Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We all need some light material these days. We all
need something light before Thanksgiving throwdowns over when Aunt Karen
talks about Donald Trump or something like that, and then
the fight is on. So, in that spirit of wanting
to to give you a story to talk about around
(00:21):
the Thanksgiving table that can help everyone to laugh and
maybe can have some light intergenerational ribbing, a little bit
of making fun of boomers, I present to you this
story taken from Let's See My Wife, The shadow producer
of the John Girardi Show, Holly Girardi, sent me this story.
(00:44):
This is from the San Francisco Standard. They thought they
bought a home, they ended up with dirt alley. This
is the most hilarious story I've seen in the last month,
and it is just typical of all things that are
annoying at a kind of intergenerational level, lots of things
(01:05):
that make millennials resentful of boomers. So this involves Karen
esque attitudes on the part of a boomer lady and
her husband in San Francisco real estate purchases which only
boomers can do because millennials don't have enough money. And
(01:26):
there's all these statistics out now recently that have.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Come out about.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You know, the median age of a first time home
buyer is forty now, which is like ten years older
than what it was in nineteen ninety one. That boomers
are still the most common home buyers in America. Millennials
and Gen z are finding the possibility of home ownership
(01:53):
more and more and more unaffordable and more and more unattainable,
and it's this really bad thing in the economy. And
they're all kinds of these resentments about how boomers have
maintained and not passed on generational wealth in the way
that uh, you know they had received from their forbears
blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, so there's all these
like seething underlying boomer versus millennial things. Well, this story
(02:22):
is hilarious. Out of San Francisco for about one month
this spring, JJ Hollingsworth and Ala Mayhew Mrgia. So I
think JJ Hollingsworth is the wife and Lay Hugh or partner,
and La hu Mrgia is the partner. Maile thought they
(02:44):
had bought a one million dollar home in the Sunset
for a mere twenty five thousand dollars. How did they
find themselves In this temporarily euphoric state of mind, the
married couple's sealed bid for one nine to two six
Kirkham Street in San Francisco had been declared the winner
at a May auction held by the San Francisco tax
(03:06):
collector for properties with years of unpaid property taxes. The
two celebrated with friends and told the longtime tenants of
the two unit building just across an alleyway from their
twenty fourth Avenue home that they were the new landlords.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
All right. These people already own a home.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
They're such well off boomers, you see from the photo.
These are perfect age range boomers. They already owned their
home in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Their real estate speculating.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
All right, And they saw a listing for a property
across the street for them from them that they thought
was a one million dollar property available for a city
city slash County of San Francisco auction for twenty five
thousand bucks. They thought they snatched this up. As the
saying go, if it seems too good to be true.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It probably is.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
But before they could collect the first rent check, which,
by the way, it's such a funny thing about like liberals,
the differences between liberal boomers versus liberal gen zers, where
liberal gen zers think are so resentful of their landlords,
and liberal boomers are like liberal boomers, live like conservatives,
(04:31):
but vote like radical liberals. They think they're these super
radical liberals, but they're the most ruthless capitalists possible.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So here these people are.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
They want to be landlords, collecting rent checks from you know,
from renters.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Anyway you'll learn about what kind of sort of pretend hippies.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
These these boomers are. In just a second.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Before they could collect the first rent check, they realized
something wasn't right. The wake up call came when the
city refunded nearly all of the eight thousand dollars they
had paid for the transfer tax. That's when I figured
it out. I don't own this house, Hollingsworth said, What
do I own? After checking with a friend who's a
(05:15):
real estate agent, Hollingsworth learned that they had not bought
a nineteen twenty four to nine excuse they had not
bought one nine two four through one nine twenty six
Kirkham Street, a semi detached rental property with views of
the Marine headlands and the top of the Golden gate Bridge.
They were, in fact, the new owners of an eighty
(05:35):
three foot long, seven foot wide road called Dirt Alley,
complete with views of the two bedroom, three bathroom duplex
they had.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Hoped to buy that they thought they bought.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
So.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
These people see a property being auctioned by City and
County of San Francisco, has unpaid the sales taxes on it,
like an unclaimed property. Basically, they see that it's being
auctioned off by the City County of San Francisco. The
(06:09):
auction is at twenty five thousand dollars. They're like the
only people who bid. They get this thing for twenty
five thousand dollars. They think that they've just bought a
one million dollar like rental like apartments, rental property that
they can let out to tenants and collect rent. They
think they've just bought this thing for a song. No,
(06:32):
they bought the alley next door to it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
How did this happen?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Hollingsworth sixty nine thought, followed quickly by why would someone
own this? You bought it, lady, She checked with her
realtor friend after she bought it. Lady, if you think
you're getting a one million dollar property for twenty five
thousand dollars. Maybe you can spend the money on a
(06:58):
realtor on the front end and to figure out that
maybe you, you know, maybe you are not in fact
buying the property. In fact, you're buying the dirt road
next to it. They were shocked, then embarrassed. Then I'm
not sure if I'm allowed to say it ticked off.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
They're ticked off.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Well, I mean, I can understand being shocked, embarrassed, angry,
but ticked off like you screwed it up, lady, You
fell for the idea that you were buying a one
million dollar property for twenty five thousand dollars. Now, now
the couple who run a nonprofit music venue out of
(07:44):
their home. This is the most San Francisco bull crap
I've ever heard.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So these are let me get this straight.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
These are boomers who own their home in San Francisco,
run a nonprofit music venue out of their existing home.
They're thinking they're doing real estate speculation across the street.
Clearly the husband must have made his money, or maybe
she did, I don't know. They already made their money,
they own a home in San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Just the.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Call of these people to be like, oh, yes, we'll
do real estate speculation across the street and we'll have
renters get a one million dollar property for twenty five thousand.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Now the couple who run a nonprofit music venue out
of their home are trying to get their money back.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Can you imagine the call of this person.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
You were stupid enough to bid on a dirt road
without checking fully, and now you're angry.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
You want your money.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Back, all right, but it's not easy, the article continues,
because it requires a vote by the Board of Supervisors
to overturn the sale, something that has happened only once before. Plus,
the tax collectors on office said it was clear about
what lot the couple were bidding on and followed strict
state guidelines for the sale. So the County San Francisco
(09:11):
is weird because I think it's like the city and
the county are sort of the same entity. The County
tax collector office is like, no, we told them what
lot it was. We followed all of our proper procedure.
These people just didn't check what it was. Regardless, if
(09:35):
the board doesn't vote their way, the couple are willing
to take legal action to have the accidental alley oops,
taking off their hands. I don't pick fights, said Hollingsworth,
a self described cowgirl who grew up on a cattle
ranch in Colorado. I fight, but I don't pick them.
