GhostRider62

Post some facts. Maybe someone might believe you.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...d-for-decades/

GhostRider62

Exactly and very funny, who needs food, fuel, housing, medicines, education, taxes, or insurance. Hedonics or other lies doesn't work on those very well.

Koyote

Did you notice the links in each of my posts?

And do you realize that your linked data actually undercuts your claim?

pdlamb

​​​​​​​Here I thought it was just the BEGINNING of winter. Is it February already?

drlogik 

Here is my observation, and opinion. I am 63 years old and grew up in the 1960's and 70's. Back then, one parent;'s income could support a family. They wouldn't be wealthy but they had all they needed. We could go on vacations, have plenty of food on the table but still had to watch our money. That lasted well into the 1970's, a few years past when Richard Nixon removed the Dollar from the Gold Standard in 1971.

Now, most families have both parents working to support the same standard of living. People can argue all day day long about inflation, recessions, value of the Dollar and the economy but there is no doubt that we work harder, longer with both parents working to live the same standard of living we did back 50 years ago. All of that began to change a few years after 1971 when we went off the gold standard.

Our dollar today has nothing but consumer confidence and the Fed's manipulation to maintain its value. Before, we had gold in Fort Knox to back up the value of every dollar.

mstateglfr 

From Q1 '79 to Q4 '17, median wage rose 3% from $335 to $345. 38 years and it rose 3%.
An even 40 years, so ending in Q1 '19, median wage rose just under 6%.

There are multiple theories as to why this 'increase' in spending power isnt felt. Health insurance benefit costs having outpaced salary is one theory. Another is that the median has barely risen because many in the upper of wages have seen their pay increase substantially while the lower half has actually dropped, therefore keeping the median about the same.
The economist on the board can get into this more, but I am sure a tldr will be that anyone who feels like purchasing power has shrunk is wrong and a flood of selective data backs that up.

prairiepedaler

Hi Koy, here's a handy visualization guide to help you break that fever.

https://howmuch.net/articles/rise-and-fall-dollar

prj71

Sigh. Another bike Armageddon thread.

indyfabz

Still doesn't explain you misstating what was written. "Low", not "no". Take issue with low if you'd like, but the post you responded to does not claim "no" as you wrote.

Cheers!

jon c. 

Did everyone in the family have a cell phone? How about laptops and high speed internet? Satellite or cable TV packages? These expenses didn't exist in the glory days.

Did most families have the same number of cars in the driveway you see today? Not as I recall. We rode our bikes. Parents often shared a single car. A car that didn't offer a fraction of the features that are standard in an automobile today.

You can argue that you believe the quality of life was the same, but objectively I think the standard of living clearly was not. We have higher expectations now. And we have to pay for them.

Hiro11

My prediction: 2023 will be the year to buy bikes.

Supply chain snarls will alleviate late next year. Simultaneously, demand will fall as most people that wanted bikes have already purchased them in 20-21-22 during the absolute explosion in demand we've seen. Lower demand and higher supply with cause a glut of product in bikes stores, just like in the 80s when the bike boom imploded (showing my age here).

In addition, everyone that bought a bike in 2020-2021 thinking they'd "try cycling" will finally dig it out of the garage after riding it twice in two years and put it on Ebay or sell it to The Pro's Closet. Guys from our local shop here have lots crazy stories over the past two years like selling two SWorks Tarmac SL7s to a couple who were first-time cyclists. These people are not in it for the long haul like us here.

So, in 2023 used bike supply will skyrocket just as the new bike supply glut hits. A perfect storm, get ready.

drlogik 

Jon C.

Good point. Yes, my mother and father had one car, one telephone (on the wall in our house), one black and white TV (that got channels 2, 4, 6 and a couple of UHF stations). We ate TV dinners on special nights and on really special occasions we went out to eat at a sandwich shop called the Purple Pickle. Life before the Internet and cable/satellite TV was way more simple, fun and happy.

