this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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Wow, that video is full of scare tactics and misleading information. Sources are few, and the ones that exist are misleading at best. I'm not going to go through and rebut everything, but I'll pick out a few parts I think are particularly misleading to make my point.
I put parts into spoiler tags because this got really long. I hope this helps make the post feel less imposing.
Looking at the home ownership rate, it looks like things are generally getting better. About 2/3 of households own the house they're living in.
Let's look at real wages, which are about where they were 40 years ago. That means wages have roughly kept up with inflation. That's a good thing, and it looks like we're on a slow increase.
What this shows is that the rich are getting richer faster than the poor are getting richer, but everyone is at least staying consistently rich, if not increasing.
fascism
First of all, all of the examples the author quoted are from the same time period: Germany, Italy, and Spain. There was even a fascist movement in the US, and people wanted FDR to take even more power than he did. In fact, I think there's an argument to say some of the things FDR did were fascist.The video author claims fascism started because of capitalism, but that's not quite true. Let's look at what caused fascism in the 1930s:
The Great Depression hit more than just the US; when things get bad, they want their leaders to do something, even if it doesn't actually fix anything. FDR's policies didn't actually fix the economy, but they were popular because he was doing something. In Germany, Italy, and Spain, "doing something" meant grabbing power and subjugating minorities, which is way worse than the US policy of creating BS jobs (arguably bad) and creating a social safety net (arguably good).
In fact, fascism is anti-capitalist. In fascism, the government takes direct control of essential industries "for the good of the nation." In Germany, that meant using car manufacturers to build tanks and airplanes. I don't know how people somehow combine the two, their diametrically opposed
The whole "red scare." When people don't understand something, the want to make it go away, and what better way to do that than empower your government to do that for you.
That's why FDR interned the Japanese, and why Trump wants to limit immigration. It's just letting fear of the unknown take over.
In other words, bandwagoning. Other leaders saw Hitler's success and followed suit. They found a recipe that got them what they wanted, and sold it to their people.
Things getting worse
What is changing is people's access to technology and what we consider "average standard of living."
When I was a kid, we had a family land line and a family computer, and if we wanted to use the Internet, we needed to take over the phone line. We were very much a middle class family, and I had plenty of friends who didn't even have that at home. [Today, almost everyone has a smart phone, fast Internet, and many have additional devices at home. What used to be "for the wealthy" is now available for all. Likewise, if we look at cars, a car in 1970 costs about as much as a car today, when adjusting for inflation.
In short, things are pretty okay. Could they be better? Sure, but we're hardly in the death spiral this video claims we're in.
But since people are more connected, we're seeing the problems more clearly. It's easy to ignore the lobbying when your main source of news is that evening program, which is more for entertainment than anything.
I 100% agree with this. The important thing is to focus on what you can control, and for most people, helping out their neighbors is absolutely in their control.
Also, contact your representatives and tell them what's important to you. You probably won't get it, but if enough people reach out, they'll be motivated to act on it to keep their constituents voting for them.
Positives of today
There's a lot of good in the US, and I think the American Dream is alive and well, it's just very different from the American Dream sold to people in the 50s. Here are some really good things that have happened in my lifetime WRT the American Dream:So why do I feel so poor?
Simple: comparison is the thief of joy. When we use social media, we see what others have. But what we don't seem to take into account is:So if you want the American Dream, ignore all the status crap, stay out of debt, and invest while you're young. If you can manage that, you can buy a house even on a median salary or lower. My cousin is a social worker making below median income, and they own a house and have 4 kids. They cut way back on other luxuries, and they're very wise with spending money.
To me, the American Dream is:
You're not going to get there by being pessimistic, you'll get there by evaluating your options and making good choices. Yeah, this kinda sounds like the "work harder" mindset that the author is discussing, but I'm not saying that, I'm saying "work smarter." For example:
But at the same time, help those around you.
I'm happy to discuss any part of this with anyone who is interested, I just ask to keep things positive. I like talking about solutions, not complaining about things out of our control.
If there's something I failed to provide a source for, or you'd just like more information, please mention it and I'll do my best.
I think think this very regionally dependant. Median household income and house cost in Austin, for example, is ~$70k and ~$650k, respectively. I grew up in a very small rural town, very far from any cities, and even though houses were much cheaper, they were still unaffordable to most people unless they could land one of the few available union jobs (most jobs available were in manufacturing and paid near minimum wage).
Things may be getting better, slightly, for the median person, but inequality is soaring, and a more dangerous problem IMO. Money is power, so inequality is a direct threat to democracy. It's also inequality, not poverty, that has the largest effect on crime rates, and social decohesion in general.
But crime is actually on a downward trend:
If income inequality is, in fact, a driver for crime, there must be an explanation for what's pushing crime down.
That's certainly possible, but I think a simpler and more likely explanation is that we're getting more exposed to media, and media sells the rare events harder than the common ones, because that's what attracts eyeballs.
Yeah, and that totally sucks, but you're also probably not going to buy the median house for your first home. Here's one in Austin for $325k, which is still expensive, but half the price you quoted. I didn't do a ton of research here (literally 30s search for 3+ beds, 1.5+ baths), but it seems like a decent starter home.
The bigger issue is interest rates, because a $650k house is way more affordable at 3% than 7%. If we assume that $325k house is available and we put 5% down, that house would cost:
On a $70k salary, that's ~45% of really income, which is pretty high for a housing expense (ideally housing is more like 30%). But it's not unapproachable.
I'm not going to do a full budget breakdown, but hopefully my point is that if you look for a way, you can probably find a way. It's probably not going to with if you're making minimum wage, but if you're at the median income, it's a possibility, especially if rates come down a bit.