In New York city, rents have become so unaffordable that people are paying to live in communal living spaces- you get a small bedroom to yourself while sharing a bathroom with one other person, then share a living room, a kitchen, and a gym with the rest of the building. You get a shelf in the refrigerator that you share with four other people, and a small locker to keep food in. Amenities include WiFi, breakfast once a month, and a weekly cleaning service. In all, you share this stuff with 23 other tenants for the low price of only $2100 a month.
The building in the story has four stories- six people to a floor. Each floor has a small living room and kitchen, three bathrooms, and six bedrooms. The basement has a laundry room with three washers and three dryers, as well as a small gym with a few workout machines.
When I was broke and young, I had roommates. What gets me here is both the price and the fact that these are people in their middle age years doing this. The guy in the story is 33 years old, and isn’t facing some new temporary situation like a divorce. He is choosing to live like this because he likes “the vibe” of living in New York city.
Star Wars came out when I was a young boy. When I was a kid, I used to fall asleep wishing I had a lightsaber and an X-wing fighter. I dreamed of what it would be like to fly it to school. Those are the dreams of a young boy.
In this scenario, there will likely be a good amount of cheating involved, just like in 2020. How hard we are screwed depends upon how far down the cheating goes. Heading into the election, the Republicans have a 220 seat majority over the Democrats’ 215 seats. (There are three vacant seats.) Democrats need to gain five districts to win a majority in the chamber. That would be bad.
The silver lining there is that the Democrats would need to gain 75 seats to have an Amendment approving 2/3 majority, and that isn’t likely to happen.
Things are almost as bad in the Senate, where the Democrats hold a 2 seat majority. There are 34 seats up in 2024 – including a special election in Nebraska. 23 of those seats are currently held by Democrats or Independents. Republicans can retake control with a net gain of two seats.
If the Democrats win the Presidency and both houses of Congress, Kamala is planning on Federalizing the patents of any company that doesn’t comply with her price controls.
Now on to the other possibility:
What if Trump wins and takes office?
OK, now what? The US has more than $142 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and we are bleeding to the tune of $3 trillion or more per year. That number is so staggeringly large, it’s difficult to imagine. To put it in perspective, this number is equal to more than 93% of everything that every American has. This includes all of their assets in savings, real estate, corporate stocks, private businesses, and consumer durable goods like automobiles and furniture.
More than two thirds of that debt- $104 trillion- is Social Security. The only way to save everything that you own, the US will need to repudiate Social Security. The money that’s been coming out of your check every week? That money is gone. Even amongst my readers, I can hear the cries of “but, but, I had better get paid, that’s my money.”
What do you think will happen to any politician who tells you that the US can’t afford social security? Yeah.
So Trump can’t and won’t do a thing to stop that bleeding. Even were he to try, Congress won’t buy into that, and neither will the American public. There is no stopping this juggernaut. So everything that you own, all that you have saved, everything, is going to be gone. There is no choice but for the economy and the government as we know it to collapse. It’s just a matter of when.
Once the money stops flowing and people are hungry, they will cry out for a strong leader to fix everything. Sure, the government will be out of money, but they will still have guns, ammo, and lots of hungry enforcers. In collapsing governments, the people with the guns and the authority never go hungry. That’s why Kim Jong Un is fat in a country full of starving peasants. We will see a dictatorship in this country that will last for generations, and many in the government will support this if it means becoming rich.
So with the above facts, if you disagree, tell me how Trump winning will fix everything. I just don’t see any other end to this.
Knowing that, all we can do is prepare for the worst. Sure, vote for Trump because that’s all we can do, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t prepare for what is to come.
My prediction remains the same: The bureaucrats and Democrats (I know, same thing) will make sure that Trump doesn’t again become President, and we will be on the road to communism in short order. Even if Trump were to win and take office, we will wind up in a collapsed economy and people will demand that debts are cancelled, the rich will be blamed, and we will still be on the road to communism.
Tell me how I am wrong. Don’t just say silly, childish wishes like “Just because YOU can’t see it, doesn’t mean that there’s no way out.” Tell me how I am wrong, give me a realistic path out of this. If not, you are engaged in childish wishes that your government betters are going to somehow come up with a solution, and you might as well wish for an X-Wing fighter and a lightsaber.
