^ Yeah. Seeing exploding manufacturing construction, but continued depressed PMI, is kinda wild. As, I think, I’ve pointed out in the recent past on his thread, almost all serious analysts have said any US recession would be mild and short-lived, if not even fully averted.  Everyone got the wobbles when those couple of regional banks went down and companies have been shedding inventory the last few months, but I feel we’re coming out of the worse. 

 

If the house is forclosed on they can first refi at possibly a better rate (good luck with that in 2008) and then there will be people and institutions lined up to pay the full price on the house -- unlike in 2008 where there will be maybe 1 investor show up to offer 40%. Also think about all the empty, move-in-ready houses on the market back then.

3 hours ago, GCrites said:

If the house is forclosed on they can first refi at possibly a better rate (good luck with that in 2008) and then there will be people and institutions lined up to pay the full price on the house -- unlike in 2008 where there will be maybe 1 investor show up to offer 40%. Also think about all the empty, move-in-ready houses on the market back then.

 

We've started to see refinancings at worse rates now, compelled by adverse economic circumstances (I saw one recently that was a refinance from something like 3% to 7.5%, in order to reset the term and cure an arrearage that was then rolled into a balloon at maturity).  Refinancings at better rates are not at all guaranteed in the current environment.  Sales prices remain strong enough, though, so there's at least that.

21 hours ago, LlamaLawyer said:

There are a lot of good things happening, and I'm happy to be proven wrong on the recession prognostication. 

 

 

 

Tons of jobs in the Cincinnati area are paying $15-25k more in 2023 than in 2019.  When I look through listings on Indeed, which often throws somewhat random suggestions at you, I can't believe how much people are offering for 2~ years of experience. 

 

 

 

 

 

I was in Nashville the other day for work, stupid busy with work and stuck in my hotel room.   I ordered Shake Shack via Uber Eats and paid $31.00 for a burger, fries and fountain soda, including tip.  

Who are the people doing this daily??? 🤔

 

 

I suppose it is easier to do that when using a credit card vs. pulling cash out of your wallet.

8 hours ago, LibertyBlvd said:

I suppose it is easier to do that when using a credit card vs. pulling cash out of your wallet.

My son was driving for door dash for a short time while a student at Ohio State.  He said some weeks he would deliver the same McDonalds order to the same single mom like 5 straight nights a week..... 🤢

16 hours ago, Cleburger said:

I was in Nashville the other day for work, stupid busy with work and stuck in my hotel room.   I ordered Shake Shack via Uber Eats and paid $31.00 for a burger, fries and fountain soda, including tip.  

Who are the people doing this daily??? 🤔

 

 

We are floored by the people who order fast food through Uber Eats and the apps. It is not worth it for a crappy burger. 

If you order Indian food or some other ethnic specialty food, it could be a good service to use (although I would just rather drive and pick it up myself, I do not even like having my pizza delivered) 

It is mind boggling. The height of laziness and bad financial decisions.

 

Meanwhile, some grocery store prices aren't that bad, at least for what I buy (I don't eat meat or sweets, so I'm a bit ignorant to those prices).

 

Dozen eggs for $2.00. Gallon of milk is $2.50. 42 oz of oatmeal is $5.50. 10 lbs of potatoes for $5. 3 lbs of onions for $2.00. 10 oz of hummus for $3.00. 10 lbs of carrots for $10.00. 12 oz frozen veggies are $1.50. Bananas $.79.

 

Sure the prices are somewhat up (except for eggs and milk), but they aren't dramatic.

 

But fast food prices. My god. The average Big Mac is over $5.00. Burger King is advertising 2 Whopper Jrs for $5.00 (the days of them for $1.00 at Richmond Mall are long gone). FIve Guys' cheapest burger is $7.00. Subway 6-inch subs are $5.00, which used to be the price of some footlongs).

 

It just doesn't seem sustainable.

33 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

We are floored by the people who order fast food through Uber Eats and the apps. It is not worth it for a crappy burger. 

If you order Indian food or some other ethnic specialty food, it could be a good service to use (although I would just rather drive and pick it up myself, I do not even like having my pizza delivered) 

I don't understand DoorDash for single people or couples without kids.  But as a parent with young kids who just aren't having a good day, it's a godsend to be able to have food delivered while dealing with whiny kids at home.

