7 ms·

Making Poverty Fashionable to Millennials

71 points by riverlong 6y ago

mdragonpkf 6y ago
Powerful post. Unfortunately no potential solutions are explored. Ideas? Is it a matter of figuring out how to shift/part wealth from the ultra wealthy of the world? Or develop a means of building wealth at lower costs? Of course limited land is still an issue. Even if you got cheap land in a remote area, you're likely to be disconnected from the world without running water, electricity, and internet.
- riverlong 6y ago
  Thank you! The problem is huge in scope, and there are many potential solutions (with lots of smart people debating them). Land scarcity and cost is a core part of the intergenerational wealth divide. There, variants of Georgism[0] are becoming more popular, but the debate is far from settled. In some places, legislators are setting up incentives (taxation, benefits to owner-occupiers rather than landlords, etc.) to correct these market issues. Effects of such recent legislation in Germany and Vancouver, for example, appear to be productive. Regardless, I'm just trying to draw attention to the fact that a lot of current lifestyle trends are coping mechanisms to deal with poverty, no matter how good the Instagram pictures look. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
- cryptica 6y ago
  I sometimes think about the startup crowd of the past decade as generational traitors. They're a small number of young people who were selected by the system based on their connections to the older, wealthier generations and their willingness to do unethical things in order to maintain the status quo and secure inheritances as much as possible. Baby boomers are one of the most selfish and unethical generations and this explains why millennials are having such a tough time.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- reducesuffering 6y ago
  Affordable housing and health care is really what it comes down to. Food is as cheap, inflation-adjusted, as ever. Quality, reliable, transportation is as cheap as ever. College education is free in many places of the world, but a luxury in the US with the way it's taught. Employers are coming around to the fact that it's not a good signal any more, so the reasons to go ~50k+ in debt for a questionable degree are ceasing. The rest of millennial spend are generally luxuries. They can't afford to keep going with the conspicuous consumption and status-signalling that other generations could. But that's not what we should care about improving. We need to start tackling the insane complexities of the US health system and the complete failure of building regulations to provide an affordable place for the next generation to live.
  - akhilcacharya 6y ago
    > College education is free in many places of the world, but a luxury in the US with the way it's taught. Community college is extremely cheap and free in several states like Tennessee. In state tuition at most state schools will run $30k max on the remainder. Not cheap, but for the income gains...not expensive.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  A traditional solution for youth who see little future has been emigration.
lalos 6y ago
It's interesting seeing how humans are deciding to forgo one of the most innate patterns of life itself, passing their own genes via these phenomenons. It's almost as if it's a 'invisible hand' regulating the population by cornering people to prefer an achievable amount of pleasure (retire early, travel, etc) by trading it for not having offspring. This also relates to all the news about the rise of 'despair deaths'. No jobs, no way to ensure offspring a quality life, therefore game over for those genes. It is a big claim that these communities don't have kids, I would want more evidence of that before jumping to conclusions but if that's the case it's pretty crazy to read about.
- cheschire 6y ago
  Is it not inherently part of that animal pattern to only procreate until the resources become a limitation? Maybe the Wachowskis were wrong, and humanity isn’t a disease that keeps spreading and growing.
  - lalos 6y ago
    I would assume contraceptives methods make it easier to break the pattern, since you are still technically physically doing the act of reproducing but the cycle or incentive is broken since there is no offspring.
  - nordsieck 6y ago
    > Is it not inherently part of that animal pattern to only procreate until the resources become a limitation? Most animals don't self limit - their environment limits them instead.
    - anon9001 6y ago
      How can I tell if I'm self limiting or if I'm being environmentally limited?
      - nordsieck 6y ago
        > How can I tell if I'm self limiting or if I'm being environmentally limited? Are you voluntarily having fewer kids than you physically could, or did you starve to death?
aogaili 6y ago
I disagree, while financial aspect is important but it is not the only factor why folks choose these kind of lifestyles. First, having a kid these days might not actually be a good idea, with 7 billion people and counting, uncertaining future job market and the huge expense required to raise a functional kid in modern society. Previous generations never had those obligation or constrains and kids were able to contribute to their farms/income from early age. Second, technology allowed for lifestyles that were not even feasible in the past, it is really obvious and I don't think I need to elaborate on that. Last, humans were nomads settling. To sum up not everyone wants to live the mainstream lifestyle. So it could be due to preference and choice rather than financial pressures only.
