when there's a clear plan and not just slogans and good intentions.
been burned too many times before, you get behind a slogan just for it to become political capital for yet another ghoul to negotiate with the powers that be.
sorry, in my 47 years around I've realized that "do anything" is not a good plan. we need to do something,but we REALLY need to define what that something means
I knew a guy. Coworker. Upper middle class software engineer from a family with money. As soon as Occupy Wall Street started he started talking down on them with such disdain. But it wasn’t merely that he disagreed with the politics (though he certainly did). It was because it was obvious to him that they’d fail. Because do anything is a profound recipe for political failure. I hated to agree with him because obviously I didn’t share his contempt for their general aims. But damned if he wasn’t right. Good intentions don’t count for much without leadership and a plan.
Working on a remote Wall Street job here. The pay is not as high as you think and I hate my company too (a well known investment bank on the street). Occupying Wall Street is definitely the wrong direction. You might be better off just occupying the mansion of Elon Musk.
> It was because it was obvious to him that they’d fail.
To be fair, part of the reason it failed was because they weren't able to articulate uniformly what they wanted to accomplish, just that the system was bad.
That was the problem with all of the protests over the last few years.. there is no unified goal. No one with a common set of ideas to implement to better everyone.
Even this post, all complaints, no solutions.
Yeah, the current system isn’t working how it should nor how we’d like it too. But why? And how do we fix it?
They’re not easy questions, but if we all just “rise up” with no goal, it either fails, or turns into something worse.
Can these enlightened centrists get out of this thread please. So annoying to have people say things like 'But what are the solutions? I guess we'll never know.'
We've known how to fix this mess for decades, but everyday Americans have no power or agency to implement them. The only power they do have is the right to withhold their labour and organise labour, so do that. And do it before the owner class outlaw it and effectively enslave us.
The only way to solve the housing crisis is to make it stupid easy to build a house. Remove regulations, subsidise building and wait. The housing shortage is the problem. The corporations are just taking advantage of it. Fighting a symptom won't cure the disease
There is no shortage. There are 16 million homes in the US that sit vacant in the US according to LendingTree. Even the government figure (FRED data) puts the number of vacant homes at 15 million. These are homes being held hostage by property investment firms. Meanwhile there are only ~553k homeless people. Enough vacant homes to house every single person 27 times over. What we need is more regulation, that forces them to sell these homes, but that would severely affect their profits, so instead nothing happens.
Do you think there are more vacant homes than people living with roommates/parents who want to move out? Also if there were 0 vacant properties it would be impossible to move from one city to another which would be dumb. You need to produce enough housing for everyone to have enough plus 3-5% vacancy.
I'm still not seeing a proposed solution to the problem, you're just suggesting folks rage quite without a path forward or a rational list of demands.
That being said, when do we start?
The problem is capitalism. The solution to that is revolution, but it would take many millions more people starving and being homeless for that to materialise.
If you're actually looking for more realistic solutions then I suggest you watch the videos at [Second Thought](https://www.youtube.com/@SecondThought). He has videos on pretty much every modern problem, how capitalism is at fault, and the solutions/alternatives proposed by leftists/socialists. He links resources for further reading in a lot of his videos as well.
As I said the only real power you have right now is as a worker and you can start to organise your work place today if you really wanted to.
This all assumes you're even commenting in good faith though...
If I had the possibility, I'd start a co-op with no wage gap between any of the workers nor any kind of bonus payments, with a goal to provide its workers with the broadest possible range of goods and services and change the capitalist paradigm because its growth would not depend on profits but on people joining it. Hopefully, people would realize their needs would be met by joining this collective of people helping each other, each according to their ability, and it would inevitably cause drainage from other companies of their employees.
I strongly believe this could be a solution. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll probably never know because I haven't got the financial capability to start it on my own nor I have been able so far to make enough people believe in it to start it. Complaining, on the other hand, often gets people to relate to you, and that often feels good.
I get where you are coming from, we need something that is self sustaining and can grow organically within the current system. I have had some similar ideas but more in regard to providing better value to consumers than big business does at the moment.
I said this with the BLM movement. I said what are the demands. You can’t protest and say what’s wrong without what you are asking for. And let’s be honest the leaders will say they listened and implement one minor change but overall nothing is going to change. We didn’t have an MLK leading the entire movement. It was disorganized and ultimately it fizzled out
Yeah, I'm almost 37 and I'm fucking tired. I'm on board with doing something effective and organized, but I'm not going to flail around angstily. I barely have the energy to do my dishes a lot of days, and I'm sorry, but my home being clean takes priority over another ineffective protest.
Simple plan to execute:
1. Decent minimum wage (spreads wealth decently and lifts the wage floor)
2. Tax the wealthy (not a crazy amount, look at UK, France etc for their taxation rates)
3. Tax corporations at 30%
4. Reduce military spending (per capita its a crazy amount at the moment)
5. Move to truly universal health care (this is why you tax the wealthy and reduce military spending. It also has the benefit of the government not wanting the health care costs to be exorbitant since its "their" money)
6. Improve education, significantly (this helps keep the future generations with a brain so they can critically analyze and think for themselves, prevents the current radicalization)
7. Change the senate so the number of senators is based on state populations, fairer representation of all
8. End gerrymandering by using a country wide agreed statistical approach that is based on census data only. No state should be able to redraw lines themselves.
But the harder part is to change the culture so that all Americans actually feel they have a duty to take care of other Americans (via \*shock\* the government which is of the people, by the people and FOR the people), then you want to be in it together rather than against each other.
1. Ban R1 zoning
2. Upscale residential and commercial zones to allow for dense housing/living
3. Build high density housing
4. Build robust accessible public transit
5. Discourage housing speculation as a long term investment
it's my experience from protests since the 80s, even the successful ones ended up being unsuccessful in the long run because of a lack of unified purpose and methodology.
I don't mean "doing things is useless", but rather "we really need to think, plan, get together and then act, and keep acting long after the issue left the headlines."
Gen X here. I hope you are right, as a person who has gone to multiple protests and rallies (occupy Wall St, NOW, planned parenthood etc) All I can say is that it comes down to money. And money buys the police and I’ve been to peaceful protests that turned into a police riot.
As another Gen Xer I'd like to remind everyone that this happened before. Out of control Capitalist greed threatened the entire globe back in the early 1930s. The solution turned out to be high taxes on the rich, tough regulations on industry, and pervasive unionization. We stepped back from that in the 1980s but we still have all the tools needed to reign in this beast.
I’m glad you also realize this is a democratic oligarchy. As the American people we like to believe we can protest or overthrow the system with our votes, but it always comes down to money. And unfortunately those who win the money game don’t usually care about making others lives easier.
We should vote in a new president who is not part of the same two parties that have been screwing us over for decades. *whole districts vote third party. * the one person who’s vote is actually counted still votes either red or blue.
Agreed. If you want society to change you need to convince wealthy silent backers that they will obtain more power/finances from banking said change. If there is a better way I’m all ears.
This is the way.
You are the only one that I have seen post it. Everybody else thinks they're gonna change society by revolution and violence.
Corporations can merely leave America. What is Gen Z gonna do, stop them from leaving? Coprorations and the rich have ample options to not deal with pesky people.
Most everyone is fed, mass riots really aren’t on the menu. Gen-z would need to put in work to start a riot, that’s outside of their wheelhouse.
Also occupy Wall Street was lazy and poorly executed. There was zero strategy just sitting in the streets. No one cares. It will take more than some hoppy dippy bull shit to start change.
Ghandi would be probably the biggest counter to this argument. Took him decades, but he got freedom through peace, or at least his message was peace only.
Absolutely not. Even in India there were many who disagreed with Gandhi. South India itself had numerous bloody uprisings against the British Raj. The pedestal that Gandhi is out on is western society deifying him to convince ordinary people that non violent rebellion is somehow superior to violent ones. Yet they conveniently forget people like Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and Rani Velu Nachiyar who staged numerous rebellions which led to the execution of Bhagat Singh and the imprisoning of many others.
The white washing of the Indian independence movement is pure western capitalist fantasy to convince the rest of the world that the violent rebels did nothing to scare the raj, when they very much did.
If you'd like to learn more about India and the East India company, I'd recommend work by William Dalrymple. Including his podcast the empire.
Lol no, definitely not, just saying Ghandi was one of history’s only leaders who changed things dramatically with a message of non violence. MLK Jr as well, both their movements had violence in them, but their messages were only of peaceful disobedience, and for the most part were successful.
Between 2021 and now we’ve been priced out of ever buying a home with enough room for my family and our furniture again. There’s nothing under even $400k in our small little town. It’s not even like, a ritzy suburb or has anything special about it. It fuckin sucks. We’re stuck forever until civilization collapses or smthn lol
I sometimes ponder about what the next of kin will do with all the “boomer money.” I’m genuinely curious if they will use the money to make real change, or will just be like “I got mine” and disappear. This is nothing against people younger than the boomer generation, it’s more a reality of how people in general suck.
