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“You gotta watch it. It’s violent as hell, but it sucks you in.”
This is how my brother introduced me to the Squid Game several months ago. And he couldn’t have been more right. Mrs. Groovy and I watched the first episode and we were hooked.
The most poignant part of season one for me was when the twisted elites who funded the “games” were introduced. One was obviously a super-rich, super-amoral American. Mrs. Groovy, upon realizing this, asked a question that I had already answered in my mind. “Could our elites really be so evil?” “Heck yeah,” I blurted out. “Remember Epstein Island?”
You can tell the quality of your elites by the quality of their concerns. We got serious problems in this country. The national debt is over $30 trillion, we are way too dependent on China for manufacturing, skid rows are more numerous and more populous than ever, crime is rampant, annual drug overdose deaths now exceed 100,000, our southern border is a sieve for “migrants,” drug traffickers, and sex traffickers, our schools are so incompetent we have to import engineering talent, few Americans outside the upper class can afford housing, higher education, and health care without massive subsidies, fertility is below the replacement level, and one-third to one-half of the country despise our Founding Fathers and our Constitution—America, in effect, is collapsing right before our eyes. And what are the major concerns of our ruling elites? Well, one major concern is the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Our ruling elites have no problem spending billions of dollars we don’t have to help the Ukrainians repel the Russians. Another major concern is transgenderism. We all have to submit to the fantasy that a guy with a big hairy nutsack is a woman just because he gets estrogen shots and wears a dress. And if you dare question the new-and-improved definition of a woman, our ruling elites will do everything in their power to crush you socially and professionally.
I’m not going to pull any punches. Our ruling elites are sick demented assholes. They don’t care about you, and they don’t care about this country. All that matters to them is their twisted desires. And if their twisted desires mean squalor for you and the dissolution of America, so be it.
“Okay, okay,” I hear you protesting. “Our ruling elites are as wretched in real life as they were depicted in the fictional Squid Game. I’ll grant you that. But what the heck does their wretchedness have to do with tiny homes?”
Great question. Here’s the answer: Our ruling elites discovered long ago that the best way to control you is to sow financial weakness and then conditionalize access to the financial lifelines that they control. In other words, our ruling elites love it when people have so mismanaged their lives they are utterly dependent on either a government program or a corporate job for survival. This way, they can turn that government program or that corporate job into a Sword of Damocles over every dependent soul’s head. Want to keep those government contracts and grants rolling in? You better have the right number of women and POCs on your payroll and in positions of power. Want to keep your professional license? You better not question climate change, NATO, open borders, non-binary pronouns, or anything else our ruling elites hold dear. Want to keep your job? Well, you better get the jab, and if you’re white, you better renounce your whiteness at the next diversity-training seminar. And this weaponization of financial lifelines is only going to get worse. Our ruling elites want nothing short of a social credit system. This way, if you have a low social credit score; that is, if you’re uppity enough to question your school board, eat meat, or believe—heaven forbid—that all lives matter, your ability to do such elementary things as book air travel, open a bank account, or rent an apartment will be severely limited.
And this is where tiny homes come in.
The best way to be financially secure, and not be dependent on any government program or any lousy job, is to own your home outright. It’s amazing how low your cost of living becomes and how easy saving becomes when you don’t have a mortgage or rent payment. Mrs. Groovy and I own Groovy Ranch outright and the combined cost of property taxes, utilities, and insurance runs around $300 per month. If Mrs. Groovy and I somehow managed to lose all of our savings and were forced to de-retire, we could easily maintain Groovy Ranch with two minimum wage jobs.
Groovy Ranch isn’t a tiny home, of course. It’s a modest home of 1,500 square feet. And if the typical American had a reasonable shot of outright owning a 1,500 square-foot home in a reasonable amount of time, say no more than five years, I would be a supreme advocate of modest homes. But outright owning a modest home or better in a reasonable amount of time isn’t in the cards for most Americans. The typical American does however have a reasonable shot of outright owning a tiny home in a five-year time span, especially if he or she builds the tiny home him- or herself (see here, here, and here). So that’s why I’m a supreme advocate of tiny homes. Because our ruling elites are so depraved, our freedom and dignity will increasingly hinge on whether we have financial security. Those who have financial security will be able to tell the tyrants to lump it. Those who don’t will have to bend the knee. And the quickest path to financial security—to having no debt, an emergency fund, some retirement savings, and a low cost of living—is to own your home outright. If you value your freedom and dignity—and are decades away from being mortgage or rent free—you will get yourself into a tiny home (or a single-wide or an RV or a camper van) ASAP.
