5 Comments

That was excellent. Despite having multiple friends in high school who lived in trailers, I had no idea that trailer parks worked that way. I guess I assumed that whoever owned the mobile home also owned the land beneath it.

Expand full comment

the poor rent and resets can occur faster than mortgages. some landlords actually only want 11 month leases so they can skirt any long term lease laws. Or they charge more for the risk of socialist tenant friendly rental laws.

Expand full comment

Why does it appear to be so difficult to understand? The constant erosion of the purchasing power of the wages of the poor has to be the greatest scandal of the past 50 years.

Expand full comment

I carry a 1960 silver half dollar in my pocket as a reminder of what inflation has done to fiat currency. Each 1960 half dollar coin has around 0.36 ounce of silver content which is worth about $8 at the current spot price (assume the coin has no collectible value although it might).

In 1960, the minimum wage was $1 which the BLS tells us is equivalent to $9.91 in today’s dollars. But the worker who got two silver half dollars for his hour of work in 1960 would have $16 in today’s purchasing power due to the silver content of the coins he was paid.

This isn’t an argument for a higher minimum wage necessarily (I favor the earned income tax credit) but it is an interesting anecdote.

The worker who receives cash pay of the $7.25 federal minimum today and holds onto that fiat currency for 62 years will have worthless paper. At least his counterpart from 1960 has $16 of purchasing power.

Expand full comment

I live in the UK where inflation is running well above 10%. Our esteemed central bank, the BOE, currently have rates pegged at 1% and the Governor says they're not to blame. The UK Government remains the worst allocator of capital bar none but everyone seems to believe that the answer to our woes is 'more Government'. I despair.

Expand full comment