5 ms·

The glass is half full. In other words: high standard of living has been preserved in the western world over the last three decades, despite a rising population

The glass is half full. In other words: high standard of living has been preserved in the western world over the last three decades, despite a rising population and the rise of Chinese manufacturing.

danharaj 8y ago
Yea, it's great that housing and healthcare have only grown by 1% per year in costs since 2000 as well.
- weber111 8y ago
  "Real" is a technical term from economics and roughly means "after controlling for price increases".
  - danharaj 8y ago
    "Adjusted for inflation" is an opaque term and doesn't actually explain which costs they controlled for. I doubt they controlled for both healthcare and housing.
- Arnt 8y ago
  I don't get what you're trying to say here? Are housing and healthcare not included in the general measurement of inflation where you live? Or do you mean that wage rises should be compared against only a part of inflation?
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Housing in desirable areas with potential for growth is offset by depressed housing in most of the rest of the US, so for the desirable portions of the country, housing, and higher education and healthcare have outpaced wage growth considerably.
    - Arnt 8y ago
      I'm not sure... is this a roundabout way of saying that the expensive things are the ones you prefer, or is there something more substantive behind the statement?
      - lotsofpulp 8y ago
        It means that there is a widening wealth and income gap, and that affects people's day to day lives. It's a more risky winner take all situation, where if you're not in the right place at the right time, you risk getting left behind, and that does affect people's psyche. People in rural areas where housing costs are not increasing might be experiencing a little wage growth, but there are fewer and fewer future work opportunities. People in urban areas where housing costs are increasing rapidly, but wages are not increasing rapidly enough to make them feel secure...but they need to stay there in case they're laid off or need to find another employer. Either situation isn't what's wanted, but the overall statistic is that real wage growth is positive.
  - billysielu 8y ago
    They arnt included in most places, Arnt.
- AlanSE 8y ago
  The article is about real pay growth of 1% per year. You are commenting as if it were about nominal pay growth of 1% per year. Accepting that housing and healthcare costs have outpaced wage growth, that mathematically implies that costs of other goods and services were outpaced by wages by an even larger (appropriately weighted) margin.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Exactly. The west has experienced "Baumol cost disease", where things that can be outsourced or automated have got a lot cheaper and things that can't have got a lot more expensive. See https://medium.com/@6pranavk/insight-of-the-day-cost-disease-c14f50c1cd2e https://medium.com/@6pranavk/insight-of-the-day-cost-disease... especially the graph.
  - Retric 8y ago
    First no, it was "at most 1%" which means it could be negative. > costs of other goods and services where outpaced by wages You're implying that all people consume the same basket of goods as calculated by the article. Wage growth and spending is not even across society, so most people could be worse off while all of the above math holds true. labour productivity rose by 75% in America from 1973 to 2016, while average pay rose by less than 50% and median pay by just over 10%. which is largely because between 1979 and 2016, pay adjusted for inflation for the bottom fifth of American earners barely rose at all. Further, many goods like computing power have gotten vastly cheaper, but that savings mostly end up with people who have disposable income. Spend a lower percentage of your income on such goods and the benifit decreases. This means the the bottom half of the work force is worse off than you might think.
dbingham 8y ago
Except that standard of living has been propped up by debt. Meanwhile productivity has skyrocketed during that time, and it's not like there aren't financial gains coming along with that increase in productivity - there are. They're just being vacuumed up by the top 1% -- the executives and major share holders. So really, that's a bit of a strawman. The issue isn't that there isn't enough to go around and we should be thankful that we haven't become China. The issue is that a small proportion of the population has manipulated law and the markets to allow them to make off with the wealth, while the rest of us have been screwed over. ...and that's a dangerous thing to allow for many, many reasons.
- pedrocr 8y ago
  > a small proportion of the population has manipulated law and the markets to allow them to make off with the wealth I was with you up to that point. Do you have a reference for this? My reading was that centralization of wealth was a relatively natural consequence of our economic model and not something that was manipulated into being. Hence the discussions on UBI and other ways to fix it.
  - memebox3f 8y ago
    Centralization of wealth occurs as part of an economic model because more money means more power.
  - galieos_ghost 8y ago
    Globalization, free trade deals, and illegal immigration only benefit corporations and shareholders. Jobs are outsourced to the country willing to take the worst deal, immigrants with no federal labor protection flood in lowering wages and living standards. Corporations pocket the labor saving rather than passing it on to consumers. End result is increasing income inequality. If nothing is done we will return to the historical norm of peasants and wealthy nobles with nothing in between.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      Immigration also tends to benefit the immigrants themselves and their families, who should not be discounted in this.
mrleiter 8y ago
One of the premises of your argument is based on a very egoistic opinion: that you get to decide what is "enough" for an individual in the western world. Productivity has grown far more than real wages, so somehow that must have been distributed rather unfairly. Yes, living standard is high, but that doesn't mean that it can't be better.
paradite 8y ago
In other words: Either poor people are still poor and rich people are still rich, or rich people are becoming poorer and poor people are becoming richer. But the second possibility contradicts statistics on widening income gap. So it is likely the first case. My point is, not everyone has the same high standard of living to begin with.
conanbatt 8y ago
Why would rising population and increased chinese productivity reduce standard of living. Its the opposite, it should increase faster.
PunchTornado 8y ago
don't care, still unhappy, vote far-right, those guys will fix the economy.

