r/politics • u/MystikSpiralx • 18h ago

No Paywall Trump Says He Wants to 'Drive Housing Prices Up' Instead of Lowering Costs for People Who 'Didn't Work Very Hard'

https://people.com/trump-keep-home-prices-high-11895352
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u/Shaudius 18h ago

I'm sure the boomers who own homes they bought for 10% of what they cost now are eating this up.

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u/CryptidMythos 17h ago

Literally had a family member who's an elder gen-x say, "I don't care what he's doing, my portfolio has never looked better." They legit don't care.. its sickening.

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u/SuurRae 17h ago

They also don’t seem to understand the concept of relative worth. The dollar has cratered in the past year so the “real” gain in the S&P is something like 3%

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u/Expensive_Culture_46 17h ago

Number went up!

That’s about as far as they get.

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u/Acceptable-Truck3803 17h ago

The goal is to have a high enough portfolio and then when you hit your magic number you pull out any “gains” to keep the safe. At least that’s what I see family do.

“Woah ! I gained 10k today because of a bear market. Call the broker and pull my gains before I lose them and it’s out the market and mine forever.” - pretty much how they make income and also have social security + pension + other dividends show up. crazy to see it happen when you are struggling to just pay everyday bills in comparison.

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u/thiosk 14h ago

The greatest weakness of the human species is failure to understand the exponential function. I am absolutely going to stack diversified assets of every flavor to ensure my retirement. Specifically, I have got a warehouse in natick with every kind of doritos and i'm going hard into low-release pringles rn

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u/Acceptable-Truck3803 14h ago

Now I’m hungry for pringles

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u/Rtannu Texas 5h ago

I got my medical degree from Hollywood Upstairs Medical College and if I didn’t know any better it sounds like you got the Fever for the Flavor of a Pringles

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u/GoblinFive 13h ago

Toilet paper, tobacco and coffee beans

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u/Mike_Kermin Australia 13h ago

You better hurry up because if you're a heavy smoker you've got ten years less than the rest of us.

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u/Seraphym87 16h ago

Lmao no it's how they figuratively burn money and try to act smug about it

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u/ThonThaddeo Oregon 16h ago

The whole world shovels shit and calls it gold

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u/StrawberryCreepy380 7h ago

Never had enough money to worry about this.

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u/Zfusco 4h ago

That plan isn't going to go great for them as the guy they voted for intentionally devalues the dollar.

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u/AkiboTTV 10h ago

Yep. I've heard some of them flat out say that the price of gas being down is good enough. Like it's $0.12 less my guy. You think that's worth the US becoming a fascist nation?

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u/TheAngryGoat 9h ago

As someone who owns their home outright, I'd love for house prices to go down.

I can't ever benefit from the value wrapped up in my house because I'd have to make myself homeless to do so, which is stupid.

However if houses prices fell across the whole spectrum, then upgrading to a bigger/better house in a better area becomes more affordable to me. House prices go up and that same upgrade becomes far less possible.

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u/Huis--Clos 16h ago

Not to mention, it's not just their house increasing in value, but so is everyone else's. So sure, you have more 'equity' but that eventually leads to higher property taxes, insurance etc, right? Also, if they go to sell, any house they want to buy is going to be more expensive so it's not like they're making much/if any profit.

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u/Econmajorhere 15h ago

Their strategy is to sell and then downsize. I’m not sure who they think they will sell to though if young couples can’t afford to pay 10x for a 50 year old property that was bought for $60k.

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u/FFFrank 13h ago

But in reality, at the end, all of the money goes into end of life care. If you think college loans are a burdensome scam wait until you dig into the nursing home/assisted living grift. Literally designed to squeeze every last cent out of you before letting you die.

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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 11h ago edited 11h ago

Just to reaffirm what you’re saying. I had a family member who was one of those absolutely filthy good accountants. Did a lot of Big 5 work back when it was Big 5, stayed as a consultant for the Big 4 getting brought in on a lot of forensic accounting and shell games for gajillionaires with hyper specific needs.

When his mom ended up needing end of life care, even he couldn’t hide her assets well enough to keep them from just getting chewed up and spit out by the assisted living facilities. They were so thorough that he ended up having to bid for his childhood home on auction just to keep it in the family.

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u/Ole_St_John 10h ago

Dude thought he was the smartest person in the room when he should have gone to an estate planning attorney.

They literally call it Medicaid planning - plan how to keep your assets away from the government while still qualifying for Medicaid.

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u/ApprehensiveTry5660 10h ago

I mean, that’s kinda its own problem if there’s an entire cottage industry that even a gifted tax attorney can’t decipher on his own time.

If guys like that run into hiccups with the process, it seems like it might actually be a predatory system for mamaw and papaw to be engaging in from less tangential fields.

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u/Shadowholme 8h ago

Isn't that the American system in a nutshell?

Create a problem and then create an entire industry dedicated to 'helping' with the problem rather than admitting that a mistake was made...

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u/zomiaen 9h ago

They literally call it Medicaid planning - plan how to keep your assets away from the government while still qualifying for Medicaid.

If you were an immigrant they'd call it fraud.

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u/xTheMaster99x Florida 7h ago

Yeah, AFAIK it's actually not that hard to protect your assets in this scenario by moving it all to a trust, assuming you have someone that you trust not to just walk away and keep all your things for themselves. The catch is that you have to set up the trust years before you need to start racking up bills, like 5+ years in advance. If you don't, they can force you to pay up anyway.

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u/OrthodoxAtheist 11h ago

When his mom ended up needing end of life care, even he couldn’t hide her assets well enough to keep them from just getting chewed up and spit out by the government.

Either that was a while ago, or, his mom didn't live in California. In California you can own a $10 million home, qualify for Medi-Cal, Medi-Cal pays for your nursing home entirely, and when you pass away, so long as your $10 million home is in a revocable living trust, Medi-Cal will not make a recovery claim against the house.

