Anyway, so many people near me bought huge pickups and I hate it because the front bumpers are at the height of my head. So expensive gas should stop that trend for a bit.
I have been thinking about why inflation prompts such a strong reaction. My original (cynical) take was, "low unemployment makes a big positive difference to ~10% of the population, inflation makes a small negative difference for everyone. People are more concerned about what affects them personally."
But I think that's too dismissive. I can think of two reasons why inflation would be so important politically. (1) It's one of the few things that everyone experiences directly, rather than reading about in the news. (2) There is the feeling of, "this will never go back." When (as a co-worker recently complained) the price of a grocery store doughnut goes from $.99 to $1.29, it's never going back and it's always going to feel more expensive (even though wages will catch up fairly quickly it doesn't change the feeling of, "I'm paying _how_ much?"
If I really wanted to be philosophical I'd note that watching prices rise and thinking, "I remember when that was cheaper" is also an indicator of aging, and so inflation makes everyone feel old -- but I don't actually believe that.
On a music note, I recently listened to "Swinging Party" by The Replacements (which I hadn't heard in years) and it's really good 80s music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8ikJiKWubY
I haven't noticed our groceries getting more expensive. Maybe that's because Whole Foods pre-inflated prices and maybe it's because we've been eating more take out.
3: friend of mine is an economist and is 56. I guess he remembers going to stores with his parents in the 70's, because he still marvels at how inexpensive stuff is at Target compared to when he was a kid. It doesn't always go up.
I can remember going to stores in the 70s too. So many fights about who gets to ride in the cart and who has to walk on their own like a loser.
What sort of terrain features both green grass and high tides? Like an estuary?
5: That's fair. There are examples (incidentally, I remember seeing a chart that showed the inflation adjusted costs of a variety of items and one of the categories that had the biggest drop was "toys").
What sort of terrain features both green grass and high tides? Like an estuary?
According to the internet
"I wrote that song in St. Augustine, Florida. We went to a cookout on the beach and everybody forgot to bring their guitars. I was standing by the ocean and there was a breeze and the words kept coming to me. It's about all the rock stars I liked that died had come back and were playing a show just for me. Like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. And eventually more of course."
Now I'm curious if Michael Smith knew that when he wrote Gamble's Guitar (about remembering a dead friend).
Down in St. Augustine F-L-A
I was walking along the beach one day
Sun beating down like a steel drum plays
So bright that you couldn't see far
I was listening to the waves roll in
Humming a tune from I don't know when
Thinking about times that won't come again
And I thought I heard Gamble's guitar
I had a book and a joint and some chunks of bread
For the seagulls wheeling above my head
Elmore Leonard and Panama Red
And the music from a distant bar
I was thinking about a real good friend
Feeling kind of sorry for myself just then
And a whole lot older than I'd ever been
And I thought I heard Gamble's guitar
I like my women like I like my Florida towns, near the Atlantic and heavily fortified.
Agreed about inflation hitting hard for so many people with no buffer.
Even for people who are pretty comfortable, housing prices are nuts (in large parts because of NIMBYs and low-density tract development because who doesn't love a huge lawn), affects thinking about their options and their kids' lives. Mortgage rates going up is visible, connects abstract markets with house affordability.
Maybe cars, same reasoning, plus self-image considerations because because here people choose to identify with what they drive?
One thing that drives me nuts about broadcast discussion of it is the lack of acknowledgement that oil + China supply shocks are global-- inflation is high in Japan, Germany, Australia. Viewing this as a particularly American problem or as a direct consequence of US fiscal choices is a mistake.
I'm not thrilled that it now costs over $30 to fill up my tank, but I only fill it every six weeks or so. I think I'll be alright.
re: 14
Heh. I drive a tiny car, and it costs me approximately 80 USD to fill my car (less than 9 US Gallons).
I can't really take the ga spruce complaints too seriously with most people driving around giant tanks. The cost of gas is maybe 20% of a vehicle's tco?
Maybe you need to swing by the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
The minivan was shedding parts as I drove, and I found it very stressful, so I traded vehicles with Jammies, and I'm now driving a hand-me-down from my MIL, ie a Ford Expedition. The gas mileage is miserable. It costs ~$100 to tank up, and I'm doing so ~1/week.
I'm thinking it's time to buy a hybrid minivan, but I've never bought a new car, and they say not to buy used hybrids, and so I'm still building up to the idea.
(However, if we had to order it, it'd be nice to have it before we drove to Florida and Montana over the summer.)
