Taking stock of where we are currently:
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Highest inflation in 40 years. Cost of rent, food, and gasoline is sky rocketing.
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Falling asset prices. Investment accounts and 401ks getting crushed.
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Slowing economy, layoffs commencing, likely more unemployment to come. Those who remain employed will not see their wages increase commensurately with inflation.
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Median home price sale is still 40% higher than April 2020, and now mortgage rates are on the rise. Home ownership, which historically has been the best vehicle for normal people to build wealth, is increasingly unattainable for many.
This is the max pain scenario for the middle class, and I can't help but reach the conclusion that Fed and government policy is largely responsible for it. They pumped trillions of dollars into the economy, paid out massive stimulus to consumers, and kept interest rates at zero for way too long. Business leaders were predicting inflation a full year before the Fed caught on. Can anyone really argue that this cost of living crisis is not the fault of Fed and gov't?
You're not wrong, but I'm also of the mind that we're regressing to the mean globally now in the US. For a long time, and for valid reasons, the US was the easiest place in the world to build a comfortable life and tremendous wealth. The hard part was getting in, but once you became a citizen, the quality of life the 50th percentile had here was one that would probably make many in the 90th percentile in my parents' home country blush. Even the concept of having a multi-story home is pretty foreign in many countries I've visited, including wealthier ones in Europe.
I think the harsh reality is that the easy money here has been made and Americans are going have to fight tooth and nail to obtain the same quality of life our parents built for us here. The days of working in the mailroom and still being able to afford a 2 story home with a white picket fence (extreme example, but you get the point) are long gone, just as this concept never really existed in most other countries during my lifetime.
I don't know if there's really a fix for it either. The world has always felt like a winner-take-all place where a select few wealthy or influential people (via politics, etc.) disproportionately wield all the power. The US had so much cumulative wealth that perhaps it felt as though we were more egalitarian. That said, I believe the trend of wealth concentrating in fewer hands has been happening for decades - it's not just a flip that happened this millennium or over some other recent period. Without making this political, I don't think there's a quick policy fix - it's just the facts of life that folks at the top, whichever metric defines that, tend to do increasingly well and the rest of us will be fighting for scraps.
The only real solution in my mind is to always strive to be your best, no matter how much your job/boss sucks, how tired you are, etc. With all this uncertainty out there economically, I feel like the last thing I want is to also no longer have a steady biweekly paycheck coming in and health insurance from my employer. If your best isn't enough, which it unfortunately probably won't be for most people, including myself, I've resigned to learn to live with less and be more self-sufficient. There are ways to still find joy/happiness in life without spending a lot of money and I think being self-sufficient will become increasingly important if we see goods/services do become more scarce.
This is a super negative post, but I've unfortunately been ruminating a lot about this upcoming decade and am not super optimistic about the next 5ish years. Curious to hear other folks' thoughts and experiences, especially w/r/t international living standards, compared to the US and if my mean reversion theory sounds accurate. I'd also love some more optimistic takes because everything I'm reading and everyone I've talked to recently is becoming increasingly bearish.
Good post. I'd add mean reversion is also what we see in history where most empires tend to last anywhere from 250-300yrs (hint: the U.S. is just about getting there). Naturally those with the highest talent will accrue capital as seen in history & they'll pass that on to their kids and now generational wealth accuses. Many of these kids are smart themselves or care smart stewards & they buy up assets which multiply and with that they buy more, etc etc
Agreed that learning to live with less & doing your best is key. I'd also add get some hedges (i.e. buy property in other countries for an exit hatch, diversify your investments across global markets, etc). I. think no matter how the next 5yrs turns out, the next 50yrs will almost certainly be worse for the non-top 1% than the past 50yrs.
The US is nowhere near 250-300 years as an empire. It was a backwater until a few decades after the civil war.
The "empires last 250 years thing" is basically just entirely made up, wouldn't lose sleep over that. There's nothing special about 250 years and there's even less reason to believe that any study of past empire timelines could be applicable given modern technology and trade
I agree with your conclusion and your advice, but your post reeks of the notion that this just fell out of the sky and was destined to happen. It wasn't even close to that. It doesn't even have to be that way now. We made deliberate policy choices for decades to create the circumstances that lead to us "regressing to the mean".
