Interesting Data About Inflation and Millenials - 1970 vs 2017

Why should I believe you, The only statistical data was from the Bureau , witch should be questioned on how the sampling was made . the data on cars and on tuition , that was your concoction, and the fool is your self by pretending as been an authority on the issue.

 

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Which I 100% agree with - take where I am in the IT field - I have been a helpdesk tech (level 1, level 2, and emergency operations and dispatch), a network administrator (including hardware deployment, cable running, et al - basically, the sole IT guy on site, responsible for anything and everything IT related in any capacity), enterprise monitoring technician, non-functional software analyst, hardware repair tech, etc...

I have an Associates in CNIT. All but one of these positions stated, on their listing, that they required a Bachelors degree... it was only thanks to a friend "on the inside" at each job that I was able to get an interview despite not meeting the "minimum qualifications", and I excelled at each one once given the chance.

Yet... a lot of people are left out in the cold without that insider help... it's bullshit.

 

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timojin, if you take umbrage with the data, then prove it wrong. I made the initial post months ago, and no longer have the supplemental spreadsheet I had made to assist with calculating all that. however:

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_320.asp
A cursory glance here shows my numbers being pretty ballpark, accurate to within a hundred dollars or so.

https://college-education.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005532
This shows the values for 1971, adjusted for inflation:

They put 4 year public school at $2499 per year.
My numbers above, after adjusting for inflation in a very rough way (the 630% increase) - $2,255

I was off by... oh, lookit that, less than $250 per year, or about 10%. I think that is a fairly acceptable margin of error, considering the "napkin math" being done.

So, I say again Timojin - what, pray tell, is your beef? If you don't like the math, then do it yourself and prove me wrong. Otherwise, you are just blowing hot air... and frankly, I don't have time to waste with people that would rather bitch and complain than argue facts.

 

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Part of that process is networking, being strategic and understanding politics. You have to get noticed but if you can't deliver, it doesn't matter. The problem is too many have been brought up to believe that a degree is a default entry to certain positions and that is a priviledged type of perspective. If you don't have anymore ability than the next person or even less, it really doesn't count. So just having a BA today, doesn't really mean much. The world is becoming more technical everyday, so people have to adjust.

When I was working at Ibm, some of my co-workers did have degrees but that didn't necessarily mean they were better at their job. I have a knack for seeing the big picture and understanding how a system works and the interrelated components others may miss so I was able to streamline the process more efficiently for my clients.

It is important to get your degree, it's just not the end of the story or that it guarantees anything, especially if you don't know what the heck you are doing or not good at what you do.

 

Get informed on price on housing , check on a realtor (Zillow) thy are all over the USA and you will open your eyes a little more than the Bureau.

 

OK Timojin... since you seem unwilling to get the point:

Either present a counter argument with some sort of data to back it up (and no, your personal story doesn't suffice), or GTFO of this thread. We get it - you don't trust the big bad government... tough cookies. This isn't the conspiracies section.

 

Aye - the problem is, a lot of jobs are "gated" by the requirement for those degrees per the company HR department. I don't have a good solution to this, though...

 

40 or so years ago, a cab company in new york ran an add looking to hire cabbies. The add required them to have Phds.
When the head of the cab company was asked why he wanted people with Phds to drive his cabs, he responded "Because I can get them".

...............
circa 1973 I was working the line at american motors(for about $5/hr). We had 2 Phds on the line at the lakefront plant(that I knew of). One day, I asked one phd why he was working the line. His response: "Because I like to eat"

 

Where did I state that I took Umbrage ??
I merely pointed out that in your Post #12, when you stated :" I put forth the effort to compile a not insignificant bit of data...", that To be 100% Honest, Kittamaru, you merely accessed/Linked to data that others had already compiled.
Good Data - but as you now state, Honestly, it was "compiled by groups with access to far greater pools of data than I, as an individual, could ever hope to accomplish on my own"
So, No Kittamaru, I DO NOT take umbrage.

