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Maybe gen a will be the ones with the balls to actually rise up, set everything on fire, and kill the people responsible for destroying everything. Because of the rest of us are just sitting around complaining.
And yes, I admit, I'm in that category.
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I have been educating my child on unions and workers' rights. When he's old enough, we move on to the proper engineering and maintenance of guillotines.
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Have you considered teaching him welding and bulldozer operation?
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It is getting to the point that is the only option. Voting doesn't matter, protesting doesn't matter, complaining doesn't matter. Millennials were raised that those are the processes, we have come to realize they don't work and our kids are being raised with the understanding that that doesn't work. If they want things to change, and it literally HAS to, that is what needs to happen. Either accept the status quo or forcefully change it. If I understand history, that is the most American thing you can do.
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The funny thing is that we have politicians here in Australia that complain about "woke" environmentalists standing up for the environment by sitting down on the road. They're trying to have them labelled as terrorists for simply sitting down in the street.
Meanwhile in France, Farmers who are angry about stopping of diesel concessions are setting things on fire, blocking streets with tractors and dumping manure and dirt into the street to block public servants responsible into buildings.
The point is two fold, French have always done protests better. And the west conservatives have a massive raging boner for eroding ones rights to protest.
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I support protesting wholeheartedly, but blocking a road is among the most moronic ways to protest I can think of.
They are blocking emergency vehicles, people going to work, people doing errands, visiting family, goods being transported etc.
There is a reason people get pissed off and pull them off of the road themselves. It does absolutely nothing to further their cause.
It doesn't even effect the people they protest against.Imagine missing your kids show, mothers dying breath or the flight to your long awaited vacation and family visit because someone couldn't think of a more appropriate way to protest than sitting down and being an absolute butthole.
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i'd rather complain than be complacent at least
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I'm gonna be honest, I'm a zoomer (ahhh yes I'm a zoomer, I'm a zoomer, yippee! Everyone look at me, I'm the zoomer) and, looking towards the future, my future, I'm already kinda there. I just think we both haven't quite hit the critical mass where everyone else is at that point, yet, and I think that the narrative about, you know, why things suck, I think that's been co-opted with a mixed level of success, forcing people to feel "fine" with their circumstances, or, forcing people to feel personally responsible for their circumstances, as the case may be. I also think there's a good amount of cynicism about standing up to the US government and institutions, since we've been fed a shitload of stuff against that, and then, you know, we're all fucked and have limited resources and whatever. I also think people are probably too nice for their own good, most people just kind of want to chill, even if that means they're actually not allowed to chill because they have to work 2 jobs and have no energy and one financial emergency could wipe them out instantly.
I dunno, I feel pretty cynical, but I also feel like things will probably get at least a little bit worse, before they get better. I just hope they get worse in the right way, instead of in the whole like, world ending kind of way. Or, localized apocalypse, kind of way, more likely.
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This seems like a good place to post this reminder that in the last 50 years income has lost to inflation by 137 points. That's decades of prices rising faster than wages. It's not rocket science. They walked away with all of the productivity gains, and gave the entire country a pay cut at the same time. You want a boring dystopia? How about stealing your paycheck a couple percentage points a year until suddenly we realize we can't afford to live without 3 full time incomes in one household.
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Where I'm from, the median house price has risen 600% relative to the median income in the past 50 years.
That means the deposit we pay today is the equivalent of the entire 30 year mortgage of the people calling you lazy.
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Yup, the 137 points is just "core" inflation. Education, Housing, Food, and Cars all come in over that. Which is fine because those aren't necessary in the US right?
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And yet nearly anyone IRL you point this out to spouts some form of free market propaganda bullshit.
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Without violent pushback there is no reason at all to improve things. Cant afford to live?.. fuck you, we'll find someone who can. Piss off, peasant.
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All we would need is 3 days of a general strike with at least 10% participation.
But unfortunately there are several factors that prevent this, some human nature, some deliberately manufactured.
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Almost no one I know can afford missing a week's worth of work: This is manufactured with stagflation and at-will work laws
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The rich inflaming radical partisanship with traditional and social media to distract from who the real enemy is, reducing social cooperation
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American culture has become largely an 'observer culture', where the world is treated as a thing to passively watch while feeling disconnected, this is probably the worst contributor.
So many of the labor movement gains our forefathers bled and died for have been trampled by an owner class hell bent on recapitulating european nobility on American soil and they have been WILDLY successful the last 30 years.
Either we organize a general strike, or there will be food riots within a decade.
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We could do a general strike.
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137 points
What's a point?
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One percent relative what the market was at the starting point.
The market today is 237 % of starting point (probably 1990).
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gave the entire country a pay cut
Entire country? Which country? We're talking about our whole western civilisation.
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The data I'm using is for the US.
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Inflation isn't prices growing faster than wages, it's just prices growing in general. Don't let anyone tell you that gentle inflation is bad for poor people.
Debtors gain from inflation because they pay their fixed debts with currency worth less. When interest rates are low, refinance or borrow at low fixed rates. When inflation rises, your fixed debt costs go down in real terms.
If you want wages to increase, support a higher minimum wage.
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This isn't just inflation over 50 years. This is divergence in the inflation of wages and core inflation. So prices over all have risen by 137 points more than wages have risen. This isn't the talk about inflation vs deflation vs death spirals. This is everything slowly becoming less affordable over time. And it really doesn't matter if the money is worth less when the interest rate on the loan is far beyond inflation in the first place. You either pay it back quickly (monthly on a card) or watch it spiral out of control rapidly because adjustable rate loans work off of inflation and your wages didn't go up to match. So now you have that much less money a month to buy food.
