Diablo Dude

Bingo.
It's shocking just how financially illiterate people are when it comes to basic supply and demand concepts.
Lot's of conflated claims have been made here, repeatedly only looking at one side of the equation or comparing the spending habits of much richer people to those that are on the margin.

DodoBrd

So what’s it going to take to change the spending habits of ‘rich people’?

shrimp money

The world consumer is much different from 2012, let alone 2007.

The amount of people making over $250k a year is tremendous, and I can’t even quantify the high incomes of 18-40 year olds that earn a fortune from social.

Just an assumption, but the way to be a baller in 2007 was to own a legacy business, or white collar executive.

Manifold

https://www.washingtoninformer.com/m...ycheck-survey/

DodoBrd

Using actual IRS tax filings from 2008 - 2020, here is some data...

DodoBrd

Damn sad... many people believe they 'deserve' nice cars and homes (with big monthly payments), 2-3 holidays a year, expensive preschool/private school, and nice dinners every weekend because they are in the top 5-10% of income earners. When in reality, they are barely getting by. Also troubling in that article is that nearly 2/3 of people are living paycheck to paycheck.

shrimp money

Article means nothing to me. It’s the same gotcha articles because they grab attention. There’s no way to know if anyone making $250k lives paycheck to paycheck.

Manifold

Results are based on a survey.

shrimp money

Of the 4,000 surveyed, where do they live, where $250k+ doesn't go far. At the end of the article, it says roughly 1 out of 10, "reported issues covering all their household expenses in April."

If the IRS data provided by @DodoBird is accurate, there's over 8 million households making over $200k. I don't think a sample size of 4,000 is an accurate representation. The money supply increases around 7% per year according to Nasdaq but what is it, like 40% of the money supply was created in the last two years? Given that data, it almost has to hold true that there are more people that make over $200k, even if it buys less currently due to inflation. Well, either more people make $200k+, or it went to those in the $1 million+ households.

ipse dixit

250k is the new 100k.

People need to deal with that "new normal"

usctrojanGT3

It's mostly due to inflation and our dollars being worth less and less.

McNamara

Or, if you consider the other side of the looking glass… I would say the last cycle of economic growth (at least the duration of) is also almost entirely artificial, and ironically, ‘engineered by the fed’.

Manifold

If I'm interpreting it correctly (maybe not), according to this calculator, 93th percentile is $200k in 2012 and $250k in 2022.

https://dqydj.com/household-income-by-year/

IRunalot

You can say that again, look at the Feds balance sheet (blue line) vs the S&P since 2003. Every "economic event" led to a dip in the S&P, then stimulus then market growth. Look at the "depositor bailout"that happened recently and its clear that the Fed borrowed(printed) more money for it.

Sure there are people here smarter with markets than myself but this is pretty obvious. The COVID bump is massive.

eddiev

I pulled the trigger, 33 over if the watch is worth $12k.