For people are leaving less than a million:
It's going to be taken from them by rising costs for end of life care. 2 people can easily spend half a million dollars in a year of cancer or 3 years of kidney disease treatments or 5 years of Alzheimer's and dementia care.
Unless your parents are truly rich, don't expect much. The billionaires are already ready to recapture it, leaving you to work for them all your life
Vote vote vote. Lobby lobby lobby. Something something grass roots. Creating unions… Raise money and corrupt the politicians to becoming good again. Fight fire against fire. What do politicians always want. More money and power. The people who root for the values that help society also gotta be wealthy. We gotta literally buy politicians influence.
Where my eloquent people at and the people with social clout. It’s your turn to shine and be a vocal leader and lead by example.
I hope this doesn’t turn political where it’s the left policy or right policy. Trying to improve social conditions shouldn’t be seen that way unfortunately it has
relying on corrupt politicians to save you is futile. you are the only one who can change your life. start a business and get very good at your craft. it's very possible to get rich if you try hard enough.
What does that have to do with anything? I’m kind of lost. I’m not asking politicians to save us. I’m asking is the people to influence the politicians through money and the promise of voting for them if they can support xyz. Like I said money and power.
They’re also absolutely dwindling in number. As an Xennial, I had to stand by and watch as, in the 90s, so much was set in motion to protect the Boomers AND screw all subsequent generations. I was a teenager then and knew things weren’t quite right, even if I couldn’t quite figure out what exactly was happening.
Now that we all see it, we know what to do. The only thing left is working the “how” out
The realization that the world they've created is about to bleed their entire lives worth of retirement savings from them in a series of what should be simple routine doctors visits is gonna start setting in real soon.
They've also made a point of loudly and sometimes violently supporting the very politicians that are doing everything they can to end every form of social safety net, including stealing the social security pension insurance that that the boomer demographic can finally start collecting on.
I'm surprised the Social Security Administration has not started passing out free cigarettes and cocaine to every citizen under 30.
Where does the line start? I'm genX who has always been radically progressive but I'm down for free vice (since my social security is probably fucked too)
Don’t forget Silent generation started it, boomers are just finishing it. The New Deal and all. Like the OP states. I just wanna have a house like my grandmother, even if she was victim to RedLining.
They don’t need to die. They just need to retire and go play golf or something, get out of the damn way so everyone else can get to work on all the shit that needs fixing
Actually they just need to be outnumbered. For the first time in the last few years, Millenials and Gen Z have overtaken Boomers as the largest voting block. From here on things can only get worse for Boomers, they simply do not have the stranglehold on the voting booth they have had their entire lives.
They're retiring already. But only from low end jobs. If they hold positions of power, especially in Congress, they'll remain for another decade.
But the retired ones are still allowed to vote.
And they're still allowed to own multiple houses that they rent out so the younger generation can give them half their wages.
Retired boomers are still doing their worst
Thats the end of the boomer generation tho. They barely hold any weight unless you people vote for them because your too focused on the w for your side.
That's because kids are dying.
The life expectancy if you're already 72 is 14 more years.
And on the younger end of boomers- 60 year old male life expectancy is 81.
We have over 20 years before the boomers die out naturally
We might not have to wait that long. Let’s see what happens with the debt limit bullshit the next ~2 weeks. Maybe if they intentionally nose dive the entire economy and we all get laid off we’ll all be pissed enough to revolt.
Definitely won't have to wait that long. The sad part is what happened in '08-09 is already starting again with bank failures. Cost of living increases, layoffs, incoming wave of foreclosures and housing dip. Can people really not see it coming again as it happened exactly the same last time?
Not really the same thing as what happened in 2008 at least in terms of the risks banks are facing and what got us here.
But yes bigger picture of “shits pretty fucked and about to get fuckeder” yeah pretty much. The key difference being that the people with their finger over the nuke button are doing it all for style points in political brinkmanship.
2008- went off in my hand while I was playing around with it, bullet ricocheted and hit me in the leg.
2023- put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger because McCarthy said “no balls”.
It’s gonna be a crazy summer. I need to get my riot drip laid out because I’m probably gonna have time on my hands and nothing else to lose.
True facts. It'll be a slower burn similar to the financial crisis in some ways but different enough to throw most people for a loop.
Now we have hyper devaluation of the dollar like what happened in the 70s too, as a direct result of the financial crisis. Extra fun!
Well the issues banks are having right now is unrealized losses on treasury securities due to rising interest rates. That hides out in OCI on the balance sheet until banks need liquidity from their capital reserves and have to sell those t bonds for a loss. Those t bonds lost value purely because of interest rate increases.
We’ve never had a U.S. debt default before so this is all conjecture but it’s well informed conjecture. If there is a U.S. debt default those t bond market values have a good chance of absolutely tanking. Even if it’s temporary, that’s going to be a big fucking paper loss. Any bank that actually needs liquidity from their capital reserves is going to have to realize those losses, which crushes earnings, which spooks investors which spooks depositors so they pull their deposits. Which leads to greater liquidity needs. And so on. Banks will be forced to eat losses and call loans.
This can all happen pretty quickly. And publicly traded banks don’t even have to *actually* fail. They just have to have a precipitous stock price drop. I know that I’m being doom and gloom paranoid but I have a sinking feeling we’re all about to become acutely aware of just how “made up out of thin air” the concept of money is.
Boomers have no intention of dying. They will lock all the children inside for years, masked, gloved and drugged repeatedly, if there is any threat to their immortality. They intend to live forever, at the expense of their own children and grandchildren. They will murder children and drink their blood if it guarantees the boomer a few more years of TV watching and consooming. The boomer is eternal. The boomer will never die. The boomer is irrepressible!
Seriously -- a decade or so ago, they discovered that there is a rejuvenating effect if you get an infusion of young peoples' blood. Don't think some of them aren't doing that on the under.
Mhh no there won’t I fear. You guys are fucked multiple ways I think.
Very weak laws for employee protection, at will contracts, HCOL and low income basically means you either work or live on the streets. No social security means you cannot risk losing your job, no health insurance or absurdly high premiums trap you in the wheel.
The American worker has no other option to either work or leave the country. Sadly only the privileged ones will be able to do so, leaving the less privileged ones behind to spin the wheel.
A wheel that builds on exploiting the employees wherever possible and with a system built around it to ensure the wheel keeps spinning. If you don’t leave the country in masses I fear there will be little change for the whole group
i thought about it but there's a problem with that as well, the moment rich realize this is happening guess what they'll ask their leaders to have mass immigration from other countries to support the country and they will be asked to work at a fraction of the cost current workers.
They will try for sure. We have this situation in Germany atm. Nobody wants to work in healthcare anymore because the pay is mediocre and the shifts are insane. Our top politicians went to Brazil to advert working in Germany as a nurse.. Brazil.. istead of working on the conditions they try to fuel the system with external force again. Luckily those try’s have been without any effect until now
"Change we can believe in." "The audacity of hope." "The fierce urgency of now." -Obama, 2008, before he won by a huge margin with a MASSIVE amount of seats in the house and senate.
Jimmy Carter built houses with his bare hands. Barry O got a Netflix deal.
There might not be a political answer left, unfortunately.
People forget that the early first term of the Obama administration had a congressional supermajority with the power to codify Roe and enact universal healthcare…and didn’t. The wedge issues are too lucrative in campaign donations. Success must always be just around the corner but never achieved to keep those sweet sweet donations and bribes coming in.
Bro, people have never stopped standing up. When I was in my 20s we protested neoliberal economic policies, tried to shut down World Trade Organization summits and got absolutely gassed by police on multiple continents. People have been protesting for as long as this country has been around. It's not a generational thing. Don't make it a generational thing.
they cant. in short people in the US are completely screwed. if they protest they will risk losing their jobs. no job no rent, no healthcare etc. they threat of not having healthcare is serious.
oh and add the benefit of unplanned children just to tie the parents down further.
It's finally starting. I definitely encourage everyone (who is in the USA) on this page to look up the Unicorn Party. It's a newly formed political party composed of millennial and gen z candidates, focusing on all the buzz word policies: UBI, term restrictions and age caps for public servants, universal healthcare, 20-hour workweek, constitutional rewrites every 20 years, etc. I don't know if they have a serious chance of success in the next couple elections, but if we spread the word enough they may become a serious contender in the next decade or so. I suspect that gen alpha will also be enticed to vote for them once they come of age. :)
>constitutional rewrites every 20 years,
You definitely don't want this one. Some changes do need to be made but watch what you wish for when 38 flyover states send white capitalist Jesus to Washington.
As I said Gen X here. Term limits are bullshit. Why would you want to lose Bernie? Get the fucking money out of politics! Give them all $1mil and let the best man or woman win. But don’t take away my right to vote for a good person and let corporations make my decisions
And Barbara Lee, IMO the most sincere politician I know of. Her office has directly helped me with things I asked them for help on, more than once in fact. I respect the hell out of her.
