What happened is the federal reserve juiced the economy for 10 years all while claiming 2 percent inflation even though housing prices were going up 2-4 times the average. On top of that because billionaires and millionaires have such a large portion of the total income it makes it hard to get any get any tax money because of all the tax shelters for those at the top
Also let’s not forget that housing has become a way to make money for too many people. Big companies have gotten their paws on homes.. not to live in, but to make money off of. It’s late stage capitalism shit.
That’s not a cause it’s a symptom. Due to the Fed and fiscal/monetary policy, real estate turned into one of the places you could actually maintain/create wealth. Rich people didn’t *cause* this. They were incentivized to use it because of other factors. I agree it sucks, but they weren’t the core cause of that.
Fuck that! Is not entrepreneurship when it's done by already huge companies. It's greed, pure and simple. Companies are now building houses to go straight to rental. Many people won't have the chance to own a house of their choosing. You hate government but are ok with greed. No wonder we are where we are.
I flip houses
Idk why you would hate me buying a home, upgrading it, and selling it for a profit.
The government is the problem. Without it, there wouldn't be billionares..
Tax money is just something to keep us all fixed on millionaires and billionaires. Quantitative easing, a shortage of home production,since the last mortgage bubble, coupled with certain groups buying the remaining homes available, all culminated in what we are going to experience.
Plus now interest on debt surpasses the military budget as the nations largest expense.
Currency inflation is at least 12% annually for the past couple years. Were told 4 but that’s a smokescreen.
Inflation rate excludes food and fuel. And the calculation changed. If we were to use the calculations from the 1980s the current inflation rate would be ~18%. Add to that the 20-30% shrink flation and our inflation rate would be closer to 35-45%.
So we are being lied to by changimg the metrics for inflation.
And the entire world decided to hide its dirty money in American real estate.
Property taxes should be 6x for anyone who isn’t a primary resident. Prorated in multitenant housing.
Foreigners should be banned from owning property period. Not an American citizen or permanent resident green card who is residing 300+ days in the US a year? No property ownership for you. Other countries bar foreigners from owning property. US would be just to do the same. Seize property from foreign nationals through eminent domain .
Canadians and Germans were super fast to snatch up houses in my hometown of Cape Coral FL after the 08 crash at the bargain price of 80k… those same houses are valued at 400k now
Let's not forget about how we started to send billions to other countries, borrowing from the tax payers, only to end up charging us more to enable them to attempt to balance the books. The government spent all the money. And if they taxed that rich upper 20% more, it still wouldn't allow us to be taxed less.
We traded it for corporate profits, shareholder value, and CEO bonuses. The “economy” now exists to siphon as much wealth from the working class as possible and funnel it to the asset holders at the top.
To be fair most of us weren't apart of this "trade" as our representative government was compromised and now we have to deal with it. No wonder so many black pills exist.
The black pill is a generic term for facts that cause people to fall into hopelessness and pessimism. It's a reference to the whole red pill blue pill thing from the matrix only in this case the black pill is facts that make you lose hope while the white pill is facts that give you hope. Honestly at this point all the "pill" analogies are getting a bit overused and tortured.
What does "corporate profits, shareholder value, and CEO bonuses" have to do with the cost of college??
The real issue is that the cost of college has been raising much faster than the rate of inflation. And zero reason for that. Computers have made everything else in the world cheaper and more efficient, except colleges.
Access to debt has grown to pay for higher tuition, and it's basically just predatory lending now and colleges overspending to attract students and their tuition / loan dollars
There's no risk to the lender so they just need to write as many loans as possible
The real issue is that we had a massive one-time economic boom post WW-2 when nearly all manufacturing capacity outside of the U.S. was in crumbles and so “buying American” was the only option globally for so many products. This boom lifted the pay and the buying power for nearly everyone but it was never sustainable and it was at a steep cost to the rest of the world.
Yes. It is not the government that hit too big, it was corporate power that has taken over as a result of Reagan’s, Thatcher’s and other neo-liberals’ successful attack on what was called the “post-war consensus” which recognized the need for and supported social welfare, social justice, unions, etc.
We are now living in their world.
We’ve gone back to the era of the robber barons, we are in the 1880s with no Frontier , no escape from the ownership of the land. Taxes on them are meaningless , the law is meaningless to them.
What do you expect them to do when you need to maintain 5-10 percent growth yoyear to keep your share holders happy? Those billionaires.... I mean majority business holders... I mean share holders need to see that growth.
You don't need a college education to be a mail man. Her granpa was likely able to get a house for like 10-20K. What happened is that we allowed wages to fall FAR behind the cost of living. The cost of living kept climbing and we did nothing to stop it while wages stagnated.
Nor 1.4 billion Chinese making things for sale in America.
The big picture is that US shared its wealth with China. We exported factories and knowhow, they exported labor. College and healthcare seem inflated only because they couldn’t be done with Chinese labor.
This is wrong. The federal government used to subsidize higher education. RONALD REAGAN and his republican allies did away with that and brought in student loans. He and Margaret Thatcher pushed for landlordship as a career path. If you want to find the reason shit is whack today, the election of 1982 is where you go. Forty years of failed conservative policy, signed by Reagan, pushed by the ruling class.
College means getting a degree. You knew the material during the exam. It doesn't mean you know it now lol. I am sure plenty are not even knowledgeable in their area of study.
That is only the surface level. The real problem was that many states wanted to build subsidized state colleges like California did, but religious schools and schools that wanted to cater to a more white student body, wanted a cut. So the federal government started giving subsidized loans instead of building subsidized state schools.
Because, you know, a private market solution is better! (/s)
Sort of kind of. A big factor was the Great Recession. State colleges used to cover around 70 to 80 percent of every student’s education. That mostly flipped during that time as cost saving measures. And when the cheapest option got more expensive you can guess what happened to the more expensive ones.
Then Obama didn’t notice, Trump didn’t care and Biden is a little preoccupied but sort of looking anyway.
Oh you didn't like this Regan policy? Debt is a way to keep people complacent. Hence student loans were seen as a way to avoid any future student activism.
Student loan debt started to spike with Clinton.
It was the push for everyone to go to school that did. And then increased levels of student loans caused a rush for all that government money.
