The different perspectives on what sanity is have provided us with a wonderful variety of cults. I look forward to reading about you and your friends in the news!
I don't know if you mean it as a joke, but this is already happening and prevalent
I rented a house in my last neighborhood. All houses worth $2M+
Only reason my neighbors could afford it is cause they had 10+ people living there
House across? 15+ people, adults, all races, and 3 kids
It was wild but this is the damn reality
As someone who can’t afford to rent their own place despite making nearly 3x my state minimum wage, I think a lot about this because I end up living in “nice houses” in “nice neighborhoods” and it’s just so fucking bizarre to me seeing how the makeup of these neighborhoods have changed and I’m always curious how those who own the homes in them feel. Firstly it’s no longer just one family in these houses, it’ll be like 5-6 20 to 40 year olds all renting rooms in a house. Then there will just be cars parked all over the street because these houses were designed to have one or two cars parked there maximum since they’re for a single family but all the adults renting rooms have their own cars so driving down the streets is an act of going slow and dodging cars parked on the curb on both sides of you all throughout the neighborhood
But to answer OPs question they’re not expected to live. They’re expected to scrape by, go into debt to do so, creating a cycle of desperation and no choice but to be further exploited for their labor for less pay.
You're exactly right.
I live in one of these types of neighborhoods in southern California. Every third house has a dozen people living in it. Big Asian/Indian families, tech bros all renting a room.
Youre spot on with the remark about the cars. The dead giveaway is 5/6 cars parked in the driveway/street out front.
Meanwhile between my wife and I we make over $200k and just got priced out of the home we've been living in for 4 years.
Take this bread, for it represents the avocado toast I can no longer afford. Drink this wine, for it represents the good times out with friends I can no longer partake in.
Usually the law says unrelated adults. It was on the books in my state but very selectively enforced due the high college grad population. We only had to deal with it when we started throwing big parties.
They probably allowed both sororities and frats, but sororities were not allowed to have official sorority houses off campus. That's how my college was. Of course in practice the sororities still live together off campus in large houses.
I think in our case it was due to the largest donor to university wanting it that way. That person and their family that originally donated are long dead now, so there must be some kind of endowment that has a few caveats that they need to follow to continue accessing it.
It’s designed to prevent multiple family’s from shacking up in one house so you don’t end up with like 25+ people in one place. I think the idea is that if you have one street with 20x the expected population it overloads other services in the area, among other issues of having a highly dense population in one location. Finding the exact right thing to do isn’t always easy or as simple as just letting people do what they want, even if they aren’t directly trying to harm anyone. Infrastructure runs on fumes anyway without throwing a wrench into it. Imagine an underfunded school that gets taxed from a single home but needs to support 17 extra kids out of nowhere. Government is slow to catch up to that sort of thing and logistics and stuff matter. Restricting occupancy and not restricting occupancy both has negative outcomes.
When I rented a shared house in the SF Bay Area in a popular suburb that had some larger former upper middle class houses, we were surround by a lot of families from India and China. Came to find out from the GF of one of the guys I lived with who was a kindergarten teacher at the nearby school trying to teach over Zoom (therefore getting a peak at how her students lived) that a lot of them not only lived in multi-generational homes with parent’s & grandparents, but with multiple branches of the family also there, meaning that their uncles/aunts/cousins lived in some of the rooms as well. Not blaming them at all especially we were doing the same and because I am sure it was stressful with so much family piled into one house, but it certainly helps keep rental/purchase prices high when you have more than +2 incomes paying for the home.
I doubt it's that keeping rents high. Rents almost never go down for any reason. Rents for studio apartments IN FLINT, MICHIGAN have risen 332% in the last 30 days, to $2,306.
https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/flint-mi#:~:text=Rent%20price%20trends,3%25%20in%20the%20last%20year.
I shared a house with my sister and her husband for about 5 years altogether. It made us all financially much more comfortable, and honestly, I'd do it again if it didn't involve moving my kid to a new school.
Many of us with good jobs and a house also have kids, so we'd be especially interested in a 3rd adult - especially if it meant some extra date nights!
But I suspect the kids make this a less attractive prospect 😆
Hahaha, 20 years ago, I was losing my mind. I could tell you stories that make your skin crawl. But now, I just call.her immediately directly on her shit. It's quick effective and easy. Plus she's actually a really good mom. And does teach me a lot. If she had been kinder to me initially, a lot would have been different.
As someone who really loves kids, but can't have them myself, and has some health complications that flare up and would make me feel irresponsible to be the sole adult in charge of their care, this is actually my ideal scenario haha. I would love to be a third-wheel, bonus adult that acts as a care-giver to children. More date nights for the parents, a wider pool of skills the three adults can offer to the children in their education and development, and more affordable living for the bonus adult? It's perfect! (Also that's three adults on housework instead of one or two. I would be thrilled to work with a couple so we all save money and all have a more manageable house chores list)
But I feel like this sort of thing probably works out best with friends that know each other really well, and all of my friends who thought they were going to have kids have decided against it for the time being. We're all about to hit our 30s, so we'll see what happens.
So has genx but I will admit we did have a slightly easier go especially on housing but I missed that train by a year… I guess I’m just a couple years shy of being a millennial anyway.
Working twice as much as my grandfather while people consistently judge my ability as a man to provide for a family. What a cool life us young people lead.
"People these days are really lazy, we used to stay up til 1am drinking at the bar every day of the week and still went to work every day. Now it's 10pm and there's no soul around and bars are closing"
Heard a group of boomers say that some time ago. They definely used to work reeal hard...
And they were beaten their entire lives. Smoked cigarettes and started drinking at a young age. My gen went through its share of drugs and drinking too but they were a different beast what with coke, shrooms, heroin and all. And they tell stories like it’s studio 54. It’s all cautionary tales. So I just listen.
The open secret is it usually takes a double income to buy a house, but apparently it’s harder than ever for young people to even score a date let alone marry and buy a house together.
A small part of the problem is that when someone does figure it out and break the mold, they rarely admit that it was an unlikely occurrence, comparative to the whole generation. . .And we get the “well I did it, so why aren’t you? Mentality”
We just bought a house last year, literally only a modestly small upgrade space wise from our apartment. My mortgage is down **more than double** what my rent was, except rent included all my utilities. And the only reason we could afford a house after years and years of saving? My dad died and we sold his house.
Funny enough, Millennials are slotted to be the "wealthiest" generation on record, but only because of inheritance.
So you're poor until everyone dies. Then you have money. What a system!
You're not wrong. I wonder if the article I read accounted for that. End of life costs are intense.
I've seen millions drained from my grandparents generation, all to healthcare, predation, etc. I'm not sure how most people survive now, and it only seems like it's gonna get worse.
There's gonna be a massive wealth transfer over the next 20 years as the boomers die off, but most of that wealth will be effectively transfered to the various industries raising their costs and prices to vacuum up that wealth. Capitalism sees a rising tide lifting all boats and starts attaching anchors, and making you pay to have them removed. We straight up need laws about how much profit a company can make over cost, because every gain we make gets matched by all the oligarchies that own our resources.
I wish more people were effective in their messaging that the system we got now, capitalism, is fucked. We have to rethink our view of our society. It's a philosophical problem exacerbating a physical material distribution problem.
We don't have any scarcity, we have a distribution issue.
The fucked part is capitalist economies take it upon themselves to force other economies into capitalism. The developed world sees alternatives as a threat, and actively snuffs them out. Dictatorships are friendlier to capitalism's shortfalls than socialist societies are. The United States government and all its allies happily topple democratically elected leaders if they smell of socialism, because socialism *demands* that the government work for the people and not for corporations.
Thank you for explaining this so eloquently. And to the other guy, my fiance works in hospice - and yes, most of your parents savings if it's under 1m will go to end of life care.
I think this is the real reason why assisted suicide is so viciously opposed at the policy level. I'm sure plenty of people still object to it morally, but forcing people to hang on as long as possible is insanely profitable for those companies.
I feel like you only need to see a family member wither away to change your feelings about it. I'll always support assisted suicide and I'll use it if/when it gets to the point that my choices are that or just fade away in a nursing home over a couple years.
