Post: #26

When in history have the rich outnumbered the poor?

Success and wealth creation have never been easy.

"The system is fucked and the deck is stacked against you"

Don't buy the line

Just because it cant be created the same way today as it was in the past doesn't mean it can't. It can and is. Everyday

Post: #27

(05-15-2017 10:47 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 10:35 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  I just used Atlanta as an example but you're right, the problem is widespread. But I still think there are places in the US that are affordable but you have to be willing to think outside of the box. Smaller cities like Columbus OH, Indianapolis, Boise ID may be better examples of affordable places with big city amenities.

Not as much as you might think:
Boise is hitting record highs for home prices.

In Columbus, rising rents are making neighborhoods unaffordable.

And Indy is hitting record highs as well.

Ok so what advice would you give to a 19-20yr old starting out?

I know that prices seem to be going up everywhere but look at what Scotian did. He bought a place in Edmonton which is definitely cheaper than Vancouver, Toronto or Ottawa and worked his ass off in a really tough field. At his salary, Edmonton is affordable for him even though the price ranges he wrote are quite expensive in reality. That's why I think maximizing your skills and income and then living in a reasonably priced city is the only way to go if you want to own property. But I am interested in your thoughts Samuel so tell me what I seem to be missing.

Post: #28

(05-15-2017 10:53 PM)PapayaTapper Wrote:  When in history have the rich outnumbered the poor?

Success and wealth creation have never been easy.

"The system is fucked and the deck is stacked against you"

Don't buy the line

Just because it cant be created the same way today as it was in the past doesn't mean it can't. It can and is. Everyday

This is true for especially motivated, ambitious individuals. I'm doing it, I've expanded my own business more in the past year than over the past 7 years before it. Others I know are going into foreign markets, or using their properties for AirBNB and finding success that way.

But what we're talking about here isn't really "wealth" or "success". It's a bare minimum of a middle-class lifestyle that used to be possible for entire generations. Most of the people I know are kind of stuck in place, and I just don't see what would happen for them to be able to afford anything close to what their parents had at their age.

Post: #29

(05-15-2017 10:58 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  Ok so what advice would you give to a 19-20yr old starting out?

I have absolutely no idea, which is what worries me. My own field is closed off to new applicants, it's getting smaller every year thanks to automation. This seems to be the case everywhere I look. Everybody is cutting back. Nobody is hiring. I've been okay by expanding my network of contacts, but that's for ME, and I'm getting those jobs from taking them from other people.

I have not the slightest idea what I could tell somebody that age to do, particularly if they didn't have the +115 IQ required for an engineering degree.

"Something something skilled trades"? Maybe?

Post: #30

(05-15-2017 07:56 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  Home ownership among the young is at a 30-year low. Millennials are opting to rent rather than buy in large numbers. This has all kinds of negative effects for communities, since young homebuyers are what forms the core of a community's next generation. It's bad for the country, because homes mean larger families in a time of declining birthrates. And it's bad for the millennials themselves, because for many generations a home has been a source of great wealth and pride.

There's been a lot of speculation about the reasons for this problem: is it rising home prices pushing ownership out of reach of anyone but the wealthy? Job instability that means you could be forced to pack up and move across the country at any time? Zero interest rates and high taxes making it difficult to save?

One Australian millionaire knows exactly what the cause is: too many millennials are eating avocados:

Quote:Freely spending on avocados — the pricey, popular superfruit beloved by young people — may be one of the reasons why some young people can't afford a house, according to Australian millionaire and property mogul Tim Gurner.
"When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each," Gurner told the Australian news show 60 Minutes.
Only 32% of home owners were first-time buyers in 2016, the lowest point since 1987, according to a study by NerdWallet. A recent study by HSBC found that American millennials have a homeownership rate of 35%, and in Australia only about 28% of millennials own their homes. Cost is often a major factor in millennials' decisions to buy — the study found that a lot of young homeowners got a financial boost from their parents when making their purchase.

It goes without saying that this is obvious nonsense. All the millennials I know are in heavy debt, or working low-end jobs with no obvious promotion path. The exceptions are mostly fleeing the country. I personally could no more buy a house than I could buy a space shuttle.

One of the biggest problems I think Western culture has is the loss of civic responsibility among the wealthy. The word "Noblesse Oblige" has more or
less vanished from the national vocabulary. The old tycoons, for whatever flaws they may have had, donated their wealth to build libraries and to help the poor.

