Traditional Values

[NeilC]

Not that house prices are exactly important to the original subject of traditional values (going off topic onto some small technicality is a speciality of JREFers)....

The average cost of a house in London are:

Average Cost: £289,500
Detached: £569,440
Semi-detached: £325,732
Terraced: £299,584
Flat: £246,964

Bearing in mind you cannot get more than about 3.5x your salary in mortgage - how can low paid essential workers live and work in London (nurse assistant earns c.£11,000)? How can even quite well paid single-earning families buy?

London is expensive so let's take the UK national average: £151,467 - which includes all sorts of out of the way places. You still need to be earning good money if only one of you is working.

According to my parents it was tight but quite possibly for people to be able to buy a small house to start a family with just the father working fulltime. Since the feminist revolution and women earning mostly the same as men, house prices have rocketed - I see a connection and the law of unintended consequences at work.

 

[egslim]

OK, all kidding aside -- workweeks have indeed not shorteded, in fact they have lengthened considerably.

I could ask for some of the same stuff you're having, but then, I like to keep my brain clear.
You're complaining about some 50 hour work-week?
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...ctory+workhours+1900&hl=nl&gl=nl&ct=clnk&cd=2
"Between 1870 and 2000, average worktime fell by about 50 percent."
Think in the order of magnitude from 10 hours per day, 6 days per week to 8 hours times 5 days - with an increase in holidays as well.
Need I go on about how the vacuüm cleaner, laundry machine and dishwasher have saved much time on house-keeping?

Well, it's a needed data point, to be sure. If home ownership from a single income over time is to be considered, one must look at where that income stacks up against all incomes. Having more people own homes is a meaningless statement -- one needs to look at percentages and affordability.

There are lots of different ways to look at this problem - reducing the percentage of extremely rich capitalists over time lowers the median, and thus improves my position in relation to it, but it doesn't do me any good.

It doesn't matter how many today have that education

Yes, it does. If you're saying that a cottonspinster can no longer make enough money to support herself like she used to in 1800, then I'll gladly concede the point. But we don't employ cottonspinsters anymore, nowadays we use education to give them a higher paying job. Like becoming operator of a cotton-spinning-machine. Now the question is wether this operator can support herself like a spinster could 200 years ago?

can they afford a home on one salary?

Why the one salary? Average working hours per year have declined by 50% over the past 130 years. At least you should allow for an additional part-time job, and that's ignoring the blessings of the dishwasher - and other home appliances to save on house-keeping time.

And here's an interesting statistic - in Dutch though:
http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/70768D92-B704-4C16-9EB2-0AA9FA522637/0/pb01n282.pdf
Check table/tabel 1 on the third page:
1990: 54.7% rented homes/45.3% owned homes
2000: 47.8% rented homes/52.2% owned homes

Not fair. Why change the conditions?

Because the reality is that the situation has changed. 50 years ago most kids would start working after 8th grade. Nowadays everyone has at least 4 years more of education. 8th grade used to be average in society. Now it is rockbottom.

Splossy:

Since the feminist revolution and women earning mostly the same as men, house prices have rocketed - I see a connection and the law of unintended consequences at work.

Housing prices are nice, but how do the houses themselves compare? If people have twice as much to spend it makes sense for them to pursue a more luxurious house - and rent if they can't afford to buy it.

 

[Just thinking]

I could ask for some of the same stuff you're having, but then, I like to keep my brain clear.
You're complaining about some 50 hour work-week?

Please read what it is I'm comparing and you might think not that I'm sipping anything weird ...
"The point I'm making is that with all my 'advantages' I was not able to do what my father before me could with far less education."

Now, your points are taking data far before my father's time on this planet. Let's stick to my statement if you wish to argue it.

 

[Just thinking]

... 50 years ago most kids would start working after 8th grade. Nowadays everyone has at least 4 years more of education. 8th grade used to be average in society. Now it is rockbottom.

Thank you for defending my point exactly -- although you most likely didn't realize it.

The needed education for success in today's economy requires a much greater investment in time and money. An increase in time of at least 50% (or even over 100%) to try and be at the level a mere 2 generatioons ago. Then look at the cost of that education -- what was paid for is now only the start. College is very expensive and starts many off in their lives in debt. Then let's look at housing. For my father, a home was 3 - 4 times his annual gross pay. For me it was 6 - 8 times when I started and now it's 8 - 12 times. And I'm not even going to go into what property or income taxes have become. I simply couldn't affort it alone -- he could.

 

[The Don]

Thank you for defending my point exactly -- although you most likely didn't realize it.

