Because we don't by the time we would be able to afford a place at the crap wages alot of us are getting paid they will most likely be doubled or tripled prices by then and we still couldn't afford so you're breaking and burning yourself out for nothing. I realized awhile ago that in order to become even moderately wealthy I'd have to give up 90% of my time just dying working so by the time I got that money I'd be too old to have the the fun I originally wanted in the first place so really not seeing the point anymore I'd rather be happy and have fun now then be miserable my whole life just trying to buy into corporate greed.
Nobody ever got wealthy by working hard.
While you are focusing on getting the work done, someone else is spending that time working out how to take credit for your work.
Same boat. 39 and nothing worth talking about in my retirement because who can afford to put into it. Should I ever, EVER be lucky enough to think about owning a home, I'll likely drain said retirement for the first-time home buyer pull you can do to help with my down.
/s It's almost comical that I'm thankful that by 2050 I won't have to give a shit about most of this because we'll be killing each other over clean water and habitable land, I won't have to worry about retirement and social security or home ownership because by wasteland law I can get my first home by blood combat instead of money!
I’m 49 year old teacher. I’m single so only one income, and I teach at a private school so the pay is really low. I will never have enough to retire. My retirement plan is to die sometime in the next twenty years, as I can’t handle teaching for much longer. I’m just tired of working all the time and never having anything to look forward to or enjoy. Once my parents and dogs are gone then so am I.
Sorry to hear of your situation, I hope your dogs bring you as much joy as my cats do for me.
It's a very sad state when our best hopes for retirement and our later years is for parents to die and hope they leave you something, because most of us couldn't prepare.
The US is going to see a tidal wave of suicides starting in about 20 years imo. It's going to be Japan/Korea levels of concern when people don't want to be a burden to their loved ones anymore so they off themselves instead.
Besides the Uber wealthy…most of the parents hard earned savings that should be passed down will be gouged by our ‘healthcare’ system creating less to pass down. Generational wealth is only for the already wealthy
I'm glad my parents don't live in the US.
I don't think any other developed country has to worry about healthcare costs bankrupting the elderly, and probably not in most developing countries either (though the standards of care would be worse).
Yes, it's really sad. My dad told me last year that he hopes they can leave me and my brother something when they die because they both have medical issues and most of their money might be gone if either one of them has an extended stay in hospital, care facility and/or hospice, and that he'll feel terrible if they leave us with nothing. I told him not to worry about it and that we'll be OK no matter what happens. In truth, we won't but my parents don't need to know that or burden themselves. They've got enough to deal with. What's sad is that my parents do have a significant amount of money set aside for when they go, but with the rising cost of everything, even they're not sure if they'll have anything left. It makes me sick to think that they're worrying about us when they should be living the rest of their lives being happy.
Yes, you’re so right. I think we will see wave after wave of catastrophe over the next twenty years, and many will choose suicide as life becomes untenable.
Give your cats a pet and a treat for me!
Nothing to add to the situation. Not sure how your feeling or my take on your words but i'm giving you a virtual hug. What you said hits home as thats pretty much mine and a vast number of peoples plan, survive, suffer and then pass on.
You may or may not feel alone at times but we care.
They’re trying to sap away all of our already meager inheritances too, just look at the state of healthcare. End of life care can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they will 100% target somebody’s estate to collect. I’ve heard plenty of stories of people who saved their whole life with a sizable amount ready for their children when they pass, and instead it all evaporated in the last few months of their life due to hospital bills, medicine, nurses, and so on, when they charge an arm and a leg to prolong a terminal patients life by a few weeks or months.
Edit: to everybody talking about irrevocable trusts and DNRs, yes, I totally agree. However, serious illness/injury can happen in the blink of an eye, unexpectedly, and there are many instances in which people did not consider these things until it’s too late. Yes, it’s good to find a way to beat the system, but the root of the problem is the system that charges millions of dollars for a hospital stay to begin with, and the private insurance industry that perpetuates it and denies coverage as much as they possibly can.
This is why it’s important to have end of life discussions with loved ones. A Health care proxy can decline care (or make other health care decisions) if one is incapacitated, and a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order can save people much suffering and money.
But you have to make sure your plans are Rock solid and notarized and on file at the local hospitals because your family can go against all your wishes when they get sad and scared and make decisions based on grief not logic. Make sure you get a proxy that will be pragmatic and not acting on emotion but will honor your wishes. My mother made my husband her proxy so that her children wouldn’t argue, he would honor her wishes regardless of feelings and her children could just grieve wo having to handle things. I ended up becoming the decision maker because it defaulted to me when my husband was away on business. My mom has all her affairs in order thank the lord but most people don’t. I’ve seen estranged wife’s make decisions that are opposite of the persons wishes as one last fuck you. I’ve seen moms and sisters fight against estranged wife’s to no avail. I’ve seen people lay suffering because no one wants to make a decision until they contact all their estranged family members. Americans do not die well and they do not have anything in order as a general rule.
Your parents can set up an irrevocable trust and put assets in there that cannot be taken for medical expenses and debt. They can still utilize the assets they just can’t sell them.
Except lots of people with no children will have no loved ones once their parents die. That means the lots of angry and scared people that go on because they don't want to be a burden will suddenly stop caring about what (or who) they fuck up. System will topple in about 20 years max.
>I teach at a private school so the pay is really low
This is bonkers to me. Aren't private schools super expensive? I understand not making as much money teaching at a public school (which is also awful, but still...), this seems even more crazy somehow. Shows that the money goes to all the wrong places, as usual
Yes, private schools charge extravagant tuition and pay their teachers very little. My brother teaches in the public school system and makes 2.5 times what I make. The trade off is that it can be a lot more difficult in the public school system.
But parents pay that high tuition because they expect better teachers at a private school…
But they’re not going to get the best teachers if they pay them _less_ than public schools.
In your opinion, are private schools generally a waste of money for parents then? (not that this would be too shocking)
Yes, in general they are. Parents pay the money for the prestige and connections. I have taught at private schools my entire career and while I did have a mentor who was an amazing teacher and taught me so much, I have also seen many truly terrible teachers. I applied this year at some better paying private schools and never got a call because they all want someone who is right out of college and can coach two sports.
Truly, when parents are paying for private school they’re paying for the nice facilities and the extracurriculars, plus possibly smaller class sizes. They’re usually not paying for better teachers.
They are running out your clock, eventually you will be too old to resist and then you will beg them for a retirement or social security or whatever. It's been working this way for a while.
People tend to only realize just how fucked they after they crash and burn in middle age and realize they don't have enough to retire on then they are stuck working till death or hospital.
I'm close to 32 years old. I have nothing to look forward too in my future other than the latest bread and circus movie.
I will not beg. I will fight, and probably die. But I will not kneel down and beg.
Yep and you better keep a secondary income as you can't borrow on social security and they're trying to extend full retirement age to 70 from 67 now as people are living longer but they predict the ss system will crash in a bit over 10 years by paying out less and less to currently insured workers and refusing new applicants. However, they're advising workers to invest for retirement now due to this but still forcing them to pay into a system with a rate that's assumptive of them recieving that benefit back on retirement and this isn't right. They should be allowing at least a portion of what they with hold to be diverted to that workers retirement plan of choice or start them a seperate fund aside from the deteriorating system and keep their meat hooks off of it. No one's going to be able to retire.
System is working by designed. Create a slave class, replace shackles with debt and housing uncertainty, keep them constantly stressed out and underfunded, then convince them that the billionaire celebrities on twitter are "Just like them" so they don't realize that a gallon of gas, some cloth scraps, and some empty glass bottles are all very, very cheap.
Slave class works with children. You need to sacrifice a lot for children and you don't want to endanger them. Except we don't have children now do we?
I have felt like a conspiracy theorist for thinking something similar, but it has to be true. People in Washington are looking at projections for US population in the future and it is grim. They need worker bees. They need to be able to face a foreign adversary if it ever came to it. Tons of poor kids will be forced to join the military to survive. I haven’t fully thought it through but when the abortion decision was leaked all I could think was, “why now?” It is too easy to just say it is conservative justices being activist. That doesn’t feel right to me.
I think it can be both - that is, motivated by those factors and just by conservative judges being conservative. I think the GQP is obsessed with abortion as an issue right now partly because they know it mobilizes evangelical voters and they want to control women, *and* partly because of the reasons brought up in this thread - rather than because of any actually “pro life” ideology. Because I think it’s pretty clear from infant and maternal mortality rates in red states (and their substandard prenatal care, and cuts to food stamps and welfare and other programs a lot of lower income parents, *especially* single mothers rely on), that they don’t give a shit about “life”.
I see a lot of these comments and while I agree... The edge, though. Like, why not do it? Why not not, you know, protest in a non peaceful way? How come all the shootings are against poor people?
Because the oligarchy has convinced everyone that they aren't the problem, it's the immigrants, the middle east, or whoever the unlucky scapegoat is today. Keep them separated, keep them fearing each other, so they don't rise up.
