Homes Cost Too Much! Everything Costs Too Much!

[MineralMan]

Why, I remember the time when I bought a cute little cottage in a small California town near a Pacific Ocean bay for just $20,000. I lived in that house for 30 years. I fixed it up to become an adorable little beach town cottage because I loved living there and because I could write magazine articles about all of the remodeling and decorating jobs I was doing.

But now, the cost of a house in my new state of Minnesota is much, much higher. My wife and I paid $240,000 for a townhouse in a four home quad, just last year. 12 times what I paid for that first house. Outrageous! How is that possible? I need to think about that for a bit.

...thinking...thinking...thinking...

Oh, wait...never mind. I just remembered. In 2004, I sold that $20,000 cottage for $337,000 dollars. And it was the cheapest home that sold in that little beach town that year. My wife and I moved to Minnesota, and bought a much bigger house there for $174,000. That's the one we sold last year to buy our current place, after living in it for 17 years. It sold for $209,000. Not much of an increase, but there was that real estate slump in there, and it wasn't in a particularly desirable neighborhood.

Everything costs more now than it did back in 1974, when I bought that first house. In 1974, for example, a brand new 1975 Ford Pinto cost just $2292. A small car, to be sure, and not a very desirable one. Now, a brand new 2021 Chevy Trax, another small, unpopular car, cost us $24,900 less than a year ago. Outrageous.

In 1974, I could fill up that Pinto for $0.53.9 per gallon. Now, many people are paying $5.39 per gallon for gasoline.

Back in 1974, the minimum wage was about $1.60 per hour. Where I am living now, there are many entry-level jobs that pay $16.00. Neither was or is enough for a family to live on. I don't think the minimum wage was ever enough for a family to live on.

Funny how that works, isn't it? Inflation. Things cost more and more. Wages lag behind inflation.

It's not fair. But, it has never been fair.

It's a struggle. It has always been a struggle.

[DenaliDemocrat]

1. Inflation has been held artificially low since W was in office

Mostly because old money hates inflation. We just need to see wages increase.

[MineralMan]

2. Wages always lag, I think.

[RKP5637]

3. Absolutely!!! n/t

[Amishman]

30. wages lagged for a generation because the labor market was never tight for long

With Covid and the stock market jumping, those close to retirement went for it in huge numbers, and power is finally shifting back towards the employee. We're seeing huge wage growth at the bottom of the pay scale, and that will start pushing into other areas soon.

Employers are not accustomed to this. Some are out of touch, trying the same '2% is a good raise!' BS they always used, and aren't understanding why people are leaving. They're having trouble filling openings at the same pay as before, and whining that no one wants to work. People do want to work - just not for shitty pay if they have other options.

I'm seeing this in IT, openings can't be filled but they're still unwilling to grow talent internally and pay well enough to retain. Instead they want more H1Bs.

[MineralMan]

33. Yes. The balance between greed and need is uneven

with employers. Eventually, it will even out, I suppose.

[Quakerfriend]

4. And, things used to last a lot longer too! n/t

[MineralMan]

5. Oh, not so much.

It's nothing these days for a new car to go 100,000 miles without needing any major repairs. Not so with cars made in 1974.

[Quakerfriend]

11. Oh, how interesting.

I never knew that!

[MineralMan]

13. Yup. A car made in 1974 will need a valve job every 10-20,000 miles.

The engine might need a complete overhaul at 50,000 miles. Also, carburetors need rebuilding from time to time. Today's cars are built to run for about 100K miles without a major service. That saves lots of money and time, but it also means that by the time that service is needed, it will cost more than the car is worth in many cases.

[former9thward]

16. Yes, good points.

But in the 70s you could do quite a bit of the work on the car yourself. So it did not cost that much. Now DIY on cars is very difficult.

[MineralMan]

19. Well, you could if you had the necessary skills.

Everyone else took them to a shop to have the work done.

But you're right about the new cars. Even diagnosing a problem requires specialized equipment now. But, if you do the regular routine maintenance, you can count on a new car to be just fine for about 100,000 miles, frankly. If you buy some new car brands, you'll start out with a 5-year, 60,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty.

On the downside, cheap used cars are very likely to break down and be very, very expensive to fix. That is a real problem if you can't buy new cars. A huge problem, really. New cars are designed to last for 100K miles. After that, you're likely to be out of luck.

[Mr.Bill]

72. Cars are much better now, definitely.

But they are priced accordingly.

[brooklynite]

6. Real Estate is less driven by general inflation, and much more by demand.

In the days of your lovely cottage, housing in NYC was much cheaper because the city was on the decline. Today, everyone wants to live here and that pushed prices up. I get cold calls every week from RE agents with clients ready to provide all cash offers for our townhouse.

[MineralMan]

7. Yeah, real estate goes its own way, up to a point.

However, over the long term, it seems to match general inflation pretty well, looked at with a broad view, rather than a localized view.

[Wounded Bear]

8. There has been a heluva lot of speculation in the real estate market lately...

Much of it by hedge fund managers who have nothing better to do with their ill gotten gains. That artficially drives prices up far more than just the housing demand by middle income folks that drives normal inflation.

Now, what passes for "affordable housing" requires 6 figure incomes or higher.

[MineralMan]

9. Depends where you're looking, really.

Most home sales are made to individual homebuyers, not speculators. There is some of that speculation, for sure, but most homes get sold to families, who move into them.

As for the income required to buy a home, you're partly right, of course. Household incomes in the low six figures aren't all that uncommon these days, either. It's harder for first-time homebuyers, of course, but that has always been difficult, as well.

Buying that $20,000 house in 1974 required a family loan. We couldn't qualify for a bank mortgage. We paid the house off in just a few years, though, since our income rose. We bought that house shortly after graduating from college, so, our income and credit history weren't good at the time.

It has always been difficult to get started in buying a home. Always.

[haele]

89. However, Apartments and Mobile Home parks are being bought by speculators.

And those two types of housing are typically "starter" housing for young families and singles leaving home for the first time.
That's a lot of the housing issues especially in California cities, where Black Rock or any number of other investment companies buy a older multi-family home property, kick out long time residents because they're "renovating", then double or triple the rent to bring in young professionals who are priced out of houses that are being bought by VBROs for cash.
And the local developers keep building luxury apartment towers to make a profit on their investment. Hundreds of luxury condominium 2 bedroom apartments, going for $3k -$4k a month, a good number of them still empty.

