"But such exaggeration shouldn’t eclipse the broader and more subtle reality. You don’t have to be an incel to believe that the 'system' is fundamentally broken and rigged against your success... specifically homeownership.... This is, of course, a problem for all Americans — men and women alike. But, unpopular as it may be to say in some quarters of my party, the crisis
affects one gender with particular potency. Like it or not, American men are still raised to believe that their role is to act as providers and protectors. And when men whose self-worth is tied up in that aspiration realize they’ll never be able to buy a home, they’re bound to feel shame and anger.... It’s not just a matter of Democrats
finding our own Joe Rogan, or making better use of TikTok, or using more 'authentic' language.... [I]f Democrats want to save our democracy... we should treat first-time home buyers as their own class.... [W]e should reinstitute the Obama administration’s $8,000 homebuyer’s tax credit, triple it to reflect present market conditions and index the benefit to inflation.... [T]he Democratic Party’s success hinges on our ability
to enable men, in particular, to realize that hope and ensure their own success."
Writes Rahm Emanuel, in
"What’s really depressing America’s young men/The U.S. has two overlapping problems: the housing crisis and despondency in young men" (WaPo)(gift link).
Is this a special appeal to men? Clearly, Democrats want to appeal to men, but this hardly seems to crack the code. Men would feel more manly if they owned a house? Did someone give Rahm Emanuel the assignment to connect the housing shortage issue to the problem known as men?
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"...to believe that the 'system' is fundamentally broken and rigged against your success..."
In the last post Achilles said, "The pendulum is going to swing back. Women are going to lose the freedoms granted to them because they proved they are not capable of accepting the responsibilities that come with freedom."
Men will begin believing in the system again when the system ditches the incandescently obvious and massively unfair double-standard existing between cultural expectations imposed upon men THAT ARE NOT imposed upon women.
I want bitches in trenches. No-fault divorce was a mistake of epic proportions. Other aspects of family law need MASSIVE reform. It goes on and on and on...
If that’s the Democrat solution, the. It sure does seem to cost us (taxpayers) a lot of money to get that done.
Also, remember what has been shown by DOGE, that most of these government ‘funding features’ have a side effect of money laundering and kickbacks to the Democrat Party.
It’s like ol’ Rahm saying: “let’s vote us a program we can scam funds from and also that’ll also be misused by fake first-time homeowners!”
Why not simply lower interest rates and cease taxing savings accounts?
The crisis for that side is one of imagination. They can only think of old responses to growing problems while continuing the policies that create, even expand, those problems.
They don't want to change the conditions of the problems they just want to add a "now 10% off" sign to a product that is 30% inflated in price.
"Snap out of it!" - Cher
The cure for every problem is other people's money.
More housing would help, but Democrats aren't going to allow that unless they can siphon off some money from government projects.
Is this a special appeal to men? Clearly, Democrats want to appeal to men, but this hardly seems to crack the code. Men would feel more manly if they owned a house?
Give 'em a break, Althouse. It's the best they can come up with and not have to admit that they're not as smart (or likeable) as they believe themselves to be.
Did someone give Rahm Emanuel the assignment to connect the housing shortage issue to the problem known as men?
Pretty sure he's going to run for President next go round.
Doesn't he understand why we had the housing bubble in the first place?? This selective targeting won't work. You can't tweak the market, manipulate it in favor or this group or that with giveaways. (remember Cash for Clunkers?) Market manipulation only makes OTHERS bear the costs. You have to actually FIX the system, and that will not be easy with so many sophisticated people manipulating the financial markets so that labor cannot compete on its own, without "generational" or inherited family wealth, for those hefty downpayments...
The Dems are still trying to buy their votes.
If only, if only, if only they could "hit" upon what it is the young ones really want and need...
A homebuyer tax credit would simply raise the value of existing properties. Can they really be stupid enough to believe this would help, or is it just crass vote buying? Allow developers to build more housing and the prices would fall. This absolutely includes a lot more high density housing in cities.
"Like it or not, American men are still raised to believe that their role is to act as providers and protectors."