1 hour ago, TBideon said:

It is mind boggling. The height of laziness and bad financial decisions.

 

Meanwhile, some grocery store prices aren't that bad, at least for what I buy (I don't eat meat or sweets, so I'm a bit ignorant to those prices).

 

Dozen eggs for $2.00. Gallon of milk is $2.50. 42 oz of oatmeal is $5.50. 10 lbs of potatoes for $5. 3 lbs of onions for $2.00. 10 oz of hummus for $3.00. 10 lbs of carrots for $10.00. 12 oz frozen veggies are $1.50. Bananas $.79.

 

Sure the prices are somewhat up (except for eggs and milk), but they aren't dramatic.

 

But fast food prices. My god. The average Big Mac is over $5.00. Burger King is advertising 2 Whopper Jrs for $5.00 (the days of them for $1.00 at Richmond Mall are long gone). FIve Guys' cheapest burger is $7.00. Subway 6-inch subs are $5.00, which used to be the price of some footlongs).

 

It just doesn't seem sustainable.

 

I think fast food figured out how vital it is to modern society in the U.S. If people's schedules weren't so ridiculous it would be a treat rather than mandatory. 

6 hours ago, 10albersa said:

I don't understand DoorDash for single people or couples without kids.  But as a parent with young kids who just aren't having a good day, it's a godsend to be able to have food delivered while dealing with whiny kids at home.

My wife and I use it sometimes when we just feel like staying in and being lazy. We don’t have kids but sometimes we also aren’t having good days and ordering makes us happy. 
 

We don’t order fast food though it is way more expensive and does not travel well when someone has other stops. 

 

There's an excellent report on comparative building costs internationally in today's FT; it's called "The NIMBY tax on Britain and the US" by John Burn-Murdoch. Apparently a Brit think tank, Britain Remade, and NYU have put together the first database of international infrastructure costs for road and rail. Britain comes out badly in the comparison, exceeded only by the US which comes out worse.  The piece says over-regulation and nimby opposition are the cause.  Here's a graph:

 

 

On 7/26/2023 at 11:52 AM, 10albersa said:

I don't understand DoorDash for single people or couples without kids.  But as a parent with young kids who just aren't having a good day, it's a godsend to be able to have food delivered while dealing with whiny kids at home.

 

Doordash is good when you are picking up, beats the voice phone (too easy to mess up orders and I hate it anyway) or worse hanging around waiting.   It provides a lot more choices than drive through.  It has a lot to do with the declining demand for sit down, the only time I do that anymore is with Kelly.

China’s Lehman moment is today with Evergrande down 90%. If that follows the 2008 contagion path, markets collapse within 3-4 weeks.

 

Liquidity will flee China for safe haven assets, U.S and Non U.S. Some markets and stocks will be hurt or helped. If China collapses it is certainly not bullish for $AAPL or $TSLA, and very bearish for $LVS which has 90% of it’s properties in Macao now.

 

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/china-evergrande-economy-penny-stock-debt-real-estate-property-developer-2023-8

^ An Evergrande collapse has been on the radar for 3-4 years. I think I even have some analysts reports older than that noting it as a potential ‘Black Swan’. Not saying it won’t have repercussions, but banks, companies and governments have had plenty of forewarning of this. 

On 8/25/2023 at 12:33 PM, E Rocc said:

 

Doordash is good when you are picking up, beats the voice phone (too easy to mess up orders and I hate it anyway) or worse hanging around waiting.   It provides a lot more choices than drive through.  It has a lot to do with the declining demand for sit down, the only time I do that anymore is with Kelly.

 

I see these delivery guys leaving food in bags on the stoops of apartments with no porch.  What could possibly go wrong?

 

I have never used any of these app services and have only ordered food delivery about four times in my life.  Once when I had the flu and about three times when I had to stay at work super-late.   

 

 

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

I see these delivery guys leaving food in bags on the stoops of apartments with no porch.  What could possibly go wrong?

 

I have never used any of these app services and have only ordered food delivery about four times in my life.  Once when I had the flu and about three times when I had to stay at work super-late.   

