Gen Z's bleak financial future
bbc.com
bbc.com
Of course, the ownership & political classes will do nothing about it - they quite like the way things are, as unsustainable as they may be.
Maybe mass remote work will fix this by spreading people out over cheaper area's but I have my doubts on how much remote work will last through this next economic cycle.
Full remote positions will evaporate if unemployment gets to the point of hundreds of applicants per position.
Edit: added @ 30 hrs/wk
Today that job pays $10/hr. Rent in a similar building is $1000-1200 and tuition is $11,000 per semester. That burrito is $15.
No shit Gen Z is unhappy.
1. In my country, I am classified as "rich", yet I still live paycheck to paycheck.
2. A huge chunk of my wages to go rent, the home I am renting is tiny and has a weird shape (it is very long and narrow trapezium, the plot is clearly a "leftover" between two normal square plots, also lots of stairs because steep incline).
3. And then another huge chunk go to healthcare, meds and medics to prescribe the meds. What is crazy is that my and my wife medical costs per month are higher than the country mininum wage, I literally have no idea how people poorer than me take care of their own health.
4. After healthcare, what remains is food, I must admit I actually spend a little more than most people do there because I ensure my food is of reasonable quality, for example when I buy sausages I buy ones made of actual pork, while the most popular ones are made of ground chicken leftovers (bones, organs people don't usually buy, etc...) or soybeans (or both).
My co-workers often are astonished by the fact I don't own an iPhone, and don't own a recent Android either, and thus can't test my own company products properly (the company I work for makes a mobile SDK for indoor location. My phone is an old android hand-me-down that runs Android 9 and can't be updated further).
Health care must be really expensive if you spend so much on it at 35, unless you have special health conditions. I assumed you don't, since you're comparing it to the national average. I'm in no way criticizing your situation without context, it was something that called my attention.
https://youngandtheinvested.com/passive-income-pay-zero-tax/
I think this is why so many younger people subscribe to "lottery thinking" - crypto, meme stocks, other kinds of "low probability but high payoff" choices. Or they go full nihilist and decide to blow whatever they have (or can grab) on transient experiences. There have always been many who do this, and it's not all bad - here of all places we should recognize that the related urge to join startups can lead to good things - but gambling should be a choice not something people feel is their only chance for a good life.
We have failed our young people by allowing real wages to stagnate even during the good times, by putting them through the college/student-loan wringer, by not moving to create a better safety net when the bad times came. And in other ways too, of course. I know through my daughter that GenZ folk are actually very resilient and mutually supportive, in their own ways of course, but the stress we've put them under is a bit unconscionable. Their reactions are natural. We older folks should show a bit more humility and grace.
The global gen Z is screwed, to be fair. Europe isn't good. China isn't good. The third world is the third world. They may do well, but doing well from a low start is lackluster.
Basically - the American Gen Z is going to be sitting in the hottest economy in the world for the next decade, providing labor where not a ton is available worldwide.
They will do alright, but we will be facing a lot of inflation along the way.
The rest of the world. Whoo boy. Buckle up and consider your ability to immigrate to these "golden" shores.
There are some major issues no doubt, but wealth divides, access to quality healthcare, and climate change are hardly uniquely American -- if anything the latter is something America sees less danger from than much of the world (as many like to point out the injustice of, considering how much of a role America has had in fueling the problem).
Of course, if the reserve currency status is lost, all bets are off. We'll see how kicking Russia off of SWIFT and encouraging the BRICS to rally around their own systems really works out over the next few years no doubt. For all those skirmishes fought over the last few decades to preserve the petrodollar, this year seems like the playing field has somehow changed.
The United States isn't good because of our politics, we are good because of our geography.
Then entire reason Generation X was called Generation X, was because it was the first generation for which living standards for the majority of them would be lower than the standards of their parents. It was the crossing point. They even embraced a kind of culture of resignation to their fates. The music, clothes and movies of the time even reflected it.
So this has been going on for a long time.
They found a way though. Millions of out of work college students and, voila, web browsers and dot coms were born.
Who's to say GenZ and the Millennials can't pull something out of their butts like Gen X did?
Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
> Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
I fail to see a distinction here. The government defines what is legal. I suppose one can appeal to some higher power as the source of all law or something idealistic like that, but that's not how the IRS or the Texas State tax assessor work.
Right. That's what I mean by conflating. One can appeal to a higher law. I'd argue that's the only way you can make a moral judgement about the actions of a government, since as you've pointed out they have the ability to create laws. So either there is a law that can be used to judge whether a 100% tax on the individual is justified or there isn't. If there isn't a higher law, then you're right - the government is a law unto themselves. They are totally sovereign and no one can make any moral judgement about their actions since by definition their might makes them right. Alternatively, there is a higher law: a supernatural moral law that transcends the will of men and which the governments of the world and all the people of the world are accountable to. If that's the case then there is a limit to how far the government is able to justifiably tax its citizens - the amount that the transcendent law allows gives them jurisdiction to tax.
