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just to remind everyone that, say, 55 years ago young people with only a hs education could manage to live at least a lower middle-class life.
in my first domestic bliss situation, i could cook a dinner for two with a dollar's worth of ingredients.
my monthly rent now is half of my annual salary back then. something might be wrong somewhere.
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just to remind everyone that, say, 55 years ago young people with only a hs education could manage to live at least a lower middle-class life.
in my first domestic bliss situation, i could cook a dinner for two with a dollar's worth of ingredients.
my monthly rent now is half of my annual salary back then. something might be wrong somewhere.
Now it takes two people, both working full-time jobs AND being frugal, to even have a CHANCE to build up any savings.
And what do we do when the industry our family business is in is destroyed by this economy? Looking at starting over at age 50... ugh ugh ugh
Fucking bullshit, is what it is.
I guess we shouldn't be surprised, i mean we've been told we were NON-ESSENTIAL DEPLORABLES, after all.
When oil doubles and log prices don't... not sustainable for very long. But boy won't the elites be pissed when they can't find their hardwood products.
Exactly. I was going to say something similar.
Their world will come crashing down once they can't get their hands on their little new thing what-nots at the trendy new stores.
SavingsЁЯдФ???? All gone thanks to jab mandate. Looking forward to when we can all scream in personЁЯШВЁЯТЦ
i know that rent regulation is greatly reviled in the happy fields of substackland. but market-rate rents mean in practice the wealthy--including overseas money--pricing normal people out of their own neighborhoods forever. this is a primary reason for what you note above.
i'd really like to see an in-depth discussion of this someday--not a theoretical one on why all price controls are bad.
Rent regulation is greatly reviled basically everywhere -- especially among economists. It may be the single economic issue that has the greatest consensus. (Obviously, that's not PROOF of anything, but when even NPR knows rent control is bad...........https://www.npr.org/2019/03/29/707908952/the-evidence-against-rent-control)
Cost of living is an incredibly complex issue, but major factors are (of course) supply and demand -- both of which are moving the 'wrong' way, though for different reasons.
People also use their homes as an ATM and don't want their property values to fall -- meaning they 'pull up the ladder' behind them. Of course, the issue they have is that once they've sold that house and made $X, they have to now find a place to live, which likely costs $Y + $X -- meaning you haven't actually gotten anywhere.
And of course we have the currency debasement that prints new cash for the banks, who will eventually buy up the homes we can no longer afford for pennies on the dollar.
So to 'solve' this problem would take a complex, multi-prong strategy that hurts the established players in the market and benefits people just starting out.
I won't hold my breath on that, though. So we get "jokes" like this:
https://babylonbee.com/news/newlyweds-in-san-francisco-looking-for-nice-one-bedroom-zero-bath-starter-tent
Newlyweds In San Francisco Looking For Nice One Bedroom, Zero Bath Starter Tent
SAN FRANCISCO тАФ Newlyweds Drew and Jessica Perry have begun searching in earnest across San Francisco for a nice, one-bedroom starter tent to begin married life together.
"Look, babe! This one has a zipper," said Mr. Perry. "Ah, but that blue one on the corner with the tarp ceiling has great curb appeal. It's so hard to choose!"
Although Mrs. Perry admitted she had dreams of securing a one-bedroom crackhouse with a half-bath, she quickly realized such luxury was out of reach with Mr. Perry's meager $400,000 annual salary. "I've had to change my perspective a bit, but I just keep reminding myself it's only a starter tent," said Mrs. Perry. "I'm still holding out hope there will be a toilet within a five-minute walk. Oh, hey honey! Look at this lean-to made entirely out of needles!"
something is terribly wrong when my grandparents of terribly modest means (my grandma had to work until she died of heart disease at 65) lived in a lovely apt. in a beautiful building that only the spawn of oligarches could afford to rent now.
Yes. It's called "debasement of the currency."
And it's accelerating.
тАЬYes. It's called "debasement of the currency."
And it's accelerating.тАЭ
And Biden, his minders, and the rest of the Democrats in Washington want the government to borrow and spend more money, which will only make the situation much worse.....
And then they tell us how wonderful the economic numbers are (after they finish faking them).*
* I wonder how long it will take before a government тАШinternet misinformation task forceтАЩ of some sort will start тАЬinvestigatingтАЭ anyone who questions their official economic numbers......
you got a year's worth of writing right now then, don't ya?
