I don't think this explains the last decade. There is also keeping up with the Joneses, which I think social media has driven people into a rabid spending rage that turns most into debt slaves. Stone kitchen counters and floors, designer Italian faucets, brand name toilets are just the home renos. These are so far beyond a typical home in the 90's, but you wouldn't want that background in your Instagram or Pinterest.
I think that blaming social media as a unique driver of this behavior is taking it further than reality. Advertising certainly existed before social media. Social behavior existed before social platforms.
The 90’s definitely had its fair share of home improvement trends. I remember brass fixtures being a particular 90s staple.
I might suggest that perhaps your own perspective has changed since that time. Maybe you grew up in a rental or basic home and you’re now in or surround by more people living in more upper middle class homes that are updated more frequently.
Looking at building materials, I also think that a lot of material innovation has led to a number of trends that exist today and that these things aren’t necessarily bad. A lot of products out now save money over their predecessors: manufactured wood flooring, faux “wood” tile, and a lot of people don’t realize that the Quartz countertops that are popular now are a manufactured product. I haven’t checked pricing but I imagine they’re cheaper than a solid slab of stone. All of this stuff is better than linoleum and Formica and other ugly, crappy products of the last century. I find that good design is more affordable and accessible than ever before thanks to manufacturing that is far more efficient than it was 30 years ago. When you say “designer Italian” that could mean something from IKEA.
Finally, I have to make the argument that home improvements are a bad example of debt slavery. Home renovations go straight into equity, sometimes the value of the equity even beats the renovation cost since people desire homes that don’t need work. Not only that, a home mortgage is probably the least risky form of debt for Americans: interest rates are close to inflation, it’s tax-advantaged, and disregarding once-in-a-lifetime events like the 2008 housing crisis, it’s basically a guaranteed way to break even as long as you stay in your house for around 5-7 years.
As long as you know you won’t need to move, it’s usually a better deal than renting, in
The United States at least.
You may suggest whatever you want, but people are getting into mortgages and home equity lines of credit they can't afford. One of the areas they are overspending are on renovations. If you believe this makes someone a 'good' debt slave, then all the more power to my argument.
Furthermore, to the degree that people spending too much for housing is a problem in some places (like the Bay Area), I'd also suggest that's far more a function of land costs than it is granite countertops.
Land definitely explains some of it, yea. But we definitely have inflated our expectations as well. The average home size in the U.S. today is roughly twice what it was in the 1950s.
I'm sure that's true but I'm also not sure that's entirely a bad thing. We may have opinions on what is reasonable but I'm fairly sure we don't think in general that living in tenements is a good thing.
Considering the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" is a phrase that has been around since the early 20th century, I don't think this is a particularly recent issue.
Moral blame doesn't do you much good when dealing with a population. If most people in a population show poor judgement (let's say they are overweight) your argument for moral blame might still be true, but does nothing to solve the problem. Why does a population of people all make the same error? Well, because people are only ever in partial control of their impulses. Some more than others, but no one has total control.
Furthermore if a population shows poor judgement (or exhibits some other negative trait) we should ask ourselves how we got to this point, and how it can be corrected at a systemic level. Public education is a prime example of a systemic solution to several widespread problems.
Personal responsibility and accountability are still there. I don’t know where the assumption comes from that people make tons of vain debt-ridden purchase decisions en masse.
It’s like we are assuming that most people act like reality television stars on My Super Sweet 16.
It doesn’t really line up with the data, which tells us that younger people spend less on things like cars and homes. I’d argue that depictions of “influential” lifestyles are not taken so seriously, they’re usually forms of entertainment. Watching a YouTuber unbox a $10,000 Mac Pro doesn’t mean the typical viewer will go into debt to buy one.
US: "Consumer debt was approaching $14-trillion after the second quarter of 2019, according to the New York Federal Reserve. It was the 20th consecutive quarter for an increase."
Canada: "Total credit market debt amounted to $2.25 trillion in the second quarter including nearly $1.47 trillion in mortgage debt and $782.9 billion in consumer credit and non-mortgage loans."
AU: "Hovering around 120 per cent of GDP — that is everything the nation produces in a year — Australia's household debt is second only to Switzerland, and we're not too far behind the Swiss. It wasn't always like this, with that debt burden almost trebling in the 28 years since Australia's last recession in the early 1990s."
UK: "Britain’s household debt mountain has reached a new peak, with UK homes now owing an average of £15,385 to credit card firms, banks and other lenders, according to the TUC."
Throwing out big numbers doesn’t really approach any conclusion on its own.
The concept of inflation alone means that consumer debt would logically be at its highest at any given time. All your numbers besides the average credit card debt per person would also need to account for population increase - and having consumer debt of 120% GDP debt doesn’t sound bad at all when you consider home mortgages.
Honestly, that stuff is not very expensive, in the scheme of things. Granite counters might be $5000, for a big kitchen, and fancy fixtures don't cost that much.
Compared to a boat, or snowmobiles, it's downright cheap.
