Taking on debt to EAT is a definite sign of real trouble.  A sign also that there is a reckoning coming in the Consumer Debt sector.  Gotta wonder if the write downs have been priced in on the TBTF bank balance sheets?  There's also weakness in the mortgage market and student debt, now that the Trumpenator has cancelled forgiveness.  Commercial RE also looks bad.  Could be a Perfect Storm brewing.  Individually, maybe you could juggle it around.  All together, much harder to extend & pretend.

https://fortune.com/article/buy-now-pay-later-groceries-economic-concerns-lending-tree-survey/

A quarter of U.S. consumers are now financing groceries with buy-now, pay-later as economic pressures mount, survey says

RE

Quote from: RE on Apr 29, 2025, 01:34 AMThis is why the Middle Class is a vanishing species.  Starting salaries at even the highest levels haven't even come close to keeping up with inflation.  To Boomers though, $100K sounds like a lot of money, particularly for a recent college grad.  A reasonably successful Boomer like Kdog didn't crack 6 digits even at the end of his career in IT with a Master's.

Some Boomers cracked $100k by age 30, but drilling wells near the Arctic Circle was a bitch on homelife. No Masters required though. Now, getting back into an office required a 60% paycut. And then ANOTHER 10 years to crack $100k.

But end of career nowadays, no one is talking about $100k, I see ads for assistants to reservoir engineers going for nearly $200k within the last month on Indeed.

Quote from: RE on Apr 29, 2025, 01:49 AMA quarter of U.S. consumers are now financing groceries with buy-now, pay-later as economic pressures mount, survey says

RE

Boy the knock on effect of THIS nonsense is going to be interesting. Potentially epic. Borrowing for food is bad news, once I recall using a gas card to get some milk and staples for the kids at a gas station because we didn't have any money in the bank that week. Made me feel like a bag of shit and scared the wife and I into some good habits that with time were quite financially consequential.

QuoteK-Dog didn't crack 6 digits even at the end of his career in IT with a Master's.

   Keep fishing.

Quote from: TDoS on Apr 29, 2025, 04:02 PMSome Boomers cracked $100k by age 30

30 is not straight out of college.  You've had a few years gaining experience and working in the field.

RE

Quote from: RE on Apr 29, 2025, 07:37 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Apr 29, 2025, 04:02 PMSome Boomers cracked $100k by age 30

30 is not straight out of college.  You've had a few years gaining experience and working in the field.

RE

I generalized so as to not seem like bragging. I was 26. I had 4 years of experience in the field, but it was all operational. The big money came with switching to drilling horizontal wells at 26. $100k in the 70's and 80's was big money for snot nosed greenhorns.

Get it wrong...and you know....
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2010/5/17/1274118899455/Deepwater-Horizon-Oil-Rig-006.jpg?width=620&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none

Yes big money for back then, but still wasn't straight out of college.  The point here though is how what sounds like big money to a Boomer really isn't anymore, and those lucky few Gen Zs who manage to get 6 figures are by 1980 standards getting a very average salary.  $100K today is $20K 1978 dollars.  Your typical middle management drone made $20K.  Union Plumbers straight outta HS made $20K.

RE

Quote from: RE on Apr 30, 2025, 06:53 PMYes big money for back then, but still wasn't straight out of college.

True. It was with minimal maturity, a distinct lack of experience in the particular technical exercise. You put out a number for K-Dog of 6 figures towards the end of a career, this number is more the opposite.

Quote from: REThe point here though is how what sounds like big money to a Boomer really isn't anymore, and those lucky few Gen Zs who manage to get 6 figures are by 1980 standards getting a very average salary.

30-40 years of inflation will tend to do that naturally. And your "sounds like to a boomer" is a perspective of those who remember salaries from our early days, which was a long time ago.

Straight out of college I've got a sample size of 2, one started at $50k and the other at $35K. Those two examples both thought it sounded like a bunch of money, but us "boomers" didn't.

Quote from: RE$100K today is $20K 1978 dollars.  Your typical middle management drone made $20K.  Union Plumbers straight outta HS made $20K.

So? None of this is  surprise to anyone familiar with the time value of money. I agree that purchasing power in real dollars is different today than it was in yesteryear, but that statement probably holds true across any say half century time gap.

As far as WHO makes what, that is entirely market driven. I was under the impression that America was creating too many college graduates, compared to what tradesmen can make nowadays. Oversupply, lesser value, under supply, higher value, the economics of all these parts is still basic supply and demand.

America has changed from a manufacturing economy to a service economy as well, another shift along the way that trumpster doesn't seem to get. No one wants to work in a factory manufacturing stuff. So to get them inside America, you will pay more for labor no matter what. Can't wait to see what tomato pickers get paid after trump runs off all the field hands. I'll bet it still won't be enough for pussy American teenagers to do it.

Sure, everybody knows inflation devalues money over time, but in the past the next generation had a better standard of living than his or her father.  A new worker starting out in 1970 was better off than the one in 1920, the one starting out in 2020 was worse off than the one in 1970.

Absolutely, the transition to a service economy which accompanied the offshoring of factory work significantly lowered the average wage, particularly since most service jobs are low skill and not unionized.  The actual value of physical labor has been steadily diminishing since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and mechanization.  Machines powered by coal or oil were able to do work which previously took 100s or 1000s of homo saps to do.  "22 Billion Energy Slaves" as Jason Heppenstall titled his blog back in the day.

