There is nothing more fun than telling younger people that everybody needs to learn “financial literacy.” To be frank, such is an easy potshot delivered by people who enjoyed several guardrails to avoid failure. There were so many ways that people were helped in the past, but instead of wanting the best for latter generations, there has been a global self obsession with, essentially, punishing people for not being them. Regardless of how many times older people hear the explanations and direct math of younger generations, they smirk and shake their heads, pointing to discretionary spending as the reason for worldwide poverty. If there is one good thing that imperial collapse has helped, it has finally shut down any disrespectful conversations about “financial responsibility.”
One reason that so many people were “house poor” during the majority of housing bubbles was an obsession with home purchase based on idealism about land ownership. In the nostalgic days of the past, propaganda painted a picture of “free land” that anyone could attain if they had the will to work it. This is the mindset driving the majority of the remaining housing development, and it reeks of “Manifest Destiny” vibes. When suburbanism began, people still maintained that deluded mindset, even as housing was built on farmland and food shortages developed. Most homeowner associations barely let people plant flowers, let along food-producing gardens that could “ruin the aesthetic.” The principle of homeownership without land cultivation, and only consumption, made the advice of “just get a house” a road to a debt trap that most people could never repay.
Additionally, most of the elder generations enjoyed stable incomes, some for decades within the same private entity. There were more resources and stable ecosystems during the baby boom and even the silent generations, so consumption without end was a “real” possibility. Such thinking led to the tech boom, but it also led to the mentality that everyone could be a “business owner” and that “everyone” would pay for goods and services. In my lifetime, everyone was going to be programmer, but then there was a glut of people learning to code. Everyone was going to be a lawyer as their “backup plan,” but then there was a glut of lawyers. Before the crash, everyone was investing in real estate, and people were sure that they would get “starter homes,” upgrade, and then eventually downsize, having at least three mortgages, while gaining additional property for “passive income.” With downsizing, disappearing jobs, and greedy CEOs, most of us were lucky to have the same income for more than five years, making it impossible to reliably save, invest, or profit.
My favorite projection from elders is the constant mockery of all our degrees, since “none” of the degrees younger people got were “practical.” A lot of people have convenient memories and selective amnesia when it comes to remembering the things they said and the advice they gave. Anyone under the age of 45 will remind folks that people advised younger generations about college based on previous experiences, and refused to re-educate themselves. The running advice was, “Get a degree, any degree. The major is irrelevant, but employers want to see that someone has a degree.” Despite saying that garbage for the better part of three decades, suddenly, nobody had the “right” degree, and everyone should have done STEM. Now, the running gag is bullying folks into trades because there is “always” work in trades. To my understanding, there was no real counsel by pushing folks to universities or trade schools because it was all supposed to be get-rich-quick schemes, only some of which worked.
Most importantly, it cannot be stressed enough that no one pays enough to set financial goals, let alone bring a child into the world to make homeless and starve. People laughed when folks requested $15/hour, but failed to acknowledge that the majority of studios and 1-bedroom apartments are now $1000/month. What math makes it possible to afford to “grow up” and get places to live on $7.25/hour? I am one of many people who has worked multiple jobs, and other than living off beans and rice, never going out, staying single, and working non-stop, there was no other way to pay off my student loans and a $10,700 car note by the age of 32. With the rising cost of food, I doubt anyone could now afford to live off $30/month in groceries, even when bartering with a friend who happened to raise chickens.
Financial responsibility works both ways: employees and employers. With the right wages, people can create strong, sustainable middle-class communities that recreate themselves for generations. Creeps who stand around laughing at their children and anyone working for them created the world we live in now, and those same creeps are flabbergasted that no one wants to listen to their obsolete, bad advice. If any elders have interest in rebuilding relationships with the “younguns,” those relationships begin with listening, and not expecting the world to function the same way it did before the planet was on fire and more than half the world was broke.
Chasing A Dying Empire 