6 ms·

Could combine permanent long term decline in standard of living with the decline in physical consumer goods. So my high school educated grandfather bought my g

by VLM 11y ago

Could combine permanent long term decline in standard of living with the decline in physical consumer goods. So my high school educated grandfather bought my grandmother a mink coat way back in the 50s. Now a days an average middle class college educated guy couldn't afford to give his wife a consumer good like that (aside from "fur is murder", just simply couldn't afford it). On the other hand I gift my wife an evernote subscription and an amazon prime subscription fee. Its easy for an unskilled criminal to figure out how to successfully steal a $3000 coat, but really hard for an unskilled criminal to steal an evernote subscription. You can't steal my wife's mink coat; she doesn't have one. On an enormously smaller scale, before 1962 every middle/upper class white male wore an expensive formal hat with his suit, after '62 statistically no one wears them; you could steal my grandfather's fedora, but you'll never steal mine because I don't own one and likely never will. You could steal joe average's fishing boat in 1970 because joe average could afford a boat. In 2015 joe average cannot and will never afford a boat, with the side effect of no one will steal it. Likewise every dollar I spend on medical, which only goes up 10%/yr or whatever it is, is money I'll permanently never be able to spend on something physical, small, stealable. If you steal my kindle I'll merely download my books again. You could steal my dad's 1980s laserdiscs (remember those?) but you can't steal my streamed movies, well, maybe you can "steal" as in piss off the copyright holders, but you can't take the experience of having watched them in the past away from me.

refurb 11y ago
You believe that people today own fewer expensive consumer goods? My first impression would be the exact opposite. A majority of the population owns a small, easily stolen electronic device (smart phone) that is worth an average week's pay. Not to mention computers, TVs, video game systems, etc. All stuff commonly stolen.
- VLM 11y ago
  "All stuff commonly stolen." Isn't that in direct opposition to the data and claims? A TV financially worth stealing is going to be too big and delicate to steal. I'm not in the i-ecosystem but I'm told changes have been made making a stolen iphone basically worthless. I was motivated to pull my communities police blotter (which is online) and look at the last weeks thefts. Stolen last week: one microwave oven, garbage cans (the city owns the rolling bins and it is incredibly inconvenient and costs $75 to replace each rolling bin, so its a revenge crime type of thing rather than for resale profit), gasoline was siphoned out of some car dealership cars, and misc office supplies (aka someone got fired for cause for taking a pad of paper instead of getting downsized to keep unemployment insurance costs lower). Apparently in my suburb there were no "real" thefts last week. I think its interesting that HN posters would make excellent thieves compared to the general population. Apparently the general population thieves are really stupid, or are not stealing for the sake of profit maximization but for punishment or getting even. Possibly we're seeing some kind of variation in drugs, like crack users could be effective thieves via the chemical stimulation but most of the local addicts are pill heads and the chemical effects mean they can't effectively steal things. The crime report in an urban area is likely much longer than this suburban example and that might be useful data. Finally school is out so dorm related crime last week would be very minimal compared to during school.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - exelius 11y ago
    I think the implication is that people still involved in the crime economy aren't idiots. If you're a criminal looking to make money, robbing houses is too high-risk anymore. Other crimes like credit card fraud are much more lucrative and don't carry the possibility of getting shot by a police officer or homeowner. I don't think the risk from robbing houses is any higher than it used to be, but the reward is probably lower and there are other, better ways to make money illegally.
- g8gggu89 11y ago
  But they are all either very inexpensive or there are knockoffs or used versions that are very inexpensive.
- dghughes 11y ago
