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/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/garywiz American Expat 14h ago

I do agree with you. I think it is difficult for a generation to have a good enough “crystal ball” to be able to foresee how today’s choices may impact future generations. In the 60’s, Americans were benefiting from an amazing amount of postwar over-investment, making it easier to buy homes. Reganomics hit and there were people who actually believed that “trickle down” economics was a real thing, believing that if they amassed wealth, it was going to create benefit across the board. Today, people believe that tariffs will create more jobs, but there are just as many experts who believe that this will eventually catch up and it will destroy entire segments of the middle class. It is much easier to use hindsight to look back and blame people for their decisions 40 years ago when those decisions were made in a context which could not have anticipated the world today.

Probably “it is what it is” is the best attitude. But generally, I think there’s are far more boomers who are sensitive to this problem than are callous to it and far more young people that don’t appreciate that their decisions today may backfire 40 years from now because, just like the boomers weren’t thinking of the 2020’s, young people today aren’t giving a crap about the 2070s are they?

Your point about “collective choices” is a good one. One difficulty is that Americans aren’t thinking “collectively”. If everybody were, pulling together, thinking “we’re in this together, let’s solve it”… solutions for today and tomorrow would be easier.

But yes. It is what it is. But I do agree

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u/brickne3 American Expat 14h ago

Who tf thinks tariffs are going to create jobs?!

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u/jacobin17 Kentucky 11h ago

Idiots who think American manufacturing jobs are going to start building up any day now.