- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28867930
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Trump just hatched a plan to lower mortgage rates, because clearly that’s why no one can afford housing.
They know full-well we can’t afford housing because they refuse to pay higher wages, but that’s money flowing the “wrong” way, so that’s not going to happen as long as the billionaires hold the reins.
What’s the “plan”?
Get the fed to lower rates. It’s why he’s attacking Powell now, he’s not lowering them fast enough.
It’s a stupid as shit plan, cause this is the only lever the federal government has to pull for a recession and pulling it early causes increased inflation, but Trump ain’t much of one of those thought-havers.
It also won’t even work, in a more direct, mechanical sense.
The Fed lost control of the actual interest rate months ago now.
Because we also have an ongoing credit/liquidity crisis, because of how much fraud has been going on Wall Street, and we’re also having a currency crisis, because the Japanese carry trade is is unwinding, and foreign nations are buying less of our debt, but our need to issue it is skyrocketing.
So… debt crisis, liquidity crisis, currency crisis… all at the same time.
(By the way the government is gonna shut down again, Jan 30th, unless they figure out another emergency budget. So… get ready for that…)
Those things forced, and continue to force, actual rates outside of the channel the Fed sets for rates, they force rates higher.
Oh and because the interest rate the Fed sets, or tries to, doesn’t actually just, directly change mortgage rates.
Mortgage rates are set by banks, who look at … the above bond market and rates which I just described, along with many other things.
Oh and finally… mortgage rates also don’t directly correlate very well to … actual home prices.
They correspond to regular payments on a mortgage. Not… the amount you’re taking out a mortgage on.
See this is all a bit more complicated than Dementia Don can comprehend.
He just wants a big mac, a participation trophy, and people telling him he’s a good boy.
… he bankrupted multiple casinos.
What is happening now is just, duh, obviously, what would happen if you made this idiot President.
Again.
He actually understands nothing 💀💀💀
Look out! Those spooky skeletons are chasing your comment!!!
I assume it is either a concept of a plan or actually something that makes it even worse while dressed up as something that sounds positive. It is always one of those two things with Trump.
Is it the 50 year mortgage scam?
Probably.
Mainly yes wages and houses that were 150k like 6 years ago now costing 500k is definitely a major issue, but I have heard that the interest rates are stopping people from selling because they can’t justify picking up a new much higher rate even if they wanted to downsize/move.
I think a lot of boomers might sell if the interest rate can go down, but who knows if that will actually affect prices… They might just pull some greedy b.s “I only sell at max price or hold it for the kids.”
They might just pull some greedy b.s “I only sell at max price or hold it for the kids.”
Pretty sure that’s what most people aim for.
Clearly Americans need more debt.
It really gets so old. The only way to avoid housing costs being insane is multi generational living or having a bunch of roommates. Ironically, this allows for better community activism which is why they fought so hard for individual family homes after WW2. It’s rough that capitalism always allows for short sighted idiots to be the ones that excel.
multi generational living or having a bunch of roommates
These are the same thing, except that you’re related to your roommates in the first case and may or may not be in the second.
Eh, might be splitting hairs, but multigenerational living can look a bit more like a coop apartment than just having roommates.
Had a discussion with my dad about the concept and it’s captured his imagination recently, but in his mind it’s a tri-or-quadplex currently owned by someone renting out each unit, and having him and my mom in one, my grandparents in the other, and up to two interested familial subunits in the others (👋, maybe my brother or interested aunt/uncle/cousin).
I was personally thinking about one of those older big heritage properties that folks aren’t interested in due to the labour + rules involved for one family unit (which is closer to the roommate model), didn’t consider the tri/quadplex approach but kind of dig it. Need to learn more about what’s involved to prod further (was firmly in the ‘probably just gonna rent until I die’ camp, so there’s lots about real estate and coop ownership I need to learn).
That’s true. It’s a little more risky to buy a house with random roommates, but I get what you’re saying.
1994, I paid $225 for a two bedroom duplex with a carport and a yard. Was it a shithole? Yes. Was it a two bedroom duplex I could afford as a student while fixing PCs on the side for fixed income retirees? Also yes.
I am paying 800 a month for a similar shitty duplex with a gravel drive way but in the middle of nowhere land.
And corporate landlords that form duopolies and then price fix.
