6 ms·

Someone is siphoning your value. It's quite obvious when you track the productivity, or ask questions about how did your great-grandpa survive at all without ma

by 0sdi 7mo ago

Someone is siphoning your value. It's quite obvious when you track the productivity, or ask questions about how did your great-grandpa survive at all without machines. Just stating the obvious, don't mind me.

llmslave 7mo ago
Yeah I think people need to start asking the question, "Where is the money going". Its not just inexistent, its literally going somewhere other than your pocket.
- dmd 7mo ago
  They're not voting against their own self interest; they just have different interests than you. Their primary interest and goal is making sure their out-group is hurting, and that is what they are voting for, regardless of that happens to them.
JamesBarney 7mo ago
They lived in a house or apt with a third the sqft/person that was far more likely to catch fire and didn't have AC. If they had a car they most likely shared it. It was far less safe, didn't have AC, guzzled gas and polluted. Never ate out and spent a third of earnings on cheap grocery store staples. College and healthcare was much cheaper, and they got a lot less of it. We're benefiting greatly from the increase in productivity. We just view our great-grandfather luxuries as our necessities.
- lp4v4n 7mo ago
  >They lived in a house or apt with a third the sqft/person that was far more likely to catch fire and didn't have AC. But at least they could afford a house, right? I think a lot of people would accept living in a house without AC and more likely to catch fire. Is a house like that cheap today? No, right? It's crazy expensive as well. >If they had a car they most likely shared it. It was far less safe, didn't have AC, guzzled gas and polluted. Car technology in the past was worse, we know that. Cars were more affordable though. >Never ate out and spent a third of earnings on cheap grocery store staples. Like today then. >We're benefiting greatly from the increase in productivity. We just view our great-grandfather luxuries as our necessities. Young people are rotting at home unable to go ahead with their lives because wages nowadays are not enough to pay for a house and a family. Why do people try to deny this obvious reality? Productivity didn't benefit everyone equally and people in the past had more opportunities to build a life inside a standard that was socially acceptable.
  - krackers 7mo ago
    >more likely to catch fire >Is a house like that cheap today? No, right? It's crazy expensive as well. I assume by catch fire GP means electrical wiring? Many houses on market today are literally not remodeled since the 1940s so retain that original wiring.
  - labcomputer 7mo ago
    > Cars were more affordable though. Eehhhh... I really don't think that's true. First, adjusted for inflation, new car prices really aren't that different than they were 10-30-50-70 years ago. You have to compare like for like, no cheating comparing a modern luxury car to Ford Pinto. For example the cheapest car in 1970 cost about $2000, with no frills like a radio, passenger wing mirror or floor matts. That's equivalent to about $17000 today. A base Nissan Versa today starts at $18000, yet includes power windows and an A/C. Second, the maintenance requirements today are much, much lower than in the past. There's a whole list of expensive stuff you just don't have to think about with modern cars until long after those old cars would be at the junk yard (chassis lube, spark plugs, spark plug wires, carb and distributor, wheel bearings etc). That's a lot of labor you don't pay for, to say nothing of the parts! Third, despite being heavier, more convenient and safer, modern cars have lower fuel consumption. Coming back to our Pinto vs Versa example, the Versa gets at least 50% better fuel economy. Fourth, cars today just last longer. It used to be a minor miracle when a wasn't rusted out after 10 years or the engine still ran after 100k miles. Today, your car might be still under warranty at that point. > Why do people try to deny this obvious reality? Because it is not at all obvious that that is, in fact, reality. It doesn't help to complain about easily-disprovable things like the affordability of cars.
    - lp4v4n 7mo ago
      >Because it is not at all obvious that that is, in fact, reality. It doesn't help to complain about easily-disprovable things like the affordability of cars. Well you can just search "why are cars so expensive" and then you will find dozens of articles like the one below. I'm not American but I have the impression that cars were a kind of milestone in the life of young people in the past and this disappeared due to affordability. How much does it cost to live in a van nowadays? Can a part time fast food worker afford it? I don't like this hedonistic argument that you used, it sounds like cheating, you risk sounding like the GP saying that houses today that nobody can afford are in fact cheaper because they are less likely to catch fire. https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/buying/why-owning-a-car-is-getting-more-expensive-faster-than-everything-else/ar-AA1SQgxL https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/buying/why-owning-a-car-is-g...
