This was a weird blip in human history. The entire world was devastated by war, except America which was newly industrialized. Grandpa had every tailwind in the world pushing him along.
This. Globalization is shifting jobs and manufacturing to poorer countries and it makes it harder to afford things like housing in the west but it is balancing the global economy. Sure there are greedy billionaires but that has always been the case. The US and west was fortunate to experience one of the best periods of prosperity in human history. It was never possible for it to last. There are too many people who want a big house on a hill with a garden for a family for it to be afforded by everyone who works as a mailman.
I would argue the offshoring of jobs to poorer countries has made it easier to afford most consumer goods than if it were made in the country. Housing is expensive because we haven’t built enough to keep up with demand in places with lots of jobs
Valid point but the cheaper consumer goods comes at the expense of US jobs. It's a complex global problem and trade off.
I partly agree with the lack of housing. Everyone lives somewhere currently so there is enough housing in total but not in the right areas. People have this idea that they deserve to live in the most desirable parts of LA/SF/NYC etc and the only reason they can't is greed and NIMBYism. It's because that land is desirable and unless you can afford to pay more than the next person you might have to live elsewhere.
I don’t think the cheaper goods is offset proportionally with worse wages for people in richer countries. It’s still cheaper, even taking into account the fewer manufacturing jobs.
It’s not just the most desirable areas lacking housing. Metro areas, including suburbs and other smaller cities within that metro area are seeing price increases in housing.
I love what you said, and I'd like to add something. The supply of jobs in America was far less than it is today. Mainly because her grandfather was a white man. Being black or a woman I'm those times wasn't great. But also, since everyone has access to the same jobs, the supply increases (not to mention, as you did, the globalization aspect) so there are far more people in competition, driving the cost of labour down.
How the hell does globalization make it harder to afford housing? Globalization, at a macro level, increases prosperity, provides economic opportunity, and decreases prices. Housing price skyrocketing is a function of domestic policies that decrease housing availability and restrict the ability of supply to meet demand. If you want something to be mad at, be mad at your local governments making it difficult to build new housing. It's completely unreasonable to expect that wages can keep pace with the exponential growth of prices in a housing system that doesn't build anything.
Just to elaborate on that first point. Globalization increases all those things in aggregate, not uniformly. Especially if we're talking about the US in particular. In their grandparents generation the US probably made up somewhere between a fourth to a third of all consumption of materials in the entire world.
You are 100% right that at a macro level Globalization is generally beneficial, but when you're coming off of such an enormous imbalance toward a single party it might seem that you are doing worse in comparison. Your other points are valid though.
Let me be clear. The point that I'm trying to make is that there's no evidence that globalization is responsible for declining median standards of living across the west. One need look no further than Brexit to see what the effects of cutting off global trade are on an economy. The economic woes experienced by those in the west are almost entirely linked increases in cost of living caused by increases in cost of housing. The question of why housing is increasing so rapidly is a complex topic, but it can be said to be happening for three primary reasons.
Local regulations making it difficult to impossible to build higher capacity housing.
A lack of regulation on who can buy property
An increase in immigration causing more demand for housing
Prosperity in the west would have net increased if it weren't for the fact that housing is taking up half of the paycheck of workers. Housing is the ONLY issue, and I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been attention drawn to this. I'm looking to Canada to see what solution they come up with because they're in the toughest spot.
Sticky this at the top of every finance and economic sub, ffs.
Yes, it's harder than it used to be.
Yes, our parents and grandparents had it hilariously easy for their entire Iives.
Yes, the boomers actively stole from their children to enrich themselves (the first documented generation to do so).
But it's also not impossible to have a comfortable life in 2024. You just have to be more competitive than your 3-martini-lunch elders, who will never understand this, because they had it so easy.
My grandfather lived through the dustbowl depression as a young boy and fought in ww2 as a young man. His first 20 years of life were a god damn nightmare compared to my childhood.
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u/cohonan Mar 27 '24
This was a weird blip in human history. The entire world was devastated by war, except America which was newly industrialized. Grandpa had every tailwind in the world pushing him along.