4 ms·

>What needs to happen is that the average salary can provide a citizen with a comfortable and simple life (housing/shelter, food, clothing, etc.). This is a mo

>What needs to happen is that the average salary can provide a citizen with a comfortable and simple life (housing/shelter, food, clothing, etc.). This is a moving target that can never be met. We can already provide all of that for very cheap if people are willing to accept standards from some decades ago. But they aren't. They want the expensive stuff. When I was growing up the main part of the meal was potatoes/rice/pasta. Meat was a few times a week (too rarely) and there were no fancy sauces/condiments on it. Why? Because it was cheap.

janalsncm 3y ago
> We can already provide all of that for very cheap if people are willing to accept standards from some decades ago. But they aren't. They want the expensive stuff. The three main things which have skyrocketed in price since the 70s are higher education, healthcare, and housing. On top of that, over-credentialized jobs now require bachelor’s degrees for things which used to require high school diplomas. This fact alone has meant that young people today start their careers significantly poorer than their parents did. Point is, it’s not just about the prices of sneakers and pasta. For all of the most important costs in life, things have gotten much more expensive.
- TexanFeller 3y ago
  > over-credentialized jobs now require bachelor’s degrees for things which used to require high school diplomas High schools do not maintain any sort of reasonable standards for granting a degree anymore, so it's no wonder businesses require a college degree. We decided everyone needed a HS degree, so we started lowering the standards for it, "teaching to the test", and only focusing on improving the worst quartile students to minimum tested standards. Now the same thing is happening with colleges.
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    Sure, but that means that students today aren’t getting bachelor’s degrees (the “expensive stuff”) by choice, but by necessity. That’s tens of thousands poorer (and ~4 years older) because of a shifting job market.
    - midoridensha 3y ago
      Right, but the root of the problem is that secondary education in the US is abysmally bad in many places, so a diploma from a US high school is mostly worthless. Requiring additional catch-up education is just a band-aid, and now with that being watered down, employers will want to see graduate degrees. That's even more money, and more time: employees will be almost 30 by the time they're ready to work. The solution is to fix secondary education, but there's no political will to do that.
bombolo 3y ago
You sound like the stereotypical boomer saying "people don't want to work anymore", not understanding that nowadays it is impossible to own a home unless you inherit one.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > not understanding that nowadays it is impossible to own a home unless you inherit one. My barber, who neither went to college nor inherited anything, lives on a 10-acre property with his wife (who works as a teacher) and two children. His secret? The home is a mobile home (they're saving up to build a real house), and he's in a low COL area with reasonable home prices, with the only real disadvantage being that the rest of the country thinks it's in a "shithole state". Your statement, properly amended, is as follows: it's impossible to own a home in a highly desirable, relatively low-density area, with many high income earners and lots of inbound migration both internal and external, unless you inherit one. Which of course makes perfect sense, and there's nothing wrong with that picture.
  - harimau777 3y ago
    I don't think that's a completely fair assessment. Often people don't want to live in "shithole states" because those states discriminate against them.
    - gottorf 3y ago
      There's really not as much discrimination as people imagine. I'm a visibly nonwhite ethnic minority who moved from a major coastal metropolis to a small city in a Deep South state; so deep and far south that my friends in my old city were shocked that I would voluntarily move there. It's actually pretty funny. My old neighborhood was one of those with places with Black Lives Matter signs on every other lawn but approximately zero actual black people living there. Here, there are approximately zero Black Lives Matter signs, but a lot more actual diversity on the ground, with people of different races rubbing shoulders as neighbors, friends, and lovers. There's openly gay people. Everyone minds their own business, for the most part. Of course, every place has its ups and downs, and there are legitimate downsides to living in a place like this. The restaurant scene is definitely not as good, although I'm sure some of that is due to just the size difference of the cities. But that brings me back to my original point, which is that you can't have your cake (big-city amenities, nice climate, majority politics you agree with) and eat it (houses you can afford right out of the gate as a new participant in the economy), too. It would be worth their while for "kids these days" to examine whether they'd rather be tutted at and get a cold shoulder every now and then[0] for being a lesbian with purple hair or whatever while having the opportunity to buy a home and make an independent life for themselves, versus having their identity "affirmed" in a place where an actual ownership stake in that society is forever out of reach. I'm not saying there's a right answer here; all I'm saying that it's worth everyone asking that question of themselves. [0]: And in my experience, it's at most every now and then. The difference in the sociopolitical attitudes between, say, Oregon and Mississippi, is basically just 48% one way and 52% the other, just flipped around. The number of people with similarities are much, much greater than the differences.
harimau777 3y ago
I'd be thrilled to own a home built to the standards of a few decades ago in a cosmopolitan city.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  You can get 50s era homes in relatively hot parts of chicago for 250k
  - slaw 3y ago
    > Hot parts of Chicago Do you mean hot as flying lead hot?

