I'm not sure, but I think you made my point, you either don't have these things or acquired them at very low cost. In 1950, you didn't have the option to buy them so could live on a single lower income, If you bought them today at normal prices, you need two incomes, for most workers.
PS. I'm following a blog that has a main interest in living a happy life without all the consumer excess, And on gaining Financial Independence- Retiring early. >
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First Blog posts at the bottom.
The forum filled with Mustachians is fun also. >
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Save 30% of you income retire in 28 years. Save 40% of you income retire in 22 years. Save 50% of you income retire in 17 years. Save 60% of you income retire in 12.5 years. Assumes you live the Mustachian lifestyle.
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These things are cheaper now than they ever have been. Salaries have been stagnant, or declining for a couple of decades, though. The Democrats want them lower yet. They're succeeding.
BTW, my wife never had to work but did for ~25 years. Work is good, but that's another thing the Democrats want to end.
Where does this dumb ass come up with 25 year old? Was that the last time it had a thought? The one in use is a couple years old. It was given to me, brand new by a thrift store to se if it was repairable. It had been dropped. I straightened the door hinge, and tried to give it back to the thrift store but they didn't want it. That replaced a brand new, in the box Westinghouse that had been in storage for a year. It worked for 15 minutes, total before the power cord melted.
The latest models use a switching power supply, instead of a heavy transformer.
That's all good. "Last year, (2013) 50 percent of all American workers made less than $28,031, and 39 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000. Read more at;
More than 1/2 of the earners do not earn like you.
Mikek
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Certainly not things that didn't exist, but I have been in older homes that had some of them. Some were built in the 1920s, and had things you wouldn't expect. :)
This place was built in 1964, but has been updated several times. I added the motion sensors when I bought it, because my dad was to stay with me for a while and he has a bad hip. I didn't want him falling, in the dark while he fumbled with a light switch. The hallway lights are also on motion sensors, rather than a switch by every doorway. That is very handy when you wake in the middle of the night and have to stumble to the bathroom. It was well worth the $15. That one has been in use for 16 years, now. Just because you want a few non essentials isn't bad, as long as you are wasting a lot of money on them. :)
"Statistics show the average American home size has nearly tripled since the 1950s. Back then, a single family home averaged just 983 square feet. Today, it's 2,624. At the same time, the average size household has shrunk from around 3.5 people to around 2.5. Granted, people are bigger these days, but I'm guessing we don't need an extra 1,641 square feet for our girth alone."
Mikek
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On Sun, 23 Aug 2015 10:35:42 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" Gave us:
Hopefully you were smart enough to upgrade all the bulbs to LED by now. The electrical usage savings alone would have amortized the cost of much of it within a couple years and they last forever and provide a better 'color' light for far lower consumption.
Probably not though, since 'consumption' is what got your brain.
You probably would not have gotten such a payback, had you not pulled the shit you pulled with me over the years.
Oh, sorry. I meant that MMM's pragmatic stoicism and wit make a delightful combo.
It's completely possible. I moved out at seventeen, from Europe to the west coast. Got two full-time minimum-wage jobs (*), lived on a quarter, and saved the rest (for university, etc.).
*one paid $.25 over
Once upon an America we lauded economical living and lampooned waste or living beyond one's means.
MMM's success is fine, but forget not that money is just something you trade for stuff. Once you have enough stuff (a choice), you're set.
Always an interesting exercise, yet the precision is kinda overkill given that a dime's worth of silver bought over a half a gallon of gasoline in the mid 1960's--and that silver dime still will--but a dime itself will only buy you 5% of that today.
IOW, the 'fair share' people show a high success of using the government to take a big chunk whatever you might have or save, whether through inflation, tax, or debt, to replace whatever they failed to set aside for themselves.
(Speaking of, it's amusing to see socialist candidate Bernie Sanders, after 24 years in Congress earning a congressman's pay (currently $174K + expenses & bennies), reporting a net worth of ~$500K. Imagine what a Mustachian would have been able to save in that time.)
So money's fine and all that, but the greater security lies in living smart.
