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I. Hello and welcome back to Now We Consume,
where our pain is your gain. Thank you all for
joining us today. I'm your host, Gibbs. Along
with me is my co -host, Pip. Here to give you
mental trauma the best I can. Yeah, you do a
really good job at that. I just was. You are
a professional. I am the professional that needs
a professional. I know. The problem is finding
a professional for you is a whole different level.
Oh, yes. What is above a therapist? Is it like
a super therapist or something like that? Do
you have to get a double masters or something
or a double doctorate? Hashtag double D therapist?
I don't know. I don't know how that works. I
had a therapist with double Ds. I couldn't concentrate.
The least surprising sentence you've ever said
to me. She wonders why you answered everything
as milk. I just don't get it. I don't get it.
Why this guy? He's like Homelander. I don't have
to tell you. Anyways. If you watch the boys,
you'll get that reference. Oh, that milk scene.
I'm sorry. Every time it makes me laugh. Every
time. But anyways. So we want to discuss, I think,
a very timely topic. discussed around it in a
few episodes. Between our financial episodes
and a few other things, we want to talk about
the great housing crisis that's been going on,
and that's probably going to continue going on.
There's a few different facets here. There's
a few different angles. We do quickly want to
cover a bit of background when it comes to the
most important part, which is the financial aspect,
but we've covered a bit of it before. And then
we want to move on to a couple of different areas
that I think people... I think Pip rightly pointed
this out. People aren't discussing the other
issues because most of it's financial that you
see online. You see people complaining, oh, the
housing market's bad because of finance. It's
like, well, yeah, but there are other underlying
issues that even if you can afford to buy it,
doesn't mean you can afford to maintain or repair
it. So there's a few more things to go with that.
Anyways, any other intro thoughts, questions,
problems, concerns, issues before we get into
it? No. I'm just glad to have you back. That's
all. Yeah. I'm glad to be back. We are switching
the podcast just so everyone knows. We're going
to start recording this on Mondays, Monday slash
Tuesdays, because unfortunately my weekends have
just been all over the place. So at least this
way we know we can make it consistent again and
kind of stick with a routine and a schedule.
So that being said, I just did want to do a quick
shout out. Please make sure you guys follow us.
We appreciate all the followers on Discord, on
Instagram. On TikTok, we've been having a lot
of interactions lately and a big pickup in followings
and stuff like that. So we really do really appreciate
it, especially also with the Facebook group as
well and the Discord and everything. So feel
free to give us a like, follow, share, and we
just really appreciate it. And that being said,
shall we get into it? Yeah. The numbers don't
lie, and as painful as they are, they suck. As
everybody has been seeing online and as everybody
has been talking about for the past basically
four and a half years now, ever since COVID,
the cost of housing has gone through the roof.
It may have hitched a ride in one of Elon's rockets,
as far as I know. A recent study is now showing
that the annual income that is needed to purchase
a home is now at least $114 ,000. at the end
of last year, beginning of this year timeframe.
Now, is that pre -tax or post -tax? It didn't
say. I'm going to say probably pre -tax. Yeah.
So basically, to throw it out there, after taxes,
you guys, as a couple, as two people, you got
to be making $60 ,000 each a year, which on average
is about $30 an hour. There's so many areas of
the country where that is not readily attainable.
Even by people that have been working for years.
Right. Now, the bad part is, like you were just
saying, that's actually almost double the actual
median household income. The current median household
income, which again, this is from the end of
last year, is right around $75 ,000. And again,
that's for two people. Yeah. I think that there's
something I do want to make a point, which is
I feel like there's a lot of people that people,
and call me crazy on this one, but I feel like
the people that have the largest followings typically
on social media are people that are in cities
or near cities. So they really think the average
American lives on much more than they do. Oh,
yeah. And they don't understand that average
people, like someone making $15, $18, even $20
an hour in most of the Midwest and the South,
that used to be enough to live on. You used to
be able to buy, eventually, a small house and
have a car. That used to be the barrier to entry
for most Americans was, hey, if you and your
spouse each made at least $20 an hour, you're
good. You can do most anything, most anywhere
outside of the major cities. Now, good luck.
For fuck's sakes, you can barely find one bedroom
apartments on the outskirts of Louisiana and
shit like that for less than $1 ,000 a month,
where it used to be $400. Yeah. First -time homebuyers
especially are getting hit the worst because
they have to have the most criteria met. They
often have to have the most down. Now, there
are some more programs coming online for first
-time buyer assistance. I do think there needs
to be even more done in that area. Zachary loft,
I think is his name. The guy that does all the
housing and financial shorts and stuff on Tik
TOK and whatnot. He does a lot of good videos,
makes a lot of great points. One of the ones
that he's talked about was, uh, whenever a house
is purchased, a percentage of the purchase price
goes into a fund for her, for first time home
buyers to act as down payment assistance, because
oftentimes the down payment is one of the biggest
barriers to entry. Like people make enough. To
cover the cost like the month to month because
they're paying rent right now and rent is way
higher than house payments. And if they can do
that, then logic says they can probably cover
a house payment that's going to be less than
their rent. But they've been paying so much in
rent that they can't save for the down payment.
So the other problem is something for people
to know is that when you apply for a mortgage,
whatever you're paying for rent goes against
your available income. So it's that weird problem
where when you apply for a mortgage, let's say
you're paying $3 ,000 a month in rent, that's
deducted from your available funds for a mortgage.
Which is stupid. Because you're not going to
be paying that rent. Yeah, but see, the mortgage
companies don't care because you are a number,
you are a risk factor. That's part of some of
the problem here. So it's this revolving door
of you have to make, in some cases, two to three
times what you would normally need to make. In
order to get approval to get a mortgage. And
then the problem is between the rates that we
have and what the home prices, if you either
get 10 or 20 % down, for some houses, like 20
% down, that's going to be $100 ,000. Or more.
Yeah, who the hell in this economy could save
that? Like, sure, I'm sure eventually there are
some people that if they have a dual income household
and they really, really, really are tight on
budgets. They can probably save that in like
four to five years. But here's the thing. For
most people, that means no fun, no hobbies, no
nothing. It's literally just going to work, coming
home, sitting. Yeah, that's living on rice and
beans, maybe the occasional ramen. Yeah, to really
spice it up. For most people, they're just not
living. That's why I think so many younger people
have checked out of ever buying a home. Yeah.
They're going to rely on the passed down homes,
the inheritance houses. which I do want to warn
people, be careful, because, so this is something
I've dealt with, and thankfully I found a way
to avoid this, but when a house is passed down
to you, especially if it's not done the right
way, holy shit, you're in for it. Well, here's
the thing. Capital gains is 20 or 25 % on anything
past $250 ,000. What that means is by the time
they bought the house versus the time they died
and you get it, you have to pay on that difference.
So let's just say theoretically, like my grandparents,
when they bought this house for $11 ,000 and
now it's worth $880 ,000, I would technically
be responsible on the hook for damn near $200
,000. Do you know what I would not be doing?
Being able to afford the house, so I'd be forced
to sell it and take that loss, and I'd lose 20
% for no reason. But whereas, because I spoke
to a lawyer, granted it cost me two to three
grand in lawyer's fees and everything else to
get everything else set up, it's now to where
I own the house on my name, and I don't have
to pay any taxes on that. So I do recommend people,
estate planning is huge, and that's something
that's going to be coming up very soon for a
lot of people. especially when a lot of people
listening might have parents or grandparents
that are older, I cannot recommend enough to
talk to an estate planner. Right. Yeah, the estate
situation is something that honestly cannot be
stressed enough as far as like a serious thing
because life comes at you fast and you never
know when your number's up. So whether you're
30 or 44 or, you know, even 26 or 28, it doesn't
matter. You've got to plan for it. So get your
bases covered and do what you can. Oh, yeah.
That's one thing that I'm actually starting to
have to sit down and go over here in the near
future. Oh, yeah. estate planning is huge and
it's one of those things once you have assets
that are worth something definitely talk to a
lawyer that knows what they're doing yeah they're
going to be expensive i'll tell you that right
now but well it's like you just said the couple
grand that you paid is going to cover the cost
of what you would have had to a percentage of
what you would have had to pay i spent one percent
of what it would have been so basically it was
99 in savings that i spent yeah so Yeah, it's
a no -brainer. So just make sure people please.
