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Comment by mcntsh | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know anyone who's really doing "well" right now? The highly paid tech workers in my circle are playing dodgeball with weekly layoffs, and on the other side, my friends doing blue-collar trade work say they are feeling the jobs dry up.

This is all happening while everything of course gets more expensive, especially staples like housing and food.

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Business owners are doing well, not employees. The S & P 500 has done well over the last five years, or the last year:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC?p=%5EGSPC

People with money in no-public investments are probably doing even better.

Not just a US phenomenon either.

Ten Charts That Explain the U.S. Economy in 2023

https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2023/12/19/...

Not to be political, but that’s not a source I have a lot of faith in. We’re in an election year now. Get ready for the propaganda from all sides:

The economy sucks because of Biden—he’s only benefiting from what Trump built!

The economy is wonderful because of Biden — if Trump gets in it will go back to huge inflation and crap!

You’re not wrong to say we have to be careful about considering sources, but I think you’re being down-voted because this smacks of the “both sides are the same framing” which some people use to sound objective while ignoring the significant truth gradient between the two parties. The charts in that article are consistent with mainstream economic consensus and all cite authoritative sources so it doesn’t seem like this concern is relevant here.

People with PhDs in LLMs are doing well.

Same exact playbook in my network.

The only people I know who are doing well are in crypto.

I’m doing “well” by most standards, and I won’t insult others by denying that. But it’s definitely more of a slog and it’s impacted our spending choices.

I simply can’t justify restaurant spending right now, for example. No way I’m buying a new car with 7% interest rates.

Homeowners. Second homeowners. Property Investors.

All the people in my tech friend circle are landlords post-pandemic. They've all extended their credit to max during free money covid bonanza. All of their proprieties have now appreciated between 30-50% . Even the supposed 15% "crash" would still put them in a nice green at 2% interest rate.

Even 5 years ago, friends that are physicians have been balking at their wages. Even as specialists, they’re very well compensated, but living in any decent sized city has left them feeling ripped off.

I mean, they’ll be fine. They’ll have lives above 95% of people, but they’re disappointed because their 300k salary (and some with a physician spouse, So 600k) isn’t buying them what they thought they would get even in places like Dallas, Memphis, and Charlotte.

Absurd and not looking to garner empathy for these folks, but just to say no one’s feeling accomplished or stress free monetarily. Seems extremely fucked up, but maybe I don’t have the higher level context. Maybe highly paid physicians, tech workers, etc always felt poor in the 70s-80s-90s.

I used to think that inequality explained everything, but perhaps I've grown up a bit and now I think it just explains most things. I attended a lecture by Robert Sapolsky some years ago and he was quite big on studying stress responses in primates. One thing he said that stuck with me was that in highly unequal primate societies, they measured higher cortisol levels amongst all members; even those at the top. Certainly it seems that the pathologies of American society have only intensified along with wealth inequality, but obviously teasing out cause and effect is fiendishly difficult at such scale.

That is interesting, worth a think. Thanks for sharing.

"Doing well" is just a subjective feeling compared to the past and compared to others around you.

Everyone here and everyone I know is doing unimaginably well compared to the year 1350.

Yemen is in the news. Their GDP per capita is $618 USD a year. Everyone I know is doing unimaginably well compared to that.

By and large we are a society with the mentality of spoiled children after decades of huge economic growth and no inflation. We got very use to the price of goods and services staying the same while getting better year after year as if it would always be that way.

I just seen the other day how a movie ticket use to cost $5 in 1972. That is $37 in 2023 adjusted for inflation.

Our lives are so great it is just hard to be impressed by anything.

> "Doing well" is just a subjective feeling

> Our lives are so great

You are a homeowner with no children requiring childcare ?

> I just seen the other day how a movie ticket use to cost $5 in 1972.

I googled this. Looks like it was $1.69 in 1971 https://www.natoonline.org/data/ticket-price/

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