- cucumber3732842 7mo ago
  All you've done here is take the tired dishonest "kids these days and their darn avocado toast and smartphones" trope and used different goods/services to spin it in a way to appeal to the median commentor on HN. You're ignoring the gorilla in the room. Why can't one live in a comparable manner today and bank the difference? Because those things aren't available? Why aren't those things available?
  - zozbot234 7mo ago
    > Why can't one live in a comparable manner today and bank the difference? You can do this. Just move to a sparsely populated area and work remote. Rural and semi-rural areas are basically the "poor", lower productivity areas within any given country, if you can arbitrage the incomes difference via remote work you stand to gain quite a bit.
  - JamesBarney 7mo ago
    > You're ignoring the gorilla in the room. Why can't one live in a comparable manner today and bank the difference? For two reasons. 1. They're illegal. You're not allowed to build a house to 1936 climate, safety, and fire codes with un-licensed labor. And boarding houses were effectively banned. 2. Market. Most people would rather live in a smaller apartment than 1936 style un-climate controlled death trap. And the reasons are the same for cars. You legally can't sell a new 1936 car, and even if you could most people would rather drive an 10 year old civic.
zozbot234 7mo ago
And that someone is mostly government, which is a growing and increasingly wasteful fraction of GDP. We really need to start reining in the national debt and government spending. Drain the swamp.
- _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
  Reminder that the Republicans' policy has been to starve the beast. That is push up government costs while passing huge tax cuts (like the big beautiful bill Republicans just passed that is greatly increasing the debt) in order to sabotage government's ability to function, then blast from every rooftop that we need to cut government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast "The very reason why we object to state ownership, that it puts a stop to individual initiative and to the healthy development of personal responsibility, is the reason why we object to an unsupervised, unchecked monopolistic control in private hands. We urge control and supervision by the nation as an antidote to the movement for state socialism. Those who advocate total lack of regulation, those who advocate lawlessness in the business world, themselves give the strongest impulse to what I believe would be the deadening movement toward unadulterated state socialism." --Theodore Roosevelt
- throwway120385 7mo ago
  No, it's rentiers. The government takes about a quarter but the rentiers easily take 2 times as much in interest, monthly fees, and other costs that I have to pay in perpetuity. You just don't consider that because you think those people are necessary for living a good life. In reality their purpose is to extract as much money from you for as little work as possible.
  - zozbot234 7mo ago
    Yes, the rent is too damn high. The way to address that is BUILDING MORE! Which is what YIMBY is all about.
    - bradlys 7mo ago
      As long as collusion exists, I don't see this changing. Manhattan is more expensive than it was a 100 years ago but less people actually live there now. Not a little less either - 700,000 people less. We've built way more housing at the same time. And yes, people have more square footage per person now but the housing doubled and the population went down dramatically. Rent is always going to go up there even if they build more. Same in other places. As long as rent setting tools exist to collude - we will see the rent not go down. You're not gonna dump $100m in new buildings and not maximize your return.
digiown 7mo ago
It's rent seeking, the antithesis of capitalism. It's always been. Enabled by abuse of government power. And no, it's not a partisan issue. You see this pattern across the American economy. The boomers locked in their house values by passing all the zoning regulations to artificially restrict the supply of housing. AMA artificially restricts the supply of doctors to increase their wages. Accreditation pushed ever higher costs on universities which increased costs, and the availability of loans basically cut off the brake cable. And who do you think is really benefitting from all the companies enshittifying everything and pushing up costs? The billionaires and retirees of course. And the young/working people are paying for it. The solution for individuals is arbitrage. Remote work, get healthcare abroad, and avoid college tuitions. The fact that these things make sense at all shows how broken the markets are.

by 0sdi 7mo ago

llmslave 7mo ago

Yeah I think people need to start asking the question, "Where is the money going". Its not just inexistent, its literally going somewhere other than your pocket.

dmd 7mo ago
They're not voting against their own self interest; they just have different interests than you. Their primary interest and goal is making sure their out-group is hurting, and that is what they are voting for, regardless of that happens to them.

