1981 Monte Carlo said:
Ellis Wyatt said:
1981 Monte Carlo said:
Enviroag02 said:
Feels like this is the first generation in a while that when they start out on their own they aren't well set up to be more successful or have a better life than their parents. That pressure mounts.
Yep, my dad bought his first home for like $70k in the early 80's, and his salary was at least 3/4 that. That same house is probably worth $400K today, and not in the most desireable part of Houston, or zoned to good schools.
I don't care what anyone says...Gen Z faces "American Dream" barriers to entry that no one else in modern times had to face. They have it easy in some ways, but they get the shaft in others.
And I disagree. My parents made draconian sacrifices to build their life together. They started in a place in central Texas with no A/C and would often eat only a single peanut butter sandwich a day to scrape by. They lived in a "starter home" until they were in their 50s and built their dream home, despite making pretty good incomes after their first 10 or 15 years of marriage. People today are not willing to go without anything.
Can't both be true? The home price to salary ratio was much more favorable back then. It's a fact. Can you imagine if your dad's salary has been 1/5 of his home price? I do agree that hyper consumerism and competitive "keeping up with the joneses" mentality is running rampant in ways it wasn't 30-40-50+ years ago.
Interest rates were also much higher and mortgages could be harder to get. While home prices were lower, the actual cost to own was somewhat comparable. The cost to income ratio was still less, but not nearly what it is made out to be on price alone. Also, average home sizes have increased substantially along with land valuation in an around cities. On a dollar per square footage basis, homes are pretty much the same now as they were then. What used to be outlying suburbs are now often well developed areas of their own and no longer outlying.
I wouldn't say that consumerism is running rampant in ways it hasn't before. The 1980's were 40 years ago and defined by consumerism in much the same way as contemporary times. I think social media is much more prevalent and plays a role, but I think it is more that screens physically isolate us, make interactions less personal, and drive unrealistic ideas on body image than they drive consumerism. Consumerism has long been driven through TV and movies that make unrealistic lifestyles seem much more common than they are. A lot of classic TV shows from the 80's and 90's featured large, spacious houses or apartments that made for great sets but were unrealistic for most actual people. Consumerism is driven differently now, but I didn't think the volume is wildly different.
Personally, I think what we have is the result of decades of empathy toxicity in many different forms. We have had social movements that sought to make things easier for kids and shield them from hardship, as mentioned, but we have also had plenty of macro level policies meant to make life easier and make things like homeownership and college education available to more people in misguided attempts at social progress. All of these things have had unintended side effects that ended up making things worse.
As mentioned with things like the self-esteem and gentle parenting movements, kids were robbed of the things that helped them develop agency, responsibility, and emotional resilience. In much the same way kids need exposure to disease and allergens at young ages in order to build immunity and tolerance for later in life, they need hardship, adversity, and failure to develop mentally and emotionally to handle these as adults.
Trying to make homeownership more attainable with subprime mortgages gave us the housing crisis of 2008 and lowering interest rates drove up housing prices and home sizes. More available and cheaper money in the mortgage market meant more buyers with more ability to pay. Sellers were able to reap the benefit with higher sales prices, and builders were more than happy to build larger and nicer homes. Now we're in a situation where housing stocks are full of larger, more expensive homes and prices cannot fall to more affordable levels without putting millions underwater on their mortgages.
Trying to make college more affordable simply drove up costs in order for universities to capture grant money and easily obtained, government backed loans as well as devaluing college degrees through increased volume. Lower standards at many schools are probably also an issue, but not nearly the issue that affordability and value are.
While trying to make the world better and nice things more attainable seems great on its face, the world is more complicated than that. We, as a society, have become empathetic to the point where it is toxic and we are doing serious damage to ourselves and others by trying to do good.