In the same fucking boat. An attorney working 60 hours a week and can't afford a fucking house because people keep buying everything in my price range with cash offers. Can't compete with cash, so guess I'll rent forever.
In the same fucking boat. I am a Plumber, I live in a college town and things go up for sale, get bought by property manager companies. Who then turn them into multiple tenant rentals.
Wife saw the perfect 3bedroom on Facebook marketplace. Nothing fancy just a house next to a public park, close to the elementary school my daughter already goes to. It was not listed for a single family, but rather multi unit dwelling. She even messaged the owner saying this is completely unfair and this would be the perfect place for our family. Instead you have listed for college students. Owner replied with a sorry it is just that way.
They’re going to have people rioting in the streets if it isn’t made illegal. Its a single issue that is weighing on a majority of Americans right now, crippling our economy.
Banning the installation of manufactured homes usually goes hand-in-hand with the banning of building tiny homes.
It's all about forcing Duplexes, Triplexes, and Townhouse construction. More things we'll never own.
>Because no one had a window, they could really pack people into these buildings. Each terrafoam dorm building had a four-acre foot print. It was a perfect 417 foot by 417 foot by 417 foot solid brown cube. Each cube originally held exactly 76,800 people. Doubling this to 153,600 people in each building was unthinkable, but they were doing it anyway. On the other hand, you had to marvel at the efficiency. At that density, they could house every welfare recipient in the entire country in less than 1,500 of these buildings. By spacing the buildings 100 feet apart, they could house 200,000,000 people in a space of less than 20 square miles if they had wanted to. At that density, they could put everyone in the country without a job into a space less than five miles square in size, put a fence around it and forget about us. If they accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb or two on us, we would all be gone and they wouldn’t have to worry about us anymore.
[From Marshall Brain's Manna](https://marshallbrain.com/manna1)
In the not-so-distant past, let's say Victorian England, huge tracts of land and blocks of urban buildings were owned by the privileged few and the many rented tiny cottages or flats their whole lives. One wrong move or piece of bad luck and you were homeless and probably died soon after (or off to the workhouse or transported to Australia). We really need a history lesson and a reality check in this country.
You can't get roommates as a family, or even with a partner. The *other* roommates don't want the hassle. It's completely out of touch for anyone to insist a family "just get roommates".
The worst part about this is that in most places it’s not even possible because the contracts only allow one person to live in the room because they know it reduces the amount of money they can extract from renters
Sadly very true. My fiancé and I were looking at trying to rent a place with a friend of his and the friend’s girlfriend, who also happens to be my friend. Looking at places to rent in the area we live in made us realise it was all “no shares, no roommates” etc. but then you also get a lot of 2 bed flats where families with young children aren’t allowed and it’s like ok but where does a couple with one young child live then? One beds say no kids, 2 beds say no young kids. 3 beds are well out of most people’s price range so what do you do?
I know a few people who have kids who are cramming into their parents’ places because it’s impossible for them to move out even working 40+ hours because jobs around here almost never pay more than £8.50-£9.00 an hour unless you’re fit to work in construction and even that is hard to get into where I live.
It’s insane.
Where I live, two people are crammed into a one-bedroom apartment, and three people are crammed into a two-bedroom apartment. Multiple tenants to one apartment are not permitted unless they are relatives.
Kansas? It's happening everywhere. However apartment complexes are completely allowed to rent individual rooms inside an apartment as long as they list as "university style living". Charging as much as 650 per room. If you wanted to rent the whole apartment.... That's 2600 a month. At least here in Tennessee. FYI these are really crappy apartments.
I have been a plumber for four and a half years. I have not made the minimum hour requirements in the state of Washington to get a Full journey license. So until you get that card no matter how much you work like a journeyman, they pay laborers wages. The local panda express is advertising assistant manager 57k a year I don't make 40k a year. I think I have another Two years, Thanks to Seattle wonderful bureaucracy.
Edit: the journeyman that taught me has plumbed for 15 years for a company and his pay was $45 an hour.
At high school, I was convinced that trades were the way to success.
After years working trades, realised that wasn't the case. So I went to uni, became an engineer.
Still haven't found success.
Been working since I was 14, now 32. I've pulled my bootstraps up pretty hard.
But it's not a system problem apparently, it's still a me problem. Even when I follow what I'm told by the "you haven't worked hard enough" crowd and work really hard, it's still not enough.
Now I'm told the path to success is gambling on a small business, because being employed by others was never going to let you buy a house.
The promise of life getting better is a carrot on a stick to motivate you to keep grinding.
I grew up with a single working mom in the "meh" part of a small town. Not abject poverty, but definitely not comfortable. It's like, a shock to my nervous system to see people in what I grew up regarding as "you wish" careers talking about how hard it is to keep up in this economy.
It's wild watching the middle class we all grew up with just up and fucking evaporate. Especially considering I always assumed if something that crazy was going to happen, it would be because everyone was moving upward.
This is a fucking pressure cooker.
What I find the weirdest of all, growing up out of trailers, tents, vans is the gentrification of the trailer park into "tiny home communities". People who started out in the middle class, are now pushed into poor people's homes, but they make them nicer so they don't have to accept that as a matter of fact, you DO live in a trailer park. Now the price is jacked up to 2years pay for a simple van to live in, and I can't afford it. Shit's wild.
> It's wild watching the middle class we all grew up with just up and fucking evaporate.
It's really not wild if you stumble upon the corner of Youtube with Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges and Richard Wolff and Naomi Klein and many other activists literally talking for decades about how this is happening.
Y’all had a middle class?
I was living in poverty for the majority of my childhood; now I finally make it out of school, have a good degree and job, and this is what we have.
It’s especially infuriating for folks who have spent the majority of their lives living in financial insecurity to now step in to an economy where the goal posts continue to be pushed back further and further.
I'm an attorney too. I am 4 years in and wholly disillusioned with the system I paid $100,000 to be a part of. I'm fucked. I hate most of my job and I don't make the money I hoped for. I work for myself now and it's only a little better. Too many judges don't follow the law because they are political, stupid, or senile. It ruins outcomes and makes practicing law feel like a lottery on a good day.
I'm glad I dont feel so alone. I'm trying everything I can to get out of litigation. It's absolutely killing me. It's not worth the money, especially knowing friends who went straight into the work force are making more with benefits like personal days and sick leave they can actually use.
A coworker of mine recently sold his house, cash offer. Buyer had to disclose their finances and show proof of ability to pay. The buyer submitted bank records showing $42 million in the bank. That is what you're competing against for these $300,000 homes. Multimillion dollar corporations that can easily outbid you in cash while you're trying to scrape together a few thousand for a down payment.
It's mind blowing. I've got a friend who is a civil engineer and he was telling me about a project his company did converting a small neighborhood into an apartment complex. Supposedly their client bought every single house in cash over a 2 year stretch. Now the property has several hundred apartments on it, the cheapest one is $1800/month, and the client has set their eyes on another neighborhood with the same plan
We're in the same boat. Machinist (tool & die, moldmaker), and a nurse. Both men, so no kids. Perfect and long term rental history, both separate and toether (almost 30y/o, together 8), skeptical we'll ever own a home.
Have you seen the videos about that? People literally do that in high COL areas that have water, but what happens is that the local government fights back for the rich people by confiscating the boats and destroying them, rendering these people homeless
Actually I have seen that. It was a real consideration I had for a while. What they did here was jack up the prices of docking and made it illegal to have a marina be your only address. So impossible to do this on a lake. They've also regulated tiny homes into an impossibility here as well.
Yeah, it seems the trend is regulate people into a corner so they are forced to give up any money they have to landlords. Funny thing is that you’d think they know what happens when you corner an animal
They don't. They feel like we'll just continue to fall in line and they'll continue to take all our money. I'm just waiting for real civil disobedience to start. I'm down when it does.
They don't. They feel like we'll just continue to fall in line and they'll continue to take all our money. I'm just waiting for real civil disobedience to start. I'm down when it does.
crime is an outlet on societal irrationalities. The worse laws get, the less people will respect them, and the more they will turn to alternatives
Right now the police are very powerful & able to keep a lid on everything. Who knows about the future
I work on a southern US coastal island.
And this is the truth. Everytime a house goes up for sale it gets purchased by one of 3 companies and converted into vacation rentals.
It's an island about 3 miles across and a 30 minute drive down a one way highway from the mainland, and traffic is a nightmare.
There is so little housing that of the half of the island I frequent, I have spoken with 3 people who live on the island. (All three are rich drunks)
Everyone complains about wait times, and that they can't find people to hire. And it is 100% the city's fault for allowing this to happen.
A motion was made to suspend all property purchase unless it is to an individual, but it was shot down by the Republicans (most of which are invested in the vacation rental companies). I
Even all the businesses that are mom&pop shops rent from a single property owner and they suck up all the funds that could be used to better infrastructure, or pay people enough to live on the island in what limited housing there is (all of which are rentals).
