President Donald Trump said during a Cabinet meeting that he wants to 'drive housing prices up' to keep homeowners 'wealthy' rather than focusing on affordability to benefit people people who 'didn't work very hard'
Go ahead, vote MAGA in the midterms if you’re curious how fucked your life can get.
As mentioned above, that’s fine for investors actually. They don’t want individuals buying homes. They want people renting them. Across a long enough period, renting will be more profitable so they are happy to buy them up even if your average person can’t afford the mortgage.
Remember, when Al Bundy and Homer Simpson showed up, they were considered ‘middle class.’ Homer had a house and two cars, his wife stayed home. That was normal.
In 1960, minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the average US home was $11,000.00. At that time, $1 million was a vast fortune. Nowadays, $1 million is what a rich guy pays for a party.
A honeycrisp apple costs over two fucking dollars. Five years ago it was fifty cents. Not fifty years ago. Five. Small, but entirely emblematic of the problem.
It’s really not. The affordability crisis is one of the reasons you’re seeing the unraveling of America to begin with. Americans (myself included), like most other people, are stupid, emotionally driven creatures. They can’t buy a house or afford groceries so they elect a strongman who’s going to get rid of the “other”, because obviously it’s their fault. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon, but in typical American fashion, we’re being pretty extravagant about it. BoJo in the UK, the AfD, Marine Le Pen, it’s a very familiar story and it’s for the same reasons every time. Hitlers rise to power was in part due to a failing economy. The average person legitimately does not understand the factors that give rise to their social and economic situation and is easily manipulated by those with power and money. It may look “acceptable” to us from the outside because we’re not tackling the root of the issue, but most people think they are, they just haven’t actually identified the root issue. People stormed the capital in part because of affordability, they clearly want to do something, they are just too ignorant to understand. Also racism, but that’s a whole different conversation.
A bunch of Americans are accelerationists in disguise. Such people strongly favor an invasion of Greenland, for instance, since it would greatly advance the accelerationist cause.
As mentioned above, that’s fine for investors actually. They don’t want individuals buying homes. They want people renting them. Across a long enough period, renting will be more profitable so they are happy to buy them up even if your average person can’t afford the mortgage.
Why is this becoming so acceptable to Americans?
Boiling frog.
Remember, when Al Bundy and Homer Simpson showed up, they were considered ‘middle class.’ Homer had a house and two cars, his wife stayed home. That was normal.
In 1960, minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the average US home was $11,000.00. At that time, $1 million was a vast fortune. Nowadays, $1 million is what a rich guy pays for a party.
A honeycrisp apple costs over two fucking dollars. Five years ago it was fifty cents. Not fifty years ago. Five. Small, but entirely emblematic of the problem.
Mmm I don’t know about this one, I worked at grocery stores 15 years ago and fancier single apples were around $1.50.
Don’t get me started on luxury inflation.
Look at things like the prices for live sporting events and concerts.
Back when The Beetles were the hottest band in the world, teenagers were buying their own tickets.
Middle class folks used to be able to splurge once in a while and get the best of the best. Now that stuff is beyond the reach of mere mortals
Because the people who don’t accept it don’t have the power to reject it. We are owned by billionaires and our system is corrupt to the fucking core.
It’s really not. The affordability crisis is one of the reasons you’re seeing the unraveling of America to begin with. Americans (myself included), like most other people, are stupid, emotionally driven creatures. They can’t buy a house or afford groceries so they elect a strongman who’s going to get rid of the “other”, because obviously it’s their fault. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon, but in typical American fashion, we’re being pretty extravagant about it. BoJo in the UK, the AfD, Marine Le Pen, it’s a very familiar story and it’s for the same reasons every time. Hitlers rise to power was in part due to a failing economy. The average person legitimately does not understand the factors that give rise to their social and economic situation and is easily manipulated by those with power and money. It may look “acceptable” to us from the outside because we’re not tackling the root of the issue, but most people think they are, they just haven’t actually identified the root issue. People stormed the capital in part because of affordability, they clearly want to do something, they are just too ignorant to understand. Also racism, but that’s a whole different conversation.
A bunch of Americans are accelerationists in disguise. Such people strongly favor an invasion of Greenland, for instance, since it would greatly advance the accelerationist cause.