So the Democrats have resigned themselves to the fact that it will be another generation or two before all males are castrated at birth.
"Can they really be stupid enough to believe this would help"
Yeah.
Men are not dating woman because it's too risky financially. It's that simple. Not to mention how easily they can accuse you of rape (because THEY got drunk) and with ridiculous notions of #BelieveAllWomen ... you ladies have priced yourselves out of the dick market.
It's incredibly UNSAFE for a man to date a woman in the United States. But ONLY in the United States. Few other countries allow this sort of bullshit to go on.
I wonder if the phenomenon as described is much more prevalent in leftist areas and circles. Certainly not common here, even near the university town of Lawrence [KU]. Lots of clean-cut young guys getting assorted jobs, apprenticing in the trades, and so on.
More prevalent yet in conservative parts of the state, and the K-State guys are hardworking, optimistic, and solidly Republican. One personal family friend, 28, says he'll getting his Journeyman Electrician license the fall, and will be bumped to $60 K by his employer. Doesn't date because so many of the girls he meets are "flighty, unserious, clueless college grads who diss real men, insult the Army guys [Ft. Riley], vote Democrat, and want you to pay for their party life. No thanks."
Covers it pretty well.
The fact that many young men are not stupid enough to vote for Democrats does not indicate depression. Democrats should stop projecting their mental illness on to Not Democrats. We know who the nutbags are.
Vance would literally beat the crap out of Tiny Dancer. Rubio or Desantis would do so metaphorically.
RR
JSM
Are the mediaswine going to forward Rahm as the next Democrat Lightbringer? In light of the emergent antisemitism of the lefter wing of the party that might not be a great idea.
Good one, Rahm. Yes, I'm sure young American men will feel much better, much more virile and manly, when the government applies a program to help them buy their house, with a mere token pittance. What a boost.
He's taking early steps but I don't see a 2028 presidential run by Emanuel getting much traction. He didn't even run for a third term as Chicago mayor in 2019 because he knew he would lose. He has a lot of baggage and his appeal is limited to party apparatchiks. The reptilian vibe is too strong.
Is the inability to buy a home the great cause of frustration among the young? Maybe they are frustrated and dejected before that even crosses their minds. Owning a house is supposed to be the key to creating generational wealth, but there are some important obstacles to be overcome before that becomes a viable option. Plus, recent government efforts to encourage homeownership haven't been great successes and dragged the economy into the "Great Recession."
Emanuel, like his brothers, is a sleazy operator, but maybe that's just what the Democrats want and deserve.
It never would have occurred to me to buy a house before I got married. I really don’t think that is the first thing on the agenda for young men.
Why should these people own homes? They have absolutely no DIY skills, are unwilling to even cut their own lawns, demand obscenely large, stupid looking homes, can't afford their mortgages and make terrible neighbors. I'm sick and tired of the army of landscapers and maids and contractors that come into and out of my neighborhood on a daily basis doing work for people who can barely afford their mortgages.
I was surprised that "using more 'authentic' language" wasn't bolded too since authenticity was the topic of a recent post.
Acknowledging equal in rights and complementary in Nature would go a long way to restoring the balance of the sexes.
Every young man needs a house that his ex-wife can take.
"You don’t have to be an incel to believe that the 'system' is fundamentally broken and rigged against your success... specifically homeownership"
That escalated fast.
One thing I've noticed is that many young people today don't really feel that it's important to be a homeowner anymore.
And to those that do, I always offer the following advice: Pool your money with some roommates and wait until home prices drop to buy a home. Then, when interest rates drop, do a refi. That way you're building equity and can eventually have enough money to split apart and buy your own homes. (And try to live frugally and don't use your home equity as an ATM.) Granted, this approach takes many years, but it works.
I had a friend at work once who bought a home with his wife in the early 1990s. Then as home prices kept going up they kept upgrading to bigger and bigger houses. (and going deeper and deeper in debt) Then when the real estate crash came in 2008, they were massively underwater on their home loan. So they just walked away and let the bank eat the loan. And to this day, he complains that the evil, greedy, fat cat Republicans are the reason why they don't have a house.
