My wife and I bought our first house in 1992. We were both working at salary positions, my wife earning about $16,000 and me about $19,000 per year. We paid $69,500 for the house; that would be a bit under two years' income spent on the house. 

Things were difficult back then, but the dream was achievable. Nowadays? Not so much. Auguste Meyrat, an English teacher living in the Dallas area, has some thoughts.

For the younger generations coming of age and entering the workforce (the older members of the Gen Z cohort), the prospects are dire. As cultural writer Addison Del Mastro explains in a recent essay, not only will this generation not be able to afford a starter home, but they won’t even be able to purchase a starter car: “Much like the starter home, the starter car is on its way out.” Smaller, cheaper sedans that worked out for young drivers just aren’t made anymore. Now, they will have to take out massive loans to pay for an SUV or electric car — on top of the loans they take out for college. Buying used will also set them back nearly as much in today’s market. With no starter home or starter car to commence adulthood, Zoomers, even the educated ones who supposedly did everything right, are stuck in abject dependence unless they were born rich. 

As for my generation, the Millennials, some of whom were lucky enough to purchase a starter home and starter car before they became prohibitively expensive, we’re pretty much stuck with these starters. I would love to upgrade my 13-year-old Honda Fit and move into a bigger house, a “forever home,” with an extra bedroom and bathroom — things my parents were able to do at my age — but this is unfeasible.

Our oldest granddaughters are 18 and 20. They may be middle-aged before they can afford to buy homes. Our youngest daughters are 27 and 28. They are renting a townhome in one of the outlying suburbs of Denver, and can only afford that because the two sisters and our son-in-law share the townhome, splitting expenses three ways instead of two. That's not unusual among the younger generations today - indeed, more and more families are sharing living space to make ends meet.

Housing prices are expected to continue to increase. Mortgage rates are expected to stay high.

A big part of the problem is supply. But a greater part of the problem is Washington.

So long as the federal government continues to print more money to cover expenses, inflation will continue. So long as the housing supply fails to keep up with demand, housing will be expensive. So long as car manufacturing is tied up with idiotic environmental regulations, new cars will also be expensive. And so long as domestic energy production is tied up in regulation, all economic activity and utilities will cost more and more.

It's the same old tune: Whenever the government gets involved in markets, things get screwed up. The endless, reckless money-printing started during the COVID crisis but hasn't slacked off any. The housing supply in many areas is strangled by excessive regulation and strict zoning. And the small, cheap "starter car" that one could buy new in 1975 in the form of a Ford Pinto or Chevy Vega no longer exists, regulated out of existence by the imposition of federal standards for everything from emissions to tires to gasoline blends.

The government is involved in markets, be it housing, automobiles, energy, or pretty much anything, and we see the results today: A shrinking middle class. Washington is interested in buying votes, and those votes available for sale come from two sources: The looters, who stand to gain by having politicians wield power to their benefit in return for "10% for the Big Guy," and the moochers, who think they stand to gain from politicians who campaign on "I'm going to make sure you get more of other people's money." The incentives are all wrong; these are not people who have or ever will earn a profit by providing a product or service for which people are willing to pay, in fair trade, that value-for-value exchange that is the only legitimate economic transaction. They gain by perpetuating the upper tier, who fund them, and the lower, who vote for them.

There are some signs that this may be changing, but sadly, it's only because one of the most dimwitted and now senile politicians in the nation's history sits at the Resolute Desk, and the handlers can't disguise his disintegration any longer.

Of course, Paul Krugman reminds us that everything is fine, as long as we don't talk about the costs of food, energy, housing, or cars. Recently, we uncovered some footage of a heroic figure repeating Krugman's claim to an appreciative audience:

The American middle class is something of an anomaly in history. Throughout most of mankind's economic life, the norm has been grinding, monotonous, hopeless poverty for almost everyone, with fantastic wealth for a ruling, frequently corrupt, always tyrannical few. The only time that this norm has been broken is through free markets, free trade, and freedom to produce. Robert Heinlein said it very well:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck."

We have had some bad luck lately.

Markets are messy. Markets can be capricious. But markets usually get things right in the end if they are left alone. And if the American people want to save the middle class, they need to vote in a government that will deregulate, decrease spending, and leave the markets alone.