I don't know, have there really been meaningful "language barriers" between mainstream programming languages for the last 20 years or so?
If I think about the 10 most common languages being used for application code right now, something like 80% of them can be described as "C or ALGOL's syntax with call-by-reference and automatic memory management". If you program for a living, I feel like you can switch between any of these without much effort. They're so similar to one another at a fundamental level, and there's lots of convergence going on as they adopt features from one another.
Sure, doing C or C++ for the first time can be hard if you've never had to think about memory lifecycles before, but even that isn't so crazy if you're working with established patterns, pay attention to warnings, and use an aggressive linter.
For languages with actual learning curves, they're just not as widely used (e.g. Rust, Ada SPARK, lisp, forth, ML).
Like what? They all have AC and a stereo of some sort. Like WTH else really matters?
TBH most of the feature upsells make so little sense to me (floor mats and real spare tires excepted I guess) that I don't get how they're successful.
I like the auto dim mirrors, but not enough to add a grand to my price.
and a lot more shit to break. nice thing about a cheap car is it has manual seat adjustment, an AC and a radio.
My friend just bought a 20 year old volvo and the locking gas cap malfunctioned while we were being shown the vehicle and testing all the buttons out. The dealer just took a screwdriver and popped the lid with a screwdriver - now the gas cap doesn't latch at all.
Nissan Versa is like my one and only example of a new car that feels so cheap I'd only ever buy new or used as a last resort. It used to be one of the cars that would help make things like the Kia Soul seem amazing in comparison . (And I saw with my current car being too cheap for cruise control.)
No, but it makes the stock price appreciate which is even better than a cash inflow for an inside investor since your wealth increases without a taxable event.
Still, I don't really see this going anywhere. There are already so many "slightly better C++" languages out there, e.g. D, cppfront/cpp2, Carbon, Zig and they pretty much all don't see wider adoption for the same reason. No matter how simple or ergonomic the interop with C++ is, the switching cost is still high and the benefit tends to be marginal. Almost all of them either include garbage collection or don't fully guarantee memory safety. Choosing a restricted subset of C++ and an opinionated, enforced linter & static analyzer goes a long way and gets you most of the benefits of these new languages, so organizations tend to just do that.
The exception is Rust, because in spite of all its downsides it has the killer feature of guaranteed memory safety without garbage collection, so that's the one seeing constantly increasing institutional support.
Their first milestone is due later this year: to show the 2-way C++ interop.
Their second milestone should show memory safety features, and AFAIK it comes up a year or two later.
These milestones will produce technology demonstrators - so there's no expectations people would be using Carbon for anything beyond small demos and maybe check if it can be integrated with their existing C++ codebases.
Then they will try to package up the language and tooling around it with these two flagship features. This is where they expect some people to use the language for real. The language will only support a subset of C++ (they haven't decided what exactly it should include), and they mentioned Rust-like subdivision into "unsafe" and "safe" Carbon. To me this all looks like even after those milestones it may take a while.
Also, while Google folks are hopeful they also donated billions to Rust to improve C++ interoperability there, too. They don't bet on one language only but rather see multiple of them develop and spread.
As I looked up Carbon over the past week, every comment on it was always that nobody uses it because it's going to be eventually https://killedbygoogle.com/
fwiw (and I am not an expert) in my understanding, Swift also has guaranteed memory safety without a GC (using automatic reference counting). not sure how it compares to Rust in that aspect
I'm a big fan of Rust and I also use Swift as part of my job. In terms of memory safety, Rust has a better story in that it will tell you of type problems pretty much upfront. The whole "Rust compile time takes forever" is only half true, because type checking happens pretty quickly. You're never left waiting for long to find out your types are wrong. The long compile happens at codegen phase, after type checking, so once it starts you know it'll finish successfully (unless there's a link error at the very end).
With Swift, that's not true. Sometimes you can wait for a while for the compiler to churn before it bails and tells you it can't fully infer types. As a Rust user, this is entirely unacceptable.
