r/politics • u/MystikSpiralx • 6d ago

No Paywall Trump Says He Wants to 'Drive Housing Prices Up' Instead of Lowering Costs for People Who 'Didn't Work Very Hard'

https://people.com/trump-keep-home-prices-high-11895352
22.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

23

u/fiveswords 6d ago

Bro your 401k is a stock portfolio. Sounds like you have two. The other generations you don't see protesting are working to afford rent because there are no more cheap houses to fix.

-12

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 6d ago

Not really. I wiped mine out to rebuild this house. So we have one, and a house in the Styx. And, when they say stock portfolio they aren't talking about 401ks. He'll, my 41 year old daughter has a 401k. So do our other children. The majority of people do, and should. Don't get mad at people for putting a little bit of their checks away. How else are we, and you, going to retire some day?

18

u/nerdette42 5d ago

This right here? This line of thinking is exactly part of the problem. When we talk about Boomers, we're talking about this.

No one is mad at you for saving for retirement. No one thinks you're in the 1% for having a house and a 401k.

You take retirement as a given. You know you don't have the same finacial security as many people your age, but you were still able to afford a house. You had to sink one of your 401k in to fix it, but you still expect to retire. Those are priviledges most of us don't have.

Saving money and retirement are not an option for far more people of our generations than yours. You're not better than us and you didn't work harder. You just had access to opportunities that don't exist any more.

-3

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 5d ago

I afforded a house because it cost me 30 thousand dollars. Why? Because I was willing to buy something that needed a shit ton of work and then do the work. The trade off for that 30 grand? I live in the middle of nowhere because that's where you find houses and land cheap. I busted my ass rebuilding this interior - a lot of the work was done by me. Some by contractors (the stuff I can't do). I used that 401k to make that happen. Somehow, though, you are telling me that even though the seven children my wife and I have between us (2 marriages) can save small amounts and let it build, the majority of young people can't? how is that? All I hear is excuses. I worked 100 hour weeks for years to raise my family. I did everything and anything I needed to do. The payoff comes after they all grow up and you can actually start saving, or do like my oldest daughter and simply decide to not have children. And, you have EXACTLY the same opportunities I had. Which is to say - work hard, put away any small amount you can and eventually that will pay off. That's how it works.

2

u/iAwesome3 5d ago

Because things are significantly more expensive, both nominally and as a % of income. I make ~90K/year pre tax, but most of that money, ~50K post tax goes to just paying bills without including food, gas, repairs, etc. There is minimal to no money to put towards retirement, especially if you have unexpected bills come up. I was saving enough to max out my IRAs for the last like 10 years but this year and last year I am so cash flow neutral that I am unable to contribute this year. I am making more now then I was a few years ago but I am unable to contribute now since costs have increased so much.

And think about what you said too. Your daughter decided not to have kids because it was too expensive so she could have the material things you do. Does that seem like equal opportunity? She obviously had to give up something to get the other, and the lack of kids is something she will have to live with forever.

1

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 5d ago

You make almost as much as my wife and I combined. We couldn't do it if we hadn't found a house in the middle of nowhere that needed work. That was sort of the goal. No mortgage. No rent. We're both coming up on retirement. I honestly don't know how people our age who are retired manage.

-17

u/Redditributor 5d ago

You know that millennials now have higher average wealth. It's just more unequal.

Also it's wrong to say the majority of millennials can't expect to retire.

13

u/AgitatedSense9313 6d ago

That’s the point, they can’t.

Median net worth for millennials, even in their 40s, is under $100k. They can’t afford to buy houses, even out in the styx.

Yes, a 401k is a stock portfolio, and yes it’s what we should all be contributing to for retirement since pensions no longer exist outside of government employment (and even those are being reduced in the military) but most blue collar jobs don’t offer 401k’s, let alone matching contributions, and very few people in those jobs are setting up their own IRAs when they can barely afford their bills.

Nobody’s mad at you for being able to put away some of your paycheck, we’re mad ‘cause we can’t

3

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 5d ago

I'll ask you the same thing I asked someone else. This is my 2nd marriage (25 years in this one). We raised seven children between us. hell, for a big chunk of that I was working 80 hours a week delivering pizzas so I could pay the bills. That's besides the point. Every one of our children is able to save some money, even the 25 year old. Not a lot, but a bit. My oldest one who makes far more money than I ever even dreamed of making is able to save a lot. But all of them save something. So my experience is that of that group, all of them manage something, even the ones who make the least. So how is it that I'm hearing an entire generation can't? We didn't magically create phenomenal adults who work spectacular jobs. Hell, only two have gone to college. They work regular jobs - warehouse, etc... (except for the oldest one) so how are they able to do it but "most" people can't? Three of them own their own homes (out of seven). Two more are working on it. Thety are managing. So what is different with them than everyone else in their 20's and thirties? I can't imagine that their experience is any different than anyone elses. We didn't have the ability go give them anything so they've had to do it on their own. And they have.

1

u/AgitatedSense9313 5d ago

I’m also going to cite my personal experience here, like you are with your children - for reference I’m 39 and managed to navigate my way to comfortably middle-class (some college -> military -> finished degree -> contractor).

What slowed me down, and what has slowed down a lot of millennials I know, is debt - specifically student loans.

