February 17, 2015
Large student debt load limits young Americans' home-buying
"Student loan delinquencies and repayment problems appear to be reducing borrowers' ability to form their own households," said Donghoon Lee, a research officer at the bank.
This is yet another crazy theory in a long list of crazy theories. Where's the proof? Call me an optimist but is it not possible that debt problems are leading to even greater household formation? Does living in a cardboard box count? How about households living in cars?
Americans are also struggling with auto loans, the report showed, but are doing a better job keeping up with all their other debts.
This is definitely true. As a taxpayer, I'm doing a fantastic job keeping up with the federal government debt. Would you believe that they haven't even sent me a bill for my share of the $18 trillion yet? Further, as a holder of long-term government bonds I'm actually paid to wait for a bill that may never come. Good times.
Perhaps the government intends to someday send the bill to my grandchildren? Good luck on that. I don't even have children, much less grandchildren. And why is that? Maybe I studied Japan after their housing bust in the early 1990s, looked at the rising cost of college, and/or extrapolated forward our rising national debt. Perhaps puppies were a viable alternative in an uncertain world, lol. Sigh.
I hope you realize that I'm only half joking. Our pets *are* our kids. The real beauty of it is that we never expect our kids to leave the nest, rack up college debt, and then look for work in an increasingly competitive world. Who needs that kind of pressure? So, our kids tend to just hang out on the couch and sleep a lot.
September 18, 2013
The Onion: I’m Just A Free Spirit Who Is Entirely Financially Dependent On Others
For example, sometimes I’ll tell the person whose couch I’m crashing on that I’m going to look for a job, and then I don’t, and then I just sort of hang out all day taking it easy, and then I fall asleep. That certainly wasn’t in the day planner, but so what? I had a great time and nobody was hurt, except for maybe the person who desperately wants me out of his apartment.
Oh, man. Small world. If he was a puppy then we would consider adopting him. Perfect easy going disposition!
Yeah, da funny ting is, for da last 20 years I've been assistin' my TBTF bank in pushin' debt on unemployed young people. Of course, dose bastards at da Dept of Education moved-in-on-us and took away most of da low hangin' fruit and now we're stuck wit makin' loans to graduate students - mostly aspirin' doctors and lawyers, n-other majors wit lots of "earnings potential". And, I-tell-ya, people here were pretty pissed with dose DOE mobsters move-in on our action. Sum was even takin 'bout votin' Republican just to get even with does bumbs at da DOE. But we've recovered nicely, water over da dam as day say.
ReplyDeleteAnd, recently, I started helping out my TBTF bank's auto-loan division. Ya know, dere's lots of money to be made in auto-loans. We're doin' pretty good. People love automobile bling; it make `em feel good, and we help-em out. We give em da money so day can feel good about dem-selves drivin' some high-end German auto bling.
Dat's why it's good ta work for a TBTF bank. We help people realize der Merican dream.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteROFLMAO!
yeah, Japan fell into the same trap, giving tax cuts to their baby boomers 1991-2005 and calling it savings.
ReplyDeletehttp://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=11CC
Their boomers were in their early 40s in 1991 so in their peak earning years they got tax cuts (after blowing up their savings on stock and RE investment).
In 2001 our boomers were in their early 40s and they got tax cuts too!
Troy,
ReplyDeleteWhat's been taken from me in fixed income has been partially restored in healthcare subsidies. The less income I make on treasuries the more subsidies I get. Go figure.
Since I'm sitting in long-term TIPS, I'm definitely rooting for low inflation. Things fall apart for me in high inflation.
1. My nominal income would go up.
2. My tax rate would go up.
3. My real income would go down.
4. My healthcare subsidies would vanish.
As with Japan, not exactly predicting hyperinflation anytime soon though.
On reddit I got into an interesting discussion today.
ReplyDeleteI had to pull up my census projection to check something, about Gen Y and housing.
Currently there are 83M 'millenials' out and about, age 15-33.
Their boomer parents number 73M.
But in just 10 years ALL the Gen Yers are going to need new housing, while census projection only 10% of the boomers will have graduated from earthly existence by then.
Jesús we're going to need more housing. I added the acute since I'm not talking to dieties here, but
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CES2023610001
Troy,
ReplyDeleteIf you think all the boomer parents will wait until they are dead before they sell their homes then you haven't met my mother.
As for the millenials, at best I see a continuation of apartment building. They aren't going to afford squat with record student debt and poor high end job creation.
Just opinions of course.
They aren't going to afford squat with record student debt and poor high end job creation.
ReplyDeleteRE market is set at what people can afford, tho
but RE is not like any other market. No new land supply at all, we're probably losing land actually.
Zoning and NIMBY prevents new housing goods from being manufactured.
And of course, we don't actually manufacture housing in the modern way, we still treat each house as a one-off construction, like houses were constructed in 4,000BC in Sumeria.
Plus poor Gen Y has to outbid Gen X and boomers looking to pick up "income" properties.
So yeah, they're screwed coming and going, until they inherit what the parents didn't blow in retirement.
Troy,
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the Tiny House resl estate shows on TV lately? Sign of the times? On some level, that actually appeals to me. Of course, I once thought of living on a small sailboat. Makes a tiny house look a bit roomy by comparison.
Troy,
ReplyDeleteWe had a camping trailer when I was a kid, For what it is worth, it's the waste that's the problem. Water was abundant but so too the other end. Literally, lol.
My niiece lives on a boat/houseboat. The waste is stored until somebody comes by to pump it out, much like someone must pump out the septic tank of my home every few years. For a houseboat though, pumping is much more often for her. Unlike my home, she has no drain field for the liquid portion of the waste. All that goes in must eventually be pumped out.
Some days I think about living on a boat and some days I don't. This would be a day for the latter. ;)
The Big and Dirty Questions about Composting Toilets
ReplyDelete"the fan basically moves any smells directly out the RV"
"sometimes even 4 weeks . . . time to dump the solids"
"so we're recycling our fiber that we're pooing on and then composting"
"within 6 hours the harmful bacteria is dead"
what I want to do is build out a test installation of my RV systems on a concrete pad in my backyard and live in it to debug everything before committing to a particular chassis build. . .
Troy,
ReplyDeleteEverything is fine and dandy when it comes to composting toilets just before the diarrhea hits! ;)