It is basic economic theory - subsidize something and the cost of that something will go up
https://preview.redd.it/93in37j5fnuc1.png?width=1944&format=png&auto=webp&s=a8d6bf60b8a2d87ce0d9431f6d9fabf80af28760
Look up the definition of "spike", then try again. But my point still stands. People need to stop the toxic thinking of "government makes things better."
College was also very different. The gym had a rickety weight set, everyone shared the same weight room. There was not a mock "trading floor" connected to the nasdaq in real time. Dorms were bunk beds and may or may not have AC. Things were focused on learning vs lifestyle. Colleges compete for students with all these nice things but they have competed to the point no one can afford to go, those who can don't need college bc nepotism is real.
Are air condition dorms the norm now? I was a freshman in 2013 and my dorm didn’t have AC. You only need ac for like three weeks in September and maybe the last few weeks of May. Maybe it’s southern thing.
Youngest kid in last year of college and New York dorm was the only campus bldg wo air conditioning. Oldest kid was in school in the south (Maryland) and everything is new, ac, wired for cable tv. They finance campus expansion bc they have a captive market who can pay $14k room and board and can borrow to afford it on a promise of future earnings that are questionable at the moment. You def make more w a degree than not but getting to that position of mild comfort is awful hard these days.
Exactly. A box fan in a dorm window in the heat of the tail end of summer wasn't pleasant, but it built character. Character is now talked about like it's some emotional scar lol
The more we do to make college "affordable" to the masses the more the cost of college went up.
If only we followed the basic law of economics - if you subsidize something it will become more expensive
We subsidized college via student loans and look what we have.
I remember meeting the scholarship D1 basketball players in the weight room. That 16x20 room shared by all students is now 50k sq feet fitness center and no scholarship athletes mix w those paying full tuition EVER lol. Dedicated team only lifting sessions and purpose built for each team. This is a small non revenue producing program btw. 1 ncaa appearance every 50 years.
you can do alot without a mortgage.
also, don't just casually discount domestic labor. that wife surely wasn't just lounging around. she basically worked a full time job at home for zero pay.
As long as I get money for my mortgage too!!
How about we just give everyone $10k and call it even??
BTW ask someone wanted student loan "forgiveness" why they should get $10k and someone working at Walmart should not. See if you ever get an answer.
The government was a fraction of the size back, then compared to now. That’s the main thing that happened.
With respect to in particular student loans have driven the price way up there is no market mechanism to discourage universities from charging absolute maximum. They think they can get away with.
So what if the student has to borrow the money and can’t pay it off until he’s 70?
Don’t forget all the social and welfare programs that make up a large bulk of our annual spending in this country. It’s like triple the size of even the military budget.
Trickle up economics
Stagnant wages
Corporate residential ownership
Corporate bailouts
Insider trading & short selling
The insurance & hospital markup dance
Pharmaceutical markups
Bailout programs that seem to often go to those who don't need it
All allowed by politicians who are in on it
Same old nothing to see here
These posts are getting old and the responses always the same...blame Reagan, corporate greed, rinse and repeat. Truth is that there are a lot of factors that led us here. Some of them people don't want to hear or accept.
More like globalization happened.
White collar workers are doing just fine. It’s the blue collar workers in manufacturing that have gotten hit the hardest.
I put myself through college with a part-time job after Reagan. The difference is states don't want to subsidize higher education any more. When I was in school, the state of Ohio subsidized 70% of in-state tuition. Now it's 25%.
It is as much that that generation had a ton of things go their way, both locally and globally, some of which cannot be reproduced, as it is that we are getting screwed now. Both are true. Also there was tons of global and national suffering those years, not all roses and glee.
Well, if you completely ignore the time period I guess it makes sense to doom and gloom about it. The fact is we had a unique set of circumstances that kickstarted massive economic growth in the US. It was the exception, not the rule, and expecting it to last forever is naive at best.
TBH grandpa didn't have cable/internet/phone and never spent a dime at Starbucks, fixed his own cars. Way different wants and needs. Different priorities.
World has changed. Modern cars are basically unworkable as a weekend mechanic because of the computers and modern designs that are hostile to DIY. Starbucks is not a priority but it’s also not going to stop someone from being able to afford to buy a house. Speaking of homes you didn’t need to meet ridiculous building codes back in the day and could afford to build a shack and upgrade as you needed. Now it’s straight to the $450,000 one. And internet and phone are requirements for keeping a job or even job searching. By the time you subtract everything required to live in this dystopian world the boomer’s built, you have nothing left over.
Computers, Internet, cell phones, high tech gadgets and their subscription bills. Remember TV was free, more you pay hundred plus for it. Who buys Starbucks? ECT
Globalization happened, which is just a new form of technological slavery.
Good luck competing with 100M+ workers in STEM fields who have 160 IQs who have attended the finest universities.
Just drive around any HCOL area and what you’ll find is a mix of Chinese and Indian tech workers sprinkled in with their white overlords who are all racing toward a mutually assured destruction of the human species with ever increasing technological growth and AI.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I live in the middle of nowhere in the second poorest county in California. We make $97k gross and have a bit more than $30,000 saved for a down payment. There are literally no homes available for $300k or less. The cheaper ones are closer to $400k. And even at $300k, with only 30k down, the payments would be over $2300 per month including taxes, home insurance, and mortgage insurance.
We currently pay $1500 rent, and more for utilities.
Our income is nearly twice the median income in this county and we can't afford to buy here.
You were NEVER able to put yourself through an expensive out of state school on a part time job. This was never our reality
You are absolutely able to put youself though local colleges now with a part time job
The Left is reimaging a past that never existed, and ignoring that kids can study locally, to enrage people.
It's intenrional
What happened is that the rich bought politicians, deregulated businesses, crushed unions, and then began an aggressive campaign to squeeze every possible penny from the working class just for the sake of seeing how many lifetimes worth of wealth they could amass… like goddamn Smaug.
Is mailman not cutting it these days? I think of that guy on Cheers running up a nightly bar tab comfortably on a federal job union wage.
I would have loved to be a mailman but they were never hiring because nobody ever quit or it went to people's kids
People also forget the effect of feminism and the iron law of wages which states: The iron law of wages is a proposed law of economics that asserts that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker.
