I find it highly ironic that while feminists wanted to enable women to have jobs, capitalism intervened and forced women to have jobs. So we have a reserse, but equally bad situation (earlier women had to be home, now they have to work).

I also found the book's message darkly subversive sometimes. For example, all things being equal, it is better to spend more of your income on luxuries than on he biggies (housing, transportation, debt). If you do the former, you can easily roll back. If you do the latter, when times get tough, you're hosed. In yo face papaa!

Seems like a basic rule that has impact on more ideas recently discussed on hacker news: in a market where there is a short supply of high demand items, more money will cause more inflation.

This will also impact ideas around basic income.

The causes for the US development are many, if I had to guess I would mainly bet on the extensive natural resources they had available.

As for natural resources, Asia, Africa, and S. America are loaded with natural resources, yet the booms did not happen there.

They are also loaded with people. America was a free-for-all (except the American Indians, of course, who were overpowered by superior technology).

Maybe there was a lot of wealth in silver, I don't know about that. It seems that it had some land-based oil that they started extracting in the beginning of the 20th century, but I've no idea if they were as extensive as in the US (where there was Standard Oil, an immensely wealthy corporation).

Mind you, I'm not saying it was only the natural resources, there are other factors as well - different climate, geography, cultural background (English vs. Spanish/Portuguese), colonial history, ... I somewhere read that it's a curious phenomenon how so many countries in SA had so many dictatorships in sequence...

edit: Also you're attributing success to capitalism where it should be attributed to slavery. It's easy to have a very strong economy when you have free slave labor and most economic gains are still limited by manual labor. If you want to conflate capitalism with slavery I think that's not unreasonable since slavery of some kind is essentially the end goal of capitalism but I'd assume that's a move you don't want to make, so don't try to claim success for your economic system off the backs of abused slaves.

On the contrary, I think the thing that has deceived us about how much poorer we've become is cheap stuff. TVs are cheaper than ever. We spend less as a percentage of income on food than we've ever done in the past. Even automobiles and computers are more affordable than they've ever been. To a superficial viewpoint, we have more purchasing power than we've ever had (and the CPI includes many of these items which give that superficial viewpoint).

But we see the true regression in purchasing power once we look at things that haven't benefitted from lowered manufacturing costs. Housing, education, health care and the like are showing the true nature of the situation of how poor we've become.

P.S. Yes, I know I took the quote out of context and I'm more agreeing with you than disagreeing with you. But there is a distinction to be made that it's not all stuff that's more expensive, just the important stuff.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_chart

That more than explains the lower amount left for people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Mono...

We just don't need guys on an assembly line tightening the same bolt ten thousand times a day for forty years, like my grandfather did (true story.)

I would argue that we do need that.

You don't take a child straight from the womb to an r-rated movie, nor do you put a small plant start right into a torrent of rain. Living things need an environment and activities that match their lifecycle.

A society is also a living thing and has strata that are at different points in that continuum ... and if there is nothing appropriate for that strata, that strata will stagnate and die.

So when people look ahead to some golden utopia where we all work half time as knowledge workers and spend the other half on philosophy or maker projects, they ignore the fact that some sect of a society will not have the makeup for that.

You need to have something for them. Your society needs to have depth and breadth.

What I thought was particularly perverse was builders lamenting that no one wanted 3 bedroom condos, which is why they were building so few. Complete B.S.! Since they charge per square foot, no one can afford the 3 bedroom condos!

I recall reading somewhere how this will eventually affect the fertility rate. As a couple that waited quite a bit longer to have kids, I can see this being accurate.

Loosening the age to all years, I saw the average to be about 650-700k. That is 140k down payment plus a probably expensive upgrade to the old and aging systems in the house...

My house was built in 1870. It needed some work, but has mostly been fine because the previous owners (and probably the one before them too) had kept it pretty up-to-date.

An 140k downpayment sounds about right. It did wipe out all our savings, but that was only because we decided to buy and then sell. The equity in our old home basically offset it.

However I find it a bit dishonest on your part to claim it is easy with 2 programmer jobs to afford a 765k house, including a ~150k down payment which puts you at jumbo rate mortgage rates and hide the fact that you used the equity from a previous property and you bought an extremely old house (I've lived in Boston all of my life, no way would I buy a home that old).

2) We had the downpayment in cash. Selling the old house just let us replenish savings. Doesn't change the fact that it's possible to save 150k with two developers working (actually more, because we had previously saved for a down payment on our old house, and for extensive (100k+) renovations to our previous house).