It amazing to me that nobody learned any lessons from the high gas prices of 2008. I took it as a clue to get a smaller car, but somehow the entire American automobile industry went the other direction and focused on selling giant trucks and SUVs.
If anyone would like to offer guidance, I would welcome it.
19: Well but don't you remember how emasculating it was to have a black president?
Have you tried overinflating your tires? I recall that was Obama's big idea last time.
I'm actually a bit alarmed that Biden hasn't said anything about, eg, overinflating your tires, or riding in a carpool, or maybe keep telecommuting to use less gasoline.
Seems like there is only appetite for action on the supply side, which, of course, will doom us all.
Current gas prices are lower (even not adjusted for inflation!) than they were at the end of the Bush admin and cars are more efficient now, so that doesn't seem onerous. It just got extra cheap during the pandemic. However, many prices are very noticeably up by a lot at my local grocery store, and there are obvious empty spots on shelves (particularly in the frozen section for some reason) and whole long sections stocked only a couple rows deep.
Get a Toyota Rav 4 and then you can stay home because it only seats five.
I feel like if we want to beat inflation maybe the way to do it is to make sure that covid is no longer an ongoing threat to the global supply chain.
Or we could just decide not to spend any more money on keeping covid in line, because that would be inflationary.
12: We so desperately need better housing and transportation policy. But I'm kind of a hypocrite, because I now try to limit my time on public transit b/c of COVID. Wish we could ventilate a bit better.
I'm also now in a low-ish density burb. Two towns away is a town with one zone with minimum lot size of 2 acres and houses can't take up more than 1/4 of the lot, and they've maintained a farm as a non-profit. It's a beautiful town in its way, and maybe it should be preserved as is, kind of like a zoological theme park that others can drive through when they want to pretend they are in a rural area.
Milk at Costco has been a pretty good measure of inflation. Prepandemic it was 2.12 a gallon. Then it went up to 2.33, then 2.54, and right now I think it's 2.82. The rotisserie chickens are still holding at $4.99 though. Which reminds me, for some reason it's not kosher to have milk with chicken even though chickens don't lactate and it is kosher to have milk with fish so milk is not forbidden with all meat. (Not that we keep kosher, I just always thought it was a weird rule.)
I always assumed "Green Grass and High Tides" was a pot reference.
Obviously, various Jewish scientists are trying to make a chicken you can milk.
Full Employment and High Inflation Forever.
48: Those Costco rotisserie chickens are enormous - like 2x the size of any other store's. It's too much for the 2 of us.
Rotisserie chicken is usually a money loser, because it costs less than raw chicken. I think it's partly a loss leader, but partly they cook up the ones that are due to expire, and they would otherwise have to throw them out.
they say not to buy used hybrids,
We bought a 2005 Prius in about 2010, and it's still fine, although we don't drive it very much. Why not hybrids specifically?
Am I parsing 27 right that it takes regulation to keep houses below half an acre in floorplan? I've just spent some time with pictures and that's very big, yes?
OP.link: I remembered the song, but I sure didn't remember it being almost ten minutes long. Although I suppose if you adjust for inflation that's only 1:56 in 1975 minutes.
33: it's an expensive, shabby chic town with a few mansions. Not one a I could afford. They have some townhouses with large lands that are then left undeveloped.
I was wrong, but the original limits in the 30's were no more than 20% of the property could be taken up by a house.
https://www.lincolntown.org/DocumentCenter/View/72197/Zoning-Bylaw-2021-Final-docx
Further to 3: The psychological benefit of low unemployment (and therefore the electoral benefit) is essentially nonexistent. While it's true that maybe 10% of working people would have lost their jobs by now if the economy was in the shitter, almost none of the members of the 10% know they're in the club. They still have jobs but their income hasn't gone up as fast as inflation, so they don't have much to be grateful about.
Further to 3: The psychological benefit of low unemployment (and therefore the electoral benefit) is essentially nonexistent. While it's true that maybe 10% of working people would have lost their jobs by now if the economy was in the shitter, almost none of the members of the 10% know they're in the club. They still have jobs but their income hasn't gone up as fast as inflation, so they don't have much to be grateful about.
34: It's not just the length. It's that the guitar from the guitar solo is worse than the guitar from the part with vocals.
When hungry, they can bully flockmates. Pre-1930 8 pound chicken.
Rotisserie chickens are not from the same pool as the shrinkwrapped ones, they are smaller.