I've seen photos of my terribly modest grandmother's house featured in magazine spreads featuring the oligarch living there now. Photos of property and home I have fond memories of childhood. Upgraded but essentially same structure and landscaping. In a high-fallutin magazine feature. Small, small home affordable for her modest means. On stunning property. That hit the jackpot after she passed. And the guy isn't even all that. His fortune maker is ok but not impressive. But he's well-connected with government contracts for completely unrelated products. That are highly lucrative internationally. Large revenues. Poached from taxpayers. In my Grandma's old home I grew up in. It's a wacky, wacky world.
People making that "buy a mansion in Arkansas" choice is another significant part of why houses here are so stupidly expensive now... :-/
Sort of like how Hollyweird made it too expensive for regular NM people to afford living in Santa Fe. Empress MLG gave them all kinds of incentives because she has nothing whatsoever to do with the real world. Except guns. You know how she feels about guns! In this state even dems have guns! What I heard was she's acting for the cartels because THEY don't want to run into guns. Eff her.
I'm learning some of the economics stuff from Jeffrey Hunter (writes for his own Brownstone Institute and the Epoch Times). I don't always agree with him but I wouldn't have caught on to a lot of the bidenomics BS if I hadn't read his columns. I knew FJB was lying but the enormous scope of the lying is beyond creative writing. It's more like a jump through the Stargate and ending up several galaxies away.
It's the same thing, the inflation thing. Those "money people" get the money first, when it's valuable. Then they spend it and that drives up prices, so normal people can't afford to buy homes. Then they print more money, driving more people homeless, and they rent you the houses instead. Eventually you'll own nothing and be happy. They are openly telling you that. The question is what are you or we going to do about it?
The issue with rent control is that the problem exists somewhere farther up the ladder. Yes, the thing you are observing exists. But it's driven by the free printing of more fiat currency, tied to nothing, and granted (until recently, sometimes at *negative* interest rates) to banks, who then get the most use out of it.
Without that effect, which has been going on since 1971, people could afford to build more houses.
then this is a prime issue that we--the collective jellyfish brain of substackland--should consider tackling with a vengeance.
I'll add it to the questions for next time?
yes. because this is one of the great life-destroyers of our time. the faux-viking breed-more-christian-white babies crowd, one might think, would see this as a crucial problem to be solved in order to ramp up them withering fertility engines.
Yes, this.
I'm not sure it's even *fixable* now that people are culturally conditioned towards fiat currencies. But I'd love to hear ideas.
It should be noted just how apt the title "fiat currency" is.
"Fiat lux." "Let there be light."
"Fiat" is "As I will it so", effectively.
It exists because the government says it does, and it has value due to a ridiculous worldwide consensual hallucination granting it value.
It's the worst thing we ever let the government get away with, and that's even compared to letting them tax us for performing labor of our own free will.
It really is. It really, really is. It's the **primary** thing I resent my grandparents for not having done anything about. The "Greatest Generation" who lived through The Great Depression and won WWII, and supposedly "knew the value of a dollar", but didn't do a **GODSDAMNED THING** to fight the feds absolutely annihilating that value.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
And our parents let them take over the education system.
i think that the genuine prosperity of the '50s, coming after WWII which came after the depression which came after many people immigrating in poverty, made people maybe relax a little bit too much that the promised land (for many) had arrived.
IтАЩm not seeing anyone comment from the perspective of the landlord. Investment property loans (residential) typically require 20% down, which is a large chunk of cash. Then the landlord takes on all the future risk of the property- vacancy rates, maintenance, upkeep, taxes, insurance, etc. AND needs a return on investment, else why take on the hassle (and they are a hassle). Rental properties arenтАЩt charity; theyтАЩre investments with risk and reward. Rent controls for the investors would be equivalent to capping your return on the market. Should we do this for stock market investments, 401kтАЩs and so on?
this is a basic problem and there are no idealogical solutions.
housing is a basic need. to be insecure in your dwelling--for *any* reason--is at the heart of much conflict and misery from the beginning of time for all species.
govt. housing is always lousy. but investing to make a big a profit as you can get away with is a crime against the dignity of human beings.
i noted during the rent moratorium during the acute phase of our plague era that no govt entities put a concurrent moratorium on the taxes and charges they extorted from property owners.
this is a hard, hard, hard problem. how can we make it less so?