The glass is half full. In other words: high standard of living has been preserved in the western world over the last three decades, despite a rising population and the rise of Chinese manufacturing.

danharaj 8y ago

Yea, it's great that housing and healthcare have only grown by 1% per year in costs since 2000 as well.

weber111 8y ago
"Real" is a technical term from economics and roughly means "after controlling for price increases".
- danharaj 8y ago
  "Adjusted for inflation" is an opaque term and doesn't actually explain which costs they controlled for. I doubt they controlled for both healthcare and housing.
Arnt 8y ago
I don't get what you're trying to say here? Are housing and healthcare not included in the general measurement of inflation where you live? Or do you mean that wage rises should be compared against only a part of inflation?
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Housing in desirable areas with potential for growth is offset by depressed housing in most of the rest of the US, so for the desirable portions of the country, housing, and higher education and healthcare have outpaced wage growth considerably.
  - Arnt 8y ago
    I'm not sure... is this a roundabout way of saying that the expensive things are the ones you prefer, or is there something more substantive behind the statement?
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      It means that there is a widening wealth and income gap, and that affects people's day to day lives. It's a more risky winner take all situation, where if you're not in the right place at the right time, you risk getting left behind, and that does affect people's psyche. People in rural areas where housing costs are not increasing might be experiencing a little wage growth, but there are fewer and fewer future work opportunities. People in urban areas where housing costs are increasing rapidly, but wages are not increasing rapidly enough to make them feel secure...but they need to stay there in case they're laid off or need to find another employer. Either situation isn't what's wanted, but the overall statistic is that real wage growth is positive.
- billysielu 8y ago
  They arnt included in most places, Arnt.
AlanSE 8y ago
The article is about real pay growth of 1% per year. You are commenting as if it were about nominal pay growth of 1% per year. Accepting that housing and healthcare costs have outpaced wage growth, that mathematically implies that costs of other goods and services were outpaced by wages by an even larger (appropriately weighted) margin.
- pjc50 8y ago
  Exactly. The west has experienced "Baumol cost disease", where things that can be outsourced or automated have got a lot cheaper and things that can't have got a lot more expensive. See https://medium.com/@6pranavk/insight-of-the-day-cost-disease-c14f50c1cd2e https://medium.com/@6pranavk/insight-of-the-day-cost-disease... especially the graph.
- Retric 8y ago
  First no, it was "at most 1%" which means it could be negative. > costs of other goods and services where outpaced by wages You're implying that all people consume the same basket of goods as calculated by the article. Wage growth and spending is not even across society, so most people could be worse off while all of the above math holds true. labour productivity rose by 75% in America from 1973 to 2016, while average pay rose by less than 50% and median pay by just over 10%. which is largely because between 1979 and 2016, pay adjusted for inflation for the bottom fifth of American earners barely rose at all. Further, many goods like computing power have gotten vastly cheaper, but that savings mostly end up with people who have disposable income. Spend a lower percentage of your income on such goods and the benifit decreases. This means the the bottom half of the work force is worse off than you might think.

dbingham 8y ago

Except that standard of living has been propped up by debt. Meanwhile productivity has skyrocketed during that time, and it's not like there aren't financial gains coming along with that increase in productivity - there are. They're just being vacuumed up by the top 1% -- the executives and major share holders. So really, that's a bit of a strawman. The issue isn't that there isn't enough to go around and we should be thankful that we haven't become China. The issue is that a small proportion of the population has manipulated law and the markets to allow them to make off with the wealth, while the rest of us have been screwed over. ...and that's a dangerous thing to allow for many, many reasons.

pedrocr 8y ago
> a small proportion of the population has manipulated law and the markets to allow them to make off with the wealth I was with you up to that point. Do you have a reference for this? My reading was that centralization of wealth was a relatively natural consequence of our economic model and not something that was manipulated into being. Hence the discussions on UBI and other ways to fix it.
- memebox3f 8y ago
  Centralization of wealth occurs as part of an economic model because more money means more power.
- galieos_ghost 8y ago
  Globalization, free trade deals, and illegal immigration only benefit corporations and shareholders. Jobs are outsourced to the country willing to take the worst deal, immigrants with no federal labor protection flood in lowering wages and living standards. Corporations pocket the labor saving rather than passing it on to consumers. End result is increasing income inequality. If nothing is done we will return to the historical norm of peasants and wealthy nobles with nothing in between.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Immigration also tends to benefit the immigrants themselves and their families, who should not be discounted in this.

mrleiter 8y ago

One of the premises of your argument is based on a very egoistic opinion: that you get to decide what is "enough" for an individual in the western world. Productivity has grown far more than real wages, so somehow that must have been distributed rather unfairly. Yes, living standard is high, but that doesn't mean that it can't be better.

paradite 8y ago

In other words: Either poor people are still poor and rich people are still rich, or rich people are becoming poorer and poor people are becoming richer. But the second possibility contradicts statistics on widening income gap. So it is likely the first case. My point is, not everyone has the same high standard of living to begin with.

conanbatt 8y ago

Why would rising population and increased chinese productivity reduce standard of living. Its the opposite, it should increase faster.

PunchTornado 8y ago

don't care, still unhappy, vote far-right, those guys will fix the economy.