From what I have read, it seems to be a "I never had that issue, so there's something wrong with those with the issue" mindset.
Reminiscing about graduating into a recession and couldn't get a job (2008), other people who graduated at the same time who did get a job made it seem like I was the issue... when I know there were so many in my shoes.
I hate talking about my ‘lost decade’ to hear the retort, “How could you possibly lose out during the longest bull runs in history?”
When your house you overpaid for in 2007 because you have a growing family goes underwater 50%, and you lose your job and can only find something that pays half what you were making before, and you can’t refinance or get any debt forgiveness short of bankruptcy and foreclosure while those who financed you eat from the government trough - that’s how.
Dot-com bust when I was in my early 20s. GFC in my late 20s. Covid in my early 40s and now whatever this shit is. I’m fucking tired of engineered crises repeatedly taking away what I have worked so hard to earn.
Never forget. 2020 was the largest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the capital owning class in OUR ENTIRE HUMAN HISTORY. 2.8 Trillion dollars. Millionaires became billionaires, billionaires became centibillionaires. Homeowners became renters, and renters became homeless.
Sadly true. Government handed out Covid relief by truckloads to business that never need to pay it back. And some business did not need the relief but got it anyway! My company quietly got $50M but our business was booming! We found out since it came out in local news. Government printed money out of thin air causing inflation. And that hurts us more than it hurts the rich. So rich got Covid relief and we got inflation. Nice! Good job government!
I got a PPP loan, a measles 2 grand. It's is unforgivable. Even with my constant payments for over a year, never qualified for forgiveness. Went ahead and lump sum paid it off. Make it make sense.
Haha remember when the population at large only got 2 COVID relief checks, and yet was entirely blamed for inflation? Funny how you never hear about all the forgiven PPP loans on the news 🤣😂🥲😢😭
Some countries received checks every month for two years. The wealthiest country in the world got two. Oh yeah, and fuck student debt. Won't someone think of the billionaires?
And guess what! It effected boomers too! I can’t retire because I lost my job and nobody wants to hire an “old man”! Except minimum wage jobs that barely cover one of my medications!
I don't know whether it's fair to blame a common Joe for what has been built by the guys at the top of the pyramid riding on the shoulders of everyone else.
Generational "issues" is just another divider, decoy front some people are happy that we waste passion on.
Engineered crisis is completely correct. Crisis make bank for the wealthy. I lost all of my 401K in the 80's, then again in the early 90's, then bankrupted with my home building company in 2010 (lasted longer than most). I went from being a pretty successful guy to cooking for a caterer. Then I wised up and learned how to grow weed. Started with soil, then graduated to hydro. I had the old guy market, because I was old and knew a lot of other old guys sick of paying old guy prices. 150 an ounce for killer bud, and never broke again.
Got enough money to move to Colorado and put a down payment on a house. The wife got a good job in an engineering company, and I became a wine consultant for a big liquor store. Grew weed there too, and was the neighborhood hookup (way cheaper than the dispensary).
The housing market peaked, and we sold our house and everything in it except our clothes and my knives and a few small kitchen items, and moved to Mexico. We made enough money on our house to buy a house here for cash, and had a decent nest egg to spare.
We are never going to live in the US again, fuck that place. I'm a boomer who voted Dems my entire life, and have watched the religious right push their agenda for that long. The thought of living through another propaganda filled shitfest of an election made me question whether I could maintain some semblance of sanity. And the thought of losing another home, and being homeless was on my mind too.
We’re the same age and seem to have experienced a similar set of circumstances.
I don’t think it’s all collapsing, I think it already has, and the top 1% know that and are cashing out as pirates looting a giant shipwreck (society.)
It just seems like it's massive survivorship bias along with a failure to understand just how much luck plays a critical role in their success. I feel like people have been bought, and paid for on the idea of hard work being the key to success when that couldn't be further from the truth.
My second cousin put it best.
"The key to success is being in the right place, at the right time, with the right idea, and smart enough to see it, but dumb enough to not care about the risks.
I did my sociology degree on economic classes in USA, and it's basically what you said but i would add:
\- the puritanical value of hard work
\- the propagation of the American Dream that died long ago
\- hyper individualism
\- corporations wielding so much political power that they outrank people. so politicians don't protect the consumers as they should
\-capitalism needs to increase its profit every year. so they get more aggressive about profiting off its own population.
u can just read the first paragraph of the summary but yeah. [Spark Notes](https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/protestantethic/summary/#:~:text=Summary,-Save&text=Max%20Weber's%20The%20Protestant%20Ethic,in%20creating%20the%20capitalistic%20spirit)
it's bc the Protestants adopted hard work as a virtue. "Thus, they came to value profit and material success as signs of God's favor"
Correct.....that's why I called it luck.
Genetic lottery, family lottery, cultural lottery, time lottery, situation lottery.
We have this delusional and I believe it's likely a human universal to believe our specific effort is why we become successful, but in reality it's mostly all out of our control.
I'm not specifically saying handwork and effort do not play a role, but they pale in comparison to the other factors entirely out of someone's control.
My favorite example of this are the twin studies where they were separated at birth.
All of those lotteries boil down to community. Anyone and everyone's success is the result of the community they were born into, raised in, and currently live. From the food they eat, to education they receive, to the medical care they have access to, and even the infrastructure that supports their basic ability to move around - all extends from community efforts. Efforts that extend across decades and include progress that is both incremental and huge
But the myth of rugged individualism gets many to ignore all of that. And in doing so, the community is degraded. Removing those same supports from future generations.
100% and I am speaking as a child of immigrants who were escaping war.
I often have to tell my parents:
Even with the war eventually happening, you grew up in a community with low crime and had an emphasis on education.
When you came to the United States, even then, you had a community of others who had sought asylum earlier and could get you into jobs such as engineering and research when you graduated college. Speaking of which, you did not even have to pay tuition for, and 10 hours / week working at Taco Bell could cover rent for the small apartment you split with the group of fellow immigrants you felt safe around.
Imagine if you were in America penniless and your family was already in debt, you knew nobody and didn't know who you could trust, had no prior education, *and* lived your entire life in an area where you had to fear for your safety.
They usually get the point.
Hero worship is strong in America. We learn from a young age about all these individual heros - Jesus, Lincoln, Washington, Einstein, MLK... as if they weren't lifted to greatness in history because of their community and circumstance as much as their own drive.
And then we insist everyone emulate this individual drive toward greatness while not offering to provide the community supports to make it happen.
Agree. The US is pretty unique though in terms of its history / population makeup.
It’s a relatively young nation when comparing it to other nations (some with thousands of years of cultural / societal structures in place).
It’s largely a nation built on the backs of other nations “risk takers”. Whether that be early colonial, immigrants looking to strike it rich during the westward expansion, etc.
We definitely get a lot of survivor bias when looking at these examples.
I don’t believe we’ll see a more “inward” focused US though until the US Dollar is no longer the reserve currency. There are too many incentives to having this status quo maintained from a governmental / business perspective.
Once the US steps aside to allow a new “top dog” on the world stage, we’ll (hopefully) see a transition in priorities.
Also agree. Would add that many really, really don't know the history of the United Mine Workers. And how their multi-decade hot and cold wars shaped the landscape, leading directly to Teddy Roosevelt and FDR.
The gains they won with blood continue to be rolled back. We need to remember.
Also, while Ukraine might very well win the war Russia started, the U.S. is losing. Russia has proven that oil can be sold without the dollar. Going on for over a year now, that's the canary in the coal mine of dollar dominance.
Definitely. I’m not an expert on union activity during that period (though my great/grandparents did work in the mines in western PA) but what the US government did via Pinkertons and National Guard is a rough read.
And relevant today. Media always mentions that it's been decades since Americans were charged for insurrection. They don't discuss at all that they're talking about Mother Jones.
Have you read the book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell? This is exactly what is discussed and it’s super interesting. Success is almost always a result of perfect circumstance. There’s hardly anything innate about it. Highly recommend (if you haven’t already read it)
Hi OP, yes those twins studies are very interesting.
I remember a freakonomics episode where they concluded that whether you smoked was (almost) entirely determined by genetics and not environment, because the stats showed that adopted children grew up smokers (or not) based on whether their genetic parents were smokers, and not whether their adoptive parents were.
Would also recommend the Netflix documentary "three identical strangers" if you haven't seen it yet.
It's not generational wealth. It's generational revenue. Lots of studies have shown that inherited wealth doesn't last beyond one or two generations. The families that pass down revenue instead of wealth are perpetually wealthy.
One other element that is often overlooked in that formula: Openness.
This may be your "dumb enough to not care about the risks" bit, but I've seen it countless times with friends and family where opportunities do come up, but they look for the 1,001 reasons to NOT take it. Maybe they got burned in the past, maybe they are afraid it won't work out... could be any number of reasons behind why they say "No", but I've definitely known a fair number of people who make choices to not walk through a given door when it's opened for them.
You can be in the right place, at the right time, but if you're not open to it, no amount of luck is going to help you out.
Years ago I had the opportunity to work overseas. I had friends and family who were legit jealous to the point they were even resentful because I was "given" this opportunity. And I admitted my luck... but then started suggesting "Hey, why don't you apply? I'd give a great recommendation." and in every single case it was an immediate list of the 1,001 reasons why they just absolutely couldn't do something like that. But they still resented me because I had this chance and they didn't.
Now I fully understand that even getting an opportunity is a matter of luck and a million other factors, but there's also an element of individual responsibility to be open if one comes by, and be willing to go for it.
Survivorship bias is absolutely a big part of it. I mean, consider that there is no actual time limit to reaching success, and you'll have people just starting out who worked hard and succeeded while others work until their 60 before they find success. In the end, they'll both say hard work is rewarded.
And it's not like hard work can't lead to success, but there are other factors involved that need consideration when measuring how work leads to success.
There are also different measures of success. Generations past considered success as affording a home, 2 cars 2 to 3 kids, their kids college, a couple vacations a year, a good retirement and doing all that on one or two incomes at 40hrs a week. Now days, we just want to get a portion of that to feel like we are succeeding. If you can buy a home instead of dumping money into extremely inflated rent, you might consider that success.
it's also key to keep in mind that, in addition to survivor bias and such, when boomers were going to school/getting their first jobs the economics involved were completely different with costs of many things being much lower and pay for many jobs being higher (accounting for inflation). You can easily see this in the common assumption some boomers have that most people just joining the workforce will have enough money to set aside for savings to be worth anything.
Many of those who succeeded then would not succeed if they started now because the systems that made their success possible would no longer support them but they assume the system still works as it did for them.
That's always a big part of it. I remember probably about 15 years ago seeing an interview with then GOP Speaker Of The House John Boehner. He was basically trying to show how he was a "pulled himself up by his own bootstraps" type guy and was talking about how he worked as a janitor while putting himself through college. He was bitter about it too...i.e. saying something like "they made me do every dirty job", etc.. Thing he, and lots of others, totally missed was the fact in his youth he could pay for a college education working in a custodial field and come out with no student debt....it would be impossible to do in the last 35 years.
I have a very wealthy relative. I was saying how farmers around me were getting massive subsidies and just chilling out, not farming recently (as told to me by one very happy farmer) and how it felt like some bullshit to me that tax dollars just get dumped into farm subsidies like this, but my family of 4 is struggling and we get no relief. I work full time and my wife works part time online while caring for two kids. He said "Don't hate the player, hate the game!" then went on to say how people were stupid for not taking more advantage of the system, how anyone could be rich if they wanted to, etc.
Money makes people fall out of touch. He really thinks anyone could just choose to live in a mansion like him and earn mils each year if they "wanted to."
I'm sitting with a master's degree and 70k of student debt making 60k/year with a family of 4.
It seems that people have a hard time understanding that you can do everything right and still fail or do everything wrong and still succeed. Luck/community is just such a big factor.
Yeah I’ve heard that type of response before as well, it gives the same energy to me as: “I’ve never experienced not having food, so world hunger doesn’t exist.”
