sevan

Yep, this is such a huge impact on the apparent inflation rate. It is an absolutely valid thing to measure, but I love your point about how the market has essentially shifted to only selling luxury products. You either get to pay luxury prices or do without.

Other challenges with CPI are substitution and owner's equivalent rent.

With substitution, economists look at changing purchase patterns and adjust the basket of goods included in the calculation. For example, if you used to spend $20 per week on steak, but now you spend $20 per week on chicken, the economists say your preference changed and there was no inflation. In some cases, this might be true, but in others it could be that the price of meat went up significantly and you switched to something cheaper because you can't afford the higher prices. If you're talking about the fact that nobody is buying 8-tracks anymore, then substitution is certainly valid, but that's not always the case.

In the case of housing, up until the early 1980s, CPI included home prices in the calculation. Then they switched to an estimate of what you would pay in rent for your house rather than the price of the house. This flattens out the CPI movement when home prices go up and down. Is it valid? Maybe? Probably to the economists at least, but not to anyone who wants to buy a home. On the flip side, if you already own a home, home price inflation is kind of irrelevant in the short to medium term because your cost doesn't necessarily change (other than insurance and taxes).

I'm the opposite, lived most of my life on the West coast and then moved to the East coast. Some time zone related things that I've noticed:

• I love to start work early and end work early, so there was a period of time where I could work 6am to 3pm and still be online later than many of my east coast coworkers. This schedule was ideal for me. Now I have to work until 5 or 6pm every day and I don't like that very much.

• I could get up and trade stocks early in the morning, which is convenient for me because I don't do a lot of stock trading and don't need to stay on top of it throughout the day. Now I get up and think, "I need to make that transaction later today", then 4pm rolls around and I realize I've forgotten to do it yet again.

• Not a time zone thing, but I've been to Hawaii once and would love to go back. When I was in California, it was a 5-6 hour flight, now its more like 12 hours. I'm not willing to make that trip. I do have the option to go to the Caribbean or Europe instead, which is nice though (if I ever get around to it).

• I don't watch sports, but I always thought of the Super Bowl being an afternoon game. Then I moved East and realized people were staying up past midnight to watch the game (and party) and then trying to go to work or school Monday morning. No impact for me, but for my lifestyle, afternoon games would be preferable.

• I used to do a lot of online gaming with people from all over the US and Europe. Lots of my friends would stay up very late or even all night gaming. I could keep up with them when it meant staying up until 10-12pm (my time). Staying up until 2 or 3am would not work for me. I don't play online games anymore, but that would be a challenge for me now.

Oh, the reason makes a lot of sense from their standpoint. They integrated Google apps into the car, but now you get to pay them a monthly subscription to access it (after an initial "included" period). So, you get to pay $15/month to GM to get the features you already pay for on your phone. Oh, and you now have to download and setup all the apps again on your car. I truly hope no other car company follows that model.

I'm neutral on the housing market right now. People buying houses are generally living in them (or renting them), there's very little house flipping like in 2005-06. There's also no interest-only mortgages, so people actually have the cash flow to stay. Rates are probably not going up, but they might come down a little. If they do drop, I think prices will go up proportionately such that the monthly payment is the same either way. New housing is being built, but not fast enough to make a major impact on demand in the near term.

Altogether, I think housing in the US is "fairly" valued on a supply/demand basis at the moment. If we get a recession, prices might dip, but I would be very surprised to see another crash like 2007-09. However, I also don't expect to see prices go up quickly from here other than in response to lower interest rates. So, if I were making a new purchase decision today, I'd be thinking about the following:

• Do I plan to stay 5+ years (the longer, the better)
• Can I comfortably afford to pay the mortgage (or is it at least comparable to rent)?
• Can I afford a major repair bill? Especially if any of the big ticket items will hit their typical end of life in the next 5 years.

