🏡 The Way We Think About Housing 🏡 Is Completely Backwards. 🏡
source: photo by @lily-da-vine
Currently in our eastern european world, we raise children and then push them out into the world, saying go make your own fortune. And, we expect these kids to go out, get a job and get their own place.
This was, for a time, quite doable. And thus, no one saw the huge error in their ways.
There was a time when working at a fast food restaurant was just a training job. A place where teenagers worked while they got experience so they could get a real job. Now fast food jobs are considered stable employment with older people demanding full benefits and a living wage.
And the houses that you were supposed to get on your own. There was plenty and cheap. There was renting the room above someone's garage. But, then came zoning laws, where each house had to be on its own property. The house had to be a minimum size (meaning big). And things like granny flats had to get a special permit to be built. All of these forcing house prices higher and higher.
On top of that, we had a group of bankers whose goal was to destroy america. They gave really sweet loans to any american manufacturer that would move their plant overseas (It was to Mexico then). Further, they continuously lowered the requirements for home loans. It used to be 30% down, and a 5 year loan. Then it was 10% down and a 15 year loan. Now it is 3% down (and you can borrow it) and 30+ year loans. Each time they did this, the amount of house the average family could afford went up. And in each iteration, a little more percentage of the family income went to pay for the house.
Americans saw the prices of houses go up.
Americans saw the prices at Wallymart go down.
And americans thought this was good.
But, they never thought of what their children would do? Wallymart prices are lower, because all the jobs are in China. And house price are now past what most kids can expect to make in their entire lives.
Well, you really can't blame the parents. America was the first country where the middle class could actually own land. Look at europe! Almost all of it is still owned by the crown.
Owning land was a privilege. And so, the burden of going out and making something of yourself was the norm.
Push the kids out of the nest. They have to learn to fly on their own.
If we look at this thing from an opposite point of view, our society is really screwed up. Who has a child and then says, get your own land, when their is no land left. Every piece has been part and parcelled. And only because people die or fall on hard times is any of it turned over to new hands.
So, as a society, wouldn't it be better if upon reaching the age of majority we gave each child a space to build a house? Wouldn't it be better to allow them a space in our society?
There was a time that when a couple got married, the community would get together and build them a house.
Doesn't this seem like a far better solution? Who better to build a house? All of the people who have had a lifetime of crafting experience and resources accrued, or the newly wed couple who are starting out with nothing and are expecting children?
But, maybe this would be so much easier to conceive if people weren't paying their whole lives, their entire life's work to just own a home on a tiny piece of land. We spend 2/3s of our lives just giving money to the banks. 66% of our lives to repay money that was created out of thin air.
Mortgage is a french word. It literally means "death note". Morte - death. Gage - paper/note. Or, you will pay until you are dead.
It is time we think of our children. And turn this entire planet around. Welcome children into adulthood by giving them a place in our community. If communities got together and portioned out places for new members, and then came together to build first houses. Then the entire community would be richer:
- Not having thrown their hard earned money away to banksters
- Getting a new member who can start working on a real future, and thus make the whole society better.
- Not burdening the next generation with onerous debt when just starting out.
- Welcoming a new member into society. Giving them a place at the table, instead of: you have to take on a huge burden, and then overcome great obstacles, and then we will grudgingly let you into our circle.
accept the first one, the original photo is from lily-da-vine
Interesting post, with some valid and though-provoking points.
If we had strong and viable economies with cohesive and supportive societies, it might not be such a bad idea to send youth or young adults out into the world to experience life on their own.
But who would want to send their loved ones into a world with the current conditions, where the robber barons of high finance have utterly devastated our economies and absconded with the spoils? Nobody would, and nobody can.
And it's not only the young people who are being victimized. Many middle-age people who've owned their homes for years (albeit through "death notes") have been compelled into "refinancing," which often led to greater costs and the eventual loss of those homes. All because the robber financiers saw that they could extract wealth from those middle-class homeowners.
To paraphrase Matt Taibbi's characterization of those financial pirates, they will continue "relentlessly jamming their blood funnel into anything that smells like money."
I think it's safe to say that we not only have housing completely backwards, but many other aspects of society as well. And until we change the system, until we slaughter the "vampire squid," who are none other than the financial robber barons, these aspects of the system will not change.
You have been chosen!
@edolo
This is a really interesting post and I agree that the cost of buying a house now is crazy. I live in the UK and I'm renting, which costs more than buying, but I wouldn't qualify for a mortgage with my current self-employed earnings and after hearing your translation of what mortgage really means - "death note" I'm not really in a rush to go out and get one!
We don't have enough land here to be building each child leaving home a new house, but I agree that the current system does not work for the people and a new one needs to come into existence. I hope that blockchain and peer to peer can resolve many issues for all countries.
But do you really own it when you have to pay taxes on it every year? You're never done paying for it. Was it different before?
Yes, before it was the kings land. (still is... Real Estate. Real as in El Camino Real. As in the road of the kings)
The serfs worked and lived on other people's land.
In fact, it might be said that the land owned the people.
Well, now, it is your land... at least in name.
this post deserves more exposure ...resteemed...thanks for sharing your concerns it makes perfect sense! Who would've known the greedy banksters would willingly sell our children's future so they can gold plate their mercedes and bugattis ...
"Let us control the money of a country and we care not who makes its laws" - rotschild.
Read their memoirs and you will find that it didn't happen by accident, it was planned, propagandized, and systematically manipulated into being. But then, we went along with it.
Thank you for reading and resteeming.
very interesting post... is a lot of land in Europe still technically owned by the crown? how does that work?
Well, you look up who owns all the property where nothing gets built upon, and you find its all the same families. All of the aristocracy.
I've always like the thought of the Maori thoughts on land was pretty cool, where no one owns the land, you just respectfully inhabit it. Although, this is not possible with today's population
There is a lot of overlap between respectfully inhabit and owning land. If you are a good caretaker, and are using the land well, its almost synonymous.
The problem comes from people that want to either restrict everyone else, or rape the land. It is a hard balance that we will have to look into.
Ownership on one hand provides the best assurance that the trees you plant will be yours to harvest, but on the other hand, there are people who would be good caretakers that only get to dream of ownership.
You bring up some good points. I do think there are much better ways of dealing with things especially communal resources like the water, land and air.
There indeed are better ways, but currently we are dealing with a corrupt govern-cement that is actually out to push all people off the land, and own everything themselves. Worthless eaters should just die, is their creed.
So, I feel we will work it out, just as we will work out better forms of govern-cement, and sorta at the same time.
I think they are fantastic ideas. We have to change the way our society acts. Of course taking our money out of Fiat money system and educating the younger ones in that direction will be the key.
The Doukabors Have an interesting view of property ownership.