The needed education for success in today's economy requires a much greater investment in time and money. An increase in time of at least 50% (or even over 100%) to try and be at the level a mere 2 generatioons ago. Then look at the cost of that education -- what was paid for is now only the start. College is very expensive and starts many off in their lives in debt. Then let's look at housing. For my father, a home was 3 - 4 times his annual gross pay. For me it was 6 - 8 times when I started and now it's 8 - 12 times. And I'm not even going to go into what property or income taxes have become. I simply couldn't affort it alone -- he could.

Then you are underpaid. I suspect that your father had a decent paying job, otherwise he couldn't afford to buy his house.

Anecdotes:

My BIL, US based, is the sole wage earner in his family, graduated high school but never went to college and supports his wife, two children (plus a third from his previous marriage) as well as owning a nice four bedroomed home. He works ridiculously hard as a car salesman but makes good money

Mrs Don's Uncle. Graduated high school and worked as a lineman in NJ. Supports his family without his wife working. His son, now 20, has followed him into the same line of work (no pun intended) and is sole wage earner for his young family. He has not yet bought a home but I understand that he will do so in the relatively near future.

 

[Zbu]

Speaking of housing, I notice nearly all of these examples come from a time where starter houses were the rage as well. Where are those in today's society? The closest you could get nowadays to a starter home is a trailer and considering the depreciation on those you might as well just get an apartment and call it a life. And while a well-paying blue-collar job could get you a home today, how long would that last? Job security no longer exists as we knew it.

As for traditional values, it is a load of bunk by a lot of people who think of Ozzie Nelson as the Second Coming of the zombie carpenter. According to the P&T episode, a more normal version of human relationships would be the Pride of Lions one: one male, several females, and kids. Or something else than the typical nuclear family. All this 'family value' crap is just playing to the ignorant, and it's a shame because the book "What's the Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Frank showcases the result: a bunch of well-meaning idiots voting against their own benefit as a faux-protest that borders on religious insanity just because of one overblown issue as shown on the news. It's pretty much a conspiracy to anger the American populace to such an extent where we start behaving irrationally.

 

[NeilC]

So we should applaud the breakdown of the family unit? We should celebrate paying support to single parents and ignore the stats showing that children from broken homes are over-represented in underachievement and crime? There is nothing wrong with society, teenage pregnancies are fine, crime has always been bad, parents/teachers/police didn't deserve and respect anyway and all is well with the world.

 

[Just thinking]

Then you are underpaid. I suspect that your father had a decent paying job, otherwise he couldn't afford to buy his house.

The reason why my father could afford a home in his time was because homes were ... well, more affordable.

Without using generalizations I will come right out and use hard data. In 1957 he earned around $100 a week, or roughly $5000 per year. Using an Inflation Calculator this amounts to about $34,000 in 2005; hardly what I would call well paid. And then comparing that to a 2003 NJ effective poverty scale (200% of the national value) we find him not much above (18%) the top end at $32,000. But that being said, we also find that his home (a 3 bedroom ranch) in 1957 was $15,000; a mere 3 times his gross pay. His federal income tax was nowhere at the levels it would be today (without deductions) as well, nor were the property taxes.

Now ... could he do today what he did back in 1957? Given an income of $34,000 we find his exact home is now worth over $320,000, roughly 9.5 times his gross pay. Property taxes are over $6,000 a year, and a $200,000 morgage would run him about $2,000 a month. We'll ignore federal taxes, but NJ doesn't care and would zap him for another $1,000 or so. Let's see ... 34,000 - 24,000 - 6,000 - 1,000 = 3,000. Can one live on $3000 a year? I didn't include food, utilities, commuting, clothes, heating, maintainance, car expenses ... what do you think?

Anecdotes:

My BIL, US based, is the sole wage earner in his family, graduated high school but never went to college and supports his wife, two children (plus a third from his previous marriage) as well as owning a nice four bedroomed home. He works ridiculously hard as a car salesman but makes good money

Mrs Don's Uncle. Graduated high school and worked as a lineman in NJ. Supports his family without his wife working. His son, now 20, has followed him into the same line of work (no pun intended) and is sole wage earner for his young family. He has not yet bought a home but I understand that he will do so in the relatively near future.

All well and good, but without numbers they are of little meaning. Plus, they have little bearing on how the affordability of homes has changed over time.

Haven't you ever heard anyone say "If I had to buy my home today I simply couldn't afford it." ?

 

[Zbu]

So we should applaud the breakdown of the family unit? We should celebrate paying support to single parents and ignore the stats showing that children from broken homes are over-represented in underachievement and crime? There is nothing wrong with society, teenage pregnancies are fine, crime has always been bad, parents/teachers/police didn't deserve and respect anyway and all is well with the world.