That's one of the biggest piece of advice I can
give you on this topic anyway. But back to the
numbers. The housing cost, one of the biggest
differences, we were talking about the cost of
houses. Inside of the cities, the annual income,
like he had mentioned, you may need $200 ,000
to $300 ,000 a year for the family. versus the
115 or whatever it was. Oh, yeah. Not many people
I know make that. And I mean, I live near a pretty
big city in Ohio, so there are people that make
that, but it's not a lot. About 60 % of households
in the U .S. cannot afford a $300 ,000 home,
which is less than the median price of a single
family home, which is about $460 ,000. So that's
saying something when three quarters of the country
cannot buy the median price house. I think houses
are a little overpriced right now, but it also
has to do with available inventory. But we'll
touch on that here a little bit later, too. And
also, something you guys need to consider, too,
is because taxes are based on percentages, when
the houses are more expensive, all of your taxes
become more expensive, and then the house gets
more expensive, and then it becomes more expensive
to work on it. It's this revolving accumulation
of value. And my cat just jumped in my lap. Hello.
Hi, kitty. What are you doing, girl? Anyway,
sorry. So if you hear a random meow, I apologize.
But she's been the whole time ever since we started
that she's been yelling at me. Nice. But yeah,
it's just something to consider for people as
well. If you're trying to buy a house that taxes
on them are tough. So just make sure you do your
due diligence. Yeah. So aside from houses themselves
being a little overpriced, we still got high
mortgage rates. They've been spiking since after
COVID. The rocket increase after the COVID issues.
I know I got ultra lucky. I've got a rate that
is probably never going to be seen again. Is
it sub 3 %? Uh -huh. What do you have? Two and
a half. Fuck you. But hey, I can't. I'm trapped.
I can't sell. So there's the other issue. I have
a mortgage. I cannot sell. I have a couple of
friends that bought houses at low 2 % rates.
And they're like, I don't even like the house,
but I want to die in this bitch. I can't afford
to move even if I wanted to. And what people
don't realize, too, is with percentage rates,
you might think, oh, 2 % versus 4 % isn't a big
difference. But when it comes to mortgages with
that compound interest over time, oh. It's massive.
If you guys ever want to mess around with it,
look at the difference, throw, find like a mortgage
compound interest rate calculator on Google,
throw in a hundred thousand dollars and look
at the difference that you actually pay over
30 years between like 2 % and 5%. And to give
you guys an idea why it's so crazy is because
just a few short years ago, four to 5%, even
3 % was common. Whereas right now, like a lot
of people are getting 9%, 8%, 7%. And while 7
% isn't terrible when the house is $500 ,000.
When you end up paying $800 ,000 by the time
that's over, it's insane. You're going to pay
way more than that. I don't even know what 7
% would be on $500 ,000, to be honest with you.
Offhand, I didn't check that. Yeah, I don't know.
The inventory of houses, like I mentioned a little
bit ago, we are short on houses. roughly, and
this is a current number, we have a shortage
of about four and a half million homes. Which
is insane because we have like eight plus million
vacant homes. Yeah, that's a problem. I don't
know if those are being figured into the numbers.
Yeah. I blanked out. Sorry. So my cat is your,
she's being ultra needy right now. And I don't
know why. So anyways, but that's one of the things
that I've noticed. I was going through some numbers
the other day. And I mean, when you have eight
plus million, almost 10 million homes available,
but yet we have a housing crisis in the matter
of a few million. It's like, well, number one,
they could be rented out, but there's a lot of
people I think that bought years ago that were
able to have second homes and third homes and
investment homes and other things. Whereas because
of that, and it's great that they have that.
That's awesome. But that does mean that the market,
after a while, slowly becomes less and less available.
That supply becomes more limited. But also, one
of the issues is it's way harder to build nowadays.
You would think, oh, it would be easier by now.
It's like, no, between local regulations and
government regulations and requirements and permitting,
oh my god, permits, especially with local towns
and municipalities, it becomes a nightmare to
get anything approved. Those are aides. I'm glad
I live in a part of town where I don't have to
worry about permits. I can literally take a sketch
on a napkin down to the board and be like, this
is what I want to do. And they'll be like, all
right, go ahead. Can you really like add whatever
you want on your house or do additions? That's
one thing that I'm jealous about where since
I'm in the Northeast, you have to do permits
for everything. If it's anything bigger than
like an eight by eight shed, you have to get
a permit for it. No. Short of building another
house on my property. And even then, it's not
even a full permit. I can get a homestead exemption.
That would be cool. All right. All right, Kat.
You need to go, girl. Come on. It would be nice.
Could you leave my lap, Kat? No? All right. I
guess. Why? I know. I love you, too. But come
on. Thank you. I appreciate it. Anyways. Also,
the other thing on that list, too, that I'm glad
you brought up on the list was insurance premiums.
If you look at areas, particularly in Florida,
for example, where there's only a couple of different
insurance providers, so there's kind of like
a small monopoly, as well as a lot of different
areas between insurance providers pulling out
of certain areas, like California, between wildfires
and everything else. It's not... It's becoming
an issue to where when there's fewer insurance
companies, they don't have to fight over it.
They're not trying to fight for your business.
So they can just charge whatever they want. And
because their value is based on whatever the
payout is for if the home goes out or goes under
fire or for floods or whatever, as the home values
increase, obviously the premiums are going to
increase as well as there's going to be more
stipulations. So again, it just compounds this
issue. Yeah. Construction costs as well are an
absolute joke. We're going to touch on that whole
issue later. So I'm not going to go down that
rabbit hole just yet. Wages. So we were talking
about the whole cost of ownership. The cost of
houses has doubled and wages have gone up by
single digit percentages over the same time.
They really haven't gone up much at all. In some
areas. So some areas are seeing slight increases
over others, but it's not much and it's not enough.
Yeah. So also depends on the industry too. That's
the other thing you got to consider is that some
industries that they're trucking way up, whereas
other ones have flatlined. Yeah. Or declined.
Yeah. Yeah. I know you said that you're not on
board with the whole UBI concept and I don't
want to have to be on board with the UBI concept
of man. life and a lot of other factors are just,
it's pushing that way and I don't like it. We
might have to at some point. We'll see. Yeah.
But the rate we're going. Cost burdened. Most
homeowners are now cost burdened, which means
they spend 30 % or more of their monthly income
on housing. In some cases, it's 50 % in the case
of a lot of renters. So you can't do much if
you're spending 30 to 50 percent of your month
to month income on the roof over your head. That
doesn't leave a lot of room for your car, your
food, your utilities, your kids. I feel so bad
for the families that have or are trying to have
or trying to plan to have young kids because,
oh, my fucking God, the cost of daycare. Holy
shit balls. yeah like if you do not know that
that can be for one kid dude yeah per kid per
month yeah oh you know what's crazy though is
i was looking at those daycare centers a lot
of them still pay their people like 20 bucks
an hour they pay them garbage yeah 20 bucks an
hour around here for a daycare worker is gold
uh -huh so like Why at that point you could make
a boatload of money. Opening your own. If you
just run a daycare center. A lot of it is the
mental strain. Because I tell you what, not everybody
is cut out to handle that many kids for that
long of a day, every day, day in and day out.
Not everyone's cut out to have kids, let alone
manage. You are so right. Holy shit. If I could
institute one like hard law. you would have to
get a breeding permit. I am a freedom -loving
son of a bitch, but listen, instituting a breeding
permit, you... Oh, buddy. Yes, sir. I can't imagine
the idea of a police officer just sticking his
head in your bedroom window going, hey, you got
papers for that penis? Penis papers, please.
Is your dong registered? Do you have to get it,
like, stamped? The mushroom stamp. They rename
it that? You know, it's going to be a weird timeline
20 years from now when officers are asking for
your mushroom stamp. I'll tell you, that's a
weird timeline. You know CERN fucked up then.
