[HN Gopher] Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for...
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Price shocks in formative years scar consumption for life
Author : NickRandom
Score : 234 points
Date : 2022-06-15 11:02 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu)
| qgin wrote:
| As an aside, gas prices now are basically the same as they were
| in 2013, adjusted for inflation.
| tomcam wrote:
| Growing up not rich in the 60s and 70s was useful on the balance.
| I was willing to take risks in business because when you don't
| have much to lose you are perhaps a little more free to try scary
| things. I read tons of how to succeed books and biographies and
| learned a lot about how failures are learning experiences. OTOH
| many of my peers wound up dead, on drugs, or incarcerated.
|
| I do tend to be hoardy and my clever technique has been to just
| buy more houses, so not a great role model in that regard.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I had a grandfather who lived through the depression. He never
| threw away anything that could possibly be useful in the future.
| [deleted]
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I don't really think penny pinching works during inflation. Your
| money will be worth less in the future
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| The paper fails to consider:
|
| 1. the cotemporaneous rise of (this iteration of an)
| environmental movement during exactly the same time period as the
| "price shocks" for gasoline that it considers. This has almost
| certainly had a significant impact on the zeitgeist for the
| cohort the study is considering, and it doesn't take much
| imagination to believe that it is a much more substantive impact.
|
| 2. studiously avoids an international comparison. The 78-80
| "shock" caused by the Iranian revolution had impacts on gasoline
| prices everywhere, and even if (as the paper notes) the USA is a
| much more car-centric culture than elsewhere, certainly people
| were driving a lot in Europe during that period too. If the
| effect is real, you should be able to demonstrate it there too.
| varispeed wrote:
| I know someone who immigrated from a former communist country.
| She talked how they lived in extreme poverty and now despite
| having great job and substantial savings, she pretty much lives
| the way she learned. For instance cooking the same food her
| parents used to cook from whatever they managed to find, only
| wearing used clothing. When her phone was stolen and she had to
| buy a new one, she literaly cried for a week thinking that for
| the lost money she could have food for months. The bad side is
| that I remember she berated her then boyfriend because he bought
| potatoes in the store that had them 20p (like a quarter in the
| US) more expensive than the one little farther from her place.
| Can you imagine being screamed at for 20p? He eventually left her
| and needed to attend therapy.
| astrobe_ wrote:
| > she pretty much lives the way she learned
|
| This is for me one key to understand this effect. I was a small
| kid in the 70ies, I didn't have any idea about gas prices and
| how much a driving license costs - I didn't even know that my
| toys did cost something - but I grew with parents who would
| scold me whenever we left some light on for no reason, or a
| door open for too long when it was cold outside, or opening the
| fridge for too long.
|
| I remember I was witnessing the exact opposite behavior in the
| American TV shows of that time. The "traditional" food battles
| were in particular not entertaining at all, but rather we were
| disgusted by the huge waste of food - this, although we were a
| middle class family that certainly had less money problems than
| your friend.
|
| To this day I still turn off unused stuff and close doors as
| soon as possible. And I try not to waste water too. And I check
| the price-per-weight rather than the unit price. Despite the
| fact I could afford to not give a huck to all this.
| Markoff wrote:
| I perfectly understand her, I am in similar position despite
| being in top 3% earners in Czechia I will refuse to buy
| overpriced goods I know they are cheaper in other shop. I have
| 4 years old phone, wanted to upgrade for really long time, but
| I don't see the value in new one worth spending that much money
| for flagship just because I want compact phone with good camera
| and battery (Pixel 4A was closest price wise, but battery and
| punch hole killed it) despite I could buy easily 4-5 flagships
| from my monthly income.
|
| Is there something wrong though with keeping your spending
| habits low instead splurging on stupid things and risking
| potentially you will have to adjust them, if you lose job? I
| find it better to just keep them pretty much stable no matter
| how high is the income. Though I would not touch second hand
| clothes, but would not have problem to buy second hand phone
| and I consider people buying brand new cars crazy, you will
| lose lot of value just after leaving the dealership.
|
| It probably helps my wife is (stereo)typical Chinese who will
| reuse everything and has problem to throw away anything, that's
| even more extreme than me not buying overpriced goods when I
| know they are cheaper elsewhere (I'm actually supporting price
| competition this way, sadly most of the people are lazy and
| don't give a F about few cents causing inflation for everyone).
| I love especially expiring food with 60-70% discounts, finding
| best possible deal makes me probably more happy than products
| itself.
| baal80spam wrote:
| Can almost fully relate and I also grew up in a communist
| country (Poland).
| [deleted]
| fleddr wrote:
| A "food shock" variation...
|
| My late grandmother, whom lived to the respectable age of 99
| years, experienced the Dutch hunger winter. A period of famine
| during WW2.
|
| For the rest of her lengthy life she could not tolerate any type
| of food waste. As an example, she'd buy a cabbage and then eat
| cabbage the entire week, even as it increasingly goes bad.
|
| She had zero interest in food quality or nutritional value, just
| food in itself. Behavior learned during the famine where you
| don't have the luxury to discriminate. As an example, she once
| babysat me and my brother and made an abundance of snacks. Just
| way too much. Quite soon we were full, but the single word
| "finish..." and her stare told us all we needed to know. We
| finished, with stomach cramps. Out of respect.
|
| Also, she had 9 children and survived 7 (genetic blood disease).
| She survived two husbands. In her extended family and friends,
| she survived...everybody.
|
| We have a single photo of her childhood, where she stands in
| front of her house. Which was...made from clay and reed. An
| astonishing reminder of how even in today's developed nations,
| wealth for common people is brand new. Despite plenty of
| opportunities in her lifetime, she rejected material wealth
| outside some basics. Zero material desires.
|
| Despite all this, not once in her life have I seen her sad or
| complain or moan. If us grandchildren did something bad or
| stupid, she didn't give a shit. You're still alive, in
| health...so what's the problem? Carry on.
|
| She didn't eat very healthy, smoke a pack a day and didn't
| exercise. And still she made a daily trip on her bicycle to get
| her own groceries. Or make two trips in a row if needed. Up to
| the age of 98.
|
| The collapse was short and sudden. After a hospital stay she was
| returned home to die. As she got carried out of the ambulance she
| saw my dad's work: her front-garden completely replanted with
| hundreds of blooming flowers, a sight to behold.
|
| "That looks nice"
|
| She was never very generous with compliments. And those were her
| last words. I'd call her Iron Lady, but it's an insult really.
| Iron is too soft to describe her.
|
| She lives on as my compass for life. When I worry, see darkness
| in the world, contemplate about world events and threats, I think
| of her.
|
| I'm alive, and I'm eating. I'm fine. Her scars are my lesson, and
| it's liberating.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| I remember there not being seconds at supper (1960s), Mom would
| serve, deciding how much everyone got: Dad first, then each of
| four kids, then herself. I know this is part of who I am, and
| some of why the house is stuffed. My wife laughs at how much
| clothing I have, because I still have clothes from 1979. Well,
| mostly she laughs at my stuff from the Eighties. But I remember
| shopping at Goodwill or my mom making everything we wore. It's
| not worth the anxiety to not-have.
| scruple wrote:
| At first appearances, I'm not too dissimilar to you though I am
| younger (in my 40s).
|
| > It's not worth the anxiety to not-have.
|
| Yes, but having too much stuff can also cause anxiety. There's
| a line in there somewhere that I strive to meet.
| bambax wrote:
| "scar" consumption? Or _immunize_ against compulsive consumption?
| meepmorp wrote:
| Keep in mind, this article is from a business school website.
| The perspective is going to be skewed towards whatever is
| perceived towards benefitting businesses.
| mjmsmith wrote:
| How Price Stability in Formative Years Incites Consumption for
| Life
| ponow wrote:
| Absa-bloody-lutely. Living through a price shock informs you of
| actual reality, not the government created illusory one
| (constructed with central banking and government policy) that
| encourages indebtedness and leaves you weak and unprepared for
| unforeseen events.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Notable that the gas price doubled in 3 years. We're almost at
| that point today.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=e...
| cageface wrote:
| My grandmother grew up during the great depression and often went
| hungry as a child.
|
| Decades later when she had plenty of money she still refused to
| ever throw _anything_ away. Her huge house was stuffed full of
| balls of old string, used popsicle sticks, ancient newspapers and
| wire.
| NickRandom wrote:
| I had a relative that was a child during WWII and they had some
| very distinctive (borderline maladaptive) 'quirks' ....
|
| One of which is they would never take the last item of anything
| from out of the fridge (eggs, cheese slices etc) and would
| become irate if anybody else did. They (much like your
| grandmother) were also unable/unwilling to throw anything out
| 'just in case'.
| sbf501 wrote:
| > Americans Have an Affinity for Driving
|
| Anecdata: I hate driving. I'd much rather take a bus or light
| rail, but that battle was lost in the 1940's[1], along with
| asinine city planning that was pro-car, anti-community that still
| exists today.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...
| swatcoder wrote:
| There was an article here yesterday[1] about a study showing a
| correlation between Glucosamine and reduced lung cancer
| mortality. The top comment[2] challenged the worth of the study
| on the grounds that these sort of observational studies in large
| populations have too many confounders to be taken seriously.
|
| There's truth to that point, but it's interesting to see which
| topics slide into skepticism and critiques of method, and which
| take results at face value and build a discussion on top of them.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31746980 [2]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31747822
| sys_64738 wrote:
| This isn't exactly unexpected as your childhood and adolescent
| experiences are what people vividly remember the most. Adulthood
| is all a blur otherwise.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Mindless consumption is nothing but a disease, of the mental
| illness variety. People who get a dopamine burst or some similar
| neurotransmitter release when they go shopping have been
| indoctrinated into patterns of behavior that do them no good in
| the long run. They'll end up with a house crammed with
| possessions they never use, bought on a whim in order to make
| themselves feel better.
|
| A better mentality is to always think: "Do I really need this
| product/service, or can I make do with things on hand that I can
| rebuild/repair/reuse in some manner, and am I sure this purchase
| isn't just for the dopamine reward?"
|
| Sometimes the answer will be yes, and a simple purchase can have
| a lot of positive knock on effects - good tools, for example,
| allow you to repair things that would otherwise cost much more to
| replace, and last much longer than cheap tools.
|
| The claim that economic growth relies on consumer confidence
| (high levels of consumption) is also pretty suspect and relies a
| lot on how you define 'growth' - what's wrong with a steady-state
| economy with a stable human population and fixed levels of demand
| for goods and services, anyway?
| samstave wrote:
| > _Mindless consumption is nothing but a disease_
|
| Take a moment, when you leave your house next, and find
| anything upon your travels/commute/walk, man-made, which is
| trying to NOT get you to spend (time/attention/money).
|
| Our entire civilization is built around programming
| consumerism, and lauding profiting from the inability to NOT
| spend.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > The claim that economic growth relies on consumer confidence
| (high levels of consumption) is also pretty suspect and relies
| a lot on how you define 'growth' - what's wrong with a steady-
| state economy with a stable human population and fixed levels
| of demand for goods and services, anyway?
|
| on a micro level, most people would prefer for their QOL to
| increase over time. I was happy to live like a college student
| when I was in college, but I wouldn't be happy to live that way
| as a 35 yo. this can't happen for everyone without some amount
| of growth.
|
| you rightly call out that people often spend money on temporary
| kicks that don't actually improve their QOL. but if you take a
| more intentional approach to spending, there are lots of
| opportunities to exchange money for less stress or more free
| time. for example, not everyone can afford an in-unit
| washer/dryer, but it sure is nice to have one.
|
| and then on a macro level, there is the unfortunate reality
| that we are a tribal species, constantly locked in a prisoner's
| dilemma with the other tribes. the more tribes onboard to the
| "steady state" model, the greater the incentive to defect and
| outgrow/dominate the others.
| bombcar wrote:
| > what's wrong with a steady-state economy with a stable human
| population and fixed levels of demand for goods and services,
| anyway?
|
| In one word, debt. The debt must be paid, which requires
| growth.
|
| (I guess one could argue that the growth demands debt.)
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > what's wrong with a steady-state economy with a stable human
| population
|
| We don't have a stable population. It's growing.
|
| We like things to get better even if we don't have "more". I
| don't have multiple cars just for me. But the car I have now
| has adaptive cruise control. It costs more, it makes my driving
| experience better, and I'm glad I have it.
|
| Both of these, among many other factors, influence economic
| growth.
| usrn wrote:
| No it's not, most developed countries force their populations
| to accept immigrants to keep the population growing in order
| to prop up the "growth" economy.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > We don't have a stable population. It's growing.
|
| The rate of growth is declining, though. So it's not
| unreasonable to foresee peak population in the near future
| (most estimates are around 2060, and it's not going to
| increase much between 2050 and then).
| solatic wrote:
| > what's wrong with a steady-state economy with a stable human
| population and fixed levels of demand for goods and services,
| anyway?
|
| Because there's no such thing as a steady-state economy. You
| might as well ask why people need to breathe in and out, why
| can't they just hold their breath?
| asimpletune wrote:
| I thought that was pretty funny, but after laughing it made
| me think... is it?
|
| Breathing in and out actually sounds like the respiration
| equivalent of exactly a steady state economy. Like, I don't
| continue to grow in size with each year, thus requiring more
| breath than the previous year. I grew a lot as a
| kid/teenager, then a tiny bit as an adult, and now I am more
| or less the same size (and relatively same breath size) as I
| will ever be.
| quantified wrote:
| Yeah, we don't just burn gas driving everywhere.
|
| "Scar consumption" as a phrase assumes that consumption in the
| American style is a healthy activity to begin with, and this
| outcome is damaging or ugly. "Permanently reduce consumption"
| would be more worthy of an academic setting, that title is
| clickbaity. Perhaps some will overdo avoidance of something
| because of fear of expense. Better than masses overdoing from
| building their lives around unsustainable inexpensive
| consumption. Look where we are for sprawl and emissions.
| [deleted]
| cs137 wrote:
| Plus, a lot of that gas consumption is spent commuting, which
| makes people miserable. Murdering the daily commute is a good
| thing Covid-19 did, although I don't expect it to last long
| (WFH-ers will get fewer promotions, despite working harder, and
| eventually RTO fetishists will rule the roost).
|
| Very few people want to "consume gas". They want to be able to
| live decently and have meaningful jobs. Unfortunately, in
| today's market, that usually means a shit-ass load [1] of
| driving.
|
| ----
|
| [1] You don't want to know how much time I spent deciding
| whether to use the more conventional hyphenization ("shit-ass-
| load") or the version with better cadence.
| quantified wrote:
| Hopefully a lot less than you spend behind the wheel getting
| anywhere.
| mistersquid wrote:
| > You don't want to know how much time I spent deciding
| whether to use the more conventional hyphenization ("shit-
| ass-load") or the version with better cadence.
|
| It's not a question of "cadence" but of grammar. "Shit-ass"
| is an adjective modifying the noun "load". Your choice is
| grammatically correct.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Could there not be a noun, "ass-load"?
| mistersquid wrote:
| > Could there not be a noun, "ass-load"?
|
| Absolutely. Had the GGP wrote "shit-ass-load" the whole
| hyphenated string would be a noun, which is also
| grammatically correct.