sxp 6y ago
> Having children is very expensive, so it’s hard to make that work with FIRE. On the other hand, van life and tiny houses are logistically prohibitive to having children. This is debatable. If neither parent is working and they have the time and knowledge to homeschool their kids, having children becomes cheaper since the parents don't need daycare, a nanny, an expensive private school, etc. People of all social classes have been having kids since the dawn of humanity. Kids can be as cheap or as expensive as you want if you don't have to worry about working 9-to-5 at the same time.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  So, kids can be cheap if you don't have to worry about working? How do you feed your children in this scenario where neither parent works? How about medical bills? I'm not saying a lot of people couldn't spend less on childcare etc, but the ability to do it without working assumes a certain level of financial comfort. That's not even taking into account the added cost of leaving the workforce for several years. I know several parents who found it difficult to return to their former fields.
  - sxp 6y ago
    > How do you feed your children in this scenario where neither parent works? How about medical bills? FIRE. If your life plan involves having kids, you'll need higher FIRE number, but it's still possible. Medicial bills are always the hardest part of FIRE since you can't plan for them and they have an unlimited ceiling. But you can aim for a basic insurance plan on Obamacare or move to a country with a modern medical insurance system.
an_opabinia 6y ago
These lifestyles, as the author seems to point towards and not consummate, are the consequence of millennials being lonely, not poor.
- Bootwizard 6y ago
  I would say you're wrong. I know this is anectdata but I'm a non-single millenial, and my girlfriend and I have decided to never have kids because we value our own happiness and wellbeing too much to sacrifice it raising a child. We would be happy to live this type of lifestyle. Edit: and it has nothing to do with our income. We're both 6 figure engineers.
  - scns 6y ago
    Your girlfriend might regret it when she is too old to have kids.
  - polotics 6y ago
    May I suggest your understanding of the word "happiness" will change as you age? My happiness at 25 is not the same as at 50. As a male I guess society is on your side and you can be a late father if you find a willing younger partner. For your girlfriend however it's no dice: at 50 and childless I assume earlier happiness may taste different.
    - ReactiveJelly 6y ago
      This is a big "may" to put on someone else.
  - tolbish 6y ago
    How many years have you been with your girlfriend? My interpretation of your answer is different depending on if you say something like 3-5 years versus 10+ years.
  - chadcmulligan 6y ago
    are you in your 20's? at some time in the next few years your girlfriend may change her mind.
brnt 6y ago
Rent seeking capitalists have managed to work their way into every corner of life. There is no way for a significant portion of the population to produce a personal surplus, because 'markets' will be quick to funnel this into ever fewer pocket, thanks to the neoliberal tools they've managed to convince us were necessary for 'business' to not be 'choked' by government. Two working partners, working in well paying jobs in large cities, it doesn't matter, you're not going to keep your surplus. Apart from being lucky and be either born or get a lottery ticket into the 0.01%, the only way I see of building up your surplus (without expending your body with working 80hrs+ for 40+ years) is checking out of usual patterns, patterns that are still not being eaten up by rent seekers. Like a good job on the perifery of your country rather than in/near commercial/industrial centers. And vote labour, of course. In the end, only law can end rent seeking, and for that, we need to stop believing the economy musnt be under our control rather than the reverse.
- ReactiveJelly 6y ago
  Isn't it possible to have a controlled economy that doesn't exploit people, which is still capitalist within its bounds?
  - defterGoose 6y ago
    Yes, but keep your voice down. Nuance scares the man-children.
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    Depends on your definition of capitalism. If all companies were worker co-ops and workers had spots equal votes on board, and shares then sure. It'd be a win/win. As it stands, probably not because it doesn't matter how much productivity rises, wages stay stagnant, and that's not how it should work and I'd say it's not healthy for it to work like that. Better production/productivity should have a upward slope with wages, and gradually wages across all industries go up. That's the only way any of this is sustainable.
  - ManuelKiessling 6y ago
