Drenched, Looking outside my fence

Our area has been getting hammered with tropical moisture this week. I took my Tacoma to work yesterday and today and was glad I did. When I took Elsa to the vet yesterday morning I had to roll through some streets that were badly flooded out that would have made me nervous in my Tesla. The rest of the week is looking to be very wet as well. Our area was very arid prior to this so the rain is a good thing although nature turning the faucet on full blast for a week straight is a bit extreme. Luckily my new property does not suffer from the nasty standing water issue my old place had. It can rain torrentially with little to no consequence at my new place.

Last night after I did another mini-workout I started developing a slight headache. I don’t get a lot of headaches. I then started to feel a bit chilled as well. I put on a sweatshirt that I kept on while playing a WoW session where I leveled my fourth character to max level. Eventually I felt better but it was an unwell feeling for an hour or two.

Last night I finally finished up Godzilla Minus One. It took me a total of three viewing sessions to complete it. It was an old school style Godzilla movie based in the time period in Japan right after World War II. Most recent depictions of Godzilla always include some sort of heroic/decent side to him. This film went retro where Godzilla is pure monster mode with more story than typical. It was ok but I wouldn’t give it the acclaim I have heard others give the film. It’s a B in my book.

Any long time blog readers may or may have not noticed that since I split from Cindy some of the political or societal issues have taken a back seat in what I comment/write about. I used to rant hard about a lot of stuff and was very vocal about my dislike of Trump and what he represented. However once he was voted out that avenue of discontent slowly faded. However I also thought that the way Biden was magically shoved into the front runner spot after being behind in every imaginable way in the primaries was shady. I have said very little about his performance since he has been president because quite frankly, I’m not a fan. So the the idea that this election we have a choice between two candidates that I don’t like is disheartening and furthers my disposition to not care, but I digress.

I think when I was in relationships I found myself more focused on what else was going on around me. I think now that I have been primarily single since September of 2021 that focus has turned inward, focusing on how to navigate my day to day existence instead of worrying about how f’d up the rest of the world is, which it is, clearly. I have shoulder shrugged that I can’t change any of that so instead I am trying to manage my own little sphere of existence, which brings me to my actual point.

There is a lot of sentiment from older Americans, which I am officially a part of nowadays that millennials and Gen Z individuals are just lazy and not willing to work to carve out their own life. In some ways I have subscribed to that mindset if I am being honest. However I have caught a few videos from a guy that points out that the reality is the cards are stacked so high against people in this age bracket it’s nearly impossible to see over them.

In his videos he breaks down the numbers that show the correlation between average median incomes, interest rates, and home prices over the years. For most of the last 30 years they have moved up at similar rates. Yes inflation has always been around but incomes have kept pace to allow a typical family to afford a modest home if they were hard working and saved a little money. That formula in the last 2-3 years has become obliterated.

Of course everything has gone up astronomically since covid but the housing market is the most crushing obstacle for anyone trying to buy their first home with no equity from a prior home to help them (like me). When you look at these numbers it’s eye opening and ridiculous. In every way possible a younger person is getting enslaved to financial institutions because they simply can not afford to pay for even basic needs to survive.

He makes a great point how older Americans that already have their home think the economy is working well. The value of their home is way, way up, their stock market portfolio is strong so the next generation complaining about their financial reality is often disregarded as whining and insignificant. They are simply wrong. Just watch one of his short videos to see what he is talking about, it’s worth the time.

Like I said I am an example of benefiting by getting into the housing market before this went off the rails. If you would have told me five years ago that I would “downsize” into a home that costs a half million dollars I would have laughed in your face considering my original home cost a third of that. Yet that was the reality and it continues to be. I am one of the fortunate ones, those that are a couple decades behind me have an incredible mountain to climb.

So of course the question is how do we fix it? I honestly have no idea. Covid was used as an excuse across the board to raise the prices universally on everything however even now that the crisis is far behind us those prices never recovered, staying at their high levels because it’s great for the bottom line. It’s just one more reason that the future ahead looks very dark and dreary financially for so many people. If there is a light at the end of the tunnel I can’t see it.

Last year I yet again made commentary that was related to the ridiculous back and forth drama I contributed to and endured with my ex and how utterly ridiculous it was. Now it’s clear the truly ridiculous thing was I went through another six months of it, hitting myself in the face with a hammer and then wondering why it hurt. I was such an idiot, truly.