7 ms·

Maybe so, but nobody's happy about cheap lawn furniture, for example, when they can't afford homes, healthcare, or education.

• lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I think that's a consequence of pulling wealth from the future into the present to counteract the loss of wealth due to decreases in the price of labor due to increase in supply of labor from other countries and decrease in demand of labor due to automation. Question is how far into the future are we going to keep pulling.
• dantheman 7y ago
  Interesting that those three industries are the most heavily regulated and manipulated by the government.
  • jschwartzi 7y ago
    Can you please make your point directly instead of snarking about regulation instead? It contributes little to the conversation if your don’t put forth any arguments or discussion.
    • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      I am not a fan of making people guess what the point is, but I thought that dantheman's point was actually pretty clear. It becomes reasonable to suppose that government intervention and regulation play at least a role in the unaffordability crises in education, housing, and healthcare.
      • dantheman 7y ago
        Thanks, that is correct. I couldn't edit my comment.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• dcolkitt 7y ago
  Healthcare expenditures only makes up 6.3% of the average income of an American household. Education only makes up 1.8%. Vehicles and apparel alone, without even breaking out any other tradable sector, make up the same percent of household expenditures as healthcare and education. Housing makes up 25%. But the cost of housing, as measured by the median inflation-adjusted cost per square foot of a new house has actually fallen by 8% since 1992. [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm [2] https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/ https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/
  • danans 7y ago
    > But the cost of housing, as measured by the median inflation-adjusted cost per square foot of a new house has actually fallen by 8% since 1992. That's a relatively meaningless statistic given that new houses don't account for a significant subset of the housing supply. A better measure of true housing costs is BLS's annual Consumer Expenditure Survey [1], which shows that just from 2013-2018, average annual housing expenditure has risen from $17148 to $20091, an increase of 17%. 1. https://www.bls.gov/cex/2018/standard/multiyr.pdf https://www.bls.gov/cex/2018/standard/multiyr.pdf
    • dcolkitt 7y ago
      Using that same source shows that after tax incomes increased from $56k to $67k over the exact same period. So housing expenditures actually grew at a slightly slower rate than income (17% vs. 19%). That proves the opposite: housing is actually become more affordable. Moreover, according to the source shelter only made up about half the increase in expenditures in the category. Expenditures on shelter grew even slower than housing as a whole, 16%. From the source, Americans spent 32% more on furniture and appliances (including a whooping 50% increase on major appliances), 28% more on housekeeping services, 30% more on their cell phone bill (which is weirdly part of of the housing category), 23% more on household products, and 20% more on their water bill. In other words Americans are splurging on smart fridges, maid service, mobile data plans, organic cleaners and long showers. That doesn't really sound consistent with the story of cash-strapped workers struggling in an overpriced housing market. That sounds a lot more consistent with the macroeconomic data, which is tells us that since 2013, the economy has been booming and unemployment is at post-war lows.