Is the Entire Economy Gentrifying?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
(for the time being, if you want cheap products, buy them directly from China or through one of a gazillion middlmen; the rest of the world cannot yet afford this kind of gentrification)
Really? In the US the standard CPI-U basket is 1/3 housing: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t01.htm It's the single largest component.
Maybe I'm being too British in saying this, but it is a rare occasion when I see the US being more sensible than the UK. This is definitely one of those moments.
1. Increase production and sell goods to the masses at low prices. Leads to a higher quality of life for the society.
2. Decrease production and sell goods only the wealthy at high prices. Leads to class warfare.
There aren't enough rich people to sustain this. It'll work until another company comes in and out-prices them.
It will never get to that point because the wealthy have learned to spend on lobbying to protect their wealth.
The ROI of spending $15 million on lobbying > the ROI of spending $15 million on innovation/efficiency/new products.
But to the parent point, I still probably paid more than $200 for it.
You couldn't ever buy a 'middle of the road' MTB, or any kind of bike, for €200. You could buy a piece of junk that falls apart in 2 years for that kind of money. A decent commuter bike starts at around €750.
> Bicycle tires cost about the same as my car tires.
Where do you get new car tires for ~€20 ?
> This is turning into a rich-man hobby.
Over here (the Netherlands) cycling is just a mode of transportation for most people. and it's by far the most affordable one there is.
I’m convinced that the most significant and tangible aspect of income inequality in practice is not between the middle class and super rich, but between the middle class and the ordinary rich (I.e. Biden’s protected class of people making up to $400,000).
I live near Annapolis, which has always had plenty of old money yacht club types. But you could still buy a 3BR family home for under $300,000 even in 2015. Historically it’s been a place where military officers and GS-scale workers, farmers, and established tradespeople could own a nice house, a used boat, etc. It was only in the last few years, as more and more knowledge workers started moving outward from the DC area, that housing has increasingly become unaffordable. Similarly in Eugene Oregon where my wife grew up, housing prices have skyrocketed. Non-college educated but stably established folks in her family are having trouble finding affordable housing. The only billionaire there, Phil Knight, has been there forever. It’s all the yuppies from California that are the cause of the problem.
I think that’s the real story behind the growing frustration over “income inequality.” America has always had rich people. But Americans don’t really care what people do in the Hampton or in Beverly Hills do or buy. But the premiumization of the economy hits people at home.
Yuppies may be a piece of the puzzle, but the massive surge in institional home ownership is surely the larger factor (the NIMBY obstruction of home construction is surely a factor too). Which means that it is indeed the billionaires fault, since it is their money backing it.
Starter homes in the nice cities in Idaho went from $85k to $400k in 4+ years. It isn't corporations buying these homes, but rather people fleeing the west coast in massive droves. The same is true for the east coast.
Flights of large numbers of people from both coasts have put pressure inward, too. Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have had large increases of people moving there with attendant pressures on housing prices and availability in those areas.
For one thing, institutional buyers don't buy up enough of the supply to really move the needle in most metro areas. For another, institutional buyers generally turn homes into rentals. They can't really overpay for the housing unless there's lots of yuppies around who can pay the high rents.
Supply shortages are certainly a factor, but they're related to the problem I pointed out. California knowledge worker yuppies are facing supply shortages in their own market, and getting pushed out to cheaper markets like Oregon. That has a particularly negative effect because they have so much more money than the people who are already living in those places.
Cars except the smallest are priced at what a small apartment went five years age
Some gadgetry is still priced for consumers, but it appears that next half generation won't afford a Playstation, won't eat out, and will be generally miserable.
But that is literally what a lot of us want, no? No one says it directly but when people talk about taxing carbon to fight climate change, this is exactly the consequence they are advocating for. You want to reduce carbon footprint? Make flying so expensive that only rich could afford it. You want to advocate for public transit and reduce cars in the cities? Only way to do so is make parking and gas expensive along with congestion tax and only rich could afford it. Need hobbies requiring space? But big houses have bigger carbon footprint so either go for shared spaces or find hobbies which need less space. But don't think about having a spare room in your house.
