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What you get with your wages has changed. Real estate is more expensive; you get less of that with your wages. Mass-produced electronics and other consumer goo
by ptaipale 9y ago
What you get with your wages has changed. Real estate is more expensive; you get less of that with your wages.
Mass-produced electronics and other consumer goods is much, much cheaper; you get more of that with your wages.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoThere's a great Fed press briefing where William Dudley mentions this, and someone heckles him "I can't eat an iPad!" https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/blogs/lookout/fed-official-heckled-t-eat-ipad-20110311-122230-439.html https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/blogs/lookout/fed-officia...
- ptaipale 9y agoMore appropriate would be to heckle "I can't live in an iPad". As far as I can know, food prices in America have gone down a little bit in the long term in comparison to general price index; 1982 food price index was 100 and now it is 90. Where I live (north Europe), the price drop has been more substantial. The biggest health problem that poor people face in the U.S. is obesity. But even if food is not problem, the real issues are housing and health care costs.
- freehunter 9y agoBut in the 50s you weren't buying a new iPhone every few years, or a desktop/laptop computer or a tablet, or multiple TVs, or a cell phone contract, or an Internet contract, or cable TV, or Netflix. As our purchasing power has decreased and inflation has increased, we've also invented a lot more expensive stuff to spend our fewer and fewer dollars on.
- ptaipale 9y agoPurchasing power for what? As said, real estate prices have gone up. But in early 1970's, Americans used 20 % of their inćome on food. Now it's somewhere around 6-7 %. So, for this most basic of commodities, the purchasing power has increased substantially.
- nradov 9y agoIn the 1950s you were buying a new car every few years because they fell to pieces.