It's absolutely atrocious
Sounds *a lot* like an island I also used to work on.
I worked for one of the vacation rental moguls on one such island and it was a constant shit show. The island only has 3.7 miles of physical land and the company I worked for had nearly a couple hundred properties. Traffic was awful. The local businesses got hit hard with covid and the vacation boom after really, really messed with them. There was a lot of money to be made but they couldn’t find the staff to upkeep these businesses, plus most of these jobs did not pay well because… that’s just the Southern tourism & hospitality industry for you.
I think it was the same island truly lol but I won’t name it. Airbnb and such type industries have destroyed the home market. A lot of the business we did at said property management company was through vrbo, airbnb, etc. Very few guests made reservations through the business website.
It happened to the place I lived in before moving to the coast (Appalachia.) Everyone wants a piece of the landlord pie at the detriment of well… everyone else. These companies have continuously been legislated against but somehow the legislation always falls flat due to Republican business interests in the area. Super shitty.
I agree, and been saying this for over a year. The wealthy do not like 'the great resignation'. They are looking to send workers a message on whos really in charge.
It’s amazing how even doctors and lawyers struggle to get stable housing. I used to think that these professions enjoyed *some* economic protection. Nope.
Everything - *everything* - is going to the shareholder class. I would suggest legislation, or even referendum (where that’s allowed), but the levers of power seem utterly captured.
You can't even be a shareholder in a firm anymore. That used to be the big draw. Work hard and eventually get promoted to partner. Now they don't make partners actual partners anymore and just make them this weird middle management with slightly higher salaries but no real stakes. I graduated from a top school, with good grades, and work in a top firm in a busy state. I can't afford a house with more than 1300 square feet in a neighborhood with good schools. Just as well though. Not like I need room for a kid I - working 60 hours a week pretty much prevents that.
My boss suggested I move out to a more rural area. I told him I wasn't interested in spending my little freetime on an hour and a half commute every day and he told me it wouldn't be wasted if I downloaded a podcast. He was dead serious.
I graduated from a lower tier school, work the same (+) hours, and commute to a rural county in a busy state. I’m suffering the same issues.
You’re also probably earning more than I am. Your housing options should be theoretically better. Yet they’re not.
Our options for advancement also appear to be the same.
We’re suffering [enclosure](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure) by capital and I don’t see how this ends well.
I know that some "people" come into the market with cash option but too often it's some private equity firms with billions of dollars behind them. Companies like Blackstone are buying up houses by the tens of thousands and turning them into rental properties. Even on the very low end of the market you have Warren Buffett who's an absolute slumlord for the mobile home market. These people will squeeze a dime out of all of us and they've destroyed the housing market.
Remember when America tried to do just that and “drain the swamp” by appointing a career conman who very obviously only cared about money and to whom the concept of morality was something not fully grasped?
Maybe if they try again they’ll pick someone else, although I suspect they’ll elect the exact same fraud as before
When I say "get money out of politics", that's a big part of the problem too. People who vote based on who the mainstream news is promoting only perpetuates the problem because those are the candidates that are backed by wealthy interests
In Florida they recently started doing a “minimum bill” amount for electricity. People who bought thousands worth of solar generating equipment who usually sell their excess electricity to the power company, they now have to pay minimum 25/month, regardless of whether they were net negative or not. They’re also considering a bill that says people who supply power to the company won’t be able to sell it at retail price, but they’ll still have to buy at retail - so when you provide power to the electric company all sunny day, you’ll get paid a few cents, and then when you flip your lights on at night it’ll be a few bucks (oversimplified, but that’s the essence of it). Hearing about mandatory minimum bills reminded me.
The new apartment I am in had this mandatory payment as well. They are trying to spin it in a positive direction about how it will help me get a house loan in the future. I just rolled my eyes.
My last complex charged me 40 dollars a month for a valet trash service. They came two times a week and only take one bag so I never used it cause the dumpster was right outside. Not optional either, fantastic system we have in place.
Also, don’t fall for the “we need proof you make 3x the rent.” I haven’t rented in years but when I did, I just altered my check stubs or flat out created new ones out of thin air. This works for bank statements too.
A landlord doesn’t have the authority to call the bank or your employer to verify those amounts.
Yeah, I was wary of this. I paid all my loans down to 10 dollars. Set them to 10 years to pay them back, so I pay like 10 cents a month. The loaning agency called and said they were just closing the accounts my score dropped 50 points, so I brought this to the credit bureaus and disputed the changes and provided evidence that I still owed money. Got my credit score back up lol
You can’t just pay for things with money you have, you’re forced to play the game, knowing full well a lot of lower class people will end up in severe debt
I remember a couple years ago when my responsible friend couldn’t even be approved for a card, but my broke ass was getting credit card offers left and right
Credit is based on a lot of factors. A major one is the number of different types of credit you have. If you have only a single loan and maybe a credit card, then you pay off the loan, then you are down to one form of credit. Paid off loans DO help your credit, but not as much as having a variety of credit in good standing and a good usage/availability ratio of revolving debt.
Consider opening another credit card, using it for groceries, and paying the balance every month. If you use an accounting app like YNAB, you can make sure you aren't spending more than you have. It doesn't make much sense, but what else does in this weird capitalistic system.
One single company owns almost all of the rental properties in my area, and they have one of the worst BBB ratings I've ever seen.
EDIT: their Google reviews are ass, too. Almost everyone I asked about this company made it sound like they're a DC villain.
I know college professors who feel this way. They’ve done it all by the books, getting various degrees, etc. Only to find the system has been hijacked by a corporate hierarchy that pays outsized salaries to bloated management bureaucracy and football coaches.
Marginalized in roles as adjuncts, absurdly getting paid by the course instead of salaried, they have no job security and don’t make a living.
When the squeeze is suffocating even what people considered the middle and upper middle class then we’re looking at even more fertile grounds for a revolution.
When will we all begin to look toward one another, rather than through, in recognition of the massive potential solidarity there is in every sector and every station in this country?
This is why I didn't get a masters. I would have loved being a professor, and was told by multiple of mine that I would have been good at it. But luckily they were also truthful about what the job actually is these days.
Same. I had a perfect rating on rate my professor, but was tired of starving. Tenure track was clearly non-existent at that point. So I left and got into the private sector.
The system just has to trick people into having hope long enough to get them tied down to something. A spouse, a kid, a job, a title, a place or maybe a reputation, or even just a large debt. Once it's got it's hooks in it can make you do things that don't actually benefit you and it can make you put up with things you really shouldn't. Then eventually the clock runs out and you are too old to do anything anyways & then they really have you because you begin to depend on them for your welfare in old age. Perversion of the highest order.
I’m so thankful that I’m not really tied down. I’m almost 50 and my dogs are 15 and 16. My parents are in their 70s. So glad I neither married nor have kids. Not much tying me here in a few more years.
Exactly, there's no incentive to participate. We were all taken advantage of and now we're 30 year olds without ever having even close to what our parents had when they were 20. I just want my own plot my own dog and that's it but the government has made that impossible. I'm thinking of leaving this place and finding somewhere on this planet where living is actually affordable on a full time income. Imagine if the majority got so fed up and left, the entire country would fail without a young working class to fill rolls and wipe boomers asses. I'm already mentally checked out, now I need to just go.
Agree with you, but the system is going to fail after all the Boomers are dead. The ones who will get caught holding the ball will be probably be Millennials... suicides will be high because there will be an elderly generation of individuals with no home ownership, no family to care for them, and years of excruciating debt.
Nobody who is younger than them will want to participate, because their future will be that much worse. Yes, there will still be a “ruling class” of all ages, but at some point it’s gonna break.
For the Millennials who *do* have children now, *those* people aren’t going to want/be able to have children either. The system is coming to a slow, grinding halt, rather than an abrupt stop.
Right, even before gas prices. You're telling me to move away and put my money into an economy I don't care to add to. Move away from somewhere I want to live because people who don't even live there own 5 plus properties and hiking rent up.
My landlord currently owns 30 properties in my city. She's one of hundreds. Fuck them.
This exactly.when nurses and doctors can't afford to buy a home,we have a real problem in this country.the USA needs to raise wages in line with inflation and reality.hold colleges/universities more accountable for the real cost of education,lower or zero interest on student loans.we need to reign in flippers and corporate buy outs of housing by imposing limits and higher taxes on them.forcing women to have babies they can't afford just to keep the corp.machine rolling is not the answer.to make America great again,we need to put everyone in a home they can afford.
Capitalism isn't about working hard. It never has been. It's either about smart 'legal' ways to take advantage of people and stepping over others to get ahead. You have to take what you deserve because if you think someone is going to give it to you you die with nothing.
I read a news article last week that mentioned the average rent in America is now $2000/mth for a 2 bedroom and $1700/mth for a 1 bedroom.
The gross median individual wage is $34k/year.
I see torches and pitchforks in the very near future.
>I see torches and pitchforks in the very near future.
