How much is your local "Trump at the Pump Tax?"

Yeah, you're right. It's not fair to blame everything on the current president. (Then again, it's not fair to blame everything on the last one either).

To me it's not so much about who's to blame but what's happening. You seem to point out numbers from the early 70's, correct? Back then the price of a house was about 2.4 times that of a yearly median wage. Today it's more than double at over 5 times the median wage. In my area a median house is about 13 times that of a median wage. I can live without McDonald's cheeseburgers, but it's kind of nice to have a roof over one's head and it would be even nicer if putting money towards that roof could result in some personal equity.

 

What I neglected to point out was that wages were also lower. Minimum wage then was also $1.60 an hour.

I was merely pointing out that times have always been hard...and always will be...unless and until one does better for themselves. I legally went from street rat to extremely comfortable in my 67+ years on this rock because I got off my azz and did it myself...not because someone made it easy for me. There's alway going to be something to deal with in life...regardless whether you vote Left, Right or Center.

 

...or the next one.

 

Yeah, but it's so easy.

 

Right. Wages were lower too. And yes, people should try hard to live better lives instead of just blaming the past present and future presidents for all their problems.

But then again, there's also a lot of merit in living within one's means and accepting that life isn't fair.

It's called being balanced. It's called being modest. No, I don't have the things you have and I never will. But I have what's most important to me. It would be suicide to try to buy a house right now or a new car. I can't work 6 full-time jobs. Sorry if that disappoints you. But the fact is that back then, a 65¢ quarter pounder with cheese was only 44% of an hour's worth of work at minimum wage. Now, a $6.39 quarter pounder with cheese is 88% of an hour's worth of work at minimum wage.

 

I'm not saying or implying anything negative your way. My comments were directed at the partisan politics blame game...both sides.

FTR...I still like peanut butter and crackers.

 

People who can't do those two things lay a foundation for personal misery.

Assets are finite. Even Elon Musk, America's first african american trillionaire, has financial limits.

Desires are infinite. Accepting an ethic of personal poverty breaks the tension between what one wants and what one accepts, and allows charity from one's own resources to others.

 

We have been down this resort city road before.

In the world most of us live in, $15 an hour is the starting wage almost anywhere for anyone. There are still help wanted signs up everywhere.

That $6.39 McD burger (overpriced for convenience with $5 meals available which include fries and drinks) is 42.6% of any high school kid's $15 hourly wage. Guys with a lawn mower get $25 an hour.

Your McD burger here is only 37% of a kid's wage - and I live in a booming Central Texas area full of summer tourists.

I will agree inflation is fast and furious since the first free money was sent out during Trump's first administration and repeated several times. Many (most) of us did not need it and a lot of it was blown on new flat screens and other unnecessary discretionary purchases.

But at the same time, the whole covid thing convinced many baby boomers to retire early, many hundreds of thousands died early and immigration enforcement removed a lot of labor.

Delivery services boomed and are expanding (including groceries delivered 30 miles away with extra pickers at each store) providing jobs and buyers of old Prii.

The trades are begging for help with some shops paying new people as they learn. Good mechanics and hvac guys are scarce. Jobs are abundant and housing is still within range for those with a demonstrated income.

Sometimes a hard decision has to be made. It was not that long ago our relatives were walking behind a wagon train to find and achieve prosperity.

.

 

This price comparison stuff - how much $1 would buy (prior to so much fiat dollar printing) compared to how little now it buys/compensated via higher costs nowadays - reminds me of another price comparison fun fact.
Cost per hr for California legal fees.
In the early 90s, a Big Mac was 2½ bucks.
Attorney would typically cost $250 an hour in calif.
Today there are still places in Cali where you can get a Big Mac for only 4 or $5. And the Big Mac Theory still works. You can get an attorney for 400 or $500. But the highest ripoffs at McDonald's will be $7 & in law specialties - you could pay $700/ hr for yer shyster. "the Big Mac rule" add a couple zeros

.

 

That philosophy - sadly seldom gets echoed.

It reminds me of a song written by the band, Coldplay. 1st few stanzas;

".... I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listened as the crowd would sing,
"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand..... "

Songs often have multiple meanings, but for yours truly, it speaks of a famous person, whether musician, politician, actor, business person Etc -
how few there are who can be content in any station in life that comes their way.

There was a time when Elon Musk had to shower at the YMCA due to his station in life.
The question isn't whether someone has a ton of zeal to succeed - but whether or not they can be content - should they lose all their Fame & Fortune.

I think that's what Chris Martin's song from Coldplay represents.
.

 

Full disclosure, I drive an EV, have a solar roof, and efficient major appliances. I am relatively insulated from the volatile fuel market. Yet the rapid fluctuations don’t make sense.