I would have to say, while I don't thoroughly dislike Swift, I do thoroughly dislike Xcode and the Apple ecosystem. The fact that Swift was tied so closely to iOS development for so long means it's not a language that people generally reach for. It feels more like ObjectiveC++ and a facet of the Apple ecosystem as a vehicle into iOS development.
People say that Rust's killer feature is the memory safety, but for me it's always been the ergonomics. Cargo and the painless dependency process is the real killer feature. Swift just doesn't have the same appeal, and that they are slowly getting there is a testament to Rust having already cracked the code; Swift only went fully cross platform (Windows+Linux+Mac) in 2020, so there's a lot of reputation as an Apple language to undo, as well as a lot of ground to catch up on. It's interesting to note that the ground they have to make up is pretty much the path that Rust blazed. So for a lot of the target audience of Swift, the question isn't "why Swift?", it's "why not Rust?". Really, they only good answer for Swift right now is "my target platform Apple."
Swift is, IMHO, much more readable and easier to grasp than rust. You don’t have to understand low-level concepts, but can go there if you need performance.
The point about Rust is to avoid any extra runtime cost by statically enforcing a set of rules (borrow checking) on reference use that are sufficient to guarantee memory safety. It also has ARC but it's reserved only for cases where those rules are too restrictive.
I was actually talking about automatic reference counting. I think both Rc and Arc count as automatic reference counting? It's just that the term (which was apparently coined by Apple?) is not commonly used outside Apple's languages.
I'm not familiar with Swift though so my understanding could be incorrect.
My understanding is that Rust doesn't have _automatic_ reference counting as in Swift only because it has an alternative (move), which requires the programmer to specify their intent. The principle is nevertheless the same: ensure every time a reference is copied the ref count is incremented, free only when ref count is zero, and we get temporal memory safety.
It's pretty simple (in the US, can't speak for elsewhere).
There are 2 big factors at play:
1. Margins. Manufacturers make huge margins on expensive vehicles and very slim margins on cheap vehicles. The numbers differ, but I think even in the lead up to the 2008 crisis automakers had to sell 5-10 "econobox" cars to make the profit they made on one luxury car, SUV, or truck.
2. Normalization of debt. For many Americans, having a monthly car payment in perpetuity is considered acceptable. Car loans have their place and can be used responsibly, but due to marketing, sales tactics, and cultural sensibilities what often ends up happening is that people start from a monthly dollar amount and then work forwards to buy the most expensive vehicle they can, even if it means taking the loan term out to 72 or 84 months. It's also very normal for people to never pay off their car, instead trading in the vehicle after 3-5 years and rolling equity in the loan over to their next car. Obviously, this consumer habit is great for dealers, manufacturers, creditors and buyers of consumer debt, as well as the US Government and investors -- it's just not ideal for the consumers themselves if they're trying to preserve wealth and build savings.
These two factors create an environment increasingly hostile to the cheap entry level car. Consumer demand is low since most don't spend responsibly, and automakers don't really want to make or sell them because the margins are so slim.
My reptilian-brain logic prevents me from even considering getting a loan for car. Houses increase in value, therefore it makes a certain amount of sense to get a loan / mortgage for the purchase of a house (but mainly because no-one - in the world in which I live - can afford to buy one cash).
Cars decrease in value, very quickly. Getting a loan for a car is throwing more money away than buying a car in the first place.
Having said that, I'm immune to a lot of 'social norms' so I've been fine driving my tired-looking 20-year old Outlander soccer mum car or our 10+ year old grannymobile Nissan Leaf.
There are situations in which a loan for a car may be necessary, but I'd have to be a really tight spot to consider it, and I'd be absolutely minimising the size / length of it.
It's not merely an issue of obtaining materially desirable consumer goods though; lots of folks get car loans because they can't afford to buy a car, even a cheap car, without one. So it's either, don't get a car and give up a lot of opportunities or hope you live in a place with decent public transit (which is not a given in many places in the US)
> lots of folks get car loans because they can't afford to buy a car, even a cheap car, without one.