Theoretically inflation is good for borrowers. In practice you need a certain base of money for that to be true. If you can't cover increased costs over the life of the loan then inflation is going to take you behind the shed.
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The most important thing is the rich getting richer
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The Market Has Spoken: Get Fucked.
A riveting exploration of the markets and society of the 21st century that will be written in 2200 lol
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We're DINKs just starting to push into the "living a comfortable life" range. As in, we can do what we want and enjoy doing it.
However, bringing a kid into that picture throws all of that away. Hospital bills, diapers, just the costs in general would wipe us out.
We most likely wouldn't qualify for any reimbursements and are already maximizing the ones we have such as house financing and taxes.
I obsessively try to keep my "IOUs" to a minimum meaning aggressive mortgage payments and credit cards within the limitations of what I can pay off immediately but even that is difficult.
The house needs work - new siding and windows, unexpected issues like the boiler dieing etc. And I'm generally fearful of what we'd find behind the siding (termites??? everything not up to code?) A new job like that could turn into $40-50K that we just don't have floating around.
I don't go to doctors because I was afraid of what I might find. I'm lucky in the fact that my insurance is now pushing in the correct direction but still ludicrously expensive... And I mean ludicrously for the lack of services available that won't cost me an additional fortune.
The wife also works a must-commute 9-5. Not sure how she, or both of us would be able to handle childcare needs and not feel like we would be neglecting the kid.
When would I ever be able to afford a kid in these situations?
And I am lucky to say that we are DINKs that are getting paid relatively well... How can people that are below us in income survive having kids?
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After WW2 almost every other developed nation was in ruin. The US was "the only game in town" when it came to production. This caused US labor to be in high demand and priced at a premium compared to places like in Europe or Japan, who were more concerned about rebuilding than exporting goods.
THIS is how a high school dropout could afford a house and a family. Because that high school dropout was basically your only option for labor. As those other countries finished rebuilding a lot manufacturing jobs left and things started to get "back to normal".
The US was in a unique position but like most things it was just squandered. Now the US is "regressing towards the mean". This is going to be the new normal because the last 40-50 years was an exception.
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Europe was reduced to rubble, but my grandfathers, who were children during the war and after, both still managed to build a house, raise two kids each and set money aside; one of my grandmothers worked as a seamstress and those grandparents not only built houses for themselves and each kid, but essentially owned a whole block in our village. The other grandfather was the son of an orphan, still managed to do well.
I had to take a job that requires great effort, stress and skill and keeps me away from home 40% of the time, it pays well but still I couldn't dream to be able to do the same as they did.
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That's true to a point. However bigger effects were the rise in executive compensation, the loss of labor and corporate regulations, and the resurgence of the shipping industry such that it was cheaper to ship from China than to make it in the US. It's true that demand for US manufactured goods has fallen, but there's no reason our current Service economy should struggle like it is.
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enlightened bit of context here.
correct me if i’m wrong, but these are the colloquial “golden days” that so many want to return to, right? a period which undoubtedly contributed to the presumption of american exceptionalism in the minds of its citizens.
if only there was a way to build a future out of transparency and sustainable systems instead of perpetuating our collective delusions.
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I think attributing the "good years" just to post war production is an incomplete explanation. The real issue is irresponsible private ownership and hobbling the value our economy can create.
Creating true value in our work is possible. Once some types of work are done the output can continue to benefit our society for decades. But a confluence of decisions by private owners have meant often we don't receive that benefit, and instead it's siphoned away as profit.
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I moved from the US to Italy, where everything is cheaper and better quality, and we get free healthcare, free college, retirement pension and six months paid maternity leave. All this on a 35% tax rate. Public daycare is about $300 a month, housing expenses are about half of what I paid in the US, and while groceries are about the same, they are all local, organic, non GMO and -get this - crops are grown for flavor rather than weight. Houses are smaller here and wages are usually lower, but working hours are less and less intense, and the pace of life is much chiller.
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Oh wow non GMO groceries what a magical fairy tale land.
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Thankfully we don't live in the US then, but these same dark times are washing over us in Europe too :-(
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But there's actually an outrageous amount of wealth in the west. It just needs to be redistributed.
It's not an easy problem to fix, but it's relatively simple.
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Unfortunately, much of that wealth was stolen from the global south via colonization. Redistribution of ownership must be done at a global, international level.
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There are many things that need change, but fixing the housing prices isn't complicated, it's just unpopular. You just need to take make speculating on housing as an asset very expensive. This will drive down the demand from non owner occupiers (businesses). It will also reduce the value of the largest asset most people own. People who invested so much into owning a home with the expectation that it will appreciate aren't going to support policies that do the opposite.
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We should've been taxing homes or land that people own but are not their primary residence, from the start.
It would be super easy to implement, and flexible - if housing prices are too high for 75% of the population, you raise those taxes little by little and the problem eventually sorts itself out. If it's no longer a problem, you reduce the taxes.
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We already have first, primary, and only home exceptions to many things. There's no reason Frank and Martha's house should be any less valuable. The problem is housing as speculation is causing houses to be priced higher than their real value.
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I'm not advocating violence, of course, because that's illegal both on this platform and in real life.
However, the history of humanity has demonstrated that powerful people need to be publicly executed in order for there to be sea change in economic inequalities. When enough people have nothing to lose, said executions become inevitable.
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I’m not advocating violence, of course, because that’s illegal both on this platform and in real life.
No it's not.
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This platform's policies do not have the force of law.
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Advocating for violence in general isn't illegal; only specific threats are. (Trump, for example, is an idiot-savant at walking that fine line.)
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Also the advocating for violence rule has always been weird, because it's rarely against the rules to advocate for war, even if it's literally violence and also much much worse due to the scale and horror of it.