3) I'm sorry you don't want an old house. Yes, they can have their problems, but so do houses of any age, including brand new ones. They also have charms that newer houses don't. It's a tradeoff. Newer houses are also available. The same day we first saw our house, we looked at another for around the same price built in the 70s a few blocks away (also in Medford). It needed a lot more work (a new kitchen) where our house was move in ready.

Get an inspection and figure out if the problems are deal breakers for you. Expensive problems are part of the "joy" of owning a house.

Prices are reasonable, but houses sell quick. Both the house we bought and the house we sold had multiple offers the Monday after the first open house weekend.

If you're borrowing $970K, you're monthly payment would be a lot more than $4K. When I was looking at mortgages, borrowing $600K was ~$4500/month in mortgage, property taxes and insurance. $970K would be more like $6K per month.

The only program that does do that, FHA, have loan limits and in SF for a single family home that is about 625k...

BUT, in hot markets like SF and the east coast, no seller is going to accept your offer with only 3% down because of the risk the lender having an LTV issue and the sale falling apart. In markets like NYC, Boston, DC, SF, etc you need to come in with a) offer over ask b) at least 20% down.

Here's a better plan: Buy a huge house for a fraction of that money in the north of England, rural Spain, anywhere in Japan which isn't Tokyo, etc., and telecommute to work.

- https://angel.co/jobs#find/f!%7B%22types%22%3A%5B%22full-tim...

- http://hnhiring.me/ {remote ok}

- https://authenticjobs.com/#types=7,1&onlyremote=1

You aren't poorer than your parents. It's just that your expectations are bigger.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/COMPRNFB

A double income is not required to keep up with your parents, it is only required to keep up with the (much richer) Joneses.

If we aren't richer than our parents, it should be easy to name a good or service that we consume less of than them. Anyone care to do that?

Millenials own far fewer cars and homes than their parents ever did, in addition to having less (typically negative, due to debt) net worth. To reiterate, if millenials were to liquidate all of their assets (of which they have none anyway), they would still be in the hole for huge sums. I am fairly certain that my parents never had negative net worth; I know for a fact that they also had much more substantial savings and spending ability in their 20s despite coming from humble backgrounds and working menial jobs.

This isn't about keeping up with the Joneses, it's about reaching zero rather than being in the negative.

EDIT: And, as the other replier so far mentioned, millenials consume very little healthcare while being forced by law to spend vast sums to merely have the ability to spend more money (via high deductible plans) to get shitty quality care. For a time in the previous generation's course, it was normal to have mental health care as part of the standard of care, which has slipped away from us-- now, mental healthcare is barely consumed, and is ludicrously expensive when it is covered under the paltry plans at all.

http://www.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/...

Homeownership has been 64% or higher since 1970.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Hi...

Houses have just become larger since then.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7002/6843606169_618efc8942_d.j...

You are just plain wrong on all counts.

your graphs are just plain useless on all counts

Look at 1979 in the second chart... the trendline for the present is dropping beneath it. The size of house isn't relevant.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/02/18/stude...

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/021914... "Over 25% of them had late payments or are dealing with bill collectors, and well over half are still receiving some form of financial aid from their parents. One of the most disturbing findings of this study reveals that seven out of 10 young people define financial stability as being able to pay all of their bills each month."

http://www.millennialmarketing.com/2010/11/whats-not-on-mill...

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/04/30/homeownership...

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/chart-of...

http://www.businessinsider.com/millennial-home-ownership-sur...

http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/blog/real-estate/2015...

...

My parents both consumed more education (much cheaper, less supply of students), earned relatively higher wages (inflation-adjusted) in a better job market (less unemployment, more aggregate demand, higher LFP rate), bought into the housing market with an affordable mortgage in a nice area, and are now expecting to collect a decent revenue of social security and health benefits on top of their pension funds.

If this holds true across the population on average, we will consume less education, housing, social security, and medical benefits than our parents. Not to mention have a poorer quality of life. On average. There will most certainly be exceptions.

The solution? Go back to a top 10 school and get that law/medical degree, then spend a decade or so paying off the loans (or have parents pay for it). Or go the high risk/high reward route of a startup and live/work like a college student for 1/20 chance to hit it big and become an angel/VC. Or network your way into finance/consulting/tech management.

Social Security and health care come to mind.

Did you mean "the basket of health care goods available in 1970"? I imagine we consume far more than that (e.g., MRIs, statins, etc). Would you be willing to stick to your parents health care choices?

Was medical bankruptcy a thing in the 1970s?

Allow me to quote myself, quoting you: "name a good or service".

> Would you be willing to stick to your parents health care choices?

Do you mean the health care choices they are exercising now? Who do you think is racking up the most MRI hours, 20 year olds or 60 year olds?

I'll put a finer point on it, both services are subsidized by the increasingly resentful youth.

