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> Don't get so vested in an argument that you stop sniff testing the things you yourself are saying. If only your self awareness wasn't inversely proportional

> Don't get so vested in an argument that you stop sniff testing the things you yourself are saying. If only your self awareness wasn't inversely proportional to your tenacity... The irony of saying that in response to an exchange where I've observed that you've failed to understand the contents of a source you provided and corrected you about what it actually says! It's well established that home ownership is about 14 percentage points higher than it was in 1950 or about 20 points higher than the actual gold standard era, and that homeowner equity and free and clear home ownership is reached all time recorded highs recently. Trying to rescue your argument by looking at disaggregated data runs into the trouble that numbers of rooms and availability of running water and commutability to well paying jobs is not likely to be favourable to 1950s housing stock, never mind the glories of the deflationary period of the 1930s (other names for that era include National Mortgage Crisis!). It's almost like stuff like 50% deposit requirements and higher relative costs of basics like food and clothing, and needing to live within walking distance of workplaces were an obstacle to people obtaining houses in the gold standard era despite their low sticker prices! The 1940s and 1950s of course were the era of the Fannie Mac, Freddie Mae "funny money" and so started to look a little better. And yes, housing also costs more today than it does in the 1950s, or indeed during actual deflationary periods like the Great Depression and Panic of 1873. Nobody doubts that. Nobody with an adult level of understanding of how the world works argues that it's all about inflation without considering other factors affecting housing supply and demand, from population changes to rural-urban migration to the average person no longer spending a quarter of their income of food. Hint: if something grows significantly above the rate of inflation, it's probably not a primarily inflation-driven phenomenon. The reason I refer to memes is your repeated failure to understand even basic terminology never mind the actual arguments indicates that you haven't obtained your confidence that you know how the economy should run from actually bothering to learn about it, or even attempting to understand the arguments you're responding to. Taking an introductory course in economics would be a much better use of your time than responding to an argument about risk and base interest rates by repeating your assertion that risking $1000 to earn $1 is a good decision people should definitely make [in the context of high base interest rates, high credit risk and risk-free real wealth accumulation from not investing], and arguing against a tautology. Nope, deflation by definition means that the real wealth held as cash increases, just as inflation by definition means it decreases (a few posts ago, this was your objection to inflation!).

somenameforme 3mo ago
I've endeavored to completely read your messages. I would appreciate if you returned the courtesy to avoid needless repetition when our messages are already somewhat lengthy owing to the large number of simultaneous topics. And also please cite your numbers - you're now pulling a bunch of numbers/facts out of nowhere that seem largely hallucinated. Citations would go a long way here and take like 3 seconds. So here are the apples to apples base data for the most recent branch of discussion: Percent of all housing units 'owned' by their occupants = 53% in 1950, 58% in 2025 [1]. Percent of 'owned' housing units without a mortgage = 56% in 1950, 39.4% in 2025. [2] Approximate (max) rate of 'real ownership' (multiplying the two values) = 29.7% in 1950, 22.9% in 2025. The first link also goes into detail on the demographic collapse I mentioned showing 'ownership' in people under 35 is at 36.8% and continuing to trend downwards. The local max is being driven by the elderly in non-urban low-income states, as already mentioned. I also have specifically focused on issues above and beyond inflation. Inflation is an effect, not a cause. The cause of these problems (of which inflation is but one) is money printing and the transition to becoming a debt driven society. I 100% agree that things were awful in 1930. It was the worst economic event in 150 years of deflationary systems in the US that also came on the tail end a number of catastrophes setting up a perfect storm. But focusing on this time is like me arguing that the past was better than 2008. Well yeah, I'd certainly hope so! But in that case it'd say a whole lot less about the past than it would about 2008. I do agree 1950 isn't ideal in a perfect world but it's probably about as good as we can get on balance of the difference in the systems + reliable/impartial data we can obtain and it being a fairly 'normal' era during a time of world war and catastrophic plagues. --- The latter part of your post turned into an unhinged and incoherent jumble of ad hominem and strawmen. That, I will admit, I am skimming over. If you want to phrase things like an adult, and argue against what I'm actually saying, then I'll happily read it again. [1] - https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf [2] - https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2026/01/mortgage-free-homes.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2026/01/mortgage-free...
- notahacker 3mo ago
  > So here are the apples to apples base data for the most recent branch of discussion: These are explicitly not apples to apples comparisons because the 1951 percentage is extremely restrictive about the housing units considered (i.e. most apartments are excluded, as are farms) and there's no reason to believe the ownership percentages are equivalent. I could (equally unfairly) point out that the 9.5 million "free and clear" homes in your paper is less than a quarter of the total recorded nonfarm housing stock which is a lot less than the 34 million (39.4%) owned free and clear today. What is clear though is that no interpretation of the available data is compatible with your original statement that "In 1951 56% of people owned their home, free and clear", or your assertion that something your source claimed had grown massively recently was a "local low". Defending those basic misunderstandings with clumsy misuse of statistics two posts later whilst telling me not to get too vested in arguments is... pretty funny. Also, as I keep pointing out and you keep pretending isn't the case, the 1950s were a time where inflation rates averaged their current level (but with more volatility) not a time of deflation (and for that matter were also a time of the Fannie Mae mortgage backing you blame for everything, rather than the good old days when you had to save up 50% of the cost of your house as a deposit and pay it off within 10 years). So it is completely irrelevant to your argument for deflation. You have not addressed any of the other points in my last two posts. I am sorry, but if genuinely don't understand why nobody would invest for a 0.1% return [under a gold standard] even when the post you are responding to explicitly mentions things like interest rates and risk and the relationship between credit prices and money supply, it is not worth my time trying to educate you on what those very basic concepts entail. Especially given that you have made it extremely clear you have no interest in understanding. There is no point phrasing things like an adult to someone that flat-out refuses to acknowledge very basic adult concepts like interest rates and risk and supply and demand whilst resorting to babyish memes like "money printer go whirrr" and "funny money"

