Class warfare

Cameron wrote:

Fucking millennial MBAs and their damn fees. They're ruining everything!

Home prices for comparable "pre-fabs" from the internets;

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Prices+for+prefab+houses&form=ANNTH1&refig=1bfab034271a4942bf90ad427f174c9a

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-this-chart-explains-americans-wealth-across-income-levels/

While Kyle is making some reasonable points, he is fucking the numbers up something fierce.

Also, wealth isn't so much a generations thing so much as an income level thing.  Sure, people who have had longer to grow wealth typically have more, and the disparity in relative sizes of the demographic cohorts will always make the baby boomer's amounts look outsized, the numbers need to be broken down more by averages & per capita to be reasonable comparisons.



https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376622/wealth-distribution-for-the-us-generation/

TL;DR

Cameron wrote:TL;DR

So you don't care about reality, you just want to bitch about your feelings...got it.

No. I think when we want to eat a banana and start peeling it we don’t want to always be told it’s more complicated than that, when it really isn’t.

There’s a difference in something being complicated and someone making it more complicated.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Cameron wrote:

Fucking millennial MBAs and their damn fees. They're ruining everything!

Home prices for comparable "pre-fabs" from the internets;

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Prices+for+prefab+houses&form=ANNTH1&refig=1bfab034271a4942bf90ad427f174c9a

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-this-chart-explains-americans-wealth-across-income-levels/

While Kyle is making some reasonable points, he is fucking the numbers up something fierce.

Also, wealth isn't so much a generations thing so much as an income level thing.  Sure, people who have had longer to grow wealth typically have more, and the disparity in relative sizes of the demographic cohorts will always make the baby boomer's amounts look outsized, the numbers need to be broken down more by averages & per capita to be reasonable comparisons.



https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376622/wealth-distribution-for-the-us-generation/

Well actually that last sentence is pure unadulterated nonsense, if you wanted to compare the most straight forward way would be to look at the percentage of overall wealth relative to the age of the generation. So, say taking a look at how boomers had 20% of overall wealth in 1990 when the youngest boomers were 25 or so, compared to your chart where the youngest millennials are 25 or so by the end

None of the comparisons are telling the whole story.

It probably needs to be shown "per capita", that is normalized to wealth per person, to zero out the different percentage of the population in each generation, just to start with, in order to be somewhat apples to apples.

However, that also is probably not enough to show the basic picture.

Some method of accounting for the 1%'s wealth having increased over time which skews the average numbers towards the older generations, assuming many of the 1% are older (an assumption which is untested, but just for the sake of discussion) probably needs to be included.  Using averages, or even the mean / median numbers of comparisons, are distorted by distributions which are not at lease mostly uniform or in the form of a normal curve across the variable being analyzed. These distributions have changes over time as wealth has pooled at the top, as it will in a lightly regulated market.

There are a number of other differences between now and times past which also should be factored into a serious discussion.

As for home prices, which have soared for comparable housing in the short term, the entry of larger speculators, such as companies like Black Rock, have hugely changed the market.  That market is a separate analysis from the per capita wealth, because it isn't the same market with these new players.

edit - anecdotally, my first house, which was built about 15 years before I was born, cost $35k with a conventional 30-year mortgage at about a 15% interest rate, in a less desirable neighborhood.  Home buyer's expectations might also be part of the issues of buying a home.

The differences now, verses times in the past, is certainly real, but blanket generalizations about generations will not show how come that is so.

kingstonlake wrote:No. I think when we want to eat a banana and start peeling it we don’t want to always be told it’s more complicated than that, when it really isn’t.

There’s a difference in something being complicated and someone making it more complicated.

A counterpoint to the rant by Kyle was more to point at how he is cherry-picking just to rant.

There was no real banana there to eat as all of his numbers were talking points with very little reality within them.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Home prices for comparable "pre-fabs" from the internets;

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Prices+for+prefab+houses&form=ANNTH1&refig=1bfab034271a4942bf90ad427f174c9a

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-this-chart-explains-americans-wealth-across-income-levels/

While Kyle is making some reasonable points, he is fucking the numbers up something fierce.