|
| But "shit-ass load" is a bit more evocative and
| digestible than "shit-ass-load".
|
| I would have gone your direction with "assload" (no
| hyphen) which is a satisfying single noun with no
| adjective.
| ackfoobar wrote:
| > a lot of that gas consumption is spent commuting, which
| makes people miserable. Murdering the daily commute is a good
| thing Covid-19 did
|
| I guess this applies more to those who drive from the suburb.
|
| I lived in a dense city with great transit. I miss the
| commute, which forces me to walk a bit, starts myself up, and
| helps me compartmentalize my time.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Being poor in general, during your childhood, scars you for life.
|
| It makes you penny wise and pound foolish, adverse to taking
| risks in your career and investments, can destroy your confidence
| in yourself, while always having to look over your shoulder
| monetarily speaking.
|
| Habits that even after you remove poverty from your live, you
| still feel the the anxiety and triggers in your head.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Habits that even after you remove poverty from your live, you
| still feel the the anxiety and triggers in your head.
|
| In high school, I went to a friend's house for lunch. Their
| father served a mountain of food. My friend said, a bit
| exasperated, 'Dad - why do you always serve so much food?!'
|
| Dad said, caringly but directly: 'Remember that I grew up in a
| refugee camp in Palestine. It is very important to me that
| nobody ever runs out of food to eat in my home.'
|
| An eye-opening moment for a teenager.
| hansword wrote:
| It's being poor, that scars you.
|
| As with everything, during childhood impressions are stronger
| and effect your life more, but being really poor in your 20s
| has quite a similar effect.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| That's true, I grew up during the 2008 recession so I
| constantly have that at the back of my mind. Massive layoffs,
| housing crash, breaking news everyday, everyone in just
| constant worry for an extended period of time. Now in 2022 I
| find myself reliving these memories a little, and I have
| observed my behavior to be extremely risk-averse these days.
| nomel wrote:
| For me, the current projection of the economy are
| justifying all of me, most likely unhealthy, behavior.
| 01100011 wrote:
| I feel like the results of risky behavior in the real world are
| somewhat similar to risky behavior in investing. When there is
| a bull market and overall growth trajectory, risky behavior is
| more likely to pay off. When a nation is in its growth phase,
| risky behavior is also more likely to pay off. If a nation
| starts to enter a phase of decline, perhaps more conservative
| behavior is a better gamble? Certainly you have to take risk to
| make outsized gains, I'm just thinking the likelihood of a
| payoff changes depending on the overall environment.
| doix wrote:
| > It makes you penny wise and pound foolish while always having
| to look over your shoulder monetarily speaking.
|
| Could you explain what you mean? I grew up pretty poor, single
| income PhD student/post-doc salary family with two kids.
| Eventually my father got a proper position at a university, but
| until then we were pretty poor. My parents used to sleep on the
| floor, we had almost no furniture(I remember playing football
| in our living room with my dad since it was entirely empty)
| with most of our stuff coming from charities.
|
| I wonder if I exhibit the behavior you talk about or not.
| teddyh wrote:
| I often link to these articles. Especially the second one is
| exactly what you are asking about:
|
| * 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor, May 27, 2011:
| https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-
| about...
|
| * The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor, January
| 19, 2012: https://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-
| habits-you-deve...
|
| * 4 Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor
| People, February 21, 2013:
| https://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-politicians-will-
| never...
| flybrand wrote:
| There were many brilliant Cracked articles in their day.
| ev1 wrote:
| Was this formerly a good site? I remember running into
| cracked periodically in the last few years and it always
| looked like the absolute worst of clickbait spam, but
| these articles are rather decent
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Once upon a time, yes. I mean, it was always a bit fluffy
| and lighthearted - that's the point, right? - but they
| often had quality articles. But then they were acquired
| in 2016 and it was downhill from there.
| peyton wrote:
| You grew up in the modern day priest class, not poor.
| corrral wrote:
| There's a reason Fussell puts college professors as a kind
| of appendix on the side of his "Upper-Middle", and not down
| in classes that tend to be closer to their income level
| (Middle, or even Prole).
|
| Still, I'm not sure how much difference that upper-middle-
| adjacent socialization makes when it comes to poverty
| thinking.
| doix wrote:
| That's fair. My parents left the collapsing USSR with
| nothing and ended up in Australia. Materially poor with no
| support network or generational wealth, but well educated
| and with a clear path to the middle class. I still think
| I/we were very fortunate and didn't mean to offend anyone
| by saying we were poor. I am well aware there are/were many
| people less fortunate than us.
| ponow wrote:
| It's not fair.
| Mezzie wrote:
| This is one problem with socio-economic class: When
| somebody's 'socio' doesn't match their 'economic', things
| get weird. I'm a first generation college student who has 3
| great-grandparents with college degrees.
|
| It makes it easier to dig yourself out, but depending on
| the circumstances it can also cause its own issues. For
| example, my mother ran away from an abusive but well-off
| home, so I was regaled with tales of upper-middle and well-
| off hypocrisy and all their problems, which makes it really
| hard to want to fit in/keep my mouth shut in spaces that I
| share with those people.
| ponow wrote:
| No, poor is poor. Please don't move or re-label goal posts.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Could you explain what you mean?_
|
| Sure.
|
| I realize I waste a lot of time in supermarkets, shops or
| online stores, browsing/walking around and comparing prices
| just to penny pinch on low value things, when the savings I
| would make would have no meaningful impact on my yearly net
| worth, but the time and mental energy wasted browsing/walking
| around comparing prices could have better return on
| investment if used on other things like learning a new skill,
| reading a book, etc.
|
| I avoid any kind of subscription services (Netflix, Spotify,
| cloud-storage, phone contract, etc.) to the disbelief of my
| friends ( _" But it's only 10 Euros a month!, Why don't you
| have it?"_), preffering instead to spend my time building my
| own self-hosted solutions for cheap, which probably explains
| how I got into tech in the first place.
|
| I own a cheap old car and prefer to fix it myself if I can,
| rather than paying someone to do it, even though the time I
| spend learning how to fix it, buying the parts, then actually
| fixing it, is probably worth more than a professional would
| have cost.
|
| I'm afraid to make investments fearing that the market could
| crash the second I enter it, and erase my money, leaving me
| vulnerable to being homeless or dependent on doing shitty
| jobs I hate just to stay afloat, so I just hoard cash like an
| idiot as that makes me feels safe and lets me sleep well at
| night.
|
| I think I might not be good enough for some bold career
| steps, like giving up my tech job and risking everything to
| start my own business of a coffee cart in the city center or
| pivoting to something other than tech that's less well paid,
| like being a teacher.
|
| I spent too much of my youth studying hard at useless
| subjects on the pressure from my parents that _" education
| will get you far in life, so beat those books and get good
| grades"_, only to realize far too late in life that I could
| have gotten in the same spot with 20% of the effort, leaving
| me time to actually enjoy my youth.
|
| Sure, I'm working my way out of these habits slowly, but the
| Pavlovian impulses are still in my brain. Complex things
| these minds of ours.
| thegeomaster wrote:
| Wow, this is very similar to my own behavior. I always
| suspected it's related to financial hardship in my teen
| years, but this removes all doubt.
| pea wrote:
| Strangely, I've observed the same behaviour with people on
| the exact opposite side of the spectrum too (i.e. UHNW).
|
| A friend of mine worked on superyachts which were PS400k a
| week to rent. He said that without fail the owners would be
| penny pinching at the end over a few PS here and there (on
| food, drink, suncream etc.) Same with upper-class Brits who
| had hundreds of years of intergenerational wealth but won't
| turn their heating on until November.
|
| Not sure what to make of this; I've often wondered if it is
| a form of bell curve.
| mlyle wrote:
| Rich penny pinching is often all about forcing
| counterparties to give you more favorable terms-- using
| the copious other economic options you have as leverage.
|
| Poor penny pinching is often about doing what's necessary
| to survive, even if it's a terrible outcome in the medium
| term.
| bombcar wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is because at those wealth
| levels, you start to feel you don't have much in the way
| of agency (you're not bargaining for the cost of the
| superyacht, someone does that for you, etc) - and you
| want to feel "in the game".
|
| Now if by "owners" you mean the owners of the yacht, then
| it makes more sense as it's a business and they're
| controlling costs, especially the ones they see as
| "variable".
| joncrocks wrote:
| How many of those UHNW individuals came from money vs.
| had to build it themselves?
|
| "Wealth does not last beyond three generations"
|
| https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/generational-
| wealth%3A-why-d...
| vishnugupta wrote:
| > "education will get you far in life, so beat those books
| and get good grades"
|
| In India at least, this is a time tested way to escape
| poverty. Doing well in academics and get into STEM you will
| greatly increase your odds. Not for nothing India has
| millions of coaching centres and some of the most valued
| ed-tech startups. The poor can and do mortgage their house,
| land etc., to send their kids to good school and college.
| cpsns wrote:
| I'm guilty of doing everything you've mentioned as well,
| for the same reasons, but this especially:
|
| >I'm afraid to make investments fearing that the market
| could crash the second I enter, and erase my money, leaving
| me vulnerable to being homeless or dependent on doing
| shitty jobs I hate just to stay afloat, so I just hoard
| cash like an idiot as that makes me feels safe and lets me
| sleep well at night.
|
| I am terrified I won't have money when I need it, worried
| it won't be there or accessible. I've learned over time
| that there is no amount of money in my savings account that
| can alleviate this.
|
| When I was a kid there was never enough money and disaster
| was one unexpected bill away. As an adult I know that's not
| true of my situation now, but I am incapable of getting out
| of that mindset.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've found that reducing the "monthly" bills can help -
| which usually means paying down and off debt entirely.
|
| Then consider things as "one time purchases" instead of
| monthly obligations - buy Disney+ for a year, once, and
| immediately cancel. Then if something goes wrong, there's
| no upcoming bill to pay.
| almost_usual wrote:
| If I were you I'd reach out to a therapist if you haven't
| already. It sounds like you're dealing with anxiety and
| catastrophic thinking.
| ponow wrote:
| > the time and mental energy wasted comparing prices could
| have better return on investment if used on other things
| like learning a new skill, meeting a friend, reading a book
|
| Maybe. Actual cost savings are observable now, with very
| high probability. Maybe that book or skill is useless; in
| other words, there's a broad distribution on possible
| outcomes. Who actually measures this stuff to assess ROI?
| It's not obvious that most people get a good ROI out of
| university degree, or at least at the same levels as in the
| past. At best I've seen some average measures, but not
| bottom 10 percentile measures, you know, essentially
| guarantees that one's time and energy and money isn't
| wasted. It should be of significant concern that even a CS
| degree isn't an effective guarantee of a job offer that
| requires the knowledge gained from that CS degree. It's as
| if a lot of the actual skill an employer requires is
| learned outside school, which is insane and conflicts with
| the broad everyone-must-graduate-college narrative in the
| US and Canada.
| mwint wrote:
| Correct, this is what I've observed too. It's stunning to
| me that the big tech companies - Amazon comes to mind -
| aren't writing colleges big checks in exchange for
| "produce us people who can function in real life teams".
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> aren't writing colleges big checks in exchange for
| "produce us people who can function in real life teams"._
|
| The US has has the privilege($$$) to import the minds and
| workforce it needs, thereby skipping the need to invest
| in local education, and offshoring this burden to brain-
| drain countries in the process.
| ponow wrote:
| And this is done without any violent process of physical
| capture. Others could play that game too, and the US
| could play it as well as it once did. All the
| participating parties would benefit directly, and "the
| world" indirectly.
| mountainb wrote:
| The US spends more per capita on education than any other
| large country on earth. The only countries in the OECD
| that surpass the US in per capita education spending are
| Luxembourg, Norway, Austria, and Iceland.
| https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd
|
| So, the US is actually doing both: doing its best to
| brain-drain other developed countries while also spending
| more than anyone else on education. Is college the best
| place to train people to function better in teams? Or
| would Amazon be better served in funding lots of youth
| sports teams and recruiting from those?
| outworlder wrote:
| > I own a cheap old car and prefer to fix it myself if I
| can (...) probably worth more than a professional would
| have cost.
|
| Maybe! It all depends on whether or not you would actually
| do something more productive with the time. If you were to
| write a book or work on your company or take an extra job
| with those hours, sure, pay the professional. But if,
| instead, you were going to be watching TV instead, then you
| are way ahead. You have learned a skill, which can save you
| in the long run, even if you pay (you know if you are
| getting a good service and not being gouged, etc).
|
| Having a cheap car - as long as it's not a lemon - is a
| good thing.
|
| > I'm afraid to make investments fearing that the market
| could crash the second I enter it
|
| Ok, that is a problem. Keep hoarding cash if it makes you
| feel better but take a portion and invest. Once you have
| managed to save enough to have 3-6 months expenses covered,
| you should be investing the rest. That's how you get out of
| shitty jobs, specially later in life. Markets generally
| recover and have for a century. If this stops we'll have
| bigger problems (and not investing doesn't shield you from
| them).
|
| I basically agree with everything else you said.
| dmux wrote:
| >So I just hoard cash like an idiot as that makes me feels
| safe and lets me sleep well at night.
|
| If you haven't already, look into Certificates of Deposit
| ("CD") at your local bank. They're FDIC insured (so if the
| bank goes under, you're covered, up to something like
| $250k) and you don't have to worry about losing the
| principal amount you put in. If you ever need to withdraw
| that money in case of an emergency, you only risk losing
| out on the interest. Instead of dumping a ton of money into
| a single CD, look into CD laddering wherein you setup
| multiple CDs that expire in 3 months, 6 months, etc or some
| other cadence that you're comfortable with.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Are interest rates high enough again to make laddering
| worth it?
| jacobr1 wrote:
| For I-Bonds the rates are now worth it. They are very CD-
| like, in that you can't withdraw them for the first year,
| and in the first 5 there is a few month interest penalty
| for early withdrawal.
|
| You can only buy $10k per person per year, but as a
| married couple, you could build up 100K in savings over 5
| years, and even faster if you hold them in a trust.
| Infernal wrote:
| Can you explain why it would be faster to hold I-bonds in
| a trust?
| bombcar wrote:
| From the internet:
|
| One limitation of buying I Bonds is the annual purchase
| limit. Each person can buy a maximum of $10,000 per
| calendar year as the primary owner.
|
| In addition, if you have a trust, you can buy another
| $10,000 per year under the name of the trust. A lawyer
| created a revocable living trust for us back in 2018. It
| was surprisingly easy when I opened an account for the
| trust at TreasuryDirect last month. It took only 15
| minutes to open a new trust account and buy another
| $10,000 of I Bonds.
|
| So it lets you double the amount you can buy.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Was offered 1% for 11 month deposit yesterday. Much
| better than last year's 0.25%, but still, what, 1/8 of US
| inflation?!
| bombcar wrote:
| Even less worth it when Alliant is paying 1% for a bog-
| standard saving account:
| https://www.alliantcreditunion.org/bank/high-yield-
| savings
| robotresearcher wrote:
| That's relatively good. My credit union is still offering
| only 0.2% on >$100K.