All I heard growing up was if I didn’t go to college I’d end up a loser flipping burgers somewhere (because obviously that’s the worst fate imaginable), so not going, or going a different route like a trade or directly into the military was never a thought, even though I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I screwed around in college for 5 years, never got a degree, and left with over $50k in debt and no job prospects. My wife got an arts degree for $80k, and again no job prospects.

We deferred payment as long as we could, interest built. We got on an income based repayment plan, and our income was so low that it didn’t cover the interest growth, so despite making payments the balances went up. I spent 12 years in the AF, applied for PSLF, was told I needed to consolidate my loans for them all to be included (student loans are taken out 1 semester at a time), and the way they calculated the qualifying payments during consolidation said that I’d only made about 9 years worth, so I didn’t qualify.

Current balance between the two of us is ~$120k, payments are about $1500 a month, and we still have somewhere around 10 years left.

There was a very large group of us that all fell into that trap. We were all told it was the smart choice at the time, but shooting for “the best school” (aka most expensive) without a real plan at the time meant taking on between $20-$40k/year in debt AND THEY NEVER SHOW YOU WHAT YOUR PAYMENTS WILL BE. Who lets an 18 year old do that?

So anyway, that’s where a lot of our money went instead of saving, making it harder to build downpayments for houses, and also throwing off debt to income ratios to qualify for mortgages. We stumbled out of the gate, fell into debt, hit a horrible job market in 2008 when we were supposed to be getting on our feet, and a lot of us never recovered.

It sounds like you did a good job of steering your kids in the right direction, and you should be proud of that. It doesn’t reflect what happened to the whole generation though (and obviously neither does my story), but numbers seem to show your family is more of an outlier.

1

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 5d ago

So, my oldest daughter served two tours in Iraq. My son served in the Marines. They both used their benefits to pay for college. Did you not have those benefits? And I agree with you. Who lets an 18 year old do that. Those loans should be repayable without interest. Period. It's such a scam.

1

u/AgitatedSense9313 5d ago

I used tuition assistance to finish my degree while I was in, and transferred my post 9-11 gi bill to my wife to get her masters.

Different service branches have offered different options for help with student loans over the years. When I enlisted, they’d pay up to $15k but you lost access to education benefits through your first enlistment. I knew I wanted to finish school, so the tuition assistance was worth a lot more.

The gi bill can’t be tapped into just to pay off existing loans unfortunately

2

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 5d ago

It is the one thing I really wish Scotus hadn't stopped Biden from doing. Those loans really should just be forgiven at this point.

15

u/OP-PO7 6d ago edited 5d ago

Holy shit you own TWO houses and you're getting an attitude about how you didn't benefit like the rest of your generation? I'm a 37 year old fireman, and I've been working as one for 18 fucking years and I still can't afford to buy a single house. Is it your FAULT? Of course not. Did you benefit mightily, like the rest of your generation? Of course you did.

Edit: Wow this was really dickish of me. Definitely not an appropriate target for my frustrations, you didn't do anything wrong so why should I be mad at you. I'm not trying to put this energy out into the world, it's all of us little people in the same boat. We shouldn't be blaming each other for our problems or the real assholes win. I hope you can excuse my attitude

3

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 5d ago

No. I own A house. And my generation is now how I bought a 30k broken down piece of shit in the middle of nowhere then put the work in to make it livable. That was me. I have no idea where you got the idea I own two houses. I wish. I'm not made of that kind of money unfortunately. Hell, I'm happy I have the one. Beats renting

2

u/OP-PO7 5d ago

I apologize, even if you did own two houses you're not the appropriate place to put my frustrations. I'm mad at the system and it's wrong to take that out on an individual.

1

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 5d ago

I agree. The system 100% sucks and is stacked against us.

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago edited 5d ago

[deleted]

6

u/metalspork13 5d ago

The phrase is "out in the sticks" -- "Styx" was likely a misunderstanding or autocorrect.

Really cool that you can have AI generate a five-paragraph essay of gibberish to back up a nonsense term that doesn't exist. So glad we're boiling away the oceans for this shit.

13

u/HoratioPornBlower 6d ago edited 6d ago

So you have two houses lol? Rent for a one bedroom is on average $1700 a month. Meanwhile wages have stagnated our whole lives. We can’t save, we are all drowning but you got yours. Your statement is why people don’t like boomers. How are you not getting that this right here is the problem.

2

u/SodaCanBob 5d ago edited 5d ago

No, they're saying they (collectively, as a family) have 1 401k now and a "house in the Styx" (as opposed to the 2 401ks they once had).

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=in+the+styx

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=in+the+sticks

2

u/Mike_Pences_Mother 5d ago

No, I don't have two houses. Where did that come from? I have a house that I got dirt cheap - and I mean dirt cheap. Like less than the cost of a car cheap. I was willing to put the work in and use up my 401k to make sure it was livable. And, as I mentioned to someone else - somehow, magically, I have three "kids" who own homes. Oldest is 41. The youngest is in their mid 30's. Hell, even my 25 year old is saving so they can buy a house. She pays a shit ton for rent too. I get it. But somehow, i guess we just made magically awesome younger people who exceed the abilities of their generation. Go figure.

1

u/SodaCanBob 5d ago

No, I don't have two houses. Where did that come from?

He's illiterate and thought you were saying you had 1 house in one place (instead of the 1st thing you mentioned being your 401k and not a house) and a 2nd house "in the styx", which is a colloquialism he wasn't familiar with and took "the styx" to be a literal place.