'creative destruction' has less to do with worker livelihood as it does those elements that enable the productive worker and company that make a place a desirable community to live in

all of which are happening in spades

Immigration, sure, but we value our time more than an $8/hr wage for mowing lawns in the middle of 110 degree weather and 100% humidity.

mom and pop owned and operated stores are far better for a community and the economy long term than some mega superstore

lol 100% humidity

but the superstore has the leverage of mass

Immigrants rarely have the labor skills required to secure themselves the labor descriptors we all pursue, honestly.

Yes, I live in Florida, Kealor.

Lol.

that drives out the stores that used to anchor communities

I also used to work in that industry.

Let the fucking immigrants have it. I don't give a shit.

which industry?

keep in mind there are places in the world that do have worse job markets than america

Mostly manual labor, excluding skilled manual labor.

aus is pretty shite and uk is even worse

Absolutely, Kealor.

yes, but it is about the ratio of job market earnings vs cost of living

that is what people miss

our standard of living is also 25-30% higher than those same places with work job prospects

most cost of living estimates ive seen/experienced are higher than they should be

you might have more money in your pocket, but you can buy LESS than you could with less money yesterday

not that that makes the metric bad, just hard to measure

hard for you to measure over the short course of your lifespan

Money wont make you happy

more datapoints, easier to measure

Buying escorts will though

yes, but if you have NO money, you will have a hard time thinking of anything else

We have the CPI, @ManAnimal, but I see more artificial inflation of prices coming from regulations creating uncompetitive markets and taxation, than I do anything else.

I'd love to be poor

well the economy will fluctuate significantly accross lifetimes, so its still quite hard no matter how large your dataset

with respect, the CPI is flawed

That, it is.

Being middle class westerner its easy to take shit for granted

And that's the reason we don't use the CPI often anymore.

the metric doesn't account for the two functions that both contribute to inflation

it only accounts for one

The alternative accounts for inflation.

i disagree

Why couldnt i be born as a black starving lad not knowing if my water has aids

gdp seems to be the best metric so far, and even then its pretty shit