Memes @lemmy.ml

2y ago

Wish we didn’t live in a capitalist dystopia

180 comments

Your parents almost certainly voted to restrict the supply of housing so they could artificially inflate their houses value and retire off of their house.
The causes of the housing shortage are known. We can change it.
- Son, one of these days, this will all be yours!
  < gestures at crumbling 1985 tract home in car-dependent community >
  
  Luxury. Some day, you'll have 13 zoomers living in a shoebox in the middle of the road...
  
  1985
  Check out the guy with the brand new house!
- It a little hard to blame them since they were sold the end of pensions and rise of the 401k. Which the bottom 60% of the country has close to zero of and then they can't make a living wage because the shareholders demand a greater return every year.
  
  You're right. It's basically every Americans dream to buy a house, and sell it for a massive profit.

This hurts almost as much as my teeth.

I had to get a root canal the other day. The dentist had to wait to see if my insurance would cover it because I had recently had a different root canal and "they sometimes don't pay for more than one."
- They had to clamp down, since so many people were getting root canals for shits and giggles. /s
- You ain't need but the one toof ya fancy sum bitch.
- I remember going to the dentist in my 20s, he said that a root was inflamed and needed treatment immediatly, otherwise the root could die and so on and so on. Then he told me how much it would cost, since the insurance doesn't cover that treatment, it was about 1800 euros. I asked him in all seriousness if my insurance would pay if I just would let things happen and get my tooth pulled out afterwards one day, since 1800 Euro was waaay to much for me to pay those days - and still is.
- I know this isn't dental related, but I couldn't see a therapist and a psychiatrist in the same day (virtually) because insurance wouldn't cover that.
  I've been putting off having two root canals/fillings/caps for years because I don't feel like spending thousands on it, in case they don't cover it. I know I should get this done before people tell me horror stories...again.

My grandparents ordered their house from Sears and grandpa and my great uncles built it over a summer weekend.
Damn thing still standing and is now I think on a historical register.
But today… we can do the same thing. You want a single or double wide?
- Ooh until you check the prices of a manufactured home (trailer / caravan) and find out how unaffordable they are. Bonus you can't get a traditional mortgage for one.
  
  Also only a few companies will insure them. I think Foremost and State Farm were my only two choices. It wasn't something I considered when I bought my run down double wide manufactured home.
- I always wondered how they made the chimneys. Wood construction is fairly straightforward. But masonry seems like another beast.
  
  The house I grew up in was a Sears house. Chimneys were stacked stones from where they dug the basement, put together with simple mortar. Concrete was used inside to create the fireplace beds (basement and main floor). Not very complicated to do really.
- It's hard to overstate how different the standards were back then. Much of the housing that was built pre-1940 has been demolished, but if you find an average neighborhood still around from that era, you'll find tiny 2 bedroom houses in which parents raised often 3 or more kids, and this was the middle class norm. In the US, the average person has way more living space today than back then
  
  I'm 37, say that to my 1 BR apartment me and my fiance live with. I don't m kw the square footage but maybe 800-900?
  I was about 10 when my mom was this age, my middle class parents owned a veritable mansion by today's standards in a suburban CO town. I think it was 4 bedrooms - one for mom and dad, one for me, one for my brother, and an office/den.
  
  I can't afford a small 2 bedroom in my city. Hell I can barely afford 1. I wish two bedrooms now were the price they were back then (inflation adjusted of course).
  
  Check out some small towns if you want to see pre war homes. I almost bought a craftsman but ended up with a house built sometime around 1900 (the documents I've seen list varying dates) it got an expansion in the 40s and a detached garage in the early 50s, and at some point someone enclosed the porches creating some nice mud rooms and the main floor bathroom appears to have been redone around the 80s or 90s.
  My in-laws lived in a 19th century log cabin which had seen several expansions and renovations over the many decades it stood. Ultimately that was it's downfall though as some old electrical wire caught fire and as it burned the fire just got stuck deep in the layers of wall and ultimately had to be knocked down in order to put out the fire
  Most prewar homes that are still standing have seen many expansions and updates and as such are just teaming with character and charm

I keep on having this debate with my dad. He's 73 and I'm 37. One night he was like "people from your generation want to buy a 'starter home' and a vacation home, and then a few years later buy a bigger home!" and I was like "no one in my generation is even thinking about buying a vacation home when they can barely make a livable wage in a lot of fields." Teachers make about $25/hour (about 35-40k/year) and they deal with tons of shit from the faculty, state, and students themselves. I was making $112k/year working in IT and could barely afford to live by myself in or close to Manhattan.
Edit: just for context, my rent was $2500/month for a 500 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment about 30-45 minutes from Manhattan. The sales tax rate in NYC is 10%. A burger and a beer can easily cost you $20.
- The (boomer) generation holds bizarrely strong biases, it could be they subconsciously they do it to avoid admitting they’ve screwed their kids with their political votes, or more likely they simply only care about getting their own and aren’t thinking far enough ahead to realize their being snookered and driving the bus off a cliff.
- $112k/yr is a crazy amount of money; I also work in IT in a pretty high up position, I wish I even made half that...
  
