3 ms·

Yet, the average American can afford abundantly more stuff now, compared to when these jobs were in the US? How does that compute? Buying 31-inch CRT TV in the

Yet, the average American can afford abundantly more stuff now, compared to when these jobs were in the US? How does that compute? Buying 31-inch CRT TV in the 1990s would have set you back somewhere between $2-$3k, adjusted for inflation. But, because it's been outsourced to where it can be made more efficiently, a 32-inch HD TV costs just $99 from Amazon. This is just one product. I could go on and on. If you want to mention housing, it's a political problem since zoning doesn't permit anything to get built. The reason inequality increased is because Western governments (everyone, really) printed trillions into existence and it diluted the purchasing power of savers, the poor, and the middle class, and went into stock markets to bid up securities. That's the problem, not China making affordable stuff that costs fewer hours of labor to buy.

geysersam 1y ago
It's hard to make a fair comparison of "living standards" in different times. What would an iphone be worth in the 1990s? $20 million? Does that mean every American is now a millionaire? Not really.
imtringued 1y ago
What you said merely inflates the value of stocks. It doesn't actually explain why things have gotten worse and you're making a weird separation between stock holders and savers, they are functionally equivalent. We have cheap goods from China now, so what exactly is going wrong in your scenario? You didn't flesh that part out at all. If anything, you've decided to gloss over it, because housing is the primary issue. As someone else has said: current account deficit is capital account surplus, meaning that the Chinese are flooding the US with money that could be used to build housing, but the Americans in their wisdom decided that that's a stupid idea and the money should go in the same quantity of housing and bid it up instead. Unlike stocks people actually need housing to live in. It doesn't take much to explain how a rising cost of housing makes people feel squeezed, since it can literally lead to their eviction and homelessness.

geysersam 1y ago

It's hard to make a fair comparison of "living standards" in different times. What would an iphone be worth in the 1990s? $20 million? Does that mean every American is now a millionaire? Not really.

imtringued 1y ago

What you said merely inflates the value of stocks. It doesn't actually explain why things have gotten worse and you're making a weird separation between stock holders and savers, they are functionally equivalent. We have cheap goods from China now, so what exactly is going wrong in your scenario? You didn't flesh that part out at all. If anything, you've decided to gloss over it, because housing is the primary issue. As someone else has said: current account deficit is capital account surplus, meaning that the Chinese are flooding the US with money that could be used to build housing, but the Americans in their wisdom decided that that's a stupid idea and the money should go in the same quantity of housing and bid it up instead. Unlike stocks people actually need housing to live in. It doesn't take much to explain how a rising cost of housing makes people feel squeezed, since it can literally lead to their eviction and homelessness.