The thing with gas and food prices is that for the financially comfortable, they're hard to ignore because they're regular expenses. One needs to shop every week, and presumably one has to shop at Walmart because one took out a loan on a truck that has a bumper higher than the roof of my car.
For us -- fortunately -- I've noticed less inflation than the skimpification and sort-of transient shortages.
1. My usual assumption on inflation is that it always seems even more important and more negative to the media and politicians than it is to normal people, because it's extra harmful to old people on fixed incomes, and they vote more reliably than other people.
2. About recent inflation, I don't have a link or other reliable source handy but I seem to remember seeing a chart or set of factoids showing that corporate profits are also up by an impressive amount, the implication being that inflation is just being sucked up by big corporations and oligarchs without the usual increase in wages. Am I imagining things or falling for something oversimplified or something?
sort-of transient shortages.
We've had more people holding up signs saying they are homeless, but that's since covid started.
41. Look at actual polls. Most show inflation as the biggest worry, with over 50% agreeing (the Economist/YouGov, just to pick one example). I don't think it's just "the media and politicians." The fear of inflation is because having reduced the value of your assets (your job, your investments, etc.) there is no guarantee that growth and wages and such will keep pace. In fact, if they do, you are eventually Weimar Germany with wheelbarrows of cash to buy a loaf of bread.
41.2: I've read some really conflicting things about wages vs real wages, but I think part of what's true is that certain low-income sectors have kept up and others haven't*, which averages out to no low-income sectors keeping up--but it's a deceiving average.
Profit-taking is definitely happening, but it's not remotely the sole cause, it's just something people like to point to because it's a simple villain story. Actually my real complaint is that profit-taking is enabled by a couple of basic policy choices (antitrust and "shareholder value"), but the people who complain about the profit-taking mostly want to bitch about billionaires, not try to make better policy.
*I think specifically food service and/or hospitality
I am also not familiar with warnings about used hybrids*, but I certainly know people who've bought them without trouble.
That said, used car prices are stupid right now, and I've never been entirely sold on the "don't buy new" credo. IMO, if you're going to drive the car a lot of miles over a lot of years, why shouldn't you get all of the best ones plus all of the warranty-protected ones? The depreciation doesn't matter because you're using the damn thing long after it's paid off, so you're not meaningfully upside down at any point.
Right now the internet tells me you can buy a brand new Pacifica hybrid for $50k at your local Chrysler dealer, or you can buy a 2021 one with 20k miles for $46k at a used car dealer 85 miles away (pretty shade of blue tho). The new one is a plug-in hybrid that doesn't even use gas for the first 30 miles and has a total range of 520 miles per 16 gallon fill-up. Just get it and be happy.
*I guess it's based on the idea that the battery pack has a limited life, but it's a pretty long life--there's no age at which Prius values crash
I'm pretty sure the obsession with buying used cars comes from a different era when used cars dealers had a bad reputation which drove down prices on all used cars, and meant you could get a great deal on a lightly used vehicle. When I looked into it, new seemed like it was the way to go. What you shouldn't do is switch to a new car every few years! Buy new, use the car for a long time, repeat.
Don't used car dealers still have a bad reputation? Is the difference the existence of resources like CarFax that let you judge the value of individual cars independent of the dealer? I can see how that would drive up the value of used cars in good condition.
Yeah, I think the internet has changed things, both CarFax and various ways of searching for and purchasing cars online.
Keeping a car for a long time is great except that for the second time in my life, I'm driving a 16 year old product of the Chrysler Corporation.
All car dealers have a bad reputation. Car dealers plus real estate agents make up like 80% of the people who think fascism would be great because the leopards won't eat their faces.
As the age of a Prius goes up so does the chance that its catalytic converter has been stolen.
From 2006-2015 I drove a very fancy 1987 Toyota pickup (just a pickup, they didn't have names yet). Then I decided it was time to get a new car so I bought a 1998 CRV. Which I am still driving. It gets about 20 mpg but I don't really drive very much so I don't care. Repairs never cost more than $500.
It is by far the most popular car in Missoula (probably later years, I think they kept the exact same shape forever) and I never park in a parking lot without seeing at least one doppelganger.
How did you avoid the inevitable urge to feel like you should get a Chrysler?