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Yeah no, lemmy.world's admins and mods are already infected with the alt-right taint, calling for eating the rich can and will get you banned.
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Don't advocate violence. Instead, imply advocacy for violence.
It's not "let's kill the rich", it's "it'd be a damn shame if someone killed the rich"
It's not "you're morally obligated to burn that pipeline", it's "you're morally obligated to burn that pipeline in Minecraft"
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The only way to avoid this that I have ever been able to imagine would require our global society to somehow abandon the concept of currency. But that's insane, of course, so we're probably screwed...
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A general strike of 3 days with 10% of the population participating would do a LOT more than public executions of billionaires.
That said, there's no fucking way you will get 10% of the population to agree on ANYTHING anymore because every single communication channel, forum, and social space is FILLED with people who actively create hostile, circular and unproductive environments. Either for the hell of it or at the behest of their corporate masters, the result is the same.
We can't do it the easy way, so we will suffer until the only choice is the hard way.
All so 8 people can own half the fucking world.
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It's wealth inequality. Capital accumulates capital, and it actually means something because wealth is control, and things like housing that determine control over people's lives are forms of wealth that get concentrated away from regular people along with everything else.
IMO two main things need to happen:
- redistribution of wealth
- increase housing supply
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Oh but they actively took our paychecks too. This wasn't just government welfare for the wealthy and the stock market. When they fired Janet because they only needed one worker instead of two thanks to new software? They didn't pay Bob extra. That's wealth just sucked up into the Executive and Shareholder realm. Then to add salt to the wound of doing two jobs they give Bob a December raise below inflation. (because of course there is still actually more that Bob has to do, the software didn't fix everything.) So now they get Janet's pay and the extra revenue they denied Bob, because of course their prices damn sure went up in step with inflation.
This kind of fuckery has resulted in an estimated upwards transfer of around 47 Trillion dollars.
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The thing I don't like with that kind of argument is that it is inherently anti efficiency and anti progress. We don't want jobs to be done in the most inefficient way just so that a lot of people can be paid to do them that way. We want them to be done efficiently and then everyone gets fed,... anyway because society values people over wealth.
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increase housing supply
It makes sense to me that governments should be providing their citizens with items at the base of the pyramid for Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Air is everywhere, but governments mostly do have clean air regulations to make sure that air is breathable. Water is also typically provided by the city for every residence. It's not free, but it's pretty cheap. But, governments could be doing a lot more when it comes to shelter and food.
It's a bit strange that governments do spend a lot of effort / money on employment and personal security when they're higher up the pyramid than basics like housing and food.
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Die.
Whenever I hear someone say "what are people supposed to do?", that is what I remind myself is the default.
When the rich have taken everything that they want, that is all that is leftover for literally everyone else.
A magic utopia is not the default. That took effort to build, and now the ultra-wealthy are putting in effort to tear it down, so it is ludicrous to think that without effort that things will magically go back to the way they were. That is neither how inertia nor entropy work.
Sorry this is upsetting, but it is the Truth. When Trump wins, it will get even worse, not better. Maybe we should do something about it.
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It's not even about money anymore.
I'm not positive that the world is going to be a comfortable place to live in at all in the next 40-80 years. I can't be sure it's morally acceptable to bring a new life into the world just to struggle until death. I know if I were given the choice I would have rather just not have been, it's not worth struggling forever just to barely get by until the game changes yet again and you get knocked back down to the peg you started on.
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I can't be sure it's morally acceptable to bring a new life into the world just to struggle until death.
That has been true for just about everyone throughout history.
the game changes yet again and you get knocked back down to the peg you started on.
People in the developed world not having kids is part of how they 'win' the game.
The reason boomers were able to demand so much is because, as the name implies, they're a big fucking cohort. They were politically influential from the time they could vote. Keeping birthrates depressed and shipping in cheap foreign labour is how those with power keep everyone else powerless.
It's a weird situation, but the way to improve living standards for future generations is to... have future generations. Even if you don't feel like you can entirely support them now.
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You'll bring the "Population Bomb" doomers out, proving failed predictions never have consequences for the predictors since they can always say it will happen next year- since 1798
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It's class warfare, plain and simple.
The owner class has collectively decided there are too many worker class people and have gone out of their way to make sure that fewer and fewer are born, and to actively punish those who choose to have children.
One thing I want to point out because I'm sure some rightie tightie always whitie is going to come by and say 'Butbutbut... there are more millionaires now than evar!!!11!1one1!!'
Yes.
They are trust fund kiddies, nearly all of them.
Upward mobility has been actively crippled by stagflation and several 'once in a lifetime economic crises' all in the span of 20 years.
Even lower end millionaires are scared of this and claim they are struggling.
Eat the rich, it is the only solution.
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Being a millionaire isn't even enough anymore. You have to be at least a multimillionaire to live off of it.
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Yeah, because they know that they are the next 'middle class' that will be targeted for extraction.
No joke I used to do consulting work for fast food franchise owner with 4 locations, the guy netted 800k a year with investments added.
Caught him several times literally sweating in fear that he wasn't going to be able to afford his kids private school and that he'd have to sell a franchise to stay above water.
Would be nice to get some class solidarity with them, but they've spent generations spitting on us so I really don't think they'll ever join the cause.
Hell, most of them blame US for the inflation that has made their money worth less.
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That's giving them too much credit. They're just greedy and trying to manipulate markets to hoard as much wealth as possible and they don't care what happens to the workers.
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Most of them, yeah, but the few capable and practiced in such actions whisper to the ignorant rich what they are to do.
