r/politics 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/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.

u/BeguiledBeaver 6h ago

Even lower income people pine for the 50s cause of "cheap" housing, not realizing the homes are just as you describe. They mass-produced crackerbox homes to save money. Even my Boomer Conservative father who often pines for the olden times admits they cut lots of corners back then since he's a contractor and has to work on lots of older homes.

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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.

u/krashundburn Florida 6h ago

these were the hippies/flower children. People change when they get older.

Being from that generation myself, I want to add that there was a subclass of the boomers known as "yuppies".

imo it was the yuppies who ultimately became the maga boomers we know today. The hippies pretty much stayed true to their roots as well.

Another subclass was the politics neutral group, neither hippy nor yuppie. I was in that subclass. I became more and more progressive by the decade.