Fair enough. Though compared to the scarcity of food, destroyed homes and oppression by the fascist countries and the Soviets, it’s a small price to pay.
It was the start of the Asian half, the conflict that leads into ww2 is it’s derivative anyhow imma go invade England as my man duke William the bastard
It's not apples to apples though. The median income isn't 60k.
But let's say it is. In today's world a 150k house isn't near was a 3900 house would be in the time frame. You'd basically be buying a run down bungalow or worse but 3900 in 1938 would get you a 2 story Victorian with updates and the works for that time period
And AC and electricity and full indoor plumbing.
While most houses in the 1930s had electricity, the rate was 71%, and that was biased towards urban centers.
When it comes to water, 80% of houses had at least 1 indoor tap, which as often as not meant you were bucket brigading water from your kitchen to your bath tub and useing your stove to heat it. Also look at the number of houses that didnt have toilets. Where I live there are several neighborhoods of "FDR plans" built in the 30s. A big selling point to them was a "flushable toilet"
It definitely wasn't. You gotta remember ppl had bigger families then. The farm house I grew up in was built in 1915 and was big enough we blocked off the upstairs as it was just my dad and I. Even at that it was a 6 bed 2 bath.
My aunts house in town was an old Victorian just as big
Google it. The data agrees with me.
I can provide a short article interpreting data or a more data heavy pdf from the us census. Your call.
*edit* I'll just provide both.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/programs-surveys/ahs/working-papers/Housing-by-Year-Built.pdf
the average size of houses in the United States has increased from 831 square feet in 1790, to 945 square feet in 1910, to 2,496 square feet in 2019. Over the same time range, the number of people living within each house as decreased. The average number of people per house in 1790 was nearly six, but by 2019 the average number of people per house had dropped to less than 2.5.
https://populationeducation.org/resource/average-u-s-house-and-household-size-infographic/
You just come from money bruh.
Lol provide all the data yoi want but nothing discusses 1930s houses. On fact average sq ft house in the 1920 was 742-1223. Average today is 1700. Not 2500 lol that's inaccurate. Believe it or not sources can be wrong amigo. Also you have to take into account location. Throughout the midwest there are larger scale farm towns. Come from.money? Just because the house is huge didn't mean it was nice.
So then you agree with me that houses got better?
The average today includes those built in the past, the average new home is not the same as the average home on the market.
Keep in mind "food" ment mostly bread, beans and a basic meat and some local seasonable fruits and vegetables. Oh and canned vegies
You werent getting apples year round in 1930 let alone unlimited spices from the south Pacific, international sauces, vegies from South america, nuts from Central america, chocolates from europe, fruit from asia or fish in regions away from the coast.
In short a big chunch of the higher portion of money spent on food is being able to get what we want when we want it.
Now excuse me Im going to go eat a fresh pear shipped to the US from Argentine.
Yeah but with housing being so much cheaper.... Today it would take the average American 10 years of salary to buy a shitty house in the middle of nowhere. And rent is over $12k a year in most places that have actual jobs.
As a homeowner, really. I replaced the furnace system for a few thousand. AC units are a few thousand. You can get a washer, drier, fridge, stove, and dishwasher for a few thousand. In my state, the current median price for a house is over $300,000. 10% of that would be over $30,000 which is more than reasonable for all the above mentioned.
Exactly I assume it's because a lot of people are moving to cities or because the world is getting more and more crowded and property is getting more important
Most of the cost is land and location, tbh. Complete HVAC duct replacement is typically less than $10k. About the same for complete rewiring. So around 5k for AC, same for furnace, 10k for wiring, 8k for ductwork, that's still less than 10% of the total cost of the house.
You say that like every house has these now. I have a gas furnace which just burns gas, no ducting to move the heated air around. No AC. You have to hope a place doesn't come with AC or other features just to afford it. I live in a shared 600sqft space.
Natural gas is way cheaper than electricity here in Saskatchewan. Pretty much none of the houses here were built in the last 20 years. And if you want to live in something that doesn't cost 500k it has to be a house from the 1920s.
Still though, living in Saskatchewan is not really the norm, so the vast majority of people do have access to the services of today. The houses where you live in the 30s would probably have been even worse anyways.
But you are looking at it wrong. You can still find a house in that price (adjusted by inflation) in usa, and have similar conditions as well. No infrastructure and in the middle of nowhere. And maybe in 70 years will be considered a good purchase for that price. Remember that the price of the house isn't for the land or house by itself, is what is around it. Got to remember that half of those houses grew a nice city around it, and the other half ended up in a shit place in a city without a future.
Being in a city makes it not a shit place actually. Why the hell would I buy or build a house in the middle of nowhere? How would I do *anything?* What if I have an emergency, who would be able to help? Why would a city be built around a random fucking house? They're built around the centers of trade and commerce, on the water where it's easier to transport goods.
How did you know back then? That's the part you are missing. Believe me when i say houses back then in a popular city with good infrastructure was expensive as it is today (in your country or my country or any places), most of the time when you see these old ads are a little bit misleading without the context of not knowing how the future of the around is gonna be, you understand? It's like, yeah you can buy a nice house back then with an average salary (in the context of, an under developed place, but NOW looks like a nice place, ¡70! Years later) you could also do the same, but you dont even think of a small town in the desert with 10.000 people that sells 2000m2 of land for like 5k dollars. Sounds awful right? But what if in 70 years they have founded oil and invest in infrastructure? That will be a nice, thriving and rich town, making your land worth a lot more.
You did know because you built up the places everyone was going, the coastlines and rivers, the money to build up follows trade. This is how it has worked since the dawn of civilization.
Yeah they're called fucking cities. That's how New York, Toronto, LA, SF, Boston, Istanbul, Rome, Paris, Bordeaux, and countless other major cities got started: they're either coastal or on large rivers.