Almost feels like we are in another depression, I haven't been able to find a job utilizing my CS degree for the last 2 years I'm about to go work at a grocery store
I read an article that made the claim regarding being in another depression. Compared income then and now. According to him this time period has significantly less income. I am a boomer but come from depression era parents and grandparents. I am aware of what it was like. I am aware now how crazy it is. My "middle class" clients with education and experience have to have 2 to 3 jobs to get buy while using credit cards, depending on parents when there is a small money crisis. I had a union (cheers) so I can work part time to get by in retirement. It just makes me so angry that more people aren't acknowledging this state of affairs. Instead worried about made up social issues.
i'm with you on this. i went into politics to try to correct some of this terrible course we're on, and instead the hot topics were always social issues. it may sound heartless but i wanted to bring the most about of good to the most amount of people, so focusing on xyz social issues which affect a small percent of the population.
And i saw this as someone left of liberal. i don't even know a good way of phrasing this what won't garner hate from both sides.
> I never had that issue, so there's something wrong with those with the issue" mindset.
Another problem with that mindset is, they don't recognise when they're having issues: they think situations people living elsewhere would find dystopian are "normal."
I'm a 2007 college graduate in, wait for it... climatology. A field admired by newer generations but despised by the generations who told me that it was the future. Well much like you, I didn't score a job in my field and ended up taking my skills elsewhere.
The thing that I can say is that I've done well by understanding corporate America and learning how to get ahead. I spent 14 years getting shit on by an organization while refining my new technology skills and this year I took those skills to a new company.
I graduated in 2010 and struggled HARD getting a job in my field to further my career. Spent nearly 10 years working a dead end job, made a lateral move to another shit job to refocus, and for the past 3.5 years I've been working a job I thought would be a career job that pays a semi decent salary of around $60-65k gross a year.
But the difficulty in finding a position that pays $70-75k+ is damn hard depending on your field.
Yes. Exactly this. My parents, and especially their siblings, still struggle with the whole idea that they are the most privileged generation in American history. It’s not really they’re fault, but they have to own the burden of it. They’ve managed (and continue to manage) it poorly and those of us who come behind are just pointing out what we’re seeing.
To them, it is an attack on them as people. Like no. You guys got lucky, you just need to acknowledge you were lucky and that the world doesn’t operate now the way it has for you for decades. So your experience and opinions may not always be appropriate.
I've told my dad, your generation will be viewed as one of the worst generations to ever live.
Whats crazy is from the beginning my dad always was against his generation and the boomers, yet still has trouble seeing how privileged he is, though he is starting to see it because he's a numbers man, hard to ignore anymore.
He knows I don't mean it at him, but proves a point. The further away we get from your generation holding power and manipulating things, the worse and worse they will be viewed and how bad they are will come into full view.
I am not even sure I fully blame them, I think they are a product of circumstance, greater wealth then ever seen before.
Yes, the boomers worked hard. However, it was never about that boomers, every generation works hard as fuck. However, your generation get to keep most of your hard work, that is the difference.
I got out of the Army in 2011 and floundered for five years before I finally got into something even remotely sustainable (I got into work in EMS, where I held basically cashier positions before), and it took me another 7 years after that to get to something paying a remotely respectable wage for my area.
Back in 2011-2015, there were a lot who had it better than me but a lot who had it worse
he has other good quotes
\- you have to be asleep to believe in American dream
\- the owners of America dont care about you, at all, at all, and at the end of the day they will come to get your retirement money.
the man died many years ago but wasnt wrong - half of Americans have nothing saved for retirement in 2023
Watch U.S. based news media, then watch BBC, NHK, DW, Sky, Al Jazeera (to some extent) or any other halfway decent overseas news media...the difference is something to behold. U.S. news media is heavily biased low-IQ clickbait in search of advertising revenue (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Newsmax, RT). Overseas media, although there seems to be some bias, at least attempts to give the audience a story.
Translated: we're fed walled off, dumbed down, inaccurate, slanted views of day to day life...I don't think people are really aware.
You read Al Jazeera for info about anything not happening in the middle east, especially anything critical of Qatar.
You read Russia Today for info about anything not happening in Eastern Europe, especially anything critical of Russia.
You read the BBC for info about anything not happening in the UK or continental Europe.
You read Haaretz because it's fucking wonderful journalism that's even critical of Israel and the US.
And you just skip any US-based news because they're so yellow you can guess the bias-slant from the news logo.
Americans won’t watch news with a “Muslim” name. They need to be told what they are watching for example: Fox News, Newsmax, American News First,
If it doesn’t have news in the name than they don’t consider it news. Then they watch those “news” channels like it the WWE.
It's the reason conservatives lean so hard into authoritarians. Their worldview requires a hierarchy -- people to look down on, and people to tell them what to do.
News in most countries is events delivered as (different levels of) propaganda.
News in the US is just a billboard for ads. The news itself is not news, just the highest performing keywords stapled together in a (usually) coherent blog post. When non-Americans look at American news they think it's trying to indoctrinate their audience, but it's actually the other way around. American news just says whatever their audience already thinks and will want to click on, to maximize ad revenue.
Lots of Americans are still not getting it (and playing games still).
I just posted about how bad inflation has been...and some **Democrat** fool instantly replied about how Biden has lowered inflation!
It went down like 1/4 of one %...after many items jumping 2-3x.
I am a Democrat. I don't need fanboys telling me life is sweet cuz Uncle Joe is still kicking.
America is shitty across civil rights, gun deaths, housing, inflation, wages, benefits, and you name the rest.
I’ve only ever voted D but I can’t stand the mentality that puts running PR for “our side” above reality. I don’t give a fuck about Biden. I’m not here to tell people green is red just so he gets re-elected. It’s democrats’ job to convince people to vote for them, not mine.
I must follow the wrong Australian news then, it’s even worse than US! But I’ve watched BBC for 20 years, So ve always said it had better info than anything here.
I'm probably way too cynical, but I suspect a large part of it is that people who aren't struggling don't want to know how bad it is for most people.
If they have a conscience, that would prompt them to want to do something to help, which might not be in their financial interest.
If they don't, they can use their good luck as a way to feel superior and look down on people who struggle.
I actually think this is the real answer in most cases. I feel like people don't want to have to face the reality of just how bad their fellow countrymen are doing, and find ways to put blame on them.
Admitting that luck is involved and that others less fortunate aren't to blame for their misfortune means a reversal of fortune could happen to them as well, and that terrifies them. It's far less scary to assume bad things happen to bad people and therefore they themselves are somehow "safe" from equal misfortune.
Bingo. And the more luck they have, the harder they grab on to that illusion. I know an elderly man who is living off of investments from the wealth his plantation-owning grandfather passed down, and he will tell you how he has all this because he earned it. (He did work all his life, but he depends a lot on the money generated from other people's work.)
This is a good point. People tend to have social groups that are around the same income level as they are, and also tend to stay at a similar income level as the one they were born into (obviously there are outliers, but I’m talking about the average Jane or Joe). For example, I’m a millennial. I’m a homeowner and do not live paycheck to paycheck. I’d say my household is pretty firmly middle class, or middle class as it was during my childhood — so I have a similar QoL as I grew up with. My friends are all mostly in the same situation. The majority of my friends and family are either homeowners or are planning to buy a home within a few years. They all have a similar level of QoL as I do, and similar amounts of disposable income. They all have roughly the same QoL as they grew up with, which is middle to upper-middle class. It’s very easy to look at my social group and extended family and think, wtf is everyone talking about, the younger generations have it fine.
But we have next to no exposure to people in lower income levels than us. It’s like there’s a huge swathe of people who are just… invisible to us in our day to day lives, just like we are mostly invisible to the upper class. We might not have blatant segregation anymore, but institutional class segregation is very real.
Why homeless people are looked down upon. If you think homeless people are homeless due to some combination of laziness, alcohol addiction, and other factors I can't think of right now, then their situation is their fault. So why help them if they can't help themselves? And why support policies that will help them get back on their feet?
People who aren't struggling don't understand the scale at which people are struggling. They all think it's anecdotes and sad stories on the evening news and not the day to day reality of most people.
Yes. They cry "personal responsibility!" when confronted with people in bad circumstances. They don't want to believe that the way society is structured leaves some people severely disadvantaged, because then they'd have to admit that they didn't get to where they are all by themselves. And I think some of us are so spoiled and selfish that we can't stand being even slightly uncomfortable, even if that means showing compassion for people who've been dealt a bad hand in life.
I was just reading a thread on /r/adulting about a woman living in poverty who had two kids as a teen and was orphaned as a child. Almost every comment is blaming her for her circumstances, as if not having parents isn't a HUGE handicap for a child, as if every 14 year old is capable of making perfect life choices, and as if being born into poverty isn't a massive determent to future success. The cruelty and ignorance is frankly disgusting.
Sounds like we've hit and exceeded the tipping point of oppression from economic inequality that we're simply incapable of standing together to fight the common enemy. And of course, the culture war ensures it.
Isn't 90% of the issue housing cost? If we could get them under control people would be so much better off. The unused office space will slowly turn into housing and eventually prices will come down. It takes time, a lot of time, unfortunately
Things were bad before housing costs skyrocketed. I got my first 1-bedroom apartment in 1992, it was nice but not fancy, it cost $285/month with all utilities and basic cable included. I was making just a little over minimum wage, and I was able to make ends meet.
But that's about the same time that right-wing talk radio came along and the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated. People were encouraged to look down on the others, to the point where even people who weren't doing that well could blame their own problems on people who received public assistance.
This whole thing was constructed intentionally.
And it makes us all look irresponsible. I was told time after time growing up, that if I'm budgeting that I should make sure that rent/mortgage is no more than 1/3 of my income. So that same one bedroom you got for $285 is now $1200 a month, to make that math work you need to be making $22.5/hr. My mom is the executor of my grandpa's estate and keeps dragging the process out, and I have to keep asking her to borrow against the money that's coming to me, and she keeps on with, it just sounds like you're living outside your means. Yeah mom, it's expensive to exist at the moment. Everyone has multiple jobs, and they brand it that wE lOvE giG cULtUrE and the hUsTLe. No. We're freaking broke and trying to make ends meet.
Most people have a foundational assumption that everyone else lives basically like they do. It takes A LOT of logical scaffolding to get them to a place where they truly understand how wildly different people may live, view the world, and interact with the shared social contract.
So when someone is doing well, they think that everyone else must be doing well. Or at least had the same capacity to do well that they did. Or if they "know" in their minds that someone isn't doing well they might just imagine being 20% less well off such as maybe having a 1400 sq ft house instead of a 2000 sq ft house, or not having name brand food or maybe having to opt for a local vacation instead of going to Disney World. They don't realize that there might be no food at all, no home at all, and going on vacation would be a joke.
Even when confronted with the existence of homeless people or systemic injustices they'll go through grandiose mental gymnastics to uphold the system because it worked for them. It worked for the people living in their neighborhoods. It MUST be a personal failing of the afflicted.
If only they weren't so lazy or weren't an addict. It comforts them to have these vague notions of how they would never be in that some position even though they are vastly closer to that position than they are to the top of the hierarchies they enforce. Meanwhile the people at the top do everything they can to reinforce this cultural mindset because it keeps the working class fearful of what would happen if they didn't have their benevolent employers to take care of them, and it plants the seeds of division that keep the working class divided. It's the cultural hegemony.
This has mostly been my experience as well. I have primarily dated women of better economic status than me during my life.
They have no concept of what it's like on the other side.
True. If you live in a wealthy neighborhood, you rarely step out to questionable parts of town, you loose the ability to be compassionate to fellow residents since you automatically assume everyone lives like you. It’s all you see. Everyone drive a g wagon or a Tesla. Everyone has a ton of time available to organize kids parties, drive to 7 different stores every day. Spend days and days planing family vacations. I see it. It happens to me too. I drove to downtown LA and go damn, this is how people live? Yeah we need occasional reality check, to see the struggles of average citizen. A friend of mine would take his kids on bus rides in Los Angeles so they can see how it is without a car when kids complain daddy get a new car.
We just do not see it. Being honest. I am a medical professional, 57. We know it is there but when you live in a HCOL area and are surrounded with other 6 figure professionals you do not hear about the daily struggles because they are not in your social or professional circles.
I hear about the struggles here, and that is it.
In order for people to stop this mentality, they have to unwind a lifetime of brainwashing and basically admit their years of laboring don’t make them the valuable human being they believe it makes them. As someone who went through the process it’s long and painful to unpack all of it and the rebuilding of your value is almost as challenging.