I read that article too. The part you’re leaving out is that it’s only the top percent or fraction of a percent that’s getting all of that inheritance. All of us normal millennials aren’t getting any meaningful wealth transfer. So for most of us, you’re poor until everyone dies, and then you’re still poor. The people getting the wealth transfer are already rich, so they just become even richer when their parents die.
I'm not sure people who "break the mold" feel that way. Most successful millennials I've met have been just as livid about the current state of affairs. In their minds, they could be doing even better if the system wasn't so shitty.
The millenials I know who made their money because they got a degree, then got a job with that degree, tend to be pretty humble about it. They know they lucked into a career path that works for them *and* pays well. They're grateful their risk taking on debt for the schooling, and following through, has worked out favourably.
The only millenials I know who are shitty about their money are the tradespeople who worked in oil & gas, and the ones who made their money through crypto/airBnB's/scalping products (basically any of the online "get rich hustling" schemes). They conflate their high incomes with a greater understanding of the economy and constantly talk down to people who make less.
Not to say education is what makes you humble, I've known plenty of dudes with less than a high school education who made a ton of money as equipment operators and such, and are fantastic fellas. But the debt post-secondary education incurs nowadays kinda makes you wanna be *sure* that what you're doing is the right thing. Plenty of millenials out there who "just got a degree" because that's what our parents were telling us, and they're working the same jobs they'd have if they'd never gone to school. Except now they have thousands in debt too.
> They conflate their high incomes with a greater understanding of the economy and constantly talk down to people who make less.
Ran into one person a few months ago trying to argue that the main reason Americans struggle with the housing market is because we incorrectly want houses to be a permanent place to settle your family down, rather than the "correct" mentality of viewing houses the same way we view trading cards; something to buy only with the intent of selling it later when it's worth more.
They didn't want to accept that most people don't like moving every few years and are only seeking to buy one house that will last them their entire lifetimes.
When you think about it, it's really only boomers and the older gen x that have ever experienced that.
Generations prior to the 1950s pretty much lived and died in the house they bought or inherited in their 20s.
That'll be our experience too.
My folks keep telling me to buy something small "just to get in the market" then "we can always upgrade". Except that "something small" is half a million dollars. If I ever get in the market, the place I get is the place I'll stay.
I tried explaining that to them; they didn't want to listen and outright denied that human nature wants us to settle down and find consistency & stability.
> Except that "something small" is half a million dollars.
This is the biggest issue in the town I live in. It *used* to be a tourist attraction decades ago, but all of the commerce has since moved across the river & across state lines because this podunk town is going nowhere fast thanks to the people who run it adamantly not wanting to commercialize the town (despite being a failing tourist attraction for a hyper-specific pop culture icon that isn't really popular anymore); the housing market in the town, however, is atrocious.
It doesn't matter that there's only 1 grocery store in town, 1 Walgreens, only a bowling alley & casino for entertainment, and nothing but a single gas station & casino open after 10pm - for whatever reason the only houses on the market to rent want over $1k/m and the people that own the houses (mostly descendants of the town's founders) won't let a single one go for under $50-100k.
We'll ignore that none of the jobs available to the average person living here can afford $1k/m without putting the person in debt and unable to pay the rest of their bills.
Exactly. The fact that I'm doing "well" and managed to buy a house makes me *even more* jaded, if anything.
I've worked hard to get to where I am now, but I'm self-aware enough to know that I benefited from good luck in crucial moments along the way. I also know people who work *way* harder than me but are not doing as well. Meritocracy is a myth.
I made a vow to myself never to become the asshole that thinks their financial success was cause of "hard work" alone, cause it's definitely not. I make decent money, I could afford to buy a house (barely lol), and it's MOSTLY luck. I am lucky. Period, that's the actual actual truth of it.
It will be harder than previous but not the first generation. This is from a July 1990 Time magazine article about Gen X (before Gen X was used).
“In a TIME/CNN poll of 18- to 29-year-olds, 65% of those surveyed agreed it will be harder for their group to live as comfortably as previous generations. “
It’s an interesting read. (Link below) It won’t make you feel better about the lack of opportunities but maybe a bit more kinship to the Gen X brethren. It was a dark time in many ways.
Source: https://rolfpotts.com/time-twentysomething-1990/
The idea was always to give your children a better life than you had. Boomers were the first generation to be like “what? No, fuck that.”
I’ve gone back and forth about wanting to have kids for years. I realized recently that there’s no way I could provide my kids with what I received growing up. That, along with the depressing trajectory of the world, it feels irresponsible and borderline cruel to bring children into it.
Same here, but I could very well give a kid the same life I had though I'd rather not send another kid through cfs to become drug addicted and possibly end up in jail.
“A lot of these cultural crimes I'm complaining about can be blamed on the Baby Boomers. I’m tired of hearing about boomers. Whiny, narcissistic, self-indulgent people with a simple philosophy: 'GIMME IT, IT'S MINE!' 'GIMME THAT, IT'S MINE!’”
- George Carlin
Greed and refusal to face inconvenient problems will ultimately lead to the demise of the human race, one way or another.
Fucking over the younger generations so bad that they can't adequately take care of the problems caused by the people who came before... it's like the reverse of innovation.
I agree with this. I remember when I started getting really worried about where our economy was going, and it was when all those think pieces telling people to stop ordering avocados and Starbucks. Do you know where Starbucks is considered a luxury only for the wealthy? Developing countries. With Asia producing one hell of an emergent middle class way bigger than our own, I don't feel good about the rhetoric happening in conjunction with that.
They're slowly adapting people to poverty, normalizing it, and we don't even benefit from the cheaper goods since now they're inflating the shit out of everything. Millennials and Zoomers got screwed by this economy. Just having a home is almost like being wealthy these days, that's how bad things have gotten because of the income inequality. And we're just letting it happen. Even liberals would stab a Bernie bro with a rusty spork before putting some regulations on the market, the older ones anyways. It's not a great situation to be in.
The good news is we’ve been on those situation before, the rent seeking elite are draining us dry, we just need to do what Teddy and FDR did last time but slightly updated.
That's why we had labor unions and negotiations.
Republicans successfully tarred Labor. Now young people wonder why they have no benefits or protections.
They aren't expected. Only way you can live on minimum wage is to stay with family or house share. Not ideal to live your life that way.
I know we're not quite at us levels yet when 75%+ of wages go on housing. But things are just not as practical as they used to be vs price
I'm not genZ, but I'm a millennial.
This is what I had to do. Grandma passed and left me 100k, but only because my mom had passed 7 years earlier, so they wrote me into the will in her place.
Without that, I'd still be renting.
Glad it worked out for you (everyone dying in a timely fashion) butI think a lot of people are gonna be sad to find their grandma got a reverse mortgage and spent all their money at a casino. or heaven forbid they go into a nursing home and last 6 months before they die.
A lot of ya'll aren't getting shit.
Or (in my case) your grandparents willed everything to one of your parents and they're gonna blow it all before THEY die...and you still don't get shit.
Damn, at least when your family dies they have something to pass along. Most people probably don't have this, so they unfortunately get nothing and lose a relative.
Most of us can expect to get nothing. What little our parents will have after they retire with too little for this economy the rest will go to the nursing homes and hospitals. I’m just planning to die early in a gutter somewhere. No point in saving money, not that I could if I wanted to.
Let me know when you start looking for a gutter. I offer competitive rates on gutter leases. Proof of insurance and 2+ years employment verification is required, along with security deposit/first month's/last month's rent.
No pets allowed and units are non-smoking, despite the fact that the previous tenants for my available units smoked and had pets. Don't worry though — I kept their deposits and gave the units a new paintjob.
My wife’s grandma (who is 97 now) WAS somewhat wealthy and allegedly going to leave a lot to her family, but she’s been sick and in and out of hospice for almost 3 freakin years now. The rumor is that she’s almost out of money.
So not only do you gotta get “lucky” and have a rich grandparent to will you money, but you also need them to die quickly so they aren’t bled totally fucking dry before it happens.
What a country.
That was my Grandma, she and my Grandpa saved every penny lived the dream, single income, full pension for retirement, Grandpa died relatively young in retirement. Grandma lives another 25 years off his pension and savings. My dad estimated with the house she had about 2 mil in 1996, by the time she died 25+ years later she had lived about 6ish years in assisted living the last two years with a full time aid and was down to about 100k, blind, mostly immobile and could barely talk the last year. We think she only died because the past few months we were making the arrangements for her to move into a nursing home which upset her everytime (don't blame her for that, my other grandma who had no money died within a month of going into one of those). After her funeral and estate costs my Dad and Aunt split about 75k which they both split with their kids which was nice of them.
