4 ms·
I'm amazed that this is the first halfway-reasonable post to come out of this discussion. The real story here is the demographic breakdown the western world is
by tcoppi 10y ago
I'm amazed that this is the first halfway-reasonable post to come out of this discussion. The real story here is the demographic breakdown the western world is experiencing, and that Japan has been knee-deep in since the 90s. This has tons of implications, from expected 401k returns that are expected to fund our retirements, to the evidenced fact that older people are working longer, retiring later, and hence eating up a lot of the income and job gains made in the last decade.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoHonestly it took me a long time to turn 'anger' into 'acceptance' and then into 'context' regarding this subject. I was raised in a very frugal home that spent good money on "good" things (ex: education, learning experiences, an Encyclopedia Set for Christmas one year), avoided really buying in to materialism (ex: driving older, paid off cars) and I appreciate how different this was from apparently a great deal of my peers. It's unfortunate. If I could go back and tell my parents to cool it with the "success is earned here in the US more often than not" line of motivation and be a little more realistic about power dynamics, I wouldn't have spent as much time trying to figure it out, to see things as they kind of sort of work. I'm not angry anymore, per se, just becoming a grumpy old man, as one is wont to do.
- infinite8s 10y agoWhat really angers me (coming from a similarly frugal upbringing and taking that into my adult life) is how frugality has been penalized at a macro level. The last 7 yrs of zero interest rates, the easy access to money prior to that, etc, have just made responsible living actually seem 'irresponsible'.
- hackaflocka 10y agoFrugality and responsible budgeting are "superpowers". Your neighbors who took those zero interest rate loans and are living "the life" going on vacations and buying new cars... it's all a big show, and it looks grand from outside, but they're probably experiencing all kinds of stresses that you don't. These are the kinds of people who keep the psycho-pharma complex profitable.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoOr, as my parents said a long time ago, "When they die, a bunch of trucks show up to take it all away."
- infinite8s 10y agoExcept that when the majority of the voting population succumbs to it, they end up voting for policies/politicians to paper over or backstop their problems.