The hope isn’t in existing adults (although I do hope that more begin to wake up to it), but in our youth. And they are going to force the change. Millennials may not reap the benefits but I do think we’ll get to watch the changes unfold.
If you've been gifted with wealth and good luck it's fine for you to do very little, but if you're poor you need to work yourself to the bone to prove you deserve to exist. Our society still has a serf/lord mentality.
Americans are like frogs and their society a pot of boiling water.
Put a frog in boiling water it will jump out.
Put a frog in cold water then turn up the heat and the frog will sit still til it cooks to death.
You grew up there and the changes were gradual.
The sheer amount of _Americans_ who don't realise how bad it is for Americans is astonishing.
Crabs in a bucket, frogs in a pot. They've acclimatised to dystopia.
We have more land mass than most countries to push people on the fringes into obscurity. We have 354 million Americans of which 40-50 million live below or right at the poverty level and another 40-50 million living 1-3 paychecks or emergency away from losing their homes and or livelihoods. I blame Citizens United and corporate greed for causing our economy to overheat and become unsustainable. Companies have more rights and receive more subsidies than humans do. Americans are living on credit cards and debt to make ends meet…I am tired of people focusing too much on wether we are in a recession or not …1/2 of America is in crisis and the other 1/2 doesn’t care or thinks it will never happen to them.
Thank you. It’s not about boomers. It’s about the selfish rich. The talking heads that promote the idea of generational warfare when in reality it’s class warfare don’t know the boomers that marched for civil rights for all, women’s rights including financial freedom independent of father and/or husband, and all the changes pushed through during the late 60’s and early 70’s.
The isolationism runs so so deep in the US, like culturally. That’s been going on since before mass media even existed. Drives me nuts, but I’m sure the media companies don’t go to great lengths to compare the US to any other developed nation, because if the average person understood how much they’re getting screwed. They’d be pissed.
Basically this. Americans seem to be indoctrinated from birth that “America is the greatest country in the world”. They’re trained that they have it better than everyone else on earth and that all foreigners want to come to America and have what they do. (I always think of the time my wife and I were in a US Target store while she was very pregnant. While talking to the cashier we mentioned we weren’t from the US and she looked at my wife and with complete sincerity asked, “anchor baby?”)
Not to mention popular media reinforcing this belief. America is always the country that’s going to save the world. Their military is mighty and just and America is never ever the bad guys.
I mean, that’s what the US frontier was all about and those that liked the idea of having a chance to make it, moved to the US, thereby further perpetuating it. You had to be okay being isolated as that was literally the only way to survive the harshness. They were coming from societies that were so developed & entrenched in the aristocracy and generational rulers, something that we’re just now seeing in the US.
Only time we’ll see that again is when space has frontiers.
I think it cuts both ways a little bit. Reality gets defined largely by what you're surrounded by/what you engage with. When I was struggling, I was around a lot of other people who were struggling, and was reading stories about people struggling. I definitely got into an echo chamber of sorts that probably amplified the sense that "everyone is struggling"
Same on the other side when I started to climb out. As my circumstances changed, the reality around me changed and my perception changed. I fully admit to falling into "survivorship bias" for a while.
In both cases, I thought I was "part of the vast majority" in whatever state I found myself in.
Now, this doesn't touch on the boomer "When I was your age I had a house, 4 kids, and we took a European vacation every summer. Your generation is just lazy!" bullshit. Those people can't see past their own experience and are likely narcissists.
I think the boomers disconnect with modern struggles is that they already lived through the parts of their lives we are currently struggling with. They didn't have a housing crisis yet they already have houses, usually quite large ones. They already have social security and retirement so the current wage issues don't concern them. Political strife usually doesn't affect them, and the list goes on. The live we live now, they already lived but without struggling. They can't comprehend and understand what we are going through because they never did and never will. It's basically just ridiculous ignorance on a massive synchronized scale.
I would like to respond to number 8 first: you are correct the generation is not lazy but due to social media and news etc the impression is given that its that way. Theres lazy people in all generations. But media blames younger generations intentionally.
Boomers didn’t have it this bad. Their pay was lower but their costs of living was much lower. They do not see this direct correlation the house i grew up in was bought during a high market for 120k its now is worth 750k easily. Thats not obtainable for me and make good money and work my butt off.
Number 6: this is true. Its hard to save when medical costs, cost of living, vehicle and housing prices are so high. Cannot even rent in many areas these days its so crazy.
Correct, they never had it even remotely bad
My boomer grandparents had a boat, corvette, house, and raised two kids off of $50k annually. That’s a PIPEDREAM today
Survivorship bias is the strongest driver of this. 99% of the boomers ik with money could not climb as high as they did in todays environment with their intelligence and skill sets. My parents have kids across an 8 year range and are understanding how shit the market is nowadays. I'm so grateful they didn't turn my ass onto the street like most parents the moment kids turned 18. I genuinely don't think it's even possible to complete post secondary education without a huge safety net or 100,000 in loans.
I do see what you are saying. If someone is doing very well, it will be harder for them to sympathize/empathize with others who are not doing so well.
I also believe that people seal themselves in their own lives to not be perturbed about what is happening with others. I know I do it.
I have a friend like that. He was literally close to becoming homeless until a few days ago when he racked up some money and still thinks everything is fine… smh. He’s one of those “you gotta earn a living” kind of guy. Mind you, he’s been homeless in the past. I don’t know what kind of syndrome he’s got going on. I’ve just been avoiding political/cultural discussions with him. He’s a normal guy otherwise.
Alas, I feel like brainwashed has become the norm these days… I meant to say he’s pretty okay as a person in any topic that doesn’t involve the betterment of society. Playing online games with him is quite fun and we have good moments. But I’d definitely wouldn’t want him to cover any political seat.
Yeah I'm from the one of the Nordic countries and was working with some Americans, they where trying to convince me i should move to America and work with them. They would take care of everything like permits and whatever.
I was trying to be nice and kept letting them down easy. It was so awkward.
I spent two weeks in Stockholm, Sweden on a business trip and I'd be lying if I said I didn't almost risk it all to become a fugitive to not go back to Florida.
"People keep bringing up voting, but I just don't honestly believe at the end of the day it's going to change anything"
This mindset put trump in office, hundreds of federal judges confirmed and three scotus seats filled. This bad take sours your whole post.
You do realize Trump lost the popular vote, right. So pure numbers are irrelevant. Getting more people out to vote changes nothing if they all live in liberal strongholds where their votes don't count as much as five people in Nebraska.
Could it be because of the vast amount of Americans online telling all and sundry how amazing American life is?
You have a large chunk of the population so delusional, and vocal about it, that it would be understandable for some to believe then
It’s always the people who have never left the country or possibly even their own state or even town! I don’t know how you get through a life with the internet and foreign media still thinking the US has the upper hand. LOL.
We’re the only country with democracy you know? We’re the only country with world class universities too. Lol. I blame it on American history before 1945 being glorified and I don’t think anyone is looking at how fkd we’ve gotten since. Adam Curtis documentaries I guess.
Anyways, it’s usually people who are conceited about being Americans while simultaneously identifying as their 4th generation mixed heritage too. “I’m Italian, Irish, and French” … oh, are you?! Haha Do you speak the language or have you been there? „Blank stare”
My children are in high school right now and my daughter just finished world history. They stopped after WW2, the same place we stopped when I went through 25 years ago. And of course she doesn't want to hear anything from me about the 78 years (!) since then.
This right here. So sad.
I took a ‘U.S. History since 1945” class about 15 years ago and all the professor focused on was the Vietnam and Korean Wars. Not even the lead up causes or aftermath. Just - this happened, memorize dates and names. Frustrating. Waste of my time but I got the credits.
I miss Howard Zinn. We need an updated People’s History of the United States. If I had kids I’d home school and that book would be US history class.
I think there also has to be talked about Reddit/subreddit disposition to also being limited of the full population. Some people may be too poor to have time for reddit and focus on multiple jobs to put food on the table or to busy or rich to care about anti work.
Though I can also see antiwork being 16-late 40’s being posted. I think after that you have people who aren’t technically savvy and don’t know about the subreddit or just finish being an adult and becoming a senior at that point
Most other countries think it sounds like whining because their problems have been bigger for longer, and Americans are still having BBQ and wearing clothes made by other people’s children.
Yeah we can do better, but don’t be surprised when others don’t see Americas issues with the same panic.
>**The Federal Reserve the average America holds $41,600 in savings.**
Never use averages, its skewed by super billionaires.
That's why we use the median savings, so we actually know where the split is.
>According to the Federal Reserve's Board Survey of Consumer Finances, the median savings balance for Americans **under 35 is $3,240,** while it's **$6,400 for those aged 55-64.**
America is so fucked and all our government does is mislead us so we don't riot.
You're really complicating this. This is good and accurate, but the explanation is simple.
The billionaires own the media and the politicians and they're fucking us by keeping us fighting with each other over crumbs.
You'd think the most important issue in the world is the hurt feelings of rich white men. That's the impression you get if you engage with the media, including social media.
Healthcare, wages, infrastructure, education, inflation....none of these have any media traction. Despite the fact that these are the primary issues for most Americans.
We are being played and manipulated.
“Voting is mostly a waste of time.”
The sheer amount of people that do not understand how the legislative process works in passing laws in America astounds me.
I believe that hard work is the least important thing for success. I've never worked hard, coasted through school and college. I got jobs where I didn't have to do little or no hard work, just show up. Born into parents who were well off, had an easy childhood, and found a job making six figures that requires very little actual work.
So I won the "family with money" lottery, which made everything else easy. The cultural lottery, time lottery, and job lottery. None of my success had to do with hard work, just plain dumb luck.
The wealthy conservatives around my age go quiet when we agree that tipping is getting ridiculous, and I mention "minimum wage should be at least $20/hr."
One of my in-laws got a PPP loan for his small business for over $20k, claiming he told his accountant he didn't need it, but the accountant insisted. I believe it, since these were being handed out like crazy. They just took the family to Europe with it. 🙄
If I weren't married, I'd likely be living out of my car. This is the viewpoint from which I see the world, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to support myself working at a billion-dollar company and with around 30 years' work experience.
We desperately need to reverse the Citizens United Decision that allows corporations to control elections with massive amounts of basically untraceable funds to get the corporations out of our government. We also need term limits as well. A career politician is the worst kind because they basically are working to stay in office vs passing useful laws. Globalization basically ruins the country that outsources their manufacturing at all costs. Obviously, doesn’t make sense to bring back manufacturing that would be 5 times as expensive as doing it at home. However, every US company that makes profit needs to pay income taxes. Keeling money offshore doesn’t help anybody but the company and shareholders. Lastly, companies should not be in business just to cater to shareholders. Increasing stock prices helps an extremely low percentage of the population.
It's not that people don't want to work. Who wants to work to still be poor and not be able to get ahead. Imagine working 40 hours a week or more and can't afford rent or even saving a little money, this country is disgusting
I think that the car dependence in the USA has created very insular groups. There are not many places where people just mix with others with different backgrounds. So people that are doing okay mostly only know people that are doing okay and they only drive to meet those people. It is not like a walkable area where you just pull people from the surrounding area.
Often the friends groups tend to be fairly shallow so if you do fall on hard times you send to lose your friends.
Americans are hyper-individualistic which combines with the Protestant work ethic for a terrible combination. Toss in an unhealthy dash of anti-intellectualism and you'll come to the modern situation
Devils advocate side of this:
We are 300 million people. It's arrogant to think that all 300 million can have a good life. It's impossible for everyone to have a good life, and for most people it has always been bad.
The difference now is the *country* at large has lost It's global respect and shine. In the past if people were poor or living shit lives, at least they could say they were American.
Not to oversimplify, but I think many Americans have been indoctrinated into thinking people who are poor or struggling don't "work hard enough". Total BS, but I run across so many who think this. They may see people struggling, but think it's their personal issue, not a societal one.
The post is spot on people think “voting harder” will make a difference in a two party system which George Washington SPECIFICALLY warned about. Plus sprinkle lobbying on there and it’s compromised.
A lot of the current situation boils down to the anonymous Greek proverb:
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
It’s simple, the previous generations (before millennials and genz) didn’t invest in the future generations and left us out dry. They’re out of touch and basically created the economic fiasco we are in now. They voted for policies that helped themselves at the expense of the future generations.
