The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement(theamericangenius.com) |
The Stripper Index: An unorthodox recession measurement(theamericangenius.com) |
It's just blew my mind. I'm not sure what the house take is but $500 for a private dance for an hour was insane. Senior consultants that solve million dollars problems don't charge that much per hour. I literally had to explain to one of these girls how insane the price was. Because for $500 from the USA if you live near any major airport hub you take a long weekend trip to several Central and South American countries where you can have a whole lot more fun than you can at one of these strip clubs, and you're all in for $500. If that's your chosen form of entertainment, it literally makes no economic sense to spend any money at these strip clubs.
I think at one time using a stripper index as a proxy for a recession measurement would have been good. Nowadays I don't think that's a valid way. Too much has changed across the sex entertainment industry, and the attitudes of the customers have also changed because even if all you want to see is girls dancing there's better value for your money with the other options that are available. Many of those options you don't even have to leave your house.
Maybe a better proxy for a recession measurement would be something like top golf earnings. Or some other discretionary entertainment place similar to that. Are people going on outings spending their discretionary income in that way or are they saving it or did they just not have it to spend.
1) Maximum City is a book about various people in Mumbai around ~2000. One of them is a sort of stripper (she dances and sometimes dates in a transactional way; I don't remember how explicit it all is). Her analysis is that her clients are partially paying for her but more so for "winning" her over the other clients. The point isn't that one of them takes her shopping and gets to watch her choose handbags; the point is that nobody else gets to go.
2) I read a long article about economic strategies behind webcam shows (by a performer, maybe by Aella?) and the author made two points that I remember: one, it's good to have a stupidly high priced item that a whale can roll in and buy. Two, she had success having a high priced item that "saved" her, e.g., if you pay $X I won't have to eat this gross thing I made. Neither one of these is really about the thing, it's about the feeling of out-competing the other guys there.
So while you're $500 example makes sense if somebody is just looking for the dance (or whatever) itself, it doesn't make sense if that person actually wants to "win" over the other patrons (and doesn't view the poorer patrons in the poorer country as real competitors).
The stripper index makes sense when they were servicing a need no one else could. But the rise of OnlyFans means that at least some of the money that would have gone to strippers is going to performers on OnlyFans.
That's the issue with the Stripper index, is that it's vibes based because we can't actually measure how much the industry earned. If we listened to how people felt America should have been through 4 recessions in the last 3 years.
If not did you goto one of the top strip clubs in America? that sounds insane. Haven't been to a strip club in a real long time myself tho (absolutely don't have the income nor desire).
I think top golf is an interesting metric; I'd be concerned about linking it to two things so addictive - golf addicts and alcohol consumtion. But with the prices at top golf and how much the drinks cost it's probably a good indicator of the sector.
One of the downsides of it might be it only targetting people in upper income brackets (golf is an expensive game per se, def not as everyman and top golf isn't really accessible).
Then again I can't think of any metric that wont be "inflated" by more well off people consuming something cheaper and less well off people having to use another option (aka mcdonalds).
The price was ridiculous, I don't recall exactly, and I declined, saying I would just leave, and the dancer said in a Russian accent, if I did, she would tell security that I robbed her, since we already entered VIP. I think I paid her like $60 in front of the security guard and walked out. Definitely got mob/extortion vibes from the whole experience.
In this example, at least the $50 per 3 minutes or whatever it was, wasn't for anything 'extra' as the VIP area was wide open with no walls, all the victims able to see exactly how scammed everyone was getting.
Someone living in NYC can fly there for $400. That same flight to Las Vegas is not much less money.
This is why industry-specific indexes don’t work. It can’t capture industry-specific changes to the offering and its surrounding alternatives.
E.h., clubs could be empty due to consolidation and lack of competition and abnormally high prices compared to the past.
E.g., the Big Mac index falls apart if McDonald’s changes its business model away from low cost food and more toward higher pricing and lower volume.
E.g., legal brothels in Nevada are becoming more rare as more shut down and the difficulty of starting a new one is high.
E.g., the stripper index could be inaccurate if more or fewer men are in happy sexually active relationships. You’d have control for that variable.
E.g., the stripper index could be irrelevant in Las Vegas as it transitions to being more of a family, sports, and conference destination rather than a bachelor’s playground.
E.g., the stripper index could become less relevant as more men trend away from being comfortable with the idea of strip clubs in the first place (just like how Hooters went from nearly a family restaurant to being super weird, and how Playboy used to be a respectable mainstream publication but is now much less so).
I just paid $250 for pit tickets to see an artist I like at a mid-tier venue. A similarly popular artist in 2019 at the same venue would have cost ~$70.
I think the reality no one in charge wants to admit is that inflation is actually kind of out of control, primarily in non-essential sectors like entertainment. Its a situation where things are more expensive -> people do fewer things -> the things have to get more expensive to account for people doing fewer things -> vicious cycle. The story of 2022-2024 was tech breaking, but I think the story of 2024-2026 is going to be the services and entertainment industry breaking; and the break might be a lot worse.