Housing prices going up due to supply and demand are understandable; but it's when the majority of existing rentals are going up just as significantly without the same shortages that are are affecting the single family house prices that are hurting a significant number of the working poor.
Maybe some of those empty investment luxury apartments will come down in price. Maybe the city will stop allowing developers to get by pretending that the 30% of their housing - the $2k a month "large studio/1-bedroom apartments" - count as affordable housing in those tower complexes.

I know there's a sunshine tax for living in California, but a median $1500 a month just for a studio apartment, and median $2200 a month for the average 800 sq.ft 2-bedroom apartment, it's become even more difficult for the median household income of $53000 family to find a place to live, let alone the average full time single wage earner making a median wage of $25k a year to find a place to live and pay for basic food, bills, and transportation just to keep their job.

It's three times harder now just to find an affordable slumlord shack to rent than it was pre-Covid.

My stepdaughter is looking now and can't find anything she can move into to get closer to her new job, especially since her landlord just unexpectedly upped everyone's rent by $200 last month to $2k, and she and her current rentmate can't pay next month as well as the new electric bill increase. Even if her rentmate was willing to move with her instead of moving back to the folks for the time being, there's not even a studio within 10 miles of her new job. She only takes home around $2k a month. She can't find anything that's under $1k a month plus the same in deposit to move into that isn't basically a tar-paper roof roach motel type of place.
People are renting their plumbed, minimally renovated below code garages as "ADUs" to live in for around $1200. I almost feel sorry for those landlords; they're generally trying to offset mortgage costs if they recently purchased, or inflation, if they've been living the house for a while.

But from what I can see, these housing prices aren't inflation, they're pretty much profit taking.

Haele

[MineralMan]

90. Yes, California real estate is very weird.

We moved away from there in 2004, ending up in Minnesota, which is somewhat saner.

My parents died in 2021 at the age of 96, leaving their citrus and avocado farm behind in a family trust. As the successor trustee, I oversaw the completion of its sale, which was already underway when they passed. What is interesting is that there were plenty of houses on residential lots in the small town where they lived that have sold for more than their 15-acre farm and home. I was not surprised at the value of their place, since it has not turned a profit from farming for years. It's in an agricultural protection zone, so it can't be subdivided and developed. That meant that it was not as attractive as it might have been to buyers. It sold at market value, but that value was lower than it would have been if it were financial viable as a farm.

It sold, and the new owner did a bunch of work on the house and elsewhere on the property and resold it for about 15% more to someone who is going to turn it into a hobby horse farm. So, for the price of a nice, largish house, they get 15 acres, with river frontage, a nice house, and however many orange and avocado trees they decide to keep. It's a good deal for someone, but the cost of maintaining it won't be at all trivial.

Now, the estate has been distributed to their heirs, including myself, according to their will and trust. Someone else owns their home of 50 years now. Eventually, the agricultural protection will lapse and it will end up being turned into smaller lots with homes on them. I want nothing to do with that, and am glad everything is settled now.

[Jose Garcia]

18. And supply

Zoning laws make it difficult to construct new housing, especially multi-family housing which is usually the most affordable.

[MineralMan]

29. Where I am, there is a lot of multi-family housing going up.

A lot of it is targeting seniors who are thinking about downsizing, frankly. As they move into those places, the homes they now own will be back on the market.

Not many apartment buildings going up right now, but there are plenty of condos and senior housing being built.

However, the only single-family homes going up are big and very expensive. First time homebuyers will have to buy someone's previous home. But, that's sort of how it has been for a long time.

[modrepub]

10. Rampant Consumerism

It's kind of in the background for most people. Compare the average house/car or just about any other thing from now to back then and it's really different. A new house in the 1950s was what 3 bedrooms, 1 bath and maybe 1200 sq feet? In that you'd have 2 adults, and maybe 3+ kids. Remember the Brady bunch when it was a big deal that Greg got his own room (in the attic, how crappy was that?!?)? Now you can't have anything built that doesn't have 4+ bedrooms and 2+ baths. Most new houses are like 2500+ sq feet and their apt to have more TVs than humans.

We've allowed our government to repeat and support what the housing industry wants to build (for their profit). And surprise, surprise, surprise...the size of the average American house has grown while the size of the average American family has shrunk. I'd argue it's same with cars and just about everything else. I'd like to kick Brian Leach in the Jimmy for what he done to us.

Bigger houses mean more space to heat, cool, clean and maintain. And more stuff to fill it with. Hell, how many folks park their cars in their garages, which was what they were built for? There's a reason Amazon isn't just a river in South America. We love buying stuff. So much stuff that we rent self-storage places to keep it.

All this taxes our resources and each individual's sanity. So I say...STOP THE INSANITY!

But I doubt anyone will listen (including myself).

[MineralMan]

14. Most first time homebuyers still end up buying a smaller home

like the one you described. For example, the house we recently sold was a 3-bedroom, one-bath house, built in 1954. When we sold it, it had a brand new roof, new appliances, and had been painted inside and out. It's a "starter home." and was bought by a fairly young family with small children. The one we just bought is a townhome in a quad home building. Same size as the old one, but on two levels. 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. It could also be a starter home and was priced near the bottom of the market. Such houses are available everywhere in the country.

The much larger new homes that are being built are being sold to people expanding their lifestyle and who are usually better established, income-wise. The older homes are still perfectly livable and are well-suited for a young family, just like they were when they were built.

We park in our garage at our new place. We didn't park in the one-car garage at the old place, though. It was full of stuff. But, there's room now for the owner to park one car.

For first-time homebuyers, it is the old stock of homes, built 50-75 years ago, that are the bulk of those available at reasonable prices, considering the market wherever you are. They're still perfectly fine for a young family with limited means. However, as always, buying one means that you have to have an income suitable for the cost of the house. That has always been the case, too. And, as always, the low end of the housing market means that you can buy for about the same monthly cost as renting. Still true.

[modrepub]

78. Buying Up

still entails a loss of maybe 10% of the value of the home for realtor fees and such. If the smaller old-stock house is still functional as far as living quarters then why move in the first place? My father was frequently transferred because of his job so we moved a lot until I started elementary school. But every time you move you lose a bit of your home value to the realty group, house prep and moving costs. Trading up, just seems to be a racket encouraged by the realty folks to ensure they get their 6% commission multiple times from the same folks.

Again, the government, realtors and folks selling stuff to fill up your house seem to be encouraging most folks to move into bigger houses that only drain peoples finances. Yea, maybe you build some equity but only if there's another sucker to take your place off your hands when you can no longer afford to keep up appearances.