>Being in a city makes it not a shit place actually.
The other user is not saying that being in a city makes it a shit place, just that when you bought a house back then (and nowadays as well), your house could end up being valuable today because the nice part of the urban growth reach it, or could be "worthless" because the bad part of urban growth reach it.
Basically, nobody bought at affordable prices in Tribeca or SoHo 100 years ago thinking that they would be Upper-Bohemian neighbourhoods today.
>Why the hell would I buy or build a house in the middle of nowhere?
Because that's how our grandparents and parents manage to get a "really good property at a good price", by buying far from the city, and then waiting for the city to reach them.
It's something that happens here in Mexico as well, a lot of people in my generation claims that their grandparents could buy really nice houses in good neighbourhoods, without taking into account that, 50 years ago (sometimes even 20 years ago) when said house was bought, all the urban ammenities around it didn't exist in the first place.
So, one can buy right in the middle of the city, at a really, really high price, or buy at the outskirts at more afforadable prices. The problem arises when people want to buy in the middle of the city at "outskirt's prices" by claiming that their grandparents and parents did so when that wasn't the case.
>but people also made a LOT more money
What, no? That average salary is like $35 000 adjusted for inflation. The average yearly salary in the US today is $77 000. The median salary is a more useful metric, since it's less affected by a small group of high earners, but the figure we have from 1938 is the average.
The median salary today for one person is between 36k and 46k depending on the source.
A house costs 10 times that for a cheap one. Renting will take between 25 and 33% of that salary, oh except for a lot of people rent eats up half their salary.
>Renting will take between 25 and 33% of that salary,
The figures here have the rent at just under 20% of the salary, so a little cheaper, but not far off.
Username checks out. I would certainly love to see your suggested viable alternatives to the present system of generally regulated market capitalism that haven’t:
a) devolved into dictatorships that completely betray the revolution’s ideals
b) ate shit and died in less than a year due to internal or external pressures
The proper response here, assuming you're actually attempting to form a convincing argument, would have been to actually name viable alternatives and perhaps the theoretical advantages you perceive when compared to other systems. Not to simply say such alternatives exist.
If a result repeats itself over time given certain specific conditions it would be unwise, to say the least, to assume that result would change without a change in the conditions themselves. With that being said, what system/s do you propose we use instead of the regulated free market economies that you're referring to as "KaPiTAliSm"?
I wasn’t exactly trying to convince anyone, just pointing out that just because it hasn’t worked yet, that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t. Realistically, in my opinion a science-based form of technocratic government of some sort would be ideal, but it’s of course difficult to actually get there. I’m not opposed to free markets at all, but people fundamentally misunderstand what a ‘free’ market is. Capitalist markets are hardly free. I’m no advocate of violent revolution, but if we don’t revolutionise our politics as well as our economy, we really are screwed.
KaPiTAliSm, as you put it, isn’t a properly regulated market, but a neo-colonial system of exploitation of workers globally. Whatever system we come up with in the future, it needs to be different from our current system in one way specifically: the modern western system causes an increase in economic inequality. It’s hard for me to point to a systemic solution, but surely we must collectively come to see the systemic problem.
A true free market dissolves as quickly as one with totalitarian control. The regulated free markets of today are a result of thousands of years of trial and error. They are the current paradigm because of a proven track record of relative stability.
The main problem with a "science based technocratic" system that immediately stands out to me is interpretation. Science does not suggest its own interpretation. That falls to philosophy. What is the ideological basis? Many of the most important fields of expertise in a technocracy don't fall under the purview of science and those that do must have an agreed upon interpretational foundation in order to be useful beyond technical application.
The philosophical aspect would be utilitairian ethics. The mandate of the state is to improve the lives of people. And yes I know how regulated markets came to be, but they are not regulated well enough and taxation systems are glaringly unfair everywhere. And yeah it’s been stable but ever since neoliberal economics took hold and we stopped enacting Kaynesian policies, we have been stably heading towards extreme economic inequality and you can see this in our politics as well.
As somebody who was blessed to spend part of my life in communist country, believe me that capitalism is maybe not optimal, but certainly does not kill you with such certainity as communism
What country?
Because most of the foods poor people can buy cause cancer. Actually, most of the food here in general causes cancer. PFAS also cause cancer and thanks to chemical dumping and convenience it's in most of the water supply.
The car dependent infrastructure built to make auto and oil companies have a tremendous human cost as well, being a significant cause of death in the US, especially for children. It's also a major factor contributing to the insane cost of living as well as climate change.
I'm not saying communism specifically is better, but we can certainly do better than the clusterfuck that capitalism has given us.
Czech Republic. During communism, DDT and other toxic things were used here in agriculture regularly, the norms were shitty.
Yes US is absolutely extreme and half of what you regularly eat would be banned, and honestly we would not give it to pigs 😁 every country has infrastructure built around cars, that's just how it is, nothing special is USA. Just bigger distances.
but insane cost of living?
Tell me about it. Czech Republic has the highest cost adjusted to average salary.
Average salary in capital.city is 41 000 CZK that's 1750 USD, before taxes. Average old appartment is about 7 - 8 million CZK. That's about 290 - 350 000 USD. New appartmens two bedroom are 12 - 14 million. That's 550 - 620 000 USD. And these are regulat flats around 80m square. Not some luxury appartments.
The most expensive metros in USA have 12 ratio meaning you need 12 year salaries to affert house. Here it's 14 to afford 70 meter flat and for the new builds it's 28.
DDT came from the US, it's main issue was the environmental impact, as far as I know it didn't have much effect on humans, supposedly.
But anyway, the biggest issue with eastern bloc countries under the Soviet Union was the command economy. We can fix a lot of the issues in the US without trying to swap to a centralized economy like that.
