7 ms·
The worst of all is that people will still argue that, in this day and age, labour has not been completely devalued and that you are wealthier than your grandfa
by lp4v4n 1mo ago
The worst of all is that people will still argue that, in this day and age, labour has not been completely devalued and that you are wealthier than your grandfather.
That kind of story was not uncommon at all in the past, today you would have to be a literal multi-millionaire to have that lifestyle.
- listenallyall 1mo agoYour point about affording the lifestyle isnt entirely incorrect, but it is skewed by what you choose to include vs ignore. Owning a house? Indeed, grandfather probably had it easier. More space per person in the primary residence? Grandson wins, most likely. Restaurant meals vs home cooked, international travel, ubiquitous air conditioning, threat of being drafted into the military (and actually being deployed!), expected lifespan, dental visit experience, number of sexual partners... I'd bet most grandsons have all of those significantly better than their gainfully-employed grandfathers.
- andrepd 1mo agoIn other words: everything to do with economics is worse and everything to do with the inexorable march of progress is better. Yeah sorry but no shit. Technology has progressed since grandpa's day. "TVs are better and cheaper" is not a useful counterpoint when discussing the economy of the 2020s.
- alt227 1mo agoThe luxury market has been commoditised. No matter how many billions you have in the bank, you cant get a better netflix subscription, TV, or iPhone than the normal person. This is the 'march of progress' you speak of. The things people wanted and coveted most have been squashed to a market value most people can just afford, and then subsidised with credit plans to make them affordable by all. This is the basics of modern economies. It is not separate to technology progressing. The technology progressing has become the foundation of all modern economies.
- andrepd 1mo agoIn what sense are movies a "luxury market" and in what sense have they not been "commoditised" (as per your definition) for 100 years...? Seriously, your answer to a conversation about an economy that squeezes the middle-class and serves more and more the ultra-wealthy is "but netflix"? Uninteresting conversation.
- ses1984 1mo agoDo they sell tvs like this at Walmart? https://www.cseed.com/en/indoor-tv/unfolding-tv.html https://www.cseed.com/en/indoor-tv/unfolding-tv.html Netflix is a terrible example, it’s cheap entertainment for the masses. Why would a billionaire watch Netflix when they could get front row and/or box seats to any sporting event or concert in the world and fly there via private jet.
- CosmicShadow 1mo agoWho cares? It's probably not better than a TV anyone else can afford and why would a billionaire need a folding tv in one of their 24 room homes? The fact that you can buy a 72" tv for less than $1k now is nuts, and I assume there is no secret HBO with higher quality content only for billionaires, they still have to watch the same shit as us, and there is some good stuff out there, even on Netflix (maybe not a lot, not anymore). Even rich people sometimes want to sit at home and just watch TV, it takes a lot of energy to go out to something every night, even if you can. I used to go to concerts every week, sometimes several, now it's far less as I get older and it becomes more draining. Box seats are not very good seats and if you get good seats you are still surrounded by other people that will ruin your time. I'm not rich, but there isn't much that I covet from rich people, because they really don't get that much better shit than we do anymore, they get more "luxury" and convenience and opportunity, but they still have the same technology as us, and it still sucks. 20 years ago, they had things we would want and could never afford, now the gap has shrunk considerably. They can pay 100-1000x for 1-5% quality gain on what a regular consumer can buy.
- ses1984 1mo ago> 20 years ago, they had things we would want and could never afford Like what?
- thatjoeoverthr 1mo agoThis. Who cares about TV?
- pojzon 1mo agoI love how countries calculate inflation now: - Basic utilities, food, heating, energy, gas.. 50-100% increase in cost - piano, railway carrage, something nobody uses - 0.34% increase Thus inflation is only 5% - capiche?
- jkrom3 1mo agoYou’re being myopic. Yes, TVs being better and cheaper isn’t that useful. But ACs, dishwashers, washing machines, beds, cars… etc. are all useful counterpoints when discussing the economy and these are impactful. And beyond the normal big ticket items, smaller items (thank China and Walmart) are cheaper. And that adds up. Lamps being cheaper doesn’t seem like much but add that across all the furniture in the house.
- oharapj 1mo agoYou sure can buy severely enshittified versions of all those products designed with a very limited lifespan for cheap.