When you connect all the dots, fight for climate change is essentially about reducing carbon footprint by making everything (planes, personal cars, single family houses, ...) affordable only to the rich.
This is also how food is distributed in wartime, in many occasions.
Service business had survived: travel tourism, food and beverage, sports... but those sectors have been crushed by lockdowns and new social practices. It may never return to what was common recently.
Large-scale circumstances where ordinary people who are "good enough" workers and responsible, unable to do basic commerce themselves, will economically strangle massive numbers of citizens over time. Humans are predatory and exist in large numbers. Healthy people will fight back rather than starve economically. $0.02 USA
This is much too fancy for my tastes, but that's how the economy is evolving.
I agree manufacturers don't have to dispense with most buttons because they can. My Honda Passport actually strikes a pretty good balance. It would also be nice to have better voice control but that's been a hard problem with voice assistants generally.
In my last vehicle, I definitely chose one that had more buttons/dials than some of my other choices and it was a surprisingly high priority.
But the backup camera requirement may have nudged things along a bit.
It _definitely_ had a major effect on the low end vehicles. It raised the floor more than it changed the ceiling.
I haven't bought a car recently so I don't know what the landscape looks like, but I would think that even offering the possibility of a customization to have a more analog dashboard would be profitable. Even if you stick it behind a $1k upcharge I think you would see a surprising number of people opt for it. Doesn't need to replace the digital touchscreen in all cases necessarily, just be a secondary control mechanism.
Of course I'm sure we would run into situations where the analog buttons are an interface to the digital control system, so if the digital part is slow, some people might try to navigate using analog buttons too quickly. The digital interface hides that detail by design, if the menu isn't yet loaded, neither are the buttons you can click.
Really, what dumbfuck decided that, because they're both "electronics", an electric car needs to be an iPad on wheels? Or that this concept is linked in some way with ADAS systems?
I listen to VW execs talking about how "EVs are software". Are they? Says who?
It's a fucking battery, a motor, a big-ass Buck/boost converter, and, in Tesla's case -- this element of complexity is legitimately good -- a heat pump. To exaggerate only slightly, I see no reason why any low-voltage ICs more complicated than an LM555 should be needed.
Chip shortage? We need high-performance MOSFETS, yeah, but the controller could come from a technology node circa 1979.
And then the insides are all "luxury". Everything comes with leather seats (which crack) and fancy interiors. No!! There is nothing wrong with the inside of a Camry. Give me that.
I thought Tesla started with a Lotus. Talk about bare-bones. What the hell happened?
It's why this planet is on the "highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator".
Luxury and convenience need energy. Most of the energy still comes from carbon. Ergo...
I hate to be that guy but the whole automotive market has been like that for as long as there has been an automotive market. One person’s unreliable old car they bought new is someone else’s daily driver that they get their cousin to keep on the road for beers.
Direct injection allows them to do some magical things inside the combustion chamber for efficiency/performance gains with the trade off that the valves are ‘dry’ so will need some maintenance down the line. Maybe you save more on fuel than the cost of having to pop off the head(s) down the line, maybe you don’t. Same with the multitude of sensors, knowing what exactly the engine is doing lets them control it more optimally.
Though I do agree that they add too many unnecessary things like Heated Seats as a Service (looking at you BMW).
Even in the 1980s a 100K mile walk normal min lifespan
Hopefully these thousands of microcontrollers all kust keep running for many decades & this is a non-issue.
Most new cars are either SUVs or mini-SUVs, with a lot of green washing, and we’re all forgetting about sustainability and carbon footprint…
IMHO you should not buy this stuff at all. Rather buy specific lubricants/solvers for the use case.
Yes you should. Just not a replacement for special purpose lubricants. Nobody is asking to use WD40 as bearing grease, it has its own unique uses.
Does this mean there are less store brand grocery items or something?