What do you mean pickfights? You're the one who bought
(09:57):
the wrong house, lady.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
This is the most.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Karen behavior I've ever seen, acting like she is the
aggrieved party because she bought the wrong plot of land.
Last year, the office of the San Francisco Treasurer and
Tax Collector decided to look into a new tact to
define owners for the hundreds of slivers of land around
(10:20):
the city that are unsuitable for development. These little lots
had previously been included in general sales of tax delinquent properties,
but the treasure didn't get much interest from investors. Opening
the bids to the general public caused a significant amount
of distress for adjacent property owners, said Amanda conn And Freed,
the office's chief of Policy and Communications. So blah blah
(10:41):
blah blah blah blah blah. All right, let let's keep
going here. Where where's the real the real meat of
the story. So uh d d da da da Okay.
The city set set a set of letters in March
(11:02):
setting April thirtieth as a deadline forbids on this little
no man's land piece of property. This second letter is
the one that caught the attention of our boomer couple here,
Hollingsworth and Mergia. They were intrigued when they saw the
address just across dirt alley from their home and the
minimum bid of one dollar. They kept the letter on
their dining room table for a month before deciding on
(11:24):
the last day to go for it. It's an impromptu
real estate strategy that has worked for Hollingsworth. The composer
like these boomers who have like no job and for
some reason they have like gazillion dollar properties they own.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
In San Francisco.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
The composer bought her home in twenty twelve after falling
in love with the forte symbol, the musical equivalent of
loud on the facade, and the perfect raised dining room
to host classical and jazz concerts. Oh my gosh, these
are like the most entitled boomers world. She bought the
home with an inheritance from her father that she parlayed
(12:01):
through a tax deferred trade of commercial property known as
a ten thirty one exchange with some of the inheritance
left over, she bought another home sight unseen. How many
homes is this boomer Karen gonna buy? She bought another
home sight unseen near Reno, Nevada, on the last day
before the tax advantage expired. A former music school classmate
(12:23):
who is homeless now lives there rent free, with time
running out before the auction. Because God forbid a millennial
married couple with children would want to buy a home somewhere,
Let's have this old Karen buy every available house possible
and then feel aggrieved that she didn't buy a million
(12:44):
dollar apartment complex for twenty five thousand dollars. They knew
the bid was nowhere near the value of the home
at the address, so basically they bid on like it
was like one two three, you know, Smith Avenue that
they thought they were buying. The listing for this dirt
alley next door, which they did in fact buy, was
(13:06):
one two three A Smith Avenue, And they didn't notice
the A and what the A meant.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So they thought this.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Old boomer couple in San Francisco, not old perfect at
the right exact boomer age couple in San Francisco. They
think they're buying a one million dollar apartment complex for
twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Instead, they spent twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
On the dirt alley in between the apartment complex and
its neighboring building. They knew their bid was a long shot,
but figured their only competition was their neighbors. We would
always regret if we didn't do it, wouldn't you, Hollingsworth said,
wouldn't you wonder what could have happened? No, not if
(13:52):
I had studied it and realized I was bidding on
a dirt alley. In all the excitement, they missed critical
pece of information contained in the letter, like the blot
and lot number, which showed that the alley, not the
home next to it, was up for grabs. They also
seemingly skimmed over the part of the letter stating that
the auction was for parcels quote rendered unusable by their size, location,
(14:16):
or other conditions. So the gal from the County of
San Francisco tax office, who's trying to defend the county
for you know, it's not the county's fault that these
people made a stupid decision. The gal from county says,
we really do try every time we talk about this
to be very clear about what these are. But we
(14:36):
can't control what people hear or read. We did our
best to put it out there.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
As many times as we could.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
So this is hilarious now that they're like talking about Okay,
so there's a way out for this couple. The sale
can be rescinded if their supervisor brings the matter to
the board for a vote. They were reluctant to ask
their supervisor at the time of the sale Joel and
Guardio for help given their opposition to closing the Great Highway.
(15:11):
So these boomers are like such politics that they're so
like politically like. It's like this is the prototype of
the annoying boomer. Karen, liberal woman. She doesn't want to
ask her county supervisor for help for this county issue
because she doesn't like his politics. This is not the
(15:32):
kind of thing that a county supervisor gives a crap
about your politics.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
It's like a constituent services issue. No, I don't approve
of him. I don't approve of his views on road widening,
so I'm not gonna ask him for help.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
After and Guardio was recalled, Hollingsworth wrote to his replacement
bea Alcarez resistance, but she was out of office in
less than two hundred hours, so they're in a holding
pattern until Mayor Daniel Lurie appoints a replacement for Alcarez.
There's another option right to the board clerk directly asking
to overturn the tax sale, and it will be added
(16:15):
to a future agenda.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Freed said, all.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Right, So anyway, long and short of it is, this
is hilarious. You've got Karen esque boomers with implausible amounts
of money getting angry at their own mistake, doing like
the Karen esque.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I'm gonna die, demand to see the manager.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Only in this case it's like county officials because she
accidentally bought a dirt alley for twenty five thousand dollars.
This is the this is the funniest story in the country. Okay,
I'm going to retweet this from my Twitter account Twitter
dot com slash Fresno Johnny at Fresno Johnny. Okay, we're
(17:02):
retweeting it now here we are and get this story out,
read it with my voice around the Thanksgiving table, and
have fun with it. Do some gentle ribbing of boomers.
Do some gentle ribbing of liberals, do some gentle ribbing
of the fact that these this couple, they run a
(17:24):
musical nonprofit out of their backyard. Have fun with it
when we return the actual sort of problems that are
underlying all this. That's next On the John Girardi Show,
I just talked about this hilarious story out of San Francisco.
That's the whole thing deals with this couple in San Francisco,
(17:48):
the ultimate liberal boomer, Karen and her husband, who have
for some reason, just these implausibly high amounts of money
to use on real estate speculation, which is like.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Hilaire.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Basically, this is a massive generational political problem that millennials
and Gen Z can't afford homes, and baby boomers are
still the most common home buyers in America, and housing
supplies in such short such short demand, and with boomers
buying up supply like it's there's a lot of sort
(18:26):
of intergenerational resentment that's going on over home ownership. And
to see this story about this obviously pretty well off,
very liberal couple in San Francisco who own their home
in San Francisco but wanted to buy the apartment complex
(18:47):
across the street for them from them and thought they
were buying it through a county auction for twenty five
thousand dollars when actually like a million dollar property and
they thought they were getting it for twenty five thousand dollars.
