- Yes
- No
- 42
0
voters
Yes. I am not struggling to buy toilet paper and I can go eat in restaurants. My investments did well over the last 4 years.
6 Likes
We do not need to cancel my MIL 80th Bday because of lockdowns.
No one is suggesting I inject bleach.
I only have 5 more quarter’s worth of college payments for my kids before I’m done with them.
So yeah, better off.
3 Likes
With partial help of a job change my pay net of inflation improved meaningfully. Don’t wear a mask outside of a hospital anymore which is nice.
I’ve gone another 4 years without getting into a solid workout routine though…
1 Like
There was a dramatic drop in household anxiety once Trump left office.
No longer embarrassed to display an American flag.
1 Like
Comparing to 4 years ago feels unfair, although so do 3,493 deaths / million in the US vs 3,404 (UK), 2,615 (France), 2,080 (Germany) or 1,424 (sparsely populated Canada).
Comparing to 6 years ago, I am vastly better off. Among other things, I am no longer depressed, my body is hormonally balanced, my body hair is gone, and I have breasts. But there are states that I don’t feel that I can safely move to, and the election outcome can exacerbate that. There are also states that my daughters arguably could be worried about moving to, and the election can affect that too.
1 Like
Yeah the four years ago question is wild. Even without my esoteric nerd stats, this is such an easy “yes”. Four years ago, excess mortality was like, 30%. Unemployment was double digits.
1 Like
Life is definitely way more expensive today vs 4 years ago.
But we basically went travelling for 24 months during the pandemic, bouncing from country to country avoiding lockdowns. It was a wild and unforgettable series of trips.
When I think back on that it feels positive to me.
The better/fairer question… and the one that is more likely to be a factor in the mind of the average voter… would be “are you better off now than you were before the pandemic”
On paper, I’m better off…but the big driver is that I inherited my parents’ nest egg, which was intended to last quite a bit longer than they actually did.
Looking at the trajectory of non-retirement expenses vs income without that nest-egg…that picture feels different than it did pre-pandemic.
True story; roughly 23% of the global spread of COVID-19 can be traced back to Poly and Mrs. Dolphin.
7 Likes
Cons…
My housing and food costs are 40% and 30% higher than 4 years ago.
I now have to go into an office 3x a week when 4 years ago I was work from anywhere in the world.
My base salary is significantly lower (but that was by choice)
My access to healthcare has been limited in my state and b/c I have to go into the office, can’t move.
I hit an aging wall.
PROS…
My savings are considerably higher and I’m close to being 100% vested at current company which will increase those savings even more.
I have a much less streesful job and job security (my last company went insolvent).
I’m going to go with about the same to slightly worse off.
Money up
Health way up
Stress down
Work/life balance up
Welcomed a new person to our family
Don’t wake up every day knowing the President scream-Tweeted something deranged from the shitter at 4 AM
COVID isn’t a daily threat
Life is good
5 Likes
On a personal basis, yes. But I’m a millionaire and no one should care what I think.
Economically, we’re certainly better off than pre pandemic in the US. Real wages are higher. Employment is up. Homeownership rate is up. Household wealth is up.
Inflation sucked, but really only for about 18 months. Wages have caught up. The CPI report, out just this morning, shows inflation is down to 2.5% year over year. The Fed is kicking ass. 2.5% inflation and 4.2% unemployment? Almost every president in history would crawl over broken glass for those numbers.
There are small pockets of things that suck, but these get amplified because of the toxic media prisons we’ve built for ourselves.
2 Likes
There are some things that I think are getting worse, but they’re largely orthogonal to left/right politics.
I’m a parent now, and so I have a lot more opinions about the way things are done than I used to. A big gripe that I and my fellow millennial parents seem to have is that the “village” it takes to raise a child doesn’t exist anymore. My kids have four grandparents, none of whom really lift a finger to help out. My wife’s parents are kind of a mess and have been relying on us for help for years. My parents are better, but they’re also kind of space cadets. We do center-based childcare, which is great! It also gives us access to a pool of babysitters that we like and trust. But yeah, all that costs money. From what I’ve heard, my story isn’t that unique.
I think dating must be a nightmare, now. I’m very grateful that I came of age just slightly before dating apps became the dominant meta. The state of friendship in general seems really bad. Online friendship is great, but the ability to turn your friends off as soon as they become annoying, or they need your help, and the ability to ostracize them as soon as their opinions are 3 degrees off from yours… probably not good!
I increasingly see car-dependency as an incredibly hefty tax that Americans willingly pay.
I’m really uncomfortable with the way that gambling has been grown and normalized.
There’s probably more, but I’m bumming myself out.
4 Likes
The gambling, omg, could be a whole thread. Between not really watching sports (unless chess counts) and not gambling I can’t really relate to other men my age unless they have kids or work in insurance…
2 Likes
Men and boys are so screwed. From birth, they can watch videos of opening Kinder eggs for hours. As young kids and teens, it’s “which card will I pull in Madden Ultimate Team?”. As older teens, hop on Twitch and Kick and watch your favorite man-child pull the lever on virtual slot machines. As soon as you’re 18, yolo what money you do have on meme stocks and crypto.
Even ESPN talks about every matchup in terms of the money line, the props, the parlays. Even if your state has outlawed having straight up slot machines in gas stations, chances are you’ve seen what I’ve seen; being stuck behind someone who cashes in a scratch-off, finds out they’ve won, and immediately starts buying and redeeming more tickets as a line of customers grows behind them.
It’s fucking crazy, man.
3 Likes
Completely agree, and forgot about the trading too, which is just white collared gambling really. No one seems as impressed as I think they should be when I reply that I just stuff everything into the S&P and then whip out my 0.04% fees
2 Likes
Cough
Just act like you hand picked every stock in the index.
1 Like