Our current elites seem to absolutely hate their own citizens. I have no idea why, or when this changed, but it's hard to come up with any other explanation. It seems to me that this is going to end poorly. I know when I read this my first thought was that one way to encourage home ownership among the poor would be for the government to throw Mr. Gurner in jail, confiscate his properties and just hand them out to the poor. I'm well-read enough to know exactly why this is a terrible idea, and it's still tempting.

I can't even imagine what the guys who are 80k in student loan debt are thinking.

Economist Mark Blyth has a great line regarding the contempt the elite has for regular people. Essentially, if you don't start taking care of working people again, eventually they're going to come after you with pitchforks and torches. "The Hamptons are not a defensible position" he says. He states good for the common man is an insurance policy for the rich, and one they've forgotten about too often lately.

Post: #31

(05-15-2017 11:14 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 10:58 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  Ok so what advice would you give to a 19-20yr old starting out?

I have absolutely no idea, which is what worries me. My own field is closed off to new applicants, it's getting smaller every year thanks to automation. This seems to be the case everywhere I look. Everybody is cutting back. Nobody is hiring. I've been okay by expanding my network of contacts, but that's for ME, and I'm getting those jobs from taking them from other people.

I have not the slightest idea what I could tell somebody that age to do, particularly if they didn't have the +115 IQ required for an engineering degree.

"Something something skilled trades"? Maybe?

Automation is definitely going to put a lot of people out of work but as old fields get destroyed, new fields will pop up. The economy really does seem to be showing signs of life and for this reason, I'm really optimisitic for the first time in a very long time. Since I have kids that age , I worry a lot too about the opportunities that they will have but one thing you have to understand is that Papaya is right. It takes a very long time to generate true wealth, requiring years of sweat, hard work, success and failure along with some luck as well. 25 years ago, I struggled royally in my field and I wondered if I'd ever make it so I don't think this situation is unique to these times. It's never been easy. Much of the time, it's not the smartest people who get rich but the ones willing to stay with something even through the darkest of times, the ones who are willing to persevere. From reading what you've written, you seem like you have that in you and that you're doing it.

Post: #32

(05-15-2017 10:53 PM)PapayaTapper Wrote:  Just because it cant be created the same way today as it was in the past doesn't mean it can't. It can and is. Everyday

One of the problem right now is development of scarcity mindset. Mass majority of Millennials were taught to follow the rules and be reward. Problem now is there no reward tat was promise, but cheap gift basket from dollar store. Now they must rethinking the life they are living in fucked up job market thanks to credentialism, unrealistic lifestyle being fostered upon by the media, and large amount of student loan debt that many now carry is going to do a number on person's thinking.

Just one of many problems for the future.

Post: #33

(05-15-2017 11:30 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  Automation is definitely going to put a lot of people out of work but as old fields get destroyed, new fields will pop up. The economy really does seem to be showing signs of life and for this reason, I'm really optimisitic for the first time in a very long time. Since I have kids that age , I worry a lot too about the opportunities that they will have but one thing you have to understand is that Papaya is right. It takes a very long time to generate true wealth, requiring years of sweat, hard work, success and failure along with some luck as well. 25 years ago, I struggled royally in my field and I wondered if I'd ever make it so I don't think this situation is unique to these times. It's never been easy. Much of the time, it's not the smartest people who get rich but the ones willing to stay with something even through the darkest of times, the ones who are willing to persevere. From reading what you've written, you seem like you have that in you and that you're doing it.

I've been very, very fortunate in my financial life. I made the right contacts and impressed the right people. When I fucked up when I was starting out, which was often, I was lucky enough that the damage was minimized. If I hadn't made a few calls to the right people when I didn't really know what I was doing, if I hadn't taken up one or two projects that I really didn't want to take, I would be making about minimum wage right now. Run ten people through my life and nine of them would end up broke.

That's the problem with the high-risk, high-reward strategy, it's great when it pays off, but it's really hard to recommend it to other people.

Post: #34

(05-15-2017 07:56 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  One of the biggest problems I think Western culture has is the loss of civic responsibility among the wealthy. The word "Noblesse Oblige" has more or
less vanished from the national vocabulary. The old tycoons, for whatever flaws they may have had, donated their wealth to build libraries and to help the poor.

For some, I'd imagine having half (or more) of your income taken away by the state while being scapegoated to the masses would leave you to say "well, you already got your library, museum, art gallery, and university money, motherfuckers. Choke on it!"