With the advent of AI, many jobs in the white collar world of paper pushers will be taken over by machines, devaluing that form of labor also.  Whether it's a lawyer researching case law or a doctor making a diagnosis, AI will do it faster, more accurately and more comprehensively than a homo sap.  Robots can take over jobs which require both physical actions and decision making capability.  Not really a whole lot left for a meat package to do to earn his daily bread.

In light of this inexorable move, in the event the civilization manages to progress into the techno-futurist world, society will need to devise another means of distributing the wealth than paying for labor, be it physical or intellectual.  Due to its high level of complexity and vast energy demands, I don't  see this techno future as likely, but if it does come to pass it will require a radical change in economics.  That really has not been addressed effectively by techno futurist theoreticians.

RE

Quote from: RE on Apr 30, 2025, 11:43 PMRobots can take over jobs which require both physical actions and decision making capability.  Not really a whole lot left for a meat package to do to earn his daily bread.

That is one of the possible outcomes. The Terminator scenario. It might have some possibility of being a real doom creator. Maybe. The problem seems to be that the CLAIMED improvements as you've listed them lead to a bunch of people not doing anything or being paid for anything. No economy. SOME people have to keep power up to run AI centers....and they solve problems...for who? Starving masses don't give a shit about someone solving problems for rich folks if they are starving.

Quote from: REIn light of this inexorable move, in the event the civilization manages to progress into the techno-futurist world, society will need to devise another means of distributing the wealth than paying for labor, be it physical or intellectual.

Obviously. Or not, because it becomes a chicken versus the egg problem. If the people don't have the chance to migrate before dying off when AI decides it doesn't need them anymore, then they burn down the AI data centers, and the only paid people earning a living are the security guards.

And AI needs to then figure out how to grow food for its underling bipeds.

Can't wait to see how the trade negotiations in Hong Kong play out. 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/10/business/zero-ships-china-trade-ports-pandemic

Zero ships from China are bound for California's top ports. Officials haven't seen that since the pandemic

RE

QuoteZero ships from China are bound for California's top ports. Officials haven't seen that since the pandemic

DUH

Summers warns of $1T revenue loss risk from Trump 'attack' on IRS


Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said that the Trump administration's moves to downsize the Internal Revenue Service, along with other changes, are likely to incentivize reduced tax-payment compliance — potentially costing the federal government $1 trillion in lost revenues over a decade.

"We are threatening the basis of our tax system, which is based on voluntary compliance," with the efforts to slash the IRS's staff, Summers said on Bloomberg Television's Wall Street Week with David Westin.

Summers said he's currently conducting analysis on the issue, along with colleagues he didn't specify. "I'd be surprised if we're not on a path to sacrificing more than $1 trillion of revenue over the next decade because of this misguided, wanton attack on the IRS," he said.

About 20,000 IRS workers, or roughly a fifth of the agency, opted to take a deferred resignation offer this month, Bloomberg reported last week. That came on top of about 4,700 employees who took an initial offer earlier this year. Roughly 7,300 probationary employees were separately put on administrative leave.

One of the other thieves apparently thinks this thievery goes to far!

Makes sense, fire everyone in the billing department and wonder why we go out of bizness.

The reason for DOGE going into the IRS is that only rich people can really cheat on taxes.  Wage statements, and such follow the rest of us around and we really don't have a way of hiding earnings like Musk and the Trump family do.

IRS Lost 31% of Tax Auditors in DOGE Downsizing, Report Says

The Internal Revenue Service lost 31% of its auditors from buyouts and layoffs tied to Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, departures that are likely to hamper the agency's ability to go after tax cheats.

More than 3,600 revenue agents — responsible for conducting audits — have left the IRS, according to an IRS watchdog report.

In addition, 18% of revenue officers, who collect taxes, and 10% of tax examiners — front-line employees who review returns — have also left the agency, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said in a recent report.

The IRS downsizing is due to a series of moves, spurred by Musk's DOGE, to cut the agency's workforce. More than 7,300 probationary employees were terminated. More than 4,100 workers took Musk's "Fork in the Road" resignation offer, followed by a second round of buyouts where more than 13,100 were approved to leave, according to the report.

The IRS had a large number of newly hired probationary auditors due to a funding boost under President Joe Biden, who increased funding for tax enforcement to rebuild the agency's depleted capabilities. That means the cuts targeting recent hires disproportionately affected those with auditing jobs.

The terminations have been the subject of ongoing litigation.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday defended the staffing cuts, saying the layoffs are "just taking the IRS back to where it was" before a bill that "substantially bloated the personnel and the infrastructure."

Scott Bessent's net worth is at least $521 million.

Quote from: K-Dog on May 11, 2025, 10:04 AMScott Bessent's net worth is at least $521 million.

So is judging folks by their net worth a common thing among us 7 figure net worth types?

Are there rules or etiquette involved? Lower NW speaks poorly of higher NW, and higher NW do the same to the lesser? After a nod-nod or wink-wink that everyone involved in this game has made it up the scale enough to be in the club?

7 figure net worth types?

You claim to be a statician and can't tell 9 figures from 7. Dude, that is a difference of a hundred to one.

In answer to your question.

Eat the rich.

I have met three billionaires in my life.  RE knows this to be true because when he was in Seattle RE saw where I worked.  He knows I have sucked in the thin air.

Billionaires are not a superior life form.  Sorry to inform you of this.  As humans they are flawed, and capable of making horrible decisions which can ruin the lives of millions of people.

You are going back in the cooler.  Three days.