 All right, one of the things that higher interest rates have caused, of course, is a significant increase in the cost of a mortgage, and a significant increase, therefore, in the monthly payments that people have to make on their mortgages. And you can see this in dramatic fashion, I think, in this graph. Whoops, not that graph, this graph. The top graph, the graph that goes kind of up, is a graph of average monthly new home payments. That is what you pay on a monthly basis for a new home. Now, this includes interest, which is a big factor in this big spike up that's mortgage payments going way up, but it also includes increases in insurance costs on owning a home. It includes increases in property taxes, which we're seeing across the country. But a big chunk of this includes maintenance and everything else, what do you call it, it's homeowner association fees, which have all been spiking. They've all been going up with inflation. And you can see here that the cost of owning a home is dramatically higher, more than 50% higher than it was just a few years ago, just as it was in 2021. It's been going up dramatically since it bottomed out in 2012. Now, part of this is all those things that I mentioned, but a big part of it, as we'll see in a minute, is the price of the homes, that more expensive of the house, the bigger the mortgage, the more your monthly payments are. So this is home prices, mortgage prices, maintenance costs, taxes, insurance, everything that goes into owning a house gone up by more than 50%. Home prices are out of control in terms of the upward trajectory. Part of that is inflation, and part of that is a dramatic lack of supply, a dramatic lack of supply. You can see that the gap between owning and renting has exploded. Renting is a lot cheaper right now than owning a house. These values usually converge, because what happens now is most people should be disincentivized from owning a home. I mean, if I was on the market right now, I would not buy. I would rent. This doesn't make any sense given this gap to own a house right now, if you're in the market, right? Renting is so much cheaper, dramatically cheaper. So right now, it makes sense for people to be renting. As people shift from owning to renting, rent supposedly would come up, and the cost of housing will come down, because there's less and less demand. So these will converge at some point. This is why investing right now in rental properties might not be a bad idea, and don't invest in homes for sale, because this is not sustainable. This is just not sustainable. And what drives this is, let's see if you can see it here, on the left is a graph of the fixed rate mortgage. Now, you can see that there's been a massive spike in fixed rate mortgages over the last couple of years. But it's still pretty low as compared to what it was in 2000, or in the 90s, or certainly in the 80s. So we've gone back, really, to normal mortgage rates. What was abnormal is what we've had, the zero interest rates, is mortgage rates at 3%. That's abnormal. The mortgage rates in 2021 were abnormal. The mortgage rates right now are normal. What's really driving the cost of housing is the graph on the right. Look at sales prices. Look at sales prices. I mean, they've just gone through the roof since 2010. Nothing has stopped them. It doesn't matter who is president. It doesn't matter what administration, they just go up. And this is truly insane. I mean, they've been going up since the 1970s. They've been going up forever. But this rate, this pace, is really unprecedented. It's very much like the rate in just a few years before the financial crisis, before the crash in the early 2000s. But it's actually much steeper than that, even. So I don't know how this ends, but it cannot end well. And it really ends with people not wanting to own a house, which is not necessarily bad. Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with renting. But to buy a house in this kind of market, to buy a house when the trajectory is like this, and when you rent is so much cheaper, is insanity. And anyway, I think some of you be telling me, yeah, it's impossible to buy a house. It's ridiculous. And yeah, I think you've been right. I think you've been right. So this maybe is the primary thing that explains why people are so negative about the economy is the status of home buying is just, and the cost of buying a home is just ridiculous. And again, it's more than just the price of the house. It's interstate on the mortgage. But it's all the auxiliary costs. I know that insurance has gone up dramatically. And people are paying a lot more today on insurance than they have in the past. I never said, by the way, I never said that we should keep buying in an office because things are going great. I said that the economy is doing much better than people say it is, and it is. It is indeed doing better. And wages are up significantly. And generally, the economy is doing much better than anybody predicted or that anybody claims. And you're seeing that now with consumer sentiment on the rise. Housing is out of control. That's absolutely right. But the rest of the economy is doing pretty well. And indeed, one of the things that this housing market will do is it'll spur housing growth. And all those illegal immigrants will be able to find jobs on construction sites where there's a massive shortage of workers and maybe will start making a dent in the massive shortage of homes in the United States. However, I don't support anything that Biden's done. Everything Biden's done is hurting the economy. Whatever the economy is doing well, it's not because of Biden. Any more than when the economy was doing well, relatively well, under Trump. I thought it was because of Trump. I don't think presidents get that kind of credit. I don't think any of them do. I think it's absurd that you think they do. I think it's absurd that you think they're responsible. Biden is not responsible for this inflation. Trump started it, right? It's the first trillion-dollar stimulus with Trump's stimulus. And Biden doubled up on it. So Biden and Trump are responsible for this inflation and the Federal Reserve played a huge role in it. So the idea that, and Congress, that presidents should get the praise when the economy's doing well, no. The economy does well in spite of Trump and in spite of Biden. My view on the election is not that Biden's doing a good job, he's doing a terrible job. He's one of the worst presidents in American history. The only reason, the only reason, you know, I, that's, God, my only point about it, like I said, I don't support Trump. It's not that I support Biden. I don't, I never have. I didn't in 2020 and I don't today. I don't support Trump. Trump is a disaster for reasons I've articulated many, many times. Both of them are horrible for the economy. Trump, marginally less horrible because in the past of his regulatory policies, not his spending policies, his spending policies were just as bad as Biden's, but marginally less bad for the economy because of his regulatory policies if, in a second term, he will keep those regulatory policies. I worry that he won't given the kind of people he has surrounded himself with for the second run. Yes, and Ken and Scott will vote to, they'll appeal to authority over and over and over again. And he says, well, Leonard Peacock supports Trump and that's good enough for Ken. I mean, you're so shallow and empty. It's unbelievable. I mean, it really is unbelievable that the one time they bring out Leonard Peacock's name is, you know, I just talked about Leonard Peacock with the OJ Simpson case and stuff. The only time they pick up Leonard Peacock's name is, but Peacock votes for Trump and that's supposed to end an argument, right? There's no argument. What if Leonard Peacock votes for Trump? And it's curious because when Leonard Peacock told them they should all vote for John Kerry in 19, in 2004, I doubt they said, well, if Leonard Peacock says it, I'll vote for John Kerry. It's just, they use the authority when it's convenient for them. It's convenient for them. So yes, you know, and if, you know, what Leonard Peacock thinks is relevant and important, but the way you use it is you use it as a complete, sheer, unequivocal appeal to authority and nothing, nothing else. Leonard Peacock is brilliant. He's a genius. All right, let's see, let's, all right, super chat. Let me first say that this show is supported by listeners like you, those of you who contribute. There's a bunch of you on here that don't, just here for entertainment value and don't support the show at all. Free writers, we call them in economics, that's okay. But thank you for those of you who support the show. 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