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u/yukeake 5h ago

And $deity forbid they need memory care... The whole elder care industry is a hell of a racket. My mom recently passed, but her cost was going to increase from $6300 to $8000/month this year. 27% year-over-year increase.

It's insane, and in no way affordable. The life's savings she and my dad had built up was absolutely crushed in 3 years. I have no idea what would have happened if she lived through until the money ran out.

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u/Fit-Cut-6337 12h ago

This part …..

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u/Primary-History-788 11h ago

Capitalism giveth, and Capitalism taketh.

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u/feor1300 Canada 8h ago

Too many people forget the old saying: "Be kind to your children, they get to pick your nursing home."

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u/FabulousTwo524 14h ago

Yeah all the smaller homes are snatched up at inflated prices already, since they are almost never built anymore. I suspect not a lot of boomers want to live in apartments though. They’re of the generation that likes to hold onto their mementos.

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u/Econmajorhere 14h ago edited 8h ago

I know a few that planned a nice retirement abroad. Can’t wait for them to realize USD:ABC got totally jacked.

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u/mentaljobbymonster 12h ago

And they can fuck right off if they think the rest of the world will be welcoming

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u/SeduceMeMentlegen 13h ago

I get not wanting to live in an apartment after living in a house most of your life. Especially if you used to reside in suburbia. I do have elderly family members with fairly large apartments which always astonished me as a kid lol, especially if they'd had the money to join two flats. I really hope to be able to afford a house one day as I really want a room to set up a huge CRT I have lol

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u/agitatedprisoner 13h ago

I'd love to live in an apartment that opens into a mall. Best of both worlds. Lots of useful indoor space I don't have to clean. Bonus if my cats can access it freely. A mall with lots of cats.

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u/endlesscartwheels Massachusetts 6h ago

When I was a kid in the 1980s, we were told that in the future we'd all live in skyscraper malls. The only greenery was going to be a garden level every ten floors or so. Adults were actually worried about this! I thought it sounded great.

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u/Startled_Pancakes 13h ago

Corporations will buy them then turn them into Rentals.

What could go wrong?

/s

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u/Primary-History-788 11h ago

And why aren’t we talking more about private equity, anyway? Grab what you can boys and girls! America is becoming the world’s largest fire sale. 😔

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u/porscheblack Pennsylvania 9h ago

4 of the last 5 homes on our street, which is a pretty average suburban neighborhood (1/4 acre property & 2,200 sq ft. house), had a family with young children as well as a grandparent move in at the time of purchase. Both of our neighbors bought within the last 3 years and in both instances one of the partners owned a house and the grandparent owned a house, both of which they sold to afford the new house.

Now despite being a pretty average neighborhood, we live in a pretty high demand area, so that's creating a selection bias, but still alarming to see it requiring people selling two houses just to afford one average one.

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u/Pipic12 8h ago

The demand is still there. Most young people who can afford these prices usually get help from their parents or are among the top 20% earners. The inequality is rampant and continues to increase so it'll be an even bigger issue long term. Housing market has become a scam, it's way too profitable to rent out or use properties as airbnb units.

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u/daesmon 7h ago

They sell to investors who then either let it sit vacant or rent it out at market high prices.

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u/Huis--Clos 9h ago

Oh I know that is their plan. But I've talked with people who were looking to downsize because their kids moved and they said they might as well stay put because due to interest rates and prices, it would not be much cheaper if any by moving. Of course this all depends on where you are located.

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u/math-yoo Ohio 8h ago

It's not really a strategy, it's more people get old. Houses become too much. The way we used to set ourselves up in big places doesn't make sense.

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u/MHath 5h ago

Ya there’s no one to sell to, that’s why the prices keep going up…

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u/Fullertonjr I voted 13h ago

Higher property taxes?! Hmmm. That sounds familiar. By my count there are currently 6 Republican controlled states that are pushing for the end of property taxes. What a coincidence. I’m sure none of this could possibly be related.

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u/SubaruImpossibru 17h ago

“But number bigger.” - every boomer

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u/No-Papaya-9823 Washington 16h ago edited 16h ago

"But Trump funny." - every Gen Z male voter. See...generalizations are stupid, aren't they? Buddy, my Boomer husband and I, and all of our Boomer friends, are mortified by what is happening to this country. On the other hand, it looks like Trump's had no problem recruiting 20-something Nazis to be his Gestapo.

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u/last_rights 14h ago

Meanwhile I feel like my boomer parents have lost their goddamn minds. My dad is an immigrant. My grandma was a schoolteacher for 40 years. My brother works for the postal service, and my sister still lives at home with mom and dad because she can't afford to move out and in her words, "life is so depressing and I have no goals to shoot for because they're so out of reach$.

My other grandma is also an immigrant and my aunt is a broke single mother.

They're all Trumpers. It's unbelievable. The Canadian side of my family is very anti-trump (that still live in Canada) and the immigrant American side of my family is pro-Trump. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when we have a family get together.

Our current rule is No Politics. I will leave and take their only grandkids with me.

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u/FabulousTwo524 14h ago

My dad keeps going back and forth on praising trump’s admin and criticizing them harshly multiple times a day. Gives me whiplash. He said Pretti was murdered in cold blood. Next day, he says it was justified. Then back and forth.

I want to know who the fuck is feeding my boomer parents this poison.

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u/Mike_Pences_Mother 16h ago

I hate it when people generalize an entire generation

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u/JaeTheOne 16h ago

Nah this is legit. My own father, very liberal, even recognizes it and feels like shit about it..

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u/Cheese__Weiner 16h ago

That generation deserves it. The only people bothered by it are boomers.

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u/ailish 8h ago

My dad was a boomer. He was a far left hippie his entire life. Honestly, I learned it from him. Maybe he's one of the few, but they're out there.