Idiocracy. We are but years away. Yep. We are
steamrolling to that. In fact, Mushroom Stamp
is what I want my idiocracy name to be. I want
to be called Mushroom Stamp. That is what I want
my ID name to be. Oh, God. If we could have President
Not Sure, I want to be Mushroom Stamp. First
name Mush, middle name Rum, last name Stamp.
Yep. Makes sense to me. Anyways. But no, I don't
disagree with that idea. About the mushroom stamp?
No, about the... It's one of those things where,
unfortunately, if people are not in a point in
life to where they can handle kids, they probably
shouldn't be having them, but unfortunately,
it's the people that are the least aware that
usually have the most kids. Yeah, again, idiocracy.
Holy shit. I know. Prophetic movie. It's scary.
I know. Also, here's another terrible trend.
We talked about this. America is depopulating.
Slowly but surely. Well, so we are not having
children, but we're bringing in people from other
countries to populate. Yeah, that's not the way
we want to do it. No, because then we lose the
American heritage. Well, see the idea of you're
not bringing in people that have those, you don't
know values or not. Right. You know, and it's
also one of the things where they don't really
have any skin in the game. It's like, you know,
they're just here getting benefits where, or,
you know, being in the system or doing whatever,
whatever you're doing. But it's one of those
things where if there's nothing that unites a
group of people, there's no common set of values.
And like, what do you have? You look at a lot
of these other countries that are made up of
primarily of immigrants. It's like cool. They
have a lot of cool stuff. But if when you look
at their political structure and everything else,
it's really tough. It becomes a really big struggle.
And that's probably not where we want to go.
No. See, for example, the strife that's happening
in like Eastern Europe, for example, or even
in London and Paris and places like that. But
not to get too sidetracked. Yeah. It's, you know,
to go from there. As well. Oh yeah. The last
number I want to call it on, on the, the, the
cost burden thing about 24%, a quarter of homeowners
are cost burdened. So it's about 20 million homeowners
are cost burdened. So 20 million people that
own their homes are spending 30 to 50 % of their
income on their home itself and nothing else.
And they're just paycheck to paycheck. That's.
You don't have to rent to live paycheck to paycheck.
You can do it as a homeowner. Yeah. That's fucked
up. And what the scary thing that people need
to think about is for a lot of those people too,
that means they're probably not contributing
to a 401k or a Roth IRA. They're not able to
diversify their income or their funds. And so
what happens is we're going pretty quick, pretty
closely. Like what happened in Canada, where
in Canada, they have the issue of a lot of Canadians.
Most of their retirement is actually in the value
of their house. because they don't really have
that much in retirement, because in Canada they
don't make enough to actually put into the stock
market on average. So a lot of Canadians face
this weird problem of the houses are too expensive
to buy, but if they lose their value, they won't
have a retirement. So that's what happens when
you put all your eggs in one basket to where
you're basically screwed. That's why the American
way worked for so long, whereas people buy their
house, build a bunch of equity, and invest in
the stock market in other ways to be able to
secure their retirement. By us, by this cost
being so high, most Americans will put all of
their income into buying a house with a little
bit of land. But then what happens when you're
65, 70, when you can't work? Then you're unfortunately
kind of left in a situation where you can't afford
the house. You can't work. And for most Americans,
unfortunately, most houses are not very elderly
friendly. So we don't build houses to a standard.
There's not many houses you buy nowadays, if
you guys even noticed. One of the issues that
we see is because builders want to maximize their
profits, they build big houses or two -story
or three -story houses. So the problem is there
aren't starter homes available. There aren't
one -level houses available unless you want to
go to like a trailer park, which that's a whole
different thing. And even then, those are becoming
expensive, by the way. In my area, those are
almost $150 ,000, $200 ,000 for a freaking trailer
in a trailer park, which is mind -blowing. It's
disgusting. There are people I know making $70
,000, $80 ,000 that are lucky and happy. To be
able to afford to live in a trailer park. That's
that's. Wow. Yeah. I just saw a trailer posted
up for 900 bucks a month over here. But the sad
part is that's going to get sold like that. That's
to be rented out tomorrow. Oh, it's probably
gone already. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we've
just been mostly talking about homeowners. The
rental market itself is not left out of this.
Rent has surged. I'm sure most people listening
that have dealt with rent in the past five years,
10 years, have seen that as well. The number
of units renting for inflation adjusted $1 ,000
a month or less fell by over 30 % between 2013
and 2023, while those renting for $2 ,000 or
more in that same time frame Nearly tripled.
So, same units, double the price. Just because.
Many renters, especially those from low -income
families, are severely cost -burdened. In many
cases, paying half or more of their income on
rent. Which means they absolutely cannot save.
How can they? Again, 50, 60, 70 % of your income
going to your roof. You got to eat. You got to
have power and whatnot. Gas in the car to get
to work. There's not much left. Not to mention
between that and medical expenses or anything
else, you take one trip to the ER and your whole
savings fund is wiped out. Yeah, I think most
people just wing it and they rely on the fact
that the hospitals don't charge you up front.
or there's a lot of people I know that just don't
pay their medical debts. They're like, Oh yeah,
they just can't. And they wonder why for the
few people that do pay, it costs $10 ,000 to
have a doctor look at your leg and say, yep,
it's there. Here's my bill. Like, well, you got
to pay for the nine people that don't pay. Yeah.
Oh yeah. That, uh, side side ramble. Um, my,
when my father passed, we were looking over the
charges that we got from the hospital. Yeah.
They charged $16 ,000 for physical therapy for
him while he was at the hospital. They were walking
him around the hallway. Yeah. They charged $16
,000 to do that for a couple days. To walk the
man around the hallway. And they probably paid
the therapist $40 an hour. And people wonder
why people do things to their CEOs. I don't know.
Where are we? I don't know. We already did an
episode on some medical stuff, and I'd say refer
to that one. Yes. Our opinions on that one. Where
are we? Okay. The housing shortage is a significant
burden on the broader economy, costing states
billions in lost economic output, personal incomes,
and, of course, jobs. It reduces consumer spending,
increases employee turnover, and hinders a business.
any business's ability to attract and retain
talent. The shortage of affordable housing costs
the American economy about $2 trillion a year
in lower wages and productivity. Ain't that the
truth? Uh -huh. Now, let's talk about something
that I think most people are not talking about.
Yeah, this is a big one. This is to where okay
anyone could talk about the economy we discussed
now We did the primer for this now. Let's get
into something that well. That's kind of more
our unique viewpoint Which is quite frankly almost
all the houses built nowadays their quality sucks
ass I don't know if you guys have seen any videos
from inspectors or people that buy new houses
looking at like Looking at the inspections and
the quality control and everything there are
so many people that saw the market say, hey,
let's become the world's worst flippers ever.
Buy this house. We'll absolutely ram things through
over the next couple of weeks. We'll half -ass
everything. And then we'll create an LLC for
it, sell it, destroy the LLC so they can't sue
us and move on to the next one. And that's what
people do, which is insane. How do I know? Oh,
because I know people this has happened to where
they can't sue the people that built the house
because, oh, that company no longer exists. Sorry.
Oh, well. That there's no standards with it.
And as long as they pay the local inspector,
when they go to sell it, they slip them a couple
of bucks and say, Hey, pass the house. And they
will. Absolutely. That's why he talks. Yeah.
If you buy any new construction house, get not
only one inspector, but to make sure they don't
know of each other. Don't know anything. Find
one. That's even from out of your area, maybe.
So the builders might not have paid them off.
They might not be in the know kind of thing,
but I have seen numerous. videos and reports
about houses, brand new houses that already have
massive water leaks, electrical issues. I mean,
you name it. It's scary because all these people
are thinking, oh, they can just become a general
contractor and just do this. Or they can just
build a house or they'll contract out every little
thing and they don't quality control. They don't
know how to do anything, but because there's
no quality control standards and people need
the house, you know, everyone's going to say,
well, I need a house. If it needs some work to
it, like fine, whatever. And people deal with
it, but they don't realize. It's to get real
work done, actual quality work in the trades.
It costs money now. This is not just, hey, I'll
pay a plumber 500 bucks to fix my bathroom. No.