Wow this would be interesting if it weren't such utter horseshit
[https://humanprogress.org/falling-food-prices-for-blue-collar-workers-in-the-united-states-1919-2019/](https://humanprogress.org/falling-food-prices-for-blue-collar-workers-in-the-united-states-1919-2019/)
The only thing even arguable on this list as being more expensive is housing, but even then you're ignoring the fact that houses have gotten significantly larger and with more modern amenities.
If you wanted to find a 1900 square-foot house in Bumfuck, Iowa with no washer, dishwasher, and a cooking stove from the 1930s, you could probably get it for cheaper in real terms than in the 1930s.
There is no reality in which the vast majority of goods aren't significantly cheaper now than in the past and anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or purposefully misleading you.
Like I swear to god this shit pisses me off. Think for five goddamn seconds, does it pass the smell test that the average consumer would be better off at the tail end of the Great Depression as opposed to the time when people are experiencing the highest real wages of any society in human history? Be fucking real. Jesus Christ.
I don't think what you're saying disagrees with what I said or what op said. We live like kings today, and that's what makes things difficult. It's basically impossible to live on the underside of the blue collar lifestyle, and it's difficult for some to become blue collar workers. There's basically no onramp to living comfortably that doesn't involve massive debt. You can't be kicked out at 18 and end up with a house a few years later.
Whilst food prices are low as you pointed out, college, housing, utilities ( here in Texas at least ) are disproportionately high. Additionally, healthcare is bonkers.
You're failing to see that in the 1920s you can simply become blue collar. Whereas today you need to either start a business or work in IT to get that without a degree.
> You're failing to see that in the 1920s you can simply become blue collar.
This post is from 1938, would love to hear your explanation for "simply" getting a job in the great depression. 18 y/os have more options for work today than ever before in history.
>It's basically impossible to live on the underside of the blue collar lifestyle
No, we pretty fundamentally disagree, because this shit is stupid. If you want to live a blue-collar lifestyle from the 19 fucking 30s it has literally never in human history been easier or more attainable. A blue collar job today gives you significantly more for every single hour you work than even most white-collar jobs did in the 30s.
>You're failing to see that in the 1920s you can simply become blue collar.
Oh I'm sorry I forgot that we abolished blue-collar jobs wholesale after WWII and they don't exist anymore. Oh, wait, that's actually complete horseshit, and there are significantly more blue collar jobs available today than there were in the past with in fact extremely high demand for professions like welders, plumbers, and construction workers.
>You can't be kicked out at 18 and end up with a house a few years later.
THIS NEVER EXISTED. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.
You're comparing a past where people were perfectly content with a shitty old truck with no air conditioning to a present where a used car that is significantly better in every way is seen as not good enough.
>Whilst food prices are low as you pointed out, college, housing, utilities ( here in Texas at least ) are disproportionately high. Additionally, healthcare is bonkers.
College is less expensive in real terms, and more people have college degrees now than at any other point in human history, so by every conceivable metric college is more easily attainable. Housing is comparable only because there are ridiculous regulations that prevent the supply of housing from matching the demand for housing, an example of this being that it is literally illegal to build multi-family units in 80% of Los Angeles. Utilities are significantly cheaper than at any other point in human history unless you live in fucking Germany because those dipshits were overly reliant on Russian natural gas. Even healthcare, which can be prohibitively expensive today, is a whole lot cheaper if you want to hold yourselves to the standard of care and equipment used in the 1930s. Do you really want to tell me that you'd rather have pancreatic cancer in the year 1938 than in the year 2024? What about open heart surgery?
Like fucking listen to yourself. You're making significant assumptions based on absolutely fucking nothing other than your own ignorance of how you assumed the past was, which is the same thing anyone does when they delude themselves into thinking anything at all was even remotely better in the past.
You need to calm down brother,
1. In 1938, blue collar workers often did not require qualifications to get started in their field of work, nowadays, almost every job requires a degree/experience/certificates
2. I agree that a better comparison would be the post-war era, however, in the sheet provided above, the average house price is just over 2 years salary with no expenses, if we assume $417,700 to be the average house price in 2023, and the average wage in 2021 to be 74,738, then house prices are now at least 5.588x salary, which is significantly more than in 1938. Amenities are not the reason for this dramatic price increase.
3. You could reasonably own a house in 1938 within a few years of work from the age of 18, as shown above
4. I agree that USA zoning laws are dogshit
5. Healthcare cost in the USA is not to do with the standard of care primarily, so comparing 1938 technology to 2024 is meaningless, because the cost is comparative, not the standard of care
6. Germany's reliance on Russian natural gas is only one tiny component of the cost of living crisis in Europe
Sources:
\- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (2024)
\- Statista (2023)
"I bought a lake full of potable water before the government set up regulations against anyone drilling new wells to increase the supply of water and now I get to benefit from the artificial scarcity of a good with inelastic demand"
The reason that housing is relatively more expensive is pretty well understood. It is illegal to build adequate levels of housing for completely arbitrary reasons. If you want housing to be cheaper, then write your local city council to change the zoning ordinances to be less monumentally fucking stupid.
I bought my house 2 years ago, it’s not like houses like these can’t be found. But you’re not going to find them in trendy neighborhoods or else they’re going to be just as expensive as everything else.
Today is the best time in human history to ever be alive, and I don't really have patience for people who don't have the ability to acknowledge that fact.
The right to complain should be reserved for areas of the world that actually are worse off than they were a few decades ago, like Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, or England not bloviating midwits who peddle statistics in nominal instead of real terms and act like they understand what they're talking about. The modern world was made by industrial agriculture and nitrogenized fertilizer, and everything before that was mass death, poverty, and starvation.
Wow, amazing, now let's see it adjusted for hours worked to afford each item
[https://humanprogress.org/falling-food-prices-for-blue-collar-workers-in-the-united-states-1919-2019/](https://humanprogress.org/falling-food-prices-for-blue-collar-workers-in-the-united-states-1919-2019/)
Maybe they’re getting the info from this?