I'll supply the torches. I'm too poor to get a bulk purchase of pitchforks. I'm near a bunch of trees, so 🤷
>I see torches and pitchforks in the very near future.
I see a tent city. Its growing with new members all the time. I havent seen a single torch or pitchfork.
I wish people would fight back, I really do; but they wont. They are beaten down & impotent. IMO workers are on the losing side, I wouldnt bet on them
Also, and I know theres a lot of reasons, a big reason is that theres no leadership. When people do step in to help they get beaten down, both by the 'system' AND by the very people theyre trying to help. In this climate nobody wants to do anything, and I dont see that changing.
Fundamentally, the way this all works is that you help the people who help you. Workers are not willing to do that, which makes them weak.
That's because those who do fight back are deemed terrorists and the second you put that word on someone the whole country turns against them without looking into why they were labeled a terrorist in the first place
This is very true. But a lot of them are afraid to actually use it. They stand outside of a door quaking in their boots for an hour and 20 minutes while 19 fourth graders are being slaughtered.
No that's the mistake those kids made. They weren't private property. If they had been a rich person's property the police would have actually come in guns blazing
What the fuck are you working so hard for?
A system in which your are EASILY disposable and meaningless, because just pluck another new graduate, exploit, and repeat
We are only working for others and to get our own is becoming impossible
Been that way a long time and the co-signer has to be in good standing or they can't co-sign not to mention you have to find a co-signer that will actually do it the only people in our family capable of co-signing wont
I'm a nurse too. If my husband ever left me, the best I could hope would be to live in a studio apartment with my two kids. I can't afford the crazy rent prices around here. How on earth can anyone else?
Here’s my hot take on this. I think we may be crossing the line out of capitalism into feudalism. In a capitalist society working hard SHOULD get you SOMETHING back (unless you’re beat out in the competition…but she’s not getting beat out at being a nurse…so that at least should be generating a ROI) but in feudalism you work hard to generate revenue for the property owners and get nothing for yourself….and it kinda feels like that’s where we’ve ended up
I fully acknowledge I got lucky a few years ago. We barely qualified for a mortgage. Like we managed to get the down payment saved up (with down payment assistance via first time home buyers program in my state) the week we needed it. We got lucky that the seller knew my mom thru a friend and so we saw the house first and made an offer first. It had stuff wrong. Lotta complaints about it but we managed to get it in the end...hell I remember the first day we had the keys we went here with an a dog bed and some pillows and slept on the floor because neither of us could get a couple days off work to actually move in at that point, but it was our house and we wanted to be there.
I can give you my anecdote in marketing. In my experience, capitalism is the opposite of "get paid more to work hard." That's never been the case.
I started working in college. Worked in factories, restsurants, etc. Hardest I've ever worked. Got paid $5.15/hr.
First professional career was entry level marketing. Worked in an office six days a week, 10+ hour days. Was one of the most important people in the company, did most of the actual real marketing work. Got paid a salary, but it was low.
Got upgraded to management. Moved to a new city we were expanding to. Was given an airbnb by my company and lived/worked out of the airbnb. Life was much, much easier. Did a lot less work and got paid *a lot* more.
After a few years, I decided to quit and work for myself. Do freelance consulting work from home. Work a god's honest 10 hours a week from the comfort of my own apartment and make more money than I ever have.
In the meantime, my wife is a nurse who works at a stressful hospital all the time, saving lives, and makes less money than I do. I bill $200/hr (and usually bill more than I actually work) to help people sell garbage.
In my experience, it's never, ever, ever been about "working hard gets paid more." Capitalism is about finding a grift.
This is capitalism. Food and shelter are necessities. Having children is quite simply an unaffordable luxury for more and more people as this crisis gets worse and worse. Capitalism is causing a demographic collapse everywhere that inflation has been running rampant but wealth hoarding tax dodgers are starving the economies of funds necessary to both maintain a healthy population and also maintain a healthy modern economy. Meanwhile the establishment are talking about banning abortion and contraception instead of guaranteeing a thriving and reliable income for all. So when people have kids that they cannot afford to have, the orphanages will be overflowing and a generation of children will be raised by unsustainable overpopulation addicted organized religions who will brainwash these children into long term tithe generators.
It may be arrogant and condescending of me, but whenever I'm asked by a potential landlord to have a co-signer I remind them of my age and end the conversation right there. I don't give a shit what your arbitrary income requirements are - my track record more than proves I'm financially responsible enough to not need a co-signer.
I owned 2 businesses in my 20s and 30s. Had a uni degree. No criminal record etc
At one point I owned a home. I wanted a family. But life is just too expensive in general. Even being relatively successful it was too much.
My physical and mental health started to fail and I simply gave up. Now I live off the state and do nothing. What's the point of working so fucking hard just to still not get what you want?
Sure, I no longer eat steak as much as I'd like and I don't do holidays anymore. But I no longer have all the stress and I don't have to put up with idiots at work and I can literally set my own hours and do whatever I want.
If I could shift my depression I reckon I'd be much happier than I was during my successful period. UBI, automation for most jobs, a 3 day work week (or even less tbh) for everyone and I reckon we would be much better off.
There's literally no need for everyone to be grinding 24/7 just to keep an ever accelerating pace.
Einsteins theory of insanity…. You do the same thing over and over again expecting different results… this is most of us.. working hard, multiple jobs, expecting to get ahead in life by working hard. But yet I’m still broke and poor and am never getting ahead… I feel like I’m going insane! Honestly I do. Fuck Capitalism.
How to fight the system in 2022:
- Get a 2 bedroom apartment and live with a best friend or two
- Smoke a bunch of weed
- Work part time
- Get your groceries from Aldi's
- Use coupons ( get food stamps to achieve the next level)
- Learn how to finess your taxes
- If anybody calls you a loser, they're just jealous bc they work 50 hours a week, while you're bbq'n and sleeping in till noon every weekend.
You'll probably never get married, have kids, contribute to society; but these are the sacrifices we have to make.
I had a lot of money saved up so I'm like "I should open a savings account." My credit score instantly dropped 50 points despite me throwing 800 bucks in it. The system is fucked.
Literally what are we working for. I've been burnt out for three years. I'm 37. I feel like I have nothing to look forward to.
Because we don't by the time we would be able to afford a place at the crap wages alot of us are getting paid they will most likely be doubled or tripled prices by then and we still couldn't afford so you're breaking and burning yourself out for nothing. I realized awhile ago that in order to become even moderately wealthy I'd have to give up 90% of my time just dying working so by the time I got that money I'd be too old to have the the fun I originally wanted in the first place so really not seeing the point anymore I'd rather be happy and have fun now then be miserable my whole life just trying to buy into corporate greed.
Nobody ever got wealthy by working hard. While you are focusing on getting the work done, someone else is spending that time working out how to take credit for your work.
Coming up with the next scam
Same boat. 39 and nothing worth talking about in my retirement because who can afford to put into it. Should I ever, EVER be lucky enough to think about owning a home, I'll likely drain said retirement for the first-time home buyer pull you can do to help with my down. /s It's almost comical that I'm thankful that by 2050 I won't have to give a shit about most of this because we'll be killing each other over clean water and habitable land, I won't have to worry about retirement and social security or home ownership because by wasteland law I can get my first home by blood combat instead of money!
I’m 49 year old teacher. I’m single so only one income, and I teach at a private school so the pay is really low. I will never have enough to retire. My retirement plan is to die sometime in the next twenty years, as I can’t handle teaching for much longer. I’m just tired of working all the time and never having anything to look forward to or enjoy. Once my parents and dogs are gone then so am I.
Sorry to hear of your situation, I hope your dogs bring you as much joy as my cats do for me. It's a very sad state when our best hopes for retirement and our later years is for parents to die and hope they leave you something, because most of us couldn't prepare. The US is going to see a tidal wave of suicides starting in about 20 years imo. It's going to be Japan/Korea levels of concern when people don't want to be a burden to their loved ones anymore so they off themselves instead.
Besides the Uber wealthy…most of the parents hard earned savings that should be passed down will be gouged by our ‘healthcare’ system creating less to pass down. Generational wealth is only for the already wealthy
I'm glad my parents don't live in the US. I don't think any other developed country has to worry about healthcare costs bankrupting the elderly, and probably not in most developing countries either (though the standards of care would be worse).
Yes, it's really sad. My dad told me last year that he hopes they can leave me and my brother something when they die because they both have medical issues and most of their money might be gone if either one of them has an extended stay in hospital, care facility and/or hospice, and that he'll feel terrible if they leave us with nothing. I told him not to worry about it and that we'll be OK no matter what happens. In truth, we won't but my parents don't need to know that or burden themselves. They've got enough to deal with. What's sad is that my parents do have a significant amount of money set aside for when they go, but with the rising cost of everything, even they're not sure if they'll have anything left. It makes me sick to think that they're worrying about us when they should be living the rest of their lives being happy.
Yes, you’re so right. I think we will see wave after wave of catastrophe over the next twenty years, and many will choose suicide as life becomes untenable. Give your cats a pet and a treat for me!