Also, wealth isn't so much a generations thing so much as an income level thing.  Sure, people who have had longer to grow wealth typically have more, and the disparity in relative sizes of the demographic cohorts will always make the baby boomer's amounts look outsized, the numbers need to be broken down more by averages & per capita to be reasonable comparisons.



https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376622/wealth-distribution-for-the-us-generation/

Well actually that last sentence is pure unadulterated nonsense, if you wanted to compare the most straight forward way would be to look at the percentage of overall wealth relative to the age of the generation. So, say taking a look at how boomers had 20% of overall wealth in 1990 when the youngest boomers were 25 or so, compared to your chart where the youngest millennials are 25 or so by the end

You would also want to examine how wealth transfers from generation to generation.  Notice the chart where silent is a huge portion and goes down quite a bit, but you see something like Gen x going up.  Will Gen x look similar to how silent looked in 15-30 years?  Does the pattern keep repeating itself to a t over time?  These are questions if you're actually trying to figure out if millenials and Gen z are getting a hugely raw end of the deal by comparison or is this relative poverty by generation just a natural cyclical thing at this stage.  The argument is that baby boomers are killing us, but is that actually different from the way its always been?  You need the temporal data and look at it intermittently through time to see if things are actually different today.

I suspect they are different, as in the older generations hold a greater amount of the wealth per capita than in the past but not nearly the huge difference that is being painted. But  Housing difficulties for the first time buyers are enormously exacerbated right now so that is definitely a thing that is much more challenging for the young than in the past.

I count myself lucky I was able to buy a house in 2012 in a good area, right as the great recession recovery was starting to pick up steam.  So I got a pretty good rate, a pretty low price that I sat on until I moved 2 years ago, so these crazy prices really meant nothing to me because I gained so much on my last house.  Buying g for the first time in this market almost assuredly puts you in a bad financial position because you have to crazily stretch your finances to win out vs the cash offers, overpay, and the market probably isn't going to keep going up, so you may be stuck for years or lose your ass if it falls significantly

Trapper Gus wrote:

Cameron wrote:TL;DR

So you don't care about reality, you just want to bitch about your feelings...got it.

No, I just don't want to engage with you. The average Trapper post is several hundred/thousand words and half a dozen links no one will read vomited up haphazardly in a desperate attempt to make everyone think you're the smartest person in the room, and I just don't have the patience for that.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Home prices for comparable "pre-fabs" from the internets;

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Prices+for+prefab+houses&form=ANNTH1&refig=1bfab034271a4942bf90ad427f174c9a

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-this-chart-explains-americans-wealth-across-income-levels/

While Kyle is making some reasonable points, he is fucking the numbers up something fierce.

Also, wealth isn't so much a generations thing so much as an income level thing.  Sure, people who have had longer to grow wealth typically have more, and the disparity in relative sizes of the demographic cohorts will always make the baby boomer's amounts look outsized, the numbers need to be broken down more by averages & per capita to be reasonable comparisons.



https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376622/wealth-distribution-for-the-us-generation/

Well actually that last sentence is pure unadulterated nonsense, if you wanted to compare the most straight forward way would be to look at the percentage of overall wealth relative to the age of the generation. So, say taking a look at how boomers had 20% of overall wealth in 1990 when the youngest boomers were 25 or so, compared to your chart where the youngest millennials are 25 or so by the end

That was essentially the entire point of the video. I am pleased that at least some were able to grasp it.

Cameron wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

So you don't care about reality, you just want to bitch about your feelings...got it.

No, I just don't want to engage with you. The average Trapper post is several hundred/thousand words and half a dozen links no one will read vomited up haphazardly in a desperate attempt to make everyone think you're the smartest person in the room, and I just don't have the patience for that.

Well it's not my intent to be "the smartest person in the room", my intent is to have discussions based on data, with that data looked at critically.

It appears that there are some posters on here who get bent out of shape if their feelings are questioned with counter factuals.  I get that and try not to respond to their words.  In this case I was responding to the words in the video, which are popular memes which may be factually limited in scope.

Cameron wrote:

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:
Well actually that last sentence is pure unadulterated nonsense, if you wanted to compare the most straight forward way would be to look at the percentage of overall wealth relative to the age of the generation. So, say taking a look at how boomers had 20% of overall wealth in 1990 when the youngest boomers were 25 or so, compared to your chart where the youngest millennials are 25 or so by the end

That was essentially the entire point of the video. I am pleased that at least some were able to grasp it factual.

While that is a fact it seems to me, as I said, that without looking at the population size of each demographic it might be misleading. In 1990 the boomers were by far the largest demographic by population.  More people means the boomers were a higher percentage of the population in 1990 which equals more wealth might be part of the cause.

edit - FYI, apparently the Sears Houses were materials only, the assembly and foundation were extra costs.  Also no appliances.