I'm not pretending the wealthy are a monolithic entity, but I'm also not pretending that 8 people hold more power for political and economic change than 5 billion combined. And even if only 1 of them is a eugenicist (protip: a fucktonne more of them are eugenicists) then they in their own hand has the power to shape politics and money to whatever the fuck their twisted will is.
And some of them is to reduce the 'excess population'.
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I agree with your stance on policy, but honest question here:
I hear lots of theories that the ownership class are trying to limit reproduction of the classes below them.
Why though? Don't they want a huge population of desperate workers that keep fueling their profits and keeping their well-manicured hands from doing any real work?
I dunno, I wonder sometimes if we apply Hanlon's Razor and it really is an extreme example of incredibly shortsighted capitalist stupidity: "Yeah we're running out of workers but that's not a problem THIS quarter..."
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Why though? Don’t they want a huge population of desperate workers that keep fueling their profits and keeping their well-manicured hands from doing any real work?
Did you not see the rich's reaction to Kelly Osbourne's tactless 'who will clean our toilets?' statement?
If anything the last 40 years has taught me that the ultra wealthy have zero understanding of planning for a world beyond the next quarterly report.
The reason 'why' is mostly petty af, they consider us unsightly and are annoyed that our brightest are out-competing their trust fund crotchfruit in prestigious education, and are fully aware of the coming economic collapse and want as few as possible rioters banging on the doors of their ultra lux survival compounds.
I dunno, I wonder sometimes if we apply Hanlon’s Razor an
No, all you need to do is talk to them about it without them knowing that you are poor. They will tell you with their own mouths.
Class warfare has existed since before writing, and it exists wherever the wealthy are allowed to take power.
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You want to keep them fighting amongs themselves so you limit their resources and opportunities. Don't want a lot of them suddenly realising there's a lot more of them than there are of you.
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People who think of their children and want to give them the best future but don't have the money for it don't have children. People who don't care about the future of their children, ended up having children.
This leads to more children being born with shitty parents who don't care about them.
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This is a bit unfair. There are lots of circumstances that result in children that weren't planned. Lots of millennials grew up being told to just pop out the babies and the rest will happen. No the fuck it doesn't. Not anymore anyway. Maybe that was true at some point but now what happens is they have to work harder than ever while daycare raises their kids. Meanwhile, they have to work a second job to just pay for daycare. When I was a kid I remember my mom getting a lot more gov assistance than seems to ever happen for people now. It was rough but we never had to worry a out keeping a roof over our heads or food on our table. Half those life changing programs are gone now. At least in my area.
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I am that educated couple. Wife has an associates and was just able to find a small job. I have associates, BS, and MA and can't even get a fucking interview because I don't have the absolutely insane list of qualifications on my resume that these companies are demanding for a half-decent paying job. I did everything I was supposed to and they still won't fucking pay me.
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meanwhile 1000 and 1 Stinkpieces are being written about population decline, blaming young generations for not getting busy while job and housing prospects go down the shitter.
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I went to college, acquired two diplomas, my SO went to college and acquired one as well. My brother has two as well if I recall correctly, and his wife has one as well.
Together, we are four college graduates with upwards of six diplomas between us.
The four of us also had to pool our finances to afford one home.
Quad income, one house.
It's not a small house but it's not exactly in a high demand city (we're pretty far out in a rural area, surrounded by farmland). I also wouldn't describe the house as large. If my SO and I, or my brother and his wife were to buy this place it might be "large" but with four of us here, it's fairly modest. We have no significant land, less than a quarter of an acre, and there's nothing special about the house that makes it cost more (in fact, there were several things that should have lowered the cost). Yet here we are, scraping by with multiple incomes barely able to save at all because the monthly cost of the mortgage is so high... And we need to save, because all of those savings need to exist for when the water heater and furnace and air-conditioner inevitably fail.... They're not new, this is not a new home. I'm still finding aluminum wires that I have to rip out and replace, because if the place burns down and my insurance finds a scrap of aluminum wire, they'll deny me any coverage for the damage.
My SO and I have no children. That fact is never changing.
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6 diplomas and no kids and you're having trouble affording a quarter acre in the boondocks? I'm sorry, I'm going to need more information, that just doesn't pencil unless you got a bunch of useless degrees, or are refusing to explore the job market.
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I'm in Canada. Getting a diploma from a college isn't a degree. Most are 2-3 year certificate courses. Until recently, colleges in Canada couldn't even issue degrees. If you wanted a degree from college courses, usually you would earn a diploma and then have further studies at a university before you obtained a degree.
Between the four of us, there are two nurses, one graphic designer, and one IT/systems/network administrator. Our combined household income is above $150,000 CAD per year (probably closer to or more than $200k, but I haven't crunched the numbers), and our home, which is less than 3000 sq ft, and cost in excess of $700,000 CAD. Monthly we pay over $4500 per month for the mortgage alone, and we have plenty of bills which are additional to that to keep the house running, as any home owner will know.
We live in a rural community in the middle of farmland. It's a small town type thing, population in this town is under 10k. In town we have a grocery store (just one), I believe there are three pharmacies for some reason, a few medical services (clinic, dentist, eye doctor), and a handful of fast food places including an A&W, subway, pizza hut, and some local places too, mostly pizza places. To get to the next town/city over, you must drive at least 15-20 minutes to reach the city limits of another Township or city, which often doesn't get you to anywhere you would want to go, and you're probably going to need to drive at least 10-15 more minutes to get anywhere you would want to go.
Several of us have not insignificant debts, mostly credit cards and vehicle loans, though most of us have paid off our educational loans at this point.