There are some used car situations that work well; some don't. Right now, used cars are really pricy and have been for several years, not generally a good deal. That said, buying a luxury car used is pretty great - the initial drop in value is quite large on some, and the fancy options and features end up making a 3-5 year car seem quite new, and they hold up nicely. No idea why hybrids would be different. The dealer I bought my car from keeps emailing me to ask me to sell my 8 year old car (bought used) back to them (er, no thanks?) because I guess they have a lot of demand.
That said, we just put our names down for a VERY fancy new electric car for AJ. Apparently, there is a list, then you pay a deposit when your name comes up for the next dealer allotment, then eventually you get a car. Maybe in a year. His current car is 18 years old, and he is adorably excited about a brand new car. Given all the money he saved in waiting to replace it, I don't begrudge him the splurge. Need to get the 220 V electrical installed, and apparently the charger will need wifi in our detached garage . . .
I'm assuming it's an electric Jeep.
How did you avoid the inevitable urge to feel like you should get a Chrysler?
I bought a used Neon one time. Don't do it.
I also had a Dodge Ram 50, which was a small Japanese pick-up truck imported by Dodge. I traded it in to buy the Neon because I needed some big repair and because people kept asking me to help them move stuff. A few months later, I saw it parked at the movie theater. The new owner had left it full of trash.
Mine was a Plymouth, 2001. Engine blew up at under 120,000 miles.
Wiki says The first generation Neon earned a "Poor" rating in an offset frontal Crash test conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The second generation Neon earned a higher "Marginal" rating.
Its a miracle we are alive.
"In 2005, the Institute carried out side-impact tests on 14 small car models, simulating an impact with an SUV. Among these, the Neon performed the worst..... The Neon had 161 driver deaths per million registered vehicle years, while the average for the Neon class (4-door small) was 103."
Yeah. My in-laws basically marched me to a car dealership to replace that as soon as we had a baby.
55: Do Randroids Dream of Electric Jeeps?
re: 24
Yeah. I drive a small fuel efficient car, and drive less than 4000 miles a year.* It's not a big expense for me, and, I'm generally happy if the cost of driving goes up relative to other modes of transport. I cycle and walk more miles in a year than I drive.
But I am worried about inflation. My monthly expenditure on food, utility bills, etc has been going up significantly, and taxes have gone up significantly, too. There's zero chance of my wages keeping up with inflation. I've had several pay rises and one promotion since 2016 and (I just checked) even with that, my wage increase since 2016 has amounted to almost exactly inflation over the same period, and when you factor in changes to tax, I'm earning less than I was 5 years ago. With changes to inflation this year (not yet showing up in the official calculators) I'm going to be noticeably worse off.
There's no way that my salary will continue to match inflation in the future.
* I don't know what my precise mileage per gallon is, because so much of my driving is in terrible London traffic, but it's definitely over 40 mpg (US gallons, not Imperial), and my emissions/pollution is low enough that I don't have to pay the London ultra low emission tax.
re: 24
Yeah. I drive a small fuel efficient car, and drive less than 4000 miles a year.* It's not a big expense for me, and, I'm generally happy if the cost of driving goes up relative to other modes of transport. I cycle and walk more miles in a year than I drive.
But I am worried about inflation. My monthly expenditure on food, utility bills, etc has been going up significantly, and taxes have gone up significantly, too. There's zero chance of my wages keeping up with inflation. I've had several pay rises and one promotion since 2016 and (I just checked) even with that, my wage increase since 2016 has amounted to almost exactly inflation over the same period, and when you factor in changes to tax, I'm earning less than I was 5 years ago. With changes to inflation this year (not yet showing up in the official calculators) I'm going to be noticeably worse off.
There's no way that my salary will continue to match inflation in the future.
* I don't know what my precise mileage per gallon is, because so much of my driving is in terrible London traffic, but it's definitely over 40 mpg (US gallons, not Imperial), and my emissions/pollution is low enough that I don't have to pay the London ultra low emission tax.
I definitely didn't double post. Odd.
I'm not thrilled that it now costs over $30 to fill up my tank
If Spike were living in the UK, this would mean that he was driving a Strimmer.
Bought a used Neon in the early 2000s. Paid 5 grand. Got hit by a nitwit who was pulling out of a parking lot. Got paid 5 grand for the damage, which didn't even keep me from opening a door. For such a crappy little car, the engine had some oomph, and the driver's compartment had excellent space for a large person. Had that car for 10 years, though I admit I was delighted to get rid of it.
