re: Do young people have it harder today? Did Boomers ruin everything?

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The boomer parents need to give them some of their inheritance upfront. You can give 19 grand to child and spouse.

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Screw That! Parents supported them for 18+ years. Time for the kids to stand on their own. Money they didn't earn will be blown in no time. I earned my money and I'm going to enjoy it. There will be no inheritance left by me.

I've got 2 step-daughters. One 34 and one 25. Neither of them ever have the money for the things they need but they always have the money for the things they want. Everytime I see them they have new phone or new electronics or new tattoos or WEED. Yet they don't have the money for food or rent. I'm to the point I ain't giving them shite.

The oldest one has 4 kids. One half black, one half asian, one half mexican and one all white (she's white). No husband.

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That's because you could actually get hired while doing so.

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How about the best question of the day was, 'what's your draft number' and no thanks your too close

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Today that house is worth about $475k

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At one point, certain tulip bulbs were "worth about" 10x the average Dutch income .... and then they weren't. Supply-demand is a real thing. So are life and time realities.

When covid undercut social experience availability for 23-38y/o's, there was a certain reconsidering of life goals.

First, for the older female contingent of that group, the ticking of their biological clocks suddenly exploded like the opening of Pink Floyd's "Time".

Second, there was a realization, especially for the thirty-something cohort, that the delay in life commitments such as marriage, home purchase, etc might not have been the best decision. Both factors drove a sudden race to home ownership at exactly the time home loan rates were escalating. Demand drove prices.

Right now we're likely in a home price bubble. So your $475K home is probably overpriced. Such things correct. For first time buyers though, a housing bubble is an unforgiving minefield.

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People that complain about rent should save up and travel a bit. In Amsterdam I spoke to a man that said a 10 meter squeed apartment was over 1000 euros, and the bathroom was communal. I had dorm room flashbacks

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The interesting thing I've found in similar conversations over there is that the European guy is a-okay with his lot. Meanwhile young Americans lament not being able to swing a 3500sq-ft country club mcmansion.

The latter, however unrealistic, is not even the problematic issue though. The problem is, those same folks not only lament their situation, but they inexplicably blame it on others.

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By every mathematical measure, yes. Real wages and purchasing power relative to cost of living are WAY down compared to literally any other "modern" generation. By all accounts, youth are living in conditions not seen since the Great Depression. The labor market is broken, housing has never been more expensive, food is unaffordable, people are putting off marriage and children longer and longer due to financial hardship, etc.

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This comes up every so often and a few times before I have looked up and broken all of those costs down adjusted for inflation and factors like the actual size of the houses in question, and I have found just about everything you claimed above to be false.

Except for this:

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people are putting off marriage and children longer and longer due to financial hardship, etc

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, but even then I dispute the reason people are putting off having kids and getting married.

I'm not going to do that analysis again because it's time consuming and it doesn't make any difference to people when you show it to them anyway.

The media keeps pushing the narrative you're repeating and lots of people (for some reason) want to believe it. I think it ties into the popularity of populism. In any case, people do not care about the facts and the math. They want to believe life is harder now than it ever has been (while they are ordering DoorDash delivery on their phones for the 8th time that week, devices more powerful than just about any computer that existed when I was a kid), so they do, regardless of what the facts are.

It used to be old people that you had to sit there and listen to about how they used to have to walk barefoot in the snow uphill both ways five miles to school.

Now it's people in their 20s.

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My biggest critique of the boomer generation is your glaring lack of empathy.

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Interesting. Certainly that is a pervasive narrative in these threads. Even more interesting in that about 40% of boomers have millennial children. That should serve as a solid hint regarding "empathy".

My biggest critique of the millennial generation is your stereotypic and glaring lack of accurate perception. If time machines were a real thing, and millennials could substitute their current experience to the actual experience of "boomer life" growing up, they'd be fit to be tied in that lifestyle. It is what it is.

But to be clear, as I've stated repeatedly, the current situation (more applicable to GenZ) is very challenging. I'm beyond empathetic, I am sympathetic to that challenge. But in these threads, statements such as "No generation has had it as hard as millennials" are not really empathy engendering assertions.

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People that complain about rent should save up and travel a bit. I

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I’m sorry - your recommendation for people who can’t afford rent is to “save up” and take a European vacation?

What planet am I on?

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Do young people have it harder today? Did Boomers ruin everything?

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Yes. Anyone who disagrees is not be honest. Look at wage growth vs prices. Its that simple

Valid, hopefully their folks taught them how to manage it successfully.