Don't forget homeowner's insurance is increasing in cost too. The fundamental things...housing, autos, insurance for both, day care...all are more expensive. This makes young and lower income families very sensitive to gas and egg prices. As for the rest of the complainers....I have traveled a bit this summer and have had nothing but full flights, crowded airports, crowded museums. I imagine they bought boats last year as JVL suggests and are having nice vacations. Complaining is just a thing they do to show that they're mad at the current administration.
National VAT of 5% every time inflation exceeds target, excepts food and non-luxury clothing. Proceeds only to be used for debt reduction and then shoring up SSA/Medicare/Medicaid
I listened to the podcast on the way to a dog show Saturday. One thing missing for the increased cost of car insurance is all the billion dollar natural disasters happening in recent years- scorched cars, flooded cars , smashed cars as wildfires, tornados, flooding, hurricanes have become a staple of the evening news.
Not a week goes by without seeing images of broken lives from these extreme weather events with the destroyed houses and cars that cause insurance to skyrocket across the board.
The housing thing is interesting to me because, as much as Millennials like me don’t like to think about our parents generation dying out, American Baby Boomers are diminishing at a rate estimated to be 2000 humans per day. Boomers also own something like 38% of the housing in the US. We need more housing now, but I’m not sure that we will still need that housing in 20 years.
Regarding the building of more houses, we need to do it right. Infill in cities and redevelopment can be a good thing. Suburban sprawl onto farm land or wildlands is not good. California has too many people, so let's not build there. Maybe the Dakotas and Wyoming would like to see more houses and people.
Democrats don’t really want immigration. Their positions are all over the place. In abstracts they say they do, but when in comes to practical points they get cold feet. They are big into “immigrants keep locals wages low,” a very popular position by trade unions. Through credentialism they support policies that keep college-educated foreign-born people from practicing in their areas of education. In education, the lowest paid classroom jobs (sometimes below local minimum wages through exceptions given to government and nonprofit entities) are mostly done by foreign-born women with advanced degrees. Do you remember the practice of keeping women out of the well-paying male jobs in the old times? This practice still exists for foreign-born women, but the divide now is educated in the US vs. educated outside the US (in my experience, this is less of a problem for Northen European, Scandinavian and, partially, French women). Special education in California would not exists without the Latin American, Asian, Southern and Eastern European, and African women with PhDs and Masters doing jobs than in theory only ask for a GED but, in practice require much more complex thinking and education. These women unofficially mentor and jump in to cover for their overwhelmed teachers, teach for them, and resolve problems well outside their pay scale. Meanwhile, the systems keep adding hurdles than in reality are only a way to keep them moving to higher paying jobs. Many times these women followed spouses to the US when they joined a US corporation or institution or were admitted to a higher education program in the US. Many of them left careers in healthcare, the corporate world, education, journalism, you name it, and were never able to find similar jobs in here. Many times, there are true language barriers, but many others the issue is accent discrimination. An African born, British-educated person I know who followed a software engineer spouse told me that she is often told by prospective employers they prefer a native English speaker. She is a native English speaker, just from another English-speaking country. So now she is getting a completely unnecesary degree from an American institution so she can access the types of iobs she used to do and has been unable to get since moving here.
When the opposition party and its associated media are free to lie without limit or repercussion, and people are so locked into their own particular echo chambers, of course half the country is going to overlook the fact that the economy has bounced back impressively from the Pandemic. Trump and Fox News tell people over and over and over that the country is in an awful state, and eventually the message sticks. That’s the nature of propaganda.
Really enjoyed the range of topics in this discussion. Annie brings a lot of info. May I add a bit about auto insurance & repair costs?
Dunno if people got worse at driving during pandemic. Remember many insurers rebating some premium $ because miles driven dropped dramatically for a few months? So accidents declined for awhile. I get your point about anger/acting out behind the wheel but that conflates with other recent phenomena like cell phone use/texting, overall stress level in society rising, etc.
Dunno about age as a factor (biased cuz I have a LOT of that). To geezers, it seems like all those younguns on the road are looking at their phones too much. You KNOW if I'm talking to you!
Next let's look at the tight labor market in auto & body repair. Plus the huge increase in prices of auto parts, partly a supply chain disruption issue but one reason we feel like there's corporate greed is that prices are sticky - once raised due to supply chain, prices aren't reduced when the chain smooths out: "people will pay the higher price, so why roll it back? Let's make up for the reduced profits we briefly had to deal with."
Insurance nerd here - this is a good take. Connected cars are also driving up costs. It’s not as simple as replacing a bumper if there are sensors to prevent lane drift, alert of close objects, etc. so the costs will stay higher than historical levels even if you don’t account for inflation. Additionally, certain areas are troubled with wildfire, flooding and other Catastrophic risks that get embedded into actuarial models that have more to do with location than driving behavior. It’s fundamentally changing rate model and loss pick assumptions. Supply chain and labor shortages are certainly cost factors as well.
