If your parents don’t own land, then you are born into debt. Yes, the moment you are born, you are in debt. Your parents must pay rent every month. If they are lucky, they “own” a house and pay mortgage. They do not own the house until every last payment has been made. And most do not own the land. Especially if you live in the city. You may “own” a house, but not the land beneath it. And without land, you own nothing.
When you go to college, you take out more debt, bc in today’s world you pretty much HAVE to get a bachelors degree to get any kind of “decent” job with “decent” pay.
You move out of your parents house and rent an apt. More debt. Every month you pay that rent. You get a car bc you need it to get to work. Car loans. More debt. You have to buy appropriate work attire- so you spend more money – so you can work and make money.
You get “lucky” and find someone and get married. Average US wedding is 20K-30K. More debt. You decide to have kids like most people do. Yes, fewer now do so but they still do. Average cost of rearing a child to 18yo is 288K.
You see how this goes? We are born into debt. Most die in debt.
Do you know how much funerals cost? Do you know how much end of life care costs? Costs are astronomical. You can’t even die without incurring a cost. You may die, but someone else (family if you are lucky) has to pay for your funeral. So you can’t even die without incurring debt.
–>Moral of the Story: Modern life is a racket.
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I still get weird looks when I tell people “I can’t take on any more debt”, because it doesn’t compute for most of them. People are so accustomed to taking on more and more debt, and servicing that debt has been cheap (isn’t now), that they don’t realize how deep they are until they are so deep it will take decades to dig out.
My parents had a rough go round with debt, about ten years ago. They were sinking deeper and they had to say enough and negotiate out with their creditors. Seeing that though, I’ve learned so much about debt.
For example; there’s secured debt and there is unsecured debt. Unsecured debt is almost magic, yes defaulting dings your credit score, but that goes away, and there’s nothing they can do to you if you don’t pay it back. Secured debt though, like mortgages and car loans, those are advantaged the other way. If you default on your loan the bank can grab whatever you used to secure the debt.
My parents have a mortgage, I have a mortgage. Miss enough payments on either and the bank can take the whole house…. even though they only technically own a percentage of it. We had to stop doing car loans, the economics of it was so awful. Not that our alternative is any easier; we buy old vehicles for cash and fix whatever needs fixing. The newest car I’ve ever owned was a 2009 PT Cruiser.
But student debt is something else entirely. It isn’t entirely secured, if you miss a payment they can’t immediately seize some asset. There’s a limit to how much they can take, so if your car and house are under certain limits they can’t come after them.
Which is where I am. I’m as rich as I’m allowed to be by my student debt. Every dollar from here forward has to either go towards paying them off or towards investments so I can pay them off…. which just isn’t that appealing to me.
I agree about owning land though, that’s the ultimate security. I’d add that it’s better to own land outside of city limits for multiple reasons, like zoning and taxes. That’s the dream; cash out, buy land outright, cease to interact with the economy except when I have to.
…except, the govt can just seize your land whenever it wants to (eminent domain). so it beg the question, do we ACTUALLY own anything? (we do not)
They don’t do it that often, I suspect the real trick is to have some particularly cranky and litigious neighbors. If they have to kick up a struggle to get all the land surrounding mine surely they’ll go elsewhere where the people are less difficult to displace.
It’s the same story with all thieves, of course they’ll come for your stuff, that’s what thieves do. The thing is to be just difficult enough of a mark that they move on to another target. I remember a few years ago we had a problem with people breaking into houses around here, so I got a big dog and started securing all my outside doors with a deadbolt. Hasn’t been a problem since.
Which is why I’m so reluctant to give up my current house. I’m surrounded by grumpy retirees who spend all their time conspiring to make sure no one goes after their stuff. I’m sure I could find somewhere else like it, but it’d take a significant amount of effort.
you want to live in an area surrounded by grumpy retirees??
OR even if you own land, suppose you own a house in East Palestine, OH. Guess what? Your house is now worthless. You can’t sell it bc no one is going to buy it. And you get to breathe toxic air and drink contaminated water. But the government, EPA and the asshole railroad company will lie and tell you “everything is fine,” the air is fine and so is the water.
my friend’s family owned land in HI. They were natives. Had the land for generations. Guess what? They just upped and stole it. I don’t know the details but that’s what they did- and there was nothing the local people could do about it. No, it didn’t happen hundreds of years ago. It was within her grandparents generation. So I guess within the last 50-70 years or so.
If things can just be taken away, we never really owned them to begin with.
Just like “rights.” If it can just be taken away, we never had the “rights” to begin with.
well yes, eminent domain doesn’t happen often, HOWEVER, there’s lots of tactics employed by greedy corporations if they want to take over property/land.