[MineralMan]

79. What you said is certainly true.

Still, there are many, many valid reasons why people sell one house and buy another.

People often move to be nearer to friends and family. That's why we moved from California to Minnesota. My wife's parents needed help as they grew older.

People often move due to changing needs for their living spaces. Our most recent move was not only to be closer to my wife's friends, but also to allow me not to have to do outside maintenance like I had to do with our previous house. So, we moved to a place with an HOA that does yard maintenance and snow removal.

People move because they need more or less space. Empty nest moves are very common, usually to downsize. Also a growing family or children moving into their teens often trigger a move to accommodate different space needs.

People move to be closer to the places they work. Long commutes are stressful and costly. Changes in employment or transfers often trigger the need to sell and buy elsewhere.

Also, these days, very few people actually own their home free and clear. Almost everyone carries a mortgage. I would argue that if you can shed that mortgage, you're going to be in a better position, going forward. Our most recent move allowed us to do exactly that.

Bottom line is that every move has unique reasons for taking place. Not everyone uses a move as a way in increase wealth by buying up.

Yes, the realty business profits from every move, to a greater or lesser degree. A couple of our home sales, though, were done without an agent or broker. Since the houses were mortgage-free, the sales were simple. So, we just used a title company to prepare all of the paperwork for us and skipped the commission. The buyers arranged their own loans. Our most recent sale and purchase, though, did require hiring a real estate broker. Yes, that cost money, but it made the process less complicated for me. Since I was handling my late parents complicated estate at the time, that was an important factor.

Real estate sales also make existing homes available for others to buy. Buying up creates a lower-priced home on the market, which can be purchased by a first-time buyer or someone else who needs a home in that price range.

[Samrob]

12. The fact that homes cost too much means that our economy will never get out of doldrums. Households

Households make the American economy run at high living standards because most people take pride in their homes and spend money on it for things in it and around it. When home ownership becomes out of reach for middle and lower income families our economy suffers big time. Why? Because there are simply more citizens who are NOT in the upper 10%. For a somewhat juvenile example:
30 million low to middle income homes buying a new refrigerator swamps the sales of 3.3 million buying the same item. Plus, lower to middle income families usually have more children an therefore larger families. The purchasing of goods and services for these families far exceeds what the top 10% on more narrower scale. Just think of the spending of families for food, clothes (dressup and daily) shoes, autos, etc. Lower and middle income households are the engine of our economy. Keep making goods and services unaffordable for these households or keep eliminating households altogether and our economy crashes. Why do you think the economy was so good under Clinton? It was because more people were forming households by purchasing homes that needed fixtures furnishings, landscaping, etc. Yeah, it all came crashing down not because of the households but because of the deceitful real estate agents and brokers and greedy bankers.

But the bottom line is, when homes are unaffordable, so is everything else.

[MineralMan]

15. There are still young families buying houses. Plenty of them.

And houses are available for middle income people everywhere. Just not a big-ass new house. A young couple with two young children bought the house we sold. It was their first house. We bought a different place for not a lot more money than we sold for. We're retirement age, so we bought in a development that takes care of exterior maintenance so I don't have to shovel snow and mow lawns. It would also be fine for a young family with decent jobs, but you wouldn't have to be rich to buy either one. Just doing OK.

If you read my entire post, you'll see that it's sort of tongue-in-cheek. Houses have always been too expensive, according to some. My point was that they're about the same as everything else, really. People are still buying houses, and cars, and all that other stuff. In the past they did to, if they could afford to. That never changes.

To buy a house, you've always had to have a pretty good job. You did back then, and you still do.

[hunter]

17. A few things are vastly different. I graduated from college without any students loans.

One year I was paying $85 a month as my share of the rent for a shared apartment, about $1,500 in school fees, and I was reliably making about $5.50 an hour or more as a semi-skilled laborer.

Granted, a lot of that was white privilege. The Mexican American kids working out in the fields were not getting paid that much and they were not going to college.

Student loans were a terrible idea. They turned colleges and college housing into expensive Disneylands competing for student loan dollars.

The health care industry was damaged in a similar fashion. Health insurance companies became more concerned about the size of their revenue streams than they did about the actual health of their patients.

[MineralMan]

24. Yes, so did I.

However, the last two years were paid for after serving for four in the USAF and I squeaked by on the GI Bill. I shared a crappy little house with three other guys. It was difficult. I graduated in 1972 with a degree in English, which was as useless then as it is now. I turned that into a career as a freelance magazine journalist, always a very precarious way to earn a living. I did OK with that, but never earned the median income. I lived cheaply and simply and managed to buy a first home with a mortgage from my then wife's parents. No bank would lend to us.

Health insurance? I didn't have any until I was in my 40s.

I would not recommend that anyone get a degree in any of the humanities, using student loans. Nope. Bad idea. Personally, I'd recommend learning a skill trade. I had a skilled trade, which was my fall-back position. I was a skilled auto mechanic, and could get a job anytime, anywhere. Sometimes, I had to do that. Finally, I no longer had to work on other people's cars - just my own. I drove crappy old cars and kept them running. I bought my first new car when I was 68 years old. Before that, I would never have done so.

[nitpicker]

36. That was in the days

Where workstudy, and being within a half-mile hike of the city health center, could see a 20+ through.

[MineralMan]

38. Yes. And that had nothing to do with anything we did.

We did not create that situation. We just benefited from it.

In some ways, it is still possible, and some young adults manage to accomplish similar things. However, it takes a lot of creativity and willingness to adjust to a more trying lifestyle.

I had no health insurance, and had the good fortune to be a healthy young person. I also adjusted my desires and lifestyle to suit my means. Such adjustments are difficult for many people to make.

[hunter]

49. Why is a BA in English so expensive?

All you need is a classroom, a professor, and some teaching assistants to skim off the dross.

Some of my science education wasn't cheap. Up-to-date lab equipment and knowledgeable tech people who can teach are expensive. Scientific field work is expensive. When I was a university undergraduate playing around on the early internet, before the World Wide Web, computers were very expensive.

The smallest, most difficult, and probably most expensive course I took as a biology undergraduate had only 13 students in it. Half of us were undergrads, the other half grad students.

That class was harder than hell but we got to experience a leading edge research environment in a modern lab. The equipment in that lab was largely funded by the National Cancer Institute. Some of the people in that class are now scientists themselves. (Not me...)