Again - MRI is a service. Health care is a category.

Why would I, why would they? The issue at hand is cost; they pay much less than I do to utilize the same services due to now legally mandated insurance.

> Again - MRI is a service. Health care is a category.

Again... the health care industry is comprised of both services and goods, the unequal consumption of which is what you challenged anybody to point to.

I certainly am - in 1980 I'd probably be a cripple. In 2014, cheap airline fares + modern medicine fixed me up for a few thousand.

I'd agree if it were a self funding program, but it isn't. Due to the ever increasing deficit, scarcity increases with consumption - the earlier generations are paying less and drawing more than later generations.

> Also, we consume more healthcare today.

That is news to me - and probobly the entire health insurance industry, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

> Also, sarcasm doesn't mean what you think it means.

I made my point, being aware of my point you stated the opposite in a ridiculing manner: that is the very definition of sarcasm. It doesn't need to be a sassy remark made with an eye-roll and accompanied by a laugh track to be sarcasm.

Take any illness you might get and look at the outcome 40 years ago versus today. Look at the maintenance treatments people make for vision, dentistry, and orthodontics.

> I made my point, being aware of my point you stated the opposite in a ridiculing manner: that is the very definition of sarcasm.

That's not the definition of sarcasm.

I mean, land is a finite resource, and what with population growth that's happened in heat-riddled places like Phoenix, I think the overall per capita quality-adjusted land ownership has declined.

This is more of an orthogonal population matter, though.

"Wealth" in economics is the sum total of all of your physical and intangible assets, including a calculation of discounted future earnings.

So being rich and being wealthy are very similar concepts in economics - large NPV of assets and income. But in normal parlance, rich and poor can also refer to standard of living/quality of life/happiness.

So are you wealthier? Happier? Earning less?

Adjusted according to inflation I make slightly less money than they do - meaning I have less cash in my bank account. But the prices of everything are being driven down so quickly that I live a much fuller life than they did on a per-opportunity basis.

I have access to all the world's information, seemingly infinite entertainment, and a faster computer than they could even imagine in my pocket (not to mention my tablet and laptop). I can travel the world (I actually make money when I do so by Airbnb'ing my house), Amazon drops stuff they couldn't afford on my doorstop for very cheap.

So I make slightly more, but what I have access to is much greater than they did. I'd argue my life is much richer (er, wealthier), despite making slightly less.

The only thing I would push back on is the increasing cost of some of the more fundamental investments - higher education and housing. Can't (sustainably) enjoy fast computers/airplanes/Amazon without a degree and a home.

Richness, wealth, is not money. It's the things we want. My parents never had $2/lb strawberries in February, or MRI machines, HIV drugs, discount airlines, etc, etc.

We are insanely more wealthy than our parents.

Better medical care does, but it's expensive medical interventions that bankrupts middle class families. Also: Real estate - much further out of reach. Education - much deeper in debt. These are the things that really matter.

I'll give you cheap air travel, though. That stuff is great. Hooray for cheap jet fuel.

Medical incentives may be messed up in the US, but most people on the planet who have access to healthcare don't have to worry about it bankrupting them.

Yes we "need" 2 incomes to buy a house, but that house is nearly TWICE the size of the one our parents had on average, and MUCH fuller with the things we want.

Nobody claimed we are brainwashed sheep most of all me -- the claim is that quality of life is reduced, and you suggest it's in exchange for an increase in consumer goods that we want. I respond that we don't actually want these goods; our recent ancestors did not want them, the desire has been manufactured by a well-paid hard-working team of expert psychologists. So we are not now meeting a desire that existed; a desire has been manufactured and then met. So when you compare our circumstances to that of the past you must consider the fact that advertisers had not become yet sophisticated enough to force us to want things we do not truly want, so our wants were different; driven by life, not driven by profit.

If you'd like to pretend you don't understand the difference between "having a happy life, supporting a family and taking care of yourself and those close to you" and "having expensive toys" then you are free to do so, just don't ask me to indulge your absurdity by pretending it's reasonable.

This is not true everywhere: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398714/The-incredib...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

Tech progress is learning. The "economy" is the act of economizing; learning to do more with less. It's a virtuous cycle.

Could our parents afford to own a home, have children, live comfortably off one income? Can we? I guess we have plenty of fun cheap toys made by slave labor that we can't play with because we're always working so if that's how you measure richness then sure.

Part—not all, but part—of the supposed increase in quality of life due to cheaper goods is because entry level quality has dropped, for certain categories of goods.

Yes we can. But it means tradeoffs most people aren't willing to make.

Sure, we have cooler, cheaper toys and food is easier to get, but the rest of it makes it much harder to get by, in general.