These are all factual statements. As for my opinion.... I don't owe you an explanation. You can not believe me if you wish. I could not possibly care less about what you think of my situation. I don't say any of this to provide some sort of evidence or proof that the information I initially gave is valid or true; I wrote all this down to provide context because I felt context was warranted. We're all millennials, born between 1980 and 1990, and we've all worked our entire lives to try to get out from under the debt that was pushed on us from post secondary education and from the economy being in the crapper for so long. Nobody got a free ride through college, we all accumulated some educational debts. We're all hard working people and I don't need to justify that we're doing our best. The fact is, this house that we own today, would have cost half as much 15 years ago, possibly less. The problem is, at that time, we were all so saddled with debt we couldn't have hoped to afford this house even at less than half the cost, at that time. Now that we have enough to actually start the process of having a mortgage and buying a house, the market has gone to such shit that the only way for us to afford it with our stagnant wages is to pool our funds. With a simple meal at a modest restaurant costing over $50 CAD per person, it's not really a wonder why we're all struggling. We all require vehicles because there's next to nothing in our city worth going to, and the local grocery is frequently 50% + more costly than a discount grocery in the next town over (a 20 minute drive at least). So for less than $5 in fuel, we can save literally hundreds per trip on groceries. We couldn't do that without vehicles. Which isn't to mention work; we're all specialised in our fields and as you should be able to imagine, we generally need to go where that work is to earn the wage we deserve. Again, requiring vehicles in most cases.
We're solidly middle class, and we're okay being middle class. None of us inherited significant money from family, and only because of a death in our immediate family were we even able to afford the down payment to buy a home. We're proud of what we have accomplished, and there's nothing you or anyone else can say that will take that away from us. The fact is, my entire generation has been screwed from the start. There have been more economic crisis and "once in a lifetime" collapses and such that we've been held back so significantly that it has become a near impossibility for many people I knew from highschool to achieve the same as we have despite being similarly educated and in a similar social standing.
I do, however, take offense at the implication that we simply suck. That we've somehow squandered the opportunities that we have had.
And with that, I bid you good day sir.
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This is why billionaires are so obsessed with developing AI systems to replace all the serfs who will now never be born.
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Reproduction isn't a luxury item. It's a survival need. The only reason that it's viewed as such in western society is because our economic system is all kinds of screwed up. People have been brainwashed to consider survival, as a society, in terms of our economic systems rather than in terms of the actual people.
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Population growth can go too far, can't it?
Last I checked the world seems to be ending around us one day at a time as we march towards an ever higher global temperature, but if you want to say that's normal and fine and we're gonna be ok in 250 years then overpollution from overconsumption isn't a problem yet.
At what point does the earth become overpopulated? are we already there? if not... what's the magic number?
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Uh, we are already past resource tipping points as human beings. This means we use more resources than the Earth is producing in a single year, which means we cut into the resources that have been generated in other plentiful years (like old growth forests, fish populations, etc). If we efficiently utilized the space we have we could raise the bar for that resource tipping point, but we don't.
So yeah. TL;DR: it's not necessarily that we're overpopulated now but our population size + overconsumption = effective overpopulation.
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According to Limits to Growth- 2040
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We outsourced the need for reproduction to the periphery. But we're also a deeply racially anxious nation, such that 1.4B Han Chinese and another 1.4B East Indians fundamentally terrifies us as some kind of threat to... idk, Aristotle and Elvis Western Culture? Like humanity as we know it will be irrevocably changed if we don't live like our grandparents did in the 1950s, with all that that entails.
People have been brainwashed to consider survival, as a society, in terms of our economic systems rather than in terms of the actual people.
The thing that sticks in my brain and keeps me up at night is the idea that I'm going to die without a family, alone and abandoned, in a country that sees me as little more than a wad of cash it can squeeze dry and dispose of.
The elderly in this country are just another kind of commodity - a pass through by which some sales shits running a call center in the San Fernando Valley get enough to cover their mortgage notes. I'd like a group of people around me as I get into my senior years who see me as another human being, and I get the sense that this is going away right alongside health care and education and housing.
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Help me understand please, how is it a survival need? Maybe back in the 1800s when you were working a farm and needed to produce extra pairs of hands to help? Nowadays it seems to me that while it might be nice to have a proper family having children is a financial burden that many can't bear, whether they want to or not
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Survival need for species can be vastly different to that of individuals, like mantis' sexual cannibalism.
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Not exactly the best example, since that's not a typical behavior but a result of poor scientific practices. Mantises only take that action when extremely stressed, which is frankly a lesson we should be carefully considering.
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Or humans being able to live well past their ability to bear children. It might not make sense for an individual to live that long, but it's better for a species, since it means that you have members that aren't having their own kids, but are capable of helping care for them while the parents do other things.
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yeah for us thats purely recreational.
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Survival? I'm just waiting to die. I can't afford to live and the world just keeps getting worse. Oh, and the clusterfuck of conditions I'd be passing on? Not something worth cursing another human with.
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Historically, most families lived together under one roof (even royalty). It was only in post WWII USA that the idea of each generation having its own home became prevalent.
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There's always someone who shows up to say that. I bet there's been one of you every time society advanced. "Historically, having clean water a recent development, and they don't even have access to clean water in other countries!"
Same energy as "eat your vegetables, there are starving children somewhere." And equally useful as a statement when trying to force me to swallow something I despise.
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Okay, that doesn't change the fact that a lot of wealth has been vacuumed out of 90 percent of the country. Even the 90-99 percentile just managed to hold their ground with all of those gains going to the top 1 percent.
Edit to Add - I wouldn't be against encouraging multi-generational housing again. But the wealth loss is still there.
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I think it was a good advancement in society though (aside from suburban sprawl). Having each generation go out and experience life away from where they grew up fosters empathy and understanding through exposure. We should be striving for more of that.
