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I hear this complaint a lot, but never really any details. What specifically are you mad about being out of reach and which metrics do you think you're worse of

I hear this complaint a lot, but never really any details. What specifically are you mad about being out of reach and which metrics do you think you're worse off on compared to previous generations? Honest question. Is it just materials and money per person? Something more?

crooked-v 7y ago
Well, to start with, inflation-adjusted home prices have gone up by a factor of 6 and inflation-adjusted education prices have gone up by a factor of 3 [1], while inflation-adjusted average wages have only gone up by $2/hour [2]. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition-has-increased-from-1988-to-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition-has... [2]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...
Qwertystop 7y ago
Owning a home is a big one. Being able to afford retirement is another. Not having college debt.
noonespecial 7y ago
Can't give you solid numbers, but I'll tell you what it feels like: Housing costs everything I've got, Medicine is going to cost everything I'm going to have, and the proceeds of any advanced education I get will belong to a bank, not to me.
TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Here's the late boomer side, which seems to be typical for my generation: my parents were average working class but had zero trouble affording a nice-enough-but-not-special home on a single salary earned by my father, with a little extra contributed by my mother. [1] I went to university on a full grant that covered living expenses and fees - which were much smaller than they are now, so if I'd been in a position to pay my way it would have required a relatively small investment instead of a huge life-changing outlay. I left university with no debt, in a fairly active job market. I had a girlfriend who didn't do well enough at school to get into university from school, but paid pocket money for an access course that got her onto a degree - which she also graduated from with no debt. Some time later my parents died with no debt, a house that had been fully paid off well before their retirement, and some savings. Millennials today are expected to intern for nothing. Many leave college with absolutely crippling personal debt, and work insanely long hours. Unless they're 10%ers - at least - most have almost zero chance of affording a home with two salaries, never mind one. In the UK people are literally starving and freezing to death. Some of them are working full time and still can't afford food. In the US, people are literally starving and freezing to death, and also being bankrupted by health insurance. That will probably do for metrics. If you need more, let me know. [1] The property value of the house I grew up in is now trending towards £1,000,000.
- oldjokes 7y ago
  This is a really well laid out comment, thanks for just spelling it out.
jerf 7y ago
Part of the problem is that the economic changes have been very uneven, and I don't mean in the "social inequality" sense, I mean, the price increases are very uneven: https://www.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Inflation-of-goods-services-.jpg https://www.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/... If you want to buy a big TV and a phone, now is the best time in history. If you want a college degree, some childcare, and some medical care, it's going to cost you a lot more than it did your parents. The other problem is that even putting sarcasm about TVs vs. health care aside, things that increase in price by 125% loom a lot larger in your budget than things that decreased by 80%, just by the sheer numerical weight. Saving $9500 on a TV (not to mention you wouldn't have even bought such a large one if they weren't so cheap to begin with) doesn't make up for the house you want costing $100,000 more.
salawat 7y ago
Have you looked at licensure requirements lately for more specialized fields? I.e. time spent in education/ administrative barriers before even being able to get hands on experience? Have you looked at how the system again and again "rolls up the ladder" via regulation to ensure that entrenched players are in an advantaged position over up and comers? (Not saying all regulation is bad, but it is amazing how new regulations never seem to incorporate any mechanism to penalize former bad actors to grab back ill gotten gains, and level the playing field by compensating for ground covered destructively pre-regulation) Have you looked at the fact schooling is more expensive, and increasingly deemed necessary even in fields where it's nigh meaningless (looking at you hairdressers/stylists, and extortionate collegiate tuition rates)? Have you noticed how it seems like in the fight for fair compensation and treatment, there have been companies that have literally told their employees to sign up for food stamps in the never ending quest for profit(hi service industry! McD's in particular!)? Have you noticed how it seems like organizations that so threaten the underlying foundations of Western Civilization can do no wrong, and can wipe the slate clean with a token settlement to regulators? How the financial industry seems to be coated in Teflon for all the good any attempts at holding it responsible for it's actions?(Financial Crises of various flavors, bailouts) Or how the presence of a highly paid attorney stratifies any type of interaction with the justice system in favor of those with the most cash? How "the family farm", one of the most quintessential and some would say oldest cultural staples of the country, has become largely inaccessible to newcomers without also having the benefit of "not needing" to do it? Noticed the death of the neighborhood grocer through major players practicing vertical integration, and a massive acceleration of consolidation of industrial verticals into handfuls of key players who basically aim to attain "too-big-to-fail" status?(Walmart/Amazon, Telco's)? Have you noticed how contract law has had this habit of locking you of civil rights unless you have enough to leverage a high priced attorney (forced arbitration)? Noticed how you have to go back nearly 100 years history and case law wise just to actually understand the asterisks (that nobody sees fit to explain) surrounding a right explicitly spelled out in the Constitution? (I'm sure other countries have their own version of a straightforward reading fundamental right completely transformed into something not quite entirely different than how it was written; metric: average years of kludged case law to have to wade through to figure out where you stand)? These aren't "subtle" happenings in the least. It amazes me that the elder amongst us don't shake their head sadly at just how bloody complicated "The System" has become. But hey, we've got medicine (we can barely afford), phones (that everyone is damn set on turning into surveillance tools), cars (people are increasingly excited about the self-crashing features of, and surveillance capabilities imparted by the team's of sensors required to supported it self-crashing functionality). We have Networks (for companies to monetize), and uh... Oh unparalleled access to information, which increasingly seems to be either entirely biased/manipulative sales/AdTech, or outright fiction/disinformation, or legit info on "Wow, what's fscking us today?" What else? Oh right, a push to have algorithms put in charge of everything to add yet another layer of responsibility laundering to the mix. Sorry for the rant mate, but I need to actively not think about these things to get anything done. It's hard to pay attention to anything and just go "oh, that's cool" without running into the realization that about the only things the western world seems to to want to examine are those conducive to metering and revenue extraction. Oh, and the most important metric? Number of stupid metrics we have to endure in the day to day, and that somehow, if you can't come up with an objective metric for why things are worse for you now, golly gee, it must all be in your head. So tired of hearing that one.