Actually they were buying the basically unusable dirt alley that's
next door to it. That was the thing that was
(19:09):
on sale. It was basically the county trying to get
off of their hands these little bits of unusable property.
This Karen couple didn't like read all the paperwork that
they had to read through. They didn't realize what lot
they were buying, they didn't realize all the stuff the
county included to say, this is a sale of mostly
(19:31):
unusable property. We're telling you this is not very useful property.
And they're mad at the county and like the boomer
Karen lady like she didn't want to take the issue
to her county supervisor construct well, because I don't approve
of his politics. Like all this, this hilarious comedy of
(19:54):
errors that this couple allowed to themselves to be interviewed
for this piece in the same Francisco based newspaper, as
if they are the sympathetic figures in it, which they
are manifestly not.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
They look like complete morons. But this is the thing they're.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Like real, like generational tensions here, like generational tensions among
liberals for one thing, where the mom Donnie voting gen.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Z and you know gen Z and millennials.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
They look at this woman and her husband who own
their own home in San Francisco, living obviously quite well,
have another home in Reno, run a musical nonprofit out
of their backyard, like they're these grand hippies. Meanwhile, they're
sitting on apparently a ton of cash and a ton
of equity, and what are they trying to do. They're
(20:47):
trying to do real estate speculations so they can be
landlords and own this million dollar property and collect rent
from tenants, which, boy, millennials and zoomers hate that. Like
few things zoomers and millennials hate more than landlords collecting
rent and rent prices going up, up, up, up, up,
inexorably due to various market forces. But market forces that
(21:12):
do have a personal face in the face of their landlord,
who is deciding what rents to charge, et cetera, based
on market forces, and blah blah.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Blah, but does make a choice.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
The idea of boomers buying up properties is a problem
of black rock and investors and boomers buying up properties. Meanwhile,
we have a short supply of housing. We have millennials
and gen z having a difficult time with family formation,
et cetera, because all they can afford is apartments and renting.
(21:50):
When we return, I want to talk about this in
light of new and entrees into California politics. Scott Wiener, Well,
he's been in California politics a long time, but he's
trying to go to the national stage and the phony
Democrat position when it comes to housing. That's next on
the John Girardi Show, all right, after the fun of
(22:11):
a story about a couple in San Francisco accidentally buying
a dirt alley and thinking that they had bought a
one million dollar investment property for only twenty five thousand
dollars at a county auction in San Francisco, and then
getting mad at the county, thinking the county was the
bad guys. The ultimate It was like the ultimate story
(22:31):
of wealthy liberal boomer privilege. I want to shift gears
into again more of this whole nonsense surrounding housing in California,
and like that little story from San Francisco is such
a funny like lens into this because here's this boomer
(22:52):
couple obviously with more money to spend than they don't
than they know what to do about. I don't recall
anywhere the story it talking about their kids or if
they even have kids, and buying up all this property.
They have a home in Reno, they have a home
in San Francisco. They're trying to buy an investment property
(23:13):
across the street from their own house. And you have
these tensions throughout the whole country, but especially in blue
states like California, where the housing there's too little housing.
The housing supply is too short. It's not good. We
have too little housing. We're not building enough housing to
meet the demand, and this is a massive hindrance. There
(23:36):
are certain kinds of things whose cost has increased at
a rate that is way disproportionate to inflation. Home values, healthcare,
and college education. Those are some of the main things
whose costs have just increased at a rate that far
exceeds inflation over the course of the last thirty years.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
And wow, those three things are the most heavily.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Regulated and subsidized, and this focus of so much government
intervention and for some reason all these things have skyrocketing
costs totally makes sense in the context of college education.
And I think one of the problems has been this
over focus on the part of the dominant political class,
which is baby boomers. What is the baby boomer focus
(24:28):
when it comes to properties in real estate and public
policies surrounding building and home ownership and things like that. Well,
it's to have the value of your home increase. Boomers
bought their homes in the nineties and two thousands. They
already own their homes. So they have no interest in
increasing the housing supply so that the cost of homes
(24:52):
goes down so that they're more available and attainable by
people entering the market. If anything, they want their homes
to be more and more scarce commodities, so that the
value of their home increases and they have more equity.
Then they can either sell their home to downgrade to
(25:12):
a cheaper place in Florida, they could do that. I mean,
there's a lot that they can do. But the interest,
just the pure financial interest that boomers as a generation
have when it comes to housing policy is not too built,
and so from this comes the stereotype of the NIMBI,
(25:33):
the not in my backyard, where Liberals love this stereotype
because they can pretend like these are all Republicans, but
they're not. It has nothing to do with Republican versus democrat.
It has everything just to do with my personal me
being a boomer here, my personal economic advantage is to
not have more real estate develop around me. The more
(25:55):
real estate that develops around me, the worse off it is.
There's no benefit to having more houses personally. There's no
benefit for a boomer who owns their own home and
wants the value of their home to keep going up,
up up, up up up up, There's no benefit for
them to have more housing built around them. If anything,
it's only downside. You set up an apartment complex near
(26:20):
my house, maybe people from a lower socioeconomic background move in,
and maybe they commit more crimes, and it decreases the
value of homes, including my home, within this neighborhood. And
that's an understandable thing to dislike. I'm not like totally
blaming that mindset, but this is sort of the generational
(26:44):
posture that boomers have set up, and baby boomers there
are so many of them, and they've been so culturally, politically,
electorally dominant in American politics from the nineties to still today.
(27:05):
What do I mean still today? Look who's the president?
Look at the last two presidents, three presidents. I guess
if you count Trump twice and Barack Obama two's I
think he's kind of yeah, Barack Obama's a boomer.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Uh. Our presidents have been.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
We've had boomer presidents from like Bill Clinton onward. Basically,
I don't know. I guess it is Clinton like a
little too old, and or Clinton and Biden a little
too old to be considered boomers.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I don't know. Regardless, it's all people sort of that
generational cohort, that sort of generational way of thinking, and
I think public policy has sort of reflected that. Now.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I think the Trump administration is recognizing this problem that
home ownership is just unaccessible, unattainable by this huge percentage
of Americans who are entering the wanting to start a family,
wanting to start home ownership market, millennials and millennials for
(28:05):
whom this is getting like late in the process, Like
I'm kind of right dead smack in the middle of
the millennial generation. I'm thirty eight, so probably, and I'm
very blessed and fortunate to have like the most wonderful
boomer parents who helped me out with home ownership. And
you know, I'm not going to act like I'm you know,
(28:26):
I'm Johnny independent here. No, I had my parents loved
me and helped me out in ways that I'm profoundly
grateful for. And I recognize not everyone has that kind
of help. So, by the way, let me just be clear. Also,
this is not a diatribe against every single individual boomer
who is listening to this. Okay, there is no class
of human beings who are all angels or all devils.
