You hear constantly about how people in the USA who went through the Great Depression became lifelong hoarders, etc.
The idea that folks who went through a massive global pandemic (which, unlike the Spanish Flu, was liberally reported on in the media) wouldn't realize that their life is short and act accordingly is... funny.
We might have been waiting before, but as I said elsewhere in thread, I've experienced three once in a lifetime type events since a turned 18 - why should I wait? I want to live the life I want to live. Pandemic for me tamped down any FOMO I might have, but did not tamp down the YOLO - because of that, why wait?, do the things you want now, while you can, bring joy and warmth into your life, experience new things - because you never know when the bottom might fall out again.
It's a lack of hope. There is no signal in sight that housing will go back to the affordability it had five years ago. The fed and corporations are making inflation worse, and while the government spending of the pandemic seemed wise to keep the circulation flowing while we were on pause, it does seem to have screwed the little guy with no house or stocks.
So if this is as good as it gets, why save or have hope? People getting by will just keep getting by.
At least that's my take.
People with lots of debt have it rough right now. The little guy with no house or stocks, but no debt, however, has more of a chance to catch up when hard-earned assets depreciate via inflation and high interest.
Obviously the smart thing is to try to make money and then turn around and invest it in Amazon. But to what end? I make pretty OK money but no amount of that will let me afford a house, and I already have a terminal degree. Better to use my money to spend more time with my child.
This is all assuming you have stable employment and a 6-month rainy day fund, not having those things is a little too much YOLO for me.
Even just the most recent housing crisis as an example. Houses crashed hard and if you had saved you could afford a house. History says that there will be an opportunity to buy and just be prepared for when it is time.
That said, much of europes economic generation, was the flower of whole nations youths being stolen by flanders fields - either literally in death or psychologically. Nevermind the social and political upheavals seen in around half of europe from WWI - Britain which escaped more unfazed than most of europe from physical damage, still had a mix of cataclysmic change and steady social progress (unwinding of the values and cultural norms of the victorian/edwardian era) - and also suffered vast amounts of deaths.
National identities were formed too, Australia, Canada and New Zealand all or in part formed their national identities out of the cataclysm of WW I. This doesn't even account for the new nations formed all over Europe, The Middle East, and Africa because of The Great War.