  Depends where you live too
  
  I worked for Disney+ (got laid off about a month ago) as a Linux Systems Engineer, so it's not like I worked for a small company doing Windows desktop support (I was making 50k/year doing that in NYC, $30k/year doing the same thing about 3 hours south in NJ). It is a significant amount of money, but the taxes screwed me, I'd only see about 85k of it, couple that with 10% tax on everything and the increased prices of living in the most expensive city in the US and it's not as much as you think it is. About 60% of my monthly income went to rent and bills.
  
  Same.

Solution: enlist in the military! /s
- Then you can be poor with ✨HEALTHCARE✨
  
  Don’t forget PTSD and other depressive disorders.
  
  At least until you get out.
  
  Don't sleep on the VA home loan. Lots of Americans are in the position to afford the month-to-month costs of a house, just can't afford the down payment get approved on the mortgage. VA home loan is means you only have to put like... $2-4k down, instead of $30k.

"Kids these days are all gum, no gumption"
- Thank you for bringing humor to an otherwise bleak post!
  
  "I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all."
  -Abraham Lincoln (for real)

Feels like we’re already nearing Mad Max with a dash of Blade Runner for an appetizer.

Luxury bones
- That’s what they’ll be called in insurance plans.
  
  Basically happens now.
  Implants--which actually function exactly like real teeth--are considered optional, cosmetic luxuries. They're almost never covered by dental plans and cost thousands of dollars. Per tooth.
  Dentures--which suck and are mainly cosmetic and don't allow you to eat the same foods you always had when you had real teeth--are considered necessary and practical. You can get free dentures from government/welfare insurance. But even out of pocket are are only a couple hundred.

So untrue, just put it downpayment on a 30 yr fixed loan for some dentures.
- Damn. You got me there. :D

This cuts too deep
- What stings is realizing one of the few hopes for a home these days is the passing of a parent.
  
  Even worse, realizing that still isn't enough

I want to laugh but man this hits close to home.
- Pretty damn far from a home as well
- I know what you mean, these days all we can do is try to laugh everything off.

So nice of insurance companies to decide that our teeth, eyes, and minds aren't part of our bodies.
- They have to keep profits up and shareholders happy, so they have to see how much more blood they can get from us turnips.

I know. I wish we lived in a communist dystopia.
- I lived in USSR. No you do not.
  
  I was being sarcastic. I don't want to live in ANY dystopian system.
  
  Could you please elaborate what was so bad back then?
  
  It's ok. You didn't. You lived in red fascism.
  
  Wow that must have been so cool, everyone working together for the common good, no more greed or selfishness.
- Or just a classic socialist democracy would do fine. Doesn't even need to be dystopian just you know like what they have in Norway and shit.

I mean it could be worse. In an alternate timeline, you could be living in world where the nazis built nukes first and America becomes a fascist puppet state.
- Ah yes, I love living in the world where the only thing that could be worse than reality is literal fascist dystopia
  😅
  🥲
  😟
  
  Wait until 2024...
  
  There are also many developing countries in the world. Not saying it justifies the current state of the US, but to put it in perspective, a lot of people still want to come to the US. As an immigrant, I do not wish to go back to my former country, I mean, unless war breaks out or the US becoming a dictatorship or something, but its already too late for me. Once I gotten my US citizenship, my former country revoked my old citizenship.
- It could be even worse than that, Martians could have invaded, turning us all into slave labor and food stock.
  
  SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!

Don’t forget trying to figure out how much you can eat daily! A second meal is a treat!
- I’ve noticed I’m eating cheap ramen again, feels like a step backwards and doesn’t sit as easily.
  
  It’s less satisfying now that I’m in my 40s than it was when I was in college.

You mean your luxury bones?

What at-home stuff can you do to maintain your teeth? Brushing and flossing twice a day just doesn't cut it. Brown stuff still eventually builds up around the edges and right above the gum line (although it does take quite a few years). Being obsessive about dental hygiene only delays the buildup and is not sustainable on its own. I may be able to afford dentist appointments now but by the way society is headed, that may not be the case 10 years from now or even next month.

Test

Yeah but your parents suck and trauma makes you cool
- I didn’t know it’s cool that I’m incapable of crying for the last twenty years due to cPTSD. Finally, some pay off.

I'm actually surprised this memes instance is actually funny. Yeah i come from red**t

I bought a house at 31...
- And how old are you, what is your socio-economic background lol? It's kind of relevant if youre arguing the meme.
  You could have almost all these things with minimum wage back in the days of this meme. Today min wage barely gets you a roof and a bus pass.
  
  I'm almost 40 and on the verge of buying my first house. Most of it has to do with moving to Europe and funding works a bit different here.
  
  That's what I'm saying, I'm 32. Idk people keep saying they can't afford afford a house, it's called priorities. Most kids want a nice car before getting a house.

180 comments