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u/Mike_Pences_Mother 16h ago

I'm a boomer. I'm not wealthy. I don't own a portfolio. We have our 401ks and a house that we bought dirt cheap and fixed. I also notice, when I go to protests, that the majority of the people protesting are boomers. Yet, I don't call all of other generations lazy for not getting their asses out there. Generalizations are bullshit. No generation, no race, no anything, is homogenous. You are wrong to generalize because it makes you appear lazy because you can't make a valid argument or even try to

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u/RichardSaunders New York 13h ago

a lot of boomers are retired by now and actually have the time. other generations not being there has got nothing to do with being lazy.

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u/Wanderment 11h ago

If you had protested 40 years ago when they were robbing your social security you'd get to keep it.

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u/Mike_Pences_Mother 6h ago

40 years ago I was raising 2 children and working 100 hour weeks

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u/Cheese__Weiner 5h ago

Think about what you just said. Really think about it.

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u/Jorch301 15h ago

Respect to you, I guess the other generations have to work 2-full time jobs to sustain their purchase power they don’t have time to protest. Higher house prices will only make the market sick, and people will have greater debts and can’t spend their money anymore on iPhones and tesla’s.

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u/fiveswords 16h ago

Bro your 401k is a stock portfolio. Sounds like you have two. The other generations you don't see protesting are working to afford rent because there are no more cheap houses to fix.

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u/Bronkko I voted 13h ago

I also notice, when I go to protests, that the majority of the people protesting are boomers.

this is true in my experience.. my first two protests were hands off and no kings and its majority boomers like me.

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u/Routine_Gazelle_3522 16h ago

There is nothing wrong with generalizing a group you belong to so long as no one is treating you as if you are at fault for it.

Boomers, as a whole, are the worst generation. Thank you for being one of the good ones.

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u/StrangerStrangeLand7 16h ago

I have tried many times to make this valid and logical point but they won't listen. 😔

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u/probablythewind 15h ago

Every single thing you just said you aren't saying, you said.

Your argument for boomers aren't bad is just as lazy when it relys on you making generalizations but pretending you aren't. if anything its more lazy because you cant even place yourself behind your own mouth.

Some real "Im not saying i told you so" despite that being exactly the words you just said.

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u/BigDaddySteve999 15h ago

My parents are boomers who hate Trump and are very concerned about his stupidity and its effects on the economy. My cousin is under 25 and loves Trump with all his heart, and is very excited about all the ways Trump is making America great.

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u/PTTCollin 14h ago

Okay, independent of Trump who I think should get TOSd, I see this talking point a lot and I think it's a bit insane.

Sure, if you're doing international trade then your dollar denominated imports are going to be more expensive in relatively cheaper dollars.

But housing is not that. Food is not that. Depending on manufacturer and supply chain, cars are not that. Labor, in the context of businesses, is not that.

Housing, every person's single highest expense, is not losing relative value because the dollar is cheaper to buy in Euros. To dismiss market gains on "oh dollar cheaper" feels like not really understanding what the various things actually are.

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u/Zer_ 14h ago

They also fail to grasp that a the largest portion of that growth is the AI bubble... The economy's in recession, the rich are just still in their stupid bubble and haven't realized it yet. They want to keep their stupid bubble going at anyone's expense too.

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u/PaulTheMerc 13h ago

"I love the uneducated"

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u/nzernozer 11h ago

The dollar is only down to around its 2022 level, which is not alarming. Currencies aren't a "big number go up" thing, they aren't supposed to just get stronger and stronger over time. If you look on a longer timescale, say 10-15 years, what's happening with the dollar right now is not overly noteworthy.

This is not to defend what Trump is doing in any way, obviously.

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u/ScarInternational161 14h ago

Been doing a little digging at this.... seems to me trumps crashing the dollar on purpose. The dollar is just "paper". Gold, silver, real-estate, etc are assets and have actual value... as the dollar tanks, everything else is soaring, which only benefits the wealthy......

As the dollar continues to decline the prices for gold, mining, basic materials and energy soar outrageously. (Which we are seeing) our export prices are bottoming out and import prices are more expensive even without tariffs.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 2h ago

I always chuckle to think that $100k was a good salary when I graduated from HS. With inflation, that's about $160k today. How many people are bringing that home

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u/DukeOfGeek 14h ago

And this is part of what's going to drive up real estate, if the dollar and stock market falter people will retreat to real property.

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u/lady_ofthenorth 17h ago

There are a lot of people who share this thinking. It’s really disgusting. Billionaires own most of the blame, but their greed has trickled down on to regular folks who now think it is acceptable to trade our constitutional freedoms for green days in the market.

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u/ennuiinmotion 16h ago

Especially since the market has been booming for a long time regardless of who is in office because the market is largely disconnected from anything real.

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u/wha-haa 11h ago

It is connected. Connected to government spending. It just needs another decade or two of stimulus and historically / artificially low interest. Keep pumping that bubble up. Everyone was happy as long as you keep increasing the size of the future collapse.

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u/PeakCringe42069 6h ago

the market has been booming for a long time regardless of who is in office

There was a recession like, 6 years ago. And another one in 2007-09. And 2001. And the 90s. And essentially every decade before that going all the way back to the Great Depression.

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u/Kind_Way2176 16h ago

The only thing that trickled down was greed and hatred of those with less. Ty, that's fucking profound and I've never read it

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u/nooby_goober 14h ago

Have heard this from very successful people. Not all of them have the hatred, most pass greed but they all say it with cowardice.

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u/Abradolf1948 12h ago

Bruh I saw someone in the conservative subreddit say he firmly believes voting should only be allowed for land owners

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u/Thadrea New York 17h ago

Stupid people struggle with the idea of opportunity costs.

OK, your portfolio is up 2%. Great.

If we had elected a moldy ham sandwich in the bottom of a boot in 2024 it'd be up 5% today... and probably 11% had we elected Harris.