That probably applies more to the upper middle class than the truly wealthy (who can afford craftier accountants), but I think my point comes across.

Post: #35

(05-15-2017 11:40 PM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 07:56 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  One of the biggest problems I think Western culture has is the loss of civic responsibility among the wealthy. The word "Noblesse Oblige" has more or
less vanished from the national vocabulary. The old tycoons, for whatever flaws they may have had, donated their wealth to build libraries and to help the poor.

For some, I'd imagine having half (or more) of your income taken away by the state while being scapegoated to the masses would leave you to say "well, you already got your library, museum, art gallery, and university money, motherfuckers. Choke on it!"

That probably applies more to the upper middle class than the truly wealthy (who can afford craftier accountants), but I think my point comes across.

It's certainly a point worth thinking about. I know I give less to charity than I'd like to, simply because taxes eat up such a huge portion of my income.

But I think that doesn't fully describe what we're seeing in cases like this, and plenty of other cases, where the elites, like the millionaire in the story I posted, just have an outright hatred of the people below them. Taxes aren't enough to explain that, particularly when these guys are often calling for taxes to be raised.

Post: #36

Automation aye?

Post: #37

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-s...h/forecast

Click the MAX time setting button. What a beautiful arc! My God folks isn't that just the best arc you've ever seen!

Post: #38

(05-15-2017 10:58 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 10:47 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 10:35 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  I just used Atlanta as an example but you're right, the problem is widespread. But I still think there are places in the US that are affordable but you have to be willing to think outside of the box. Smaller cities like Columbus OH, Indianapolis, Boise ID may be better examples of affordable places with big city amenities.

Not as much as you might think:
Boise is hitting record highs for home prices.

In Columbus, rising rents are making neighborhoods unaffordable.

And Indy is hitting record highs as well.

Ok so what advice would you give to a 19-20yr old starting out?

...borrow thirty grand off your grandparents and open a suburban gym?

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #39

(05-15-2017 11:05 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 10:53 PM)PapayaTapper Wrote:  When in history have the rich outnumbered the poor?

Success and wealth creation have never been easy.

"The system is fucked and the deck is stacked against you"

Don't buy the line

Just because it cant be created the same way today as it was in the past doesn't mean it can't. It can and is. Everyday

This is true for especially motivated, ambitious individuals. I'm doing it, I've expanded my own business more in the past year than over the past 7 years before it.

Is there a scale-able model / version of your business ? If its service oriented could you for example hire additional people to do "production" while you focused on sales?

Post: #40

(05-15-2017 11:55 PM)Travesty Wrote:  http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-s...h/forecast

Click the MAX time setting button. What a beautiful arc! My God folks isn't that just the best arc you've ever seen!

If youre an employer...yes. It is

Post: #41

As a working class milennial (aged 27), I thought I'd offer my perspective. I really like doc holiday's summary on the previous page.

When I started college in 2008, there wasn't much information out there about the true realities of taking out gov't loans or the student loan debt crisis. By the time I finished school in 2013, though, conversations like this one started popping up more and more frequently. I was regretting my decision to major in anthropology (yeah, I know, I know . . .) before I finished school. In retrospect, the decision to take a useless social sciences degree might've been excusable. "I just didn't know," and the "truth" on the realities of debt-job market were a little harder to pin down back in '08, when many thought Obama would fix everything.

But now -- these young kids heading off to school do know. It's impossible to miss these conversations.They're everywhere. And yet kids are still lining up to take the same bullshit year in and year out. Grads are signing up to fork over $60,000 to study a public administration Master's or something, knowing full well the financial realities that will face them when they graduate. Some people just don't want to be helped, or maybe can't be helped.

As a working class person, I've managed to put away over $50,000 in the bank over the last 15 1/2 months of saving aggressively. Yes, I've got loans, and I've also got non-negotiable medical expenses as well. I work an entry-level blue collar job for my state, and, up until recently, worked part-time as a fry cook, dropping fries and chicken tenders by the bagful. For you coastal guys, $50,000 is laughable.

But, for me, this means I could lose my job, not work for 3-4 years at all, and still have money. This is enough money to disappear back to the developing world for half a decade and not really worry.

I'm thinking about trying to switch into a janitorial position at my job -- or maybe an admissions gig at the front desk -- so I can get a second full-time job for a cleaning company or at a grocery store. I don't own a car, and walk 2 1/2 miles to work everyday. When it rains, I'll get dropped off after my shift by a co-worker. I live in a family member's spare property with my brother and his wife.