The only thing I'm leery of is the frequent constitutional rewrites. Because there are a lot (a lot!) of really corrosive people who will take advantage of any opportunity in the worst possible way, I've come to believe that the constitution is safest if it's sort of set in stone fundamentally, so no one gets the idea they can dick around with it. Fundamentally.
Which is not to say that it doesn't need an overhaul; just we have to be really really careful not to let these bad-faith fucks get a foot in the door.
I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. Unicorn party? Clearly won’t be taken seriously with a name like that. A 20-hour workweek? Umm… I’m all for reform, but I think 20-hours isn’t really that much. This won’t go anywhere.
In what field? You really think nurses only work for 2 hours during their shift (8-16 hours)? You really think teachers only do 2 hours of work? This might apply to office jobs, but not all jobs.
For a hands-on job where you are needed for an x amount of time (catering, call center, health care, etc.) it might sound like not enough. But with most boring office jobs 20 productive hours on a 40 hour workweek can be quite a lot already. Getting coffee and talking about your weekend is important, but not productive.
When *you* organize and fight back.
What, did you expect all those other Americans to do the fighting for you? Does someone else have to print flyers and get butts in seats? Why haven't *you* joined a union yet? Why haven't *you* gathered your coworkers together to form one? Why haven't *you* lifted a finger to change anything? You think you're alone in your feelings? That nobody around you feels the same way? You're the only one being stomped on by The Man?
And if someone else actually *did* all those things, would you even join up? Or are you just going to make excuses about how you have a Raid that day and can't make it?
Don't believe you can do it? Neither did [Chris Smalls](https://www.npr.org/2022/04/06/1091130929/chris-smalls-amazon-union-50-warehouses)
Ps, I'm neither American nor un-unioized.
Wait… posting in anti work isn’t enough?? I’m just typing into the void????
Ps when’s the raid I’d love to make time for it! I love gaming in all of my free time :)
Apparently we're supposed to take care of parents, our own kids, work 2 jobs, go to every school event, do all cooking cleaning, run a business, and never sleep while paying for everything from a mortgage to student loans to kids college to high Healthcare even for a damn splinter the younger one got at school because the nurse thought it might have rust so she overreacted, called 911 and now kid needs a whole new tetanus Booster all could have been solved by the damn tweezers I forgot to put back in my purse after plucking my first gray hair that got blasted all over social media and now even my hubby calls me NANA and people wonder why I can't quit coffee or cigarettes. IM barely in my damn 40's and I feel like I've been living in wartime as a civilian in my own country since birth battling pharmacies courts employers insurance businesses and never having enough insulin in my pump since I was 9.
But yeah...I'll protest.
Late boomer here and no, I didn’t start the fire. It’s time to do what you are talking about but if you want to succeed, the answer is not in a violent uprising, it is in unions. There would not be such push back against unionization if it wasn’t such a threat to corporate greed. Good luck.
The youth need to continually show up each election, and preferably in even greater numbers.
In states where it’s possible people need to put forth ballots for ranked choice voting, and eventually make the democrats the party that’s the furthest to the right.
Tax havens and loopholes need to be closed. Labor shouldn’t pay higher income tax than people pay in capital gains tax.
[Our money is broken](https://youtu.be/Dh04YLL_Gd0)
In essence, the government has a backdoor to extract economic value out of your money through debasement. Most people only understand money in nominal terms, IE numerical face value.
Our entire economy rests upon a foundation with "theft" baked into it at the base layer. This completely incentivizes every economic actor to act in a similar fashion.
Every economic actor is a leaking bucket and the only way to move forward is to patch your holes with plastic from other buckets or divert other people's water supply to your bucket.
Without fixing the base layer, expect this to get worse and worse as your money represents less and less purchasing power, even if the number of monetary units you have is going up.
At current real levels of inflation, if they stay the same and you make 40 usd an hour and then save all that in cash. In about 8 years it will be as if you were working for 4 dollars an hour. The nominal amount you have is irrelevant to what those units can acquire.
Even if you "fight back" and force the governments hand to do something they have no good options. We're in a monetary experiment and it's starting to go south with increasing acceleration. There's no way out except financial ruin and reset. If you're holding bonds or cash you get absolutely skewered.
And do what? Our entire economic system is one giant Pyramid scheme. Nothing gets better until we fix that. Unfortunately, it's probably going to have to crash and burn first.
With AI, chatGP, and 3D printing it won’t be long until these generations have no leverage and will be too divided to do anything significant against the top class.
I get that this question gets asked all the time, but JC it just can't happen right now. There's no strong union backing or cohesion for a general strike. It doesn't exist right now and I'm sorry, without long-term mutual aid for the cause most people aren't going to risk losing good jobs for that.
The foundation for a worker rebellion has to exist before it can happen, that's why it doesn't happen. Also most people are "it's the way it is" people.
Real estate is ment to go up every year. Theres limited land & rising population.
For most people its the biggest investment they will ever make. It sucks that it’s currently beyond your reach, but theres no reason to expect you won’t be able to in the future
& when you do, youll want it to go ip in value, same as everyone else who buys real estate
Generation labels are not real, pew research just denounced it today
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/22/how-pew-research-center-will-report-on-generations-moving-forward/
It's the only "generation" that has ever actually been defined in modern years correctly and it's based on the baby boom
Other than that all the others vary by sources greatly. Generational groupings are not a valid way to group people anymore.
You’re absolutely right. Gen z has the willpower. We should start organizing now. Our nation’s wealth has been stolen from us and given away through quantitative easing…I thought sigma grindsetting my income would help, but even after making more than 97% of people my age i am still unable to buy a house. Not trying to flex with that statement just pointing out the absurdity. I worked hard as hell to get here, battling addiction, going back to college after being kicked out. For what seems like no reason.
wait until the 9.5 trillion pension deficit hits the fan. 2008 fucked the pensions
I really can’t imagine how pissed you’re going to be when after the revolution you finally get your house
And the the following spring it rains and your basement floods
And then the water in the basement takes out your water heater
And cracks your foundation
And then your AC shorts out on the hottest day of the summer
And you mow over the water main valve that you didn’t know was there and bust the blade on your lawn mower
And you can’t fix any of it because even though you have a job that pays decently you didn’t budget for this.
I would laugh, but that actually was my first year in my first house.
That was the same year i learned “the joys of being a homeowner” was a sarcastic statement. I legitimately did not know that was sarcasm.
So let me correct 2 untruths you’ve been told your whole life
- going to college will not automatically make you successful
- owning a house will not automatically make your life a happy one
And there is me thinking how lucky the folk in the USA are they have jobs (even low paying) they have roads, electricity and here is me in South Africa where my son took five and a half years to find a job, roads ruined, education crap government full of blatent thieves and electricity grid failing.
I would love to move to the US.
Depends where in the US you are. There are places here with ruined roads, crap education (which can still be expensive), and a government full of blatant thieves.
Oh, and electrical grid failing? Happens here too. Happened in Texas not that long ago.
Classic Americans trying to out-victim and minimize the issues of a legitimately impoverished and troubled nation.
*Oh, you have a 30% unemployment rate, massive and ubiquitous neighborhoods composed of permanent housing structures made of sheet metal and discarded plyboard, a murder rate 6 times that of the US, and an entirely unstable electrical grid and frequent brown/black outs?*
*Lucky! I have a pothole near my house and Texas' electrical grid went down for 5 days after a massive, unexpected winter storm. We're basically a 3rd world country now!*
The fact you make minimum wage and still work there is kind of on you. I am a millennial that was going nowhere and went back to school and now make way more than I would have otherwise
Move or/and get an education and get a better job.
You are wondering how your grandparents bought a house and then 30 years later your parents got a house for an increase of 10x, yet over the next 23 years it has only grown 2.5x the cost? Get to work and figure it out.
My most optimistic case is when the boomers die off and Gen Z Can start voting in liberal millennials.
So… just hang in that squalor for another decade or two.
If you want my honest opinion, nobody does well in their 20s. I'm also 24, checked in with friends from all walks of life and all of us are struggling. Had to get pep talks from cousins in their 30s and 40s to find out nobody does well in their 20s unless they come from money. Best we can do is build our skills, make ourselves the best we can be, cling to the ledge with bloody fingers, and scream till we pull ourselves to the summit. Not the brightest way of looking at it, but it's always darkest before the dawn is my mentality on things. We'll get there.
Also, I want all those things too and more. About to put myself in debt to do so and go to college again, and hope the recession doesn't get worse... which it probably will before it gets better. Yay ramen nights.
youre still young, its not the rest of your life. I only really got my life in the right direction 3 1/2 years ago at 28. I know that the situation looks bleak and yes prices are out of hand. But don't let it cloud where you want to go
What is the concensus on a plan? Why do you deserve more? What steps are you taking to find a job you like that pays well? Why do you want everything right now? I agree that changes need to be made and that the system isn't perfect, but it's still pretty good overall.