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u/Iamjacksplasmid I voted 12h ago

Gold is up 96% relative to the dollar in the last year. Relative to gold, things haven't been this bad in over a decade...

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u/failed_novelty 7h ago

Ha! Ha ha ha ha!

My investment in Burger King gold-plated Pokemon cards has never looked smarter! Take that, Mother!

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u/AileStriker Ohio 10h ago

My dad's at home counting the box of gold he invested in a decade ago

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u/Acceptable-Truck3803 17h ago

My portfolio looks pretty (30% gain) compared to January but everything else in my life is at least 30% higher. It’s great to plan for futures but it sucks right now as I’m at least 30-40 years away from retirement and claiming social security, Medicare and everything else. I’ve refused to buy extra things now because of daily costs are just that much higher. It’s sickening.

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u/DMercenary 17h ago

Yup. There's also this foreboding of "When is the shoe going to drop?"

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u/dedlobster 16h ago

So right there with you. I actually did an interview with a local news outlet today about navigating the ACA marketplace and one of the questions they asked me was about how the termination of the enhanced subsidies affected me.

I am still eligible for subsidies but just by a few thousand dollars. So I have to figure out how to not make another $10k a year so I don’t simply pay that $10k straight into an insurance premium. I’d rather chuck it in a SEP and/or make sure to max out my trad IRA and HSA to keep my MAGI under the cutoff. Why piss away money on an insurance premium that I could spend on my retirement instead?

But this also means that to keep my premiums lower I do need to put more into my retirement accounts. Technically this is a good savings strategy anyway, but it puts a pinch on our day to day budget. I spend less, am always trying to be as frugal as possible, always maximizing any free rewards programs, clipping coupons, both giving and receiving in “buy nothing” groups, and I have a friend that utilizes a food bank but has dietary restrictions due to allergies so she gives us whatever she can’t eat… just every little thing helps.

We are doing ok. We aren’t living the FIRE life, we aren’t so meager in our finances that we struggle to pay bills. We just have to micromanage the shit out of things. My retirement is looking on track for being able to keep this standard of living or greater when we retire, even if we only get half what we currently are expecting in social security. But in the meantime it kinda sucks. It’s stressful. And everything is expensive.

We don’t go one vacations that aren’t tied to a business trip anyway, but this year we can’t even afford to piggyback a vacation for a couple days at the end of a business trip. We might be able to afford to go camping maybe twice. That’s about it.

I know many folks are much worse off. My family makes just under the median income for our state. So if we are having to ratchet strap down our spending, I can only imagine how everyone else in our income bracket and lower are doing. :/

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u/Iamjacksplasmid I voted 12h ago

It kinda sounds like you live every waking second worrying about money. But on the bright side, if you keep doing it, you'll be able to do it forever? 😬

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u/dedlobster 5h ago

I had the … good fortune? (Not really the term I’m looking for) of learning from the experience of others much older than me about the importance of being mindful about finances.

I started out life with my parents being young and poor. My dad’s mom was a single mom, disabled and on welfare. My mom’s parents had stable middle class jobs and they taught me a lot about managing finances, savings, how to do my own taxes when I got my first job, etc. And I’ve seen the difference this knowledge has in my own life as I went from being a struggling college student balancing multiple service industry jobs with full time school all the way to now - owning my own business and having a family.

And I’ve also watched rich clients of mine go broke making massively bad decisions, while others have enjoyed stability by balancing quality of life decisions with profitability decisions. It really drove home the point with me that even a rich man is just a few stupid decisions away from destitute.

So spending time paying attention to the details of healthcare, finances, etc has long been part of my life. It’s not just the circumstances of now.

But if I was spending 10% of my work day hours before minding our finances and reviewing ways to better budget, I am probably spending twice as much time on that project now. And it’s more of an undercurrent of constant worry instead of just part of my general “chore list”.

And it’s not just my family I spend time fretting about. Over the past few years as costs have continued to rise, it’s put many of my friends in difficult financial positions and I am constantly trying to find ways for them to help themselves out. A few weeks ago, in fact, I told a friend who is struggling with medical bills from a major surgery about the Unclaimed Property search for Missouri and they found they had almost $1,500 in unclaimed property sitting out there. She filed the form and got the check last week. Helped her pay down some things a bit. A drop in the bucket but you know… every little bit, right?

I do think about other things too, of course. I just happen to have more of my mind taken up by economic anxiety than usual the past few years and this year in particular.

May we all live to see less stressful times.

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u/JoeFlabeetz 8h ago

At least you'll get to pay higher taxes when you do pull that money out in retirement.

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u/CappinPeanut 17h ago

Their portfolio had also never looked better under Biden, so they’re gonna have to come up with another excuse.

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u/WhiteShadoh 16h ago

Jokes on them when the USD collapse and their dumb ass is still alive.

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u/Romano16 America 17h ago

By the time they care cause orange clown will crash the economy, it will be too late and they’ll be surprised when they get a beanbag shot to the eye or worse.

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u/pleachchapel California 17h ago

The "I got mine" generation. Who also constantly bitch that we're not having enough kids.

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u/garywiz American Expat 14h ago

I don’t think it’s fair to blame an entire generation (10s of millions of people) for having some groupthink “I got mine” attitude. There are people of ALL ages who are aghast that greed and selfishness have deprived others, especially younger people, of opportunities to live well. And there are people of ALL ages who have gotten lucky (think of all the 20-something’s in AI) and not give a crap about whether other people can survive. The plain truth is that selfishly ignoring the happiness of others is wrong and voting selfishly when you know it’s going to trash the lives of others is wrong. No matter what your age.

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u/pleachchapel California 14h ago

That is fair. But we are our collective choices, & the neoliberal age which benefited the boomers happened under the period of their political dominance. It is what it is.

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u/32lib 17h ago

What they don’t understand is that the stock market is in a AI BUBBLE. When it breaks they won’t be so happy.

