Communism

There has been a plethora of stories talking about the privilege possessed by the upper middle class as of late. This article is typical of what the left is trying to do– they are saying that young people no longer have a chance at the American dream because they are being kept down by [insert here: “Boomers,” the upper middle class, banks, landlords, Donald Trump] because of privilege.

The things that supposedly prove that you are blind to your privilege are:

1. Why don’t you move to a less expensive area, or one where jobs are more plentiful?
2. I worked hard to make it, you can too.
3. Money isn’t everything.
4. We all have the same opportunities to succeed.
5. I don’t worry about money.
6. Why don’t they save more?
7. Everyone should travel.

Numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 are all linked in my mind. It isn’t just about hard work, it’s about choices. The choices that we make directly affect the outcomes that we experience. If you pick a troublesome albatross for a mate, you decide to smoke week all day instead of hustling to improve, or you waste all of your money on OnlyFans, Starbucks, and Door Dash, you are not making good choices. Your outcome will reflect that.

That isn’t to slam having some vices- I like to gamble, and ordering Door Dash when I am at work instead of clocking out for an hour to go eat is actually more cost effective. The think is, you can’t be doing those things when you are poor. The importance of understanding when you can give up wants in order to afford your needs is something that many young people struggle with. Everyone, when they first move out of their parents’ house, is used to living a better lifestyle than they themselves can afford. My mother used to call it a “caviar and Champaign taste on a beer and bread budget.” Live within your means, save as much as you can, and then you will later enjoy a better life. Learn that sacrifices when you are young will pay off when you are older.

Once you realize that, you won’t have to worry about money and you will be able to travel. There is no secret to making it- so many people think that there is some magic or secret society to becoming wealthy, but it isn’t a secret and it isn’t magic.

The way to wealth is this:

Own your house. Renting just means that you are paying someone else’s mortgage.

Buy a house, preferably with a 15 year mortgage. Pay it off as quickly as you can- don’t just make the minimum payments. Look at four different choices (using West Orlando prices):

• Rent a nice 2 bedroom apartment. Ten years ago, it was $1200 per month. Same apartments today are $2300 per month. If you did that for 15 or 30 years, it would cost you $324,000 or $648,000 and you own nothing.
• Buy a house with the roughly same square footage in the same area for $140,000 in 2002. A 5% down mortgage would mean a $7,000 down payment and monthly payments of $937 for 30 years. Total cost for 30 years: $344,320. A lot, but you also now own a house that is now worth $425,000. Not bad. You are now $733,000 more wealthy than if you had rented.
• Or buy the same house with a 15 year mortgage. Now the payments are $1281 per month, but you pay it off in half the time. Now the total cost is: $237,580. After 15 years, no payment at all. You are now $835,000 more wealthy than if you had rented.
• Same 15 year mortgage, but make an extra $200 per month payment against your principal: you pay the house off 3.5 years early, and this saves you another $12,000 in interest payments. You are damned near to being a million bucks ahead of renting.

Don’t pick a spouse/significant other that spends you into the poorhouse.

I know that she (he) is fun- after all, spending money is fun and gives you instant gratification, but at the expense of your future well-being.

Know the difference between wants and needs.

Door Dash, Starbucks, and eating out are great, but you don’t NEED to do that, especially when you are poor. Wait until you can afford it before you waste money on these things. If you don’t own a house, are making extra payments on it, and can’t afford to pay all of your bills plus put at least 10% of your income aside as savings, then you can’t afford to any of those “Wants.” Learn to wait until you can.

Education is the key to financial well being.

That doesn’t necessarily mean college. The lack of a college degree doesn’t mean that you won’t get a good job. There are plenty of trades out there that make good money- welders, for example. I was a fire medic and making a pretty good living.

Having a college degree doesn’t guarantee you a good job. Taking out $200,000 in student loans for a degree in 14th Century French poetry is a bad idea.

The trick is to learn a valuable skill, then be good at it. Work hard, make wise choices. Save. Don’t waste money on stupid bullshit. Then be patient. It will take a while. It took me about 12 years to go from bankrupt to a million in net worth.

