Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
life is easy
Namada
Veteran
A nice video
In my country Norway, people have so much debt, because to buy a house is so expensive.
We need to be in debt rest of our lifes.
And actually to build a house it take only 4-5 months.
Is it worth it to work 30 year for just one house?
2
Comments
Life is as easy or as complicated as we make it out to be.
In fact, they say life is easy but we make it complicated.
In many countries, some people work not only 30 years, but all their lives, and could never even afford to buy a house.
We all have different priorities and we may find that working 30 years for the sake of whatever we deem important is worth it.
It seems to be that humans before, had a more "grounded" life then today.
They were more connected with each other in a natural way.
Families were more united, everyone lived together
They planted their own vegetables and were more self sufficient and were
working outside in nature and on the farm.
Today kids are stored in the kindergarten already when they are 1 year old and the baby only get one or two houres with the parents. Old people are also stored away and barely see their sons and doughters because they have to work in a office or on a factory almost evryday to pay house that takes 30++ years to pay down.
lt's easy to romanticize a simpler lifestyle. Even for those who desire it, it can cause a lot of conflict. Most people would need to move to have a life more like you talk about, and that would mean taking a job with less pay. The house is cheaper, but the opportunities are fewer. If you have student loans, you might not find a job to pay them off. I think here in the US that for most people student loans are more concern than a house. We paid off our house in 15 years. We live in a cheap area though. My son's student loans will be as much as we paid for our house. And then on top of that he either has to buy a house or rent.
Building is a great option if you have the skills and tools to do it yourself. To hire someone is very expensive and much harder to get a loan for. Here, when you build yourself, you still have to hire someone to do a lot of work because you need permits and someone licensed has to do or approve the electric work, etc. My parents built the house we now live in. My dad has built 3 houses. My grandparents built their house (which my aunt now lives in next door). I helped with one of my dad's houses, and it's a lot of work. A LOT of time that most people don't have.
Anyhow, it's easy to look back a hundred years ago and think they had it made. But life expectancy was less than 50 years. Children frequently died very young. There were no vaccines and very little medical care. Women couldn't vote and almost 80% of people were illiterate. They may have lived what we believe to be easier times, but they often lived lives that revolved around one crisis after another. A year of drought was life-ruining. There was no insurance if your kids got sick or your house burned down. They may have had it simpler in some ways, but it was not easier by far.
The only reason we can even consider these types of things is because most of us are lucky enough to have stable lives. They were stuck in survival and safety modes while today few of us (on this board in particular i mean) are in that place. We have safe and stable lives, overall, and can consider higher ideas.
Nice TedTalk @Namada ......I'm reminded of this.....
Craving Is The Builder Of This House
"O house-builder, you are seen! You will not build this house again. For your rafters are broken and your ridgepole shattered. My mind has reached the Unconditioned; I have attained the destruction of craving."
Interesting that you bring this up, about Norway. Of course, 30-year mortgages are common around the Western world; certainly in the US and Canada. I was told long ago, not sure if it's true, that in some parts of Europe, houses are so expensive that mortgages get passed down from one generation to the next.
However, about Norway, I found it very curious that in the countryside (I observed this in the north, I don't know if it's common elsewhere), families have 2 or 3 houses on their property; when they need to modernize, they build a new one, and the old ones are left standing, but no longer used. I don't know what that's about; can they not update an old house? Or were the old ones built without modern plumbing, perhaps? It's a curious sight. This was in rural areas, on farms.
@Dakini
yes, it is true that the houses are expensive, and the loan is passed to the next generation. The reason is that they use the money that was paid down on the house, and then makes new loan on the house to use it in private consumption like traveling and new cars etc.
People with two or three houses can afford a new house,
they get tax relief for every house they have. The goverment favors those who have many houses and they can therefore buy a new house, rather than upgrade the old ones.
Now lending rate by ordinary families is extremely high, and the young generation they have to work their hole life to pay down their loans and it will be difficult to keep their head above the wather.
Before 20 years back, it was normal that only the man worked and the wife was home to look after the kids. Thats not possible anymore.
So something must have happened over the years. We have not been "richer" at least, but debt slaves instead.
@karasti It is perhaps a hard job to build houses like your father and grandfather did, but it's worth building it yourself if you can.
You may need to work hard for 5-7 months, but then you dont need to think about paying a huge debt which takes 30 -40 years.
I did not know it was so expensive to go to university. Here in Norway we get 40% cash back if we pass the exam.
What I mean most likely was better before, was that they were better at helping each other, families stood stronger together. They took better care of their kids and elders, today kids are put in the kindergarten from 1 year old,
and the old will be placed on a sad home for the aged instead of being home with family.
Rural areas here still operate on community levels. Urban centers not as much. Kids here don't go to school until they are at least 5. Many go to preschool around age 3-4 but it is not required and not covered as public education usually so parents have to pay for it. Housing here varies a lot, as does college depending if you are public or private schools. Where we live, housing is cheap. We paid $80,000 for our 4 bedroom house with a yard. If we were to pick up our house and move it to a bigger city it would cost 2-4 times as much. My son's 4 year education will cost him about the same, and he goes to one of the cheaper public universities in the midwest part of the US. A private university will cost $40-50,000 per year. Looking up the exchange, one US dollar is equal to about 8 Norwegian Krones.
Anyhow, rural areas are pretty good about looking out for each other here. But there are issues with that, too. The way our taxes work, urban areas get most of the benefit of taxes but rural people still have to pay them equally (minus any city taxes that might apply). Which means a lot of tax money someone on a farm pays goes to fund things in a city they might never go to. So there gets to be frustration there, too. In other ways as well.