    I’m pretty sure that at least for some time, the system of “Soziale Marktwirtschaft” (social market-economy) in Germany nailed that balance quite well. It’s totally not my area of expertise, though. Still, my gut feeling is that if someone capable would check the numbers, the result would be that from the 1950s to at least the 1990s, the personal economic situation for most Germans improved dramatically, while German companies were extremely competitive and successful in comparison to the rest of the world at the same time. Like, no need to exploit the former or sacrifice the latter; it worked hand-in-hand.
abellerose 6y ago
Affordable homes aren't being built for Millennials. I predict there will be assisted suicide by the time most turn 60 and people will just turn to that service. I also assume the generations to come will look back on this time period as how the generations before the Millennials really threw a group of people into despair for their own well being.
- BuckRogers 6y ago
  That should come sooner than later. I’m 38 and a Millennial but definitely feel more like a Xennial. I’ve “done well”, never given a dime, no help or network, and have worked a tax paying job since I was 12, put myself through college with 30 hours a week work (night shifts at stores etc) and my net worth including my 401K today is about 200K. That’s saving, hard, for a very long time. I’m still far behind where I need to be financially, will never retire, and would definitely consider it today. The only reason I stick around is to outlive a few people that I don’t want to give the satisfaction that I died. I’m a petty man, one with no real future, but to continue making employers rich. I do want to be part of defeating my class enemies though, the investment class. I often say I understand the opioid crisis- those who died may have been the smart ones. They knew. There’s really only one way forward and it needs to start now, worker owned cooperatives. No more capitalism, it isn’t working. While there will still be a place for capitalism, most businesses are proven business models. There’s no reason Google shouldn’t be owned by its employees. Let alone 7-Eleven. Once people get a taste of democracy in the workplace, they’ll demand it out of their government.
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    You sound a bit like me, a little more in my depressed days though. I'm a lib socialist, so worker coops are my jazz. I want to start a virtual union/commune that say everyone pays $100/month. We use that to buy real estate rentals, eventually we launch all types of businesses from gas stations to grocery stores to a full amazon + aws competitor. All union-owned. All workers are union members, and anyone who wants to join just joins. Maybe every hour and $ spent/invested = 1 share in the union. Each share = 1 vote and is used to calculate payouts for UBI (if we get to that point). Initially all the cash our businesses bring in would go into a fund for healthcare. Our own single-payer plan if you will. We can create our own insurance companies as well in most states, maybe eventually we take over medicaid/medicare and buy up some hospitals and drug companies so we own the whole health supply chain. We could lobby congress for funds as well to up our health fund, and free up our cash on hand to pay out UBI. Could also have some sort of credit card account with reward points, that you could use at sub-union companies... Say a union member starts a worker-coop, and decides to pay a 10% tax to the union, it'd be a sub-union company. Maybe union members would also get discounts at the shop if it was ecommerce or something, and be encouraged to shop there or help them promote their business. The key is creating something that benefits all, encourages each other to help each other, and is ran somewhat democratically, and of course is self-sufficient. Also CEO caps for all companies under the umbrella.
akhilcacharya 6y ago
This is bubble talk. I don't know anybody that went to my undergrad that is remotely interested in any of these except remote work, which was promised to everyone as soon as broadband became available to common people in the '90s. Poor folks aren't the ones blogging about van life, they're the ones that live in their cars in Menlo Park. Meanwhile, the classmates that didn't leave my state have either already purchased houses or are planning to within the next year. Mind you these aren't rich folks, these are folks making $75k a year at best, half of what a Princeton CS grad would make. I've talked to them about FIRE'ing before and got a blank look on their face. The only thing they do is max out their 401k, if that. This isn't a case of "resource constraints" making poverty fashionable. It's a case of out of touch elites trying desperately to either "rough it" for the sake of the experience they never had or to aggressively retire at the age of 30. The median student loan debt burden is closer to $0 than $100k, and while growing and maintaining inter-generational wealth is a massive problem for communities of color because of persistent housing discrimination, I really don't see these folks represented in the communities OP's article mentions. ..that is, of course, if this isn't a partially GPT-3 generated blog as speculated here [0] but there do seem to be active responses from the author, so it just appears to be pseudonymous. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23952750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23952750
ThA0x2 6y ago
