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What happens when a whole generation never grows up?
- RadiozRadioz 2y agohttps://archive.ph/4hofR https://archive.ph/4hofR
- superkuh 2y agoAlternately: what happens when a whole generation never gives up control and prevents most born after them from aquiring housing or currency by creating an regulatory environment and economy rigged to only benefit corporations they own? But sure, blame this on the youths again, as is tradition.
- hdjjhhvvhga 2y agoI don't like the narrative of generation divide, it's those who own vs those who rent. It's been like this for a couple of centuries and in several countries ended up in revolutions.
- xnx 2y ago> it's those who own vs those who rent Or those with pensions vs. those without
- blacksmith_tb 2y agoPensions? Not in the US - they're practically extinct [1]. Of course that means that people can be blamed for not saving in their 401k-s, which is also convenient. 1: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/19/pensions-are-popular-why-dont-more-americans-have-them/72968970007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/19/pensions-are...
- bryanrasmussen 2y agoYour comment seems a bit weird as it implies a whole generation owns corporations.
- mrfox321 2y agoWho do you think the shareholders are? What demographic are they?
- sosborn 2y agoDo you think it's a generational issue, or a class issue?
- superkuh 2y agoExactly. It's not the fault of the youths and it's not the fault of the old. Both it and mine are obviously false claims yet one is accepted as a WSJ article and one is pointed at as silly. My "alternately" was not to say that the alternate was an accurate description of reality but only to highlight how silly such broad statements are when you look from the other end.
- lifestyleguru 2y agoOver here would be "What happens when real estate is the only investment vehicle without capital gains tax?"
- johnea 2y ago[flagged]
- scarface_74 2y agoIs it that people can’t buy a house or that they can’t buy a house where they want to live? There is a vast swaths in the US where your average worker could buy a house in middle America based on wages they could make there.
- slv77 2y agoHousing prices relative to income have gone up pretty much nationwide: https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/home-price-income-ratio-reaches-record-high-0 https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/home-price-income-ratio-re...
- scarface_74 2y agoIn many of the areas I am talking about teachers, lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, policemen, other government workers, etc can affordably buy a house in those areas.
- slv77 2y agoHousing prices have historically been highly correlated with income and interest rates. That correlation seems to have broken down. There are areas where it still is sane but much less of them than historically and concentrated in areas with very little population.
- anotherhue 2y agoRTO throws a wrench in most of those plans. As does the bleak reality that the opiod crisis or similar is often the reason for the low price. Is it worth $500k to not have your kids live in fear of loonies on their steet? Hard to say it isn't if you can possibly manage. Investment idea : buy a bunch of homes in troubled areas and then build a mental health facility. Resell them as a safe neighbourhood.
- scarface_74 2y agoI tried to focus on office jobs because I realize it’s a privilege to work remotely that most people can’t do. If you were a teacher, do you think it would be easier to find a nice home in Brookton South Dakota or San Francisco California? And I’m not trying to come across as being pro or anti rural America. I’ve lived in major metropolitan areas my adult life. But I’m from and still visit family in south GA. On the other hand, drugs are endemic everywhere in the US. I know a few middle class families with teenagers and their relatives struggling with heavy drugs - not just weed.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gnabgib 2y agoDiscussion (9 points, 1 day ago, 10 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42564508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42564508
- recursivedoubts 2y agoYeah? Do you blame the kids? Or do you blame the parents?
- nancyminusone 2y agoIs blame going to help fix the problem?
- LamaOfRuin 2y agoA problem usually must be accurately identified to be fixed.
- RobotToaster 2y agoBlame the private equity companies that bought all the housing.
- bloomca 2y agoAt least at this point it is a drop in the bucket. The issue with housing is zoning, not enough supply of affordable housing, and the singly story sprawl which makes land in proximity a bit too valuable. Granted, the last point is true even with apartment complexes in hot areas. To make it short, the main issue with housing is that it is considered an investment and not a commodity like a car.
- timbit42 2y agoBlame the politicians who failed to stop it and the voters who failed to convince the politicians to stop it.