crooked-v 7y ago

Well, to start with, inflation-adjusted home prices have gone up by a factor of 6 and inflation-adjusted education prices have gone up by a factor of 3 [1], while inflation-adjusted average wages have only gone up by $2/hour [2]. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition-has-increased-from-1988-to-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition-has... [2]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

Qwertystop 7y ago

Owning a home is a big one. Being able to afford retirement is another. Not having college debt.

noonespecial 7y ago

Can't give you solid numbers, but I'll tell you what it feels like: Housing costs everything I've got, Medicine is going to cost everything I'm going to have, and the proceeds of any advanced education I get will belong to a bank, not to me.

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago

Here's the late boomer side, which seems to be typical for my generation: my parents were average working class but had zero trouble affording a nice-enough-but-not-special home on a single salary earned by my father, with a little extra contributed by my mother. [1] I went to university on a full grant that covered living expenses and fees - which were much smaller than they are now, so if I'd been in a position to pay my way it would have required a relatively small investment instead of a huge life-changing outlay. I left university with no debt, in a fairly active job market. I had a girlfriend who didn't do well enough at school to get into university from school, but paid pocket money for an access course that got her onto a degree - which she also graduated from with no debt. Some time later my parents died with no debt, a house that had been fully paid off well before their retirement, and some savings. Millennials today are expected to intern for nothing. Many leave college with absolutely crippling personal debt, and work insanely long hours. Unless they're 10%ers - at least - most have almost zero chance of affording a home with two salaries, never mind one. In the UK people are literally starving and freezing to death. Some of them are working full time and still can't afford food. In the US, people are literally starving and freezing to death, and also being bankrupted by health insurance. That will probably do for metrics. If you need more, let me know. [1] The property value of the house I grew up in is now trending towards £1,000,000.

oldjokes 7y ago
This is a really well laid out comment, thanks for just spelling it out.

