Homeownership Hurdles to Gun Policy: Creative Fixes and Pro-Human Paths

Dave and Jerremy tackle housing affordability for younger generations, critiquing outdated 30-year mortgages and political neglect, while advocating creative financing like owner deals and better financial education. They stress civic education for participatory democracy, then preview a pro-human gun series—focusing beyond control on suicide epidemics and human-centered solutions to bridge divides.

Timestamps:

• (00:00) Housing Crunch: Affordability Challenges for the Young
• (06:14) Civic Essentials: Building Education for Engaged Citizens
• (11:39) Next Up: Pro-Human Lens on Guns and Control

📢 Solving America’s Problems Podcast – Real Solutions For Real Issues

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Episode Transcript

Alex (00:00):
Dave exposes how 30-year mortgages once aligned with life milestones, now
crushed by rising costs, as Jerremy urgeseducation on creative financing paths.
Yet the tension simmers—if necessitysparks invention, why does the
system still block the basics?

Dave (00:16):
If you are under the age of 40, it's house.
And

Jerremy (00:20):
Yes.

Dave (00:21):
when was the last time you heard a politician talk about housing?

Jerremy (00:23):
Oh, correct.
Correct.
And that is, it is so unique and sointeresting because we're also the
politicians right now are using thatas a divisive oh he's doing all these
things wrong because he is raisingall the prices because of whatever.
So he's making you, or she'smaking it more expensive.
And obviously everyone's kindalike blaming the Trump right now
'cause he is in office, right?

(00:44):
So it's hey, housing is expensive,it's your fault 'cause of
tariffs and blah, blah, blah.

Dave (00:48):
Yeah.

Jerremy (00:48):
Instead of, if I was in that exact role today,

Dave (00:52):
Which you

Jerremy (00:53):
I would say, yes, sir.
I would say, listen, I feel you.
I understand you.
I have been there before.
Here is the way you can afford housing.

Dave (01:03):
Yeah.

Jerremy (01:04):
Here's the path.
Let's educate you on this.
Here's the series of books.
Here's some series of videos.
Here's the series of of ideas and beliefs.
It's okay to start in an apartment.
That's perfectly normal,perfectly reasonable.
Very common in the us And thenwhile you're in this apartment,
you save aggressively, you beginto invest, you cut down expenses.

(01:24):
These are conversations that wejust do not have anywhere right now.
We don't have it in the office.
We don't have, he's upgrading theballroom and bro's not talking anything
about housing and the cost of housing.

Dave (01:36):
there isn't, but there's nothing on housing.
The

Jerremy (01:38):
No chat.

Dave (01:39):
If there's no discussion on it, then.
Regardless of what the policy is or isn't,then you are effectively saying what the
pains that you are feeling don't matter.
because I'm gonna go workon, crypto, blah, blah, blah.
It's okay, that's not helping like a youngfamily start a family and afford a house.

(02:00):
And look, I, my very first house thatI afforded, I, man, me and my wife at
the time, we scrimped, we saved, we hadto borrow money from friends and family
in order to figure out down payments.
And within five years, we wouldn'thave qualified for our house because
we couldn't have afforded it.
The price of the house kept on goingup and up and up and up and within 10

(02:25):
years, it was completely out of sightbecause of, again, the government
was creating these loose standards.
And that's how we got the 2008 crash.
Because I'd bought my house in 96then by 2008, like I, it was, the
price of the house was insanity.
And that was driven up by,by government programs.

(02:46):
So like I hear you on yeah,there's ways to do it.
Yeah.
But there is no governmentpolicy right now that is that.
Helping first time home buyers reallyget in the door and start that process.
I was lucky because I wasable to start at my twenties.
Most people are not buying theirfirst houses until their forties.

(03:09):
That's a lot, like that's 20 years of

Jerremy (03:12):
missed out equity appreciation.

Dave (03:14):
wealth that, you don't got, like you're just dumping it into rent.
I'm like

Jerremy (03:18):
Yeah.

Dave (03:19):
that freaks me out, dude.