(28:51):
At my own boomer parents are like the most wonderful
people I know. So this is not like some blanket condemnation.
But you do see this sort of generational differences as
far as personal individual financial interest. So the liberal approach
(29:12):
because I think it allows them to set up someone
they envision as a Republican as the bad guy. There
are a lot of these liberals who have supported what
they call Yimbyism, yes in my backyard ism, and they
define that in contrast to NIMBYism, not in my backyard.
And I think the whole movement is premised around the
idea of an evil Orange County Republican woman. I think
(29:36):
that's that genuinely, the whole premise of Yimbiism is around
the idea of there is some rich Republican Karen who
gets her hair done every week, like two hundred dollars.
I don't know how much hair cost. Two hundred dollar
(29:56):
hair thing every week. I'm a man, I have no
I do what haircuts cost. There's a rich, evil Republican
woman in Orange County out there who is the sort
of prototype of the NIMBI that liberals love to hate.
And this woman will write to her county supervisor or
(30:19):
to her city council member to say, I don't.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Want an apartment complex near my home because the pores
will live there and it'll decrease my property values.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
And they're able to put all of their stereotypes about
Republicans onto this imaginary hypothetical woman that she is racist
because she doesn't want black people to have an apartment
near her, that she does racist. She doesn't want Mexicans
down an apartment near her, She doesn't want her home
value to go down and liberals have constructed basically a
whole mindset around housing policy. Basically, I think around the
(30:59):
fiction of the pretend Republican Orange County Karen woman who
doesn't want apartments near her, and so they craft this
whole yimby idea with it among Democrats in California politics, yes,
in my backyard, yes I'm pro housing. And they act
(31:20):
like they're fixing the problem of a lack of housing
supply in California. But the problem is they want to
fix it very much on their extremely limited terms. Well,
we want more housing in California, but not something that's
going to contribute to suburban sprawl. Because suburbia is bad.
(31:40):
Suburbs are bad because these sort of millennial yimbi policy
wonks and politicians who are sort of young gen xers,
late baby boomer or early baby boomers, they still they
listen to Green Day and they were growing up and
(32:01):
Green Day we do rax sums about living in the
suburbs is bad.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And I have a very.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Comfortable childhood and I don't have much to rebel against.
So suburbia is bad because we're still rebelling against our
parents when we're forty years old. Why is suburbia bad. Well,
then they construct the theory for why they don't think
suburbia is good.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Well, it doesn't promote walkable, livable human cities. It requires
people to drive, and that's bad for the environment for
people to drive distances to commute to work. And individual
single family homes take up more water, they take up
more carbon emissions, they take up more gas, and blah
(32:50):
blah blah blah blah, and they're bad for the environment.
So the yimbi movement, the liberal yimbi movement, as typified
by no better to typified than by Scott Wiener. Scott
Wiener California state Senator. He represents the heart of San Francisco.
He's now running for Nancy Pelosi's district for the US
House of Representatives and he's like the yimbie politician in Sacramento.
(33:18):
So what is what is his proposal for fixing the
lack of housing in California. Well, more infill urban apartments.
That's what we need.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
If you have an urban area with a vacant lot,
we remove all the restrictions California has on any other
kind of building for urban infill apartment complexes. And if
those can be California State certified California State subsidized lower
income housing.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
All the better.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Now, the problem is it's not really solving some of
these big problems. First, it's not realistically creating enough how
to reverse the broad based trend. The broad based trend
is there's not enough supply to meet demand. Prices go
unsustainably high, and there isn't enough housing for millennials gen
(34:12):
Z to get into the market, especially at a price
that they can afford, and thereby start family formation and
having more kids. Apartments don't solve that. You're not owning
your apartment, you're renting it. And then try having more
(34:33):
than one or two kids when you are an apartment dweller.
It's not happening, or people don't want to do it.
If people want to have God for you, Heaven forfend,
maybe more than two children.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
You know what they want.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
They want a house in a neighborhood with a backyard,
where they're not going in and out of a hallway
to lead you've worked for the day. They don't want
to live in an apartment. I think liberals have all
these romantic ideas of like European.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Cities, Oh, European city is a walkable cities where the
people can instead of driving everywhere with their cars.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
It's like, okay, well, yeah, you know who has all
countries that are below replacement level of birthrates?
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Europe?
Speaker 1 (35:23):
And also you're thinking of like a couple of city
centers and very historic towns in Europe. You're not thinking
about like most of the rest of Europe. So this
is the liberal answer to California housing lack of supply problems,
et cetera. It's all this incredibly constrained solutions that don't
(35:50):
really fix the problem, but it makes the people proposing
it feel better.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
What would really fix the problem is a Texas approach.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Texas doesn't have this grand you know, hand ringing ogita
over house Oh well we need to loan or lower
income houses that they just let everyone build whatever the
flip they want. They just let people build, and guess what,
there's a ton of housing there, and people move there
(36:19):
because there's a ton of available housing. In fact, too
many people move there, which causes housing prices to go
up there because there's so much demand. But if every
state just operated, if California just got rid of all
the laws it has regarding environmental restrictions on building, labor
code restrictions on building, this restrict on building, and just
let this is a choice. We have made a policy
(36:41):
choice to not allow more housing, and the yimbie liberals
can sort of pretend like they're fixing the problem with
their barely you know, touching the edges of it solutions.
It's not solving anything. When we return, is intergenerational anger productive?
(37:02):
That's next on the John Gerardy Show.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
There's a great.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Piece in National Review written by Michael Brennan Dherty that
I retweeted Boomers didn't pass on the American Dream, and
it talks about how basically baby Boomers sort of took
over America culturally, politically, financially, etc. In the year nineteen
ninety one, Boomers were between the ages of twenty seven
(37:27):
and forty five. They were just coming into real power
across the cultural, financial, and political realm. Bill Clinton would
be elected then the very next year he was the
Boomers candidate, replacing old greatest generation George H. W.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Bush.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
He talks about how basically boomers inherited this incredible America,
this incredibly strong, prosperous America from their greatest generation forbears
and I guess I wonder about I agree with everything
he says, but the problem is, I wonder how profitable
it is to have these intergenerational grudges where it's going
(38:01):
to result in some real bad public policy. And probably
exhibit a of it is zoron Mamdani, where millennials and
Gen z are going to look at what they don't
have politically, economically, and they're going to take it out
on boomers.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
That'll do it.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
John Jarroady shows you next time on Power Talk.