Then they shouldn’t get a new car, full stop. Older used cars can be perfectly serviceable with some research into lemon patterns and a pre-purchase inspection by a trusted mechanic. I have found the vlogger Car Wizard to be particularly accurate in his assessments of which used vehicles are great buys and which ones you need to stay the hell away from.
None of my cars are less than two decades old, and none of them cost me more than a new one would, even after the purchase price and all repairs, maintenance, and fuel are added up. If you manage to choose wisely, it is unlikely that you would ever pay more on a used vehicle, even over literal decades, than you would with a new car.
Now sure, you will never be able to own a new shiny. You will never be able to peacock around in a brand-new vehicle. But trying to impress people via copious displays of wealth is a fool’s errand. Intentional attempts at external validation always are.
They didn’t say “new car”, just “car”. You can get a loan for a used car as well. In almost all places in the US, a car is a requirement for daily living. You cannot go to work, get food, or do anything else without one. None of this is about “a new shiny” (what an awful phrase by the way), it’s about being able to survive at all.
You can always get an used car for practically any amount of money. A lot of time an used car is even more reliable than a new shiny car full of useless electronic components.
To me buying new cars is just throwing away money, simply because at the moment you brought the car out from the dealer the car just is worth 3/4 of the price you payed it, and when you have to resell it in 10 years it is worth almost nothing.
Unfortunately many people don’t see cost, debt, and cars that way.
Imagine you get your first car, it’s used and a bit run down but you’re paying $250/month on a modest loan. Nothing crazy but you needed a loan and a car that was modestly reliable.
You get a couple of small raises, eventually the car is in the shop more and you feel you deserve a better car because of the hard work and long hours. You see ads for a new car at just another $100 per month on TV. $350/month would be tight, but you feel you’ve earned it.
You go to the dealership only to find the car you really want is closer to $500/month which you can’t afford.
The salesman says “let me see what i can do,” comes back from the finance office, and voila! Got the payment down to $375/month. It’s more than you initially expected but maybe you just don’t go out to eat as much. You’re sick of your old rust box, always in the shop. And you’ll probably get a raise soon too. So you sign.
And bam, you got a 6, 7, or even 9 year car loan. You don’t realize how much insurance will increase. You haven’t had a new car yet so you didn’t even think excise tax would be that much (for the first year of a new car its typically a lot) and now you’re struggling in debt with a new car that lost 20-35% of it’s value right off the lot, so you’re underwater on the loan.
Long winded story to say for many people a car is an emotional extension of themselves. Identity even, and it’s difficult to break that into a more utilitarian mindset. Thus justifying the high cost and debt is easier than if you were looking at it as just a way to get to point A and B
> A lot of time an used car is even more reliable than a new shiny car full of useless electronic components.
And a lot of time it isnt. Not everyone wants too or can afford to take that gamble. Sure, i've had luck with it, but that's because I can perform my own work upto and including dropping and replacing an engine if I need too.
On the other hand i've seen people who could least afford it end up with total stinkers that drained their wallets.
>You can always get an used car for practically any amount of money.
sure, but you'll quickly make up the difference in repair costs when the bucket of bolts you paid ~1k for starts breaking down every 3-4 months.
And, of course, you'll have to make arrangements to get to work to pay for those repairs while the car is in the shop. Which may have it's own associated costs if you're using uber or a taxi or whatever.
Better hope little Timmy has a way to get to soccer practice as well. And hopefully there's no other appointments that have to be accommodated for. It was pretty difficult getting time off to get that bum tooth checked out...
> you'll quickly make up the difference in repair costs when the bucket of bolts you paid ~1k for starts breaking down every 3-4 months.
A lack of adequate maintenance and a failure to identify lemon patterns when choosing the vehicle is always something that can be trivially avoidable.
