<![CDATA[Center for Media Research – Daily Brief:
Average U.S. household Spending Allocation (% of total unadjusted for inflation)
There are some interesting numbers here. Entertainment and reading, which we know includes less for reading, has stayed steady since 1950, but is down about 7 percent as a share of percentage of household spending. Education, however, is way up, growing 475 percent as a percentage of household spending since 1950 and 26.7 percent since 1990—one must wonder how much of this added spending is on rich media rather than classroom learning or books.
Meanwhile the cost of clothes fell precipitously, down 27.3 percent as a percentage of household spending since 1990. Food’s cheaper, transportation is somewhat more expensive (gas prices), and the uncategorized “Other” is up 300 percent.
If we only knew what “other” includes, we could say with some certainty that physical stuff is just plain getting less expensive while intellectual/creative/thought stuff is, although less expensive to make and distribute, gaining a much larger proportion of American investment. That, my friends, is a future.]]>
Stuff costs, broken down
<![CDATA[Center for Media Research – Daily Brief: Average U.S. household Spending Allocation (% of total unadjusted for inflation) There are some interesting numbers here. Entertainment and reading, which we know includes less for reading, has stayed steady since 1950, but is down about 7 percent as a share of percentage of household spending. Education, however, […]
2 replies on “Stuff costs, broken down”
If we only knew what “other” includes, we could say with some certainty that physical stuff is just plain getting less expensive while intellectual/creative/thought stuff is, although less expensive to make and distribute, gaining a much larger proportion of American investment.
And how much of this increase would be actual investment, or just rent-seeking from those holding copyrights based on outmoded law?
Phoenician—I think we’re going to have to build work-arounds to change the economy to one that makes reasonable exchange of value between the creator and the user of intellectual/creative/thought stuff. Law changes slow, but we can change this very quickly.