We all need some light material these days. We all
need something light before Thanksgiving throwdowns over when Aunt Karen
talks about Donald Trump or something like that, and then
the fight is on. So, in that spirit of wanting
to to give you a story to talk about around
(00:21):
the Thanksgiving table that can help everyone to laugh and
maybe can have some light intergenerational ribbing, a little bit
of making fun of boomers, I present to you this
story taken from Let's See My Wife, The shadow producer
of the John Girardi Show, Holly Girardi, sent me this story.
(00:44):
This is from the San Francisco Standard. They thought they
bought a home, they ended up with dirt alley. This
is the most hilarious story I've seen in the last month,
and it is just typical of all things that are
annoying at a kind of intergenerational level, lots of things
(01:05):
that make millennials resentful of boomers. So this involves Karen
esque attitudes on the part of a boomer lady and
her husband in San Francisco real estate purchases which only
boomers can do because millennials don't have enough money. And
(01:26):
there's all these statistics out now recently that have.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Come out about.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You know, the median age of a first time home
buyer is forty now, which is like ten years older
than what it was in nineteen ninety one. That boomers
are still the most common home buyers in America. Millennials
and Gen z are finding the possibility of home ownership
(01:53):
more and more and more unaffordable and more and more unattainable,
and it's this really bad thing in the economy. And
they're all kinds of these resentments about how boomers have
maintained and not passed on generational wealth in the way
that uh, you know they had received from their forbears
blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, so there's all these
like seething underlying boomer versus millennial things. Well, this story
(02:22):
is hilarious. Out of San Francisco for about one month
this spring, JJ Hollingsworth and Ala Mayhew Mrgia. So I
think JJ Hollingsworth is the wife and Lay Hugh or partner,
and La hu Mrgia is the partner. Maile thought they
(02:44):
had bought a one million dollar home in the Sunset
for a mere twenty five thousand dollars. How did they
find themselves In this temporarily euphoric state of mind, the
married couple's sealed bid for one nine to two six
Kirkham Street in San Francisco had been declared the winner
at a May auction held by the San Francisco tax
(03:06):
collector for properties with years of unpaid property taxes. The
two celebrated with friends and told the longtime tenants of
the two unit building just across an alleyway from their
twenty fourth Avenue home that they were the new landlords.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
All right. These people already own a home.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
They're such well off boomers, you see from the photo.
These are perfect age range boomers. They already owned their
home in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Their real estate speculating.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
All right, And they saw a listing for a property
across the street for them from them that they thought
was a one million dollar property available for a city
city slash County of San Francisco auction for twenty five
thousand bucks. They thought they snatched this up. As the
saying go, if it seems too good to be true.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It probably is.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
But before they could collect the first rent check, which,
by the way, it's such a funny thing about like liberals,
the differences between liberal boomers versus liberal gen zers, where
liberal gen zers think are so resentful of their landlords,
and liberal boomers are like liberal boomers, live like conservatives,
(04:31):
but vote like radical liberals. They think they're these super
radical liberals, but they're the most ruthless capitalists possible.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So here these people are.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
They want to be landlords, collecting rent checks from you know,
from renters.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Anyway you'll learn about what kind of sort of pretend hippies.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
These these boomers are. In just a second.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Before they could collect the first rent check, they realized
something wasn't right. The wake up call came when the
city refunded nearly all of the eight thousand dollars they
had paid for the transfer tax. That's when I figured
it out. I don't own this house, Hollingsworth said, What
do I own? After checking with a friend who's a
(05:15):
real estate agent, Hollingsworth learned that they had not bought
a nineteen twenty four to nine excuse they had not
bought one nine two four through one nine twenty six
Kirkham Street, a semi detached rental property with views of
the Marine headlands and the top of the Golden gate Bridge.
They were, in fact, the new owners of an eighty
(05:35):
three foot long, seven foot wide road called Dirt Alley,
complete with views of the two bedroom, three bathroom duplex
they had.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Hoped to buy that they thought they bought.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
So.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
These people see a property being auctioned by City and
County of San Francisco, has unpaid the sales taxes on it,
like an unclaimed property. Basically, they see that it's being
auctioned off by the City County of San Francisco. The
(06:09):
auction is at twenty five thousand dollars. They're like the
only people who bid. They get this thing for twenty
five thousand dollars. They think that they've just bought a
one million dollar like rental like apartments, rental property that
they can let out to tenants and collect rent. They
think they've just bought this thing for a song. No,
(06:32):
they bought the alley next door to it.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
How did this happen?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Hollingsworth sixty nine thought, followed quickly by why would someone
own this? You bought it, lady, She checked with her
realtor friend after she bought it. Lady, if you think
you're getting a one million dollar property for twenty five
thousand dollars. Maybe you can spend the money on a
(06:58):
realtor on the front end and to figure out that
maybe you, you know, maybe you are not in fact
buying the property. In fact, you're buying the dirt road
next to it. They were shocked, then embarrassed. Then I'm
not sure if I'm allowed to say it ticked off.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
They're ticked off.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Well, I mean, I can understand being shocked, embarrassed, angry,
but ticked off like you screwed it up, lady, You
fell for the idea that you were buying a one
million dollar property for twenty five thousand dollars. Now, now
the couple who run a nonprofit music venue out of
(07:44):
their home. This is the most San Francisco bull crap
I've ever heard.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So these are let me get this straight.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
These are boomers who own their home in San Francisco,
run a nonprofit music venue out of their existing home.
They're thinking they're doing real estate speculation across the street.
Clearly the husband must have made his money, or maybe
she did, I don't know. They already made their money,
they own a home in San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Just the.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Call of these people to be like, oh, yes, we'll
do real estate speculation across the street and we'll have
renters get a one million dollar property for twenty five thousand.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Now the couple who run a nonprofit music venue out
of their home are trying to get their money back.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Can you imagine the call of this person.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
You were stupid enough to bid on a dirt road
without checking fully, and now you're angry.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
You want your money.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Back, all right, but it's not easy, the article continues,
because it requires a vote by the Board of Supervisors
to overturn the sale, something that has happened only once before. Plus,
the tax collectors on office said it was clear about
what lot the couple were bidding on and followed strict
state guidelines for the sale. So the County San Francisco
(09:11):
is weird because I think it's like the city and
the county are sort of the same entity. The County
tax collector office is like, no, we told them what
lot it was. We followed all of our proper procedure.
These people just didn't check what it was. Regardless, if
(09:35):
the board doesn't vote their way, the couple are willing
to take legal action to have the accidental alley oops,
taking off their hands. I don't pick fights, said Hollingsworth,
a self described cowgirl who grew up on a cattle
ranch in Colorado. I fight, but I don't pick them.