There is a longish lead time, several months, from well to pump. If nothing else, the speed of oil tankers. Yet the retail prices have been changing much faster than the physics of production would predict.

IMHO, it isn’t clear this is a ‘fair and open’ market.

I’m just glad I am somewhat out of the direct fuel market.

Bob Wilson

 

On the contrary, the speed of those fluctuations for commodities are a consequence of a market in which supply information is available widely. The price of a commodity will generally follow the anticipated replacement cost, not the price paid for it.

 

All correct. Also correct is that some of the darkest skinned people on the planet live in southern India and their skin can reasonably be described as "Black". The original book had nothing to do with Africans, the association of the term "Sambo" with Africans came later. Unfortunately the book was representative of the British racism of the era, referring to others thought to be inferior, and usually with darker skin, as "the Blackies" or something similar. The color of the kid's skin is irrelevant to the entire story, yet it is in the title. The exact same story could have been set in northern India with a kid whose skin was very light and it would probably still have had the same title. See for instance Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden", which pretty much sums up the British view of the era. Strangely enough, in relation to the US occupation of the Philippines.

The White Man’s Burden – The Kipling Society

 

... federal minimum wage. But only 42% of Colorado's minimum wage, 33% of Denver's minimum wage.

My state has higher minimums, but I have no clue what a McD-QP costs here anymore. Don't think I've had one this century.

Another difference is that federal minimum wage for tipped employees is considerably lower than non-tipped. For CO, slightly less. For my state, there is no reduction for tipped employees at all.

 

. It is all stock market speculation on the price of oil.

Which the major oil companies use to rapidly increase the price of refined products but are slow to back off allowing great profits especially if they are an integrated upstream downstream company.

 

Pretty sure the white people working front of house also lost their jobs when the restaurant closed, not just the minorities.

It isn't virtue signaling when the name is blatantly offensive and in common use only employed as a racial pejorative.

 

The problem with these comparisons is it's easy to add in whatever metric seems to prove one's point. That opens up a lot of room for a "whatabout this." Like what about back when minimum wage was $1.60. Did most everyone make minimum wage then and now don't?

The bigger numbers seem harder to argue with. A median house in my county costs over $900,000. A median house in the country is nearly $400,000. A median wage is still just above or below $70,000 depending on who's reporting. The median wage house is still 5 times that of the median yearly wage, compared to around half that in the 70's and even less in other decades.

True. I know for me that would be sacrificing things I just can't sacrifice without being a nazi who abandons those who need me the most. I'm sure I could get a job in a town where I make enough to buy a house. But it would be me, myself and I who'd live there.

 

it's also geographic. my brother in laws children outside Nashville did much better buying homes than similar age people around the Boston area

 

What is that house like?

I grew up in a house built before WWI that would have been out of reach of all but a few when built. It was less than 4000 sf and had a small utilitarian kitchen with a linoleum floor. What's more I can remember dinner being made and being told that I couldn't have anything to eat because dinner will be "soon". When dinner was ready, we sat in the dining room to eat.

50 years later, lots of houses are bigger and almost every house has marble or quartz countertops and aesthetically match appliances. My first house had a master bath that was bigger than my dorm room in school. Dual sinks? Did two people who wanted to brush teeth at the same time ever find one sink an insurmountable obstacle?

I grew up thinking that a kitchen was like underwear. We assume everyone has it, but don't need to see it. Something changed so that a kitchen became a display piece for putting down the take-out. I don't know if TV is to blame or professional women can't accept no as an answer when kitchen remodelling is the question. I wouldn't burden anyone with euro levels of urban poverty, but the house people find hard to afford today may be an order of magnitude more than would meet a reasonable need.

 

IIRC, he lives and works near a major ski resort. Many such destinations have a major housing problem, where wealthy patrons and visitors soak up much of the nearby housing, so the very many low-paid but necessary worker bees must live outside and commute from a great distance. And developers greatly prefer to build for the wealthy buyers, not the worker bees.

When the greatest local land owners are the United States Forest Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management, the stock of privately owned lands that can be developed into housing can be rather small.

My ski-bum spouse was one such worker bee in Jackson Wyoming back in the seventies, before moving to the PNW for a "real job". This resort housing pattern was already a problem then, but at least it was still possible for workers to live in or close to Jackson back then, though nothing remotely resembling the size and opulence you described. But when we occasionally visit there now, she is astounded how much worse it has become. Much of the workforce now lives in other counties or across the state line (and a nasty winter pass) in Idaho.

Seattle has developed a similar problem, though not to the same degree. New people who don't have Tech jobs or other significant resources are mostly priced out of the nearby housing market, so must commute a considerable distance. But for some major but remote isolated CO-WY ski resorts, 'considerable distance' means a much greater distance than here in the Seattle region.