This is the same person that said young people can't afford houses because they spend too much money on avocado on toast.
No lie, I’ve seen a slice of avocado toast on a menu for $12. It made me irate. When I go out to eat, I optimize for price, and difficulty to make at home. Thus, I often opt for Ribs with brusselsprouts, because both take a lot of time: tending to the grill, chopping annoying Brussels in half…etc. Even then, you can mess it up, rendering your time spent wasted. I’ve eaten bangin’ ribs with Brussels for $25. Avocado toast takes 2 min, tops and requires 0 skill.
I think that’s the point he was trying to make.
Look at the other complaint - espresso drinks at cafes. People whine that young people could save more money if they just stopped buying lattes. Given that virtually nobody has an espresso machine at home, this is the polar opposite of the "well, you can make it at home" situation.
No. The complaint is "young people should stop complaining about their economic fortunes because it is their own damn fault." Nothing to do with trading money for convenience.
So in some ways younger generations are not setup for success. Their own fault. In some ways they create their own self-demise. Eating out constantly when making your own food or coffee is a perfectly viable option.
In total, society owes it to itself to ensure future generations are successful. I don’t think we’re doing that well enough.
But "why can't young people afford houses" is well explained by student loans and high home prices even for financially careful young people.
And why shouldnt they? It's not like not spending that money would have allowed them to buy a home.
If rich people would have shared more, making things like buying a home possible, you would most definitely see more people skipping avocado toasts. But rich people fucked everyone over, so might as well go for the little things in life.
If he really cared about this stuff, he'd be advocating for stricter antitrust (monopoly regulation is I think what it's called in Australia) rules, but weirdly you find almost no multimillionaire business owners doing so. Instead they spend their column inches arguing that we need to whip the rowers harder so the boat goes faster.
Or hey, CEO pay spiked too, meaning they've also been paid a lot more to do at least the same amount of work they were doing. Is he also advocating for higher levels of unemployment for the CEO class? Definitely not!
> No lie, I’ve seen a slice of avocado toast on a menu for $12. It made me irate.
For a point we have in common, I have problems in most Italian restaurants because of exactly this. I'm like, "I know this cost $4 and 15min to make, why does it cost $25". Yeah yeah I know I'm subsidizing the steak or whatever, but:
- I probably more than make up for that w/ my drink orders
- I still don't like it! (lol)