40% of Americans have negative net income

[DonFerrari]

SpokenTruth said:

DonFerrari said:

I haven't paid for health insurance except for 6 months because I wanted to do some exams. I'm 33. It is utter bad use of money to put half your income on healthy insurance at the age of 21.

It's practically required here.  This is why I keep saying you can't look through a Brazilian lens.  I'm not saying your can't comment, in fact, I welcome it, but we can't go without insurance here. 1, it's almost illegal to not have it now. 2, good luck paying for any services short of a doctor check up out of pocket.  Not fun paying $1000 or more per month for many medications that probably cost you less than $100.  Need an X-ray?  Those can cost over $1000 too.  Even a damn snake bite can cost you over $150,000 here.

The United States is the only industrialized nation where people have to declare bankruptcy because of medical bills.

Baalzamon said:

Approximately 2012-2014. It really hasn't adjusted at all lately. If anything it has gotten cheaper because attendance to the college is much lower the last couple of years and they are desperate to fill the housing near campus lately.

That must be in the more rural areas of the US for rates like that.  I live in a city with a housing CPI right around the national average and 4 bedrooms near any of our universities cannot be found for less than $1,900.  I'm looking on Zillow now.

Baalzamon said:

The interest rate on your father in law's house was also probably...around 10.5%.

So a 30 year loan (assuming 20% down payment) would have cost total of $255,000 (including the down payment).

The $270k value now will be a total cost of $448,000 over a 30 year loan (at 4.5% interest).

Per government data sites, the average wage in 1990 was $21,000 compared to $48,500 in 2016 (most recent available on data set I'm looking at on social security site). So in 1990, the house represented 12.14 years of wages, whereas in 2016 it represents 9.24 years of income. Seems to me like the house has actually gotten cheaper.

Electronics being cheaper...its almost like you are saying buying power has...increased? Isn't that exactly what I'm saying. In today's day and age, even the poor can afford a much more lavish lifestyle than they ever used to be able to.

And yes, lets not go down the road of student loans, because those are often a choice people make (none of the union workers we bring through our system have any student loans and they are averaging approximately $80-$100k/year in compensation after 5 years, and we are massively short of labor).

They got 9.5% so ~$235k but I also know they refinanced around 2005 when rates were closer to 5%.

1) Almost illegal doesn't make it really illegal, and as said before, on the cases of people without revenue the government "give" it.

2) When you don't have to pay 450 USD per month in healthy insurance, paying 1000 for X-Ray won't be a problem... Haven't needed to go to a doctor in the last 20 years... so per your math I would have saved 108k which already half a house payment.

Houses being refinanced 20 years after they started paying won't really go much lower the total paid.

My "Brazilian lens" come in hand to show when you put your 40% lower income to make a case of poor poor american and how much they suffer it is a joke compared to any place people are really poor and without much opportunity.