I’ve had vehicles for over a decade where the repairs on it amounted to a hundred or so a year, at most. Right now I’m swapping out a CV shaft on a 2001 Mazda 626 that has seen ZERO major work done on it in its entire life.
Do the oil changes at twice the recommended cadence, keep on top of every tiny problem, and any vehicle whose entire model line has never demonstrated systemic issues will continue to be highly reliable and low cost to operate. For example, many years of the Crown Victoria fall into this category. The 1997 and 2007 models, in particular, were absolutely bulletproof if maintained correctly.
Even when purchasing a used vehicle, there are many vloggers out there that can help you avoid lemon lines - entire model years that should be avoided - in favour of vehicles that will stand the test of time. Car Wizard is one of my more favourite ones, despite disagreeing with some of his more blanket opinions (European cars, for example).
> To me buying new cars is just throwing away money
Why should a car manufacturer care about your preferences if you're never going to buy new from them?
It's annoying but people like us who care about things like TCO are probably never going to buy new cars under any circumstances, so our concerns about electronic components don't motivate designers.
Even if we might help residual values of leases and buy used parts, our influence over car companies is radically lower than new car buyers.
I think the way most people rationalise it, it's a pre-requisite for having a job. So it's income-generating and therefore morally ok to take out a loan for it.
You could list a few, otherwise I'm just guessing at what you mean.
Your work requires expensive gear - maybe it's a car, or smartphone, or computer, or ebike, or HVAC tools, or camera, or musical instrument - why not pay for them over time as they help generate income?
They do, by a lot, if they're in desirable cities. Probably what's really increasing in value is the grandfathered permission to have built a house, but there's no way to separate that from the house.
Every part of the house depreciates without maintenance. At some point the house will depreciate and the lot will be worth less than it would be if the house was already demolished.
> Every part of the house depreciates without maintenance. At some point the house will depreciate and the lot will be worth less than it would be if the house was already demolished.
That really depends on the market. There are areas near me where property prices have increased so rapidly they outpace any losses from depreciation. Not necessarily a good thing of course as it does lead to very expensive houses and difficulty with people trying to buy their first house.
Maybe houses made out of paper that you have in the US would, since just after 100 years they have to be demolished and built again. But houses made of concrete, that we have in Europe, just increase in value.
Yes, maybe you have to renovate the interiors, such as new floors, new electrical/hydraulic, new heating system, etc., but that is usually a small expense in contrast with the price of building an house from scratch.
Old brick house is just another old house. Moisture problems in the foundation area, no heat insulation on the roof and walls. Probably wooden beams in the floor. Everything is old and outdated decades ago. I am certified electrician in Germany as a hobby and work in such properties very often.
Meanwhile new house is cool in summer and warm in winter. It’s silent with spacious rooms. It is also not affordable for most people too. Old house is a middle ground when one doesn’t have enough money. There is no way to upgrade in sane way old house to modern standards.
No, because the value of permission to build a house on the lot can be a lot more than the cost of renovating it (even when that renovation cost is higher than the cost of building a new house on that lot). If you don't have another way to get that kind of permission (e.g. maybe it's illegal for you to contribute to the unaffiliated PAC supporting the mayor's reelection campaign because you're a noncitizen) it can be virtually priceless.
Getting a loan for a car seems quite natural to me. A car provides service flows over a long period, so why not pay for it over a similarly long period? In the first year or two the car's value is probably below the outstanding loan amount, but beyond that it's likely to rise above it, so you're free to sell and walk away from the arrangement.
Granted, high interest rates might make this a bad deal, but the principle seems sound. I bought my previous car on a 7-year bank loan at 2.5% and didn't regret it.
Given that the car drops nearly 50% value as it leaves the lot, I'm not sure how this every pencils out before maybe 10 years 100k+ miles...Maybe these days given how hot the used car market is (driven by the expensive nature of newer vehicles), but again this is a chicken/egg problem.