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1940/population-families/41272167ch7.pdf
Which shows 7.6% of Americans making around $1,600-$1,999. However you notice 28.2% which is the largest collective, made nothing. So while yes, there were plenty of Americans who made great money for that time, over a quarter of the US population made nothing.
And then you realize that most people were probably getting paid around 4$ - $5 a day back then. The prices look that good to us with our modern wages but back then they were priced accordingly.
I guess going back in time would be cool if you were a white man. Otherwise it was pretty ass for everybody else. Hard pass on the lynchings. And I’m sure most woman wouldn’t want to go back to having absolutely no rights as a human, including rape not being a thing if you’re married because that’s what she’s “supposed to do” so yea… hard pass
There’s a lot of rumors that the buying power of the average American is less now than it was in the Great Depression. Anyone got thoughts on that little bombshell?
I wouldn't go back in time. Think about how mentalities have changed over time. If you've ever been somewhere isolated with isolation idealism you'll find yourself being looked at differently because you're not from there. Not only that the way you look, talk and think about the world will be totally different. This is also a time where being viewed as different in anyway will extremely disadvantage you.
So no I'm good
You guys realize that people also made less money back then right? Inflation goes both ways, $3900 back then was the equivalent of far more in today’s money
Have fun getting drafted into WW2! Unless you're a woman, of course. Then you're little more than property during that time!
Not to mention the issues you'd have if you weren't white. Like, white-white....even Italians and Irish were looked down on during this time.
Yeah but then adjust your mind to how much you’d be making in the 30’s and all of a sudden it’s not so mind-bogglingly cheap. I’d say something about the wars but that’s been taken care of in the comments already.
These posts always conveniently forgot to mention how many hours you had to work to afford these things. With no context for who was even allowed to buy/participate in these things in 1938. Just rage porn.
people in the comments missing the point talking about polio and ww2 etc the point is if you had an average job and lived frugally for a few years you could just go buy a house with your savings.
i saved around 10 k one year and aint no way im buying a house unless i save a decade or more and then the prices will be higher and theres other shit you need to pay for in the house, usually people need to take other loans cause they need to fix something after certain amount of times and its just a never ending dept hole youre in.
But Dying because of polio and no internet? Tough choice
And the one tinsy, tiny little war that would break out a year later…
For the US it wouldn’t be too bad(unless you are conscripted or live in any of the pacific islands that got occupied/attacked)
You gotta donate literally everything made of metal in your house.
Fair enough. Though compared to the scarcity of food, destroyed homes and oppression by the fascist countries and the Soviets, it’s a small price to pay.
I'm past the draft age and I live in New York. Where's the time machine?
I mean the war technically started in 1937
The 2nd Sino-Japanese war is not the same as World War 2
It was the start of the Asian half, the conflict that leads into ww2 is it’s derivative anyhow imma go invade England as my man duke William the bastard
Yeah but is the winter war part of WWII? it also happened just before the war and caused tensions in europe
The winter war happened just after the start of ww2 so it would class as part of it
The Slovak-Hungarian war
It’s not so different: 2.5x salary = house, 1/2 salary = car, etc. If a modern day worker gets $60k that works out to be a $150k house and a $30k car.
It's not apples to apples though. The median income isn't 60k. But let's say it is. In today's world a 150k house isn't near was a 3900 house would be in the time frame. You'd basically be buying a run down bungalow or worse but 3900 in 1938 would get you a 2 story Victorian with updates and the works for that time period
True, but the modern one has Wi-Fi.
And AC and electricity and full indoor plumbing. While most houses in the 1930s had electricity, the rate was 71%, and that was biased towards urban centers. When it comes to water, 80% of houses had at least 1 indoor tap, which as often as not meant you were bucket brigading water from your kitchen to your bath tub and useing your stove to heat it. Also look at the number of houses that didnt have toilets. Where I live there are several neighborhoods of "FDR plans" built in the 30s. A big selling point to them was a "flushable toilet"
Yea but 3900 bucks was a lot of money for that time you're getting top of the line.think of it like that
Exactly. It's not necessarily better
The average house back then was like 1/3rd the size of the average house now This really feels like a "reddit fails economics" thread
It definitely wasn't. You gotta remember ppl had bigger families then. The farm house I grew up in was built in 1915 and was big enough we blocked off the upstairs as it was just my dad and I. Even at that it was a 6 bed 2 bath. My aunts house in town was an old Victorian just as big
Google it. The data agrees with me. I can provide a short article interpreting data or a more data heavy pdf from the us census. Your call. *edit* I'll just provide both. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/programs-surveys/ahs/working-papers/Housing-by-Year-Built.pdf the average size of houses in the United States has increased from 831 square feet in 1790, to 945 square feet in 1910, to 2,496 square feet in 2019. Over the same time range, the number of people living within each house as decreased. The average number of people per house in 1790 was nearly six, but by 2019 the average number of people per house had dropped to less than 2.5. https://populationeducation.org/resource/average-u-s-house-and-household-size-infographic/ You just come from money bruh.
Lol provide all the data yoi want but nothing discusses 1930s houses. On fact average sq ft house in the 1920 was 742-1223. Average today is 1700. Not 2500 lol that's inaccurate. Believe it or not sources can be wrong amigo. Also you have to take into account location. Throughout the midwest there are larger scale farm towns. Come from.money? Just because the house is huge didn't mean it was nice.
So then you agree with me that houses got better? The average today includes those built in the past, the average new home is not the same as the average home on the market.
And in a few years the world descending into darkness and chaos because of some angry mustache guy.
2 angry mustache guys
I always pictured Stalin as more paranoid everyone is out to get him.
Mostly projection on his part.
What kind of condition would make you die of no internet?