I’m not saying living in a tiny home would be fun. Human beings while immensely social also value solitude. And if you have a spouse or children, solitude would be a very rare commodity in a tiny home.
But you know what else isn’t fun? Kissing the ring of a scumbag bureaucrat or a scumbag boss.
If you’re the typical American, there’s no escaping inconvenience and shame. The good news is that you get to decide what inconvenience and shame you get to bear. Do you want the inconvenience and “shame” of living in a tiny home? Or do you want the inconvenience and shame of being beholden to Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and all the other sick demented assholes who are fiddling while America burns?
I know which inconvenience and shame Mrs. Groovy and I prefer. If we didn’t own Groovy Ranch outright and weren’t comfortable financially, we’d be doing everything in our power to replicate that position of FU. And if that meant working two minimum wage jobs and living in a small off-grid cabin in the wilds of Montana, we’d be doing our schtick out of Big Sky Country. Fuck our ruling elites.
I’m not a fan of most politicians, left or right, and I’m sure there are a few scumbags but at the end of the day most are trying to do what they think is right, and in the best interest of most of their voters.
However, one thing the vast majority have in common is wanting to see America and its citizens succeed. They’re not purposely trying to get people hooked on subsidies or many of the fallacies you espouse in this post.
There are millions of Americans who don’t live in a tiny home, who have a low fixed rate mortgage and work for a good boss at a job they mostly enjoy.
If you don’t like the person/company you work for, then get another job or start your own business. The beauty of living in America, you have options!
Great comment, John. You make a lot of fair points and I pray to God that you’re right and I’m wrong. But let me ask you some questions:
Is our national debt smaller than it was 10, 20, or 30 years ago?
What number of states have fully-funded public pensions?
Is there less crony capitalism today than there was 30 or 40 years ago?
Is our infrastructure in better shape than it was 30 or 40 years ago?
Is journalism better today than it was during the Cronkite era?
Is entertainment less crass and vulgar than it was 30 or 40 years ago?
Are our schools better? Does a high school diploma guarantee the recipient of it has any worthwhile knowledge or skills?
What percentage of young people believe in free speech?
What percentage of young people believe in equality of results rather than equality before the law?
What percentage of young people are proud of our flag and our Constitution?
Are American women having fewer out-of-wedlock births than they did a couple of generations ago?
Murder is down from the late 80s and early 90s. But other violent crimes are up? Is murder only down because our doctors became super-skilled at treating knife and gunshot wounds?
Are Americans, in general, less rude and obnoxious than they were 30 or 40 years ago?
Are our corporate CEOs less inclined than they were 30 to 40 years ago to screw the American worker and outsource jobs to foreign countries?
Are Americans less dependent on government welfare and subsidies than they were 30 or 40 years ago?
When I was born in 1961, America led the world in a lot of key areas (i.e., manufacturing, science, defense, transportation, housing, education, literature, art, infant mortality, life expectancy, etc.). Can you name one key area other than defense that America still leads?
By any objective measure, the quality of America and the typical American has been going down for at least 40 years. And this is the result of our ruling elites–in and out of government–caring? Of doing all they can to make America a better place?
Again, I want you to be right, John. But I have a hard time believing our ruling elites are as caring and earnest as you suppose. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: America has the worst ruling elites in the history of the world. Never have so few destroyed so much and thought so highly of themselves.
Thank you again for the pushback, John. I really appreciate it when readers challenge my scribblings in a respectful manner. Peace, my friend.
Also, I agree with you that tiny homes shouldn’t be the norm in America. I think outright homeownership should be the norm. And tiny homes and other less esteemed but affordable homes (i.e., single-wides, RVs, camper vans, etc.) are the best way young people can get on the outright homeownership ladder and stay on it.
