Still think TITNC3: Return of the Iceberg was peak

There's still time. It's almost into oversold in the 1 minute chart so it should come back down fairly soon.

 

They have. The problem with us humans is we adjust our baseline expectations as things improve.

If you told people they could reduce their monetary costs to what they were 20 years ago by getting rid of their streaming subscriptions, smart phone plan, and grocery delivery and decreasing their home size by 15%, you'd be correct.

And they would balk at you.

Theres a lot of nostalgia for the 70s on the internet these days. "One income to support a family and buy a house" and all that.

That's still very achievable on one income today. Buy a 1000 sqft home in nowhere, Ohio built 20 years ago, only have one car, and keep only 1970s-era amenities in your home. Meaning network TV and maybe some board games. Land lines, no cell or internet. Etc.

 

sooo what you're telling me is to short it?

 

and hope you dont need emergency medical attention, otherwise the whole situation goes out the door

 

Good luck. I tried 3 days in a row and couldn't do it.

 

you frickin KRAMER!

 

Correct. Major medical in the 70s, you mostly just died. It was much cheaper.

 

I don’t understand what that has to do with anything. I pay $100/month for all that tv/internet/cell stuff and we get paid much more than I would have in the 70’s or 80’s. It’s the houses that cost more. And saying you can still buy a cheap house in a shithole isn’t equivalent to having a nice little home in a nice neighborhood 30 years ago.

 

I'm speaking to medians here.

You may be a low service/high real estate consumer. Im talking about population wide trends.

And your point is exactly it: That "cheap house in a shithole" IS the nice little home in a nice neighborhood 50 years ago (30 years ago was the 90s, grandpa).

Nowhere, Ohio is not a shithole. It's just a rural small town. Crime rates were higher nationwide in all categories from the 70s to the 90s...see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Crime_over_time


The cheap house is what most people in the first half of their lives were purchasing in the 70s: starter homes, what they could afford, not what they were dreaming of.

These are exactly the expectations (combined with inaccurate rose colored glasses) I'm talking about that have shifted.

 

Yup. The house my parents bought for $35k in 1974 is worth probably $600k now. A 10% down payment back then was 1/5 of a years pay. They were making $15-18k avg in MA back then. Now you need $60k to buy that house. And at the 1/5 ratio you’re making $300k a year? Not likely. It’s not comparable. If you cut back all of your expenses that you consider to be excessive you still can’t gather up that down payment in the first place. You’d have to save 60 bucks a month for 1000 months. It’s only 85 years. I guess you have time.
Also because of the alterations of the standard of living even if you cut off all of those electronics Internet TV etc. you would be cut off from society. It won’t be a bridge night you can go to, there won’t be social clubs. People won’t come over your house for a barbecue… Because you’re the weird person without electronics and no Wi-Fi

 

To add:

It is inarguable that the ratio of median housing cost to median income has risen since the 70s. That is absolutely true.

Lot of possibilities there, but I expect the biggest is simply NIMBY drag (of which I am an enthusiastic participant!) slowing supply growth relative to population growth/change.

 

It’s a shithole, I’ve been there. Bowling alley and skate rink went under years ago. Local hardware store is long gone. They Highway bypass means nobody bothers to stop on your quaint little town. They don’t even bother to clean the graffiti that reads “shithole” off the town sign

 

This is WHY everyone would balk at you (as you guys are amply demonstrating ) when you say "You can still have that, you just have to live like they did then".

No one wants to, and no one will. They will live how we live now and complain instead.

 

See?

None of this was a problem 50 years ago because you worked at your Dad's auto shop or MomNPop store anyway and only knew the 4 families that lived in that town your whole life.

 

Actually in Massachusetts Internet/cable/cell phone is free for people of low income because it’s considered a necessity. It’s all subsidized so you’re already paying for it for someone else

 

But then you married your cousin. She was cute, but still

 

Well technically it’s not free it’s like five dollars. But it might as well be free

 

Right. "Free".

Yeah, still tho

 

$RTX running as I believed. Cruising into earnings 10/25
Gutz me dem javelinzz

calls going to print

 

Missiles and missile equivalents. Solid investments throughout human history.