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HN in particular has a deflated view of the economy because our sector was going through such a big bubble from 2014 on, which got even bigger for a brief windo

HN in particular has a deflated view of the economy because our sector was going through such a big bubble from 2014 on, which got even bigger for a brief window around the pandemic. We in particular had a long way to fall back to reality, so our personal economic outlook is worse than it's been for a while, even if the rest of the economy is looking up.

llm_trw 2y ago
Hn has a highly inflated view of the economy because we only see the top of the economic pie. I shop at cheap ethnic stores because I grew up with that food and the prices that poor people see are two to three times what they were 5 years ago. Telling this to someone who buys premium organic free range eggs is like trying to explain to a fish that a flood doesn't benefit everyone.
- rmbyrro 2y ago
  Loved the fish analogy
- throwup238 2y ago
  It’s funny you mention eggs because I live in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country with legally mandated cage free eggs and Trader Joes has them for $2.99 a dozen when people keep complaining about $6+ a dozen in the rest of the country (which is what I’d pay if I wanted the premium organic free range shit). When a famously expensive grocery store for yuppies has cheap eggs in Southern California, I figure the OP is right in their word choice: it’s a vibe-cession. I also shop mostly at ethnic grocery stores (Superking, Ranch 99, H mart, etc) and IMO the problem isn’t inflation but general consolidation across many industries. I’m always shocked when I travel to less populated regions (even in California) and see their grocery availability, usually dominated by a single major chain like Albertsons or a local one like Publix. SoCal has competitive prices for groceries despite the high cost of living because there are so many people (and immigrants) to support many competitors, none of whom have real pricing power. My grocery budget hasn’t gone up significantly in the last five years despite switching to Costco for my meat rather than the cheaper halaal butcher. Eggs are always more expensive at the ethnic stores here but cheap at TJs because they use it as a competitive loss leader. A lot of the country can’t support such competition so there’s zero incentive for suppliers to drive down costs.
  - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
    TJs is famously cheap, not expensive.
    - throwup238 2y ago
      Not where I come from. I grew up in the area, not far from the first Trader Joes and down the street from the second, and it’s always been considered an upscale store because it had so many cheaper competitors a few miles away. It was founded to supply the wealthy neighborhoods of Pasadena and South Pasadena.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - ska 2y ago
        I think you are kind of both right. When TJ’S started they intentionally wouldn’t sell things like milk and eggs because they couldn’t compete with big chains. The niche they were after were “over educated and under paid”. So they were famously cheap for things that poor and blue collar families weren’t looking for anyway. UMC goods on a LMC budget, really.
    - xenospn 2y ago
      TJs is not cheap.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    It's not a vibe-session when the bottom 50% see inflation that five times the headline rate. It's class warfare and somehow the party of the people is the one defending it.
    - Der_Einzige 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - sangnoir 2y ago
bbqfog 2y ago
The interest rate is hurting everyone who can't buy houses with cash. High interest rates have also helped crash the real estate market, so even if you just own a home, you've taken a bath since the high interest policy has been implemented.
- kelnos 2y ago
  To be fair, the real estate market in the US has always been super distorted (mostly due to the existence and availability of the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage itself), and encourages people to do stupid things. People should not consider their primary residence to be an investment; in truth it should be an expense and a liability. But the expectation here (fueled by market-distorting policy) is that home values always go up, and that homeowners can expect to sell their house in some amount of years at a profit. As houses get older, their value should decrease. Even large-scale renovations often should not push the value up quite as much as one would hope. Certainly the value of land can go up, based on housing/zoning policy, coupled with supply and demand in a particular area. At any rate, most things are temporary. Interest rates are headed downward again, and the Fed expects to make more cuts. Presumably we won't get back down to zero, but that's probably a good thing. Also let's consider history: interest rates are still objectively not all that high right now. They're on par with or lower than what rates were in much of the 90s, and even some of the 00s. It's only the 10s that saw zero rates. And hell, go back to the 80s and prior, and the current rate situation looks delightfully low. > High interest rates have also helped crash the real estate market, so even if you just own a home, you've taken a bath since the high interest policy has been implemented. A note on this: so what? What matters is the cost of comparable housing. If my house has lost 25% of its value, it stands to reason that similar houses in similarly-desirable locations will have lost a similar amount, and still be affordable for me if I wanted to sell my house and move. But again we run into the problems caused by the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage! Anyone who has bought a house with a mortgage recently enough, at a price high enough, might be in a situation where they can't move because they won't be able to sell their current house at a high enough price in order to pay off their mortgage (and still have enough of a down payment for their next house). This is a problem we've created for ourselves, and it's super annoying.