What do you mean pickfights? You're the one who bought
(09:57):
the wrong house, lady.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
This is the most.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Karen behavior I've ever seen, acting like she is the
aggrieved party because she bought the wrong plot of land.
Last year, the office of the San Francisco Treasurer and
Tax Collector decided to look into a new tact to
define owners for the hundreds of slivers of land around
(10:20):
the city that are unsuitable for development. These little lots
had previously been included in general sales of tax delinquent properties,
but the treasure didn't get much interest from investors. Opening
the bids to the general public caused a significant amount
of distress for adjacent property owners, said Amanda conn And Freed,
the office's chief of Policy and Communications. So blah blah
(10:41):
blah blah blah blah blah. All right, let let's keep
going here. Where where's the real the real meat of
the story. So uh d d da da da Okay.
The city set set a set of letters in March
(11:02):
setting April thirtieth as a deadline forbids on this little
no man's land piece of property. This second letter is
the one that caught the attention of our boomer couple here,
Hollingsworth and Mergia. They were intrigued when they saw the
address just across dirt alley from their home and the
minimum bid of one dollar. They kept the letter on
their dining room table for a month before deciding on
(11:24):
the last day to go for it. It's an impromptu
real estate strategy that has worked for Hollingsworth. The composer
like these boomers who have like no job and for
some reason they have like gazillion dollar properties they own.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
In San Francisco.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
The composer bought her home in twenty twelve after falling
in love with the forte symbol, the musical equivalent of
loud on the facade, and the perfect raised dining room
to host classical and jazz concerts. Oh my gosh, these
are like the most entitled boomers world. She bought the
home with an inheritance from her father that she parlayed
(12:01):
through a tax deferred trade of commercial property known as
a ten thirty one exchange with some of the inheritance
left over, she bought another home sight unseen. How many
homes is this boomer Karen gonna buy? She bought another
home sight unseen near Reno, Nevada, on the last day
before the tax advantage expired. A former music school classmate
(12:23):
who is homeless now lives there rent free, with time
running out before the auction. Because God forbid a millennial
married couple with children would want to buy a home somewhere,
Let's have this old Karen buy every available house possible
and then feel aggrieved that she didn't buy a million
(12:44):
dollar apartment complex for twenty five thousand dollars. They knew
the bid was nowhere near the value of the home
at the address, so basically they bid on like it
was like one two three, you know, Smith Avenue that
they thought they were buying. The listing for this dirt
alley next door, which they did in fact buy, was
(13:06):
one two three A Smith Avenue, And they didn't notice
the A and what the A meant.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So they thought this.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Old boomer couple in San Francisco, not old perfect at
the right exact boomer age couple in San Francisco. They
think they're buying a one million dollar apartment complex for
twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Instead, they spent twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
On the dirt alley in between the apartment complex and
its neighboring building. They knew their bid was a long shot,
but figured their only competition was their neighbors. We would
always regret if we didn't do it, wouldn't you, Hollingsworth said,
wouldn't you wonder what could have happened? No, not if
(13:52):
I had studied it and realized I was bidding on
a dirt alley. In all the excitement, they missed critical
pece of information contained in the letter, like the blot
and lot number, which showed that the alley, not the
home next to it, was up for grabs. They also
seemingly skimmed over the part of the letter stating that
the auction was for parcels quote rendered unusable by their size, location,
(14:16):
or other conditions. So the gal from the County of
San Francisco tax office, who's trying to defend the county
for you know, it's not the county's fault that these
people made a stupid decision. The gal from county says,
we really do try every time we talk about this
to be very clear about what these are. But we
(14:36):
can't control what people hear or read. We did our
best to put it out there.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
As many times as we could.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
So this is hilarious now that they're like talking about Okay,
so there's a way out for this couple. The sale
can be rescinded if their supervisor brings the matter to
the board for a vote. They were reluctant to ask
their supervisor at the time of the sale Joel and
Guardio for help given their opposition to closing the Great Highway.
(15:11):
So these boomers are like such politics that they're so
like politically like. It's like this is the prototype of
the annoying boomer. Karen, liberal woman. She doesn't want to
ask her county supervisor for help for this county issue
because she doesn't like his politics. This is not the
(15:32):
kind of thing that a county supervisor gives a crap
about your politics.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
It's like a constituent services issue. No, I don't approve
of him. I don't approve of his views on road widening,
so I'm not gonna ask him for help.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
After and Guardio was recalled, Hollingsworth wrote to his replacement
bea Alcarez resistance, but she was out of office in
less than two hundred hours, so they're in a holding
pattern until Mayor Daniel Lurie appoints a replacement for Alcarez.
There's another option right to the board clerk directly asking
to overturn the tax sale, and it will be added
(16:15):
to a future agenda.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Freed said, all.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Right, So anyway, long and short of it is, this
is hilarious. You've got Karen esque boomers with implausible amounts
of money getting angry at their own mistake, doing like
the Karen esque.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I'm gonna die, demand to see the manager.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Only in this case it's like county officials because she
accidentally bought a dirt alley for twenty five thousand dollars.
This is the this is the funniest story in the country. Okay,
I'm going to retweet this from my Twitter account Twitter
dot com slash Fresno Johnny at Fresno Johnny. Okay, we're
(17:02):
retweeting it now here we are and get this story out,
read it with my voice around the Thanksgiving table, and
have fun with it. Do some gentle ribbing of boomers.
Do some gentle ribbing of liberals, do some gentle ribbing
of the fact that these this couple, they run a
(17:24):
musical nonprofit out of their backyard. Have fun with it
when we return the actual sort of problems that are
underlying all this. That's next On the John Girardi Show,
I just talked about this hilarious story out of San Francisco.
That's the whole thing deals with this couple in San Francisco,
(17:48):
the ultimate liberal boomer, Karen and her husband, who have
for some reason, just these implausibly high amounts of money
to use on real estate speculation, which is like.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Hilaire.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Basically, this is a massive generational political problem that millennials
and Gen Z can't afford homes, and baby boomers are
still the most common home buyers in America, and housing
supplies in such short such short demand, and with boomers
buying up supply like it's there's a lot of sort
(18:26):
of intergenerational resentment that's going on over home ownership. And
to see this story about this obviously pretty well off,
very liberal couple in San Francisco who own their home
in San Francisco but wanted to buy the apartment complex
(18:47):
across the street for them from them and thought they
were buying it through a county auction for twenty five
thousand dollars when actually like a million dollar property and
they thought they were getting it for twenty five thousand dollars.