@Dakini it's interesting you mention that. I see that some with farming areas in the midwest, too. My husband's family owns a farm, and they just built a new house, moved out and left the old one standing. And it's like a 1 block walk between the houses. Made no sense to me! But it's pretty common around here anyhow (upper midwest, MN, ND, etc) to see multiple houses on a farm property. But here, I think it is most often because the land might is family owned and multiple members of the same family might live on the property in separate homes.
Nice video, and I agree with him.
It's a pity we have overpopulated the planet with lawyers and businessmen who all seem to be interested in "owning" things and squabbling about "rights".
I don't have time to watch the talk right now, so sorry if I'm missing the point here.
Even if you don't buy a house and get a mortgage it's not like you're free and clear, you still have to pay to live someplace. Renting allows more flexibility if you want to change jobs or some other reasons. But people who own their homes usually take better care of it and have an incentive to maintain and upgrade it. Also since a mortgage payment stays the same over time (unless you refinance), it will likely be a cheaper monthly expense than rent in time and eventually zero. It's an asset people can borrow against for whatever or use to finance their retirement.
The Germans are wiser. Less greed, less wastage.
http://qz.com/167887/germany-has-one-of-the-worlds-lowest-homeownership-rates/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-26/apartment-glut-looming-in-2017-citi/7789864
https://www.ft.com/content/79297b7e-24c6-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c
I kind of follow his philosophy for my own life. I live pretty simply and usually work less than 40 hour weeks.
Much of what makes it possible to live simply though often comes because of the hard work and efforts of others. People can give him lots of free clothes because clothes are relatively cheap and abundant. He can sell his surplus food and buy other things he needs with the money because there is a functioning market.
I guess what I'm saying is if we adopted his lifestyle universally, life might not be so easy.
Yeah, in the western world to live simply you either have to rely on others, or have to have a lot of money, ironically. It takes so much time to support a human life in all ways that either you need money to pay others to help you or you need all your time free to do it yourself. I know quite a few people who live here specifically because there is more freedom for building (for example there are no rules that disallow tiny homes while a lot of cities seem to have rules for minimum home size). But they all have money. Most of them are retired people who live a lot of years saving to be able to live this way now. Their homes are all highly efficient, and while they are small homes they spent a lot on the efficiency part, solar energy, etc. Then you need to be able to afford your health care out of pocket, or pay for good insurance. Though a lot of people who are a bit older and retired are lucky that they get to keep employer insurance after they retire. Most of us who are a bit younger will be unlikely to have that benefit.
I think his main point is that we make life harder than it has to be, not necessarily that we all have it easy and should just enjoy it.
I think it's also really easy to compare being a kid to being an adult and look back wistfully. But kids see the world differently (and perhaps we'd benefit from looking at it more their way). I feel much the same as him when I looked at the world as a child. But in reality, my parents lived then much the way we live now. I just didn't know it.
I think it's worth asking why life is as complicated as it is. Who benefits from it? As always, those at the top making all the money. Most of us learn from a very young age that we will have to work hard and study hard to have any sort of life. Even if we want a simpler life. Land isn't free, homes aren't free, resources aren't free. But most of the time we are working our butts off to make someone else's dreams come true. To make them rich and sustain their lifestyle while we struggle to stay out of debt. Our entire society (in the US I mean) is built on this model, starting from the time kids are very young and separate themselves into the Winners and the Losers and accept their place in society. Largely based on their family's place in society, of course. But most of us play right into that game of thinking we are succeeding and doing well while making someone else rich. Why? Why do we so easily give up our dreams and work instead to help someone else achieve theirs and accept peanuts in comparison for doing all the work to elevate them?
@karasti > I think it's worth asking why life is as complicated as it is. Who benefits from it?
You can become a politician, then you get a lot of powerful friends that protects you and you dont have to go to jail if you do something wrong. The system works for you and not against you. Just Look at Hillary Clinton, she can lie and do what ever she want.
Life is complicated for those of us in the middle and the bottom in order to makes things better for those at the top. They can just hire out all the things that are too complicated for them while the rest of us are struck trying to figure out ridiculous statues and tax codes and such that are all so complicated to protect the rich but ensure the rest of us keep the country running while struggling to keep our daily lives afloat. I hate our political system in the US, but it's a mirror of our society. It's a symptom of the problems rather than just being the problem. But the whole mess just gets circular from that point and it's how we've set things up and now we're in up to our necks. A system that works for hardly none of us but we argue and fight to keep it afloat while not really understanding any of it. It's all crazy to me! I want a "none of the above" option on my ballot.
But, sometimes I wonder why I involve myself. On a local level, yes. I have a say. I live in a small town and every vote does count. on a national level, no, and I'm not sure why I participate. I'm pretty sure we'd elect a president even if none of us voted because the system supports and runs itself. My daily life would be a lot happier and less complicated if I didn't involve myself in such large matters that feel super important but I really have basically no input or impact on. Seems pointless other than to keep us angry with each other and more divided against our neighbors than ever. By involving myself, I make it complicated. It doesn't have to be. But we're taught so strongly that we HAVE to be involved, that it's a duty to do so. I'm not sure I believe that anymore. And that extends going back to the video, the issue of participating in our economy and society the way we are told we should. Well, it's the people making money off us that tell us we have to do so. Why do we listen?
@karasti > I think it's worth asking why life is as complicated as it is. Who benefits from it?
"Seeking but not finding the house builder,
I hurried through the round of many births:
Painful is birth ever and again.
O house builder, you have been seen;
You shall not build the house again.
Your rafters have been broken up,
Your ridgepole is demolished too.
My mind has now attained the unformed Nibbâna
And reached the end of every sort of craving.
Voice of Mara
