There is no power imbalance except for the ones you create for yourself. A company doesn’t have much power over an employee willing to walk away for some other job.
Granted, I agree with you about emergency saving, but a lot of people don't have the extra laying around when they're shackled to debt.
What is this victim complex my generation seems to have bought into wholesale? Who tricked you into taking on debt? Was in-state tuition not an option?
As for the saving not being an option, are you sure you've cut your expenses as far as you can? If you eat out more than once per month or pay more than $30/mo for your cell phone, the answer is no.
Sorry if this comes off as harsh, but people oftentimes complain about not being able to save due to student loans or whatever, and then it turns out they're being ridiculously bad with their money in so many other ways.
Nobody tricked me, I'm debt-free. But most of the people I grew up with went to college, and most of them are riddled with debt now.
Was it their personal responsibility not to go into debt? Technically, yes! Did they have all the information available to them about what this debt would mean for their lives? No. Would they have made this decision if we didn't live in a society that repeatedly told them "go to college or you will fail?" Likely not, or maybe they would have waited until they understood the world better.
I'm not talking about any singular person, here. But I think it's unfair to classify our generation as having a victim compex when:
- wages are stagnating
- cost of living is rising
- most jobs require college degrees
- kids who are barely of-age are being pushed to make enormous financial decisions
- the federal government not forgiving student loans via bankruptcy is ballooning costs of schools everywhere and creating an entire predatory market for profiting off of people becoming productive members of society
Are millenials dumb with money? Honestly, the ones I know might go out one too many times here or there, but they aren't idiots, and the amount extra they could be saving is a drop in the bucket compared to their monthly expenses. Some are silly, yeah, but the majority are trying really hard and still struggling.
The last few generations just had it way easier, with less commodification of all of the aspects of their lives, with a less hostile education system, a better job market, etc. Not only this, but as the boomers start dying off, who's going to pick up the bill? The people who are right now in their 20s and 30s. So things are about to get a whole lot worse.
The solution isn't just to "save more." We need deep-seated systemic changes.
Your other complaints I think are mostly just part of the current economic reality of the world - low interest rates and relative economic stability have driven up asset prices to extreme levels, including housing. It's also the main reason for the ever-present inequality headlines. "Stock market continues to do really well, saving otherwise screwed pension plans" doesn't generate the same number of rage clicks, though. Free trade, improved telecommunications, and very efficient container shipping have made it so that you're now competing much more directly with hundreds of millions of well educated Chinese and Indian workers, or billions of less educated Indians and Chinese, depending on your profession, which has increased available labor supply, and decreased worker negotiating power. Contrast this with the boomers, who were born into a country with one of the very few strong, unscathed industrial bases, which helped rebuild the world. Of course they had an easier time economically. But time marches on. Maybe you can blame them for not managing the wealth better.
Which brings me to my next point - it's not that Millenials are dumb with money, most Americans of all ages who didn't experience the Great Depression are.
You say that the amount extra they could be saving is a drop in the bucket, but the difference between saving -$50/mo and +$50/mo is only $100, but it's also the difference between a debt spiral and building up an emergency fund. And that's only going out a few times (or less than once in a HCOL city), or cutting cable. And then saving another $100/mo literally triples that savings rate. Many Americans are around that level of personal profitability, so it's worth talking about.
I think a deep depression is coming in the next credit/debt cycle bust or the one after, based on what I've been reading about how debt cycles work (I recommend Big Debt Crises by Ray Dalio), which should bring asset prices down. Of course, it'll also bring incomes down, spike unemployment, and a whole host of other shitty problems.
I agree that saving more isn't a cure-all, but it's pretty powerful. We should absolutely try to change some things about the world - I'm a monthly donor to Bernie and some other causes, and I go to city council meetings to argue against homeowner associations to try to overturning restrictive zoning rules to get more dense housing supply online and bring down rents. But in the meantime, being more frugal would absolutely help most people. Part of that is that it would give them much more financial freedom and confidence to demand higher wages with the knowledge that they could afford to lose their current job if it came to that. It might make them focus less on how they feel victimized by the world, which may help them avoid becoming depressed. And decreasing consumption would make their lifestyle more environmentally sustainable. And they might find that they just don't need much in the way of material goods to be happy, which is an incredibly freeing discovery. We could all benefit from being a bit more frugal. But part of that is accepting that you're largely responsible for the outcome of your life (modulo your starting conditions) and going against the grain a bit to work towards making it better.
I know that some people cannot save anything, because they're working multiple jobs, supporting kids, and still have to scrimp just to make ends meet. But I'm pretty sure they're not the ones complaining on the internet.
I mean, ideally, you find another job before you leave your current one, if only for negotiating leverage to get a better salary from the new employer - it's not ideal to just leave with no backup plan. But you should always make it so that walking away is an option.