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my landlord friend told me, many of her tenants earn decent salary, definitely more than her income, they can even spend $8000 or more to remodel a car or things like that, but can never save up to the 20% down payment ever.
> remodel a car What does this mean?
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I feel like Graeber's book is another (left leaning) fad to glom on to, like Piketty's book some years back. I found this book, The Price of Time by Edward Chancellor [1], very useful for understanding the development of money and debt over history. It's so detailed and clearly extensively researched. [1]: https://www.harvard.com/book/the_price_of_time/
Thanks for the rec. I’ve wanted to read “Debt” for a long time but I recently read Graeber’s book “the Dawn of Everything” and it bent the truth so much every which way to get to his POV that I won’t read another book by him.
Do you mind elaborating on why this is the case? I've read and liked some of his other work (Bullshit Jobs is a great one) and I have Dawn of Everything on my reading list -- was it due to his politics in general or because of disingenuous interpretations of the evidence?
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you have to live someplace though. Over the 30 year life of that roof it is cheap enogh but that is a large one time cost if you only are there for 5 years.
Roofs are so expensive they factor heavily into what you can sell the house for. Asphalt shingle roofs are lucky to get 20 years, cedar shingles are even worse.
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=d265e0c6ccb16526&q=col...
Not that expensive given the life of it. Mine is 15 years old and you couldn't tell it wasn't new.
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I have a house and a brokerage account that’s worth a few times my what my house is (it’s rather modest). Nothing is stopping an American from doing both other than their own priorities (and I’ve neglected areas that other people find important - I rarely travel and drive a beater car for instance; to each their own).
Pretty much. While it is mandated here, there is nothing stopping others form doing the same. On my end it is just a manner of optics. The money being put aside, I never see week to week thus it just seems like an added bonus even though it is really just a part of the pay cycle.
Unusually for these types of discussions, it seems like the US system is more socialized than the alternative in your country.
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I agree that house prices should come down. But given that you need a home, what's the difference between $1000 in rent+fees and $1000 in mortgage+taxes+fees? Normally the biggest difference between renting and buying with debt is that you can stop renting. But you're not going to stop having a home.
Just a minor nit pick, but important: When comparing the costs of renting vs owning, you need to compare rent+fees to mortgage_interest+property_taxes+fees, minus any real estate tax deductions (if you itemize). The principal portion of your mortgage payment is not an expense, it turns into your own home equity so it's money coming out of one pocket and going into the other. The interest portion is generally federal…
You need to compare both numbers, because that equity doesn't do much to help you make your payments.
“Debt is slavery” is how I’ve always thought about debt, and what I’ve taught my kids.
For low-income people, debt is slavery. For high-income people, debt is a powerful tool. The vast majority of people fall into group #1 and need to treat debts like credit cards and car payments with extreme caution.
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> You can buy better neighbors with a house, and less crime. I wish! I built a fancy house in a fancy neighborhood, and then a real a-hole bought the house next to me as his retirement home.
I feel this. Unfortunately the only surefire way to avoid this situation is to be the bigger asshole.
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You can buy better neighbors with a house, and less crime.
> You can buy better neighbors with a house, and less crime. I wish! I built a fancy house in a fancy neighborhood, and then a real a-hole bought the house next to me as his retirement home.
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It's fine to expect some people to buy a house with cash. I don't think that precludes saving for many years to do so (meaning the median income doesn't need to be $1M/yr).
Unfortunately housing prices are rising so fast that saving for years doesn't necessarily get you there, unless median income is close to ~1M by my back-of-envelope calculations, which include: - taxes (1M is close to 500K after taxes) - money that you need to cut out and put into retirement to sustain yourself from age 65-100 - living expenses and rent until you buy - real estate prices rising the whole time
Fortunately my life expectancy has dropped in the past few years!
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Kinda weird to make stuff up like that. Maybe you're confusing him with Toulouse-Lautrec, known for moral strength rather than moral intellect? Nietzsche's The Geneaology of Morals is arguably the most important treatise on christian morality in the previous century, possibly that millenium.
Nietzsche was a smart man that had a difficult personal story, and it is interesting to learn about his life. He was suspected of suffering neurological issues from syphilis... obviously not a particularly amusing subject before the invention of antibiotics. I never make stuff up unless it is obviously funny or someone makes me a liar... my neutral evil temperament usually ensures stoic honesty even when being deceiv…