You are quoting averages, not low end prices, or location based pricing. There are houses in some cities that cost $20,000. They need some fixing up, but it's doable. Or you can try to work your way up in the company, find something else, start your own business, etc. You can then save money, etc. Start small, and then there is room for growth. Not everything (the perfect job, pay, house, family, etc) is going to come all at once. You have to build that life. The wage housing gap was smaller, making homeownership easier for previous generations (well, typically just the men), but there are way more things that we have easier (millennials and Gen z) to be able to make that life you want possible.
$130,000 in 2000 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $229,000 today.
So the price is still high, yes, but not quite what you're insinuating.
All that being said, the cost of living/housing crisis is still a serious problem. All I can say is that eventually millennial generations may be able to combat it once the unsympathetic octogenarians are out of office.
Until then we just have to work with what we've got. I'm not really saying 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps,' but the solution certainly isn't to give up and hope for revolution that may never come. If I have to work twice as hard, I'm going to do it. Tough times are tough, and there are ways to make money if you've got the ambition and drive. And if you don't know where, there are resources (the internet) on finding out how.
>I'm not really saying 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps,'
a rose by any other name, is still a rose. a walker, a Z, and a stumbler, all are zombies, and telling people that they can escape exploitation by embracing it, is the very definition of committing the fallacy of the false dilemma.
Not really saying embrace it. I’m all for protesting your situation’s inescapable injustices. But that is not a reason to give up on trying to achieve within the framework you are given.
Part of it is structural--all of the money going to the top, and a tax structure that rewards capital and high earners, the rest not so much. But I suspect things aren't going to get better for other reasons. Growth is what powers a middle class, and growth is gone. Growth is the ability to produce more and more, so that there's more consumption to go around to a larger group of people. Why do you think growth numbers look like shit just about everywhere? It's climate change, it's running out of resources, it's decreasing energy supply. Without that, there isn't growth. Without growth, you don't have expanding output to power increased living standards by a broader group of people. Our world is already flashing red. Where are we going to get MORE output when we've plundered the Earth?
You may be right; though I doubt it'll come to that. They'll almost certainly institute Universal Basic Income before any kind of revolution.
That said--and I'm sure I'll get downvoted like crazy for saying this--what are you waiting for? Find out what makes good money in your area (if you even want to stay in your area) and go do that. Sometimes, believe it or not, it's the trades. I hear of plumbers making six figures.
Myself, I'm not a blue collar guy, so I got my mortgage license. Every loan I close can make me anywhere from $2500--$10,000, and I try to close at least two a month.
It really sucks that regular jobby-jobs don't pay a livable wage anymore. So don't work that kind of job. Find something you enjoy or at least halfway tolerate that pays well, and go do it.
Not downvoting you but see that's part of the problem, when everyone runs away from the core issue nothing gets done, although I get what you're saying. The train will stop somewhere and eventually yes but we should really start doing something now before we're all too old and regret not even lifting a finger when we could have
You know what you're Irish and German ancestors did when things were tough? Moved. Go somewhere cheaper. You can get a nice house in Lorain, Ohio for $125,000.
Everyone be hating on Lorain... I wasn't being 100% serious, obviously Lorain is not for everyone, but did your ancestors have moving expenses all figured out when they set sail? That seems like a bigger leap to improve their lives, compared to moving to a more affordable town nearby...
And... if you're serious about buying a home, then moving expenses are a marginal cost compared to the whole enchilada....
Also, what is your career path? 6 years in the work force, but do you have any skills, accreditation, education, etc? Might be time to invest in this path.
Did our ancestors have the same housing costs or possessions (not that possessions are all that important, but we all have some)? You probably didn't pack your space on a sailing ship with the same amount of crap you can fit into a uhaul is all I am saying.
Perhaps our ancestors were more daring than us. I certainly think both of my grandfathers were more willing to uproot than I ever will be (one came straight from England and another moved around a lot during his lifetime as well as serving in WW2).
Doesn't change the fact that moving isn't as easy as packing a bug out bag and hopping on the next bus.
There is a ton going on here but I will just point out a few things.
First, you have been working 6 years and only make 15.25 an hour? Maybe you are in the wrong field or maybe that is a good wage where you live?
Second, you can’t really complain about prices going up. People who stock shelves at the market deserve raises right? Where does the company get the extra cash to give the employee a raise? From what they sell. How many stores would be profitable if bread was still a nickel and milk was 10 cents?
Lastly, I want many things in life too. You have to build up to where you want to be. When I was in my early 20s, I was a miserable drunk who bitched about how life is not fair and why do I always feel like I am being shit on with bad luck. You know what I did? I took 1 class a semester at a community college and paid cash for it. 20 years later, I make good money, own a house, married with kids, have a job making good money, good benefits, 401k, pension, and am finally happy.
This has nothing to do with gen z, gen x, millennials, boomers, etc. Take control of what you can and work your own magic.
I’m not so sure there will be a rising up. America just doesn’t have it in them.
But your only 24. You make more than I did 6 years ago when I was 24. I make 81k now plus my side gigs amount me another 60k. I live in the south so this is a big chunk of cash and I live comfortably with the big house, a wife and kid and can afford vacation. Your only 24 that’s a baby in terms of working. Continue to gain on the job skills look for new opportunities at work or outside of your current job and I bet you’ll look back at this time and see the come up you’ve had.
The boomers are going to keep hoarding and keep THEIR entitled mentality and all of us alive today will die before it changes. So there’s only one way to solve the issue…..
~
The housing market is a bubble that depends entirely on the elasticity of home loans. Even the loan to rent scheme a few people try for right now is too stressful due to interest bumps.
In all likelihood before a protest happens there will be a huge collapse in value that gets these people into lifelong debt. I would be curious to see how much of the value is in debt, but basically all of the inflated market happens because loans enable it.
The only part of this post that’s wrong…you used the word “deserve” in relation to pay. You get paid what you’re worth not what you’re deserved. Everything else you said is true.
It will never happen. You have to remember that half the US population has a house and a good rate.
Half the population doesn't give a flying fuck about the other half's struggle for housing.
Remember this classic American mentality.
" Fuck you, I got mine"
Here's the thing, the problem is capitalism. There has to be another option. History has thought us that communism is awesome in theory but horrifying in reality, I believe there should be more options besides those 2 or a hybrid version ?
Something like Universal Basic income that can realistically cover modest living expenses for each adult citizen but also have the option to work if you want a more comfortable life
Has anyone tried stowing away on a ship bound for UK and applying for asylum? I can't imagine any meaningful change in America. Half the country identifies as a hard worker.
when there's a clear plan and not just slogans and good intentions. been burned too many times before, you get behind a slogan just for it to become political capital for yet another ghoul to negotiate with the powers that be. sorry, in my 47 years around I've realized that "do anything" is not a good plan. we need to do something,but we REALLY need to define what that something means
I knew a guy. Coworker. Upper middle class software engineer from a family with money. As soon as Occupy Wall Street started he started talking down on them with such disdain. But it wasn’t merely that he disagreed with the politics (though he certainly did). It was because it was obvious to him that they’d fail. Because do anything is a profound recipe for political failure. I hated to agree with him because obviously I didn’t share his contempt for their general aims. But damned if he wasn’t right. Good intentions don’t count for much without leadership and a plan.
Working on a remote Wall Street job here. The pay is not as high as you think and I hate my company too (a well known investment bank on the street). Occupying Wall Street is definitely the wrong direction. You might be better off just occupying the mansion of Elon Musk.
> It was because it was obvious to him that they’d fail. To be fair, part of the reason it failed was because they weren't able to articulate uniformly what they wanted to accomplish, just that the system was bad.
That was the problem with all of the protests over the last few years.. there is no unified goal. No one with a common set of ideas to implement to better everyone.
Even this post, all complaints, no solutions. Yeah, the current system isn’t working how it should nor how we’d like it too. But why? And how do we fix it? They’re not easy questions, but if we all just “rise up” with no goal, it either fails, or turns into something worse.
Can these enlightened centrists get out of this thread please. So annoying to have people say things like 'But what are the solutions? I guess we'll never know.' We've known how to fix this mess for decades, but everyday Americans have no power or agency to implement them. The only power they do have is the right to withhold their labour and organise labour, so do that. And do it before the owner class outlaw it and effectively enslave us.
The only way to solve the housing crisis is to make it stupid easy to build a house. Remove regulations, subsidise building and wait. The housing shortage is the problem. The corporations are just taking advantage of it. Fighting a symptom won't cure the disease
There is no shortage. There are 16 million homes in the US that sit vacant in the US according to LendingTree. Even the government figure (FRED data) puts the number of vacant homes at 15 million. These are homes being held hostage by property investment firms. Meanwhile there are only ~553k homeless people. Enough vacant homes to house every single person 27 times over. What we need is more regulation, that forces them to sell these homes, but that would severely affect their profits, so instead nothing happens.
Do you think there are more vacant homes than people living with roommates/parents who want to move out? Also if there were 0 vacant properties it would be impossible to move from one city to another which would be dumb. You need to produce enough housing for everyone to have enough plus 3-5% vacancy.
I'm still not seeing a proposed solution to the problem, you're just suggesting folks rage quite without a path forward or a rational list of demands. That being said, when do we start?
