This never made sense to me. Doesn't this assume you are spending ALL your income though?
If I make 100K and get a 3% increase, that's $3000 more.
But if I only spend 30K to live, and my living expenses go up 5%, that's only a $1500 increase to my living expenses while I earned $3000 more that year. So how is that a pay cut if I actually have even more money left over that basically just goes into my investment account then.
The dollars going into your account are worth less than before. The ultimate destiny of all money is to be spent on goods/services eventually, and the amount of goods/services your salary can purchase is net (5-3)% less than the year before. Invested, spent, willed, donated, it doesn't matter, the money is already worth 2% less when it enters your hands. (Worth noting that CoL increase is not exactly equal to inflation, you could experience a local CoL increase without inflation if say your town becomes a popular destination which raises rents)
It's about the worth of what I am receiving from my employer and nothing to do with spending it.
If John makes $100k and lives on $10k, then cost of living increases by 100%. I believe John should be paid $200k, and according to you his salary should go to $110k.
> Doesn't this assume you are spending ALL your income though?
Why wouldn't you be? You will die, and the vast majority of religions (including atheism) don't let you take it with you. Sure there is some saving for a rainy day or retirement. However why are you earning more than that? If you need a job for social reasons only there are plenty of volunteer jobs that can provide that.
I save for retirement yes. I only spend about 30% of my income to live and other other 70% I save for retirement.
I don't feel like I'm being cheap or limiting myself. I have hobbies that I enjoy, computers, home theater, pickleball, scuba diving, hiking, biking. I travel a lot for fun, backpacking and trips around the world to see cool cities, hike mountains and experience different cultures.
I don't find my job particularly demanding or stressful, it's flexible, the people I work with are nice. I just spend what I feel I need to spend to do what I want to enjoy myself and the rest I put in investments.
I know I can't take it with me, but it just means I will be able to retire that much sooner.
I get a 3% raise every year as the default, aside from promotions and such, and the amount it gains me is about 3x higher than my cost of living increases have been these past years, so it really does not feel like I am making less. I am living my same life that I enjoy and saving a bit more and more each year.
You are exactly right. You are most likely not getting a pay cut just because your raise doesn't match inflation. It totally depends on how much of your money you are spending and what you are spending it on.
But a huge percentage of Americans are spending all, or approximately all, of their income. (I don't know offhand if it's technically a majority, but if not, then it's not far under 50%.)
And these are the people who are going to be most affected by inflation and other price shocks.
I don't understand why people take shortcuts in school. You pay a LOT of money to be there to learn. Taking shortcuts seems completely counterintuitive to me.
- Time is a scarce resource. Students do what they can to learn what they can, but if they're under the gun, they'll take the path of least resistance to make it to the next day (totally not like the business world, right?)
- In the interest of having well-rounded students, a lot of degree programs include subjects the student didn't want to sign up for, but have to. Even in something like CS, I knew a lot of people who liked the hardware side of it, but didn't like the software side and vice versa. So I can imagine a student justifying taking shortcuts that way.
- Psychological reasons like wanting to protect their ego. Maybe they had always done well in school and are now struggling, but don't want to ask for help, so they think why not just take a shortcut here and promise to do better next time, etc., etc.
A lot of people view it, rightly or wrongly, as paying a lot of money to earn a degree that opens up certain opportunities, while learning is secondary, so minimizing effort is worth it.
And to some people, it's not even a lot of money.
In many ways, schools are just the modern day peerage system.
The companies that have real boards would never take the risk.
Once Elon’s air cover is blown, the government is going the dissect Tesla. Once someone gets the injunction to stop deletion of crash data and allow for inspection, they are cooked.
I don't think self-driving is remotely close to working at any scale. I also don't think it's the killer-app. Right now, cheap electrics and moreso cheap hybrids are the killer.
It works "at scale" if you have no idea what "at scale" actually means and have never left the Bay Area or NYC. Or if you like, don't believe weather exists.
I ride in my friends Model Y Performance with HW 4.5 from time to time and it always gets us from point A to point B without any interventions that I have seen yet and this is in Wisconsin, and yes it was working well with some snow and ice conditions this past winter. It seems really impressive to me at least.
Okay, but do you admit it (self-driving, either Tesla or Waymo) works in the Bay Area? Because the OP said self-driving is not remotely working "at any scale".
Yeah, ugh! Who needs other language support anyway, we everyone should just learn English! And pictures! In a messaging app! Everyone should learn to use and read the entire breadth of human emotion via colon and a letter. :p
That's not bloat. Bloat is transporting an apple with a bus (that is transporting nothing else). Modern software bloat is like then transporting that bus via an aircraft carrier, and moving that aircraft carrier by nuking the ocean in the direction into which it should fall. It's not very good.
I mean my heat is included in my rent, it doesn't change no matter how much I use it. I pay 650/mo in rent including heat and water and I have it like 75F in the winter...
I'm just a single guy, why do I need more than a small apartment which is like 1/4 the monthly cost of a home mortgage payment. I put the other 3/4 of that cost into index funds. Also saves me time not having to do things like mow and shovel which is quite valuable to me.
I suppose you do say family. For me I don't really plan on having a family, so it semes like renting will always be a better option. Perhaps mainly because they don't really make houses small enough to match the cost of renting, or at least not in the area I want to be in.
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