You're talking thousands for every little issue.
And unfortunately, in a lot of places, to get
that issue looked at, you then have to get a
permit to have that fixed. That's another cost
added on top of it. as well as you have to pay
for their time to get the permit, which is another
cost added on top of it. So it's this endless
revolving door of something that used to be 20
years ago, a few hundred dollars, now it's become
a few thousand dollars. And how many people buy
a brand new built house and set aside $40 ,000
for repairs? No one. No one. No one does that.
They think, oh, it's a brand new built house
and the company built it and they have a 10 -year
warranty or a 5 -year warranty. Or a 20 -year
warranty. It's normally a one -year warranty.
Yeah. It doesn't matter what the number is. It
could be three days. But that company's not going
to exist. By the time you get to sue them and
do everything, they're already going to sell
and move on. So just be aware of this. It's absolutely
terrible. I spoke to our friend Gibbles, who...
If you've listened to the show for a while, you
know he's been on a few times. He's gone through
the house building process twice now. He feels
that he has gotten lucky both times, but in this
most recent build of his, he was a very active
customer. He was going by the build site daily
or almost daily to make sure that they weren't
cutting corners. There were some minor issues,
but they were corrected before. Everything was
handled. He said he had one issue with some steps
that were starting to crumble, some concrete
steps. But that was fixed by the builder. And
that's the only thing that he's really run into.
A lot of the videos that you're talking about,
there are major, major issues down to like the
foundation. Those are hard to correct after the
house is up. I've seen some videos of houses
undergoing construction and a bad storm comes
through. Not tornadoes, just some like gusting
winds. And it topples these houses. Is that really
a house that you want to live in? In some parts
of the country down towards the south, I want
to say south and southwest, there are building
companies trying to get away. with simply building
a frame and then putting the Tyvek wrap around
the frame and then the siding onto the frame
from that. They're not putting up a hard foundation
shell on the outside. So no plywood or MDF or
anything like that? Nothing. Just the frame,
the Tyvek, and the siding. Wow. And they're saying
that that meets code. Bullshit. I'm like, yeah.
Code for fucking tinker toys. What they're trying
to build is a glorified shed. Essentially, yeah.
But it's a whole house. Yeah. Like the ones I
have in these pictures behind me right here.
Yeah. This is what they look like when they're
done. And if you aren't there for the build process,
you would never know because they get drywall
on the inside. You're not going to know until
the first time a loud storm rolls through. And
you notice, oh, it sounded like that storm was
right inside the house. I mean, you've got, if
you're getting a house built, you have to be
an involved customer. So what I've heard from
people is don't buy the houses that are built
in big pre -built sections. Hire a company to
build it specifically for you that has a reputation
because they're building that one off for you.
You would think they'd be more likely to cut
corners, but actually from what I've heard, they're
more likely to do it right. Whereas the big builders
that build like 30 or 50 houses at a time, they're
going to cut all the corners because they got
50 of them. They don't give a shit if a couple
of houses are a piece of shit. They don't care.
They make $300 ,000 or $400 ,000 of profit per
house anyway. They don't care. That's the other
issue. It's literally minimum or minimal cost
for maximum profit. They've got houses that are
going up costing them $150 ,000 to build, and
they're trying to sell them for $700 ,000. with
all kinds of issues loose electrical fixtures
leaking gas lines cracks in the foundation i
mean literally all kinds of like serious issues
my favorite one i saw was a lady was trying to
take a shower and literally there was an electrical
wire that was on the pipes the water pipes oh
yes i remember so literally literally you could
take a um like an insulated screwdriver put it
near the water you'd see that the electrical
like electricity arcing on it uh -huh and it's
it's shit like that that is getting passed all
the time and for most people they don't know
how to fight that like what do you do you know
you gotta live there you gotta wake up in the
morning take a shower you don't want to be a
stinky miserable bitch for like three like three
months waiting like i just want to take a shower
like you know what i mean There's nothing you
can do other than you have to fix it and go after
them afterwards. Yeah. And that's not right.
That should be part of why we're paying taxes
and paying for these other things is there really
should be a fund at some point to where, hey,
if the builder of your house screwed you over,
the tax revenue on that extra sales tax you pay
for that house, that's part of a program that
helps cover you and the government goes after
them. That's how it should be. But that's a whole
different. Yeah. That'd be too smart. That's
the problem. Yeah. And I think also there's another
factor in here that I would like to bring up
because I feel like this is important. Because
so few young people have gone into the trades,
and I know we had this discussion before about
the issue with the trades where, one, a lot of
young people didn't go into the trades, but also,
two, a lot of older people discouraged young
people from going into it. So we have this problem
of educated Americans aren't in the trades, but
there's a lot of people we've imported from other
countries in the trades. So the issue is you
have these large roaming contractors that just
hire a ton of people that are either here illegally
or are uneducated or do not have the licenses
for these trades. And because it's under that
big construction thing anyway, if they make $20
million in profit off to sell those houses, they
close down the company, set it up and close it
down, make a new one. You can't sue them. So
they don't care if these people have their licenses
or not. And I hate to say that. Because I bet
you there are some contractors that pride themselves
or general contractors say, oh, yeah, of course
everyone has their license. They know what they're
doing. But I will tell you as somebody that was
a commercial kitchen installer that has been
on some of these sites that has seen some shit.
No way. There's no way. When you see entire crews
of people that nobody knows what the hell they're
doing. They don't know the right end of a fucking
hammer. And the sad part is you just have to
go with it. So just. It's an unfortunate byproduct
of several generations telling kids, don't work
with your hands, don't go in the trades. It's
like, well, when you have 20, 30 years of nobody
working in construction, who's going to do the
labor jobs? Who's doing the framing, Mansley?
There's got to be someone. Yeah, we had a lot
of people sit there and try to discourage hard
work. You know, people. I'm just trying to say
that hard work is a bad thing. I disagree with
that immensely, having some pride in your craftsmanship
and what you do. That's huge, especially nowadays
with the profit margins. Oh, God, yeah. If you
are a good framer or good with construction or
foundation or concrete, oh, my God, a concrete.
Holy shit. It's insane the profit margins now
you can make. Some of the richest guys I know
around here now, they're now literally framers,
contractors, landscapers, stuff like that. They
make a killing. Good electricians, after a couple
of years, can literally write their own paychecks.
HVAC. HVAC in my area is huge. There's someone
I know making $160 a year. Yeah. They work six
hours a day. Oh, yeah. Is it who I know? Oh,
yeah. Yeah. A good hard six hours a day. Oh,
wow. What a rough day. And, and you know what
the sad part is still struggling to buy a house,
even with that much income, just, just, just
my area. It's insane. Yeah. So it's just one
of those things where you can get a degree in
it or get a degree in this or that or whatever
you want, but seriously look into the trades,
especially if you're somebody that's good with
your hands, quick study, quick learner and willing
to put in some work. Cause there's a lot of companies
that honestly, if you're willing to take your
time and do it right, You won't have to bust
your ass like you used to. You won't have to
work 60, 70 hours of overtime just to make it.
Not anymore. It's different now. And it's quickly
changing that way. Sorry, I got a bit of a tangent.
Oh, yeah, no, you're good. So, I mean, I'm not
going to sit here and go over all the lists of
defects and stuff, but, like, there are many.
So, even when you're going to buy a house, If
you get to that point in life, get a very good
home inspector. Like Gibbs was saying, get a
couple of them. Find people that are not associated
with your realtor. Be thorough. Do the inspection
yourself. There are courses online that you can
take to become a home inspector. You don't actually
have to become the home inspector, but learn
the things to look for. And then when the home
inspector is there. You can point stuff out and
ask questions. You might see things they miss.
And since they're there, you can write it up
or they can write it up. Do the work. It's your
house. It is the biggest investment of your life.
So put some work into it. A buddy of mine that's
a realtor gave me a bit of advice, which was
that if you go to buy a house, I agree with you
100%, Pip. Take a bunch of photos. Take videos.
Anything you think maybe sort of might be out
of place. Document it. Document it. Document
it. And that way, when the inspector comes through,
you're going to be able to tell real quick whether
they looked or not. Don't even let them in the
house. Outside, show them, hey, I found this.