I'm meandering, but the United States can easily afford free classroom and internet education for anyone who desires it, even in subjects that are currently considered fairly "useless."

Latin? Figure drawing? Calligraphy? Creative Writing? Some of those students may become famous artists!

Potential students for more expensive sorts of education -- everything from mechanic to rocket scientist, physician's assistant to medical doctor, kindergarten teacher to university professor, etc., -- can be selected based on merit and some degree of "affirmative action," this education subsidized to the extent these professions are essential to society, but still free to the student.

[MineralMan]

53. I don't know.

Truly.

I'm not even sure of what use an English major is. I ended up being a magazine journalist, writing mostly instructional articles about technology. Before enlisting in the USAF, I was an electronics engineering major.

Returning to college was just a way to give myself some time to select my next step, really. My experience as a Russian linguist in the USAF was of no use in the civilian world, frankly.

The GI Bill covered the costs, just barely, so why not take that time? I considered continuing on to law school or medical school, and scored high enough on the LSAT an MCAT exams to be sure of being accepted into either, but decided to go my own way.

So, that's what I did. I would never recommend that anyone follow my path, though. Everyone needs to find their own path through life. Making a living through writing is an iffy thing. I was very good at it and had background knowledge in the areas I wrote about. But, there are so many obstacles to making a living that way that I advise against it.

If some young person asks me, and some have, if they should major in English, I tell them "Absolutely not." It's a dead end.

[Thtwudbeme]

55. ? So--- your inlaws bankrolled your house

You had the GI Bill--

Ummmm

Golly darn! Kids today!!

Why don't they marry into good families- or be born into one for chrissakes!!

[MineralMan]

57. No. They loaned us the $20,000 at 6% interest.

We paid it off in five years. My then wife's father suggested the idea, and we said, "OK."

We did not want to owe money to anyone.

Yes. I had the GI Bill. I served four years in the USAF to get it. That was a deliberate decision. Do you not understand the concept of finding a way to pay for college by serving in the military?

As it turned out, the USAF sent me to Syracuse University to learn Russian in a 9-month total immersion program. I got a year's worth of credits from SU out of that. After that, I spent 15 months on the Black Sea coast of Turkey making use of those language skills. But it all worked out fine for me. It simplified getting my degree and completely fulfilled my language requirements. I had nothing to do with choosing that.

I'm not quite sure why you're doing this. Perhaps you can explain. I have my story. It is the story of my life. Do you have any other insulting posts you'd like to make? If so, here I am. Keep right on going.

[Thtwudbeme]

60. Refuting is not insulting. Please tell me what the interest rate was

At the time.

IOW you got a sweet deal.

You framed the story of your life as normal and an acceptable rubric for young people today. It most certainly is not by a long shot.

[2fast4u]

20. "Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff."

If you’re from California, you should understand that.

[MineralMan]

21. I'm not quite sure what your point is.

Did you read my post? That's what I did.

[2fast4u]

22. Land

My point was that Will Rogers said that 100 years ago. It’s nothing new.

[Retrograde]

23. There are also a lot more people

than there were 40-50 years ago, and they all want to live someplace. And they also want to eat, educate themselves and their children, and have some nice things. Problem is, the resources ultimately are limited.

[MineralMan]

25. Yes there are. There are also more homes and other places to live.

We all have needs and desires. How we fulfil those things depends on many factors. Frankly, it has never been easy. For some people, it has always been next to impossible to do everything we want to do and have everything we want to have. Everything is a struggle.

In many ways, nothing much has really changed. Some have way more than they need, while others are merely surviving. In some parts of the world, even surviving can be impossible. I don't see an end to that situation, to tell you the truth.

My point with this post was to make that clear. We all live in whatever times we live. In the 70s and now in the 2020s, the situation remains just about the same. Incomes are never sufficient to have everything we want or need. Prices keep going up, especially looked at over the long term. Wages lag behind.

In the 70s, if my wife at the time and I made $6000 a year, we could maintain our very spartan lifestyle and even buy the cheapest house on the market. In the 2020s, a couple needs to make 10 times that much to do the same or a little better, and they can. Everything is 10 times as expensive as it was in the 70s. That's what I pointed out in my post.

A single income in the household won't get it done. The more children you have, the more you'll need, as well. I never had children, which made things considerably simpler. Others did, but they managed, as well, one way or another.

Living more or less within one's means really determines a great deal about your lifestyle. If you have more means, you can have more stuff, I guess, or better stuff, or something. But, you can't have everything you might want if you have less means. That equation never changes. I doubt it ever will.

Is it fair? Nope. Is it inevitable? I think probably so. Now, I'm an old man. My life has been what it has been. I wouldn't change any of it, but I'm still living a pretty spartan lifestyle, compared to what I might prefer. But, I don't have the means to have more than I have, so I don't have more.

[DFW]

26. I am reminded of the words of a fictitious philosopher

Beñat Le Cagot. One of his more memorable quotes:

“a man is happiest when there is a balance between his needs and his possessions. Now the question is: how to achieve this balance. One could seek to do this by increasing his goods to the level of his appetites, but that would be stupid. It would involve doing unnatural things—bargaining, haggling, scrimping, working. Ergo? Ergo, the wise man achieves the balance by reducing his needs to the level of his possessions. And this is best done by learning to value the free things of life: the mountains, laughter, poetry, wine offered by a friend, older and fatter women.”

Difficult to achieve, nonetheless. There has never been, and probably never will be, a completely egalitarian society. The motto of those promoting one always devolves as soon as someone gets an edge up (All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others). Communist/socialist regimes founded by what used to be young idealists have inevitably devolved into rule by a privileged elite who tolerated no dissent from the status quo.

Even western democracies that do have regular peaceful transfers of power--a status we came dangerously close to losing--do not have their wealthiest citizens turn in all their money every four years and start anew. If you're really good at something, your chances of being disproportionately rewarded for it are pretty good in most any society. Blaming capitalism or "the rich" won't change human nature. Convincing successful capitalists and "the rich" that it's REALLY COOL to donate a lot of the wealth their success has given them back to society in general--now THAT is a trick that would really make the history books. When the Koch brothers start asking Bill Gates and Warren Buffett what they think the best thing to do with their acumulated wealth, then I'll be impressed, but even that won't cure inequality. Sieze the entire wealth of Bill Gates, and distribute it evenly to every man, woman and child in the USA, and everyone will get--what? Maybe $400? Fine, so what do you do for NEXT month's rent?