Your loan is exceedingly abnormal or from a past time as the average loan % in the US is much higher on that time scale.
It loses (less than) 50% relative to the list price, which is an important reason not to pay the list price. I'd estimate that the last new car I bought lost less than 10% relative to the price I actually paid (although selling via a dealer would probably lose another 10% or so).
On the loan rate: yes, fully agreed, this was an unusually good rate, and that makes the arrangement much more attractive.
Your logic works out fine if you don't mind a dash of risk (e.g. from a job loss). But when I ran the numbers from my perspective it didn't seem worth it. (I might be doing my math wrong).
Let's say I get a car that costs $30k, I put $10k down, and I take a loan out using the numbers above rounded up just for napkin math (1% APR, 4% savings account).
After one year:
```
$30,000 x 0.04 = $1,200 from savings account interest
$1,200 x 0.33 = $396 in TAXES from the interest (assuming you earn over $145k/year in California)
$30,000 x 0.01 = $300 in loan interest
Total earned = $1,200 - $396 - $300 = $696
```
Don't get me wrong, $696 isn't _nothing_ but I personally would rather have the feeling of not owing people money then an extra $696 at the end of the year. Add in depreciation from getting a new car and it's almost a wash.
>> I could pay off my car tomorrow. But I'll have more money in the end keeping that cash in the bank. Why would I pay it off early?
> Your logic works out fine if you don't mind a dash of risk (e.g. from a job loss).
I notice that no part of your comment actually describes this risk. What is it? Assuming you have the cash in hand, and it's earning more interest than the interest on your car financing, how would losing your job affect the situation?
The only effect I see is that it will dramatically increase the amount of that extra interest you actually collect, by lowering your tax rate.
I don't live in California, taxes are less. There is no risk from a job loss, I could pay it off tomorrow. You're also only looking at one year of a several year loan.
Sure, more expensive buying a new car. But I was going to get a new car anyways, the question is loan or no loan.
I don't care too much about depreciation. It'll probably be in my garage for a decade or more so that's just paper losses today, and once again I was going to buy new anyways.
I thought this was the main reason to take the loan given an opportunity. The longer the money is with me, I could use it as an investment(mostly S&P 500)
It depends. There are a whole bunch of weird complex financial interactions between the mfg, the dealer, and the loan provider (who is often also an arm of the manufacturer). There can definitely be situations where the dealer makes off better by getting you into a loan even though the loan provider is almost sure to lose money on it.
The cash is fungible, so for a fixed amount of money and interest rate it really doesn’t matter if the thing you’re buying depreciates or not (assuming you’re buying both things anyway).
100%. And it doesn’t help that large cars as a cultural touchstone/status symbol really took off. Even if a $25k car existed most people wouldn’t buy it(even if they “should”).
I'll have my 2020 Subaru Impreza paid off in a couple months. That was just under $24k. I don't think the price has gone up much on the Impreza in the last 5 years.
False equivalence. You can do without cigarettes and alcohol, but not without cars in majority of the United States. Only about 10% of the adults smoke vs car ownership in American households is 90% with almost 40% owning more than one car. Comparing what you necessity with a discretionary expense isn’t fair.
Comparing what you necessity with a discretionary expense isn’t fair.
A car might be necessity, but spending more than say $15-20k max on a (second hand) car is a discretionary expenses for the vast majority of people doing so.
I think the bigger issue is the need for a car. In most of the US, everything is built with the assumption you'll be driving to it (workplaces, stores, facilities, etc).
So everyone has to have a car. So your social mobility is limited by the fact that you need to have the money for the expenses that go with it in the first place.
3-4 cities with decent to good transit are the exception, but the fact that they're so desirable and with such high housing prices means that they aren't really accessible either.
Cash For Clunkers took a ton of used vehicles off the market
Stricter environmental standards have also taken otherwise working cars off the market, by preventing used dealerships from selling them in general, and making it more difficult/more expensive to insure them
The days of buying a used car for 2 grand are long gone
Cash for Clunkers was important not because of the volume of cars it took off the market but because price points are sticky.