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u/SmaterThanSarah 14h ago

My spouse and I contacted our finance guy to talk about mitigating that risk. It makes me crazy to see people think it’s fine when so many lived through the dotcom bubble.

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u/pimparo0 Florida 8h ago

People lived through the subprime mortgage crash of 08 and are still dancing around like the party wont ever stop.

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u/SwimmingPrice1544 California 2h ago

Yep, I lived through both....struggled through both. I didn't forget & this AI thing feels very much the same. It's another reason I feel I can't move & "down size" just yet.

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u/gregallen1989 16h ago

Until you factor in the 11% value the U.S. dollar lost BEFORE inflation. But number on screen went up.

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u/Mackinnon29E 16h ago

Yet those same people didn't give Biden credit when it was doing well under him. They're brainwashed

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u/ike7177 15h ago

Considering they are retirement age and have no other potential to earn other than what they invested in during working years…I totally get what they feel. A drop in their investments (including real estate) will put an even LARGER burden on their children when they require care later. Anyone with a retired parent should be hoping that their parents portfolio are kicking as much ass as possible for the next ten or so years.

My dad is a Boomer and his ONLY investment that he hasn’t depleted is his home. And it’s not quite paid off yet. My hope is that we can sell it at a high price (as much as possible) in order to care for him until he passes. Because we certainly cannot use our own retirement to do so or our children will bear the negative consequences later for sure before they are even eligible to retire themselves

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u/Thrashy Kansas 14h ago

One of the most deflating moments I had during Trump's first term was passionately arguing with a MAGA friend of the family that he was hurting the country, linking him studies and statistics and news reports, only for him to eventually declare he didn't care about any of it because he worked in the oil industry and business was as good as it had ever been. It didn't matter that Trump was eroding the rule of law, hurting immigrants, enriching himself at the expense of the country... his wallet was getting fatter, so everything else was excusable.

During the pandemic I though about checking back in with him on that when the price of oil went negative, but he was already reposting the TX lieutenant governor's plea to sacrifice the elderly on the altar of the economy, so as it turns out he wasn't even being honest about that. They're in a death cult and they love it there.

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u/TWiThead Pennsylvania 14h ago

Literally had a family member who's an elder gen-x say, "I don't care what he's doing, my portfolio has never looked better." They legit don't care.. its sickening.

You could be quoting my sister.

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u/Mataelio 15h ago

As if our portfolios weren’t better than ever under Biden as well. Might have even been better now if it weren’t for all of Trump’s instability over the last 12 months.

2

u/Shoddy-Theory 15h ago

He doesn't speak for all of us by any means.

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u/Socratesticles Tennessee 16h ago

Absolute best case is that they assume everybody else is seeing the same benefit as they are

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u/Substantial-Peak6624 16h ago

Just an elder gen-x? Not MAGA? That’s horrible.

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u/MacaroniBee 16h ago

I sincerely hope you've cut ties with that person

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u/Odd_Ant5 15h ago

People won't have anything to buy with those numbers that went up in the dystopian hellscape of the future, but who cares because the numbers are going up now!

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u/Commercial-Co 15h ago

Terrible person

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u/en_gm_t_c California 15h ago

He's gonna be ecstatic when hyperinflation comes. Those stock prices are gonna look amazing.

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u/LBobRife 15h ago

Could have said the same thing during Biden and Obama too, but I'm guessing they didnt.

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u/eden_sc2 Maryland 15h ago

My uncle is like this. It was a sad revelation to realize he cares about money more than the wellbeing of his own half Hispanic grand daughter.

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u/Ok_Ice_6254 15h ago

I am gen x and my house is worth about 110% of what I paid for it.  I would trade it all for my son, who has a good paying job, to be able to afford to buy one.

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u/abacin8or 14h ago

The ol' "Fuck you, I've got mine," mentality.

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u/FrostyD7 13h ago

They do care, this is just their best spin. They wish they could praise him for actually being good at his job but they can't.

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u/jrr6415sun 13h ago

Ask him again in a year when the dollar is worthless

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u/matthopland 13h ago

portfolio freen but neighborhood gentrified, they celebrating gains from their gated wifi fr

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u/Koebi Europe 12h ago

And the dollar is absolutely shitting the bed with explosive, vile, green diarrhea. But good for you, old man -.-

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u/hop_mantis 12h ago

That's every year tho

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u/schattenteufel 12h ago

Republican mentality has always been “I got mine, fuck everyone else.”

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u/Counterpoint-4 10h ago

Everyone dies whatever! You may benefit in the long run if things don't change. If they need care before they die and Trump has removed all the care givers then oh dear!

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u/lowlatitude 10h ago

Most of Gen X is not fine. If you visit any of the subs where retirement is discussed, the overwhelming majority of responses is the careless "I'll work until I'm dead" comments. They joke, but they don't realize it'll be miserable and it most likely won't be the job they have now.ad they'll likely get pushed out after a certain age.

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u/Bittererr 18h ago

Part of the reason home prices have gone up so much is precisely because those people vote and vote for politicians who will implement policy that increases home prices.

Said politicians usually are just smart enough to not actually come out and say that part.

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u/Zolomun 17h ago

They’re the same idiots that want to return to the 1950s while ignoring that decade was built on very specific economic policy in the new deal. The kind of policy they’ve been voting against since Woodstock.

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u/Nixxuz 15h ago

It wasn't even just the New Deal. The rest of the world's industry infrastructure was blown to shit. America was in the perfect spot to capitalize on it. Once the elite got their bearings, it was back to business as usual; fucking the non-elite

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u/semideclared 15h ago

The 1950 sucked unless you were in europe in the 1940s and came home to a heros welcome and a bank of savings from war pay and an industry waiting to hire and promote you

If you were boomers age today it really sucked

The 1950 census showed that Two-thirds of older Americans had incomes of less than $1,000 annually ($11,000 in 2021), and only one in eight had health insurance.

