Re: the WTH thread is back!
Your father was doing well for himself.
For a non-union guy working in a union shop, he did do pretty damn well. As you pointed out, you didn't always need a degree to get a good position.
I don't know how you can expect $50k to be worth as much now as it was 30 years ago when we have inflation.
I don't, and I wasn't implying that it does. It was simply a then vs now comparison.
I agree that more controlled inflation or wage increases that matched cost of living would be great. I'd love to be able to buy more shit on my same salary. :mrgreen:
That is not at all an unreasonable statement. The only reason costs rise and wages don't is because more and more of the cash is being kept as profit.
edit: the more I think about that last sentence, the more it seems like a gross generalization...
Exactly. A lot of people live beyond their means by choice and you can't blame that on capitalism, the rich, or anything other than their poor choices. The people that live beyond their means by necessity is a different issue. Some of that is also a choice IMO. Lots of people are simply too lazy and unmotivated to make themselves better and more educated.
The psychology in advertisement woven into western capitalism trains people from a very early age to want to live beyond their means and to place high value in "stuff", so in a way it is their fault. Yes, they're making poor choices, but it's what they've been guided to do.
Universal basic income is a horrible thing. We shouldn't be given an allowance.
There are some very good sides, and some very bad sides to the argument. One of the very bad points is what would motivate people to work if they're already getting paid? A completely valid concern.
You may have read too much into that comment, but what I mentioned is part of capitalism.
Sure, I got that. The way you laid it out sounded like an argument for demand side economics though.
Either way you're giving money to somebody, its just a matter of which point in the cycle you give it.
You're looking at an example of 1. Widen the aperture a bit, and also consider the context. 30 years ago was 1988, right at the tail end of one of the biggest economic booms our country had since the postwar boom in 1945. Everybody was in a state of excess at that point.
True.
But, take a more broad view of wages then vs now, and the overall shift in our consumer purchasing habits. Wages are up, inflation is up, and purchasing habits have shifted drastically. 30 years ago most middle class families had 2 cars, a color tv and a couple cordless phones in the house. Now most middle class families have 3+ cars, a half dozen TVs, and 2 cell phones per resident. The average Joe has substantially more crap than anybody did 30 years ago.
There's a lot that can be unpacked from that. There are several reasons why our spending habits have changed, not all have to do with simple economics.
The easiest one to tackle is consumer electronics. Comparatively, they were expensive in the 80's. Stupid expensive. 2-3 times more that what you'd spend on an equivalent product today. Plus, there wasn't enough happening on tv to justify one in every room.
Most middle class families I knew had more than two cars, especially if they had kids that were of driving age.
Cell phones have pretty well replaced residential land lines. More and more they are becoming a necessity.
Regardless of what income vs. inflation says, the vast majority of US citizens have a substantially better lifestyle with far more material goods than a generation ago.
One answer to that is our average debt to income ratio has increased. So yeah, lifestyles are better, and homes are packed with stuff, but it's not all paid for. People are investing large sums of money to live a materialistic lifestyle that bears no real returns.
