The era of reduced expectations

That simply means that people's "expenses" are too high (buy less crap) or they need to work harder (make more money). Both are within their power.

No, it means nothing of the kind. It means that their priority is/was (I'm not convinced there is a real change) not savings, rather consumption. Their "reward" is/was consumption; immediate gratification.

No, there aren't a "lot". Fear explains it all.

No, demand is the independent variable. Until you create demand there is no consumption.

Which is where risk comes into the equation. You have to make demand. Sometimes it works.

No, demand *has* to come first. Demand can't be there until the widget is, or at least the promise of the widget. That comes *after* the investment part.

That's just silly. There can be no demand for what doesn't exist, even in someone's mind.

Tell that to the gold traders.

No, I've found there is no shortage of weeds in the spring but they have little economic value.

Right. Usually expenses rise to meet or exceed income. This happens at all levels of income.

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Right, and governments. As a younger man, I noticed that yeast do the same thing.

Gubmint, with the exception that unrestricted govt has no natural limit--it just demands more.

I'm reading a book from 1850's France, lamenting the same problems, the same hope-and-change, the same arguments that redistribution makes more. It could've been written today. Bastiat, the economist / statesman author noted that the natural end to the empty promises (high benefits, low taxes) is revolution, which in fact happened, shortly thereafter (but not before he himself perished).

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The only time it happened to my wife and me was when were getting settled into a new house. We'd spend everything we had for a year or two, then get back to being too busy working to spend the money as fast as it came in.

Yeasts don't have much sense. Governments have electorates, which tend to impose a sense of proportion.

But there's no such thing as an unrestricted government, so James Arthur is busy frightening himself with a monster of his own invention.

But probably wouldn't have been. Bastiat's political environment wasn't exactly modern and the boogeymen that frightened him aren't really the same as the ones that frighten James Arthur.

Actually, the revolution that threw out the Orleans monarchy and established the Republic happened in 1848, and Bastiat died in 1850, shortly before Louis Napoleon seized power in a coup d'etat, which isn't actually a revolution - he'd been president of the Republic before he made himself Emperor

The actual revolution displaced a decidedly reactionary bunch of nitwits with the predictable uneasy combination of revolutionaries and hold-overs from the more liberal wing of the previous regime.

Your history is as off the wall as your economics.

Perfect parallel. Yeast is only limited by its food. Government must be starved the same way.

The people must starve it but why bother if it's only OPM. *THE* reason that *everyone* must pay taxes.

But it'll be different this time...

You assume it is. I don't.

That is far too simple a model. We now see Gen Y not marrying, not having kids, mostly for economic reasons. Somebody making $40k can probably about feed,clothe and house themselves and that's about all, unless they're in a place with low cost of living.

I got to calibrate that working remote contract in '10, and I pretty much know I can do it on (much) less, but most people don't seem to be able to. It's just not credible for me to say *everybody* is a profligate spender.

Heh. There's that.

The axes we're talking about are basically supply and demand, and there's no "time" axis there. Demand can affect supply, but supply can only very rarely affect demand.

I'd tell 'em "good luck with that."

But somebody close to median wages doesn't have a whole lot of things to do without, really. I'm not clucking in sympathy - it's more of a matter of them not being people you can expect a lot of future consumption from. Since they're the biggest lot in the economy, we're liable to see dreary times for a long time.

Worse, you assume it isn't. It is in fact is within the power of 99% of Americans to both spend less and make more. The fact is that well over half piss away more than they *can* make. BTW, I can piss away more than my share, too, but I can make a bunch more.

Because living in mom's basement, while married, is a bummer. Living in mom's basement isn't so bad, though. They think it beats working for a living, anyway.

So you admit that you agree with me. Nice. The problem is that they demand more; the 70" TV, and every game for their game console. hey, living in mom's basement is boring without every shoot-em-up made.

Geez, all you have to do is look at the *stuff* going out the door at WallyWorld and how it's paid for.

Nonsense. There certainly is time between investment and profit and between earning and spending. Economics is all about time. If you take time out of physics it screws it up pretty badly, too.

You're the one that believes there are no constraints on supply.

Government makes its own "food", though. Out of thin air... and we're back to the start of the circle :)

... more of a coup, really...

It's been quite different the last few times, really.

History has already shown that it can only feed on itself for so long before it dies a horrible death.

Certainly. FDR, in another life, would have been Stalin, as would (will?) Obama.

No, the result is always the same.

Nonsense. The "poor" have cars, microwave ovens, 60" televisions, take vacations, and many things our parents couldn't afford.

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Stalin started off his revolutionary career robbing banks.

Neither FDR or Obama started their careers in a way that suggests that they might have/have had a psychopathic personality disorder.

Krw is a bit to ignorant to be aware of this small but significant difference.