Jerremy (03:20):
Yeah.
We,

Dave (03:21):
a 30 year mortgage.
The whole idea of a 30 year mortgage
A house in your thirties, right?
And pay it off in 30 years so thatwhen you retire at 65, you don't
have a house payment anymore.
30 year mortgage wasn't justpulled out of somebody's ass.
That was the actual structuralreason for a 30 year

Jerremy (03:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Dave (03:43):
go to most countries, like if you go to Turkey right now, they don't
even know what a mortgage is like.
Like

Jerremy (03:47):
most countries don't.
Yeah.
Most countries.

Dave (03:49):
For your place.
That's it, right?
There is no mortgage.
If there is, it's a small mortgage.
So I don't know, man.

Jerremy (03:55):
Yeah.
But that's the same way.
Mexico and those mostcountries don't have mortgages.

Dave (04:02):
Yeah.

Jerremy (04:03):
to buy their houses in cash.
And that's a very interesting.
Way to approach it.
It's not a capitalisticsociety necessarily, but

Dave (04:12):
But the price

Jerremy (04:13):
'cause

Dave (04:13):
would be less, I'm guessing, or

Jerremy (04:15):
the price of the house is less, but the people
also make less money though.
So it's a very interesting blend.
But again, I do think it's a conversationthat for a president to have and to
speak on, or congressmen and womento speak on and start educating our.
Twenties and thirties, ourmillennial millennials and
Gen Zs and Gen Xs or whatever.

(04:37):
Here's how you can buy a house.
Here's the way it looks.
There's ways to get a mortgage,

Dave (04:45):
Yeah.

Jerremy (04:45):
Like subject to you can reclaim someone's current mortgage and
be paying what they currently paid.
You can do owner financing.
There's all differentways to structure deals.
There's so many differentopportunities and or.
Go buy something that's reallyinexpensive and live in it for a while.

Dave (05:02):
Yeah.

Jerremy (05:03):
are plenty of states, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Florida, Tennessee,
Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas.
Starting, but like you cango buy a house for 200,000.

Dave (05:16):
I hear you.
But you also have to have the jobs.
So

Jerremy (05:19):
Yeah.
But you can afford a 200,000.

Dave (05:21):
co-located for a lot of jobs,

Jerremy (05:23):
but all the jobs are online now.
There's 90, 90% of jobs can be online.
Not all of them, but if,

Dave (05:28):
blown away by ai.
So unless you're turninga wrench, forget it.

Jerremy (05:33):
Hey man.
But that's the beauty of it though.
The beauty of it is

Dave (05:36):
Yeah.

Jerremy (05:36):
we have someone that goes, this is an American value and American
virtue, which is let's all figure it out.
Have to all figure it out.
We all have to go, all right,necessity is the mother of invention.
If AI's gonna take your job, gofind a job that you can create,

Dave (05:50):
Yeah.

Jerremy (05:51):
you can build, that you can source, that you can scale,
that you can go and create income.
'cause it's available, right?
But that's just not a message thatthe young, the youth is hearing right
now because that is very realistic.
It's extremely doableanywhere in the country.
You still have theability to figure it out.
It's a solution that can be solved for.

Dave (06:09):
Coming back to your favorite topic, education,

Jerremy (06:12):
Yeah.
Come on dude.

Dave (06:14):
when we're talking about all these things with voters like I said I know I
had a lot of civics, growing up, even inlike grade school, that was a piece of it.
Voting like there's bits and pieces of it,but, I don't know if that's anachronistic.
I don't know if civicsis even taught anymore.
I have no idea.
But What would you envision theeducation around voting or civic

(06:37):
engagement or just being a part ofyour community, of your country?
What would you like to see?
What is it today and whatwould you like to change?

Jerremy (06:46):
Today it's very, again, just taking it from my
15-year-old, it's very historical.
It's very memorized, meaninghere's who voted for the 19 19 10
presidential race and here, right?
So I was like, you're memorizing facts.
It would be very useful.
And again, I don't think it needsto happen until high school.

(07:09):
In fact, I don't actually believe thata lot of the majority of what we're
discussing in school needs to trulyhappen until high school like calculus.
You can, I'm gonna go down that diatribe.
I obviously know that education reformis gonna be the absolute number one
thing that's gonna shift this countryso fast, so quickly so exponentially.