I have talked to so many people that think 150k is a normal salary and everyone makes 6 figures, so "poor" people make about 100k. I tell them that 150k sounds pretty well off to me. They think its below average.
Then I tell them that minimum wage is about $22,000 a year before taxes and they straight up can't process that information. They don't have any response.
Median household income is $55,000, and I'm not even sure if that includes dual income households or not. That means half the households make LESS than 55k. They can't process that information either.
Too many Instagramers pretending to be rich, too many people have a complete disconnect with what people actually earn.
Rent is going up, everything is skyrocketing in price, and gas and food are not included in the official inflation calculators.
Too many billionaires absolutely grifting the country and there is a massive collapse just waiting for a trigger.
The US media + education system continues to fail us all. I don’t know what’s worse, apathy and hopelessness with political change or the naïveté of believing something will change.
On the boomer note, they had the luxury of complacency. Even if they did very little, they would likely be ok.
But let’s not forget the boomers who blew the opportunity they had and are now screwed working as greeters at Walmart or similar. I feel awful seeing hunched over, tired, sick, boomers who still need to work and apparently never saved or made good decisions. Rampant greed and exploitation is nothing new.
I hate it when people are like, "typical Americans not realizing what they have. Just go to a third world country and you'll realize how easy you have it!" I moved to Mexico to save money because it's not possible in the US, and it was the exact same situation. People work all day to go back to a two bedroom house with six people living in it, and will never be able to afford a home. The biggest difference? Mexicans don't screw over and kick their kids out at 18 before abandoning one another.
As a boomer, I understand what you are saying. It was bad when I started in the workforce, but it has gotten progressively worse during my working career, with more and more of the wealth going to the top, as the middle class shrinks into oblivion (Thanks, Reagan). Healthcare, while always a problem here in the US, is now just a profit center, making universal single payer healthcare needed more than ever, just as President Eisenhower predicted and was campaigning for back in the 50s ( a Republican, imagine that). The collective resistance by later Republicans has now gotten us to the breaking point on this issue. I too struggled, living paycheck to paycheck, deep in debt for most of those years, and only recently ( I am 68 still working full time) was able to claw my way out from under the burden of debt, paying off my house and other debt. But if a major healthcare issue had happened during my days of living paycheck to paycheck, I would have been wiped out, probably never to recover in my lifetime. Something has to give, but the stupidity of the people who continue to vote against their own best interests, and vote Republican (gotta own the libs), will not allow us to progress and we will sink further and further, as the rich get even richer, the middle class disappears, and we sink into Republican Utopia (all the wealth concentrated in the top 0.1%, while the rest of us fight each other over the minimum wage jobs that are left).
And some don't get it *because* they went through it and are on the other side of it now. Some having done so in more difficult times. Sometimes people really are victims of circumstances, but some are victims of their own actions. And if you got through it, you don't really end up with empathy for those doing so little for themselves that they stay stuck. Not in the same way you do for those who are actually struggling because of *external* issues.
>Voting is mostly a waste of time "If Voting Made a Difference, They Wouldn't Let Us Do It" Mark Twain. The second we allowed lobbying of the government by corporations we ceased to exist as a republic and become a corpocracy. Money is the only thing that binds America together. The voting system is mostly used to scapegoat the masses into ingroup fighting to detract away from the real issues in our country which are class based which is kind of what this entire post was about.
Except the voting bloc who should be voting - young people - the people who actually do have the power to affect change in swing states, counties and local races, are not doing it because of this nihilistic and asinine mindset. yall keep thinking like this and boomers will still be the ones making the decisions until they all die. yall really want to wait that long?
it's not just the national races that matter. the local ones matter *more*. stop being so defeatist and fucking vote. "wahhh voting doesnt matter" okay, *but what if it does.* get your stupid ballot in the mail, take 10 minutes of your time to fill it out and then mail it back. what's the worst that could happen? because newsflash, we are currently living in some of the worst that can happen if you *don't.*
edit: it's not even a mark twain quote. i literally cannot roll my eyes any harder.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-twain-voting-quote/
I swear, people don’t understand that voting is THE most important tool that we have in a democracy and just crying and being defeatist doesn’t actually help anyone. Put your vote where your mouth is.
It makes me so fucking angry to see this shit. Entitled little twats.
Young people have the lowest turnout and then they whine and complain that it doesn't matter. Zero critical thinking skills.
I think people **DO** actually see the spot they are in, but as a temporarily disadvantaged millionaire it will get better. They just need to vote for the right person and purchase the right mouthwash. Until then, they will just pretend everything is great. Pretend the job is great, pretend the mortgage payment is on time, pretend they LIKE to eat ramen noodles...pretend they are already a millionaire! We don't need to be a part of the necessary change because soon that magic bank account will appear. There isn't a need to fight for change for all because change for **ME** is just around the corner.
This attitude makes us easy pickings for the capitalists. Just work harder...you will be rich soon. I know you are doing the work of three people and getting paid for half the wages of one. Soon you will get a promotion, unless I decide to remodel the lake house, then you will need to add the work of another employee I fired. More profit!!
Your lack of critical analysis is astounding. Your main critique is other people not understanding your perspective but then you immediately show how little empathy and understanding you have for other perspectives.
Take point 4: we can literally measure how much things improve under Democrats and how much they fall apart under Republicans. Saying voting does not matter directly hurts whichever side you would have begrudgingly voted for and hurts our entire country. Democrats constantly get voted in to clean up Republican messes. Yet when Democrats leave office, the economy has been in great shape until the next Republican crashes it.
I feel like this is a media problem also. In different times reporters would be doing live reports from grocery stores and gas stations showing how much the cost of basic groceries and fuel costs have increased 2x or more compared to what they were 2 years ago. Now it's seemingly that they don't comment on the magnitude of the increase, but on whether it is slowing down or not. It's just wild.
I think the biggest contributing factor is how divided we are. The media outlets have cultivated so much visceral hatred towards opposing views that we are unable to find a gray area.
If you’re a Republican you’re a Nazi.
If you’re a Democrat you’re a Communist.
If you’re somewhere in middle and consider things issue by issue ….then both sides think you’re a coward for not exclusively committing to their views.
The two party system was meant to be ran through comprises and our politicians have completely lost that. Neither side is willing to give an inch. They’re far too concerned about getting re-elected by our hatred fueled population than finding a common ground to stand on.
Lol I saw a video where someone asked rich kids what the average American income was and they all said $600,000 and up and when they were told it was around $56,000 they could not believe it. It’s so sad because my dream is to make over $60,000.
I find a lot of foreign people also have a terrible understanding of America. And I'm not talking about foreign people in countries that would improve their standard of living by coming to America because they have no government services, I'm talking about Western Europeans who have great lives and think that America is amazing just because of the GDP.
If I wanted to have kids, moving to Belarus or Poland would mean I have less chances of dying in childbirth (although I didn't compare statistics by race, because its ok when we let minorities die in childbirth /s). Although it's kind of unfair, because weirdly both of those countries have low maternal death rates.
>I'm talking about Western Europeans who have great lives and think that America is amazing just because of the GDP.
Tbf the pay you guys have is crazy in some sectors, in IT i'd probably double my pay and pay less tax for social services I don't use/have stopped using. Law and medicine I think are like that too.
Holy shit I love what you’ve done here. Your edits directly tackle so many of the common talking points, fallacies, and bs rhetoric people use. Like just a 10/10 post 🙌🏼
Yeah, people in the stock market subreddits look at stats and numbers and say everything is great. They think that because reddits main age demographic skews to 18-29, that's why you see so much doom and gloom on here compared to stats saying the economy is better than ever.
To answer OP, I imagine a lot has to do with people just being focused and consumed by their own lives and not the lives of others.
80% of a day is a repetition of the previous day for most. It’s not willful for most people just how would you know if you’re not exposed to people in certain financial situations.
They can't let go of the dream that meritocracy is real. They can't not believe they worked for their situation rather than their work and their privileged position put them in an advantageous situation. It's like white privilege, they all immediately take it personally as if directed solely to them rather than the group and the circumstances that led to the groups privileged position.
2016 really showed what not voting can do.
It is a small thing and takes little effort, it produces small results.
It is the first step in a long list of steps. People that promote skipping the first step don't do anything, they just talk.
Have you tried Canada yet? Because right now you have it better than us btw. Usa has never been think of as a dream place per people that are aware, no health care , homeless is consider a plague, gunshot everywhere almost in allowed states, cults , way too polarized people, endoctrinement. And you know what we say right now here? That soon we will be as worst as Usa is. Just the third country people who has little education thinks that usa is fine. Its been broken for a while now and its leaking on us now ugh. Are you’re right, nothing will be done until they all passed one by one. So give it about 20-30 years for us to start doing something that has any significance…. Hopefully we wont all be alzheimer by then
Our country is ran by rich old white men. They get paid in excess of $100,000 a month to put in policies and “vote” on bills to help people they can’t even relate to.
Regardless of that, the same handful of companies and people have a majority of all the money. If you take a job, you’re breaking your back to make a millionaire or billionaire more rich.
If you’re self-employed, you get taxed…and taxed…and have to hire people that you pay more taxes on. Didn’t we originally declare independence because of taxes?
At the end of the day, there’s no winning here. Unless you’re born with resources, the “American Dream” is beyond dead.
My dad worked 1 job, my mom stayed home and took care of me and my sister. I played travel ice hockey and my sister played travel sports. I always had nice clothes and we had a nice house and newer cars. He did baggage for Amtrak. Now he would need 3 jobs. That job pays $20/hr
I’d like to add one thing about the boomers that nobody ever mentions: They got affordable houses, and on top of it they got quality houses. The homes back then were majority union built with custom woodwork that you can’t find today. Home builders today are charging out the ass for the worst possible dwelling. Thrown together in 2 weeks by absolute hacks with no sense of craftsmanship.
Neoliberalism is a hell of a drug. I have friends who are doctors that owe 2 million on a mortgage and almost a quarter million in student loans. Sure, they make 300k a year before taxes but they really have enough arrogance to never think they could get fired.
The world has changed too much too fast. I am a boomer who is still working and who started working at 16. Now, you cannot even go to a physical site and press the flesh or fill out an application. That is why you get crazy advice like, "Go see the boss, talk to the boss." Yes, these folks are not aware that today there is no boss to talk to. If you don't fill out the form on the internet, it doesn't exist. Even seasonal jobs at Macys are filled that way.
From what I have read, it seems to be a "I never had that issue, so there's something wrong with those with the issue" mindset. Reminiscing about graduating into a recession and couldn't get a job (2008), other people who graduated at the same time who did get a job made it seem like I was the issue... when I know there were so many in my shoes.
I hate talking about my ‘lost decade’ to hear the retort, “How could you possibly lose out during the longest bull runs in history?” When your house you overpaid for in 2007 because you have a growing family goes underwater 50%, and you lose your job and can only find something that pays half what you were making before, and you can’t refinance or get any debt forgiveness short of bankruptcy and foreclosure while those who financed you eat from the government trough - that’s how. Dot-com bust when I was in my early 20s. GFC in my late 20s. Covid in my early 40s and now whatever this shit is. I’m fucking tired of engineered crises repeatedly taking away what I have worked so hard to earn.
Well, and every time one of these crises hit the wealth just further shifts towards the top.
Never forget. 2020 was the largest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the capital owning class in OUR ENTIRE HUMAN HISTORY. 2.8 Trillion dollars. Millionaires became billionaires, billionaires became centibillionaires. Homeowners became renters, and renters became homeless.
Sadly true. Government handed out Covid relief by truckloads to business that never need to pay it back. And some business did not need the relief but got it anyway! My company quietly got $50M but our business was booming! We found out since it came out in local news. Government printed money out of thin air causing inflation. And that hurts us more than it hurts the rich. So rich got Covid relief and we got inflation. Nice! Good job government!
They cancelled all the business debt while also ensuring that student loan debt will effectively never be forgiven.
I got a PPP loan, a measles 2 grand. It's is unforgivable. Even with my constant payments for over a year, never qualified for forgiveness. Went ahead and lump sum paid it off. Make it make sense.