- alephnerd 2y agoIt's gotten pretty bleak. Even white collar wages are largely stagnant, yet the costs to get those white collar jobs are insane. In 2006, an MBA from HBS had a total tuition of around $75,000 [0] and net you a $140,000 TC job [1]. In 2024, an MBA from HBS has a total tuition of $170,000 [2] and net you a $200,000 TC job [3]. If this is the situation at Harvard Business School, imagine at other programs or universities who don't have as many doors open. Hell, I haven't even factored housing in the tuition numbers above. We've entered the same trap Germany and France was in during the 2010s and Japan in the 2000s. For a lot of young people, there's no point even trying if you are still stuck. Either you spend inordinate amounts of money to tread water and attempt to start a career, or you don't and just remain a NEET. Either way you're unable to hit traditional milestones until you late 30s if you're able to somehow get back on track. [0] - https://www.hbs.edu/about/annualreport/Documents/2006/HBS-Annual-2006-Full-Report.pdf https://www.hbs.edu/about/annualreport/Documents/2006/HBS-An... [1] - https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-bulletin.aspx?num=420 https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-bulletin.aspx... [2] - https://www.hbs.edu/mba/financial-aid/tuition-assistance/Pages/cost-of-attendance.aspx https://www.hbs.edu/mba/financial-aid/tuition-assistance/Pag... [3] - https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/employment-data/Pages/default.aspx https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/employment-data/Pages/default...
- Loughla 2y agoI have worked with colleges for most of my professional career. Kids these days are bleak. If they hit any obstacle, they just quit. And most administrators don't understand it/want to blame this on 'today's generation' or whatever else nonsense. They've been fed doom and gloom from politics, society, and climate science their entire lives. They can physically see that their lives aren't as easy as their parents and grandparents at the same age through photographs and home movies. I get it. It's hard to be optimistic as a kid; parents have to try harder than ever to keep them pointed in a positive direction.
- alephnerd 2y agoMBA is early/mid career. You tend to be in your late 20s or early 30s and have 4-7 years of full time professional experience before starting one, and have hit a professional roadblock that requires to get one in order to be promoted (Sr/Staff Engineer to Sr PM, VC Analyst to VC Associate, IB Analyst to IB Associate, Accountant Manager to Director). Which is my point. Plenty of white collar careers with significant upward monetary and social potential are gatekept via higher education, and those fields without that gatekeeping are extremely commodified. It's the same story of medicine, law, accounting, actuary, academia, and even engineering to a certain extent. Either you spend an inordinate amount just to barely tread water in your career, or spend little-to-no money and drown with no career. Forget about even buying a house or starting a family without parental support because you have a down payment's worth of loans to pay off. Edit: I re-read your post and I kinda agree. The era of being able to hoof it on your own is largely over, and parental help is increasingly critical. This will require a massive culture change in America (eg. normalize living with parents after college like back in Asia, de-emphasize certain "milestones" like marriage and kids by late 20s, etc).
- Febra33 2y agoThat's what happens when the neolibs design the economy and no one under 40 can afford to start a family.
- mystified5016 2y agoRonald Reagan is a neolib now?
- lordloki 2y agoOk, globalists, both neolib and neocon.
- kinghajj 2y agoUm, yes? Always has been? > Scholars tended to associate it with the theories of economists working with the Mont Pelerin Society, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and James M. Buchanan, along with politicians and policy-makers such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Alan Greenspan.
- pohl 2y agoIt's what happens when the average voter has no clue about who to blame about anything.
- fatbird 2y ago"In many ways, this age group is in a better place financially, on average, than their parents were at this age. The problem is that they don’t seem to know it."
- pohl 2y agoThe phrase "in many ways" is doing a lot of lifting. I wonder: what ways? What details need to be ignored in order for the rest of the sentence to seem plausible?
- jhanschoo 2y ago
- seydor 2y agoThe boomers loved democracy because they became the majority right at age 18. The younger ones did not have such luck
- feraldidactic 2y agoRight wing think tank cited for subjective point-of-view validation, not enough facts about economic constraints included. This is an opinion piece.
- alephnerd 2y agoIt's a bad title but the article hits the point - cost of housing is too high and a generation of well educated Americans were unable to start a career due to Great Recession and the COVID recession era hiring freezes.
- morkalork 2y agoFuck sakes, millenials are nearing their 40s now. Will the paternalistic media treatment ever end for us? Hello, earth to WSJ and NY Times, it's not the avocado toast that's causing our woes!
