I don't blame old people, they lived the best of times, their lives were comfortable because they were in a boom. They had high hopes, had kids with a bright future in mind for them, but things change, some see it, others are oblivious to it.
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It's still fair to blame them. Old people blame young people for everything afterall.
I 100% blame them for pulling the ladder up behind them.
Would have been nice if younger folks had voted in their own interests.
I'm at least relieved to not have lead poisoning, for my gay brother to be safely out, and for my interracial marriage to not be scorned by the community.
Yet.
Kind of shows that time is a circle
I see it more as a muddy hill. Only in the US some people have now shat upon that hill with the greasiest, nastiest shit so the slide is even worse on this length.
Stating the raw value of the house will only make naysayers throw inflation into your face.
The better way of saying that would be,
buy a detached SFH for only 4× annual minimum wage
Like, really drive it home how absolutely unaffordable homes are these days. In my corner of Canada, the median detached SFH is going for 28× minimum wage, and it’s 32× if it’s new construction. My own 1972 split level sold brand-new for only 4× the 1972 minimum wage.
Jesus in today money that's 60k for a house. For a nice hours our parents bought
A quick way of estimating annual wage for a full-time position is to take hourly, double it, then move the decimal point to the right by three spots.
So for example, the BC minimum wage is $17.40. Double that is $34.80. Annually in a full-time job, that’s about $34,800 before taxes.
And 4× that is $139,200. Current median SFH prices for used homes sit at just under $1M in my podunk tourist town. All detached SFH, $1,200,000. New construction, $1,500,000.
I mean, really - who under 50 can actually afford those prices without intergenerational wealth to give them a leg up in life?
Suburban SFHs should be outrageously expensive. They are an unsustainable model with huge externalities. They were artificially cheaper for previous generations due to the tax shell game they run on us all. They are a part of the reason the current generation is under water.
And it pisses me off that "externality" is STILL not in my spelling dict in 2025.
Also median detached sfh in the 70s was probably closer to 1200 sq ft. No builder is going to do anything less than a McMansion these days
My own home was 2,000ft² when built. In 1972. That was the Canadian average at the time, as most homes built by developers were made with the same 15 (or so) floor plans with slight variations.
You’re thinking of the 50s. Those homes were indeed around 1,200ft², and there is even a pair in my neighbourhood the next block over
You can throw the inflation right back at them. Boomers were born into the Bretton Woods system, started borrowing from us in the 1970s, and then kept voting for lower taxes on the wealthy.
Old people used to complain about inflation frequently because they experienced a stable dollar for decades... until the Nixon Shock.
Just shows you how low minimum wage is.
It’s not just low minimum wage, although BC’s is currently the third highest in Canada.
No, the problem is also “investors” that buy on spec only to sell at a much higher price just before completion, as well as “investors” that buy up 5, 10, 15 or even more homes for rental income. Both of these goose home values into the stratosphere and massively constrain the supply of homes that are affordable to those wanting to stop being renters.
Were it not for “investors”, homes would likely be half or even less than what they currently are.
Then rent is also twice as expensive as needed.
The supply has to increase. Since politicians won't organize public housing, renters could organize it on their own.
And then bitch and moan when anything doesn't go absolutely perfectly in their favor.
What I like about this is that it doesn’t pretend boomers are uniquely evil, just the generation that got lucky.
Except that's not really the full truth either. The generation got lucky AND systemically burned every thing down so that they were the only ones left with all the benefits that luck provided.
I would still take my life over my mom's. Things were not good for women back then.
Things can always backslide
Did she starve to death? Because that’s our current timeline
It’s getting comparable… women are being charged with murder for totally natural miscarriages. Imagine ending up in prison for decades for something you had absolutely no control over.
And women are also dying from preventable issues with pregnancy, because it is illegal for doctors to remove fetuses even when they are a direct threat to the mother’s life (ectopic) or even totally dead in the first place.
America is becoming exceedingly hostile to anyone not white, cis, and male.
If it makes you feel any better it still feels pretty hostile to me as well.
peace out
Spend their retirement calling the cafeteria staff at Luby’s racial slurs and saying trans kids and drag queens are evil.
And voting for people that will make everyone's life hell and ensure that no one else will ever get to experience the quality of life that they did.
Also flying to Vietnam for a government paid vacation when they were 18 years old.