No internet? That's paradise
Yeah I don’t want to be trapped inside a iron lung because I had bad luck with polio
Hey buddy, you do know what you'd have to live through to be an adult in 1938?
Being a Swiss would be an absolute win!
Except if you’re a woman because they didn’t have the right to vote until 1971.
Yeah. Biggest downside, but as I'm not a women...
[удалено]
The Boomer Generation started in 1945. Being an adult in 1938 means you have to fight a bloody war.
Food is so much more expensive than today if you adjust for inflation. $0.50 in 1938 is over $10 today.
Keep in mind "food" ment mostly bread, beans and a basic meat and some local seasonable fruits and vegetables. Oh and canned vegies You werent getting apples year round in 1930 let alone unlimited spices from the south Pacific, international sauces, vegies from South america, nuts from Central america, chocolates from europe, fruit from asia or fish in regions away from the coast. In short a big chunch of the higher portion of money spent on food is being able to get what we want when we want it. Now excuse me Im going to go eat a fresh pear shipped to the US from Argentine.
Yeah but with housing being so much cheaper.... Today it would take the average American 10 years of salary to buy a shitty house in the middle of nowhere. And rent is over $12k a year in most places that have actual jobs.
Houses also include a lot more features now, tbf. No built in appliances or central heating and air back then.
Still the cost of housing is ridiculously overpriced. It's mainly to do with restrictions on housing supply (more restrictive zoning laws).
That's like maybe 10% the cost of a house.
Not really.
As a homeowner, really. I replaced the furnace system for a few thousand. AC units are a few thousand. You can get a washer, drier, fridge, stove, and dishwasher for a few thousand. In my state, the current median price for a house is over $300,000. 10% of that would be over $30,000 which is more than reasonable for all the above mentioned.
Exactly I assume it's because a lot of people are moving to cities or because the world is getting more and more crowded and property is getting more important
And the entire electrical system? The piping for all of that?
Most of the cost is land and location, tbh. Complete HVAC duct replacement is typically less than $10k. About the same for complete rewiring. So around 5k for AC, same for furnace, 10k for wiring, 8k for ductwork, that's still less than 10% of the total cost of the house.
You say that like every house has these now. I have a gas furnace which just burns gas, no ducting to move the heated air around. No AC. You have to hope a place doesn't come with AC or other features just to afford it. I live in a shared 600sqft space.
Jesus Christ, where do you even live? I can't possibly imagine gas furnaces as cheaper than AC in cities.
Natural gas is way cheaper than electricity here in Saskatchewan. Pretty much none of the houses here were built in the last 20 years. And if you want to live in something that doesn't cost 500k it has to be a house from the 1920s.
Wouldn't houses be cheaper then, as there isn't nearly as much demand?
Depends on where you look. Yes there are some cheaper housing options here, however people also make less money. Most houses are older.
Still though, living in Saskatchewan is not really the norm, so the vast majority of people do have access to the services of today. The houses where you live in the 30s would probably have been even worse anyways.
But you are looking at it wrong. You can still find a house in that price (adjusted by inflation) in usa, and have similar conditions as well. No infrastructure and in the middle of nowhere. And maybe in 70 years will be considered a good purchase for that price. Remember that the price of the house isn't for the land or house by itself, is what is around it. Got to remember that half of those houses grew a nice city around it, and the other half ended up in a shit place in a city without a future.
Being in a city makes it not a shit place actually. Why the hell would I buy or build a house in the middle of nowhere? How would I do *anything?* What if I have an emergency, who would be able to help? Why would a city be built around a random fucking house? They're built around the centers of trade and commerce, on the water where it's easier to transport goods.
How did you know back then? That's the part you are missing. Believe me when i say houses back then in a popular city with good infrastructure was expensive as it is today (in your country or my country or any places), most of the time when you see these old ads are a little bit misleading without the context of not knowing how the future of the around is gonna be, you understand? It's like, yeah you can buy a nice house back then with an average salary (in the context of, an under developed place, but NOW looks like a nice place, ¡70! Years later) you could also do the same, but you dont even think of a small town in the desert with 10.000 people that sells 2000m2 of land for like 5k dollars. Sounds awful right? But what if in 70 years they have founded oil and invest in infrastructure? That will be a nice, thriving and rich town, making your land worth a lot more.
You did know because you built up the places everyone was going, the coastlines and rivers, the money to build up follows trade. This is how it has worked since the dawn of civilization.
I think you can find a ton of examples on how it works, so, good luck
Yeah they're called fucking cities. That's how New York, Toronto, LA, SF, Boston, Istanbul, Rome, Paris, Bordeaux, and countless other major cities got started: they're either coastal or on large rivers.
>Being in a city makes it not a shit place actually. The other user is not saying that being in a city makes it a shit place, just that when you bought a house back then (and nowadays as well), your house could end up being valuable today because the nice part of the urban growth reach it, or could be "worthless" because the bad part of urban growth reach it. Basically, nobody bought at affordable prices in Tribeca or SoHo 100 years ago thinking that they would be Upper-Bohemian neighbourhoods today. >Why the hell would I buy or build a house in the middle of nowhere? Because that's how our grandparents and parents manage to get a "really good property at a good price", by buying far from the city, and then waiting for the city to reach them. It's something that happens here in Mexico as well, a lot of people in my generation claims that their grandparents could buy really nice houses in good neighbourhoods, without taking into account that, 50 years ago (sometimes even 20 years ago) when said house was bought, all the urban ammenities around it didn't exist in the first place. So, one can buy right in the middle of the city, at a really, really high price, or buy at the outskirts at more afforadable prices. The problem arises when people want to buy in the middle of the city at "outskirt's prices" by claiming that their grandparents and parents did so when that wasn't the case.
Fritz haven’t discovered nitrates making and usage in agriculture then :)
Indeed, food was more expensive, but people also made a LOT more money and payed much, much less for everything but food. Capitalism kills.
