• Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Just a reminder.

    In 1960, minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the average home was $11,000.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Quick history of inflation in America. President Eisenhower started the US/Vietnam War, and JFK kept it going. Ike and Kennedy both wanted to keep it small, but LBJ made a major commitment of troops and air power to deliver a knockout punch. That turned into a quagmire where the US couldn’t pull out without looking like losers. President Johnson [LBJ] started printing money to pay for the War, rather than raise taxes. Nixon was elected as a peace candidate. Nixon’s Vietnam policy alone is worth several books, but we’ll just talk about the US dollar.

        Nixon doubled down on Johnson’s bombing policy; the US factories were working 24/7 to make more weapons. Great, except the money was all paper. When the Arab Oil boycott hit the price of everything went through the roof. Suddenly stay at home moms were forced to get jobs to keep the family fed. In 1968 ‘middle class’ was one job to support a family, by 1980, two income families were becoming the norm.

        Then came Reagan. Big tax cuts for the rich were supposed to make everything golden again. In 1980, $1 million was considered a vast fortune; by 1992 it was what a really rich guy paid for a party.

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Que the Iraq war part deux. Immediately followed by the Afghan invasion.

          Paid for on credit card. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

          Don’t forget the giant expansion of the government under Bush² either, the TSA, DHS, Medicare expansion

          The aughties fucked over the entire upcoming century. Obama swaging the wall street plutocrats after 2008 with, not just the bail outs, but with relaxing corporate control of rental property is looking really, REALLY short sighted about now

          Trump repealing Obama’s DoddFrankLite is gonna come back and haunt us too, when wall street implodes in the inevitable 2008 repeat, because if you can trust a banker to do anything, it’s to suck as much blood out as possible and let the public pay for life support. It’s gonna happen again. Guaranteed.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Suddenly stay at home moms were forced to get jobs to keep the family fed. In 1968 ‘middle class’ was one job to support a family, by 1980, two income families were becoming the norm.

          This was not because of inflation, but because women were beginning to be seen as fully human

          Frankly between this and “but the money was paper” just makes you sound like some kind of neotraditionalist goldbug.

          • tory@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            ‘Were forced to work’

            VS

            ‘Were permitted to work’

            I’m not sure what went wrong with your brain to not be able to distinguish between these two. You’re responding to someone who said the first version. You clapped back with serious attitude about the second version.

            They’re not the same though.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yes I am aware that this person used slanted and incorrect language. That’s sort of my entire point.

              You’ll forgive me for not taking someone, who wants the gold standard and traditionalist housewives back, very seriously.

              • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                You funny. I never mentioned the gold standard or ‘traditional’ roles. If you’re going to put words in my mouth, I’d like them with an order of nachos and a fruit punch.

    • hansl@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I came in to say something similar. Don’t focus on the price of the rent. The problem is the salary. Rent to salary has been going up and someone is pocketing the difference.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The problem is both.

        Edit:

        Of course this isn’t universally applicable, but in my city there’s basically six large landlords that own and manage the types of large, multi-family apartment buildings where the majority of people live.

        There’s no competition in housing and it shows in the pricing, which has been skyrocketing not coincidentally as the firms consolidate and then all “somehow” price align using the same software market rates.

        • hansl@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s not how an inflationary economy works. Rent will always go up in yesterday’s money.

          If the market was doing its job, salaries wouldn’t be much behind. So the ratio of rent:salary would be relatively stable.

          • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            So you’re saying solely blame employers for consistent rent increases that top 10% year over year in some markets?

            Employers aren’t going to keep raising everyone’s salary 10% every year to compete with the amount of greed in housing markets. Small ones can’t afford to, and large ones will be punished brutally by their investors for doing so.

            Two things can be true: salaries can have stagnated, and rents / housing prices can have skyrocketed as well.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        'Adjusted for inflation ’ is kind of a joke. If inflation worked the way the adjustments would have you believe, the average home of today would be $120,000 apx. It’s about three times that.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        ‘Abysmal?’ Because they didn’t have computers and air conditioning? Are you saying that improvements in technology are dependent on inflation?

        If you think that they were terrible because they were smaller than the average house today, I suggest you look at the tiny houses and multiple room mate situations people are looking at today. In 1960, If you had three house mates you were probably in prison.