The notion that the people at the top do increasingly well and everyone else fights for scraps is likewise lunacy. There have been periods throughout human history with significantly more egalitarianism, where, yes some people were at the top, but they didn't wield the kind of wealth/power they do today.
> We made deliberate policy choices for decades to create the circumstances that lead to us "regressing to the mean".
The rot always comes from within.
> There have been periods throughout human history with significantly more egalitarianism
Where was this magical utopia? Was it 18th century France when the peasants chopped off the heads of the Royal Family? Or was it during the glory days of Imperil Rome?
I agree with most of what you said. I expect a lot more economic and political turmoil, hence why populism is rising on both sides, expect to see a lot more MAGA from both aisles - rebranded.
Instead of breaking your back with a manual labor job to have a house you can now do it monitoring the performance of tweets for a living.
oh the horror
its not that housing prices have increased. It’s that consumer standards have. The good ol days? When a house for a family of 4-5 had 2 bedrooms? A single car? 1/3rd the appliances and half the square footage houses have today?
give me a break.
Millennials don’t have starter homes because of entitlement. Social media and HGTV, along with financing, has made keeping up with the joneses via comparison tablestakes in America. Cheap homes are still available they just aren’t the size or in the neighborhood you want to live in
income has stayed the same but home prices have increased? Well they are called single FAMILY homes for a reason, and guess what women make as much as men now. You aren’t supposed to bear that price alone like back in the day. It takes dual income to afford the same thing.
you can’t afford a SFH as a single person because you shouldn’t be able to. That’s like crying that you can’t afford to have 2 cars.
It’s not hard to be a home owner in America in 2022. Oh boo hoo you can’t live in Denver or San Francisco. Give me a break
Holy fuck you are out of touch man
Echoing your point- yeah it is going to be harder to buy a single family home with a huge backyard going forward as land is a finite resource but like have people traveled to Asia, Europe, etc? That was already par for the course. Living in a condo and not a single family home- oh the horror or god forbid renting lol.
I agree with all this. The same thing that happened to American manufacturing workers has now happened to the white collar workers, and most professional, non-entreprenurial careers are largely saturated at this point in American history. Even though there are lots of jobs, the quality of those jobs has gone down. I think the internet and social media are a big reason for this and have led to much greater labor market transparency and most jobs and skills being commoditized. If a worker is easily replaceable, they are paid the minimum needed to join and not leave, and will have negative real wage growth especially adjusted for the cost of housing. As you said, there is no simple solution to this, and it's a global trend that has occurred in most developed countries (including China). If people are doing "well" by global standards but worse than their parents or what they expected for their effort (degrees/skills/experience/etc.), they will support extremism in both political parties.
Of course will be unpopular here but 2020 into early 2021 was a big year for market consolidation. “Record deal fees” means exactly that and as competition is stifled, margins can increase while wages stagnate or decrease. Lockdowns led to a plethora of small businesses shutting down, furthermore placing the control of a product space in the hands of a few major players.
The only way to reverse things is to start enforcing anti-trust laws and crack down on mergers (and even reverse mergers) that lead to too much market share for one major player. Furthermore institutional investors should not be allowed to invest in products that people need to survive such as farmland or apartment dwellings.
The problem of course is most politicians on both sides of the aisle have been bought and sold by the corporate elite and hence will take steps to help the top 0.5% at the cost of hurting the middle class.
The only real solution for you and me is to develop a skill in an area of finance so that your wage will at least be deemed worthy to pace with rising costs from the corporate elite . You can also go the startup route should you want to have a chance of generating real wealth. Also try to anticipate the market and move to an area where costs are low and will remain low to have a manageable COL.
Crush the NIMBYs and build tons of housing and public transportation. Stop wasting money on weapons and tax cuts for the ultra rich, they never have trickled down and never will. Spend money to make public education cheap like we did before the Reagan Era instead of relying on loans. Get energy from renewable sources instead of praying the Russians or Saudis won't cut the oil supply. Make healthcare affordable like every other civilized country. There are solutions to this crisis, we need to stop voting for selfish policies that hurt the country in the long run.