So, I'm still trying to figure out the questions about wealth as both the per-person & per-person at a particular age, which is what the video doesn't address in its wealth comparison.

Here are some screen shots showing various measurements of financial conditions per household:







https://usafacts.org/articles/which-generation-has-the-most-wealth/

While interesting, to me, as it shows that Gen-X may be better off than people believe, it doesn't answer the questions about wealth per person for people in different generations at the same age.

edit - while not a perfect comparison, some possible fudging about comparable ages, and using probably the CPI as inflation, whereas the inflation in assets is more due to real estate & stocks, the following link does provide some inflation per person at the same ages in different generations.  It does show per person that people in different generations have reduced wealth.  Still taking the total wealth & spreading it uniformly over the generation means that Bill Gates's billions, for example, gets credited to each person in his generation, the same for Taylor Swift's money, an obvious distortion of reality.

https://www.self.inc/info/generational-wealth-gap/#:~:text=By%20the%20time%20Generation%20X%20was%20in%20their,the%20wealth%20of%20millennials%20around%20the%20same%20age.

Adding this in as various articles I am finding use it but don't define it, so it helps me know what they are saying:
- also Baby Boomers are sometimes split into early (1946-1954) & late or Jones (1955-1964)

The Silent Generation: 1928-1945
Baby Boomers: 1946-1964
Generation X: 1965-1980
Millennials: 1981-1996
Generation Z: 1997-2012
Generation Alpha: early 2010s-2025 (not yet officially categorized)

A study from Coldwell Banker estimates that millennials are expected to inherit over $68 trillion from their predecessors by 2030, meaning that in less than 10 years’ time they will have accumulated as much as five times the wealth they currently hold....."By 2030, millennials will hold five times as much wealth as they have today, and are expected to inherit over $68 trillion from their predecessors in the Great Transfer of Wealth."

 https://blog.coldwellbankerluxury.com/a-look-at-wealth-millennial-millionaires/

Here is a link to an interesting calculator which displays the net worth distibution by age group:

https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/

And from whom, pray tell, are the millennials going to be inheriting that fortune? Probably Gen X, right?

Cameron wrote:And from whom, pray tell, are the millennials going to be inheriting that fortune? Probably Gen X, right?

Likely it will come from the Silent Generation, a great many of whom will die by 2030 & from the Baby Boom Generation, some of whom will die by 2030.  Gen X's contributions probably will be minimal as the oldest members will only be 65.

Trapper Gus wrote:So, I'm still trying to figure out the questions about wealth as both the per-person & per-person at a particular age, which is what the video doesn't address in its wealth comparison.

Here are some screen shots showing various measurements of financial conditions per household:







https://usafacts.org/articles/which-generation-has-the-most-wealth/

While interesting, to me, as it shows that Gen-X may be better off than people believe, it doesn't answer the questions about wealth per person for people in different generations at the same age.

edit - while not a perfect comparison, some possible fudging about comparable ages, and using probably the CPI as inflation, whereas the inflation in assets is more due to real estate & stocks, the following link does provide some inflation per person at the same ages in different generations.  It does show per person that people in different generations have reduced wealth.  Still taking the total wealth & spreading it uniformly over the generation means that Bill Gates's billions, for example, gets credited to each person in his generation, the same for Taylor Swift's money, an obvious distortion of reality.

https://www.self.inc/info/generational-wealth-gap/#:~:text=By%20the%20time%20Generation%20X%20was%20in%20their,the%20wealth%20of%20millennials%20around%20the%20same%20age.

Adding this in as various articles I am finding use it but don't define it, so it helps me know what they are saying:
- also Baby Boomers are sometimes split into early (1946-1954) & late or Jones (1955-1964)

The Silent Generation: 1928-1945
Baby Boomers: 1946-1964
Generation X: 1965-1980
Millennials: 1981-1996
Generation Z: 1997-2012
Generation Alpha: early 2010s-2025 (not yet officially categorized)

A study from Coldwell Banker estimates that millennials are expected to inherit over $68 trillion from their predecessors by 2030, meaning that in less than 10 years’ time they will have accumulated as much as five times the wealth they currently hold....."By 2030, millennials will hold five times as much wealth as they have today, and are expected to inherit over $68 trillion from their predecessors in the Great Transfer of Wealth."

 https://blog.coldwellbankerluxury.com/a-look-at-wealth-millennial-millionaires/

Here is a link to an interesting calculator which displays the net worth distibution by age group:

https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/

I think it would be interesting to look at how wealth has been moving over time.