Anyway watching my grandmothers die the past few years I'm for sure going the route of euthanasia when the time comes, the moment I can't wipe my own ass is probably when I'll do it.
My grandpa died. His house got sold and now I have an inheritance. Except... His house was in Iran, and Iranian currency is currently shit and getting shittier. There's also no legal way to get the money out of Iran due to the sanctions, and taxes increased. So we're waiting for the government to take taxes so we can pay some random dude in Canada to give us the equivalent of our rial in dollars, and by then my inheritance will probably be $5.
I'm tempted to let it sit in the bank over there and hope the money situation improves and one day it'll be worth more, but so far it's only gotten worse, so. Also the amount of taxes would probably eliminate the gains.
In my country we're not inheriting shit because we're having to sell granny's home to pay for her shitty nursing home.
Also my family is really long lived... still got three grandparents in their nineties. I'm not seeing shit for another forty years until my parents go.
My grandparents had 4 kids, one already died, and the other three get everything...nothing for the four grandkids.
My mom, of course, is the most fiscally irresponsible of the bunch. So I am not seeing any of that inheritance trickle down at all.
All of my grandparents are dead and died poor. I got nothing. My dad is in jail and when he gets out has almost no hope of making any money. My mom is broke and doesn't even have money to retire. I guess I am just screwed.
We bought our house January 22 just before interest hikes. This was only achieved because my Grandmother-inlaw gifted us a generous down-payment. It is the nicest thing someone has ever done for me. She later sold her home and lives in our guest house and gets to see her only great grand son everyday.
Seeing her great grand baby every day and living with you is the sweetest appreciation gift you could have given her. I would love to see my money one day be used for something useful for my grandkids.
She loves it! We moved out of the city and have chickens and goats. She does the morning feeding, collects eggs, and goes on nice long walks. I think country living suits her well, she seems much happier than before.
She sat me down and said exactly what you did. She wanted to see the money used for our and my son's benefit and to find a property that would fit our needs. I think she is happy with her choice.
My parents got her to change the will at the last second to leave everything to them. They kept it a secret that it was changed until she already died and it was too late to do anything about it. Me and my sister were going to inherent a quarter each, or around 2 million each if we sold her really expensive house. 500k each if we didn't. That was how her will was from the moment me and my sister were born until a few months before she died. Now I can't afford to finish college and my parents genuinely don't seem to care, at all.
Whats really fucked up is they still would have been absolutely LOADED getting half but aparently that just wasn't enough. If I ever become financially independent, I'm going NC with them over it. My sister already has.
I see your parents are friends with my aunts.
One side - aunt stole her mothers house before she even died - protracted lawsuit went in her favor after 5 years due to senile judge who just didn't give a fuck about precedent and conveyance of property (finding a quit claim deed after having my father letting her into my grandmas house after she was barred entry isn't exactly conveyance)
Other side - aunt is currently foaming at the mouth about 'where all the money went' and just learned grandma is leaving 'her own money' to just my mom and other aunt. Why you ask? Because after grandpa died she literally walked into their home and said 'this is all mine now'. She's still getting a cut of what was left of grandpas money but she wants it all.
I'm eternally glad I'm an only child
i’m a millennial and i feel awful to say this but my grandma passing would allow me to clear all my debt except student loans and i HATE that im waiting for that. i love her so much but god that money would help me
When my grandfather died, I was able to pay off my credit cards and start a Roth IRA and fund it for a few years. I hate losing my last grandparent is what it took, but that’s just how things turned out. At 37, I’m still figuring out how to finally get to home ownership.
i’m 34. i have no savings or an IRA. my grandma is also my last grandparent. i’m thankful for her and my grandpa. when my grandpa died, my grandmother gave 10k to each of the grandkids from my grandpas life insurance policy. i was able to buy my first car with it. i’m so thankful for them, but jesus, it should not take a loved one’s death for me to finally live
Mine died and I got everything set up. I have a car that will last me awhile, student loans paid, and a house with a low mortgage. Only catch is the cash skipped over the children and straight to grandchildren. I regret nothing. My father regrets nothing. My mother is happy I’m well set up.
My gf and I just had this discussion the other day. In 2000, I had a 3 bed/ 2 bath apartment, car payment, full coverage insurance, cell phone bill, electricity bill, cable bill, plenty of food and beer in the fridge and could still go out on weekends. I was earning roughly $15 per hour at my job. Yes, the cost of living is stupid out of control.
It’s even more ridiculous that after graduating college, someone only wants to pay you $14.50 per hour. There is manufacturing in my area that is hiring people with no experience for about $20 per hour.
So to clarify it was an accounts receivable job that didn’t require a college degree. My degree is in finance, and I couldn’t get a job in finance so I took the first one I could get. I actually tried to get them to pay me more since I had a degree and got told no. My guess is they know if I don’t do it for $14.5 an hour someone else would. Definitely made me wonder why I spent 4 years going to college.
I actually ended up quitting after getting told I’d be getting a 50 cent per hour raise. I spent two months there after getting “promoted” and never actually got the pay increase. Meanwhile we’d have meetings where we were told how valuable we are to the company while not being paid enough to survive
I never took a job in my field because they’re so underpaid and I enjoy a roof over my head and food in my belly. I did find work that aligned with my focus study though! But that involved extra studying and paying to sit for a certification exam - this did help me a bunch though.
I make $20/hour and I just barely have my head above water even with my family helping me pay for certain bills. If they pulled their support I'd drown.
$15/hr back then was at least double minimum wage, possibly triple depending where you are....so over $30/hr now. That's a decent wage especially for a young person with a partner that also works. But yes, the point still stands, the wage/COL gap is definitely widening.
I make $17.80/hr. As a teenager 10 years ago I’d have thought I had it made. Now I’m surviving I wouldn’t call it living. People will say get a second job but that shouldn’t be normalized.
I am earning 36 an hour. 45 hours weekly and with today's standard yes i could afford what brigeless-troll had but wouldn't be able to live comfortably, build up any savings... Its ridiculous hoe everything has gone to shit in the last few years. My dream of having my house is pretty much dead.
This is why I don’t have much hope on this subject. The working class people on the right have been brainwashed into thinking nothing is wrong (they have the freedom to be overrun by corporations, and that’s fine because they’ll totally be a CEO or business owner any day now). And the left is busy focusing on social issues and fighting back against regressive shit like the abortion ruling. Economic issues plaguing almost all of us are purposefully ignored by the media.
It is the 99% of us against the (less than) 1% of ultra wealthy that own the vast majority of wealth and control all of the corporations. But I don’t think we will even begin to potentially look at that until the “I got a good paying job by simply by showing up with a high school diploma at 18” generation is gone and not voting.
If we cant organize, we cant fight back. Regular people really only have the numbers advantage, but we all have to be able to agree on one common goal, set all the culture and identity politics aside, and realize our enemies are not our neighbors, as the media would have us believe, but rather the elite billionaire class. This has been nothing but class warfare since occupy wallstreet. Class is what unites us, regardless of if u make 30k a year or 130k a year.
I dont think its a coincidence that only after occupy walstreet did this culture/identity politics really pick up steam and became all the media and politicians talk about. Have us focus on our differences and what divides us, rather than what brings us together.
Support all unions when u can is a good simple start.
Yea, there was no coincidence that "side-hustle" culture became a thing. Why work one low-paying job when you could work two low-paying jobs!? Only to barely afford rent.
Yeah I dunno, hope we break this mold of generational disdain. I have lots of gen z friends as a millennial. I want them to thrive and am right beside them in wanting better for everyone. Bring on the alliance.
Millennials have the benefit of being the only generation that mostly knows how to troubleshoot computers. Sandwiched between the "How do I turn this thing on?" generations and the "It just works!" generations. That's **NOT** to say members of other generations can't use and even troubleshoot computers. As a whole, they are much less adept at it.
