Comment by api | Hacker News Reader

Comment by api | Hacker News Reader

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We definitely have problems, but I'd check those stats.

When you do that, you see something interesting. There are three things, the "three devils" as I heard one article call them, that are largely responsible for the perceived decline vs 20-30 years ago: the cost of housing, health care, and college tuition. Of those housing is the worst because it's the most universally unavoidable.

Ignore housing, health care, and college tuition, and think about it...

Individual wealth: vastly higher, especially if you include technological growth and what's possible today and what you can buy today for the same $$$.

Buying power: similar in many areas, slightly lower in energy but made up for by vast efficiency increases (e.g. I drive an EV that costs less than $10 to charge in my garage), slightly lower for groceries but a lot of that is self-inflicted. Vote, people.

Job availability: mixed, and very much depends on whether you compare to a recession period or a boom period.

Overall health: mixed.

Firstly, I won't ignore,what in the US the two biggest expenses, healthcare and housing and in the rest of the world, housing. It's a life essential that in most first world countries is becoming a scarce resource that many have to fight for. The ability to own your own dwelling is disappearing due to wages not keeping up with inflation.

Again, buying power, it would be less of an issue if wages kept up with inflation of the key products, aka housing. The largest item someone will buy is a home and that's reduced in quality.

The second most important thing for most people, is a job, and as I said, in most industries they have not matched with inflation. Therefore those today are working the same but earning a lot less for it. That is with or without a recession.

You may be able to theoretically consume more due to value decreasing of products but that's countered by the above. Likewise individual wealth, is just that, individual. Not everyone is doing better, most aren't, and we need a society where all are doing ok, rather than some doing great and some not.

(That EV costs more to begin with even with subsidies, and that disposable of the batteries are gigantic drain on resources. We still need to move to public transport.)

In most of Europe we don't really have problems with the #2 and #3. Cost of housing can still be tricky in major cities though.

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