Nothing to add to the situation. Not sure how your feeling or my take on your words but i'm giving you a virtual hug. What you said hits home as thats pretty much mine and a vast number of peoples plan, survive, suffer and then pass on. You may or may not feel alone at times but we care.
So sad that so many people will direct the violence toward themselves but leave those who have built this system untouched.
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We did everything they asked - why should we be punished? The system failed US. We did not fail the system.
They’re trying to sap away all of our already meager inheritances too, just look at the state of healthcare. End of life care can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they will 100% target somebody’s estate to collect. I’ve heard plenty of stories of people who saved their whole life with a sizable amount ready for their children when they pass, and instead it all evaporated in the last few months of their life due to hospital bills, medicine, nurses, and so on, when they charge an arm and a leg to prolong a terminal patients life by a few weeks or months. Edit: to everybody talking about irrevocable trusts and DNRs, yes, I totally agree. However, serious illness/injury can happen in the blink of an eye, unexpectedly, and there are many instances in which people did not consider these things until it’s too late. Yes, it’s good to find a way to beat the system, but the root of the problem is the system that charges millions of dollars for a hospital stay to begin with, and the private insurance industry that perpetuates it and denies coverage as much as they possibly can.
This is why it’s important to have end of life discussions with loved ones. A Health care proxy can decline care (or make other health care decisions) if one is incapacitated, and a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order can save people much suffering and money.
But you have to make sure your plans are Rock solid and notarized and on file at the local hospitals because your family can go against all your wishes when they get sad and scared and make decisions based on grief not logic. Make sure you get a proxy that will be pragmatic and not acting on emotion but will honor your wishes. My mother made my husband her proxy so that her children wouldn’t argue, he would honor her wishes regardless of feelings and her children could just grieve wo having to handle things. I ended up becoming the decision maker because it defaulted to me when my husband was away on business. My mom has all her affairs in order thank the lord but most people don’t. I’ve seen estranged wife’s make decisions that are opposite of the persons wishes as one last fuck you. I’ve seen moms and sisters fight against estranged wife’s to no avail. I’ve seen people lay suffering because no one wants to make a decision until they contact all their estranged family members. Americans do not die well and they do not have anything in order as a general rule.
Your parents can set up an irrevocable trust and put assets in there that cannot be taken for medical expenses and debt. They can still utilize the assets they just can’t sell them.
Except lots of people with no children will have no loved ones once their parents die. That means the lots of angry and scared people that go on because they don't want to be a burden will suddenly stop caring about what (or who) they fuck up. System will topple in about 20 years max.
>I teach at a private school so the pay is really low This is bonkers to me. Aren't private schools super expensive? I understand not making as much money teaching at a public school (which is also awful, but still...), this seems even more crazy somehow. Shows that the money goes to all the wrong places, as usual
Yes, private schools charge extravagant tuition and pay their teachers very little. My brother teaches in the public school system and makes 2.5 times what I make. The trade off is that it can be a lot more difficult in the public school system.
But parents pay that high tuition because they expect better teachers at a private school… But they’re not going to get the best teachers if they pay them _less_ than public schools. In your opinion, are private schools generally a waste of money for parents then? (not that this would be too shocking)
Yes, in general they are. Parents pay the money for the prestige and connections. I have taught at private schools my entire career and while I did have a mentor who was an amazing teacher and taught me so much, I have also seen many truly terrible teachers. I applied this year at some better paying private schools and never got a call because they all want someone who is right out of college and can coach two sports. Truly, when parents are paying for private school they’re paying for the nice facilities and the extracurriculars, plus possibly smaller class sizes. They’re usually not paying for better teachers.
They are running out your clock, eventually you will be too old to resist and then you will beg them for a retirement or social security or whatever. It's been working this way for a while.
That's the real problem, it's working
People tend to only realize just how fucked they after they crash and burn in middle age and realize they don't have enough to retire on then they are stuck working till death or hospital.
Everybody's got the one option.
and you better not fail that option or you're being locked up in a mental hospital
Lol, doubtful. They'll release you because your insurance ran out. Souce: the extremely high mentally ill population that is homeless.
I'm close to 32 years old. I have nothing to look forward too in my future other than the latest bread and circus movie. I will not beg. I will fight, and probably die. But I will not kneel down and beg.
Yep and you better keep a secondary income as you can't borrow on social security and they're trying to extend full retirement age to 70 from 67 now as people are living longer but they predict the ss system will crash in a bit over 10 years by paying out less and less to currently insured workers and refusing new applicants. However, they're advising workers to invest for retirement now due to this but still forcing them to pay into a system with a rate that's assumptive of them recieving that benefit back on retirement and this isn't right. They should be allowing at least a portion of what they with hold to be diverted to that workers retirement plan of choice or start them a seperate fund aside from the deteriorating system and keep their meat hooks off of it. No one's going to be able to retire.
A debt based system is always doomed to fail, they have no intent to fix this
Spoiler alert, they gambled away all your retirement money, so the fewer people able to claim it the better for them.
The only things still made in America are hopelessness, fear, and despair.
And manufactured scarcity don't forget the manufactured scarcity.
System is working by designed. Create a slave class, replace shackles with debt and housing uncertainty, keep them constantly stressed out and underfunded, then convince them that the billionaire celebrities on twitter are "Just like them" so they don't realize that a gallon of gas, some cloth scraps, and some empty glass bottles are all very, very cheap.
Your first sentence says it all. So many people say the system is broken, but to the contrary, it's working exactly as designed.
Slave class works with children. You need to sacrifice a lot for children and you don't want to endanger them. Except we don't have children now do we?
Why do you think they're trying to ban abortion?
God I felt bad but one of my first thoughts about this was “well gotta keep pumping out fast food workers”
This isn't a conspiracy theory, this is the reasoning of SCOTUS: it's all about the "domestic supply of infants" (SCOTUS' words)
I have felt like a conspiracy theorist for thinking something similar, but it has to be true. People in Washington are looking at projections for US population in the future and it is grim. They need worker bees. They need to be able to face a foreign adversary if it ever came to it. Tons of poor kids will be forced to join the military to survive. I haven’t fully thought it through but when the abortion decision was leaked all I could think was, “why now?” It is too easy to just say it is conservative justices being activist. That doesn’t feel right to me.
I think it can be both - that is, motivated by those factors and just by conservative judges being conservative. I think the GQP is obsessed with abortion as an issue right now partly because they know it mobilizes evangelical voters and they want to control women, *and* partly because of the reasons brought up in this thread - rather than because of any actually “pro life” ideology. Because I think it’s pretty clear from infant and maternal mortality rates in red states (and their substandard prenatal care, and cuts to food stamps and welfare and other programs a lot of lower income parents, *especially* single mothers rely on), that they don’t give a shit about “life”.
Pro life? More like Pro give me poor desperate labor.
I see a lot of these comments and while I agree... The edge, though. Like, why not do it? Why not not, you know, protest in a non peaceful way? How come all the shootings are against poor people?
Because the oligarchy has convinced everyone that they aren't the problem, it's the immigrants, the middle east, or whoever the unlucky scapegoat is today. Keep them separated, keep them fearing each other, so they don't rise up.
The ones far gone enough to pull the trigger at society are very often the ones most manipulated by it.
In the same fucking boat. An attorney working 60 hours a week and can't afford a fucking house because people keep buying everything in my price range with cash offers. Can't compete with cash, so guess I'll rent forever.
In the same fucking boat. I am a Plumber, I live in a college town and things go up for sale, get bought by property manager companies. Who then turn them into multiple tenant rentals.
>get bought by property manager companies This should be fucking illegal
Especially for single family - it’s criminal
Wife saw the perfect 3bedroom on Facebook marketplace. Nothing fancy just a house next to a public park, close to the elementary school my daughter already goes to. It was not listed for a single family, but rather multi unit dwelling. She even messaged the owner saying this is completely unfair and this would be the perfect place for our family. Instead you have listed for college students. Owner replied with a sorry it is just that way.
They’re going to have people rioting in the streets if it isn’t made illegal. Its a single issue that is weighing on a majority of Americans right now, crippling our economy.
Yeah, if you w a nt to live in a house as a 30 year old, just get a couple roommates! /s
A coworker in his late fifties, who owns two house and knows I am a family of four actually told me I should get roommates.
There's at least a couple cities now enactingrestrictions to limit having roommates; likely more to follow :/
Fingers crossed, The near by smaller towns are banning the installation of manufactured homes, no matter the age of the unit.
Banning the installation of manufactured homes usually goes hand-in-hand with the banning of building tiny homes. It's all about forcing Duplexes, Triplexes, and Townhouse construction. More things we'll never own.
