What a fitting color.

 

[QUOTE=FatBob2018;21132145][QUOTE=TwiZted Biker;21131884]There's a difference between an ounce of gold and a gold bar. A gold bar weighs 27lbs. LOL

 

No, I'm all out of snake oil, all I have left is facts.

And the facts are what I laid out. If you're unable to see the obvious, that's on you, not me. The problem is not PumaBoy(TM) and it's not Elon Musk. It's static or declining wage growth. Harleys don't cost more in terms of real assets, but people don't have the money to buy them because our wages have been eroded by inflation and wages have not kept up with inflation.

In 1980, the value of a job let the average American family afford a house, 2 cars, health care, and a stay-at-home mom. That is what a job was worth. And yes, people could buy Harleys too.

In 2023, people are trying to make their whole living off of minimum wage jobs. Nobody in 1980 considered a minimum wage job as anything other than what it was: some part-time thing for teenagers to do. Now we have whole swaths of society demonstrating in the streets to get the minimum wage raised to a "living wage". It's insane. And no, these people can't afford Harleys, or houses, or 2 cars, or bars of gold either.

But, hey, if it makes you feel good, keep on blaming Elon Musk and PumaBoy(TM).

 

A bar is a shape. The most popularly bought and traded forms of gold include the 1oz bar, the 1 oz round, and the coins. You can get bars as small as a gram, or as big as you want, the largest commonly traded gold bar is the 1kg, which weighs 2.2 pounds and sells for around $110,000 at today's prices. A "good delivery" bar weighs 400 ounces, or 27 lbs.

​​​​​​They are all called "bars".

 

Inflation and wages aside, there's a lot more expenses today for things that didn't exist when I was growing up, wages would need to outpace inflation just to cover it all. Compare whats under the roof of that house in 1970 vs today. 5 tv's instead of 1 console tv, cell phones, computers, ipads, more toys, a lot of people here have multiple bikes for fun rather than one used one as their only source of transportation. Our money is divided up and allotted to more things than we could ever have imagined.

 

The issue with 2023 is that for more than a decade we have had far too many people with unrealistic expectations of what they should be able to afford when they start off on their own or as a family. Much of this is due to the constant bombardment of unrealistic shows with people their age living in fabulous apartments or homes with great clothes and expensive cars. Throw in all the Celebrity Crib type shows and politicians tell people they were entitled to what they wanted and this led a lot of people into debt, sometimes crushing debt.

When I started out I certainly could not afford a home, car, and motorcycle, but I got there. Same with my parents before me. They started out renting and moved from small home, our bedrooms at children were 9x9 and there was one bathroom! Today we have twenty somethings thinking they should own four bed room, three bath homes, is a named subdivision, with a sports sedan, suv, and more. Yet if you look around you will see two parent families raising kids on 50k. Sure they might not live in a new home or even a nice one but they are making it work. They have realistic expectations and are focused on making their lives and the lives of their kids better. The Harley comes when the kids are off to college or when a new job or promotion dutifully worked for pans out.

 

Yep. There's a reason there's a stereotype of the Corvette always being driven by the old guy; he's the only one who can afford it.

 

You're half right and half wrong. You are correct about wage depreciation. However, do you really think that if wages were to grow at a reasonable rate that HD would NOT raise its prices? They have priced their machines out of reach for a huge slice of Americans due to a number of factors, not just wage stagnation. Chief among them: Greed and a willful ignorance of the needs and wants of millions of their heretofore brand-loyal customers.

Also, I blame Musk and Puma Boy mostly for just being jerks.

 

I stand corrected. I did not know that. I only knew bars as the large ones. Makes more sense now.

 

Unions did back that move so blame them. The Hero Obama gave GM a great deal allowing them to screw bond holders.

Stand by more of this coming Democrats want everyone broke.