3 ms·

> Purchasing power has collapsed But is this actually true, or just something that declining economic sentiment in the newspapers has led us to believe? Peopl

> Purchasing power has collapsed But is this actually true, or just something that declining economic sentiment in the newspapers has led us to believe? People are consuming more food, more education, more square feet of house, more travel. My sense is that is surprisingly hard to find a quantitative signal that purchasing power has collapsed. Maybe it is just that positional goods (access to the best neighborhood in the best city) get harder to obtain as the population grows?

giantg2 3y ago
I mean, real wages have stagnated or declined over the past 50 years. Sure, we're eating more food, but it's increasingly garbage. Yes, we have more education, but the quality has gone down and is really only a response to the barriers to entry that have increased for most professions. It does seem travel has increased and new houses are bigger, but these seemed to be aligned to a particular class of person. I doubt the middle class is doing much of that. Perhaps the increase in income in equality is reflected by a larger upper class skewing those metrics. https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
- eru 3y ago
  The labour share of GDP has held more or less constant over the last 70 years. It bounced between 60 - 65%. See eg https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG If you want to argue that real wages have stagnated, you need to argue that real GDP has stagnated. > Yes, we have more education, but the quality has gone down and is really only a response to the barriers to entry that have increased for most professions. Yes, that is a problem. See 'The Case against Education' by Bryan Caplan. > I doubt the middle class is doing much of that. What's your definition of the middle class in this context? Have you checked any statistics? > Perhaps the increase in income in equality is reflected by a larger upper class skewing those metrics. The first few decades after the second world war were really rough. But fortunately, global equality has massively improved in the last few decades. Numerically, that's mostly due to China (but also India and recently Africa) first falling behind and then starting to catch up. There was probably never a time since at least the Industrial Revolution when global consumption was as equal as today, and the situation is set to keep improving.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    "If you want to argue that real wages have stagnated, you need to argue that real GDP has stagnated." What I can argue is that median real wage has stagnated. Distribution matters, unless you truly believe in strict trickle down economics. The vast majority of the increase has gone to high earners. "Have you checked any statistics?" Plenty of stats out there if you want to look. One easy one is that median home income requirements exceed that of median household income by more that 25%. Most new houses are significantly above the median in cost and size, pricing out the middle class even farther. "There was probably never a time since at least the Industrial Revolution when global consumption was as equal as today, and the situation is set to keep improving." I'm talking about the US domestically, as were most of your comments. There's still massive per capita consumption differences between the US and most other countries (fuel, food, etc).
    - eru 3y ago
      > Distribution matters, unless you truly believe in strict trickle down economics. Nice straw man! > Most new houses are significantly above the median in cost and size [...] New houses have almost always been better than existing houses, and have predominately bought by rich people. That's how come the housing stock of 2024 is better and more luxurious than the hovels people used to live in around eg 1800. When someone build some new luxury homes, a rich person doesn't just magically pop into existence to move in. That rich person used to live somewhere else before, and that other house is now available for someone slightly less rich to move into. There's a whole chain of moves happening. It's the overall quantity of new housing being build that's important. Even poor people benefit from more housing for rich people. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filtering_(housing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filtering_(housing) And I do agree that the US is not building enough for various reasons. > I'm talking about the US domestically, as were most of your comments. There's still massive per capita consumption differences between the US and most other countries (fuel, food, etc). Yes, the US is still one of the richer countries. But the gap has started to narrow. And not in the bad way, ie the US falling behind, but in a good way, other people catching up.
      - 3y ago
krona 3y ago
> People are consuming more food In the US, calorie consumption/person peaked around the year 2000 and has been falling since. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8805510/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8805510/
- giantg2 3y ago
  It's important to note that calories and food consumption aren't necessarily the same. We have seen a lot of no-calorie or low-calorie sweeteners and stuff. Diet sodas seemed to be a big deal around that timeframe, as did "low fat" foods (some of which were just lower fat than before or where heavily processed to remove fats).

giantg2 3y ago

I mean, real wages have stagnated or declined over the past 50 years. Sure, we're eating more food, but it's increasingly garbage. Yes, we have more education, but the quality has gone down and is really only a response to the barriers to entry that have increased for most professions. It does seem travel has increased and new houses are bigger, but these seemed to be aligned to a particular class of person. I doubt the middle class is doing much of that. Perhaps the increase in income in equality is reflected by a larger upper class skewing those metrics. https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

eru 3y ago
The labour share of GDP has held more or less constant over the last 70 years. It bounced between 60 - 65%. See eg https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG If you want to argue that real wages have stagnated, you need to argue that real GDP has stagnated. > Yes, we have more education, but the quality has gone down and is really only a response to the barriers to entry that have increased for most professions. Yes, that is a problem. See 'The Case against Education' by Bryan Caplan. > I doubt the middle class is doing much of that. What's your definition of the middle class in this context? Have you checked any statistics? > Perhaps the increase in income in equality is reflected by a larger upper class skewing those metrics. The first few decades after the second world war were really rough. But fortunately, global equality has massively improved in the last few decades. Numerically, that's mostly due to China (but also India and recently Africa) first falling behind and then starting to catch up. There was probably never a time since at least the Industrial Revolution when global consumption was as equal as today, and the situation is set to keep improving.
- giantg2 3y ago
  "If you want to argue that real wages have stagnated, you need to argue that real GDP has stagnated." What I can argue is that median real wage has stagnated. Distribution matters, unless you truly believe in strict trickle down economics. The vast majority of the increase has gone to high earners. "Have you checked any statistics?" Plenty of stats out there if you want to look. One easy one is that median home income requirements exceed that of median household income by more that 25%. Most new houses are significantly above the median in cost and size, pricing out the middle class even farther. "There was probably never a time since at least the Industrial Revolution when global consumption was as equal as today, and the situation is set to keep improving." I'm talking about the US domestically, as were most of your comments. There's still massive per capita consumption differences between the US and most other countries (fuel, food, etc).
  - eru 3y ago
    > Distribution matters, unless you truly believe in strict trickle down economics. Nice straw man! > Most new houses are significantly above the median in cost and size [...] New houses have almost always been better than existing houses, and have predominately bought by rich people. That's how come the housing stock of 2024 is better and more luxurious than the hovels people used to live in around eg 1800. When someone build some new luxury homes, a rich person doesn't just magically pop into existence to move in. That rich person used to live somewhere else before, and that other house is now available for someone slightly less rich to move into. There's a whole chain of moves happening. It's the overall quantity of new housing being build that's important. Even poor people benefit from more housing for rich people. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filtering_(housing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filtering_(housing) And I do agree that the US is not building enough for various reasons. > I'm talking about the US domestically, as were most of your comments. There's still massive per capita consumption differences between the US and most other countries (fuel, food, etc). Yes, the US is still one of the richer countries. But the gap has started to narrow. And not in the bad way, ie the US falling behind, but in a good way, other people catching up.
    - 3y ago

krona 3y ago

> People are consuming more food In the US, calorie consumption/person peaked around the year 2000 and has been falling since. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8805510/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8805510/

giantg2 3y ago
It's important to note that calories and food consumption aren't necessarily the same. We have seen a lot of no-calorie or low-calorie sweeteners and stuff. Diet sodas seemed to be a big deal around that timeframe, as did "low fat" foods (some of which were just lower fat than before or where heavily processed to remove fats).