For calibration: as a percentage of household income, people in the US spend less on food than in every other country in the world.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/...pends-on-food/
For calibration: as a percentage of household income, people in the US spend less on food than in every other country in the world.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/...pends-on-food/
I'm seeing a lot of comparisons to decades past, but consider- we generally spend a lot more on a lot more frivolities and non-essentials that didn't exist a few decades ago.
So, people are paying for cable or satellite TV, plus a couple of streaming services, then there's the multiple cell phone plans (plus data), music streaming and downloads, video game subscriptions, and so on.
We're also buying electronics at a higher rate- new versions of the latest phones, tablets, and computers, plus upgrading the TV set every few years.
We're also spending more on lifestyle- daycare, after school care, going out to eat more often, and so on. We buy & wear a lot more clothing.
Even the houses are bigger and have more stuff in them. The basic starter house of the 50's-60's was a lot smaller than the average "McMansion" of today.
And hell, even in the shooting community, we own a lot more guns and shot a whole heck of a lot more.
Individually, these cost are rather small- but added together, it's a big chunk of money.
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
That might have something to do with the geographic area of the US and the population density. The US is recognized as the top food exporter in the world.
That isn't going to change our wage structure for employees of retail grocery stores. That's mostly a labor market/corporate profit thing.
In the P-F basket of deplorables.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
I'll have to back up a little here. I said in an earlier post that we bought our first house in 78. That isn't true because we bought a house in 76. I just forgot about that because we owned it for only 2 years.
Anyway, it was about 1000 sq ft. and we paid 20K for it. That's a pretty small house by todays standards but with inflation and added living space it would only be a 150K house today. The estimated value is now 600K.
My point, and yours is also I suspect, is we spend more than we did in the 70's for everything. A lot more, even when we consider inflation. Wages haven't kept pace with our spending habits. We spend more than we make and borrow to cover the difference, like the fed.
Last edited by Borderland; 09-27-2021 at 07:30 PM.
In the P-F basket of deplorables.
Who would have thought that the modern leisure activity of laying around and doing nothing would become so very expensive?
Of course, people would actually have more money if they were better at managing what they have now. If you were to increase the wages of the vast majority of average people, they'd wind up in even more debt.
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
That is only part of labor. The cost of the food sold in the grocery store is a large percentage, and if food producers are also increasing wages, that will drive up costs.
around Bozeman, McDonalds had increased starting wages from $12 to $18/hour and still can't fill their positions. Literally every business is looking for staff. The local hospital has 450 open positions. I have never seen such a challenging time to recruit and retain staff.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Amen, amen, amen. Don't care if you make $40k or $400k. Living within your means (the old definition of 'within your means' didn't include maxed out credit cards and HELOCs) and delayed gratification are remnants of another time and another way of thinking.
Today we (the collective 'we'), and I include myself, believe in leveraging ourselves and counting our chickens before they're hatched. I've built my business this way, and the risks involved are real. It's a fine line we walk. As far as business owners go, I'm probably more risk averse than most. My machines are newer but my trucks are older and everything is paid for. In my personal life, I'm about to have to double my debt load in order to add on to the house to go along with a new relationship that includes 3 kids as well as their mother. It frankly scares me to death, and I don't care whether the bank says it's no problem at my repayment capacity and collateral level or not. I won't like it, but I'll shut my eyes and do it.
But I'm a relic in that I was raised by parents who saved up their money and then paid cash. I kid you not, my Mom would only buy one $0.99 Christmas light every year until we had one in each of the rooms of our house that faced the road. That's how much of a skinflint she was. We laugh at and make fun of stuff like that today.