- rayiner 1mo agoStuff was total shit back in the day, lol. Even in the 1990s cars regularly rusted out. Today you can drive a cheap Kia for decades.
- picofarad 1mo agoThe 90s was decades ago. I don't see many 2010 kia on the road. You can't know the quality of new kia "for decades". I still see 90s and earlier cars on the road all the time (nearly daily). I owned one until 2020, when someone totalled it while parked for me.
- AngryData 1mo ago1990s cars aren't any more prone to rust than cars now, the rust is just hidden under the plastic panel. That plastic panel isn't doing any of the work of the frame though. Shit and gilded shit are both piles of crap even if one looks better at first glance. Especially when you consider how much thinner modern car frames are which means there is less to lose before failure, assuming the electronics even last that long.
- oharapj 1mo agoSpoken like someone who has never spent time around old cars. The 90s cars were already enshittified
- listenallyall 1mo agoYou're dense. Likelihood of military service - way down. Widespread diseases like measles, tuberculosis and polio - gone. Number of people lifted out of poverty is in the billions since 1960s (economics). Access to credit - massively up (economics). Commercial air travel affordable to virtually anyone (economics). Abundant, clean, healthy food available to almost the entire world (economics). Government-insured bank accounts (economics). Tax-advantaged retirement investment opportunities (economics). You can also look at civil rights, access to justice (small claims court didnt exist in many places when this dude's grandpa was young), college participation...
- craftkiller 1mo ago> Widespread diseases like measles, [...] - gone Funny you mention that, we're bringing measles back. Check out the graphs on https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html . Seems it started Jan 2025.
- listenallyall 1mo ago2500 cases? Call me when it reaches hundreds of thousands of cases, like it was every year up until the 1960s.
- singleshot_ 1mo ago"When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’re doing." Anyway good luck
- rayiner 1mo ago(voiceover) technology is part of economics.
- Tade0 1mo agoDisregard the grandfather for a moment. How is today better than the situation 20 years ago?
- alex43578 1mo agoMost of those measures, just less significantly compared to the grandfather.
- inigyou 1mo agoWhat if having a residence at all is more important than having a large residence?
- BoingBoomTschak 1mo agoThe fact that you listed "restaurant meals" and "number of sexual partners" as a plus tells me everything I need to know here. Yes, the people who like living in the Pleasuredome of cheap and fast thrills have it better these days. The rare few who want a stable, thoughtful life with a lifelong partner far away from the racket? Well...
- listenallyall 1mo agoOptions are generally a good thing, even if you dont explore them all. Much respect if you found one person and its just the two of you to the grave. But, you cant ignore the fact that women fought for years for sexual freedom, and that most people of both sexes prefer to be able to date and search for a long-term partner rather than be arranged, or to be pressured by parents, church or community to marry the first person they had sex with. Secondly, you can't invalidate a list of net positives like longer life expectancy by objecting to one of the things on that list.
- jdm2212 1mo agoIf you're ok with 1963 living standards, you can in fact have the grandfather's same lifestyle today at a very reasonable cost.
- appplication 1mo agoVery curious what living standards you’re thinking of
- jdm2212 1mo agoA 1963 house is what we'd think of today as a starter home. Available medical care was very limited, so you don't need modern health insurance. No braces for the kids. One small car, and it can be a really old beater and still be better than 1963 cars (no seatbelts or catalytic converters back then). One landline phone, no internet, no cell phones, etc. The "he lived in Daly City" thing is a bit of a red herring. Daly City was not a 15 minute drive from the center of the hottest industry in the world in 1963. So substitute Fresno. Anyway, if you can find a woman who wants to be a SAHM to your five children in a Fresno starter home, where she clips coupons and cooks meals from scratch with no appliances, you can achieve a 1963 standard of living pretty easily on a schoolteacher's salary.
- davemp 1mo ago> A 1963 house is what we'd think of today as a starter home. Not every house at that time was a post war levitown style shack. AC wasn’t even terribly uncommon in 1960s construction.
- jdm2212 1mo agoThat's more like the top decile than the average. The top decile in any era has it pretty good. Most of the "life is too expensive today" complaints are some flavor of: Grandpa was a 90th percentile income earner and I am a 50th percentile income earner, so even though my life is objectively much better than Grandpa's in many ways (childhood vaccination, clean air, seatbelts, etc) the loss of status is much more salient than the gains in material well-being.