Posted on 12/08/2025 10:26:37 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Disapproval of the state of the economy is widespread today, despite many indicators improving since the start of the year. The reality is that most Americans’ financial situation deteriorated so much under the Biden administration that there’s a long way to go before this affordability crisis is resolved. Fortunately, there are ways to speed up the process.
Perhaps the best illustration of where most Americans are economically today, and where they’ve been, is to look at real, meaning inflation-adjusted, average weekly earnings. This tells us not only how much the average American makes each week, but what those weekly paychecks can actually buy.
In the first eight months of the Trump administration, real average weekly earnings rose about 1% — a modest improvement, to be sure, but clearly a step in the right direction. People’s incomes rose faster than prices, so they could afford a higher standard of living.
But we need some perspective to understand why people are still so deeply dissatisfied with the economy. In the four years before President Trump returned to the White House, real average weekly earnings fell 4% because inflation during the Biden administration far outpaced wage growth.
That means the good progress made thus far this year only reversed about one-quarter of the losses from the prior four years. The average American is still worse off than he or she was before Mr. Trump left office.
Housing is another valuable illustration of the affordability crisis plaguing families, particularly those who don’t already own a home. Under the Biden administration, the monthly mortgage payment on a median-priced home more than doubled in less than four years.
This fact alone bifurcated America into a kind of two-tiered society, separating us into those who are lucky enough to buy a home
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Funny how this “crisis” wasn’t an issue when there was a geriatric turnip in cognitive decline in the WH.
Sounds like a trick question where your answer will indicate your understanding of free-market capitalism.
I am sick to death of articles posted that are behind pay walls. If the full article cannot be accessed for free, these articles should not be posted to Free Republic at all.
RE: I am sick to death of articles posted that are behind pay walls.
Not sure why you’re complaining about THIS particular article. I can read it without going through a paywall.
Similar to how the Death Count of American Servicemen in Iraq/Afghanistan on the news every night went away as soon as Obama became POTUS.
Then nobody cared when Obama killed thousands overseas with drones. Yet, the lives of drug trafficers bringing poison into the USA are now criminal because Orange Man is POTUS.
Free market capitalism without sound money is meaningless.
Use archive.vn and you’ll never deal with a pay wall again.
“Diminishing Musharakah (Partnership-to-Ownership)
“This hybrid model blends partnership and leasing. You and the financier purchase the property together in stated shares—say 80% bank, 20% you. You pay rent on the bank’s share while gradually buying out that share, so its percentage “diminishes” over time. Once you acquire 100%, the partnership dissolves.”
As usual the mohammedan system sucks as badly as the homos that promote it.
They keep building houses for ‘homeless’ people... Except... Homeless people obviously can’t afford these ‘new’ houses... So who are they selling or giving them to?
If you guessed ‘immigrants’, both legal and illegal... Then you guessed correctly.
Let’s create affordable houses:
2026 $420,000
2027 $400,000
2028 $380,000
2029 $360,000
2030 $340,000
2028 $320,000
2029 $300,000
2030 $280,000
2032 $260,000
2033 $250,000
2034 $245,000
....
Young people who bought in recent years would find themselves underwater big time.
If house prices gradually fall, first time buyers will avoid buying, so few new dwellings would get built. That would result in rents going up.
If house prices fall gradually or big time, mortgage downpayment requirements would probably soar.
Hey...where did all the concern about the Epstein files go??
I remember Dershowitz saying that no one now in politics are in the old Epstein files.
I got hit with a paywall. I don't remember the last time I visited the WT..
“houses....who are they selling or giving them to?
“If you guessed ‘immigrants’, both legal and illegal... Then you guessed correctly.”
If immigrants find themselves underwater, the mortgage companies may not be able to find the immigrants, or the monthly payments from them.
My aunt had some nice Caribbean neighbors. Once the real estate market sank under Bush, they disappeared.
I had a family probably from Miami on my street. They gutted their house before vanishing.
Oh no, another invented “crisis”!
I’m so sick of these scare tactics!
What the natives did was to stop making payments.
The mortgage companies put the houses up for auction and relatives would then buy them at the then lower market price.
After a while, the mortgage companies would wait out the defaulters, tacking on fees as well as contract interest. When prices rose, out the defaulters went.
Is there any chance we could get Supply side stimulus (create value) with lowered deficit spending?
They (Uniparty) promise Demand side government stimulus (spending) which got us here on the first place. Do they have policy to offer that Im missing?
That happened mostly in Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada. That is because in those states the mortgage holder has no recourse against the borrower. They can just drop off the keys and their bad debt will not really effect them long term.
In other states like here in NH IF you take out a mortgage and the bank sells the property for less than the debt they can sell that bad debt to a collection agency. The NEW owner of that paper can then hound you forever including potentially putting a lien on your wages. It forces individuals to file for bankruptcy OR negotiate a short sale with the mortgage holder.
In those four states they had the biggest speculation going into the Great Recession. When it topped in 2006 and the market fell apart the banks in those areas got crushed.
It is because of these state policies that those markets corrected more than other states.
Which is why the government let corporations like Blackrock scoop up a lot of bad assets. Like complete subdivisions in AZ & NV owned by Pulte Homes and other companies.
Blackrock still owns a lot of those homes for under $50K. They have now been paid off for over ten years in many cases. They are cash cow assets. The rent just keeps coming in. They also owned lots that they eventually built on and then rented the houses. These big real estate investment/landlords stopped buying houses in 2022. Some like Invitation Homes have been active SELLERS for a couple of years. Especially in places like Austin.
I know a guy that lived in Chandler, AZ. Not exactly Scottsdale. He bought one house that the previous owner walked away for $60K back in 2007. Then the same bank came to him a few months later and he bought another one. All on the same street he lived on. He still owns one. He sold the other for about ten times what he paid for it.
I could not get into washington times. what were the things that would solve the affordability crises.
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