Before C4C garbage cars that ran but probably needed something were "I want it gone, $500". After C4C the same vehicles sold at the C4C price and the price point has more or less stuck. It completely turned the beater car market upside down.
That's a little steep, but you gotta grade mileage on a curve -- if it's reasonably maintained, it'll keep trucking for a lot longer than that, it should be plenty for a starter car. I mean, I'm biased, since I drive a (very well maintained when I bought it, high mileage) 2007 Prius that I bought for ~7.5k...8, 9 years ago? and I'm still getting ~40mpg and it survived some pretty questionable maintenance and care on my part.
10 grand feels steep, but for a solid car that'll easily last another ten years with minimal maintenance, good fuel economy, I don't know that you can do much better these days, and it doesn't feel unreasonable.
Oh, sure, I was thinking of a car relatively comfortable parents could get a kid without overspending or spoiling too much, it's not super in reach for a kid working part time.
Sure, totally. I was perhaps assuming a certain level of affluence from a HN commenter discussing buying a car for their daughter, but it's true that I described a heavily used premium economy car rather than the complete "at-least-it-starts" clunker that represents the actual bottom of the market.
In Europe, the average age for buying a new car is 50.
This means that most of the cars sold are second-hand.
Most people think that the car is a luxury and prefer to focus on their home first, then their family, and after that, their car.
I am from Brazil and although most cities are 100% built around cars, public transportation IS an option and mostly works and is (somewhat) affordable.
Unlike the US, if a place is 1km away as the eagle flies you can get there by walking ~1.5km max. And there are bus services and although often overcrowded or with low service, they do run and you can plan your life around them.
Yet everyone still buys a car as soon as they can afford one (or often if they can't). And they use it for commuting to work every day.
To get to the point that Europe is in where even rich people don't want cars or if they have one it is for weekend trips. You need to do a lot better than this.
Unfortunately getting the US to be like Europe in this regard is not really viable, but it could get to the point where Brazil is where the poorer people can afford to not own a car.
In some big cities in Brazil they do a lot of low-cost things like dedicated bus-lanes that actually make some high-demand trips shorter by bus. Progress in this area needs to be incremental, there is little point in investing crazy amounts of money in one big project. Instead the investing should be lower and constant.
sometimes one big project can make a big difference, like a new rail-bridge or metro. But in general getting people into busses is more efficient even if that means rich people still won't want to get into that bus.
> To get to the point that Europe is in where even rich people don't want cars or if they have one it is for weekend trips. You need to do a lot better than this.
It's not like that in all of Europe either, the further you go from Western Europe, the worse the public transit gets. The Balkans are probably the worst, you need a car if you live outside a city as rail and even busses are slow, unreliable, or just not an option in your place.
It is like that in Western Europe as well, "if you live outside a city" you need a car. However small cities don't have the massive gridlocks that big cities have so they can support a car-centric life.
And sure taking a train sure is faster/nicer for long travel, but in practice what matters the most for the economy and people's life/health is the daily commute which mostly happens inside cities.
But you don't quite get how it is in the US (and Canada). In the US it is "if you live *inside* a city" you need a car*, no matter if small, large, or metropolis.
> the daily commute which mostly happens inside cities
Well, some countries are far more centralized than others. The daily commute to/from cities is a huge problem where I live, to the point that cities are flooded mostly with outside commuters. Trains and busses could solve that very elegantly, but nobody’s investing in that.
the further you go from Western Europe, the worse the public transit gets.
It's not really an East-West thing. Downtown Sofia for example has much better public transportation than many 'secondary' and rural towns in Germany and France.
But that's Downtown Sofia, how about the rest of the land? That's what I'm trying to say - yes, it's fine if you live in cities, but outside of that, it's not so easy. Whereas Western Europe invests much more in having efficient transit in smaller and rural towns.