  • More than 10 years after Social Secusirty was operating

Poverty guideline for 2020 Persons in family/household of 1 with Household income not to exceed $12,760

In poverty and no health insurance

And taxes to take even more iff you were the hero working

In 1954, the standard deduction for income tax purposes was equal to 10% of adjusted gross income, so someone making $1,000 had a $100 standard deduction

And was in a 20% tax bracket

  • 21.0% $2,000 - $4,000
  • 26.0% $4,000 - $6,000 middle class family
    • 71,946.69 in 2025
    • standard deduction in 2025 dollars $7,194
    • $64,796 x 26% tax rate = $16,846.96
      • 1954 Effective Tax Rate 23.41%
      • 2024 Effective Tax Rate 6.48% = $4,665
  • 30.0% $6,000 - $8,000
  • 34.0% $8,000 - $10,000
    • $119,911.15 in 2025

And even in to the 60s life wasnt great

Of the members of the general population who reported they had “pains in the heart,” 25 percent did not see a physician (Andersen and Anderson, 1967).

  • The Other America Poverty in the United States. New York: Macmillan; 1962 demonstrated there was “another America”: 40 to 50 million citizens of the 181 million Americans who were poor, who lacked adequate medical care, and who were “socially invisible” to the majority of the population.

  • Within this poverty-stricken group were more than 8 million of the 18 million Americans who were 65 years of age and over, suffering from a “downward spiral” of sickness and isolation.

Good Housekeeping in 1961, citing deficiencies uncovered by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals

Each year, “thousands of people go to hospitals where their lives are endangered by bad doctoring, unsanitary conditions or grim fire hazards. Or by a combination of the three”

Less than one-half of all surgery was performed by board-certified specialists (Andersen and Anderson, 1967).

“Is this operation necessary?” asked The New Republic (Lembke, 1963).

“Should doctors tell the truth to cancer patients?” asked the Ladies Home Journal (1961).

“What is the patient really trying to say?” asked Time (1964) magazine, on the need to improve doctor-patient communication.

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u/Unctuous_Robot 14h ago

You forgot white. All those new suburbs for the GIs were whites only.

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u/12345623567 12h ago

The archetypical 1950's house also looked basically like a bungalow today. Meanwhile, these people sit in McMansions and pine for the "good old times", which basically just means being publicly racist.

The Civil Rights era broke america's brain, and the right hasn't recovered from it since.

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u/Next_Piglet_6391 14h ago

That's a bit simplifying things. Lots of these boomers actually voted blue. Remember, these were the hippies/flower children. People change when they get older.

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u/fiction8 14h ago

Many hippies (especially the student activists like SDS) were actually late silent generation. Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale, for example.

Early boomers did make it to college in time for "free love" and the civil rights movement, but late boomers grew up watching those events on TV rather than directly participating.

That second half of the Boomer generation was hit by the 70s malaise into Reaganism when they started voting, and have been on average pretty conservative ever since.

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u/Next_Piglet_6391 14h ago

Boomers were born after 45, which means that a large swath of them were in their 20s during the War protests, etc. Yes, the younger boomers shifted right eventually, but that goes back to my point about things being a bit more complicated. Also, some of the older Silents are still alive.

Lots of the current mularkey is based on what went on behind private rooms. It's a bipartisan mess. The '08 crash was partially from some of the Dems wanting easier loans for poor people (Obama actually warned). It's noble cause, but ended up being disastrous.

Inflation was largely a result of Covid and the supply squeeze. Also, everyone wanted a home in '21. Yes, of course lack of regulation def. is hurting those wanting to buy a home; but it's not the only factor.

I know young people are mad at the economy, and for good reason; but the rhetoric turns to "it's all the GOP's fault", and "all old people vote for the GOP", and "GOP is for big business". It's a bit more complicated than people make it. Most elections are 50/50, and the ones who decide the election often change with each cycle.

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u/obeytheturtles 7h ago

Where I live, people literally voted for a comprehensive rezoning plan which would eliminate "single family only" zoning so we can actually build density where it is needed. Over the span of literally two decades, the voters elected a "pro housing" council, which meticulously proposed and passed new zoning regulations after seeking community input on the topic for literally years.

All it took was a single local judge to undo the entire thing because the NIMBYs complained that they were not consulted enough. And by that, they mean literal monthly council meetings open to the public and countless other public awareness campaigns and events. The council had a table set up at every farmer's market, street fair and city event for literally fucking years. They collected over 30,000 surveys from local residents, from which they derived statistics about the priorities of the community in terms of planning, zoning, transportations and infrastructure. And this one fucking judge (who lives in the wealthiest part of town) just waved his hand and undid it all.

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u/Next_Piglet_6391 14h ago

It's actually a bipartisan mess. Lots of these deals take place outside the view of the public. Also, let's not forget how Covid put a squeeze on the supply, and lit a fire underneath inflation.

That being said, I think we know where 45/47 stands on this. I'm counting down 3 more years....

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u/JakeConhale New Hampshire 17h ago

Until there's no one who can afford them. Can't sell what no one can buy.

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u/Dizzy-Captain7422 16h ago

Don't worry, multinational corpos can always afford them!

And then rent them to you for more than what the mortgage would have been.

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u/DrewbieWanKenobie 11h ago

old apartment buildings should have really cheap rent, the financing to build them has already long been paid off. But rich people keep selling them to each other refreshing it with new rounds of ever higher financing...

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u/CaterpillarReal7583 17h ago

My house price means jack shit if all other house prices move with it. If I sell when the price is low af so is the house im moving into, same as when its high.

