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timberwolf0122 t1_j4mo0b4 wrote

Reply to comment by Vermontess in So buying is unaffordable...what about building? by thebaerfetus

How the hell did it get so expensive to build a house?

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DDozar t1_j4mr3af wrote

Finding trades contractors in the country (not just VT) is incredibly difficult. Turns out spending 50 years telling everyone it's college or bust had impacts on the other professions. Oopsie

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pkvh t1_j4mxr2v wrote

But also we've made it unaffordable for tradespeople to live here too.

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d-cent t1_j4nb1y5 wrote

Yup. Why would an entry carpenter work for $20 an hour when they can get that same amount somewhere else less dangerous and less wear on the body?

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CheesusCheesus t1_j4mt8fv wrote

We also severely devalue what little independent carpenters that are left. We generally nickel and dime them, expecting them to work for far, far less for construction and the associated trades they're capable of doing than they would make as a specialized trade like plumbing, electrical, roofing, etc.

...which is why most carpenters have been transitioning to those trades.

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[deleted] t1_j4nlmcj wrote

Also, decimating unions and defunding community colleges means there's few ways to enter the trades. If you think college is a ripoff, wait until you hear about for-profit "trade schools." Everything in this country is a fucking scam.

Plus, the way we build houses in this country is ridiculously inefficient. Bring back the commieblocks and Sears houses FFS. Bring the local zoning boards and NIMBYs to heel. It shouldn't be so hard to build in the first place. We need to prefab a lot more to reduce the labor costs, especially in this climate. There's a reason the Europeans laugh at our single-story shacks made of sticks and glue...

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timberwolf0122 t1_j4msq1l wrote

Thanks boomers

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buried_lede t1_j4nmzcm wrote

Boomers? Would that include Bernie and kincevich and jerry brown and Liz Warren and every other Boomer who has fought for reform for the past 50 years? Can we get a break from this blood lust on the boomers? Half of us didn’t vote for Reagan

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timberwolf0122 t1_j4nn6xp wrote

You are right. It’s not good to over generalize

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buried_lede t1_j4nnvy2 wrote

I realize it’s been really messed up for anyone coming of age since the 2008 downturn, if not before, and it infuriates me and all my Boomer peers.

If it’s not inflated tuition and predatory student loans, it was until recently, horribly suppressed wages and now a housing shortage. It’s crazy unsustainable and horribly unfair. And we aren’t all sitting pretty in giant garrison colonials worth 900k that we bought for $100k, either.

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endeavour3d t1_j4o2ax2 wrote

exceptions to the rule aren't representative of group dynamics, especially when one of your examples, Warren, was a conservative during the Reagan years. We have polling that's quite clear on the overall ideological positions between generations, and older ones are clearly more conservative and have been so consistently for decades.

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czo79 t1_j4o6beg wrote

People need to read A Generation of Sociopaths.

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buried_lede t1_j4oeb7f wrote

That’s bananas. The hippies were Boomers. Just nonsense. Just stop it.

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endeavour3d t1_j4p4326 wrote

this is a misconception, the vast majority of the hippies were Silent Gen, IE Bernie's Generation, I know that because my mom was a boomer who was born in 1949 and was 20 in 1969 and missed the entire movement because she was too young. The majority of boomers were younger than her even, just the very oldest boomers were part of that movement and they were a small minority of their generation.

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buried_lede t1_j4pofq4 wrote

It’s also a misconception that because Boomers were not the initial movers, they therefore had no part of It when it indeed defined them. Who do you think the millions were who marched in all those protests, attended all those concerts. Who was the audience embracing and supporting and being inspired by all those initial movers? Did you march in any protests and attend concerts when you were 16,18,20? So did they.

Student occupation of Columbia U? All Boomers. National guard occupation at Kent State? Responding to Boomers. Dead students at Kent State? Boomers. Don’t overwork the mild point some writers have tried to make about the initial movers. Jerry Garcia was older than the cutoff date, but had band members who were younger. I fail to see a meaningful cultural or generation gap between members of the GD.

Finally, they were drafting for Vietnam up to 1952 birth dates and registering people for it through 1956 birthdates. I defy anyone to claim Vietnam and the draft protests were not a part of it.

It was a boom in population and a cultural era that ended with the election of Reagan.

I didn’t come to start an argument and I resent the nit picking

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Smirkly t1_j4mwr50 wrote

I'm so old I'm a preboomer. I went to college and spent much of my life working in trades. Had good bennies, good pay, job security, and I'm comfortably retired. Trust me, many many boomers also went into trades and mostly did okay.

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endeavour3d t1_j4n65tc wrote

yeah but overall all older generations were shitting on the trades and non-white collar work for years, I'm 37 and through my entire life from childhood until probably a decade ago I was hearing everyone older than me constantly say how blue collar work was for losers. How if you wanted to get anywhere in life you had to goto college, that if you didn't, you'd be stuck being a plumber or laborer, or work fast food, people were shitting on garbage men even. It wasn't even just people, it was movies, tv shows, music, books, just about every bit of media from the last 50 years was mocking and deriding blue collar work.

It's only in the last decade that it's been turning around, but I still hear this mentality from people, usually the privileged rich douche types, but still sometimes from older people. But regardless, the damage is done, hardly anyone in my age or younger is getting into the trades because the stigma is already entrenched that it's deadend work even though right now it pays better than many white collar jobs.

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Intelligent-Hunt7557 t1_j4olg1j wrote

I agree with the general trend of cultural warfare, but lotsa industries have gotten rich off overselling that sort of division to ‘both’ sides of the divide. Nursing grudges is profitable. Plenty of movies in the 80s I grew up in featured richies as d-bags and the heroes being Men at Work (!). It’s not at all clear to me how many of those families where the family had one type of job swore their kids would not go into their occupation, for their personal reasons. Same for military service? I wish we had a better spokesperson for labor issues because Mike Rowe is sort of a choad.

Americans love underdog stories but don’t love underdogs. Look at how many Murkins say they ‘support the troops’ but don’t support single-payer or nationalized health care.

You might even be too young for it, but there used to be folks called “Yuppies” and seemingly they were tacky and were subtly ruining everything. That glide path got folded into ‘the American Dream’ too. Nowadays it’s aspirational and trucks are status symbols not work trucks, for urban and rural alike.

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bobsizzle t1_j4u4xq7 wrote

The 'boomers' are the builders. It's the young idiots who refuse any job that might make them break out in a sweat.

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wittgensteins-boat t1_j4n0xam wrote

Plus the exit of many in the trades after the 2008 recession, and depressed building over the following ten years.

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Key-Understanding770 t1_j4nm5c9 wrote

The rate of attrition ion the trades is 5 people leave/retire and 2 are replacing them. Labor cost will continue to rise

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Galadrond t1_j4o9xef wrote

Not to mention not allowing the immigration of folks who might possess the relevant skills to replace the waning workforce.

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Ok_Slice_2952 t1_j4ol479 wrote

They still turn out houses in Texas for $100 sq ft new. But I guess that's not one at a time.

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ceiffhikare t1_j4po35k wrote

You couldnt pay me enough to live there,lol.

( edit..well you could but it would be at least a 7 digit to the left of the decimal sum,lmao!)

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FantasticGuidance236 t1_j4mrewy wrote

Covid made the cost of supplies sky rocket due to issues with the supply chain. Even though supply is a lot more readily available now, the greedy companies still keep the prices high because they know people will pay it now. It is greed at its finest.

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d-cent t1_j4nbduh wrote

It's not all readily available either. Lead times for some stuff is still 2 years.

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