This kind of generation to generation transfer could be masking a much larger and non-cyclical problem.  If that wealth was transferring down to fewer people relative to the population growth, it would still for example show wealth transferring to the millennials or whatever but it would actually not really be proper to treat the millennials as a group benefactor of the previous generation's wealth when a possible (much) lower proportion of millennials get to enjoy that wealth.  So it would be categorized under millennials but really just wealth moving to more and more exclusive group of people through time.  Which would be quite deceiving.  The only way millennials would be able to break into the club would be to have one of those miraculous American dream like ideas that you get rich from and the chances of that happening is exceedingly small. And here most of us will be living with a smaller and smaller piece of the overall pie of wealth.

[tw]1709582081096089601?s=20[/tw]

I haven't read the associated WaPo article because it is paywalled.

[tw]1770461965867258010?s=20[/tw]

That is between 5% to 7% of GDP and 21 Million people is about the same for population, however we can be sure that less than 5% of that went to anyone others that the top 5 people in the "C" suite and the top stockholders.

Just unfathomable greed. Wouldn't surprise me if those 300 corporations paid a lower effective tax rate than me this year, either. Whole system is rotten.

Cameron wrote:Just unfathomable greed. Wouldn't surprise me if those 300 corporations paid a lower effective tax rate than me this year, either. Whole system is rotten.

No, not the whole system, but it sucks that it is winner take all at 50%. We need 50.01% to support the ideals of this country

It’s greed!

Motown Spartan wrote:It’s greed!

How much is $3.2 trillion divided by 400? My calculator doesn't math that high.

They’re trying to raise the retirement age despite life expectancy remaining more or less stagnant for 15 years because we haven’t even tried to make anything better for anyone. This is because they view you as nothing but a unit of labor who they need to maximize production out of before you’re useless.

We desperately need to start taking lessons from the French and burn entire cities down for even suggesting such a thing.

The Reagan Revolution has failed the country

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:They’re trying to raise the retirement age despite life expectancy remaining more or less stagnant for 15 years because we haven’t even tried to make anything better for anyone. This is because they view you as nothing but a unit of labor who they need to maximize production out of before you’re useless.

We desperately need to start taking lessons from the French and burn entire cities down for even suggesting such a thing.

Let’s start with The Villages in Florida.

[tw]1782458867760185769[/tw]

But I'm supposed to be super stoked on Biden for sending a bunch more money to Israel and Ukraine.

Cameron wrote:[tw]1782458867760185769[/tw]

I’m not that tied into economics, and the above chart is horrifying. However, I would like someone with a decent background to tell me if we pulled money from defense, how does that affect our economy? I would love to be able to redirect that money towards education or healthcare, But Would it cause serious unemployment? By redirecting it, does it create jobs and other sectors?

For example, the 68 billion that was just appropriated for Ukraine, Are we giving them $60 billion in cash and letting them shop around for weapons? Or, are we sending them $60 billion worth of weapons so that money goes into our economy, and then 8 billion for them to use for other things? What is the breakdown and how does that work?

That chart, that can put up is really disgusting, but I’m not sure it’s as easy as subtracting money from defense and redirecting it. But then again, I was always bored in my economic classes

There are certainly people who are employed by the military industrial complex who would be harmed economically by reduced defense spending. There are also people who work in the insurance industry who would be harmed economically by universal healthcare. That doesn't make reducing defense spending or increasing access to healthcare any less of a moral and ethical imperative.

As for the US economy, if it can't sustain itself with less than $900 billion dollars of annual defense spending propping it up, I would assert that it is then definitionally unsustainable anyway. Our priorities are long overdue for reordering.

Cameron wrote:But I'm supposed to be super stoked on Biden for sending a bunch more money to Israel and Ukraine.

More to the point is that President Biden has expanded the eligibility and subsidies for Obamacare so that the largest percentage of Amaricians, ever, has Healthcare coverage, and yes, you should be super stoked about that yet it isn't even clear that you know that fact.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/01/24/record-marketplace-coverage-in-2024-a-banner-year-for-coverage/

I'm aware, but I've never been very impressed by Obamacare. Insurance companies are still raking in record profits year after year, yeah? And we still spend more on healthcare for worse outcomes than any country that could reasonably be considered our peers, yeah?

Get back to me when either of those things change.

DWags wrote:

Cameron wrote:[tw]1782458867760185769[/tw]

I’m not that tied into economics, and the above chart is horrifying.  However, I would like someone with a decent background to tell me if we pulled money from defense, how does that affect our economy?   I would love to be able to redirect that money towards education or healthcare, But Would it cause serious unemployment?  By redirecting it, does it create jobs and other sectors?