Like the OP said, it has never been fair, and for many, it will always be a struggle. The magic is performed when enough of those NOT struggling empathize with those that do. That is a mountain top we've never been to.

[MineralMan]

27. Very good!

In our society here in the USA, we have a unique problem. Everywhere we turn, we have people trying to convince us that we need more than we have. They tell us that what we have is not good enough and that we need better than we have. They show us the things they think we should want and create a wishful reality that is not achievable by many people.

For example, I might believe that I want a prime-grade T-bone steak for dinner. I'd like that very much, indeed, actually. However, if I consult my wallet, it's clear that I should not pay that much for a piece of meat today, no matter how much it makes my mouth water. So, I order a cheeseburger instead. If I eat that, my belly will be full and my needs will be met, if not my fancies. Here's another example:

When we moved to Minnesota, I constantly saw ads for boats. There were even "Boat Shows" I could attend, where I could see the latest in boats, all available to me and very attractive, too. I love fishing. I wanted a boat very badly, so I could go to the many lakes near where I lived and indulge my desire to go fishing. However, if I went to a place that sells boats, I would quickly see that I could not really afford to buy a boat at a boat dealership. My desire for a boat had been kindled and blown into flame by the advertising and by my desire to get in a boat and go fishing on a lake.

I could have simply said, "No." I could have damped down my desires and not gone fishing. But, that is not what I did. Instead, I went to Craig's List and looked at boats there. Within a day, I found a 12' aluminum boat, complete with a trailer and a small outboard motor for just $300. Now, that I could easily afford. So, I went to the person's house who was selling it, looked it over, and handed over the asking price. Then, I brought it home behind my car. I tuned up the outboard motor and installed a new water pump in it. I thoroughly cleaned my new boat, repainted the trailer, and installed new wheel bearings in the trailer's hubs. I even replaced the wooden transom piece on the stern of the boat and painted it and the wooden seats. I spend about $50 to do all of that. A week later, I was sitting in my boat on a local lake, fishing for bass, pike, sunfish and other local species. My total cost for this was $350, since I already had fishing tackle on hand.

The point is that I had a desire for a boat for fishing, but not the means to buy one that was shiny and new, and fast. Instead, I got a small, slow boat for little money and actually went fishing. My desire was satisfied, but not the desires of those who wanted me to spend a minimum of $10,000 for a new boat they were selling. My real desire was not for the boat, but for the activities having a boat would enable. Did I enjoy the fishing? I did, very much. I just found an alternative way to do that, a way that was within my means. There are always similar boats available on Craig's list for anyone willing to look for them. There are many ways to satisfy desires.

[Sympthsical]

28. There's this highly obscure phrase "outpaced inflation"

Education costs have outpaced inflation.

For example: "College costs outpaced inflation by 28 percent at public institutions and 19 percent at private nonprofit ones in the decade preceding the pandemic."

Energy costs have outpaced inflation.

For example: Gas in 2000 was about $3.63 in today's dollars.

Housing costs in many areas of the country have outpaced inflation.

For example: My house valuation is now up 33% from a little over two years ago. I doubt everyone is getting a 33% wage increase.

What a weirdly misguided post. It's a declaration of not understanding cost increases.

When talking down to people, the cardinal rule is to first ensure one is in the higher position.

[MineralMan]

39. Yes. In some areas, the cost of things have indeed outpaced inflation.

Some of those will correct themselves, like gasoline prices. They will not stay at the current highs, I expect.

On the other hand, you say that your house's valuation has gone up 33% in two years. Your wealth has increased and has outpaced inflation. Will it stay at that new high level? Perhaps. Or perhaps it will hold at its current level for quite a long time as other things catch up. Hard to say. When we bought our previous home in 2004 for $174,000, that was just before the real estate market took a dump. Its valued dropped within a couple of years to about $140,000. It finally started rising again, ending up with a selling price of $209K last year. Of course, we were buying a different place in a hot seller's market, and had to bid 12% over asking on our new place. In doing that, we raised the value of all of the other townhomes in our development. Right now, there are four other units up for sale, all asking about the $240K we paid. They will not sell for that, because the inventory is going up again, as people try to cash in on the inflated prices during that seller's market.

We paid too much for our new townhome. We knew that, but there wasn't much in our price range available. The place we bought matched our needs and preferences exactly, right down to the hard surface floors throughout. Few places we saw had that. So we paid what the immediate market demanded. We wanted to move, so move we did. We're not planning to sell, so I'm not paying any further attention to the current valuation. By the time we do sell again, several years from now, conditions will be different.

During that seller's market, buying a first home became almost impossible for most people. Most first time homebuyers could not outbid people like my wife and I, who could, and did, buy at an artificially inflated price. That, as always, will change. More inventory will end that seller's market in the low end of the market, which is where our place is located.

You're incorrect. I do understand cost increases. I do understand that some things outpace inflation. My point is that it is what it is. At another time, conditions will change, but we all live right now and have to deal with what is currently going on. If you take a longer term view, however, there is a balance. That doesn't help much if you have current needs, though.

As I said, "It's not fair. But, it has never been fair. It is a struggle. It is always a struggle."

[Sympthsical]

41. You are not living the experiences of my generation

Some baseline experiences that came much easier for your generation, such as purchasing a first home and getting an education, can be crippling to impossible now for many people my age and younger.

So maybe, when discussing situations you have not had to experience or deal with, leave the condescension outside the door. Hell, take it all the way to the curb. Smug superior knowing isn't as good a look as one assumes.

Especially when the knowing is lacking.

[MineralMan]

42. As you say.

Nor are you living the experiences of my generation. Both things are impossible.

I simply described a situation that has taken place over 50 years.

Read the last two sentences in the OP again.

[nitpicker]

31. College upmanship costs too

When I first went to university, costs were $500 a semester (including books).

When I graduated, after they lured in a couple of big names, it was $1000 a semester.

NOW??? Try 7K a semester (for in-states).

Plus them forcing most freshers into dorms and meal plans (unless they can plead otherwise).

((There are loopholes, such as "be in community college for two years then transfer, BUT))

[Ron Green]

32. Throughout your lifetime (and mine), the costs or our consumption (the "Highest

Standard of Living" - remember?) have been externalized. Offloaded onto millions of desperately poor people around the globe, onto minerals and other resources extracted under the watchful eye of U.S. military forces, and mostly onto our only home, the Earth.