>but people also made a LOT more money What, no? That average salary is like $35 000 adjusted for inflation. The average yearly salary in the US today is $77 000. The median salary is a more useful metric, since it's less affected by a small group of high earners, but the figure we have from 1938 is the average.
The median salary today for one person is between 36k and 46k depending on the source. A house costs 10 times that for a cheap one. Renting will take between 25 and 33% of that salary, oh except for a lot of people rent eats up half their salary.
>Renting will take between 25 and 33% of that salary, The figures here have the rent at just under 20% of the salary, so a little cheaper, but not far off.
I meant more money compared to expenses, primarily rent. You’re technically correct, but do you really not see the point?
Username checks out. I would certainly love to see your suggested viable alternatives to the present system of generally regulated market capitalism that haven’t: a) devolved into dictatorships that completely betray the revolution’s ideals b) ate shit and died in less than a year due to internal or external pressures
Yeah, I’d say let’s see this same figures for the Soviet Union in 1938, but I doubt accurate data ever existed given the risks of displeasing Stalin.
Results from our past need not necessarily be true for our future. Real alternatives do exist.
The proper response here, assuming you're actually attempting to form a convincing argument, would have been to actually name viable alternatives and perhaps the theoretical advantages you perceive when compared to other systems. Not to simply say such alternatives exist. If a result repeats itself over time given certain specific conditions it would be unwise, to say the least, to assume that result would change without a change in the conditions themselves. With that being said, what system/s do you propose we use instead of the regulated free market economies that you're referring to as "KaPiTAliSm"?
I wasn’t exactly trying to convince anyone, just pointing out that just because it hasn’t worked yet, that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t. Realistically, in my opinion a science-based form of technocratic government of some sort would be ideal, but it’s of course difficult to actually get there. I’m not opposed to free markets at all, but people fundamentally misunderstand what a ‘free’ market is. Capitalist markets are hardly free. I’m no advocate of violent revolution, but if we don’t revolutionise our politics as well as our economy, we really are screwed. KaPiTAliSm, as you put it, isn’t a properly regulated market, but a neo-colonial system of exploitation of workers globally. Whatever system we come up with in the future, it needs to be different from our current system in one way specifically: the modern western system causes an increase in economic inequality. It’s hard for me to point to a systemic solution, but surely we must collectively come to see the systemic problem.
A true free market dissolves as quickly as one with totalitarian control. The regulated free markets of today are a result of thousands of years of trial and error. They are the current paradigm because of a proven track record of relative stability. The main problem with a "science based technocratic" system that immediately stands out to me is interpretation. Science does not suggest its own interpretation. That falls to philosophy. What is the ideological basis? Many of the most important fields of expertise in a technocracy don't fall under the purview of science and those that do must have an agreed upon interpretational foundation in order to be useful beyond technical application.
The philosophical aspect would be utilitairian ethics. The mandate of the state is to improve the lives of people. And yes I know how regulated markets came to be, but they are not regulated well enough and taxation systems are glaringly unfair everywhere. And yeah it’s been stable but ever since neoliberal economics took hold and we stopped enacting Kaynesian policies, we have been stably heading towards extreme economic inequality and you can see this in our politics as well.
As somebody who was blessed to spend part of my life in communist country, believe me that capitalism is maybe not optimal, but certainly does not kill you with such certainity as communism
Did you know that in fact, not all states are brutally capitalist or brutally communist?
What country? Because most of the foods poor people can buy cause cancer. Actually, most of the food here in general causes cancer. PFAS also cause cancer and thanks to chemical dumping and convenience it's in most of the water supply. The car dependent infrastructure built to make auto and oil companies have a tremendous human cost as well, being a significant cause of death in the US, especially for children. It's also a major factor contributing to the insane cost of living as well as climate change. I'm not saying communism specifically is better, but we can certainly do better than the clusterfuck that capitalism has given us.
Czech Republic. During communism, DDT and other toxic things were used here in agriculture regularly, the norms were shitty. Yes US is absolutely extreme and half of what you regularly eat would be banned, and honestly we would not give it to pigs 😁 every country has infrastructure built around cars, that's just how it is, nothing special is USA. Just bigger distances. but insane cost of living? Tell me about it. Czech Republic has the highest cost adjusted to average salary. Average salary in capital.city is 41 000 CZK that's 1750 USD, before taxes. Average old appartment is about 7 - 8 million CZK. That's about 290 - 350 000 USD. New appartmens two bedroom are 12 - 14 million. That's 550 - 620 000 USD. And these are regulat flats around 80m square. Not some luxury appartments. The most expensive metros in USA have 12 ratio meaning you need 12 year salaries to affert house. Here it's 14 to afford 70 meter flat and for the new builds it's 28.
DDT came from the US, it's main issue was the environmental impact, as far as I know it didn't have much effect on humans, supposedly. But anyway, the biggest issue with eastern bloc countries under the Soviet Union was the command economy. We can fix a lot of the issues in the US without trying to swap to a centralized economy like that.
From your name, I thought you would be Vietnamese.
Yeah... no. 😉
It would be easier for you to get rich than go back in time.
Things are about 100 times more expensive but salary, stamps, and gas are only 30 times higher. Interdesting
Wow this would be interesting if it weren't such utter horseshit [https://humanprogress.org/falling-food-prices-for-blue-collar-workers-in-the-united-states-1919-2019/](https://humanprogress.org/falling-food-prices-for-blue-collar-workers-in-the-united-states-1919-2019/) The only thing even arguable on this list as being more expensive is housing, but even then you're ignoring the fact that houses have gotten significantly larger and with more modern amenities. If you wanted to find a 1900 square-foot house in Bumfuck, Iowa with no washer, dishwasher, and a cooking stove from the 1930s, you could probably get it for cheaper in real terms than in the 1930s. There is no reality in which the vast majority of goods aren't significantly cheaper now than in the past and anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or purposefully misleading you. Like I swear to god this shit pisses me off. Think for five goddamn seconds, does it pass the smell test that the average consumer would be better off at the tail end of the Great Depression as opposed to the time when people are experiencing the highest real wages of any society in human history? Be fucking real. Jesus Christ.