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Part of that was driven by specialization and people having different jobs and jobs in different locations than their parents though.
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Agree. I am that 30 y o still living at home. Work full time, 2 jobs and STILL cannot afford a rent without it decimating me to the ground. Its nothing to do with my budget: i get close to 3k/mo yet if i try to rent some place, i will pretty much have only about 400/500 left a month…. In a european capital. What is the point of renting in these conditions? And yes i know rationally its possible with my salary but i choose its more fruitful to help parent and be able to save rather than live ln the verge every month without being able to do much.
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The Corporations and Governments broke the social contract, not you. Remember that ish when things pop off. Workers were never to blame.
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Honestly yeah, in this economy, it's better and more fruitful to help your parents than to be decimated by rent.
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jokes on the rich who need both the working class to keep working for them and the middle upper class to buy their shit. One of them collapses, so does their empire.
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They banned abortion rights, in part, to replenish the population. Jokes on said working and middle class.
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Abolish corporations
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So only billionaires can own any type of the means of production? This is an exceptionally dumb take.
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Is anyone on Lemmy doing okay? I always come to the comments of these posts and see the doom and gloom. I’m a millenniaI. I paid off my student loans. I own a home I can afford. I’m debt free besides my mortgage. I have an emergency fund. I have a 401k that’s on track. I worked hard and made sacrifices to get where I am. I can only assume there are others out there who have done the same.
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Millenial here, not in tech. SINK. Skilled blue collar labor. Not union (for now...my next job I want to get in a union shop). I work hard, but I was also very lucky.
The #1 thing I did, by far and away, to crawl out of the grinding poverty that I was born into, was to leave my shithole Southern state and move to California.
I now make enough money that I'm on track for my own retirement, and I'm also funding my parents' retirement. I'll be a millionaire within a few years if things stay on track.
I did NOT pull myself up by my bootstraps. I worked very hard, had a government social system designed to support me rather than keep me down, and had several lucky breaks. Now I pay a shit ton of taxes and I'm glad to do so. California has been VERY good to me, and whatever taxes they feel entitled to is okay by me.
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There are plenty of people in your situation (I'm also one of them), but the fact is that (unless you're at the very top of the pyramid) nearly everyone (including people like us) is a bit worse off than they would have been at a comparable stage in life 30 - 60 years ago.
I had to work hard and make sacrifices to make it, however with my qualifications my parents (and even moreso my grandparents) generation would have just walked into secure, high-paying jobs with real prospects of advancement. Instead I've got to constantly be switching jobs and looking out for myself in order to not fall behind. I know the rules of the game, so I do what I have to do.
Now just imagine people who 50 years ago would have been 'making it with sacrifices and hard work', since (virtually) everyone is now a bit worse off, their situation has shifted to 'underwater despite sacrifices and hard work'.
TLDR: The average millennial is poorer than past generations and it's harder to make it than before. This doesn't mean that there aren't large amount of individual millennials (like us) who DO make it, although even for this group (unless they are at the top of the pyramid) it's harder than before.
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You're literally in such a small minority in the US it's not even funny.
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Well, that's great. It's very easy to make this about you and fail to see what many others face. I hope you never have to face the brutal hardships caused by not being in the right place with the right connections and the other life circumstances that can lock people into a life of deeper or generational poverty. But it could be the tide just hasn't risen to a level with your head barely above the turbulence stuck treading water with no way out. In an instant, everything could get turned upside down and through no fault of your own, now the world is a different place all of a sudden. But it's not any different, you've just joined the millions of others who got the rug pulled from beneath them earlier than you.
I too have been quite successful in life through hard work, discipline and the right life situations that gave me the opportunities to carve my own path in life doing what I love. I can still see how things have collapsed and I would never question the validity of the millions of others simply because my life experience has been different. This alone makes you venerable to being pushed to the front of the line next.
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I'm a very late Gen X, my wife is very early Millennial, most of our friend groups are a similar mix... And we're in the same boat as you. I paid off my student loans last year, my mortgage is bearable, I got laid off a little over a year ago but had the savings to bridge the gap until I found a new job (and landed in a better paying position), and just got back from taking my family to Disney World for a week. But I spent most of my 20s and into my 30s eating ramen, saving up to go to maybe 2 concerts a year, asking my parents for gas money, and truly living paycheck to paycheck. Gradually it got better, but I was lucky to not get sick, injured, or addicted and I do acknowledge just how much of my current situation is due to luck, but I also had to put in plenty of hard work.
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Millennial here. Doing alright. SINK tech worker with no pets.
Was sort of on a track to retire at as early as 45, though recent inflation has made me rethink how much I need saved.
I bought my condo, 1 bedroom + office, in 2016, and it was within my budget and was slightly bigger than apartments I had rented in the past. Back home though I could use my parents garage when needed.
Now I feel somewhat trapped because to get even a small place with a garage (I miss working on my car myself), is prohibitively expensive given how interest rates and house values have changed. Sure my condo is up quite a bit in valuation (something like 50% increase in the past 8 years), but homes have gone up quite a bit more, like 100% increase in some cases. Also my HOA dues just keep going up too, and we don't have a pool or anything crazy. Not to mention developers in the area grab up small starter homes before they can hit the market, bulldozer them, and drop a mansion on the same land that is completely unaffordable for me.
So my options are stay where I am (and it's fine for now I guess), or move and expect to have to work much longer, and have a longer commute.
Pretty much checks all the boxes you said. No debt except mortgage. Emergency fund. 401k. HSA. I'm not house poor. These days I can afford pretty much anything I could want in life except for a slightly bigger house :p
But I look at how prices are changing and I'm still worried for the future. Ideally I live another 60 years. Statistically another 40 or so. That's a long time for high rates of inflation and greed to change things.
