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Something Went Wrong On The Way To The Future
Submitted by Bill Bonner via Bonner & Partners (annotated by Acting-Man.com's Pater Tenebrarum),
Lies and Misunderstandings
As we keep saying, you can get any opinion you want. The problem is you can also get any fact you want…
Ford F-150, 1976 model. Sold for $5,000 back then. Reportedly did get people from A to B.
Yesterday, our friend and economist Pierre Lemieux challenged the numbers in Monday’s Diary on the U.S. manufacturing recession:
“You write, ‘In real terms, the typical man of working age in the U.S. earns less today than he did in 1975 – 40 years ago.’ Where did you get this data?
Even the notably unreliable data of the Census Bureau on median family income are not that dark. All data I know show that, in the U.S., real incomes have grown over the last 40 years. I am sure it is the same in Europe. Some prices have increased, like home prices, relative to other prices, and it is quite certainly more difficult to buy a house now than back then.
Most other things are easier to afford – including for the typical worker. This is confirmed by casual observation: Look at their cars, their TV sets, their boats, their vacations, their appliances, their restaurants (not to speak of computers). Look at their children’s cars, iPhones, shoes, etc. Indeed, look at their hunting or hiking boots with Thinsulate and Gore-Tex!”
“Real median household income” as calculated by the Fed (based on inflation statistics that are more than just questionable). That the data nevertheless yield this downtrend is all the more remarkable. The reasons for this development are inflationary policy and other types government meddling with the economy – click to enlarge.
In general, we have little confidence in numbers or statistics. Except in the world of science, where they mean something precise, they are mostly lies and misunderstandings. Many of them are plain wrong. Many are pure inventions. We don’t trust them – especially our own.
You’d think it would be a fairly simple matter to tell if wages, after you account for inflation, have gone up. But it’s not. You can begin with the raw data. Then you need to adjust it for inflation… which is where the trouble comes in. How much is a 1975 dollar worth today?
Since the Fed has begun to “help us” in 1913 by providing “monetary stability”, the dollar’s purchasing power has crashed by 96% (this is what they themselves admit to). So a 1913 dollar is now worth 4 cents. According to the same statistic, a 1975 dollar is worth 21.9 cents, so since then the collapse amounts “only” to 78.1% – click to enlarge.
Real Earnings
We don’t want to mislead readers with faulty numbers, so we put the issue to our research team. “The data supports us,” says Bonner & Partners researcher Nick Rokke. “Real income for men was higher throughout the 1970s.”
The data from the Census Bureau has the average American working man’s income, in 2012 dollars, at about $37,000 in 1972 – its highest level of the decade. Today, it is close to $34,000. We also have the news of lower incomes reported as “fact” in the New York Times on October 22, 2012:
“[T]he real earnings of the median male have actually declined by 19% since 1970. This means that the median man in 2010 earned as much as the median man did in 1964 – nearly a half-century ago.
Men with less education face an even bleaker picture; earnings for the median man with a high school diploma and no further schooling fell by 41% from 1970 to 2010.”
But wait. It’s not that simple. Pierre again:
“The data makes (a bit) more sense for males. But, as I suspected, the figures come from unreliable Census Bureau data. The Census Bureau gets it from its Current Population Survey, which amounts to asking people what they earn. This data is inconsistent with NIPA (National Income and Product Accounts) data, which contains multiple cross-checks (total income must be equal to total expenditure and to total value added). Note also that the Census data do not include in-kind transfers (such as food stamps, Medicaid, and employee benefits)…”
Bill from Anchorage has the right idea
Right. Add in the free company T-shirts and state welfare handouts, and you seem to have a working man who is better off. But he can’t be much better off. Just taking the unvarnished numbers, the average working stiff in 1975 earned $8,853 (in 1975 dollars). Now, he earns $36,302.
Ford introduced its F-150 in 1975. We weren’t able to find an exact price, but it appears to have been sold at about $5,000. Today, an F-150 Super Cab sells for about $28,000.
The average new home sold for $39,000 in 1975. Today, it sells for $364,100. In very raw terms, if a man wanted to buy a house and a car in 1975 he had to work just under five years to pay for them. If he wants a house and a car today, he has to work almost 11 years…
Happier, Healthier, Richer?
Whoa! This makes it sound like his real income has been cut in half. Of course, it’s never that simple. He gets more house and more car for his money today. Still, the remarkable thing is that we are doing this calculation at all.
We shouldn’t be wondering about it. It should be obvious that we are all far better off today than we were a half-century ago. This should have been the easiest period in human history in which to make financial progress.
Never before had there been so many inventors and entrepreneurs. Never before had they so much accumulated science and capital to work with. Never before had there been so many people making things… and so many consumers with money in their pockets to buy them.