When I eclipse six figures in savings, I'll expatriate, teach English (continuing to grind and build my savings), while pursuing what I want to be my life's work.

Point is, these jobs all suck, but with some grit and tenacity, you can make it. (I have a disability, do you think I want to be doing this shit?) But, obviously, 99% of people with a degree don't want to work these sorts of jobs, don't want to pick up overtime, consider this stuff below, them, whatever . . . Sure, milenials are under-employed, but, grind at the bottom for a second, build some savings, build some leverage, and when you see some daylight, use that leverage to move on to something that is more appropriate given the supposed value of your dogshit college degree.

And then there's attitudes towards money and savings in this country. People on the bottom I work with live check-to-check, not because of the rent/loans, but because they gotta have that $150/month smart phone plan, Starbucks, eating out all the time, hundreds spent on alcohol at the bar and on recreational drugs.

A girl I work with took out a Payday loan because her abusive ex-boyfriend didn't pay their rent the month their lease was up. She then proceeded to buy a puppy. And, because she's got the puppy, she needs to move to a more expensive 1-bedroom apartment that's "dog-friendly." She couldn't pay the rent at the more expensive place the first month because of the Payday loan. She's doesn't have the cash, and doesn't know what to do. I tell her to go to her bank, explain the situation, and ask for a small, low-interest personal loan. She didn't even know such a thing was possible. She didn't know that banks loaned money to people. She attends an extremely expensive online university. '

Another time, a group of colleagues were misrepresenting the income tax to each other. They didn't know about the tax brackets in this country. Now, I'm no Einstein (I willingly decided to study anthropology, after all) and I know enough to know I know absolutely nothing, but what the hell has gone wrong in this country when it comes to money? These people are all smart, reasoned, kind people. I like them all, and genuinely.

My best friend lost his job here in the Midwest, earned an $8,000 severance check, and decided to try his luck in California. For the first time in his life, he had over $10,000 in his checking account. He managed to secure a higher-paying position out there, and is only paying a bit more in rent than he was here. The results? He's got a couple hundred in his bank account. Why? Gambling in Mexico, weed, beers . . .

When it comes to buying houses, well, all the people I know who are hovering just above 'check-to-check' level are trying to figure out how to buy a home. People I know who did secure good positions (nurses, engineers, etc.) immediately buy a home shortly after landing a good job. It's as if these people, most of whom finally have their heads above water for the first time, can't wait to drown themselves in mortgage debt. All of a sudden, as soon as they gain a little leverage, paying $XXX to the mortgage lender is seen as a much better option than paying $XXX to some landlord who has suddenly become "evil." Never mind the hundreds of thousands of dollars of mortgage debt, "I own this, man."

I agree with what others have said -- the people at the top have only tried to widen the gap in the last 50 years, but people in my generation are doing everything in their power to ensure they stay down here by not exhibiting one iota of foresight, restraint, or control.

The most important lesson I've learned from all of this is that nobody's gonna save you but yourself. Not mom, dad, friends, colleagues, your priest. Only you. And when you're in the process of trying to save yourself, people around you aren't gonna understand the process.

Post: #42

(05-15-2017 11:42 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 11:40 PM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 07:56 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  One of the biggest problems I think Western culture has is the loss of civic responsibility among the wealthy. The word "Noblesse Oblige" has more or
less vanished from the national vocabulary. The old tycoons, for whatever flaws they may have had, donated their wealth to build libraries and to help the poor.

For some, I'd imagine having half (or more) of your income taken away by the state while being scapegoated to the masses would leave you to say "well, you already got your library, museum, art gallery, and university money, motherfuckers. Choke on it!"

That probably applies more to the upper middle class than the truly wealthy (who can afford craftier accountants), but I think my point comes across.

It's certainly a point worth thinking about. I know I give less to charity than I'd like to, simply because taxes eat up such a huge portion of my income.

But I think that doesn't fully describe what we're seeing in cases like this, and plenty of other cases, where the elites, like the millionaire in the story I posted, just have an outright hatred of the people below them. Taxes aren't enough to explain that, particularly when these guys are often calling for taxes to be raised.