Hilarious how entitled the author is. It's delusional to believe that millennials, or anyone else for that matter, are owed living in some of the most expensive cities on the planet. So many people just BELIEVE that if you fumble through college, you're magically owed an affordable, nice house/apartment in some of the most desirable metros on the face of the planet.
- arvinsim 6y ago
  Who do you think inculcated that narrative to millenials when they were young?
  - ThA0x2 6y ago
    Their parent's generation for sure, and the liberal educators at the time.
- GoodJokes 6y ago
  Nah too many people just believe that health and housing is a human right.
- ReactiveJelly 6y ago
  I live in a small town and the state doesn't seem to take care of anyone here, millennial or not.
  - ThA0x2 6y ago
    I live in a major city and the state doesn't seem to take care of anyone here, millennial or not.
anm89 6y ago
I love how the narrative is spun on these things. It's not individuals making decisions about how to live their own lives. Its they, the all encompassing shadowy cabal who wants to tempt naive young people into living in vans, and preposterous less then 5000 sqft houses, with their secret goal of impoverishing everybody. Or maybe there are just people who prefer those things? Surely occams razor prefers the shadowy cabal though... It's like an exaggerated version of the peasents from the Monty python sketch on the anarcho syndacislist commune. .
giorgioz 6y ago
I have been a digital nomad for 8 years of my life and my partner and I (also digital nomad for 2+ years) had actively decided to become parents and have a 2 years old daughter. We do live as expats in Budapest where the cost/quality of living ratio is better with a foreign salary. I did attend a couple of FIRE meetups in Budapest last year. I think the article is discussing a lot of real problems but is assuming too much cause/effect rather than just correlation. I think many of these movements make sense now BECAUSE travel is easier and millenials are not marrying or are having less kids anyway. The FIRE movement is quite helpful anyway to start to manage your savings and debt. There is a lot of exchange of knowledge about ETF and passive investing. In the line of the lifestyle blog https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ By Retire Early most people intend actually "Retire Early from a job you dislike" and keep working on something you enjoy. I'm from Italy which with Japan is one of the countries in the world with the steepest population decline. Fast population decline with an older population is a though new challenge we'll have to face consciounsly soon.
- galfarragem 6y ago
  A bit off topic: isn't it strange that many people _choose_ to live on countries like Hungary, that media portrays as being the gross ones in the EU context? Something doesn't seem right here.
  - cko 6y ago
    Not sure what you mean. I semi-retired early, and I currently live in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I saw a (uploaded 5 years ago) Youtube video that mentioned the city as a place rife with corruption and poverty and people somehow scrape by. I showed the girlfriend, who grew up here, and we were both confused. On the other hand, I don't know why people _choose_ to live in a country with high property taxes and healthcare costs and mandatory driving. As an American I love the US but feel relaxed where I am now. A friend once asked me why I didn't move to London instead. Because I grew up near NYC and it's like the same thing, that's why.
    - galfarragem 6y ago
krrishd 6y ago
reminded me of the “premium mediocre” view of millennials coping with downward mobility https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-life-of-maya-millennial/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-l...
- slavik81 6y ago
  > Premium mediocre is Starbucks’ [...] original pumpkin spice lattes featuring a staggering absence of pumpkin in the preparation. It is confusing, but "pumpkin spice" is the name of the traditional blend of spices used in pumpkin pie. It's like how "salad dressing" doesn't contain any salad.
- riverlong 6y ago
  Definitely. The "premium mediocre" stuff has been on my mind a lot, and I'm sure it's conceptually related. "Downward mobility" is a good term here.
P4wl0w 6y ago
I agree with the underlying conclusion but there is one thing you said but did not properly reason about: > On the other hand, van life and tiny houses are logistically prohibitive to having children. This is just not true. Only here in the wealthy west people think they need a big house to have children. In the rest of the world you will see whole families living in one tiny room together. Also there is a lot of valid reasons not to put children into this world without being part of some lifestyle romance.
- riverlong 6y ago
  In the rest of the world, you see whole families living in one room together because they are poor. Virtually no-one chooses to live like this. Case in point, as soon as such people get money, they upgrade to larger houses.
Tiktaalik 6y ago
Lots of "fashionable" millennial hipster trend things were just normal stuff that were bought by millennials because they were poor artists or working class. eg. converse shoes, pabst blue ribbon, thrift finds. Oh oh it's so ironic uh no it's stuff millennials can afford because they're poor af.