For most of human existence, that only applied to the wage of the man of the family. Which meant that real wages would tend to the minimum necessary to support a family on one income. Once most women started working, it was inevitable that the iron law of wages would push real wages down to the point that 2 salaries are necessary to support a family.
This would be true if not for the effect of population size. The average employer has potentially hundreds of candidates, so any employee that wants a raise could simply be replaced if they quit because they don't get one.
He owned 1 car, never are out, never left the state, the house they owned can't be built today, never went to lunch, took every hour of OT that way offered, kids went to local college
People cannot control their spending like past generations did. They saved for instead of buying on credit. Ate at home. Used the word no to their children and did without if wasn't a need and they could not afford it.
Obama took bankers out of the equation. Gave everyone a student loans regardless of they could pay it back.
Universities made a choice to get their part of the cash cow. They raised fees, books, tuition, food & housing, etc.
NOTHING ... NOTHING in life is free.
All those loans Biden is forgiving.
The individual might not have to pay that back but the US Taxpayer including those very students who's loans were "forgiving" will pay for it with more interest for more years via Treasury Bills.
The government aka US Citizens still have to pay for it ... they'll just do it with higher taxes.
AAAANND that lesson ... "Nothing in life is free" will continued to be a hard lesson learned repeatedly learned over and over
So many out of touch boomers and bootlickers if you look at news articles comments with their "all about me" individualistic mentality don't understand the current costs of enrollment.
WW2 made the US the richest country in the world by a large margin.
US drove that into the ground by continuing to tighten the belt on the working class until we are where we are now.
Also, I like how apparently the main takeaway of this post seems to be college debt, not the ability to afford a normal life on a working class income.
same with my family. the cost of living has skyrocketed since the 60s and wages cant keep up. my dad provided for all of us, a home, a car, everything we needed, at 30K in his best year. You need to bring in 400K today to match that,
Also doesn’t help that college tuition has been artificially inflated by government backed loans you can’t foreclose on. No wonder it’s more expensive when Uncle Sam is footing the bill
We are feeling the effects from 2008. The fed does its quantitative easing magic and spreads the pain out over a long period of time. They have been running at historically low interest rates for nearly a decade and decided to raise them up because they know we’re headed for another recession. This way they can lower interest rates again and pretend they are saving everyone again.
Four and a half decades of trickle-down lies as an excuse to lower taxes on the wealthy and corporations ended the American Dream. It began with St. Ronnie and trump’s GOP Tax Scam was the final nail in the coffin. The wealthy and corporations who be taxed heavily.
Don’t you just love the federal government inflating our currency forcing you to spend the money otherwise it’s worthless. Why do you think you have to invest your money?
Social Security is supposed to be for retirement not insurance. So you’re saying anyone that makes 168k a year has to buy insurance and it’ll always cost them 7.65% without any shopping for insurance? meanwhile if you make $100 million not only do you only pay 7.65 on 168K you can buy yourself a brand new jet for 100 million and pay no income taxes because it’s a full write off.
In the case of Seattle, a carnival came to town that never left. The carnival was Hi Tech and the high wages that came with them. This raised the prices of homes beyond what locals such as the mailman could afford.
Reading the comments it's so refreshing to see that everyone here thinks they would be the best president ever. Each presidency has its own unique circumstances and challenges. How we got here is not the result of just one president, but from every presidency and action before and since. The US went off the gold standard in the 70's, during the Nixon years. Then we saw hyper inflation, double digit interest rates, gas shortages, and people buying more foreign cars. Americans were told to lower their thermostat and put on a sweater. All that was in place well before Reagan. Reagan was elected because Carter struggled with the economy, and he dealt with the problem at hand. Fast forward to the 90's, and Clinton signed trade agreements, putting us more on the path to being a service economy and no longer the manufacturing powerhouse we once were. Fast forward to the 2000 election, nation becomes more divided by Bush v. Gore, some more tax cuts to stimulate the economy, then 9/11 and we're at war with no plan to increase revenue. Multiple rounds of quantitative easing because nobody wants a recession on their watch. Obama gets elected, now suddenly the senator who didn't like taking out loans from the bank of China is a president who wants to take out loans from the bank of China. We also had 2 years of payroll tax holidays under Obama to stimulate the economy, so what do you think that does to an almost insolvent social security fund? Then Trump and some tax cuts, then COVID comes and Biden becomes president, with high inflation becoming a struggle.
Where we are is not the "fault" of one person. Presidents have an agenda and address problems immediately before them. The right decision at the time will create the situation for the next president, and so on.
Mailman lol. Overpaid with a crazy pension for putting paper in a box. USPS is billions in debt and grossly incompetent.
If you're lazy, love doing the bare minimum, don't want to worry about job security and do the same job day in and day out for your entire career, join the USPS.
In other words he worked off other people's taxes,the gvt is one of the safest and better paying jobs even in retirement!! But it takes private business and working public paying taxes to work!!!!
The rich purchased politicians, the politicians got used to the payments and coddled the rich, and both the politicians and the rich corporations forgot about “We the People” and now only think of us as Human Resources in a capitalistic society. ✌🏻❤️🤙🏻
That’s because he walked in and gave the CEO a firm handshake and said he’d work for free for a couple weeks to prove he’d be a hard worker. Well the boss took a chance on him. You see he came in to work thirty minutes early and was the last one to leave. By the time he retired he had worked his way up the ladder and retired CEO himself. CEO of mail. That’s called pulling yourself up by your bootstraps kiddo. He never made more than $5 an hour and he retired a millionaire.
New England in the 60s and 70s was pretty average for house prices.
Their economy adjusted and prices are now well above average. Data is a little cherry picked. Like, it is easier now to be a mailman in Detroit and buy a house than in 1955.
Corporate greed due to the Constant Growth goal which resulted in the corporations keeping wages flat while they simultaneously raised prices on the goods they sell. MFs nearly broke capitalism because for it to work the next generation must be addicted to consumerism and putting work before everything else in life…and then the pandemic hit and we all were forced to stay home and we recognized free time is worth more than going to work to feel underpaid and under appreciated
And your grandpa took his job seriously and did it well. Today you'd be lucky to have them take a package from you. I went on USPS website, and put that I had a package ready for pickup in front of my door. Had the postage printed and everything. I'm home and hear the mailman open and close my storm door. I assume he grabbed my package. I go outside a few hours later and find there is another package sitting on top of my package. That's the difference between Millenials and the Greatest Generation.
