpose mandated somehow by others or genuine need.
Happy people use that time in ways that they find rewarding, a core part of happiness.
In a macro sense, we as a nation are prosporous.
In a micro sense, people do not see that prosperity as basic wealth, and it manifests as their personal cost and risk exposure not matched to their income.
This costs them time, and limits on scope of desirable purpose on what portion of "free" time they have.
Having lots of money, that requires vast amounts of time to obtain and or service, is not wealth in the simoke human sense. Sans this basic wealth, happiness is much harder to achieve. Some people get happiness out of work. Most do not, and it ranges from the work being mundane to varied desire to work.
Secure people, not having to dedicate large amounts of time to meet basic needs, can be happy much easier, despite a lack of luxuries in their lives.
TL;DR: Reduce overall personal cost and risk exposure, and the time needed to do that, and happiness metrics will improve.
People need to be people. When they can't be who they are, do qhat they will do, they simply will not be happy no matter the luxuries they may find availiable to them.
Having nice things, TV, mobile phones and other similar items reflects the overall product of industry. Those are technically luxuries.
All good, and welcome, but wealth, security needed for happiness us a different thing.
Wealth, in the basic human sense, is all about time and how much of it is availiable for people to assign purpose, rather than have that purpose mandated somehow by others or genuine need.
Happy people use that time in ways that they find rewarding, a core part of happiness.
In a macro sense, we as a nation are prosporous.
In a micro sense, people do not see that prosperity as basic wealth, and it manifests as their personal cost and risk exposure not matched to their income.
This costs them time, and limits on scope of desirable purpose on what portion of "free" time they have.
Having lots of money, that requires vast amounts of time to obtain and or service, is not wealth in the simoke human sense. Sans this basic wealth, happiness is much harder to achieve. Some people get happiness out of work. Most do not, and it ranges from the work being mundane to varied desire to work.
Secure people, not having to dedicate large amounts of time to meet basic needs, can be happy much easier, despite a lack of luxuries in their lives.
TL;DR: Reduce overall personal cost and risk exposure, and the time needed to do that, and happiness metrics will improve.
People need to be people. When they can't be who they are, do qhat they will do, they simply will not be happy no matter the luxuries they may find availiable to them.
>In a macro sense, we as a nation are prosporous.
>
>In a micro sense, people do not see that prosperity as basic wealth, and it manifests as their personal cost and risk exposure not matched to their income.
This isn't a magical mystery. It's very simple to explain. Wealth is a power law. An average is the most useless metric to use yet everyone still does it. In the same country with Manhattan, you have people with lead filled pipes and raw sewage on their front lawns because wealth is not distributed evenly.
And this isn't by accident. Wages for most working people have not kept up with inflation, and wages diverged from productivity since a little before the Reagan area. [0] The value people create doesn't evaporate, it goes to the top.
[0] https://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-d...
>
>In a micro sense, people do not see that prosperity as basic wealth, and it manifests as their personal cost and risk exposure not matched to their income.
This isn't a magical mystery. It's very simple to explain. Wealth is a power law. An average is the most useless metric to use yet everyone still does it. In the same country with Manhattan, you have people with lead filled pipes and raw sewage on their front lawns because wealth is not distributed evenly.
And this isn't by accident. Wages for most working people have not kept up with inflation, and wages diverged from productivity since a little before the Reagan area. [0] The value people create doesn't evaporate, it goes to the top.
[0] https://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-d...
Why don't you spend 20 minutes reading my article that has a false premise?
-NY Times
-NY Times
Could you please start posting substantive comments?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Sure, crap like gadgets is now cheaper, but buying a house, giving your kids an education, and so on have increased. In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Such a house now would be on the verge of bankruptcy. And that's not even adding in the decline of working class jobs, and the instability of most modern careers (outside of IT which still has it good).