somenameforme 3mo ago

I've endeavored to completely read your messages. I would appreciate if you returned the courtesy to avoid needless repetition when our messages are already somewhat lengthy owing to the large number of simultaneous topics. And also please cite your numbers - you're now pulling a bunch of numbers/facts out of nowhere that seem largely hallucinated. Citations would go a long way here and take like 3 seconds. So here are the apples to apples base data for the most recent branch of discussion: Percent of all housing units 'owned' by their occupants = 53% in 1950, 58% in 2025 [1]. Percent of 'owned' housing units without a mortgage = 56% in 1950, 39.4% in 2025. [2] Approximate (max) rate of 'real ownership' (multiplying the two values) = 29.7% in 1950, 22.9% in 2025. The first link also goes into detail on the demographic collapse I mentioned showing 'ownership' in people under 35 is at 36.8% and continuing to trend downwards. The local max is being driven by the elderly in non-urban low-income states, as already mentioned. I also have specifically focused on issues above and beyond inflation. Inflation is an effect, not a cause. The cause of these problems (of which inflation is but one) is money printing and the transition to becoming a debt driven society. I 100% agree that things were awful in 1930. It was the worst economic event in 150 years of deflationary systems in the US that also came on the tail end a number of catastrophes setting up a perfect storm. But focusing on this time is like me arguing that the past was better than 2008. Well yeah, I'd certainly hope so! But in that case it'd say a whole lot less about the past than it would about 2008. I do agree 1950 isn't ideal in a perfect world but it's probably about as good as we can get on balance of the difference in the systems + reliable/impartial data we can obtain and it being a fairly 'normal' era during a time of world war and catastrophic plagues. --- The latter part of your post turned into an unhinged and incoherent jumble of ad hominem and strawmen. That, I will admit, I am skimming over. If you want to phrase things like an adult, and argue against what I'm actually saying, then I'll happily read it again. [1] - https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf [2] - https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2026/01/mortgage-free-homes.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2026/01/mortgage-free...

notahacker 3mo ago
> So here are the apples to apples base data for the most recent branch of discussion: These are explicitly not apples to apples comparisons because the 1951 percentage is extremely restrictive about the housing units considered (i.e. most apartments are excluded, as are farms) and there's no reason to believe the ownership percentages are equivalent. I could (equally unfairly) point out that the 9.5 million "free and clear" homes in your paper is less than a quarter of the total recorded nonfarm housing stock which is a lot less than the 34 million (39.4%) owned free and clear today. What is clear though is that no interpretation of the available data is compatible with your original statement that "In 1951 56% of people owned their home, free and clear", or your assertion that something your source claimed had grown massively recently was a "local low". Defending those basic misunderstandings with clumsy misuse of statistics two posts later whilst telling me not to get too vested in arguments is... pretty funny. Also, as I keep pointing out and you keep pretending isn't the case, the 1950s were a time where inflation rates averaged their current level (but with more volatility) not a time of deflation (and for that matter were also a time of the Fannie Mae mortgage backing you blame for everything, rather than the good old days when you had to save up 50% of the cost of your house as a deposit and pay it off within 10 years). So it is completely irrelevant to your argument for deflation. You have not addressed any of the other points in my last two posts. I am sorry, but if genuinely don't understand why nobody would invest for a 0.1% return [under a gold standard] even when the post you are responding to explicitly mentions things like interest rates and risk and the relationship between credit prices and money supply, it is not worth my time trying to educate you on what those very basic concepts entail. Especially given that you have made it extremely clear you have no interest in understanding. There is no point phrasing things like an adult to someone that flat-out refuses to acknowledge very basic adult concepts like interest rates and risk and supply and demand whilst resorting to babyish memes like "money printer go whirrr" and "funny money"