  I don't own a CD or DVD player, dedicated film camera, dedicated video camera, speakers, typewriter, game console, CRT TV. These days I have a flat screen TV, smartphone, a game console, plus a few computers with peripherals; router, modem. For me it may balance out or be slightly more. I certainly replace what I have far more than I ever would back in the 1980s back then I certainly would not have casually spent 5% of my after tax income on a single entertainment device that's the big difference I see today.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Worth an average week's pay? Not unless you define "average" as "minimum wage". Even at $10/hour, a full-time (40 hour) week is $400 (maybe $300 after taxes and deductions). That's pretty high for the kind of smartphone that the majority of the population is using. And I suspect that $10/hour is below average, as well.
  - refurb 11y ago
    That was what I meant. Stuff that even a minimum wage worker could purchase, thus very common.
  - Roodgorf 11y ago
    Why would you be looking at the average for this though? The reason economic factors and crime rates are so tightly correlated are because it is those who are desperate for money, e.g. unemployed, working low-wage and/or part-time, etc., that would be most likely to be tempted to steal these devices. Even if you drop the resale value of those devices to around $100 you could easily get away with a smartphone, tablet, laptop at once and make enough to get by for a couple weeks.
jblok 11y ago
> before 1962 every middle/upper class white male wore an expensive formal hat with his suit Now, nearly everyone has an expensive mobile phone with them at all times
- fixermark 11y ago
  Across the board, I'd be willing to wager that portable consumer goods now tend to be locked behind closed doors. One might see an uptick in breaking-and-entering robberies, but it'd have to be a significant uptick to offset the loss from mugging being less profitable. Smartphones are a bad theft target; too traceable, since they tend to have phone-home technology built in (along with integrated GPS).
happyscrappy 11y ago
>permanent long term decline in standard of living This is patently false but some cannot abandon the everything is getting worse narrative because it is central to their identity of being victimized. Meanwhile the myriad of wonders available abounds and is accelerating.
- VLM 11y ago
  "This is patently false" vs https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/US_Real_Household_Median_Income_thru_2012.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/US_Real_... And note that being a .gov production, they have every motivation to make things look better than they are. And thats just looking at permanent decline in top row revenue numbers, obviously increasing medical, real estate, and education costs by 10% annually for decades lowers standard of living because merely paying $30K for a leg cast doesn't mean its 100x better than paying $300 for a leg cast, it just means middlemen siphon out more money. Or paying $600K for a house that used to sell for $60K doesn't mean the standard of living increased by a factor of 10.
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    Median income is not standard of living. The reason income inequality is trumpeted so much around here is because it is one the few remaining metrics that still work for the worn out everything is getting worse trope. Standard of living is the entire scope not your cherry picked datapoints.
    - VLM 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living "The standard of living includes factors such as income, quality and availability of employment, class disparity, poverty rate, quality and affordability of housing, people, hours of work required to purchase necessities, gross domestic product, inflation rate, number of holiday days per year, affordable (or free) access to quality healthcare, quality and availability of education, life expectancy, incidence of disease, cost of goods and services, infrastructure, national economic growth, economic and political stability, political and religious freedom, environmental quality, climate and safety." (And edited to add, "happyscrappy is, indeed, happy" did not appear on the list, although I am happy for your happiness, because life should be fun) Make my day, pick some and provide unbiased data showing improvement, much as I've done for decline in income. Wikipedia is weird so I don't know what "people" or "climate" means in the context of standard of living. Also GDP is totally irrelevant to individuals and any way that it could be relevant is already handled in the previously listed economic indicators.
saturdaysaint 11y ago
permanent long term decline in standard of living Yet I suspect that any average middle class Joe/Jane in 1962 would trade their fedora, boat and RCA TV for our cellphone, ability to instantly search for anything, access to all recorded music for $10 a month, etc. But you make a good point - I might trade some of the above for their pension.

