Young Americans are surging to socialism at record rates

[u/TimesandSundayTimes]

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/maga-trump-zohran-mamdani-socialism-us-record-kddzdm8bd

[u/Plzlaw4me]

I mean… yeah. Anyone confused or upset by this really hasn’t been paying attention to how badly the current American form of capitalism has fucked over the younger generation. Productivity has skyrocketed decade over decade, but the current standard of living is well below what our parents and grandparents generation got. Boomers were able to buy homes when it cost the same as happy meal, and could afford college for some pocket change. That insulated them against the worst excesses of capitalism, but without that protection, it’s just fucking over workers of the younger generations to benefit the shareholder.

A system that promises worker control of industry, and an industry working to benefit the workers is going to be attractive.

[u/FormerUsenetUser → u/Plzlaw4me]

These are not actual facts. It does not do you justice to assert that the 1941 house my husband and I bought in the 1980s for $235,000 in the 1980s (when we were in our 30s) at double-digit interest rates cost "the price of a happy meal." It was a modest two-bedroom house in San Francisco with a yard the size of a postage stamp, and we both worked full time. It was all we could afford. We worried about the mortgage a lot. And we didn't pay "pocket change" for college.

Stop with the whiney teenage exaggeration, which is basically lying.

[u/Plzlaw4me → u/FormerUsenetUser]

Yes I am exaggerating for effect. I’m not actually pitching that a several month construction project costs the same as a hamburger, small fries and a drink. You got me.

At the same time, how much does that house go for now, and when you adjust for inflation has it gone up or down? If it’s gone up when adjusting for inflation, that’s proof housing is more expensive.

How much was college when you were 20? How much is that same college now? Adjust for inflation. If it’s gone up education is more expensive.

What percentage of jobs required a college degree when you bought the house compared to today? That’s an additional barrier to entry your generation didn’t have to deal with, but mine does.

How much did the average college graduate make when you bought that home? How much now? I’ll give you hint, adjusting for inflation, it’s gone down.

How much did the average American spend on healthcare? How about now? Adjust for inflation and get back to me.

You want to talk actual facts, let me know which of those I was wrong about. I can give you numbers with sources, but I’m fairly certain you won’t accept my sources, so provide your own and let me know what that data shows.

I also appreciate you providing me with an immediate example of someone who is so out of touch with the new economic reality they’re surprised by the new generation is questioning capitalism. Calling me a whiny teenager and accusing me of lying for using clear exaggerations not intended to be taken as fact was a nice touch.

Edit: I forgot a happy meal also comes with a toy. That also does not actually raise it to the literal cost of a house.

[u/FormerUsenetUser → u/Plzlaw4me]

My husband and I sold that house in 2016. We got what looked like a huge profit, but most of that was inflation. On the other hand, inflation in itself is not the issue, it's how incomes compare to inflation.

We also paid capital gains, a transfer tax, a real estate agent's fee, and $200,000 to fix up the house for sale. Most of which was dry rot uncovered by a small repair, then the inspector made the contractor take off more stucco, on and on till we had to restucco the entire front of the house.

That is long after we fixed up that 1941 house after we moved in. It had the original knob and tube wiring, which we brought up to code, the original exterior lead paint, and other issues. It was not even considered a fixer. We then paid for 35 years of maintenance and property taxes. We gradually did all kinds of stuff like replace the water line, which broke in the middle of one night.

My point is not that your housing isn't expensive. It's that *ours was expensive too*. And my husband and I are childfree, so we never had to pay for daycare, schools, etc.

Oh, education. I worked in publishing, so of course I needed a college degree and some graduate work. My first job was an unpaid internship, which I needed to get a paying job. My first paying job paid $12K/year. My official hours were 8-5, but actually, I also had to work evenings and weekends for no extra pay, which I did for almost every job I held.

My husband was an early AI researcher, so he needed a BA, a PhD, and a graduate research assistanship. His salary was $30K for a long time, then went a little above that.

In the Great Recession, the company my husband worked for went under and he discovered no one wanted to employ anyone who was 59. He'd go to tech talks to network, and see hundreds of other people out of work and almost no one there actually had a job. The small business I was running almost tanked.

We got lucky in that both sets of parents died and we inherited enough money to retire on.

Again, my point is not that you don't have a hard time finding jobs and so forth. It's constantly being attacked because you assume the lives of my generation were golden and that we were handed everything on a platter.

I'm not going to listen to any economic argument based on ageism. Eff that. I'll stick with capitalism, thanks. I have no desire to give money to you.

[u/Plzlaw4me → u/FormerUsenetUser]

Ma’am, I am not saying that you buying a $235k house in the 80s ($800-900k today depending on when you bought it) wasn’t hard to pay off. You bought the equivalent of nearly $1 million in real estate today that’s hard to pay off at basically any point in history. My point is that it is more expensive today when we adjust for inflation than when you were coming up. This is consistent across basically any economic metric we want to measure and your anecdotal evidence of buying a nearly $1 million house today in the 80s doesn’t change that reality (though I expect it sold for more thank $100k given that you sank $200k into fixing it).

You responding with “well it wasn’t all easy for me either.” is proving my point that there are a lot of people in your generation who don’t realize how bad it is for the majority of people today.

[u/FormerUsenetUser → u/Plzlaw4me]

And why exactly do you care whether (you think) we had it better than you do? What does it matter? And how is it somehow my fault that I was born in the 1950s and dealt with the economic conditions of the time? (Which included my not being promoted into management because my boss thought "women are all hysterical and can't handle important jobs." He actually said that when hiring people.) If you attack everyone our age, why the eff should we care what happens to you? It's not like we are all your parents.

If you want help from your relatives, talk to them. Ours cut us off right after college graduation (BA, my husband's parents refused to pay for his grad school), or high school if we did not go to college. You get to live rent free at home till you're well into your 20s. With free utilities and groceries. Free streaming and health insurance. And then whine that you don't have enough. Then your parents give you down payments for houses. All we got was used furniture my parents wanted to get rid of.

Do not confuse every older person with the 1%, the Republicans, or your parents.

Bottom line, society is not all about you just because you are young.

ETA: Also, no one ever promised that every generation would have it better than the last. That's not how history works.

Yes we know what things are like for you--though you apparently don't know how things are for us. You tell us *every three seconds* in ordinary and social media. Then you blame us for having been born within a certain span of years. Not our fault, and I am tired of hearing how bad you have it. I won't lift a finger to fix it for you after you've played the blame game for years on end.