|
| The main benefit of cash recently is losing less value
| each day than stocks!
|
| https://kpcu.com/Rates
| dmux wrote:
| I only mentioned laddering to ease any fears of "locking
| everything up all at once" the OP may have had -- I
| hadn't considered interest rates.
| mlyle wrote:
| No. But if you're going to hoard cash, laddering is a
| slightly better way to do so.
| vasco wrote:
| That's for you to assess based on your risk profile. My
| answer is at the moment it's not worth it
| doix wrote:
| > I realize I waste a lot of time in the supermarket
| comparing prices,
|
| Interesting, I've always hated shopping for food, but I
| happily waste money on takeaways/restaurants. I think for
| me it is more about food waste and the mental energy wasted
| planning all my ingredients to make sure nothing goes to
| waste rather than saving money. I spend money now to not
| have to worry about it as much.
|
| > I'm afraid to make investments fearing that the market
| crash or something like that would erase them leaving me
| vulnerable to being homeless or dependent on doing jobs I
| hate.
|
| Yeah, I'm pretty risk averse when it comes to investments,
| which is screwing me right now with inflation as high as it
| is :(.
| notahacker wrote:
| > I realize I waste a lot of time in supermarkets, shops or
| online stores, browsing/walking around and comparing prices
| just to penny pinch on low value things, when the savings I
| would make would have no meaningful impact on my yearly net
| worth, but the time and mental energy wasted
| browsing/walking around comparing prices could have better
| return on investment if used on other things like learning
| a new skill, reading a book, etc.
|
| That's a feeling I know well. It's even more irrational
| when it's a habit inherited from parents who weren't
| particularly poor, so you grow up living in quite a nice
| house that a lot of time and money has been spent
| extending, but a 50p ice cream is considered decadent. And
| after you've made a whole bunch of career choices not
| optimising for income, saved loads without investing it
| well, you still find yourself avoiding buying icecreams or
| coffees when out unless you've got company and comparing
| cheese prices per kg in a cheap supermarket, not because
| it's necessary or because you aren't aware that negotiating
| the price of your next house will save you more than three
| lifetimes of cheese price comparisons, but simply because
| doing anything else feels like being ripped off.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >I realize I waste a lot of time in supermarkets, shops or
| online stores, browsing/walking around and comparing prices
| just to penny pinch on low value things
|
| Of course it pales in comparison to cashing out your
| overpriced McMansion in some Karen infested suburb of a
| major metro with nice schools and moving to rural Idaho or
| switching jobs for a new one with "senior" in the title.
| But have you ever actually run the numbers? Cheaping out
| and/or reducing consumption has a huge impact on weekly or
| monthly finances if it is applied with any breadth. Monthly
| finances have a huge impact on money available for
| savings/investment.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| The right answer really depends on what the opportunity
| cost is. If you're a FAANG engineer, the time spent
| trying to save small amounts of money could be better
| spent doing a better job at work, getting a better
| review, having a bigger impact, and a bigger RSU grant or
| even promotion.
| com2kid wrote:
| > I'm afraid to make investments fearing that the market
| could crash the second I enter it, and erase my money,
| leaving me vulnerable to being homeless or dependent on
| doing shitty jobs I hate just to stay afloat, so I just
| hoard cash like an idiot as that makes me feels safe and
| lets me sleep well at night.
|
| Blended funds! You can choose what % of your money is
| invested at various risk levels. Choose a fund that puts
| only a fraction of your money in stocks, money markets,
| CDs, etc., and finally cash.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| It's an adaptation to an environment where nothing you
| could do or say would earn you a raise, ever. Never get
| more money to take home, exploitation in the workplace. In
| comparison comparing for pennies on flour is fun, it's
| entertainment.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| * In comparison comparing for pennies on flour is fun,
| it's entertainment.*
|
| This just isn't true for me. Comparing pennies on flour
| is extremely stressful. At one time - a time when I
| couldn't pay for natural gas for proper heat nor hot
| water - I cried because I spent 25 cents more on a
| product I liked a whole heck of a lot better. That
| quarter might have been the difference between going to
| the laundry or washing clothing in the sink (with water
| heated on a hotplate). Or at least, this was what was in
| my head.
|
| I generally don't count pennies for flour as much
| anymore, but it took years, divce, remarriage, and a move
| to another country to even get to that position. I still
| get pretty panicked about spending money. Usually it
| happens on things more than approximately $50-$100 (after
| exchange rate). Occasionally I just go without a haircut
| or don't buy new clothes despite a few holes/being a bit
| threadbare, though.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I remember feeling like I'd bought cheap shirts at my first
| job. I didn't want to spend PS25-PS100 on nice shirts when
| there were cheapass shirts you could buy for PS10. Made me
| look cheap at a place where the bosses were driving Ferraris.
|
| Also, not buying a holiday until well into my 20s. I still
| feel like it's mostly not worth it, even though I can pay for
| it and it's probably sensible to take a break from time to
| time.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah I don't like travel either. Not because I can't afford
| it, I just find it more tiring than anything and don't
| really get a lot of pleasure or relaxation just being
| somewhere different. I'd rather be sitting on my back porch
| given the choice.
| kosyblysk2 wrote:
| you can make the same argument (in reverse) about being rich.
|
| it is like saying: ohhh my mommy was so bad to me and now i
| have issues, ohhh my mommy was so good to me and now i have
| issues.
|
| victim mentality
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I think you should try and understand the definition of
| 'victim mentality' a little better.
|
| There's great power in understanding where you came from, and
| how that affects your behavior today.
| bobkazamakis wrote:
| tidbits wrote:
| Or extremes are bad?
| Fezzik wrote:
| Not all consequences are the same, even if the initial
| conditions are of the same-type; not all people who
| acknowledge negative consequences think of themselves as
| victims. Saying one is aware that certain conditions and
| circumstances in childhood tend to cause certain negative
| behaviors in adulthood is helpful information. Dismissing it
| as having a victim mentality is unhelpful.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I have seen it also go other ways though - I think it really
| depends on the family and how they deal with being poor.
| Families who are poor in currency but very rich in love and
| social connections seem to still produce great adults who might
| have some of the scars you are talking about but also are able
| to overcome them.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| Had this problem
|
| Easy solution
|
| take a few hundred from the bank and physical set it on fire
|
| keep doing it until you don't care
|
| it's illegal but it works
| blackoil wrote:
| Better approach that I am trying is try to buy luxury version
| whenever I need something. Broke a plate, buy one from
| boutique ceramic shop. Need some glasses sure a high end
| crystal. Though on counter side, be really sure that you are
| rich before trying to act like one.
| phil21 wrote:
| This is very similar to how I tried (am trying?) to evolve
| my spending, usually having the impulse to buy something
| now before it become scarce or buy the cheapest possible
| thing to get the task done in the moment.
|
| These days I realize I have nearly everything I need, so if
| I'm buying something I figure I can't really afford it
| unless I'm getting the "best" out there. Best for me means
| researching the best performing/quality/etc. item in the
| category. If I'm replacing a broken item I also take the
| opportunity to upgrade.
|
| For example I needed a carpet shampoo cleaner recently.
| Instead of heading to Walmart to buy whatever consumer gear
| was slapped on the shelf, I spent a few weeks deeply
| researching the ecosystem and ended up with something about
| 4-5x the expense - but with performance to match. The
| difference in quality makes it almost a pleasure to clean
| my carpets these days.
|
| It's easy to spend money simply on fancy and not get much
| out of it. But I feel pretty satisfied when I make an
| absurdly expensive purchase like the above but still feel
| great about it a year later due to the value/increased
| quality of life it bought me. In the moment if feels
| ridiculous paying many multiples more than I would have in
| the past, but over time these little incremental
| improvements add up.
|
| It's the spending that I do like a "poor person" that
| bothers me the most - just buying crap on impulse, or
| "collector" behavior. I find I need to actively mitigate
| both impulses or I'd end up on a hoarding TV show.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> take a few hundred from the bank and physical set it on
| fire keep doing it until you don't care_
|
| That sounds bad. Why not give it to a homeless guy or to
| charity or something?
|
| _> it's illegal_
|
| Honestly, the central banks can go to hell. They can print
| way more money than you can ever burn, which they do, even
| far too much of it, bringing us to where we are today.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| You are simultaneously saying that destroying money is a
| bad thing and that creating money is a bad thing.
|
| There is no "natural" amount of money.
| tootie wrote:
| So much of economics seems so obvious when you read about it
| but it runs very strongly against our lizard brain instincts.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Everyone's character, behaviors, preferences, etc, etc, are
| formed in very large part by their life experience.
|
| If I had a nickle for every time someone said something about
| the poors being scarred or broken and then in short order
| started spewing nonsense about how the poors have minimal
| agency, need guidance or protecting from themselves, are doing
| it wrong, etc, etc. I would be a very wealthy man. And a hell
| of a lot of HN would be poorer in $.05 increments.
|
| Did you (in general, not personally) ever think that maybe it's
| all the upper middle class types who are doing it wrong and the
| only reason we get away with it is because we have money to
| sustain the lifestyle?
|
| People who act like cheapskates, buying $500 cars, $20 Walmart
| jeans, while their peers sneer about the $2k Camry, and $50
| Levis being a "better value", seem to do well at all levels of
| the economic ladders and even frequently improve their lot in
| life.
| sbf501 wrote:
| > penny wise and pound foolish
|
| I've seen this in action: e.g., clipping coupons but not paying
| down debt faster than the schedule.
| snarfy wrote:
| I'll never have another credit card. Frequent flyer miles, what
| are those? The whole industry can go fuck themselves.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If you're able to live without the credit aspects of the
| credit card, why not take the 1-2% discount on nearly
| everything consumable that you buy?
|
| If you pay it off every month, credit cards have a negative
| cost (to you) and a fair amount of convenience (for renting
| cars, hotels, booking flights, etc).
| duncan_idaho wrote:
| That 1-2% is what they pay you for all your data. Credit
| cards are a key component of data brokers.
| astrange wrote:
| It's a refund on the interchange fee from not doing
| chargebacks and paying your bills on time. Your data is
| not interesting or valuable, that's your ego talking.
| kube-system wrote:
| Data brokering is a 200 billion dollar industry. Some
| individual data brokers say they have data on half of all
| transactions in the US, so it's safe to say that your
| transactions are more likely to be sold than not.
|
| Nobody cares about _your_ data (unless you 're high
| profile), but -- for example -- hedge funds and the like
| will spend big bucks to get aggregate sales data before
| this quarter's financial reports are written.
| throwaway193948 wrote:
| compared to all the other data collected about me with no
| benefit to myself that seems like an ok deal
| bombcar wrote:
| The 1-2% is what they pay you for helping strong-arm the
| merchant into giving them 3%.
| bombcar wrote:
| Not everyone can do it - it can be like asking an alcoholic
| why they don't go to the bar anymore, because the walk and
| the beer has health benefits.
|
| Sometimes you have to identify your weakness and ruthlessly
| cut them out of your life.
| Arrath wrote:
| I also like the extra layer of fraudulent transaction
| protection vs e.g. a debit card.
| ciconia wrote:
| > scars you for life.
|
| You could also say being poor in childhood teaches you how to
| be frugal. I regard this as a healthy habit and better
| discipline I wish I had with money (coming from a middle-class
| family).
|
| Another way to look at frugality is just an aversion to
| spending money on whatever it is that society or mass media
| tell you you _have_ to buy, an important and healthy attitude
| one can have, IMO.
| stu2b50 wrote:
| There's a fine line between frugality and being stuck in a
| local optima. Sometimes, expensive things are better in the
| long run, because they serve their purpose better and last
| longer.
| Loic wrote:
| My approach is to always buy the first "stuff" cheap and
| then try to use it the best possible way. If it breaks or I
| see the limits with the "stuff", then I go for the good and
| expensive one. This way I know I need it but I can also
| better assess the quality.
|
| This of course after having spent too much on high quality
| "stuff" with little use.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| This is what I do with tools. If it's obviously something
| I will use again and again, I'll pay for quality. If it's
| something I might need just once, but not certain, I'll
| buy a cheap one to get the immediate job done. If I need
| it again and it breaks, I've now needed it twice so I'll
| replace it with a good one. (If it doesn't break, it's a
| better value than I thought).
| cactus2093 wrote:
| The only problem with this approach is the amount of time
| before your interest in a new thing starts to fade is
| often just about the same amount of time it takes to
| recognize the limits of the cheap stuff and decide to
| upgrade.
|
| It's definitely happened to me multiple times. And I
| don't think it's just a coincidence, with any new hobby
| or skill you will start out improving very quickly and
| then eventually hit a plateau. The first thing you think
| when you hit the plateau is "I would be a little bit
| better/have a little bit more fun with this if I had
| better gear", and it's usually true and you do get a
| slight boost. But then a little while after that you hit
| a sustained plateau anyway and that's the point where
| you'll often lose interest.
| dougmwne wrote:
| First order frugality: buy cheaper things or go without.
| Hoard all your trash in case you need it again.
|
| Second order frugality: Buy it for life. Quality over
| quantity.
|
| Third order frugality: This inert matter is not nearly as
| interesting as the people who wish to sell it to us want us
| to believe.
| senortumnus wrote:
| Well said
| throwamon wrote:
| optimum*
| [deleted]
| twblalock wrote:
| One of the other aspects of being poor is the assumption that
| any windfall you get will be nickeled and dimed away from you
| pretty soon, so the only way you'll ever be able to enjoy it
| is to spend it all immediately.
|
| That turns out to be the opposite of frugality.
| nradov wrote:
| Poor people who manage to accumulate some savings also face
| intense social pressure to give or "loan" that money to
| family and friends who are in more desperate circumstances
| (or at least claim to be). It's nice to help people out,
| but being too generous makes it impossible to ever get
| ahead.
| sangnoir wrote:
| It goes way beyond frugality - it is usually accompanied by a
| touch of hoarding (bought a new phone? Let's keep the old one
| even if it has a cracked screen, _just in case_... <throws
| phone into drawer full of hopelessly unusable and outdated
| electronic doodads>.)
|
| A term I've seen bandied about for the collective symptoms is
| having a _Scarcity mindset_ and it 's based on
| insecurity/fear of unexpectedly running out of money (which
| was a frequent event in childhood)
|
| John Scalzi's classic "Being Poor" blog post[1] details the
| effects of poverty in detail.
|
| 1. https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
| SoftTalker wrote:
| With electronics specifically, it's often just more
| convenient to toss the old device in a drawer. You're not
| supposed to put them in the trash, and e-waste disposal
| often incurs a fee. This is why refrigerators end up dumped
| on the side of a road in a ravine, because municipalities
| make it _harder_ to dispose of them responsibly than to
| just dump them.
| jlawson wrote:
| >(bought a new phone? Let's keep the old one even if it has
| a cracked screen, just in case... <throws phone into drawer
| full of hopelessly unusable and outdated electronic
| doodads>.)
|
| Never been poor; me and my whole family have always done
| this. I just forced them to get rid of their standalone DVD
| player. They have remote controls for devices going back to
| the 90's.
|
| The cellphone example is even better; you'd be a fool to
| immediately dump your old phone. It's small and easy to
| store, and if your new phone craps out or gets lost or
| stolen you may very well have a use for another phone that
| works _right now_. I have phones going back 2 generations.
