AFP Contributor/Getty Images
Services in health care and education have increased in price by over 100% in the past 20 years, per an AEI chart.
Meanwhile, consumer goods like new cars, clothing, and TVs have become way more affordable.
The split between the two mirrors the rise in discreet wealth, in which immaterial means have become status symbols.
Showing off wealth is no longer the way to signify having wealth.
Flashing a Louis Vuitton handbag or a multimillion-dollar Bugatti have long been standard status symbols for the elite, but the ultrawealthy have increasingly turned to intangible investments such as security and health to discreetly flaunt their wealth instead. An unlikely reflection of this transformation is the recent history of inflation in the US economy.