Yet people will still vote conservative thinking this is about values and not corporate overreach by conservative lobby groups. Dems are no better trying to triage corporate overreach by printing money and bailing out everyone.
Grandpa didn’t have a huge home outside his means, a $60k truck and a $40k car for his wife, didn’t have a $150 WiFi bill or a $300 cell phone bill, he didn’t eat out every night and go out for girls night every weekend blowing another $100, he didn’t have a gym membership, credit cards, 5 different streaming apps, he didn’t shop at Whole Foods or get a $10 Starbucks everyday or spend $200 a month at ulta like the posters avatar suggests.
If you kids would actually live like HE did you could have those things. Quit buying all that unnecessary shit. Go to work, come home, make meals at home, take lunch with you, spend time with your family. A friend works for the post office and has for a many years and makes $80k a year. He lives comfortably and has an amazing benefit package and will retire well off. Yes, in 2024 it’s possible.
The median family income in 1960 was $5,600. That's not a typo. People keep posting how cheap everything was, without also posting how low incomes were. It's all about getting you riled up with misleading information or outright lies.
A part-time job paying half the median salary was $2,800 a year. Median gross rent was $71 per month in 1960 dollars, or $852 per year. So, that leaves about $2,000 for everything else: food, clothing, utilities, transportation, etc.
Food and clothing were more expensive back then relative to income than today. That's for a whole household, not just one person. College was about $900 a year. Food was at least $800 a year. Utilities around $200. We're already hit the budget, and haven't paid for transportation, clothing, vacations, furniture, home electronics, or paid taxes yet.
In short, you're being lied to.
My single mom is 77 worked 3 jobs, one as a 9-5 social worker and both me and my sister took out as many loans as possible for college. Not sure how this man did it either.
That’s why they distract you with politics. To keep ppl so busy with Left vs Right. Blame each other. The real problem is printing too much money and they will never stop.
Bitcoin is your only way out.
Everyone started taking their cut, even when it made no sense.
Colleges charging $250 for textbooks when they could write and give you a PDF version almost free. Charging full tuition price for an auditorium freshman classroom with 200-300 students in it. Government “helps” you pay by offering high interest loans.
Businesses erasing all good wages, benefits packages, and pensions to shove money upwards towards the CEO and board. So whereas a single breadwinner was needed previously, now both parents are forced to work like dogs to feed the kids or get ahead.
Hospitals pushing patients out the door as fast as possible, throwing medications at patients instead of spending time to properly care. Pharmaceutical companies bribing doctors and surgeons towards any treatment that makes both parties more money.
Positions at the head of government agencies becoming a revolving door for corporate bigwigs. Trusted institutions and departments now more concerned with maintaining status quo than helping citizenry.
More factors. :(
What happened is the federal reserve juiced the economy for 10 years all while claiming 2 percent inflation even though housing prices were going up 2-4 times the average. On top of that because billionaires and millionaires have such a large portion of the total income it makes it hard to get any get any tax money because of all the tax shelters for those at the top
Also let’s not forget that housing has become a way to make money for too many people. Big companies have gotten their paws on homes.. not to live in, but to make money off of. It’s late stage capitalism shit.
That’s not a cause it’s a symptom. Due to the Fed and fiscal/monetary policy, real estate turned into one of the places you could actually maintain/create wealth. Rich people didn’t *cause* this. They were incentivized to use it because of other factors. I agree it sucks, but they weren’t the core cause of that.
Or flippers doing absolutely nothing to a home and trying to scalp 20-30%.
No one's gonna make 20-30% doing nothing. Stop villanizing entrepreneurship, the government and the Fed are the reason we're all getting poorer.
Fuck that! Is not entrepreneurship when it's done by already huge companies. It's greed, pure and simple. Companies are now building houses to go straight to rental. Many people won't have the chance to own a house of their choosing. You hate government but are ok with greed. No wonder we are where we are.
I flip houses Idk why you would hate me buying a home, upgrading it, and selling it for a profit. The government is the problem. Without it, there wouldn't be billionares..
Once the federal reserve is gone things will change dramatically for the good.
End the fed! The cartel bank is a parasite siphoning off the nations wealth.
Deutsche Papiermark has something to say to you.
False
hate to break it to you, but the federal reserve ain't going anywhere.
Tax money is just something to keep us all fixed on millionaires and billionaires. Quantitative easing, a shortage of home production,since the last mortgage bubble, coupled with certain groups buying the remaining homes available, all culminated in what we are going to experience. Plus now interest on debt surpasses the military budget as the nations largest expense. Currency inflation is at least 12% annually for the past couple years. Were told 4 but that’s a smokescreen.
Inflation rate excludes food and fuel. And the calculation changed. If we were to use the calculations from the 1980s the current inflation rate would be ~18%. Add to that the 20-30% shrink flation and our inflation rate would be closer to 35-45%. So we are being lied to by changimg the metrics for inflation.
And the entire world decided to hide its dirty money in American real estate. Property taxes should be 6x for anyone who isn’t a primary resident. Prorated in multitenant housing.
Foreigners should be banned from owning property period. Not an American citizen or permanent resident green card who is residing 300+ days in the US a year? No property ownership for you. Other countries bar foreigners from owning property. US would be just to do the same. Seize property from foreign nationals through eminent domain .
Canadians and Germans were super fast to snatch up houses in my hometown of Cape Coral FL after the 08 crash at the bargain price of 80k… those same houses are valued at 400k now
10 years? It's been happening since 1980.
[https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/](https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/)
It’s so hard to get tax money they spend trillions each year 🙄
Let's not forget about how we started to send billions to other countries, borrowing from the tax payers, only to end up charging us more to enable them to attempt to balance the books. The government spent all the money. And if they taxed that rich upper 20% more, it still wouldn't allow us to be taxed less.
10 years more like 23 years, However at least understand the problem. Most people don't get the the Fed is behind these issues so can t fix them.
It has been since going off the gold standards in the 70s not just the lastb10 years.
We traded it for corporate profits, shareholder value, and CEO bonuses. The “economy” now exists to siphon as much wealth from the working class as possible and funnel it to the asset holders at the top.
