[PhaedrusV]

I get the argument from the fed about hedonic adjustments and increased quality of life, but that's not how people measure their happiness. Subjective happiness is how you're doing relative to those around you. The hedonic adjustments are all about objective quality of life. Sure, my resources in my working class midwest neighborhood would be the envy of Louis XVI's court, but that doesn't matter to me when my neighbor gets a new car.

I wonder how difficult it would be to build a "Subjective Inflation" measure that was useful. Based on category consumption by income quintile you can figure out rough price inflation experienced. With the understanding that happiness is mostly about keeping up with the Joneses you can just assume away the hedonic quality boost and call it "subjective inflation".

The point from the inflation link about not being to eat ipads is critical. Increased resources are definitely nice, but the happiness derived from them is zero-sum, and at the end of the day they're taking more of my income.

This, coupled with the stagnation of median wages, means that:

    We're not getting any happier as a cohort, and

    The things we consume cost a bigger chunk of our earnings every year

I buy the link's argument that we should expect price inflation. Interestingly, this analysis is done with mostly pre-COVID data. COVID has amplified all these trends leading to price-inflation, and narrowed our demand into fewer goods and services. That further amplifies the inflationary forces that were already gearing up to make the 20's crazy.

Buckle up. There's going to be a lot of people who feel like their quality of life is crashing.

[karatinversion]

> coupled with the stagnation of median wages

But this is an effect that only appears in real, i.e. inflation-adjusted, wages?