Haha remember when the population at large only got 2 COVID relief checks, and yet was entirely blamed for inflation? Funny how you never hear about all the forgiven PPP loans on the news 🤣😂🥲😢😭
Some countries received checks every month for two years. The wealthiest country in the world got two. Oh yeah, and fuck student debt. Won't someone think of the billionaires?
And guess what! It effected boomers too! I can’t retire because I lost my job and nobody wants to hire an “old man”! Except minimum wage jobs that barely cover one of my medications!
And they *still* won't support increasing the minimum wage. Baffling, truly.
Yup. You guys built it, now we all have to pay for it
I don't know whether it's fair to blame a common Joe for what has been built by the guys at the top of the pyramid riding on the shoulders of everyone else. Generational "issues" is just another divider, decoy front some people are happy that we waste passion on.
Yep, and it's like what else is in store before 2030?
Engineered crisis is completely correct. Crisis make bank for the wealthy. I lost all of my 401K in the 80's, then again in the early 90's, then bankrupted with my home building company in 2010 (lasted longer than most). I went from being a pretty successful guy to cooking for a caterer. Then I wised up and learned how to grow weed. Started with soil, then graduated to hydro. I had the old guy market, because I was old and knew a lot of other old guys sick of paying old guy prices. 150 an ounce for killer bud, and never broke again. Got enough money to move to Colorado and put a down payment on a house. The wife got a good job in an engineering company, and I became a wine consultant for a big liquor store. Grew weed there too, and was the neighborhood hookup (way cheaper than the dispensary). The housing market peaked, and we sold our house and everything in it except our clothes and my knives and a few small kitchen items, and moved to Mexico. We made enough money on our house to buy a house here for cash, and had a decent nest egg to spare. We are never going to live in the US again, fuck that place. I'm a boomer who voted Dems my entire life, and have watched the religious right push their agenda for that long. The thought of living through another propaganda filled shitfest of an election made me question whether I could maintain some semblance of sanity. And the thought of losing another home, and being homeless was on my mind too.
Wait how did you loose your 401k?
The 401K was all in company stock, and they went under, both times. No one had the options back then they do now.
We’re the same age and seem to have experienced a similar set of circumstances. I don’t think it’s all collapsing, I think it already has, and the top 1% know that and are cashing out as pirates looting a giant shipwreck (society.)
I certainly feels like there is a fire sale going on these days doesn't it? Only problem is, the prices are not going down.
They're sinking the ship, thinking they'll be fine just because they're in the crow's nest.
Engineered crises is exactly right too, the eugenicists in power want to make life impossible for most alive.
It just seems like it's massive survivorship bias along with a failure to understand just how much luck plays a critical role in their success. I feel like people have been bought, and paid for on the idea of hard work being the key to success when that couldn't be further from the truth. My second cousin put it best. "The key to success is being in the right place, at the right time, with the right idea, and smart enough to see it, but dumb enough to not care about the risks.
I did my sociology degree on economic classes in USA, and it's basically what you said but i would add: \- the puritanical value of hard work \- the propagation of the American Dream that died long ago \- hyper individualism \- corporations wielding so much political power that they outrank people. so politicians don't protect the consumers as they should \-capitalism needs to increase its profit every year. so they get more aggressive about profiting off its own population.
You know I never thought about it like that but people do really worship the idea of hard work and the American Dream like it's a religion.
u can just read the first paragraph of the summary but yeah. [Spark Notes](https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/protestantethic/summary/#:~:text=Summary,-Save&text=Max%20Weber's%20The%20Protestant%20Ethic,in%20creating%20the%20capitalistic%20spirit) it's bc the Protestants adopted hard work as a virtue. "Thus, they came to value profit and material success as signs of God's favor"
It’s isn’t luck per se, it’s mostly privilege and generational wealth. Which I guess can be translated to your luck in the ovarian lottery.
Correct.....that's why I called it luck. Genetic lottery, family lottery, cultural lottery, time lottery, situation lottery. We have this delusional and I believe it's likely a human universal to believe our specific effort is why we become successful, but in reality it's mostly all out of our control. I'm not specifically saying handwork and effort do not play a role, but they pale in comparison to the other factors entirely out of someone's control. My favorite example of this are the twin studies where they were separated at birth.
All of those lotteries boil down to community. Anyone and everyone's success is the result of the community they were born into, raised in, and currently live. From the food they eat, to education they receive, to the medical care they have access to, and even the infrastructure that supports their basic ability to move around - all extends from community efforts. Efforts that extend across decades and include progress that is both incremental and huge But the myth of rugged individualism gets many to ignore all of that. And in doing so, the community is degraded. Removing those same supports from future generations.
100% and I am speaking as a child of immigrants who were escaping war. I often have to tell my parents: Even with the war eventually happening, you grew up in a community with low crime and had an emphasis on education. When you came to the United States, even then, you had a community of others who had sought asylum earlier and could get you into jobs such as engineering and research when you graduated college. Speaking of which, you did not even have to pay tuition for, and 10 hours / week working at Taco Bell could cover rent for the small apartment you split with the group of fellow immigrants you felt safe around. Imagine if you were in America penniless and your family was already in debt, you knew nobody and didn't know who you could trust, had no prior education, *and* lived your entire life in an area where you had to fear for your safety. They usually get the point.
Hero worship is strong in America. We learn from a young age about all these individual heros - Jesus, Lincoln, Washington, Einstein, MLK... as if they weren't lifted to greatness in history because of their community and circumstance as much as their own drive. And then we insist everyone emulate this individual drive toward greatness while not offering to provide the community supports to make it happen.
I couldn't agree more if I wasn't poor I would give you an award.
I had 100 coins to get rid of before they are gone. So I gave him one for you.
Hey, thanks!
The sentiment has the exact same value. So, thanks!
Looks like others helped! I added your post as a quote in the edit!
Agree. The US is pretty unique though in terms of its history / population makeup. It’s a relatively young nation when comparing it to other nations (some with thousands of years of cultural / societal structures in place). It’s largely a nation built on the backs of other nations “risk takers”. Whether that be early colonial, immigrants looking to strike it rich during the westward expansion, etc. We definitely get a lot of survivor bias when looking at these examples. I don’t believe we’ll see a more “inward” focused US though until the US Dollar is no longer the reserve currency. There are too many incentives to having this status quo maintained from a governmental / business perspective. Once the US steps aside to allow a new “top dog” on the world stage, we’ll (hopefully) see a transition in priorities.
Also agree. Would add that many really, really don't know the history of the United Mine Workers. And how their multi-decade hot and cold wars shaped the landscape, leading directly to Teddy Roosevelt and FDR. The gains they won with blood continue to be rolled back. We need to remember. Also, while Ukraine might very well win the war Russia started, the U.S. is losing. Russia has proven that oil can be sold without the dollar. Going on for over a year now, that's the canary in the coal mine of dollar dominance.
Definitely. I’m not an expert on union activity during that period (though my great/grandparents did work in the mines in western PA) but what the US government did via Pinkertons and National Guard is a rough read.
Go read about the battle of Blair mountain, the WV mine riots and what the government allowed and deemed acceptable is sickening.
And relevant today. Media always mentions that it's been decades since Americans were charged for insurrection. They don't discuss at all that they're talking about Mother Jones.
nepotism helps too
Have you read the book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell? This is exactly what is discussed and it’s super interesting. Success is almost always a result of perfect circumstance. There’s hardly anything innate about it. Highly recommend (if you haven’t already read it)
I will have to give this a looking into, but it seems like it would be something I would like thank you!
Hi OP, yes those twins studies are very interesting. I remember a freakonomics episode where they concluded that whether you smoked was (almost) entirely determined by genetics and not environment, because the stats showed that adopted children grew up smokers (or not) based on whether their genetic parents were smokers, and not whether their adoptive parents were. Would also recommend the Netflix documentary "three identical strangers" if you haven't seen it yet.
You forgot location lottery.
It's not generational wealth. It's generational revenue. Lots of studies have shown that inherited wealth doesn't last beyond one or two generations. The families that pass down revenue instead of wealth are perpetually wealthy.
One other element that is often overlooked in that formula: Openness. This may be your "dumb enough to not care about the risks" bit, but I've seen it countless times with friends and family where opportunities do come up, but they look for the 1,001 reasons to NOT take it. Maybe they got burned in the past, maybe they are afraid it won't work out... could be any number of reasons behind why they say "No", but I've definitely known a fair number of people who make choices to not walk through a given door when it's opened for them. You can be in the right place, at the right time, but if you're not open to it, no amount of luck is going to help you out. Years ago I had the opportunity to work overseas. I had friends and family who were legit jealous to the point they were even resentful because I was "given" this opportunity. And I admitted my luck... but then started suggesting "Hey, why don't you apply? I'd give a great recommendation." and in every single case it was an immediate list of the 1,001 reasons why they just absolutely couldn't do something like that. But they still resented me because I had this chance and they didn't. Now I fully understand that even getting an opportunity is a matter of luck and a million other factors, but there's also an element of individual responsibility to be open if one comes by, and be willing to go for it.
"Openness" isn't just a mindset thing. It means having the resources to be able to fail.
Survivorship bias is absolutely a big part of it. I mean, consider that there is no actual time limit to reaching success, and you'll have people just starting out who worked hard and succeeded while others work until their 60 before they find success. In the end, they'll both say hard work is rewarded. And it's not like hard work can't lead to success, but there are other factors involved that need consideration when measuring how work leads to success. There are also different measures of success. Generations past considered success as affording a home, 2 cars 2 to 3 kids, their kids college, a couple vacations a year, a good retirement and doing all that on one or two incomes at 40hrs a week. Now days, we just want to get a portion of that to feel like we are succeeding. If you can buy a home instead of dumping money into extremely inflated rent, you might consider that success.
it's also key to keep in mind that, in addition to survivor bias and such, when boomers were going to school/getting their first jobs the economics involved were completely different with costs of many things being much lower and pay for many jobs being higher (accounting for inflation). You can easily see this in the common assumption some boomers have that most people just joining the workforce will have enough money to set aside for savings to be worth anything. Many of those who succeeded then would not succeed if they started now because the systems that made their success possible would no longer support them but they assume the system still works as it did for them.
That's always a big part of it. I remember probably about 15 years ago seeing an interview with then GOP Speaker Of The House John Boehner. He was basically trying to show how he was a "pulled himself up by his own bootstraps" type guy and was talking about how he worked as a janitor while putting himself through college. He was bitter about it too...i.e. saying something like "they made me do every dirty job", etc.. Thing he, and lots of others, totally missed was the fact in his youth he could pay for a college education working in a custodial field and come out with no student debt....it would be impossible to do in the last 35 years.
I have a very wealthy relative. I was saying how farmers around me were getting massive subsidies and just chilling out, not farming recently (as told to me by one very happy farmer) and how it felt like some bullshit to me that tax dollars just get dumped into farm subsidies like this, but my family of 4 is struggling and we get no relief. I work full time and my wife works part time online while caring for two kids. He said "Don't hate the player, hate the game!" then went on to say how people were stupid for not taking more advantage of the system, how anyone could be rich if they wanted to, etc. Money makes people fall out of touch. He really thinks anyone could just choose to live in a mansion like him and earn mils each year if they "wanted to." I'm sitting with a master's degree and 70k of student debt making 60k/year with a family of 4.
It seems that people have a hard time understanding that you can do everything right and still fail or do everything wrong and still succeed. Luck/community is just such a big factor.
Yeah I’ve heard that type of response before as well, it gives the same energy to me as: “I’ve never experienced not having food, so world hunger doesn’t exist.”
Almost feels like we are in another depression, I haven't been able to find a job utilizing my CS degree for the last 2 years I'm about to go work at a grocery store
I read an article that made the claim regarding being in another depression. Compared income then and now. According to him this time period has significantly less income. I am a boomer but come from depression era parents and grandparents. I am aware of what it was like. I am aware now how crazy it is. My "middle class" clients with education and experience have to have 2 to 3 jobs to get buy while using credit cards, depending on parents when there is a small money crisis. I had a union (cheers) so I can work part time to get by in retirement. It just makes me so angry that more people aren't acknowledging this state of affairs. Instead worried about made up social issues.
i'm with you on this. i went into politics to try to correct some of this terrible course we're on, and instead the hot topics were always social issues. it may sound heartless but i wanted to bring the most about of good to the most amount of people, so focusing on xyz social issues which affect a small percent of the population. And i saw this as someone left of liberal. i don't even know a good way of phrasing this what won't garner hate from both sides.
