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> My parents are in their 70's and they still have furniture that was (second hand) given to them when they got married. Can you imagine an piece of IKEA furniture being used daily and lasting for >40 years? My point about "cheaper alternatives" exactly...

Part of this is cultural.

People now consume more than they used to. For many generations people patched their clothes. Now they throw them out. It's a culture of consume, toss it, consume some more.

That culture influences personal decisions and those we influence for our companies.

You can still get high quality furniture. If you're going to replace it soon due to style changes do you care about quality?

Outside of housing, healthcare, daycare, education and transportation the two income household of today consumes less then a single income household in the 1970’s. The spending is different, with households today spending less on things like china or formal clothes but net it all out and it is less.

Housing is larger but also older and mostly driven by proximity to good schools. It is hard to consider the other expenses discretionary.

This was the conclusion a Elizabeth Warrens research summarized in The Two Income Trap.

> thereby all countries that had a currency backed by dollars, the average household income has risen 5x but the price of goods like a house have gone up 10x

Real personal income has consistently gone upwards.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RPI

The gold standard ended in 1933. Bretton Woods wasn't really a return to the gold standard. It was really just a way for the US to profit off of the recovery from WW2. They wasn't particularly careful with printing money back then either. Europe and Japan were desperate for international liquidity to rebuild their economies, so they were initially happy to exchange gold for dollars at unfavorable rates. After they no longer needed the dollar, they stopped purchasing them, so the US had no choice but to end Bretton Woods.

> but could simply be printed when needed. This created huge money supply inflation

This could and did happen before 1971. The US government has always been able to issue debt. And paper money, in the form of bonds, has been a staple of the country's financial systems since long before it was a country. Mostly owing to the fact that England largely prohibited the export of specie to the colonies. Forcing states to figure out their own monetary systems.

> Can you imagine an piece of IKEA furniture being used daily and lasting for >40 years?

Yes. I have plenty of of IKEA furniture that's seen daily use for ~20 years and still looks brand new. People don't seem to realize this, but IKEA does sell solid wood furniture. I have an entire bedroom set (and matching shelves) that are made of solid wood with a thin resin coating that prevents scratches and dings. The bedframe does need the screws tightened on occasion, but with the dresser, I put it together with wood glue and never bother to empty it when moving (glued dowels are essentially as strong as a mortise and tenon joint) . It's survived like five moves without issue. My old desk found a spot as a work bench in my shop as the tabletop is incredibly durable. I'd love to find another one.

My parent's house still has the IKEA flooring that we installed in like 2002. Even their cheapo furniture isn't bad. I'm still rocking these $5 end tables that I bought in like 2008. I put some dowels in the feet and stacked them to make a shelve that converts into a low table for my shop.

Not only will IKEA furniture still be around in 40 years, due to survivorship bias, they will be known for making incredibly durable furniture by future generations.

> I'd love to find another one

how about bamboo tabletops?

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/anfallare-tabletop-bamboo-00465...

> Can you imagine an piece of IKEA furniture being used daily and lasting for >40 years?

Yeah. IKEA's not bad.

Some of the higher end IKEA stuff is not bad, I have a bed frame that's solid wood, looks great and I could easily keep it for decades. Most of the IKEA furniture I bought in my younger days is compressed cardboard and have been replaced because it was starting to fall apart after a few house moves and wear and tear.

IIRC my parents IKEA dining table is solid wood and we've been using it 20+ years.

Every piece of IKEA furniture I've owned has collapsed or fallen apart within 5 years. I've got an old coffee table I carried in on a skateboard when I was like 13 or something that I found during spring cleanup. It's solid and made of real wood. It's been going strong for 20 years now of heavy use and who knows how long it was used before I got it. I can see it lasting another 20 years easily.

Everything in my home as I grew up was Ikea. It is all there still working 20 years later. If what you are buying isn't holding then you bought some brittle stuff, there is plenty of cheap and sturdy things from ikea but they might not be the best looking furniture.

It varies a lot though. Some of their stuff lasts a long time and some of it falls apart when you move.

> the only reason we don't feel this too much just yet, is because often times cheaper alternatives where available.

There is a trick, what I like to call value extraction, that companies do in place of financial extraction(or raising prices).

This is commonly known as shrinkflation in regards to commodities, such as cereal, as the company provides less product for the same price and as such the product has to be bought more. People just buy their product as usual and don't realize the quantity has gone down and just have to purchase more and more.

In the sense of a more tangible product, like a tool or shoe, the company lowers the 'value'...it is cheaper pricewise by say a factor of 3 but the actual quality of the product is lowered by a factor of 10 or more, in materials, in manufacturing, etc..so the value is reduced massively, and it's cheaper financially in the short run on the price tag, but not cheaper in the long run, because the product fails much more often than the quality product and has to be purchased over and over again.