I found this. Did you see this? Did you see that?
If they tell you no on everything, you know your
inspector's worthless. If they tell you, oh,
yeah, I have these photos, too, or I saw this,
or, you know, it's a quick litmus test to see
whether you're getting value out of that. And
that way, if you don't, immediately put up a
bad review, immediately move on, find someone
else. And there are some good inspectors out
there. And I, I do agree with you as well. The,
the actual courses to become a home inspector
are not expensive. And there's so many people
on YouTube that give that information out for
free. Yeah. Did you ever watch, was it homes
on homes? He was yes. Yes. So he was one of my
favorites. It was a general contractor. It was
also an inspector. It was on HGTV for a while
back in the mid to late, like 2010s. I don't
know if his show is still on there. I know it
kind of, It wasn't around after COVID because
everything switched with HGTV. But Holmes on
Holmes was, I think his name was Mike Holmes,
I believe, or something like that. But he was
really good, really knowledgeable. And that's
a show to where you can learn a lot, as well
as like this old house, for example, Norm Abrams.
Oh, yeah. Classic. My grandfather actually met
him and somewhat knew him. So my house, fun fact,
before my grandparents got old, he actually sent
a letter. to norm abrams about this house that
i live in but because we had so much going on
with the horses and everything else that the
filming crew and scheduling it would not have
worked oh wow so this house did not get and end
up getting featured which kind of bummed because
i was like eight or nine at the time my grandfather
told me this like a few years ago before he died
and i was like man that would have been so cool
yeah it would have but yeah so uh The thought
of building a house is great, but where are you
going to build? You can't just build it on thin
air. You have to have land. And unfortunately,
while we can build houses all day, we can build
straight up if we have to. We cannot make more
land. Unless you're Lex Luthor. So land has become
an issue as of late. The federal government has
even gone so far as to start mulling the process
to allow federal controlled lands to be sold
to companies and other entities for the use of
development for houses. I'm not sure how I feel
about this because a lot of the sales have been
geared towards certain investment companies.
You know, like our favorite BlackRock. BlackRock,
Vanguard, State Street, all the usual culprits.
Mm -hmm. So here's my thought, because I have
a big issue with this. I'm naturally a little
bit more of a conservationist when it comes to
nature and land and whatnot. I understand it's
a short -term solution. I'll just sell a bunch
of federal land so they can build on it. I have
two issues. One, why the fuck do companies get
to buy land before American citizens? Like, not
to be rude, but at least extend the opportunity
to us citizens to be like, hey, if you want to
buy this land, we're willing to sell it and we're
going to sell it fair market value. Okay. I feel
like I'm owed that. Here's 100 ,000 acres out
in this state for dirt cheap. Buy it. You know,
50 bucks an acre or whatever. But why wouldn't
they do it? So fair market value, maybe the idea
should be, okay, we're going to have pre -approved
houses by a bunch of builders that already meet
the criteria in this state. We're going to sell
this land, we're divvy up these acreages anywhere
between like one acre plots, half acre plots,
if you want small plots, up to four, five, 10,
20, 50, 100, a couple of 1 ,000 acre plots or
whatever. And basically pre -layout almost like
a small town or a city. Our base is a small town,
more like a small town. So the idea is the town
already has this planned out. And they know the
houses that are already pre -approved that meet
criteria, meet everything from builders. And
they pick various ones and they offer up like
50 or 100 different designs, let's just say,
that are pre -approved. So when you buy this
land, you don't have to redo the permit process
or anything. They know where the water mains
are going to come in. They know if you need septic,
electrical, everything else. Everything's already
done. So then the idea is for people that maybe
want to buy and build their first house, they
can do it. at a reasonable price like imagine
being able to let's just say in the middle of
utah colorado or something like that being able
to buy five acres of land for like 50 grand and
then spend two hundred thousand dollars and build
a house and have a brand new house that's good
that's nice that has a garage has everything
you're into it for 250 do you know how many families
could actually start their lives and actually
go somewhere with that a lot but the kicker is
you can't just build the houses you have to build
literally a whole town you have to build the
post offices the shopping centers the the retail
outlets the entertainment stuff and you know
what you do everything has to be built all at
once but you know what you do which is pretty
simple you use the profit that is made from the
sales of that land all that goes into the local
government infrastructure so the idea is by the
time they sell all the plots of land it's basically
a three -year reserve where the idea is you buy
the land and then in three years you can build
So that way the government has three years to
sell that land, get the money together for the
government, say, hey, we have a lump sum of $500
million that we've raised for this town that
we've now planned to build 1 ,200 homes. So let's
just say theoretically, because what? If you
sold $50 ,000 an acre, you sell 10 ,000 acres
or something like that, you're going to end up
with, you know, what? $50 million, $100 million,
something like that. So here's the thing. For
$100 million, I think you can do, and this is
all just very, very basic math. For $100 million,
I think you can build a local municipality, things
like your local police station, fire station,
elementary school, middle school slash high school.
Get all those buildings built, even a local,
like a little medical center or something like
that. And then guess what? After those three
years are up and all that stuff is built, now
everyone can build their homes. From day one.
You have all these services available and they
had a surplus to run the local economy and run
that municipality. This is not that hard. I'm
just some fucking moron that thought about this
for all of like two hours. Hey, you said it,
not me. Well, I'm honest with you. So it just
boggles my mind that our elected officials can't
think of something like that. That would work
and create towns from the ground up that would
be efficient and have walkways and pathways and
all these other things. But their solution is
we're just going to fucking bulk sell it to a
bunch of investment firms and let them do whatever
the fuck they want with it. Really? So that's
going to help the average American. We have an
episode on cities of the future keyed up for
a future episode. Those kinds of issues will
be discussed in that episode. However, I do want
to make one statement because this is information
that is relevant to both that future episode
and this current conversation. I recently found
out villages may still be illegal in the U .S.
I'm not sure because I grew up in a village.
It was a sanctioned village of the town that
I lived in. Something about the municipal codes
have changed. So villages can no longer be established
within the borders of the country. I have to
look into it. So that it has to be a town? It's
got to be at least a town, and there are guidelines.
Why not a village? I don't know. I think it's
got something to do with the laws that can govern
a village. I wonder if it's because they want
minimal hookups and minimal control. Well, I
think villages are allowed to have homesteads
and off -grid stuff. Oh, shit. I didn't think
about that. Yeah. I'm like 90 % sure that's the
reason. If they're going after my off -the -grid
and homesteading stuff, that's how you make me
mad. That's how you get me involved. So, as best
I can tell and remember just from what I was
reading and watching, that was the push. They
have outlawed villages because it... In villages,
you're allowed to have homesteads, off -grid
stuff, and that was the push. So we can wait
until we do the Cities of the Future episode
to bring all that up. Oh, I'm going to tism on
that later because that piques my interest. Do
the tism, buddy. I need to look that up. Because
if you're right about that, I'm going to get
consumed by it. This is the podcast for it. Exactly.
So, like we were talking about, BlackRock being
allowed to buy the land up, that's got to not
be allowed. Making it available for purchase
by the general public, develop it as such, state,
federal assistance, sure. The land can be developed,
but the issue is a lot of it is just out in the
open. It's out in the middle of nowhere. So it's
got to be a full 100 % brand new from scratch
kind of deal. Not a lot of people are willing
to just pack up and go. You're going to get a
lot of these tech bros that will do it because
they can. They've got these remote jobs that
they can do from wherever. Those may or may not
be the kinds of people you want populating these
brand new cities. So that's something that you
have to take into consideration when you're building
all of this stuff up. Well, I don't know. I guess
I wish that the U .S. government would be a little
bit more lenient with us starting our own. in
our own villages, in our own areas. Just like,
let me buy like 100 acres and start my own family
compound. Please, just leave me alone. More people
should do that. More people should be able to
do that as well. The family compound, there's
some people that do that on YouTube and whatnot,
and they document all that shit. The 100 -acre
plots, and then they split them up with five
families, so everybody's got 20 acres or whatever
it is. And everybody helps everybody out. They
don't need the government. That's the issue.