So true! Tech where it never existed before. In the '70s you could buy a side mirror to bolt onto driver's door or fender for $15 and put it on with 2 screws - do it myself for inflation-adjusted $90. Last summer someone clipped the driver's mirror on our 2020 minivan in a parking lot - it's motorized, has defrosting coils, and is molded into the door frame & side window. No way to repair myself with auto parts store generic. Body shop bill = $900!
Similar for all body parts given modern design - even the non-tech parts are more complex is size & design, of more expensive materials.
Homoeconomicus is a very short sighted way to look at the electorate. We don’t have enough housing for a whole lot of reasons, many of them rooted in tribal, cultural ideas. There was redlining that started decades ago and in some places is still quietly practiced.
How many houses are off the market due to VRBO and AirBNB and such?
The lack of supposedly “smart” people to look at the bigger picture is always interesting to me.
Also, Fla. Tx. Az. Ca. are going to experience the brunt of climate change, no mention of that. Look at homeowners rates in those places!!!
I would love to downsize from my family sized house to a smaller house. It’s my dream that will probably not happen. Why? Property taxes.
I live just outside of Austin. If I sold and downgraded I would double+ my property taxes. Currently I pay taxes on 1/2 the appraised value of my house and I can, hopefully, manage that well into retirement even with the 10% annual increase. If I sell and buy a new house, even if smaller, it will likely cost close to what I can sell my current house for and then my taxes will instantly double and guarantee I will not be able to afford to stay in my house until property taxes make it too expensive if the home insurance doesn’t whack me first.
The same is true for me in another state. If we downsize we'd end up paying all the money from our appreciated house (had it for 25 years) would go for remodeling an older single story house in a neighborhood we want because the area is old and the property tax would increase. We certainly don't want a mortgage again at our age and retirement status so we'll stay put.
Don't forget homeowner's insurance is increasing in cost too. The fundamental things...housing, autos, insurance for both, day care...all are more expensive. This makes young and lower income families very sensitive to gas and egg prices. As for the rest of the complainers....I have traveled a bit this summer and have had nothing but full flights, crowded airports, crowded museums. I imagine they bought boats last year as JVL suggests and are having nice vacations. Complaining is just a thing they do to show that they're mad at the current administration.
National VAT of 5% every time inflation exceeds target, excepts food and non-luxury clothing. Proceeds only to be used for debt reduction and then shoring up SSA/Medicare/Medicaid
Great show
Tim,
Love your pod, and thoroughly enjoyed your interview with Annie Lowrey.
But … you and she should have done some quick googling on who the worst drivers are.
https://www.automotive-fleet.com/10203947/study-identifies-worst-drivers-by-generation
Keep up the great work. I love the variety of guests you have.
Tim, you bring on the best guests! Love listening to your podcasts. Thanks!
I listened to the podcast on the way to a dog show Saturday. One thing missing for the increased cost of car insurance is all the billion dollar natural disasters happening in recent years- scorched cars, flooded cars , smashed cars as wildfires, tornados, flooding, hurricanes have become a staple of the evening news.
Not a week goes by without seeing images of broken lives from these extreme weather events with the destroyed houses and cars that cause insurance to skyrocket across the board.
dear tim,
1. you are 100% right about everything so far.😘
2. biden's gotta go! i've emailed the WH twice.
3. my swing vote brother (obama, obama, trump, biden) will vote RFK if biden doesn't drop out. 😖 (the fam will work on that...)
4. i would buy 10 subscriptions if i could afford it to compensate for the haters.
5. i texted the 10 black people i know (i'm white) to ask if they'll revolt if it's NOT kamala:
most basically just want WHOEVER will WIN.
I 💚YOU and the BULWARK.
an adoring lib,
steph powers
tampa, FL
The housing thing is interesting to me because, as much as Millennials like me don’t like to think about our parents generation dying out, American Baby Boomers are diminishing at a rate estimated to be 2000 humans per day. Boomers also own something like 38% of the housing in the US. We need more housing now, but I’m not sure that we will still need that housing in 20 years.
same thing happened with schools - built to accomodate our generation and now empty or turned into apartments.
Those were my thoughts, too.
Regarding the building of more houses, we need to do it right. Infill in cities and redevelopment can be a good thing. Suburban sprawl onto farm land or wildlands is not good. California has too many people, so let's not build there. Maybe the Dakotas and Wyoming would like to see more houses and people.