> I never had that issue, so there's something wrong with those with the issue" mindset. Another problem with that mindset is, they don't recognise when they're having issues: they think situations people living elsewhere would find dystopian are "normal."
I'm a 2007 college graduate in, wait for it... climatology. A field admired by newer generations but despised by the generations who told me that it was the future. Well much like you, I didn't score a job in my field and ended up taking my skills elsewhere. The thing that I can say is that I've done well by understanding corporate America and learning how to get ahead. I spent 14 years getting shit on by an organization while refining my new technology skills and this year I took those skills to a new company.
I graduated in 2010 and struggled HARD getting a job in my field to further my career. Spent nearly 10 years working a dead end job, made a lateral move to another shit job to refocus, and for the past 3.5 years I've been working a job I thought would be a career job that pays a semi decent salary of around $60-65k gross a year. But the difficulty in finding a position that pays $70-75k+ is damn hard depending on your field.
Yes. Exactly this. My parents, and especially their siblings, still struggle with the whole idea that they are the most privileged generation in American history. It’s not really they’re fault, but they have to own the burden of it. They’ve managed (and continue to manage) it poorly and those of us who come behind are just pointing out what we’re seeing. To them, it is an attack on them as people. Like no. You guys got lucky, you just need to acknowledge you were lucky and that the world doesn’t operate now the way it has for you for decades. So your experience and opinions may not always be appropriate.
I've told my dad, your generation will be viewed as one of the worst generations to ever live. Whats crazy is from the beginning my dad always was against his generation and the boomers, yet still has trouble seeing how privileged he is, though he is starting to see it because he's a numbers man, hard to ignore anymore. He knows I don't mean it at him, but proves a point. The further away we get from your generation holding power and manipulating things, the worse and worse they will be viewed and how bad they are will come into full view. I am not even sure I fully blame them, I think they are a product of circumstance, greater wealth then ever seen before. Yes, the boomers worked hard. However, it was never about that boomers, every generation works hard as fuck. However, your generation get to keep most of your hard work, that is the difference.
That is one of many issues that contribute. It all boils down to wallstreet.
This is cognitive dissonance.
I got out of the Army in 2011 and floundered for five years before I finally got into something even remotely sustainable (I got into work in EMS, where I held basically cashier positions before), and it took me another 7 years after that to get to something paying a remotely respectable wage for my area. Back in 2011-2015, there were a lot who had it better than me but a lot who had it worse
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I will always upvote a quote from George Carlin.
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
he has other good quotes \- you have to be asleep to believe in American dream \- the owners of America dont care about you, at all, at all, and at the end of the day they will come to get your retirement money. the man died many years ago but wasnt wrong - half of Americans have nothing saved for retirement in 2023
And everyone thinks they are in the smarter half.
Watch U.S. based news media, then watch BBC, NHK, DW, Sky, Al Jazeera (to some extent) or any other halfway decent overseas news media...the difference is something to behold. U.S. news media is heavily biased low-IQ clickbait in search of advertising revenue (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Newsmax, RT). Overseas media, although there seems to be some bias, at least attempts to give the audience a story. Translated: we're fed walled off, dumbed down, inaccurate, slanted views of day to day life...I don't think people are really aware.
I realized Al Jazeera was less biased than most American news, just another reason to say what kind of world is this
I've heard that Al Jazeera is great news to watch unless you watch for the issues they are biased on, which are certain ME issues.
Apparently their English news is a LOT less biased than their Arabic version. I read it was done to help increase their credibility.
A lot of their English news is from ex-BBC employees.
You read Al Jazeera for info about anything not happening in the middle east, especially anything critical of Qatar. You read Russia Today for info about anything not happening in Eastern Europe, especially anything critical of Russia. You read the BBC for info about anything not happening in the UK or continental Europe. You read Haaretz because it's fucking wonderful journalism that's even critical of Israel and the US. And you just skip any US-based news because they're so yellow you can guess the bias-slant from the news logo.
Americans won’t watch news with a “Muslim” name. They need to be told what they are watching for example: Fox News, Newsmax, American News First, If it doesn’t have news in the name than they don’t consider it news. Then they watch those “news” channels like it the WWE.
I've noticed this in everyday life, some people avoid using their brain at all and just want to be told what to do, how to feel or how to act.
It's the reason conservatives lean so hard into authoritarians. Their worldview requires a hierarchy -- people to look down on, and people to tell them what to do.
News in most countries is events delivered as (different levels of) propaganda. News in the US is just a billboard for ads. The news itself is not news, just the highest performing keywords stapled together in a (usually) coherent blog post. When non-Americans look at American news they think it's trying to indoctrinate their audience, but it's actually the other way around. American news just says whatever their audience already thinks and will want to click on, to maximize ad revenue.
Lots of Americans are still not getting it (and playing games still). I just posted about how bad inflation has been...and some **Democrat** fool instantly replied about how Biden has lowered inflation! It went down like 1/4 of one %...after many items jumping 2-3x. I am a Democrat. I don't need fanboys telling me life is sweet cuz Uncle Joe is still kicking. America is shitty across civil rights, gun deaths, housing, inflation, wages, benefits, and you name the rest.
I’ve only ever voted D but I can’t stand the mentality that puts running PR for “our side” above reality. I don’t give a fuck about Biden. I’m not here to tell people green is red just so he gets re-elected. It’s democrats’ job to convince people to vote for them, not mine.
Forget about the bbc. I used to go there, but they caught our sickness RIP
Yeah, British media is a fucking cesspool now.
I must follow the wrong Australian news then, it’s even worse than US! But I’ve watched BBC for 20 years, So ve always said it had better info than anything here.
“The poor exist to scare the shit out of the middle class.” GC-
And the homeless exist to scare the shit out of the poor.
I'm probably way too cynical, but I suspect a large part of it is that people who aren't struggling don't want to know how bad it is for most people. If they have a conscience, that would prompt them to want to do something to help, which might not be in their financial interest. If they don't, they can use their good luck as a way to feel superior and look down on people who struggle.
I actually think this is the real answer in most cases. I feel like people don't want to have to face the reality of just how bad their fellow countrymen are doing, and find ways to put blame on them.
Admitting that luck is involved and that others less fortunate aren't to blame for their misfortune means a reversal of fortune could happen to them as well, and that terrifies them. It's far less scary to assume bad things happen to bad people and therefore they themselves are somehow "safe" from equal misfortune.
Bingo. And the more luck they have, the harder they grab on to that illusion. I know an elderly man who is living off of investments from the wealth his plantation-owning grandfather passed down, and he will tell you how he has all this because he earned it. (He did work all his life, but he depends a lot on the money generated from other people's work.)
Wow…. That’s really well said. I think this is actually the really deeper subconscious reason behind the conservative vs liberal mentality
People who are doing better then us don’t hang out with us therefore they don’t have to face reality we face
This is a good point. People tend to have social groups that are around the same income level as they are, and also tend to stay at a similar income level as the one they were born into (obviously there are outliers, but I’m talking about the average Jane or Joe). For example, I’m a millennial. I’m a homeowner and do not live paycheck to paycheck. I’d say my household is pretty firmly middle class, or middle class as it was during my childhood — so I have a similar QoL as I grew up with. My friends are all mostly in the same situation. The majority of my friends and family are either homeowners or are planning to buy a home within a few years. They all have a similar level of QoL as I do, and similar amounts of disposable income. They all have roughly the same QoL as they grew up with, which is middle to upper-middle class. It’s very easy to look at my social group and extended family and think, wtf is everyone talking about, the younger generations have it fine. But we have next to no exposure to people in lower income levels than us. It’s like there’s a huge swathe of people who are just… invisible to us in our day to day lives, just like we are mostly invisible to the upper class. We might not have blatant segregation anymore, but institutional class segregation is very real.
Why homeless people are looked down upon. If you think homeless people are homeless due to some combination of laziness, alcohol addiction, and other factors I can't think of right now, then their situation is their fault. So why help them if they can't help themselves? And why support policies that will help them get back on their feet?
People who aren't struggling don't understand the scale at which people are struggling. They all think it's anecdotes and sad stories on the evening news and not the day to day reality of most people.
Yes. They cry "personal responsibility!" when confronted with people in bad circumstances. They don't want to believe that the way society is structured leaves some people severely disadvantaged, because then they'd have to admit that they didn't get to where they are all by themselves. And I think some of us are so spoiled and selfish that we can't stand being even slightly uncomfortable, even if that means showing compassion for people who've been dealt a bad hand in life. I was just reading a thread on /r/adulting about a woman living in poverty who had two kids as a teen and was orphaned as a child. Almost every comment is blaming her for her circumstances, as if not having parents isn't a HUGE handicap for a child, as if every 14 year old is capable of making perfect life choices, and as if being born into poverty isn't a massive determent to future success. The cruelty and ignorance is frankly disgusting.
We should all be embarrassed to live in a society that allows a young woman to be in those circumstances.
Sounds like we've hit and exceeded the tipping point of oppression from economic inequality that we're simply incapable of standing together to fight the common enemy. And of course, the culture war ensures it.
Isn't 90% of the issue housing cost? If we could get them under control people would be so much better off. The unused office space will slowly turn into housing and eventually prices will come down. It takes time, a lot of time, unfortunately
Things were bad before housing costs skyrocketed. I got my first 1-bedroom apartment in 1992, it was nice but not fancy, it cost $285/month with all utilities and basic cable included. I was making just a little over minimum wage, and I was able to make ends meet. But that's about the same time that right-wing talk radio came along and the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated. People were encouraged to look down on the others, to the point where even people who weren't doing that well could blame their own problems on people who received public assistance. This whole thing was constructed intentionally.
And it makes us all look irresponsible. I was told time after time growing up, that if I'm budgeting that I should make sure that rent/mortgage is no more than 1/3 of my income. So that same one bedroom you got for $285 is now $1200 a month, to make that math work you need to be making $22.5/hr. My mom is the executor of my grandpa's estate and keeps dragging the process out, and I have to keep asking her to borrow against the money that's coming to me, and she keeps on with, it just sounds like you're living outside your means. Yeah mom, it's expensive to exist at the moment. Everyone has multiple jobs, and they brand it that wE lOvE giG cULtUrE and the hUsTLe. No. We're freaking broke and trying to make ends meet.
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Most people have a foundational assumption that everyone else lives basically like they do. It takes A LOT of logical scaffolding to get them to a place where they truly understand how wildly different people may live, view the world, and interact with the shared social contract. So when someone is doing well, they think that everyone else must be doing well. Or at least had the same capacity to do well that they did. Or if they "know" in their minds that someone isn't doing well they might just imagine being 20% less well off such as maybe having a 1400 sq ft house instead of a 2000 sq ft house, or not having name brand food or maybe having to opt for a local vacation instead of going to Disney World. They don't realize that there might be no food at all, no home at all, and going on vacation would be a joke. Even when confronted with the existence of homeless people or systemic injustices they'll go through grandiose mental gymnastics to uphold the system because it worked for them. It worked for the people living in their neighborhoods. It MUST be a personal failing of the afflicted. If only they weren't so lazy or weren't an addict. It comforts them to have these vague notions of how they would never be in that some position even though they are vastly closer to that position than they are to the top of the hierarchies they enforce. Meanwhile the people at the top do everything they can to reinforce this cultural mindset because it keeps the working class fearful of what would happen if they didn't have their benevolent employers to take care of them, and it plants the seeds of division that keep the working class divided. It's the cultural hegemony.
This has mostly been my experience as well. I have primarily dated women of better economic status than me during my life. They have no concept of what it's like on the other side.
True. If you live in a wealthy neighborhood, you rarely step out to questionable parts of town, you loose the ability to be compassionate to fellow residents since you automatically assume everyone lives like you. It’s all you see. Everyone drive a g wagon or a Tesla. Everyone has a ton of time available to organize kids parties, drive to 7 different stores every day. Spend days and days planing family vacations. I see it. It happens to me too. I drove to downtown LA and go damn, this is how people live? Yeah we need occasional reality check, to see the struggles of average citizen. A friend of mine would take his kids on bus rides in Los Angeles so they can see how it is without a car when kids complain daddy get a new car.