And never before were there so many earnest lawmakers, PhD economists, curious researchers, diligent policymakers, and nonprofit-employed do-gooders – millions of people all doing their level best to make us happier, healthier, and richer!
Something seems to have gone wrong on the way to the future…
It’s a case of too much GOSPLAN…
Cartoon by Rube Goldberg
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Assuming the guy had a full time job. In 1975, there was no income tax on unemployment insurance or social security pension benefits. All sorts of other taxes that affected the middle class were much lower. The power to tax is the power to destroy and the American middle class has been destroyed by crooked politicians like Nancy Pelosi who gave big tax breaks to hedge fund operators (like Pelosi's husband) while hammering the middle class workers with higher taxes and the loss of benefits like the defined pension plan.
Time to wake up and smell coffee, the Powerful have population in testicular grab. By tax or dilution of monetary value, peasantry is always subject to power, and only choice left is find solace is in embrace of loving family or in bottle of libation.
"solace is ... in bottle of libation"
When I run out of scotch, do I boil the sterno or break out the piervak?
This is what went wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44vzMNG2fZc
The numbers are further skewed by the fact that in 1975 the US was trapped in stagflation, interest rates on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage was 10% and interest on new car purchases was 18%... Today we have 4% mortgage rates and 0% car loans... Helluva a way to run a country...
Boris is find marijuana superior than bottle of libation to repel taxman horrors of life with solace family. Hashish is better if is Boris can find before taxman dilutes with QE is Infinity. Easy is Boris drive car to store if imbibe is Boris with marijuana.
Testicular grab is popular way to find soprano opera singers.
bottle of libation is consolation prize for after effects of testicular grab.
Also known as closed loop, win win situation.
From the grabber's perspective, anyway.
Stick with me, Boris, and I show you interpretive guide to the mysteries of America.
All good points, but missing the 800-pound gorilla in the room. If you suddenly more or less doubled the number of people looking for a job, and the supply of jobs could not increase nearly so rapidly, you would greatly suppress wage growth while, if each family now had two earners, roughly doubling family income. This newfound income would have the effect of massively increasing home prices, because the monthly payment each family could afford would more than double.
This happened in the 1970's. Some people called it feminism. The effects were largely economic.
Upvoted, but I think you give the social effects short shrift. Big wave of divorces in the 80s, the rise of the latchkey kid, and knock on effects like lower rates of marriage today surely influenced by the former effects.
And I get labeled a feminist here fairly regulary. FWIW my version isn't that men and women are the same, which is foolish, but that men and women should have equal rights under the law and that if a woman is capable of performing the same job to the same standards as a man then she should be paid the same.
I've personally experience discrimination at work a few times. Two that stand out:
Worked as the backup/second to a department manager. Was always scheduled to cover his days off. Had good performance reviews. He left/moved up and on. Interviewed for the job, it was given to a man from another department with no experience in that area.
Was responsible for a large-ish department. Ordered merchandise at will from vendors of my choice. Was selling through my inventory. Corporate started duplicating my orders for other stores in the region. Had two employees to supervise/schedule, but was never officially promoted to department head title/pay. Some women in another part of the country filed suit against the company. Suddenly my two employees were pulled and I was told that another department would help out. Had a large order of plants come in on my day off. Other department head and manager left it out in the sun to burn. Enraged would be a good description. I was moved to cashier where the front end manager made my job hell (trying to get me to quit), department head and manager were both demoted. Didn't want to sue, just wanted my job back. Looking back I should have found a lawyer because fuck them.
Technology has improved the productivity of every work by a factor of 3x or more. The average employee should be 3x better off instead of halfway to poverty. The government stepped in and destroyed all the productivity gains.
Government played a big role, but so did the culture of greed of the "captains of industry." CEOs in the 1970's did not make thousands of times the wages of average workers. Pensions were common, and workers often remained at a single company their entire working lives. Offshoring wasn't a thing yet, so unions had actual power to ensure decent wages and benefits (yes they abused it, but it was still a major plus for the working class). Workers were not expected to be on their email all hours of the day because there was no email. Wholesale financialization of the economy for the benefit of non-productive leeches called bankers and hedge fund managers wasn't a thing yet either. Most bankers in the 1970's made money loaning money to people who could pay it back, creating jobs. If you were retired and had a decent nest egg, you could earn virtually risk free interest to cover your nut and avoid invading principal. Now, not so much. All of these things played a role and many more.
BINGO! +1000
I disagree about blaming corporations. The corporations keep making things cheaper despite CEO salaries. Inflation is the culprit. Who creates inflation?
You're kind of missing the point unless you are being sarcastic. The cheaper goods are meaningless if you don't have wages to buy them. And retirement is but a dream to most americans now with no pensions, and no means of earning interest on savings. And the things that really matter (housing, healthcare, education, food) are all going through the roof. Corporations brought us cheaper plastic shit to buy, nothing else.