As a matter of fact, Kittamaru, The first Source that I linked to Support my Position was actually from the same Source as one of yours Linked in the OP! : http://www.in2013dollars.com/1776-dollars-in-2017?amount=1

As I stated , part one :
Seeing as how the various aspects of the Economy of the U.S. is(or is failed to be!?) managed/controlled/policed - there will continue to be ups and downs of varying degrees and and lengths of duration...is that not a given?

And part two :
Seeing as how different individuals within each Generation have various levels of understanding of that Generations True Economic Workings(?) and the various Ideals, Abilities and Work Ethos of those different individuals, would it not be fair to say those individuals of ANY generation that were/are willing to put forth the required Hard Work, then NO financial situation was/is, quite simply, untenable...is that not a given?

???I have no inkling as to what any of that is about???

Kittamaru, how does any of that make it "obvious" that it isn't a given ??? :
for those individuals of ANY generation that were/are willing to put forth the required Hard Work, then NO financial situation was/is, quite simply, untenable...

Read my "claim" again Kittamaru, please...???
those individuals of ANY generation that were/are willing to put forth the required Hard Work, then NO financial situation was/is, quite simply, untenable...

 

Then you are trolling. I took the time to compile data from multiple sources - or do you dispute I used multiple sources now?

Your point being?

Which is it - was it controlled, or did whomever you are implicating fail to control it? And given or not - it is a red herring and irrelevant in the context of the discussion (IE, that saying millennials are lazy is the problem is a faulty premise)

I don't know - you haven't provided anything to make it seem a given... perhaps some, I dunno, evidence would be a good start?

Of course you don't...

You have provided nothing to support this claim, other than asserting it repeatedly, versus multiple sources supporting the claim I have posted... you are trolling, again.

 

1.) Your Post #19 - You accuse me of taking umbrage with data....
So... I explain to you that I took no umbrage with that data...and actually used some of it to support my Claim/Position...

Then you claim that I am Trolling???

2.) Your Post #12 - You state/claim that you put forth the effort to compile a not insignificant bit of data...
Your Post #19 - You state/claim that the data was compiled by groups with access to far greater pools of data than I, as an individual, could ever hope to accomplish on my own...
Your Post #30 - You state/claim that you took the time to compile data from multiple sources...

And you ask if I want to dispute that??
Kittamaru, why would I want to take umbrage at or dispute sources that supported my claim or position???

3.) Your Post #30 - You state/claim that I have provided nothing to support this claim, other than asserting it repeatedly, versus multiple sources supporting the claim I have posted... you are trolling, again.
???!!!???!!!???!!!???!!!
Kittamaru, This Linked Source that I have provided TWICE previously : http://www.in2013dollars.com/1776-dollars-in-2017?amount=1 ,
clearly shows the numerous Highs and Lows/Ups and Downs/Peaks and Troughs of about 350 years of the U.S. Inflation rate - and during that entire History it has always been a given that :
those individuals of ANY generation that were/are willing to put forth the required Hard Work, then NO financial situation was/is, quite simply, untenable...

Kittamaru, that is one of the main tenets of The American Way!!!...The American Dream!!!...The Brass Ring!!!

Why do you want to argue against the American Ideal ??? that :
those individuals of ANY generation that were/are willing to put forth the required Hard Work, then NO financial situation was/is, quite simply, untenable...

Why must you refuse to see that, Kittamaru???
Why must you continue to Refute what is simply a given, Kittamaru???
Why must you continue to Deny what History has repeatedly shown , Kittamaru???

 

You have continually failed to back your assertion that " those individuals of ANY generation that were/arewilling to put forth the required Hard Work, then NO financial situation was/is, quite simply, untenable..." and yiu have failed to do so again. This isn't the pseudoscience forum dmoe - you can't just repeat an unsupported claim ad nauseum and expect it to stick.

 

GTFO??

So the Mods has the power to openly and publicly order a member to GTFO of? Yeah, Kittamaru?
Timojin fault is he seem to be unwilling to get the point as propounded by Kittamaru.
This site seems to have become Kittamaru's personal fiefdom.

 

Do you actually have any point relating to the thread topic, or are you just here to indulge your personal grudge?

 

How many cars have you purchased in your life span , how mary real estate, with how many people have you associates that have gone to college during the time span you mentioned ?