71 points by riverlong 6y ago

Powerful post. Unfortunately no potential solutions are explored. Ideas? Is it a matter of figuring out how to shift/part wealth from the ultra wealthy of the world? Or develop a means of building wealth at lower costs? Of course limited land is still an issue. Even if you got cheap land in a remote area, you're likely to be disconnected from the world without running water, electricity, and internet.

riverlong 6y ago
Thank you! The problem is huge in scope, and there are many potential solutions (with lots of smart people debating them). Land scarcity and cost is a core part of the intergenerational wealth divide. There, variants of Georgism[0] are becoming more popular, but the debate is far from settled. In some places, legislators are setting up incentives (taxation, benefits to owner-occupiers rather than landlords, etc.) to correct these market issues. Effects of such recent legislation in Germany and Vancouver, for example, appear to be productive. Regardless, I'm just trying to draw attention to the fact that a lot of current lifestyle trends are coping mechanisms to deal with poverty, no matter how good the Instagram pictures look. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
cryptica 6y ago
I sometimes think about the startup crowd of the past decade as generational traitors. They're a small number of young people who were selected by the system based on their connections to the older, wealthier generations and their willingness to do unethical things in order to maintain the status quo and secure inheritances as much as possible. Baby boomers are one of the most selfish and unethical generations and this explains why millennials are having such a tough time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
reducesuffering 6y ago
Affordable housing and health care is really what it comes down to. Food is as cheap, inflation-adjusted, as ever. Quality, reliable, transportation is as cheap as ever. College education is free in many places of the world, but a luxury in the US with the way it's taught. Employers are coming around to the fact that it's not a good signal any more, so the reasons to go ~50k+ in debt for a questionable degree are ceasing. The rest of millennial spend are generally luxuries. They can't afford to keep going with the conspicuous consumption and status-signalling that other generations could. But that's not what we should care about improving. We need to start tackling the insane complexities of the US health system and the complete failure of building regulations to provide an affordable place for the next generation to live.
- akhilcacharya 6y ago
  > College education is free in many places of the world, but a luxury in the US with the way it's taught. Community college is extremely cheap and free in several states like Tennessee. In state tuition at most state schools will run $30k max on the remainder. Not cheap, but for the income gains...not expensive.
082349872349872 6y ago
A traditional solution for youth who see little future has been emigration.

lalos 6y ago

It's interesting seeing how humans are deciding to forgo one of the most innate patterns of life itself, passing their own genes via these phenomenons. It's almost as if it's a 'invisible hand' regulating the population by cornering people to prefer an achievable amount of pleasure (retire early, travel, etc) by trading it for not having offspring. This also relates to all the news about the rise of 'despair deaths'. No jobs, no way to ensure offspring a quality life, therefore game over for those genes. It is a big claim that these communities don't have kids, I would want more evidence of that before jumping to conclusions but if that's the case it's pretty crazy to read about.

cheschire 6y ago
Is it not inherently part of that animal pattern to only procreate until the resources become a limitation? Maybe the Wachowskis were wrong, and humanity isn’t a disease that keeps spreading and growing.
- lalos 6y ago
  I would assume contraceptives methods make it easier to break the pattern, since you are still technically physically doing the act of reproducing but the cycle or incentive is broken since there is no offspring.
- nordsieck 6y ago
  > Is it not inherently part of that animal pattern to only procreate until the resources become a limitation? Most animals don't self limit - their environment limits them instead.
  - anon9001 6y ago
    How can I tell if I'm self limiting or if I'm being environmentally limited?
    - nordsieck 6y ago
      > How can I tell if I'm self limiting or if I'm being environmentally limited? Are you voluntarily having fewer kids than you physically could, or did you starve to death?

aogaili 6y ago

I disagree, while financial aspect is important but it is not the only factor why folks choose these kind of lifestyles. First, having a kid these days might not actually be a good idea, with 7 billion people and counting, uncertaining future job market and the huge expense required to raise a functional kid in modern society. Previous generations never had those obligation or constrains and kids were able to contribute to their farms/income from early age. Second, technology allowed for lifestyles that were not even feasible in the past, it is really obvious and I don't think I need to elaborate on that. Last, humans were nomads settling. To sum up not everyone wants to live the mainstream lifestyle. So it could be due to preference and choice rather than financial pressures only.