Edit: also with all the tech layoffs happening, there's just an underlying sense of gloom. I've been laid off twice throughout my career. Once it took me something like 6 months to find a job. The other time a little under 2 months. Not fun though.
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Yup, living my best life after getting married. Two kids, two cars, and a house in the suburb. I worked my ass off through my twenties and only in my mid thirties did it start to all come together.
Why is it all so great? Wife had a windfall from her mother who died from cancer as well as from her grandparents who passed away soon after. Bittersweet, mostly bitter. It doesn't feel right to me most days, but at least our children have a good chance to get there faster than we did. For us we don't have to worry about retirement as long as we keep that money invested, and the world doesn't go sideways.
I think if childcare and college were free people could basically have the same benefit. That money can go into retirement and a mortgage instead.
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Im like you, doing pretty well. The only way this was possible is we have no kids. Kids would have killed us financially and I would be hand to mouth for the rest of my life. Fuck you capitalism, no future labor to exploit from me!
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I would of been in your situation if covid didn’t happen and put me around 80k in the hole next to a government that refused aid to me.
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At this point gen a or g or whatever is going to live in the popular democratic republic of north America
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This is the best post on Lemmy. It's the best way to say this.
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But it's a post on Reddit
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forced to live at home into their 30s. Is Gen A
Rent. Gen A will rent at home. That's how the parents will finally clear the home; through rent.
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Their millennial parents will also be renting. How will they afford a retirement home or nursing home? How did we get here?
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Already seen this a few times with people I've dated.
Rich parents buy a vacation house, not so rich kids pay rent on it with no equity while also understanding that their shitstain parents will reverse mortgage all that equity for retirement vacations before they ever have a chance to inherit it.
They cope with a 'this is fine' attitude.
If I had a nickle for every person I dated that was in this situation, I'd have three nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird it happened three times.
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To be fair, if they're bringing home a paycheck they should be contributing. Of course since it's family you do a split based on income, not a straight split. And they also get a say on things around the home at that point too.
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It seems US tries to do Russian history in reverse
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"And then things got better"?
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Maybe we'll see planned communities pop up that pool resources and create their own "circular economy". Certain things are incredibly cheap today, e.g. learning how to do things. And technology can make certain basics needed to live very cheap. Food, water, energy, housing, education, safety, medical, community.
If you could e.g. buy some farmland and build a compact apartment block out of e.g. shipping containers (or something even cheaper) then you could produce your own food, have your own school (partially over internet), a doctor / medic, and have workshops to make and maintain whatever you need.
Maybe the "buy in" costs for each person could be pretty low, like 10-20k.
A kind of "democratization" of economy for the basic needs. The global economy is completely out of whack because nobody can compete with mass produced garbage and marketing, so our work is getting worth less and less and we're getting poorer.
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That sounds like a commune with extra steps.
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That reminds me of this meme
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Gasp! Sir, this is a micro-federation of free people! :D
I don't really care what you call it, it shouldn't be about ideology but about economy benefit and freedom from economic exploitation. But you'll definitely be facing anti-socialist propaganda. It's possible that certain advances in technology allow for a life in relative luxury (e.g. rich in free time, rich in stability, rich in self determination). Things like 3D printers don't quite get us there, but if you could invent / develop or genetically engineer access to raw materials. You'd still need quite a few "vitamins" like microprocessors etc so you'd still need to import some stuff and export some labour or goods.
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solarpunk!
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Definitely! But most solarpunk I've seen isn't realistic about the amount of land you need to produce enough calories for food.
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This decline is a necessary aspect of Capitalism. Competition, for all it helps initially with forcing prices lower, ultimately comes at the cost of increased exploitation of the Working Class. As all value comes from labor, there is only so much you can immediately automate away to lower cost of production before you must further exploit your labor force to remain competitive.
Socialist markets, ie ones controlled by Worker Co-operatives, still face these issues, but delay them due to being of and for the workers themselves.
Only a non-market form of Socialism, such as Anarchism or Communism, can actually permanently solve these issues. Markets are a useful tool during Capitalism, but just as feudalism gave way to Capitalism, so too will Capitalism give way to a more equitable distribution of control.
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Can it hurry up and give way already.
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We have the ability to feed everyone in the world, but we don't. We could house everyone, but we don't. We could heal everyone, and we don't.
Capitalism was great for raising a huge portion of humanity out of poverty. It has its limits however, and we are reaching them. It's time to find a new way of doing things, not for profit, but because those things need to be done.
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Genuine question: I see a lot of posts on both sides on lemmy. Does anyone have a rebuttal/counter argument to this?
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The argument I've seen "against" this is to point out that if you want to live like they did in the 50s it's pretty cheap. It's a lot of canned food. A lot of stuff you might pay for now are DIY projects (such as clothes repair, house repair, car repair etc.) there's no such thing as your fancy TV, your Internet or any modern kitchen amenities. Medical assistance is garbage so no wonder you paid less for it. The way you live today is like a king compared to the 50s.
Now it's still an idiotic argument. Before anyone replies, I don't agree with it. But it's what people who can't handle the OP tell themselves.
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I know you said you don't agree, so this argument is for the hypothetical person who holds that opinion...
With that said. My wife and I crunched the numbers recently. If we lived like people in the 50s, which is to say, we lived as poor as we could and completely wrecked our quality of life (eating as cheap as possible, no Netflix, never eating out, no luxuries at all), we would save like $10k a year. Which means that if we did that for 10 years, we would have enough for a down payment on a house that we would not be able to afford the monthly mortgage on (and a house in that price range would be a wreck in our neighborhood. A standard 3bed 2bath in good condition where I live starts at about 800k).
