[fintstone]

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).