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Well, my daughter owns (she rents it out) a 980 sq foot shack in that type of neighborhood and it's worth 750K. She only gets 3500 a month in rent though.
Here in Sarasota they sell 500K small condos that overlook a "rescue mission"...so your guess doesn't work out where I have been. Try buying a small place in Brooklyn or the Bronx...or even S. Philly these days.
What HAS changed is the size of the average house. That would be a valid point if you had mentioned it.
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I can't figure it out. I wonder if there is anywhere left to invest in real estate. What is so amazing about your daughter's shack neighborhood and Sarasota ghetto?
I just don't get this explosion, what is so special, while home prices in nice many safe neighborhoods are stalled.
The reason is because of government interference with the free market at ALL levels, but that isn't something the left, which insists on government intervening with the free market wants to hear.
Not everyone prospered after WW2, most women who did not have a bunch of kids, worked in the dress and shoe factories in our small town to help the family get ahead. We still have people working in low paid jobs or for minimum wage and what is really scary is that many of them graduated from college. Most everyone was borderline poor in our small town, but back in the 50's and 60's you could get a 25lb. bag filled with groceries for 5 bucks and gas was 25 cents a gallon. Good luck living on 35 dollars a week after taxes today.
+1. On my side of the tracks, it was the norm for the husband to work two jobs and the wife to work as well. Daycare was an unattainable luxury, so the kids led a feral existence while their parents worked long hours to make rent on an apartment, while squirrelling away a little at a time to hopefully purchase a small home before dropping dead at 55.
People like to romanticize that era, but for the working poor, it was misery. Poverty begat poverty, begat poverty; therecwas virtually no way out. For us, even when money was at its tightest (before I went back to work) I could still pick up some $10 sneakers on credit at Walmart, whereas back then, you stuffed newspaper into the soles of your shoes until you could save up for a new pair in a few months. Hell, even growing up poor in the 80s, I remember gluing the soles back onto my little brother’s sneakers because we only got one pair per year; whether we outgrew them or they fell apart, they had to last until next fall.
Add an income from working on top of that. Now you've created an entire class of people that can drive inflation up even higher as they can afford to pay more for everything.
Given that wages have not remotely kept up with inflation that is simply not the case. Reality shows that is not the case.
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So... your premise is for the older generation to keep their higher level higher-paying jobs, effectively shutting out those younger than themselves? That's incredibly short-sighted and foolish.
My premise is simply being realistic. Right or wrong it's the truth- the system is not beneficial for most and is not sustainable for society. I'm sure there must be some smart economists out there who can come up with a better model, but what we do know is clear. Unearned income that amasses wealth depresses value of wages and labor. Really, that's just common sense if you stop and think about it. But, it certainly won't change while the very people who benefit from this unsustainable pyramid scheme drive the bus and that is where we are now.
And baby boomers should not be retiring. Not by a long shot. I had a grandmother who was retired longer than she worked (Pension). That was pretty ridiculous.
With that said, I don't think the average boomer will have the wherewithal to maintain a full work schedule, let alone keep the corner office. The prevalence of age related dementia, among other age-related ailments are increasing. I don't think we are really equipped to deal with that, with what's coming. But they should continue to supplement their income as long as possible
OR... Any illegal alien can enroll their kids in any public school they wish, claim to be homeless, claim the child has no birth certificate and state the child's age is whatever they wish, and their kids will be admitted, no questions asked.
That's another issue and frankly small potatoes compared to our much bigger economic woes.
This question is not specific to the US, but if capitalism brings so much wealth (and it does) why can´t families survive on a single income anymore like in the past when usually only men worked and women were not in the workforce?
Well... it started off with more and more couples having dual full time incomes, and the ones with the most education and having no kids (DINKS double income no kids) having more buying power and being able to buy real estate in the most desirable areas. Then, because of general greed of anyone selling real estate, the housing prices went up because of the greater buying power of dual income couples. And of course, educated couples with children, also wanted to live in the nice areas with the good schools. And add in the foreign buyers buying luxury real estate for investment purposes.
And raising the minimum wage just increases the costs of goods and services, including daycare. And raises the costs associated with public grade schools and universities, because of increased wages of the support staff, like the cafeteria and janitorial staff.
Well... it started off with more and more couples having dual full time incomes, and the ones with the most education and having no kids (DINKS double income no kids) having more buying power and being able to buy real estate in the most desirable areas. Then, because of general greed of anyone selling real estate, the housing prices went up because of the greater buying power of dual income couples. And of course, educated couples with children, also wanted to live in the nice areas with the good schools. And add in the foreign buyers buying luxury real estate for investment purposes.
And raising the minimum wage just increases the costs of goods and services, including daycare. And raises the costs associated with public grade schools and universities, because of increased wages of the support staff, like the cafeteria and janitorial staff.
And it's perpetual, because minimum wage has to go up because of the cost of housing...
So, why will people not respond to "live within your means"?
You've got it!
There's a lot of things we would have liked to have done and could have if we were willing to go heavily into debt. We started with a 30 year mortgage and after 5 years refinanced it to a 15 year. Sure we could have remodeled the kitchen, bathrooms, put on an addition etc. But it was more important for us to at least pay the damn thing off asap.
I was able to buy and restore 4 antique cars, pay as you go. Two of them I bought shortly out of high school. I did all of the labor, same on our house with the exception of a new roof. If something broke most of the time I was able to fix it. Instead of paying for labor I'd buy the proper tools and still come out ahead.
Both my wife and I both lost our jobs in manufacturing for the same company when they moved out of state. We were able to put in a lot of overtime before they moved, that along with severance pay gave us enough to live on while we started a home based business. I just thank God our house and vehicle was paid off and we had no debt at the time we lost our jobs. They lion's share of our income went to pay for the outrageous cost of living in Westchester County N.Y. mostly property taxes followed by health insurance. It wasn't really living it was existing but we made it.
We're now living in Arizona, going on 9 years and that's exactly what it is LIVING. We're able to buy things that we want just because we want them and not need. Instead of all of our extra money going into the giant cesspool of corruption which is New York's state and local governments.
The problem with you is that you seem to be seething with envy of those that have more than you? That it's somehow not fair? One thing's for sure is that I doubt that those people that are sleeping on a bed of gold flake didn't get there by sitting on their dead ass complaining about those that have more than them. You'll never make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor.
So what do you do, put those in government who are so virtuous, honest and trustworthy in charge of running your life? Just hand it all over to them and let them divvy up the pie? Why the hell would anyone even try to get ahead and better their lives if those who are content to suck off the public teat are living just as well as they are?
I think that your statistics are way off as most Americans enjoy a pretty good standard of living. No matter where you go throughout the world your gonna' find impoverished people. Most if not all live in socialist hell holes where government bureaucrats decide who gets what and how much.
I've got a better idea. Why doesn't the government just print enough money and write a check out to each and every citizen for 10 million dollars. This way everyone will be rich. How well do you think that would work out?
My statistics on wealth are on the mark, and your (not you're) projection of your own "seething" onto me is telling.
I have more than 99.9% of people on earth. I still view the expansion of the American middle class as a good thing, and it's compression as a bad thing. I view people who support a lopsided system funneling more and more wealth into fewer and fewer hands hoping to some day be one of the few reminds me of the suck ups who follow celebrities around hoping to bask in just a speck of their glitter. It's idol worship and a very poor way to formulate public policy. You read rich dad poor dad and suddenly you spew the rhetoric of a robber baron.
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