Cheers, James Arthur
"Economy is the art of making the most of life." --G.B. Shaw (a socialist)
"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It?s just that it will bankrupt them because they?re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that?s being emitted." ? President Barack Obama, January 2008
?If you didn?t auction the [CO2] permits, it would represent the largest corporate welfare program that has ever been enacted in the history of the United States. All of the evidence is that what would occur is that corporate profits would increase by approximately the value of the permits.? ? Peter R. Orszag, White House OMB Director, March 2009
?Until the consumer is involved, we are not going to make progress? in reducing the amount of oil the U.S. consumes.? ? Alan Mulally, Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive
?This won?t be the last time we will visit this between now and
2020, 2030, 2050,? ? Rep. Edward Markey, speaking at Harvard University, quoted in Inside Energy, August 10, 2009
?It?s important that those who consume the products being made all around the world to the benefit of America ? and it?s our own consumption activity that?s causing the emission of greenhouse gases, then quite frankly Americans need to pay for [Chinese greenhouse gas emissions].? ? Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, July 2009, at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai
Oh good, ya, he's a character. I've posted links several times, you're the first to respond positive or negative.
One thread I enjoyed was people bragging about their cars. Who had the oldest or the most miles.
Since he started writing (2011) the nestegg he says he lives off of has had a major increase, but I've not seen him mention that. It might ruin his rep! Say's he still lives on ~$25K.
Inflation is calculated in, If that's your point. The default is 3% a year. I think that might be to for low over the next 30 years. If your point is silver has been good over the last 40 years, I don't know, but you make me think about the coin collection my mom started me on 50 years ago, lots of silver in that. I just looked at melt value, about 11 times face value, but a quick look shows even a coin in good condition has more value than the silver. Which logic would say that will always be, because you always have the silver value plus collector value.
Already tax up to 80% of SS if you have a certain income, I see means testing coming soon.
Many are doing better than Bernie on $50k a year!
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on, > tax, or debt, to replace whatever they failed to set aside for themse lves.
James Arthur thinks he lives in a country that still works the way France d id back in Bastiac's time (and Bastiac died in 1850).
The Us government now spends a lot more on roads, education and and all the other public services than the French government were spending then, and B astiac still resented that minimal outlay, financed as it was from taxes on his income.
James Arthur is just as resentful, and no wit more conscious of what govern ment does for him.
He probably wouldn't have done kind of work that a conscientious congressma n would be expected to get done, having economised himself into deep-frozen ill-health, but he would have made James Arthur proud of him.
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preferably in a country where the rich don't have their thumbs firmly on th e balance of social justice, so they end up get richer, and the remaining 9
0-odd% of the population get poorer, as happens in the USA today (and has been happening since Reagan came to power).
The US constitution was designed to let this happen. For a while the rich i n the US had enough enlightened self-interest to let the poor do well enoug h to become sufficiently well-fed, well-housed and well-educated enough to be a thoroughly productive work force, but in the last 35 years, US capital has been out-sourcing it's labour needs, and short-changing the local work force.
)
But mainly an author and self-publicist. He did manage to get Beatrice and Sydney Webb re-buried in Westminster Abbey, not all that long after they'd died.
Since the Federal Reserve pumped in ~6% of GDP for five years running, ISTM unwinding their pile of Monopoly money will suck out about that many year * percentage points over time. Inflation mostly, I'd expect--that's always easiest.
I wasn't touting silver, just pointing out that they can take a lot by hook and by crook, i.e., currency isn't a safe store of value.
Yep.
And, after a lifetime of dissipating public monies publicly (& personally), he needs more--his campaign's calling for a 90% tax rate.
IOW Bernie's the personification, literally--the shining exemplar--of Margaret Thatcher's maxim, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
MT's dictum is Bernie's lament (public and private).
James Arthur has a problem with post-Keynsian economics.
He doesn't understand that the Global Financial Crisis sucked an enormous a mount of liquidity out of the economy, and the Federal Reserve and similar institutions in other countries have been compensating for that ever since.
Once people finally get into the habit of spending money again, this kind o f support will cease to be necessary. Without it, during the Great Depressi on, the economy experienced the joys of deflation - ever so healthy - and 2
5% unemployment.
ok
Whereas it was during the Great Depression, where those who had money that they could hang onto saw it increase in value by 30%.
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4K +
They'd have done it by ignoring the duties that Bernie took on when he beca me a Congressman - getting rich isn't part of the process of representing a ll your constituents, though many US congressmen have done very well by vig orously representing the more well-off of their constituents.
),
garet
Margaret Thatcher's grasp of economics left the UK with a remarkably low ra te of economic growth during her reign.
Modern socialism, as practiced in the Scandinavian countries and Germany, i s showing no sign of running out of other people's money, whereas the UK ec onomy under Thatcher went downhill in part because of inadequate spending o n public services, and some fairly enthusiastic transferring of public asse ts into private pockets.
James Arthur's fond conviction that the rich should be allowed to get even richer at everybody else's expense is roughly what you'd expect from somebo dy who managed to get rich enough to retire at 34, but it doesn't seem to b e a good way to generate persistent economic growth.
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