I bought at the peak myself to have stable housing while raising kids.

If house prices just stayed flat until wages caught up and then only increased similar to match wage increases (not inflation) that might be a reasonable compromise between the middle class who have a house and don’t. Those who own will still be paying down a mortgage so increasing your equity that way without being decimated if you have to move. Unfortunately at this point, that could take awhile before wages caught up.

I’m not arguing in favor for house prices going up but just wanted to point out how a lot of people use the value of their home. You can pull out money from your house and your interest payments don’t change when the value of your house goes up.

I’ll give the example of my neighbor. They bought their house 10 years ago at about $250k. Interest rates were around 4.5%. We’re in a location that got really hot during the pandemic and the house value jumped to about $700k. At that moment, they had the same payments as 10 years ago. Then interest rates dropped down below 3%. His balance on the original mortgage is probably about $175k and now he refinances the house with a mortgage of $325k, pays off the old loan, and pockets $150k out of the house. But due to the lower interest rates, his payment is the same as it was 10 years ago. He just has $150k in his pocket. Meanwhile, I’m the schmuck who had to buy the identical house at $700k at 5% and pay 3x for the same house.

I lived adjacent to a neighborhood like this. It was much quieter than middle aged neighbors with Harley’s. Little Cessnas and Pipers are not that loud.

There are not a lot of incentives to make things easier/cheaper. Changing government processes is slow and hard. Take immigration. It is currently a long and hard process to legally immigrate to US unless you fall into certain categories. I’ve heard politicians on both sides say my entire life that we need to improve the process for legal immigration yet little has been done.

I think flexibility is key. There are days where I peak my productivity at 4 hours. There are days where I get in the flow and can be productive for 12.

Yeah. It’s extremely common. Fluoride treatments, sealants, crown replacements aren’t necessary. And things like veneers, and whiting are pushed pretty hard.

I was talking to a gay family married who was married to opposite gender for 20 years and had a family before coming out. We both grew up in a world that said homosexuality was a choice.

He said he “chose to be straight” for 20+ years and it almost killed him and ruined the lives of others.

My mother in law was an office manager at a dentist. Dentists have sales quotas and have bonuses to everyone in the office for upselling.

You go in to a medical professional for health care and advice and they try and sell to you.

I think that’s it. His vision is to try and make a WeChat competitor. As much as I hate it, I fear that if he can string along the investors for long enough he could actually maybe make it successful if he adds everything else to it.

But the Fediverse is growing too which is better. Let Musk and Zuck have their dick measuring competition and let’s build something better over here!

Uh… I never wondered that till now.