It's important to note that if there is no law that transcends the state, then the state is not limited by moral law in any way. In that case it's the source of moral law and nothing that the state does can ever be justified as moral or immoral since under such a worldview the state is the judge of good and evil.
Using "caught up in a religion" or "means something different to every member" as a reason to ignore an argument is arbitrary and an a priori dismissal of potential evidence contrary to your beliefs. In other words, you are ruling out a position simply because you are prejudiced against that position.
There are laws which claim to be moral supernatural law which are written down. If these laws are what they claim to be and are truly of supernatural origin then not only do they exist, they exist in a greater capacity than laws written by human hands or instruments.
A transcendant law presupposes a transcendant author and arbiter.
What does your transcendent/moral supernatural law say the top marginal tax rate should be?
Now, you can absolutely argue that the taxes being imposed or suggested are unnecessarily high, or perhaps that most of the money being levied is being squandered on things that those paying see no benefit from (which perhaps one could argue is theft, but that last part is crucial), and I'd not argue one bit with you in many cases. I'll be the first to say that the use of Western tax dollars in Ukraine is an absolute slap in the face for the taxpayers who see no benefit therefrom, and who had nothing to do with the coups that led to the war in the first place.
But taxation in and of itself isn't theft, any more than property, in and of itself, is theft. As long as the left and right just keep shouting "THIEF!" at each other, we don't really have any hope of getting anywhere.
The "benefit of the public" is a better standard than no standard - but is in and of itself insufficient to contain the state to its rightful domain.
Perhaps it's time to actually look at the effects of liberal politics rather than simply the rhetoric.
And no, I'm not saying voting for the conservative side tends to offer much support, except for a few cases. At least in America, both sides seem pretty content to have oligopolies in most industries, as it's a lot easier to serve extra-judicial "requests" for customer information, or for measures to "fact check" or otherwise tailor the flow of information in ways that government isn't allowed to do directly.
By all means, vote, and look carefully at who you're voting for, but during the rest of the year, support your small businesses (including, if not especially, online companies), and find ways in your community to provide services that government and big companies are not providing without a whole net full of strings attached.
2) No matter how much or how little one earns, 10% from the money coming in (at the first day of the month not at the last day) should go straight to savings account or even better: into silver or gold
Still have to find a bank account that can automate this
They could have picked a better example than the woman in the article too, I think. She's on £38K which is actually fine, it's above the median for London and she's only 25. She can probably save £500/mo even without living in shared accommodation with some lifestyle tweaks - and no I'm not talking about fewer avocados! Property prices in London are crazier than ever, but she could get together a deposit for a £200K studio in Acton or similar in about 3 years. She's in an OK position, comparatively.
I was looking at zoopla rather than rightmove. Slightly dodgy area, but I was checking places I've lived and it's definitely not the worst.
Official stats indicate you are right about the poverty line not being what i said: https://data.london.gov.uk/blog/poverty-in-london-2019-20/
Still i dont understand how someone can live on 38k in london considering how expensive _decent_ housing and public transport are. Monthly take home seems to work out at 2400 which is not bad indeed. Oddly enough a 90k per year salary works out at 5100£ despite it being more than double. Unfortunately taxes are real high and take home income is still low even on a high wage.
So i earn a lot of money in a short period of time doing something obviously evil, then spend a year or two living very frugally and enjoying my life.
There just doesn't seem to be an obvious middle ground where you can get paid less to work on stuff that makes you happy. I am aware that these jobs exist, but they are competitive and rare.
After watching my mom die I'm convinced that the boomers' money will mostly go to the billionaires who own senior living facilities, while a small slice will go to the underpaid immigrants who work there.
But you're right, they are standing to see a lot of money coming in presently and over the next 10-20 years...guess I have my next bit of research for investing (this is a comment section on a site run by a venture capital firm, right?).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookdale_Senior_Living
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_Investment_Group
Looks like in the analysis they cite for this statistic, census data from the "Current Population Survey" (CPS) is used for incomes. That's going to understate buying power for Gen Z considerably since that income data leaves out many transfer payments. The Earned Income Tax Credit for one, which is a big part of spending for low income households with children. The EITC wasn't introduced until the oldest boomers were 30, and it was much smaller when it was first introduced.
There are many other transfer payments that the census data leave out that either didn't exist for the boomers when they were young, or that are much larger now.
The CPS income data simply does not have the ability to answer the questions, "How much buying power does Gen Z have?" or "How does buying power compare across generations".
You don't think they would just lie about that, do you?
I would expect that a thesis like "Gen Z are right to be worried about money" would be based in data - something about savings, or forecasts, or macroeconomics. And if it's not based in data, is it a pure human interest piece based on emotions and Gen Z interviews? If that's the case what is the value of it?
... more and more people realise that all this value doesn't magically vanish from their salaries; it's just getting legally stolen by capital owners. We've been through this a couple of times