jerf 7y ago

Part of the problem is that the economic changes have been very uneven, and I don't mean in the "social inequality" sense, I mean, the price increases are very uneven: https://www.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Inflation-of-goods-services-.jpg https://www.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/... If you want to buy a big TV and a phone, now is the best time in history. If you want a college degree, some childcare, and some medical care, it's going to cost you a lot more than it did your parents. The other problem is that even putting sarcasm about TVs vs. health care aside, things that increase in price by 125% loom a lot larger in your budget than things that decreased by 80%, just by the sheer numerical weight. Saving $9500 on a TV (not to mention you wouldn't have even bought such a large one if they weren't so cheap to begin with) doesn't make up for the house you want costing $100,000 more.

salawat 7y ago

Have you looked at licensure requirements lately for more specialized fields? I.e. time spent in education/ administrative barriers before even being able to get hands on experience? Have you looked at how the system again and again "rolls up the ladder" via regulation to ensure that entrenched players are in an advantaged position over up and comers? (Not saying all regulation is bad, but it is amazing how new regulations never seem to incorporate any mechanism to penalize former bad actors to grab back ill gotten gains, and level the playing field by compensating for ground covered destructively pre-regulation) Have you looked at the fact schooling is more expensive, and increasingly deemed necessary even in fields where it's nigh meaningless (looking at you hairdressers/stylists, and extortionate collegiate tuition rates)? Have you noticed how it seems like in the fight for fair compensation and treatment, there have been companies that have literally told their employees to sign up for food stamps in the never ending quest for profit(hi service industry! McD's in particular!)? Have you noticed how it seems like organizations that so threaten the underlying foundations of Western Civilization can do no wrong, and can wipe the slate clean with a token settlement to regulators? How the financial industry seems to be coated in Teflon for all the good any attempts at holding it responsible for it's actions?(Financial Crises of various flavors, bailouts) Or how the presence of a highly paid attorney stratifies any type of interaction with the justice system in favor of those with the most cash? How "the family farm", one of the most quintessential and some would say oldest cultural staples of the country, has become largely inaccessible to newcomers without also having the benefit of "not needing" to do it? Noticed the death of the neighborhood grocer through major players practicing vertical integration, and a massive acceleration of consolidation of industrial verticals into handfuls of key players who basically aim to attain "too-big-to-fail" status?(Walmart/Amazon, Telco's)? Have you noticed how contract law has had this habit of locking you of civil rights unless you have enough to leverage a high priced attorney (forced arbitration)? Noticed how you have to go back nearly 100 years history and case law wise just to actually understand the asterisks (that nobody sees fit to explain) surrounding a right explicitly spelled out in the Constitution? (I'm sure other countries have their own version of a straightforward reading fundamental right completely transformed into something not quite entirely different than how it was written; metric: average years of kludged case law to have to wade through to figure out where you stand)? These aren't "subtle" happenings in the least. It amazes me that the elder amongst us don't shake their head sadly at just how bloody complicated "The System" has become. But hey, we've got medicine (we can barely afford), phones (that everyone is damn set on turning into surveillance tools), cars (people are increasingly excited about the self-crashing features of, and surveillance capabilities imparted by the team's of sensors required to supported it self-crashing functionality). We have Networks (for companies to monetize), and uh... Oh unparalleled access to information, which increasingly seems to be either entirely biased/manipulative sales/AdTech, or outright fiction/disinformation, or legit info on "Wow, what's fscking us today?" What else? Oh right, a push to have algorithms put in charge of everything to add yet another layer of responsibility laundering to the mix. Sorry for the rant mate, but I need to actively not think about these things to get anything done. It's hard to pay attention to anything and just go "oh, that's cool" without running into the realization that about the only things the western world seems to to want to examine are those conducive to metering and revenue extraction. Oh, and the most important metric? Number of stupid metrics we have to endure in the day to day, and that somehow, if you can't come up with an objective metric for why things are worse for you now, golly gee, it must all be in your head. So tired of hearing that one.