 

 

 

 

 

I just can't justify doordash or Uber and the markup they charge. If i need delivery I order Pizza or Chinese and just tip the delivery man, otherwise I am picking it up in my gasoline powered car. I do not want to pay an extra 20% to doordash to be the middle man.

4 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

I just can't justify doordash or Uber and the markup they charge. If i need delivery I order Pizza or Chinese and just tip the delivery man, otherwise I am picking it up in my gasoline powered car. I do not want to pay an extra 20% to doordash to be the middle man.

 

 

Many people order food delivery every single day at work.  

 

 

 

I had an employee that spent $35 a day on food delivery.

2 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

 

Many people order food delivery every single day at work.  

 

 

 

I know, I don't get it. I am too cheap for that. I would rather just run out and pick it up myself. The 20 minutes to and from are worth the door dash fees.

I'm not sure this is the right place for it but my kid's daycare just bumped their price for the second time this year to $525 a week for my two kids. It has gotten to the point where my salary as an architect is truly not keeping up with the rising costs of everything. Between student loans coming back this month, rising costs of daycare and food and everything else, and a stagnant salary my take home pay is now 100% accounted for just with just must have monthly costs.

 

I've tried looking into average pay and cost of living information online but it's so hard because different states/cities have such different pay scales, and the word "architect" has been co-opted by computer developers who make way more than me; you all live/work in Ohio (and many on this forum are architects/designers), are you getting COL raises to keep up with inflation? Are you starting to feel underwater? Are there any industries that pay more than architecture that I can jump into ( jk... unless?)  I work a white collar job and am damn good at it, but I feel poor for the first time since I was in college.

39 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

I'm not sure this is the right place for it but my kid's daycare just bumped their price for the second time this year to $525 a week for my two kids. It has gotten to the point where my salary as an architect is truly not keeping up with the rising costs of everything. Between student loans coming back this month, rising costs of daycare and food and everything else, and a stagnant salary my take home pay is now 100% accounted for just with just must have monthly costs.

 

I've tried looking into average pay and cost of living information online but it's so hard because different states/cities have such different pay scales, and the word "architect" has been co-opted by computer developers who make way more than me; you all live/work in Ohio (and many on this forum are architects/designers), are you getting COL raises to keep up with inflation? Are you starting to feel underwater? Are there any industries that pay more than architecture that I can jump into ( jk... unless?)  I work a white collar job and am damn good at it, but I feel poor for the first time since I was in college.

Welcome to parenthood.  I dont mean to sound trite, but this has been the case for generations of parents. Fact is, kids are expensive and daycare is even more expensive. The good news is that you get some relief in a couple years once they get to school. That being said, when our kids were younger, it was actually a bit more cost effective to have an in home nanny once you had multiple kids vs the cost of daycare (especially during the 1st year when the kid is in the infant room and that costs more) however, from what i have seen it becomes more of a wash once the kids get to older daycare programs. Definitely by 3 kids in home is most cost effective than daycare.

Regarding your job and industries that pay more. While I am not an architect and not overly familiar with the business cycle in that industry, I would ask you this, are you an architect at a firm where you can move to a partner and get profit sharing some day? In general, if there is a way to move to a front facing position where you are responsible for generating revenue, those positions will tend to pay more. Whether it is in the architectural field or some other field, your background would allow you to get into a technical sales type role and many B to B sales based positions tend to pay fairly lucrative.  Certainly, there are other areas either within your field or tangential to your field that could pay more, maybe on a consulting side or even a working in house for a development company who could use your services. A larger in house company could pay more and have better benefits than say a small architectural firm but career advancement may be more limited.

 

If you are looking for more pay you will find it but it may require some tradeoffs. 

Childcare is free if the mom stays at home or if the kids stay with grandma or an aunt or cousin.  Small families + waiting to have kids + moving for jobs = very old grandmas who can't help or no female relatives at all in the area. 

 

My mom made a ton of money watching other people's kids.  We're getting to the point where watching kids is going to pay more than working in an office.  Similar to many blue collar jobs for men - heating & cooling, electrician, etc., are already paying more than office work for many men. 

