Re: Land of let's only talk about whats wrong with the US

From: Robbie Lindauer (robblin@thetip.org)
Date: Sat Aug 23 2003 - 07:44:02 MDT

  • Next message: randy: "Considering standard of living (was Re: Land of let's only talk about whats wrong with the US)"

    On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 07:25 PM, Spike wrote:
    > Depends on what you mean by the term "support". If
    > one is satisfied with the standard of living they
    > had "then," one minimum salary is way more than sufficient
    > to make it happen.

    Minimum wage is below subsistence levels for families with children.

    > We expect more now, so it should
    > come as no surprise that it costs more.

    Actually, we expect less. For instance, it seems perfectly reasonable
    for people to pay 200-600k for a CONDO in West LA/Santa Monica.

    Now, if you're a decent earner (90k-150k) that'll take you
    approximately 30-years to pay for assuming you spend less than half
    your earning on your home.

    If you're a "not-quite-so-decent" earner and are in the "average"
    category, 40-60k, you can't afford to buy a condo in West LA/Santa
    Monica - EVER. You can get the same kind of thing in Pasadena or
    something.

    Now, compare to just 40 years ago - my Grandfather bought his VERY NICE
    house in Arcadia (kind of an upscale Pasadena at the time and now) for
    20k (which was A LOT). He was a "decent" earner for the time and paid
    for his house inside of 10 years.

    When he sold his house, he pocketed something like (I don't know the
    exact number) 500k (1990) but obviously couldn't afford to re-buy the
    same house with the money. (He's happily retired in La Jolla just in
    case you were worried about him... 88 years old and still kicking! A
    closet transhumanist, he's blind and wants to have his eyes replaced
    with artificial eyes, but can't because the FDA doesn't approve of the
    surgery...)

    > Earning a
    > subsistence level survival is cheaper and easier now
    > than ever before, and getting more so all the time.

    20 seconds on Google will show this to be false.

    Try starting here:

    http://www.weingart.org/institute/

    > One needn't even work: standing on a city streetcorner
    > with a "Will Not Work for Anything" sign will get you
    > all the donations needed to survive.

    Sure, if you don't mind sleeping in your own urine.

    > ...Then, you could pay for a piece of land capable of
    > sustaining your own family within 7 years by working...
    >
    > Today you can earn enough to support yourself in
    > a similar manner by working only a few months.

    Well it depends on what you do.

    Ebay - Real Estate, 40 acres (remember, 40 acres and a mule) with a
    house - farmable land.

    Generally well over 150k. I don't know about you, but earning and
    KEEPING 150k nowadays is a big deal "for most people".

    > Look around you, Robbie. Farmland is as cheap as,
    > well, dirt. It costs practically nothing.

    More than 1000/acre generally. You need about 40 acres to live on,
    that's 40,000. I happen to have it, but then I make good money.
    "MOST" people are negative in the cash arena.

    CF - http://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/jopovw/220.html

    Mostly due to inflation, rising BASIC costs of real estate,
    consolidation of income at the top 5% of earners, and of course the
    personal factors - lack of education, foolish spending, etc.

    "Most People" even though empirically are moving backwards in wealth
    creation still believe that they're saving money. (If you put 2000
    into an IRA this year, you think you're saving money, but if you've
    incurred more than 2000 in debt, you're losing money generally by 9% or
    more. "Most People" incurred more than 2000 in debt/negative finance
    last year.)

    > If all
    > you need to do is eat, like the "then" people, it
    > is so simple even the hippies managed it, after
    > a fashion.

    Where'd you pull this one out of? My parents were "hippies" that lived
    on a commune for a short time. Few of those succeeded. Very, Very few
    of them made it for more than 10 years. I doubt you could find more
    than 100 examples of "American Kibutz's".

    > But there is little need for all that effort. Most
    > farmers will let poor people glean the fields after
    > a harvest today, and there is *plenty* of discarded
    > clothing available for nothing or nearly so, clothing
    > much more comfortable, durable, practical and even
    > fashionable than anything the "then" people could
    > have managed.

    I don't know what makes you think this, but if you go onto the Dole
    Pineapple farm in Hawaii, they'll shoot you. And if you go into the
    Del Monte Tomato farms, they'll have you arrested. "MOST" farmland
    that's producing now is owned and operated by major corporations that
    don't appreciate "gleaning". I think you're thinking of the Biblical
    Law, but that was circa 4000 BC - TIMES HAVE CHANGED.

    > There is plenty of land in the U.S. which cannot
    > be farmed *profitably* for various reasons, but
    > which is still perfectly farmable for food production
    > on a family scale, as demonstrated by the Amish.

    The Amish farm profitably.

    http://personal.bgsu.edu/~nordstr/amishinnov.html

    Again, 20 seconds on google.

    > This land can be had for a few hundred dollars an
    > acre, all of it you want.

    That's a few THOUSAND dollars/acre for farmable land. Even Arizona
    desert land is up around 500/acre. And you CAN'T farm that.

    > Granted, it might not
    > be near any cities or actual roads, but it has
    > water and good soil, land that the "then" people
    > would have gone to war to secure.

    The "then" people did go to war to secure it. But ALL of the land with
    WATER in it now has restrictions on the use of that water. If you buy
    land with a stream running through it that currently doesn't have a
    farm, it's nearly impossible to get a variance to let you start farming
    it since, with near certainty, someone else downstream is already using
    that water.

    > If you don't care for any of the luxuries that we
    > have today, the cars, the electronics, the internet,
    > the medical care, the stuff that the "then" people
    > didn't have, earning a living has become so simple
    > as to be trivial today. sp

    I don't know about you, but I pay $40/month for my home DSL and you can
    buy a computer now for less than 200, plus another $100 or so for
    monthly.

    On the other hand, food bills for a family of four are around
    $2000/month. By FAR the biggest expenses are Rent/Mortgage and Food.

    Speaking of health care - THEN there was a local doctor who would do
    house visits for $1 OR LESS. NOW you can't get a doctor to do house
    visits and it costs upwards of $100/visit (even the copay IF you have
    insurance is 10-20). For those of you who can count, thats 2000x
    inflation. You might argue that the medical care is better - which it
    is if you happen to be among the wealthies 5% of americans - the rest
    of us are dying at alarming rates from some of the same diseases and
    injuries that were killing THEM THEN with much worse new ones
    including, by far, the largest killers - Accidental Death, Malignant
    Neoplasms and Heart Disease. CF - http://webapp.cdc.gov

    And while the life expectancy has raised pretty significantly ON
    AVERAGE, just about nobody lives past 120, and most people still die in
    their 70s.

    Consider:

    http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4822a1.htm

    Which states that great progress has been made in health since the turn
    of the century BUT it does it's survey based on coal-mining. Now, coal
    mining while dangerous, is no longer as large an industry as it was in
    1900 and this study, while an interesting study of coal-mining related
    deaths, is just baloney WITH THAT HEADLINE. The truth is, as it was
    then, MOST PEOPLE DIE of accidental deaths, followed by whatever the
    current flavor of disease is (polio, cancer, etc.)

    And the Extropic point in all of this is that the bottom line is that
    the death rate continues to be 100%. Now you can make yourself feel
    better about having better food (like In-N-Out) and better water
    (probably false) but making a case for an overall improvement in the
    quality and length of life is pretty hard when you actually look at the
    data.

    NOT THAT things can't be potentially better, just that they are MERELY
    potentially better.

    In any case, happy Saturday MORNING!

    Best,

    Robbie Lindauer



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