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However, if you have any assets, the collection agency will take them. If you have a job and children to support, you are screwed.
Possibly if they have reason to go after you in the first place, easily accessible, liquid, and the asset can be legally recovered. Without endangering your kids.
In all my medical years the only time I saw this happen was with a patient/family that had recently inherited a local successful restaurant.
$3.20 may have been the wage for an unskilled ditch digger, but my hourly pay was not an outlier.
Nope.
Hourly earnings by industry from 1969, one year before your glorious $9 phone bill and when you where allegedly pulling in $7/hour. Strangely almost all are under $4/hour with many under $3/hour despite your razor sharp memory recalling $7/hour being the norm. Imagine that.
More detailed breakdown that shows 1970:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell
Young people today have no idea how affluent the US was 50 years ago, and what a huge hit people's lifestyle has taken. In 1974 I bought a brand new Chev 1500 pickup for $3600. In 1972 I went to an all-day music festival featuring Buffalo Springfield, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Youngbloods, and the Steve Miller Band. Tickets were $7. Draft beer in a tavern was 25 cents clear into 1985. Cigarettes were 25 cents a pack. Comic books were 25 cents each. Coffee was 10 cents a cup with free refills. You may try to dismiss that as anectodal, but I was an adult American leading a typical adult American life.
Given how poorly actual wage data matched with your fond memories of yesteryear I'm pretty comfortable dismissing any numbers you throw about as you continue to champion the good ole' days. They might be correct, might not... but you stating them as surely as you claimed $7 for a part time worker wasn't an outlier in 1970 pretty well throws credibility out the window.
However, if you have any assets, the collection agency will take them. If you have a job and children to support, you are screwed.
While I have you here = 4th time asking, can you provide a link to where that 29 year old Portland guy said he didn't go to ER because he couldn't afford it?
1980: $1.77 of debt for every $1 of GDP
1990: $2.54 of debt for every $1 of GDP
2000: $2.73 of debt for every $1 of GDP
2010: $3.67 of debt for every $1 of GDP
Now: $4.14 of debt for every $1 of GDP
Hourly earnings by industry from 1969, one year before your glorious $9 phone bill and when you where allegedly pulling in $7/hour. Strangely almost all are under $4/hour with many under $3/hour despite your razor sharp memory recalling $7/hour being the norm. Imagine that.
More detailed breakdown that shows 1970:
Given how poorly actual wage data matched with your fond memories of yesteryear I'm pretty comfortable dismissing any numbers you throw about as you continue to champion the good ole' days. They might be correct, might not... but you stating them as surely as you claimed $7 for a part time worker wasn't an outlier in 1970 pretty well throws credibility out the window.
He does have a point, though, that dependibg on your priorities, cost of living is way out of whack compared to what it was in the Boomer times.
If it's anything involving a screen or a computer chip, well things are much, much cheaper now. Anything home entertainment related is better than what billionaires could get in the 70s, and can be had for pretty cheap at Walmart.
Services involving the labor of educated people has skyrocketed beyond imagination, and technology only seems to make them more expensive, not less. Health care, education, legal services. You'd think the internet would make these cheaper, but we're doing online school and telehealth now, yet they're getting more expensive, not less.
[I'm surprised no one mentions legal services costs. The cost of hiring a lawyer in the past couple decades has increased along a similar trajectory as college tuition and health care.]
Adjusted for inflation Housing is more expensive in most of the major metros. You probably have to get to about #100 on the top MSAs by population list, at least, to find housing that's closer to inflation adjusted prices.
So if a home theater is your priority. Better now. If actually living is your priority, better then.
Last edited by redguard57; 09-02-2020 at 11:44 PM..
Well in all my years I never had to pay for a lawyer. So the cost of their services rising impacts me not one bit. I imagine there are others like me...
Yes housing cost has increased more than incomes since we started limiting supply. It is worse in the areas that have limited supply the longest. Anyone who rents long term is getting shafted in this economy.
Well in all my years I never had to pay for a lawyer. So the cost of their services rising impacts me not one bit. I imagine there are others like me...
Yes housing cost has increased more than incomes since we started limiting supply. It is worse in the areas that have limited supply the longest. Anyone who rents long term is getting shafted in this economy.
Yes, neither have I. But the point was that pretty much every service that utilizes the labor of "educated professionals " has skyrocketed in cost since circa 1980. Health care and college tuition are the most obvious, but in fields like dentistry, counseling, filmmaking, etc.. have gone up like that too.
I discovered this when researching the college cost issue. Filmmaking is another good example of how, despite massive digitization of the industry, it's gotten MORE expensive to make films, not less. Much more expensive.
Basically anything that requres educated labor and can't be scaled to global proprtions via the internet has all risen about 3-4x the rate of normal CPI. Things like college professor, doctor, and lawyer are the most obvious.
He does have a point, though, that dependibg on your priorities, cost of living is way out of whack compared to what it was in the Boomer times.
Just about every claim of how much cheaper everything was back in the good ole' days made here on CD withers on scrutiny, just like with Larry Caldwell very questionable $7/hour was the norm thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
Adjusted for inflation Housing is more expensive in most of the major metros. You probably have to get to about #100 on the top MSAs by population list, at least, to find housing that's closer to inflation adjusted prices.
Right, but then we recycle the price per square foot argument. If I remember last time I saw that discussion houses were comparable in psq all the way back into the 1970s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
So if a home theater is your priority. Better now. If actually living is your priority, better then.
Disagree. We have so many more things now that are taken for granted and part of living.
Anyone who rents long term is getting shafted in this economy.
Depends on the city, the timing, mortgage rate, and what they did with the money they didn't use as a down payment.
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