- throw44441 2y agoThis is only an anecdote so I won't assume my situation applies to everyone. As a person in their early 30's who has never dated, I thought about this kind of thing recently and concluded I don't really know what I want out of life. A lot of journaling and therapy led me to believe this may stem from a lack of interest in taking risks. And that may stem from my upbringing. Specifically trauma for at least a portion. I agree that there are a lot of reasons to think pessimistically about the future. However in my case it simply feels good to seek out such pessimism because it already fits into my world view. Which was shaped by mindset/trauma and disconnected logically from the fact that the Earth is melting etc. The people who raised me I was essentially given by chance. And they did not fulfill all my critical needs while excelling in other (material) needs. And that causes pessimism in me to some extent. Not the economy, really. Not AI, really. Those are things I can be pessimistic about by proxy. Because generally my mind rewards pessimism stronger than others, so those topics become abstract punching bags. I can't remember how many times I've opened HN and come across a sentiment of pessimism I largely agree with in the comments. But is that because I seek HN for that? What would it matter if I just stayed ignorant for a week? What difference would it make? Ideally, I think if I were to focus on things important to me it wouldn't be pessimism in general. I recently spoke to a woman in her mid-30s married with children and in talking about finding a partner she discussed how she believed all people are fundamentally good at heart, and the dating market is about finding those who will accept you now for who you are, without needing to change for them. This including an obligation to go to therapy or similar to change some of your beliefs that aren't as productive while still letting your true self on the inside shine outwards. This I believe is where the disconnect lies. Because I've already been in therapy since 3rd grade until today, a period of over 20 years, and the longer I've gone the more I've realized those "true self" components that are left without being reconfigured by therapy are not conducive with "you are a good person at heart" that the fiancee automatically believes. And it might have been that incorrect belief that enabled her to get married, because it enabled her to find a person that wasn't like me. But I don't parse it the same way. For a long time I didn't see an issue with myself. I just thought that's what "be yourself" meant. To believe the world is fundamentally chaotic and absurd. Because there isn't any other way to see it, having experienced first-hand what I did. And also I disagreed that there aren't any "fundamental" qualities so to speak that every single person on Earth would reject you for. If they accepted me for those it would be like accepting that they know someone will take advantage of them and deciding it's in their best interest to interact with them daily. I can only imagine the number of people diagnosable with narcissistic personality disorder that love "being themselves" and never want to change their fundamental nature for anyone. This is better than where I was 5 years ago. I was so busy dissociating with work that there was no reason at all for me to think about marriage or dating. Even in the middle of therapy. And I would say I am not restricted by finances or lack of homeownership (it sounded like a weird American obligation to me not grounded in true desires). This is my personal explanation for "people are better off but don't seem to know it" in the article. My mind reconfigured itself so that such any notion of "success" becomes unrecognizable. How effective is a human whose brain does not process rewards and punishment normally?
- ndiddy 2y agoThe article says "The conventional explanation for what’s freezing young adults in place is that they can’t afford to grow up, given rising inflation and ballooning housing costs. Yet this doesn’t quite explain what’s going on." It attempts to counter this explanation by saying that median wages increased 16% between 2000 and 2024 after adjusting for inflation, but leaves out that median housing prices increased ~45% during the same time period after adjusting for inflation (source: FRED & BLS CPI inflation calculator). Of course this leads to fewer people moving out and having kids.
- anotherhue 2y agoYes I really hate this false equivalence. What does it matter if certain metrics improved if we literally cannot purchase the (reasonable and necessary) things we want, like basic housing, childcare and healthcare. I don't want the money, I want the things people used to be able to buy with the money.
- hdjjhhvvhga 2y agoI find it ridiculous that the article blames the young generation. It is as if someone calculated their projected profits but the trends are different. Calling the young "Peter Pan"s will not solve the issue in any way. The society changes and marrying, taking a mortgage and having kids is no longer the norm.
- spwa4 2y agoThat's what happens when owning a home is essentially the pension plan of 5 generations. Eventually you'll stop working due to age. Government or private pensions simply will not pay for you to live, to say nothing of inevitable increases in medical expenses. So you make investments. Housing has been the big investment people make. One might just as well say that you're blaming the older generation for not just dying to make place for the younger generation after 40/50 years of constant work. It's the same claim. If you take away housing as an investment ... will you then double existing pensions, by working harder? You'll call that absurd. So, here we are. The older generation has something you need and needs the younger generation to work and pay for their old age ... Banks are indeed profiting off this, but the very large bulk is pensions of tens of millions of other Americans.
- Hizonner 2y agoDipshits write handwringing clickbait articles about it?
- mharig 2y ago[dead]
- qgin 2y agoStep 1: Create a world that pressures young adults away from traditional milestones Step 2: Blame young adults for spontaneously avoiding those milestones for no reason except their own moral failings There used to be intense social pressure for young adults to get married whether they wanted to or not -- whether they found a good partner or not -- unless they wanted to live at the margins of society. At the same time, a house was 4x the median income, where now houses are 9x the median income.