40 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Fact is, kids are expensive

 

 

But people over-complicate their finances by putting their kids in expensive activities (like traveling sports teams - your kid is NOT GOING PRO), taking extravagant vacations, buying two extravagant cars, etc.   They also buy bigger houses so that each kid has their room, which is unnecessary. 

 

 

 

 

7 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

Childcare is free if the mom stays at home or if the kids stay with grandma or an aunt or cousin.  Small families + waiting to have kids + moving for jobs = very old grandmas who can't help or no female relatives at all in the area. 

 

My mom made a ton of money watching other people's kids.  We're getting to the point where watching kids is going to pay more than working in an office.  Similar to many blue collar jobs for men - heating & cooling, electrician, etc., are already paying more than office work for many men. 

 

4 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

 

But people over-complicate their finances by putting their kids in expensive activities (like traveling sports teams - your kid is NOT GOING PRO), taking extravagant vacations, buying two extravagant cars, etc.   They also buy bigger houses so that each kid has their room, which is unnecessary. 

 

 

 

 

 

I bet most people don't know how lucky they are to have you to tell them how poor all their life decisions were.

$525 a week is basically the take home pay of someone making $16 an hour... 

5 minutes ago, Ethan said:

$525 a week is basically the take home pay of someone making $16 an hour... 

Let's be real here, people making $16/hr are not placing their kids in those daycares or they are receiving subsidies to do so. It is not the $16/hr worker that is the issue, it is the middle to upper middle class family with a combined household income around $100-150k that is the family that gets squeezed the most. They make too much for subsidies but they do not make enough where one spouse can comfortably stay home or easily put money into savings at that point, especially if they have a large student loan burden between spouses.  

The two income household wasn't liberation, it was companies wanting to depress the value of human labor.

31 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Let's be real here, people making $16/hr are not placing their kids in those daycares or they are receiving subsidies to do so. It is not the $16/hr worker that is the issue, it is the middle to upper middle class family with a combined household income around $100-150k that is the family that gets squeezed the most. They make too much for subsidies but they do not make enough where one spouse can comfortably stay home or easily put money into savings at that point, especially if they have a large student loan burden between spouses.  

100% agree. But even if one spouse is making $65,000 a year more than half of their take home income is going straight to childcare. When viewed in that light, it's very understandable why in situations where free childcare is not available (grandparents, etc) one spouse might choose to stay home. But I also understand that may not be a reasonable (or desired) option for all families. 

 

You're exactly right that there seems to be an unfortunate sour spot where some couples make too much for assistance, and too much to quit their jobs, but also too little to be able to afford childcare. No idea whatsoever what can be done about that.

 

Realistically though, childcare is never going to be cheap. Raising kids is a full time job. Paying someone else to do it is basically adding an employee to the household. 

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

Childcare is free if the mom stays at home or if the kids stay with grandma or an aunt or cousin.  Small families + waiting to have kids + moving for jobs = very old grandmas who can't help or no female relatives at all in the area. 

 

My mom made a ton of money watching other people's kids.  We're getting to the point where watching kids is going to pay more than working in an office.  Similar to many blue collar jobs for men - heating & cooling, electrician, etc., are already paying more than office work for many men. 

 

The idea behind crap wages for childcare workers was that women naturally wanted to take care of kids anyway so it was like boys taking a job where they could play video games all day or something. Today, like many jobs, childcare requires so many certifications that the pay has to reflect how much training has gone into the worker.

 

Office jobs get so many applicants now that the only young men they have to "bother with" are in IT or engineering. 

Sorry to start a tangent about childcare because that’s just one of many costs in my life that is increasing at a rate higher than wage growth. Getting a raise is seen as something workers have to earn  but income and the minimum wage needs to be tied to CPI because otherwise people are making less actual money when their incomes have remained stagnant for multiple years.

1 hour ago, Ethan said:

You're exactly right that there seems to be an unfortunate sour spot where some couples make too much for assistance, and too much to quit their jobs, but also too little to be able to afford childcare. No idea whatsoever what can be done about that.

 

Realistically though, childcare is never going to be cheap. Raising kids is a full time job. Paying someone else to do it is basically adding an employee to the household. 