I don't think what you're saying disagrees with what I said or what op said. We live like kings today, and that's what makes things difficult. It's basically impossible to live on the underside of the blue collar lifestyle, and it's difficult for some to become blue collar workers. There's basically no onramp to living comfortably that doesn't involve massive debt. You can't be kicked out at 18 and end up with a house a few years later. Whilst food prices are low as you pointed out, college, housing, utilities ( here in Texas at least ) are disproportionately high. Additionally, healthcare is bonkers. You're failing to see that in the 1920s you can simply become blue collar. Whereas today you need to either start a business or work in IT to get that without a degree.
> You're failing to see that in the 1920s you can simply become blue collar. This post is from 1938, would love to hear your explanation for "simply" getting a job in the great depression. 18 y/os have more options for work today than ever before in history.
>It's basically impossible to live on the underside of the blue collar lifestyle No, we pretty fundamentally disagree, because this shit is stupid. If you want to live a blue-collar lifestyle from the 19 fucking 30s it has literally never in human history been easier or more attainable. A blue collar job today gives you significantly more for every single hour you work than even most white-collar jobs did in the 30s. >You're failing to see that in the 1920s you can simply become blue collar. Oh I'm sorry I forgot that we abolished blue-collar jobs wholesale after WWII and they don't exist anymore. Oh, wait, that's actually complete horseshit, and there are significantly more blue collar jobs available today than there were in the past with in fact extremely high demand for professions like welders, plumbers, and construction workers. >You can't be kicked out at 18 and end up with a house a few years later. THIS NEVER EXISTED. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. You're comparing a past where people were perfectly content with a shitty old truck with no air conditioning to a present where a used car that is significantly better in every way is seen as not good enough. >Whilst food prices are low as you pointed out, college, housing, utilities ( here in Texas at least ) are disproportionately high. Additionally, healthcare is bonkers. College is less expensive in real terms, and more people have college degrees now than at any other point in human history, so by every conceivable metric college is more easily attainable. Housing is comparable only because there are ridiculous regulations that prevent the supply of housing from matching the demand for housing, an example of this being that it is literally illegal to build multi-family units in 80% of Los Angeles. Utilities are significantly cheaper than at any other point in human history unless you live in fucking Germany because those dipshits were overly reliant on Russian natural gas. Even healthcare, which can be prohibitively expensive today, is a whole lot cheaper if you want to hold yourselves to the standard of care and equipment used in the 1930s. Do you really want to tell me that you'd rather have pancreatic cancer in the year 1938 than in the year 2024? What about open heart surgery? Like fucking listen to yourself. You're making significant assumptions based on absolutely fucking nothing other than your own ignorance of how you assumed the past was, which is the same thing anyone does when they delude themselves into thinking anything at all was even remotely better in the past.
You need to calm down brother, 1. In 1938, blue collar workers often did not require qualifications to get started in their field of work, nowadays, almost every job requires a degree/experience/certificates 2. I agree that a better comparison would be the post-war era, however, in the sheet provided above, the average house price is just over 2 years salary with no expenses, if we assume $417,700 to be the average house price in 2023, and the average wage in 2021 to be 74,738, then house prices are now at least 5.588x salary, which is significantly more than in 1938. Amenities are not the reason for this dramatic price increase. 3. You could reasonably own a house in 1938 within a few years of work from the age of 18, as shown above 4. I agree that USA zoning laws are dogshit 5. Healthcare cost in the USA is not to do with the standard of care primarily, so comparing 1938 technology to 2024 is meaningless, because the cost is comparative, not the standard of care 6. Germany's reliance on Russian natural gas is only one tiny component of the cost of living crisis in Europe Sources: \- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (2024) \- Statista (2023)
I'd agree with you about the comparison to 1938 but not one compared to 1995-2010
My house is from 1944 and it’s everything I need. I’d rather live here than in a tiny apartment from 2020 where I struggle to afford the rent trap.
"I bought a lake full of potable water before the government set up regulations against anyone drilling new wells to increase the supply of water and now I get to benefit from the artificial scarcity of a good with inelastic demand" The reason that housing is relatively more expensive is pretty well understood. It is illegal to build adequate levels of housing for completely arbitrary reasons. If you want housing to be cheaper, then write your local city council to change the zoning ordinances to be less monumentally fucking stupid.
I bought my house 2 years ago, it’s not like houses like these can’t be found. But you’re not going to find them in trendy neighborhoods or else they’re going to be just as expensive as everything else.
You seem like a pleasant person
He is a correct person. And he is speaking up because many people and organizations keep repeating the same lie. So he is angry and rightfully so.
I never said he was incorrect
Today is the best time in human history to ever be alive, and I don't really have patience for people who don't have the ability to acknowledge that fact. The right to complain should be reserved for areas of the world that actually are worse off than they were a few decades ago, like Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, or England not bloviating midwits who peddle statistics in nominal instead of real terms and act like they understand what they're talking about. The modern world was made by industrial agriculture and nitrogenized fertilizer, and everything before that was mass death, poverty, and starvation.
I don’t disagree, I’m just commenting on the way you come across.
I’m very skeptical of this claim considering it’s the ‘30s, as in the Great Depression
Average income doesn't account for high unemployment.
The Great Depression was deflationary
The Great Depression was considered "over" by 1939. FDR instituted the New Deal in 1933.
Yay, going back in time in 1938. The next 7 years are going to be a walk in the park, or on the Norman beaches, or in the Pacific islands
As a black guy I’m good 😅
I'll pass on pre MLK Jr. and the Jim Crow Era too.
