re: I'm sick of people saying the middle class is worse off than 4 decades ago.

quote:

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Iosh, so are you on bernie sander's side on this topic or somewhere in between?

You have, as usual, taken offense to my beliefs. What are YOUR beliefs on the subject?

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My beliefs, as usual, are a lot more nuanced than this thread is allowing for. I think the middle class is better off in some ways, worse off in others. Most of the positives are technological, and while I definitely appreciate technology using it as the sole arbiter of "better/worse" is kind of weird.

There are a lot of other things that have been subject to cost disease, and those tend to be big ticket items; healthcare and rent and education (not just college, it shows up in primary education costs) are going to hit you a lot harder than your cellphone bill and the amortized cost of a washing machine.

I also don't think cost disease is a simple function of "more government bad, less government good." It might be a complex function of that, but there are enough counterexamples that I don't know that you can ascribe this entirely to government. Instead I think of government as a sort of negative feedback loop driven by deeper societal demands which it attempts to satisfy and usually makes things worse.

For instance, the state subsidizes college, which obviously raises costs. But the other half of that cycle is a sort of secular credential inflation where everything under the sun requires a bachelor's degree. Both halves of that cycle drive the other; subsidies wouldn't be as urgent or destructive if the credentials weren't in demand. That's a societal trend reflected in the labor market. Where does it come from and should/can it be reduced? Those are complicated questions. A lot more complicated than some hosannah to the smartphone.