Take this lady for example- I don’t remember her name- but she would constantly be brought up for stupid charges like not trimming her lawn and got sent to jail bc supposedly, they had given her a warning in the mail (they didn’t) and when she ignored it, she got sent to jail. Believe me, if a corporation wants your land, they will get it one way or another. Most people just don’t want to deal with the harassment. Or even if they want to, if they take you to jail, and you lose your job and fall behind on your mortgage, guess what? they get to take your house! and for pennies on the dollar. what a bargain!!
i mean yes, it’s better to own land and a house than not. definitely. But even if you do, it’s not guaranteed you’ll be able to keep it and there’s no fuckery.
it’s all a huge racket.
Thank the lucky moons, that I wasn’t born in the USA. I’ve always felt sorry for my American friend, going to college. (50k debt) The only person I know here, that has got some debt (Americans would laugh about the amount) was a man who abused heavy drugs. Glad he got better, he’s trying to sell his Star Wars collectibles to pay some back.
That thing about parents already saving up for the life of a child honestly blew my mind, the first time I’ve heard it. We have a support system. Sometimes it’s whacky and we have high taxes though.
As an apprentice you receive money to go to school, crazy aye? Half of it you pay back later. (Sometimes it’s even completely free)
Also I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to diminish your suffering by my comment.
The death part is the same here. Funerals are crazy expensive. I’ve been to a few in my lifetime and so far open caskets- my Mom already told me, she wouldn’t want that. She has her spiritual reasons but I also think she doesn’t want us to fall into large debt. It’s kinda odd, there isn’t some sort of system, to bury someone. I mean, what is one to do, just dump them in the river? It’s a part of life, so the deceased body continues to be materialistic for humanity. We’re probably the only species letting ourselves be treated this dreadfully.
Oh, I KNOW things are better in other countries, that other countries have universal healthcare and social systems to help it’s citizens. That’s why I’m so angry and bitter. There’s just no way to make it here. In other countries, if you’re down and out, lose your job, get injured, etc, there are programs in place for you to get better. And once on your feet, you’re a contributing member of society again. Here, if you’re down and out, you just get kicked in the face, and told to “pull yourself up by the bootstraps.”
it’s shit over here, and yet American’s are so dumb and so brainwashed that more than half the populace still think “America is #1!” and “America is great,” and it’s “the land of opportunity.” It is not. Not since 1980 when the rich have taken over our government and now writes all the rules and regulations in their favor, further screwing the poor and middle class. It’s worse when people don’t come after the rich but instead come after the poor- like it’s our fault when the system is hijacked and the rich have screwed us over.
True murica has it bad with patriotism. Moving would itself cost money again :/ It’s always awkward for people to write a screenplay for the whole nation, when they can’t even relate to the struggles of being poor, or maybe having forgotten what it was like.
Me voting a few weeks ago, literally did nothing, everyone kept voting for the same parties again. I voted 3 smaller ones, so maybe there would be some sort of change. The christian one had the most votes yet again, after one scandal where the political party screwed with Internet safety rights, when they have no idea how tf the Internet even works. Young people actually told their grandparents not to vote for them and they’ve had a crash in votes. I’m sad, that the passion went away. We are all so tired, of fighting with nothing to be shown in the end except corruption. As a ‘young’ person I’m tired. Every change seems to only make things worse. My image of the world is so so bad.
After 2020 the world got somehow even more effed up! Question, you’ve mentioned 1980, was that when the wall street boomed? Is that the reason for all of this?
No, 1980 is when Reagan happened. He fucked the poor and middle class. That was the beginning of the end. All the Presidents after Reagan weren’t much better, and most continued on that path, toppling the poor and middle class. But Reagan was the start of it all.
Oh alright :/ thanks for the info, we can all dabble in some history from time to time
Reagan cut taxes for the super rich, from 73% down to just 28%, and working people moved from the middle class to becoming the working poor.
Reagan did WAY worse than just cutting taxes, his Reagonomics fucked over the masses, and we suffer to this day. This article is too nice to him, but does provide a good context on taxing the mega rich and a thriving middle class. Take a read.
https://www.salon.com/2014/04/19/reaganomics_killed_americas_middle_class_partner
Wow, this was pretty interesting, I’ve actually read the whole thing :O How does one in their right mind decide to make stinkin’ rich people even more rich? I mean they have the power to do some solid investments, to make even more dough, which hires yet again all sorts of people, without them ever getting to the good cake.
You know, as humans even if everyone were to learn the exact same things, work the exact same job, we would all still lead vastly different lives. Thus different amounts of money to our names. We’d still be equal, ’cause inequality means, we wouldn’t get the same chances.
My city just spend 53 Million on an Elephant house!! I mean what the hell, all love to animals but they couldn’t give a rats arse about the financial aspect, we’ve stomped out of the ground. It just frustrates me, to hear these things, ’cause we’ve got enough issues as is, where money would be all too helpful.
Or did you hear about the Berlin airport? It ate all of our taxes for 14 years!!!! 1,9 Billion turned to 5,9 Billion. Like bruh…