For example, the 68 billion that was just appropriated for Ukraine, Are we giving them $60 billion in cash and letting them shop around for weapons?   Or, are we sending them $60 billion worth of weapons so that money goes into our economy, and then 8 billion for them to use for other things?  What is the breakdown and how does that work?  

That chart, that can put up is really disgusting, but I’m not sure it’s as easy as subtracting money from defense and redirecting it.  But then again, I was always bored in my economic classes

The number shown in the above chart is not all that the US spends on its military because a number of programs which I believe most of us would lable as military spending, such as nuclear bombs, which are in the Energy Departments budget, are not in the Defense Departments budget.

A quick search isn't finding a breakdown of the defense budget that lends itself to easy discussion, however we are the only country maintaining readiness at a high level, including being the only country with a true two major ocean Navy capable of patrolling all the major sea lanes, the only country with a fully functional nuclear submarine force capable of both major offense and defensive operations, the ability to project force and wage two major land wars at the same time, and the capabilities to launch and maintain strategic and regional air power for offensive & defensive capabilities.


https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3703410/department-of-defense-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2025-defensebudget/#:~:text=On%20March%2011%2C%202024%2C%20the,Act%20(FRA)%20of%202023.

No one on this planet wants to go head to head with the US military, and that is the backbone of how the US maintains Pax Amaricana.

Most of the money in the Defense Departments budget is spent in the US and thus it is a huge jobs spend.

To the point being made, the budget discussion does not need to be a this item or that item discussion, we can have both if we decide to do so.

Cameron wrote:I'm aware, but I've never been very impressed by Obamacare. Insurance companies are still raking in record profits year after year, yeah? And we still spend more on healthcare for worse outcomes than any country that could reasonably be considered our peers, yeah?

Get back to me when either of those things change.

It would be nice if you would provide links to back up your claims so others could see the metrics you are using instead of guessing.

The tweet was talking only of people dying due to not having health insurance. You are expanding that simple metric to several that are way more complex, yet, in the way you expanded it others cannot rationally discuss because you provided no specific metrics.

So to your first comment, President Biden has expanded the number of people who have health care coverage to an all time high. Is there nothing positive that he does that you will not ignore or pooh-pooh as not good enough?

Read this link and shut up.

Cameron wrote:Read this link and shut up.

No I will not shut up.

Okay, now you have provided metrics, to quote:

Despite spending more per capita...
...the United States has a lower life expectancy than peer nations and has seen worsening health outcomes since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After a quick look it should be noted that this set of metrics has little to do with Biden's actions as President since they are covering from 1980 to mostly 2020, and in some cases, 2021.

In fact, since it only covers 2021 in some of its charts, it's claim about post covid results is incomplete at best, or at worst just anti-US propagada.

Furthermore, the worst outcomes for covid & the significant covid death rates compared to other countries were due to how Trump handled the situation and to the resistance to central control.

The health outcomes post covid referred to are due to the strains put on the health care system.during convid.

That is only a criticism of the study, and that it does not apply to Biden, but not of your points about the US healthcare costs being high, which they are, or to the differences in certain outcomes.

Looking in detail, some outcomes in the US are worse, and some are better.  Some of the metrics, such as follow up visits, seem close to meaningless.

Main take away for me, you are using a set of metrics which do not cover the time in which Biden was President, and of course Biden cannot cause instant change so improved health metrics will require years from when he put them in place, to claim he is failing, and as pointed out, by me, ignoring what he has accomplished in this area.

This isn't all about Biden. I made an offhand comment about a recent thing in current events, but the issue is systemic and longstanding. Your insecurity is beside the point.

Cameron wrote:But I'm supposed to be super stoked on Biden for sending a bunch more money to Israel and Ukraine.

This was the quote I saw, it appeared to be referring to your post above it which was about military spending and deaths in the US due to not having health care.

Please forgive me for thinking you were talking about Biden or healthcare.

FWIW we probably agree more than disagree about the cost for healthcare & the outcomes here in the US.

Yes, we probably do, but I was less than complimentary of your best guy, so I had to get my nits picked.

Cameron wrote:Yes, we probably do, but I was less than complimentary of your best guy, so I had to get my nits picked.

Come on now with the malarky.

Your distain for Biden is known, so just like my unfiltered support gets, you should expect pushback.

That I inferred a position you were not trying to convey is par for the course and happens to me from you all the time.