|
| This is just frugality and contingency planning.
|
| Scarcity mindset is more like, "I have $300, I need to
| spend it before it goes away". That's what keeps people
| poor.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Never been poor
|
| So what basis do you have for commenting on the
| experience of it?
|
| > me and my whole family have always done this.
|
| I'm sure there are other things that both your family and
| poor families have done, but that doesn't have
| explanatory value.
| sangnoir wrote:
| A -> B =/= B -> A
|
| You don't have to be/(have been) poor to be a hoarder. On
| the old cellphone, my emphasis was a drawer full of
| backup-to-a-backup-to-a-backup devices that are now 10
| years old and is running Android 2 and are potentially a
| fire hazard while charging and are not fit for use - they
| are _emotional support devices_. Keeping one generation
| of backup device is rational, 3+ means there 's something
| to unpack.
|
| I'm curious about how your family tradition came to be: a
| high number of people who experienced the great
| depressions in their formative years are/were compulsive
| hoarders in latter years.
|
| _Being poor_ is what keeps poor people poor; costs of
| necessities go down the richer you get; being poor is
| _expensive_
| Melatonic wrote:
| You can very easily teach yourself to be frugal now as well -
| it just requires taking the time out of your day to do so. Of
| course there are potential confounding factors but there are
| plenty of super rich people I know who are annoyingly frugal.
| abc_lisper wrote:
| This is fixable without suffering. Read a few books on the
| subject, and develop an appreciation of why money is
| important. Suffering is the last and blunt resort.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > You could also say being poor in childhood teaches you how
| to be frugal.
|
| You _could_ say anything, but what 's true is that it's not
| frugality. Where do you get that?
|
| It's a traumatic experience with lifelong consequences. I
| know that from many people who have experienced it.
| option wrote:
| It's not just frugality. Being "penny wise and pound foolish"
| and being risk averse is a huge drag on one's financial
| opportunities.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| I think you are both correct. It is true that people who grow
| up poor simply have much fewer chances to learn how to grow
| wealth. They may be frugal and manage the little they have
| with care, but that kind of mindset is not enough in general.
| They don't get any chance to learn how to invest money
| properly, because they don't have any to invest. If they do
| put something aside, they are encouraged (by the
| circumstances) to keep it as safe as possible (ie cash),
| which is generally a bad investment decision.
|
| You are also right in that there are plenty of people who are
| high earners, but never get to actually build wealth because
| they spend it all. This can often be the curse of living in a
| high cost of living area. You see all the wealthy people
| driving in nice cars and living in luxury homes, and this
| makes it difficult to consciously deny yourself these things
| and live (relatively) modestly but build long term wealth
| instead.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That overlooks the basic point, that poverty causes trauma.
| Budgeting is just one symptom. It causes negative life-long
| outcomes; there's plenty of research on this.
| DrBazza wrote:
| Another way of stating that article is that most people in
| their 20s and 30s have only ever known low-inflation and
| stability. Those in their mid-40s onwards are possibly young
| enough to remember how what their parents dealt with in the
| 70s.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| I'm in my 30s, I remember 2008 not being a fun time, didn't
| feel stable watching friends and family lose their jobs and
| then their houses!
| itronitron wrote:
| I remember sitting in the car with my mom outside an Amtrak
| train station in the late `70's asking her why she was
| cutting the tops off of several cereal boxes that we had just
| bought from the grocery store. Apparently they were for a
| discount on train tickets.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| Some coupons are just worth it. A guy in the 90s figured
| out he could get millions of frequent flyer miles from a
| few thousand dollars of pudding.
| DrBazza wrote:
| Or a military jet?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc.
| w-j-w wrote:
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| What about the Great Recession?
| mabbo wrote:
| My wife grew up very close to the poverty line, with her
| parents always just about to lose the house. And she has this
| anxiety. (Edit: to be clear, she's a successful civil engineer,
| considered one of the best in her field locally and makes great
| money- she has nothing to worry about.)
|
| In order to help with it, we have a bank account that our bills
| come out of that has a little more than 6 months worth of all
| our bills (mortgage payment included) just sitting there,
| collecting zero interest. Every time a bill is paid, we top it
| up to the target amount. If we stop making money today, we
| don't have to do anything differently for 6 months.
|
| It's not logical or financially wise, but it means that she
| doesn't worry about money as much. I consider the opportunity
| cost on the interest we might collect on that money as a bill
| that I'm happy to pay.
| bombcar wrote:
| People vastly underestimate the "peace of mind" costs - once
| those are taken into effect it can suddenly _make sense_ to
| do things that many consider "financially unwise", such as
| having a large emergency fund, paying off a mortgage, etc.
|
| And once you _do_ that you can find yourself suddenly feeling
| much more free - knowing that even if everything goes south
| room and board is taken care of can give you the courage to
| take risks you 'd not otherwise take, such as starting a
| business, a family, even moving.
|
| The main thing about "living paycheck to paycheck" that
| scares me is that feeling of being trapped.
| [deleted]
| ticviking wrote:
| Having a solid emergency fund is actually pretty wise. Maybe
| split some of that into something low risk like I-bonds. My
| wife has similar anxiety, and it took years of financial
| education to get her comfortable with the idea that we only
| need a month of backup, and can float the rest on CC until we
| liquidate other assets.
| nomel wrote:
| > we only need a month of backup
|
| As someone who went through two recessions, survived
| multiple layoffs, and had a few medical things, this seems
| like crazy talk. The general rule of thumb is 6 months of
| savings. I've known many that didn't follow this rule, and
| ended up in very bad debt.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Do you need it all sitting in a savings account, though?
| Inflation ate almost 9% of its value this past year.
| Granted stocks are down 20% this year, but assuming you
| don't have to touch it for a while, they should more than
| recover in a few years (well, assuming no massive global
| disaster, which seem more and more common lately).
|
| We have a decent amount sitting in our savings account,
| but not six months worth. But I can liquidate assets to
| get us the rest of that six months if necessary, and it
| would take about a week to get that into our bank
| account.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > Inflation ate almost 9% of its value this past year.
| Granted stocks are down 20% this year,
|
| yeah, so you're still ahead of the game if you had it
| saved.
| cableshaft wrote:
| This year. Meanwhile it would have missed out on 27% in
| gains the previous year (and its associated dividends),
| if I kept it in a bank account.
|
| Also that 20% loss will most likely recover in time.
| Inflation almost never reverses itself, it only slows
| down.
|
| There's a reason rich people park most of their money in
| assets, and not in savings accounts. If they got more
| returns by keeping it in savings accounts, they would do
| that.
| collinvandyck76 wrote:
| with the market being as it is, actually very wise to have a
| lot of cash on hand :) we also operate this way. i could
| become unemployed today and we buffer enough so that it's not
| an emergency at all.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I prefer a layered approach - some investments take longer
| than others to cash out. And some are in between but still
| provide some return. A ton of cash on hand is probably a
| bad idea
| moffkalast wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/tou7v2/
| oc_...
|
| Even Warren Buffet always keeps at least something like a
| fifth of his investments in cash. Otherwise how the hell
| are you going to buy low?
| petronio wrote:
| Should be noted that a significant portion of Berkshire
| Hathaway's usual cash pile is not for deal making, but as
| a backstop for their large insurance portfolio.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I would imagine though that he is also very often selling
| / buying so that hes not just sitting on a pile of cash
| for months at a time?
| moffkalast wrote:
| See reverse repos.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| I have a high yield savings account and interest is 0.75%, 6
| withdrawals per month and the transfer completes same day if
| I need it in an emergency, plus it's FDIC insured. Same peace
| of mind plus interest.
| abnercoimbre wrote:
| You might be talking about AMEX Savings? I remember when it
| was 1.70% before the pandemic. That almost beat inflation!
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| That's the one. It looks like some others are offering
| 1%+ now.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > It's not logical or financially wise
|
| It's absolutely both of those things. It's financially unwise
| to take any risks at all with your emergency funds and
| operating expenses, so having 3-6 months worth locked up is
| absolutely the best thing you can do.
| dageshi wrote:
| It's both logical and financially wise. Nothing is more
| valuable than time when you need it. That money will give you
| time when you need it.
| throwawayarnty wrote:
| How is this not logical or financially wise ?
|
| It is common advice to have an emergency fund equal to
| several months of expenses in cash.
|
| What is the alternative ? Having no emergency fund?
| aoeusnth1 wrote:
| Minimum buffer / maximizing investments in ETFs has higher
| EV and depending on your time horizon and model, may even
| be lower risk.
| lmm wrote:
| Several months is excessive. Even if you think you might
| going to spend six months with no income, you don't need
| six months' expenses in cash - one month's worth in instant
| access savings (or, sure, half in savings and half in cash
| under the matress, just in case), two months' in one
| months' notice savings, and three months' worth in three
| months' notice savings works just as well and will get you
| a better return.
| Gamemaster1379 wrote:
| > It's not logical or financially wise I'm taken aback by
| this statement. I am in an incredibly similar situation to
| your wife in terms of growing up and being successful today,
| and I do this. Granted, I think I'm at 3.5 months, but the
| point stands.
|
| Sure, the money isn't generating more wealth, but that amount
| is finite. It's a cushion that should effectively
| indefinitely and every dollar beyond is vigorously invested.
| And, should something happen to employment, you use it as a
| buffer (assuming no severance) and replenish as soon as
| you're employed again.
|
| I have a friend who helped me get where I am. He makes even
| more than I do, but financially, I'm more well off than he is
| because he thinks that every single dollar needs invested --
| to the point that despite making the top 2-3% of income for
| our entire region, he regularly is paying off revolving
| credit card interest because he isn't equipped to pay a $500
| unexpected expense.
|
| Sure, if you invest every single dollar, it's always earning
| 7-10% on average. But if you have to then pay 20%+ APR on
| credit cards because you can't handle unexpected expenses, it
| begs the question whether you're really getting ahead.
| yunwal wrote:
| Stocks are liquid enough that you can sell enough to pay
| your credit card off before getting hit with interest.
| There's no reason to have 6 months worth of expenses in
| cash just sitting around unless you strongly suspect a
| crash.
| pishpash wrote:
| Stocks are the definition of not liquid, in that their
| implied duration is 10+ years at least. How many fools
| are using stocks as an emergency fund during a tightening
| cycle that's removing liquidity at the fastest pace since
| the 1980's?
| mcguire wrote:
| The S&P 500 is down 21% since the beginning of the year.
| astrange wrote:
| Muni bond and treasury ETFs are not down 21%, and neither
| is my emergency fund investment account.
| pishpash wrote:
| Broad munis and intermediate treasuries are both down 10%
| YTD, and so are TIPS (though at least those have had
| inflation adjustments). You might want to check your
| "emergency fund investment account" lol...
| Damogran6 wrote:
| And will be back up in less than 18 months.
| mabbo wrote:
| That sounds like a lot of work, with added risks.
|
| With our system, our bills get paid with the money we
| have, and then when we make more money, it just goes back
| to the buffer account. Overflow goes into investing.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's not something you need to justify to other people!
| jmcgough wrote:
| It's pretty well studied that people who grew up poor have a
| harder time saving and are actually more reckless about
| spending, because they a) didn't have modeling or financial
| education from their parents and b) had to spend money when
| they got it before some random fee or cost gobbled it up
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I frequently encounter people and family with obvious issues
| arising from childhood, and 95% of the time their parents were
| poor as kids and thats where it all comes from.
|
| On one hand these people are a pain to deal with, but in most
| cases its not their fault either.
| jjj123 wrote:
| What makes them a pain to deal with?
|
| I work with ultra-privileged people who by all accounts are
| "well adjusted" and I find them harder to deal with than
| people I grew up with from home. Many of them have no history
| of and don't understand trauma, and as a result they're
| unempathetic to what the literal majority of people
| experience.
|
| Edited for clarity
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I work with ultra-privileged people who by all accounts
| are "well adjusted" and I find them harder to deal with
| than people I grew up with from home. Many of them have no
| history of and don't understand trauma, and as a result
| they're unempathetic to what the literal majority of people
| experience.
|
| Financial issues aren't the only trauma in life, by a long
| shot. Plenty of people in that group have trauma. What
| makes people unempathetic is often that they don't come to
| grips with their own trauma; they deny it and thus deny it
| for others - if it's too painful to admit to yourself,
| think how dangerous other people's trauma could be!
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| It doesn't have to even be in your youth. I lost a lot of money
| with a real estate deal in the 90s plus a lot more when the
| .COM bubble crashed. Since then I have no confidence in
| investing or jobs. I always look over my shoulder and wait for
| things to go bad. Especially since 2008 it made sense to
| blindly invest into housing and stocks even while knowing they
| would crash eventually. Being gunshy from previous experience
| made you lose out on a lot of gains.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Yeah, it's not just in childhood, it also hits early
| adulthood as well, when people are just starting out.
|
| I scraped by on ~ $600 / mo in disability until I graduated
| college in my mid 20s in 2008. My spending habits, my
| hobbies, everything was ingrained around that age.
|
| Today I make 25x as much, and barely spend 2x. It's hard to
| change early habits.
| twoquestions wrote:
| True facts, this. My spouse never had to wonder where the
| electric or gas money was coming from, even though their family
| is really frugal despite making really good money, and I'm
| still surprised at their decisions that I irrationally describe
| as extravagant even though they're better decisions all told.
|
| Even though I have a great job now and have for years, I still
| find myself shying away from good things that I really can
| afford, or buying cheap shoes when dropping a Benjamin is
| better even in the immediate term.
| scottLobster wrote:
| Coming from the more well-off side, it makes friendships with
| people on the other side harder as well. By chance a good
| chunk of my social circle in college was less well off than
| me, and while we liked playing games together I got weird
| looks for buying shirts new at Macy's or Michelin tires. It
| just seemed to rub them the wrong way, like they thought I
| was trying to show off or rub something in their face even
| though I'm just upper-middle-class and buying what I saw as
| the best product for what I needed. It's not like I was
| showing up in a new Lexus or something. Some of them also
| expected me to drive them everywhere even though they had
| working cars of their own, and that got rather toxic after a
| while.
| mettamage wrote:
| Can confirm this. Middle class here. Have a relationship
| with someone well-off. I view it as cultural differences
| that we need to overcome. In our case we did. The only
| "downside" is that it takes a very consistent form of
| energy. I'm constantly thinking "if I'd be as rich as she
| is, how would I deal with the situation?" I can imagine it
| to some extent due to how I play poker and seeing parallels
| with my stack size versus my financial situation. Long
| story short: when I feel I don't have enough, I get very
| tight on my spending. When I feel I have enough, I get
| loose and lax. As one might imagine, I wasn't a very good
| poker player because of that ;-)
| almost_usual wrote:
| > Being poor in general, during your childhood, scars you for
| life.
|
| You can learn to cope with the anxiety better if you talk to a
| therapist but it will never fully go away.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Who can afford a therapist?
| nomel wrote:
| Especially if you have anxiety around spending money.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Great point.
