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Inflation sucks, but it sucks more in Boston
By adamg on Fri, 08/15/2008 - 9:23am
Federal stats show inflation in greater Boston running at 6.3%, higher than in other large metropolitan areas. Blame housing and heating-oil prices, Associated Press reports. Only bright note? Food prices increased at a slower rate here. Lobster, anyone?
Meanwhile, our rich get richer (not that being rich is a bed of roses, mind you), while our poor get poorer.
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Comments
Dude ...
Dude, lay off the crack!
You've posted six times in an hour.
Oh, Canada got me all revved up!
That and the fact that most of those posts are links to other people's work, which don't take much effort.
I thought the price of
I thought the price of lodging has gone down? I understand the oil problems, but I would have thought the overall price of housing would have dropped dramaticly in the past year.
Did you build any apartments lately?
No? I didn't either. I guess we didn't do our part to alleviate the preexisting rental housing shortage. (and if you did ... good for you!)
The area was already short of rental housing, and lacks enough "marginally possible to rent on a "normal" amount of money" housing. Yeah, some high rises got built, but a lot of those were primarily top end units with a sprinkling of modesty.
Add in people being pushed out due to foreclosures (their own and those of their landlords) and it just puts more pressure on the tight rental market, cost of other stuff be damned.
What are you doing tonight,
What are you doing tonight, we can go build some apartments! Whenever I help friends with home remodeling Im called in for demo work more than building as I enjoy demo alot more, but Ill give building a try!
On a serious note Im looking at some apartments over the weekend, I will report back what I can find.
Reality Show!
We all should get together and build a house, move in, thus eliminating our need to simply debate online. We can do it in person! I'll call MTV and VH1 to see if it'll fly.
Just be prepared for a lot of heated arguments, drunken antics, and intra-sexual encounters. Oh, and to further boost ratings, we'll need a lot of hollow, meaningless banter.
U-Hub: Season One
Demo Work
I gutted a kitchen last fall, and it was fun up to the point where I was in a 25F room, clothing taped to my skin, mask, goggles fogging with ice, pulling out wet and moldy pink insulation.
For the less hazmat related stuff, I put my kids to work smashing wallboard and hauling out bits of flooring. They were surprised to find out that it was, actually, work after the first two or three satisfying bits of wall damage. They hung in for their $3 an hour though.
(please note: I wasn't trying to slam you at all there ... just illustrate that demand is still rising and supply is stable and that means higher prices.)
Prices don't cause inflation
Inflation causes price increases. Inflation is the degradation of currency, and it's the result of the federal government's increasing the money supply, either directly or by putting itself many billions of dollars in debt.
Prices go up more in some areas than in others, but that doesn't mean Massachusetts money is degrading faster than other US currency.
Another reason why this area's so expensive is
that it's a popular area. Many, many students come to Boston from out of state to attend school, find that they really like this area and want to stick around, and the competition for housing, not to mention jobs or whatever, is fierce. So, that has at least contributed substantially to why the Boston area's such an expensive place to live.
Not anymore
That situation has changed markedly over the past ten years - so much so that hospitals are having difficulty filling residencies if they want top graduates. People won't relocate here, and graduates won't stay if the salaries offered do not permit a standard of living they can find elsewhere.