Now the bubble is bursting, and we're seeing people sorted into 1) Those who never knew the bubble existed and are waking up to the fact; 2) Those who still don't know about the bubble and are willing to defend whatever way of life they think they deserve; 3) Those who DO know about the bubble and are nevertheless lining up with group 2, and 4) Those who've always known about the bubble because they didn't live in it or didn't benefit from it.

[MineralMan]

37. Yes, of course.

Our society has long been in the bubble. Worse, we do not wish to view what is outside of that bubble. So, we don't look.

I include myself in that unwillingness most of the time, to my shame.

[Stuart G]

34. 9 Words in 1 Sentence are Great: "It's not fair. But, it has never been fair."(2nd to last sentence)

[MineralMan]

35. Yes. That's the bottom line for all of this.

And I have not even mentioned the rest of the planet. Our problems are horrifyingly magnified elsewhere in the world. Eventually, there will be feedback from all of this. We aren't going to like it at all, I'm sure.

[Thtwudbeme]

40. When you bought that darling house for 20 grand almost 50 years ago, how much were your

student loans? Did you go to grad school, or just get a bachelors or associates?

One must have a certain level of education now to get any job other than food service, or a very low paying job in a department store. Back then factory workers could afford your 20 grand cottage.

When you went to college, did you need a several thousand dollar computer, or did you have one of those portable manual typewriters? Those things were great because they never needed to be upgraded.

After you bought your house, I am assuming that you had gas, electric and water bills? I assume you had a telephone- so tack that one on there. However, now you may add on internet and a cell phone.

Did your company offer a defined benefit pension? Many did- My Dad had one and he retired from a private insurance company. Those are mostly gone now.

In other words- you are wrong. The younger generation has it MUCH worse- and having a "life is always a struggle, now get off my lawn" attitude is not going to attract fans, nor voters.

[MineralMan]

43. Well, I can answer your questions:

I did not have student loans. I paid for the last three years of college with the GI Bill, after 4 years of service in the USAF.

There were no personal computers at that time. I did have an IBM Selectric typewriter, though, since I was a journalist and needed it. Frankly, it cost more than my first PC. I got that first PC from the publisher of my first book, as part of my flat-rate payment.

Of course I had regular bills at the time. There was no internet, nor cell phones. All of those bills were typical of the period.

I never worked for any company, so I have no pension whatsoever. Instead, I became a freelance magazine journalist, a path that was not lucrative at all. I've also had several small side businesses, all one-person businesses. My annual earnings have never even equaled the median earnings in any year. A BA in English was as useless then as it is now. I lived simply and frugally. Frankly, that $20,000 home purchase was my retirement fund. It has expanded as time has passed. It still is my retirement fund, along with my savings and other investments over the ensuing 48 years. Social Security also helps. I'm still living simply and frugally.

I don't doubt that you have things worse. I'm describing my experience. You will have yours to describe when you are 76 years old, too. And you are welcome to visit my lawn.

[Thtwudbeme]

50. I am pushing 60 and we are preparing for retirement. I do NOT have things "worse than you."

I am no spring chicken and this isn't my first rodeo with Boomer Baloney. I AM a Boomer.

I am a librarian- former university and now public schools. I asked if you had a typewriter in college. I very well remember Selectrics. If you were in college, I am assuming you had a manual, portable in a little suitcase. I still have mine. Tuition at the state college was about 400 bucks a semester in 1982 at the state universities (NC), and much less at the community college level (about 15 dollars a credit hour). That was doable by working a part time job during the year, and a crappy summer job. Many people still had loans. The cost of paying them back was 50.00 a month. That was undergrad.

So, you had gas, electric, water, phone and maybe got the local paper. Now? Young folks have to have internet and a smart phone at the least. It's very hard to create a resume on a phone, so most have computers. So you may tack on internet, phones that cost a ton of money, and computers that need to be upgraded often.

Did you have a TV? It was GREAT to have a TV that was pretty much free after you bought it! Remember those damned rabbit ears! Oh what a PAIN! Now? Those TVs don't work. To get TV you have to have basic cable or satellite.

Your car? It seems cheap now- and add inflation and it's about the same. Except! Surely you knew how to change the oil, gap your spark plugs and basically do a tune-up. A smart fella or gal could keep their cars running fairly smoothly. Could you rebuild your own carburetor? You were ahead of the game. Change those air filters? It cost about $3.00 bucks in my '85 Nissan Sentra.

Your house price? My grandparents died in the mid nineties. Their house sold for 150,000. It's in the 28207 zip code. Trulia that. That is not normal appreciation. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Your post is unrealistic. You and I are lucky as crap that we came of age and got old when we did. The younger generation right now is fucked.

[MineralMan]

54. Pushing 60, eh? Well, I'm pushing 80.

I'm done with replying to insulting replies. Bye.

[Thtwudbeme]

56. LOL- I JUST read that your house loan

was bankrolled by your inlaws.

You are done because you have nothing- just complaints about the younger generation and life today.

Honestly- I expected better of you.

[MineralMan]

58. Why on Earth would you expect ANYTHING from me?

I'm just another person you have never met. I'm not here to meet your expectations, nor the expectations of anyone else. I write what I write.

Good luck to you.

[Thtwudbeme]

61. I have been reading your posts your entire tenure on DU

You are a well thought of member.

I expected better. How are we to attract voters unless we understand that life is more expensive now?

[MineralMan]

65. We do understand that.

Did you even bother to read my post? Clearly I understand that. I deal with reality only. I was describing a perspective view. Things are real as they are. Wishing they were different is useless.

There are no rundown $20,000 houses in 2022. There are, however, rundown houses 9n the market. I bought a house like that, lived in it, fixed it up, and sold it decades later. It was a planned thing. My experience is real. It can be duplicated now. That is my point.

Inflation is a real thing. You can whine about it or use it. I used sweat equity and time to create wealth for my future. There are people doing the same thing right now. You are missing my point altogether.

And finally, I did not ask for a loan from my In-laws. It was surprisingly offered to us. We said yes to it. Then, we paid it off as soon as possible.

[Thtwudbeme]

66. My Dad was an insurance underwriter, my Mom was a teacher

We lived across the street from a man who was a security guard at Sears (with a pension!) whose wife never worked. They had a tiny place at the beach- a mobile home. They had one car. Two doors down from him was the custodian at my Jr. High. Cute brick ranch. This WAS the "poor" neighborhood in 1964.

The really poor neighborhoods- the ones with affordable housing are scary as shit. Read that again. The poor neighborhoods with affordable housing are scary as shit.

We are talking Charlotte NC.

