4x screwed

4X SCREWED

I’d like to expand on a comment I made about purchasing power.  I said I had watched a video stating that in 1960 the average house price cost 3.5 times the average annual wage whereas today it was 12 times.  Think about that for a second.  Between our real purchasing power wages falling and overpopulation and taxes rising housing costs ( plus rising rentier class shenanigans PLUS falling EROI energy ), our cost of living has risen four times higher.  And yet, we seem to just find it easier to blame people themselves for any financial hardships ( the are weak and lazy and shouldn’t be in debt ).

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If you are anywhere close to being like me ( sheesh-you wish! ), you look at two hundred or one hundred or fifty year old prices and translate that into today’s dollars.  And while bad, they are still grossly understated.  Because today you are paying around double for everything, even without inflation factored in ( with some exceptions, obviously, such as electronics ).  Between taxes and other hidden costs such as granted monopolies or built in litigation costs, stuff in general costs more.  So when they say that A or B cost $100 in today’s dollars in 1904, they don’t tell you that $100 today should buy you $200 worth of goods if all the hidden taxes were gone.

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Inflation is one tax, falling wages another, automating all jobs factors in, quadrupling taxes are another aspect.  Also, think about that earlier date.  1960 was prior to the industrial economy failing, was before our empire failing militarily and was at the apex of our low cost high volume oil supply.  It isn’t just that the government and elite are greedy humping whorebags that desperately need to be number one on the lamppost list-although, duh, right?-but also that in a lot of ways this situation had to come about just because resources are running out.

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And of course, with falling resources, it is no longer a political or economic problem to be solved but a situation that must be endured.  The point here today is that no matter what else makes things worse, and they will get that way, we are looking at a fundamental fact in that we only now possess 25% of the purchasing power as when we were born ( or, if you are young, when your parents were born-just prior to our military loss of empire ).  But wait Jim, you excitable hump with erect nipples from your own doom porn, that is just housing and you can’t say how much other prices are rising merely from one of several factors.

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Well, I don’t know about you all, but when I do choose to pay rent, or when I have been forced to in the past, I pretty consistently paid half of my take home pay for it, over thirty years in various locations or jobs.  No other expense is really going to skew my wages like rent does.  Perhaps food has gone down a bit over the decades.  Or has it?  You aren’t getting wholesome foods anymore.  Even convenience/frozen/junk food was made with higher quality ingredients way back in the day.  Even if you buy zero processed foods, the meat is full of hormones and the grain is full of pesticides and everything is grown in dead soil lacking micro or even macro nutrients. 

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You aren’t buying the same quality of food, so dropping real prices aren’t the great thing they appear.  You are paying for industrial food rather than natural.  Poison rather than substance.  It isn’t just eating at McCrapholes that will send you to the hospital eventually.  So will eating from the whole foods section of the grocery store.  There have been many people who beat me by decades understanding this, as I at first suspected hyperbole from the health food experts.  And it was-they exaggerated from fear and zeal, but they were merely ahead of their time.  Now there is no mistaking the fake food no one tries to hide anymore.  Evidently Pink Slime just means Cheaper NumNum, anymore.

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75% less purchasing power explains a LOT.  It explains Bitches Lib ho’s stealing and sacrificing their offspring at the alter of Mammon.  It explains why debt is mostly accepted as a necessary evil ( if you are paying forty years on a mortgage-ten years savings on the down and thirty for mortgage payments-what is a few short term credit cards or a six year car loan in comparison? ).  It explains the mass exodus to the cities as even higher costs with a job beat low costs with no jobs.  It explains why we all hate each other and screw each other over.  It explains the Hate Speech push, as now anyone can get you fired merely from allegations, and they move up into your position ( like Music Majors running computer security or “designing” pedestrian overpasses ).

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I’ve constantly used the term “because of the pie shrinking”.  Does this give you a better appreciation as to how much it has shrank?  There is far less shrinking from “the water was cold!”.  I am even amazed at this figure.  I had assumed about a doubling in prices since I started working, with frugal workarounds taking off the worst edges of the phenomenon.  This makes that thought a bit of an overly optimistic self lie, doesn’t it?  It explains why now two jobs plus four times as much debt STILL aren’t enough to recapture a lost time of luxurious living.

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Then, most of our perceptions are based on the old reality of ten years ago.  You know, BEFORE the economic meltdown that would have literally been an overnight implosion ( “this sucker is going down” ) if we didn’t hyperinflate.  Most of the last decades economic distortions aren’t even factored into our understandings.  We still think of medical insurance as both affordable and necessary.  We still think there will be time to pay down our debt, that we will still have a job to pay for it.  We don’t REALLY believe that the end is nigh, based on our actions.

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But the thing about the last decade is that it has been a HUGE cut into our purchasing power, by all metrics.  Would you like to bet a jelly filled donut that we’ve actually lost MORE than 75% of our purchasing power?  Anyone?  Bueller?

END ( today's related link https://amzn.to/2IXLCEa )

 

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