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I spend a lot of time on Reddit, not because I’m engaging in social media but because I find it to be an interesting study in human behavior and thought. Of course, you start to see trends over time too, besides the classic, "I can't make this shit up, someone really did this," stuff. One of those trends right now tends to be a a big complaint from younger generations regarding being unable to get started in life as a adults.
I think it helps to get some perspective with regards to what is expected from folks in their 20s, and the reality of what’s happened over the last century. Now those folks in the age bracket of 20 to 25 are looking at the world and going, I don’t even have a chance; no one‘s giving me an opportunity. I can’t even get hired in a decent job! I’ll never never get close to what my parents have, etc." The same sentiment also echoes loudly with trying to a buy a home for those in the 30 to 40 bracket as well.
The "American Dream" is Barely 50 years Old
History is a great wake-up call when considering the above. At the turn of the century, I’m talking 1900-1910, most people had to scrap for a living everyday. There was no such thing as a guaranteed job track. People worked 12 to 14-hour shifts, 7 days a week, that is if they had a job at the local factory. The rich were extremely rich, and everybody else was extremely poor. The idea of having a house or a home neighborhood was a foreign concept to 95% of the world, at least in the industrialized nations. In fact, probably the most vivid comparison today would be the difference in economic success and levels in Mexico or other Latin countries where 5% are extremely rich and 90 to 95% live below what any first nation would consider poverty level.
So, the idea of having a job that pays for a home and takes care of a family of four, and a boat, and a pool in the backyard, and two cars in the driveway didn’t exist. Honestly, that really didn’t start to occur until after World War II in the early U.S. 1950s when suburban tracked home building and similar started generating a tremendous amount of economic activity associated with real estate development. The boomer generation were kids then. They're the folks who are now in their 70s 70s 80s and 90s aging out of life in general, and they and their parents were the first to experience that concept of wealth on the natural. Much of it was related to American industrialization and the amount of production that occurred during and after World War II. Also, it helped that the US wasn’t blown apart, like most other developed countries both in Asia and in Europe.
A Mindset of Entitlement to Success
So, the boomer generation gets raised in this household setting where they inherit everything on the natural from their parents. Their parents don’t live very long too; the average lifespan of someone basically an adult in the 1930s or 40s was probably until 55 to 60. They were around before modern medicine really started to have an effect on longevity. So, along comes the boomer generation growing up, being liberated teens in the 1950s and 1960s, and they have the benefit of real estate as well as guaranteed work if they want it. They even get to go to this thing called "college," en masse. It generates even more income with higher paying jobs, and the same boomers inherit everything on the natural because they follow a formula that seems to work.
Then comes the generations after, X and Y, the kids of the boomer generation. They’re still inheriting a house, they go to college, and they get a job. They seem to have a decent income, but things are fraying at the edges now. We’re dealing with inflation. We’re dealing with job compaction. We’re dealing with not enough work for too many people that are have too many skills. Even safe positions by this time such as well-paid factory jobs start to disappear. As Generation X and Y are getting into their 20s they can't find work as easy. By their 30s in their 40s, they are starting to become vulnerable because there’s simply just too many people for too few jobs, and everybody is borrowing to maintain the same lifestyle that their parents had. That, in part, led to the Real Estate Bubble of 2007-08.
In the meantime, the oldest of the Boomer generation are starting to phase into retirement, and they are going to spend their money and enjoy it. While they’re talking down to everybody else going, "Why can’t you be like us? We worked hard! We produced everything that we got through hard work!" the reality is baloney; they had a wonderful opportunity with a thriving country that wasn’t suffering like others did after the wars. It's that economically simple.
Back to the Question at Hand
So, we take the time machine back to now, today and again face the question of why isn’t there any opportunity for somebody in their early 20s?
There was never a dynamic that was going to sustain itself generation after generation with guaranteed financial success. In some weird way, the modern world got lucky in the 20th century for many, many people (many others, however died for some of the most destructive wars yet; let's not forget that point). The fact that populations have exploded since, with more highly-skilled people than ever before, hurried up the end of sustaining that one-time growth model. The reality is, we are within probably a couple decades of moving substantially back to something closer to what we were at the beginning of the 20th century, with massive numbers of people just scrapping to get by, and a few people that have concentrated wealth. That will probably turn into a lot of discontent, a lot of protests, and a lot of civil unrest. It's literally repeating history all over again, just like what happened in the run-up to World War I.
All you have to do is look at history, and you can see how the possibilities of social unrest are gonna play out. For those in their 20s, as well as my own kids who are even younger than them, the next 50 years are probably going to be absolutely crazy. And all I can do is teach them how to survive, how to protect themselves, and how to anticipate a massively quick-moving change all around them. Let’s be honest for those us now in middle age today, we have been extremely lucky, and our parents enjoyed themselves tremendously. Now it’s time to pay the piper.
