BUILDING FUTURE HALCYON DAYS

Discussions of wealth, income inequality, seeking endless growth, and its effect on the US Economy, and a theory I call Peak Cheap - or what happens when consumers can no longer afford to consume

Wealthy Enclaves and the Continuing Dislocation of the Economy

Great article in the New York Times on Monday: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/31/us/sun-valley-workforce-housing.html As favorite...

Henry

Aug 3, 20221 min read

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Food Inflation Acoming

As is familiar to everyone, prices continue increase across the board for everything from staples to downstream products. Unfortunately,...

Henry

Jul 22, 20221 min read

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Peak Cheap's First Steps

Reposting the Peak Cheap Cycle graph: As most know, labor costs are the number one expense for any business. This cost lever has been the...

Henry

Nov 1, 20212 min read

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Wages Starting To Creep Up, But Is It Enough?

NPR reported today that Starbucks and Costco are both raising their starting wages to $15 and $17 respectively. They join several other...

Henry

Oct 28, 20211 min read

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The Great Resignation or The Great Labor Shortage

It's hard to open a newspaper (or rather a news app), without seeing another article breathlessly reporting the struggle companies are...

Henry

Oct 22, 20213 min read

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Top 1% of US Earners hold more wealth than entire middle class (middle 60% of US Pop)

Incredible yet unsurprising news todays from Bloomberg: Top 1% of US earners hold more wealth than entire middle class (defined as the...

Henry

Oct 18, 20211 min read

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Shrinkflation - Or Fighting Against Peak Cheap

As I've written previously, Shrinkflation is a common tactic used to avoid having to increase visible prices while still maintaining a...

Henry

Oct 5, 20211 min read

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Artificially Low Costs and Modern Life

A great article from earlier this summer lays out how Venture Capital has fueled consumption through massive subsidization of prices....

Henry

Oct 4, 20211 min read

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Peak Cheap in Dollar Stores

A great article in the NYTimes on how the Dollar Store business model is in trouble: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/business/dollar-s...

Henry

Oct 4, 20211 min read

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Childcare & Wages

A great article in the NYTimes about the struggle to hire Childcare workers due to low wages. Peak Cheap has obviously been hit in...

Henry

Sep 21, 20211 min read

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Increasing Prices Driving More Consumers To Dollar Stores

A trend that has been accelerating over the last 2 decades, Dollar Stores have been one of the fastest growing sections of the retail...

Henry

Aug 20, 20211 min read

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Have We Hit Peak Cheap?

Peak Cheap is a term / theory I have been working on for several years to try and explain the strange nature of the US economy. In the...

Henry

Jul 2, 20212 min read

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RAND Research - $2.5 Trillion in Income Growth Missing for 90% of US Pop due to Inequality

A major research study from the RAND Corporation shows the damage of this loss of income from 1975 - 2018. This period I have been...

Henry

Jan 27, 20211 min read

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Why Economic Equality Matters

I started this blog after several years of struggling with the incentivized indifference to the inequality in our society. Having spent...

Henry

Jan 9, 20212 min read

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Using Gig Work to Drive Down Labor Costs

One of the major innovations over the last decade has been the widespread adoption (and creation of the term) of Gig Work. Starting with...

Henry

Dec 31, 20202 min read

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Real Wages Have Barely Budged For Decades - Pew Research

This topic has been increasingly researched in academic circles. I will post supporting research for my argument as it pops up. The Pew...

Henry

Oct 23, 20201 min read

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Peak Cheap, or What Seems to be Wrong in the Economy and How to Fix it - An Overview

Since the early 1970s, the end of the ‘Great Prosperity’ era, the conversation around structural issues in the US economy have focused...

Henry

Sep 12, 20203 min read

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