Using mean or median numbers can still provide an inaccurate comparison when it comes to middle class wages. Mean and medium include the highest paid people who are making enormous sums of money, many multiples of what the wealthy made in 1975. If you excluded the top 1% from the current calculations you'd get a much better idea of how much income an average middle class family has lost. And you would then be able to see it all went to the top.
Corporations brought us cheaper plastic shit to buy, nothing else.
FFS, hyperbole much?
"CEOs in the 1970's did not make thousands of times the wages of average workers."
You can thank the government for that. More laws, more rules, more regulation, more red tape = consolidation. The small companies can't compete and get absorbed by the large ones. When you as a CEO don't just have to run a company, but also have to be a politician as well, you get paid more. CEOs are hired not on the basis of their knowledge about the business, but on who they know and how good they are at schmoozing. When there are only 6 companies providing a service instead of 100,000, those companies get to charge more.
All roads lead back to the government.
If companies did not have the ability to lobby in favorable legislation to help themselves at others' expense, and the market had fair and simple rules that any honest could understand and agree with, those big corrupt companies would not be able to compete, let alone consolidate the entire market as they have.
Your problem, LTER, is that you desperately want to believe that government is the solution. That's why you minimize or simply refuse to see the role that government plays in all of this corruption. The problem as you see it is we simply don't have the right kind of government, or the right laws. All we have to do is make a few tweaks and adjustments and everything will be right as rain. But that's not the case. Human nature is human nature, and we are infinitely corruptible. When you put the power in people's hands to control others through government institutions, you've bought a one way ticket straight to hell. Centralized, authoritarian government is the road to hell.
We don't need a few tweaks. We need a major overhaul. As for your point that humans are corruptible, I agree. Unlike you, however, I don't forgive the corrupters (the oligarchs). I blame both.
And CEOs make 1000's of times more than their workers for a lot of reasons as well. The primary reason is offshoring, which is permitted by government over the will of the People, and advocated and implemented by major corporations. In feudal times there was no elected government. In neo-feudal times, we have a pretend government run the same the Lords, but the kicker is we have assholes like you who blame the pretend government exclusively.
Off shoring is DEMANDED by the consumer (who then whines about off shoring). If consumers didn't purchase products produced off shore products would not be made off shore. But, consumers insist on buying the best deal (normally cheapest), sending jobs overseas in order to lower production costs. Gubmint also drives up production costs, sending manufacturers overseas. CEOs are doing what the consumers demand.
Culture of greedy consumers is the heart of the problem. Pay $50 for the toaster made in the USA instead of $20 for the one made in China and shipped here. But, noooo... the greedy consumer refuses to pay for US wages and regulation.
Sorry if the truth hurts...
Offshoring is NOT demanded by the customer. Where did you come up with that? Offshoring is not new and started decades ago. Textiles started in the 1960's possibly sooner. Steel and TV's were almost gone by the 1980's. Let's not forget electronics and automobile wise since the 1950's your CEO's had their factories producing junk driving consumers to overseas products when they became available. Ask foreign car owners why they don't drive American and most will say they got burned with junkers from Detroit too many times and will never go back. Some have held a grudge for over 40 years. One cannot argue that government with it regulations, policies, and trade deals like NAFTA has screwed US jobs. NAFTA especially with enviromental provisions that US companies are forced to obey but the Mexicans completely ignore. In the last few years jobs were coming back from overseas but the regulation happy Obama administration has killed that off. Many of the angel investors will not fund a manufacturing startup unless the work is done overseas. Too many ignorant, or intentionally mislead, people think the US doesn't manufacture anything. In reality the US was the top manufacturer on the planet until it was passed by China in 2010. We still make plenty of stuff if you take the time to educate yourself.
To say CEO's are earning those big salaries is bunk. They are just greedy because they can be. They staff their board with friends and serve on the boards of those friends and they all rubber stamp whatever the CEO wants, until he drives the company into the ground. Large companies give their board members plenty of perks and over $100,000 a year just for attending a meeting or 2. Other companies treat their boards well too because they are all in the old boys club and take care of each other. As far as the extra stuff a CEO needs to know he just hires more expensive staff and goes with their recommendations. He is plenty busy though flying around the world in the company jet or 12 he bought with the company picking up the tab for everything. Then there's the super expensive sky boxes they have the company buy at sporting events supposedly to give the royal treament to customers but in reality it's for the big boys and their cronies with the company picking up the tab for booze and food.