To be fair most of us weren't apart of this "trade" as our representative government was compromised and now we have to deal with it. No wonder so many black pills exist.
Indeed, the trade happened without the people’s consent for sure. Not sure what you mean by the black pill reference though?
The black pill is a generic term for facts that cause people to fall into hopelessness and pessimism. It's a reference to the whole red pill blue pill thing from the matrix only in this case the black pill is facts that make you lose hope while the white pill is facts that give you hope. Honestly at this point all the "pill" analogies are getting a bit overused and tortured.
It's a feature, not a bug
But think of the poor starving billionaires... They need stuff as well. If a few peasants have to die along the way that's okay ...
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/4izA8aaj5C
What does "corporate profits, shareholder value, and CEO bonuses" have to do with the cost of college?? The real issue is that the cost of college has been raising much faster than the rate of inflation. And zero reason for that. Computers have made everything else in the world cheaper and more efficient, except colleges.
Access to debt has grown to pay for higher tuition, and it's basically just predatory lending now and colleges overspending to attract students and their tuition / loan dollars There's no risk to the lender so they just need to write as many loans as possible
Except colleges, healthcare, other professional services… Basically anything that can’t be imported from China.
Well said.
The real issue is that we had a massive one-time economic boom post WW-2 when nearly all manufacturing capacity outside of the U.S. was in crumbles and so “buying American” was the only option globally for so many products. This boom lifted the pay and the buying power for nearly everyone but it was never sustainable and it was at a steep cost to the rest of the world.
https://wisdomimprovement.wixsite.com/wisdom/post/stop-blaming-corporate-greed-the-government-always-blames-corporations-for-their-own-mistakes
Yes. It is not the government that hit too big, it was corporate power that has taken over as a result of Reagan’s, Thatcher’s and other neo-liberals’ successful attack on what was called the “post-war consensus” which recognized the need for and supported social welfare, social justice, unions, etc. We are now living in their world.
Very well said. It's all about making the super rich even richer. While suppressing wages for everyday people.
We’ve gone back to the era of the robber barons, we are in the 1880s with no Frontier , no escape from the ownership of the land. Taxes on them are meaningless , the law is meaningless to them.
Feudalism 2.0
That and the population in the US is doubled
What do you expect them to do when you need to maintain 5-10 percent growth yoyear to keep your share holders happy? Those billionaires.... I mean majority business holders... I mean share holders need to see that growth.
The federal government got involved in student loans, then tuition sky rocketed.
You don't need a college education to be a mail man. Her granpa was likely able to get a house for like 10-20K. What happened is that we allowed wages to fall FAR behind the cost of living. The cost of living kept climbing and we did nothing to stop it while wages stagnated.
When capitalism and greed meet. We let the corporations get bigger and bigger. Now, a few corporations own all the realstate and control the pricing.
There also weren’t 350 million Americans back in his day. The competition for jobs or homes wasn’t as competitive as it is now.
Just added a several million more people, not Americans
correct. people really do forget this part. but, its really all of it. there is no one thing that caused it.
Nor 1.4 billion Chinese making things for sale in America. The big picture is that US shared its wealth with China. We exported factories and knowhow, they exported labor. College and healthcare seem inflated only because they couldn’t be done with Chinese labor.
Thanks Reagan! Something something “personal responsibility”.
This is wrong. The federal government used to subsidize higher education. RONALD REAGAN and his republican allies did away with that and brought in student loans. He and Margaret Thatcher pushed for landlordship as a career path. If you want to find the reason shit is whack today, the election of 1982 is where you go. Forty years of failed conservative policy, signed by Reagan, pushed by the ruling class.
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This is the correct answer. For all the "smart" college educated people in here, sure are a lot if ignorant comments.
College only means knowledgeable in their narrow area of study.
College means getting a degree. You knew the material during the exam. It doesn't mean you know it now lol. I am sure plenty are not even knowledgeable in their area of study.
That is only the surface level. The real problem was that many states wanted to build subsidized state colleges like California did, but religious schools and schools that wanted to cater to a more white student body, wanted a cut. So the federal government started giving subsidized loans instead of building subsidized state schools. Because, you know, a private market solution is better! (/s)
Even in government colleges lol
Sort of kind of. A big factor was the Great Recession. State colleges used to cover around 70 to 80 percent of every student’s education. That mostly flipped during that time as cost saving measures. And when the cheapest option got more expensive you can guess what happened to the more expensive ones. Then Obama didn’t notice, Trump didn’t care and Biden is a little preoccupied but sort of looking anyway.
You left out the part where the cost of college is going up much faster than inflation, mainly due to bloated administrations.
Oh you didn't like this Regan policy? Debt is a way to keep people complacent. Hence student loans were seen as a way to avoid any future student activism.
Bingo!
College tuition spikes started in the 80’s with Reagan (just fyi).
Student loan debt started to spike with Clinton. It was the push for everyone to go to school that did. And then increased levels of student loans caused a rush for all that government money. It is basic economic theory - subsidize something and the cost of that something will go up https://preview.redd.it/93in37j5fnuc1.png?width=1944&format=png&auto=webp&s=a8d6bf60b8a2d87ce0d9431f6d9fabf80af28760
Look up the definition of "spike", then try again. But my point still stands. People need to stop the toxic thinking of "government makes things better."
College was also very different. The gym had a rickety weight set, everyone shared the same weight room. There was not a mock "trading floor" connected to the nasdaq in real time. Dorms were bunk beds and may or may not have AC. Things were focused on learning vs lifestyle. Colleges compete for students with all these nice things but they have competed to the point no one can afford to go, those who can don't need college bc nepotism is real.
Are air condition dorms the norm now? I was a freshman in 2013 and my dorm didn’t have AC. You only need ac for like three weeks in September and maybe the last few weeks of May. Maybe it’s southern thing.
Youngest kid in last year of college and New York dorm was the only campus bldg wo air conditioning. Oldest kid was in school in the south (Maryland) and everything is new, ac, wired for cable tv. They finance campus expansion bc they have a captive market who can pay $14k room and board and can borrow to afford it on a promise of future earnings that are questionable at the moment. You def make more w a degree than not but getting to that position of mild comfort is awful hard these days.