Just build more housing!
YIMBY=good NIMBY=bad
That’s literally illegal.
We have to fix the zoning code first.
That’s very clearly part of the “building housing” process.
Yes, but only in the sense that it’s a prerequisite to it.
The point is that it’s not just about waiting for developers to do their thing; it requires political action from the general public. You, each person reading this, have to get off your butt and help make it happen by lobbying your local reps for zoning reform.
i say the greedy landlords are likely to be corporate ones or RICH ones.
Downvoting this because it does not belong in this sub. Blaming one of the seven deadly sins for poor social outcomes is talk that belongs in a religious sub, like those dedicated to Christianity or Communism.
Neoliberals see this sort of “greed” more as straightforward common sense - after all, if two renters want to rent a unit, and one can pay $100 and the other will pay $150, of course you will rent to the person who is willing to pay more. The people who criticize this sort of logic, I imagine, think of themselves as inhabiting the role of the poorer renter - but in the real world, they could just as easily end up in the position of the richer renter who now must navigate a bizzare renting landscape where they might not be able to find a place to live even if they are willing to pay more. Similarly, if two potential hires with identical skills apply for a job, of course you will hire the one willing to work for less.
Neoliberals, on the other hand, think about things for more than 2 seconds and ask questions about what the actual cause of rising housing prices or stagnating wages. “Greed” is a constant - landlords were greedy 10 years ago just as much as they are today, so we can’t possibly say that “greed” is the cause of inflated rents. Instead, we consider what policies or market forces led to this situation (and importantly, we gather evidence to determine what is causing them), and then we consider various proposals for courses of action to correct the matter. For example, rising housing costs may be driven by more people wanting to live alone, growing populations in in-demand cities, NIMBY policies which restrict the construction of new housing, localized housing monopolies, or any number of other things. From there, we might say that we should liberalize laws around housing construction, increase subsidies for poor people to afford housing or for developers to build affordable housing, investigate anticompetitive practices between large landlord corporations and throw their leaders in jail if we find they have been breaking the law, or tax vacant or underutilized land in urban areas to incentivize the owner to develop or sell the land rather than speculating.
The other reason I dislike this post is because it implies that good personal finance advice is irrelevant to people today. It isn’t. Obviously things are worse for people today than they were in previous decades, but being financially well off isn’t a discreet state that is either true or false. You can be better or worse off financially by every dollar you have access to. It is crazy to have someone argue that it makes good financial sense for them to order door dash 3 nights per week “because I’m broke either way, so why not enjoy myself?” Leaving aside for a second that whether or not someone delivers food to your front door isn’t a good metric for a happy and fulfilling life, being “broke” is not a static state. This person will discover this once they start trying to not be broke. The difference between being $5,000 and $15,000 in credit card debt isn’t nothing. In fact, it is something very specific - it is $10,000! Yeah, not eating fancy avocado toast might not be the difference between owning or not owning a house, but it could be the difference between being able to pay for a car repair out of pocket or having to take on debt to take care of it and then needing to dig yourself out of the debt hole.
This doesn’t diminish the need to create policy-level solutions to address wages or housing affordability. But jfc, yes, you should practice sensible personal finance. No average individual can really control what the billionaires or politicians do - but they can 100% take control of their personal financial descisions and end up way, way better off in 10 years time if they just make reasonable descisions.
You can’t budget your way out of poverty. I hope you appreciate the life that lets you not know that.
You seem to be trying to make this into some kind of moralistic gotcha. But, well, I’m going to ignore that because it isn’t related to my point, which is that regardless of your financial status, making good financial decisions results in better outcomes than making bad financial decisions.
For example, suppose you are living on minimum wage, renting an apartment for 50% of your monthly income. But then, because you are a strawman in an internet argument, you decide to set the other half of your money on fire each month, and meet the remainder of your monthy expenses by accruing debt. I don’t think it should be controversial to say that this is a bad idea. Setting your money on fire and not setting it on fire result in two very different, very tangible outcomes which will come to fruition in not too long. Note that I am not saying that the “don’t set your money on fire” option is going to lead to fabulous riches and a Lambo. Success here could simply be keeping your head above water, or slowing your slide into debt while you try to figure something else out - which doesn’t sound very appealing! But it sounds a heck of a lot more appealing than accumulating endless debt, tanking your credit score, losing your ability to take on more debt, losing your apartment when you fall behind on rent, not being able to find a new apartment anymore because you now have terrible credit, and moving back in with your abusive parents who smell like cabbage. Yeah, you are deciding between bad and worse, but the obvious choice is “bad” and the obvious way to get there is “don’t set your money on fire.”