Here are some of my major home maintenance expenses from the last 10 years:

• Water supply line to the house failed (polybutylene): $2.5k
• Tankless hot water unit failed: $3.5k
• Wildlife exclusion due to rats in the attic and crawlspace: $2k
• Electrical repairs due to rats in the crawlspace chewing on wiring: $3.4k
• Totally gut and rebuild kitchen & bathroom due to plumbing failure: $2k deductible, plus my homeowner's insurance increased every year since
• Replaced failed mini-split HVAC system: $3.5k
• Dig up and repair sewage line that was clogged with roots: $3.5k
• New sod to repair the lawn after the plumbers dug it up: $1.5k

Those are the big items I recall that I had little choice in. I also replaced my way past end of life 2 zone HVAC system for about $30k. I could have kept the old one running longer and I could have gotten a cheaper replacement (maybe $22k), but the old system was struggling and couldn't keep the house comfortable anymore. I seem to recall hearing a good rule of thumb is to set aside 1-2% of your home's value every year for major maintenance and that seems about right from my experience.

I also have a Chevy Bolt and I love it. I wouldn't buy any current GM EV because they decided to remove Android Auto and Apple Carplay, but if they ever change their mind and put those back, I would be happy to buy another one. Used models are very reasonably priced and potentially eligible for a tax rebate. You could easily get one for under $20k.

I think the only reason the US continues to exist in its current state is due to the global power of the US currency. It is the dominant currency for international exchange, which gives the US government extraordinary influence in international affairs AND gives corporations and wealthy people a reason to be based in the US. There are historical similarities with other countries having a dominant currency such as the British Pound or Dutch Guilder during those countries periods of imperial dominance. The empire is likely to persist as long as the currency remains dominant no matter how badly it is mismanaged.

I have an electric wood chipper, it's...adequate. Its been a few years since I bought it, but at the time I bought it, my understanding was that you could not get an electric version that matches the power of gas powered units. For electric, you get to pick either a mulcher that will shred leaves and VERY small branches or a chipper that will slowly turn smallish (maybe 1-1.5") branches into chunks.

Overall, It works for my purpose. I would prefer to have a more powerful one, but I only use it a few times a year and would prefer to avoid dealing with the maintenance that goes with a gas unit (not to mention the horrible smell when using one).

As close to exactly the start time as possible. That's when I was asked to arrive, so that's what I'll do. While I'm with many folks here in wanting to arrive early to avoid being late, parties are the one exception. I think it is more rude to be early to a party than late unless it is at a public venue where I can hang out while waiting without imposing on the host.

I don't think the loading screens are the failure, the fast travel system is. Depending on where you are and where you're going, you have different fast travel options. Sometimes you can pick your end destination directly (sort of). Other times you have to pick your planet (loading screen), land (loading screen), either run to your destination or pick a fast travel location on the local map (loading screen), enter a building (loading screen), take an elevator (loading screen) and now you've arrived. This is about the worst case I can think of with 5 loading screens.

Even in a best case scenario, like having the option to directly travel back to the lodge, you still have travel to the outside of the lodge (loading screen) and enter the lodge (loading screen). So, in most cases you'll have between 2 and 5 loading screens unless you're just traveling between outdoor locations on the same planet.

Which I guess takes us a step further and suggests that the pointless spaceflight feature of the game (or the pointless smuggling) is the real culprit. If you didn't need to scan ships for contraband, they could have built a more robust map system that allowed better point to point fast travel. You'd still run into issues of indoor/outdoor, or indoors with multiple areas, but it would have been much better.

Its a very thin layer of leather on the outside and very thin layers of fabric on the inside. It is 2 credit cards tall, so depending on how many cards you have, you distribute them across 4 pockets. The billfold section is split into a shallow and a deep compartment, so you can arrange things at 2 levels, if you want. I rarely carry cash, so that part usually just has some small notes or receipts or nothing at all.

So it is partly the layout and partly the materials that keeps it thin. "Nice" wallets are usually all leather or mostly leather, which makes them much thicker and tri-folds are the worst.

I checked out of curiosity, its an Allet Original (was called classic leather when I bought it) and I've had it for 9 years. Its still in great condition, but apparently they cost almost twice as much now (I paid $35, they're $66 now).

I got several wallets as gifts ages ago, but I got sick of carrying fat wallets and found a slim wallet to buy for myself and have used it for as long as I can remember now. I would never trade it out unless I somehow found an even skinnier one (or it gets lost or destroyed).