I don't care about Bumfuck, MO. There are NO jobs there. None. So, let's stick to affordable in urban areas, OK?

Find me a "fixer upper" that the younger generation can afford in the area code where I grew up: 20209.

Make it a house that needs work, not a condo- because if you go there then I am going to drag you into the hellhole of HOAs. (we own a house and a condo- the condo has HOA fees).

Go ahead. Have fun.

Oh! One more thing- in my imaginary scenario you cannot have a relative loan you money at less than the current interest rate.

[MineralMan]

67. Oh, never mind. You are not paying attention.

[Thtwudbeme]

69. Which part was I not paying attention to?

You went to school on the GI bill.

You graduated without loans with a degree in English that allowed you to work as a journalist- even though you put it down.

You had inlaws that loaned you money at an interest rate that was less than the going rate at the time.

You had no health insurance until 1985 or so. Let's go into that later, shall we?

Did I miss something?

[MineralMan]

77. 20209?

Nothing there. The DC area is impossible. But you knew that.

Being realistic is the first step. Truly.

[hunter]

86. I'm a boomer. Computers and televisions are cheap now.

The most I've ever spent on a computer is $300. That was a long time ago. It was a shopworn 386 I bought at Montgomery Ward. It came with Windows 3.0 preinstalled. The last Windows I ever used on my home machines was 98SE.

For many years now my desktop computers have been built from machines I've diverted from the e-waste streams. These run Linux. My laptops have been $100 refurbished Chromebooks. I've had two Chromebooks so far, since my dog broke the first one.

I don't use Apple or Microsoft products unless someone is paying me to. I have a flip phone. Our monthly internet service costs about three hours of work at the starting wage of a McDonald's employee here. ( A city near us offers free basic internet service for all residents. Their city council played hardball with the telcoms and won. Unfortunately that may have been one precedent for less progressive states to outlaw these sorts of deals. )

Until recently cars were pretty cheap as well. I bought a new car once when I was young and full of myself and had just started a "career" type job. I won't do that again. Typically I drive $1,000 used cars I repair myself. I'm a fairly good mechanic. The last time I replaced one of my $1000 cars wasn't because it wore out, rather it was destroyed while parked in our driveway by a careless driver who went off the road and crashed into it.

In college I once replaced the head gasket of my little Toyota in a K-Mart parking lot. (I drew a small audience for that...)

Televisions are cheap in the thrift stores. Cable and broadcast television are not a necessities. My wife and I quit those more than a decade ago.

So I don't think those things contribute to the miseries of later generations.

I'm trying to figure out where that kind of resourcefulness came from. One reason may be that my parents had more children than they could comfortably support. They were artists with day jobs. They've been full time artists since they retired. I've known from an early age how to subsist on a rice-and-beans diet.

My children are not interested at all in repairing cars, maybe because modern cars don't break down as often as they used to, and certain problems are a misery to diagnose and repair, requiring special tools and expensive replacement parts. On the other hand you can learn how to do many sorts of repairs on YouTube.

Two things that have definitely contributed to the misery of later generations are high housing costs and high college costs. My children have suffered those. One of our kids got so fed up with housing costs in Los Angeles they fled to the Midwest to a neighborhood where the rainbow flags are pushing out the Trump flags, causing more resentment among the Trumpers, I'm sure. Can't fix that. On the other hand, one of my nephews who left a tiny apartment in San Francisco for a big house in the suburbs in another state couldn't tolerate the suburban lifestyle and moved back to San Francisco.

After high school my kids and their cousins all experienced periods of subsistence living, but not to the extent I did.

If the younger generation is "fucked" it's not because of the usual churning of the economy, rather it's global warming and the increasing militancy of the fascists, racists, misogynists, strong-men, and other "conservative" followers of trash ideologies and religions.

We can definitely blame global warming on the Boomers. Here in the U.S.A. we burned, and continue to burn, fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow.

Nevertheless most U.S. Americans have rejected the most pernicious "conservative" religions and ideologies. They use birth control, they recognize gay marriage, and they can hardly believe that laws against "mixed" marriages were ever a thing.

I'm confident the generations following us "Boomers" have all the tools they need to save the world. All they have to do is pick them up and use them. And they are.

[Marius25]

44. I agree. I'm trying to move but can't find a job

that pays enough to afford anything without like 3 roommates in any of the places I want to move.

Rent is $1500-2000 almost everywhere I look for a studio/1br.

Houses are either minimum $500,000 for a modest house, or they're like $300-400,000 with $10,000 a year in property taxes.

Meanwhile, I can find thousands of houses in Europe for cheap prices. They may not be in the major cities, but they're close to nice cities.

[MineralMan]

46. What kind of job are you looking for and where do you want to live?

All of those things affect your situation.

[Marius25]

48. Trying to find something remote right now.

But my background is in luxury hotels and live theater. Both of which don't pay well at all.

I'm starting to teach myself Web Development, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get a job with it.

[MineralMan]

59. I don't know anything about either hotels or theater,

But both sound like big city jobs.

I do know about web development, though. It's a highly competitive field. For the past ten years, I was the content manager of a Twin Cities web developer, and a web designer for my own websites. In all honesty, web development has more people than it can employ. You might want to focus more on app development and UX. Even those fields are overpopulated now, though. Sorry.

[Marius25]

74. Yeah, I had also thought about going into medicine

like Nursing or PA, but I'd need so much schooling and medical experience to do those it's daunting, and I don't like people enough to feel like I'd be doing it for the right reasons - just the money and stability.

[SYFROYH]

45. Ok, Boomer

[MineralMan]

47. I'm not actually a boomer. I was born in 1945,

so I'm a year too old. I was born a week before the Hiroshima bombing, while my father was still flying B-17s in Europe. My mother was staying at her parents' house until he could come home, if he ever did. However, I identify with the early boomers, since I dropped out of the normal world for four years while in the USAF.

Did you have anything more to add to your brief reply, or was that attempt at an ageist insult all you had to say?

[Thtwudbeme]

52. I hope he has more to add

because you are dead wrong with this post. And I AM a Boomer.

My boyfriend was born about the same time as you- (thank god he dumped me and I met someone awesome)...that said, he could have written almost this same post.

[Thtwudbeme]

51. I AM a Boomer- Please stop writing that and really respond

MM IS wrong. Tell him why instead of just writing the OK Boomer mess.

I agree with you. I am the last of the Boomers, and I know exactly what you are saying- but you need to elaborate.