In one sense, childcare should not be cheap but at the same time it still needs to have somewhat afforability aspects to it. If the kids are the most important thing for families we do not want to make it so cheap they cannot get quality care during the day, but at the same time, certainly has to not be a luxury only high income families can afford. 

 

I do think one thing to help would be to provide tax credits and incentives to allow one parent to stay home during the time the child is young or work part time and limit their hours to like 20 a week. This way, the spouse would not be as penalized for giving up on their career if they choose and it would make affordability more reasonable to many parents. 

 

16 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

but income and the minimum wage needs to be tied to CPI because otherwise people are making less actual money when their incomes have remained stagnant for multiple years.

That would just cause inflation and do nothing to actually control costs. We really do not want to do that. 

2 hours ago, GCrites said:

 

Office jobs get so many applicants now that the only young men they have to "bother with" are in IT or engineering. 

 

Purchasing/Inventory/Dispatch/Category Manager/Data Analyst, although these typically don't pay great unless you're working at Kroger or P&G.  Those places are paying $100k for starting "purchasing" roles but they're only hiring guys with IT or engineering degrees.  Mid-size and small companies typically have owners who only care about top-line and who don't understand how much they're getting hosed by a not-aggressive procurement process.  You need a mix of guys who are basically engineers and guys who are basically salesmen, but they get commissions for negotiating down vendors. 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, ucgrady said:

Sorry to start a tangent about childcare because that’s just one of many costs in my life that is increasing at a rate higher than wage growth.

 

Also, people are spending horrendous sums on their pets.  There has been significant inflation in the costs of pet food and care since Covid:

https://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp

 

These costs don't include carpet/furniture replacement.  In my case, the cat I was given against my will has kept me from buying nicer furniture, so maybe it's been a wash. 

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, ucgrady said:

I'm not sure this is the right place for it but my kid's daycare just bumped their price for the second time this year to $525 a week for my two kids. It has gotten to the point where my salary as an architect is truly not keeping up with the rising costs of everything. Between student loans coming back this month, rising costs of daycare and food and everything else, and a stagnant salary my take home pay is now 100% accounted for just with just must have monthly costs.

 

I've tried looking into average pay and cost of living information online but it's so hard because different states/cities have such different pay scales, and the word "architect" has been co-opted by computer developers who make way more than me; you all live/work in Ohio (and many on this forum are architects/designers), are you getting COL raises to keep up with inflation? Are you starting to feel underwater? Are there any industries that pay more than architecture that I can jump into ( jk... unless?)  I work a white collar job and am damn good at it, but I feel poor for the first time since I was in college.

 

Quit your job and open a daycare center? 🤑 😑

 

4 hours ago, GCrites said:

The two income household wasn't liberation, it was companies wanting to depress the value of human labor.

 

Honestly, it was neither.  Or maybe it has trace elements of both.  The real issue was the unexpected consequence or side effect of the two income household: the "keeping up with the Joneses" effect got more pronounced.  The hallmarks of a middle class lifestyle (the American Dream) today aren't that different on the surface than they were in 1965: own a home and a car, be able to afford a family, etc.  But those homes and cars are larger and more complex now than they were--and, correspondingly, more expensive.  And as @ucgrady notes, affording a family comes with a ton of footnotes now, too, particularly because the cost of two household incomes is that many more person-hours a week out of the household, which may need to be replaced by paid labor to others.

 

And it's very relevant to the US economy today because the mass migration of women into the workforce from the 1960s-1980s cannot be repeated to find another enormous pool of willing workers, and the smaller families that came with that seismic market shift mean that we also don't have as deep a bench of new workers entering the labor force in the years and decades to come, either.

 

4 hours ago, Ethan said:

100% agree. But even if one spouse is making $65,000 a year more than half of their take home income is going straight to childcare. When viewed in that light, it's very understandable why in situations where free childcare is not available (grandparents, etc) one spouse might choose to stay home. But I also understand that may not be a reasonable (or desired) option for all families. 

 

You're exactly right that there seems to be an unfortunate sour spot where some couples make too much for assistance, and too much to quit their jobs, but also too little to be able to afford childcare. No idea whatsoever what can be done about that.

