Month: September 2020

Lately I have picked up watching Mac Repair YouTuber Louis Rossman’s NY real estate adventures. He often brings up the outrageous prices for renting empty buildings in NYC. For me this is really interesting because I have always been confused by real estate prices. What do you mean? Well, let’s go over it!

Before leaving the US a lot of my friends were starting to buy houses. My friends are all mid to late 30’s. None of my friends in their late 20’s early 30’s can’t even dream of owning a house. How did this happen? However, a thing I noticed is many of these friends all have mortgages that are 25-35 years. Meaning they will be either 60-70 until the house they bought will get paid off. They will have to work until then unable to retire. HOW!?

All of these friends that bought houses have great jobs: cloud engineering, programmer at Microsoft, programmer at Lockheed, professional hacker for a company to test their software and fix it, accountants, and such jobs. As you notice all of these are amazing jobs. I have friends who are programmers who can’t even afford to buy a house, as a FYI. They will have to pay off their house, and student loans, for a long time.

How did this happen to people with great jobs? “Affordable loans”. A comedian I listen to once said “NEVER ASK FOR AN AFFORDABLE LOAN! THAT IS HOW THEY FUCK YOU!”. This is the truest thing ever. See loans weren’t always this long. My grandparents paid off their house before I was born. “Oh but that… ” shh…. They bought the house after my dad was born. My grandmother used to tell me about how she would stay in the tiny apartment and take care of my dad for the first few years of his life, same with my uncle. My dad had me in his mid 20s. So, let’s say they had paid off the house in 20 years.

5 years may not seem like a lot but there is a big reason for me to bring this up. My grandparents are both Mexican and grew up picking fruit as kids to help their family. My grandparents were not rich in the least bit. My grandfather, until he had to retire due to health issues, was a janitor. My grandmother worked random jobs until she landed a job as a secretary at MENSA. I don’t even think my grandparents graduated high school, to be honest.

Why the 5 years? Well, houses were priced correctly that anyone could afford them. My grandparents worked menial jobs and were able to pay off their house in 20 years. My friends with college degrees working as engineers and accountants have to take loans that are 25+ years to pay off their houses because the housing market is insane now.

This is why you need to stop saying you want things to be affordable and switch to “priced correctly”. As houses sky rocketed due to the late 90’s early 00’s housing boom they never actually sunk after the housing crash in the late 00’s. Something that should’ve happened. Some how they just went up. What should’ve happened is the prices of houses should’ve sunk hard. Instead banks are just giving you longer loans. A house that should be 15-20 years to pay off now takes 25-30. This way you are paying less per month but more over time. Everyone wins, except you.

Not only are houses taking longer to pay off they are climbing in prices to where friends working as engineers can’t even afford an amazing giant house like people could in the 90’s and 00’s. The costs of houses has drastically gone up and instead of fixing the prices they just extended loans making them take longer and longer to pay off. If this continues I am sure our grandkids will have 40 year loans for houses.

I’d like to point out. My grandparents could afford a house working unskilled jobs. You can’t even dream of paying for an apartment, or a family, working such work anymore. Go ask your grandparents, or great depending on how young you are, what they did after high school. How did they buy their house? What job did they have? I have found asking many senior citizens a lot of them just got jobs out of high school with 0 training and paid for a house with no issue. Even the ones working unskilled jobs were able to do so.

How does this relate to Louis Rossman? NYC is having an issue where 500 SQFT businesses are costing 8000 a month, or more, for rent. People can’t afford these places. There are places that have been vacant forever, according to him. Rent has gone up as costs of everything else has too and income has dwindled. People can’t afford this shit anymore. We are not like our grandparents. Able to buy up things for cheap and afford a life with that.

Take from this what you will but understand that simply “getting a better job” isn’t anywhere near the leg up people had before.

This is something that has bothered me for a while. Why don’t phones come with screen protectors? Actually, why doesn’t any touch screen device come with a screen protector?

I’ve asked this before and many people have given me responses that make no sense. Most of them just spout “costs costs costs!” but a high quality screen protector costs like $2 to make. A reason why you see them for sale at $5-8. That’s pure profit. Cheap ones cost like $.70. Besides if you are paying for premium phones those companies can spare the $2 of profit.

Another thing about this that makes no sense to me is how every company talks about how they want to reduce “e-waste” by removing essential things like a charger. Also just say waste. You want to reduce waste. “e-waste” is a BS term and it bugs me. Any who, putting a screen protector on the phone would actually help cut down on waste. How? Well, all the companies that sell screen protectors for every phone would need to reduce inventory drastically.

When you buy a screen protector you often get it in a cardboard/paper package, extra plastic covering, a plastic bag, two peel-able plastics, paper instructions, and sometimes hard plastic to level it. So, by providing a screen protector the companies are cutting down on all of this waste.

“Oh but it’ll just be in the box!” No it won’t. Just apply the screen protector at the factory when you are making the phone. No more extra crap with your cheaply made screen protector. Not only that you don’t have to apply it anymore, or ask that one friend who can actually do it.

The funny thing is I said “why does no phone” but my phone did. I know it did because the screen protector is applied correctly on it. Also because I was amazed at it. It saved me $5 and reduced waste. Then I remember my old Blu phone. It came with a screen protector too and two cases. One shock absorbing case and one flip case. Both cases were hella ugly but I used that fold one. Man did that one help my screen drastically and also reduce waste too. This Blu phone had third party cases but they were rare because everyone had two with the phone. So, it was just the pretty ones not a generic black like I have on my current phone. Screen protectors were impossible for find for it, however. Waste reduced.

I understand that if phones came with a case they wouldn’t really stop much waste because people aren’t like me. A lot of people buy cases to customize their phones. I just buy a shock absorbing one and call it a day. Usually they are black but that is because the black ones are cheaper. However, for people like me including this cheap plastic to just absorb some shock would reduce waste too. That’s less plastic cases being made which means less packaging to go with them. I don’t know the costs but for my current phone I paid $5 for its case. They can’t be a lot.

It sounds weird when you think about it, but why don’t they come with a screen protector? It’s simple and would reduce waste, sorry “e-waste”. Which the tech industry loves to say they are doing their best to reduce.