This is bad reasoning and completely throws out the concept of supply and demand.
You are paying $250 instead of $70 because you want to see a specific show by a specific entertainer. There are lots of other shows available for less.
I'm sure she loved that.
>Maybe people are just fed up with it and spending their discretionary income in other ways.
My friend, paying for "sex" will be one of the last things to go.
>Because for $500 from the USA if you live near any major airport hub you take a long weekend trip to several Central and South American countries
Do you think these are substitutes?
Depends on the strip club prices in those countries I guess.
> where you can have a whole lot more fun than you can at one of these strip clubs
"Fun" here being prostitution, I presume.
If that’s the going rate that’s the going rate. My plumber quoted me $17,000 in labor for something that was probably a days work for a team of two (and $5,000 in materials). That’s about $500-1,000 an hour. My dad was like “that’s insane for a plumber.” And I’m like “you told everyone to go to college and become baristas, so that’s what plumbers cost now.”
Now the companies want a tip for the food I pick up myself directly from the restaurant and leave. I am not sure what I would even be tipping for, for making me the sandwich? Shouldn’t that aspect just be rolled into be price of, you know, the sandwich?
I used to feel kind of guilty for declining to tip at these kiosks, but I don’t anymore. In fact in a way I guess it’s sort of saved me money since I dislike this process so much that I have taken to just buying groceries and making food at home more often.
Good luck explaining that to your wife
I do.
The personal savings rate, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT, might be a better proxy of whatever the stripper index is actually signaling. It was at a low in the summer of 2022 and is nearing a low again. Less money in savings means less money to spend at strip clubs. It doesn't, however, automatically mean recession.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2022/07/28/1113649843/gdp-2q-economy-202...
Not to mention that we are seeing a generational shift in the labor market right now - the baby boomer part of the population pyramid is finally deciding to retire and is probably not going to save as much as they were when they were building their nest egg.
Also the length of a stripper's career is irrelevant for this discussion as long as there is an equilibrium state of strippers available.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/08/10/how-corpor...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflatio...
Then again I'm not from the US and not generally visiting strip clubs. It's a topic that doesn't come up very often either.
They don't go out to'da'clubs when their clients aren't able to afford anything.
Then again, maybe it's too mundane again and with the tipping culture (as far as I have heard about it) there is much less spread in tips than where I live.
People working service jobs simply can't afford the basics, and that's a problem. Part of capitalism's implied promise is that if you work full time, you should be able to feed and house yourself. But for huge numbers of people, that doesn't seem to be true anymore.
> Many quirky (and weirdly accurate) economic indicators help forecast the economy. For example, if an AFC team wins the Superbowl, the stock market will decline the following year. While there doesn’t seem to be a direct explainable connection, this has an accuracy rate of 73%.
Oh, ffs. I have serious questions about the accuracy of this website's domain name.
Right or wrong doesn’t matter. This admin and the media has been doing their best to gaslight a great economy, and that I think will hurt. You can be so blue that your commie red, and still see the messaging of this admin has been bad.
But then again, the last incumbent oversaw a 15% unemployment rate and almost won reelection when 3,000 people were dying every day so, perhaps it wouldn't be.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/uni...
I told my CEO that my past success and my wife are effectively subsidizing his company. Because I could not afford to work here it I had not been so successful earlier and if my wife didn't have a great job with great benefits. In fact, I'm seriously considering leaving my role when the summer starts because childcare for my 5 year old son is going to cost ~55% of my net pay each month.
But my CEO and his family of 4 have been to Disney World twice since October 2023. And they're going to Europe for 2 weeks this summer.
The rest of it certainly sucks though. There would have to be a VERY good motivation for me to travel that far for work. Most of us on here are involved in software and I'd be shocked to see if less than half of us were remote or partly remote.
what does this really mean? Like food is so cheap we are obese. So does this mean more people want freebies? Tasty brand name foods? My neighbor thought we were poor and gave us food they got from a foodbank, it was really nice (but odd) stuff.
In 2024 I can't really understand using food as a measurement. There is too much.
Read up about basics of nutrition, about how poverty and obesity are correlated, what "food deserts" are, the differences between processed and healthy foods, etc.
And the stripper index is down because their market is oversaturated aka "onlyfans overload".
Either you're "fine" or you're very much not fine.
Which is why you get people talking past each other.
The article talks about a steep decline in the past ~year / post-covid. OnlyFans has been around since 2016. They are also fairly distinct. Not sure you can pin it all on OF.
Yeah, that means your measurement of "the economy" is lying. And that you are in a recession.
There's no mixing of technical and colloquial terms here. All that is there is a lying indicator. And if people insist that incorrect number is real, those people are lying too.
So are you of the mind that we'll never see a recession again, or...?
The point is prediction. Once the "normal metrics" are in the tank (because they are lagging indicators), we are already in recession.
It really depends on the context. If you ask your spouse, it's probably the latter. When talking about strip clubs, it's more of the former.