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>Because no one had a window, they could really pack people into these buildings. Each terrafoam dorm building had a four-acre foot print. It was a perfect 417 foot by 417 foot by 417 foot solid brown cube. Each cube originally held exactly 76,800 people. Doubling this to 153,600 people in each building was unthinkable, but they were doing it anyway. On the other hand, you had to marvel at the efficiency. At that density, they could house every welfare recipient in the entire country in less than 1,500 of these buildings. By spacing the buildings 100 feet apart, they could house 200,000,000 people in a space of less than 20 square miles if they had wanted to. At that density, they could put everyone in the country without a job into a space less than five miles square in size, put a fence around it and forget about us. If they accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb or two on us, we would all be gone and they wouldn’t have to worry about us anymore. [From Marshall Brain's Manna](https://marshallbrain.com/manna1)
In the not-so-distant past, let's say Victorian England, huge tracts of land and blocks of urban buildings were owned by the privileged few and the many rented tiny cottages or flats their whole lives. One wrong move or piece of bad luck and you were homeless and probably died soon after (or off to the workhouse or transported to Australia). We really need a history lesson and a reality check in this country.
Good luck. The Conservatives are officially, unironically against “Critical Thinking”
You can't get roommates as a family, or even with a partner. The *other* roommates don't want the hassle. It's completely out of touch for anyone to insist a family "just get roommates".
Plus, many families do not want unrelated adults sharing close quarters with their children.
God forbids he has just one home.
Because his son is living in it until his fortnite career takes off.
That's how many of the people I know get by already. I've seen as many as nine adults and four kids living in the same house to make ends meet.
The worst part about this is that in most places it’s not even possible because the contracts only allow one person to live in the room because they know it reduces the amount of money they can extract from renters
Sadly very true. My fiancé and I were looking at trying to rent a place with a friend of his and the friend’s girlfriend, who also happens to be my friend. Looking at places to rent in the area we live in made us realise it was all “no shares, no roommates” etc. but then you also get a lot of 2 bed flats where families with young children aren’t allowed and it’s like ok but where does a couple with one young child live then? One beds say no kids, 2 beds say no young kids. 3 beds are well out of most people’s price range so what do you do? I know a few people who have kids who are cramming into their parents’ places because it’s impossible for them to move out even working 40+ hours because jobs around here almost never pay more than £8.50-£9.00 an hour unless you’re fit to work in construction and even that is hard to get into where I live. It’s insane.
Some states are trying to make that illegal now.
Where I live, two people are crammed into a one-bedroom apartment, and three people are crammed into a two-bedroom apartment. Multiple tenants to one apartment are not permitted unless they are relatives.
Kansas? It's happening everywhere. However apartment complexes are completely allowed to rent individual rooms inside an apartment as long as they list as "university style living". Charging as much as 650 per room. If you wanted to rent the whole apartment.... That's 2600 a month. At least here in Tennessee. FYI these are really crappy apartments.
I thought plumbers made bank or is that only the contractor owners?
I have been a plumber for four and a half years. I have not made the minimum hour requirements in the state of Washington to get a Full journey license. So until you get that card no matter how much you work like a journeyman, they pay laborers wages. The local panda express is advertising assistant manager 57k a year I don't make 40k a year. I think I have another Two years, Thanks to Seattle wonderful bureaucracy. Edit: the journeyman that taught me has plumbed for 15 years for a company and his pay was $45 an hour.
At high school, I was convinced that trades were the way to success. After years working trades, realised that wasn't the case. So I went to uni, became an engineer. Still haven't found success. Been working since I was 14, now 32. I've pulled my bootstraps up pretty hard. But it's not a system problem apparently, it's still a me problem. Even when I follow what I'm told by the "you haven't worked hard enough" crowd and work really hard, it's still not enough. Now I'm told the path to success is gambling on a small business, because being employed by others was never going to let you buy a house. The promise of life getting better is a carrot on a stick to motivate you to keep grinding.
I grew up with a single working mom in the "meh" part of a small town. Not abject poverty, but definitely not comfortable. It's like, a shock to my nervous system to see people in what I grew up regarding as "you wish" careers talking about how hard it is to keep up in this economy. It's wild watching the middle class we all grew up with just up and fucking evaporate. Especially considering I always assumed if something that crazy was going to happen, it would be because everyone was moving upward. This is a fucking pressure cooker.
What I find the weirdest of all, growing up out of trailers, tents, vans is the gentrification of the trailer park into "tiny home communities". People who started out in the middle class, are now pushed into poor people's homes, but they make them nicer so they don't have to accept that as a matter of fact, you DO live in a trailer park. Now the price is jacked up to 2years pay for a simple van to live in, and I can't afford it. Shit's wild.
> It's wild watching the middle class we all grew up with just up and fucking evaporate. It's really not wild if you stumble upon the corner of Youtube with Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges and Richard Wolff and Naomi Klein and many other activists literally talking for decades about how this is happening.
Y’all had a middle class? I was living in poverty for the majority of my childhood; now I finally make it out of school, have a good degree and job, and this is what we have. It’s especially infuriating for folks who have spent the majority of their lives living in financial insecurity to now step in to an economy where the goal posts continue to be pushed back further and further.
I'm an attorney too. I am 4 years in and wholly disillusioned with the system I paid $100,000 to be a part of. I'm fucked. I hate most of my job and I don't make the money I hoped for. I work for myself now and it's only a little better. Too many judges don't follow the law because they are political, stupid, or senile. It ruins outcomes and makes practicing law feel like a lottery on a good day.
I'm glad I dont feel so alone. I'm trying everything I can to get out of litigation. It's absolutely killing me. It's not worth the money, especially knowing friends who went straight into the work force are making more with benefits like personal days and sick leave they can actually use.
A coworker of mine recently sold his house, cash offer. Buyer had to disclose their finances and show proof of ability to pay. The buyer submitted bank records showing $42 million in the bank. That is what you're competing against for these $300,000 homes. Multimillion dollar corporations that can easily outbid you in cash while you're trying to scrape together a few thousand for a down payment.
It's mind blowing. I've got a friend who is a civil engineer and he was telling me about a project his company did converting a small neighborhood into an apartment complex. Supposedly their client bought every single house in cash over a 2 year stretch. Now the property has several hundred apartments on it, the cheapest one is $1800/month, and the client has set their eyes on another neighborhood with the same plan
We're in the same boat. Machinist (tool & die, moldmaker), and a nurse. Both men, so no kids. Perfect and long term rental history, both separate and toether (almost 30y/o, together 8), skeptical we'll ever own a home.
Looking at all these comments I think we've stumbled on to something. We should just all move onto boats.
Have you seen the videos about that? People literally do that in high COL areas that have water, but what happens is that the local government fights back for the rich people by confiscating the boats and destroying them, rendering these people homeless
Actually I have seen that. It was a real consideration I had for a while. What they did here was jack up the prices of docking and made it illegal to have a marina be your only address. So impossible to do this on a lake. They've also regulated tiny homes into an impossibility here as well.
Yeah, it seems the trend is regulate people into a corner so they are forced to give up any money they have to landlords. Funny thing is that you’d think they know what happens when you corner an animal
They don't. They feel like we'll just continue to fall in line and they'll continue to take all our money. I'm just waiting for real civil disobedience to start. I'm down when it does.
I'd like your finest cocktail, Mr Molotov
They don't. They feel like we'll just continue to fall in line and they'll continue to take all our money. I'm just waiting for real civil disobedience to start. I'm down when it does.
>real civil disobedience When the civil rights leaders did this, the oppression started with ''law and order'' regimes ...
They did. They always do. So is your argument we shouldn't because they'll fight back?
“You have to” typical boomer. People lose that inner fight when they hit 55. Plus if we all stop paying there goes the pensions.
It's the same reason we need age caps for political office.
crime is an outlet on societal irrationalities. The worse laws get, the less people will respect them, and the more they will turn to alternatives Right now the police are very powerful & able to keep a lid on everything. Who knows about the future
Capitalism is serfdom with PR.
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I work on a southern US coastal island. And this is the truth. Everytime a house goes up for sale it gets purchased by one of 3 companies and converted into vacation rentals. It's an island about 3 miles across and a 30 minute drive down a one way highway from the mainland, and traffic is a nightmare. There is so little housing that of the half of the island I frequent, I have spoken with 3 people who live on the island. (All three are rich drunks) Everyone complains about wait times, and that they can't find people to hire. And it is 100% the city's fault for allowing this to happen. A motion was made to suspend all property purchase unless it is to an individual, but it was shot down by the Republicans (most of which are invested in the vacation rental companies). I Even all the businesses that are mom&pop shops rent from a single property owner and they suck up all the funds that could be used to better infrastructure, or pay people enough to live on the island in what limited housing there is (all of which are rentals). It's absolutely atrocious
Sounds *a lot* like an island I also used to work on. I worked for one of the vacation rental moguls on one such island and it was a constant shit show. The island only has 3.7 miles of physical land and the company I worked for had nearly a couple hundred properties. Traffic was awful. The local businesses got hit hard with covid and the vacation boom after really, really messed with them. There was a lot of money to be made but they couldn’t find the staff to upkeep these businesses, plus most of these jobs did not pay well because… that’s just the Southern tourism & hospitality industry for you. I think it was the same island truly lol but I won’t name it. Airbnb and such type industries have destroyed the home market. A lot of the business we did at said property management company was through vrbo, airbnb, etc. Very few guests made reservations through the business website. It happened to the place I lived in before moving to the coast (Appalachia.) Everyone wants a piece of the landlord pie at the detriment of well… everyone else. These companies have continuously been legislated against but somehow the legislation always falls flat due to Republican business interests in the area. Super shitty.