| Markoff wrote:
| Not necessarily, I grew up pretty poor, my mother stealing food
| from kitchen she worked to save money (and I had to lug it
| every day when I was older), father having mediocre salary
| (later divorced without father's income), yet now belonging to
| like top 3% earners in country I live, I have like 150K EUR in
| stocks and don't really give a F about losing currently 10-20%,
| it's long term investment. It probably also helps I bought
| apartment without mortgage in 4th most touristy city in Europe.
|
| So yeah, I dislike the idea of being mortgage slave, but if I
| didn't optimize my income I wouldn't mind taking one to buy
| investment apartment, so I had to invest money in stock.
|
| But the funny thing is I will refuse to buy something I
| consider overpriced even when total sum makes absolutely no
| difference at my income, I just don't like the idea of wasting
| my money on something which can be bought cheaper, so some
| people may think I am poor or cheap although I don't mind
| spending money on something I consider worth the money. For
| instance almost nobody here in Czechia has AC, but I am one of
| those few people who have one, because I value my comfort at
| home more than having newest smartphones and other crap.
| mdeck_ wrote:
| > Between late 1978 and early 1981, drivers in the U.S. saw the
| price at the pump nearly double from 63 cents to $1.31 a gallon.
|
| Not sure how that change would amount to NEARLY doubling...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I don't think inflation was on holiday during those
| years...also nearly doesn't have to mean almost
| beezle wrote:
| I was a kid during both oil shocks of the 1970s. That has
| absolutely nothing to do with my driving. What does, and not just
| for driving, is the family taught cultural value of 'don't be
| wasteful'.
|
| So unlike so many people today, I don't make 12 trips a day to
| stores/friends/whatever when I can just make one or two if I
| actually think 5 minutes ahead. That applies whether gas is $1 or
| $5 per gallon.
|
| I also try to make good use of what I own and not discard things
| that are functional simply to get the new shiny.
| eric_cc wrote:
| > I don't make 12 trips a day to stores/friends/whatever when I
| can just make one or two
|
| Forget gas: This type behavior is a waste of time! The most
| precious resource of all.
| odensc wrote:
| "Waste" is subjective. Some people may enjoy driving/running
| a bunch of errands (I find it fun sometimes when I have
| nothing else to do).
| nickff wrote:
| I read a few news stories that during lockdowns, many
| people would only buy a few groceries at a time, so that
| they could go out more, and spend time at the market.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I do this all the time, but I walk everywhere so I just see
| the trips as extra exercise time.
| sbf501 wrote:
| In the late 1970's Star Wars toys still worked if the batteries
| died! Can't say that about an iPad.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I wonder which is more wasteful: A built-in rechargeable
| battery that lasts 500-1000 charge cycles but is difficult to
| replace, or a requirement of six AAA batteries that need
| replacement after every 3-4 hours of use.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| ok, but you're replying to a comment about toys that don't
| _need_ their batteries replaced, because they still work
| without the batteries.
|
| a toy with _optional_ batteries obviously requires less
| battery use than a thing which _requires_ a battery. it 's
| tautological.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I was a kid during the 80s when gas was (comparatively) cheap.
| But I got so sick of living out in the middle of nowhere and
| having to drive all the time (as a kid, with my parents), that
| I spend more on housing in urban areas where I can walk to
| multiple stores.
|
| Throwing things away is so difficult these days that I try to
| make purchases that avoid it. But like...we still have my 5
| year olds car seat in our garage because no place will take
| them (I have to make a trip to the dump, or get a junk hauler
| to come by with a big load for them and a few hundred bucks).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I was a kid during the 80s when gas was (comparatively)
| cheap.
|
| The 1980s are funny, because, the early 1980s were one of the
| periods of highest sustained gas prices in history, while the
| late 1980s and 1990s are the lowest ever.
| jackblemming wrote:
| How many years earlier does that let you retire?
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Is that the only goal people are supposed to have in life?
| up_o wrote:
| if you're a worker, then mostly yes. Ideally, self-
| fulfilling goals that require those extra 40-60 hours
| you're giving to a company then can be diverted. Not
| everyone can work at ChangeTheWorld corp for their day job.
| ghaff wrote:
| Part of it is that, in general, there aren't great
| options to spend 10 or 20 hours/week--or, really, 700 or
| so hours a year doing interesting work for someone else
| on your schedule getting paid at full-time professional
| salary levels. You're not available when needed. You're
| not keeping current probably. Even if I could do some
| part-time consulting on what I currently work on, I'd
| become much less interesting to hire pretty quickly.
| ninjanomnom wrote:
| Many people nowadays see retirement, especially early
| retirement, as a means towards whatever goal they have in
| life. You can focus on whatever you like without worrying
| about your financial stability.
| na85 wrote:
| It is if work sucks. Not all of us are lucky enough to love
| what we do.
|
| I can't fucking wait to retire, and spend time doing what I
| actually want to instead of useless work.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| Not years, hours.
|
| While I'm on my 4th trip out for the day I'll bet he's
| already back home watching TV.
|
| Joking aside, I've definitely see the cost/hr add up by
| purchasing new things that still have bugs to work out. The
| price might be $500, but I'll spend another $700 of time
| working on issues. I'm fine being a few months late to the
| party so I can conserve time for more important things.
|
| In the words of the characterized OP: "If it ain't broke,
| don't fix it"
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| My grand-parents lived through the Great Depression and were the
| most frugal people I've ever met.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Scar Consumption for Life
|
| Sounds like a good thing in a world where we over-consume almost
| everything?
|
| I can't agree with some of the commentary in this thread about
| risk, drive and early poverty. Some of the wealthiest people
| started out dirt poor. They didn't like it and resolved to become
| rich. Plenty more started out spoiled rotten and grew up to be
| lazy minded with mediocre life outcomes.
|
| "Brewster's Millions" is still a great film on this theme of
| growing a healthy relationship with money.
| bitcurious wrote:
| My grandparents didn't go hungry this year (after Russia's
| invasion) because they had a cellar full of preserves. For them,
| it was part of a tradition of hunger, a "never waste food"
| mentality reinforced by WWII, and Holodomor prior, and WWI prior,
| and the experience of being serfs prior to that.
| kgwgk wrote:
| > WWI prior, and the experience of being serfs prior to that
|
| They may be quite old!
| nostromo wrote:
| > it was part of a tradition
| kgwgk wrote:
| it was a joke, anyway
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| In the spirit of the article or at least the title one might
| say your grandparent's regular food wasting attitude has been
| scarred by WWII.
| seunosewa wrote:
| Is it fair to conclude that fossil fuel price shocks are good for
| the planet? If everyone experiences them early then we will all
| reduce our carbon footprint for life and slow global warming?
| ffggvv wrote:
| what if i told you a lot of fossil fuels go into producing
| electric cars, which then drives up the price of them making
| them out of reach for the avg person
| throitallaway wrote:
| I'm sorry, but are you saying that the high price of EVs is
| due to fossil fuel prices? EVs were far out of reach of the
| average person well before fuel prices ticked up. They're
| priced high because they're based on relatively new
| technology and processes.
| ffggvv wrote:
| no i'm saying high energy prices make them even more
| expensive
| jrumbut wrote:
| The article addresses that a bit. The effect is small and they
| are still driving everywhere alone (instead of public
| transport) so the authors say that electric vehicles are the
| only way out.
| duffyjp wrote:
| I 100% welcome higher gas prices. Americans are so wasteful
| it's ridiculous. It'll hurt if you're currently in an
| inefficient car but once you get a hybrid / EV you won't care.
| I don't even look at the price filling up my Prius.
|
| SUVs that look like school buses and people commuting to an
| office job in full size trucks is madness.
| paulywog wrote:
| I'm in the automotive industry and the biggest fan of EVs in
| general. I was even home-building an EV before I moved to the
| city.
|
| I think we still have a lot to figure out with our charging
| infrastructure, in cities where often it's hard just to park.
| I want an EV badly, but it'd be a constant struggle to keep
| it charged.
|
| There's also an issue with car companies generally not making
| the cars I want anymore, though I understand this is a me
| problem. There's not a nice plug-in hybrid small convertible,
| even if I could charge it.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| EVs have really large batteries nowadays which should make
| home charging feasible for most. The Tesla Model 3 has an
| EPA estimated mileage of 358 while the Nissan Leaf has
| estimated 149. If you mostly travel within city limits, I'd
| be surprised if you could deplete your whole battery before
| you get home at the end of the day.
| Nition wrote:
| Indeed almost all EV charging happens at home, but the
| parent comment is talking about city living where people
| may not have access to charging at home.
| [deleted]
| cs137 wrote:
| I worked in a grocery store in the late '90s, and the older
| customers (who grew up in the Great Depression) always carried
| penny pouches, because they remembered a time when one had to
| keep track of cents to survive.
|
| This is how I know that, even if we miraculously fixed our
| medical system tomorrow and outlawed private health insurance by
| a constitutional amendment, we'll still have, thirty years from
| now, 60-year-old Millennials dropping dead of preventable causes.
| The American healthcare system has already killed millions, but
| it's also killed future millions.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Scarcity mindset is real. I studied abroad in France, and the
| government promised up and down that they would cover my
| housing only to reneg a few days before my trip (long after I
| had secured my student loan money, bought my flight, etc) and
| saddled me with a $600/month payment and no income. I was
| counting individual bus trips into town and skipping meals (I
| went from 160 to 140 pounds in a few months) to save up 60
| euros for a RyanAir flight to visit my then-girlfriend-now-wife
| who was studying in Austria at the time (and I broke down when
| I was forced to miss it because I put my luggage in a train
| station locker that advertised "24 hours" but the _room
| housing_ the lockers was only available during the day, and
| this was not advertised).
|
| Even after I graduated and got a series of increasingly high-
| paying engineering jobs, I couldn't shake the scarcity mindset,
| and I would scrimp and save (although I didn't skip meals any
| longer!). In time (with a whole lot of help and encouragement
| with my wife), I was able to largely overcome it. We're still
| _very_ conservative with our money--we 're probably in the top
| 10% of Americans with respect to income, but we spend like
| we're median (or lower) Americans and save the difference.
| However, now it's because we want to retire early or pursue
| other loftier goals (some combination of traveling the world,
| buying a hobby farm, and/or starting a small business) rather
| than my debilitating anxiety.
|
| (Since we're getting a little political) It also makes it hard
| to sympathize with my peers who didn't work, skipped class,
| lived in the dorms, paid for meal plans and _still_ went out to
| eat several times a week, bought daily $7 lattes, and majored
| in some art history or leisure services or (non-teaching)
| English Literature when they insist that the government should
| forgive their enormous student loan debt (I 'm fine with
| universal education, but no one should be surprised that they
| have to repay the debt that financed their unsustainable
| lifestyle or demand that society foot the bill).
| tootie wrote:
| My grandma did this. Never left a penny on the sidewalk, always
| took the bread from a breadbasket home. Even my parents
| absorbed some of that behavior despite being born in the next
| generation.
| ansible wrote:
| Same. I always clean my plate (though I try hard not to take
| more than I can eat), and am always very reluctant to get rid
| of anything that "still works".
| CalRobert wrote:
| We were surprised to discover after her death (in the late
| 80's) that my great grandmother kept $1,000 in a pouch in her
| bra. I can understand not trusting the banks and wanting to
| always have some sort of cash on your person.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| My grandfather carried $3k in his wallet every day for the
| same reason.
| cableshaft wrote:
| I'd worry more about being mugged with that much in my
| wallet than an emergency happening that required needing
| that much cash on-my-person.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I cannot understand not having at least a couple hundred
| cash on you, and much more at home. What are people's plans
| if the power or payment networks go offline? Earthquake,
| hurricane, ice storm, volcano, etc.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| I'm expecting to rely on pen and paper IOUs in this
| situation. That's really no different than cash,
| presuming you and local businesses have already
| established some trust.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Carrying significant accounts of cash on you all the time
| seems like a good recipe for it to get lost or stolen.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| There are always tradeoffs. Based on how much fuel and
| food costs these days, I would not say a couple hundred
| dollars is a significant amount of cash. Not even enough
| to get you a bed at night in case of an emergency.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| What kind of emergency would:
|
| 1. leave me with cash
|
| 2. not affect the ability of shops, hotels, etc to
| process those cash payments and render goods and services
|
| 3. prevent me from driving to the next town, county, etc
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| When hurricane sandy rolled through NJ/NYC area, I
| remember the power being out for 4+ days, and we used
| cash to buy groceries and fuel.
|
| I also did not have time to drive 1+ hours for supplies,
| especially when roads were not necessarily cleared of
| trees and whatnot, and I had elderly to take care of at
| home.
|
| Also, gas itself was challenging to get with very long
| lines so driving an hour was not a guarantee to getting
| it (since everyone else has the same bright idea, you
| can't just shift 10M+ vehicles worth of demand overnight
| to surrounding areas).
| Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
| You obviously have considerable wealth if you think most
| people have the savings to keep hundreds of dollars on
| them at all times and much more at home. A large
| percentage of Americans can't afford a $500 emergency.
| Also, many people don't carry cash because they're
| worried, rightfully or not, about being robbed. Same idea
| behind leaving stuff in your vehicle.
| bombcar wrote:
| I am suspicious of that "can't afford a $500 emergency"
| number that is thrown around.
|
| It apparently comes from a survey [52] which says:
|
| "53% could manage an unforeseen expense of $500 without
| worry"
|
| What that actually _means_ isn 't directly stated - but
| people _read_ it as "half of Americans can't afford
| $500" which isn't what it's stating.
|
| https://www.personalcapital.com/assets/public/src/2022-We
| alt...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I thought it would be obvious that my comment would
| preclude people who did not have emergency funds. Or who
| live in areas where the probability of robbery is high
| enough to negate the benefit of having some cash on you.
|
| My intent was to show that while electronic payments are
| nice and convenient, I still like the peace of mind of
| knowing I have a resilient payment method like cash on
| me.
| Brybry wrote:
| While having some cash is good, if you're planning ahead
| for a disaster it's better to have _stuff_ than cash
| cause in the event of disaster your ability to buy things
| is likely to be decreased.
|
| Or at least that's my experience from living in an area
| where hurricanes sometimes take down power for 2+ weeks.
|
| When things shut down for a long time the government
| usually sets up free distribution of MREs and water and
| already having gas in your tank is more valuable than
| having cash to buy gas at the theoretical gas station
| with power to pump but not payment network access.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Plenty of us didn't always have 'a couple hundred cash'
| at all, much less 'free' to just carry around 'in case of
| emergency'. I can _now_ , but don't for the most part,
| partially because of decades of not being in that
| position. We have a modest amount of cash on hand at home
| - we sometimes pay service folks in cash, or can tip a
| delivery person now and then, but those are rare
| instances. Neighbor kids selling door to door now and
| then too, but even then I wrote a check last time,
| directly to a school fundraiser, didn't just hand over
| cash.
|
| If we needed to leave due to an emergency, some cash may
| help for a hotel, probably, assuming it's far enough away
| to have power/water.
|
| If there's earthquake/hurricane/etc with resulting power
| outages, most of the places I'd go to wouldn't be able to
| even open their POS systems to take cash in the first
| place.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > If there's earthquake/hurricane/etc with resulting
| power outages, most of the places I'd go to wouldn't be
| able to even open their POS systems to take cash in the
| first place.