Gospel
public transportation would work if people didn't behave like animals in there
100%. Some of the freaks I see in public transportation scare the fuck out of me (especially in the DC area). More lunatics are using public transportation these days, and I straight up don't feel safe in any bus anywhere in the DMV.
I love living in america, but as someone who grew up in other countries, the bottom 30% of this nation are almost quasi uncivilized apes.
what tax cuts for ultra rich btw?
These are ideas, not solutions. It's like saying: solve racism. There is no clear solution to solve racism. Same with affordable education and healthcare. The whole system would need to be rebuild. And you can easily make it worse if you let stupid people rebuild it.
Shhhhh the little college kid thinks he has life all figured out
Sounds like socialism to me. If the goal is creating jobs then that money is better spent building roads, bridges, etc. or things that actually benefit Americans. Building weapons helps no one, because they're weapons. At best they sit around collecting dust, at worst they are used to kill.
We could cut 200 billion from our defense budget and still have double China's. There's no justification for that much money.
Agree with everything that was said. It's not just the US it's the entire western world. Europe is arguably in an even worse state than America atm. Something like 40% of Brits won't be able to even paid to heat their houses this winter and inflation is forecasted to hit 20%! Germany is sold out of firewood and people have started foresting like it's the 14th century to heat their homes this winter. There's almost nowhere to escape to at this point with the exception of Dubai or maybe Switzerland.Another issue is that When living standards decrease to untenable levels like this it typical leads to all sorts of political upheaval. Imagine having all the aforementioned factors and then having someone like AOC as president on top of it all. Seems like a recipe for disaster.Maybe it's an over reaction but definitely seems like it could be worse compared to other periods of economic downturn. Jamie Dimon did say there was a 30% chance of something way worse than a recession. Not to mention there are a lot of deep social and political divides layered on top of it all.
Absolutely, people are waking up today and realizing their lives are going to be considerably worse than their parents. Of course they aren't just going to accept that. Nor should they.
So buy sqqq?
buy bbby
We Are Witnessing The Destruction Of American
This has been happening for decades, it's only accelerating recently. Point #2 is a temporary/cyclical thing.
#4 is interesting - in significantly poorer countries, and many that are economically similar, relative housing values are much higher compared to what we have on average in the US. More like it's New York everywhere to varying degrees, where the vast majority can't afford real estate until a later age compared to their American coutnerparts. So we're essentially catching up to a global norm.
I don't mean to downplay any of these concerns, more so just pointing out that if you're only just noticing you're likely very young or just started paying attention. Some of this is the natural cycle of capitalism, some is a direct result of our political choices. It's frustrating to me how the political discourse has been filled with intentional distractions in the past 7 or so years, and a lot of people need to reevaluate what is important to them if the erosion of the American middle class is of any concern.
The American Empire is falling... the rot always comes from within.
Wow cool quote bro! Let me guess - 22?
Fucking yawn
This has been a talking point for at least 20 years. Probably longer.
in reality:
- job market as strong as ever. Never seen employees with this much power
- easier than ever to supplement income. Wfh, gig economy, you have more freedom over your schedule
- home prices historical highs, good for wealth for home owners
- stock market still strong last 5 YRs
- never been easier to market yourself, job hunt, upskill yourself, etc
- stock investing more accessible than ever before. Investing knowledge more accessible than ever before. “Buy index funds and ignore” is pretty well known strategy when that wasn’t the case a mere decade ago
if you look for dog shit on the sidewalk then you’ll find if. Otherwise things are pretty great overall
How do you say, "Out of touch" in French?