That is an example of how not to do it. He got greedy thinking that home values would keep going up forever. The home market has long term cycles. Use them.
So if we expelled ALL of the illegals, actually put the crazy homeless folks in decent medical facilities, would we have a 'housing crisis'? Are young men actually depressed or have they moved on from the democrats and now that USAID is dead the dems are looking for new ways to grift because the 'free' money has largely dried up?
An $8,000 tax credit for someone making $50,000 or $75,000/year is not going to make homes more affordable. It will have the same impact on the housing market as student loans had on the academic market. Prices will continue to go up. You get more of what you subsidize.
The housing market is already facing a plateau and drop off around the country- sharper in some markets than in others. It will continue to drop until it gets to its proper level for that specific market.
The larger problem is that we've thrown out our boys and young men for decades now and are wondering where they went. Democrats led this and are still teaching it in our universities, are still practicing it in our K-12 schools where all things women are praised, and all things that used to be considered masculine are declared toxic. Do that for enough years and many young men will just toss up their hands and stay home.
And they are.
Our job is to change how we treat and teach our kids early on, and if we're big enough to open the marketplace of jobs again to White males. The unspoken, but allowed systemic racism that everyone knows is there.
Of course a Democrat is going to wave money at the problem, but someone's going to have to pick up the slack for that now missing $8,000 per. Who's it going to be? And when you realize it did nothing for the young men who are still sitting in their basement, what then? Offer more?
If estimates of average student loan debt are true---putting it at about $40,000---many young people can't even think of owning a home while they are financially underwater.
A newly married couple might find their combined debt will keep them in a hole for a long, long time. Plenty to be depressed about, right there! But I doubt they will blame the Dems and the universities for their plight.
Finally, the claim that such people now prefer to rent and Uber is just a case of "making a virtue of necessity".
Men would feel more manly if the government gave them a tax credit which will increase the price of every starter home by precisely the effective amount of that credit. Just as educational subsidies have increased the price of education (resulting in the debt that most of these young men are trying to get out from under).
Dem economics. A chicken in every pot!
The New York oligarchy has to be getting desperate. This kind of goodie drive is because the Democrats have been plummeting in popularity since the inauguration. The first person to suggest seizing properties from New York "equity concerns" will have the most potent issue on the board, aside from debt repudiation.
Or Rahm could try to talk Jerome Powell into cutting interest rates. You know, like the economic data is suggesting he do.
First off, Rahm. Determine which of your target audience is male. Go from there.
Do a survey. How many homes are purchased using only one income. Rahm is delusional. But, that goes for all libs.
My number one suggestion for making housing more affordable is to make VRBO and Airbnb illegal. When I look at the map of daily-weekly-monthly rentals in my own suburb, I'm astounded and highly irritated at the number of less-expensive houses that are off the market, so that out-of-towners can avoid hotels.
doctrev said, "The first person to suggest seizing properties from New York "equity concerns" will have the most potent issue on the board, aside from debt repudiation."
Friendly reminder that as of today the vested oligarchical banking concerns (most of them HQed in NYC) have received approximately $37 billion and change in adjusted dollars from taxpayers as a direct result of bailouts, quantitative easing, and government purchases of failed assets.
The way I see things, any outstanding private debt issued by the NYC oligarchy have been made good and many times over at that using our money anyway. It takes two to tango, and these cretins are as equally responsible for the issuance of bad loans as the bad borrowers are for taking them.
To that crowd the scariest phrase in the English language is "debt jubilee", but it shouldn't be...they've long since got 'theirs'. If Wall Street's "too big to fail", main street's not too big to bail.
Based on what I'm seeing, the following things are in play:
1) There's a significant mismatch between the available housing supply and what an entry-level homeowner would need to get into the market. No one is building Levittowns any more. If you can find new construction for less than $400K in much of America, you're fortunate.
2) Competition for what's available is fierce and private equity firms are snapping up a lot of residential real estate, which exacerbates the supply issues.