Actually they were buying the basically unusable dirt alley that's
next door to it. That was the thing that was
(19:09):
on sale. It was basically the county trying to get
off of their hands these little bits of unusable property.
This Karen couple didn't like read all the paperwork that
they had to read through. They didn't realize what lot
they were buying, they didn't realize all the stuff the
county included to say, this is a sale of mostly
(19:31):
unusable property. We're telling you this is not very useful property.
And they're mad at the county and like the boomer
Karen lady like she didn't want to take the issue
to her county supervisor construct well, because I don't approve
of his politics. Like all this, this hilarious comedy of
(19:54):
errors that this couple allowed to themselves to be interviewed
for this piece in the same Francisco based newspaper, as
if they are the sympathetic figures in it, which they
are manifestly not.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
They look like complete morons. But this is the thing they're.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Like real, like generational tensions here, like generational tensions among
liberals for one thing, where the mom Donnie voting gen.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Z and you know gen Z and millennials.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
They look at this woman and her husband who own
their own home in San Francisco, living obviously quite well,
have another home in Reno, run a musical nonprofit out
of their backyard, like they're these grand hippies. Meanwhile, they're
sitting on apparently a ton of cash and a ton
of equity, and what are they trying to do. They're
(20:47):
trying to do real estate speculations so they can be
landlords and own this million dollar property and collect rent
from tenants, which, boy, millennials and zoomers hate that. Like
few things zoomers and millennials hate more than landlords collecting
rent and rent prices going up, up, up, up, up,
inexorably due to various market forces. But market forces that
(21:12):
do have a personal face in the face of their landlord,
who is deciding what rents to charge, et cetera, based
on market forces, and blah blah.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Blah, but does make a choice.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
The idea of boomers buying up properties is a problem
of black rock and investors and boomers buying up properties. Meanwhile,
we have a short supply of housing. We have millennials
and gen z having a difficult time with family formation,
et cetera, because all they can afford is apartments and renting.
(21:50):
When we return, I want to talk about this in
light of new and entrees into California politics. Scott Wiener, Well,
he's been in California politics a long time, but he's
trying to go to the national stage and the phony
Democrat position when it comes to housing. That's next on
the John Girardi Show, all right, after the fun of
(22:11):
a story about a couple in San Francisco accidentally buying
a dirt alley and thinking that they had bought a
one million dollar investment property for only twenty five thousand
dollars at a county auction in San Francisco, and then
getting mad at the county, thinking the county was the
bad guys. The ultimate It was like the ultimate story
(22:31):
of wealthy liberal boomer privilege. I want to shift gears
into again more of this whole nonsense surrounding housing in California,
and like that little story from San Francisco is such
a funny like lens into this because here's this boomer
(22:52):
couple obviously with more money to spend than they don't
than they know what to do about. I don't recall
anywhere the story it talking about their kids or if
they even have kids, and buying up all this property.
They have a home in Reno, they have a home
in San Francisco. They're trying to buy an investment property
(23:13):
across the street from their own house. And you have
these tensions throughout the whole country, but especially in blue
states like California, where the housing there's too little housing.
The housing supply is too short. It's not good. We
have too little housing. We're not building enough housing to
meet the demand, and this is a massive hindrance. There
(23:36):
are certain kinds of things whose cost has increased at
a rate that is way disproportionate to inflation. Home values, healthcare,
and college education. Those are some of the main things
whose costs have just increased at a rate that far
exceeds inflation over the course of the last thirty years.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
And wow, those three things are the most heavily.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Regulated and subsidized, and this focus of so much government
intervention and for some reason all these things have skyrocketing
costs totally makes sense in the context of college education.
And I think one of the problems has been this
over focus on the part of the dominant political class,
which is baby boomers. What is the baby boomer focus
(24:28):
when it comes to properties in real estate and public
policies surrounding building and home ownership and things like that. Well,
it's to have the value of your home increase. Boomers
bought their homes in the nineties and two thousands. They
already own their homes. So they have no interest in
increasing the housing supply so that the cost of homes
(24:52):
goes down so that they're more available and attainable by
people entering the market. If anything, they want their homes
to be more and more scarce commodities, so that the
value of their home increases and they have more equity.
Then they can either sell their home to downgrade to
(25:12):
a cheaper place in Florida, they could do that. I mean,
there's a lot that they can do. But the interest,
just the pure financial interest that boomers as a generation
have when it comes to housing policy is not too built,
and so from this comes the stereotype of the NIMBI,
(25:33):
the not in my backyard, where Liberals love this stereotype
because they can pretend like these are all Republicans, but
they're not. It has nothing to do with Republican versus democrat.
It has everything just to do with my personal me
being a boomer here, my personal economic advantage is to
not have more real estate develop around me. The more
(25:55):
real estate that develops around me, the worse off it is.
There's no benefit to having more houses personally. There's no
benefit for a boomer who owns their own home and
wants the value of their home to keep going up,
up up, up up up up, There's no benefit for
them to have more housing built around them. If anything,
it's only downside. You set up an apartment complex near
(26:20):
my house, maybe people from a lower socioeconomic background move in,
and maybe they commit more crimes, and it decreases the
value of homes, including my home, within this neighborhood. And
that's an understandable thing to dislike. I'm not like totally
blaming that mindset, but this is sort of the generational
(26:44):
posture that boomers have set up, and baby boomers there
are so many of them, and they've been so culturally, politically,
electorally dominant in American politics from the nineties to still today.
(27:05):
What do I mean still today? Look who's the president?
Look at the last two presidents, three presidents. I guess
if you count Trump twice and Barack Obama two's I
think he's kind of yeah, Barack Obama's a boomer.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Uh. Our presidents have been.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
We've had boomer presidents from like Bill Clinton onward. Basically,
I don't know. I guess it is Clinton like a
little too old, and or Clinton and Biden a little
too old to be considered boomers.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I don't know. Regardless, it's all people sort of that
generational cohort, that sort of generational way of thinking, and
I think public policy has sort of reflected that. Now.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I think the Trump administration is recognizing this problem that
home ownership is just unaccessible, unattainable by this huge percentage
of Americans who are entering the wanting to start a family,
wanting to start home ownership market, millennials and millennials for
(28:05):
whom this is getting like late in the process, Like
I'm kind of right dead smack in the middle of
the millennial generation. I'm thirty eight, so probably, and I'm
very blessed and fortunate to have like the most wonderful
boomer parents who helped me out with home ownership. And
you know, I'm not going to act like I'm you know,
(28:26):
I'm Johnny independent here. No, I had my parents loved
me and helped me out in ways that I'm profoundly
grateful for. And I recognize not everyone has that kind
of help. So, by the way, let me just be clear. Also,
this is not a diatribe against every single individual boomer
who is listening to this. Okay, there is no class
of human beings who are all angels or all devils.
