Can’t wait for fintstone to respond to this.

You cannot respond to that, it is far too retarded . Endless greed, We barely made enough to cover taxes, insurance and the mortgages for 15 years .

I'll swing at this one before Fint does. It's not rich people ruining the American dream. It's people too lazy to put the work in that are ruining the American dream. They want the reward but they aren't willing to put the work in. They've been told for several decades they can't make it without the help of the government and they believe it. Fint didn't wait for the government to help him. Fint worked, saved, and bought properties to make his money work for him. ANYONE willing to put the work in can succeed in this greedy capitalist society. Anyone waiting for the government to help them... well they'll wait for an eviction moratorium.

This is the philosophy that the Russian communists used in the 1920's to sack the Kulak class (land owning peasants), confiscate their holdings like farms and houses and send them off by the millions to the gulags. They were the enemies of the socialist goals of the communists and stood in the way of collectivization of the land. I would guess this is Purry's basic thinking on these matters, you know, redistribute the wealth to those who need "equity" (not equality, we already have that via all the laws passed over the last 60 or so years in the US, I am not sure about Canada). Comrade Purry.

Right off the bat about half my affordable rents go straight into city taxes for all those community programz.
(Yeah your free stuff CP. Still think it originates from thin air? Say "thank you john")
No professional mngmt, lawn care, accountants, manicurist.
I do all the busy work myself and pretty much broke even for the decade.

The city road and sidewalk repair is about the only public benefit I receive for giving a away brand new car every single year.
Everything else is paid for separately. And our library is still shut down.
And my car sits in the garage.

I notice you are complaining about a successful small businessman such as Fint..
Not the conglomerate REITs which are now buying up huge areas of valuable real estate.

Do you really want the government to be your landlord?

Any small business owner that has even gone to a bank, and filled out a loan application to purchase a major item for the business, knows the feeling of putting most, if not all of your personal assets on the line to get the loan. Buying that first house, business location, or major piece of needed equipment is hard.

No government assistance for any of that, just the business owners assets at risk. Once the business finally makes some money the government is right there as your lazy non working invisible partner wanting a large hunk of the profits, and ol Uncle Sam gets his cut of the money first, and leaves the owner with the scraps. Our first year profits did not even pay for the camera system, much less pay us anything but red ink. With hard work, and long hours, we changed that.

If some idiot that has never owned a business comes along and thinks businesses should pay more, they truly show their ignorance. The business owner is the LAST person that gets paid at all.

Because the poor are running the country? Getting elected, taking and making 'contributions'?
The poor control the politics, direction, decision making in this country?

While the mistreated wealthy have no power and are forced to suffer under the tyranny of the poor?

The poor ruin the American Dream?

Is that your position?

I provide nice, clean, well-maintained rental homes in nice areas with good schools for people who are unable to buy or choose not to. Homes that are nice enough that I would live in them myself.

I maintain all of them better than my own home. My homes are apparently nice enough and enough of a value that my tenants have continued to pay rent even though the President has decided that my personal private property and services must be donated if a tenant decides they no longer want to meet their obligations. Usually I rent them at a rate slightly below the market. I consider it to be a public service. For me, rental property is a long term investment as I really do not make any money in the short term. Whenever rents go up, in general...so do insurance and taxes. So my tenants pretty much get their homes at cost. Many years, my expenses are greater than my rents. Over time, the value of the home goes up and the mortgage gradually gets paid off. That is the payoff...generally after 30 years.

It has never been hard for most people to buy a home, go to school, have a good job, save a little money, etc...or have rentals. It just takes a lot of sacrifice and delayed gratification. Lots of folks spend their money on vacations, cars, guns, booze, hookers and blow. I have always worked multiple jobs. spent frugally and invested. It did not seem to be very effective at first, but time/compounding is your friend...even inflation if you are well invested. I think I was around 19 when bought my first home...maybe 21 for the second. I was making about $4K per year when I bought the first and probably less than $10K per year when I bought the second. Most young men probably would have bought a new car and partied (no new Porsches for me...ever). I got a second job so I would have money to invest in my home and go to school.

No, the poor like me do not ruin the American dream, they can choose to participate in it or not, It is when government decides to take and redistribute the fruits of one man's labor to another arbitrarily (or for political gain) that ruins it. They used to call that slavery (or at least theft).

What you are not seeing here, is that we are not wealthy. Just working stiffs, who have been damn near killing ourselves our entire adult life , barely eeking out a lower middle class income
All the while, watching the government, and everybody else leaching off what little success I had to spend a lifetime of hard work to grind out .
Perspective .

I worked with a lady that was married to a guy with a high paying job at a local tire manufacturing plant. They would go on some expensive vacation every year, and charge it on credit cards. As soon as the old vacation was paid off, they went on a new bigger and better vacation. I asked her why not skip the vacation for one year, and save the money and pay ZERO interest to the credit card company, and make interest on the savings account. She recoiled in in horror at the thought of no vacation for a whole year. I just shook my head in amazement. They usually bought a brand new car every 4 years. Not a dream car, just the car with the lowest monthly payment, and they were always upside down on the cars, and never paid one off, but they had a new car every 4 years to avoid the maintenance costs! Again I shook my head.