That’s my advice. I have learned all of these things the hard way. It wasn’t privilege that got me to be successful- remember, I have been poor and even homeless. It was the school of hard knocks. Doing the things I recommend here is hard. It takes discipline and sacrifice.

Or you can just stay poor and blame your landlord or Donald Trump for it.

For years, I have been telling you that we are seeing an attempted Communist coup. They keep telling us what they are going to do, but too many people simply aren’t listening.

Milwaukee Councilman Alex Brower: "The only solution to the climate crisis is bring industry under public ownership" pic.twitter.com/p0W0DeiRYf

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 14, 2025

Kroger closed a store that wasn’t turning a profit because it was seeing a large amount of theft. The Party for Socialism and Liberation staged a protest.

Milwaukee protests Krogers for shutting in a black area with crime: pic.twitter.com/Uksc2vEliQ

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 24, 2025

Democrat Maxwell Frost, US Congressman from Orlando, has called landlords “money hungry,” and has proposed two pieces of legislation to screw them over.

The first of these is the End Junk Fees for Renters Act. This proposed law would

• banning application and screening fees;
• require that late fees apply as credit to next month’s rent
• Prohibits credit score screening in the rental application process
• Requires that landlords disclose in the rental contract:
• Past and present litigation with tenants
• Ongoing pest and maintenance issues
• Rent increase percentages year after year over the last ten years
• The total amount that will be due each month, prohibiting surprise fees like utilities, bounced check fees, and late fees

This is what the commies had to say:

Credit scores were never intended to gauge whether someone will be a good tenant. They’re designed to predict whether someone will be late paying a loan, not rent, which is a much higher-priority bill than a credit card. Given the current rental housing crisis, this practice makes a bad situation worse.

Renting a home IS a loan. I am lending you a quarter of a million dollars in real property in exchange for your paying rent on time. The rental business is risky enough, but not allowing me to minimize the risk of a tenant stiffing me, doing $20k in damages to my property, or both means that I have to raise rents for everyone in order to make up for that risk.

The good Congressman also has this to say:

 If we want a future where everyone has access to stable, secure housing, then we must end junk fees. We must end discriminatory credit screenings. We must make housing a right, not a luxury. 

Nothing that requires the labor or property of someone else is a right. My tenants just moved out. I grow weary of dealing with them. This last tenant was late four times and had a payment declined once. Under this law, there would be nothing I could do about that, and landlords would have no idea that they were coming.

Residential renting is a moderate to high risk. Two tenants ago, I had to repair nearly $10k in damages that the tenants had done. You mitigate some of that risk through screening your tenants, and penalties for late and dishonored payments. If those tools are taken away, you will see higher deposits and higher rents to offset that. Since you are asking me as a landlord to lend you a quarter million dollars when a mortgage bank won’t do so because it’s too risky, then I need to generate returns that are far higher than I can get in the stock market.

Over the past 5 years, I have earned an average return of 7 percent or so in the market. My rental properties need to beat that by a fair margin, or the risk simply isn’t worth it.

My prediction is that this bill won’t pass. If it does happen to become law, rents will have to rise to compensate for risk.

I would raise rents by at least 10 percent, and would have to at least ask for 2 months rent as security deposit. Or perhaps we would take a page from Disney and charge a 13 months rent up front, but let you finance it at 0% interest, with approved credit.

Here's AOC trying to define capitalism. Well done NYC. 🤪pic.twitter.com/hPgFpnI2Xl

— MAZE (@mazemoore) June 27, 2025

AOC is upset that rich people control large businesses. It’s better, according to her, that she and the rest of the government get to do it. Bartenders are so much better at running things, you see.

They want the power to pick who gets what. They want to determine through government fiat who is rich and who is poor.

Here is the problem that I have with the Catholic church: They want everyone to do as they say, and not what they do. A great example:

Shortly before his death Pope Francis updated Vatican norms imposing up to four years in prison for attempting to illegally invade the Vatican as a migrant. At the same time, he billed himself as the pro-migrant Pope and criticized those in the US who were against illegal immigration.

No different than the limousine liberals in Martha’s Vineyard.