The solution isn't to have redistribution of wealth via excessive taxation since all that giving the government more money results in is more power and corruption from the government. If the government takes a $100 in taxes from you to redistribute to poor people, the poor person may get $10 of that 100 and the other 90 will be swallowed by the government and redistributed to their cronies and oligarchs. This is a big reason really wealthy people want higher taxation which would seem counterintuitive at first glance.

The solution is to create a level playing field for smalller players to get into the game but the elites don't want the competition and threat so they've rigged the system via the convoluted tax code, regulations and red tape that make it prohibitive to enter into many industries, crushing student loan debt and general debasement of the culture which saps the entrepreneurial spirit of young men.

Post: #43

Nationalism vs Globalism in a nutshell. Doesn't take a genius to figure out who's responsible for the insane real estate prices. I guarantee you if Australia / US decided to slap a foreign buyers tax property values would plummet. Same with smack down of the H1B visa and other low paid immigrant labor.

The poor are getting richer in the 3rd world, while the middle class in the 1st world is feeling the brunt of globalism. The upper middle class will probably stay there and benefit from gloabalism / automation, while the lower middle class face a bleak future.

Boomers are pretty much the luckiest generation in history: squeezing most of the benefits of tech / globalism boom, while not brunting the costs.

Quote:The most important lesson I've learned from all of this is that nobody's gonna save you but yourself. Not mom, dad, friends, colleagues, your priest. Only you. And when you're in the process of trying to save yourself, people around you aren't gonna understand the process.

Your parents are probably the only people who will stick with you no matter how many times you fuck up, so cherish their company and advice (no matter outdated their advice can be).

Post: #44

(05-15-2017 11:18 PM)DarkTriad Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 07:56 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  Home ownership among the young is at a 30-year low. Millennials are opting to rent rather than buy in large numbers. This has all kinds of negative effects for communities, since young homebuyers are what forms the core of a community's next generation. It's bad for the country, because homes mean larger families in a time of declining birthrates. And it's bad for the millennials themselves, because for many generations a home has been a source of great wealth and pride.

There's been a lot of speculation about the reasons for this problem: is it rising home prices pushing ownership out of reach of anyone but the wealthy? Job instability that means you could be forced to pack up and move across the country at any time? Zero interest rates and high taxes making it difficult to save?

One Australian millionaire knows exactly what the cause is: too many millennials are eating avocados:

Quote:Freely spending on avocados — the pricey, popular superfruit beloved by young people — may be one of the reasons why some young people can't afford a house, according to Australian millionaire and property mogul Tim Gurner.
"When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each," Gurner told the Australian news show 60 Minutes.
Only 32% of home owners were first-time buyers in 2016, the lowest point since 1987, according to a study by NerdWallet. A recent study by HSBC found that American millennials have a homeownership rate of 35%, and in Australia only about 28% of millennials own their homes. Cost is often a major factor in millennials' decisions to buy — the study found that a lot of young homeowners got a financial boost from their parents when making their purchase.

It goes without saying that this is obvious nonsense. All the millennials I know are in heavy debt, or working low-end jobs with no obvious promotion path. The exceptions are mostly fleeing the country. I personally could no more buy a house than I could buy a space shuttle.

One of the biggest problems I think Western culture has is the loss of civic responsibility among the wealthy. The word "Noblesse Oblige" has more or
less vanished from the national vocabulary. The old tycoons, for whatever flaws they may have had, donated their wealth to build libraries and to help the poor.

Our current elites seem to absolutely hate their own citizens. I have no idea why, or when this changed, but it's hard to come up with any other explanation. It seems to me that this is going to end poorly. I know when I read this my first thought was that one way to encourage home ownership among the poor would be for the government to throw Mr. Gurner in jail, confiscate his properties and just hand them out to the poor. I'm well-read enough to know exactly why this is a terrible idea, and it's still tempting.

I can't even imagine what the guys who are 80k in student loan debt are thinking.

Economist Mark Blyth has a great line regarding the contempt the elite has for regular people. Essentially, if you don't start taking care of working people again, eventually they're going to come after you with pitchforks and torches. "The Hamptons are not a defensible position" he says. He states good for the common man is an insurance policy for the rich, and one they've forgotten about too often lately.

The problem being that if the working people do come after the rich with pitchforks and torches, there are still enough working people willing to pick up guns and mow down their fellow working people in order for the chance for a bit of money. And until the UN finally installs its network of Ion Cannon satellites, you can always move your base of operations to a place where the working people are willing to take your cash and use their pitchforks to serve you instead. Bastille Day ain't happening ever again because Louis and Marie Antoinette didn't have private aircraft.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #45

(05-15-2017 11:30 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 11:14 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(05-15-2017 10:58 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  Ok so what advice would you give to a 19-20yr old starting out?