Today, all of my family members own their own car, cell phone, have Internet, etc. However, my kids worked for those things. Did they get more than I did? Yes they did. Did it spoil them? No, it did not. They know how to work hard and aren't afraid to do it. They also live within their means.

Your argument is accurate to a point. Two-earner households enable families to buy things that their parents couldn't buy, but the over-all standard of living in my opinion, was better back then. I lived through those times at an age that I understood what was going on.

BTinNYC 

Children's bikes, I'm sure, are counted in.

prj71

Your definition of simple, fun and happy is different than mine.

As a 2 income household we have two 4 x 4 vehicles that are 3 and 4 years old, 5 weeks of a vacation a year to burn in addition to numerous paid holidays off, $20k worth of bikes in the garage, a $250k house and a lot of disposable income to go places and do things when we want. We don't have to eat TV dinners (nor do we want to because of how unhealthy they are) we buy healthy food to eat and we don't need to wait for a special occasion to go out and eat. We go out and eat when we want which at times may be 3 days a week. As someone born in 1971 the standard of living is much better for us than it was for our parents.

Koyote

None of this has any relation to inflation and the value of a dollar.

drlogik 

When I posted the link to the WSJ article I wasn't looking for an argument. It's just an article on bikes. I didn't say that my last post was related to inflation. My main point was that the 1960's and 70's were a simpler happier time for America and certainly for my family. I don't equate "things" with a simpler, happier life. Nor do I equate "things" with standard of living. That's my opinion. BTW, when were you born?


--

Koyote

I'm not sure what my age has to do with it...But since you are curious, I grew up in the same era as you. Those may have been "simpler happier" times for many people, but not for all. Remember that part of the reason for all of those traditional families (dad worked and mom tended the house and kids) was that women weren't afforded equal rights in education and in the labor force. Open discrimination against women was common (and legal) well into the 1960s, and so our moms simply had fewer options as young women.

I've never heard anyone other than straight white older men wax nostalgic for the "Leave it to Beaver" days of the '50s and '60s.

drlogik 

Koyote,

Points well taken. We still have a ways to go. The "Leave it to Beaver" days were already on the way out when I was a boy in the mid 1960's.

Bulette

Talking about every adult owning a car and a cell phone as if those are toys rather than practical necessities of a modern professional is a bit disingenuous. Not that I don't appreciate my phone when out and about, but then I also check work related emails, even during off hours (and worse, during my rides). In our single vehicle household, the vast majority of miles on the car are from the spouse's commute, while I often feel hamstrung without (the only retailer in walking distance is a Walgreens).

Anyway, on topic, the bikes I've been watching the last two years have all had 6-8% price increases (even as pre-orders go unfilled). Better buy now, the bike prices are definitely rising faster than my wage.

phughes

Quote:
The average selling price of a new bicycle in the U.S. in September was $346, up 28% compared with 2020 and 54% higher than the average selling price of a bicycle in 2019
No, that statement by itself does not quantify inflation. It simply compares the average selling price of bikes over two years. The average selling price of bikes each year does not compare the price of specific bikes. It simply shows an average of what people paid for bikes for those years. It is very possible people opted to buy higher end bikes, thereby driving up the average cost. You cannot make a judgement on inflation based on that comparison. That is not to say inflation hasn't occurred, but this comparison cannot quantify it.

Koyote

And you can't make a judgment on inflation from the price of ANY single item, since the typical household routinely buys hundreds (perhaps thousands) of different goods and services.

phughes

Well, you can judge inflation of that product, but that's all.

Koyote

Agreed, and I get what you're saying. But for clarity, the word "inflation" refers to a general increase in the prices of goods and services, not an increase in the price of one item -- unless we're talking about balloons, in which case it means something different.

phughes

Yes, I know. I was only playing with the word.

Sadly, articles like this do nothing to truly inform, since the reporter doesn't understand what they are reporting. All you can do is read critically, and look at how they got their numbers, and what they actually mean.

indyfabz

When it comes to tires, the trend is towards lower inflation.