Cheap stuff
Seriously, stuff is cheap these days.
If you don't believe me, check out Peter Y. Hong's article in the LA Times, where he points out that lower production costs have kept the price of consumer goods so low that they have not changed since the 1970s.
But while prices have remained the same or decreased, so have our wages, when adjusted for inflation, he says.
It doesn't help that our tastes have changed. Americans like their houses bigger these days, and so they cost more to build, furnish and heat. We spend more on gasoline because we drive more powerful cars, he says in a follow-up interview on Marketplace.
Sure, technology has improved --- and labor costs diminished, since more things are manufactured outside the United States --- so items like VCRs and washing machines cost less to produce. But the things we care about cost more.
Tuition and fees, health care, retirement ... all that seems less secure and guaranteed. Stuff, on the other hand, is pretty easy to come by.
Ponder that while watching Possessed, these videos about hoarders.