janalsncm 3y ago

> We can already provide all of that for very cheap if people are willing to accept standards from some decades ago. But they aren't. They want the expensive stuff. The three main things which have skyrocketed in price since the 70s are higher education, healthcare, and housing. On top of that, over-credentialized jobs now require bachelor’s degrees for things which used to require high school diplomas. This fact alone has meant that young people today start their careers significantly poorer than their parents did. Point is, it’s not just about the prices of sneakers and pasta. For all of the most important costs in life, things have gotten much more expensive.

TexanFeller 3y ago
> over-credentialized jobs now require bachelor’s degrees for things which used to require high school diplomas High schools do not maintain any sort of reasonable standards for granting a degree anymore, so it's no wonder businesses require a college degree. We decided everyone needed a HS degree, so we started lowering the standards for it, "teaching to the test", and only focusing on improving the worst quartile students to minimum tested standards. Now the same thing is happening with colleges.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  Sure, but that means that students today aren’t getting bachelor’s degrees (the “expensive stuff”) by choice, but by necessity. That’s tens of thousands poorer (and ~4 years older) because of a shifting job market.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    Right, but the root of the problem is that secondary education in the US is abysmally bad in many places, so a diploma from a US high school is mostly worthless. Requiring additional catch-up education is just a band-aid, and now with that being watered down, employers will want to see graduate degrees. That's even more money, and more time: employees will be almost 30 by the time they're ready to work. The solution is to fix secondary education, but there's no political will to do that.

bombolo 3y ago

You sound like the stereotypical boomer saying "people don't want to work anymore", not understanding that nowadays it is impossible to own a home unless you inherit one.

gottorf 3y ago
> not understanding that nowadays it is impossible to own a home unless you inherit one. My barber, who neither went to college nor inherited anything, lives on a 10-acre property with his wife (who works as a teacher) and two children. His secret? The home is a mobile home (they're saving up to build a real house), and he's in a low COL area with reasonable home prices, with the only real disadvantage being that the rest of the country thinks it's in a "shithole state". Your statement, properly amended, is as follows: it's impossible to own a home in a highly desirable, relatively low-density area, with many high income earners and lots of inbound migration both internal and external, unless you inherit one. Which of course makes perfect sense, and there's nothing wrong with that picture.
- harimau777 3y ago
  I don't think that's a completely fair assessment. Often people don't want to live in "shithole states" because those states discriminate against them.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    There's really not as much discrimination as people imagine. I'm a visibly nonwhite ethnic minority who moved from a major coastal metropolis to a small city in a Deep South state; so deep and far south that my friends in my old city were shocked that I would voluntarily move there. It's actually pretty funny. My old neighborhood was one of those with places with Black Lives Matter signs on every other lawn but approximately zero actual black people living there. Here, there are approximately zero Black Lives Matter signs, but a lot more actual diversity on the ground, with people of different races rubbing shoulders as neighbors, friends, and lovers. There's openly gay people. Everyone minds their own business, for the most part. Of course, every place has its ups and downs, and there are legitimate downsides to living in a place like this. The restaurant scene is definitely not as good, although I'm sure some of that is due to just the size difference of the cities. But that brings me back to my original point, which is that you can't have your cake (big-city amenities, nice climate, majority politics you agree with) and eat it (houses you can afford right out of the gate as a new participant in the economy), too. It would be worth their while for "kids these days" to examine whether they'd rather be tutted at and get a cold shoulder every now and then[0] for being a lesbian with purple hair or whatever while having the opportunity to buy a home and make an independent life for themselves, versus having their identity "affirmed" in a place where an actual ownership stake in that society is forever out of reach. I'm not saying there's a right answer here; all I'm saying that it's worth everyone asking that question of themselves. [0]: And in my experience, it's at most every now and then. The difference in the sociopolitical attitudes between, say, Oregon and Mississippi, is basically just 48% one way and 52% the other, just flipped around. The number of people with similarities are much, much greater than the differences.

harimau777 3y ago

I'd be thrilled to own a home built to the standards of a few decades ago in a cosmopolitan city.

HDThoreaun 3y ago
You can get 50s era homes in relatively hot parts of chicago for 250k
- slaw 3y ago
  > Hot parts of Chicago Do you mean hot as flying lead hot?