Democrats don’t really want immigration. Their positions are all over the place. In abstracts they say they do, but when in comes to practical points they get cold feet. They are big into “immigrants keep locals wages low,” a very popular position by trade unions. Through credentialism they support policies that keep college-educated foreign-born people from practicing in their areas of education. In education, the lowest paid classroom jobs (sometimes below local minimum wages through exceptions given to government and nonprofit entities) are mostly done by foreign-born women with advanced degrees. Do you remember the practice of keeping women out of the well-paying male jobs in the old times? This practice still exists for foreign-born women, but the divide now is educated in the US vs. educated outside the US (in my experience, this is less of a problem for Northen European, Scandinavian and, partially, French women). Special education in California would not exists without the Latin American, Asian, Southern and Eastern European, and African women with PhDs and Masters doing jobs than in theory only ask for a GED but, in practice require much more complex thinking and education. These women unofficially mentor and jump in to cover for their overwhelmed teachers, teach for them, and resolve problems well outside their pay scale. Meanwhile, the systems keep adding hurdles than in reality are only a way to keep them moving to higher paying jobs. Many times these women followed spouses to the US when they joined a US corporation or institution or were admitted to a higher education program in the US. Many of them left careers in healthcare, the corporate world, education, journalism, you name it, and were never able to find similar jobs in here. Many times, there are true language barriers, but many others the issue is accent discrimination. An African born, British-educated person I know who followed a software engineer spouse told me that she is often told by prospective employers they prefer a native English speaker. She is a native English speaker, just from another English-speaking country. So now she is getting a completely unnecesary degree from an American institution so she can access the types of iobs she used to do and has been unable to get since moving here.
No
When the opposition party and its associated media are free to lie without limit or repercussion, and people are so locked into their own particular echo chambers, of course half the country is going to overlook the fact that the economy has bounced back impressively from the Pandemic. Trump and Fox News tell people over and over and over that the country is in an awful state, and eventually the message sticks. That’s the nature of propaganda.
Really enjoyed the range of topics in this discussion. Annie brings a lot of info. May I add a bit about auto insurance & repair costs?
Dunno if people got worse at driving during pandemic. Remember many insurers rebating some premium $ because miles driven dropped dramatically for a few months? So accidents declined for awhile. I get your point about anger/acting out behind the wheel but that conflates with other recent phenomena like cell phone use/texting, overall stress level in society rising, etc.
Dunno about age as a factor (biased cuz I have a LOT of that). To geezers, it seems like all those younguns on the road are looking at their phones too much. You KNOW if I'm talking to you!
Next let's look at the tight labor market in auto & body repair. Plus the huge increase in prices of auto parts, partly a supply chain disruption issue but one reason we feel like there's corporate greed is that prices are sticky - once raised due to supply chain, prices aren't reduced when the chain smooths out: "people will pay the higher price, so why roll it back? Let's make up for the reduced profits we briefly had to deal with."
Please check out this article for good overview:
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/11/car-repairs-are-getting-more-expensive-heres-why.html
Insurance nerd here - this is a good take. Connected cars are also driving up costs. It’s not as simple as replacing a bumper if there are sensors to prevent lane drift, alert of close objects, etc. so the costs will stay higher than historical levels even if you don’t account for inflation. Additionally, certain areas are troubled with wildfire, flooding and other Catastrophic risks that get embedded into actuarial models that have more to do with location than driving behavior. It’s fundamentally changing rate model and loss pick assumptions. Supply chain and labor shortages are certainly cost factors as well.
So true! Tech where it never existed before. In the '70s you could buy a side mirror to bolt onto driver's door or fender for $15 and put it on with 2 screws - do it myself for inflation-adjusted $90. Last summer someone clipped the driver's mirror on our 2020 minivan in a parking lot - it's motorized, has defrosting coils, and is molded into the door frame & side window. No way to repair myself with auto parts store generic. Body shop bill = $900!
Similar for all body parts given modern design - even the non-tech parts are more complex is size & design, of more expensive materials.
Homoeconomicus is a very short sighted way to look at the electorate. We don’t have enough housing for a whole lot of reasons, many of them rooted in tribal, cultural ideas. There was redlining that started decades ago and in some places is still quietly practiced.
How many houses are off the market due to VRBO and AirBNB and such?
The lack of supposedly “smart” people to look at the bigger picture is always interesting to me.
Also, Fla. Tx. Az. Ca. are going to experience the brunt of climate change, no mention of that. Look at homeowners rates in those places!!!
Meanwhile, wealth continues to flow upward to the billionaire class with only minor leakage — surely not trickling — along the way.
I would love to downsize from my family sized house to a smaller house. It’s my dream that will probably not happen. Why? Property taxes.
I live just outside of Austin. If I sold and downgraded I would double+ my property taxes. Currently I pay taxes on 1/2 the appraised value of my house and I can, hopefully, manage that well into retirement even with the 10% annual increase. If I sell and buy a new house, even if smaller, it will likely cost close to what I can sell my current house for and then my taxes will instantly double and guarantee I will not be able to afford to stay in my house until property taxes make it too expensive if the home insurance doesn’t whack me first.
The same is true for me in another state. If we downsize we'd end up paying all the money from our appreciated house (had it for 25 years) would go for remodeling an older single story house in a neighborhood we want because the area is old and the property tax would increase. We certainly don't want a mortgage again at our age and retirement status so we'll stay put.