I have absolutely no idea, which is what worries me. My own field is closed off to new applicants, it's getting smaller every year thanks to automation. This seems to be the case everywhere I look. Everybody is cutting back. Nobody is hiring. I've been okay by expanding my network of contacts, but that's for ME, and I'm getting those jobs from taking them from other people.

I have not the slightest idea what I could tell somebody that age to do, particularly if they didn't have the +115 IQ required for an engineering degree.

"Something something skilled trades"? Maybe?

Automation is definitely going to put a lot of people out of work but as old fields get destroyed, new fields will pop up.

First, what fields are these, homie?

Second, will the left side of the bell curve be able to be employed in these fields?

The answer to that is an overwhelming, unequivocal "No."

We need to start talking now about a guaranteed minimum income for the less intelligent among us, because the Hamptons are not in fact a defensible position.

Post: #46

As far as the Australian market goes, I visited a friend in Geelong a couple of weekends ago, Geelong being a historically industrial working class town. In one of the scummy suburbs, we went for a drive and he showed me places that were selling anywhere from $350,000 to $400,000 sight unseen to overseas investors. He bought there for about $180,000 about 8 years ago, back when there was work there in industry.

Now the average wage in Australia is supposedly around 80K/yr. Tax on that would be about $17,500. I only know maybe two people who would be close to that wage. One doesn't have a life, works 7 days a week, overtime, etc. etc, and pays more in tax than I earn in a year. The other is a engineer by profession.

I can only see a property crash coming. Without money from overseas it's utterly stuffed, same as if interest rates rise. Suspect it's going to be some hard times soon.

Post: #47

The solution is to create a level playing field for smaller players to get into the game but the elites don't want the competition and threat so they've rigged the system via the convoluted tax code, regulations and red tape that make it prohibitive to enter into many industries, crushing student loan debt and general debasement of the culture which saps the entrepreneurial spirit of young men.
[/quote]

You could be describing exactly what's happening in the big Australian cities especially Sydney.
Massive immigration that suits the big boys but helps price the locals out of houses.
A medium house here is 1.1 mil, but for a modest house say less than 10-15 k from the city more like 1.5 - 2 Mil. Just totally out of the question. Plus we have a stupid tax system where investors can write property losses off against their wages income.
The Chinese are not buying the cheaper units as much but in decent areas they just blow the locals out of the water.
Totally fucked if you want a house and stay at home wife here.
The other side is bludgers get looked after here, workers earning a good dollar taxed to the eyeballs.
My partner and I enjoy watching the USA property shows here, the prices are unbelievably low. Nice places in second tier cities for 3-400K, less than a mil in the big cities.

The trades pay really well here in a big city, lots of uni degrees aren't worth anything.

For what I see you can still do ok with a trade or even skilled laboring on building sites here, just too many people going to uni for the number of jobs. I reckon get self employed as soon as you can, start a business and forget the corporate slave livestyle as comfortable as it might be. I did that 20 years ago and should have done it sooner.

Post: #48

(05-15-2017 10:53 PM)PapayaTapper Wrote:  When in history have the rich outnumbered the poor?

Success and wealth creation have never been easy.

"The system is fucked and the deck is stacked against you"

Don't buy the line

Just because it cant be created the same way today as it was in the past doesn't mean it can't. It can and is. Everyday

Except when your wealth is inherited and kept in the family, which it often is.

There are fewer self-made men in this world than you think...

Post: #49

$4 coffees & avocados!?!

I'm barely keeping up on the fucking zebra maintenance.

Post: #50

Anyone can say "you don't need to run faster than the lion, you just need to run faster than the other guy."

The reality is that during the 70s to 90s there were ten guys and one lazy lion. These days there are ten guys and nine hungry lions. Sure, you might get ahead, but that doesn't mean you're not going to look around and be happy with what you see developing around you in society.

We're entering the perfect storm. Declining population combined with banks that have to maintain inflated property costs in order to remain solvent and enslave the population to (((maximum debt service))) if you want to go there.

The life of the perpetual renter lends itself to all sorts of ticking societal time bombs but in general the utter lack of community it inspires is the main factor. A nation of gypsies is no nation at all.