3) Young women are buying houses, too.
4) My fellow Boomers are not moving onto the ice floes fast enough; in my neighborhood we have homes that were built in the 1960s and we still have original owners in a few.
5) If you're a young guy, there isn't a lot of incentive to bust your butt to be house poor.
People respond to incentives. The incentives aren't there. And Rahm won't be able to come up with enough other people's money to remedy that.
[I]f Democrats want to save our democracy...
Sorry, but I simply can't get past this phrase. Anybody who uses it, especially a seasoned pol like Rahm, shouldn't be taken seriously.
Or they could remove barriers that make it difficult to build more housing and reduce immigration. It's almost like there's a relationship between supply, demand, and prices.
RideSpaceMountain said...
Friendly reminder that as of today the vested oligarchical banking concerns (most of them HQed in NYC) have received approximately $37 billion
To that crowd the scariest phrase in the English language is "debt jubilee", but it shouldn't be...they've long since got 'theirs'. If Wall Street's "too big to fail", main street's not too big to bail.
8/7/25, 1:14 PM
Yup. It doesn't make me want to hurt them less. I don't think anyone realizes how tempting it is for President Trump to wipe the slate clean, uniting students and homeowners for the low, low price of driving the oligarchs back into a desert exile. The travails of Beresovsky and Chubais are part of why President Putin is so loathed by the neocons.
Do you know what would fix the housing shortage? Logging.
You know what would slow down the number of wildfires? Logging.
You know the one solution that Rahm Emanuel won't propose to solve these problems? Logging.
There are others, like maintaining an unsustainably high interest rate, but Rahm Emanuel won't want to fix that any time soon.
Another bad idea. But I give Rahm props for proposing something as stupid as W would. Bi-Partisan Idiocy over the last 55 years has ruined the country.
The war on men worked.
now they'll "fix it"
Did someone give Rahm Emanuel the assignment to connect the housing shortage issue to the problem known as men?
Note that he implies there should NOT be a connection, but that since we still have not reached Progressive Utopia, Democrats must play to this outdated framing:
Like it or not, American men are still raised to believe that their role is to act as providers and protectors.
His ascension in left-wing politics has relied on NOT liking traditional ideas such as this.
"...[w]e should treat first-time home buyers as their own class....reinstitute the Obama administration’s $8,000 homebuyer’s tax credit, triple it to reflect present market conditions and index the benefit to inflation...."
Some other ideas that might work:
..Balance the federal budget - stop spending more than you take in. This will do much to control inflation.
..Double Down on DOGE. Take a broad axe to federal programs - including open-ended "entitlement" programs. This will leave more money in the hands of those who earn it.
..Get government out of the housing business - mortgage guarantees, subsidized housing, special cutouts for "affordable" "housing.
As with education, health care, and food - the feral gummit controls housing. Don't like the market condition? Look to Washington, DC for the cause.
Presently we are mostly a fascist economy (private ownership but central control of the means of production) and headed toward communist (central ownership and central control).
Butkus51 said, "The war on men worked. now they'll 'fix it'."
Men might 'fix them' first if they're not careful. Millions of teen, twenty, and thirty somethings with shattered dreams aren't a demography problem, it's an army. The 'army' is currently satisfied trying to vote its way out of this, but woe to guys like Rahm who think the band-aids of yesteryear will be sufficient in getting men to vote against their interests anymore by selecting closet club party guys like him.
To make it easier to buy a home how about we educate boys AND girls in high school about debt and how it works. Rather than some stupid social justice bullshit.
Teach them how to make smart choices and that the world owes them nothing! You want it? Figure out a way to get it by using your brains and brawn! And I don’t mean just muscles-I mean getting your ass out of bed to work a crappy job so you can earn some $$ and learn how to manage that first.
Women are legally a bad deal for men (fix those laws, dems), men who can now satisfy every need that once nevertheless made women attractive with porn instead. It's not the orgasm but getting rid of the obsession for a while, that "while" being when you can do something other than looking for women.
