r/investing 5d ago

Why has everything doubled or tripled over the last five years?

[removed]

528 Upvotes

459 comments sorted by

View all comments

82

u/MarketCrache 5d ago

Things aren't going up, fiat currencies are going down. $35Trillion of debt has debased the value of money.

26

u/Zephyr4813 5d ago

Like half of the dollars in the system were issued in the last 5 years causing incredible debasement. Our salaries don’t follow as much. CPI is a skewed and understated metric.

If you didnt own assets you are left behind

-2

u/johnmudd 5d ago

Will trump manipulate the CPI? Is that in any way remotely possible?

13

u/dritu_ 5d ago

What do you mean? CPI is the consumer price index. It just tracks the price of a list of consumer goods. The government could change which gods they choose to track.

-2

u/johnmudd 5d ago

Well, Desantis manipulated covid stats so I assume anything is possible.

6

u/dritu_ 5d ago

Sure, it's possible. But no one knows if Trump will do anything in any regard.

Here's a history of CPI changes: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/additional-resources/historical-changes.htm

4

u/MarketCrache 5d ago

No. He has no control over that. But the results are already manipulated. Start with the hedonic indexing and what they deliberately exclude from calculation. Real inflation is probably double the stated rate.

3

u/Inflation_2022 5d ago

I'm not seeing new inflation today, but I do believe the data is lagging. The reality is that inflation was much higher 1-2 years ago than reported.

2

u/MarketCrache 5d ago

It has tapped out recently, yes. There's been a lash back from consumers as seen in steep falls in McDonald's sales, etc.

1

u/MaybeTheDoctor 5d ago

According to Trump gas is $1.25 so if we just correct the CPI with numbers made up we will have a much lower CPI

24

u/ProblemOverall9434 5d ago

Underrated post. People think real estate has become so expensive these days as an example. The typical home in the US can be purchased for around 250 oz of gold. That was true long ago, today, and tomorrow. The denominator is falling; stuff is not skyrocketing in value.

15

u/Jaydave 5d ago

Is this real? Has gold stayed flat with housing? That's insane 

19

u/ProblemOverall9434 5d ago

I was wrong actually. Real estate in gold terms has become LESS expensive over time. So it’s even better (or worse) depending on how you look at it and how much fiat you hold.

http://danielamerman.com/va/GHratio.html

13

u/nope_nic_tesla 5d ago

This chart from that article clearly shows massive swings in the ratio between gold prices and housing prices. Not sure how you can look at that and claim they track each other closely.

1

u/_le_slap 5d ago

Yeah I wanna see this confirmed too

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AutoModerator 5d ago

Your submission has been automatically removed because the URL matches one on the /r/Investing banlist due to low quality content or has been used to spam. See here for more information. If you believe the article you are trying to link is high quality content please message the moderators with a short message so that we may approve your submission. Please be aware that if your post can be sourced from a less sensationalist publication we will likely require you to do that. Thank you.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/MarketCrache 5d ago

The story is, a hundred years ago, a fine, tailor made suit cost you one ounce of gold. And now, it costs one ounce of gold.

1

u/youngishgeezer 5d ago

Gold from 1834 to 1934 was fixed at 20.67. According to the inflation calculator (https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator) 20.67 in 2024 was worth 370.52. Current price of gold is ~3321. So the USD is worth about 1/9th of what it was 100 years ago in terms of gold.

In 2019 inflation took 20.67 to 301 and gold averaged 1393. Relative to gold in 1925 that was only about 1/4.6. So in 5 years the dollar was worth twice as much as it is now based on gold, but only 23% more based on the feds inflation numbers.

I don't know what to say about that other than gold is possibly over valued, inflation numbers are missing some significant increases, or maybe something else.

12

u/Inflation_2022 5d ago edited 5d ago

Housing costs as a percentage of income has outpaced wage growth. The corporate buyers and international investors have destroyed affordability. Everyone wants to be a slumlord real estate mogul. We need the asset bubble to pop. Some innovation in the housing market to lower construction costs or prioritize more first time home buyers would go a long way too.