It's insane. This isn't some "just stop eating avacado toast" thing.
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Here are five fast examples from both sides
- The average new house size went from around 1,000 sq ft in 1910 to 1,500 sq ft in 1970, to 2,000 sq ft in 2000 to aroind 2,400 sq ft today. It's not easy to buy a new small(er) home and housing prices reflect that
- When the Corvette was launched in 1953 it cost $3,490. That's around $39,000 in today's money. A brand new Corvette will cost you $70,000
- A 1970 Datsun 240z was $3,500, which is $28,000 today. You can buy a brand new Mazda Miata or Toyota GR86 for that inflation adjusted amount
- A gallon of milk cost $1.32 in 1970. That's $10
- According to the 1970 census, median household income was $8,730. Adjusted for inflation, that's around $71,000 - which is surprisingly close to the 2022 census's $70,784 number
So what's going on and why are people not happy? IMO it's a mix of
- Things are getting nicer, but they're also getting more expensive. This seems to be a mix of consumer taste and seller side shenanigans. For example, small/mid size cars, which are typically cheap, have had decreasing sales volume for the past 20 years. Enter multiple OEMs de-emphasizing small/mid size cars and leaning into crossovers, which just so happen to cost more. To go back to the earlier housing example, house size has been going up while the average household size is going down. There were 4.5 people per household in 1910. This dropped to 3.15 in 1970 and is down to 2.51 today. In other words, today's new larger homes have fewer people living in them than 50 years ago. New homes today also tend to be built with nicer furnishings (coming from someone with 1960s builder grade cabinets in their house). Housing is a bit of a mess for a bunch of other reasons too... Zoning, smaller parcel sizes for subdivisions, etc etc
- The wage vs productivity gap
- The... very big imbalance between worker vs CEO wage growth
It goes beyond the cost of goods and gets back to some level of fairness (or a complete lack there of).
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That's what's gonna happen here in America. IF and I mean IF your family was lucky enough to have a single home in the family everyone's going to be living at it. Many aren't even close to lucky though...I wonder how many more will die on the streets in the coming years.
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Gen A is just gonna be Gen
exit
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Immigration can be used to replenish deficits in the working population.
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Man I'm glad I was born and raised in a working class town now. Prospects looked pretty dire here when I was a kid. Local industry fell flat in the 1990s and into the 2000s so tonnes of my fellow millennials left to go to uni and get jobs in cities. That kept the cost of living here low and I was able to buy my first house at 22.
Now those deserters are saddled with student debt and unaffordable rents with no prospect of ever buying their own home. Recently the local industry started taking off again in a big way. I'm already making a pretty good wage but I'm also in track to have a Masters Degree and a high paid job after 3 years with a house that should have its value skyrocket over the next decade.
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The idea that any working class boomer could raise a family/ own a house on a single income is a myth. That was only true if you were a man, and happened to be white. The federal government built the interstates to the suburbs, the GI bill loaned the money to buy the house, and sent you to college. All to the exclusion of POC and women.
Even the labor unions told black men that you couldn't be in a union without a job, and couldn't get hired unless you were in a union. This "golden age" economy was also when a divorced woman couldn't get a bank account, an apartment, or a job.
The capitalists weren't sharing more wealth, they were sharing with fewer people.
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The capitalists weren't sharing more wealth, they were sharing with fewer people.
A higher proportion of business's income went to wages, so yes, they were sharing more wealth (but only because they had to, because of the strong unions).
But yes, that was only being shared with white men
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Okay, and now it's even worse.
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Sorry no, you are deliberately sliding this discussion.
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Anytime I see "the good ole days" brought up, I remind them they were only good to them because only cishet white men were allowed to participate.
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This is why it’s critically important for millenials who want a family to buy homes. Good ones. Big ones with land. It’s going to end up a generational home. You’re gonna need room for additions.
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Are you aware of the general difficulties faced by the Millennial generation with buying housing? Because it sounds like you're not. Millennials aren't not buying homes because of a preference as much as a lack of option.
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I am. That’s why it’s so important.
Whole thing reeks of setting us up for failure. Insecure housing means no/less kids, and that has huge rippling effects 30 m-50 years from now when millenials are too old and infirm to work and there’s not enough people to replace us in the workforce.
And then our boomer parents, who somehow despite all our best efforts are still alive, will be blaming us for it.
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Just let me know how someone is supposed to do that when the average person makes like $40k a year.
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uh if you want to live remotely close to where the jobs are, its gonna be a tiny shitty appartement in exchange for life long debt. not a house, most definitely not a desireable one. thats with two median incomes lol.
those who can buy houses do so thanks to family or have exceptional income or both. mostly both
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Many other countries have multi generational homes that aren't huge or massive. This is a very American centric mindset of needing a giant home for more people.
Also, millennials definitely can not afford what you described
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I really enjoy that West is crumbling. You guys did dun dirty to us Iranians in the past 10 years, pressuring our economy and crippling it. Now you are experiencing a literal 'Karma, removed!'.
It's not far-fetched that, once Iran manages to have America fuck off the middle east, it will become the next superpower (for the 5th time over the past 2 millennia I believe and don't say 'Persia is not Iran', you will show how uneducated you are, because Persia is a province in Southern Iran, it's a Netherlands/Holland situation) and I hope I am alive to see the fall of West. Because you Westerners have been nasty to me, insulted me, been racist against me, etc. You deserve nothing but a nice fall from grace.
Let's raise our cups to the fall of 'jorsumeh' that is the West.