JamesBarney 7mo ago

They lived in a house or apt with a third the sqft/person that was far more likely to catch fire and didn't have AC. If they had a car they most likely shared it. It was far less safe, didn't have AC, guzzled gas and polluted. Never ate out and spent a third of earnings on cheap grocery store staples. College and healthcare was much cheaper, and they got a lot less of it. We're benefiting greatly from the increase in productivity. We just view our great-grandfather luxuries as our necessities.

lp4v4n 7mo ago
>They lived in a house or apt with a third the sqft/person that was far more likely to catch fire and didn't have AC. But at least they could afford a house, right? I think a lot of people would accept living in a house without AC and more likely to catch fire. Is a house like that cheap today? No, right? It's crazy expensive as well. >If they had a car they most likely shared it. It was far less safe, didn't have AC, guzzled gas and polluted. Car technology in the past was worse, we know that. Cars were more affordable though. >Never ate out and spent a third of earnings on cheap grocery store staples. Like today then. >We're benefiting greatly from the increase in productivity. We just view our great-grandfather luxuries as our necessities. Young people are rotting at home unable to go ahead with their lives because wages nowadays are not enough to pay for a house and a family. Why do people try to deny this obvious reality? Productivity didn't benefit everyone equally and people in the past had more opportunities to build a life inside a standard that was socially acceptable.
- krackers 7mo ago
  >more likely to catch fire >Is a house like that cheap today? No, right? It's crazy expensive as well. I assume by catch fire GP means electrical wiring? Many houses on market today are literally not remodeled since the 1940s so retain that original wiring.
- labcomputer 7mo ago
  > Cars were more affordable though. Eehhhh... I really don't think that's true. First, adjusted for inflation, new car prices really aren't that different than they were 10-30-50-70 years ago. You have to compare like for like, no cheating comparing a modern luxury car to Ford Pinto. For example the cheapest car in 1970 cost about $2000, with no frills like a radio, passenger wing mirror or floor matts. That's equivalent to about $17000 today. A base Nissan Versa today starts at $18000, yet includes power windows and an A/C. Second, the maintenance requirements today are much, much lower than in the past. There's a whole list of expensive stuff you just don't have to think about with modern cars until long after those old cars would be at the junk yard (chassis lube, spark plugs, spark plug wires, carb and distributor, wheel bearings etc). That's a lot of labor you don't pay for, to say nothing of the parts! Third, despite being heavier, more convenient and safer, modern cars have lower fuel consumption. Coming back to our Pinto vs Versa example, the Versa gets at least 50% better fuel economy. Fourth, cars today just last longer. It used to be a minor miracle when a wasn't rusted out after 10 years or the engine still ran after 100k miles. Today, your car might be still under warranty at that point. > Why do people try to deny this obvious reality? Because it is not at all obvious that that is, in fact, reality. It doesn't help to complain about easily-disprovable things like the affordability of cars.
  - lp4v4n 7mo ago
    >Because it is not at all obvious that that is, in fact, reality. It doesn't help to complain about easily-disprovable things like the affordability of cars. Well you can just search "why are cars so expensive" and then you will find dozens of articles like the one below. I'm not American but I have the impression that cars were a kind of milestone in the life of young people in the past and this disappeared due to affordability. How much does it cost to live in a van nowadays? Can a part time fast food worker afford it? I don't like this hedonistic argument that you used, it sounds like cheating, you risk sounding like the GP saying that houses today that nobody can afford are in fact cheaper because they are less likely to catch fire. https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/buying/why-owning-a-car-is-getting-more-expensive-faster-than-everything-else/ar-AA1SQgxL https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/buying/why-owning-a-car-is-g...
cucumber3732842 7mo ago
All you've done here is take the tired dishonest "kids these days and their darn avocado toast and smartphones" trope and used different goods/services to spin it in a way to appeal to the median commentor on HN. You're ignoring the gorilla in the room. Why can't one live in a comparable manner today and bank the difference? Because those things aren't available? Why aren't those things available?
- zozbot234 7mo ago
  > Why can't one live in a comparable manner today and bank the difference? You can do this. Just move to a sparsely populated area and work remote. Rural and semi-rural areas are basically the "poor", lower productivity areas within any given country, if you can arbitrage the incomes difference via remote work you stand to gain quite a bit.
- JamesBarney 7mo ago
  > You're ignoring the gorilla in the room. Why can't one live in a comparable manner today and bank the difference? For two reasons. 1. They're illegal. You're not allowed to build a house to 1936 climate, safety, and fire codes with un-licensed labor. And boarding houses were effectively banned. 2. Market. Most people would rather live in a smaller apartment than 1936 style un-climate controlled death trap. And the reasons are the same for cars. You legally can't sell a new 1936 car, and even if you could most people would rather drive an 10 year old civic.