They went out "partying" and drinking every Friday night to unwind and because they deserved it!. They were often running to the utilities to pay off the utility bill before they were cut off, and waiting until payday to go buy groceries.

In the film business you work long hours and make decent money. Some (like me) save and invest, buying our clothes at Costco or off of the sale rack, rarely eating out and driving cars that are more than 5 years old.

There are the younger, single hipsters that are paying high rent to be able to live in Silverlake where "it's happening". Drinking their designer coffee, wearing their hipster clothes and spending their new found wealth.

When the COVID lockdowns first started they were on FB pissing and moaning about how they were going to have to cancel their trip to London, Paris and Rome.

3 weeks later they were back on FB crying about not being able to get through to EDD to receive their unemployment because "If I don't get a check soon I'm going to be homeless and starving!".

Some just never learn. They'll be the same ones pissing and moaning when the actors or writers go on strike, never saving for a rainy day.

Wow.
Where to even start?

Anybody who has acquired rental properties has done so as the result of hard work.
I've had rentals. I've gone to the bank, signed a personal guarantee that puts everything I own as collateral for a loan.
I've hired help. At one time, three maintenance guys, who always got their full paycheck, even when there was not a single dime for me at the end of the month.

How did I get started? Framing houses was my full-time job, and my only source of income.
Bought some fixer-upper rentals. Now I owe a bunch of money, and spend every evening, and weekends trying to upgrade the property, make it attractive to potential residents.

Every dime of rent that came in was used for upgrades. Hours upon hours of work I did, for no income, but only the dream of one day turning a profit.

Owning rental properties is a full-time job.
Anybody who thinks all the landlord does is sit back and wait for rent checks to arrive is clueless.

I have worked my tail off.
I have provided reasonably priced housing.
I have provided jobs.
I have risked everything to do so.

The idea that a government agency can step in, tear up the rental agreement and announce that the residents don't have to cover the cost of their housing is abhorrent.

Remember that personal guaranty I signed? Now what?

Unfortunately, this is now the "American Dream" for many households with an use it, or lose it attitude. I have many friends in this boat who all think that I am "lucky" because I have a nice farm, with paid off vehicles, sizeable retirement funds, and we go on trips to the tropics occasionally. What they don't realize is the sacrifices we made for our kids, and the long hours we worked to pay off everything we have, and invest for a comfortable future. I own one rental that my daughter lives in, but don't plan on extending that offer to anyone else should she move.

My next door neighbor are young and established writers. Don't want to get political here but they are moaning about a great script they had but are not looked at instead they looked at a sub par one by a black writer (I am sure the black writer is just as good if not they wouldn't be at this level of business). I am thinking, keep this BLM **** up, support dumb fawk Newsome, and it will get more real for you. When the gov. is getting involved with the redistribution of my wealth and fooks with my rental properties, I want all those "know it all" for everyone else hipsters to feel it too. I am in Mt Washington now, went to school less then a mile from Silverlake, the lake itself, and have seen the growth of the westside, hipster and movie folks take over there in the past 30 years. They have been moving into my area in the past 10 years. Sick of every single one of them. They do drive my property up, so I shouldn't hate them that much?

Risk. Don't forget the huge risk we take to acquire them. If it goes south, some of us will be out in the streets and lose everything and may never recover.

This!

Business owners of all sorts, from landlords to grocery stores, put up real money that they earned and paid taxes on to start the business. If the business fails, due to shoplifting, or some bureaucrat declaring your customers don't have to pay you, the owners can indeed go under. No one is going to let them live rent free, the bank will evict them.

That real and tangible risk of loss is part of the cost of doing business. A large percentage of businesses go out of business from unexpected changes in the world. Lots of restaurants went under with a lack of customers when the government closed the economy. That business owner may well have lost everything. Poof Gone.

Or the gov decided to protect the dead beat from having to pay rent with no evictions and continue to extend them every few months. There are lots of businesses looking to hire so people go back to work so the ban be lifted, but the fooking state will continue to give hand outs and continue to extend the band. Last I heard, I can't write off the losses.

Why can't Biden also make the landlord's mortgage company, insurance company, management company and maintenance providers work without pay...and suspend all property taxes on rentals? Because big banks and insurance companies donate "bigly" to the Democrat Party?

How did we get to this? I'm sure these people exist back in the 40, 50 and on but it sure seem I see more of this attitude today? Maybe I was not around back then to see this? I grew up with bery hard working parents and my father earn every dime with his bleeding finger tips and save whenever possible.

They know there will always be a handout of someone else's money from a government official looking to buy their vote. We were always very sure that if we ran out of money (whether our fault or not), we would not eat or have a place to live.