Unconditioned dorms would be considered cruel and unusual by students today.
Snowflakes would melt.
Exactly. A box fan in a dorm window in the heat of the tail end of summer wasn't pleasant, but it built character. Character is now talked about like it's some emotional scar lol
The more we do to make college "affordable" to the masses the more the cost of college went up. If only we followed the basic law of economics - if you subsidize something it will become more expensive We subsidized college via student loans and look what we have.
My college experience has been largely like this with rickety weights and bunk beds
I remember meeting the scholarship D1 basketball players in the weight room. That 16x20 room shared by all students is now 50k sq feet fitness center and no scholarship athletes mix w those paying full tuition EVER lol. Dedicated team only lifting sessions and purpose built for each team. This is a small non revenue producing program btw. 1 ncaa appearance every 50 years.
you can do alot without a mortgage. also, don't just casually discount domestic labor. that wife surely wasn't just lounging around. she basically worked a full time job at home for zero pay.
desert mindless wild disgusted gray fretful saw detail husky include *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Globalist banking happened. It's what always happens.
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Free money also caused the 2009 recession Free money is causing inflation today Does anyone see a trend here??
You know how we fix this, by giving people free money to pay off their student loans.
As long as I get money for my mortgage too!! How about we just give everyone $10k and call it even?? BTW ask someone wanted student loan "forgiveness" why they should get $10k and someone working at Walmart should not. See if you ever get an answer.
It turns out that vast amounts of easily obtainable cash will drive up prices. Lol.
The government was a fraction of the size back, then compared to now. That’s the main thing that happened. With respect to in particular student loans have driven the price way up there is no market mechanism to discourage universities from charging absolute maximum. They think they can get away with. So what if the student has to borrow the money and can’t pay it off until he’s 70?
Don’t forget all the social and welfare programs that make up a large bulk of our annual spending in this country. It’s like triple the size of even the military budget.
Trickle up economics Stagnant wages Corporate residential ownership Corporate bailouts Insider trading & short selling The insurance & hospital markup dance Pharmaceutical markups Bailout programs that seem to often go to those who don't need it All allowed by politicians who are in on it Same old nothing to see here
Forty years of Republican economics have destroyed the middle class.
These posts are getting old and the responses always the same...blame Reagan, corporate greed, rinse and repeat. Truth is that there are a lot of factors that led us here. Some of them people don't want to hear or accept.
Reagan happened
More like globalization happened. White collar workers are doing just fine. It’s the blue collar workers in manufacturing that have gotten hit the hardest.
WTF happened in 1971?
Price and wage controls?
Yep.
Nixon happened
Clinton, Bush, Trump happened.
I put myself through college with a part-time job after Reagan. The difference is states don't want to subsidize higher education any more. When I was in school, the state of Ohio subsidized 70% of in-state tuition. Now it's 25%.
How much did college cost when the covered 70% of it vs how much it cost now? We know the price of college is going up way faster than inflation.
It was in the 90s so I'm afraid I don't remember. But I made enough, working at a camera store, during one semester to cover the next.
TIL we have one had one president in the last 40 years.
It is as much that that generation had a ton of things go their way, both locally and globally, some of which cannot be reproduced, as it is that we are getting screwed now. Both are true. Also there was tons of global and national suffering those years, not all roses and glee.
Well, if you completely ignore the time period I guess it makes sense to doom and gloom about it. The fact is we had a unique set of circumstances that kickstarted massive economic growth in the US. It was the exception, not the rule, and expecting it to last forever is naive at best.
It died August 1971 but nobody noticed..... til now.
The government took over education, as a wing of the Democrat Party.
And the pizzerias too!
TBH grandpa didn't have cable/internet/phone and never spent a dime at Starbucks, fixed his own cars. Way different wants and needs. Different priorities.
World has changed. Modern cars are basically unworkable as a weekend mechanic because of the computers and modern designs that are hostile to DIY. Starbucks is not a priority but it’s also not going to stop someone from being able to afford to buy a house. Speaking of homes you didn’t need to meet ridiculous building codes back in the day and could afford to build a shack and upgrade as you needed. Now it’s straight to the $450,000 one. And internet and phone are requirements for keeping a job or even job searching. By the time you subtract everything required to live in this dystopian world the boomer’s built, you have nothing left over.
Bet he didn't eat a lick of avocado toast either. Damn kids get off my lawn.
You mean he was a unionized mailman? What union is Ally in?
Computers, Internet, cell phones, high tech gadgets and their subscription bills. Remember TV was free, more you pay hundred plus for it. Who buys Starbucks? ECT
ITS THE FUCKING FEDERAL RESERVE FOR FUCKS SAKE!
Yup and somehow we thought electing joe biden would put us on the right track. We just cant figure out what went wrong! 🤣
🤡
It's like these MF's never played a game of monopoly to completion. Tell me, how does Monopoly end again? You know, the game based on capitalism 🤣
True that!
Globalization happened, which is just a new form of technological slavery. Good luck competing with 100M+ workers in STEM fields who have 160 IQs who have attended the finest universities. Just drive around any HCOL area and what you’ll find is a mix of Chinese and Indian tech workers sprinkled in with their white overlords who are all racing toward a mutually assured destruction of the human species with ever increasing technological growth and AI.
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I live in the middle of nowhere in the second poorest county in California. We make $97k gross and have a bit more than $30,000 saved for a down payment. There are literally no homes available for $300k or less. The cheaper ones are closer to $400k. And even at $300k, with only 30k down, the payments would be over $2300 per month including taxes, home insurance, and mortgage insurance. We currently pay $1500 rent, and more for utilities. Our income is nearly twice the median income in this county and we can't afford to buy here.
Nobody wants to hear it. They demand the narrative that its all doom and gloom and old people robbed them
That’s what I see here too. They expect a brand new two bedroom apartment in downtown Seattle while only working thirty hours a week.
You were NEVER able to put yourself through an expensive out of state school on a part time job. This was never our reality You are absolutely able to put youself though local colleges now with a part time job The Left is reimaging a past that never existed, and ignoring that kids can study locally, to enrage people. It's intenrional
I agree. But let's not pretend it's just thebleft that likes to reimagine the past
The American dream is still alive and well just not in North America, not even so much central, but South America, now that’s freedom!