 

Speaking from experience, not necessarily mine but a number of my friends' at our children's daycare: A lot of those two-income families are doing hybrid options where the grandparents watch the kid 2-3 weekdays per week and then the kid(s) goes to daycare the other 2-3 weekdays.  Of course, even that is not an option for some families.  And the ones who really get the screws put on them are divorced or single parents, where even dividing labor between the parents is a vastly more fraught enterprise.

 

2 hours ago, ucgrady said:

Sorry to start a tangent about childcare because that’s just one of many costs in my life that is increasing at a rate higher than wage growth. Getting a raise is seen as something workers have to earn  but income and the minimum wage needs to be tied to CPI because otherwise people are making less actual money when their incomes have remained stagnant for multiple years.

 

Don't worry about it at all.  It's not a tangent.  In fact, over the next 10-20 years, childcare and the economics of childraising and family formation are likely to be one of the most consequential phenomena for the U.S. economy.  It's 100% on topic for this thread.

 

5 hours ago, X said:

I bet most people don't know how lucky they are to have you to tell them how poor all their life decisions were.

 

When mic drops measure on the Richter scale ...

 

22 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

 

Honestly, it was neither.  Or maybe it has trace elements of both.  The real issue was the unexpected consequence or side effect of the two income household: the "keeping up with the Joneses" effect got more pronounced.  The hallmarks of a middle class lifestyle (the American Dream) today aren't that different on the surface than they were in 1965: own a home and a car, be able to afford a family, etc.  But those homes and cars are larger and more complex now than they were--and, correspondingly, more expensive.  And as @ucgrady notes, affording a family comes with a ton of footnotes now, too, particularly because the cost of two household incomes is that many more person-hours a week out of the household, which may need to be replaced by paid labor to others.

 

And it's very relevant to the US economy today because the mass migration of women into the workforce from the 1960s-1980s cannot be repeated to find another enormous pool of willing workers, and the smaller families that came with that seismic market shift mean that we also don't have as deep a bench of new workers entering the labor force in the years and decades to come, either.

 

 

 

 

 

That's what spurred the '70s inflation. Having to buy a second car, buying twice as much gas, Hamburger Helper, Rice-A-Roni, fast food, pizza, Kindercare, junk food for the 2-3 hour gap between the end of the school day and getting home from work. Of course people wanted to reward themselves with a Lincoln Continental after dealing with all that. Then you couldn't just have a Sears bike like in the '70s, you needed a Mongoose. Superman and Stretch Armstrong are totally out of style, you need a ton of Transformers and a Tyco Super Cliff Hangers set.

 

But you'll never need that many white-collar people again because of computers, the internet and AI. So the one time gain of people only saved companies money a few years before they laid everyone off again when they could fully trust their computers. As things stand right now there will always be an unlimited amount of blue collar work available in the U.S. in relation to the population in non-declining areas.

3 hours ago, Gramarye said:

Quit your job and open a daycare center? 🤑 😑

I had a family member essentially do that. He did not exactly quit his job but he bought the daycare center down the street so his kids could get free daycare from them. He liked it so much he owns 3 centers now and still has his full time job as a government contractor. 

4 hours ago, Gramarye said:

Honestly, it was neither.  Or maybe it has trace elements of both.  The real issue was the unexpected consequence or side effect of the two income household: the "keeping up with the Joneses" effect got more pronounced.

Ironically, Elizabeth Warren (yes, that Elizabeth Warren) wrote a book around 20 years ago when she was advocating for bankruptcy reform and she said that one of the key problems leading to bankruptcy amongst families was the 2 income household and she argued that it encouraged much higher consumption and less saving. 

 

4 hours ago, Gramarye said:

Speaking from experience, not necessarily mine but a number of my friends' at our children's daycare: A lot of those two-income families are doing hybrid options where the grandparents watch the kid 2-3 weekdays per week and then the kid(s) goes to daycare the other 2-3 weekdays.  Of course, even that is not an option for some families. 

There are a lot of families that rely on grandparents to take the kids a few days a week. There is always something to be said about living closer to family if possible. My wife has turned down many more lucrative opportunities that were out of town because of the assistance that family has been able to provide with the kids.