The average new home price is higher today because people want bigger houses. They also want top dollar cabinets, top dollar countertops, top dollar appliances, top dollar flooring, built in dishwashers, air conditioning and expensive climate controls, and other such items to keep up and surpass the Jonses not because those things are better. Then when trends change in a couple of years they rip it out and get the trendy stuff and throw perfectly good stuff in the landfill. I've been in my 50 year old house for 40 years and still have the original tub, inexpensive cabinets, and formica countertops which will go for years longer. In the last year had no choice but to rip out the carpet and replaced with 40 year laminate. Most would go with expensive hardwood for their ego. I buy the lower end brand name appliances and they last well over 20 years with no repairs needed while some of the big name top dollar stuff has questionable quality and life span.
Forty years ago most cars did not have air, power windows, power stearing, power brakes, heated seats, leather interior, clearcoat paint, or aluminum wheels. Now that's all pretty much standard. Manual transmissions are almost gone. Practically every year there are new regulations for crash protection and emissions. Stability and traction control are mandated and very soon back up cameras will be required. All this requries expensive engineering and adds more parts and complexity. Forty years ago we had cheap carburators now all cars have complex fuel injectors. To meet emmissions many cars have direct injection which requires heavier duty injectors and an engine driven high pressure fuel pump as PSI in the thousands is needed. Cars today are exceptionally clean emissions wise but the standards keep tightening which requires large sums of cash for tiny gains.
"Offshoring is NOT demanded by the customer."
Then why do people keep buying cheap shit at Wal Mart instead of "Buying American" like they desperately asked us to do back in the 80s?
The People certainly do share a large part of the blame. A people cannot be enslaved unless they allow it.
very, very few CEOs make 1000 times more than their workers. very rare
Who could downvote that post????
"CEOs in the 1970's did not make thousands of times the wages of average workers."
Very high marginal tax rates made direct compensation pointless.
"Wholesale financialization of the economy for the benefit of non-productive leeches called bankers and hedge fund managers wasn't a thing yet either."
And it needs to stop being a big thing, NOW!
As far as comments about inflation, the bigger the financialization, debt super cycle gets, the more inflation that is required to keep the beast from collapsing.
So get ready for more inflation with ZIRP/NIRP which ensures a disproportionate share of income goes to the 1%
It's not the government but the Fed that destroyed all benefits of productivity. They've inflated it away by a factor of 100 over the last 100 years. They have us working as hard as if we were still riding horses and plowing fields by hand. Meanwhile each parasitic member of the banking cabal is richer than 1000's of producers combined. The governments are nothing but their mouthpieces.
Instead of things getting cheaper they promise same or higher price, rain or shine. Fuck'em both!
LMAO at those who say it's one exclusively only one entity or the other which is to blame. No, kiddies, it's the gov, AND the Fed, AND the corporations, AND the CEO culture of greed. These separate entities are all connected, work in concert, and pursue a common agenda. When caught with their hand in the til, they cover for each other. It's called oligarchy, TPTB, or, an old term "the establishment," or even older still "the ruling class;" the conspiracy of the "haves" for whom enough is never enough. This conspiracy plays out in plain sight if you follow the news and know how to read.
Also jobs have been off shored along with whole industries. Now you would be lucky to find a well paying job so you can pay tax.
maybe no state income tax or city income tax
Inflation is the only answer. Wage. Inflation. Not hourly jobs at McDonald inflation. http://hedgeaccordingly.com/2015/10/robert-huebscher-why-inflation-is-lo...
The economy used to be peer-to-peer, which meant enough info could be exchanged to make things work at the level of maybe a big tribe, 3 or 4 levels of consultation on the way to the king.
Modern communications meant top-down, they told us what was what. Newspapers and governments and analysts of all kinds, center-out, top down. Doesn't work, and the internet is now hear to move us to the next level of civilization.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/11/13/why-not-presidential-debat...
The only real job I get is from my girl friend....a blow job...
Hey, does she do outsourcing ?
She's the one making thousands working on the internet. Its a lot warmer than down on the corner.
FORWARD SOVIET HOOKERS!
Is her name Caitlan?
Whoah there, Sapphire, major woodie chopper downer thought you voiced there.
Ewwww.
In your mother's basement where you live, in exchange for some heroin that your skinny cruddy-looking woman is desperate to have. But you are going to look for a job tomorrow. Just not right now 'cause Petticoat Junction is on the tube . . .
Clearly we need no limit EBT Cards.........
Yes, the Infinity Card, the same one the bankers get to use.
My first truck was a 79' Ford. It looked just like that, three on the tree, it got me From 1st base to home plate plenty! Loved it!
My first truck was a 1981 GMC Sierra 2500 305CID Automatic HD with a 60s intake, no emissions, an 850 Holly, and HEI Ignition. Bought the truck used for $500. in 1995, and drove it for a decade before I sold it to a junkyard for $80. bucks. I sold the intake for another $80. and I sold the Holly for $100. I was very dismayed when I sold the truck to the wrecker. Great truck sad to see it go and now I am back to a car cuz of the gas prices.