That "while" also the time when husbands could be looking for an affair, if not getting any at home. As Dr Laura said to a woman who said that sex wasn't a priority anymore, "Is your marriage a priority?"
The "while" hasn't been properly analyzed so far. Cicero did in de Senectute I think.
Anyway those guys in the basement have access to it.
Butkus51 said
The war on men worked.
now they'll "fix it"
My son is on the fix, as he understands ladder logic, when to apply hexidecimal code and where to properly place PLC boxes in an automation line. He now understands why I made him listen to Dave Ramsey. He also is driving my liberal feminist wife crazy, because unlike so many people, he is very vocal about how poorly liberals and leftists have ran this country and about how young men have been screwed over. She loves me, but she had prior knowledge of how I viewed the world. But my son is a real wake up call to her and her book club friends as he tolerates no lectures from them. It is rather amusing to say the least when he points out their lies and shreds their closely treasured illusions. He won't look twice at their daughters and is radicalizing their younger male children.
That's an embarrassing assessment by a future candidate for President. To be honest, the Democrats will have to figure out how to shed the "men can get pregnant" party platform if they want to persuade men to vote for them as they did in the past.
Typical DNC bullshit. Lets ignore all the macro problems making houses unaffordable for young americans. And lets talk about a chintzy 24000 Tax Credit (or what it 8000?)
Here's the real Democrat position:
1) Open borders and massive legal and illegal immigration from all over the world. No matter what is the negative impact.
2) Free trade and globalization. No matter what its impact.
3) No restraints on big business or Hedge funds.
4) No attack on monopoly capitalism or Mergers. Or limt on foreign ownership.
IOW, let Blackrock buy up houses. Who cares? Let foriegners buy up houses. Who cares? Let in 10 of millions of "Migrants" to compete for housing. Who cares? Do nothing to protect American workers from being undercut or outsourced. Because....who cares?
Just more "boob bait". The Democrats care more about Illegal aliens (Oh poor rapist/murder Pedro is in an ICE detention center, is he being mistreated?) than about working class Americans.
Women are just slower on the uptake.
BTW, Rahm Israel Emanuel made Chicago a "Sanctuary City" in 2012. As ambassador to Japan he pressured the Japanese to increase immigration to make their country "More diverse".
There's no record of him pressuring Israel to make it "more diverse".
"Teach them how to make smart choices and that the world owes them nothing!"
When I was a kid, I heard "The world doesn't owe you a living" more times than I can remember, from both my father and mother. They also told me "Life's not fair" a lot.
But then, neither of them went to college, so what did they know?
#Judgment #TooManyLabels #BigotryWritLarge #HateLovesAbortion
The young men should look abroad and she themselves of the sexless Vagino-American fatties, fabulists, and grifters. Even the Victoria Secret mannequins need Ozempic and this point.
RCOCEAN II said, "There's no record of him pressuring Israel to make it 'more diverse'."
There's very little record of anyone saying Israel should become 'more diverse'. But interestingly, there's an exceptionally large record of lots of Israelis, 'duals', and lefty American Jews saying everyone else except Israel should.
Maybe lots of Americans will stop noticing the hypocrisy when Tel Aviv looks like Chicago.
When I went to college, I could work in the summer at a job and pay for about a third of the school year. I worked at a summer job for several years where we could get 88 hours a week and get paid time and a half overtime, I still couldn’t afford college. That was about 25 years ago. A generation before me was able to pay for college completely with a summer job. The generations that came after me weren’t even in the same ballpark and the only way to go to college was to take on six figures of debt that is non-dischargeable.
The real crime is that the value of wages has been massively eroded when compared to the value of assets. Most men get paid wages. Particularly when they are young.
Any man over the age of 50 who young men today that they should just suck it up and work is missing the fact that when they were working, they could make enough in two or three years to buy a house. They could make enough in a few months to buy a car. Right now the median new car cost a year of wages. The median house cost 12 to 15 years of wages. More for young people who get paid less than average.