We need to get away from this system where an industry/discipline is solid for a while so everybody goes into it, then it lays everyone off, then nobody will go into it for 10-15 years, everyone that manages to stay in during the downturn or not retire gets filthy rich for the first time in their lives 10 years after the downturn then the industry has to beg or overpay for people for the next 10-15 then it stabilizes to what it was before the layoffs started.

First it happened to unskilled labor, then semi-skilled. People said "Oh thems the breaks, you should have leveled up. You knew this could happen"

Then it happened to skilled labor. "You should have gone to college. Everyone else went"

Then it happened to white-collar jobs "You think college was going to insulate you from that?"

 

It used to be college jobs were solid for the longest time then even those dried up and now people have stopped going because you'll still wind up with the same crappy jobs whether you went or not since the skilled trades are not easy and take time to learn. And everyone who did go gets told to retrain for jobs they weren't supposed to train for because they were always laying people off! Ask any skilled trades hiring manager how many dolts they have to put up with as compared to when they got started in the '80s or '90s. Too many of the non-dolts went to college.

 

Thank god I inherited a self-sufficient business and am still considered credentialed to do ONE type of popular white-collar in-office job that I actually like if I have to get out of my business. This system is not working.

10 hours ago, X said:

 

 

I bet most people don't know how lucky they are to have you to tell them how poor all their life decisions were.

 

 

A good chunk of the population lacks self-control and they're going to live needlessly difficult lives because of it.   Avoiding drugs, gambling, expensive cars, expensive trips, expensive clothes, kids out of wedlock, boats, vacation homes, swimming pools and other decadent home improvements, etc., was a piece of cake for me and most of my relatives and friends. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 hours ago, GCrites said:

 

That's what spurred the '70s inflation.

 

Also mortgage rules changed to allow the combined income of a married couple.  In the 1950s and 1960s, most new suburban homes were 2 or 3 bedrooms and under 1,500sq feet - what one income could pay for.  The 70s is when 4-bedroom, 2,000+ sq feet homes started being built en masse.  Obviously, this financial situation trapped women into working, at least until they could refinance or the husband got a significant raise.

 

When I was a kid, there were still a lot of families with one car.  The wives often drove the husbands to the bus stop or all the way to work, then kept the car during the day so that they could run errands.  There were also old women around who never got a driver's license.  I remember my grandmother having to drive her own mother (who was healthy but never got a diver's license) to the grocery store(s) to shop each week.  They spent the entire morning clipping coupons and then drove to two or three different grocery stores to use them.  It was an all-day effort to save $10. 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 20231 yr by Lazarus

34 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

 

A good chunk of the population lacks self-control and they're going to live needlessly difficult lives because of it.   Avoiding drugs, gambling, expensive cars, expensive trips, expensive clothes, kids out of wedlock, boats, vacation homes, swimming pools and other decadent home improvements, etc., was a piece of cake for me and most of my relatives and friends. 

 

 

The worst thing that happened was people who didn't go to college having money all of a sudden in like 2003-2005. College OR having not much money with blue-collar work in the '70s-'90s taught thriftiness but that time period was the exact opposite of that. Didn't matter the racial or geographic background. It was all bling even if it was a Dirt Late Model in Kentucky, a Donk in Charlotte, a Land Rover in L.A. or Magic cards in Seattle. 

2008 Laid the Smacketh Down as The Rock would say. Immediately the thrift store became cooler than Macy's and the 2001 Ford Focus became the Coolest Car on Earth.

8 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

Also mortgage rules changed to allow the combined income of a married couple.  In the 1950s and 1960s, most new suburban homes were 2 or 3 bedrooms and under 1,500sq feet - what one income could pay for.  The 70s is when 4-bedroom, 2,000+ sq feet homes started being built en masse.  Obviously, this financial situation trapped women into working, at least until they could refinance or the husband got a significant raise.

 

When I was a kid, there were still a lot of families with one car.  The wives often drove the husbands to the bus stop or all the way to work, then kept the car during the day so that they could run errands.  There were also old women around who never got a driver's license.  I remember my grandmother having to drive her own mother (who was healthy but never got a diver's license) to the grocery store(s) to shop each week.  They spent the entire morning clipping coupons and then drove to two or three different grocery stores to use them.  It was an all-day effort to save $10. 

