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> There is also an argument that when GDP and energy consumption diverged I've not encountered this concept before, but it sounds very interesting. Can you sha

> There is also an argument that when GDP and energy consumption diverged I've not encountered this concept before, but it sounds very interesting. Can you share a good resource for reading about it?

roenxi 5y ago
I don't know, when I say there is an argument I mean that I would argue it to be true. But it is a fairly easy position to follow - the real GDP/capita in the US has roughly doubled since the 1980s. A typical family doesn't have 2x as much stuff. The next generation doesn't even have enough money to consistently form a family, maybe, depending on what the stats are telling us. If anything, there are signs of political stress that would be easy to justify if people were treading water rather than seeing their lives drastically improve. It looks like people fighting over a fixed pie rather than there being enough for everyone to get more. The counterargument is probably computers and smartphones - which are a big deal, but have a relatively minor impact compared to doubling the energy supply which is what that GDP would have historically indicated.
- pirate787 5y ago
  As someone who was alive in the 1980s, I'd say the typical middle class American family does have 2x more stuff. Food, electronics, and clothes in particular are dramatically cheaper. Homes outside of key urban markets are larger. Cars are a magnitude safer and more reliable.
  - goldenkey 5y ago
    As someone born in 1989, you are out of touch. The average person my age has nothing and is living on dog food.
    - ryandrake 5y ago
      Born in the mid 70s. My (single) parent was able to provide a roof over our heads, health care, and significantly helped pay for my education, heck, eventually accumulating a few [typical boomer] toys like a second home and a boat... all on a single school teacher's salary. He retired stably and comfortably with a predictable pension. I (roughly 20 years younger) just recently managed to gain some financial stability, and by some miracle, now own a home. High deductible health plan means I avoid going to the doctor unless limbs are falling off. When my kid is of college age, it will be $200K per semester and she'll have to go into debt slavery to afford it. The idea of owning things like a second home seems ridiculous. If I ever retire, my lifestyle will depend to a large degree on whether or not my crappy 401(k) goes up or down. The next generation, 20 years younger than me, is utterly fucked, in basically all ways. I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't born in the late 90s. I think we'd all be willing to give up our smartphones if it meant going back to the "easy mode" of decades past.
      - jrochkind1 5y ago
        heck, I'd consider giving up smartphones a plus!
      - nickpp 5y ago
        Logical result of population growth plus highly regulating the home&health care markets. The next generation's only chances for success are in newly created, (yet) unregulated markets, like IT was for us. There is no surprise teacher salaries haven’t increase much even though parents are so eager to spend to ensure their kids success: heavy government involvement in education market.
      - vineyardmike 5y ago
        > Born in the mid 70s. My (single) parent was able to provide a roof over our heads, health care, and significantly helped pay for my education, heck, eventually accumulating a few [typical boomer] toys like a second home and a boat... all on a single school teacher's salary. He retired stably and comfortably with a predictable pension. This sort of story is not uncommon, or crazy to believe. That said, the market conditions of that period of the 1900s were crazy, (inflations etc), so its wild to think about just how crazy it was that this was happening.
      - jjav 5y ago
        > The next generation, 20 years younger than me, is utterly fucked, in basically all ways. I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't born in the late 90s. There's good and there's bad, it's not that clear cut. Entry level salaries today are through the roof like nothing I've ever experienced before. I started working in the early 90s with a masters degree from a top school (CMU) for $32K and that was a good job, most of my peers started in the high $20Ks. According to https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ $30K then is just under $60K today. As HN knows, starting salaries these days are way more than $60K. I've personally hired new grads for over $150K, possibly closer to $200K if the RSUs do well. That's over $100K in early-90s dollars. Even our SVP wasn't making that kind of money back then. So the early career income potential is so high today that it actually becomes possible to implement things like FIRE and retire in your 30s.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    I was born in 1968. I remember at the time thinking that homes in Southern California where I lived at the time were out of reach financially. Finally, with great struggle I managed to buy a house for $149K in 1993. Four years later after an extended period of unemployment I ended up selling the house in a short sale for $135K. I occasionally will look that house up on Redfin and last I checked the last sale was for $775K. My salary has gone up since 1993, but not by a factor of 5. Tuition, books, fees, room and board at the Claremont Colleges where I did my undergrad at the end of the 80s was around $20K all in. It's now around $80K. Again, salaries have gone up since the 80s, but not by a factor of 4. The maximum subsidized student loan amount when I was an undergrad was $2000/year so you'd end up with $8K of debt after graduation. Now the limit ranges from $3500–5500 based on year of school for a total of $19000. I had a contracting job programming right out of college at $30/hr. According to the Google, a starting salary for a computer programmer now is $55,036. That's not 2.5x more than I had, but maybe I was paid more than average back then because I was special? (On the flip side, I was stuck at that pay rate for 3 years because I didn't know any better.) My first car in 1991 was a Mazda Protege. I paid $11,000 for it. The equivalent model today is the Mazda 3 which has a MSRP starting at $20,650 although the Google indicates that I can expect to pay at least $26K if I actually want to buy one.

