<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>mfer</author><text>&amp;gt; My parents are in their 70&amp;#x27;s and they still have furniture that was (second hand) given to them when they got married. Can you imagine an piece of IKEA furniture being used daily and lasting for &amp;gt;40 years? My point about &amp;quot;cheaper alternatives&amp;quot; exactly...&lt;p&gt;Part of this is cultural.&lt;p&gt;People now consume more than they used to. For many generations people patched their clothes. Now they throw them out. It&amp;#x27;s a culture of consume, toss it, consume some more.&lt;p&gt;That culture influences personal decisions and those we influence for our companies.&lt;p&gt;You can still get high quality furniture. If you&amp;#x27;re going to replace it soon due to style changes do you care about quality?</text><parent_chain><item><author>janandonly</author><text>This is more a discussion of semantics than about the amount itself.&lt;p&gt;The way I read the statistics is that the current debt is $28T &lt;i&gt;of money that is already spent&lt;/i&gt; while the quoted debt of $146T is the amount of money &lt;i&gt;needed to be spent to fill full current promises and expenses&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting that since the USA got off the gold standard in 1971[1], and thereby all countries that had a currency backed by dollars, the average household income has risen 5x but the price of goods like a house have gone up 10x.
This became possible because all for a sudden money was not backed by gold anymore, but could simply be printed when needed. This created huge money supply inflation [2].&lt;p&gt;Everything is getting too expensive, and the only reason we don&amp;#x27;t feel this too much just yet, is because often times cheaper alternatives where available.&lt;p&gt;My parents are in their 70&amp;#x27;s and they still have furniture that was (second hand) given to them when they got married. Can you imagine an piece of IKEA furniture being used daily and lasting for &amp;gt;40 years? My point about &amp;quot;cheaper alternatives&amp;quot; exactly...&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mises.org&amp;#x2F;wire&amp;#x2F;today-1971-president-nixon-closes-gold-window&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mises.org&amp;#x2F;wire&amp;#x2F;today-1971-president-nixon-closes-gol...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;WTF_1971&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;WTF_1971&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>US Published National Debt: $28T. The Truth: $146T. Each Taxpayer&apos;s Share: $951k</title><url>https://www.truthinaccounting.org/about/our_national_debt</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>whimsicalism</author><text>&amp;gt; thereby all countries that had a currency backed by dollars, the average household income has risen 5x but the price of goods like a house have gone up 10x&lt;p&gt;Real personal income has consistently gone upwards.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;series&amp;#x2F;RPI&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fred.stlouisfed.org&amp;#x2F;series&amp;#x2F;RPI&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain><item><author>janandonly</author><text>This is more a discussion of semantics than about the amount itself.&lt;p&gt;The way I read the statistics is that the current debt is $28T &lt;i&gt;of money that is already spent&lt;/i&gt; while the quoted debt of $146T is the amount of money &lt;i&gt;needed to be spent to fill full current promises and expenses&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting that since the USA got off the gold standard in 1971[1], and thereby all countries that had a currency backed by dollars, the average household income has risen 5x but the price of goods like a house have gone up 10x.
This became possible because all for a sudden money was not backed by gold anymore, but could simply be printed when needed. This created huge money supply inflation [2].&lt;p&gt;Everything is getting too expensive, and the only reason we don&amp;#x27;t feel this too much just yet, is because often times cheaper alternatives where available.&lt;p&gt;My parents are in their 70&amp;#x27;s and they still have furniture that was (second hand) given to them when they got married. Can you imagine an piece of IKEA furniture being used daily and lasting for &amp;gt;40 years? My point about &amp;quot;cheaper alternatives&amp;quot; exactly...&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mises.org&amp;#x2F;wire&amp;#x2F;today-1971-president-nixon-closes-gold-window&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mises.org&amp;#x2F;wire&amp;#x2F;today-1971-president-nixon-closes-gol...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;WTF_1971&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;WTF_1971&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>US Published National Debt: $28T. The Truth: $146T. Each Taxpayer&apos;s Share: $951k</title><url>https://www.truthinaccounting.org/about/our_national_debt</url></story>