re: Kids wanting change and socialism questions..

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It seems a shift has taken place in my lifetime in that when people used to talk about the economy they would be talking about GDP and unemployment.

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Thats because these are tangibles and are probably pretty good so it won't draw out the negative feeling they are looking for since everyone has a job.

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When people talk about the economy now, they are exclusively talking about inflation and affordability.

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They are creating a crisis based subjective measures of how you feel. Newsflash . . . most people's spending habits are always at or above their earnings which makes it easy to create the feeling of a bad economy.

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The vast, VAST majority of people do not stay in the same income bracket that start off in, with the majority of that group being upwardly mobile throughout their lives. What far too many people fixate on are those who have stayed in the workforce for 15-20 years (or more) and assume they have always made that much. It's horseshite.

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This can't be stated enough. They like to always state wages hasn't kept up with inflation while ignoring this part of the equation. They fail to realize that the median wage growth is not individuals its the overall pay charts that are shifting at 3% a year and these numbers exclude discretionary bonuses which is 40% of the workforce.

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You’re close to the target, but not quite over it.

Basically, the status quo isn’t really working. Anyone who is under 40 who has had to look for a job since Covid knows what I am talking about. We have engineers and stem graduates who are struggling to find work amidst rapidly rising costs.

People latch on to change when the status quo isn’t working. They will take the devil they don’t know over the devil they do when they have nothing to lose. The reality is zoomers are working far more hours on average than previous generations at that age yet have significantly less disposable income, primarily due to the rising costs of healthcare, rent, and education. This isn’t a “they just don’t want to work” problem. This is a “why am I working when it isn’t paying me enough to live” problem, or a “why am I trying to find work when there are no jobs” problem.

The key to fighting against this issue isn’t to just make fun of them or support the status quo. The way to fix this is to address their concerns by less drastic measures. Affordability of housing is a huge problem. There are free market based solutions. We should be touting them. The same is true for reforming entitlements and bringing down the costs of healthcare and education. We must counter bad ideas with good ideas or else the worst ideas will win out in the end.

If conditions do not approve, the young men will revolt.

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I genuinely think that there is a chance that Democratic Socialist types and America First types end up taking over one of the two parties after the boomers die off. My guess is the GOP is the most ripe to be body snatched since it is so demographically dependent on the boomers. Essentially, they become a sort of institutionalist redux of the New Deal coalition.

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Inflation annualized from 2000 to 2026 is 2.67% which is below historical 3%.

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That's individual years. Inflation from 1999 to 2026 is 100%. Hence my earlier point that $400 = $800 now.

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Holy frick really? Guess your bluetooth headphones aren't real. Gimme a break. Per chatGPT

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Not a single one of those innovations, that you had ChatGPT list, are from socialist countries. Every single one is a market based economy.

How can people, on a political chat board, not know what socialism is?

The young have always been gullible, and socialism is a culture destroyer, but ….

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they just dont want to work like we did.

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We also can’t pretend that we haven’t royally fricked up our economy in such a manner that it’s much more difficult for young adults to establish a stable life.

Inflation, especially in education, housing, and medical care is out of control thanks to horrid policies by the Fed for the last three plus decades. So when the very average adult throws out lines like “don’t want to work hard like I did”, it’s comes off as pitiful and out of touch with reality.

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Inflation, especially in education, housing, and medical care is out of control

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I was going to point this out with your last post about compounding inflation, but you already touched on it.

Certain QOL/SOL goods/services are WAY above that average inflation rate.

The economy is shaky and has been for a while, and it's been propped up by various AI investment/borrowing/spending. The barrier to entry for good jobs has become insane for your average people. The number of good, professional job opportunities with a future seem to be decreasing. Wages have not risen with inflation, but education/housing have exploded (and god forbid you're unlucky in terms of health).

Doing an ostrich with "day don't work as herd" is just silly.

Didn’t read, but sure all that was beautiful.

The guy I was responding to had rent of $400 in 1999. All things equal, should be $800 today. It's $1800. That's the variance. I don't have a problem with normal inflation, I have a problem with people refusing to understand that pricing has outpaced wage growth which is why some folks are struggling. It doesn't matter how hard you work if your dollar can't keep up with the prices charged for goods and services.

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Graduating college in 1980 and having to work 3 jobs to make ends meet was what I had to do. No all the "gotta haves" that we see today from the younger groups. Just went to work and eventually saved enough to live a comfortable life. Today people expect to start off in the comfortable zone without putting in the work or time, which is not how life really works.

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Kids today have it even easier. With how ridiculously high minimum wage is now they can go work at McDonald’s part time to pay for their tuition but they refuse to do it. Kids are just lazy entitled brats.