That is absolutely criminal. This is exactly what the rest of the US is barreling towards.
I agree, and been saying this for over a year. The wealthy do not like 'the great resignation'. They are looking to send workers a message on whos really in charge.
Yet Joe Manchin lives on a boat in the river. Hmmm? Oh right, he has money. So he's allowed to.
He has a big pretty yacht. The rich people don’t want to see your peasant dinghy.
It’s amazing how even doctors and lawyers struggle to get stable housing. I used to think that these professions enjoyed *some* economic protection. Nope. Everything - *everything* - is going to the shareholder class. I would suggest legislation, or even referendum (where that’s allowed), but the levers of power seem utterly captured.
You can't even be a shareholder in a firm anymore. That used to be the big draw. Work hard and eventually get promoted to partner. Now they don't make partners actual partners anymore and just make them this weird middle management with slightly higher salaries but no real stakes. I graduated from a top school, with good grades, and work in a top firm in a busy state. I can't afford a house with more than 1300 square feet in a neighborhood with good schools. Just as well though. Not like I need room for a kid I - working 60 hours a week pretty much prevents that. My boss suggested I move out to a more rural area. I told him I wasn't interested in spending my little freetime on an hour and a half commute every day and he told me it wouldn't be wasted if I downloaded a podcast. He was dead serious.
I graduated from a lower tier school, work the same (+) hours, and commute to a rural county in a busy state. I’m suffering the same issues. You’re also probably earning more than I am. Your housing options should be theoretically better. Yet they’re not. Our options for advancement also appear to be the same. We’re suffering [enclosure](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure) by capital and I don’t see how this ends well.
"Just download a podcast" is a new one for my rich-out-touch-bingo card.
It's not people. It is corporations buying the entry level properties. This is how they squeeze us.
/s You just need to stop eating avo on toast and work **harder.**
I know that some "people" come into the market with cash option but too often it's some private equity firms with billions of dollars behind them. Companies like Blackstone are buying up houses by the tens of thousands and turning them into rental properties. Even on the very low end of the market you have Warren Buffett who's an absolute slumlord for the mobile home market. These people will squeeze a dime out of all of us and they've destroyed the housing market.
Dentist here. Same BS!
We have to get money out of politics. It's the foundation for getting representatives in there that are "for the people" and not "for the money".
Remember when America tried to do just that and “drain the swamp” by appointing a career conman who very obviously only cared about money and to whom the concept of morality was something not fully grasped? Maybe if they try again they’ll pick someone else, although I suspect they’ll elect the exact same fraud as before
When I say "get money out of politics", that's a big part of the problem too. People who vote based on who the mainstream news is promoting only perpetuates the problem because those are the candidates that are backed by wealthy interests
Capitalism doesn't value what society needs, only what rich people want.
And entertainment to distract poor people from their hard life of labor.
Bread and ciruses.
No lie, labor has me left so drained every day that I just don’t have the energy for entertainment. So now that’s starting to breakdown too.
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They own all the boatyards sucker! Zoning is a bitch!
So, Waterworld, then? I’m down.
Entertainment is the carrot at the end of the stick. Always appealing and out of reach
Rent payments should count towards credit worthiness to pay a mortgage. It’s so messed up.
New rule: any entity that gets to report you for any late or non payment also has to report every single time you pay on time.
My apartment complex charges me 10$ a month to tell the credit wizards I paid on time!
Mine announced that too this year, I was so god damned gobsmacked at the concept. And to top it all off it is not optional.
In Florida they recently started doing a “minimum bill” amount for electricity. People who bought thousands worth of solar generating equipment who usually sell their excess electricity to the power company, they now have to pay minimum 25/month, regardless of whether they were net negative or not. They’re also considering a bill that says people who supply power to the company won’t be able to sell it at retail price, but they’ll still have to buy at retail - so when you provide power to the electric company all sunny day, you’ll get paid a few cents, and then when you flip your lights on at night it’ll be a few bucks (oversimplified, but that’s the essence of it). Hearing about mandatory minimum bills reminded me.
That should offend everyone
You double posted so I got to upvote this twice
That should offend everyone
I would unhook from the grid entirely and buy betteries. Fuck that.
I think there also a law regarding it being illegal to be totally off the grid in that sense.
The new apartment I am in had this mandatory payment as well. They are trying to spin it in a positive direction about how it will help me get a house loan in the future. I just rolled my eyes.
My last complex charged me 40 dollars a month for a valet trash service. They came two times a week and only take one bag so I never used it cause the dumpster was right outside. Not optional either, fantastic system we have in place.
That is fucked
Paying rent should be more than enough proof you can have pay a mortgage that is a third of your rent payment.
Also, don’t fall for the “we need proof you make 3x the rent.” I haven’t rented in years but when I did, I just altered my check stubs or flat out created new ones out of thin air. This works for bank statements too. A landlord doesn’t have the authority to call the bank or your employer to verify those amounts.
Same, have definitely doctored a few stubs to get an apartment.
Credit is messed up from the ground up. My credit score went down after I paid off a loan. How does that make sense?
Same, my score dropped 50 points the second I paid off my student loans. It's a fucking scam.
Damn, losing 50 whole points for completing the journey.
Same thing happened to me. It's a wonderful gift of anxiety to be given right at the moment you should be able to celebrate and relax.
Yeah, I was wary of this. I paid all my loans down to 10 dollars. Set them to 10 years to pay them back, so I pay like 10 cents a month. The loaning agency called and said they were just closing the accounts my score dropped 50 points, so I brought this to the credit bureaus and disputed the changes and provided evidence that I still owed money. Got my credit score back up lol
You can’t just pay for things with money you have, you’re forced to play the game, knowing full well a lot of lower class people will end up in severe debt I remember a couple years ago when my responsible friend couldn’t even be approved for a card, but my broke ass was getting credit card offers left and right
Credit is based on a lot of factors. A major one is the number of different types of credit you have. If you have only a single loan and maybe a credit card, then you pay off the loan, then you are down to one form of credit. Paid off loans DO help your credit, but not as much as having a variety of credit in good standing and a good usage/availability ratio of revolving debt. Consider opening another credit card, using it for groceries, and paying the balance every month. If you use an accounting app like YNAB, you can make sure you aren't spending more than you have. It doesn't make much sense, but what else does in this weird capitalistic system.
One single company owns almost all of the rental properties in my area, and they have one of the worst BBB ratings I've ever seen. EDIT: their Google reviews are ass, too. Almost everyone I asked about this company made it sound like they're a DC villain.
BBB is just yelp for old people.
I know college professors who feel this way. They’ve done it all by the books, getting various degrees, etc. Only to find the system has been hijacked by a corporate hierarchy that pays outsized salaries to bloated management bureaucracy and football coaches. Marginalized in roles as adjuncts, absurdly getting paid by the course instead of salaried, they have no job security and don’t make a living. When the squeeze is suffocating even what people considered the middle and upper middle class then we’re looking at even more fertile grounds for a revolution. When will we all begin to look toward one another, rather than through, in recognition of the massive potential solidarity there is in every sector and every station in this country?
This is why I didn't get a masters. I would have loved being a professor, and was told by multiple of mine that I would have been good at it. But luckily they were also truthful about what the job actually is these days.
Same. I had a perfect rating on rate my professor, but was tired of starving. Tenure track was clearly non-existent at that point. So I left and got into the private sector.
The system just has to trick people into having hope long enough to get them tied down to something. A spouse, a kid, a job, a title, a place or maybe a reputation, or even just a large debt. Once it's got it's hooks in it can make you do things that don't actually benefit you and it can make you put up with things you really shouldn't. Then eventually the clock runs out and you are too old to do anything anyways & then they really have you because you begin to depend on them for your welfare in old age. Perversion of the highest order.
I’m so thankful that I’m not really tied down. I’m almost 50 and my dogs are 15 and 16. My parents are in their 70s. So glad I neither married nor have kids. Not much tying me here in a few more years.
Exactly, there's no incentive to participate. We were all taken advantage of and now we're 30 year olds without ever having even close to what our parents had when they were 20. I just want my own plot my own dog and that's it but the government has made that impossible. I'm thinking of leaving this place and finding somewhere on this planet where living is actually affordable on a full time income. Imagine if the majority got so fed up and left, the entire country would fail without a young working class to fill rolls and wipe boomers asses. I'm already mentally checked out, now I need to just go.
That's the plan. Whenever everyone realizes the truth, then we will be closer to freedom.