Yeah, getting rich people in buses is probably impossible. But making 90 % of all journeys cheaper and more convenient for 90 % of people is pretty doable.
>having a monthly car payment in perpetuity is considered acceptable.
I think that really depends on what part of America. At least where I grew up around a bunch of middle class conservatives listening to eg Dave Ramsey (who has other problems IMO) most people think of you as reckless/irresponsible for doing that sort of thing.
Dave Ramsey is perfect for the type of people who need Dave Ramsey. If you’re a standard deviation or two above the median person in terms of having your shit together and being smart about personal finance you can do a few things more optimally than he would recommend, but the advice that works for that person could easily ruin most people.
Agreed. For example, he strongly advises paying off one's house first. While this is good advice for many/most who struggle to save and invest, it's not optimal for maximising returns on a given portfolio. If the interest rate is below expected investment returns (minus tax and other subsidies, discounted for volatility), it can often be optimal to invest rather than pay down mortgage debt. It also means more liquidity in the case of sickness and redundancy. Equity in one's home can be difficult to access without some hefty fees or interest rates.
I was always confused why he was popular until someone told me to think of Dave Ramsey like vaping. It's great if you're currently a 2 pack a day cigarette smoker, but bad if you don't currently smoke. That cleared it up for me.
> I think that really depends on what part of America.
And the age of the cohort... Millennials (1980 to '95-ish) have had student loans since as far back as they can remember. What's _another_ never-ending monthly payment?
My wife and I are millennials and we paid off our student loans within a couple years once I started my career. I don’t even remember if it was before or after we got married and we’ve been married for over a decade now. Maybe we’re fortunate but I can’t imagine still having a monthly student loan payment.
Of course I also absolutely hated being in debt and having a monthly payment to begin with so I made it a priority to solve that problem asap. Likewise, I have always paid cash for every car I’ve bought. My only never-ending monthly payment is my mortgage and the alternative to that is paying rent which I like even less.
Fundamentally it’s a mindset thing. I also don’t buy taxi rides for my Chipotle orders.
I have a very similar mindset, but, man, mortgages hurt. At least when paying rent the money goes towards a real person. With a mortgage such a big chunk of the payment is the interest that just goes to this faceless entity that is the bank.
Most of my landlords were faceless entities too. Obviously I’d rather the house be paid off but I didn’t have $300,000 in cash and I have to live somewhere.
I'm a younger (1994) Millennial and borrowed just $10k to finish my degree. I paid it off the first year I was employed. Very few of my friends still have loans. I'm pretty sure if you got yourself into a never-ending monthly payment situation you probably shouldn't have gone to college to begin with.
I grew up around a bunch of middle class conservatives in the Southern USA and almost all of them were into debt on house, car, often even taking loans to pay for kids private school.
And you'd never know until the family divorced and their lifestyle drastically decreases.
Dave Ramsey has to be relatively new because debt was extremely extremely common among conservatives in the US (no idea about liberals didn't live among them)
Houses are a depreciating asset. They require constant maintenance expenses just to hold their value. It's the land under the house that's the appreciating asset.
Sort of. In a lot of areas, the cost of the house has skyrocketed in the last few decades. One factor is that you can’t buy an empty lot and then build a 20 year old $250k house on it in most markets. If you want to build a house, that house will be new (obviously — relocating an old house is a real pain), and the costs of construction are silly. This effect inflates the value of old houses in a lot of markets.
Of course, in markets that don’t have plenty of inventory of both empty lots and lots with old houses, it can be hard to value the house by itself.
It seems there's a whole spectrum from lifting houses to put a new first floor below them, to moving them a bit, to moving them several blocks in a city. (to big building projects too, historically)
I saw a house in progress being moved, 30 years ago. Great thing to take a kid to see!