|
| Businesses or anyone wanting to get paid will figure out
| an alternative. Dealing with cash is not complicated.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Dealing with cash is complicated actually. You need to
| protect it from theft. You need to count it daily. You
| need a bank to deposit it. You need to have change
| because people don't bring exact amounts. Having change
| requires a bank or some other facility to exchange
| currency with.
|
| Cards require a machine, some kind of network
| connectivity, and an account. It's actually a lot easier
| to deal with as a small business. Most of the people I
| know who go to conventions as vendors prefer cards
| because it greatly simplifies their logistics.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, but I was talking about a scenario where there is no
| network connectivity and hence no ability to take card
| payments.
|
| In the case of getting paid something versus getting paid
| nothing, I am guessing most merchants will opt to put in
| the work to accept cash rather than shut down.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| Note that some retailers can and do store and forward
| transactions, for example with gas stations using
| satellite connectivity for payment processing. The amount
| one stores depends upon one's fraud tolerance.
|
| There are attacks where bad guys will disable a gas
| station's dish (by covering it with foil among other
| methods) and then rack up a bunch of gasoline sales with
| a stolen card. They've got generally got a limited window
| so they have to hit a bunch of local stations quickly,
| but meth users aren't known for high dollar scores.
| lobocinza wrote:
| I saw a supermarket operate with calculators ~10 years
| ago when power grid was off for days. I don't believe I
| will see it again at least not in any big store as
| financial conciliation is a PITA and the old ways are
| lost. But small vendors that are often marginalized by
| the market will.
| leksak wrote:
| But if someone robs you then you have both zero money and
| less merch due to sales that day. I'm guessing a lot of
| places will err on the side of caution rather than some
| income.
| [deleted]
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I worked at a fast food place where our power went out.
| They forced us to keep ... open and selling anyway. The
| 240v was out so no grill, but 120 outlets worked so we
| could make coffee/tea. That was about it. Cash registers
| didn't work. I was writing everything by hand,
| calculating tax, etc, keeping records.
|
| 2 hrs later, the regional manager - WHO HAD TOLD US IN NO
| UNCERTAIN TERMS THAT WE HAD TO REMAIN OPEN DESPITE NOT
| HAVING POWER - came in and chastised me for 1) not
| wearing the full uniform (we had no AC and it was July,
| so I took off the tie) and 2) handling money without a
| register. "You can't guarantee your numbers are right -
| that's what computers are for". "But... they're down, and
| you said to stay open and keep selling". "That doesn't
| change the fact that you might be making mistakes!"
|
| Insanity.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'd probably just drive somewhere that has power/payment
| networks (stay with friends, family, or
| airbnb/hotel/etc), especially since those point-of-sale
| systems are almost universally electronic anyway.
| Markoff wrote:
| > always took the bread from a breadbasket home
|
| Care to explain it to non native speaker from Europe? Is it
| some bakery chain and she took home some cheap/free leftover
| bread?
| [deleted]
| quartesixte wrote:
| Some restaurants give a free basket of bread with a meal as
| a sort of appetizer. Most people either consume all of it
| or just leave the leftovers.
| SilasX wrote:
| Ah so like a mild version of this xkcd:
|
| https://xkcd.com/1499/
| Markoff wrote:
| Ah, OK, my (Chinese) wife is like that, she won't leave
| anything behind, I don't mind leaving it behind, but I
| can understand trying to avoid waste since many places
| will throw away bread which was offered to other
| customer. And often the bread taste actually good, so it
| makes sense to take it.
| tablespoon wrote:
| Ah, so it's just that the OP wrote something that was
| prone to be misparsed.
|
| I read "breadbasket home" as a compound noun and guessed
| it was some kind of food bank or something, but "home"
| was really an adverb modifying took. So what was meant
| was something like "My grandma ... always took [home] the
| bread from a [restaurant] breadbasket..."
| quartesixte wrote:
| Yeah welcome to split verb-adverb pairs in English!
| bluedino wrote:
| Many people ask for more bread after they wolf it down
| and even ask for some to take home.
|
| It might be buttery, lightly seasoned bread or something
| like rolls, usually fresh-baked.
| yobbo wrote:
| It's to fill stomachs so that the portion sizes seem
| bigger.
| [deleted]
| quartesixte wrote:
| > Even my parents absorbed some of that behavior despite
| being born in the next generation
|
| Yup. As a child of immigrants it gets passed down a very long
| way.
|
| Pass it down far enough and it just becomes "culture" and
| "tradition".
| JamesSwift wrote:
| Yep, my parents are baby boomers and definitely have this
| ingrained in them. I also have some habits around eating
| where I (usually) waste nothing, which was instilled in me by
| my grandfather.
| distances wrote:
| Not wasting food is just normal though, or is it just so
| ingrained in me that it only seems so?
| JamesSwift wrote:
| When I say dont waste food I mean my plate is completely
| clean when I'm done. I eat everything off a chicken wing
| so its _just_ bone left (eat all the cartilage and clean
| every bit of meat off). My grandfather would actually
| break the bones and suck the marrow out of each one.
| ravenstine wrote:
| The generation of the Great Depression didn't have ubiquitous
| forms of usury. With credit cards, personal loans and student
| loans, I imagine the future stinginess of Millennials will be
| short lived.
| faitswulff wrote:
| It's not so much about stinginess as unwillingness to seek
| medical attention because it's so highly correlated with
| unbearable medical debt.
| Nick87633 wrote:
| They still had installment plans for buying appliances and
| repossessions. I'm pretty sure usurious loans have existed
| since money was invented.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Of course. Loans have existed since the beginning of money.
| That doesn't mean average people were using credit and
| loans to buy everything from Lambos to Cheetos to pornos
| like they can today. Not until very recently. Credit wasn't
| really something that was available to most people until
| around the 70s when it began to be digitized successfully.
| The psychology of debt today compared to that of a few
| generations ago is entirely different.
| astrange wrote:
| If you know the general store owner or your pub landlord
| and you ask them to put something on your tab, that's
| credit. Exact payment on the spot is what develops when
| you're trading with strangers.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| Yep, various holy books talk about usury and they're quite
| old.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "always carried penny pouches, because they remembered a time
| when one had to keep track of cents to survive."
|
| Sure. But you also have to realize that a loaf a bread cost a
| nickle and that cards didn't exist. People carried around
| change because you could actually buy meaningful stuff with it
| and there wasn't really an alternative to cash (sure someplaces
| give credit but much different than using a card today).
| aksss wrote:
| I paid $1.50 for a candy bar the other day. My earliest
| memory of scrounging change for a commercial transaction to
| obtain a candy bar was a $0.45. That would have been in the
| eighties.
| throw8383833jj wrote:
| yup, it's pretty easy to forget that the dollar has already
| lost over 98% of it's value.
| dixie_land wrote:
| exactly, back in the days a penny coin actually was worth
| more than the metal in it
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| IIRC, when the US stopped minting the half penny, the whole
| penny was worth somewhere around $0.33 in 2022 currency.
| Lopping the last digit off of everything isn't practical
| for many reasons but I wish we could at least finally put
| the stupid "9/10" on gas prices into the grave.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| In some places you're getting your wish, because they
| plan to need that space on the sign when the dollars go
| double digit.
| takeda wrote:
| Yeah, seriously. It was there to visually fool customer
| into thinking the price is cheaper than it really is. But
| because today it is insignificant difference as well
| everyone else is doing it, it is just nonsense and no
| longer serves its purpose.
|
| Another thing (and that actually matters much more) is
| that tax is not included in the prices there are excuses
| about it that tax is different in different areas, but
| it's just yet another way to lie to a customer.
| [deleted]
| usrn wrote:
| Honestly fuck the medical system, young people don't care.
| Housing is what's really getting us.
|
| Some days I feel like driving up to McLean and burning banks
| down.
|
| EDIT: I'm out of comment quota but dymk I'm so tired of hearing
| that, here's my reply: Oh fuck off. I make six figures and work
| remotely. My family lives in a rural part of a small state and
| I can't afford a house within driving distance of them.
|
| EDIT2: Asset price inflation pops an asset price bubble? Who
| taught you economics? They should be fired. Also, that's not a
| bubble this time, it's the market equilibrium. We aren't
| building enough housing and it's so bad the cost of labor to
| build more housing is going up. The entire US is the bubble
| this time.
|
| EDIT3: Is that your solution? Send all the children to therapy
| for being kicked out of their own country? How do you expect
| that to work?
|
| EDIT4: corrral: when the upper middle class ends up in "lower
| class" conditions you usually get guillotines.
| mellavora wrote:
| Obligatory Fight Club reference.
|
| Fight club: people fed up with the system decide to blow it
| up, release date movie 1999, book 1996.
|
| Millenials: people born 1981-1996, thus a critical mass hits
| adolescence when Fight Club is released.
| diob wrote:
| What... I don't know if you realize this but plenty of young
| folks need healthcare.
|
| Ultimately, we can do both (fixing healthcare and housing).
| But honestly more countries have solved healthcare than
| housing.
| usrn wrote:
| Maybe "plenty" need healthcare but _all_ of them need
| housing. This sounds like some boomer whining about their
| issues and pretending to care about millennials.
| diob wrote:
| Me or the article? No need to go on the attack btw, I was
| pointing out the privilege / falsehood rooted in saying
| young folks don't need healthcare.
|
| I stand by my statement, healthcare is much easier to
| solve (we have examples of places doing it right). AND we
| can try to tackle both.
| usrn wrote:
| Is it? What countries is it solved in? Do their
| demographics look like ours (hint: no.) Most of us get by
| just fine without healthcare. Some of us certainly could
| use it but that's not what nearly all of us care about
| right now, that is in every way another problem for old
| people (and probably another way they're going to fuck us
| all over.)
|
| Edit: No Australia is mostly White with the largest
| minority (5%) being Chinese. Try again. Also, I'm done
| empathizing; I'm warning/threatening everyone.
| diob wrote:
| Honestly, to me, this sounds more like an older person
| take than a young person take (ironic given your claim of
| boomer whining). America is not exceptional! Talking
| about demographics / geography, all that bs is how we get
| rooted in thinking America can't learn from other
| countries or change.
|
| Australia, for one, does a massively wonderful job with
| healthcare. My friends there, young by the way, love the
| healthcare there. But, like us, the housing market is
| awful. Well, worse honestly.
|
| And this is one of many countries who have great social
| healthcare.
|
| I don't think you're talking to me in good faith though
| given you've fallen back to "most of us get by just fine
| without healthcare". I'm young, like you, and I need
| healthcare. Plenty of my friends do too, especially some
| with rare conditions like narcolepsy.
|
| Did you honestly accept in an earlier comment that plenty
| need healthcare?
|
| It sounds to me like you want someone to confirm your
| viewpoints rather than to talk / learn / empathize with
| others.
| jnovek wrote:
| I believe your perspective is limited by your experience.
|
| As someone who is (a) a millennial and (b) has a chronic
| medical condition, I need medical care WAY MORE than I
| need to own a house. Or even rent a house. A crappy
| apartment will do. Right now I live in a relative's
| basement.
|
| I've learned to settle on living situations that I don't
| love because medical care takes priority.
| tyleo wrote:
| I'm a very well off millennial. My fiance and I both have
| high paying tech jobs. We easily make the income of multiple
| families.
|
| That being said we are strained to buy a 3-bedroom house like
| that of my single Mother who only has a high school education
| to her name.
|
| Given our success, we don't have the "burn it all down"
| mentality but I fear it building in many of my friends and
| totally understand the sentiment of this being a #1 problem
| for younger generations.
| usrn wrote:
| At least you have a partner. If you're on your own you're
| absolutely fucked. Not only are you alone but everyone else
| is out to get you. When we have the crunch in the near
| future I could see me and my peers torching things.
|
| I don't even worry about this anymore; I look forward to
| it.
| danuker wrote:
| House prices more than doubled since 1965, yet incomes
| barely increased.
|
| https://wtfhappenedin1971home.files.wordpress.com/2021/12
| /un...
| bombcar wrote:
| I wonder when dual-income households became the standard.
| ssully wrote:
| Based on your other posts, I don't think you would sound
| much different if you had a partner. You clearly have a
| lot of anger and I encourage you to find someone to talk
| to. I mainly mean a therapist, but if that isn't an
| option than a close friend. Those feelings will eat you
| alive.
| iosystem wrote:
| Majority of millennials on social media sites like reddit
| share the same thoughts as that person. To be more
| specific everyone that isn't making six figures in a
| career like tech. I have anxiety about the resentment of
| my peers and I think the riots we've seen in the US non-
| related to the housing crisis have been bad but likely
| nothing compared to what's to come. The elephant in the
| room is that therapy isn't going to cut it and especially
| when almost all of young adults entering into the
| timeline of entry-homeownership years realize it's
| impossible while having flashbacks of how much easier it
| was for their parents while comparing homes on the market
| to what they lived in during childhood years. I think the
| older generation is naive to think that everyone is just
| going to adapt to apartment living without extreme
| resentment and torching things down. Even my tech
| colleague millennials are trying to prepare for what
| their peers are likely to do.
| dymk wrote:
| Depends on where you want to buy. SF? Probably not going to
| happen. Almost anywhere else? Houses are plenty affordable.
| twox2 wrote:
| 100% also, why do you need to buy a house in the first
| place?
| doubled112 wrote:
| Because my mother taught me that 100% of my value as a
| person is being a home owner because that's the only
| thing that matters. Not even a condo will do.
|
| /s but only sort of
| usrn wrote:
| Mine literally told me _every day_ you shouldn 't have
| kids unless you own a house.
| deathanatos wrote:
| I'm not in SF. The last listing I looked at was 800 sq
| ft, run down, literally "as-is" property: $500k valuation
| from Zillow (it's listed for less ... but not by much).
| That's about $2500/mo, in mortgage alone.
|
| Decent properties, in suburban areas, at ~$1M.
|
| Ir rural areas, yeah, they're cheaper ... and salary
| would get "adjusted" the moment I try that.
| nradov wrote:
| Here's a decent 3-bedroom single family house in suburban
| Cleveland for $395K.
|
| https://apps.realtor.com/mUAZ/313q9jxa
|
| That's just one example but you can find thousands of
| similar listings all over the country. Outside of high-
| cost coastal areas, housing is still fairly affordable in
| most of the country.
| deathanatos wrote:
| And, as stated, I would take a "CoL adjustment" by moving
| there.
|
| That particular property falls pretty squarely in the
| "exception proves the rule" territory for me; it's a 135
| y/o dwelling, so I expect you'll be paying more than the
| immediate price tag. Like too many listings, it doesn't
| come w/ a floorplan, and with what photos it gives I'm a
| bit suss on the 3bd/3ba (piecing together the photos, I
| think we've converted a second story apt.'s LR into a
| BR?). It's certainly seen a remodel (although ... IDK
| about the taste of the remodel. But let's say taste is
| unimportant!) No driveway. The backyard is ... well it
| needs work. You're still batting $2k/mo _in Cleveland._
|
| I'd almost hazard a guess that my CoL adjust would be
| >$500/mo, but I don't get to know these things, being an
| employee.
|
| There are a few intangibles in my situation that make
| "move to Cleveland" a "it's not going to happen".
|
| There's a point where one needs to step back and ask
| oneself, if that's what's affordable on SWE's salary,
| what's affordable on a baker's salary?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| That's not the suburbs.
| nradov wrote:
| I guess it depends how you define "suburbs", but it's
| outside the core downtown area. If your prefer a house
| further out in the suburbs or exurbs then there are
| plenty of options to pick from.
|
| Anyway, the point is that people on HN who have
| relatively high incomes and job skills, and still
| complain about lack of affordable housing are mostly just
| being picky about location. There are options available
| but it might mean living in a area with shitty weather or
| not being able to walk to trendy restaurants or among
| neighbors who don't share your political views. The real
| housing crisis is hitting people with much lower incomes
| who are being squeezed out.
| deathanatos wrote:
| I think that's their "point", in that it's an urban home
| that's "affordable". I.e., if I only chose a city that
| wasn't part of one of the megalopolises, I wouldn't have
| problems.
| charlieflowers wrote:
| Everyone sells 30 years of their future for a house, so
| you're competing with that. On top of that, when prices
| rise people can leapfrog into more expensive houses, and
| you're competing with that. Finally there's a lot of
| corporate and private investing money in single family
| housing. It's fucked up. But many do predict a decline or
| even crash soon.