sxp 6y ago

> Having children is very expensive, so it’s hard to make that work with FIRE. On the other hand, van life and tiny houses are logistically prohibitive to having children. This is debatable. If neither parent is working and they have the time and knowledge to homeschool their kids, having children becomes cheaper since the parents don't need daycare, a nanny, an expensive private school, etc. People of all social classes have been having kids since the dawn of humanity. Kids can be as cheap or as expensive as you want if you don't have to worry about working 9-to-5 at the same time.

schwartzworld 6y ago
So, kids can be cheap if you don't have to worry about working? How do you feed your children in this scenario where neither parent works? How about medical bills? I'm not saying a lot of people couldn't spend less on childcare etc, but the ability to do it without working assumes a certain level of financial comfort. That's not even taking into account the added cost of leaving the workforce for several years. I know several parents who found it difficult to return to their former fields.
- sxp 6y ago
  > How do you feed your children in this scenario where neither parent works? How about medical bills? FIRE. If your life plan involves having kids, you'll need higher FIRE number, but it's still possible. Medicial bills are always the hardest part of FIRE since you can't plan for them and they have an unlimited ceiling. But you can aim for a basic insurance plan on Obamacare or move to a country with a modern medical insurance system.

an_opabinia 6y ago

These lifestyles, as the author seems to point towards and not consummate, are the consequence of millennials being lonely, not poor.

Bootwizard 6y ago
I would say you're wrong. I know this is anectdata but I'm a non-single millenial, and my girlfriend and I have decided to never have kids because we value our own happiness and wellbeing too much to sacrifice it raising a child. We would be happy to live this type of lifestyle. Edit: and it has nothing to do with our income. We're both 6 figure engineers.
- scns 6y ago
  Your girlfriend might regret it when she is too old to have kids.
- polotics 6y ago
  May I suggest your understanding of the word "happiness" will change as you age? My happiness at 25 is not the same as at 50. As a male I guess society is on your side and you can be a late father if you find a willing younger partner. For your girlfriend however it's no dice: at 50 and childless I assume earlier happiness may taste different.
  - ReactiveJelly 6y ago
    This is a big "may" to put on someone else.
- tolbish 6y ago
  How many years have you been with your girlfriend? My interpretation of your answer is different depending on if you say something like 3-5 years versus 10+ years.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  are you in your 20's? at some time in the next few years your girlfriend may change her mind.

brnt 6y ago

Rent seeking capitalists have managed to work their way into every corner of life. There is no way for a significant portion of the population to produce a personal surplus, because 'markets' will be quick to funnel this into ever fewer pocket, thanks to the neoliberal tools they've managed to convince us were necessary for 'business' to not be 'choked' by government. Two working partners, working in well paying jobs in large cities, it doesn't matter, you're not going to keep your surplus. Apart from being lucky and be either born or get a lottery ticket into the 0.01%, the only way I see of building up your surplus (without expending your body with working 80hrs+ for 40+ years) is checking out of usual patterns, patterns that are still not being eaten up by rent seekers. Like a good job on the perifery of your country rather than in/near commercial/industrial centers. And vote labour, of course. In the end, only law can end rent seeking, and for that, we need to stop believing the economy musnt be under our control rather than the reverse.

ReactiveJelly 6y ago
Isn't it possible to have a controlled economy that doesn't exploit people, which is still capitalist within its bounds?
- defterGoose 6y ago
  Yes, but keep your voice down. Nuance scares the man-children.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  Depends on your definition of capitalism. If all companies were worker co-ops and workers had spots equal votes on board, and shares then sure. It'd be a win/win. As it stands, probably not because it doesn't matter how much productivity rises, wages stay stagnant, and that's not how it should work and I'd say it's not healthy for it to work like that. Better production/productivity should have a upward slope with wages, and gradually wages across all industries go up. That's the only way any of this is sustainable.
- ManuelKiessling 6y ago
  I’m pretty sure that at least for some time, the system of “Soziale Marktwirtschaft” (social market-economy) in Germany nailed that balance quite well. It’s totally not my area of expertise, though. Still, my gut feeling is that if someone capable would check the numbers, the result would be that from the 1950s to at least the 1990s, the personal economic situation for most Germans improved dramatically, while German companies were extremely competitive and successful in comparison to the rest of the world at the same time. Like, no need to exploit the former or sacrifice the latter; it worked hand-in-hand.

abellerose 6y ago

Affordable homes aren't being built for Millennials. I predict there will be assisted suicide by the time most turn 60 and people will just turn to that service. I also assume the generations to come will look back on this time period as how the generations before the Millennials really threw a group of people into despair for their own well being.