llm_trw 2y ago

Hn has a highly inflated view of the economy because we only see the top of the economic pie. I shop at cheap ethnic stores because I grew up with that food and the prices that poor people see are two to three times what they were 5 years ago. Telling this to someone who buys premium organic free range eggs is like trying to explain to a fish that a flood doesn't benefit everyone.

rmbyrro 2y ago
Loved the fish analogy
throwup238 2y ago
It’s funny you mention eggs because I live in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country with legally mandated cage free eggs and Trader Joes has them for $2.99 a dozen when people keep complaining about $6+ a dozen in the rest of the country (which is what I’d pay if I wanted the premium organic free range shit). When a famously expensive grocery store for yuppies has cheap eggs in Southern California, I figure the OP is right in their word choice: it’s a vibe-cession. I also shop mostly at ethnic grocery stores (Superking, Ranch 99, H mart, etc) and IMO the problem isn’t inflation but general consolidation across many industries. I’m always shocked when I travel to less populated regions (even in California) and see their grocery availability, usually dominated by a single major chain like Albertsons or a local one like Publix. SoCal has competitive prices for groceries despite the high cost of living because there are so many people (and immigrants) to support many competitors, none of whom have real pricing power. My grocery budget hasn’t gone up significantly in the last five years despite switching to Costco for my meat rather than the cheaper halaal butcher. Eggs are always more expensive at the ethnic stores here but cheap at TJs because they use it as a competitive loss leader. A lot of the country can’t support such competition so there’s zero incentive for suppliers to drive down costs.
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  TJs is famously cheap, not expensive.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    Not where I come from. I grew up in the area, not far from the first Trader Joes and down the street from the second, and it’s always been considered an upscale store because it had so many cheaper competitors a few miles away. It was founded to supply the wealthy neighborhoods of Pasadena and South Pasadena.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - ska 2y ago
      I think you are kind of both right. When TJ’S started they intentionally wouldn’t sell things like milk and eggs because they couldn’t compete with big chains. The niche they were after were “over educated and under paid”. So they were famously cheap for things that poor and blue collar families weren’t looking for anyway. UMC goods on a LMC budget, really.
  - xenospn 2y ago
    TJs is not cheap.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  It's not a vibe-session when the bottom 50% see inflation that five times the headline rate. It's class warfare and somehow the party of the people is the one defending it.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - sangnoir 2y ago

bbqfog 2y ago

The interest rate is hurting everyone who can't buy houses with cash. High interest rates have also helped crash the real estate market, so even if you just own a home, you've taken a bath since the high interest policy has been implemented.

kelnos 2y ago
To be fair, the real estate market in the US has always been super distorted (mostly due to the existence and availability of the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage itself), and encourages people to do stupid things. People should not consider their primary residence to be an investment; in truth it should be an expense and a liability. But the expectation here (fueled by market-distorting policy) is that home values always go up, and that homeowners can expect to sell their house in some amount of years at a profit. As houses get older, their value should decrease. Even large-scale renovations often should not push the value up quite as much as one would hope. Certainly the value of land can go up, based on housing/zoning policy, coupled with supply and demand in a particular area. At any rate, most things are temporary. Interest rates are headed downward again, and the Fed expects to make more cuts. Presumably we won't get back down to zero, but that's probably a good thing. Also let's consider history: interest rates are still objectively not all that high right now. They're on par with or lower than what rates were in much of the 90s, and even some of the 00s. It's only the 10s that saw zero rates. And hell, go back to the 80s and prior, and the current rate situation looks delightfully low. > High interest rates have also helped crash the real estate market, so even if you just own a home, you've taken a bath since the high interest policy has been implemented. A note on this: so what? What matters is the cost of comparable housing. If my house has lost 25% of its value, it stands to reason that similar houses in similarly-desirable locations will have lost a similar amount, and still be affordable for me if I wanted to sell my house and move. But again we run into the problems caused by the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage! Anyone who has bought a house with a mortgage recently enough, at a price high enough, might be in a situation where they can't move because they won't be able to sell their current house at a high enough price in order to pay off their mortgage (and still have enough of a down payment for their next house). This is a problem we've created for ourselves, and it's super annoying.