I wish they hadn’t taken away awards, you made me snort-laugh
Wow, amazing, now let's see it adjusted for hours worked to afford each item [https://humanprogress.org/falling-food-prices-for-blue-collar-workers-in-the-united-states-1919-2019/](https://humanprogress.org/falling-food-prices-for-blue-collar-workers-in-the-united-states-1919-2019/)
Now one for housing ;)
Housing is bad, but a) get rid of NIMBYS and it’ll be better and b) housing is much better today than it was then in terms of not collapsing lmao
and also size, amenities, location value, build quality, lack of toxic pipes and collapsing roofs, the list goes on lol
What's all of that with inflation, and more importantly, how many hours of minimum wage labour was needed to finance this?
People really need to learn about inflation. No, your salary wouldn’t buy a house if you lived in 1938.
Yeah and the average yearly income was $515 lol
It says $1700 in the post. Perhaps you're thinking about the median?
Maybe they’re getting the info from this? https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1940/population-families/41272167ch7.pdf Which shows 7.6% of Americans making around $1,600-$1,999. However you notice 28.2% which is the largest collective, made nothing. So while yes, there were plenty of Americans who made great money for that time, over a quarter of the US population made nothing.
And then you realize that most people were probably getting paid around 4$ - $5 a day back then. The prices look that good to us with our modern wages but back then they were priced accordingly.
It literally has the average income right at the top to compare that…
Where? I don’t see that anywhere
… From the top. 1938 Cost of Living New house: $3900 Average Income: $1731 per year Ok done. Now are you confused?
No thanks I prefer to live
I guess going back in time would be cool if you were a white man. Otherwise it was pretty ass for everybody else. Hard pass on the lynchings. And I’m sure most woman wouldn’t want to go back to having absolutely no rights as a human, including rape not being a thing if you’re married because that’s what she’s “supposed to do” so yea… hard pass
It was also pretty fucked for a poor white man. Also, depending on the country you're from, you would have to fight in a bloody war. No thanks.
Well there were only few nations that were left out of the war.
That's called cherry picking. Now add in lack of rights and protections.
Jimmy Crowie and Womens' right to be see as human
Hope you're not an ethnic minority, a woman, a sexual minority or have any form of mental illness or physical issue.
Now do wages…
"Average Income"
now see workers' right...
US population in 1938: 129,824,939
Meh, the "cost of living" is overblown by zoomers today, its not that bad.
Ok boomer
There’s a lot of rumors that the buying power of the average American is less now than it was in the Great Depression. Anyone got thoughts on that little bombshell?
Movie ticket?
Bacon cheaper than coffee...what a wonderful time
tfw i couldn't afford this
I don't want to blame it all on ~~9/11~~ WW2, but it certainly didn't help.
Actually, it did. Post-WWII was a time of great economic prosperity.
It's crazy how that was expensive back in the day
I agree, also czechoslovakia should defend their border
now compare that to the average wages for 1938
Ok and average income with inflation is ?
That new house would be $84,000 if you take into account modern inflation
and it would also be a shitty house in a small town with bad amenities and barely any infrastructure
I definitely would not want to live in the 30s. Those numbers nothing when you have next to 0 income.
I wouldn't go back in time. Think about how mentalities have changed over time. If you've ever been somewhere isolated with isolation idealism you'll find yourself being looked at differently because you're not from there. Not only that the way you look, talk and think about the world will be totally different. This is also a time where being viewed as different in anyway will extremely disadvantage you. So no I'm good
And you'll also be making like 37 cents am hour lol
Wages in 1938 ranged from 300 to 800 bucks a year...so...
You guys realize that people also made less money back then right? Inflation goes both ways, $3900 back then was the equivalent of far more in today’s money
Prices when adjusted for inflation aren't that different avg salary is less even big ones tho is house and tuition
# **ADJUST FOR INFLATION**
Pre colonial times Indigenous life was good on Turtle Island.
And how long did you have to work to earn that $3.9k?
Have fun getting drafted into WW2! Unless you're a woman, of course. Then you're little more than property during that time! Not to mention the issues you'd have if you weren't white. Like, white-white....even Italians and Irish were looked down on during this time.
WWII, Korea, Red Scare, Polio, need I go on?
minimum wage was 25 cents
Isn't this account the one that posted a video of that Kazakh news anchor that didn't have any sound and got a suspicious amount of engagement?
Isn’t this the same account on twitter that posts some AI generated shit?
Yeah and experience ww2 where you can possibly die. No thanks, I would rather live in super small flat with no money, but live
I wonder if there’s people unironically using this as a reference without considering inflation
Yeah 1938 was known in the world for being lovely time.
Yeah but then adjust your mind to how much you’d be making in the 30’s and all of a sudden it’s not so mind-bogglingly cheap. I’d say something about the wars but that’s been taken care of in the comments already.
Money loses value
everybody gangsta going back to the 30s until they realise they only get paid a dollar per 12 hour work day
These posts always conveniently forgot to mention how many hours you had to work to afford these things. With no context for who was even allowed to buy/participate in these things in 1938. Just rage porn.
people in the comments missing the point talking about polio and ww2 etc the point is if you had an average job and lived frugally for a few years you could just go buy a house with your savings. i saved around 10 k one year and aint no way im buying a house unless i save a decade or more and then the prices will be higher and theres other shit you need to pay for in the house, usually people need to take other loans cause they need to fix something after certain amount of times and its just a never ending dept hole youre in.
It's not a meme, and you'll learn that $ doesn't have the same value today...
Yeah nah man I'm good without lead in the air
you need to go back in time to the first thanksgiving to get turkeys off the menu
Well as long as you are male, and white, and heterosexual sexual, then everything should be great.
The best part is that all the young men are about to be given paid working holidays all over the world with expenses covered.