I think I've told this story: Bought used cars my entire life until last August, when we got a new Subaru because used car prices are so nuts. It had a rattle and we had to return it, which took a couple of months because they didn't have any cars. We paid the advertised price. We returned it two months later with 1,400 miles on it. They immediately advertised it accurately as used, charging 10 percent more than we paid. Car inflation lately is nuts.
The Neon was fun to drive. The gas gauge never worked, which was a huge pain.
Also, the door panel kept falling off.
I bought a 2010 Toyota Yaris a few years ago. I think I got a good deal on it, because it has manual door locks and manual windows. I just looked it up, and those features (non-features?) are still available for some models.
I bought my used Neon for the sunroof, which never worked.
I'm pretty sure the obsession with buying used cars comes from a different era when used cars dealers had a bad reputation which drove down prices on all used cars
I'm not sure used car dealers' bad rep is or was directly tied to pricing. ISTM that the pricing thing is largely a relic of a couple old trends: people buying a new car every X years (with X
What that meant was that even a 3 year old car was appreciably closer to its demise than new, so if someone was buying used, there had to be a meaningful discount, or else they'd just buy new. And, again, there was plentiful supply from people who replaced cars frequently.
Gradually, through the '80s and '90s, more people recognized that the depreciation was so great that buying new was economically dubious, especially as A. cars lasted longer, and B. new cars had fewer and fewer problems, making warranties less meaningful. Somewhere along the line, really bulletproof cars like Accords and Camrys stopped losing much value when new, and while the proliferation of 3-year leases kept the supply of used cars going, it also kept them in the hands of dealers who "certified" them and sold them at smaller discounts than independent used dealers who couldn't/wouldn't vouch for quality.
All this meant that the used car discount has been shrinking for decades, and nowadays (or rather, before 2020) cheap used cars tend to be quite old and quite shitty--either low quality to begin with or absolute tons of wear and tear on something better.
Also a lot of American used cars get sent south of the border, further reducing supply.
Back on the inflation front, a few observations.
1) I too tend to too readily dismiss inflation concerns which strike across the spectrum and in some quite painful ways. But. in my little world it is usually quite well off retirees bitching about the price of filling up there SUVs, or some grocery item (when groceries constitute a pretty small part of their disposable income).
2) The association of the with Biden is of course inevitable, but the lack of context in media reporting has been atrocious. Rarely any sense that it is a global problem or any sense that this one thing bound to happen when significant parts of the economic system get buffeted by demand and supply shocks with intermittent degradations in transport and the like. For instance during one of the PA Dem Senate debates* the moderator asked for an assessment of Biden's first year for which they gave B+. A-. and A as I recall. The moderator quipped something like , "so you're for inflation"**--at least Kenyatta (I think chastised him mildly).
*During which to me Fetterman was a bit of a mess, Lamb and Kenyatta much better. Just assessing debate/think on your feet/seeming preparedness, not necessarily positions.
**It was an unfortunate moment given that in general the questions were relatively thoughtful and less gotcha than is often the case.
Further to 82.2, this part of my intense frustration with the smartbois of Twitter when they sneeringly dismiss Dem/liberal complaints about media coverage of inflation. They contend people care a lot about inflation even without the media hyping. Well yeah, but not really the complaint.
What kills me is if we really wanted to help a lot of people most negatively affected by inflation we could do it by restoring the Child Tax Credit, but Manchin won't do it because he thinks its inflationary.
Meanwhile, GDP shrank at a rate of 1.4% last quarter and the Fed still thinks its a good idea to raise interest rates. We are fixing to inflation-panic our way into a proper recession.
84: Yeah. The deficit is shrinking which Joe Manchin ostensibly has claimed that is an important thing, but he has not given the admin any "credit" for that, still whines about the deficit, and of course is all in inflation reduction. His approval went up more last year in his state than any other senator. (Way up with Rs* who get that he is ratfucking effectively with some lowering among Ds.) I guess I should just focus on the judges. Apparently Susan Collins, Our Lady of the Perpetually Furrowed Brow tried to convince him to caucus with the Rs but the claim is he would not do so with Mitch as potential Majority Leader.
So everyone can pay for groceries, college, and gas with their deficit reduction windfall. Oh wait.
*Come 2024 will they like that over a real R--doubtful.
We bought a house. My mortgage payment is about what my rate of down payment savings was plus our old rent and the car loan we paid off right before buying covers the small 401k loan we took out to avoid PMI. We've had to buy some durable goods (washer and dryer, portable dishwasher). Prices on those have gone up a lot. We bought a grill before the announced price increase. Previously we didn't pay for heat and water. Our water is totally reasonable. I have a Prius C so I don't notice the gasoline prices too much. Tim has an Outback, and he drives more.