That's funny, My last two vehicles have been '81 C10's. I don't intend to buy any other vehicles. There are a million around, and I can swap all the parts between a wide range of years. The low cash cost of purchase, and low running cost offsets the fuel.
C10s are all gone in Ontario now. The salt here destroys everything in a short time if one does not oil spray before winter. The next cheapest alternative is a Monte Carlo with the back seats folded down so the trunk space extends to the back seat area in the car. I use my Monte Carlo like a truck quite often. I even got my full size wheelbarrow in the passenger side door of the car once. When I was moving I loaded the car with books right up to the brim of the interior and fried my wheel bearing seals on both back wheels due to the weight.
You must be down south US to still have 81 C10s still alive. In CANADA you would be hard pressed to still be driving it IMHO.
When I lived in U.P. Michigan I had an 87 Chevy with the front end bashed in from where a girl ran into it when it was parked on the curb, and large rust holes in the fenders. I would regularly get compliments from people telling me "nice truck." lol. That truck has a big block Cadillac (500ci ... 8.2L) engine in it and it's a hell of a work horse.
Now (in Alabama) I've got an '83 GMC with no rust at all, anywhere. Cost me $1200. The paint is faded and dash is cracked but I don't care; I don't worry in the slightest about it getting scratched or dented when I'm plowing through an old trail through the woods or parking somewhere. It starts up every time I turn the key and doing maintenance on it is a pleasure. What a wonderful truck. Runs and drives like new.
I wouldn't take a new GMC truck if you gave it to me. If so I'd turn around and sell it to some schmuck, then put the money into this old truck, or buy another one like it.
My GMC dashpad was completely cracked so bad that I took the dash out and threw it in the garbage. A cop pulled me over for speeding once and as soon as I rolled the window down he looked me square in the eyes and said, "Where is your dash?" I looked him back square in the eyes and said, "Im in the process of welding the holes through the understructure of the dash and I'm still working on it."
I never bothered welding the holes, or put a new dash in, and drove the truck for a decade without the dash. Believe me, the cab is easier to clean without the dash in place, and you don't have to open the glove box to reach into it with the dash off. I always look at down south US barn finds on Google almost every week. I wish I was in Arizona for all the old tin still available down there.
Check out Redneck Restorations videos on YouTube. That mechanic is my favorite backyard American mechanic on all of Internet. cheers
Drove one back from Saskatchewan, and the other was someone else's project truck, until they ran out of money. The latter is well oiled, and has had the cab replaced already.
How much searching did you have to do to find it?
Just kept my eyes on kijiji
My dad had a 79 F-150 long bed, thing would get stuck in a mud puddle but it was fun to power break lol.
The one and only function of the Federal Reserve System, as exemplified by ZIRP, is stealing from the American People.
Welcome to the Socialist States of America. Don't think the US is a Socialist country? Think Again! Is the United States a Socialist Country?
Rube Goldberg ROCKS.
If the tide lifts all boats, but millions don't have a boat, does that mean that we should let the tide lift all boats that only the one per cent occupy? Frankly, that's what this entire worldwide crash is all about.
The Titanic 1% passengers are all sinking to the bottom of the ocean of falsehoods and hubris that they have continued to operate under except this time it's different just like the original maiden voyage of Titanic a century ago.
Back then you could work your way through college. It would be interesting to see this study done with college tuition vs minimum wage. Now you must become an indentured servant just to qualify for a job that will probably get shipped off to India anyways.
Cuz of economic hedonic adjustments and all that stuff.... they have all sorts of rationalizations to keep us in serfdom..time to read again Walden..
11 years?! Not when putting 3% down and still spending money you don't have instead of paying down your mortgage.
The post refers to the time it would take to pay off the mortgage if all gross income went toward it. If I earn $150k/yr and buy a $300k house, that's 2 years income.
I think we have missed the point. It used to take x amt of time for the ave joe to buy a car and home. Now it takes x + y amt of time to pay for the "same" house and car where y= your tax for the FSA.
Once the government created fanny and freddy the housing went into a bubble.
Just like everything else the government forces upon people. Think about it?
Increased availablity of long term mortgages sent the price of houses through the roof. If you owned a house in times past odds are you paid cash for it or actually BUILT the place - often spread out over years. Mortgages were shorter term when available.
With more and more mortgae options, more people could actually buy a house (though how many could really afford to do so is another matter). You had an explosion in home buying post WWII with VA mortgages and another explosion as baby boomers came of age.