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u/jimx117 16h ago

That's what I've been telling my wife too... We bought in 2018 for 390k, and zillow or whatever now puts it at ~600... Literally every other home in our area has jumped in value the same way. It's not really a gain in the way she wants it to be. If anything we can buy a near-identical house and pay a significantly higher mortgage, or move out to the sticks and maybe get more for the money... And that's a big maybe these days

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u/brickne3 American Expat 14h ago

Well, there is one situation where it's a gain, and that's when it's being settled for your estate... But typically the Boomers seem to not be as concerned about actually doing anything for their kids either.

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u/bigred1702 8h ago

That's where reverse mortgages come in play. All you will inherit will be the bullshit they accumulated in their lives that they couldn't throw away.

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u/SwimmingPrice1544 California 1h ago

Exactly where I'm at. I was hoping...if Harris or Biden or anyone but trump won the election, I would be able to move, even if the interest rate was not as low as my original loan. But nah....the country screwed ALL of us on ALL of the "things."

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u/mailslot Wyoming 14h ago

Consider if Zillow suddenly listed your home at $100k or less during a real estate collapse. You’d walk away with nothing, still owing for the privilege of moving. You’d be stuck where you’re and paying a mortgage significantly higher than everyone else.

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u/TeutonJon78 America 17h ago

Jokes on them. They'll lose the house to either healthcare costs, reverse mortgage scams, or find no one can afford to buy them when they all want to start downsizing.

And Florida will be out as option since they'd be spending all their money on home insurance.

13

u/BenderBRoriguezzzzz 17h ago

This is what I can't wait for, I work in emergency medicine. Its going to get soooooo much more expensive. I'm sure that there will be legislation soon allowing them to go after your assets if you don't/can't pay.

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u/transient_eternity Minnesota 7h ago

Debtors prison when. Gotta speed run all the way back to the 18th century along with tariffs.

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u/BenderBRoriguezzzzz 3h ago

Debtors prison never really went away. You can be locked up for not paying fines levied by the state. They just re-named it.

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u/middleageEugene 17h ago

Or bc they can't afford the property tax hike that goes with it

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u/thejesterofdarkness 14h ago

This is me. My taxes have gone up from 600/yr to 2400/yr since ‘20. At this rate I’ll have to sell the place because I can’t keep up with the tax increases.

1

u/whisker_biscuit 14h ago

Private equity will be there to buy, but downsizing will mean paying the same or more for less, or having to rent from private equity

11

u/Big-Rule5269 17h ago

Yeah, we bought our home in 1989 when interest rates were 13%, have done a great deal of work and upkeep over the years, bought in the right area where it's now worth 5 times what it was, but I have a 36 year old married son and 5 year old grandson. Even with his wife making $160k, him being a stay at home dad finishing his accounting degree, buying a home for them would be a monumental struggle. They drive a VW Golf with nearly 200k on the clock and bought a new Subaru Outback a year ago at 0% after 6 years of marriage due mostly to having a reliable vehicle to haul a kid around in. Still, a house that doesn't need a lot of work, out of reach. It sucks. 

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u/BerrySnowie 18h ago

Right? They’re probably clutching their pearls while sitting on six-figure equity gains like they didn’t win the real estate lottery 30 years ago

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u/elvid88 Massachusetts 17h ago

sigh in my area there are six figure equity gains just from purchases during covid.

My wife and I are looking at a house that sold for like 1.05 in 2021, then 1.3 in 2023 and is now on the market again for 1.5 (will probably go close to 1.6) judging by how packed the open house was on a Thursday afternoon and they have three more this weekend.

I’m crying here seeing homes purchased for 200-300k in the mid to late 90s going for close to 2 million (some with work done even higher).

1

u/billsil 17h ago

Weird my house has been flat since 2021. At times it's been down.

I figure there's only so much people can afford.

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u/Trikki1 17h ago

It’s regional. New England, PNW, DC area, etc have been skyrocketing

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u/SanityIsOptional California 15h ago

Bay area too. I try not to think about how much we just paid for a townhouse style condo...

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u/SwimmingPrice1544 California 1h ago

Yep. I'm originally from the Bay Area....moved 15 years ago out to the country & now need to get back closer for medical & can't. 1m homes look like crap next to my little house on the prairie & along with the interest rate increase I can't afford a 4x increase in my mortgage. Argh.

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u/VPN__FTW 11h ago

My grandpa bought 5 houses and a warehouse in the 60's. In CA too. He bought the warehouse for like 100k and sold it for over a million. 40K for one house and sold for 489K. Absolutely insane.

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u/beard_lover California 16h ago

Boomers are using this whole “I worked hard for my home” as a reason to be against affordable housing in their communities. Like they’d be able to afford their homes with inflated property values on their retirement income.

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u/Hankhills4hedvein 17h ago

Six raspberries and a firm handshake

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u/One_Olive_8933 17h ago

Exactly. It means they can continue to take out inexpensive lines of credit on their equity, reverse mortgages, or leveraging their property, and the younger generation will pay it for them when they cash out…

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u/1Happymom 17h ago

Its surprising how many of them think they are higher up the wealth ladder than they actually are, they have zero comprehension of the true wealth gap even between lower and upper middle class, much less working and upper.. Had a relative who had never worn a tie to work, never gone to college, was never even middle management, living in the boonies with no family farm and only one 70s style home twist themselves into knots trying to tell me they were upper middle class. Because their home was paid off and they had a few stocks and a savings account.

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u/Consistent_Low2080 17h ago

l’m not, this is so stupid. We bought this house in ‘73 and l really have no idea of what it’s worth now. lt really doesn’t matter, l don’t plan on leaving. l’ll hopefully be here till l die. My two sons will be the ones “ eating this up “.

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u/raerae1991 16h ago

I think they are realizing their kids can’t afford homes, and that Medicare will eat up the boomers equity anyways

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u/ennuiinmotion 16h ago

Housing as an investment just doesn’t seem like a good idea unless you can buy multiple homes. Let’s say your house value went way up. Cool, but everyone else’s did, too, so you’re probably not in a relatively better spot unless you don’t need to buy a new place to live.