zozbot234 7mo ago

And that someone is mostly government, which is a growing and increasingly wasteful fraction of GDP. We really need to start reining in the national debt and government spending. Drain the swamp.

_DeadFred_ 7mo ago
Reminder that the Republicans' policy has been to starve the beast. That is push up government costs while passing huge tax cuts (like the big beautiful bill Republicans just passed that is greatly increasing the debt) in order to sabotage government's ability to function, then blast from every rooftop that we need to cut government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast "The very reason why we object to state ownership, that it puts a stop to individual initiative and to the healthy development of personal responsibility, is the reason why we object to an unsupervised, unchecked monopolistic control in private hands. We urge control and supervision by the nation as an antidote to the movement for state socialism. Those who advocate total lack of regulation, those who advocate lawlessness in the business world, themselves give the strongest impulse to what I believe would be the deadening movement toward unadulterated state socialism." --Theodore Roosevelt
throwway120385 7mo ago
No, it's rentiers. The government takes about a quarter but the rentiers easily take 2 times as much in interest, monthly fees, and other costs that I have to pay in perpetuity. You just don't consider that because you think those people are necessary for living a good life. In reality their purpose is to extract as much money from you for as little work as possible.
- zozbot234 7mo ago
  Yes, the rent is too damn high. The way to address that is BUILDING MORE! Which is what YIMBY is all about.
  - bradlys 7mo ago
    As long as collusion exists, I don't see this changing. Manhattan is more expensive than it was a 100 years ago but less people actually live there now. Not a little less either - 700,000 people less. We've built way more housing at the same time. And yes, people have more square footage per person now but the housing doubled and the population went down dramatically. Rent is always going to go up there even if they build more. Same in other places. As long as rent setting tools exist to collude - we will see the rent not go down. You're not gonna dump $100m in new buildings and not maximize your return.

digiown 7mo ago

It's rent seeking, the antithesis of capitalism. It's always been. Enabled by abuse of government power. And no, it's not a partisan issue. You see this pattern across the American economy. The boomers locked in their house values by passing all the zoning regulations to artificially restrict the supply of housing. AMA artificially restricts the supply of doctors to increase their wages. Accreditation pushed ever higher costs on universities which increased costs, and the availability of loans basically cut off the brake cable. And who do you think is really benefitting from all the companies enshittifying everything and pushing up costs? The billionaires and retirees of course. And the young/working people are paying for it. The solution for individuals is arbitrage. Remote work, get healthcare abroad, and avoid college tuitions. The fact that these things make sense at all shows how broken the markets are.