It took from 1972 to 2013 for my rent to go from $145 to $930. Retired in 2013 and rent doubled in that time bc now rent is based on market.
It's BS.
Live in Cali and every time we tried to purchase there were multiple offers and always outbid. They want us all serfs to the land owners.
quite ordinary people want ridiculous profits on their properties too.
I heard on the radio today that credit card debt had topped one trillion in the US. The average rate is now 28.93%. If gas prices spike because of war in the middle east....
Inflation no chance
To increase finance
Bills pile up sky high
Send that boy off to die
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life
New screamers theme song?
LOVE IT.
People with a HS education could *buy houses*.
you should've seen the co-op apt. my parents bought in 1955 for about $1400.
55 years ago our dollars were worth a helluva lot more than today
Historically since fully going off the gold standard, we double the money supply roughly every 11 years (9% real inflation).
This means that for every dollar in existence on 9/11, there are now roughly FOUR dollars in existence.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
This matches with the calculation I did recently, that factoring in inflation, I make about 83% of what I did fresh out of college back in 2000.
55 years ago a swedish crown was worth the same as a swiss franc.
Today, it's something like 1/14th of that.
It seems you like comparisons, so here's one for you.
In the early 1970's the US $ to South African ZAR was US$ 2 = ZAR 1
Yesterday the situation was ZAR 19.06 = US$ 1.
Thats what moving from the Gold Standard, to the US $ leaving the Gold Standard under Nixon in the mid 1970's.
It clearly indicates how currencies are now manipulated.
The theory of currency value manipulation is reinforced by the fact that the US$ has been reduced to only being used in 58% of global trade transactions, whilst China and Japan are dumping US bonds hand over fist, US debt is increasing and the bond market is collapsing, yet suddenly, a week ago, the value of the US$ increased.
Driven by What is the Question, as it certainly wasn't demand???
Decrease in value of ZAR relative to USD should have more to do with what happened to SA after certain policies were recinded, and even more so when UK and US withdrew support from the old regime, including putting SA under embargos until they changed policy due to outside coercion.
The question as to what increased demand is best answered by looking at the preceding six months of US economy. Did any decline stop? Did things start to improve? Did market confidence improve? And more fuzzy stuff like that.
There's a perfectly valid reason why "investment specialists" et c normally bat under what random mass guessing would yield. Well, there are more than one reason, really.
Kahneman did a study, included in his "Thinking: fast and slow", on economy and how people working in finance make decisions. If you haven't read it, I really recommend it as it's a real treat.
To a limited extent you comment is true, the US stabbed South Africa in the back, and then of course saw to that we got saddled with the ANC government we now have, in 1994 which has destroyed the economy, and the desire for investors to invest in South Africa, however it still doesn't remove the argument in regard to US artificial manipulation of currency values.
People have much higher expectations.
It can still be done.
I did it in Irvine CA. with five kids.
On 72 k a year.
When?
Because it was less than ten years ago that housing prices were half of what they are now, *in Albuquerque*, which is relatively known for having decent housing prices.
From 96 to 07
Half of income went to housing.
In 96 our rent was 1800
In 07 it was 2200
Right now same duplex is 3600. Which would still be half our income.
But we lived in Woodbridge.
Kids went to Irvine high the kids parking lot had better cars than what we had.
My kids thought we were poor. Wanted to know, dad why do we have the crappiest car in the neighborhood? My response, do you want to live where that's the best car in the neighborhood?
"...do you want to live where that's the best car in the neighborhood?"
ЁЯШ╣ ~ ROTFL
My kids didn't think I was funny
They didn't realize the depth of the comment.
If it didn't make them think, perhaps you've planted a seed...
Hah. Good response. ;)
72k in '96 was still real money. (OK, maybe not in Irvine, I dunno.) in '07... well, less so.
I dunno. I was making 65 in '00, and make 95 now, but in '00, I rented an entire house for $500, and now I pay $925 for a one bedroom apartment that's half a duplex. No kids, but it's still a much larger chunk of my income, and I can carry $300 in groceries in one hand these days...
How much is your car note ?
$0! For as long as I can keep the one I've got running, and hopefully longer than that, if I can buy another reliable one for cash.
I mean, I'm not *drowning* for sure. But... I'm not going *up hill* either.
If I'm making 83% of what I do now in another 25 years, and there's no retirement to be had... well, that's not a sustainable curve.