The grand irony is your post and this entire thread reeks of “I am so affluent, but I really care about the poor helpless middle class because I’m so selfless”
how many middle class people do you really know? Teachers, nurses, plumbers, that kid who graduated college with a 2.7 GPA at directional school university and now sells insurance for a living, construction workers, etc?
guess what. They all have houses, they all have cars, they have families, go shopping in free time, out to eat, vacations, etc. life is just fine for them. Yea gas prices and inflation sucks, but temporary squeezes just like 2008-2010 sucked. They don’t need or care for 22 year old pseudo intellects throwing pity parties from their well educated ivory towers, talking about how the American dream is dead yet lacking the life experience to know that the same talking points were beat to death in 2012, and in 2002, and so on.
im out of touch? No, you’re out of touch. You likely live in an echo chamber (probably online) around other people with similar demographics finding something to complain about. A bunch of other well educated 20 somethings thinking they deserve the world. Go to Reddit or Twitter where you will get a nice back rub for your “boo hoo no one can afford to live in America these days!” Pity party. The actual middle class is keeping this country running
Agree with you. Things are not perfect but the loudest voices make it seen like the US is falling apart. There a re meaningful issues and threats but think the biggest one facing America is that loudest voices on the right and left convince the majority the US is falling apart.
Not saying inflation, housing, climate change are not issues but no the way OP rants about
Define middle class? That's an issue that gets lost in most of these arguments.
What you most likely have is a lot of people in this country thinking an upper middle class to wealthy lifestyle is actually middle class. As stated multiple times above, I understand that expectations increase over time, but there is a point where households can't keep living better than their parents. For example, my grandparents lived in a house with 1 bathroom, I grew up in a house with 2 bathrooms, and I have siblings who own houses now with 3 bathrooms; all would be considered middle class in their day, that can't go on forever. Increase that problem with everything you spend on, and it does crush the middle class. As they say, the worse thing isn't being poor, its being poor, getting wealthy, than having to go back to being poor because you know what rich is. Basically, you have families with people in their mid-30s who are accustomed to living a certain lifestyle from growing up, but salary/income wise, they can't support that lifestyle for themselves.
Also a problem is that no one wants to downgrade to how they were raised, even if they can't afford that lifetsyle. That leads to more debt for houses and possessions.
If you started investing a year ago, then yeah. Otherwise you're good.
Asset prices grew astronomically throughout the pandemic for no reason whatsoever, which is insane. We badly needed a correction.
Yeah, it's Fed's fault, however Fed did what they had to do. Did you want mass bankruptcies and -80% market indexes drop and wipeout of everybody's 401Ks? They saved the world economy from collapsing, but you're whining about 9% inflation, whereas everybody else in the world have 10-40% inflation.
It isn't the Fed's fault, the Fed exists to smooth out economic cycles.
The decline of the American middle class is just a natural outgrowth of several decades of focusing on the health of financial markets as the most important metric for the economy. Of course corporate earnings will rise if they can consolidate while keeping down wages, and of course the middle class will disappear if wage growth stagnates while commodity and housing prices increase. It isn't an accident, this is what Reagan Republicans were aiming for, and which Democrats played along with. Or rather, this is what Boomers wanted, since they already owned homes and had stock portfolios and retirement accounts, and that is who votes for both parties. This only fell apart after the GFC, when all of a sudden Boomers needed to re-enter the workforce or stay in it because their cushy retirements got wiped out or they lost their overleveraged homes.
fuck middle class. lambo or food stamps.
What we are witnessing is a trend starting 40+ years ago.
Middle Class began being hollowed out with the off-shoring of manufacturing, agriculture absorbed by large conglomerates, NAFTA's great sucking sound, large companies killing ma/pa stores, etc....Some of this has started to come back with auto manufacturing returning to some states but the salary is much less than previous automobile type of jobs.
The past 40+ years we've had higher inflation, lower asset prices, more layoffs/unemployment, housing price boom and bust, higher mortgage rates, etc.... For me key metrics that show trends of how the middle class is performing are things like 60+% of people living check to check, salary increase relative to purchasing power over time versus 1 year data points, amounts savings for middle class, etc....
As another commenter said this is nothing new and just the same long hollowing out of the middle class.
meanwhile Chinese middle class is expected to grow 80% in the mid 2020's. Chinese middle class are already about twice the population of the entire USA.
The Chinese middle class would be below the poverty level in America
for how long please ?
Chinese middle class is currently collapsing in on itself and refusing to pay their mortgages (on properties that will never get built and constitute over 75% of basically every Chinese persons net worth).
you mean like https://www.usdebtclock.org
This thread supports my long term theory that Republicans will ultimately end up to the left of Democrats on economic issues. Wild to see!