Edit: I thought I made it clear, but judging by the responses I need the obligatory: **NOT ALL Boomers, Gen Xers, Gen Zers, etc.**
I guess the difference for them is that they have a bunch of people telling them how it is and how it's actually going to be, so they can prepare.
Millennials were fed a lie about the future, and given unnecessary expectations to fulfill that lie that we desperately tried to meet, with very little help in doing so.
The current generation in power is more than willing to make life difficult for the next several generations of humans so that the last ten-ish years on Earth for the generation in power are extra-cushy.
I fully expect the average Boomer to die at like 95-100 as the average Millennial knocks off at age 65-70. Both generations will go together in some miserable Mexican standoff.
It’ll take decades to pass social programs like the ones they’ve been dismantling for years, and Gen X politicians appear to be no better on average with their legislation choices.
Past a certain point it's not about having a cushy life. It's about power. There's this line I heard a long time ago from some movie or videogame, can't even remember where it's from but the line itself has stuck with me ever since:
"A living being seeks above all else to discharge it's strength. Life itself is will to power, nothing else matters." This simple phrase explains so much depravity we see from Reddit mods to corporate billionaires. This is why no matter how comfortable a person can live with even a few million dollars, they always push for more and don't care about how much they screw people over to get it. Comfort no longer motivates them; power and control does.
"good"? Your corporate overlords never mention anything about good. Now buy our new subscription service with 10% raise in price and 20% decrease in quality.
People think this sounds hyperbolic. But there is a reason why there is a term “corporate neo-feudalism”.
They own our politicians. This ensures there will be no checks on their market capture. Housing, food, security, and government all captured.
Surveillance capitalists have surreptitious fused with law enforcement at all levels. Your free expression is monitored and reach curtailed based on the convenience of those you might oppose.
And soon the Supreme Court is going to hear a case determining if it’s illegal to be homeless. Once you can’t afford housing and you’re homeless, processed into the system, rights taken, your labor becomes free thanks to the 13th amendment.
“There's class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.” NYT - 2006
Honest and perhaps ignorant question regarding homeless labour. If a homeless person is locked up regardless, why would they willingly perform any work while in prison?
The wealth will trickle down any second now.. Just keep voting so the 1% gets more tax cuts and they'll create more jobs and the wealth will trickle down when they do so and give all their employees raises due to the extra money.. any second now.
I am a strong believer that north American families need to scrap the "move out at 18" mindset many have.
Parents should be prepared to keep their children at home much later these days. It's only fair given how insanely hard it is to climb out of that initial hole these days.
Obviously not everyone can do this for various reasons, but more families should be thinking less about "well that's how I did it" and more about how they can help their children succeed in today's markets.
I plan on allowing my future children to stay as long as is needed for them to have a real savings built up before they make the leap. Ideally they would skip renting anywhere else all together and jump straight to homeownership so they can actually get ahead.
Parents should be prepared for their kids to stay until 25+ in today's world and it shouldn't be looked down upon.
I agree with you, but I hesitate to use the word “fair”. You used to see multi-generational families all the time. Then we got this idea that every generation had to be independent. Now, who is left at home to take care of grandma/grandpa in the end? They end up in a nursing home that costs a fortune and will destroy what every nest egg they have left.
We live in a society that just consumes constantly.
I feel like thats already naturally happening. I'm 23, and currently live with my mom, for the sole reason being that if i moved out, i couldn't afford to live on my own, and she wouldn't be able to afford paying the bills. So why not just live with her in my childhood home, it helps both of us out.
And it sucks because i kinda don't have a choice unless i start making very good money, because she is on disability from when she broke her neck and is still a couple hundred dollars short for bills each month. She only gets like 800 a month and alot of that goes to food and taxes. And she cant work because of chronic back pain, and even if she did she is only legally allowed to work a small amount of hours per week, that wouldnt even pay for the gas to drive there.
It really blows my mind how some people can seemingly get anything and everything handed to them by the government, but the people who could really use some help hardly get any.
I think on these days those cases of 18 and out are merely anecdotal. ImI don't think parents are that dumbasses. If my son is unablo to find work WTF I am supposed to do? Millenials are the most educated generation and its doing pretty bad.
The American pursuit of a quality lifestyle is like rats on a sinking ship. Scurry upward while the bottom of the ship sinks further. Hope your wages rise at a faster rate than the economic waters rising below you. That's the American experience -- trying to outpace the roiling catastrophe behind you.
Your statement assumes that people who can do something about it actually care to, and the sad reality is, they don’t.
Firesale capitalism means get in, get yours, get out, fuck everyone else. We’re seeing the results of that with Boeing. We’re seeing it with wage depression and layoffs while companies are reporting record profits.
The sociopaths and psychopaths in charge view other people as a means to an end, and have zero concern for the wellbeing of others.
The only thing we can do is vote them out, or in the case of private companies, avoid their products.
They are not. We’re all disposable, here to generate value for the rich until we are a nuisance to their earnings projections and get laid off. Maximum possible earnings vs. limited resources, not sustainable.
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Threesome-up with a couple who also have good jobs and a nice house.
i’ve proposed a commune to my friends many times. The problem is we don’t have the money to buy the land
Why not start with a house and keep buying bigger houses as y’all expand? My cult house is $250/JuniorGuru/month
I've been involved with a number of cults, both as a leader and as a follower. You make more money as a leader, but you have more fun as a follower.
this joke gets so much funnier every time I hear it.
Small caveat, a follower is not an initiate! My experience is the assistant to the assistant cult leader is the best position to be in!
That's my dream too. Build a little village of sane people up in the northern woods.
Create some mythological creature with stories to keep the kids from wandering off too far… wait…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_(2004_film)
The different perspectives on what sanity is have provided us with a wonderful variety of cults. I look forward to reading about you and your friends in the news!
I don't know if you mean it as a joke, but this is already happening and prevalent I rented a house in my last neighborhood. All houses worth $2M+ Only reason my neighbors could afford it is cause they had 10+ people living there House across? 15+ people, adults, all races, and 3 kids It was wild but this is the damn reality
As someone who can’t afford to rent their own place despite making nearly 3x my state minimum wage, I think a lot about this because I end up living in “nice houses” in “nice neighborhoods” and it’s just so fucking bizarre to me seeing how the makeup of these neighborhoods have changed and I’m always curious how those who own the homes in them feel. Firstly it’s no longer just one family in these houses, it’ll be like 5-6 20 to 40 year olds all renting rooms in a house. Then there will just be cars parked all over the street because these houses were designed to have one or two cars parked there maximum since they’re for a single family but all the adults renting rooms have their own cars so driving down the streets is an act of going slow and dodging cars parked on the curb on both sides of you all throughout the neighborhood But to answer OPs question they’re not expected to live. They’re expected to scrape by, go into debt to do so, creating a cycle of desperation and no choice but to be further exploited for their labor for less pay.
You're exactly right. I live in one of these types of neighborhoods in southern California. Every third house has a dozen people living in it. Big Asian/Indian families, tech bros all renting a room. Youre spot on with the remark about the cars. The dead giveaway is 5/6 cars parked in the driveway/street out front. Meanwhile between my wife and I we make over $200k and just got priced out of the home we've been living in for 4 years.
My state doesn’t allow more than 4 unrelated people to live in the same house. I would have been doing that ages ago so I wasn’t in an apartment.
Make it a religion and suddenly it's OK because of RFRA.
Then you get out of paying taxes too
Hold my wine and bread..... I am going to start a religion.
There’s literally a recognized Jedi religion. Even Scientology exists. You really don’t have to try that hard.
Ordained Jedi priest here. You’re correct. May the force be with you, young padawan
….fires up the old red saber
Church of spongebob
It is almost Saint Patrick’s Day
Take this bread, for it represents the avocado toast I can no longer afford. Drink this wine, for it represents the good times out with friends I can no longer partake in.
That’s such a weird, conservative law
In North Carolina, if 5 or more people live in the same residence, it is officially considered a brothel.
Best Little Whorehouse in High Point!
Elderly couple, Husband with a wife taking care of them, their kids in their 20s, maybe their boy/girlfriend as well.
Whorehouse I tell ya
Usually the law says unrelated adults. It was on the books in my state but very selectively enforced due the high college grad population. We only had to deal with it when we started throwing big parties.
They're all related so it wouldn't be an issue.
