?!? More in the way of Ass Haberdashery ?!?

[wednes]

I spent over three hours yesterday trying to make a simple but elegant Alfred Hitchcock mood theme. As you can see, it kind of sucks. But I don't feel like resizing everything and making the 60+ more pics it will need to be interesting. I think my next mood theme will feature a zillion pics of me, interpreting a selection of my many, many moods.


I know this person who will not let go of the idea that 70% of Americans own their own homes. While I can't seem to find evidence to the contrary, that just sounds ridiculous to me. Even if by "Americans" you mean people over 18, and by "own their own homes" you mean people who are paying off a mortgage as well as those who own the home outright, I still can't see that being accurate. That may be true in a wealthy suburb or something, but can't possibly be the case for the US as a whole. Plenty of people are homeless, and lots and lots and lots of them rent.
I keep telling this person that he's talking out of his ass, and that most families can no longer afford to buy a home without significant outside help. Of all the people I know to buy homes in the last several years, only one couple did not have significant help from their family. Anyway, if anyone can help me get this a-hole to see how deluded he is, that would be nice.


Apologies to the many people I was supposed to catch up with yesterday. I was feeling too crappily to do anything. Truth be told, I'm not feeling much better today but I'm making myself do stuff even though I don't want to. I'm not writing today though, I'm waiting until I feel inspired, or at least less like killing off characters.

Futuristic Job Quiz If you live to the year 2501 your job would be A camera person on C.S.I Aphla Centuri Find out what your futuristic job would be at Quizopolis.com

Comments

[lirrin.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, your friend appears to only be off by a few percentage points:

This source says it's 66.2% according to the last census.
http://www.ncpa.org/pd/budget/pd052301d.html

This source breaks it down by race:
http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/raceequitysmartgrowth.htm
*Over 66.8 percent of all Americans own their homes. Homeownership varies by race and ethnicity. More than 73 percent of whites owned their homes in 1999 compared with 46.3 percent of blacks, and 46.2 percent of Hispanics.
* Income, poverty, and age do not explain the large homeownership gap. If blacks and Hispanics owned homes at the same rate as whites of similar age and income, their homeownership rates would have been 61 percent in 1998 versus 72 percent for whites.
* Only about 59 percent of the nation's middle-class African Americans own their homes, compared with 74 percent of whites.

I'm quite surprised myself, actually.

[groovesinorbit]

That stat must include everyone who has a mortgage, though, wouldn't you think?

[wednes.livejournal.com]

Yes. It must.

[lirrin.livejournal.com]

What other definition would you use? Hardly anyone in the US "owns" a house outright with no debt to the bank. It just Isn't Done. Even people who can afford it almost never do.

[maxverbosity.livejournal.com]

The definition of "own" must include those still paying for the house then. I like to think I "own" my house, but I've only been here two and a half years.

[lirrin.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does. It's the definition always used on census questions and things like that. You own, or you rent. Period.

Or, in reality, you're couch surfing, homeless, living with your parents...

[wednes.livejournal.com]

That is really shocking.