(07:31):
But from the voting piece,that's just a standardized class.
That's something that isrequired in high schools, right?
We just start it.
When you are 15, 16, you're gonnastart just learning about how
this country works, how the votingworks, and you're gonna have.
Votes and you're gonna be casting ballotsand you're gonna come up with reforms,
you're gonna have discussions and it'sjust gonna be open because at that point

(07:53):
you also have gone through school whereyou know how to con converse with people.
You know how to actually haveconversations longer than three
seconds and saying hi, and thengoing right back to your phone.
You know how to actually talk.
You know how to be a human beingbecause you've been a being right
for the last five or six years as youhave progressed throughout school.

(08:14):
So that's gonna be a big changethat needs to happen because again,
a lot of people, the other reasonthey don't care is 'cause they're
not informed, they're not educated.

Dave (08:21):
yeah.

Jerremy (08:22):
question I get the most on stage or when I do, presentations
anywhere in the world, is whyaren't we teaching this in school?
Same thing in Australia.
And here I am in Australia right now, it's8:00 AM on Tuesday and I'm in the future.
Yeah, I'm in the future and.
It's the same down here.

(08:44):
And my answer is alwaysbecause they don't know.
The teachers don't know.
The board of directors don't know thepeople that are creating all the policies.
They don't know how it works, so they'renot gonna teach it 'cause they don't know.
And it's not a conspiracy theory, it'sjust simply the education's not there.
So I, yeah man, this isgonna be a big part of it.
This is gonna be a absolute100% inclusion into our key.

(09:08):
Determining metrics of the educationreform into schools and what
we're having big, deep, powerful,meaningful conversations about

Dave (09:16):
So

Jerremy (09:16):
do you think it's Oh, good.

Dave (09:17):
in high school, did you have a student government or model UN or any
of those sort of government, like I, hadnot only student government and Model un,
we also had a requirement to graduate,which was some sort of community.
Something like we, we had to

Jerremy (09:34):
Yeah,

Dave (09:35):
I

Jerremy (09:36):
that'd be so cool.

Dave (09:37):
In the community doing something.
Some sort of volunteer work.

Jerremy (09:40):
Yeah, we, I had to do that.
I had to do that for a scholarship.
The community service thing and thevoting or the, like the elections,
whatever, was very flimsy.
It wasn't.
Really talked about anywhere.
Again, there wasn't a process for it.
Like you just walked around and peoplewere like, you should vote for me.

(10:00):
And I'm like, for what?
What are you doing?
And there was, there wasno interaction with it.
It wasn't this thing for people tobe aware of and to educated by and to
have conversations about and around.
And I think that's somethingthat could easily be shifted.
Model you in.

Dave (10:17):
Right

Jerremy (10:17):
No.
I didn't do anything.
No.
Nah, nothing about Model U in anywhere.

Dave (10:23):
in this whole voting thing.
didn't talk about the things thataffect the voting campaign finance,
which I think is its own thing.
The role of ai.
We touched on it a little bit, likewe're in this post reality, there's a
ton of money flooding in you can buyyour way to your par pardon these days,
like it's gotten more pay to play.

(10:43):
I appreciated that we justfocused on voting on this.
Granted, it was a little bitmore difficult to program as our
listeners can gather from like theseven weeks that we spent on this.
Those things are like intrinsicallylinked, like campaign finance
and ai and the rest of it.
Do you think those are more important,less important as important?

(11:04):
Not, i'm seeing them as yeah,those are, those might be more
important than voting but maybe not.
I don't know.

Jerremy (11:11):
I would love to explore them.
I think these are definitely topicsthat we should dive deep into
Figure out more and more how it'sstructured and how it works now and how
much of an impact it really does have.
And yeah, the campaign financepart is just, I cannot wait to buy.
I cannot wait to bite into that apple.
so what, so if I, if our guest hadto vote on the next topic what topic

(11:38):
or topics would they be voting on?

Dave (11:39):
Oh, we have heard your votes and we are going on guns and guns.

Jerremy (11:44):
Oh, shoot.
We're talking gun control, dude.

Dave (11:48):
I wanna frame it a little bit differently.

Jerremy (11:50):
How are we framing it?