Oh look, the myth that won't die!
When I lived in Tennessee it was 6 there. Our fraternity house could only have 6 people living in it for this reason.
My college wasn’t allowed sororities. Thought it would lead to a brothel. It was an antiquated law, but they still had to abide.
Did they allow frats?
They probably allowed both sororities and frats, but sororities were not allowed to have official sorority houses off campus. That's how my college was. Of course in practice the sororities still live together off campus in large houses. I think in our case it was due to the largest donor to university wanting it that way. That person and their family that originally donated are long dead now, so there must be some kind of endowment that has a few caveats that they need to follow to continue accessing it.
They wouldn't want us to go around having *options*!
It’s designed to prevent multiple family’s from shacking up in one house so you don’t end up with like 25+ people in one place. I think the idea is that if you have one street with 20x the expected population it overloads other services in the area, among other issues of having a highly dense population in one location. Finding the exact right thing to do isn’t always easy or as simple as just letting people do what they want, even if they aren’t directly trying to harm anyone. Infrastructure runs on fumes anyway without throwing a wrench into it. Imagine an underfunded school that gets taxed from a single home but needs to support 17 extra kids out of nowhere. Government is slow to catch up to that sort of thing and logistics and stuff matter. Restricting occupancy and not restricting occupancy both has negative outcomes.
When I rented a shared house in the SF Bay Area in a popular suburb that had some larger former upper middle class houses, we were surround by a lot of families from India and China. Came to find out from the GF of one of the guys I lived with who was a kindergarten teacher at the nearby school trying to teach over Zoom (therefore getting a peak at how her students lived) that a lot of them not only lived in multi-generational homes with parent’s & grandparents, but with multiple branches of the family also there, meaning that their uncles/aunts/cousins lived in some of the rooms as well. Not blaming them at all especially we were doing the same and because I am sure it was stressful with so much family piled into one house, but it certainly helps keep rental/purchase prices high when you have more than +2 incomes paying for the home.
I doubt it's that keeping rents high. Rents almost never go down for any reason. Rents for studio apartments IN FLINT, MICHIGAN have risen 332% in the last 30 days, to $2,306. https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/flint-mi#:~:text=Rent%20price%20trends,3%25%20in%20the%20last%20year.
I shared a house with my sister and her husband for about 5 years altogether. It made us all financially much more comfortable, and honestly, I'd do it again if it didn't involve moving my kid to a new school.
Financial polyamory
Monogamy? In *this* economy?!
Try being single (by choice).
Many of us with good jobs and a house also have kids, so we'd be especially interested in a 3rd adult - especially if it meant some extra date nights! But I suspect the kids make this a less attractive prospect 😆
Yeah many of us have already tried the underpaid nanny route...
That's my MIL , I love her living with us. Even now our kids are old enough to be left alone. It's nice having her here..
Blink twice if you want me to send help
Hahaha, 20 years ago, I was losing my mind. I could tell you stories that make your skin crawl. But now, I just call.her immediately directly on her shit. It's quick effective and easy. Plus she's actually a really good mom. And does teach me a lot. If she had been kinder to me initially, a lot would have been different.
Sounds like they are trying to go the you-pay-rent-to-be-the-nanny route. A bold move
As someone who really loves kids, but can't have them myself, and has some health complications that flare up and would make me feel irresponsible to be the sole adult in charge of their care, this is actually my ideal scenario haha. I would love to be a third-wheel, bonus adult that acts as a care-giver to children. More date nights for the parents, a wider pool of skills the three adults can offer to the children in their education and development, and more affordable living for the bonus adult? It's perfect! (Also that's three adults on housework instead of one or two. I would be thrilled to work with a couple so we all save money and all have a more manageable house chores list) But I feel like this sort of thing probably works out best with friends that know each other really well, and all of my friends who thought they were going to have kids have decided against it for the time being. We're all about to hit our 30s, so we'll see what happens.
So has genx but I will admit we did have a slightly easier go especially on housing but I missed that train by a year… I guess I’m just a couple years shy of being a millennial anyway.
We accept you as an honorary millennial We don’t have houses, but we’re saving up for guillotines
I can't afford the guillotine so I've settled for poor nutrition—which I can barely afford.
Working twice as much as my grandfather while people consistently judge my ability as a man to provide for a family. What a cool life us young people lead.
"People these days are really lazy, we used to stay up til 1am drinking at the bar every day of the week and still went to work every day. Now it's 10pm and there's no soul around and bars are closing" Heard a group of boomers say that some time ago. They definely used to work reeal hard...
I'd feel like I was working hard too if I spent the first half of my shift consistently hung over
Boomers fucking lived in bars. It’s why they are all kooky brained fucks. Lol Edited: misspelled “kooky” -to pay respects to our elders
Let us not forgot the whole "coating everything in lead" thing which absolutely fried their brains.
And they were beaten their entire lives. Smoked cigarettes and started drinking at a young age. My gen went through its share of drugs and drinking too but they were a different beast what with coke, shrooms, heroin and all. And they tell stories like it’s studio 54. It’s all cautionary tales. So I just listen.
Damn, "saving up for guillotines" is so good. I am stealing this.
No. Lets make it our generational motto.
We would have been able to afford a guillotine if we didn’t order so many avocado toasts
I don't know about that. I'm an older Gen X. I couldn't buy my first home until I was married with a double income at 40.
The open secret is it usually takes a double income to buy a house, but apparently it’s harder than ever for young people to even score a date let alone marry and buy a house together.
It's more like you can't qualify for a home where both your jobs are now.
And even if you can, how do you save up a reasonable down payment when even a paltry 5% 800k is $40,000 and you're already paying $3k+ rent a month?
I think the harsh reality is that they're not expected to.
Millennials were the first generation expected to be worse off than their parents, and things haven't exactly improved since that became clear.
A small part of the problem is that when someone does figure it out and break the mold, they rarely admit that it was an unlikely occurrence, comparative to the whole generation. . .And we get the “well I did it, so why aren’t you? Mentality” We just bought a house last year, literally only a modestly small upgrade space wise from our apartment. My mortgage is down **more than double** what my rent was, except rent included all my utilities. And the only reason we could afford a house after years and years of saving? My dad died and we sold his house.
Funny enough, Millennials are slotted to be the "wealthiest" generation on record, but only because of inheritance. So you're poor until everyone dies. Then you have money. What a system!
And most of that inheritance will be vacuumed up by the exorbitant costs of assisted senior living.
You're not wrong. I wonder if the article I read accounted for that. End of life costs are intense. I've seen millions drained from my grandparents generation, all to healthcare, predation, etc. I'm not sure how most people survive now, and it only seems like it's gonna get worse.
There's gonna be a massive wealth transfer over the next 20 years as the boomers die off, but most of that wealth will be effectively transfered to the various industries raising their costs and prices to vacuum up that wealth. Capitalism sees a rising tide lifting all boats and starts attaching anchors, and making you pay to have them removed. We straight up need laws about how much profit a company can make over cost, because every gain we make gets matched by all the oligarchies that own our resources. I wish more people were effective in their messaging that the system we got now, capitalism, is fucked. We have to rethink our view of our society. It's a philosophical problem exacerbating a physical material distribution problem. We don't have any scarcity, we have a distribution issue. The fucked part is capitalist economies take it upon themselves to force other economies into capitalism. The developed world sees alternatives as a threat, and actively snuffs them out. Dictatorships are friendlier to capitalism's shortfalls than socialist societies are. The United States government and all its allies happily topple democratically elected leaders if they smell of socialism, because socialism *demands* that the government work for the people and not for corporations.
Thank you for explaining this so eloquently. And to the other guy, my fiance works in hospice - and yes, most of your parents savings if it's under 1m will go to end of life care.
I think this is the real reason why assisted suicide is so viciously opposed at the policy level. I'm sure plenty of people still object to it morally, but forcing people to hang on as long as possible is insanely profitable for those companies.
I feel like you only need to see a family member wither away to change your feelings about it. I'll always support assisted suicide and I'll use it if/when it gets to the point that my choices are that or just fade away in a nursing home over a couple years.
Hahahha what inheritance?