(28:51):
At my own boomer parents are like the most wonderful
people I know. So this is not like some blanket condemnation.
But you do see this sort of generational differences as
far as personal individual financial interest. So the liberal approach
(29:12):
because I think it allows them to set up someone
they envision as a Republican as the bad guy. There
are a lot of these liberals who have supported what
they call Yimbyism, yes in my backyard ism, and they
define that in contrast to NIMBYism, not in my backyard.
And I think the whole movement is premised around the
idea of an evil Orange County Republican woman. I think
(29:36):
that's that genuinely, the whole premise of Yimbiism is around
the idea of there is some rich Republican Karen who
gets her hair done every week, like two hundred dollars.
I don't know how much hair cost. Two hundred dollar
(29:56):
hair thing every week. I'm a man, I have no
I do what haircuts cost. There's a rich, evil Republican
woman in Orange County out there who is the sort
of prototype of the NIMBI that liberals love to hate.
And this woman will write to her county supervisor or
(30:19):
to her city council member to say, I don't.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Want an apartment complex near my home because the pores
will live there and it'll decrease my property values.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
And they're able to put all of their stereotypes about
Republicans onto this imaginary hypothetical woman that she is racist
because she doesn't want black people to have an apartment
near her, that she does racist. She doesn't want Mexicans
down an apartment near her, She doesn't want her home
value to go down and liberals have constructed basically a
whole mindset around housing policy. Basically, I think around the
(30:59):
fiction of the pretend Republican Orange County Karen woman who
doesn't want apartments near her, and so they craft this
whole yimby idea with it among Democrats in California politics, yes,
in my backyard, yes I'm pro housing. And they act
(31:20):
like they're fixing the problem of a lack of housing
supply in California. But the problem is they want to
fix it very much on their extremely limited terms. Well,
we want more housing in California, but not something that's
going to contribute to suburban sprawl. Because suburbia is bad.
(31:40):
Suburbs are bad because these sort of millennial yimbi policy
wonks and politicians who are sort of young gen xers,
late baby boomer or early baby boomers, they still they
listen to Green Day and they were growing up and
(32:01):
Green Day we do rax sums about living in the
suburbs is bad.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
And I have a very.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Comfortable childhood and I don't have much to rebel against.
So suburbia is bad because we're still rebelling against our
parents when we're forty years old. Why is suburbia bad. Well,
then they construct the theory for why they don't think
suburbia is good.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Well, it doesn't promote walkable, livable human cities. It requires
people to drive, and that's bad for the environment for
people to drive distances to commute to work. And individual
single family homes take up more water, they take up
more carbon emissions, they take up more gas, and blah
(32:50):
blah blah blah blah, and they're bad for the environment.
So the yimbi movement, the liberal yimbi movement, as typified
by no better to typified than by Scott Wiener. Scott
Wiener California state Senator. He represents the heart of San Francisco.
He's now running for Nancy Pelosi's district for the US
House of Representatives and he's like the yimbie politician in Sacramento.
(33:18):
So what is what is his proposal for fixing the
lack of housing in California. Well, more infill urban apartments.
That's what we need.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
If you have an urban area with a vacant lot,
we remove all the restrictions California has on any other
kind of building for urban infill apartment complexes. And if
those can be California State certified California State subsidized lower
income housing.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
All the better.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Now, the problem is it's not really solving some of
these big problems. First, it's not realistically creating enough how
to reverse the broad based trend. The broad based trend
is there's not enough supply to meet demand. Prices go
unsustainably high, and there isn't enough housing for millennials gen
(34:12):
Z to get into the market, especially at a price
that they can afford, and thereby start family formation and
having more kids. Apartments don't solve that. You're not owning
your apartment, you're renting it. And then try having more
(34:33):
than one or two kids when you are an apartment dweller.
It's not happening, or people don't want to do it.
If people want to have God for you, Heaven forfend,
maybe more than two children.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
You know what they want.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
They want a house in a neighborhood with a backyard,
where they're not going in and out of a hallway
to lead you've worked for the day. They don't want
to live in an apartment. I think liberals have all
these romantic ideas of like European.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Cities, Oh, European city is a walkable cities where the
people can instead of driving everywhere with their cars.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
It's like, okay, well, yeah, you know who has all
countries that are below replacement level of birthrates?
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Europe?
Speaker 1 (35:23):
And also you're thinking of like a couple of city
centers and very historic towns in Europe. You're not thinking
about like most of the rest of Europe. So this
is the liberal answer to California housing lack of supply problems,
et cetera. It's all this incredibly constrained solutions that don't
(35:50):
really fix the problem, but it makes the people proposing
it feel better.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
What would really fix the problem is a Texas approach.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Texas doesn't have this grand you know, hand ringing ogita
over house Oh well we need to loan or lower
income houses that they just let everyone build whatever the
flip they want. They just let people build, and guess what,
there's a ton of housing there, and people move there
(36:19):
because there's a ton of available housing. In fact, too
many people move there, which causes housing prices to go
up there because there's so much demand. But if every
state just operated, if California just got rid of all
the laws it has regarding environmental restrictions on building, labor
code restrictions on building, this restrict on building, and just
let this is a choice. We have made a policy
(36:41):
choice to not allow more housing, and the yimbie liberals
can sort of pretend like they're fixing the problem with
their barely you know, touching the edges of it solutions.
It's not solving anything. When we return, is intergenerational anger productive?
(37:02):
That's next on the John Gerardy Show.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
There's a great.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Piece in National Review written by Michael Brennan Dherty that
I retweeted Boomers didn't pass on the American Dream, and
it talks about how basically baby Boomers sort of took
over America culturally, politically, financially, etc. In the year nineteen
ninety one, Boomers were between the ages of twenty seven
(37:27):
and forty five. They were just coming into real power
across the cultural, financial, and political realm. Bill Clinton would
be elected then the very next year he was the
Boomers candidate, replacing old greatest generation George H. W.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Bush.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
He talks about how basically boomers inherited this incredible America,
this incredibly strong, prosperous America from their greatest generation forbears
and I guess I wonder about I agree with everything
he says, but the problem is, I wonder how profitable
it is to have these intergenerational grudges where it's going
(38:01):
to result in some real bad public policy. And probably
exhibit a of it is zoron Mamdani, where millennials and
Gen z are going to look at what they don't
have politically, economically, and they're going to take it out
on boomers.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
That'll do it.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
John Jarroady shows you next time on Power Talk.
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