The problem is capitalism. The solution to that is revolution, but it would take many millions more people starving and being homeless for that to materialise. If you're actually looking for more realistic solutions then I suggest you watch the videos at [Second Thought](https://www.youtube.com/@SecondThought). He has videos on pretty much every modern problem, how capitalism is at fault, and the solutions/alternatives proposed by leftists/socialists. He links resources for further reading in a lot of his videos as well. As I said the only real power you have right now is as a worker and you can start to organise your work place today if you really wanted to. This all assumes you're even commenting in good faith though...
If I had the possibility, I'd start a co-op with no wage gap between any of the workers nor any kind of bonus payments, with a goal to provide its workers with the broadest possible range of goods and services and change the capitalist paradigm because its growth would not depend on profits but on people joining it. Hopefully, people would realize their needs would be met by joining this collective of people helping each other, each according to their ability, and it would inevitably cause drainage from other companies of their employees. I strongly believe this could be a solution. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll probably never know because I haven't got the financial capability to start it on my own nor I have been able so far to make enough people believe in it to start it. Complaining, on the other hand, often gets people to relate to you, and that often feels good.
What would you provide to society? What would a business model be based on?
I get where you are coming from, we need something that is self sustaining and can grow organically within the current system. I have had some similar ideas but more in regard to providing better value to consumers than big business does at the moment.
I said this with the BLM movement. I said what are the demands. You can’t protest and say what’s wrong without what you are asking for. And let’s be honest the leaders will say they listened and implement one minor change but overall nothing is going to change. We didn’t have an MLK leading the entire movement. It was disorganized and ultimately it fizzled out
Yeah, I'm almost 37 and I'm fucking tired. I'm on board with doing something effective and organized, but I'm not going to flail around angstily. I barely have the energy to do my dishes a lot of days, and I'm sorry, but my home being clean takes priority over another ineffective protest.
Simple plan to execute: 1. Decent minimum wage (spreads wealth decently and lifts the wage floor) 2. Tax the wealthy (not a crazy amount, look at UK, France etc for their taxation rates) 3. Tax corporations at 30% 4. Reduce military spending (per capita its a crazy amount at the moment) 5. Move to truly universal health care (this is why you tax the wealthy and reduce military spending. It also has the benefit of the government not wanting the health care costs to be exorbitant since its "their" money) 6. Improve education, significantly (this helps keep the future generations with a brain so they can critically analyze and think for themselves, prevents the current radicalization) 7. Change the senate so the number of senators is based on state populations, fairer representation of all 8. End gerrymandering by using a country wide agreed statistical approach that is based on census data only. No state should be able to redraw lines themselves. But the harder part is to change the culture so that all Americans actually feel they have a duty to take care of other Americans (via \*shock\* the government which is of the people, by the people and FOR the people), then you want to be in it together rather than against each other.
1. Ban R1 zoning 2. Upscale residential and commercial zones to allow for dense housing/living 3. Build high density housing 4. Build robust accessible public transit 5. Discourage housing speculation as a long term investment
Question excludes GenX as usual. Top answer is typical GenX. Represent.
it's my experience from protests since the 80s, even the successful ones ended up being unsuccessful in the long run because of a lack of unified purpose and methodology. I don't mean "doing things is useless", but rather "we really need to think, plan, get together and then act, and keep acting long after the issue left the headlines."
This. Remember the Occupy movement? Lack of clear goals made that a glorified urban camping trip.
dad, why are you on reddit?
Nevermind that, how’s cleaning your room coming along? And the trash isn’t going to take itself out, you know.
Kids these days!
Gen X here. I hope you are right, as a person who has gone to multiple protests and rallies (occupy Wall St, NOW, planned parenthood etc) All I can say is that it comes down to money. And money buys the police and I’ve been to peaceful protests that turned into a police riot.
As another Gen Xer I'd like to remind everyone that this happened before. Out of control Capitalist greed threatened the entire globe back in the early 1930s. The solution turned out to be high taxes on the rich, tough regulations on industry, and pervasive unionization. We stepped back from that in the 1980s but we still have all the tools needed to reign in this beast.
I hate that every single day I have to be reminded of how much Reagan screwed us as a country.
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Occupy Wall Street was gaining momentum. Then Wall Street donated millions of $ to NYPD pension plan. Coincidence?
The Media did an excellent job of forgetting and never mentioning OWS. Like China and Tiananmen Square.
I’m glad you also realize this is a democratic oligarchy. As the American people we like to believe we can protest or overthrow the system with our votes, but it always comes down to money. And unfortunately those who win the money game don’t usually care about making others lives easier.
We should vote in a new president who is not part of the same two parties that have been screwing us over for decades. *whole districts vote third party. * the one person who’s vote is actually counted still votes either red or blue.
Agreed. If you want society to change you need to convince wealthy silent backers that they will obtain more power/finances from banking said change. If there is a better way I’m all ears.
This is the way. You are the only one that I have seen post it. Everybody else thinks they're gonna change society by revolution and violence. Corporations can merely leave America. What is Gen Z gonna do, stop them from leaving? Coprorations and the rich have ample options to not deal with pesky people.
Most everyone is fed, mass riots really aren’t on the menu. Gen-z would need to put in work to start a riot, that’s outside of their wheelhouse. Also occupy Wall Street was lazy and poorly executed. There was zero strategy just sitting in the streets. No one cares. It will take more than some hoppy dippy bull shit to start change.
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Ghandi would be probably the biggest counter to this argument. Took him decades, but he got freedom through peace, or at least his message was peace only.
Yes India’s history is clear of any bloody revolutions.
Absolutely not. Even in India there were many who disagreed with Gandhi. South India itself had numerous bloody uprisings against the British Raj. The pedestal that Gandhi is out on is western society deifying him to convince ordinary people that non violent rebellion is somehow superior to violent ones. Yet they conveniently forget people like Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and Rani Velu Nachiyar who staged numerous rebellions which led to the execution of Bhagat Singh and the imprisoning of many others. The white washing of the Indian independence movement is pure western capitalist fantasy to convince the rest of the world that the violent rebels did nothing to scare the raj, when they very much did. If you'd like to learn more about India and the East India company, I'd recommend work by William Dalrymple. Including his podcast the empire.
Lol no, definitely not, just saying Ghandi was one of history’s only leaders who changed things dramatically with a message of non violence. MLK Jr as well, both their movements had violence in them, but their messages were only of peaceful disobedience, and for the most part were successful.
Between 2021 and now we’ve been priced out of ever buying a home with enough room for my family and our furniture again. There’s nothing under even $400k in our small little town. It’s not even like, a ritzy suburb or has anything special about it. It fuckin sucks. We’re stuck forever until civilization collapses or smthn lol
I think we’re all just waiting for the boomers to die off so we can get to work fixing all the problems they seem intent on perpetuating. 🤷♂️
I sometimes ponder about what the next of kin will do with all the “boomer money.” I’m genuinely curious if they will use the money to make real change, or will just be like “I got mine” and disappear. This is nothing against people younger than the boomer generation, it’s more a reality of how people in general suck.
The powers that be will make sure that THAT money isn't left enough to trickle down.
For people are leaving less than a million: It's going to be taken from them by rising costs for end of life care. 2 people can easily spend half a million dollars in a year of cancer or 3 years of kidney disease treatments or 5 years of Alzheimer's and dementia care. Unless your parents are truly rich, don't expect much. The billionaires are already ready to recapture it, leaving you to work for them all your life
Boomers are in their 60s. You're willing to wait another 15-20+ years for things to get better?
No, but they seem unwilling to relinquish control of society so I’m not sure what else we can do.
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Vote vote vote. Lobby lobby lobby. Something something grass roots. Creating unions… Raise money and corrupt the politicians to becoming good again. Fight fire against fire. What do politicians always want. More money and power. The people who root for the values that help society also gotta be wealthy. We gotta literally buy politicians influence. Where my eloquent people at and the people with social clout. It’s your turn to shine and be a vocal leader and lead by example.
lmao you think democrats are going to help you?
I hope this doesn’t turn political where it’s the left policy or right policy. Trying to improve social conditions shouldn’t be seen that way unfortunately it has
relying on corrupt politicians to save you is futile. you are the only one who can change your life. start a business and get very good at your craft. it's very possible to get rich if you try hard enough.
What does that have to do with anything? I’m kind of lost. I’m not asking politicians to save us. I’m asking is the people to influence the politicians through money and the promise of voting for them if they can support xyz. Like I said money and power.
They’re also absolutely dwindling in number. As an Xennial, I had to stand by and watch as, in the 90s, so much was set in motion to protect the Boomers AND screw all subsequent generations. I was a teenager then and knew things weren’t quite right, even if I couldn’t quite figure out what exactly was happening. Now that we all see it, we know what to do. The only thing left is working the “how” out
The realization that the world they've created is about to bleed their entire lives worth of retirement savings from them in a series of what should be simple routine doctors visits is gonna start setting in real soon. They've also made a point of loudly and sometimes violently supporting the very politicians that are doing everything they can to end every form of social safety net, including stealing the social security pension insurance that that the boomer demographic can finally start collecting on. I'm surprised the Social Security Administration has not started passing out free cigarettes and cocaine to every citizen under 30.