[Sympthsical]

62. It won't help anything

It's just the usual the wisdom of lawns and how to exit them. Granted, it's also a know your audience thing. We're in a much, much older place than most online spaces.

The OP is so breathtakingly wrong, I wonder how it could be in any way applauded by anyone with a slight understanding of the world Gen X on down grew up and into adulthood in.

Just a staggering indifference to anyone else's reality.

[Thtwudbeme]

63. Then write it. This damned Boomer is upthread slugging it out for you guys

I get it. Please write it

[Sympthsical]

64. I did above

It was almost not worth the 90 seconds.

[Thtwudbeme]

68. I read it. This one almost needs a spreadsheet to get it. Break it down:

Here's an example. Let's say you are a recent grad with 50,000 worth of student loans, and no relatives to loan you money to buy a place:

Student loan payment: 500.00
Car loan: 350.00
Phone, internet and basic cable: 250.00
Medical Insurance (with a job that provides it) 100.00 for the cheap plan at your job
Electric: 150.00
Gas: 100.00
Water: (this is a wildcard- is it a private company?) 100.00
Rent: (nice area, I am assuming you want to live where there are jobs) 1200.00 (that's cheap- don't mind the roaches!)

We are now up to 2750.00 and you haven't eaten yet!

Now, let's say you are a ...I dunno....teacher. You make 40 grand a year.

Your take home is about 3 grand a month.

There- that wasn't so hard. Preach it.

[Calista241]

70. Barring temp economic conditions, Real Estate is going to go up in value almost in perpetuity.

There is no new land being created near major cities airports or beaches. This fact is also what leads to gentrification.

[Mr.Bill]

71. One of the worst things about getting old

is you remember how cheap everything used to be.

I remember renting an apartment in a semi-upscale neighborhood in Silicon Valley for $200 a month. I have to keep reminding myself I was making $2.25 an hour then.

[MineralMan]

73. Yup. I try to remember that.

[Thtwudbeme]

75. No, one of the worse things about getting old is pretending that you

drug yourself up by your bootstraps and that the younger folks have the same opportunities.

They do not. At all. Not in the least.

Life is getting to the point of being completely affordable for many people. Let's quit pretending that "we made it, why can't they?"

[Mr.Bill]

76. I have middle aged grandchildren

so I well understand things are way different now. Their doing okay, but it was a completely different process compared to what I went through. The only way I survived Silicon Valley in the 70s and 80s was to keep my life simple, have no dependents and know how to work on the cheap used cars I drove. After I left there in '91 I met my wife and she had grown children who were already on their own.

[pstokely]

83. like that butt naked walk to school in the snow

&t=2s&ab_channel=SchuylerHolland

[Autumn]

85. Many of us made it because our parents died and left us property and money. We get a nice rent

check from a home my husbands mother left us.

[brooklynite]

80. You apparently didn't fly much...

The "golden age of travel" was possible because the Government imposed incredibly high ticket costs on all airlines.

[Mr.Bill]

84. I flew a lot during that Golden Age.

My father worked for a major airline from '57 to '84. I probably flew a half million miles before my 18th birthday. Of course, we flew at a very low price on his airline passes, but we were very aware about the idea of airline regulation that the government imposed until the late 70s. Airline deregulation was good thing as far as prices for the consumer, but it made airline travel a completely different experience. I don't fly much anymore, though. The relatives we used to fly to visit have mostly all passed away.

[brooklynite]

81. Here's a question: people here endlessly complain about businesses maximizing their profits...

...regardless of the impact on workers and consumers.

Who here has sold a house at BELOW market value in order to make it possible for someone with less money to buy one?

[MineralMan]

82. Probably nobody has done that.

For most people buying or selling a home is not really a business transaction. Most people do it for other reasons, and it's unlikely that anyone would deliberately sell a home for less than market value. In fact market value is determined, in the end, based on what someone paid for a home.

When I sold that cute cottage in California, though, the young couple who bought it so eagerly concerned me. Before I agreed to sell to them, I spelled out all of the costs they would have due to buying it. I wasn't sure that they were in a financial position to buy it, frankly. Also, since the house's property taxes were protected under Proposition 13 while I owned it, that protection would go away with a new buyer. I explained what the monthly costs for property taxes would be, since the house would be re-appraised by the county, based on the selling price. They convinced me that they could handle the load, so we did the purchase agreement.

However, the house did not appraise at the original selling price, complicating their mortgage loan. So, I agreed to lower the price so their mortgage would go through. I didn't have to. I had three other offers at the original price. But I liked the young couple who were the buyers, so I cut the price so they would qualify for the mortgage. So, I suppose I did sell below market value to help them buy it. A few thousand dollars.

They still live in that house, 18 years later. We exchange Christmas cards every year. It's worth a LOT more than they paid for it now. California coastal real estate prices have gone bananas.

[haele]

93. Actually, my parent's landlord did that before she went to a nursing home.

We lived next door, they helped her out when her son couldn't come by to help her, and she decided we should have the house before she died and her son would just have to get the big profits he was expecting by selling her house when she passed.
So she sold it to my parents for 1/3 less than the price of similar houses within a 5 block radius, because she didn't want them to pay more in mortgage and interest (9% fixed 20 year loan at the time).than they were paying in rent. She still got enough to pay for the nursing home stay.

That was 40 years ago, true - but I've heard of it happening since to couple other long term single family home renters over the years.

Haele

[Hassin Bin Sober]

87. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel. And in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em.

‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah! The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.

[MineralMan]

88. Well, this time, at least, you've included the entire quote from "The Simpsons."

To what end, though, I have no idea...

[progressoid]

99. Ten points for best response.

[fescuerescue]

91. Biden has explained that this is just transitory.

Prices will go down as Biden executes his economic plan.

[MineralMan]

92. Yeah, maybe.

I wouldn't count on it, though. There will be some relief, no doubt, but inflation is always with us. The only variable is the rate of inflation.

[redwitch]

94. Last month we paid $339 for 100 gallons of heating oil.

Which was $39 higher than the month before. Now it’s over $500 for 100 gallons. Sticker shock here.

[MineralMan]

95. We put on sweaters and turned down the thermostat.

Worked a treat.

[redwitch]

96. We had already done that.

I am warm enough now and hoping that the warmer weather that’s coming up will stick around. Maybe by next fall the price will come down.

[MineralMan]

97. It should drop.

I'm glad Spring is here, too. Minnesota winters get old in March.

[redwitch]

98. Upstate NY too.

Spring is going to be appreciated as it always is. Once mud season is over.