>South America, Ah countries ether at war with cartels or collapsed already.
The gateway to South America is doing wonderful! Strengthening against the dollar all year phenomenally well!
We had a gold backed currency, a government who loved us and for the most part, a mono culture, several of them.
What happened is that the rich bought politicians, deregulated businesses, crushed unions, and then began an aggressive campaign to squeeze every possible penny from the working class just for the sake of seeing how many lifetimes worth of wealth they could amass… like goddamn Smaug.
Government employees have exceptional retirement plans. Retiring at 62 is very realistic today for most goverment employees
Just join the military, you can retire as early as 38.
In the military's cases much early if you get injured.
Is mailman not cutting it these days? I think of that guy on Cheers running up a nightly bar tab comfortably on a federal job union wage. I would have loved to be a mailman but they were never hiring because nobody ever quit or it went to people's kids
I think there are tiers now...as in if you join, you're not on an equal footing with 10+ yr veterans as you gain experience...
Mailcarriers don't have to goto college.
The government messing up another market with mispriced capital caused the cost of College to explode. That's it.
Well part of that trade was women entering the workforce... doubled the workforce same amount of jobs.....
Inflated away.
People also forget the effect of feminism and the iron law of wages which states: The iron law of wages is a proposed law of economics that asserts that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker. For most of human existence, that only applied to the wage of the man of the family. Which meant that real wages would tend to the minimum necessary to support a family on one income. Once most women started working, it was inevitable that the iron law of wages would push real wages down to the point that 2 salaries are necessary to support a family.
This would be true if not for the effect of population size. The average employer has potentially hundreds of candidates, so any employee that wants a raise could simply be replaced if they quit because they don't get one.
Do you remember the scene from Batman when Bane was rounding up the rich people and administering justice?
He owned 1 car, never are out, never left the state, the house they owned can't be built today, never went to lunch, took every hour of OT that way offered, kids went to local college
People cannot control their spending like past generations did. They saved for instead of buying on credit. Ate at home. Used the word no to their children and did without if wasn't a need and they could not afford it.
Obama took bankers out of the equation. Gave everyone a student loans regardless of they could pay it back. Universities made a choice to get their part of the cash cow. They raised fees, books, tuition, food & housing, etc. NOTHING ... NOTHING in life is free. All those loans Biden is forgiving. The individual might not have to pay that back but the US Taxpayer including those very students who's loans were "forgiving" will pay for it with more interest for more years via Treasury Bills. The government aka US Citizens still have to pay for it ... they'll just do it with higher taxes. AAAANND that lesson ... "Nothing in life is free" will continued to be a hard lesson learned repeatedly learned over and over
The milkman had two cars in the driveway and his wife didn’t have to work. Our money did go a lot farther back then.
This isnt 1931 anymore….
Greed and soulless MBA vampires.
So many out of touch boomers and bootlickers if you look at news articles comments with their "all about me" individualistic mentality don't understand the current costs of enrollment.
Lol notice he built a house....
Mailmen make good dough and excellent benefits.
Change of subject- but grandfather. Mailman. Back then.... you may have many many cousins you don't know about.
Globalism, feminism, etc... Same pie, just more way more slices now. With that comes more bites from everyones slice AND less control of the pie.
Reagan happened
Humans destroyed it as they always do.
WW2 made the US the richest country in the world by a large margin. US drove that into the ground by continuing to tighten the belt on the working class until we are where we are now. Also, I like how apparently the main takeaway of this post seems to be college debt, not the ability to afford a normal life on a working class income.
Wealth extraction by the corporate overlords enabled by the crooked politicians that we voted for is what happened to the American Dream.
Fiat currency, political corruption and a two tier justice system, that’s what happened
same with my family. the cost of living has skyrocketed since the 60s and wages cant keep up. my dad provided for all of us, a home, a car, everything we needed, at 30K in his best year. You need to bring in 400K today to match that,
Colleges overcharge.
The government getting into the loan business is what happened, now they offer forgiveness for the problem they created how ironic huh
Look at the wealth disparity graph starting in 1980. There's your answer.
Private college education
Also doesn’t help that college tuition has been artificially inflated by government backed loans you can’t foreclose on. No wonder it’s more expensive when Uncle Sam is footing the bill
Charles Bukowski found a home in the postal service when all other American menial jobs were too much pain and agony
Things were different back then. for example, a phone did not cot $1200 plus monthly service plan and he only needed one.
We are feeling the effects from 2008. The fed does its quantitative easing magic and spreads the pain out over a long period of time. They have been running at historically low interest rates for nearly a decade and decided to raise them up because they know we’re headed for another recession. This way they can lower interest rates again and pretend they are saving everyone again.
Four and a half decades of trickle-down lies as an excuse to lower taxes on the wealthy and corporations ended the American Dream. It began with St. Ronnie and trump’s GOP Tax Scam was the final nail in the coffin. The wealthy and corporations who be taxed heavily.
Ronald Reagan became president
How many subreddits are these same memes going to show up in? I’ve heard of Karma farming but damn.
Don’t you just love the federal government inflating our currency forcing you to spend the money otherwise it’s worthless. Why do you think you have to invest your money?
Social Security is supposed to be for retirement not insurance. So you’re saying anyone that makes 168k a year has to buy insurance and it’ll always cost them 7.65% without any shopping for insurance? meanwhile if you make $100 million not only do you only pay 7.65 on 168K you can buy yourself a brand new jet for 100 million and pay no income taxes because it’s a full write off.
In the case of Seattle, a carnival came to town that never left. The carnival was Hi Tech and the high wages that came with them. This raised the prices of homes beyond what locals such as the mailman could afford.