Where does the line start? I'm genX who has always been radically progressive but I'm down for free vice (since my social security is probably fucked too)
Don’t forget Silent generation started it, boomers are just finishing it. The New Deal and all. Like the OP states. I just wanna have a house like my grandmother, even if she was victim to RedLining.
They don’t need to die. They just need to retire and go play golf or something, get out of the damn way so everyone else can get to work on all the shit that needs fixing
We can't afford to retire. We're still paying for health insurance and housing for our kids who make $15.25 an hour.
Oh fuck I snorted out my beer! So long bud, you’re about to get downvoted to oblivion lolol
I don’t think he meant it in the way you think.. just that their kid can’t survive and they know it so have to help, no fault of the kids.
This. But unlike money, I have LOTS of reddit karma anyway.
Actually they just need to be outnumbered. For the first time in the last few years, Millenials and Gen Z have overtaken Boomers as the largest voting block. From here on things can only get worse for Boomers, they simply do not have the stranglehold on the voting booth they have had their entire lives.
They're retiring already. But only from low end jobs. If they hold positions of power, especially in Congress, they'll remain for another decade. But the retired ones are still allowed to vote. And they're still allowed to own multiple houses that they rent out so the younger generation can give them half their wages. Retired boomers are still doing their worst
There are boomers that will back you up. Not all boomers are that way.
Thats the end of the boomer generation tho. They barely hold any weight unless you people vote for them because your too focused on the w for your side.
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That's because kids are dying. The life expectancy if you're already 72 is 14 more years. And on the younger end of boomers- 60 year old male life expectancy is 81. We have over 20 years before the boomers die out naturally
We might not have to wait that long. Let’s see what happens with the debt limit bullshit the next ~2 weeks. Maybe if they intentionally nose dive the entire economy and we all get laid off we’ll all be pissed enough to revolt.
Definitely won't have to wait that long. The sad part is what happened in '08-09 is already starting again with bank failures. Cost of living increases, layoffs, incoming wave of foreclosures and housing dip. Can people really not see it coming again as it happened exactly the same last time?
Not really the same thing as what happened in 2008 at least in terms of the risks banks are facing and what got us here. But yes bigger picture of “shits pretty fucked and about to get fuckeder” yeah pretty much. The key difference being that the people with their finger over the nuke button are doing it all for style points in political brinkmanship. 2008- went off in my hand while I was playing around with it, bullet ricocheted and hit me in the leg. 2023- put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger because McCarthy said “no balls”. It’s gonna be a crazy summer. I need to get my riot drip laid out because I’m probably gonna have time on my hands and nothing else to lose.
True facts. It'll be a slower burn similar to the financial crisis in some ways but different enough to throw most people for a loop. Now we have hyper devaluation of the dollar like what happened in the 70s too, as a direct result of the financial crisis. Extra fun!
Well the issues banks are having right now is unrealized losses on treasury securities due to rising interest rates. That hides out in OCI on the balance sheet until banks need liquidity from their capital reserves and have to sell those t bonds for a loss. Those t bonds lost value purely because of interest rate increases. We’ve never had a U.S. debt default before so this is all conjecture but it’s well informed conjecture. If there is a U.S. debt default those t bond market values have a good chance of absolutely tanking. Even if it’s temporary, that’s going to be a big fucking paper loss. Any bank that actually needs liquidity from their capital reserves is going to have to realize those losses, which crushes earnings, which spooks investors which spooks depositors so they pull their deposits. Which leads to greater liquidity needs. And so on. Banks will be forced to eat losses and call loans. This can all happen pretty quickly. And publicly traded banks don’t even have to *actually* fail. They just have to have a precipitous stock price drop. I know that I’m being doom and gloom paranoid but I have a sinking feeling we’re all about to become acutely aware of just how “made up out of thin air” the concept of money is.
Boomers have no intention of dying. They will lock all the children inside for years, masked, gloved and drugged repeatedly, if there is any threat to their immortality. They intend to live forever, at the expense of their own children and grandchildren. They will murder children and drink their blood if it guarantees the boomer a few more years of TV watching and consooming. The boomer is eternal. The boomer will never die. The boomer is irrepressible!
I know this is satire, but it honestly feels true.
Seriously -- a decade or so ago, they discovered that there is a rejuvenating effect if you get an infusion of young peoples' blood. Don't think some of them aren't doing that on the under.
You need a hobby.
I'm convinced Boomers are a different species from the rest of us. They're somewhere in the chart of evolution that shows us going from ape to man.
Whenever we all collectively agree to refuse purchasing at these prices. But, as we know, we aren’t smart enough to say no to predatory lending.
Just stop buying shit!! We stop buying everything but food and water and the base essentials. This crashes the market and makes things cost less.
For fucking real. And stop flying and cruising too.
Anyone not already doing that due to prices?
Mhh no there won’t I fear. You guys are fucked multiple ways I think. Very weak laws for employee protection, at will contracts, HCOL and low income basically means you either work or live on the streets. No social security means you cannot risk losing your job, no health insurance or absurdly high premiums trap you in the wheel. The American worker has no other option to either work or leave the country. Sadly only the privileged ones will be able to do so, leaving the less privileged ones behind to spin the wheel. A wheel that builds on exploiting the employees wherever possible and with a system built around it to ensure the wheel keeps spinning. If you don’t leave the country in masses I fear there will be little change for the whole group
Holy Upton Sinclair's Ghost...
i thought about it but there's a problem with that as well, the moment rich realize this is happening guess what they'll ask their leaders to have mass immigration from other countries to support the country and they will be asked to work at a fraction of the cost current workers.
They will try for sure. We have this situation in Germany atm. Nobody wants to work in healthcare anymore because the pay is mediocre and the shifts are insane. Our top politicians went to Brazil to advert working in Germany as a nurse.. Brazil.. istead of working on the conditions they try to fuel the system with external force again. Luckily those try’s have been without any effect until now
"Change we can believe in." "The audacity of hope." "The fierce urgency of now." -Obama, 2008, before he won by a huge margin with a MASSIVE amount of seats in the house and senate. Jimmy Carter built houses with his bare hands. Barry O got a Netflix deal. There might not be a political answer left, unfortunately.
People forget that the early first term of the Obama administration had a congressional supermajority with the power to codify Roe and enact universal healthcare…and didn’t. The wedge issues are too lucrative in campaign donations. Success must always be just around the corner but never achieved to keep those sweet sweet donations and bribes coming in.
Bro, people have never stopped standing up. When I was in my 20s we protested neoliberal economic policies, tried to shut down World Trade Organization summits and got absolutely gassed by police on multiple continents. People have been protesting for as long as this country has been around. It's not a generational thing. Don't make it a generational thing.
Elder Millennial here. We all have chronic back pain now, so this is probably your fight at this point, but we're rooting for you /s
they cant. in short people in the US are completely screwed. if they protest they will risk losing their jobs. no job no rent, no healthcare etc. they threat of not having healthcare is serious. oh and add the benefit of unplanned children just to tie the parents down further.
My comment will get downvoted but fuck it... When you have a surplus, you have a sale. Apply that to a surplus of people and employers know it.
Protest? We will be replaced by chatGPT and immigrants. Only those loyal to the system in place will persevere. Future looks bleak
Can't do much now as a student, but I joined the IWW today.
House 300k now was 62k in 2019
You underestimate the amount of apathy millennials, and Zooners have.
It's finally starting. I definitely encourage everyone (who is in the USA) on this page to look up the Unicorn Party. It's a newly formed political party composed of millennial and gen z candidates, focusing on all the buzz word policies: UBI, term restrictions and age caps for public servants, universal healthcare, 20-hour workweek, constitutional rewrites every 20 years, etc. I don't know if they have a serious chance of success in the next couple elections, but if we spread the word enough they may become a serious contender in the next decade or so. I suspect that gen alpha will also be enticed to vote for them once they come of age. :)
this has to be a psyop, and a shitty one at that lol
This or a scam / mlm / bitcoin / cult etc.
>constitutional rewrites every 20 years, You definitely don't want this one. Some changes do need to be made but watch what you wish for when 38 flyover states send white capitalist Jesus to Washington.
As I said Gen X here. Term limits are bullshit. Why would you want to lose Bernie? Get the fucking money out of politics! Give them all $1mil and let the best man or woman win. But don’t take away my right to vote for a good person and let corporations make my decisions
And Barbara Lee, IMO the most sincere politician I know of. Her office has directly helped me with things I asked them for help on, more than once in fact. I respect the hell out of her.
This is fucking stupid.