Supply and demand. More people buying - prices went up. Used to be a house would cost 2 1/2 times annual income. That started to change drastically in the 1970's with baby boomer demand, dual household incomes and inflation all driving the market far higher. The late 1990's insanity with NINJA mortgages and all kinds of insanith blew the bubble to insane proportions. Gov guarantees on mortgages made things even more insane. Back when a bank held onto a mortgage, they were far more particular in who they gave mortgages to and far stricter on the terms mortgages were written to.
Given the number of home renovation and 'flip this house' shows on the tube I expect we've re-entered a bubble despite the number of foreclosed houses - or those that should have been but aren't..... Problem is that the Fed and the banking system NEED continual GROWTH even when there's no fundamental basis for ANY growth - even when the basic economics scream for a CONTRACTION.
Once the government created fanny and freddy the housing went into a bubble. Just like everything else the government forces upon people.
Cue the obligatory "yeah, but" from Let Them Eat Rand in three, two ...
"Problem is that the Fed and the banking system NEED continual GROWTH even when there's no fundamental basis for ANY growth - even when the basic economics scream for a CONTRACTION"
Exactly. The entire business model of banking depends on growth, which is where INTEREST comes from. The theory dates back to ancient Babylon, when money was counted in seed grain, and the opportunity cost of lending was against planting that seed and obtaining a harvest, i.e., growth.
The problem is that nothing can grow forever. Banking requires it. Capitalism requires it. But in fact, you CANNOT have infinite growth in a finite world. Finity comes along eventually and bites you on the butt.
Hello .... I would like to report a theft. .... A 40 year theft.
Federal Reserve caused this to occur.
THAT'S Called PROGRESS PEOPLE!!! EVOLUTION! GROWTH!! Oh wait... no. no it isn't.
My house insurance just went up 17% this year for the same coverage and same risk...How the fuck does that happen when I've never made a claim my entire life? Bitch told me they could keep the premium the same and just give me a policy for 17% less value. I told her to keep her overpriced plan for mortgage payers who are required by the bank to purchase from her. Then I told her I have what's called a savings account for things like hail damage ect. and it makes more financial sense for me to insure myself instead of get gauged by them.
ZH posters have extra inherent risk. The power of Big Data
That 1975 Ford Truck didn't have TPMS like now.
$1000 Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems mandated by the government so ameriKans don't have to check it themselves.
Yea,,, like that was really needed.
Low washer fluid, Low oil, Low coolant, ECU's, BCM's,,, OBD2,,, ABS,,, Traction Control,,, Electronic Throttle (Cable's didn't cost enough) Electronic brake assist (Vacuum didn't cost enough),,, Catalytic Converters,,, Oxygen sensors, Crankshaft position/speed sensors, Camshaft position sensors, Throttle position sensors,,, EGR systems,,, Evaporative recirculation with carbon canistors systems,,, and on and on.
Don't forget the $3000 dollar interface just to be able to work on these systems.
All Government Mandated to keep you safe.
Makes one wonder how Americans survived way back then.
"Don't forget the $3000 dollar interface just to be able to work on these systems."
Nahhhh. Any good (repeat, GOOD) OBD II scanner with CanBus capability will get you through most issues. Snap-On makes a really good one for about $1,200 that even lets you trigger some functions of the BCM's (body control mdules) in some vehicles. Just look for a year old Solus model. I like the newer Autel products. They are very close in functionality of the Snap-On or MAC versions, just a little cheaper.
"Snap-On makes a really good one for about $1,200"
My screwdriver cost $.50 at a yard sale.
I use the McDonald's Big Mac to measure inflation. In January1977 I started my first job at McDonalds. The Big Mac cost $0.75 and I made $2.25 per hour. Today I paid $3.89 for a big Mac.
3 x 3.89 = $11.67.
2.25 / 11.67 = 19.2%
3.89/.75 = 518.67% increase
2.25 * 5.1867 = $11.67
So, a McDonalds worker would need to start at $11.67 per hour in the same town you used to work. Probably not....
Good information...
The Economist puts together a Big Mac Index each year: Big Mac Index
Just work 2 jobs, you bleeping whiners.
Actually, 2 jobs won't do it. You need to work 2 jobs and you need someone else in your household to work 2 jobs and you'll probably still be in debt at the end of the day. In the 1970's, a man could still go to work and support a wife and two kids with a job which didn't require advanced degrees. Today, 2 doctors married to each other have to work their arses off to live in a decent neighborhood, send their kids to public school, and maybe get a C-class benz. Scary.
"Ford F-150, 1976 model. Sold for $5,000 back then."
Back then that was still a lot of money to me. I was making around $2 an hour doing AC ductwork installation in the attics of homes on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Hot, sticky work where I came home covered in fiberglass insulation. The funny thing was, in 1980 in the Navy I was an E-5 and still making about the same amount (not including sea/sub pay). I bought a used 1978 Dodge Power Wagon and it was $4,500. My interest rate (even from NFCU) was north of 8%.