They are too self -reliant, and that scares the
government. It's the only case of communism to
ever work is in groups of under 100 like that.
Like groups of under 50 or 100 to where you just
have a few families. Socialism. Yeah, effectively,
yeah. But it's, yeah, you're right, more socialism.
But it's the idea of all of you getting together,
working together, seeing each other often, being
reliant. It can work, but I will agree with you
that that's something the government does not
like. Because if you can run independently, you
don't need it. Yeah, because one family raises
goats and chickens. One family raises rabbits
and cows. One family does all the gardening.
One family does all the woodwork stuff. Trade
as needed. I've always wanted to do that. That's
always been a secret thing of mine. I would love
to buy a thousand acres somewhere out in the
middle of nowhere and just get together a bunch
of friends, families and like do it, but you
can't do it nowadays. That's the problem. There's
no way of, there's no way it can be done, but
it's just, you know, yeah. If you got a spare
10 million in the bank, you know? Yeah. Cause
the problem is the taxes on that alone and all
the different permits and stuff. Unless you can
find a state where you don't need that, but it's
very difficult nowadays. Yeah. It's very discouraged.
Shall I say, especially when there are states
where you can't legally have a house that's not
hooked up to the main electrical. Yeah, that's
an issue. Another thing to consider is that with
the possibility of BlackRock buying more land
and whatnot, it feeds into the BlackRock is buying
all of our homes narrative. That's something
that a lot of people have been talking about
in recent years because of the amount of homes
BlackRock has been in. intertwined with as having
purchased at an institutional level. It's not
BlackRock directly. It's a lot of their subsidiaries.
They're buying up houses to rent out to people
so that people can't buy these houses as single
family owners. That's also hurting the house
supply that we talked about earlier. So BlackRock
is just evil and they need to be dissolved. And
Larry Fink should just be maybe dragged through
the street, left as rot on a corner. I will not
get involved with that comment. Pence opinions
are not the official opinions of the Now We Consume
podcast. I can't stand that piece of shit. I
agree with you, though. Yeah, I can't stand that
piece of shit. I have nothing against millionaires
and billionaires. What I have against are people
that... are willing to subsidize the suffering
of people as long as it benefits themselves it's
like come on you know like like you could be
wealthy you don't have to be a piece of that
there's there's two different things you know
but it seems unfortunate that and again i am
not anti -capitalism in in the slightest but
it seems like the more the older you get the
more you realize like wow although these people
get to a point where they're so far removed from
reality that like they don't give a They don't
care that there's, but because it's so far removed,
they don't have to, they don't, no one can hurt
them. No one can touch them. You know? Yep. Yep.
So the, the big debate on the sale of federal
lands, some of the things that kind of spurred
it on was to reduce national debt. It's not a
new concept. Senator Mike Lee out of Utah has
proposed it. He has proposed selling millions
of acres out in the West for other housing and
infrastructure developments. Again, if it's done
correctly, if it's done for the people, to the
people, sure, I'll support it. The Big Beautiful
Bill Act, there's an amendment in that bill to
Shit, I lost my place. I'm sorry. Also introduced
by Mike Lee that would require the Department
of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior
to identify three million acres of public land
for sale for housing and community development
over the next five years. Unfortunately, that
proposal has sparked a lot of debate. Again,
which way it goes, we'll have to wait and see.
I know the bill is in the. House and Senate right
now getting ripped apart. So they just did a
16 -hour reading session of the entire bill.
So we'll have to see what comes out of that.
I am already against that bill because it takes
16 hours to read it. It's too fucking long. I'm
sorry, but no bill should be more than 10 pages.
Call it a day. That's what's goddamn ridiculous,
number one. Number two, if you're going to be
selling federal land or anything like that, you
can't just do a big swath like that and say,
oh, yeah. We're going to sell thousands of square
miles. No. You do it in small sections. You do
it as needed. You don't just sell off that much
in one go. No way. I think that's very irresponsible.
Especially when, if you're doing something at
that scale, there's no way to know the damage
that will be caused to local wildlife by the
developers that are going to come in there and
just demolish everything. Especially when, not
for nothing, between all the different countries
that we're competing for for things like mineral
rights and resources and varying things what
i'm concerned about is another company buying
up all that land to be like all right time to
mine silicon or time to mine this and that or
lithium or anything else and just strip mine
in the area and then somebody's gonna have to
try to figure out how to build houses and giant
quarries or it's just gonna have to all this
massive land filling and everything have to redevelop
all the land then eventually just gonna have
no nature there it's about this flat barren wasteland
So, like, I don't know. I'm all about utilizing
the resources we have, but I'm worried that someone's
going to buy up all that land and just demolish
it. Okay, so two thoughts, and I want to say
these before the Zoidberg and sand crab out of
my head. A, if we're building in quarries, it's
a way cooler underground out west like that.
So that would be built -in air conditioning.
Not a terrible thing. Secondly, we definitely
need to make sure we're not selling land to foreign
countries. Especially the great China. They need
to just have all the land they've already bought
forfeit. Especially all the land near military
bases and all the farmland. That's why it should
always be offered to American. And I agree with
you. That's why it should always be offered to
American citizens first. To the people that pay
the taxes for the land to upkeep the land already.
Especially after that attempted agri -terror
incident. Yeah. That's still nuts. I can't believe
China tried that. How did that not get more media
attention? Because in the weeks following that,
it was fairly important. I think it was to keep
panic at a minimum. That's my opinion. But we
should be panicking over China. Like, not for
nothing, but... Well, not just China, but the
whole poisoning of the food supply like that?
Yeah. I mean, okay, the food supply is already
poisoned, but potential loss of the food supply?
People would go nuts. 100%. So I think that's
why they've tried to stamp it down. But that's
what kills me is why the government's so against
homesteading, when if we actually had most Americans
that grew their own food, then a lot of that
would be irrelevant. Yeah. But you need land
to grow your food. And if you live in the big
cities, you can't do that. It's like some of
our politicians are owned by China or something.
Oh, no, that's never a thing. Oh, quick side
note. Did you see the video I sent you about
Nancy Pelosi? Which one? She might be getting
indicted. For what? It's being led by Kash Patel.
Selling secrets, possibly? A lot of shit. So
this might actually happen. Good. I can pull
it up and we can read it here on the podcast.
Because this is like some serious shit. And I
will act this way regardless of which party affiliation
you have. If you're selling secrets and doing
BS, you deserve to go to jail in a story. I don't
put up big sides with crap like that. But especially...
Oh, so it was for... FBI Director Kash Patel
says the seizure of all of Nancy Pelosi's office
staff records has led to actionable evidence
that she orchestrated January 6th. Well, we knew
this. But now there's proof. Now there's proof.
Yeah, they finally got the proof of her denying...
the police to come in, the National Guard. Several
of her staffers were in contact with undercover
deep state agents inside the Capitol that day.
So that's going to be an issue for her anyways.
Patel says a grand jury to hear the evidence
is forthcoming. That'll be very interesting.
She gonna go to jail. Well. And she needs to.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Right?
Not at all. She's a piece of work is what she
is. People like you and I that follow politics,
we've known this. Yeah. And I will say any person
that was able to go from a net worth of like
$200 ,000 to $200 million on a $170 ,000 salary
in the course of 20 years. You know they're pulling
some shady shit. Yeah. Hey, track her stock trades.
That's all you got to do. You two can be a millionaire.
She beats out Warren Buffett almost two to one.
It's scary. Oh, yeah. No insider trading happening
at all. Not at all. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
No. Couldn't possibly. Yeah. So. There's also
a GOP plan to sell 3 ,200 square miles of federal
lands. But unfortunately, that was ruled to violate
Senate rules. So we'll see if that gets brought
back up in some kind of a proper motion. Because,
you know, we know all about proper motions around
here. And I mean, the list goes on and on and
on. So there's arguments both ways for and against
selling federal lands. If you've got an opinion,
we'd love to hear it. I guess my worry is we
do want to preserve some of nature for the next
generation, generation after, for kids, grandkids,
so on and so forth. Oh, absolutely. And I guess
my worry is I don't want America's value to be
purely in just real estate, and then eventually
someday we are just a metal metropolis full of
iron and concrete. Rather than having, you know,
the idea of the idyllic suburbs and open spaces
and farmland. And if anything, we need more farmland,
more than more houses. And I hate to say it,
but, you know, if we can't grow enough food to
sustain ourselves, what's the point of putting
in more houses? Yeah. You know, but that just
means they came with too many damn people here.