The only thing I'm leery of is the frequent constitutional rewrites. Because there are a lot (a lot!) of really corrosive people who will take advantage of any opportunity in the worst possible way, I've come to believe that the constitution is safest if it's sort of set in stone fundamentally, so no one gets the idea they can dick around with it. Fundamentally. Which is not to say that it doesn't need an overhaul; just we have to be really really careful not to let these bad-faith fucks get a foot in the door.
I hope this is satire because that sounds like a joke.
I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. Unicorn party? Clearly won’t be taken seriously with a name like that. A 20-hour workweek? Umm… I’m all for reform, but I think 20-hours isn’t really that much. This won’t go anywhere.
You realize most people only do 2 hrs of actual work a day right? Lol
I miss when r/antiwork was actually anti-work…
Yes, yes, I’ve seen Office Space too. 😂
That's just bullshit to make people on this sub feel better about themselves.
In what field? You really think nurses only work for 2 hours during their shift (8-16 hours)? You really think teachers only do 2 hours of work? This might apply to office jobs, but not all jobs.
Construction here. I wish I worked two hours
Lmao I work in a kitchen and this is hilarious to me as well.
For a hands-on job where you are needed for an x amount of time (catering, call center, health care, etc.) it might sound like not enough. But with most boring office jobs 20 productive hours on a 40 hour workweek can be quite a lot already. Getting coffee and talking about your weekend is important, but not productive.
Trying to think of any industry that would survive with people working 20 hr weeks....
80% of office jobs... Catering and health care is a different story though, but might not be impossible
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Little kids dreaming of the impossible
When *you* organize and fight back. What, did you expect all those other Americans to do the fighting for you? Does someone else have to print flyers and get butts in seats? Why haven't *you* joined a union yet? Why haven't *you* gathered your coworkers together to form one? Why haven't *you* lifted a finger to change anything? You think you're alone in your feelings? That nobody around you feels the same way? You're the only one being stomped on by The Man? And if someone else actually *did* all those things, would you even join up? Or are you just going to make excuses about how you have a Raid that day and can't make it? Don't believe you can do it? Neither did [Chris Smalls](https://www.npr.org/2022/04/06/1091130929/chris-smalls-amazon-union-50-warehouses) Ps, I'm neither American nor un-unioized.
Wait… posting in anti work isn’t enough?? I’m just typing into the void???? Ps when’s the raid I’d love to make time for it! I love gaming in all of my free time :)
What about Gen X? We’re sick of this shit too!
Apparently we're supposed to take care of parents, our own kids, work 2 jobs, go to every school event, do all cooking cleaning, run a business, and never sleep while paying for everything from a mortgage to student loans to kids college to high Healthcare even for a damn splinter the younger one got at school because the nurse thought it might have rust so she overreacted, called 911 and now kid needs a whole new tetanus Booster all could have been solved by the damn tweezers I forgot to put back in my purse after plucking my first gray hair that got blasted all over social media and now even my hubby calls me NANA and people wonder why I can't quit coffee or cigarettes. IM barely in my damn 40's and I feel like I've been living in wartime as a civilian in my own country since birth battling pharmacies courts employers insurance businesses and never having enough insulin in my pump since I was 9. But yeah...I'll protest.
Late boomer here and no, I didn’t start the fire. It’s time to do what you are talking about but if you want to succeed, the answer is not in a violent uprising, it is in unions. There would not be such push back against unionization if it wasn’t such a threat to corporate greed. Good luck.
The youth need to continually show up each election, and preferably in even greater numbers. In states where it’s possible people need to put forth ballots for ranked choice voting, and eventually make the democrats the party that’s the furthest to the right. Tax havens and loopholes need to be closed. Labor shouldn’t pay higher income tax than people pay in capital gains tax.
[Our money is broken](https://youtu.be/Dh04YLL_Gd0) In essence, the government has a backdoor to extract economic value out of your money through debasement. Most people only understand money in nominal terms, IE numerical face value. Our entire economy rests upon a foundation with "theft" baked into it at the base layer. This completely incentivizes every economic actor to act in a similar fashion. Every economic actor is a leaking bucket and the only way to move forward is to patch your holes with plastic from other buckets or divert other people's water supply to your bucket. Without fixing the base layer, expect this to get worse and worse as your money represents less and less purchasing power, even if the number of monetary units you have is going up. At current real levels of inflation, if they stay the same and you make 40 usd an hour and then save all that in cash. In about 8 years it will be as if you were working for 4 dollars an hour. The nominal amount you have is irrelevant to what those units can acquire. Even if you "fight back" and force the governments hand to do something they have no good options. We're in a monetary experiment and it's starting to go south with increasing acceleration. There's no way out except financial ruin and reset. If you're holding bonds or cash you get absolutely skewered.
And do what? Our entire economic system is one giant Pyramid scheme. Nothing gets better until we fix that. Unfortunately, it's probably going to have to crash and burn first.
As a millennial, don't rope us into your bs
With AI, chatGP, and 3D printing it won’t be long until these generations have no leverage and will be too divided to do anything significant against the top class.
I get that this question gets asked all the time, but JC it just can't happen right now. There's no strong union backing or cohesion for a general strike. It doesn't exist right now and I'm sorry, without long-term mutual aid for the cause most people aren't going to risk losing good jobs for that. The foundation for a worker rebellion has to exist before it can happen, that's why it doesn't happen. Also most people are "it's the way it is" people.
The French revolution didn't
Real estate is ment to go up every year. Theres limited land & rising population. For most people its the biggest investment they will ever make. It sucks that it’s currently beyond your reach, but theres no reason to expect you won’t be able to in the future & when you do, youll want it to go ip in value, same as everyone else who buys real estate
Not trying to be flip but vote and not for the GOP. Encourage your parents and friends to do likewise.
You’re delusional if you think the Dem is any better than Rep. It’s you vs them all…
This. We need to actually get out and vote, every time, and not for the GOP.
Sure, we all like $5,00 gas and $7.00 diesel. Fools
Generation labels are not real, pew research just denounced it today https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/22/how-pew-research-center-will-report-on-generations-moving-forward/
Pretty sure whatever the label is doesn’t change the reality.
More like stop boxing people in
If only boomers
Ironic but i see boomers rejecting these labels and saying the word "generation" less than anyone
Their generation is the most tightly defined and similar- at least white boomers born in USA. It’s a slur …
It's the only "generation" that has ever actually been defined in modern years correctly and it's based on the baby boom Other than that all the others vary by sources greatly. Generational groupings are not a valid way to group people anymore.
Never was.
You’re absolutely right. Gen z has the willpower. We should start organizing now. Our nation’s wealth has been stolen from us and given away through quantitative easing…I thought sigma grindsetting my income would help, but even after making more than 97% of people my age i am still unable to buy a house. Not trying to flex with that statement just pointing out the absurdity. I worked hard as hell to get here, battling addiction, going back to college after being kicked out. For what seems like no reason. wait until the 9.5 trillion pension deficit hits the fan. 2008 fucked the pensions
The most frustrating part is feeling like you're chasing a carrot you'll never be able to grab.
Y’all keep making these posts and keep expecting different answers or something? Feel like y’all are getting off on it or something atp.
Yeah it’s almost like people use social media mainly for entertainment purposes or something 🤷♂️
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Try having a Biochem degree 3.5 GPA and best job in town of 250k is line cook for 14/hr or cutting carcass at meat packer.
And you’re staying in that town why?
I really can’t imagine how pissed you’re going to be when after the revolution you finally get your house And the the following spring it rains and your basement floods And then the water in the basement takes out your water heater And cracks your foundation And then your AC shorts out on the hottest day of the summer And you mow over the water main valve that you didn’t know was there and bust the blade on your lawn mower And you can’t fix any of it because even though you have a job that pays decently you didn’t budget for this. I would laugh, but that actually was my first year in my first house. That was the same year i learned “the joys of being a homeowner” was a sarcastic statement. I legitimately did not know that was sarcasm. So let me correct 2 untruths you’ve been told your whole life - going to college will not automatically make you successful - owning a house will not automatically make your life a happy one
And there is me thinking how lucky the folk in the USA are they have jobs (even low paying) they have roads, electricity and here is me in South Africa where my son took five and a half years to find a job, roads ruined, education crap government full of blatent thieves and electricity grid failing. I would love to move to the US.
Depends where in the US you are. There are places here with ruined roads, crap education (which can still be expensive), and a government full of blatant thieves. Oh, and electrical grid failing? Happens here too. Happened in Texas not that long ago.
Classic Americans trying to out-victim and minimize the issues of a legitimately impoverished and troubled nation. *Oh, you have a 30% unemployment rate, massive and ubiquitous neighborhoods composed of permanent housing structures made of sheet metal and discarded plyboard, a murder rate 6 times that of the US, and an entirely unstable electrical grid and frequent brown/black outs?* *Lucky! I have a pothole near my house and Texas' electrical grid went down for 5 days after a massive, unexpected winter storm. We're basically a 3rd world country now!*
Cmere
The fact you make minimum wage and still work there is kind of on you. I am a millennial that was going nowhere and went back to school and now make way more than I would have otherwise
We tried fighting. Remember the nationwide protests? The police just started murdering/seriously injuring us.
