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It's pretty well undisputed that health care, rent and education have far eclipsed inflation and especially not kept track with wages and income. Here's a simp

It's pretty well undisputed that health care, rent and education have far eclipsed inflation and especially not kept track with wages and income. Here's a simple source for reference, but there are plenty more if you stick to those metrics: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/life-is-much-more-expensive-for-you-than-it-was-for-your-parents.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/life-is-much-more-expensive-... https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/24/things-are-more-expensive-than-they-were-10-years-ago.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/24/things-are-more-expensive-th... Now what we're arguing here isn't facts. Both of us are making true statements: You're saying the aggregate cost-of-living is not that much higher. I'm saying the necessities of health care, housing and education are hugely off track. What we're disagreeing about is the philosophical interpretation of those facts. I'm saying it hardly matters if mobile phones are cheaper every year, if health care is more expensive. An aggregate doesn't take into account the relative weights of importance. Not to mention the fact that wages and income are stagnant. That's a whole other issue that multiplies the concern.

manfredo 8y ago
It's not just mobile phones, it's electricity, cars, internet access, logistics, plumbing, and more than I can list in this comment. You seem to be under the impression that housing, healthcare, and education are the only things people need to get by. It's not. Focusing on "relative weights of importance" is an extremely easy way to slip into one's personal biases. Studies that measure the costs of people's necessities in aggregate show that it's still going down relative to incomes, or at least staying the same. Your sources do not refute this claim. They only measures the changes of individual expenditures. They did not attempt to measure aggregate costs of living. Yes, people are spending more on education, but they're spending less on other things and your source do not demonstrate otherwise.
- michaelchisari 8y ago
  And again, I think this is a naive way to look at things. It doesn't help anyone that cars have become nominally cheaper if healthcare has increased 900% above inflation since 1960. Cheaper internet access can't possibly offset the fact that rent has added 130% above inflation (US average $610 in 1960, $1405 today, both in today's dollars). You have to establish a hierarchy of needs if you want your analysis to have any utility whatsoever.
  - manfredo 8y ago
    > And again, I think this is a naive way to look at things. It doesn't help anyone that cars have become nominally cheaper if healthcare has increased 900% above inflation since 1960. It helps people that use cars, for one, which is a massive portion of Americans. And it's not just cars that are cheaper. Transportation is far cheaper. A coast to coast plane ticket is more than 20 times cheaper than it was in the 1980s. Again, you keep referencing specific costs, like healthcare, that have risen but then make the unsubstantiated conclusion that that overall costs have risen. People are spending more on some things like healthcare, but the studies conducted found that proportional to income meeting needs is cheaper. > Cheaper internet access can't possibly offset the fact that rent has added 130% above inflation (US average $610 in 1960, $1405 today, both in today's dollars). Again, it's not just cheap internet. On average, goods and services are getting cheaper across the board. You keep giving specific exceptions to the overall trend, as though it disproves it. That's as ineffective as claiming that global warming is false, because a few regions experienced cooling. One, two, or even three specific exceptions to an overall trend does not disprove that trend. > You have to establish a hierarchy of needs if you want your analysis to have any utility whatsoever That is exactly what the article I linked to did: they identified a set of necessities and calculated to cost of those necessities relative to post tax income over time. By contrast, so far you have repeatedly cited increased costs of exactly three types goods and services. The former is a much more comprehensive analysis than the latter.

manfredo 8y ago

It's not just mobile phones, it's electricity, cars, internet access, logistics, plumbing, and more than I can list in this comment. You seem to be under the impression that housing, healthcare, and education are the only things people need to get by. It's not. Focusing on "relative weights of importance" is an extremely easy way to slip into one's personal biases. Studies that measure the costs of people's necessities in aggregate show that it's still going down relative to incomes, or at least staying the same. Your sources do not refute this claim. They only measures the changes of individual expenditures. They did not attempt to measure aggregate costs of living. Yes, people are spending more on education, but they're spending less on other things and your source do not demonstrate otherwise.

michaelchisari 8y ago
And again, I think this is a naive way to look at things. It doesn't help anyone that cars have become nominally cheaper if healthcare has increased 900% above inflation since 1960. Cheaper internet access can't possibly offset the fact that rent has added 130% above inflation (US average $610 in 1960, $1405 today, both in today's dollars). You have to establish a hierarchy of needs if you want your analysis to have any utility whatsoever.
- manfredo 8y ago
  > And again, I think this is a naive way to look at things. It doesn't help anyone that cars have become nominally cheaper if healthcare has increased 900% above inflation since 1960. It helps people that use cars, for one, which is a massive portion of Americans. And it's not just cars that are cheaper. Transportation is far cheaper. A coast to coast plane ticket is more than 20 times cheaper than it was in the 1980s. Again, you keep referencing specific costs, like healthcare, that have risen but then make the unsubstantiated conclusion that that overall costs have risen. People are spending more on some things like healthcare, but the studies conducted found that proportional to income meeting needs is cheaper. > Cheaper internet access can't possibly offset the fact that rent has added 130% above inflation (US average $610 in 1960, $1405 today, both in today's dollars). Again, it's not just cheap internet. On average, goods and services are getting cheaper across the board. You keep giving specific exceptions to the overall trend, as though it disproves it. That's as ineffective as claiming that global warming is false, because a few regions experienced cooling. One, two, or even three specific exceptions to an overall trend does not disprove that trend. > You have to establish a hierarchy of needs if you want your analysis to have any utility whatsoever That is exactly what the article I linked to did: they identified a set of necessities and calculated to cost of those necessities relative to post tax income over time. By contrast, so far you have repeatedly cited increased costs of exactly three types goods and services. The former is a much more comprehensive analysis than the latter.