The Democrat establishment supports globalism just as much as the Republican Establishment does. Biden isn’t talking about bringing blue-collar work back to the US or cracking down on M&A transactions.
Also most of the cities that have been hit the hardest in the past 50 years such as Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, Jackson, Cleveland, Flint, etc. are all reliably Democratic and yet nothing changes. No real effort to bring manufacturing jobs back or try to revitalize the city. High crime, high poverty rates, rampant corruption, you name it.
This isn’t a partisan issue in the way you try to frame it. It’s a broken problem in the establishment wing of both parties.
I think there is some blame to go to the Fed and the Treasury but I don’t agree that a simple overshoot on fiscal & monetary policy creates long-term problems like the destruction of the middle class.
There are probably deeper and more long-term issues that people don’t want to blame for a host of reasons (too messy to unpack, personal bias etc).
For example, we have a just-in-time supply that was overly fragile and bound to lose its shit any time there is some weakness in the system like armed conflict or the later stages of a pandemic.
As for people not returning to work because of stimulus . . I dunno does that really look like the case *today*? Certainly was the case a while back. Not sure the stimmies are big enough to explain it for this extended period of time.
Anyways I think this will all abate eventually. The problem as I see it is our 24/7 news cycle creates extra pressure and hysteria that might cause rushed decisions. Not to mention election-driven manipulations like student loan relief.
Except all of this save inflation has been true for decades.
So one has to wonder... why are you concerned all of a sudden? Seems like you have an axe to grind with the current Administration, and will shoehorn in whatever argument is your flavor of the month regardless of its accuracy.
most of the things that are true now have always been true, they are just true now to a much higher degree
I don't think any of this is true to a higher degree.
What I find most amusing/saddening is that most of what is being listed in this post can be traced directly back to policies enacted by the Reagan Administration and then adopted by both sides to some extent, though obviously until the advent of Mr Trump, it was Reagan's memory which every Republican politician invoked. And yet here we are, with Republicans blaming a Democrat for a decades-long trend that was begun and exacerbated by conservative policy initiatives.
What's with all these idiots blaming millennials who don't even own houses on the housing crisis? It's not their fault. It's the people who already own houses who draw up all these arcane zoning rules. They only want fancy highrises and big houses in their neighborhood because it makes their houses' property values go up. Anything middle class or lower and it's "not in my backyard!". And because they did this over decades now even their own kids can't afford housing.
Ahhh yes
It's actually the opposite. Districts with a lot of immigrants have higher life expectancies, quality of life, etc. while most of the ones with very high proportions of native born are in the dumpster. Because immigrants naturally go to areas with opportunity.
https://measureofamerica.org/congressional-districts-2015/
Weird cherrypicking
Central and South-Central LA are laughing at how ridiculous this is of a statement. Nothing screams "Futuristic 1st world" like selling off-brand tide pods in ziploc bags off of a towel on the dirty sidewalk.
There’s a big difference between smart immigrants that create jobs via businesses and startups plus the researchers that come in compared to poor illegal immigrants who are unskilled and lower the market wage for unskilled jobs.
In the latter case, why pay a regular citizen $12-$15 an hour, when you can pay an illegal $5? That’s what the original commenter was referring to I beleive.
While it can happen for white collar jobs as well, there are typically quotas to make sure an optimal number of immigrants come in.
oy vey, the goyim know!
Nice name, but you're no Roger
Inflation has become a big problem. I guess this is the price you have to pay for excessive expansionary monetary policy. The Fed is trying to slow down the inflation but the more it tightens, the worse it becomes for consumers and companies.
The closest environment to what we have now is probably late 1970/early 80s but in the early 80s rates started falling eventually. Unfortunately, the Fed is going to continue to tighten for a while. As a result, middle class people are going to be priced out of the home buying market. Making matters worse is the fact that rentals have become expensive.
There is some good news here in that the recent monthly inflation rate showed a slow down in prices mostly due to a drop in energy prices. It will be interesting to see the August number.
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