Dave (11:52):
I, so I've been spending the day like researching this because, I've,
I don't know, I don't know much aboutguns and gun control and gun guns this,
gun's that, But what was interesting thatcame up in the research my, AI research
overlords, was that it was very much,centered on gun control and gun laws

(12:15):
and like the definition, even though I'dsaid, and all the prompts, and what I
really wanted was I wanted it nonpartisan.
I wanted it, balanced and Iwant this, that, and the other.
The very basic thing that it starts withis that more that gun, that guns are
a problem and that they need to havemore laws and controls and regulations

(12:40):
in order to solve this problem.
I'm like, okay I hear you.
That's something I've heard mostof my life anyways, but I also
have heard from gun advocatessaying that's a bunch of hooey.
Like this is the most thing thatwe have in the United States and.
We're not seeing any big differences here.
Fair.
So I actually started reading theresearch that I got back from all
the ai, and this is what it said.

(13:02):
It, it did all of the gun control,gun this gun that gun this.
At the, in right in the middle of it,it said, oh, and by the way, of the
quote unquote gun violence in the UnitedStates, are people using guns for suicide?
I'm like,
Huh,

Jerremy (13:19):
bro.
That's crazy.

Dave (13:21):
and I'm like, okay, how much?
58%.
I'm like, what?
So we have an enormous problemwith guns in the United States,
and the biggest thing is suicide.
using

Jerremy (13:38):
Wow.

Dave (13:39):
So if you are a.
If you are a man in theUnited States and you
You are doing it with agun and it is an epidemic.

Jerremy (13:48):
Wow.
It's terrible.

Dave (13:49):
So that, that restarted my research into this because I, we
can't on one hand say we need allof this legislation, we need all of
these controls, we need all of theselaws on one hand, and not one of them
addresses what people are using guns for.

Jerremy (14:08):
Wow, dude.

Dave (14:09):
and that's where we started things.
So that's our next our next topic is guns.
We're gonna, we're gonna have akickoff episode here, coming up next,
but at the core of it, I want to justbecause it, people have very strong
feelings about guns and I wanna telleverybody who's listening, I hear you.
I.
And I wanna think of this as nota pro-gun or anti-gun exploration.

(14:34):
I want to focus this on being pro-human.
That is going to be the difference thatwe are going to be taking on this on this
journey of talking to advocates, talkingto gun owners, talking to people who have
been victims of gun violence, talking tolegislators, talking to all the people
in this discussion, we are gonna focusin on what's the right thing for humans,

(14:57):
not what's, not bad guns or good guns,or good guys with good guns, or, all of
those tropes and all of those things.
And, more legislation, less legislation.
We're gonna focus on reallywhat's going on in America.

Jerremy (15:09):
I love that take because that's who I am.
That's who you are.
And that's why we are doing what wedo, is because we understand that
politics right now, and for a very longtime has been extremely divisional.
Although I do realize I'm not going to fixthat entirely, I fully understand that.
What I do realize is that toomany people are saying yes or no.
This is it.
Yes or no, right Guns, no guns.

(15:32):
Whoa.
There's gotta be, there's gottabe something somewhere else
that we can agree on that bringsboth parties together on it.
And you saying.
It's not guns or no guns, it's howdo we keep humans alive longer?
That's the direction that we're gonnago in, and I absolutely love it.

(15:54):
We're gonna have really greatconversations, and again, for all of our
listeners, this is what I truly believe.
Politics should be about.
Two people, Dave and myself,from two totally different
upbringings, two totally different.
Very different ages, just reallydifferent, but having conversations
and having disagreements, discussingwhy we disagree on things, coming

(16:18):
up with informations, and thentaking both of what we disagree on.
And generally, we'regonna come up to some.
Very reasonable conclusions that bringboth of us closer together as friends,
because I think that's what peoplecan do when they have conversations.
They can disagree with people, andstill have really good insight on, wow,
this is why this person feels this way.
This is awesome.

(16:38):
I'm so happy they think this way.
Cool.
And that part is actually really accurate.
I really like that.
I'm gonna take that into considerationfurther and I'm gonna live my life better
because you gave me more information.
That's what politics is, man.
It shouldn't be this division ofhe's right, she's wrong, she's right.
He, it shouldn't be that way.
We have too much division, man.
Again, I think that's also.

(16:58):
Something that education solves and havingour listeners go through this journey with
us of not only listening but educatingourselves and themselves on these topics
is gonna be truly mind blowing, and Icannot wait for everyone to tap into
what Dave and I have on the docketsfor you, for the pro-human discussion.