Yep. But that's just my opinion. Yeah, the housing
issue is not a simple, easy, or, you know, it's
a matter that's going to take a lot of time and
unfortunately a lot of effort from a lot of people
to get corrected, and it's not going to happen
soon or quickly. So if you're trying to get into
a position to get a house, I sincerely wish you
the best because I hope things get better. What
I think we need to start doing is doing city
planning way more efficiently where we need to
plan actual towns to be built that are for young
people. We need to plan towns to be built for
middle -aged people and then older people. I
think we need to be far more direct with what
the purpose of a town or settlement or village
is. in who its marketed demographic is for and
enforce it because unfortunately like at least
in my state we have laws about you cannot discriminate
against who you rent to or buy from whoever the
issue is because older people can buy wherever
they want there will never be a space purely
for young people to be able to buy our first
house Because all the people have the assets
and the leverage and the equity. So until we
make laws about saying, hey, this town is for
people between the age of 25 and like 50 or 25
and 45. Or young families are like 25 and 40
or whatever. Until we start making those rules,
the young people are never going to have enough
buying power to afford these houses. Or option
number two is instead of enforcing. what the
houses are in the area you just enforce size
requirements so the idea is like hey maybe for
instance we should start building tiny communities
where the idea is they're all tiny houses four
to six hundred square feet they're super well
insulated super efficient and they're like a
hundred thousand dollars fifty thousand dollars
whatever and they're just meant to be a starter
place so you have somewhere to sleep somewhere
to shit somewhere to you know chill and watch
tv have a small kitchen that's it it's basically
like a new york city apartment but on a house
cheaper That's what I wanted to kind of go into
was this whole concept of the tiny houses. I
understand the want for some of these things,
but as somebody who has been in situations where
you're not given a lot of space to live in the
military, it is not a life that I would want
for a lot of people. Not everybody is mentally
suited to live in a confined area like that.
Now, the definition of tiny house can vary. So
I don't think tiny house is really the right
way to go, but maybe just smaller houses that,
like you said, are designed to be efficient construction,
efficient build, space managed, and low cost.
by design. That doesn't mean they're built cheap.
That doesn't mean they're just going to be a
throwaway house, but a community of starter homes
that are built to last. You could even do them
on leases. I mean, it's essentially going to
be a rental community, but if their cost basis
is set up, then that's something that can be
done. Maybe it's done up with an equity program.
the rent counts towards your credit. And then
when you leave, you transfer out or you basically,
you buy it for X amount of years, it's counted
as a lease. And then you lease it to somebody
else and there's an exchange of funds and it
works just like a sale. There are programs that
can be done like that, but you need, again, land
to do it. Now over here where I'm at. I was looking
at doing something similar to that, but the legislation
is not in place to do that part of it. So I had
the thought of buying the land, clear -cutting
it, getting it developed, and putting a few small
properties on it to be rented out. But I don't
have the capital to do it. I've got everything
up here. But I don't have everything right here.
So this is part of one of the things I want to
talk about is when I'm older and I decide to
get into politics, because unfortunately I'm
going to have to at some point, not by choice,
but by necessity. One of the things I want to...
Don't tell me. I'll be old enough legally. So
we'll see. But one of the things I wanted to
discuss with people was the idea of... creating
communities, what I consider tiny home communities,
which really should, they're just, they're not
like 300 square feet, but they're more like anywhere
between like a thousand to 500 or something like
that, whatever you need in there. But the idea
being of making small communities of maybe anywhere
from 10 to 30 or 40 of those that are built to
be super efficient. So they're extremely well
insulated. They have solar panels. They have,
you know, electric, everything already hooked
up to internet and whatnot and watered everything.
They have their own. um sewer system were hooked
up to local sewer even just maybe septic tanks
that could be shared between several the idea
that instead of older people having to go to
an old folks home or young people having to buy
something they don't afford or whatever the idea
of making communities where you're surrounded
by your peers surrounded by people that have
the same interests as you and then marketing
it towards those people so for example in my
case what if i could find a community people
that are all into cars What if I could find a
community that are all like gamers or stuff like
that, or even all the firearms guys or whatever
it is, you know, what if you just want a community
where it's literally just a bunch of old people
and everything's quiet. Just want to be left
the fuck alone. They get off my lawn type. That's
awesome. There's a community for you. Why can't
we develop a system to where you're allowed to
say, Hey, this is what we do here. This is what
we're marketed towards. But what you do is there's
a legal way around this. You have to be voted
in and you pay a membership fee. Because in a
membership, if the idea is you can vote it out
at any time, there's no legal restriction on
not being able to kick someone out. You know
what I'm saying? Man, then it becomes survivor
with your home. I don't want that. I'm a dick.
Well, see, then you can go to a tiny home full
of a bunch of assholes. Which is fine. You can
have fun, you know, TP each other's house and
egg each other's shit. But no, what I'm getting
at is if there are communities that want to do
that, though, that is an option. So if you want
to have a community where people are quiet and
then some like really young couple moves in and
starts tearing up the place and be like, all
right, quit it the fuck out. I don't want to
hear your Mustang at two in the morning making
a bunch of noise. Your membership's revoked.
Get out of here. You have 30 days or whatever.
But vice versa, if you can market these communities
to people that want to be there, why not? It
makes everyone happy. Yeah. Why wouldn't they
do this? Especially if you can make those homes
cheap enough to where, and I agree with you,
they can pay it off within several years. And
they have equity in that house they can use to
eventually afford something else. And if you
keep the overhead costs minimal, you don't use
the stupid expensive appliances. You don't do
anything crazy. And you have a strip mall that's
built nearby that can give them some cheap jobs
to live there. That way, hey, if you're a kid
out of high school. If you just want a 500 or
600 square foot house that's going to cost you
$700, $800 a month all in, maybe even $1 ,000,
you could work at Wendy's and actually afford
your own place and a car. It would be a dream
for some people. And you only need 10 or 20 acres
to be able to put on a ton of houses. Right.
Now, one thing I want to kind of restipulate
or not restipulate, push. This has been sitting
in my head since the 90s when I first saw Judge
Dredd. The idea of the megacities. Taking warehouses
and converting them into apartment complexes
on the inside with retail space in the bottom,
retail and commercial space. Maybe not just warehouses,
but even like malls and old shit like that. Old
malls and strip malls and stuff like that. Yeah,
that'd be fine. I mean, that's actually pretty
common in Europe to have with the two floor ones
where the first floor is a shop or something
like that. And the second floor is where people
live. That's a very European idea. Yeah, I which
I would agree. I didn't know they do it in Europe,
but I think that's something they should be looking
at here. Damn right. I wish there was a lot of
roofs. There's a lot of roof space for solar
panels. Yeah. They've already got the square
footage to run all the power supply for it. They
could put a battery bank there. Wouldn't be anything.
And knowing that, if you build the house the
right way, you can even build a greenhouse on
your roof. So the idea is you do the A -frame,
that's all the glass and everything, and have
it all enclosed. In graduations, you can now
grow your own food and have a nice little patio
up there. And it keeps everything nice and warm,
so in the winter, you don't have to worry about
your heating bill. In the summer, you have somewhere
to put the heat offset from the house. Look at
us. We're solving another issue. Well, yeah,
that's what we do. The problem is no one listens
to us. That's our issue. We can solve all the
problems, but it's the people with money are
like, yes, but I wouldn't make a return of 397%.
So I'm just not going to do it. It's like, you
know. I think that's one of the things that's
going to get me into politics is trying to push
for some of these solutions or at least showing
the proof of concept. Because I think one of
the bigger issues we have, for example, when
it comes to housing, there's a reason why a lot
of veterans come back and are homeless. They
don't have communities that can support them
through a tiny house project like that with local.
either law enforcement or medical staff right
there. Same thing with people that were like
ex -drug addicts or something like that trying
to reintegrate. Even people coming out of prison.