by VLM 11y ago

refurb 11y ago

You believe that people today own fewer expensive consumer goods? My first impression would be the exact opposite. A majority of the population owns a small, easily stolen electronic device (smart phone) that is worth an average week's pay. Not to mention computers, TVs, video game systems, etc. All stuff commonly stolen.

VLM 11y ago
"All stuff commonly stolen." Isn't that in direct opposition to the data and claims? A TV financially worth stealing is going to be too big and delicate to steal. I'm not in the i-ecosystem but I'm told changes have been made making a stolen iphone basically worthless. I was motivated to pull my communities police blotter (which is online) and look at the last weeks thefts. Stolen last week: one microwave oven, garbage cans (the city owns the rolling bins and it is incredibly inconvenient and costs $75 to replace each rolling bin, so its a revenge crime type of thing rather than for resale profit), gasoline was siphoned out of some car dealership cars, and misc office supplies (aka someone got fired for cause for taking a pad of paper instead of getting downsized to keep unemployment insurance costs lower). Apparently in my suburb there were no "real" thefts last week. I think its interesting that HN posters would make excellent thieves compared to the general population. Apparently the general population thieves are really stupid, or are not stealing for the sake of profit maximization but for punishment or getting even. Possibly we're seeing some kind of variation in drugs, like crack users could be effective thieves via the chemical stimulation but most of the local addicts are pill heads and the chemical effects mean they can't effectively steal things. The crime report in an urban area is likely much longer than this suburban example and that might be useful data. Finally school is out so dorm related crime last week would be very minimal compared to during school.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- exelius 11y ago
  I think the implication is that people still involved in the crime economy aren't idiots. If you're a criminal looking to make money, robbing houses is too high-risk anymore. Other crimes like credit card fraud are much more lucrative and don't carry the possibility of getting shot by a police officer or homeowner. I don't think the risk from robbing houses is any higher than it used to be, but the reward is probably lower and there are other, better ways to make money illegally.
g8gggu89 11y ago
But they are all either very inexpensive or there are knockoffs or used versions that are very inexpensive.
dghughes 11y ago
I don't own a CD or DVD player, dedicated film camera, dedicated video camera, speakers, typewriter, game console, CRT TV. These days I have a flat screen TV, smartphone, a game console, plus a few computers with peripherals; router, modem. For me it may balance out or be slightly more. I certainly replace what I have far more than I ever would back in the 1980s back then I certainly would not have casually spent 5% of my after tax income on a single entertainment device that's the big difference I see today.
AnimalMuppet 11y ago
Worth an average week's pay? Not unless you define "average" as "minimum wage". Even at $10/hour, a full-time (40 hour) week is $400 (maybe $300 after taxes and deductions). That's pretty high for the kind of smartphone that the majority of the population is using. And I suspect that $10/hour is below average, as well.
- refurb 11y ago
  That was what I meant. Stuff that even a minimum wage worker could purchase, thus very common.
- Roodgorf 11y ago
  Why would you be looking at the average for this though? The reason economic factors and crime rates are so tightly correlated are because it is those who are desperate for money, e.g. unemployed, working low-wage and/or part-time, etc., that would be most likely to be tempted to steal these devices. Even if you drop the resale value of those devices to around $100 you could easily get away with a smartphone, tablet, laptop at once and make enough to get by for a couple weeks.

jblok 11y ago

> before 1962 every middle/upper class white male wore an expensive formal hat with his suit Now, nearly everyone has an expensive mobile phone with them at all times

fixermark 11y ago
Across the board, I'd be willing to wager that portable consumer goods now tend to be locked behind closed doors. One might see an uptick in breaking-and-entering robberies, but it'd have to be a significant uptick to offset the loss from mugging being less profitable. Smartphones are a bad theft target; too traceable, since they tend to have phone-home technology built in (along with integrated GPS).

happyscrappy 11y ago

>permanent long term decline in standard of living This is patently false but some cannot abandon the everything is getting worse narrative because it is central to their identity of being victimized. Meanwhile the myriad of wonders available abounds and is accelerating.

VLM 11y ago
"This is patently false" vs https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/US_Real_Household_Median_Income_thru_2012.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/US_Real_... And note that being a .gov production, they have every motivation to make things look better than they are. And thats just looking at permanent decline in top row revenue numbers, obviously increasing medical, real estate, and education costs by 10% annually for decades lowers standard of living because merely paying $30K for a leg cast doesn't mean its 100x better than paying $300 for a leg cast, it just means middlemen siphon out more money. Or paying $600K for a house that used to sell for $60K doesn't mean the standard of living increased by a factor of 10.
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  Median income is not standard of living. The reason income inequality is trumpeted so much around here is because it is one the few remaining metrics that still work for the worn out everything is getting worse trope. Standard of living is the entire scope not your cherry picked datapoints.
  - VLM 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living "The standard of living includes factors such as income, quality and availability of employment, class disparity, poverty rate, quality and affordability of housing, people, hours of work required to purchase necessities, gross domestic product, inflation rate, number of holiday days per year, affordable (or free) access to quality healthcare, quality and availability of education, life expectancy, incidence of disease, cost of goods and services, infrastructure, national economic growth, economic and political stability, political and religious freedom, environmental quality, climate and safety." (And edited to add, "happyscrappy is, indeed, happy" did not appear on the list, although I am happy for your happiness, because life should be fun) Make my day, pick some and provide unbiased data showing improvement, much as I've done for decline in income. Wikipedia is weird so I don't know what "people" or "climate" means in the context of standard of living. Also GDP is totally irrelevant to individuals and any way that it could be relevant is already handled in the previously listed economic indicators.

saturdaysaint 11y ago

permanent long term decline in standard of living Yet I suspect that any average middle class Joe/Jane in 1962 would trade their fedora, boat and RCA TV for our cellphone, ability to instantly search for anything, access to all recorded music for $10 a month, etc. But you make a good point - I might trade some of the above for their pension.