The breakdown of what family unit? The family unit hasn't always been a man, a woman, two and a half kids, and a dog. It takes on many forms and phasing it as a breakdown is incorrect. Broken homes? This still assumes something less than the mythical 'perfect' nuclear family. What I and many others were trying to do in this thread was deconstruct the myth of the nuclear family. It doesn't really take two parents to have a good productive and educational childhood.

How this ties into teenage pregnancies, disrespecting authority (which is a whole other thing altogether if you really want me to bring Patrick McGoohan into this), and various other strawmen is beyond me, however. The idealized '50s that most conservatives believe in never existed. There are always problems with the world. But the idea that these problems rose from the '50s and are blamed on the '60s and everything after is absurd, naive, and possibly racist. The '50s were in no way ideal or free of crime or somehow brand-new fresh-white Christian pure: if so, explain the publication of Naked Lunch. I dare you.

 

[Just thinking]

Speaking of housing, I notice nearly all of these examples come from a time where starter houses were the rage as well. Where are those in today's society? The closest you could get nowadays to a starter home is a trailer and considering the depreciation on those you might as well just get an apartment and call it a life. And while a well-paying blue-collar job could get you a home today, how long would that last? Job security no longer exists as we knew it.

These are crucial points, as the only starter homes are used homes up on the market -- and they get eaten up fast. Several times I had been saving for a home only to find my job disappear leaving me to get a lower paying one. My salary went down as home prices went up -- not an easy way to become eligible for a mortgage.

 

[Zbu]

These are crucial points, as the only starter homes are used homes up on the market -- and they get eaten up fast. Several times I had been saving for a home only to find my job disappear leaving me to get a lower paying one. My salary went down as home prices went up -- not an easy way to become eligible for a mortgage.

Indeed. I'm about to finish my undergrad studies and am looking into low-income condos so the whole idea of these $170,000+ homes (and this is far far cheap end) is disturbing in the extreme. Most of those are the same condos that live next to the low-income condos and are of the same quality yet they're three times more expensive. My intention was to find a low-income condo to start out with so at least I could own a home and not get charged up the butt rent-wise and have something to call my own. Apparently since I'm just an average American citizen, that's going to be impossible to do.

Right now it's just a matter of time before this housing bubble bursts. The prices and wages around here (Michigan) are just not fitting with each other. What a mess.

 

[epepke]

I could ask for some of the same stuff you're having, but then, I like to keep my brain clear.
You're complaining about some 50 hour work-week?
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...ctory+workhours+1900&hl=nl&gl=nl&ct=clnk&cd=2
"Between 1870 and 2000, average worktime fell by about 50 percent."
Think in the order of magnitude from 10 hours per day, 6 days per week to 8 hours times 5 days - with an increase in holidays as well.

Um, when I was in academia, I routinely worked 60-80 hours per week, and I was never paid more than $45,000 per year. Of course, I did get six weeks paid holiday per year and a cheap but good HMO, so it was worth it.

 

[Just thinking]

A small error in my post above -- my mortgage payments for a $200,000 loan would not be $2,000 a month as noted ... I meant it to be a $300,000 loan at 6% for 25 years.

Sorry!

 

[Just thinking]

Um, when I was in academia, I routinely worked 60-80 hours per week, and I was never paid more than $45,000 per year.

As for me, you certainly got the hours right --- but I never made it to even $40K as a teacher; and that's up to 2003.

 

[The Don]

Without using generalizations I will come right out and use hard data. In 1957 he earned around $100 a week, or roughly $5000 per year. Using an Inflation Calculator this amounts to about $34,000 in 2005; hardly what I would call well paid. And then comparing that to a 2003 NJ effective poverty scale (200% of the national value) we find him not much above (18%) the top end at $32,000. But that being said, we also find that his home (a 3 bedroom ranch) in 1957 was $15,000; a mere 3 times his gross pay. His federal income tax was nowhere at the levels it would be today (without deductions) as well, nor were the property taxes.

Use earnings inflation to calculate income -

1957 average earnings $3600 pa
2004 average earnings $36000 pa

source

So your dad would be earning $50000 now if his income had increased in line with average earnings.

Also, housing affordability (which takes into account interest rates) is at an all time high source although there is only 30 years worth of data here. And of course it's not clear whether multiple incomes are considered.

Of course in NJ you may be in an area which suffers from a shortage of housing.

 

[Just thinking]

Use earnings inflation to calculate income -

1957 average earnings $3600 pa
2004 average earnings $36000 pa

source

So your dad would be earning $50000 now if his income had increased in line with average earnings.