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| Jesus where do you live? I moved from San Diego to
| Raleigh, didn't get a pay adjustment and even that place
| wouldn't be anywhere near that cost here.
| corrral wrote:
| I'm looking at moving to a _significantly_ nicer [edit:
| than where I am now, that is], coastal region with
| excellent schools and within occasional-but-not-daily
| commute distance of _two_ top-tier US cities, including
| by rail (some of you may be be able to guess the area, at
| this point), and the housing prices (4-bedroom with some
| land, even) are surprisingly affordable. Nothing like
| that, certainly. Houses within daily commute range of one
| (but not both) of those cities can be had for way under
| that, too, some miles away from where I 'm looking,
| especially if you'll accept good-but-not-excellent
| schools.
|
| I guess if you're somewhere insanely expensive and won't
| go somewhere that's not, then... you're gonna pay a lot
| for housing. Go figure. "Here's the 97% of the country
| that's not like that, just throw a dart at a US map and
| you'll probably hit a place with much cheaper
| housing"--"No, I won't, because reasons"--"Uh, OK then,
| kinda sounds like a choice, good luck"
| moneywoes wrote:
| Where
| idkyall wrote:
| The train comment makes me guess somewhere on the mid-
| Atlantic east coast: DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia or NYC
| are all fairly close together, and a train ride from NYC
| to DC I think is only ~3 hours
| usrn wrote:
| This is what I mean when I say "kicked out." You're
| forced to move away from everything and everyone you
| know.
| corrral wrote:
| If you grew up somewhere cheap, you probably encountered
| the attitude that people moving to big cities and
| expensive states were insane because of the housing
| prices (and/or taxes and general living expenses). Actual
| concern over the wellbeing of friends and relatives who
| did so. For a large segment of people living cheap
| places, moving to California (as in, the whole state) New
| York (ditto, except _maybe_ the extremely rural and also
| not-popular-for-vacations bits), several entire New
| England states, most big cities unless you 're actually
| living _way_ outside them, et c., was seen as simply
| _impossible_. Not in the cards. Cannot be done without
| ruining your finances. You don 't buy somewhere expensive
| until you retire, and then it's probably in Florida or
| the Carolinas. On a local lake if you're not rich enough
| for those.
|
| From that perspective, nothing's changed except that some
| people living in those expensive places are starting to
| realize the same thing, and the people experiencing that
| are a bit higher up the economic ladder than before.
| Welcome to the lower classes, folks. Don't worry, you've
| got plenty of company.
| mellavora wrote:
| Hey, there is a chance that inflation pops the housing
| bubble. Why risks crimes yourself when you can let the Fed
| burn the whole thing down for you?
| astrange wrote:
| There isn't a housing bubble, they are fundamentally that
| expensive because there's a shortage of them.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Doctors say they are the only profession that saves lives. Well
| they're the only profession allowed to save lives. And the only
| profession making money saving lives.
|
| Charging for saving lives. Price discriminating to save lives.
|
| What happens when they make a mistake in what someone is able
| to pay?
|
| EDIT (I tried replying but can't yet): The basic solution to
| make medicine cheaper is supply more medics.
|
| In Chile anybody who wants to be a doctor can go to some
| medical school and make a pretty decent wage (but less than 20x
| what an American doctor makes) and help people in some role,
| some specialty, if that's what she really wants to do.
|
| No quota on helping people.
|
| And they get better results, lower infection rates than
| American hospitals, longer life expectancy, and medical school
| is shorter and much cheaper, like night and day. In particular
| maternity care is like the best in the world--I can't
| corroborate that but I've heard that.
|
| Lowest medicine costs in the OECD, blows every other developed
| country out of the water. America is the most expensive and
| Chile is the cheapest.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _Lowest medicine costs in the OECD, blows every other
| developed country out of the water. America is the most
| expensive and Chile is the cheapest._ "
|
| I just happened to have this RAND corporation ranking of
| "most expensive insulin in the world" from 2018 handy;
| America is first, Chile is second.
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-
| of-i...
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Looking at this it's mind boggling how much the US is being
| overcharged vs all other countries. How are Americans
| putting up with paying 400%-900% more than any other
| country?
| somebodythere wrote:
| It's not "putting up with". What are they going to do
| otherwise, not take insulin?
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Demand action from their representatives. Works in a lot
| of other areas but not in health care. I guess the
| lobbies are too strong.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| OK yeah the medication is expensive, the pharmacies are
| rigged. Farmacias Ahumada, Farmacias Cruz Verde, and
| Salcobrand are three divisions of the same single...trust,
| basically. The Chilean pharmacy monopoly. Enforced with eg
| intermarriage. However, now there's lots more pharmacies,
| it's opening up. And I am personally boycotting Cruz Verde
| in almost all circumstances because I saw a shill of theirs
| (a real life shill, not on a forum, in a brick-and-mortar
| retailer) shilling for Cruz Verde[1] at a pharmacy that
| actually competed with them. There's some.
|
| But I don't know, did you try the municipal pharmacy in
| Recoleta? Way cheaper.
|
| [1] Note for admins: this is not the same as calling
| someone a shill on the forum, I went and gave my account
| and signed an affidavit in the complaints and suggestions
| book, with the help of the guard who also witnessed the
| shill, and backed by a third witness who conversed with the
| shill like I did. I told them by all means use this in
| court, I'll vouch on the witness stand, and I'm doing this
| with the same moral authority and motivation of being a
| hero according to Roman Law, in a very similar set of
| conditions that led to my actions and consequent
| recognition as a hero by the victims in the spur of the
| moment, ten years ago.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > Charging for saving lives. Price discriminating to save
| lives.
|
| Most first world countries have a solution for this already.
| It is baffling that the US does not.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Most first world countries have a solution for this
| already._
|
| Even second and third world countries have implemented this
| solution.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Part of the cost is equipment, too. Have you seen the
| regulations that medical equipment must meet? And the
| certifications that equipment requires? I'm not talking
| about big ticket items like MRI machines. I mean just
| blood pressure cuffs.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| I promise you, Canada and Germany and Chile and France
| also have MRI machines and blood pressure cuffs.
| nradov wrote:
| Canada doesn't have enough MRI machines. Wait times are
| long and increasing.
|
| https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-
| turn-wa...
|
| All healthcare systems impose some sort of rationing.
| Canada rations care by imposing long queues for non-
| emergency cases, with significant variations between
| provinces. Affluent Canadians frequently travel to the US
| as medical tourists and pay for treatment out of pocket
| in order to skip the lines.
|
| There are also major differences in MRI scanners. A 3.0T
| unit can produce higher resolution images than a 1.5T
| unit, and this makes a difference in patient care
| quality. Countries like Chile are more likely to have the
| cheaper units.
|
| https://doi.org/10.1097/rli.0000000000000801
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Funny, I do the same thing, medical tourism in Chile.
| Like all Hispanics. We all get all medicine in Latin
| America, never in America, to the extent it's avoidable.
| It used to be the other way around, like I knew a kid who
| kept traveling for medical tourism from Chile to America
| because he had a rare heart thing, rare disease.
|
| There should be flying ambulances, like international
| flights taking emergency patients to where they can be
| treated economically instead of getting signature after
| signature squeezed out of them, one per hour starting
| inside the ambulance.
| travisporter wrote:
| Well I'm waiting in the US. Appointment times for a
| dermatologist are out to 6 months earliest.
|
| The Fraser institute is a libertarian think tank so even
| if their data is right I don't trust their conclusion. So
| what if 3% of people are waiting on a procedure? This
| needs to be apples to apples compared to other countries,
| per capita healthcare spending, life expectancy before
| drawing conclusions
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > Affluent Canadians frequently travel to the US as
| medical tourists and pay for treatment out of pocket in
| order to skip the lines.
|
| This is exacerbated in the US itself, where only the top
| 10% have access to expensive and timely medical
| treatment.
|
| I would argue that, at the very least, Canada does offer
| medical treatment to everyone.
| [deleted]
| CodeMage wrote:
| Chile _might_ have cheaper healthcare, although I doubt it,
| but that 's completely obscured by their health insurance.
| They copied the US health insurance racket almost perfectly,
| and that's what needs fixing much more than healthcare costs.
|
| The only real solution is to completely abolish privatized
| healthcare. No more discrimination between the poor and the
| rich when it comes to something as critical as that. When
| everyone has to row the same boat, then the rich will finally
| have a good reason to make sure the poor don't drown.
|
| EDIT: I don't remember Chile having that much cheaper
| healthcare, either. I lived there for 14 years and it was
| just as much of a constant drain on my salary as it is here
| in the US. And those who couldn't afford good insurance were
| pretty much screwed, just like here in the US. And the real
| costs were buried deep and obscured by insurance waffle, just
| like here in the US.
| olalonde wrote:
| > The basic solution to make medicine cheaper is supply more
| medics.
|
| It's shocking how little this is talked about... This is so
| obviously the root of the problem. People like to blame the
| free market but there is no free market in medicine.
| Corporatism is to blame for artificially restricting the
| supply of doctors and artificially restricting who is allowed
| to render medical services, both of which benefit the
| corporate members, the doctors. Of course, those anti-
| competitive measures are always sold under the guise of
| protecting the population.
| nradov wrote:
| Actually the primary bottleneck in the supply of new
| doctors is lack of federal (Medicare) funding for residency
| slots. Every year, students graduate from US accredited
| medical schools but are unable to enter clinical practice
| because they can't get matched to a residency program. Ask
| Congress to increase funding.
|
| https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-
| fun...
| olalonde wrote:
| How does that make any sense? Aren't student graduates
| actually paid to do those residency programs? If it's too
| expensive to train them, can't they take a pay cut? How
| come no other profession requires federal funding for
| placing/training graduates? Makes absolutely no sense
| unless you uncritically accept the status quo.
| nradov wrote:
| Residents are paid an average salary of $64K. That's less
| than many entry-level STEM jobs, and they often work up
| to 80 hours per week. They can't afford to take a pay
| cut. And hospitals incur other costs for running
| residency programs which go beyond paying resident
| salaries.
|
| Most other private sector professions don't require
| nearly as much postgraduate training before being allowed
| to work. Prospective lawyers usually take the bar exam
| less than a year after graduating from law school.
| Medicine is simply more complex.
|
| What would you propose as an alternative to the status
| quo? The AMA has proposed a number of improvements, but
| perhaps there are alternatives?
|
| https://savegme.org/
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Using an AMA source is disingenuous since it's a
| professional cartel with a massive vested interest in
| keeping doctor supply as limited as possible.
| nradov wrote:
| Do you have a substantive comment to contribute or are
| you going to stick with baseless low-effort snark? The
| comment I posted is true and correct. You could verify it
| with other independent sources if you bothered to do any
| research.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Yeah sure.
|
| Fighting residency expansion:
| http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-02-doctor-
| shorta...
|
| Fighting expansion of care to other types of
| practicioners: https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-
| management/scope-practice/...
|
| Why would you believe the AMA's line on this? Do you
| think the professional association that represents all
| doctors, one of the highest paid and influential
| professions in the country, has no power to control the
| amount of residencies are funded by the government? They
| have no reason to increase the number of doctors,
| absolutely none. They benefit in every way from having
| constrained supply.
| nradov wrote:
| The AMA is literally lobbying Congress to expand
| residency program funding, and even putting their own
| money into it. Did you even read the article?
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Yes - they're lobbying now to reverse caps they
| themselves[1] helped put into place, and like I said,
| have also limited primary care availability by lobbying
| against the ability of NPs and PAs to provided basic
| medical care. It's a complete bunch of talk until they
| get change done.
|
| By the way, that expansion of 15000 residency positions
| barely puts a dent in the number of doctors we are
| lacking[2]. But yeah, a press release from 3 years ago
| really absolves them of guilt for sure.
|
| [1]: http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9708/24/doctor.glut/ [2]:
| https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/04/13/were-short-on-
| healt....
| dlp211 wrote:
| An article from 17 years ago reflects the PoV at that
| time, not today. The AMA has had different positions
| based on what they thought was best at the that time.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| If they cared about expanding access to medical care
| they'd stop lobbying to prevent PAs and NPs from
| providing care. A half hearted attempt to add a paltry
| amount of residencies after 30 years of lobbying which
| led to the state we're in now does not absolve them of
| blame.
| teh64 wrote:
| But they are arguing in the source for more doctor
| supply?
| bombcar wrote:
| They are _blaming_ the lack of supply on something they
| don 't control. There's a subtle difference.
| teh64 wrote:
| Even if they supply of doctors was infinite, there is still
| the problem of demand being basically inelastic. What would
| the incentive of healthcare providers to lower prices?
| Inelastic demand means there is no incentive to lower
| prices, because there is no where else for someone to go
| and comparison/price shop. If you are hit by a bus, there
| is no ability for price negotiation to get healthcare.
|
| Also blaming "corporatism" is basically just a meme at this
| point, because it is just used by libertarians when someone
| criticizes capitalism. Its the same when communists say
| "true communism has never been tried".
| olalonde wrote:
| > What would the incentive of healthcare providers to
| lower prices?
|
| In case of life or death emergencies, your insurance or
| ambulance driver would send you to a reasonably priced
| doctor, and doctors that charge unreasonable prices would
| go out of business. But my guess is that life or death
| emergencies do not account for most doctor visits.
|
| > Also blaming "corporatism" is basically just a meme at
| this point, because it is just used by libertarians when
| someone criticizes capitalism. Its the same when
| communists say "true communism has never been tried".
|
| Well, I don't feel like arguing about semantics. Feel
| free to call the problem I described however you like.