We will need to buy a couch, but most of what we spend money on is gas for heating and food. The amount we have to save for a rainy day outside of retirement accounts is a lot lower than Ai would like. The problem is housing inflation. 2 years earlier our house would sold for about 100k less, so that's a few hundred dollars off of our mortgage a month. Even with interest rate increases, I think our house has probably appreciated 75K since we made the offer in November. We just desperately need more housing in this area that is more accessible to public transit.
And I think we paid a little bit less than the family might have gotten if they hadn't needed to sell quickly to pay back a reverse mortgage and hadn't already been burned when someone couldn't get financing. Ours was solid and they knew the transaction would go through when our mortgage person said it would.
And belatedly on "High Tides", I had a soft spot for long noodly songs back in the day in accordance my raving Stereotypical Prog Rock Tendency musical.
Top 3 long noodly instrumental outros from the time:
1) "Oh Well" - Fleetwood Mac (looking it up did not realize that it was release as Part 1 and 2, with an abbreviated Part 2 added to part 1 on most airplay.
2) Can't You hear me Knocking - Stones
3) "High Tides"
"Layla" fits as well I guess.
A lot of full noodles entranced me of course. I'll mention "Maggot Brain."
We either need a bigger house or I need to go back to the office. Probably the latter because it's really nice to paying 2003 prices on the house.
We're never sure how much our place has appreciated because we're in a less desirable location (busy street) than most other similar buildings in the neighborhood. But a place just down the street that's very similar just went on the market for double what we paid for our place in the mid 2000s. Which I guess isn't insane annual rate- after inflation it's a 35% increase so only like 2% per year, 4% nominal.
Have you tried blocking the street until people take another way?
9: There was a smaller house in Knecht's town on a road with a double yellow line listed by an estate for what ours was listed at (we paid a bit more). A Cape which was sold in February in an equally good neighborhood that had been flipped went for $150k more. There are a few blocks near me that were developed in the 50's where there was a multi-level and Ranch option. The ranch across the street which was updated and slightly expanded sold for more in November. We closed in January which is slower. There's a ranch a block away (equally nice street) that is listing for more than ours did and more than we paid. I think it has mini splits to cool it, and it's under contract in less than a week, so I think it went for list or above.
Our rent would have gone up too, but fuel and food is most of what I spend money on, so I do notice the price increases.
SP - Tim thinks there might be a biotech bubble, so there won't be as much opportunity to jump ship for higher paying jobs, and that some of the VC-funded start ups are laying people off. That's the gossip at his company. I think they underpay, but it is very stable. His company is German, and they are really being affected by natural gas prices there, so they are tightening a lot of budgets and not replacing scientists who leave. What's your impression of the broader biotech, Pharma job market in the Boston area right now?
89: 2012-2015 prices were better than 2003-2005 prices in some areas here.
Anyway, I got stupid lucky on interest. Not as lucky as Nathan who refinanced earlier, but we locked in a rate the Monday or Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Rates had been starting to creep up but they took a brief dive because of Omicron. Not as low as spring 2021, I.e. not under 3%, but still pretty damn low by historic standards.
We've been told we should refinance but everyone has been saying that for years and it would have been counterproductive for all those times. Still rocking the adjustable rate mortgage used to purchase the house.
In the spring of 2021 it would have been a brilliant thing to do. Rates below inflation even over the long term.
But as near as I can tell, the adjustable rate has stayed below any and all 30 year rates over the past 20 years.
That's not even factoring in the cost of refinancing.
Improve something by changing one letter:
The Marcel Cinematic Universe
Duchamp, Marceau and Proust. Together they fight crime.
"Forensics did find these cake crumbs at the murder scene. Can you make anything of them?"
"Wait, they remind me of something..." (disappears into reverie for eight hours)
I think it's still insanely hot despite market values. We have trouble finding enough applicants and I get LinkedIn messages from recruiters for startup jobs a couple times a week. We did salary market adjustments on top of annual raises at the end of last year to try to stop people from leaving. There are a couple of duds (Biogen) where people are looking to escape and some older biotechs (Kaleido) shut down but people have plenty of places to land.
100: I was hearing what BG was from two friends - rough time for startups, having trouble raising money, some closing doors. Not so much at big, established places. Interesting that your view is different!
Boston is the place I'd love to live next, but AJ is terrified about housing costs.