It is done, albeit rarely due to how expensive and complex an operation it is. My friend's mother moved her house a few kilometers across some farmland. It was a rather large 2 story tall house, with a basement. It had to be moved to a plot that had a similar foundation and basement prepared for it.
Maybe - we’re trying to sell a deceased family member’s block of land that might be worth more in the market if we demoed the building because it’s unliveable.
Cars are a necessity in pretty much most of the country. Even in areas with good public transit, people who are most likely to go into debt to buy a car are also more likely to live further away from public transit and commute for work. Outside of New York, I can’t think of another city where living without a car is really an option.
Well, around Chicago some of the smaller suburbs have a nice little downtown and are on a train line into the city. If you lived near that you might get by just using online shopping and uber if you occasionally needed to go somewhere. There is bus service too but it's not that good.
But in general, and in the larger suburbs yes you would be pretty inconvenienced without a car. But that is true of suburbs everywhere.
Philly's transit access can be hit or miss, but when transit lines up, it's transformative. I moved from central PA to a Philadelphia suburb in 2006, a three minute walk to a regional rail station. It was an hour fifteen into the city (most of the time), and I'll take 1:15 on the train over 0:45 of driving every time. After a few months of figuring things out, we dropped from two cars to one.
Now I own a rowhome in the historic district of the city, we're opening the first floor as a museum within the next year, and I walk everywhere. All forms of transit (bus, trolley, trackless trolley, subway, light rapid transit, train, ferry) take contactless payment (finally) and these days, rideshare fills in the gaps.
Wages are higher in the suburbs, but I can get to a sizable international airport in 15 minutes by car, to the Amtrak station in 20 minutes via $3 subway, and I can walk to grocery/hardware/bakery as well as bars/restaurants/galleries/venues/museums/etc.
A car used to be a very, very important part of my life, and now it's more of a luxurious convenience.
Bay Area (including SF) public transportation is generally terrible, definitely not at all a great option for people who can’t even live in SF but have to commute to SF because of how expensive it is.
If you are forced to commute into SF for your job, then make living close to BART a top priority. (Many years ago, I met many people who suffered through that daily commute, but refused to make living near BART a priority. It was dumb to watch.) BART is a miracle train system (hybrid commuter rail/metro/subway), even if the coverage isn't great.
Or Caltrain. The new electrified Caltrain is a massive improvement: it runs at least every half hour all day, every day. I don’t know whether it was intentional on the part of the agency, but they stumbled upon the obvious phenomenon that many people will not use a transit system that runs too infrequently and that, conversely, if you have infrequent trains with low ridership, your ridership might return if you increase frequency.
Most of the people I knew lived in East Bay, but you raise a great point! The peninsula also has insufferable car traffic, but can be avoided during daily commutes by carefully planning your home around Caltrain.
Just because it’s in top 10 within the country doesn’t mean it is great and that people don’t need to rely on cars most of the times. “Just live near BART” is a laughable proposition since half the BART stations outside of SF do not have enough housing around them and the ones that do, have high density luxury apartments that aren’t exactly affordable to people outside tech and other high paying careers. Then there’s the question of “do I also work near BART?”, “buy groceries near bus stations?” Or “go to the hospital only near public transit?”. Answer to all of those questions is “No and I still need a car”.
Nobody said it isn't debt. The difference is that it is debt that makes sense: you can't realistically buy land without it, and houses tend to appreciate so the interest costs are less of a problem - they just represent the time value of money.
Most other debts people incur personally are to buy things they could save for, which go down in value. Like cars.
Ramsey is very niche. People who are good with money will find his advice some combination of obvious and bad. People who are bad with money will tend to either not want his advice, or have a hard time following it. A few people are in a sweet spot where they’ll actually follow it.
There's often companies willing to compete with small margins. For example, grocery store business is already known for small margins in the US, and one of the recent winners that's been expanding a lot is Aldi, which is known for its consistently low prices, so it's unlikely their margins are any better.
You'll likely need to root the phone to get the OS not to kill the termux process due to idleness though.
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