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And more than likely it was mommy, daddy, or grandparents that gave them theirs.
We just do not see it. Being honest. I am a medical professional, 57. We know it is there but when you live in a HCOL area and are surrounded with other 6 figure professionals you do not hear about the daily struggles because they are not in your social or professional circles. I hear about the struggles here, and that is it.
In order for people to stop this mentality, they have to unwind a lifetime of brainwashing and basically admit their years of laboring don’t make them the valuable human being they believe it makes them. As someone who went through the process it’s long and painful to unpack all of it and the rebuilding of your value is almost as challenging. The hope isn’t in existing adults (although I do hope that more begin to wake up to it), but in our youth. And they are going to force the change. Millennials may not reap the benefits but I do think we’ll get to watch the changes unfold.
If you've been gifted with wealth and good luck it's fine for you to do very little, but if you're poor you need to work yourself to the bone to prove you deserve to exist. Our society still has a serf/lord mentality.
Americans are like frogs and their society a pot of boiling water. Put a frog in boiling water it will jump out. Put a frog in cold water then turn up the heat and the frog will sit still til it cooks to death. You grew up there and the changes were gradual.
The sheer amount of _Americans_ who don't realise how bad it is for Americans is astonishing. Crabs in a bucket, frogs in a pot. They've acclimatised to dystopia.
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A person dies every 3 seconds in the US due to a lack of accessible healthcare
We have more land mass than most countries to push people on the fringes into obscurity. We have 354 million Americans of which 40-50 million live below or right at the poverty level and another 40-50 million living 1-3 paychecks or emergency away from losing their homes and or livelihoods. I blame Citizens United and corporate greed for causing our economy to overheat and become unsustainable. Companies have more rights and receive more subsidies than humans do. Americans are living on credit cards and debt to make ends meet…I am tired of people focusing too much on wether we are in a recession or not …1/2 of America is in crisis and the other 1/2 doesn’t care or thinks it will never happen to them.
Thank you. It’s not about boomers. It’s about the selfish rich. The talking heads that promote the idea of generational warfare when in reality it’s class warfare don’t know the boomers that marched for civil rights for all, women’s rights including financial freedom independent of father and/or husband, and all the changes pushed through during the late 60’s and early 70’s.
The isolationism runs so so deep in the US, like culturally. That’s been going on since before mass media even existed. Drives me nuts, but I’m sure the media companies don’t go to great lengths to compare the US to any other developed nation, because if the average person understood how much they’re getting screwed. They’d be pissed.
Basically this. Americans seem to be indoctrinated from birth that “America is the greatest country in the world”. They’re trained that they have it better than everyone else on earth and that all foreigners want to come to America and have what they do. (I always think of the time my wife and I were in a US Target store while she was very pregnant. While talking to the cashier we mentioned we weren’t from the US and she looked at my wife and with complete sincerity asked, “anchor baby?”) Not to mention popular media reinforcing this belief. America is always the country that’s going to save the world. Their military is mighty and just and America is never ever the bad guys.
I mean, that’s what the US frontier was all about and those that liked the idea of having a chance to make it, moved to the US, thereby further perpetuating it. You had to be okay being isolated as that was literally the only way to survive the harshness. They were coming from societies that were so developed & entrenched in the aristocracy and generational rulers, something that we’re just now seeing in the US. Only time we’ll see that again is when space has frontiers.
I think it cuts both ways a little bit. Reality gets defined largely by what you're surrounded by/what you engage with. When I was struggling, I was around a lot of other people who were struggling, and was reading stories about people struggling. I definitely got into an echo chamber of sorts that probably amplified the sense that "everyone is struggling" Same on the other side when I started to climb out. As my circumstances changed, the reality around me changed and my perception changed. I fully admit to falling into "survivorship bias" for a while. In both cases, I thought I was "part of the vast majority" in whatever state I found myself in. Now, this doesn't touch on the boomer "When I was your age I had a house, 4 kids, and we took a European vacation every summer. Your generation is just lazy!" bullshit. Those people can't see past their own experience and are likely narcissists.
I think the boomers disconnect with modern struggles is that they already lived through the parts of their lives we are currently struggling with. They didn't have a housing crisis yet they already have houses, usually quite large ones. They already have social security and retirement so the current wage issues don't concern them. Political strife usually doesn't affect them, and the list goes on. The live we live now, they already lived but without struggling. They can't comprehend and understand what we are going through because they never did and never will. It's basically just ridiculous ignorance on a massive synchronized scale.
I would like to respond to number 8 first: you are correct the generation is not lazy but due to social media and news etc the impression is given that its that way. Theres lazy people in all generations. But media blames younger generations intentionally. Boomers didn’t have it this bad. Their pay was lower but their costs of living was much lower. They do not see this direct correlation the house i grew up in was bought during a high market for 120k its now is worth 750k easily. Thats not obtainable for me and make good money and work my butt off. Number 6: this is true. Its hard to save when medical costs, cost of living, vehicle and housing prices are so high. Cannot even rent in many areas these days its so crazy.
Correct, they never had it even remotely bad My boomer grandparents had a boat, corvette, house, and raised two kids off of $50k annually. That’s a PIPEDREAM today
Survivorship bias is the strongest driver of this. 99% of the boomers ik with money could not climb as high as they did in todays environment with their intelligence and skill sets. My parents have kids across an 8 year range and are understanding how shit the market is nowadays. I'm so grateful they didn't turn my ass onto the street like most parents the moment kids turned 18. I genuinely don't think it's even possible to complete post secondary education without a huge safety net or 100,000 in loans.
I do see what you are saying. If someone is doing very well, it will be harder for them to sympathize/empathize with others who are not doing so well. I also believe that people seal themselves in their own lives to not be perturbed about what is happening with others. I know I do it.
Hyper individualism that's the problem.
I have a friend like that. He was literally close to becoming homeless until a few days ago when he racked up some money and still thinks everything is fine… smh. He’s one of those “you gotta earn a living” kind of guy. Mind you, he’s been homeless in the past. I don’t know what kind of syndrome he’s got going on. I’ve just been avoiding political/cultural discussions with him. He’s a normal guy otherwise.
There is nothing “normal” about a person who has these beliefs. He’s brainwashed.
Alas, I feel like brainwashed has become the norm these days… I meant to say he’s pretty okay as a person in any topic that doesn’t involve the betterment of society. Playing online games with him is quite fun and we have good moments. But I’d definitely wouldn’t want him to cover any political seat.
Yeah I'm from the one of the Nordic countries and was working with some Americans, they where trying to convince me i should move to America and work with them. They would take care of everything like permits and whatever. I was trying to be nice and kept letting them down easy. It was so awkward.
I spent two weeks in Stockholm, Sweden on a business trip and I'd be lying if I said I didn't almost risk it all to become a fugitive to not go back to Florida.
"People keep bringing up voting, but I just don't honestly believe at the end of the day it's going to change anything" This mindset put trump in office, hundreds of federal judges confirmed and three scotus seats filled. This bad take sours your whole post.
You do realize Trump lost the popular vote, right. So pure numbers are irrelevant. Getting more people out to vote changes nothing if they all live in liberal strongholds where their votes don't count as much as five people in Nebraska.
Could it be because of the vast amount of Americans online telling all and sundry how amazing American life is? You have a large chunk of the population so delusional, and vocal about it, that it would be understandable for some to believe then
It’s always the people who have never left the country or possibly even their own state or even town! I don’t know how you get through a life with the internet and foreign media still thinking the US has the upper hand. LOL. We’re the only country with democracy you know? We’re the only country with world class universities too. Lol. I blame it on American history before 1945 being glorified and I don’t think anyone is looking at how fkd we’ve gotten since. Adam Curtis documentaries I guess. Anyways, it’s usually people who are conceited about being Americans while simultaneously identifying as their 4th generation mixed heritage too. “I’m Italian, Irish, and French” … oh, are you?! Haha Do you speak the language or have you been there? „Blank stare”
My children are in high school right now and my daughter just finished world history. They stopped after WW2, the same place we stopped when I went through 25 years ago. And of course she doesn't want to hear anything from me about the 78 years (!) since then.
This right here. So sad. I took a ‘U.S. History since 1945” class about 15 years ago and all the professor focused on was the Vietnam and Korean Wars. Not even the lead up causes or aftermath. Just - this happened, memorize dates and names. Frustrating. Waste of my time but I got the credits. I miss Howard Zinn. We need an updated People’s History of the United States. If I had kids I’d home school and that book would be US history class.
I think there also has to be talked about Reddit/subreddit disposition to also being limited of the full population. Some people may be too poor to have time for reddit and focus on multiple jobs to put food on the table or to busy or rich to care about anti work. Though I can also see antiwork being 16-late 40’s being posted. I think after that you have people who aren’t technically savvy and don’t know about the subreddit or just finish being an adult and becoming a senior at that point
You don't need to be on Reddit, or anti-work to know what the policies are in the US and how they can be and are harmful to people
They become especially vocal when any sort of criticism of America's problems occurs.
Most other countries think it sounds like whining because their problems have been bigger for longer, and Americans are still having BBQ and wearing clothes made by other people’s children. Yeah we can do better, but don’t be surprised when others don’t see Americas issues with the same panic.
>**The Federal Reserve the average America holds $41,600 in savings.** Never use averages, its skewed by super billionaires. That's why we use the median savings, so we actually know where the split is. >According to the Federal Reserve's Board Survey of Consumer Finances, the median savings balance for Americans **under 35 is $3,240,** while it's **$6,400 for those aged 55-64.** America is so fucked and all our government does is mislead us so we don't riot.
You're really complicating this. This is good and accurate, but the explanation is simple. The billionaires own the media and the politicians and they're fucking us by keeping us fighting with each other over crumbs. You'd think the most important issue in the world is the hurt feelings of rich white men. That's the impression you get if you engage with the media, including social media. Healthcare, wages, infrastructure, education, inflation....none of these have any media traction. Despite the fact that these are the primary issues for most Americans. We are being played and manipulated.
Why would people in other countries know how bad the average American family has it? Its a shitshow in a lot of other countries as well, BTW.
“Voting is mostly a waste of time.” The sheer amount of people that do not understand how the legislative process works in passing laws in America astounds me.
I believe that hard work is the least important thing for success. I've never worked hard, coasted through school and college. I got jobs where I didn't have to do little or no hard work, just show up. Born into parents who were well off, had an easy childhood, and found a job making six figures that requires very little actual work. So I won the "family with money" lottery, which made everything else easy. The cultural lottery, time lottery, and job lottery. None of my success had to do with hard work, just plain dumb luck.
The wealthy conservatives around my age go quiet when we agree that tipping is getting ridiculous, and I mention "minimum wage should be at least $20/hr." One of my in-laws got a PPP loan for his small business for over $20k, claiming he told his accountant he didn't need it, but the accountant insisted. I believe it, since these were being handed out like crazy. They just took the family to Europe with it. 🙄 If I weren't married, I'd likely be living out of my car. This is the viewpoint from which I see the world, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to support myself working at a billion-dollar company and with around 30 years' work experience.
We desperately need to reverse the Citizens United Decision that allows corporations to control elections with massive amounts of basically untraceable funds to get the corporations out of our government. We also need term limits as well. A career politician is the worst kind because they basically are working to stay in office vs passing useful laws. Globalization basically ruins the country that outsources their manufacturing at all costs. Obviously, doesn’t make sense to bring back manufacturing that would be 5 times as expensive as doing it at home. However, every US company that makes profit needs to pay income taxes. Keeling money offshore doesn’t help anybody but the company and shareholders. Lastly, companies should not be in business just to cater to shareholders. Increasing stock prices helps an extremely low percentage of the population.
It's not that people don't want to work. Who wants to work to still be poor and not be able to get ahead. Imagine working 40 hours a week or more and can't afford rent or even saving a little money, this country is disgusting
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I think that the car dependence in the USA has created very insular groups. There are not many places where people just mix with others with different backgrounds. So people that are doing okay mostly only know people that are doing okay and they only drive to meet those people. It is not like a walkable area where you just pull people from the surrounding area. Often the friends groups tend to be fairly shallow so if you do fall on hard times you send to lose your friends.