True, perhaps -- but not the real point or issue. The inflation calculator is (I believe) a better barometer. Why? -- because it better shows what his earnings back then would be capable of today in today's housing markets. Not what his job would be paying today, as that has no reflection on his ability to afford a home in 1957. His earnings adjusted for inflation would only be about 10% of the value (per year) of the home he purchased; back in 1957, his earnings were 33% of the value. (Who knows if he would even find work today? Not all jobs' salaries kept up at the same pace.) If one adjusts for both income and inflation it shows how over time the housing market is expanding (or contracting) compared to income on an overall average; adjusting for inflation alone shows how the market existed for that single (1957) data point compared to today.

But even if we use $50K as you suggest, then we have his home being at over 6 times his yearly income, not 3 -- still an expansion of value well above incomes. Remember, affordability looks at multiple variables, if income is not meeting the "average numbers", or one lives in not in the "average" location, the conclusions are not helpful, or even meaningful. New Jersey has always been a very expensive state in which to live -- PA, comparitively, is overall quite a bit less, as is much of the nation. Also, the poeverty level in NJ is about 200% the national average -- now, what does that say?

A quote from your second post on affordability claims ... "The index shows the nation’s typical household had 144.0 percent of the income needed to purchase a home at the first quarter median existing-home price, which was $161,500." You couldn't buy a shack in NJ for that amount -- as my father's starter home is now worth double that. New construction in my neighborhood is starting, starting --- at $700,000.

 

[NeilC]

The breakdown of what family unit? The family unit hasn't always been a man, a woman, two and a half kids, and a dog. It takes on many forms and phasing it as a breakdown is incorrect. Broken homes? This still assumes something less than the mythical 'perfect' nuclear family. What I and many others were trying to do in this thread was deconstruct the myth of the nuclear family. It doesn't really take two parents to have a good productive and educational childhood.

How this ties into teenage pregnancies, disrespecting authority (which is a whole other thing altogether if you really want me to bring Patrick McGoohan into this), and various other strawmen is beyond me, however. The idealized '50s that most conservatives believe in never existed. There are always problems with the world. But the idea that these problems rose from the '50s and are blamed on the '60s and everything after is absurd, naive, and possibly racist. The '50s were in no way ideal or free of crime or somehow brand-new fresh-white Christian pure: if so, explain the publication of Naked Lunch. I dare you.

I can't see how you can say that the family unit hasn't broken down. The divorce levels are at all time highs - by definition this means more families are breaking up than ever. Even 25 years ago, when I was at school there was only 1 or 2 kids whose parents had broken up. According to my nephew (parents split) there are now only a handful of kids in his class whose parents are still together. Therefore I believe the family unit is breaking up. More and more kids are being raised by a single parent or by a step fathers. In my own personal experience I know this can cause a lot of emotional problems - kids like mummy and daddy to stay together.

How so I connect it to teenage pregnancies and repect? You really cannot see a connection between broken homes and poor teenage behaviour? My own nephew went to a psychologist after my brother's wife kicked him out - it disturbs them. It affects their behaviour. Teen pregnancy and crime are connected to the child's upbringing. What else do you put it down to? It's also quite widely touted that boys often run into respect problems when no father figure is apparant in their early years.

"Children reared in fatherless homes are more than twice as likely to become male adolescent delinquents or teen mothers, according to a significant new study by two economists at the University of California, Santa Barbara."

http://www.instadv.ucsb.edu/InstAdv/PublicAffairs/Releases/fatherless

I never said the 50's were perfect. I wasn't alive then. Everyone I know who was alive then say the crime rates were much lower and respect was much higher. Crime figures reflect this.

I think you guys are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think this stuff is not messing with society.

Also traditional values are not just about families. They are about respect for society over the rights of the individual. Go and speak to some 70 year old people - they are not all wobbly idiots lamenting a fantasy age. They have actually seen, first hand, the breaking down of society.

 

[egslim]

I just came across this article: http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2924fannie_mae.html
Very interesting reading.

In the post-World War II period to 1963, when a previous generation of Americans bought their homes, the purchase cost reflected the cost of construction, such as materials and labor, plus a moderate, but fair profit for the homebuilder. It also reflected the cost of the land, which was not high.
[...]
In 1986, the Tax Reform Act was passed, which created tax breaks for speculative shelters in real estate. By this point, the bankers thought it timely to introduce the full speculative virus into the home real estate market.

If this article is to be believed housing prices in the US have spiraled upwards because of speculation by a few large financial institutions.

It includes a lot of hard figures too:

During this time, the median home price increased at a compounded annual rate of 15%.

 

[Crazytree]

divorce is a GOOD thing people.

It means that people don't want to remain together any longer.

divorce is a better option IMO than living the rest of your days with someone you hate.

 

[egslim]

Well, one can argue how people who divorce could have worked out their issues instead - because divorce has become too easy.

On the other hand, I think the fundamental problem is people marry too quickly. Quick maririages divorce easier, because the participants have invested less time and effort into their relationship.