There have been a lot of posts to HN, including submissions of articles with a point of view contrary to this article, claiming that the current generation of y

There have been a lot of posts to HN, including submissions of articles with a point of view contrary to this article, claiming that the current generation of young people are "screwed" or the like. Both of my two older sons have netbook computers and mobile phones (not the Apple brand) even though our family income is solidly in the range described by the article. My second son recently mail-ordered computer parts and assembled a new desktop PC for my wife, which is quite a blessing. The simple point of fact is that young people today have opportunity to enjoy goods and services that were unavailable and unimaginable to their parents at the same age. All four of my children have had opportunity to obtain good education that prepares them for productive adult life--my oldest son is already working full-time as a programmer for a start-up. We have spent out of pocket more than most American families to pursue educational opportunities for them at the primary and secondary level of education, largely through homeschooling, but we can afford what we did with a middle-class income. We live in a nice house (rented, in our case) in a peaceful, crime-free neighborhood, and travel as we have occasion to travel. Our lifestyle has improved over the lifestyle I grew up with. As a younger Baby Boomer, I am prime political fodder for appeals to "protect Social Security." Yet I support entitlement reform, even at my short-term detriment, because I care about my children. I do agree that young people today need to have older people like me drain less of the money they earn through work to fund entitlements paid to me. Rather, I support reforms that raise the retirement age and age of eligibility for other old-age benefits and put more of the economy's money in the hands of working people who can best decide how to spend it, funding entitlement programs on a more actuarially sound basis. Understanding the basic facts about the economy is an important first step for hackers and other entrepreneurs to have a business environment in which they can innovate and invest. Current policies are unsustainable and anyway are based on false factual premises. Americans can buy more of what they want for fewer hours of work than ever before in human history. Hackers can keep right on innovating, because Americans will never feel like they have enough. History makes that clear.