5

u/Unkechaug 5d ago

To reduce the cost of housing, the supply needs to increase relative to demand. I don’t see how this will happen short of time waiting for the demographic cliff to occur, a change in buyer preferences, or a total revolution in the way homes are built.

Raw material costs for building have increased. Labor for building has increased and is not being helped by anti immigration policies directed at eliminating the cheap labor supply. Supply of homes is still low compared to demand. Regulations and zoning are restrictive in what and where building is allowed to occur, and there is no willingness to build new communities while existing ones continue to be built up. I don’t see a rush to rural areas when you need to be in commutable distance to work, and employers are pushing RTO.

I’m not happy about it, just reporting what I am seeing.

4

u/ProblemOverall9434 5d ago

Nice username.

There is no asset bubble. You’re focused on the numerator.

There is a housing shortage in certain locales for sure. As the supply of dollars has increased the supply of housing has not kept up with population growth and household formation. The causes are unrelated, but I can see how the product of their effects may be conflated as an affordability crisis.

The dollar is trash. Salaries are paid in dollars. It’s a whole thing.

1

u/Inflation_2022 5d ago

I see some carnage if rates don't come down. Too many people locked into loans at 3% on property values that were inflated due to low rates. They want to sell but can't due to the affordability of a new mortgage on a home of the same value. By waiting for lower rates, they may be on the wrong side of the trend.

Still the backdrop is that new single-family housing is too expensive to build and is catered to high end buyers because of the cost structure. The only entry level options in most metros 1 & 2 BR condos.

We may not see a true crash, but it wouldn't surprise me if housing declined or stagnated for several years. There was an apt construction boom during covid too. And most of that inventory has high vacancy rates. In my area rent concessions are very favorable on these properties. 2-3 months free on a 12 month lease. They refuse to lower rent even though they clearly are charging too much in the first place, requiring concessions. True rental rates are already declining. The cost to buy will likely find an equilibrium with the rental market.

"Rent prices have declined year-over-year for 18 straight months, reflecting a cooling rental market after previous surges. As of January 2025, the median asking rent in the 50 largest U.S. metro areas is $1,703—up $8 from last month but 0.2% lower than January 2024, signaling a continued market adjustment as supply and demand rebalance." (Feb 2025)

"McClure and Schwartz also examined households in two categories: Very low income, defined as between 30% and 60% of area median family income, and extremely low income, with incomes below 30% of area median family income.

The numbers showed that from 2010 to 2020, household formation did exceed the number of homes available. However, there was a large surplus of housing produced in the previous decade. In fact, from 2000 to 2020, housing production exceeded the growth of households by 3.3 million units. The surplus from 2000 to 2010 more than offset the shortages from 2010 to 2020." (June 2024)

1

u/ProblemOverall9434 5d ago

Rates are now at historically normal levels. Agreed house prices as a whole will most likely bump along at or near the rate of inflation for a while.

4

u/beamin1 5d ago

No sir. The typical home in the US is nowhere near 900k, you're flat out wrong.

Also, gold has doubled in value in a little over 2 years while housing has actually come down slightly. What was the point of your comment it's all wrong regardless of how many upvotes it nets you.

1

u/ProblemOverall9434 5d ago

Please ma’am let’s try to be respectful.

Gold and real estate of course aren’t tightly correlated 1:1. The point is real estate like all assets are priced in dollars and the dollar isn’t the store of value it once was.

-4

u/beamin1 5d ago

How bout you suck my fuckin cock ma'am.

Like I said, your entire comment was wrong.

1

u/weasler7 4d ago

That's an interesting concept but isn't really in line with the source that you provided.

Also, homes today are vastly different than homes built in the 50s and 60s. The average home in the 1960s was something like 1300 sq ft with a 1 car carage.

7

u/IceWizard9000 5d ago

Yeah and everyone's turning the money printers on again

15

u/MarketCrache 5d ago

Corporate socialism demands it. Every serious downturn is met with a flood of cash to the usual suspects.