
It’s Harder to Get Started (Financially) Today - yan
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2011/02/15/its-harder-to-get-started-today/
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lukesandberg
this was pretty interesting and i definitely believe that there is some merit
there, though a few references would have been nice to see. for instance where
is the statistic that real _average_ wages have fallen 18%; maybe he means
_median_ wages and even so i think that there is some amount of academic
debate on the matter. Also additional modern expenses are taken into account
in CPI calculations (at least that's what i remember from econ, please correct
me if i am wrong). So the fact that now everyone has a cell phone/internet
bill is accounted for in the inflation numbers. Next, it would be interesting
to see education levels and corresponding wages taken into account. Education
costs may have gone up significantly but what about the corresponding wage
gains for educated workers.

Really the problem here is that comparing averages doesn't make a lot of
economic sense, because what was average 40 years ago would be considered
below average today (think tvs, cars, home sizes...). Still its a very thought
provoking article but I think it needs more research.

Edited

