What America Needs More Than Anything Is What We're Building In Little Sections Of Substack

Functioning communities of people with ultimately meaningless differences

We’re living through times when—more than ever—we need to learn from and help one another.

That’s from a recent Never Retire: Living The Semi-Retired Life installment. This one—

Attention Parents And Kids: Are You Worried About The Future?

Parent or not, the things we discuss, and the community we’re forming around these things, likely matter to you. Developing our thoughts, ideas, concerns and fears around these issues deepens the discussion as it expands and strengthens our community.

This is one of those posts where it’s difficult to find the words to say what I want to say. Then, when I think I do, I fear they’ll come out wrong.

So I just gotta let it rip.

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Housing is—not might be—the most important issue facing the future of the nation. It’s not on the government’s radar, in part, because the majority of homeowners in America—the people who vote—own their homes free and clear or are comfortably paying down (relatively) low-interest rate mortgages. They’re sitting on a ton of equity.

But, for people who decided—by choice or out of necessity—to not become homeowners and those just starting out, home ownership in much of America is simply out of reach. This lays the groundwork for a precarious path on the road to retirement. Even some homeowners—recent or longstanding—face similar issues.

We can’t and shouldn’t expect the government to address the fundamental problems we face as a nation around housing and retirement. The issues that affect us and our kids. Politicians are too busy fighting despicable culture wars around literal non-issues. Therefore, all we have is one another. To figure things out together.

As

Joshua King

said the other day—

America is no longer a place to build fortunes; it's a place to return when you have a fortune. That's very sad. But we must play the hand we are dealt.

I look forward to Joshua’s comments to my articles. I love his perspective and the interaction.

But the reality is—this is the part about finding words—he’s not a guy I would have been friends with, on paper. But now I literally can’t wait for the day when I live in Spain and he lives in Turkey and we find a way to meet up for a coffee, beer, vermouth or all three. His experience and, in some contexts, perspectives could not be any different than mine. I posted a Note about this. He responded. And we had this exchange. Literally as I started writing this paragraph. So, he helped me find the words.

We also have among our subscribers—and these are only a few of the ones I know of and hear from alongside a small handful of logical assumptions:

• A woman who lives on a farm in Canada

• People living at or below the poverty line

• Actual millionaires

• Homeowners

• Renters

• City dwellers

• Suburbanites

• A guy who writes about liquidity (I think, because his LinkedIn posts on the subject even confuse me!) from Switzerland

• A dude who moved from Romania to Belgium

• A former Las Vegas card dealer who lives in Michigan

• An airline employee who writes about music

• Swing state voters

• Coastal “elites”

• People still wearing masks

• People who never wore a mask

• Retirees

• People who will Never Retire

• People who want to move abroad

• People planning to move abroad

• People who would never move abroad

• Digital nomads

• Sommeliers

• Weed smokers

• People who’ve never inhaled

• People who wouldn’t touch the stuff

• Religious folks

• Non-religious folks

• More Canadians

I likely haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of our diversity. All we’re missing is the great

Robert Reich

.

How did we all manage to come together under the same umbrella?

It’s wild.

Is it the magic of Substack? That might play a role. Because this is hardly the only corner of Substack where this is happening.

But—more so—how do we manage to not only get along, but contribute, with insight and genuine respect, to one another’s fears, concerns and conundrums of the day without letting our differences get in the way?

In fact, these differences never even enter the picture, unless they do in constructive and relevant ways.

That’s truly wild.

Because there are corners of Substack that devolve like most of the rest of the internet. I could list examples, but I won't. You've seen them.

Somehow, we—and most of Substack—don’t deal in this drivel. Nonsense. Tonterías. Instead, we casually, but meaningfully address inherently political, economic and social issues in cumulatively substantive ways absent in most discourse around inherently political, economic and social issues.

I don’t what the secret sauce is. But I like it. So let’s keep it going.

I just sent out a series of questions to people willing to expand on their experience as parents, specifically as it pertains to their concerns over their kids’ futures on issues such as housing and overall cost of living. As we do around here, I think this subscriber participation will help advance the conversation. That’s the key. Advancing the conversation, not derailing it with the gunk of ultimately meaningless differences.

Add to that—

• Our ongoing Q&A series with people who have moved abroad.

• Plain language coverage of basic-to-intermediate personal finance/investing with a focus on why and how it matters for people Living The Semi-Retired Life.

• More making sense of housing and cost of living.

• On-the-ground dispatches all February focused on cost of living and life in seven Spanish and French cities.

• March-to-December 2024’s logistical and financial planning alongside starting the visa process to move to Spain.

• January 2025’s actual move to Spain (finally!) and all that entails, which will span years of navigating the logistics of settling in Spain as a self-employed person, renting and eventually buying an apartment, not to mention my wife’s career transition.

—and I think we have a great thing going.

Thanks for being along for the ride. I hope we not only continue to grow in numbers—and diversity—but in contributions that help advance the conversations we’re having.

Hollywood, California