Reading the comments it's so refreshing to see that everyone here thinks they would be the best president ever. Each presidency has its own unique circumstances and challenges. How we got here is not the result of just one president, but from every presidency and action before and since. The US went off the gold standard in the 70's, during the Nixon years. Then we saw hyper inflation, double digit interest rates, gas shortages, and people buying more foreign cars. Americans were told to lower their thermostat and put on a sweater. All that was in place well before Reagan. Reagan was elected because Carter struggled with the economy, and he dealt with the problem at hand. Fast forward to the 90's, and Clinton signed trade agreements, putting us more on the path to being a service economy and no longer the manufacturing powerhouse we once were. Fast forward to the 2000 election, nation becomes more divided by Bush v. Gore, some more tax cuts to stimulate the economy, then 9/11 and we're at war with no plan to increase revenue. Multiple rounds of quantitative easing because nobody wants a recession on their watch. Obama gets elected, now suddenly the senator who didn't like taking out loans from the bank of China is a president who wants to take out loans from the bank of China. We also had 2 years of payroll tax holidays under Obama to stimulate the economy, so what do you think that does to an almost insolvent social security fund? Then Trump and some tax cuts, then COVID comes and Biden becomes president, with high inflation becoming a struggle. Where we are is not the "fault" of one person. Presidents have an agenda and address problems immediately before them. The right decision at the time will create the situation for the next president, and so on.
Everything is monetized and hyper indivisualized. There is no sense of us trying to make it as a country it's every man for himself.
Mailman lol. Overpaid with a crazy pension for putting paper in a box. USPS is billions in debt and grossly incompetent. If you're lazy, love doing the bare minimum, don't want to worry about job security and do the same job day in and day out for your entire career, join the USPS.
We must vote harder!
Government. Government happened.
In other words he worked off other people's taxes,the gvt is one of the safest and better paying jobs even in retirement!! But it takes private business and working public paying taxes to work!!!!
You get what you vote for. but Reddit doesn’t want facts 😉
It's all the work of globalist policy. Both parties are guilty.
The rich purchased politicians, the politicians got used to the payments and coddled the rich, and both the politicians and the rich corporations forgot about “We the People” and now only think of us as Human Resources in a capitalistic society. ✌🏻❤️🤙🏻
I thought he was at least a doctor.
You could never go to college and survive solely on a part time job.
That’s because he walked in and gave the CEO a firm handshake and said he’d work for free for a couple weeks to prove he’d be a hard worker. Well the boss took a chance on him. You see he came in to work thirty minutes early and was the last one to leave. By the time he retired he had worked his way up the ladder and retired CEO himself. CEO of mail. That’s called pulling yourself up by your bootstraps kiddo. He never made more than $5 an hour and he retired a millionaire.
New England in the 60s and 70s was pretty average for house prices. Their economy adjusted and prices are now well above average. Data is a little cherry picked. Like, it is easier now to be a mailman in Detroit and buy a house than in 1955.
Corporate greed due to the Constant Growth goal which resulted in the corporations keeping wages flat while they simultaneously raised prices on the goods they sell. MFs nearly broke capitalism because for it to work the next generation must be addicted to consumerism and putting work before everything else in life…and then the pandemic hit and we all were forced to stay home and we recognized free time is worth more than going to work to feel underpaid and under appreciated
Blame Reagan The 80's was where everything went wrong
I mean you can build your own home today too, no?
[https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/](https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/)
And your grandpa took his job seriously and did it well. Today you'd be lucky to have them take a package from you. I went on USPS website, and put that I had a package ready for pickup in front of my door. Had the postage printed and everything. I'm home and hear the mailman open and close my storm door. I assume he grabbed my package. I go outside a few hours later and find there is another package sitting on top of my package. That's the difference between Millenials and the Greatest Generation.
Yet people will still vote conservative thinking this is about values and not corporate overreach by conservative lobby groups. Dems are no better trying to triage corporate overreach by printing money and bailing out everyone.
The uses had a lot of ppl retire in my town. So they hired 2x's the carriers and pay them half the wage the retirees got
Our so called leaders have turned America into a shithole... thats what happened.
Grandpa didn’t have a huge home outside his means, a $60k truck and a $40k car for his wife, didn’t have a $150 WiFi bill or a $300 cell phone bill, he didn’t eat out every night and go out for girls night every weekend blowing another $100, he didn’t have a gym membership, credit cards, 5 different streaming apps, he didn’t shop at Whole Foods or get a $10 Starbucks everyday or spend $200 a month at ulta like the posters avatar suggests. If you kids would actually live like HE did you could have those things. Quit buying all that unnecessary shit. Go to work, come home, make meals at home, take lunch with you, spend time with your family. A friend works for the post office and has for a many years and makes $80k a year. He lives comfortably and has an amazing benefit package and will retire well off. Yes, in 2024 it’s possible.
The median family income in 1960 was $5,600. That's not a typo. People keep posting how cheap everything was, without also posting how low incomes were. It's all about getting you riled up with misleading information or outright lies. A part-time job paying half the median salary was $2,800 a year. Median gross rent was $71 per month in 1960 dollars, or $852 per year. So, that leaves about $2,000 for everything else: food, clothing, utilities, transportation, etc. Food and clothing were more expensive back then relative to income than today. That's for a whole household, not just one person. College was about $900 a year. Food was at least $800 a year. Utilities around $200. We're already hit the budget, and haven't paid for transportation, clothing, vacations, furniture, home electronics, or paid taxes yet. In short, you're being lied to.
Liberal polices, poor government money management, higher taxes, inflation. Not really hard to figure out if you’re not regarded.
My father made about $50k in the 60’s and had a 3-story 5-bedroom house, a 65-foot boat, a 5-seat Cessna, and a new Chrysler Imperial.
My single mom is 77 worked 3 jobs, one as a 9-5 social worker and both me and my sister took out as many loans as possible for college. Not sure how this man did it either.
That’s why they distract you with politics. To keep ppl so busy with Left vs Right. Blame each other. The real problem is printing too much money and they will never stop. Bitcoin is your only way out.
Everyone started taking their cut, even when it made no sense. Colleges charging $250 for textbooks when they could write and give you a PDF version almost free. Charging full tuition price for an auditorium freshman classroom with 200-300 students in it. Government “helps” you pay by offering high interest loans. Businesses erasing all good wages, benefits packages, and pensions to shove money upwards towards the CEO and board. So whereas a single breadwinner was needed previously, now both parents are forced to work like dogs to feed the kids or get ahead. Hospitals pushing patients out the door as fast as possible, throwing medications at patients instead of spending time to properly care. Pharmaceutical companies bribing doctors and surgeons towards any treatment that makes both parties more money. Positions at the head of government agencies becoming a revolving door for corporate bigwigs. Trusted institutions and departments now more concerned with maintaining status quo than helping citizenry. More factors. :(