Then move.
And it might be that such is slipping away in this country. It might be.
Actually quite the opposite is happening. More people are making more money, have more things and are leaving more to their heirs. We have never been better off.
But it isn't the consumer that levies this tax, and then that, this taxing regulation and that, this service fee or that, all of which seem to increase daily
Who is it that keeps demanding more and more services from the government?
Don't blame the victim of government and moneylending.
Oh brother! The perpetual whine of the loser. Sure I can blame them. They are the one who made the poor choices that got them up a creek. Nobody forced a thing on them.
You don't say to the seller of the widget that he's getting too much.
Well I should hope not. After all the widget is worth what someone will pay for it. If they pay to much for it because they are incapable of handling their finances, well it is a painful and valuable lesson.
I was just pointing out the rise in prices. If you have a home, the same home, the same parcel, the same structure, that cost 40K in 1955, and 600K or more in 2005, that's quite an increase, particularly if the new family has to buy at the 600K side. Have your "making more money" people really kept up with that rate of inflation? Do the math.
The perpetual whine of the loser.
Don't blame the victim of government and moneylending. Don't blame the consumer because oil prices have skyrocketed, along with the price at the pump. Don't blame the consumer for the high price of property. Or if you prefer, do blame certain ones with more money than sense, who get themselves into trouble, perhaps. But the rest are powerless to stop them in a free market. You don't say to the seller of the widget that he's getting too much. You only hope that reason prevails. But you can ignore the widget and let people spend foolishly on speculation. You can't ignore the widget when it's literally the local housing stock. You have to live somewhere, after all.
Gosh, if only everyone were as smart as you. Then no one would ever get catastrophically ill, lose their job unexpectedly, orsuffer any other unplanned financial disaster.
The good news is that when things do go wrong for "perfect" people it's the "losers" you so casually disdain that will be there to help you out.
Economics is a game with rules. Our current rule-set selects for predators -- those who are better at accumulating wealth than others naturally tend to win under the current system. (Predators are not bad people, mind; such people can't be blamed if their natural aptitude is accumulatng wealth anymore than one can "blame" Tiger Woods for being a good golfer.) But most people are not predators, and have neither the desire nor the natural ability to accumulate wealth easily. Therefore, for a stable society, it makes sense that we rig the rules of the game to limit the success of predators and allow the majority of people to live in comfort.
The best way to do this is by reorganizing the game so that the rules favor family businesses, individual entrepreneurs, local farmers and ranchers, and small businesses that provide everyday goods and services, while heavily penalizing large corporations, major financial institutions, and those who employ people in return for wages alone. This would involve adopting penalizing taxes against chain stores, international banks, agribusiness combines, and other megacorporations in order to run them out of business. In the meantime, business law would be rewritten to allow husband-wife families to incorporate their households as businesses or non-profit edcational corporations. Such incorporated families would be free to conduct any legal trade with zero tax liability on income, profit, or capital gains. Basically, families, family businesses, and privately-owned corporations with under 500 employees or so would pay no taxes whatsoever. (Taxes on property would also be done away with.) Federally-chartered trade guilds would be established allowing each family corporation to join with others engaging in the same trade; the guilds would regulate prices and allocate jobs on a private basis so that every member would get enough business to live on. The guilds would be supported by member dues and would also provide insurance, health care, and limited credit to members. In all cases, a man's homestead, tools, personal property, and livestock would be protected from seizure at law for repayment of debt; no one could be legally deprived of home or ability to support himself for any reason. A man's home would truly be his castle.
A society of independent family business owners would operate on a cash-and-carry basis to a much greater extent than our modern wage-labor system does. In such a society, default on credit would drop to low levels: since people would not be dependent upon uncertain work for wages, their ability to pay debts would be tied to their own efforts alone, not the vagaries of international commerce, labor markets, and securities trade. This would have the effect of drying up the market for easy retail credit, as people would be forced to live within their means. With retail credit widely unavailable, families would be far more likely to save for major purchases or go without. Such loans as would be available would be small and would be secured by pledges of real property (cattle, machinery, etc.)and not future wages. These loans would be provided by the dues-supported trade guilds, neighborhood community chests, or individuals, and would thus carry no interest charges. As a result, housing would become both more modest and more affordable -- if $100,000 in credit is unavailable the the average potential buyer, builders will not construct $100,000 homes. Loans for big-ticket items (farm machinery, printing presses, etc.) would be made on a cooperative basis within the guilds, with three or four family businesses sharng the lien risk and the use of the machines among themselves. (In any case, most farms would be small and would not need the kind of heavy machinery industrial farming techniques require.) Since loans for automobiles would be hard to get, most people would be forced by economics to live and work in the same building -- their homes -- and would build or buy homes within walking or bicycling distance of neighbors, shops, places of business, and recreational destinations. This would obviate the need of the average person to go into debt to buy a private car. Those who wished to buy their own vehicles would be required to pay cash, or pledge an equivalent amount of real property to the lender, in order to do so. (With big corporations taxed out of business, cars would tend to go back to being what they were in the beginning -- hand-crafted works of mobile art designed and buit by local "garages", and thus would be better-built, more beautiful, and far fewer in number than they are today.) Mass transit would be the average person's way to get around, with the federal government providing the funds to build rail, air, and ground transportation infrastructure and private operators providing the services themselves. Since all transport providers would be guild members, there would be no need for the nightmare of federal regulations we have today; any member of the Transport Guild, say, could operate his or her own private taxi service, motor coach fleet, or airline with no state or federal licensure or involvement required!)
The details are arguable; the important thing is to build a system where the majority of people are free -- i.e., they own their own homes and businesses and do not depend upon employers for their living or retail credit lenders for the basics of life. In such a world the standard of living would be much lower than it is today in terms of material wealth, but the average person would be much richer overall than they are today, since they would be safe in their homes and personal property, would be eatng locally-grown food and drinking locally-brewed drink, and would no longer be subject to the whims of wage labor nor the tyranny of usurers.
I'm willing to bet the average person would rather live a a 1950s standard of living and be free than have all the toys and be a wage-slave or debt-slave. I know I would -- and I do.