Here’s an article from the people who claim that they’re smart about money:
As in many states, more Alaskans are without shelter due to rising housing costs. Average home values in Anchorage have grown 20% since 2019 to about $377,000, according to Zillow.
“grown 20%”? The BLS says that inflation since 2019 is about 22 percent:
So the average home value in Anchorage is, in real dollars, less than it was in 2019 (and yet lower if we think that official CPI understates our lived experience of inflation). This shows how powerful the Money Illusion is, even for journalists and editors whose job is to write about money.
Separately, how many of the homeless have documents that are sufficient to get through TSA screening?
Some are being offered one-way tickets to the Lower 48 states. “My focus is keeping people from freezing to death,” said Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson.
What’s the budget impact of this? If Anchorage sends a homeless person to San Francisco, Anchorage pays $500 for the plane ticket and San Francisco pays over $100,000 per year. (It was $106,500 per homeless individual in 2021 dollars, according to Hoover.)
Philip, inflation is indication of expansion of money supply. It can only be caused by government printing currency papers (except for bitcoin and such). It does not mean that new currency flows to an average Joe. But it means that overall everything becomes more expensive. In other words, it means that average person becomes poorer. That’s why libertarians call money printing stealing. So for someone on salary or on fixed income it is a huge problems. Younger active people can benefit form it by moving into places where newly printed money are I suppose, but this is hardly a best life choice and gains are very temporary, through the next inflation burst.
Separately, how many of the homeless have documents that are sufficient to get through TSA screening? Almost none!
Talking about inflation, last week I hired a plumber to replace 4 bathroom faucets and a garbage disposal under the kitchen sink. Just labor for each facet $320 and $500 for garbage disposal
Why did you have to hire a plumber for simple tasks? Why are some many people complaining about inflation of costs that can be greatly reduced if you just do it yourself?
Have we all become so incapable and lazy that we cannot watch a 5 minute youtube repair video?
If more people had basic trade skills (plumbing and electrical), this would greatly reduce the demand on the trades and lower the costs. Unfortunately today with the decrease of basic trade skills in the general population and the decrease of people entering the trades will cause inflation in the trades sector due to simple supply and demand economics.
@pavel I used to do these myself . But I broke my elbow really bad couple of years back and took a year to recover. So getting older and injury I decided to get help this time around
Pavel: A lot of plumbing operations seem to involve precision work in places that are barely accessible or visible, e.g., up behind a big sink. The plumber can do the work at 4X the speed and with much less risk of post-repair leaks.
For every 22%, something actually rose 50% while something else fell 28%.
lion, what fell 28% except an investment portfolio? I know plenty of of things that rose 50% +.