Of Two Minds

Combine all these factors and the result is a potentially volatile mixture awaiting a catalyst.

This is not to suggest living/working overseas is a panacea or easy–it isn’t.

Measured by the purchasing power of our wages/work, we’re definitively poorer, as it takes far more hours of work now to pay rent.

If your earnings rose by 34% from January 2020 to October 2023, congratulations, the purchasing power of your labor kept pace with higher costs.

What’s no longer affordable is eventually jettisoned, including high-rent homes and apartments.

If Black Friday is a bust, it may be a harbinger of what the mainstream has long considered impossible: the American consumer is well and truly tapped out.