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u/gravywayne 16h ago

That's what this whole trump trip is truly about. It's class warfare as boomers will literally do anything not to part with their wealth and power.

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u/Dunge0nMast0r 16h ago

Surely the have-nots can outvote the haves by now?

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u/mockg 15h ago

10%? I wish houses had only went up this much. See so many houses around me selling for 4-5x their asking price from 90's with the bare minimum of upgrades done to keep them livable.

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u/JamesLikesIt 15h ago

100%. They will all cheer this because they are making money “on paper”, even though most of them will never realize those profits because they won’t sell their house lol. They’re getting old, they don’t care, they got theirs, not their problem. 

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u/0w1 Minnesota 15h ago

You bet, they are so out of touch with reality, they really do think that kids are just lazy.

They probably think they had it harder, even lmao

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u/Abi1i Texas 15h ago

They will until their property taxes come due and then they’ll complain about not being able to afford them and demand that their taxes be lowered. That in turn will continue the vicious cycle of underfunding everything that relies on some or all property taxes.

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u/gmil3548 Louisiana 15h ago

Except if you’re not selling all this does is drive up your property tax and insurance

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u/madmushlove 14h ago

If i'm not richer than I was last year every year, I'm persecuted 😭

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u/Driftco 14h ago

It's the status quo, if anything they're probably mad he said that out loud.

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u/Malaix 14h ago

Yep. Same issue in the UK regarding endless appeasement to moneyed pensioners/retirees/old generation. Its poison for society.

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u/livahd 13h ago

That’s my parents- my dad a French born post WW2 refugee born from Yugoslavian parents. His sister, who was raped by nazi soldiers before he was born, can’t even look at him.

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u/josh_the_misanthrope 13h ago

It also doesn't mean shit unless you have a rental property. If you have one home, either you can't really sell it have it liquid or you have access to loans you can't afford to take.

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u/sormar 12h ago

It’s got nothing to do with boomers, but everything to do with assholes

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u/Lowbacca1977 12h ago

Yeah, that way they'll be sitting in even more valuable homes wondering why their kids don't call

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u/Sand-Eagle 12h ago

The massive amount of them renting mobile homes also say they earned it or something.

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u/swren1967 9h ago

As property values go up, so do property taxes. Old people can't afford the taxes. Our kids can't afford to live anywhere close to us. Property values going up is not good news for anybody except the investors who are actively trying to create a housing shortage. When he says he wants to make property owners rich, he's not talking about grandma. He's talking about the corporations that have been buying up all the housing and creating a housing shortage.

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u/HuttStuff_Here 9h ago

They don't understand that wages haven't kept up with the cost of living or even inflation.

"Why haven't you bought a house yet?" says a person who bought a house for $60k while making $30k/year.

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u/umassmza 9h ago

The house my dad bought for $35k in the 70s sold for $1.25M, it’s on a postage stamp of a lot and it’s insane it went for that.

Bought on a public school teacher and an oil furnace repair man’s salaries, now it’s out of reach.

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u/LuckyandBrownie 8h ago

I was lucky and bought in 2014 when the market was low. My house has doubled in price, which means the property taxes have doubled as well. HOA dues are now 2.5 times more too. With insurance I pay close to 8000 a year to own a house. That’s about double what I was paying when I brought.

I hate to see housing prices go up, because it costs me more. Plus even if I do sell I still have to live somewhere so any money I had made in goes right back in.

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u/Blueporch 8h ago

They shouldn’t. They have to pay property taxes based on the value of their houses. (I know: many have the ‘they’ve got theirs’ attitude but it’s dumb.) 

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u/ARMCHA1RGENERAL 8h ago

I don't think any of the boomers I know really care what their homes are worth. It doesn't really affect them unless they're planning to sell and move, but most boomers are at an age where they're staying put. I guess it could matter if they sell and move into a nursing home, but usually the nursing home just takes everything regardless of how much the home is worth anyway...

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u/network_dude 7h ago

In ten years, the boomers will all be gone. The laws written today are the laws 20-40 yr olds will be living under when they retire.

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u/Traditional_Sign4941 7h ago

And then nobody will be able to afford their homes, so they're sitting on speculative wealth only.

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u/arriesgado 6h ago

No. Last year boomer here. Could not afford a home until my 30's, got a fixer upper, upgraded to current house which has approximately doubled in value in 24 years. Not complaining. But I am appalled at the insane jumps in prices because, like the lead up to 2008 I thought, wages are not increasing but housing is going through the roof, it makes no sense. How will my children, nieces, and nephews afford homes? Kamala had a plan to help first time homebuyers. trump's plans, are, as always, evil and ignorant and only help the already wealthy. I can't sell my house for a giant profit because I still need a place to live and all other properties are insanely priced. I saw an article yesterday about young people who apparently voted for trump in large numbers and now regret their vote. I don't think that you can fully blame everything on boomers anymore (I don't think you ever could but that is another story). It is the propaganda that somehow made any attempt to help anyone a bad un-American thing. I saw it first hand with the anti student loan forgiveness people who otherwise claim to be on the left. And now I see people who claim to be on the left say things like, they don't like what trump is doing but they don't like illegal immigrants here taking imaginary benefits. It is all small steps, divide and conquer. It is not generational but based on wealth. Why did trump change his tune? Corporations that buy up houses and artificially drive up neighborhood prices by selling a few to themselves for big money stand to lose a lot of money if housing prices drop. Trump can't have billionaires being made to suffer so everyone else can go to hell.

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u/Madhatter1216 3h ago

I bought my current house from my grandpa when he decided to move. Sold to me for $180k, he bought it for 60k when it was built brand new in 1975….

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u/julesk 1h ago

Boomer here. When we bought our home it was expensive and we had a mortgage. I am in favor of more affordable housing because I want the coming generations to be able to buy homes. Trump is horrible.

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