re: “You can’t lie to the American people about affordability”

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This is squarely upper-middle class

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Something around 12% of homes in the Greater DFW area are > $900K. Which takes us back to the issue of floating signifiers. e.g., What is upper class? The accepted definition is 2 x median income, which places the upperclass threshold as the wealthiest 19% of Americans. Juxtapose that with the fact only 1/10th of that group would self-assign as upperclass.

If only 2% of greater DFW considers itself as upper class, those $750K-$1M places certainly could rate as upper middle class dwellings

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We live in Dallas, not Louisiana. This is squarely upper-middle class in DFW where 3000 square foot houses in the suburbs can often approach $1 million

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A household income of $250k is still in the top 10% in DFW. A former commercial tenant of mine just bought in Frisco, Texas. He was looking at different options but said there was plenty of inventory in the $500k range there and some really nice options in the $700-$800k range.

Correct. The prices are never going back to 2019 levels. The only thing that will combat the inflation that has already occurred is increasing wages.

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In the 50s you could do this with an average hometown business or a lower level white collar job and the wife was a home maker.

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Even a blue collar job.

My dad failed out of college on a football scholarship --seems impossible but true -- and got a starter factory job in early 60s and five years later married my mother. They immediately built a 3BR/2BA ranch style brick home on 2 acres in NW Florida with a government farm loan. A 10 minute drive from work, it had oak floors and Ponderosa pine wall paneling throughout and even a pine living room ceiling.

My mom kept her job for the first few years to help pay the loan but was able to quit well before I was born in 1975. She didn't work again until the mid 1980s when my father's factory was sold and full family insurance was gutted.

Their secret was completely avoiding avocado toast and cafe lattes. The trillions of dollars constantly shifting to corporate stockholders by every means possible since then had nothing to do with it.

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And thanks for doing the work. I don't even have to disprove your claim ("I built a house and attended LSU full time at 20 and paid for all of it myself). You just did it.

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You've made an apodictic arse of yourself in this thread.

I don't see many, if any, here claiming current generational challenges are not daunting. I do see pushback against qualification of those challenges as unparalleled throughout history or insurmountable.

As someone like RTS points out ways he circumvented his own challenges, some of which might translate in a present-day correlate, your imbecilic demeaning of his effort is not helpful to anyone. Certainly it is not helpful to the folks you're claiming to speak for.

Bitching, fantasy and lament are not paths to improvement, much less success. Critical assessment, situational root cause analysis, and horizon goal focus are. Young Americans, despite their challenges, are far in front of their first world brethren. Their advantages, even in relatively challenging circumstances, are phenomenal. In many instances, there is no recognition of that indisputable fact whatsoever. How about instead of further inciting their ululations, you make some positive suggestions.

If your capacities and experience in any way remotely approach what you insinuate they do, your focus should be on positive suggestions for folks trying to get a start. Not in promulgating their dirge of circumstance.

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If Bessent said that, he misspoke

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This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. This was him saying that Biden’s immigration policy allowed for illegals bringing diseased cows across the boarder illegally. The video is in the link.

Your explanation is much more accurate.

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Correct. The prices are never going back to 2019 levels. The only thing that will combat the inflation that has already occurred is increasing wages.

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^^^^ this in a nutshell is the consumers understanding of inflation.

A case of beer pre 2019 was say $16 and since 2020 it's been $24.

It's still $24 in 2025 and it's correct to say inflation is zero but if that consumers wages have not risen they are still feeling the effect regardless of the formula politicians use to say we have no inflation.

Interesting. We can't fill open production positions for high paying press operators.

I'm in sales and one question I always ask customers is how are you doing staff wise.
Everyone is looking for people that will show up every day.

You can't buy a 300K house working part time. You have to show up and work 40 hours. Or more. Overtime is available if you are interested.

So yeah, I don't see it.

Normal American home? I think not. A 30 year mortgage on a $400,000 house with 20% down at 6.3% is $2500/month.

A $4500/month normal home would be about an $800,000 house. That’s not normal. Not at all.

You guys need to reset yourself.

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Inflation has slowed, as the data shows. But I think the public expected prices to go back down to 2019 levels. It doesn't work that way.

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The average person thinks lowering inflation should lower prices, but that’s not how this works. Prices went up under Biden. But Dims and media came out to blame Trump recently bc their followers would lap it up