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Comment by logicslave | Hacker News Reader

The government printed massive amounts of money over the last 15 years, which inflated financial assets. Now everyone who is younger cannot afford any of those assets, housing included. The boomers risked the economy in the early 2000s, caused the crash in 2008, and then printed money to save themselves. This has pushed younger generations into what is essentially financial slavery.

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Hey, whatever you need to tell yourself to feel better. Yet somehow the several generation between you and the boomers managed to make a go of it; how did that happen? I employ a number of these new grads and pay a salary that will more than pay for them to own a home in our market; how is this possible in your alternative universe? Maybe before you throw the word slavery around you should give some thought to what that actually means. HINT: it's a little more harsh than living with your parents.

I work as a software engineer at FAANG, I will retire young. Basically anyone who is young that doesnt work as an engineer or didnt go to a top school is completely shut out of decent housing near decent cities.

"Yet somehow the several generation between you and the boomers managed to make a go of it; how did that happen?"

This argument makes zero sense. Was going to make a reply, but forget it

The Bay Area is not representative of the US. There are plenty of cities with jobs and affordable housing. They may not be "cool" or located in "fly over country", but believe it or not, they exist.

There are a lot of “decent cities” where you can afford a decent apartment working making $40K a year. Apartments in the burbs of Atlanta are around $700-$800 a month.

The thing is - those wages only give you a meagre living. You cannot enjoy the finer things in life on a 40k salary.

The young people have been advertised to all their lives, and what would be considered luxury goods (like an iphone X) is no longer considered luxury, but a required accessory. What was considered, in the last half-century, a luxury food is no longer considered luxury today. Just having bread and staples isn't enough. And i don't blame them - being bombarded from a young age with advertising and media messages telling you that your life "should" have such and such, is making it harder and harder to live frugally.

According to paycheckcity.com. $40K a year in Georgia is a monthly take home of $2666 month single. I happen to know what living expenses are for a young single person because of my older son.

His rent, utilities, car note and car insurance is around $1800 all in. At least until he is 26 and can stay on my insurance.

The median household income in the US is only around $63000.

https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percen...

The median US household will never save enough to be able to comfortably retire, nor will they have sufficient savings or insurance to be able to deal with health issues or loss of income.

Yet and still millions of ordinary Americans are retired today and living off of mostly social security and not living on the street.

That average is a static snapshot. You would assume that as a person or especially a couple get older, they would move up the income ladder.

"Yet and still millions of ordinary Americans are retired today"

The whole point of the conversation is that younger generations will not be like the ones retiring now

There is a reason why that insurance cutoff age was not 26 when you were growing up.

Yeah, "Gen X wasn't as badly screwed as the Millennials" isn't the slam-dunk argument it must have looked like when GP typed it out...

Zoomers might be ok, though, if they keep their heads down and don't take student debt. The Boomers won't last forever.

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