What if the discontent has always been a lie?

[Recursion]

Link to tweet

This is a rabbit hole, but one with a huge amount of traction. What if things actually have been getting better for 50 years?

[Kurt V.]

1. some things have , others haven't. What makes this dubious is he changes the original tweet.

[Recursion]

3. The sub thread about housing and health care was interesting

Housing costs less per square foot now than 40 years ago

[Kurt V.]

6. it was. the drivers of the cost become more sophisticated

[WeekiWater]

2. Let them eat bread!!! NT

[GoCubsGo]

4. Now, do that for homes/rent and automobiles.

And, health insurance.

[Recursion]

9. Read it. He did. The results may surprise you.

Housing is cheaper per square foot now than it was 50 years ago

[TwilightZone]

5. As noted in the thread, white bread had few competitors in 1977.

And now it has countless ones. So, the demand is down, as is the market share (hence, lower prices), making the comparison not terribly relevant or insightful.

As many also mentioned, make the same comparison with items like housing, tuition, or health care/insurance, which represent a much larger share of the average person's expenses, and the results are quite different.

[Recursion]

10. Read the thread. He does

A square foot of housing is cheaper now than in 1973

[TwilightZone]

11. Price/SF is meaningless.

In most cases, one is required to buy an entire house, not the 1973 equivalent of one.

Cars have changed size dramatically. Does that mean we should compare the difference in historical prices by the cubic feet of interior volume?

No, you buy a whole car, just like you buy a whole house.

If one is comparing purchasing power in terms of housing between today and 1973, median house price makes much more sense than price/SF.

[Stonepounder]

7. Hmmmmm.....

1970 Gasoline $0.28/gal
2019 Gasoline $2.89/gal
Incr 1000%

1970: $ 5,893
2017: $35,455
Incr: 601.64%

Increase relative to income = 166%

1970 Volkswagen Beetle MSRP (Under) $ 3,000
2019 Volkswagen Beetle MSRP $ 23,450
Incr: 781.66%

Increase relative to income = 129%

Amazing what you can do with statistics.

[pecosbob]

8. Not an economist but I have no problem with the price of staple goods at the market

Agricultural subsidies make some thing ridiculously inexpensive for consumers like sugar. But from a sixty year old who's spent much of his life in the bottom quartile the numbers shown in the tweet never reached those of us at the bottom. Reagan's voodoo economics trickled cash down just far enough to allow Wall Street to coopt the Democratic Party for the last few decades, but nothing ever reached the working poor.