James Arthur was comically ignorant - the revolution happened in 1848, while Bastiat was still around, and he was in fact elected to the national legislative assembly after the 1848 revolution, and it was Louis Napoleon's 1851 coup d'etat that took place after Bastiat's death,

Not exactly. The current French constitution was designed by Charles De Gaulle to suit Charles de Gaulle, but he was no Stalin, if no FDR either, and it worked well enough to let the electorate reject Charles de Gaullle when he'd done his job, and seems to have been working adequately ever since. The US does need a new constitution, but the

For better or for worse, people with kids just can't control costs. the inference from that is rather grim.

Single people or married-no-kids have less of an excuse.

Many live in the basement while working. Can't blame 'em.

But $40k is about median income.

That racks up a horrifying $4k there, assuming a 70" is $2k :)

Yeah, there's that.

I'm assuming significant substitution because that's generally what happens. Gold has no substitute; that's why people think it's valuable.

A microwave oven, used car, TV cost *much much less* now. The microwave is a net cost savings; if you use it right, you can spend a lot less on food.

but yes- in absolute terms, the poor now live better than relatively wealthy people fifty years ago.

As a child in New Zealand, I watched reruns of "Bonanza" on saturdays, I seem to recall seeing references to it in English television too.

Really? How about redemption (especially without any effort on the redemee's part)? And what do churches sell?

Wonderful. A beautiful example of just one of the problems with Say's "law".

?-)

A big problem is that we increasingly measure our wealth and welfare in terms of material possessions and appearances, which usually involve superfluous and unnecessary things that people are convinced they need for happiness and success. This is largely due to the effectiveness of advertising and peer pressure, which is often reinforced with promises of sexual gratification, which of course appeals strongly to adolescents as

well as aging baby boomers going through late mid-life crises.

I know someone who works in truly poor neighborhoods in the Baltimore inner city, and she knows people who really struggle to get by on income levels that I might find perfectly adequate. As she puts it, some of these people have poor problem solving skills, so they cannot avail themselves of simple ways to reduce costs, or avoid getting caught under untenable mountains of debt. They have little sense of how purchasing items on credit will result in financial difficulties in the future, and they do not know how to purchase and prepare inexpensive yet highly nutritious foods, in large quantities, that can be easily stored, such as brown rice and dried beans. Also, many of the bargains we are used to at large suburban supermarkets and big lots stores are not as easily available to them at neighborhood grocery stores.

With a paradigm shift from individualism and isolationism, to cooperation and sharing of resources, it is possible to live comfortably and probably healthier and happier. Much of the deplorable conditions and frustration

people complain about is because of their obsession with conspicuous consumption, and electronic entertainment and communications which have replaced normal human interactions. People have become slaves to the technology which was supposed to have reduced our need to work so hard, and has fostered isolation and dependency on frivolous things. Such conditions also spawn mental illness and road rage and lack of civility, morality, and ethics, which result in criminal behavior and need for extra security and self-protection.

Paul

Did you know it wasn't real, as a child?

Yeah, but you can't read somebody's mind and find the bug in their thinking. *all things being equal*, we have to give the devil his due and admit that better tools make better work. If we buy things that are not tools, then more fool us. That takes nothing from those who do it right.

I think the canonical volume on the subject is still "The Hidden Persuaders." It's not hard to find. I'd generalize your thought to resources drained in "social signaling" in the large. That's all a waste of bloody time, but it's hard to do without.

Put Macluhan on the reading list too. It's a lot online.

Right.

Right right. Plus the yuppies drove the price of bacon up, a great supplement for brown beans. That and onions. And hot sauce.

I am skeptical of that. For one , it's a "paradigm shift", for another... we'll leave it at that.

That's generally a self-regulating condition. See the '80s movie "Scarface" for details....

There's no such thing. Electronic substitutes for it are just fine. All human interaction is valid. I am sure it would be fun to have this discussion, for example, face to face but this costs a whole lot less.

We all do both; surely the world is a richer place when we have electronic communication. I know it can be banal, but it doesn't have to be.

This is not banal:

The technology is reducing our need to work at a rate we find somewhat appalling, I think. It's *gonna* continue, too. We're back to Captain Ned Ludd and the large-scale belt-driven weaving machines putting village weavers out of work in the early days of the industrial revolution in Britain.

I have a recording of Johnny Cash doing "John Henry", so I know how the story ends....

Shallowness of personal thought is responsible for dependence on frivolous things. For people who are interested in how the world works, the times are amazing. There is the "maker" movement, the small (Arduino) boards and box store computers with scads of power.

Paul, I hold that Loss of Self causes these things. Not technology. When one comes to the point to where they no longer have a reflection in the mirror, then they act as an animal. Not before.

When you have done something, even something nobody cares about, you can point to it and say "I did that". If you do enough such things, you get the warp and weave of what it means to do something, and you can begin to do things for other people.

At that point, all truly social interaction is possible. It's not easy, but it's worth it.