Modern monetary theory, the idea that the government can print all of the money it needs, is the pet idea of the left. MMT theorists explain that debt is simply money that the government put into the economy and didn’t tax back. That’s how you get morons who can’t explain how the economy works running the country, for example the Biden administration’s chief financial advisor:
In case you were wondering how we got the Kamala Crash:
This is the Biden-Harris Administration’s handpicked Economic Advisors Chair, Jared Bernstein, struggling to understand basic economics and the consequences of uncontrolled money printing
The adherents of MMT believe that the government can print all of the money it desires, without consequence. Bonds and taxes are the means with which the government controls inflation and levels the playing field. If the economy gets too hot and inflation results, all the government has to do is sell more bonds. This reduces the money supply and cools the economy. If this causes too many people to get rich, raise taxes on the rich, and that levels things back out.
Stupidity. It hurts me to even type that drivel. The simple fact is this- the left has little to no understanding of how economics, or even money, works. That’s why so few of them run businesses, why so many of them are struggling financially, and why our nation is in the financial crapper.
Let’s say that you are making and selling a product. You sell that product for $4 each, but no one really wants it. You won’t sell any. What to do? You change the product you are making to one that people actually want, and now you can sell them at $4 each all day long.
Until someone sees how much you are making on it and offers a similar product, but for $3 each. Your sales drop as customers buy your competitor’s product. So you make changes to make it even better, and now everyone wants it. The problem is that you can no longer keep up with demand, so people who NEED that product offer you $5 each. A bidding war ensues, and eventually you are offered $100 each. Do you turn it down? After all, that would be price gouging…
Of course you take the money. All transactions are a combination of a willing seller and a willing buyer. All sales of all products are negotiable.
That happens every day with your labor. The labor that you perform is the product you are selling. Michael Jordan played basketball like no one else, so he made millions. When people saw the shoes he wore, they wanted to be like Jordan, so millions bought his shoes. He added hundreds of millions of dollars of value to the Air Jordan brand, so they paid him.
Robert Downey Jr made the Avengers movies what they are. Few people would pay $20 to see a movie starring Steve Smith. However, tens (hundreds) of millions of people did so to see RDJ in the Avengers movies. That’s why he makes $40 million per movie. Without him, that movie is a losing proposition. Without RDJ, this movie isn’t going to be made at all. This makes RDJ’s value in the movie industry sky high. No one goes to see a movie because some rando that no one has even heard of was 1 of 40 other nobodies in the costume department. That’s why jealousy fueled rants like this are stupid.
I will repeat it until I'm blue in the face… I made $12.50 an hour working 70+ hours a week on Black Panther Wakanda Forever… went up to $14 on Blade v1.0… https://t.co/ggKTWik5lM
If you aren’t happy with the money you are making, you need to find a way to make your labor more valuable. No one is going to pay you $50 an hour for labor that literally anyone can do, because there will be a line of people behind you who are willing to do that job for $40, $20, or even $15 an hour. In order to make more, the value that you add to the deal dictates how much you will make. Simply saying that the employer owes you “a living wage” as you whine and complain on Social Media isn’t helping.
That goes for literally any job. That’s why Gordon Ramsey makes what he does- he adds enough skill to the deal that people are willing to pay $40 for a hamburger (not me, but people). Find a skill that is valuable and become good at it. It may take some time, but the money will follow.
We can’t all be Robert Downey Jr, Michael Jordan, or even Steve Jobs, but all of us don’t have to be making minimum wage, either.
You all know that we moved to a new home at the beginning of the year. We placed our house on the market about two months ago. At first we tried to do a sale by owner. No dice. We had only one person contact us to inquire, and that led nowhere. After a month or so with no leads, we hired a realtor, who has had at least four open houses, but no dice. So we cut the price by $25k about two weeks ago. Still nothing.
No other houses that are listed in the area are selling, either. It looks like the bottom is falling out of the housing market. Nothing is selling. The realtor says that he isn’t moving inventory, and he thinks that people are waiting to see if sleepy Joe is going to get ousted, which will change the nation’s economic course and lower the insane interest rates.
In the meantime, Zillow is still showing that prices are falling like a rock. The price that Zillow is estimating for our house is a full $60k less than it was six months ago, and $10k less than it was two weeks ago.
All I know is that we have decided that, should our house still not sell by the end of our contract with the realtor, we are not going to cut our price again. Instead, we will convert it into a rental and ask for $2500 to $3000 per month in rent for an 8 month lease. Then we will see where the market is in 8 months.
