4 ms·

I should be careful when I say this (but I'm not so take it with a grain of salt and don't be offended.) The crash in the housing market is definitely a good th

by meric 16y ago

I should be careful when I say this (but I'm not so take it with a grain of salt and don't be offended.) The crash in the housing market is definitely a good thing for young people. Here in Australia the prices of houses are getting so expensive I don't think I'll ever buy one at this price, ever; It'd just mean mortgaging myself to the hilt just to make some baby boomer rich enough to retire comfortably. A housing market with house prices kept high artificially is called robbing the next generation.

joshes 16y ago
A similarly potentially offensive remark that I feel is possibly in the minds of many Generation Y-er's right now: The over-indulgent, hypocritical, self-entitled remnants of the Baby Boomers have done a great deal to derail the future success of this generation. Of course each individual must be valued in and of his/herself, but the generation as a whole has been siphoning economic resources to extend an entitled life well into their elderly years. They came to an understanding at an early age that they will always be wealthy and affluent and when that starts to slip away they, as a generation, decide that they are going to get what they want, everyone else be damned. This mindset is currently ravaging the potential of the youth. There, I got that off of my chest (fingers).
- kmfrk 16y ago
  Exactly. We are our parents' children.
dasil003 16y ago
Well I live in America, and at 32 I suppose I'm more gen x than gen y, and to me the offensive thing is how much the government has bent over and used my tax dollars to prop up the housing market, even though the whole thing was based on people buying houses with loans they couldn't afford. The constant specter of "falling home values" makes me sick, since it essentially means that I can't afford to buy a home so that people who already did buy homes they couldn't afford get to keep them. This type of mentality is why the US will lose to China. The government and Wall Street only care about how the numbers look on paper. As markets evolve and become more and more sophisticated, there is an increasing disconnect with what these numbers actually mean for public prosperity.
- roel_v 16y ago
  "This type of mentality is why the US will lose to China. The government and Wall Street only care about how the numbers look on paper." I was with you on the first paragraph, but this I have to LOL at. Have a look into China's property market if you have a spare hour somewhere. It's in a lot worse shape than the US one is, except that the bubble hasn't burst yet. House prices have gone up 100's of % (yes, that's two 0's, and it's not a typo) over the last few years basically because Chinese have little to no other options available to them to store value/wealth in. There are whole cities that lay empty and whose owners only bought the real estate for 'investment' purposes, forced government lending is being misappropriated for unproductive real estate development, insolvent loans are kept on their feet by the government by rolling them over. Taxi drivers and maids own two or three apartments - and all over the place, in tier one Beijing and Shanghai but also tier two like Kunming, I mean this is not just some localized big city phenomenon (Kunming is still huge by my standards, but well ;) ) The bursting of the Chinese bubble is going to hit China like a sledge hammer, and I'm curious to see what their response is going to be. One way or the other, it's going to affect the West in a major way, so I'm really hoping for a soft landing, but we'll just have to wait and see.
  - dasil003 16y ago
    Good point. I am clearly ignorant about the Chinese housing market, and probably Chinese economic weakness in general. However I think my larger concern still holds, which is that fundamentally Americans seem unwilling to face the reality of competing in a global economy. Desperately clinging to bubble home valuations is but a minor symptom. China has some bad problems to be sure (environment, demographic decline, etc), but being competitive in the global marketplace isn't one of them.
robryan 16y ago
I see it as an opportunity, a generation ago here in Australia it seemed the standard thing to do was to save up, go buy a house somewhere and settle down there for a long period of time. Given how much harder that is to do now it encourages you to see more of the world, live in different places get a better experience. One of the problems in Australia is that a high immigration level keeps the market "bubble" going, makes the rental market hell to though :/

by meric 16y ago

joshes 16y ago

A similarly potentially offensive remark that I feel is possibly in the minds of many Generation Y-er's right now: The over-indulgent, hypocritical, self-entitled remnants of the Baby Boomers have done a great deal to derail the future success of this generation. Of course each individual must be valued in and of his/herself, but the generation as a whole has been siphoning economic resources to extend an entitled life well into their elderly years. They came to an understanding at an early age that they will always be wealthy and affluent and when that starts to slip away they, as a generation, decide that they are going to get what they want, everyone else be damned. This mindset is currently ravaging the potential of the youth. There, I got that off of my chest (fingers).

kmfrk 16y ago
Exactly. We are our parents' children.

dasil003 16y ago

Well I live in America, and at 32 I suppose I'm more gen x than gen y, and to me the offensive thing is how much the government has bent over and used my tax dollars to prop up the housing market, even though the whole thing was based on people buying houses with loans they couldn't afford. The constant specter of "falling home values" makes me sick, since it essentially means that I can't afford to buy a home so that people who already did buy homes they couldn't afford get to keep them. This type of mentality is why the US will lose to China. The government and Wall Street only care about how the numbers look on paper. As markets evolve and become more and more sophisticated, there is an increasing disconnect with what these numbers actually mean for public prosperity.

roel_v 16y ago
"This type of mentality is why the US will lose to China. The government and Wall Street only care about how the numbers look on paper." I was with you on the first paragraph, but this I have to LOL at. Have a look into China's property market if you have a spare hour somewhere. It's in a lot worse shape than the US one is, except that the bubble hasn't burst yet. House prices have gone up 100's of % (yes, that's two 0's, and it's not a typo) over the last few years basically because Chinese have little to no other options available to them to store value/wealth in. There are whole cities that lay empty and whose owners only bought the real estate for 'investment' purposes, forced government lending is being misappropriated for unproductive real estate development, insolvent loans are kept on their feet by the government by rolling them over. Taxi drivers and maids own two or three apartments - and all over the place, in tier one Beijing and Shanghai but also tier two like Kunming, I mean this is not just some localized big city phenomenon (Kunming is still huge by my standards, but well ;) ) The bursting of the Chinese bubble is going to hit China like a sledge hammer, and I'm curious to see what their response is going to be. One way or the other, it's going to affect the West in a major way, so I'm really hoping for a soft landing, but we'll just have to wait and see.
- dasil003 16y ago
  Good point. I am clearly ignorant about the Chinese housing market, and probably Chinese economic weakness in general. However I think my larger concern still holds, which is that fundamentally Americans seem unwilling to face the reality of competing in a global economy. Desperately clinging to bubble home valuations is but a minor symptom. China has some bad problems to be sure (environment, demographic decline, etc), but being competitive in the global marketplace isn't one of them.

robryan 16y ago

I see it as an opportunity, a generation ago here in Australia it seemed the standard thing to do was to save up, go buy a house somewhere and settle down there for a long period of time. Given how much harder that is to do now it encourages you to see more of the world, live in different places get a better experience. One of the problems in Australia is that a high immigration level keeps the market "bubble" going, makes the rental market hell to though :/