As humans we just see the price tag in the short term for all of it. Prices are easy to compare and are objective, value is much harder to quantify.

This is also part of Ubers business model of milking drivers as well, not out of money, but out of asset depreciation. The drivers just see the money they're making today, and aren't thinking about long term asset depreciation. So the less educated driver thinks they're making 20 bucks an hour, but in reality that driver is making like 4 bucks an hour after operating expenses, however, Uber advertises the 20 dollar an hour number in employment ads.

I haven't formed a complete framework for it but this idea of 'value extraction' is one way companies make money without raising prices.

this is a good point. Everybody keep saying that US had a small inflation in the last 2 decades. Yes, prices of eggs/milk maybe didn't go up to0 much. But what about prices of child care, education, housing, health care, retirement. Yes all these have many factors behind their cost rise, but money printing just can't be ignored here.

All of those things are figured into the Consumer Price Index. It's not like they're just guessing over at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The one thing that's not included is retirement. You're entitled to Social Security, which is inflation-indexed with the CPI.

Individual retirement accounts are usually based in the stock market, which has been doing gangbusters -- for those who can afford it. That is becoming unaffordable, and it probably is because of "money printing".

That's where the inflation shows up: asset markets. The increase the money supply but it disappears out of the consumer economy almost immediately. Consumer prices don't go up, but asset prices do.

> That's where the inflation shows up: asset markets

Because we're encouraging yield chasing in order to lower unemployment.

I apologize, but this reveals fundamental misunderstandings of how inflation is measured, and what it measures, and of how US dollars enter the economy.

Look at this post to see how many different measures of inflation there are. Each of these get at different aspects of the economy:

https://econbrowser.com/archives/2021/08/measured-inflation-...

https://econbrowser.com/archives/2021/09/inflation-a-compreh...

As for money printing. Per US law, money cannot be just printed by the Treasury. It must be borrowed from people who already had dollars to lend.

New dollars enter the economy when banks lend money; that is the main engine of new money creation, and it is responsive to the economy. Usually, banks don't lend when its too risky, and businesses don't borrow when it won't lead to profitable growth.

You can have both inflation (in terms of purchasing power) and a simultaneous decrease in the cost of goods (in constant dollar terms).

If both of these happen to balance, prices appear to stay the same.

Presumably you'd only get a true number out of something (a) with a fixed amount in circulation, (b) internationally traded, & (c) universally valued. Even precious metals are subject to production costs and industrial consumption.

The rest of the world has seen the same price increases.

In many places in Europe, four out of five items on that list are provided or managed by the state (child care, education, health care, retirement).

Which IMO explains why Europeans tend to feel more comfortable even with salaries that, on paper, are significantly lower. The American middle class is getting squeezed by this particular class of costs.

That's part of it. In most of Europe, if you want good anything, you have to pay for it. Even then, you might not get it, because the system is so benevolently "universal".

Europeans are comfortable with lower salaries because they believe they're paying taxes for the greater good. That's often not the case.

I speak from experience here and I'm sick of people putting universal healthcare and other European shit on a pedestal.

Now, butthurt Europeans and especially little angry German trolls can start downvoting, but remember, ignore something for too long and it can turn into terminal cancer.

Europe is in an even worse position than the US on debt. ECB has already had negative interest rates for the past roughly 5 years. Basically even if you don’t spend money you are losing money just like inflation, then on top of that they have inflation as well.

> My parents are in their 70's and they still have furniture that was (second hand) given to them when they got married. Can you imagine an piece of IKEA furniture being used daily and lasting for >40 years?

Two answers:

1) Yes. Very, very easily. For at least some IKEA furniture. 2) I somehow doubt that second hand furniture was from the 'IKEA of that day'.

> I somehow doubt that second hand furniture was from the 'IKEA of that day'.

I think that's the parent poster's point. Presumably his parents are not significantly wealthier in relative terms than he was, but they could afford more premium furniture than most people today do.

I wonder if another reason for that is that there were fewer types of things one would buy back in the day. If I didn't have a phone or computer or earbuds or flights to other parts of the US or other countries, etc., then I might spend more on a premium furniture.

I definitely don't think that tells the whole story, but do think it could play a part in it.

Well no they couldn't, it was given to them.

You don't know that. Maybe someone didn't need it any more for whatever reason.

I'm typing this on a computer that was given to me by a company that didn't need it any more. I could afford to buy a new one. But since the one I have is more than enough for my needs, I don't need a new computer, so I don't buy one.

Ad 2) There were no alternatives to local carpenters 100 years back. If you wanted a wardrobe, you would get one built for you.

