I hear you. I’m not interested, but I also have been lucky enough to have pretty varied life experiences. I think back on when I was working at a convenience store for $8/hr, and I think it would’ve been fun to imagine that I could live somewhere and be in the “top tier,” and then go on to learn what that lifestyle would actually be like.
I do, however, take exception to this. If ONLY our taxes in the US went to supporting the “undeserving.” Do they really think that???
But that’s COMMUNISM!!!
The real problem is with capitalism. Capitalism is a deeply and fundamentally flawed concept. It can only work if there is significant socio economic inequality. And if you reduce inequality, capitalism pretty much instantly morphs into fascism.
You know the old proverb, fascism is nothing more than capitalism in crisis.
Damn that’s depressing. But kudos to the graph’s creators for correctly displaying Taiwan as an independent country. Although again that’s depressing, as the media here touts record economic growth last year while regular wages continue to stagnate, house prices continue to rise, and inequality spirals out of control.
They really did. I don’t. That’s why I put the term (really an Atwater-style GOP code word) in scare quotes.
Someone very wise said something I try to keep in mind: there is very little difference between you and a multi-millionaire compared to the difference between you and someone who can’t afford enough to eat.
I have been the person who couldn’t afford enough to eat. I have been the person who had to decide if they could afford to turn the heating on when outside temperatures dropped below freezing.
I don’t know who this “wise” person is, but I doubt they have ever fallen between the cracks in the rich west. Once you go there it can be hard to get back out.
Probably the best ROI for my retirement savings has been paying off my mortgage. I was lucky enough to buy in '99 before the RE bubble and paid off my modest house quickly. Paying neither rent or mortgage is a form of retirement savings that you don’t outlive. All of which is probably WHY the financial services people don’t want to count that as savings. None of them get rich simply filing payments from people paying off their mortgage.
That’s my view as well. Throughout anyone’s life, housing is going to be the largest recurring expense. The earlier one can reduce that, the better: it frees up money to be invested when one is still working and dramatically cuts the post-retirement cost of living. As you note, though, there’s a lot of luck involved in being able to do that. Though realistic expectations and frugality can help, in America’s economic structure getting a down payment and qualifying for a mortgage on even a modest home is out of reach for an ever-increasing percentage of the population.
And one doesn’t have to completely pay off the mortgage to begin getting a return on the investment. An amortizing fixed rate mortgage fixes the principal and interest part of one’s housing costs. In normal times, when the banksters aren’t creating a huge residential real estate bubble after ~10 years inflation will have raised the nominal value of the housing that you have purchased for that fixed payment. I only realized that when I found out that my parents’ 25 year old mortgage on a nice house in nice neighborhood was a fraction of the cost of my rent on an okay apartment in an okay neighborhood.
Buying a home has a non-cash dividend: the rental equivalent value of the housing it provides. It is one of the few investments that still provides a SIGNIFICANT dividend. Indeed the bubble and subsequent crash in the RE market were driven by everybody (buyers, lenders, bondholders) using RE as a means of speculating on RE prices and runaway house prices. (That long talked about “permanently high plateau,” was an illusion.
Assuming the home’s upkeep doesn’t outweigh the home-value and rent-vs-morgage-ratio dividends. Throw in furnace, water heater and appliance replacements, a renovation or two, and other major expenses not covered by insurance and the “dividend” starts to decline a lot.
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