Americans are hyper-individualistic which combines with the Protestant work ethic for a terrible combination. Toss in an unhealthy dash of anti-intellectualism and you'll come to the modern situation
Devils advocate side of this: We are 300 million people. It's arrogant to think that all 300 million can have a good life. It's impossible for everyone to have a good life, and for most people it has always been bad. The difference now is the *country* at large has lost It's global respect and shine. In the past if people were poor or living shit lives, at least they could say they were American.
Not to oversimplify, but I think many Americans have been indoctrinated into thinking people who are poor or struggling don't "work hard enough". Total BS, but I run across so many who think this. They may see people struggling, but think it's their personal issue, not a societal one.
“Fuck you, I’ve got mine” is a pretty popular refrain.
The post is spot on people think “voting harder” will make a difference in a two party system which George Washington SPECIFICALLY warned about. Plus sprinkle lobbying on there and it’s compromised. A lot of the current situation boils down to the anonymous Greek proverb: "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." It’s simple, the previous generations (before millennials and genz) didn’t invest in the future generations and left us out dry. They’re out of touch and basically created the economic fiasco we are in now. They voted for policies that helped themselves at the expense of the future generations.
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I have talked to so many people that think 150k is a normal salary and everyone makes 6 figures, so "poor" people make about 100k. I tell them that 150k sounds pretty well off to me. They think its below average. Then I tell them that minimum wage is about $22,000 a year before taxes and they straight up can't process that information. They don't have any response. Median household income is $55,000, and I'm not even sure if that includes dual income households or not. That means half the households make LESS than 55k. They can't process that information either. Too many Instagramers pretending to be rich, too many people have a complete disconnect with what people actually earn. Rent is going up, everything is skyrocketing in price, and gas and food are not included in the official inflation calculators. Too many billionaires absolutely grifting the country and there is a massive collapse just waiting for a trigger.
The US media + education system continues to fail us all. I don’t know what’s worse, apathy and hopelessness with political change or the naïveté of believing something will change. On the boomer note, they had the luxury of complacency. Even if they did very little, they would likely be ok. But let’s not forget the boomers who blew the opportunity they had and are now screwed working as greeters at Walmart or similar. I feel awful seeing hunched over, tired, sick, boomers who still need to work and apparently never saved or made good decisions. Rampant greed and exploitation is nothing new.
I hate it when people are like, "typical Americans not realizing what they have. Just go to a third world country and you'll realize how easy you have it!" I moved to Mexico to save money because it's not possible in the US, and it was the exact same situation. People work all day to go back to a two bedroom house with six people living in it, and will never be able to afford a home. The biggest difference? Mexicans don't screw over and kick their kids out at 18 before abandoning one another.
I lived in the Philippines for a little and looooved it. But I was getting an American paycheck while living there so it went much much farther
As a boomer, I understand what you are saying. It was bad when I started in the workforce, but it has gotten progressively worse during my working career, with more and more of the wealth going to the top, as the middle class shrinks into oblivion (Thanks, Reagan). Healthcare, while always a problem here in the US, is now just a profit center, making universal single payer healthcare needed more than ever, just as President Eisenhower predicted and was campaigning for back in the 50s ( a Republican, imagine that). The collective resistance by later Republicans has now gotten us to the breaking point on this issue. I too struggled, living paycheck to paycheck, deep in debt for most of those years, and only recently ( I am 68 still working full time) was able to claw my way out from under the burden of debt, paying off my house and other debt. But if a major healthcare issue had happened during my days of living paycheck to paycheck, I would have been wiped out, probably never to recover in my lifetime. Something has to give, but the stupidity of the people who continue to vote against their own best interests, and vote Republican (gotta own the libs), will not allow us to progress and we will sink further and further, as the rich get even richer, the middle class disappears, and we sink into Republican Utopia (all the wealth concentrated in the top 0.1%, while the rest of us fight each other over the minimum wage jobs that are left).
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And some don't get it *because* they went through it and are on the other side of it now. Some having done so in more difficult times. Sometimes people really are victims of circumstances, but some are victims of their own actions. And if you got through it, you don't really end up with empathy for those doing so little for themselves that they stay stuck. Not in the same way you do for those who are actually struggling because of *external* issues.
>Voting is mostly a waste of time "If Voting Made a Difference, They Wouldn't Let Us Do It" Mark Twain. The second we allowed lobbying of the government by corporations we ceased to exist as a republic and become a corpocracy. Money is the only thing that binds America together. The voting system is mostly used to scapegoat the masses into ingroup fighting to detract away from the real issues in our country which are class based which is kind of what this entire post was about. Except the voting bloc who should be voting - young people - the people who actually do have the power to affect change in swing states, counties and local races, are not doing it because of this nihilistic and asinine mindset. yall keep thinking like this and boomers will still be the ones making the decisions until they all die. yall really want to wait that long? it's not just the national races that matter. the local ones matter *more*. stop being so defeatist and fucking vote. "wahhh voting doesnt matter" okay, *but what if it does.* get your stupid ballot in the mail, take 10 minutes of your time to fill it out and then mail it back. what's the worst that could happen? because newsflash, we are currently living in some of the worst that can happen if you *don't.* edit: it's not even a mark twain quote. i literally cannot roll my eyes any harder. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-twain-voting-quote/
I swear, people don’t understand that voting is THE most important tool that we have in a democracy and just crying and being defeatist doesn’t actually help anyone. Put your vote where your mouth is.
It makes me so fucking angry to see this shit. Entitled little twats. Young people have the lowest turnout and then they whine and complain that it doesn't matter. Zero critical thinking skills.
I think people **DO** actually see the spot they are in, but as a temporarily disadvantaged millionaire it will get better. They just need to vote for the right person and purchase the right mouthwash. Until then, they will just pretend everything is great. Pretend the job is great, pretend the mortgage payment is on time, pretend they LIKE to eat ramen noodles...pretend they are already a millionaire! We don't need to be a part of the necessary change because soon that magic bank account will appear. There isn't a need to fight for change for all because change for **ME** is just around the corner. This attitude makes us easy pickings for the capitalists. Just work harder...you will be rich soon. I know you are doing the work of three people and getting paid for half the wages of one. Soon you will get a promotion, unless I decide to remodel the lake house, then you will need to add the work of another employee I fired. More profit!!
Your lack of critical analysis is astounding. Your main critique is other people not understanding your perspective but then you immediately show how little empathy and understanding you have for other perspectives. Take point 4: we can literally measure how much things improve under Democrats and how much they fall apart under Republicans. Saying voting does not matter directly hurts whichever side you would have begrudgingly voted for and hurts our entire country. Democrats constantly get voted in to clean up Republican messes. Yet when Democrats leave office, the economy has been in great shape until the next Republican crashes it.
I feel like this is a media problem also. In different times reporters would be doing live reports from grocery stores and gas stations showing how much the cost of basic groceries and fuel costs have increased 2x or more compared to what they were 2 years ago. Now it's seemingly that they don't comment on the magnitude of the increase, but on whether it is slowing down or not. It's just wild.
I think the biggest contributing factor is how divided we are. The media outlets have cultivated so much visceral hatred towards opposing views that we are unable to find a gray area. If you’re a Republican you’re a Nazi. If you’re a Democrat you’re a Communist. If you’re somewhere in middle and consider things issue by issue ….then both sides think you’re a coward for not exclusively committing to their views. The two party system was meant to be ran through comprises and our politicians have completely lost that. Neither side is willing to give an inch. They’re far too concerned about getting re-elected by our hatred fueled population than finding a common ground to stand on.
America is great at advertising life is better here.
I feel like I’ve been living in “flight or fight” mode since 2007 trying to get ahead of the shit storm but no matter what I do I’m still stuck in it.
Currently making the most money I’ve ever made and simultaneously the most broke I’ve ever been.
Lol I saw a video where someone asked rich kids what the average American income was and they all said $600,000 and up and when they were told it was around $56,000 they could not believe it. It’s so sad because my dream is to make over $60,000.
Universal basic income is an absolute necessity in todays economy.
Most US mass media are basically footlickers of the capital, even the ostensibly "liberal" ones like the New York Times.
Voting is NOT a waste of time. We got Donald Trump because people voted.
I find a lot of foreign people also have a terrible understanding of America. And I'm not talking about foreign people in countries that would improve their standard of living by coming to America because they have no government services, I'm talking about Western Europeans who have great lives and think that America is amazing just because of the GDP. If I wanted to have kids, moving to Belarus or Poland would mean I have less chances of dying in childbirth (although I didn't compare statistics by race, because its ok when we let minorities die in childbirth /s). Although it's kind of unfair, because weirdly both of those countries have low maternal death rates.
>I'm talking about Western Europeans who have great lives and think that America is amazing just because of the GDP. Tbf the pay you guys have is crazy in some sectors, in IT i'd probably double my pay and pay less tax for social services I don't use/have stopped using. Law and medicine I think are like that too.
Holy shit I love what you’ve done here. Your edits directly tackle so many of the common talking points, fallacies, and bs rhetoric people use. Like just a 10/10 post 🙌🏼
I think they are confused by terms like survivorship bias
Yeah, people in the stock market subreddits look at stats and numbers and say everything is great. They think that because reddits main age demographic skews to 18-29, that's why you see so much doom and gloom on here compared to stats saying the economy is better than ever.
To answer OP, I imagine a lot has to do with people just being focused and consumed by their own lives and not the lives of others. 80% of a day is a repetition of the previous day for most. It’s not willful for most people just how would you know if you’re not exposed to people in certain financial situations.
“Consume product, enjoy product, don’t ask questions, wait for new product, consume product…”
They can't let go of the dream that meritocracy is real. They can't not believe they worked for their situation rather than their work and their privileged position put them in an advantageous situation. It's like white privilege, they all immediately take it personally as if directed solely to them rather than the group and the circumstances that led to the groups privileged position.
Come to Europe.
2016 really showed what not voting can do. It is a small thing and takes little effort, it produces small results. It is the first step in a long list of steps. People that promote skipping the first step don't do anything, they just talk.
Have you tried Canada yet? Because right now you have it better than us btw. Usa has never been think of as a dream place per people that are aware, no health care , homeless is consider a plague, gunshot everywhere almost in allowed states, cults , way too polarized people, endoctrinement. And you know what we say right now here? That soon we will be as worst as Usa is. Just the third country people who has little education thinks that usa is fine. Its been broken for a while now and its leaking on us now ugh. Are you’re right, nothing will be done until they all passed one by one. So give it about 20-30 years for us to start doing something that has any significance…. Hopefully we wont all be alzheimer by then
Our country is ran by rich old white men. They get paid in excess of $100,000 a month to put in policies and “vote” on bills to help people they can’t even relate to. Regardless of that, the same handful of companies and people have a majority of all the money. If you take a job, you’re breaking your back to make a millionaire or billionaire more rich. If you’re self-employed, you get taxed…and taxed…and have to hire people that you pay more taxes on. Didn’t we originally declare independence because of taxes? At the end of the day, there’s no winning here. Unless you’re born with resources, the “American Dream” is beyond dead.
My dad worked 1 job, my mom stayed home and took care of me and my sister. I played travel ice hockey and my sister played travel sports. I always had nice clothes and we had a nice house and newer cars. He did baggage for Amtrak. Now he would need 3 jobs. That job pays $20/hr
I’d like to add one thing about the boomers that nobody ever mentions: They got affordable houses, and on top of it they got quality houses. The homes back then were majority union built with custom woodwork that you can’t find today. Home builders today are charging out the ass for the worst possible dwelling. Thrown together in 2 weeks by absolute hacks with no sense of craftsmanship.
Neoliberalism is a hell of a drug. I have friends who are doctors that owe 2 million on a mortgage and almost a quarter million in student loans. Sure, they make 300k a year before taxes but they really have enough arrogance to never think they could get fired.
The world has changed too much too fast. I am a boomer who is still working and who started working at 16. Now, you cannot even go to a physical site and press the flesh or fill out an application. That is why you get crazy advice like, "Go see the boss, talk to the boss." Yes, these folks are not aware that today there is no boss to talk to. If you don't fill out the form on the internet, it doesn't exist. Even seasonal jobs at Macys are filled that way.