Also, a good boss isn’t a good boss if forces you to choose between keeping your satisfactory job and doing something you find morally repugnant. I really enjoyed my last job before retirement. My boss treated me with respect, the pay was fair, the work was stimulating, and my co-workers were fine people. But if my boss ever mandated diversity training, I would have started my retirement sooner than I did.
I appreciate your replies/input as well, and will respond to each point when i have time this weekend. Have a good one!
Looking forward to your response. I know I made a lot of generalizations and I know I didn’t articulate my main points as well as I could have. So I definitely got to up my game–and constructive criticism will surely help in that regard. Damn! No one ever said blogging was going to be easy. Have a great weekend. Cheers.
Mr. Groovy recently posted…Squid Game and Tiny Homes
It should be noted that in any elected position, every politician will be a winsome, friendly, caring listener to your every syllable. And since we have the best government money can buy, the dollar is heard loudest and clearest. That “nice” person will look really sad that s/he/it has to screw you over.
I know it all too well, my friend. In my 20+ years of government employment, I met a lot of politicians who were butter-tongued in public but totally Machiavellian in private.
Well stated and I’m with you 100% my friend!
Thank you, Steve.
I was buying my first home in 1983 and I was talking to the aged seller. Turned out she and her husband had never had a mortgage. This blew my mind. It never occurred to me such a thing was possible.
Happily, this house was a four-plex and thus I had 3 rent checks to cover the mortgage payment while we lived in the smallest apartment. I didn’t wise up as I bought my duplex.
Just about the time Dave Ramsey went bankrupt, I went on a spree of paying off mortgages. And snowballing the payments. If your lifestyle works with 3 mortgages and one gets paid off, its amazing how fast the next mortgages go away.
if I had it to do over again, I would have kept on making payments in the amount of these (now paid off) mortgages into a sinking fund to buy the next rental property with cash. I figure with my lifestyle, I could crack my monthly nut with 12 doors (I have 6).
Another mistake was not putting money in a Vanguard index fund when I first saw John Bogle on Wall Street Week back in the ’80s.
Thanks for sharing your financial “blunders,” Steve. My early financial blunders weren’t related to real estate. One was related to Vanguard, however. I was at a wedding in the mid-80s and my cousin’s husband told me to start buying the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund. I ignored him, of course. What did he know? He just graduated from Dartmouth with an MBA and was working for this guy named Peter Lynch.
P.S. The more I look back at that sage advice, the more I marvel at my cousin’s husband’s integrity. He was working for Fidelity but recommended a competitor’s product because that product was more suited to a novice investor like me. Pretty neat.
If you are an American who loves his country and its flag, and needs to get a loan, you better do it soon while you still can. And pray to God that whatever you buy with that loan is not confiscated at some future date for expressing a wrong opinion.
When we first moved to NC in 2006 we chose to buy a 900 sf third-floor condo. Its three major attributes were being on the top floor (no footsteps above), being across the street from a bus stop (I needed transportation to work), and being within our cash budget (no mortgage). We designed our move so we could comfortably live on two $10/hr jobs. Fortunately, I kept my NY job, and Mr. Groovy got a job paying $22/hr. Life got real good real fast in NC.
Mrs Groovy recently posted…Squid Game and Tiny Homes
Agreed. The American flag is already considered a “hate symbol” to many of our ruling elites, especially the ones in academia. It won’t be long before the American flag is as verboten as the Confederate flag and the MAGA hat.
If we didn’t already pay off our home, this article would encourage me to do so. Kudos!
Thank you, Melissa. Being in a position of FU is more important than ever. I’m glad you’re there. Peace.
The Position of FU.
Absolutely. Just don’t think of it in terms of “dollars” but in productive assets not tied to the Fed
steve poling recently posted…Dave Ramsey Heresy
Great clarification, my friend.
Great post. Well said!!
Thank you, kind sir!
Gotta say, this might be your best, ‘dead on, balls accurate’ blog post thus far!!!!!! Sooo very proud !!!!
Thank you, Miss Sue. I really appreciate your kind words. Hope all is well on your end. Peace.