> There is also an argument that when GDP and energy consumption diverged I've not encountered this concept before, but it sounds very interesting. Can you share a good resource for reading about it?

roenxi 5y ago

I don't know, when I say there is an argument I mean that I would argue it to be true. But it is a fairly easy position to follow - the real GDP/capita in the US has roughly doubled since the 1980s. A typical family doesn't have 2x as much stuff. The next generation doesn't even have enough money to consistently form a family, maybe, depending on what the stats are telling us. If anything, there are signs of political stress that would be easy to justify if people were treading water rather than seeing their lives drastically improve. It looks like people fighting over a fixed pie rather than there being enough for everyone to get more. The counterargument is probably computers and smartphones - which are a big deal, but have a relatively minor impact compared to doubling the energy supply which is what that GDP would have historically indicated.

pirate787 5y ago
As someone who was alive in the 1980s, I'd say the typical middle class American family does have 2x more stuff. Food, electronics, and clothes in particular are dramatically cheaper. Homes outside of key urban markets are larger. Cars are a magnitude safer and more reliable.
- goldenkey 5y ago
  As someone born in 1989, you are out of touch. The average person my age has nothing and is living on dog food.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    Born in the mid 70s. My (single) parent was able to provide a roof over our heads, health care, and significantly helped pay for my education, heck, eventually accumulating a few [typical boomer] toys like a second home and a boat... all on a single school teacher's salary. He retired stably and comfortably with a predictable pension. I (roughly 20 years younger) just recently managed to gain some financial stability, and by some miracle, now own a home. High deductible health plan means I avoid going to the doctor unless limbs are falling off. When my kid is of college age, it will be $200K per semester and she'll have to go into debt slavery to afford it. The idea of owning things like a second home seems ridiculous. If I ever retire, my lifestyle will depend to a large degree on whether or not my crappy 401(k) goes up or down. The next generation, 20 years younger than me, is utterly fucked, in basically all ways. I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't born in the late 90s. I think we'd all be willing to give up our smartphones if it meant going back to the "easy mode" of decades past.
    - jrochkind1 5y ago
      heck, I'd consider giving up smartphones a plus!
    - nickpp 5y ago
      Logical result of population growth plus highly regulating the home&health care markets. The next generation's only chances for success are in newly created, (yet) unregulated markets, like IT was for us. There is no surprise teacher salaries haven’t increase much even though parents are so eager to spend to ensure their kids success: heavy government involvement in education market.
    - vineyardmike 5y ago
      > Born in the mid 70s. My (single) parent was able to provide a roof over our heads, health care, and significantly helped pay for my education, heck, eventually accumulating a few [typical boomer] toys like a second home and a boat... all on a single school teacher's salary. He retired stably and comfortably with a predictable pension. This sort of story is not uncommon, or crazy to believe. That said, the market conditions of that period of the 1900s were crazy, (inflations etc), so its wild to think about just how crazy it was that this was happening.
    - jjav 5y ago
      > The next generation, 20 years younger than me, is utterly fucked, in basically all ways. I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't born in the late 90s. There's good and there's bad, it's not that clear cut. Entry level salaries today are through the roof like nothing I've ever experienced before. I started working in the early 90s with a masters degree from a top school (CMU) for $32K and that was a good job, most of my peers started in the high $20Ks. According to https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ $30K then is just under $60K today. As HN knows, starting salaries these days are way more than $60K. I've personally hired new grads for over $150K, possibly closer to $200K if the RSUs do well. That's over $100K in early-90s dollars. Even our SVP wasn't making that kind of money back then. So the early career income potential is so high today that it actually becomes possible to implement things like FIRE and retire in your 30s.
- dhosek 5y ago
  I was born in 1968. I remember at the time thinking that homes in Southern California where I lived at the time were out of reach financially. Finally, with great struggle I managed to buy a house for $149K in 1993. Four years later after an extended period of unemployment I ended up selling the house in a short sale for $135K. I occasionally will look that house up on Redfin and last I checked the last sale was for $775K. My salary has gone up since 1993, but not by a factor of 5. Tuition, books, fees, room and board at the Claremont Colleges where I did my undergrad at the end of the 80s was around $20K all in. It's now around $80K. Again, salaries have gone up since the 80s, but not by a factor of 4. The maximum subsidized student loan amount when I was an undergrad was $2000/year so you'd end up with $8K of debt after graduation. Now the limit ranges from $3500–5500 based on year of school for a total of $19000. I had a contracting job programming right out of college at $30/hr. According to the Google, a starting salary for a computer programmer now is $55,036. That's not 2.5x more than I had, but maybe I was paid more than average back then because I was special? (On the flip side, I was stuck at that pay rate for 3 years because I didn't know any better.) My first car in 1991 was a Mazda Protege. I paid $11,000 for it. The equivalent model today is the Mazda 3 which has a MSRP starting at $20,650 although the Google indicates that I can expect to pay at least $26K if I actually want to buy one.