You can still do that today, and get a wardrobe for 8K, that lasts 40years. But now we do have "cheaper alternatives". His point exactly.

Not to distract from your overall point, but Sears was around 100 years ago. You could buy a kit house from their catalog in 1920.

> There were no alternatives to local carpenters 100 years back.

That's ridiculous - of course there were. Sears & Roebuck were selling furniture out of their catalog well over 100 years ago, and that was far from the only option.

> Everything is getting too expensive, and the only reason we don't feel this too much just yet, is because often times cheaper alternatives where available.

Dead on. It's pressure from both sides, so to speak. Not only are we paying more for goods, the goods themselves are declining in quality.

Furniture is a great example. Another is home appliances. Refrigerators, washers and driers etc have absolutely tanked in quality.

We are getting less for more money, but inflation only counts half of that.

> Furniture is a great example. Another is home appliances. Refrigerators, washers and driers etc have absolutely tanked in quality.

We also have a tendency to replace them when broken for simple things.

When I tell people I repaired or had someone repair an appliance in my house they are often surprised. They just think of tossing it and getting something new. Repair isn't even on their mind unless their part of one of the older generations.

Cost-engineered home appliances just didn’t exist in the mid 20th century. Appliances were luxury goods. The average clothes dryer in 1950 was very reliable because it was a clothesline. The fact that we fix them now is because affordable options exist. And the fact that many people throw them away instead of investing in a repair on their vacuum is because they’re now cheap enough that the labor doesn’t make sense to spend on it.

Well my $100 IKEA desk is currently 11 years old. I'll get back to you in 29 years.

There's no good data suggesting that getting rid of the gold standard led to higher prices or, as your twitter account suggests, obesity.

Who cares though? Do you really want to keep something like the same pieces of furniture your whole life? Sounds depressing. People like buying new stuff.

If it's nice and in good condition, then yes. Nothing "depressing" about that.

Even if tastes change, styles usually come back around, hence why good century- or MCM furniture is so sought after as antiques/vintage.

It's to be seen if laminate or pressed fibre board furniture will stand the test of time, even if it comes back into style in 25 years. HDPE might last longer, as long as it doesn't discolour or crack.

Your viewpoint (which matches mine) is in the minority. The best part of solid wood furniture is the insane depreciation!

We moved from a tiny condo to a house this summer. Rented a Home Depot van and ran around picking up free/extremely cheap solid wood furniture! Pieces that cost many thousands new, you can get for $50 or some other token amount. And then you keep it for years, decades, whatever.

Interesting! Your experience does not mirror mine: finding solid wood furniture is either hard and/or expensive.

I don't know how much it might have cost new, but decent quality, older tables, for example, are easily close to $1000CAD and up. This is both antique stores (where there is a understandable markup), but also Craigslist/Kijiji. The only place I've seen similar furniture go for anywhere near $100 are auction sites, but these don't come with the downside of not being able to inspect the piece, and often require you to drive 100s of kms to pick it up. I might also include yard sales, but they are far and few between.

Nothing we got is ever going to be a valuable antique, despite the ability to last "forever".

From the sounds of it, you are not located near a large city. That may be the difference. I am in the Chicago metro area. I lived in skyscrapers for the last 20 years - in the city there is no stigma attached to doing anything, so there is a thriving market of giving things away or selling them to avoid the trash. All the skyscrapers have loading docks and freight elevators (and they all charge money to dispose of large things that don't fit in the regular trash). It's easy and nobody looks at you strangely or judges you. Out here in my new house on the edge of the metro area, you can tell that things are different. There is less stuff available and when you talk about it people either have a blank look or raise an eyebrow as if to say "Why would you do that, don't you have any money?"

Perhaps next time you head to Toronto/Calgary, bring along a trailer?

This got downvoted, presumably because someone probably think it sounds like a "lol, old people r dumb" view, but ... it's insightful to realize that if, on average, people's attitudes change such that they don't WANT to keep their goods forever, there is no value placed on a piece of furniture that lasts forever, and that drives cheaper, more disposable furniture to be made. I think a lot of people make the mistake of putting the cause-effect the other way around, where you HAVE to buy new furniture because "they don't make it the way they used to," but that may actually be what consumers want.

> Everything is getting too expensive, and the only reason we don't feel this too much just yet, is because often times cheaper alternatives where available.

and because my LEAPS go up way more. They can increase the money supply by 40% and it won't matter when my LEAPS rise 10,000%

Don't forget, when "everything" goes up in value, so do stocks as well. Don't focus on the potential of Weimar bread lines, and look at the stock speculators who made baaaaaank! Its not an egalitarian system, play the cards you were dealt!