50% on rent. 40% on food and utilities. 15% on a cell phone. You’re already going into debt.
So no phone then. All you do is work, eat meagerly, and sleep. Your clothes are aging but you can’t replace them. You have no friends, but that’s ok you can’t afford to do things with them anyway. You pray inflation stays at zero and you never get sick.
At this point, you choose debt or suicide because this isn’t a life.
So… you’re on team “set half your money on fire” then…? Because if your point is “I’m so poor, pity me!”, then you should know that I won’t, because I don’t like being emotionally manipulated.
As for your “choice” - you are describing being poor in a developed nation. As a resident of a developed nation, you are already richer than about half the world’s population, and are richer than pretty much every human who ever lived more than 100 years ago. Given that all those people weren’t/aren’t offing themselves at an astonishing rate, we can conclude that your financial situation is not the cause of your suicidal ideation. As someone who’s been there before, I can tell you that it is probably more about social isolation. Sorry you aren’t feeling great - the solution is to move in with some friends and make dinner together. At the very least you’ll save money on rent, even if you still want to kill yourself.
I’m not asking you to pity these people. I’m asking you to recognize that we’ve set up a system where some portion of the population absolutely is destined to fail and there’s nothing they can realistically do about it.
For some portion of the population, “man up and tough it out” is not a reasonable answer.
And I’m not sure why you’re thinking this is about me. I’ve got friends and family and money and health. I also have a realistic view of reality and numbers. And the reality is, for a lot of people, these numbers don’t line up.
I’m asking you to recognize that we’ve set up a system
I explicitly addressed this in my original post when I said:
This doesn’t diminish the need to create policy-level solutions to address wages or housing affordability.
absolutely is destined to fail
My point is that “failure” is not a singular state. I have repeated this several times. If you are “destined to fail” then following good rules of personal finance is even more important to you than to someone who has some extra cash but is sad that they won’t be a homeowner. Every good financial descision that someone living with the budget you described makes is a decision that is keeping them housed and fed for longer. This is simple math.
I think you’re still not getting my point.
Some people are positioned to fail and no amount of good behavior or savings will stop that.
Do you agree with that statement?
The other reason I dislike this post is because it implies that good personal finance advice is irrelevant to people today
I overall agree with what you’re saying, but I think this post might be referring more to advice coming from a place of ignorance of the current reality. If you’re trying to tell someone how to manage their life when you don’t actually have experience of what they are facing, it can be less than helpful and not very supportive. Also, at some point “here is how you can optimize your outcomes in a largely hopeless situation” isn’t very helpful either; if 90% of your income is going to pay rent, information about how to optimize the way you spend the remaining 10% is probably the wrong thing to be focused on.
I find everything you said absurd but it is constant with neoliberalism
You aren’t wrong—this post is very memey, only tangentially touches on the housing crisis (which is definitely relevant to this community) and oversimplifies the issues at-hand.
Despite that, I left it up because there has been at least some good discussions to come out of it. Were this community to have more activity, I would be more strict with what is posted and ask it be posted in the community discussion thread instead. As it is, we don’t have a high volume of users or posts so as long as things are generally related to liberalism, economic policy, and internationalism I generally leave those posts up.
I appreciate your logic as a mod here, and support it. I wasn’t implying the post should be removed - just arguing that it was contradictory to many of the fundamental assumptions of neoliberalism.
Bad take imo. You don’t control any of that, but you do control how financially educated you are, and despite the “greedy landlords” it can still make a huge difference. There are still a LOT of people who buy basic items on payment plans, for example.
Based on inflation? Really?
Either this is true and someone lived for like 35 years in a place, or it’s an anti landlord load of crap.
There are plenty of honest reasons to be against landlords without having to invent them.
She could be talking about a 30 year change.
Im 40. When I was 20 I rented my first apartment for $300.
That was 2005.
That apartment is now renting for $700. Rural Illinois.
So that’s just in 20 years. In rural areas.
In cities it’s been way worse.