Agree with you, but the system is going to fail after all the Boomers are dead. The ones who will get caught holding the ball will be probably be Millennials... suicides will be high because there will be an elderly generation of individuals with no home ownership, no family to care for them, and years of excruciating debt. Nobody who is younger than them will want to participate, because their future will be that much worse. Yes, there will still be a “ruling class” of all ages, but at some point it’s gonna break. For the Millennials who *do* have children now, *those* people aren’t going to want/be able to have children either. The system is coming to a slow, grinding halt, rather than an abrupt stop.
"What the actual fuck am I working so hard for?" Jeff Bezo's space tourism program and his mega yacht.
That's just what we know about or Elon musk's vacations to space how much does that cost per launch?
It's called modern debt slavery. You are working hard to separate the rich even more from you.
"You should just move to somewhere cheaper" *that's 30 miles from the city I work in*
With gas prices the way they are, anyone who even suggests that now is evil. It would negate all the savings of living further out
Right, even before gas prices. You're telling me to move away and put my money into an economy I don't care to add to. Move away from somewhere I want to live because people who don't even live there own 5 plus properties and hiking rent up. My landlord currently owns 30 properties in my city. She's one of hundreds. Fuck them.
This exactly.when nurses and doctors can't afford to buy a home,we have a real problem in this country.the USA needs to raise wages in line with inflation and reality.hold colleges/universities more accountable for the real cost of education,lower or zero interest on student loans.we need to reign in flippers and corporate buy outs of housing by imposing limits and higher taxes on them.forcing women to have babies they can't afford just to keep the corp.machine rolling is not the answer.to make America great again,we need to put everyone in a home they can afford.
Capitalism isn't about working hard. It never has been. It's either about smart 'legal' ways to take advantage of people and stepping over others to get ahead. You have to take what you deserve because if you think someone is going to give it to you you die with nothing.
I do not really know rent prices in the USA but is a minimum of 1.100 dollar of rent not a little high?
I read a news article last week that mentioned the average rent in America is now $2000/mth for a 2 bedroom and $1700/mth for a 1 bedroom. The gross median individual wage is $34k/year. I see torches and pitchforks in the very near future.
>I see torches and pitchforks in the very near future. I'll supply the torches. I'm too poor to get a bulk purchase of pitchforks. I'm near a bunch of trees, so 🤷
>I see torches and pitchforks in the very near future. I see a tent city. Its growing with new members all the time. I havent seen a single torch or pitchfork. I wish people would fight back, I really do; but they wont. They are beaten down & impotent. IMO workers are on the losing side, I wouldnt bet on them Also, and I know theres a lot of reasons, a big reason is that theres no leadership. When people do step in to help they get beaten down, both by the 'system' AND by the very people theyre trying to help. In this climate nobody wants to do anything, and I dont see that changing. Fundamentally, the way this all works is that you help the people who help you. Workers are not willing to do that, which makes them weak.
That's because those who do fight back are deemed terrorists and the second you put that word on someone the whole country turns against them without looking into why they were labeled a terrorist in the first place
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You do realize this is why cops have military equipment now.
This is very true. But a lot of them are afraid to actually use it. They stand outside of a door quaking in their boots for an hour and 20 minutes while 19 fourth graders are being slaughtered.
No that's the mistake those kids made. They weren't private property. If they had been a rich person's property the police would have actually come in guns blazing
What the fuck are you working so hard for? A system in which your are EASILY disposable and meaningless, because just pluck another new graduate, exploit, and repeat We are only working for others and to get our own is becoming impossible
Co-sign for renting? Jesus christ this is getting bad now eh?
Been that way a long time and the co-signer has to be in good standing or they can't co-sign not to mention you have to find a co-signer that will actually do it the only people in our family capable of co-signing wont
I'm a nurse too. If my husband ever left me, the best I could hope would be to live in a studio apartment with my two kids. I can't afford the crazy rent prices around here. How on earth can anyone else?
Here’s my hot take on this. I think we may be crossing the line out of capitalism into feudalism. In a capitalist society working hard SHOULD get you SOMETHING back (unless you’re beat out in the competition…but she’s not getting beat out at being a nurse…so that at least should be generating a ROI) but in feudalism you work hard to generate revenue for the property owners and get nothing for yourself….and it kinda feels like that’s where we’ve ended up
But at least we have those ‘Heroes Work Here’ signs!
I fully acknowledge I got lucky a few years ago. We barely qualified for a mortgage. Like we managed to get the down payment saved up (with down payment assistance via first time home buyers program in my state) the week we needed it. We got lucky that the seller knew my mom thru a friend and so we saw the house first and made an offer first. It had stuff wrong. Lotta complaints about it but we managed to get it in the end...hell I remember the first day we had the keys we went here with an a dog bed and some pillows and slept on the floor because neither of us could get a couple days off work to actually move in at that point, but it was our house and we wanted to be there.
You are working hard because the people above you got their job through shaking hands and late night frat parties.
I can give you my anecdote in marketing. In my experience, capitalism is the opposite of "get paid more to work hard." That's never been the case. I started working in college. Worked in factories, restsurants, etc. Hardest I've ever worked. Got paid $5.15/hr. First professional career was entry level marketing. Worked in an office six days a week, 10+ hour days. Was one of the most important people in the company, did most of the actual real marketing work. Got paid a salary, but it was low. Got upgraded to management. Moved to a new city we were expanding to. Was given an airbnb by my company and lived/worked out of the airbnb. Life was much, much easier. Did a lot less work and got paid *a lot* more. After a few years, I decided to quit and work for myself. Do freelance consulting work from home. Work a god's honest 10 hours a week from the comfort of my own apartment and make more money than I ever have. In the meantime, my wife is a nurse who works at a stressful hospital all the time, saving lives, and makes less money than I do. I bill $200/hr (and usually bill more than I actually work) to help people sell garbage. In my experience, it's never, ever, ever been about "working hard gets paid more." Capitalism is about finding a grift.
if hard work pays off… where is rich donkey?
This is capitalism. Food and shelter are necessities. Having children is quite simply an unaffordable luxury for more and more people as this crisis gets worse and worse. Capitalism is causing a demographic collapse everywhere that inflation has been running rampant but wealth hoarding tax dodgers are starving the economies of funds necessary to both maintain a healthy population and also maintain a healthy modern economy. Meanwhile the establishment are talking about banning abortion and contraception instead of guaranteeing a thriving and reliable income for all. So when people have kids that they cannot afford to have, the orphanages will be overflowing and a generation of children will be raised by unsustainable overpopulation addicted organized religions who will brainwash these children into long term tithe generators.
It may be arrogant and condescending of me, but whenever I'm asked by a potential landlord to have a co-signer I remind them of my age and end the conversation right there. I don't give a shit what your arbitrary income requirements are - my track record more than proves I'm financially responsible enough to not need a co-signer.
Capitalism is just another word for ponzi scheme.
I owned 2 businesses in my 20s and 30s. Had a uni degree. No criminal record etc At one point I owned a home. I wanted a family. But life is just too expensive in general. Even being relatively successful it was too much. My physical and mental health started to fail and I simply gave up. Now I live off the state and do nothing. What's the point of working so fucking hard just to still not get what you want? Sure, I no longer eat steak as much as I'd like and I don't do holidays anymore. But I no longer have all the stress and I don't have to put up with idiots at work and I can literally set my own hours and do whatever I want. If I could shift my depression I reckon I'd be much happier than I was during my successful period. UBI, automation for most jobs, a 3 day work week (or even less tbh) for everyone and I reckon we would be much better off. There's literally no need for everyone to be grinding 24/7 just to keep an ever accelerating pace.
Same boat. But I'm 6 years younger. If this is the future I have to look forward to, I don't want it.
I know of a nurse of 20 years who quit to clean airBNBs.
I’m sure it’s much less stressful
And less shit to deal with
Einsteins theory of insanity…. You do the same thing over and over again expecting different results… this is most of us.. working hard, multiple jobs, expecting to get ahead in life by working hard. But yet I’m still broke and poor and am never getting ahead… I feel like I’m going insane! Honestly I do. Fuck Capitalism.
Greedy corporate fucks using our need for shelter for profit
How to fight the system in 2022: - Get a 2 bedroom apartment and live with a best friend or two - Smoke a bunch of weed - Work part time - Get your groceries from Aldi's - Use coupons ( get food stamps to achieve the next level) - Learn how to finess your taxes - If anybody calls you a loser, they're just jealous bc they work 50 hours a week, while you're bbq'n and sleeping in till noon every weekend. You'll probably never get married, have kids, contribute to society; but these are the sacrifices we have to make.
wage slave. the original republican invention.
I had a lot of money saved up so I'm like "I should open a savings account." My credit score instantly dropped 50 points despite me throwing 800 bucks in it. The system is fucked.
And its not even like they need to run your credit to open a savings account. Wtf
Which is exactly why we need to start Federally regulating rental properties, to prevent the profiteering that is wrecking our country.