The Free Open Society Project:

idlnmclean:

ritterlied:

jephtha:

awesome-everyday:

shorterexcerpts:

thecallus:

theatlantic:

The Cheapest Generation: Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Cars or Houses?

What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing. And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery.

Read more. [Image: Kagan McLeod]

It’s safe to say that a decent number of Tumblr users are a part of the Millennial generation. So, tell us: Do you own a car or house? If not, why?

IT’S BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DISPOSABLE INCOME YOU THUNDERING IDIOTS. Fucking preference has nothing to do with it. 50% of college graduates have no job! They all have the most student loan debt ever! What are you asking this question for?!

Also: housing is a good bit more expensive now.

My parents got a 15-year mortgage on a new house in the mid-70s. The house was $32,000. Average home price in that area now? $190,000.

So, home prices went up. Food prices went up. Health care prices went WAY UP. Rent prices went up. Higher education went up so damn high that some of us forgo that all together. Energy prices went up. Car prices went up.

Prices of prices went up.

We also pay cell phone bills, internet bills, data plans, text plans, online subscriptions, cable/satellite tv, netflix, DVR subscriptions — bills that didn’t even exist 30-40 years ago. We also use computers and smartphones and microwaves and other consumer electronics that didn’t exist 20-50 years ago.

We need medications and doctors and contact lenses and tampons and maxi pads and other things that cost money just to be alive and keep us healthy.

Most of us can’t afford to:

1. Get married and have a “Traditional” big wedding
2. Buy a house
3. Buy a new car
4. PLAN to have children
5. Take two, consecutive weeks of vacation.

Jobs that paid 50k in the late 1990s now pay between 30-35. Interest rates that favor consumers have gone down.

So I say, no. We are not choosing not to buy homes. We’re not choosing to take the bus in cities where there’s no good public transit. WE ARE NOT CHOOSING TO LIVE WHAT SOCIETY DEEMS AS AN UNDESIRABLE LIFESTYLE.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that these two people in the picture are young white hipsters. Young black and brown folks have been forgoing homeownership and buying new cars for decades, this shit isn’t new, pal. You’re just acting like this shit is new because it’s hitting white folks.

anyway, my point is: We are fucking broke.

^

It’s very much a class problem. This is why free market and neoliberalism is bad.

Once we go over that “fiscal cliff” and economic collapse happens, game over.

Sure, I got an answer. I am ideologically opposed to car ownership and operation. Every car represents a theft from public transit. Similar argument for collective housing vs paying rent/mortgages to greedy landowners and banks.

Besides that. It is really really expensive to own and operate cars and houses. Frankly, why would I want to? I’ve grown up watching my favorite things become obsolete before my first decade. I’ve watched super expensive and clunky cell phones become dirt cheap and like something out of Star Trek. I remember the literal desktop computer with its 5 1/2” floppies that my grandfather gave my mother and how a few years later my grandma let me use her laptop. My brother decided to become a building inspector and go for his civil engineering degree because he realized he could either spend a small fortune on buying some crappy home built in the 70s or he could spend the same amount to buy the land and build himself a house that would last for generations and would reduce his monthly expenses to near zero.

Let’s talk what it means to actually own something like a car and a house. It means paying a significant amount of money over a long period of time. It means taking the ~60 productive hours a week I have to spend and spending 3/4 of my time paying for the privilege of owning things which will be obsolete the day of purchase and which will degrade there after. It means obligating myself to a ruthless bank which may not even to bother to fill the paper work out properly before attempting to seize the product of my time. You know what I’m spending my time on? I spend all the time and money that I save by not investing in those things on acquiring a lot of little cheap things that have lasting value. In the long run, what I invest my time into might even get me out of this country and to some place where they build their houses as heirlooms to be kept in families or to serve the community. In the long run, I may use my time and meager resources to move somewhere that won’t bankrupt me when I get sick and steal the place I live out from under me. In the long run, I may spend my time migrating somewhere that has cheap almost hassle free transportation to anywhere I might want to go and an appreciation for the time I invest into intellectual and scientific cultural pursuits. That would be why I’m not buying a car or a house or taking out ridiculous student loans for an education that will probably not remove me from the poverty I was born into.

neweconomies:

http://www.moveyourmoneyproject.org/