The fed reserve is the primary driver of this asset inflation. If you look at every word that comes out of the fed, they are primarily concerned with keeping wages down. Everything our government has done over the last 60 years, has been to hide the effects of their printing money off and giving it to their friends And cronies.
You can tell young men that life isn’t fair. It’s true that it’s not. But don’t be surprised when these alienated men who do not have the same opportunities that you had proceeded to tear the system down. It should just be expected at this point.
Think about someone who builds houses for a living. They go out and they can put together a house with seven or eight people in a matter of a couple months.
Then you tell them that they have to work like that for 15 years in order to afford the house that they just built. Over 15 years that same group of Eight people can build about 100 houses.
At some point, you’ll realize that the math doesn’t math.
As usual, the Democrats propose trying to solve a supply problem with a demand stimulus. A first time homebuyer credit might make some homes somewhat more affordable for people who can get the credit. But most of the benefit will go to the existing homeowners selling to first time homebuyers for higher prices.
If we want to reduce home prices in real terms and make homes more affordable, we have to build homes faster than the population is increasing, and we need to build most of those homes where people want to live. The market will handle all of that if we reduce the state level extraneous costs (like mandatory solar panels on new homes in CA) and open up zoning for more new homes, duplexes, apartments, etc.
The first party that really embraces "build, baby, build!" will capture Generation Z for the long term.
I judge the value of wages by the computer it can buy. It started out that the IBM 7090, my first machine, was far out of reach, just for the electric bills alone let alone the machine itself. The phone on my belt is a zillion times bigger and faster.
IBM 7090s used to be really valuable. The computer center at Princeton began to flood one day, and to protect the 7090 they called the fire department to pump it out. The fire department said that they didn't come out for floods, only fires. "How big a fire to you need?" They came out.
Housing prices are supply and demand. The idea that you can out supply the demand while letting in 2 million immigrants a year is absurd. And its more than 2 million if the D's get their way. It'll be more like 10 million a year.
And if you have overseas foreigners and blackrock buying up houses for "Investment" - its even worse. Bottom line is there's only so much desirable land in the USA. And people need to live near the jobs. So building 1 million houses out in Nebraska isnt' going to lower prices.
People seem incapable of understanding anything. Someone mentioned college education. Why is it so expensive? Easy, we decided that through loans we were going to allow everyone to go to college AND let in foreign students AND have no costs lid on costs.
Demand went up. Costs went up. Adminstrator salaries went up. And the price of college went up. Do people respond by saying "We need to cut the cost of a college education?" Of course not! They want to increase demand even more by making it even easier for people to have loans.
Price is one issue. DEIscrimination is another.
That a man can’t be a cel anymore without being an incel, or being assumed to be one, is a huge problem. It must be humiliating to a young man if he’s declared a loser who deserves to lose forever if he’s not currently fucking someone, and the percentage of such men is huge, and rising.
Also, the opposite of incel is rapist
"Also, the opposite of incel is rapist"
As has been pointed out by others, it's not a good look for women to be mocking the guys who respect their "No means no" demands.
As to what men might be 'raised to believe', each sex needs to bring something to a reproductive relationship that the other sex needs or it ain't gonna happen.
Rahm Emmanuel can FOAD, or if he prefers just do the D without the FO part. His loss would be the nation's gain.
That ballet prancer wouldn’t recognize “masculinity” if he tripped over it.
Another issue that people never mention is that about 50% of men throughout history never had a chance to reproduce.
Life has always been cruel to the less elite men. Men have always had higher workplace death rates, been the people killed in war, higher incarceration rates etc.
Women demanding equal pay and equal status for sitting in air conditioned bullshit jobs is actually evil when you also factor in how they treat half of men as invisible.
RSM @ 1:14pm,
My take on this is: TBTF == TBTE
In English: too big to fail, equals too big to exist.
That is, If your impending demise causes the government to think it needs to bail you out, it is already long past time you should have been broken up into smaller components.
"Like it or not, American men are still raised to believe that their role is to act as providers and protectors."
We are not "raised to believe"; that is our nature.
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