I just want to firebomb every payday lending and title loan place I see…
That’ll happen once politicians stop taking money from bankers. I’ll wait.
I think people being better at using their credit will lead to them buying less things, which on simplistic terms would mean less money in the economy overall and so lead to a slow-down.
A HUGE factor leading to an over abundance of credit available is fractional reserve banking, which then allows for prices to be ridiculously inflated, this in turn making even frugal people dependent on credit because they aren’t filthy rich!
Fifty or more years ago, Americans could support a wife and several kids with a landscaping job and bought homes in their 20s. Go to some coastal cities and you’ll see people buying their first homes in their 30s, or even 40s, or never! This also is a reason why some upstanding people don’t have kids or have only one!
Come to NY and you’ll hear of many adults getting gifts from family members in the form of a down payment or part of one. Why? Their family wants them and their grandchildren to not live in a cramped apartment and to succeed and join in on the fun. And they know their adult children aren’t going to bootstrap or budget their way there! Nor do they want them to leave the state.
Then let’s get info skyrocketing medical bills. Or maybe let’s not. I’m only saying this to show that plenty of frugal people wind up in debt, not because they have lavish tastes but because their own “elite” (an elite of greedy moronic tyrants) have made it so.
It goes both ways, one being living beyond means and the other being an unaffordable system for many middle class people.
This is a main reason why NY ranks in the top three states from which people are currently moving.
It’s an old model, but in my grand parents days they had 14 or 15 family members contributing to the overall betterment of each other.
It wasn’t incumbent solely upon the parents to aide in the prosperity of the family. There was also virtually unlimited work and housing opportunity in the mines and mills though too, and that has changed drastically, but some very large corps. are experimenting with that model again.
1 Like
Right.
There are other issues that have lead to outrageous housing and medical costs but anyone with half a brain likely knows why we can’t discuss them here. And there is actually overlap in these issues which have created the cyborg individualism we discuss here.
Isn’t the “cyborg man” just the Renaissance Man by a different name and different age?
Instead of learning Latin, Greek, French, and Hebrew plus blacksmithing, science,art, farming, and sword fighting, we learn and do what is relevant to achievement today?
It’s the same end, just different means and standards for a well rounded man.
1 Like
Who are you, Irving Fisher?
There hasn’t been a bank that operated on a 100 % reserve system for 1100 years.
2 Likes
Yeah.access to credit makes a big difference. My grandfather’s house cost $1,100 in 1935, gotten through the coal company, and his weekly take home was 25 cents a week- but that was in company scrip.
My dad’s house was 25k in 1966, he had a pretty average take home.
Mine was a steal in 2010 at 60k. My 2 most recent neighbors have paid 100+. And that’s smack in the middle of middle class for this region, a historically low cost of living market.
2 Likes
I live in Suffolk County, Long Island, where the average home price is 380k. In Nassau County it’s 525k.
My mom’s two bedroom apartment in Queens, only 60 minute drive away, is almost the price of my home. 
Those numbers are mind boggling to me. For that here you can get a whole lot (no pun intended) of house. And if you’re willing to drive a little, a few acres to boot.
A good many newer developments are starting at 350 to 700k though. There’s a new one going in right down the road that will be in that range.
1 Like
What sucks is that the big coastal areas like that have 4x or 5x the housing costs, but the salaries aren’t 4x or 5x. I can visit NYC and have a great time, but I’d never consider living there.
1 Like
I don’t recommend anyone to live in the five boroughs of NYC unless they are making so much money that they can simply insulate themselves from all the ills that characterize the city nearly every area of the city.
And low six figures will not do that! Even if this household were rich, I still wouldn’t wish to remain there; hence why we moved to the suburbs of Long Island.
Do you visit here often?
There are some things that haven’t been practiced in a long time hat I’d like to see practiced again today and some things practiced today that I’d like to see done away with. I’m not alone.
In that context, yes, for achieving some ends.
In the context I tried to explain, but likely failed, I was not speaking of being well rounded.
And like I said, I should have titled the thread Grotesque Individualism or Modern Day Narcissism.
Learning languages, science, martial arts, and so on, is great! When I think back on my own life, I am bummed in knowing I didn’t learn enough or acquire enough life skills before a certain age.
I have an open invitation to an air bnb place near central park. One of the video editors/producers for CBS stayed at our house on a cross country trip with her dogs. Might try and schedule something this year.
I live in Nassau county, as @BrickHead referenced, and I own a home. When I bought it in 2004 it was $430K and that was the average home price. Our combined income was about $115K and we did get help from family for a down payment, exactly as he referenced.
That house is now worth about $460K - very little or no appreciation other than inflation.
My parents bought a house in Portland, Oregon in 1967 for $18.6K. No help from family, and one income.
That house is now worth about $800K.
NY is a wasteland.
However, our income has doubled, and when I retire (with a pension from public school teaching), that pension is portable.
I can take it to another area of the country where it is not as expensive.
What a horrible reason to stay.
1 Like
Be prepared for the governor to blame Florida when you leave NY.
1 Like
In truth, it is Florida’s fault. I mean, where else can you totally exploit workers in the interest of attracting wealthy pensioners. It is truly the old eating the young.
I lived in Orlando for five years and did the reverse thing, moved to NY from Florida.
1 Like
My family sold my grandmother’s townhouse condominium in Douglaston for 750k in cash. It’s not even a big home, and they think they could have gotten even more for it.
And to stay in the boroughs to send kids to school with that tax money?
My high school, 22 years after graduating:
And a lovely story out of Forest Hills, Queens:
1 Like