Coastal California Getting Older, Not Bolder | Newgeography.com
. . . is this end stage terminal demographic decline? "For the better part of a century, Southern California has been seen as the land of surfers, hipsters and youthful innovators. Yet the land of sun and sea is becoming, like its East Coast counterpart Florida, increasingly geriatric." But this is happening throughout the country, we are an aging nation, still vital, but on average older. "At the same time, our analysis shows that some areas – notably along the Orange County coast – are rapidly becoming virtual retirement communities, with a diminishing number of children and young families. For those sitting in their houses in affluenza-afflicted enclaves of Southern California, this may seem good news: “aging in place” while their homes increase in value. But this trend is less a boon for younger people, particularly families, as well as for companies seeking to launch and expand here." So, the kids are leaving, moving to more prosperous pastures, likely to Texas, and the SunBelt, anywhere but California, and the West, where housing is unaffordable. MILLENNIALS are having a tough time economically here is Portlandia . . . What are the chances they will ever move back? With home prices resting in the $7500,000 to 2.5 million per house? Probably never. Who would want to move from Tennessee, with reasonable house prices for a nice spacious home on an acre or more for a small house on 7,000 sq. ft. lot, for thrice the price? These oldsters love that the home prices are high, and apparently do not fear that the kids are leaving. Who will buy these homes? More old people? How many uber rich are there, and how many of them will be willing to move and spend a million or so on a home? Perhaps this will become an enclave of oldsters, with the young old buying from the old old. And perhaps this will become Detroit.
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Britain’s Self-Inflicted Housing Crisis | The Antiplanner . . . as the Antiplanner notes, that question is a smaller question than some others in Britain's quiver of problems. "The Antiplanner has spent the last week in Britain, and everywhere I went people were talking about Brexit: the vote in June on whether Britain should leave the European Union. Britain originally joined the union when it was a free-trade area, but since then it has grown increasingly intrusive on the economies of its member states." Who would have guessed that progressive Euro Socialists would really be little more than dictators in drag? The Euro idea, of free markets is a terrific idea, and should be replicated the world round. If we were smart we would kick this off by opening trade with all comers, no tariffs. The Antiplanner is correct, the Brits must correct their land use laws or face the slow death of a nation whose people cannot afford their housing. As for Brexit, the discussion should revolve around what the EU will look like in 10, 20 and 30 years. but it revolves only around whether Britain will suffer tomorrow if it leaves the union. Good luck Britain, you will need it. The latest support for the position that land use, and zoning is destroying our cities . . .4/20/2016 This San Francisco council member has a clever idea to address the coastal housing shortage . . . comes from progressives! Wut? Once the progressives climb on board you can bet the problem is bad, Major Kong rides the bomb bad . . . Oh, there's more after the break! Millennial Home Ownership: Disappointment Ahead in Some Places? | Newgeography.com
This is listed as a Millennial issue, but the problem has been created by Boomers who want to keep their property values high by retaining destructive urban growth and/or services boundaries, and highly limiting zoning, and construction/development policies. "Millennial renters overwhelmingly plan on buying their own homes, though affording them could be far more challenging than they think." More after the fold! Instapundit » Blog Archive » HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: College Isn’t Always Worth It: Across the Anglosphere, the elite…
. . . and going deep into debt for an education is nearly always a bad idea. "Across the Anglosphere, the elite conventional wisdom holds that a college degree is the only ticket to a middle-class career. But a new study suggests that for some students, at least in the UK, the the much-hyped ‘higher-education premium’ may be inflated or nonexistent. The Sunday Times reports . . . . There are of course differences between the UK and U.S. higher education systems, and (to our knowledge) no identical study has been conducted here. But the economist Allison Schrager has crunched comparable numbers on American students and found that, “for every degree short of a graduate degree, there’s a decent chance that a good high school graduate will out-earn you.” In other words, it’s not unlikely that marginal students in marginal programs—in the U.S. as well as the UK—would do better to avoid student loans, avoid the opportunity cost, and seek technical or vocational training. The idea that everybody needs four or even two years of academic instruction after high school is madness. When so many students leave high school with something much less than an adequate proficiency in key subjects, it makes much more sense to fix the fundamentals of the system than to tack on more and more years at the end. Academics and professionals who loved school and did well in it have a hard time understanding that not everybody wants, needs or enjoys drawn-out academic instruction—and that these people can and do make worthwhile contributions to the common good. An education system that made more room for vocational programs in areas like carpentry, plumbing, med tech, and practical nursing would waste less time trying to pound round pegs into square holes." This is a subject near and dear to our heart since Maddogsson is in college, although deferred until he completes his Marine Corps Boot Camp, Marine Combat Training course, and his MOS course, and Maddogsdatir, is 16 and will soon be college bound. The costs of college today are seldom worth it for anyone other than those who are in the top 25 - 30% of their high school class, exceptions for schools where the studies are unusually rigorous, and the "bench" is unusually deep. Caveat: I have told a story in the past of a friend whose daughter took nearly $200,000 in college loans. I met with them again at Maddogsson's Semper Fi party. They said, that although their daughter (married) is living in San Francisco, and has been for the 5-6 years since graduating, she has managed to pay off all of her student loans! I