I graduated college in the late '80s. Total cost of college for everything was $20k. My first job was mid to low range for a mfg engineer at $25k. That education costs $160k today and starting salary is $60k. My salary was 1.25x cost of college where today it is 0.375x cost of college.
I got a BSME in 1988 and took a $30k offer and school cost maybe $15k so my salary was 1.5 times the cost of my degree. Same degree graduating today would be Maybe $90k and a starting salary of maybe $50k for a .45 ratio. College cost goes up 6 times and salary does not quite double.
I had maybe 4 interviews and 2 offers. My son is graduating in May with a BSME and has 1 offer and has 4 more interviews lined up yet this year.
stop with the BS propaganda shit - you can always find a car of driving quality for $500.
You get a job with your resume and connections.
I ride abike - sold my V8 Grand Cherokee and Honda CRX in 2008. I ride a bike.
Bikes kick ass. I earned an ROTC US Army Scholarship to the University of Oklahoma and worked for my spending money and boarding. My parents didn't give me more than $1k per year for everything. Think you have it rough, Millenials ? Suck it up and make it happen and get the F(((&&& O****DFFF FartBook, geta life already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Think you have it rough, Millenials ?"
Yes. You're right. What an asshole I am.
I downvoted you Gladius, though I love you and upvoted you on previous threads recently like where Janus & et al accused you of things that they had no right of ... F U Janus ! ":) love you too, take if up the Ass Janus, Fight Club style!1!!!!!
gotta keep 'em sharp, you know ....
and FF TomTall the JackAss Ignoramus - check out his shithead comments for Gladius recently and you'll know why I just said that ....
now KrugHead BagO'Shit, start with the Helicopter Dropoff $$$$$$ !!!!!
Lemieux is TOTALLY wrong. Indexing incomes today to most any good or service, everything is generally is more expensive from burritos to cars to homes to the Dow Jones! Please do the math.
The price of everything that can be offshored to China has dropped like a stone in real terms. UndersellIng your competition is a piece of cake when your supplier doesn't have to pay his employees.
Price of everything else has grown at the same rate as the money supply, same as it always did. That includes housing.
The Fed never actually whipped inflation. When Paul Volcker tried to bring the printing of bank-confetti under control, he nearly brought the whole system crashing down when interest rates rose to levels where it made sense for people to lend their own money. In 1982 he was VERY strongly urged to turn the printing presses back on, and did.
For a generation our masters were able to find other ways of fiddling American men out of wage rises by increasing the labor supply by leaps and bounds---offshoring, mass immigration, equal opportunity for Girl Fridays, affirmative action for feral blacks. Problem is, the day was bound to arrive when they ran out of monkeys willing to work for peanuts and princesses wanting pocket money.
Even the Chinese have had it with working for free.
Inflation hides the theft of productivity. Because they cannot hide the inflation anymore, soon they will not be able to hide the theft either.
Americans don't travel. If they did, they would notice that America has fallen behind most other First World countried in standard of living. Also, when outside the US, there is a noticeable lack of skinhead Nazi wannabe cops tring to run every aspect of a citizens likfe.
Yupp. One interesting thing I found visiting Transylvania, the "most backward" portion of the "most backward" country in the EU, was that the everyday standard of living was pretty similar to most of the (not very rich) people that I know. One of the guesthouses I stayed in reminded me real closely of a friend's rental in Jarratt, VA -- in the parts of the house the family kept for themselves because they were embarassed for the guests to see them. Many of the roads were in better condition than the main highways in West Virginia, Ohio, and Michigan (and Transylvania's winters are roughly comparable to the Great Lakes Area). Observations of the work crews doing new and restoration of work on the part of my driver, who knows more about roads than I do, were that they were doing the work RIGHT -- as in, better than he'd seen an American crew doing in the last thirty years.
Oh, and Romania is widely recognized as the ONLY country in Europe so backward as to have their electric lines hanging from overhead poles. But unlike America, those poles are made of concrete, so they don't bend or rot.
Although the cops in Romania are legendarily corrupt, we had no difficulty despite driving in a rental for three weeks. We DID get pulled over in Hungary for a traffic violation due to our ignorance. The cop APOLOGIZED profusely for giving us a ticket, and spent twenty minutes carefully explaining to us (in good English!) how and where to pay it.
Unseless nostalgic meanderings that still not getting the debt traps. You just need more debts to stand still unless you change and get out of the games.
In related news, in 1976 "A picture was worth a thousand words".
Because of the Fed's inflation, today a picture is worth 685,844 words.