| teh64 wrote:
| So for life or death decisions, the ambulance driver
| would first go on some price comparison website or ask
| the insurance and see "ok, this person wants a doctor in
| the $10,000-15,000 range, the closest of which is 30m
| away. The hospital next door costs at least $50,000
| minimum, so we will not send them there for life saving
| medical care." And what incentive would insurance have to
| send me to a reasonably priced doctor, when they can send
| me to one in their network which is more expensive but
| means they keep more money? Also, they could send me to
| an expensive hospital and then just not pay out. These
| are both things Obamacare tried to fix [0]. Insurances
| want to maximize profits, which means paying as little as
| possible themselves and extracting as much as possible
| from customers. Your system would only work if insurances
| had to always pay 100% of medical costs and could never
| deny care, which is similar to how it works in Germany
| (at least for some baseline level of care).
|
| Again, what incentive would there be to lower prices? New
| doctors could just be bought out and the prices jacked
| up. There are a lot of industries where there is little
| barrier to entry (for example tech), where the big
| companies just buy anyone trying to "get in on their
| territory".
|
| Also, why would the "unreasonable prices" (what would
| that even look like?) doctors go out of business? They
| could just provide some kind of "luxury deluxe" ("no poor
| people here") state of the art care for people who can
| afford it.
|
| [0] https://www.healthcare.gov/health-care-law-
| protections/docto....
| bombcar wrote:
| No, very quickly everyone would know the hospitals that
| charge way more than the others, and not patronize them.
|
| Emergency services are only like 5% of costs, anyway
| [367]:
|
| > The percentage of U.S. health spending attributable to
| the ED has increased from 3.9% (CI, 3.9%-3.9%) in 2006 to
| 5.0% (CI, 5.0%-5.0%) in 2016.
|
| So the other 95% is more flexible. I know when looking at
| birthing costs they could vary wildly but it didn't
| really matter because who cares, they're all in-network
| anyway.
|
| [367] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.137
| 1/journal...
| olalonde wrote:
| It feels like you don't understand or don't believe in
| free enterprise in general, not just when it comes to
| medicine. All the theoretical issues you mention do not
| actually occur in industries that are closer to a free
| market.
|
| There is no cost problem in "tech". In fact, many
| services are literally free of charge. Despite Google
| having a near-monopoly on search, it is unable to charge
| users for it. Demand for software developers has grown
| massively in the past decades and yet, wages have only
| slightly gone up.
|
| Anyways, I didn't mean to start a debate on the merits of
| free enterprise. I was hoping that we could at least
| agree that artificial limiting the supply of doctors
| causes medicine to be more costly, regardless of the
| economic system.
| teh64 wrote:
| I understand just fine, I just don't share the naive
| "invisible hand" narrative. I think there are a lot of
| places where free markets make for better products and
| services, but not all products and markets are
| fundamentally the same, so I believe the same
| prescription of "just remove all limits to a free market
| -> all problems solved" does not work everywhere.
|
| But Google can charge their "actual" users, i.e.
| advertisers quite a bit, and it is much harder to do any
| advertising without also advertising on Google Platforms,
| such as Search, Maps, Youtube, Adwords, etc. The wages
| may have only slightly gone up, but the profits
| definitely have gone up quite a bit, which shows that
| amount of workers and their pay has little to do with how
| much money can be made (which I believe is perfectly
| fine, because tech is not a place where I think free
| markets create a detriment to society).
|
| I don't want to start a debate on free enterprise in
| general, just to show that free enterprise is not a once
| size fits all solution. My argument was just that the
| supply of doctors has very little to do with the price of
| medicine, because the market forces that determine price
| and can lead to lower prices in some markets do not work
| correctly in this market.
| aksss wrote:
| Their analogy is bad, and it's valuable to call out the
| nuance.
|
| The statement is a reaction to blaming free market
| economics when the reality is a scenario of the opaque
| third party payer system in a highly regulated
| environment. Consumer gets no price transparency, state
| regulatory boards made up of current market suppliers
| control market entry - say what you want about it's
| appropriateness but the US medical industry hardly
| resembles a free market.
|
| "Corporatism" may be a ham-handed way to call this out,
| but it's not helping society to lay the medical
| industry's problems at the feet of capitalism. This
| problem of cronyism in markets (especially) exists in
| communist economies as well. It's throwing out the baby
| with the bath water.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > Doctors say they are the only profession that saves
| lives...
|
| Yeah. Because rescue workers, fire fighters, EMT's, nurses,
| etc., etc. don't count. (As if the ways in which America's
| medical establishment treats those people didn't make that
| obvious enough. And the alpha sociopath in the room always
| deserves 100% of the credit for anything good
| happening...right?)
|
| My impression is that other countries (ones not poisoned by
| the AMA) don't have this particular problem nearly so much.
| medeshago wrote:
| I'm from Chile (and still live here). I don't know where you
| got the idea that anybody whot wants to be a doctor can go to
| a medical school without much effort. Medicine is by far the
| most exclusive career that you can apply to, they're always
| the highest scores in our version of the SAT (you can check
| the scores that are needed for one of our universities here
| https://www.uchile.cl/admision-y-matriculas/admision-
| regular...). There are some private colleges that have a
| lower entry barrier, but they're still far and above the rest
| of the careers that you can apply to. Their salaries are also
| ridicously higher than the rest of the population, our
| minimum wage is 462 USD$ and a doctor can make easily 20
| times that amount (and if you're a specialist you can make
| way more than that). Obviously there are some cases where a
| doctor can earn less than that, but they are in no way or
| form just another professional.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Yes, there are plenty of people who would work in the
| medical field not necessarily for the big pay but because
| of their calling, to care for the others. A lot of these
| people can't make it through the med school gauntlet and
| don't want to risk their mental health while in med school.
| Plus the crazy and insanely school loans... It's a system
| that disincentives the people with a calling and instead is
| replaced by people who can put up and have a stomach for a
| very complicated and inefficient system. While hospitals
| are run by MBAs this problem will not go away.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah but compared to American medical schools? Whole
| different ball game.
|
| 10x cheaper, and longer life expectancy.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| giarc wrote:
| I have a form of this in other areas. Growing up we didn't have a
| ton of money and batteries were expensive. We never had batteries
| to replace depleted ones, so once a toy was out of batteries, it
| was done. We just played without those features. Now, having
| kids, I'm so conscience of batteries. I have a tester and check
| each battery when "dead" and put them in a separate box if I
| think they have enough juice for a lower power item. We have the
| money to just replace batteries when we need to... I just _need_
| to conserve them.
|
| The other area is colour ink. Printing in colour as a kid was a
| big deal. I think think I'm going to get in trouble at work when
| I print in colour... like the massive organization I work for is
| going to care about 5 pages of full colour document.
| countvonbalzac wrote:
| You can get rechargeable batteries.
| weinzierl wrote:
| It's more that abundance in formative years spoils you for life.
| kylecordes wrote:
| Extreme are often bad. Having either not enough, or excessively
| much early on, lead to various irrational or otherwise
| maladaptive behaviors later. Humans perform best in a happy
| middle range along many axes.
| april_22 wrote:
| This is so true. The middle is the best for most things in
| life. Too much pleasure can also mean pain
| cs137 wrote:
| Debateable. The reason rich kids turn into such pieces of shit
| isn't material abundance (since, after all, anyone born before
| ~1990 in the middle class also experienced material abundance)
| but the unearned high social status and the impunity that comes
| with it.
|
| Deprivation and poverty, on the other hand, fuck people up
| severely--often, through no fault of their own--and there's
| tons of empirical evidence showing this.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah and like rich kids have impunity, poor kids have excess
| punishment meted out against them. Scapegoated a lot of the
| time.
| ponow wrote:
| Huh? Social status is relative, that is, defined by some kind
| of difference in a characteristic over which there is some
| competition (like wealth, looks, connections, fame, etc.). So
| how do you get that rich kid status without reference to
| material abundance?
|
| Remember, most people are comparatively poor: the wealth
| histogram is heavily skewed toward zero and with a wide tail
| toward infinity.
|
| It's impossible for everyone to be relatively wealthy and
| relatively high status. It is possible for everyone to have
| absolute wealth (or at least income) beyond a fixed absolute
| level, yet still widely disparate status.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Is there a "material abundance" difference between a new
| Benz and a 25 year old Camry? I wouldn't think so, they
| both fulfill the same basic role and are composed of
| approximately the same materials, but getting dropped off
| at school in one will get you unearned social clout and the
| other might get you unearned social derision.
| ponow wrote:
| Unless you're claiming violent seizure, then the Benz had
| a good probability of being earned by someone, thus
| meriting some social clout by those who value those
| contributions. I have a pickup over a decade old and with
| a noisy muffler, and write comments on forums like this
| instead of, apparently, providing value sufficient to
| afford more. It's not meritorious, and I receive and
| deserve some derision. Well at least I don't genuflect
| before the God of egalitarianism, so I'll accept credit
| for that.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| In almost all situations, a high school student being
| dropped off by parents in a fancy car did nothing to help
| the parents earn the fancy car. In fact, generally kids
| at that stage are a net negative on parents finances.
| ponow wrote:
| The key is that the wealth used to buy the car was earned
| (unless evidence to the contrary is convincing). The
| parents elected to buy an expensive car, and maybe they
| bought their kid more expensive clothing. But can't you
| see, that having one's child lack want is (one)
| motivation for making the efforts to earn wealth? Suppose
| those parents were otherwise identical (in terms of their
| privileges), but, like you, decided that such
| differential wealth displays were to be shunned. Not
| needing those displays caused them in part to lose
| motivation to obtain wealth, and thus lose motivation to
| perform the efforts that would lead to that. So they
| produce less. Great, now the people who can produce the
| most are encouraged to produce less. Try selling that to
| the people who will now be more poor as a consequence.
|
| Instead of clipping the knees of the productive, realize
| that envy can encourage the unproductive to imitate the
| habits of the productive to themselves become productive.
| We all benefit indirectly thereby.
| googlryas wrote:
| I never claimed the wealth was unearned - I said it was
| unearned _by the high school student_ who is gaining
| clout from it.
|
| > but, like you, decided that such differential wealth
| displays were to be shunned. Not needing those displays
| caused them in part to lose motivation to obtain wealth
|
| I don't think you'll find any evidence to support this.
| No one decides that since they don't need a Benz to show
| off, that they would like to live in a hovel and work
| until they are 75.
|
| > Instead of clipping the knees of the productive,
| realize that envy can encourage the unproductive to
| imitate the habits of the productive to themselves become
| productive
|
| An equally plausible scenario is that the envy leads
| unproductive people to spend every last penny they can
| earn on the displays, leaving them in a much worse
| financial position than someone who eschews the displays
| and invests their money in productive enterprises.
|
| edit: just realized I posted this from my phone which has
| a different account signed on...opsec fail, just a heads
| up googlryas=oh_sigh
| crikeyjoe wrote:
| Grustaf wrote:
| mathgladiator wrote:
| I grew up and watched Enron implode with stories of life savings
| going poof. That influenced me to sell every vesting round which
| is averaging. This strategy always haunted, but thankfully my
| performance made up for it.
|
| With the recent crash, the stock went down over 50% and it turns
| out that my strategy yielded me an average loss of 22% from peak.
|
| I feel like it is more optimal to have those scars to be cautious
| earlier than later. That being said, there is also a truth in
| taking more risks earlier in life.
|
| There is a balance to be achieved.
| ffggvv wrote:
| scarring consumption is probably a good thing at an individual
| level as most people are reckless with money
|
| but the way our society is built we need people to consume to
| keep the economy afloat
| jmyeet wrote:
| Let's extend this a little further.
|
| If we accept that events in life can scar or even just affect you
| for life (as this article claims) then why stop there? These
| people have children. Do you think that habits that form out of
| trauma, housing insecurity, food insecurity or were in fear of
| their lives don't subconciously impact their children?
|
| We don't even have to imagine that. We have _physical_ evidence
| that the conditions a woman faces can impact her grandchildren
| [1]. Remember that a cis-woman is born all the ova she 'll have
| so pregnancy conditions can affect grandchildren.
|
| But even if you ignore the physical, you'll find cultural and
| psychological effects on children from people who, say, fled a
| war zone or survived the Holocaust or whatever.
|
| If you accept all that you've then accepted that generational
| trauma is real (which it is).
|
| So what do you think that slavery did to people long after
| chattel slavery (officially) ended?
|
| [1]: https://www.science.org/content/article/moms-environment-
| dur...
| krapht wrote:
| At least from the conversations I've heard about this topic,
| the issue isn't acknowledging that slavery and Jim Crow has
| caused problems for generations of blacks. The problem comes
| when measures to address it are discussed, like reparations or
| quotas. People see it as monumentally unfair because, while
| being black is a handicap, it's only one of many that are too
| endless to enumerate. For example, there is no affirmative
| action for poor whites who grow up in broken homes. There is no
| affirmative action for simply having parents who are a standard
| deviation below the population in IQ. Insofar as student spots
| at high-tier institutions go, here poor whites see favorable
| action to benefit blacks when they themselves never played a
| part in their oppression. Black, well-spoken immigrants from
| Nigeria who never experience discrimination in their home
| countries get benefits merely by dint of their skin color, and
| not actual suffering.
|
| Even if you limited it to some way to only US blacks who could
| prove lineage to an actual enslaved individual, suffering is
| difficult, if not impossible, to quantify. So... why action on
| this topic is politically impossible. I think color-blind
| welfare policies based on economic resources would be much more
| feasible, but... good luck raising taxes to increase the size
| of the welfare state.
| refurb wrote:
| ""Those who came of driving age during the oil crises of the
| 1970s drive less in the year 2000," the paper found. The doubling
| of gasoline prices in the late 1970s saw that generation drive
| 3.6% to 8.7% less than those born earlier or later"
|
| I can't find the paper, but when they say "born earlier or later"
| are they still looking at rate of driving in the year 2000?
|
| If so, aren't they just comparing ages? People born earlier or
| later would just be younger or older in the year 2000, which
| likely impacts driving too.
|
| Oh economics! You keep calling yourself a science, but you need
| to start acting like one!
| anamexis wrote:
| Presumably if it was just based on age, the effect would be
| fairly uniform, instead of correlated to periods of price
| shock.
| bilgames wrote:
| NickRandom wrote:
| Link to Full paper
| https://cseveren.github.io/files/FormativeExperiences_Paper_...
| if that helps?
| refurb wrote:
| Maybe I'm going nuts but it looks like they used 2000 US
| Census data on driving, so yes, they only looked at that
| year.
|
| They are literally comparing people who are older and younger
| with the cohort in question, so confounding results with how
| driving changes at various ages.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it looks like they used 2000 US Census data on driving,
| so yes, they only looked at that year_
|
| The first major sentence under data:
|
| "The decennial census asks questions about commuting mode
| and time. 'Journey to Work' questions appear in the 1980,
| 1990, and 2000 censuses, and in the American Community
| Survey (ACS) (Ruggles et al. 2020). We use data from these
| three censuses, as well as the 2006/10, 2011/15, 2016, and
| 2017 ACS" [1].
|
| Confirmation bias much [2]?
|
| [1] https://cseveren.github.io/files/FormativeExperiences_P
| aper_... _bottom of page 6_
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
| refurb wrote:
| It must be my years of reading shoddy economics studies
| that created that bias.
| superhuzza wrote:
| Given the exchange that just happened, are you sure they
| were all so shoddy? ;)
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