13
votes
Are we burning it down by proxy?
Is anyone else in a part of the US where there are a ton more fireworks this summer than ever before? It can't be just my neighborhood. Literally every night since the beginning of June, someone is setting fire to their (presumably inversely proportional, that is to say, increasingly diminishing) disposable income. The prices of everything are higher than ever—gas, food, housing, everything—and yet. What is going on out there??
I doubt it's the people who are barely making ends meet that are going ham on fireworks. I could swear I remember someone sourcing info before, I think on this site, but can't find it from a search, that showed there's a bigger income disparity where there's less of a 'middle' in the middle class, and people who are above average income are well above and people below are falling much lower. In this scenario, I wouldn't find it strange that there's a lot of people struggling, and also a lot of people with a great amount of disposable income to blow on whatever.
This matches my anecdotal experience. Recently on this site I saw someone saying that $800 a year is a rounding error for working class adults, and that really left an impression on me about how broad of a label "working class" is.
The traditional Marx definition of working class includes everyone from McDonalds dishwashers to neurosurgeons making >$2million/yr.
K-shaped recovery. People with assets are doing more or less fine. People paycheck to paycheck hurting evermore.
It so happens I made a chart that shows that there are a lot more high-income households in the US. But also, the population grew in general so there are more poor and middle income households too.
(Made by asking an AI to write code to redo a chart I saw online, by downloading the spreadsheets from the Census Bureau.)
Is it inflation adjusted? Would be nice to see the progress of relative spilt over the time too.
I've noticed a distinctly smaller amount of fireworks going off this year, for what it's worth.
Same, for once. I only heard fireworks a few days before the Fourth. And then it basically ended the night of the Fourth.
The neighboring town did a large display yesterday (Sat night) for their town's 277th birthday/US 250yrs. But aside from that, haven't heard anything else.
Anywhere I've lived, whether in the suburbs or in the city, like a week or two before the Fourth, the fireworks and firecrackers are nightly. Then goes for like another week, maybe two, after the holiday. Though not necessarily nightly.
Now fireworks in the neighborhood this year did go pretty late and pretty hard on the Fourth in my area. Even through the rain that evening! I wonder if people "blew their wad" for the 250th. Because it's been real quiet this past week!
According to FRED, real income in the last year has gone down by 0.9%, that is, less than a single percentage point. Which leaves plenty of room for fireworks.
It's the 250th year, people are going to go ham.
I mean, everything you spend on recreation is "on fire". Parking for a hike? Money gone. Eating nice-er food? If it's more than rice and beans, on fire. Movie tickets? Netflix?
People normally spend a lot of their income on things that aren't tangible assets. Life is to be enjoyed in the end.
+1 to 250th. Definitely a factor.
And I think the 'on fire' is simply because it is quite literal in this case. Often with a side of property damage and personal injury. It's hard to pass up a good opportunity for double-meaning.
A tiny firework that'll sparkle for about 1 minute costs on the order of a movie ticket. An hour of fireworks will easily run $500. In the terms of value per minute, it's roughly on par with a $0.50 slot machine.
I'd say it's a pretty valid question on the whole. Right now feeding and housing my family alone is costing me on the order of 50% of our household income. And we're right in that median in a fairly low CoL area. And I even downsized my housing costs.
And I say this all as someone who loves fireworks. It saddens me to see the current state of affairs. I live in an area that is pretty enthusiastic about them, to the point it would seem a constant barrage from about July 3rd till July 6th. But this year it was mostly over and done after a few hours on the 4th.
But the income level trends below bational average here. And it shows.
We had less fireworks this year - but it rained pretty hard on the 4th and the 5th. Also, the neighbor that used to set off a shit ton moved away. I got more sleep than normal this year and I can't complain.
I don't usually mind them, but we live in a pretty dense neighborhood with most people having only a small or no yard. So I've become a hater over the years because of the fire risk and that they're so loud in such a confined area.