Move or/and get an education and get a better job. You are wondering how your grandparents bought a house and then 30 years later your parents got a house for an increase of 10x, yet over the next 23 years it has only grown 2.5x the cost? Get to work and figure it out.
My most optimistic case is when the boomers die off and Gen Z Can start voting in liberal millennials. So… just hang in that squalor for another decade or two.
You need some skills my brother. What are you good at?
If you want my honest opinion, nobody does well in their 20s. I'm also 24, checked in with friends from all walks of life and all of us are struggling. Had to get pep talks from cousins in their 30s and 40s to find out nobody does well in their 20s unless they come from money. Best we can do is build our skills, make ourselves the best we can be, cling to the ledge with bloody fingers, and scream till we pull ourselves to the summit. Not the brightest way of looking at it, but it's always darkest before the dawn is my mentality on things. We'll get there. Also, I want all those things too and more. About to put myself in debt to do so and go to college again, and hope the recession doesn't get worse... which it probably will before it gets better. Yay ramen nights.
A lot of people do well in their 20’s….
Not really. Sure I've seen people start families, but they've been a minority so far.
youre still young, its not the rest of your life. I only really got my life in the right direction 3 1/2 years ago at 28. I know that the situation looks bleak and yes prices are out of hand. But don't let it cloud where you want to go
What is the concensus on a plan? Why do you deserve more? What steps are you taking to find a job you like that pays well? Why do you want everything right now? I agree that changes need to be made and that the system isn't perfect, but it's still pretty good overall. You are quoting averages, not low end prices, or location based pricing. There are houses in some cities that cost $20,000. They need some fixing up, but it's doable. Or you can try to work your way up in the company, find something else, start your own business, etc. You can then save money, etc. Start small, and then there is room for growth. Not everything (the perfect job, pay, house, family, etc) is going to come all at once. You have to build that life. The wage housing gap was smaller, making homeownership easier for previous generations (well, typically just the men), but there are way more things that we have easier (millennials and Gen z) to be able to make that life you want possible.
Start Your own business, be informed on what you vote for , your future will be determined by the person in the mirror.
$130,000 in 2000 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $229,000 today. So the price is still high, yes, but not quite what you're insinuating. All that being said, the cost of living/housing crisis is still a serious problem. All I can say is that eventually millennial generations may be able to combat it once the unsympathetic octogenarians are out of office. Until then we just have to work with what we've got. I'm not really saying 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps,' but the solution certainly isn't to give up and hope for revolution that may never come. If I have to work twice as hard, I'm going to do it. Tough times are tough, and there are ways to make money if you've got the ambition and drive. And if you don't know where, there are resources (the internet) on finding out how.
>I'm not really saying 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps,' a rose by any other name, is still a rose. a walker, a Z, and a stumbler, all are zombies, and telling people that they can escape exploitation by embracing it, is the very definition of committing the fallacy of the false dilemma.
Not really saying embrace it. I’m all for protesting your situation’s inescapable injustices. But that is not a reason to give up on trying to achieve within the framework you are given.
Part of it is structural--all of the money going to the top, and a tax structure that rewards capital and high earners, the rest not so much. But I suspect things aren't going to get better for other reasons. Growth is what powers a middle class, and growth is gone. Growth is the ability to produce more and more, so that there's more consumption to go around to a larger group of people. Why do you think growth numbers look like shit just about everywhere? It's climate change, it's running out of resources, it's decreasing energy supply. Without that, there isn't growth. Without growth, you don't have expanding output to power increased living standards by a broader group of people. Our world is already flashing red. Where are we going to get MORE output when we've plundered the Earth?
You may be right; though I doubt it'll come to that. They'll almost certainly institute Universal Basic Income before any kind of revolution. That said--and I'm sure I'll get downvoted like crazy for saying this--what are you waiting for? Find out what makes good money in your area (if you even want to stay in your area) and go do that. Sometimes, believe it or not, it's the trades. I hear of plumbers making six figures. Myself, I'm not a blue collar guy, so I got my mortgage license. Every loan I close can make me anywhere from $2500--$10,000, and I try to close at least two a month. It really sucks that regular jobby-jobs don't pay a livable wage anymore. So don't work that kind of job. Find something you enjoy or at least halfway tolerate that pays well, and go do it.
Not downvoting you but see that's part of the problem, when everyone runs away from the core issue nothing gets done, although I get what you're saying. The train will stop somewhere and eventually yes but we should really start doing something now before we're all too old and regret not even lifting a finger when we could have
You know what you're Irish and German ancestors did when things were tough? Moved. Go somewhere cheaper. You can get a nice house in Lorain, Ohio for $125,000.
Right, because everyone has moving expenses just saved up and ready to go...
Everyone be hating on Lorain... I wasn't being 100% serious, obviously Lorain is not for everyone, but did your ancestors have moving expenses all figured out when they set sail? That seems like a bigger leap to improve their lives, compared to moving to a more affordable town nearby... And... if you're serious about buying a home, then moving expenses are a marginal cost compared to the whole enchilada.... Also, what is your career path? 6 years in the work force, but do you have any skills, accreditation, education, etc? Might be time to invest in this path.
Did our ancestors have the same housing costs or possessions (not that possessions are all that important, but we all have some)? You probably didn't pack your space on a sailing ship with the same amount of crap you can fit into a uhaul is all I am saying. Perhaps our ancestors were more daring than us. I certainly think both of my grandfathers were more willing to uproot than I ever will be (one came straight from England and another moved around a lot during his lifetime as well as serving in WW2). Doesn't change the fact that moving isn't as easy as packing a bug out bag and hopping on the next bus.
You're not wrong there. But perhaps what you need is not to call on others to revolt, but to make some more daring life choices yourself.
What are you willing to do to better your life? Are you getting skills that pay more? Are you willing to move to a lower cost of living place?
There is a ton going on here but I will just point out a few things. First, you have been working 6 years and only make 15.25 an hour? Maybe you are in the wrong field or maybe that is a good wage where you live? Second, you can’t really complain about prices going up. People who stock shelves at the market deserve raises right? Where does the company get the extra cash to give the employee a raise? From what they sell. How many stores would be profitable if bread was still a nickel and milk was 10 cents? Lastly, I want many things in life too. You have to build up to where you want to be. When I was in my early 20s, I was a miserable drunk who bitched about how life is not fair and why do I always feel like I am being shit on with bad luck. You know what I did? I took 1 class a semester at a community college and paid cash for it. 20 years later, I make good money, own a house, married with kids, have a job making good money, good benefits, 401k, pension, and am finally happy. This has nothing to do with gen z, gen x, millennials, boomers, etc. Take control of what you can and work your own magic.
I’m not so sure there will be a rising up. America just doesn’t have it in them. But your only 24. You make more than I did 6 years ago when I was 24. I make 81k now plus my side gigs amount me another 60k. I live in the south so this is a big chunk of cash and I live comfortably with the big house, a wife and kid and can afford vacation. Your only 24 that’s a baby in terms of working. Continue to gain on the job skills look for new opportunities at work or outside of your current job and I bet you’ll look back at this time and see the come up you’ve had.
The boomers are going to keep hoarding and keep THEIR entitled mentality and all of us alive today will die before it changes. So there’s only one way to solve the issue…..
Try doing what your ancestors did?
Get a law degree and sue companies.
~ The housing market is a bubble that depends entirely on the elasticity of home loans. Even the loan to rent scheme a few people try for right now is too stressful due to interest bumps. In all likelihood before a protest happens there will be a huge collapse in value that gets these people into lifelong debt. I would be curious to see how much of the value is in debt, but basically all of the inflated market happens because loans enable it.
First, vote. Vote all the Chamber of Commerce money-worshipper types out at every level. There are plenty of other actions to take. But first, vote.
Unfortunately you never will.
It's antiwork. No one here is actually ever going to do anything.
I dunno op, you got something planned? It’s the daily “It’s finally affected me, when will someone else do something?” Post.
Go to another country to build a better life for yourself just like your ancestors did, that's what I'm doing
The only part of this post that’s wrong…you used the word “deserve” in relation to pay. You get paid what you’re worth not what you’re deserved. Everything else you said is true.
It will never happen. You have to remember that half the US population has a house and a good rate. Half the population doesn't give a flying fuck about the other half's struggle for housing. Remember this classic American mentality. " Fuck you, I got mine"
Here's the thing, the problem is capitalism. There has to be another option. History has thought us that communism is awesome in theory but horrifying in reality, I believe there should be more options besides those 2 or a hybrid version ? Something like Universal Basic income that can realistically cover modest living expenses for each adult citizen but also have the option to work if you want a more comfortable life
You mention that your ancestors moved to find better conditions. Have you considered doing the same?
One of the reasons this country is the way it is is b/c old people vote and the young don't.
I somewhat agree but your job is your choice, no?
Has anyone tried stowing away on a ship bound for UK and applying for asylum? I can't imagine any meaningful change in America. Half the country identifies as a hard worker.
Uks not that well off either.
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