Are you saving for your retirement?

[Baby Gorilla]

Conspriacy....

This post is interesting. My generation is the first generation in New Zealand history to have a lower standard of living than their parents, so this isn't just an American phenomenon.

Call me paranoid, but HanzNZ, this is what the combination of bankers and socialism results in. Mass poverty.

The best US economy I've seen was in the Regan years. Yes, people have made more money since then, but the cost of living was much higher.

Americans are working harder and longer for much less money. When it hits rock bottom, it gets a little better, and people sing like it's the good ol' days. Wrong. They are conditioning you to accept less. Push the people down until they are about to snap then ease off so they thing things are returning to "prosperity."

To deal with the low wages and high cost of living in the USA, more and more companies send stuff overseas to market a cheaper product. In full circle, that costs American jobs.

Within 50 years (if America even has that long), the banking institutions will own all property. Most everyone will be renters because you can never afford to buy a home nor could you do much with your property if you could buy it outright.

This isn't an American phenomenon....it's happening globally. The cost people pay in Europe for stuff is outrageous....all compensating for high wages which compensate for heavy taxation imposed to pay for a boondogle of government programs.

 

[Lao Tzu]

My friend is in a well paying job, no kids, but tells me he can't "afford" to save for a house

Needs are relative. When my brother was in grad school, living with his wife in ohio they lived on about $1050 a month post tax income for the both of them. They made about $1800 post tax income between them. Sadly (for me at least), they blew the money they saved on a honeymoon. i've always considered trips a waste of money, but thats just me.

His life wasn't that bad either. They had a clean apartment, clean furniture, 2 cars, medical insurance, the internet. My only problem was their food. It was fucking spaghetti every other day, it would make me vomit.

 

[ZKaudio]

my roommate has a trust that will mature at 270mil.... can you say frustrating? mooch time.

 

[Lao Tzu]

my roommate has a trust that will mature at 270mil.... can you say frustrating? mooch time.

what the fuck does he need a roommate for then?

 

[HansNZ]

Re: Conspriacy....

Call me paranoid, but HanzNZ, this is what the combination of bankers and socialism results in. Mass poverty.

The best US economy I've seen was in the Regan years. Yes, people have made more money since then, but the cost of living was much higher.

Americans are working harder and longer for much less money. When it hits rock bottom, it gets a little better, and people sing like it's the good ol' days. Wrong. They are conditioning you to accept less. Push the people down until they are about to snap then ease off so they thing things are returning to "prosperity."

To deal with the low wages and high cost of living in the USA, more and more companies send stuff overseas to market a cheaper product. In full circle, that costs American jobs.

Within 50 years (if America even has that long), the banking institutions will own all property. Most everyone will be renters because you can never afford to buy a home nor could you do much with your property if you could buy it outright.

This isn't an American phenomenon....it's happening globally. The cost people pay in Europe for stuff is outrageous....all compensating for high wages which compensate for heavy taxation imposed to pay for a boondogle of government programs.

New Zealand's economic woes are the result of thatcherist type economic reforms. Before you accuse me of being biased I have to tell you that even people on the right now recognise that thatcher/reagan style economic structures are not appropriate for a small economy like ours.

Basically NZ went all free market post 1984. By the end of the 1990s our economy had been stagnant for years, we had a huge student loan crisis, we had the most liberal trade policies, yet major markets like the USA and Europe continued to put tariffs on our goods.

The parties on the right are now struggling because even former right wingers and business people who would never have voted for the Labour party here now support it in its policies of government intervention in the economy.

A country like the USA can grow just on the weight of its own economic momentum. A country like NZ at the end of the earth with a small economy needs some form of central planning. This is just our own experience. (btw, Reagan's policies were Keynesian.)

Your comment about more and more people becoming tenants, not home owners is true In New Zealand too. Our rates of home ownership are not as low as the USA's but they are declining. Probably less than 60% of NZers will live in their own home by the end of this decade. The student loan crisis is partly responsible for this because people with these debts are being declined mortgages.

 

[Baby Gorilla]

Property....

That's the downer.

In the modern world, power flows from those that have the economic wealth.

The only way for common people to have wealth is to own established companies (which own property) or to own their own property.

Why do you think home ownership is under such subtle attack in the world?

In the USA, the average net worth of an American who does not own property is about $7,000. You can't raise the collateral to open a busines or do anything with that net worth.

Many "own" property, but really, the bank "owns" it. Until the mortgage is paid off, and with recent economic times, people are stuggling to not default on mortgages. Even if we had a mass of defaults on mortages and banks didn't kick people into the streets, the banks would prosper. Letting people stay in homes but charging "rent" for the property....likely with a boilerplate provision requiring the "tennant" to maintain the property at their own expense for the bank's benefit....just like in the mortgage contract.