They're trying to reintegrate to get away from
gang stuff, away from everything else. This could
be used in any single way you want to do it.
And the local resources could be provided. It
just takes someone to organize it. Because I've
already run the numbers before. I know how to
do it cost effective. Yeah. I just saw a very
interesting video. that ties back into our prison
reform episode. There's a prison over in, I want
to say like Finland, Denmark, Sweden area. Yeah.
Um, they do prisons very differently over there
and they have a five year recidivism rate, less
than 20%. Whereas here in America, our five year
recidivism rate is over 70%. Yeah. Because when
they're locked up over there, they treat them
like way different. They actually put them in
school. They teach them skills. They make sure
that they're taught like brain stuff, education
stuff. And these are the criminals that actually
just have non -life sentences. Yeah. So like
the sub 10 year sentences, like they're going
to get out. So they need to be integrating into
society when they get out. And the prisons are
set up to look like the way society looks on
the outside. It's not the 40 -year -old building
that just has a bunch of bars on the inside.
It's a focus on rehabilitation over punishment.
Yeah. Which is, I think, the way it should be
for most crimes, or especially victimless crimes,
or if it's your first crime. Victimless, yeah.
You know. It's one thing if you do some of the
more extreme stuff, then, well, I have the opposite
opinion of you, of those people that do the more
extreme stuff. Tree shredder lube. Yeah, exactly.
But if you just committed tax fraud, I really
don't think... To be fair, tax is a theft anyway,
so that's a whole different ballgame. How is
it a crime if you're stealing from thieves? You
know? Where's Robin Hood when you need him? But
it's one of those things to where a focus on
rehabilitation would be huge, which I know we
did an episode about anyway. about the prison
system in the form i think that's a really important
watch i feel like we did a lot of problem solving
there and really pointed out a lot but we do
a lot of problem solving every episode what are
you talking about it's what we do yes You know,
I feel like what we do is we give people other
problems in the form of trauma, but we solve
other problems. It's like we offset. We established
nature's balance, the balance in the universe.
Between the start of our podcast, the end of
our podcast, there's still the same amount of
problems. We solve the problems for the world.
We give people their own problems. Congratulations.
Here's your own personal trauma, hand -delivered
by us. You're welcome. That's what I do. Yeah,
you know. Especially with you in the pre -show.
Oh, Jesus. You're going to have nightmares someday
because of me. Gonna. Motherfucker, I've known
you for a decade. Jesus Christ. Longer than that.
Oh, yeah. Oh, 12 years, 10, 11 years. At least.
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I won't fuck. I'm old. God damn.
Uh -huh. I'm going to get my will in order. I
got to take my own advice and talk to a lawyer.
Jesus, fuck. I don't have my will set in stone
yet. Right. Yeah, me either. But all right. I
think we've hit all the points we wanted to hit
tonight. So in being a weeknight, we're not going
to drag this out. Yeah, I think we definitely
hit all the big points in our own unique way.
Yeah. I would like to go ahead and just confirm
that there is no evidence that BlackRock is actively
buying the federal land, but it has been proposed.
And that's where it sits as of right now. I think
we know there's only a couple of companies that
can afford to buy several thousand square miles
of federal land like that. There's only a few
companies that are going to have the capital.
Yeah. And that already know the people at play.
Yeah. So they'll, they'll buy it up and build,
you know, a $10 ,000 million houses. And besides
the big three, I mean, Apple, Amazon, they could
probably do it. I really don't want to see out
West Bezosville popping up. Well, the problem
is you're going to have Costco town, Amazonville.
I mean, you know, yeah. You know, what's going
to be weird is I think we're also going to be
quickly going back to the era, like how it was
where there'd be corporate towns or company towns.
So where they own everything and they're like,
hey, you know, you can work for us, but we're
going to give you somewhere to live. You know
what that means? What? We could take a road trip
and we're going to be driving and we'll see the
giant white and blue sign with red writing. It
just says, welcome to Costco. I love you. Welcome
to Costco. We love you. God. Imagine, imagine
if the Costco like. Welcome to Costco. We love
you. And one of the rules is like forcibly you
have to accept a hug anytime you go into Costco.
And to get around it, they just put like the
entrance sign at the city limits. You have to
stop and you have to show your receipt for buying
gas. What's going to be even wild, though, are
some of those. I bet you some of those towns,
though, in order for tax reasons, they're going
to make them electric vehicle only. Probably
that right now that they're going to make their
own insular towns to where like, good luck leaving.
Oh no. This town is owned for the next 150 miles
square wide. And Oh, we only saw electric vehicles
that do 140 miles. Oh no, you can't leave. You
can leave whenever you want. You just can't check
out. You know, I just telling you, I'm going
to get to that point. I think we'll save some
of that for our cities of the future episode.
We're going to have to do that one soon. Oh yeah.
That'll be something good to talk about. You
will own nothing. I think you're right. It'll
be a lot of e -bikes, scooters, smart walkways,
escalators, robo -taxis, that kind of shit. That's
what it will all be. So you don't have to own
a vehicle. But if you want to get somewhere,
you have to pay a lot of money to Uber to a rich
guy that actually owns a car. Yep. It's going
to be weird. We keep going forward so far that
we're going backward. We're going to eventually
be like the 1910s where rich people owned cars
before Henry Ford came out and actually started
doing the assembly line. Well, you're a rich
person. You own a Tesla. By the way, that was
also said back in 1910, back when Edison was
making cars. Oh, you're a rich person. You own
an Edison. It's literally 120 years off. Yeah.
How bad is it that those were also electric cars?
That's what I'm saying. The first cars were electric.
Yeah. But, you know, money. That's all it is.
Yep. All it ever is. Also, for our episode on
the Fed that we're looking at doing, we have
to mention the tie -in to the Titanic. I know
I'm way off topic here, but, oh, yeah. There's
a few tie -ins on that one. There are three tie
-ins to the Titanic. And they have big names.
It was a setup bad. I'm telling you. The Titanic
was a hit job. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Oh, so we're
in agreement on that. Okay. Oh, tinfoil hats
all around. Let's go. Yes, sir. We'll get the
tinfoil hat for that episode. I may make a tinfoil
staff. Oh, yes. Oh, I got to figure out a way.
All right. Well. Wrap a branch in tinfoil. There
you go. That's oddly simple. I was way overcomplicating
it. Fair enough. Yep. Leave it to me. All right.
So I think we're going to call this for tonight.
If you made it this far, thank you. We love you.
Gibbs will lovingly stroke your beard or your
back hair, whichever you have. I will hopefully.
see some shares and whatnot on the socials. I
actively encourage you guys to start trying to
throw this in people's faces, get it into their
eye holes amongst other holes and share the love.
Don't look at me like that. I can look at you
however I want. It's free country, bitch. Do
not look at me in that tone of voice. But no.
Like we said last episode, challenge you to share
this episode or this podcast with at least one
friend. See if they like it and share the love.
We're solving too many problems to just keep
it to the small group that we've got. Let's grow
this bitch. Yeah, make sure y 'all keep fucking
up stuff at home so we got problems to solve
because we're running out of them. Yeah, we keep
solving them. I know. I think the problem is
we have to do an anti -podcast where we actually
create problems in the world to keep this one
going. That way both podcasts kind of keep each
other rolling. You can be Gip and I'll be Pibbs.
Oh, man. The problem is I have spent well over
a decade with one name, and if you change it,
I'll be able to fuck it up every time. Hey, I
was able to change my name the other episode
with just not even realizing I did it. So I was
Gibbs for a moment. I know. It was terrifying
being Pip for a moment. So much genitalia. I
just like that emotional trauma. So much genitalia.
I didn't even ask for it. It just showed up.
I am the earthquake. Oh, my God. Steak crevices
everywhere. Sorry. Sorry to the people at home.
That was TMI. Oh, God. All right. So we'll call
it here. Thanks again for listening. We do appreciate
you guys hanging out. And I guess we'll see you
on the next one. Bye. Bye.