Hacker News Reader

Comment by geodel | Hacker News Reader

I see the same pattern in so many nations. Marketers have triumphed all places where people have or don't even have any money to spend.

View on HN

Not only that. Rising wealth inequality and cheap credit is pricing the middle class completely out of asset ownership. Disposable income is staying constant while asset prices (and related things like rent) continue to rise. This isn't just a US phenomenon.

This is what leads to the "avocado toast" situation [0].

I'm conflicted on what to think about this. He comes across as arrogant, and made a very poor choice of item to illustrate his point, given how many avocado toasts you'd need to forgo to save a deposit for a house. It's also true that lack of affordable housing is mostly a political failure.

But I look at young people in the UK and kind of see what he means. Home ownership (and any sort of real, sustained wealth) seems like such a distant prospect that people would rather just indulge themselves now.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/15/austral...

Avocado toast was meant to be both literal and a metaphor for a larger issue beyond just toast.

Back last month I got to thinking about this in terms of things my family didn't have in the 70s that we have right now. Cable TV, Internet, TiVo, cell phones, Netflix, routinely eating out ... I reckon I spend easily $600 a month on things I just didn't have growing up.

Where the "avocado toast" narrative fails is that young people now are actually spending a smaller portion of their income on eating out than previous generations did at the same age. The categories they are spending more on are things like healthcare, housing and education.

>Disposable income is staying constant while asset prices (and related things like rent) continue to rise.

Wait, so the middle class doesn't own any of these rising priced assets, thus benefitting from the price increase? I don't think that's true.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com