BuckRogers 6y ago
That should come sooner than later. I’m 38 and a Millennial but definitely feel more like a Xennial. I’ve “done well”, never given a dime, no help or network, and have worked a tax paying job since I was 12, put myself through college with 30 hours a week work (night shifts at stores etc) and my net worth including my 401K today is about 200K. That’s saving, hard, for a very long time. I’m still far behind where I need to be financially, will never retire, and would definitely consider it today. The only reason I stick around is to outlive a few people that I don’t want to give the satisfaction that I died. I’m a petty man, one with no real future, but to continue making employers rich. I do want to be part of defeating my class enemies though, the investment class. I often say I understand the opioid crisis- those who died may have been the smart ones. They knew. There’s really only one way forward and it needs to start now, worker owned cooperatives. No more capitalism, it isn’t working. While there will still be a place for capitalism, most businesses are proven business models. There’s no reason Google shouldn’t be owned by its employees. Let alone 7-Eleven. Once people get a taste of democracy in the workplace, they’ll demand it out of their government.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  You sound a bit like me, a little more in my depressed days though. I'm a lib socialist, so worker coops are my jazz. I want to start a virtual union/commune that say everyone pays $100/month. We use that to buy real estate rentals, eventually we launch all types of businesses from gas stations to grocery stores to a full amazon + aws competitor. All union-owned. All workers are union members, and anyone who wants to join just joins. Maybe every hour and $ spent/invested = 1 share in the union. Each share = 1 vote and is used to calculate payouts for UBI (if we get to that point). Initially all the cash our businesses bring in would go into a fund for healthcare. Our own single-payer plan if you will. We can create our own insurance companies as well in most states, maybe eventually we take over medicaid/medicare and buy up some hospitals and drug companies so we own the whole health supply chain. We could lobby congress for funds as well to up our health fund, and free up our cash on hand to pay out UBI. Could also have some sort of credit card account with reward points, that you could use at sub-union companies... Say a union member starts a worker-coop, and decides to pay a 10% tax to the union, it'd be a sub-union company. Maybe union members would also get discounts at the shop if it was ecommerce or something, and be encouraged to shop there or help them promote their business. The key is creating something that benefits all, encourages each other to help each other, and is ran somewhat democratically, and of course is self-sufficient. Also CEO caps for all companies under the umbrella.

akhilcacharya 6y ago

This is bubble talk. I don't know anybody that went to my undergrad that is remotely interested in any of these except remote work, which was promised to everyone as soon as broadband became available to common people in the '90s. Poor folks aren't the ones blogging about van life, they're the ones that live in their cars in Menlo Park. Meanwhile, the classmates that didn't leave my state have either already purchased houses or are planning to within the next year. Mind you these aren't rich folks, these are folks making $75k a year at best, half of what a Princeton CS grad would make. I've talked to them about FIRE'ing before and got a blank look on their face. The only thing they do is max out their 401k, if that. This isn't a case of "resource constraints" making poverty fashionable. It's a case of out of touch elites trying desperately to either "rough it" for the sake of the experience they never had or to aggressively retire at the age of 30. The median student loan debt burden is closer to $0 than $100k, and while growing and maintaining inter-generational wealth is a massive problem for communities of color because of persistent housing discrimination, I really don't see these folks represented in the communities OP's article mentions. ..that is, of course, if this isn't a partially GPT-3 generated blog as speculated here [0] but there do seem to be active responses from the author, so it just appears to be pseudonymous. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23952750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23952750

ThA0x2 6y ago

Hilarious how entitled the author is. It's delusional to believe that millennials, or anyone else for that matter, are owed living in some of the most expensive cities on the planet. So many people just BELIEVE that if you fumble through college, you're magically owed an affordable, nice house/apartment in some of the most desirable metros on the face of the planet.