Homeless people aren’t simply ordinary working families who have fallen on some hard times. The vast majority of them have drug, alcohol, and mental health problems. Now imagine that you can’t evict your “tenant” or charge the market rate for rent.
That’s right: according to the city, the initiative would have some requirements: the homeowner would have to live at the property in a neighborhood that doesn’t have an HOA and the rent cost would have to be approved.
Did you get that last part? The rent has to be approved by the city. That means you won’t be able to rent this apartment that is in your home without getting the permission of the city, who will tell you how much you can charge. The city will own your house from that point forward, not you.
It gets even better:
Eligible homeowners would need a two-car garage in a home that’s homesteaded, and not governed by a homeowner’s association (HOA). If the city were to provide funding for the home expansion — Eady said she’s looking into government grants that support that — 25 percent of the rent would go to the city to defray those costs.
That’s right: The city gets to keep 25% of the rent that you collect for the privilege of allowing homeless people to live (and use drugs or even manufacture meth) in your home. Of course, this isn’t being done out of altruism. No, the commissioner is trying to get the homeless out of her neighborhood.
Her motivation, she said, came from a family who she’s heard drives into her neighborhood very late each night to sleep in their car.
So what will be the benefit?
According to national apartment listing service RentCafe, 50% of one-bedroom apartments in the city are renting from $1,400-1,600 per month.
Said Eady: “Not everyone who needs a place can afford all that.”
So I think we can assume that you will not be able to charge more than $1400 per month for this “deal.” The city gets to keep 25% of that. You get to keep $1050 per month, with the city getting $350 of it.
Here’s the financial side of the problem:
Now your house is going to be valued higher, and the portion of your home that is rented out is no longer eligible for homestead tax exemption. That means your taxes will increase.
Your homeowner’s insurance will have to be changed to a commercial landlord’s insurance. There are very few companies that offer this, and it’s more expensive.
You are going to have to pay taxes on the additional income.
The renters will likely be using your electricity and water. That means more expense for you.
Now you have all of the legal liability for complying with the fair housing act, local building codes, and other regulations. If your tenant has a dog that bites someone- that could be YOUR liability.
It’s only a matter of time before the left begins mandating the housing of people in your “spare” room.
Biden’s profligate spending is destroying the US economy. The cumulative effect of persistent inflation is devastating. Since President Biden took office in 2021 the CPI is up by 19%. For basic necessities, the situation is even worse. Groceries are up 21%. Gasoline prices are up 47%. The cost of shelter 20%, and electricity almost 30%.
American workers simply can’t keep up. Since President Biden took office, average income after inflation has fallen over 2.5%. A typical American family must pay $12,000 more per year simply to maintain the standard of living that it enjoyed when President Biden took office, yet their income hasn’t risen by that much.
“If you take a look at what people have, they have the money to spend. It angers them and angers me that you have to spend more,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett, pointing to the shrinking size of Snickers bars and other food products. “It’s like 20% less for the same price. That’s corporate greed. That’s corporate greed. And we have got to deal with it. And that’s what I’m working on.”
In February, Biden said there are “still too many corporations in America ripping people off. Price gouging, junk fees, greedflation, shrinkflation.”
“America – we’re tired of being played for suckers!” Biden said.
Because it simply can’t be socialism’s fault when socialism fails, the rest of the administration echoes the talking point:
“These markups should have reversed as we recovered from the pandemic—the fact that they haven’t means prices can come down if corporate profits come back to earth,” Edwards said. “President Biden has repeatedly called on large corporations to pass their record profits along to their customers by lowering prices. And he is taking on corporate rip-offs like hidden junk fees that costs families billions of dollars a year. The President will continue to call out corporate rip-offs and fight to keep money in Americans’ pockets.”
Which is complete bullshit. Prices didn’t increase during the pandemic and its aftermath because of the pandemic itself, but because of the trillions of dollars that were conjured into existence as if by magic. Those dollars are still in the economy, more dollars being circulated in the chase for even fewer goods. What’s worse is that the success of Biden’s political future depends upon tossing money from helicopters onto his voting base. That’s why he continues to rain student loan forgiveness in opposition to SCOTUS’ decision that doing so is unconstitutional. It’s why he continues to send thousands in gift cards and free rent to illegals.
Tax and spend. It’s all socialists have, and it will continue to make things worse.
If you think it’s bad now, wait until after the election.