was nonplussed, to say the least, since she had about $200,000 in loans on graduation. She did this by living in a guest cottage on her in-laws property. They apparently live in the area, and are wealthy enough to have converted a garage into a two story, detached cottage. It does not have cooking facilities, so the couple lives rent free and even eats with his parents most nights. This is not a reproducible outcome. This young woman earns $90,000 working as a very high end engineer in a downtown San Francisco engineering firm, and lives room and board free. She has frugally saved every penny, and both she, and her husband (also a high earner) have used these savings to pay off all of their student loans. Regardless, they still don't make enough income to actually afford to buy a middle class home in most parts of San Francisco. For the average student $200,000 in student debt is a life sentence, and even for the average engineering student who has to pay room and board, car payments, and everything else, the ability to repay such a large loan would be very difficult, and would take decades. It would clearly delay home purchase, and nearly every other large dollar purchase. Good article outlining the problems students face, and addressing the issue that higher education is not always a good thing. Fed Worker Got TWO Subsidized Housing Units Despite Long Waiting List
. . . scandal. "A Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) employee was given subsidized housing project units in two states to occupy simultaneously, even as thousands of other impoverished citizens languish for years on long waiting lists, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned. Immediately after federal officials caught the offending employee, HUD promoted her to manage the awarding of millions of tax dollars in grants, even though she lied to criminal investigators about double-dipping in the benefit programs her department administers." High pay, great benefits, protected job, and graft, and corruption! Count me in! Maddogsbrer's both live in California . . .
. . . California just wants to do it nicer, and gentler than South Africa, and progressivism is just the model to accomplish the goal. One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier piece is that the entire reason for many policies like massive minimum wage increases is to drive the poor out of the wealthy coastal enclaves of California. Or make sure they are segregated into temporary living arrangements within the enclave. Proposed law would subsidize housing for cops, firefighters Housing prices will continue to force the poor out of these areas, and require subsidies for the more desirable middle class individuals like firefighters, and police. The minimum wage will ensure the elimination of a large number of low paying jobs, and automation. The result will be an even wealthier more exclusive wealthy coastal enclave, separated by a mountain chain from the poor. These policies look nearly exactly like apartheid but without the draconian laws which created apartheid. There are no color laws, no segregation laws, instead, the state has simply limited land available for housing, and priced low income workers out of employment by raising the minimum wage to heights where the low skilled poor worker cannot hope to offer an employer a value in exchange for $15 her hour. This is apartheid written softer, and gentler, but with the same outcome. This is progressivism in its purist form. Win/win. I guess!? Good Ole Days Return: Nixonian Wage and Price Controls | MishTalk
"Californians longing for the “Good Ole Days” of wage and price controls under President Nixon may get their wish. Wage controls in the form of a series of minimum wage hikes just passed the California legislature. Price controls in the form of rent caps have spread to suburbia." Apparently, no one in California is old enough to remember the wonders of stagflation! Some of us are, and do not want to repeat those dismal gray years. The blue model may be collapsing, but it is not going quietly. It looks like it will only go down fighting each step of the way. This will cause much damage, mostly for the poorest, although the economic damage to Californians generally will be great as well. London House Prices Soar but Posh Districts Lose Their Shine
. . . results in spiraling costs no matter where it happens! As in America, this hurts the poor, and the middle income the most, while it protects the wealthy, and the upper middle class from the predation of having to live next to the hoi polloi. One would think we would learn, but no. We continue to do the same destructive things over and over again. Of course, for progressives this is a benefit. They win when people are in poverty because their power relies upon people dependent upon government largess. Independence from that would mean the awakening of the people to what progressivism really is, and the ultimate death of progressivism. Deflation Welcome! Lower Third of Population Goes Deeper in Debt, Cannot Afford Any Price Increases | MishTalk
. . . which shows exactly why the progressive cant which limits land development is wrong. "A new PEW study on Household Incomes and Expenditures goes a long ways towards explaining why economists who expected a big jump in consumer spending based on falling gasoline prices were dead wrong." Homeowners in the bottom third of income spent 40% of their income on housing, while renters in the bottom third of income spent about 48% of their income on housing. Worse yet most families in the lower third of income had more in expenditures than in income, with the median family going $-2339 and the 25 percentile going $-6938 in the red. Even the median family in the middle third of income can only save $5944. That is by definition "middle America." The urban growth boundary, or urban services boundary, or various zoning schemes designed to allow the upper middle class to live above and away from the hoi polloi are killing the ability of the middle and lower classes to thrive. Instead they are barely surviving. These arrangements need to stop. America has plenty of land. Mish makes another point. The Fed wants inflation at 2%, but this would further destroy the ability of the average American to survive. Deflation, however, would allow these people to make do. The progressive era has just about wrung all the money it can out of the averageAmerican. Perhaps it is time for a change, a return to more rational economic, and social policies, policies which place the individual's liberty above the monetary desires of the wealthy elite? Or is that a bridge too far? |
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