"Outside" entertainment is getting vastly more expensive. Average hotels are charging eye watering prices the world over. Concert tickets are astronomical. Restaurant prices and fees are out of control. Any type of rental, tour or other type of activity on vacation feels extortionate. Airline tickets are hundreds or thousands of dollars for a tiny economy seat.
I think this is largely driven by monetary and fiscal policy that disproportionately benefits the rich (Paycheck Protection Program, low interest rates). If you give people who are poor more money, I believe they will spend it on things that stabilize and improve their day to day lives so you'd expect to see inflation in things like food and medicine. If you give money to people that are already stable, they will spend it on things the things that we see are having very high inflation: improved housing, vacations, luxury goods.
The fact that this person is going on all these vacations while his workers forgo meals is just kind of fucked up. The fact that people don't seem to see a problem with this is the problem.
I absolutely beat the shit out of those perks.
It's not a parasitic alien.
Increases in asset prices spurn consumer spending in wealthier households relative to their proportion of assets owned - the top 10% of households own 62% of the assets.[2]
[1]https://apnews.com/article/inflation-economy-wealth-rates-fe...
[2]https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...
Sample size of one, but I personally had not heard of it until 2020, after some YouTuber drama, and I am a somewhat terminally online human. I suspect it didn’t reach broad cultural awareness for a fair bit longer than that; I don’t remember any people IRL talking about it until OF talked about not allowing adult content like a year later.
Sure, but it's been popular longer than the time period talked about in the article. And, as I mentioned, I think the markets are somewhat distinct.
Pretty much my entire life (and certainly since I was a teenager from experience) it has been trivial to get porn for free on the internet. I thought people paid for OnlyFans (and strippers) because it feels more "interactive"?
Food Deserts are defined in a way that is unhelpful, I live in a food desert in one of the richest counties. I have 0 grocery stores within 1 mile. But I have 6 grocery stores within 3 miles.
Go ahead with the conventional sayings: Tell me the fallacious remark about McDoubles being the healthiest cheapest food ever. Go ahead and say something incorrect like processed foods are cheaper than fresh foods. In a few years you are going to change from thinking Fat is the devil to carbs are the devil. Then you will take up fasting, then keto, then gluten free.
People in the US have too much money to care about food. These are people getting dopamine from food pleasure. No one wants to admit it.
It reeks of ignorance and obstinate privilege to claim people are too rich to care about food [1] [2], that having to travel 3 miles to get food is not a barrier to access [3] [4]. Saying that processed foods are more expensive than fresh is an outright lie [5][6][7].
The HN discussion forums are one of the last remaining places where we can expect civil and informed online discourse. Please try and keep with that spirit.
1: https://www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/press-room/53-millio...
2: https://gitnux.org/food-bank-statistics/
3: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/food-bank-use-highest-in-cana...
4: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-are-food-dese...
5: https://foodispower.org/access-health/food-deserts/
6: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9967271/
7: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/healthy-vs-...
8: https://www.aier.org/article/why-unhealthy-food-is-cheap-and...
This is faux-intellectual. Your sources never even back up your claims.
Low-quality googling and nice formatting won't change reality.
Go check out the website Efficiency Is Everything, that website actually compares foods objectively.
This is the thing you're disagreeing with parent on, because it's not true if you can afford to hold the assets that are inflating.
Inflation doesn't happen in a vacuum: it's inflation-in-terms-of-____.
If you happen to own a lot of ____, because you have disposable income and can afford to invest, then your net worth "inflates" too.
Simple example: how does inflation of the price of gasoline at the pump impact you, if you own a refinery and a filling station? Certainly not in the same way it does to someone who owns neither and commutes to work daily in an ICE vehicle.
Our minimum wage is higher here though.
I would much rather employers pay their employees a livable wage and roll the cost of that into the price of the service.
I will go to restaurants when I'm traveling for obvious reasons, but for the six months or so I haven't really eaten out more than five or six times, all of which were for special occasions. For comparison, I used to go to some form of restaurant in the past four times a week. I gradually started to avoid places that have the tipping kiosk, but then just transitioned away to just avoiding restaurants entirely
Now, there's actually a bunch of reasons that I don't eat out anymore, but one thing I'm pretty sure is this: you know what's even worse for a business than people not tipping for a service? Them not showing up to even buy the service.
I mean, I don't have data, so I don't know. My intuition and anecdotal experience says yes, they would be.
To start with an example: when I used to go out on the town with some buddies, we might end up at strip club at the end of the night after the bars close. OnlyFans wasn't out at the time, but I can guarantee that we wouldn't cap our night off by group-watching OnlyFans.
I have also had some rowdier nights with account managers trying to win over my business who would take me out to a higher end strip club. Again, I cannot imagine them taking me back to a hotel for a cozy OnlyFans viewing.
But I think it boils down to the completely different experiences. One is delivered through a monitor, one is physically there in front of you.
But I do kind of dispute that it's just a "self esteem" thing. Often the "no tip" option is smaller and harder to spot, and I think that some people genuinely do not realize that "not tipping" is an option, and it's not like these kiosk manufacturers don't know this.