arvinsim 6y ago
Who do you think inculcated that narrative to millenials when they were young?
- ThA0x2 6y ago
  Their parent's generation for sure, and the liberal educators at the time.
GoodJokes 6y ago
Nah too many people just believe that health and housing is a human right.
ReactiveJelly 6y ago
I live in a small town and the state doesn't seem to take care of anyone here, millennial or not.
- ThA0x2 6y ago
  I live in a major city and the state doesn't seem to take care of anyone here, millennial or not.

anm89 6y ago

I love how the narrative is spun on these things. It's not individuals making decisions about how to live their own lives. Its they, the all encompassing shadowy cabal who wants to tempt naive young people into living in vans, and preposterous less then 5000 sqft houses, with their secret goal of impoverishing everybody. Or maybe there are just people who prefer those things? Surely occams razor prefers the shadowy cabal though... It's like an exaggerated version of the peasents from the Monty python sketch on the anarcho syndacislist commune. .

giorgioz 6y ago

I have been a digital nomad for 8 years of my life and my partner and I (also digital nomad for 2+ years) had actively decided to become parents and have a 2 years old daughter. We do live as expats in Budapest where the cost/quality of living ratio is better with a foreign salary. I did attend a couple of FIRE meetups in Budapest last year. I think the article is discussing a lot of real problems but is assuming too much cause/effect rather than just correlation. I think many of these movements make sense now BECAUSE travel is easier and millenials are not marrying or are having less kids anyway. The FIRE movement is quite helpful anyway to start to manage your savings and debt. There is a lot of exchange of knowledge about ETF and passive investing. In the line of the lifestyle blog https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ By Retire Early most people intend actually "Retire Early from a job you dislike" and keep working on something you enjoy. I'm from Italy which with Japan is one of the countries in the world with the steepest population decline. Fast population decline with an older population is a though new challenge we'll have to face consciounsly soon.

galfarragem 6y ago
A bit off topic: isn't it strange that many people _choose_ to live on countries like Hungary, that media portrays as being the gross ones in the EU context? Something doesn't seem right here.
- cko 6y ago
  Not sure what you mean. I semi-retired early, and I currently live in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I saw a (uploaded 5 years ago) Youtube video that mentioned the city as a place rife with corruption and poverty and people somehow scrape by. I showed the girlfriend, who grew up here, and we were both confused. On the other hand, I don't know why people _choose_ to live in a country with high property taxes and healthcare costs and mandatory driving. As an American I love the US but feel relaxed where I am now. A friend once asked me why I didn't move to London instead. Because I grew up near NYC and it's like the same thing, that's why.
  - galfarragem 6y ago

krrishd 6y ago

reminded me of the “premium mediocre” view of millennials coping with downward mobility https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-life-of-maya-millennial/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-l...

slavik81 6y ago
> Premium mediocre is Starbucks’ [...] original pumpkin spice lattes featuring a staggering absence of pumpkin in the preparation. It is confusing, but "pumpkin spice" is the name of the traditional blend of spices used in pumpkin pie. It's like how "salad dressing" doesn't contain any salad.
riverlong 6y ago
Definitely. The "premium mediocre" stuff has been on my mind a lot, and I'm sure it's conceptually related. "Downward mobility" is a good term here.

P4wl0w 6y ago

I agree with the underlying conclusion but there is one thing you said but did not properly reason about: > On the other hand, van life and tiny houses are logistically prohibitive to having children. This is just not true. Only here in the wealthy west people think they need a big house to have children. In the rest of the world you will see whole families living in one tiny room together. Also there is a lot of valid reasons not to put children into this world without being part of some lifestyle romance.

riverlong 6y ago
In the rest of the world, you see whole families living in one room together because they are poor. Virtually no-one chooses to live like this. Case in point, as soon as such people get money, they upgrade to larger houses.

Tiktaalik 6y ago

Lots of "fashionable" millennial hipster trend things were just normal stuff that were bought by millennials because they were poor artists or working class. eg. converse shoes, pabst blue ribbon, thrift finds. Oh oh it's so ironic uh no it's stuff millennials can afford because they're poor af.