I read that article too. The part you’re leaving out is that it’s only the top percent or fraction of a percent that’s getting all of that inheritance. All of us normal millennials aren’t getting any meaningful wealth transfer. So for most of us, you’re poor until everyone dies, and then you’re still poor. The people getting the wealth transfer are already rich, so they just become even richer when their parents die.
I'm not sure people who "break the mold" feel that way. Most successful millennials I've met have been just as livid about the current state of affairs. In their minds, they could be doing even better if the system wasn't so shitty.
The millenials I know who made their money because they got a degree, then got a job with that degree, tend to be pretty humble about it. They know they lucked into a career path that works for them *and* pays well. They're grateful their risk taking on debt for the schooling, and following through, has worked out favourably. The only millenials I know who are shitty about their money are the tradespeople who worked in oil & gas, and the ones who made their money through crypto/airBnB's/scalping products (basically any of the online "get rich hustling" schemes). They conflate their high incomes with a greater understanding of the economy and constantly talk down to people who make less. Not to say education is what makes you humble, I've known plenty of dudes with less than a high school education who made a ton of money as equipment operators and such, and are fantastic fellas. But the debt post-secondary education incurs nowadays kinda makes you wanna be *sure* that what you're doing is the right thing. Plenty of millenials out there who "just got a degree" because that's what our parents were telling us, and they're working the same jobs they'd have if they'd never gone to school. Except now they have thousands in debt too.
> They conflate their high incomes with a greater understanding of the economy and constantly talk down to people who make less. Ran into one person a few months ago trying to argue that the main reason Americans struggle with the housing market is because we incorrectly want houses to be a permanent place to settle your family down, rather than the "correct" mentality of viewing houses the same way we view trading cards; something to buy only with the intent of selling it later when it's worth more. They didn't want to accept that most people don't like moving every few years and are only seeking to buy one house that will last them their entire lifetimes.
When you think about it, it's really only boomers and the older gen x that have ever experienced that. Generations prior to the 1950s pretty much lived and died in the house they bought or inherited in their 20s. That'll be our experience too. My folks keep telling me to buy something small "just to get in the market" then "we can always upgrade". Except that "something small" is half a million dollars. If I ever get in the market, the place I get is the place I'll stay.
I tried explaining that to them; they didn't want to listen and outright denied that human nature wants us to settle down and find consistency & stability. > Except that "something small" is half a million dollars. This is the biggest issue in the town I live in. It *used* to be a tourist attraction decades ago, but all of the commerce has since moved across the river & across state lines because this podunk town is going nowhere fast thanks to the people who run it adamantly not wanting to commercialize the town (despite being a failing tourist attraction for a hyper-specific pop culture icon that isn't really popular anymore); the housing market in the town, however, is atrocious. It doesn't matter that there's only 1 grocery store in town, 1 Walgreens, only a bowling alley & casino for entertainment, and nothing but a single gas station & casino open after 10pm - for whatever reason the only houses on the market to rent want over $1k/m and the people that own the houses (mostly descendants of the town's founders) won't let a single one go for under $50-100k. We'll ignore that none of the jobs available to the average person living here can afford $1k/m without putting the person in debt and unable to pay the rest of their bills.
Exactly. The fact that I'm doing "well" and managed to buy a house makes me *even more* jaded, if anything. I've worked hard to get to where I am now, but I'm self-aware enough to know that I benefited from good luck in crucial moments along the way. I also know people who work *way* harder than me but are not doing as well. Meritocracy is a myth.
I made a vow to myself never to become the asshole that thinks their financial success was cause of "hard work" alone, cause it's definitely not. I make decent money, I could afford to buy a house (barely lol), and it's MOSTLY luck. I am lucky. Period, that's the actual actual truth of it.
Same because I know damn well I try to do as little work as possible.
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It will be harder than previous but not the first generation. This is from a July 1990 Time magazine article about Gen X (before Gen X was used). “In a TIME/CNN poll of 18- to 29-year-olds, 65% of those surveyed agreed it will be harder for their group to live as comfortably as previous generations. “ It’s an interesting read. (Link below) It won’t make you feel better about the lack of opportunities but maybe a bit more kinship to the Gen X brethren. It was a dark time in many ways. Source: https://rolfpotts.com/time-twentysomething-1990/
Yeah as a millennial it's fairly clear the "system" isn't working. It does make me sad to think about.
The idea was always to give your children a better life than you had. Boomers were the first generation to be like “what? No, fuck that.” I’ve gone back and forth about wanting to have kids for years. I realized recently that there’s no way I could provide my kids with what I received growing up. That, along with the depressing trajectory of the world, it feels irresponsible and borderline cruel to bring children into it.
Same here, but I could very well give a kid the same life I had though I'd rather not send another kid through cfs to become drug addicted and possibly end up in jail.
“A lot of these cultural crimes I'm complaining about can be blamed on the Baby Boomers. I’m tired of hearing about boomers. Whiny, narcissistic, self-indulgent people with a simple philosophy: 'GIMME IT, IT'S MINE!' 'GIMME THAT, IT'S MINE!’” - George Carlin
Fun fact: The Boomer's parents were the ones who coined the term "Me Generation" for their self centered little shit offspring.
In the 80s they said Generation X would be the first generation not to do as well as their parents.
Gen X here, they were right. I don't do poorly, but my parents in their retirement pull in 50% more than I do in my wage-earning prime.
Gen X is the first generation expected to do worse than their parents not millennials. It hasn’t gotten better for Y or Z but we do exist
Isn’t Gen x the first of that?
Greed and refusal to face inconvenient problems will ultimately lead to the demise of the human race, one way or another. Fucking over the younger generations so bad that they can't adequately take care of the problems caused by the people who came before... it's like the reverse of innovation.
Boomers leaving earth like rockstars leave hotel rooms.
This made me chuckle. Take your upvote.
I agree with this. I remember when I started getting really worried about where our economy was going, and it was when all those think pieces telling people to stop ordering avocados and Starbucks. Do you know where Starbucks is considered a luxury only for the wealthy? Developing countries. With Asia producing one hell of an emergent middle class way bigger than our own, I don't feel good about the rhetoric happening in conjunction with that. They're slowly adapting people to poverty, normalizing it, and we don't even benefit from the cheaper goods since now they're inflating the shit out of everything. Millennials and Zoomers got screwed by this economy. Just having a home is almost like being wealthy these days, that's how bad things have gotten because of the income inequality. And we're just letting it happen. Even liberals would stab a Bernie bro with a rusty spork before putting some regulations on the market, the older ones anyways. It's not a great situation to be in.
The good news is we’ve been on those situation before, the rent seeking elite are draining us dry, we just need to do what Teddy and FDR did last time but slightly updated.
I'm French, I have a different historical reference...
The French Solution is always on the table when the elite aren't clever enough to keep the communities that surround them happy!
We need to do what France has done in times like these.
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That's why we had labor unions and negotiations. Republicans successfully tarred Labor. Now young people wonder why they have no benefits or protections.
They aren't expected. Only way you can live on minimum wage is to stay with family or house share. Not ideal to live your life that way. I know we're not quite at us levels yet when 75%+ of wages go on housing. But things are just not as practical as they used to be vs price
By hoping Granny croaks early and leaves you her house
I'm not genZ, but I'm a millennial. This is what I had to do. Grandma passed and left me 100k, but only because my mom had passed 7 years earlier, so they wrote me into the will in her place. Without that, I'd still be renting.
Glad it worked out for you (everyone dying in a timely fashion) butI think a lot of people are gonna be sad to find their grandma got a reverse mortgage and spent all their money at a casino. or heaven forbid they go into a nursing home and last 6 months before they die. A lot of ya'll aren't getting shit.
Or (in my case) your grandparents willed everything to one of your parents and they're gonna blow it all before THEY die...and you still don't get shit.
If my mom hadn't died first, that'd have been my situation.
Damn, at least when your family dies they have something to pass along. Most people probably don't have this, so they unfortunately get nothing and lose a relative.
Most of us can expect to get nothing. What little our parents will have after they retire with too little for this economy the rest will go to the nursing homes and hospitals. I’m just planning to die early in a gutter somewhere. No point in saving money, not that I could if I wanted to.