 

 

 

 

It is amusing and interesting to hear people talk about how much more expensive things are today than what they were 30-40-50 years ago. Yes, some things are more expensive, but many others are cheaper and there are other staples that are no longer needed. Cars as a portion of income are no more expensive today and (I have not checked the stats lately) to some degree cheaper than they were 50-60 years ago. $3.00 gallon gas is not really much more expensive than $.60 gas in the 1950s or $1.00+ gas in the 70s during the oil crisis.  With children, people complain about the cost of diapers today, but at that time people used diaper services to wash and clean the cloth diapers which was not a cheap service. We no longer have land lines to talk to people on the phone and to call friends and family more than 30 miles away is now a free call instead of paying by the minute. heck, at that time, you would really never consider making a call to Europe and talking with someone there. Taking photos for family memories cost money and you certainly did not want to waste your film on random photos or selfies. Electronics like Tv's were such a big purchase for families, many only had 1 or 2 in the house because they cost such a big % of the persons wages that people could not easily replace them when they went bad. There was even such a thing as a TV repairman business. 

 

Point being, while we all complain about how expensive things are, in the aggregate, life really is not much more expensive if at all. It is just certain items that were luxuries or staples that we spent money on 30-40 years ago, we no longer have to because they are obsolete, and other technologies or services have taken its place. We now are devoting a greater % of our income to daycare now, or to a second car, or eating out more, but we devote much less to our phone bill or the cost of a TV and computer. 

22 hours ago, ucgrady said:

I'm not sure this is the right place for it but my kid's daycare just bumped their price for the second time this year to $525 a week for my two kids. It has gotten to the point where my salary as an architect is truly not keeping up with the rising costs of everything. Between student loans coming back this month, rising costs of daycare and food and everything else, and a stagnant salary my take home pay is now 100% accounted for just with just must have monthly costs.

 

I've tried looking into average pay and cost of living information online but it's so hard because different states/cities have such different pay scales, and the word "architect" has been co-opted by computer developers who make way more than me; you all live/work in Ohio (and many on this forum are architects/designers), are you getting COL raises to keep up with inflation? Are you starting to feel underwater? Are there any industries that pay more than architecture that I can jump into ( jk... unless?)  I work a white collar job and am damn good at it, but I feel poor for the first time since I was in college.

The subsidy for childcare centers ends this month.

 

https://www.13abc.com/2023/06/09/end-state-program-could-mean-end-child-care-some-ohio-families/

 

When we had kids, one of us was basically sending their salary to pay for childcare.  But the benefits made it worth it -- health insurance and retirement contributions.

 

There seems to be a difference of opinion on the left and the right over a community's responsibilities to its citizens.  The left seems to think that it's society's job to help raise and protect children, and the right thinks that children are the sole responsibility of the parents and society has no role to play.  So the left looks at childcare and public schools as society's obligation to support society's future, and the right looks at childcare and public schools as unnecessary because those are family responsibilities, without any thought to impacts on society down the road.

35 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Cars as a portion of income are no more expensive today and (I have not checked the stats lately) to some degree cheaper than they were 50-60 years ago.

They also last much much much longer.  Those of us who grew up prior to the late 1980's remember the cars that would literally be rusty not long after leaving the showroom.   Cars are also WAY more reliable so if you take care of yours, the maintenance costs are next to nothing. 

12 minutes ago, Cleburger said:

They also last much much much longer.  Those of us who grew up prior to the late 1980's remember the cars that would literally be rusty not long after leaving the showroom.   Cars are also WAY more reliable so if you take care of yours, the maintenance costs are next to nothing. 

Very true, over the course of 10 years you would pay much more of a portion of your income to own a car back in the 60s and 70s than you do today. Heck, I remember as a kid all of the times our car broke down on the side of the street. I barely remember an incident like that since I have had kids

Is This the Breaking Point? A New Car Now Costs More Than Many Americans Make In a Year

https://caredge.com/guides/new-car-prices-and-median-income