Blue, sorry, that was yesterday's paper score .... check today and you'll find the holder of that picture is -.035 in the red each month she holds onto the "picture" .... that equals a negative 35 words per day, compounded exponentially.... get rid of it ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look !! !!! Squirrel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The truck prices are awfully high for the old one, and low for the new one. My uncle bought a brand new 1973 Ford F-350 for $3,500. It was the top of the line, mid summer and marked down because it was just before the 1974 models came out. A friend paid over $50k for a new F-350 last year.
Yeah, $5k seems high for that truck. My dad bought a fully loaded Chevy Caprice station wagon in 1975 for $5k.
The past made a promise it never delivered
Of freedom from poverty, heartbreak and fear
Humanity's demons don't die off so easy
But Antarctica's ice sheet gets thinner each year.
You'll never be rich and you'll never have stardrive
Every cent that you earn will be taxed by the banks
The fat cats will keep getting richer and fatter
And the band will play on while society tanks
Sometimes you have to go back to go forward
If you miss the right turnoff you have to turn 'round
If the road that you're on's leading straight to deep water
You'd better turn back, if you don't want to drown!
50 years of unobstructed liberal rule followed by neutered cuckold republicans = everyone gets free shit at your expense and the cost of some really cool shit got more expensive to pay the union hacks. Do we really need to be told this? Apparently ZH thinks we do. Welcome newbies who think this is viral social media worthy and deserving of the careless bits and bytes on the ZH server...meanwhile back at the land of reality and sorrow lies the ranch of WTF Happened Here. LOOK AND GAZE UPON THIS BARREN PLAIN FOR IT CLEARLY AND ACCURATELY REPRESENTS THE FUCKS THOU GIVES...NADA, Senor...nada.
ALL HAIL TYLERS, PEACE BE UPON THEIR NAME...
There is so much mixed up crap in this article that makes it nondeterminate. No average joe worker in 1975 bought a house and a car in 5 years. At best he borrowed all he could because inflation gauranteed he would not have to pay all of it back to the lender, but he borrowed it for as long as the lender would allow, at the highest interest. Any working Joe who was looking out for his family at that time was in a hurry to pull up his pants and get to his job. His paycheck was allocated to his expenses and savings. Yes, back in those days people expected to be able to save some of their labor for future needs.
I wonder if there is an average worker today. Because statistical analysis has progressed faster than the American worker, there is nobody who willingly succumbs to the statistical analysis and statistical reporting. Every breadwinner, every person who brings home a paycheck, everyone who works to have money automatically deposited by digital transfer of 1's and 0's to his bank account is trying to find a way to feed and fuel his/her family and to find some enjoyment and solace in this life. That is not any different than the worker in 1975. It's just a different time.
Because those stupid sheep are having an identity crisis. Need a car with size and characters to show off their massive hollow head and tiny dicks.
I graduated high school in 1973. I had worked two years 4 nights a week in a restaurant flipping burgers for 1.60 an hour. Their most popular burger was called a delux and was .45. I bought a used 1968 Chevy Impala for 670 dollars in the summer of 1973. I was an apprentice meat cutter and making 3.15 an hour. That fall I picked apples on Saturdays and Sundays for five weekends for extra cash.
Today , I am 60. I don't recognize my country. We travel to Michigan for dads 90th B day lunch. He grew up in a log cabin NW of Edmonton, Alta. Canada. I have not the time or the inclination to fix the cesspool of money grubbing and political correctness this nation has become.
My folks taught us three things. Yes sir and yes ma'am. Work your ass off and earn what you spend. If it is worth doing it is worth doing right.
Did I steal the land from the Indians ? No. Did I have negro slaves? No. Did I ever have a desire to ass pack a hairy asshole with my tool? No.
So don't tell me I stole what I have earned. Don't tell me I owe any race a damn thing because this country was built on their backs 140 years ago. Also, don't teach my grandsons your perversions in grade school that my two dads are acceptable alternative unless you are willing to show them two men ass packing each other's hairy assholes up on the screen.
Oh , and one other thing. If your first act in coming to a new country is breaking the law to illegally enter, you are a criminal and an illegal.
There. Wonder why our whole banking and Fed reserve system is F Ed ? Look around. Look at the rest of society. America. Best country on earth or the last turd in a toilet bowl of political correctness run amok. You decide.
Me? I'll be ok. I won't live by the new golden rule of do it to others before they do it to you. Not then. Not now. Not ever. Thanks Dad. You raised us well.
to make a profit money lenders have to take out more than they put in
so if money lenders come to dominate an economy it is doomed
the West developed full blown banksterism in the 1980s and it's only taken c. 30 years to trash what took hundreds to build up
Coming soon "Multi Generational Mortgages" http://www.financialreporter.co.uk/mortgages/multi-generational-mortgage...
>>In very raw terms, if a man wanted to buy a house and a car in 1975 he had to work just under five years to pay for them. If they want a house and a car today, a man and wife have to work almost 11 years…(probably a lot longer than that)
corrected that for U