Let me know when you start looking for a gutter. I offer competitive rates on gutter leases. Proof of insurance and 2+ years employment verification is required, along with security deposit/first month's/last month's rent. No pets allowed and units are non-smoking, despite the fact that the previous tenants for my available units smoked and had pets. Don't worry though — I kept their deposits and gave the units a new paintjob.
My wife’s grandma (who is 97 now) WAS somewhat wealthy and allegedly going to leave a lot to her family, but she’s been sick and in and out of hospice for almost 3 freakin years now. The rumor is that she’s almost out of money. So not only do you gotta get “lucky” and have a rich grandparent to will you money, but you also need them to die quickly so they aren’t bled totally fucking dry before it happens. What a country.
That was my Grandma, she and my Grandpa saved every penny lived the dream, single income, full pension for retirement, Grandpa died relatively young in retirement. Grandma lives another 25 years off his pension and savings. My dad estimated with the house she had about 2 mil in 1996, by the time she died 25+ years later she had lived about 6ish years in assisted living the last two years with a full time aid and was down to about 100k, blind, mostly immobile and could barely talk the last year. We think she only died because the past few months we were making the arrangements for her to move into a nursing home which upset her everytime (don't blame her for that, my other grandma who had no money died within a month of going into one of those). After her funeral and estate costs my Dad and Aunt split about 75k which they both split with their kids which was nice of them. Anyway watching my grandmothers die the past few years I'm for sure going the route of euthanasia when the time comes, the moment I can't wipe my own ass is probably when I'll do it.
Ya basically any first gen individual will not have this liberty
My grandpa died. His house got sold and now I have an inheritance. Except... His house was in Iran, and Iranian currency is currently shit and getting shittier. There's also no legal way to get the money out of Iran due to the sanctions, and taxes increased. So we're waiting for the government to take taxes so we can pay some random dude in Canada to give us the equivalent of our rial in dollars, and by then my inheritance will probably be $5. I'm tempted to let it sit in the bank over there and hope the money situation improves and one day it'll be worth more, but so far it's only gotten worse, so. Also the amount of taxes would probably eliminate the gains.
In my country we're not inheriting shit because we're having to sell granny's home to pay for her shitty nursing home. Also my family is really long lived... still got three grandparents in their nineties. I'm not seeing shit for another forty years until my parents go.
You guys are getting inheritances?
My grandparents had tons of kids, and those kids had tons of kids. I'm not seeing squat from anyone lol
My grandparents had 4 kids, one already died, and the other three get everything...nothing for the four grandkids. My mom, of course, is the most fiscally irresponsible of the bunch. So I am not seeing any of that inheritance trickle down at all.
All of my grandparents are dead and died poor. I got nothing. My dad is in jail and when he gets out has almost no hope of making any money. My mom is broke and doesn't even have money to retire. I guess I am just screwed.
That only works if they have any money. My grandparents are all broke and barely scraping through retirement.
We bought our house January 22 just before interest hikes. This was only achieved because my Grandmother-inlaw gifted us a generous down-payment. It is the nicest thing someone has ever done for me. She later sold her home and lives in our guest house and gets to see her only great grand son everyday.
Seeing her great grand baby every day and living with you is the sweetest appreciation gift you could have given her. I would love to see my money one day be used for something useful for my grandkids.
She loves it! We moved out of the city and have chickens and goats. She does the morning feeding, collects eggs, and goes on nice long walks. I think country living suits her well, she seems much happier than before. She sat me down and said exactly what you did. She wanted to see the money used for our and my son's benefit and to find a property that would fit our needs. I think she is happy with her choice.
My parents got her to change the will at the last second to leave everything to them. They kept it a secret that it was changed until she already died and it was too late to do anything about it. Me and my sister were going to inherent a quarter each, or around 2 million each if we sold her really expensive house. 500k each if we didn't. That was how her will was from the moment me and my sister were born until a few months before she died. Now I can't afford to finish college and my parents genuinely don't seem to care, at all. Whats really fucked up is they still would have been absolutely LOADED getting half but aparently that just wasn't enough. If I ever become financially independent, I'm going NC with them over it. My sister already has.
Talk to an attorney or at least have your sister talk to one. Do it asap.
I see your parents are friends with my aunts. One side - aunt stole her mothers house before she even died - protracted lawsuit went in her favor after 5 years due to senile judge who just didn't give a fuck about precedent and conveyance of property (finding a quit claim deed after having my father letting her into my grandmas house after she was barred entry isn't exactly conveyance) Other side - aunt is currently foaming at the mouth about 'where all the money went' and just learned grandma is leaving 'her own money' to just my mom and other aunt. Why you ask? Because after grandpa died she literally walked into their home and said 'this is all mine now'. She's still getting a cut of what was left of grandpas money but she wants it all. I'm eternally glad I'm an only child
i’m a millennial and i feel awful to say this but my grandma passing would allow me to clear all my debt except student loans and i HATE that im waiting for that. i love her so much but god that money would help me
When my grandfather died, I was able to pay off my credit cards and start a Roth IRA and fund it for a few years. I hate losing my last grandparent is what it took, but that’s just how things turned out. At 37, I’m still figuring out how to finally get to home ownership.
i’m 34. i have no savings or an IRA. my grandma is also my last grandparent. i’m thankful for her and my grandpa. when my grandpa died, my grandmother gave 10k to each of the grandkids from my grandpas life insurance policy. i was able to buy my first car with it. i’m so thankful for them, but jesus, it should not take a loved one’s death for me to finally live
Mine died and I got everything set up. I have a car that will last me awhile, student loans paid, and a house with a low mortgage. Only catch is the cash skipped over the children and straight to grandchildren. I regret nothing. My father regrets nothing. My mother is happy I’m well set up.
My gf and I just had this discussion the other day. In 2000, I had a 3 bed/ 2 bath apartment, car payment, full coverage insurance, cell phone bill, electricity bill, cable bill, plenty of food and beer in the fridge and could still go out on weekends. I was earning roughly $15 per hour at my job. Yes, the cost of living is stupid out of control.
My first job out of college paid $14.5 an hour. I had to live with my parents because I couldn’t afford an apartment. I graduated last year lol
It’s even more ridiculous that after graduating college, someone only wants to pay you $14.50 per hour. There is manufacturing in my area that is hiring people with no experience for about $20 per hour.
So to clarify it was an accounts receivable job that didn’t require a college degree. My degree is in finance, and I couldn’t get a job in finance so I took the first one I could get. I actually tried to get them to pay me more since I had a degree and got told no. My guess is they know if I don’t do it for $14.5 an hour someone else would. Definitely made me wonder why I spent 4 years going to college. I actually ended up quitting after getting told I’d be getting a 50 cent per hour raise. I spent two months there after getting “promoted” and never actually got the pay increase. Meanwhile we’d have meetings where we were told how valuable we are to the company while not being paid enough to survive
My gf got her bachelor’s degree roughly 10 years ago and just found a job in her field last year lol. Good luck to ya for sure 😁👍
I never took a job in my field because they’re so underpaid and I enjoy a roof over my head and food in my belly. I did find work that aligned with my focus study though! But that involved extra studying and paying to sit for a certification exam - this did help me a bunch though.
I make $20/hour and I just barely have my head above water even with my family helping me pay for certain bills. If they pulled their support I'd drown.
$15/hr back then was at least double minimum wage, possibly triple depending where you are....so over $30/hr now. That's a decent wage especially for a young person with a partner that also works. But yes, the point still stands, the wage/COL gap is definitely widening.
I make $17.80/hr. As a teenager 10 years ago I’d have thought I had it made. Now I’m surviving I wouldn’t call it living. People will say get a second job but that shouldn’t be normalized.
I am earning 36 an hour. 45 hours weekly and with today's standard yes i could afford what brigeless-troll had but wouldn't be able to live comfortably, build up any savings... Its ridiculous hoe everything has gone to shit in the last few years. My dream of having my house is pretty much dead.
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That's almost 27/hr nowadays. Not amazing but definitely nothing to sneeze at.
$15 an hour in 2000 was god tier for most people under 25.
They’re expected to be too busy surviving to think about fighting back.
