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Originally Posted by Chick Webb
Yeah, sorry, not buying that whine. I, too, am the former. But, we have three sons in their 20's and all are doing pretty well. Two because they made good choices (with our help) when they were in their teens and got degrees in fields that provided them with real skills (aeronautical engineering and computer science) that are in demand in the marketplace. One because he hustles. Granted, he's lagging behind the other two but is slowly getting on the righteous path.
Since they're all still sub-30, they've got plenty of time to realize their dreams. Not overnight, of course, but in due time. Success, despite what you see on social media, takes skill, patience, perseverence, and time.
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Not taking away from anything at all... but I highlighted 2 key parts of what you just said... choices were made with YOUR help, not sure if there was also any educational financial support but that does make a difference. 2nd part - comp sci and aero... comp sci and sw engineering are on a major decline right now w AI and the 10s of 1000s of layoffs that just happened... even finding a SW engineering job right now is borderline impossible (source, friend is a former java developer and another works for amazon but knows if he gets cut, finding another replacement job will be near impossible w comparable wages ... but alas, even all that aside not everyone needs to be or even should be in the hottest field of the last 10 years to make a halfway decent living.
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Originally Posted by XutvJet
A F-ing Men. Many in this society have become accustomed to a very high quality of living. Regardless of what you see on social media or what your friends might be doing, you can't have it all at a young age and/or if you do not have the income. So many want and expect it NOW. Right from the start, they want the big house, fancy car, expensive clothes, eating out all the time, the extra toys, etc. You have to work up to that. Also, all that crap often doesn't buy happiness but rather a crap load of stress trying to maintain it all.
Young folks don't buy starter homes anymore. They buy new or relatively new 3000+ Sq ft homes that three decades ago would have been considered mansions. I grew up in a wealthy county of Kansas City and only the select few rich kids I knew, lived in a new house or a 3k+ Sq ft house. Now it's the norm. Again, many people have become to a high quality and non-sustainable lifestyle. That's the large reason why many "struggle" in this country while bringing in $100k+ yr, barring a few select states/cities in the US. A majority of us could free up a ton a cash if we adjusted our lifestyle. But for most, it's hard to go backwards.
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While I agree with you in the grand scheme of things, I am going to ask you a very very thought provoking question...
do you think waiting to purchase a home and saving up for a down payment in the last 10 years was a GOOD idea? Your advice is very sound... in an environment that doesn't have some of the highest inflation of the past 30 years... in fact anyone that DID save and didn't immediately buy (even before they could) came out so far behind that they in fact may not even be able to purchase in the future at all. Advice of yesteryear doesn't apply to today in nearly anything... even comparing advice from 20 years ago could get you into a lot of financial trouble.
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Originally Posted by 2000cs
I didn’t say anything about “doing great”, I just said they’d be less sensitive to inflation if they had fixed costs. On the flip side, if you have fixed income but variable expenses, you will experience financial pain from inflation.
I entered the workforce full time in 1982 - high inflation, high (relative to the 1970s) housing prices, car prices going up quarterly, rising rents, all that. In that era a lot more people had fixed incomes as pensions and SS were not (or were very recently) indexed to inflation. Today is very different, but there are still people better positioned than others.
The point I was making is that everyone and every business has options in how to deal with this - some have more than others to be sure. As a result inflation impacts each of us differently, so the anecdotes we all refer to do not characterize the economy broadly. At the same time, the official measures have the opposite problem - being averages they mischaracterize outliers on both ends of the spectrum.
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I agree with you... everyone will weather everything differently... however the fake rosy picture that is consistently being painted by wall street results is INSANELY disingenuous towards an enormous amount of people that are struggling right now as a result of inflation, layoffs and poor govt policy that sends $ to the wrong places.