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We can say it’s a mindset issue or that Gen Z needs to take more personal responsibility for their financial situation, but that essentially ignores all of the

We can say it’s a mindset issue or that Gen Z needs to take more personal responsibility for their financial situation, but that essentially ignores all of the facts on the ground that are the results of trends and political decisions that happened before they were born. It isn’t their fault that things have become so expensive. It’s the fault of the profit maximizing companies that control the economy, and a political class that has allowed these problems to fester. It used to be possible in America to buy a house and raise a family with free education. This is no longer possible. It was a choice to only zone for single family housing. It was a choice to cut state funding for universities which has led to unsustainable tuition bloat. It was a choice to allow companies to ship jobs overseas for pennies on the dollar. All of these choices reallocated money from younger, poorer people to wealthier, older people.

ralferoo 2y ago
> It isn’t their fault ... It’s the fault of ... > It used to be possible ... This is no longer possible. These statements are the very essence of the nihilism in the article. It doesn't matter if a situation is less advantageous to you than it was to someone 10, 20, or 50 years ago, or why the situation has changed. What matters is how you can best deal with the situation you find yourself in now. Giving up, saying it's too hard so there's no point trying, blaming someone else all have the same outcome - nothing will change. To use a card analogy: maybe you haven't been dealt the best cards in life, but if you fold every hand, you're never going to win. But if everyone else has terrible cards too, you can easily win with a bad hand if you play to your strengths.
- janalsncm 2y ago
  I won’t disagree there are more and less productive mindsets you can have about your situation. But mindset isn’t everything. You can choose to have a productive mindset while understanding the political choices that were made. And that is important because we can make political choices to fix the problems that have been caused. You can’t just grind your way out of neoliberalism. Your card analogy hides the fact that your cards weren’t dealt randomly. Opportunity isn’t evenly distributed. The cards were deliberately chosen. Politicians chose winners and losers when they rewrote the tax code to reward capital over labor, make it easier to ship your job overseas, cut funding for education, and now allow companies to buy up a quarter of new housing. And the only way those trends get reversed is if people become more aware of it, not less.

ralferoo 2y ago

> It isn’t their fault ... It’s the fault of ... > It used to be possible ... This is no longer possible. These statements are the very essence of the nihilism in the article. It doesn't matter if a situation is less advantageous to you than it was to someone 10, 20, or 50 years ago, or why the situation has changed. What matters is how you can best deal with the situation you find yourself in now. Giving up, saying it's too hard so there's no point trying, blaming someone else all have the same outcome - nothing will change. To use a card analogy: maybe you haven't been dealt the best cards in life, but if you fold every hand, you're never going to win. But if everyone else has terrible cards too, you can easily win with a bad hand if you play to your strengths.

janalsncm 2y ago
I won’t disagree there are more and less productive mindsets you can have about your situation. But mindset isn’t everything. You can choose to have a productive mindset while understanding the political choices that were made. And that is important because we can make political choices to fix the problems that have been caused. You can’t just grind your way out of neoliberalism. Your card analogy hides the fact that your cards weren’t dealt randomly. Opportunity isn’t evenly distributed. The cards were deliberately chosen. Politicians chose winners and losers when they rewrote the tax code to reward capital over labor, make it easier to ship your job overseas, cut funding for education, and now allow companies to buy up a quarter of new housing. And the only way those trends get reversed is if people become more aware of it, not less.