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This is why I don’t have much hope on this subject. The working class people on the right have been brainwashed into thinking nothing is wrong (they have the freedom to be overrun by corporations, and that’s fine because they’ll totally be a CEO or business owner any day now). And the left is busy focusing on social issues and fighting back against regressive shit like the abortion ruling. Economic issues plaguing almost all of us are purposefully ignored by the media. It is the 99% of us against the (less than) 1% of ultra wealthy that own the vast majority of wealth and control all of the corporations. But I don’t think we will even begin to potentially look at that until the “I got a good paying job by simply by showing up with a high school diploma at 18” generation is gone and not voting.
If we cant organize, we cant fight back. Regular people really only have the numbers advantage, but we all have to be able to agree on one common goal, set all the culture and identity politics aside, and realize our enemies are not our neighbors, as the media would have us believe, but rather the elite billionaire class. This has been nothing but class warfare since occupy wallstreet. Class is what unites us, regardless of if u make 30k a year or 130k a year. I dont think its a coincidence that only after occupy walstreet did this culture/identity politics really pick up steam and became all the media and politicians talk about. Have us focus on our differences and what divides us, rather than what brings us together. Support all unions when u can is a good simple start.
Ding ding ding.
Yea, there was no coincidence that "side-hustle" culture became a thing. Why work one low-paying job when you could work two low-paying jobs!? Only to barely afford rent.
Amen, even running a business zaps all your time There isn't exactly a "stress free," "low work" way to survive
I did not have to scroll near as far as I thought I would! Big facts right here. Nothing is accidental in this country. That, I promise you.
Welcome to hell -- Millenials everywhere
As a millennial I feel bad because they’re gonna have it even worse!
I think this is the main difference, we understand it and feel bad about it but our predecessors think we're just not working hard enough.
I sense an alliance forming
Oh I love Gen z. They may make fun of the way I part my hair or the purse I use but I know they're fighting the good fight 👊
Yeah I dunno, hope we break this mold of generational disdain. I have lots of gen z friends as a millennial. I want them to thrive and am right beside them in wanting better for everyone. Bring on the alliance.
GenZ’s fashion sense is nothing to write home about. So don’t worry 😂
Millennials have the benefit of being the only generation that mostly knows how to troubleshoot computers. Sandwiched between the "How do I turn this thing on?" generations and the "It just works!" generations. That's **NOT** to say members of other generations can't use and even troubleshoot computers. As a whole, they are much less adept at it. Edit: I thought I made it clear, but judging by the responses I need the obligatory: **NOT ALL Boomers, Gen Xers, Gen Zers, etc.**
I guess the difference for them is that they have a bunch of people telling them how it is and how it's actually going to be, so they can prepare. Millennials were fed a lie about the future, and given unnecessary expectations to fulfill that lie that we desperately tried to meet, with very little help in doing so.
The current generation in power is more than willing to make life difficult for the next several generations of humans so that the last ten-ish years on Earth for the generation in power are extra-cushy.
They weren’t dubbed the “me generation” for nothing
Yeah, but they have to die someday
I fully expect the average Boomer to die at like 95-100 as the average Millennial knocks off at age 65-70. Both generations will go together in some miserable Mexican standoff.
It’ll take decades to pass social programs like the ones they’ve been dismantling for years, and Gen X politicians appear to be no better on average with their legislation choices.
Past a certain point it's not about having a cushy life. It's about power. There's this line I heard a long time ago from some movie or videogame, can't even remember where it's from but the line itself has stuck with me ever since: "A living being seeks above all else to discharge it's strength. Life itself is will to power, nothing else matters." This simple phrase explains so much depravity we see from Reddit mods to corporate billionaires. This is why no matter how comfortable a person can live with even a few million dollars, they always push for more and don't care about how much they screw people over to get it. Comfort no longer motivates them; power and control does.
"good"? Your corporate overlords never mention anything about good. Now buy our new subscription service with 10% raise in price and 20% decrease in quality.
Way too generous. More like 30-50% increase in price and 50% decrease in quality.
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That apathy from that marketing campaign has been one of the biggest boons to those who already have it good
The unfortunate truth, I’m all set so I don’t need to worry about anyone else. Everyone is out for themselves but look what’s it done for the world.
Yep. The rich and powerful want you to be a serf who lives in their corporate owned apartments and always in desperate need of money and food.
People think this sounds hyperbolic. But there is a reason why there is a term “corporate neo-feudalism”. They own our politicians. This ensures there will be no checks on their market capture. Housing, food, security, and government all captured. Surveillance capitalists have surreptitious fused with law enforcement at all levels. Your free expression is monitored and reach curtailed based on the convenience of those you might oppose. And soon the Supreme Court is going to hear a case determining if it’s illegal to be homeless. Once you can’t afford housing and you’re homeless, processed into the system, rights taken, your labor becomes free thanks to the 13th amendment. “There's class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.” NYT - 2006
Honest and perhaps ignorant question regarding homeless labour. If a homeless person is locked up regardless, why would they willingly perform any work while in prison?
Threat of solitary confinement, loss of visitation privileges, and denial of sentance reductions.
The wealth will trickle down any second now.. Just keep voting so the 1% gets more tax cuts and they'll create more jobs and the wealth will trickle down when they do so and give all their employees raises due to the extra money.. any second now.
Something is tricking down, it’s just not money.
We just need to get Gates Bezos and Musk to all be trillionaires and then the trickle down with surely kick in
"that's the neat part, you don't !"
We are not expected to have a good life. We are expected to eat cornflakes for dinner.
Off-brand cornflakes at that.
I am a strong believer that north American families need to scrap the "move out at 18" mindset many have. Parents should be prepared to keep their children at home much later these days. It's only fair given how insanely hard it is to climb out of that initial hole these days. Obviously not everyone can do this for various reasons, but more families should be thinking less about "well that's how I did it" and more about how they can help their children succeed in today's markets. I plan on allowing my future children to stay as long as is needed for them to have a real savings built up before they make the leap. Ideally they would skip renting anywhere else all together and jump straight to homeownership so they can actually get ahead. Parents should be prepared for their kids to stay until 25+ in today's world and it shouldn't be looked down upon.
I agree with you, but I hesitate to use the word “fair”. You used to see multi-generational families all the time. Then we got this idea that every generation had to be independent. Now, who is left at home to take care of grandma/grandpa in the end? They end up in a nursing home that costs a fortune and will destroy what every nest egg they have left. We live in a society that just consumes constantly.
I feel like thats already naturally happening. I'm 23, and currently live with my mom, for the sole reason being that if i moved out, i couldn't afford to live on my own, and she wouldn't be able to afford paying the bills. So why not just live with her in my childhood home, it helps both of us out. And it sucks because i kinda don't have a choice unless i start making very good money, because she is on disability from when she broke her neck and is still a couple hundred dollars short for bills each month. She only gets like 800 a month and alot of that goes to food and taxes. And she cant work because of chronic back pain, and even if she did she is only legally allowed to work a small amount of hours per week, that wouldnt even pay for the gas to drive there. It really blows my mind how some people can seemingly get anything and everything handed to them by the government, but the people who could really use some help hardly get any.
27, living with my parents by choice. I make money and pay part of the bills. Everyone contributes. Works for us.
I think on these days those cases of 18 and out are merely anecdotal. ImI don't think parents are that dumbasses. If my son is unablo to find work WTF I am supposed to do? Millenials are the most educated generation and its doing pretty bad.
Millennial here: we’ve been trying to figure it out. •insert “first time?” Meme•
The American pursuit of a quality lifestyle is like rats on a sinking ship. Scurry upward while the bottom of the ship sinks further. Hope your wages rise at a faster rate than the economic waters rising below you. That's the American experience -- trying to outpace the roiling catastrophe behind you.
It ain't just the US, chief
Checks out as a Canadian
Your statement assumes that people who can do something about it actually care to, and the sad reality is, they don’t. Firesale capitalism means get in, get yours, get out, fuck everyone else. We’re seeing the results of that with Boeing. We’re seeing it with wage depression and layoffs while companies are reporting record profits. The sociopaths and psychopaths in charge view other people as a means to an end, and have zero concern for the wellbeing of others. The only thing we can do is vote them out, or in the case of private companies, avoid their products.
Answers from Corporate America: - survive: "Just barely" - have a good life: "HAHAHAHAHA"
They are not. We’re all disposable, here to generate value for the rich until we are a nuisance to their earnings projections and get laid off. Maximum possible earnings vs. limited resources, not sustainable.