 

I've purchased three cars total, have been in several different townhouses, and have at least a dozen or more close friends that have either gone to college or gone to trade school. All of that is Irrelevant in the face of several hundred thousand data points though. That seems to be what you don't understand.

 

A poor person is not buying a new car, but rather a used one. In that market, the price of the cheapest new car on the market at the moment is hardly relevant. The median price of the new car actually sold five years ago is more to the point.

Further, the ownership cost total rather than merely the purchase price is the immediately relevant number - and here we find the Nissan is not a "much better vehicle", since a poor person cannot maintain or repair it themselves, insure it cheaply, or even (in my experience) park it outside in the winter and still start it reliably.

Another factor: the ante - what economists call the entry barrier. In the modern economy, it has been obscured by credit - but the costs of credit are not then figured into the minimum costs of ownership, because they are optional in theory. The net is that the poor are often forced into higher costs than the minimum available to others - say, the thrifty rich. Paycheck cashing services are one obvious example, but the higher rate of fees and interest and even taxes, lower durability and more frequent breakdown/replacement costs of poor quality goods, higher proportional cost of insurance (the poor subsidize those fancy sports cars), and so forth, should all be figured in. Food costs more in the ghetto, not less. So does the medical care contingent upon a poor diet and high stress job (lower paid work is usually higher stress), and so forth.

So comparing minimum prices of stuff, then and now, misleads as easily as comparing "average" prices.

 

Apocryphal? Regardless: An example of credential illusion - a Phd would not be my choice of a cab driver, if I had an applicant pool of any reasonable size. I've seen them get lost on the bus. But as a sales gimmick? Kudos.

Works for the Phds, too - better pay and working conditions than teaching at Peoria Community College, and much better opportunities for advancement.

Most of these credential farces seem to be rooted in the need to sell something to somebody - one's hiring protocol to an incompetent boss or board? Same with the drug testing.

 

Aye, and as I said in the initial post, my numbers are extremely rough. I know I don't have the background knowledge to adjust for every possible change in economic status, factor in average cost of maintenance, mileage, and other ownership charges, etc - that is beyond the scope of what my workbook math was able to handle.

If you have the time, knowledge, and interest to run such a calculation yourself, I would be interested to see the results - things like this make me wish I had continued to pursue computer programming more. A data aggregate program to collect, sort, and analyze large quantities of data at once could potentially be very useful in this kind of setting (though it would have to be checked and re-checked for accuracy, of course).

 

Poor people don't buy "median" cars. They buy the cheapest cars they can get.

So let's check out Kelley's Blue Book to see what a five year old car costs:

Nissan Versa S (100K miles, manual, fair condition) - $4700
Ford Fiesta - $4300

Agreed. And since cars get 2-3x better gas mileage than they did in the 1970's, that helps a lot.

"But gas prices have gone up!" - yes they have, but not by much.

Gas prices in 1970 - $2.12 (adjusted to 2017 numbers)
Current gas prices - $2.62

MPG of the 1970 VW Beetle - 20mpg
MPG of the Versa - 31mpg city

Gas cost to drive 100 miles in the Beetle in 1970 - $10.60 (2017 dollars)
Gas cost to drive 100 miles in the Versa in 2017 - $8.45

They never could. The myth that the average person in 1970 could tear down an engine and fix it - but the same person would be stymied by any repair today - is just that.

What is more important is reliability (and maintenance cost) over time. And cars have gotten far more reliable since the 1970's. Cars used to come with five digit odometers - because a car lasting more than 99,000 miles was the exception. The average cost of car maintenance declined by 13 percent between 1997 and 2009 in the UK, due primarily to them not breaking down as much, but secondarily because built-in diagnostics made them easier for mechanics to fix. Trade-in times have gotten longer over time (73 months in 2009, 65 months in 2006) because people are keeping their (more reliable) cars longer.

An old girlfriend had a VW bug. They were much worse than modern cars in New York winters.

Average prices are a great way to look at the cost of living for the middle class. But poor people don't pay average prices. They pay the least they can. So minimum prices are what's important for them.

EDIT to fix LaTeX formatting - Kittamaru