Me and my fiancee both work full time to just barely survive each month with no savings because the CoL is so fucking high it’s unmaintainable. And if you reply with “just move”, first: I’m in the midwest, it’s not AS bad out here, and second: Moving is a privilege, it’s expensive, time consuming, and often times you end up in a worse spot than you were before
Don’t worry. All that work you’re doing will pay off… your landlord’s fifth mortgage.
In my case I’m subleasing so I’m paying off my Landlords’ Landlord’s fifth mortgage
I’d love to know your version of “just barely” is you have two adults working full time in a 2 person household.
Maybe your mortgage is far higher then I’m imagining.
I live in an apartment, but it’s overpriced, and it’s just me. This world is designed to be a 2 person household.
So I have to imagine you’re living beyond your means. I’m living beyond my means too, but I also don’t have a decent wage either. So living at all is living beyond my means.
You should add up your whole house income, divide that number by 4, and THAT number should be what your mortgage shouldn’t be higher than.
I suspect your mortgage is probably much higher than that number.
Either that or we have different definitions of “just getting by”.
Hey Gen Z, first time being gaslit by boomers? Heh, yyeeeaaaahhhhhhh…they do that. Now imagine having them as your parent, and you’re 5, and you have to just live with their bullshit.
~Sincerely, Gen X and the older millenials.
“it’ll all make sense when you’re an adult”
well. i’m an adult now. some would even say old or middle aged. it still doesn’t make sense
My parents holding fast with “well, it’s always been like that” made me realize how big this generational divide is.
There are good boomers who get it, yes. There are also some really dumb ones who have literally no clue what kind of world they helped create. Full stop.
Let’s get over the idea that it’s a generation war and not a class war. Thinking all boomers are rich and own houses is like thinking all gen z are lazy. Neither is true by a long shot, but this is what the oligarchs and corporations want us to think about each other so we get distracted and don’t notice that they are the ones buying up all the housing so we can’t and they can rent to us at whatever price they want. Let’s stick together against them instead.
edit to add: And BTW don’t forget the next gens are growing up in an even worse situation and will face the effects of living under an autocracy and the effects of unaddressed climate change, while you get old and boomers are gone. Who do you think they’re going to blame? You, that’s who, while those in power laugh at all of us.
Let’s also stop using terms like Gen Z or Boomers altogether. They are often used by the media to make articles seem more interesting to certain target groups. But from a scientific point of view, they are about as meaningful as zodiac signs.
“Here’s why Cancers can’t keep their money together and why Scorpios nevertheless are constantly jealous of their standard of living.”
They were originally created by the advertisement agencies to know how to tweak their products and advertising. It was never supposed to be an all knowing way of separating people. It was just supposed to help sell products.
Please stop falling for efforts to divide the working class.
Amy such efforts should immediately be viewed as suspicious. The divide is not old vs young, or white vs black, or even rich vs poor. It is the capital class versus the labor class.
Boomers grew up in a very tiny slice of global history where the working class actually got improvements in their material conditions, so it is hard for them to understand the struggles of people before or after… but they are being ground down by capitalism the same as the rest of us.
Your comrades at work may not understand the importance of unions or collective action, but they are still your comrades. Your grandmother may not realize that all of her extra productivity went to make billionaires richer, but she is still your comrade.
or even rich vs poor. It is the capital class versus the labor class
Just another fancy way of saying rich vs poor. The difference is the poors don’t realize they are in a war.
There are plenty of people that don’t consider themselves poor or who most people would not consider poor who are still in the labor class. If you produce value more than extract value from ownership then you are labor class.
There are plenty of people that don’t consider themselves poor
That doesn’t make them right. That just makes them less poor than those that are dirt poor.
If you’re not floating around on a yacht then you’re comparatively poor. They can afford things these so called rich people you talk about could never afford.
Just because theyre not “right” doesn’t mean this person doesn’t have a point; when you use the word poor, lots of people can’t or wont identify that way.
I’m in agreement with you generally, and I have made the same argument as you before. But people wont get this, they wont hear your argument because theyre too busy feeling like youre ridiculous for calling them poor. The sheer magnitude of wealth disparity is not well understood by your average joe.
The other commenter is offering more precise wording thats less likely to be understood wrong.
If I want to teach you to cook, but we can’t move on from whether its called a “spatula” or a “flipper”, nobody is learning anything.
Ever wonder how “work ethic” became a trait that defines the quality of an individual? You can probably guess. Religion. Which of course needed people to work hard so they could donate more money to them.
My dad worked two full time jobs for a while to help the family get ahead while we were little. I think spending time with his young children would have been time better spent for everyone. He did stop when we got to school age. And he did spend a lot of time with us. Was a scout master, tball coach, all that. So I know he probably would have rather been with us than working that extra job. But from a young age it was drilled into him that work came first.
Now with younger people less into religion. We see more and more who realize that working hard for someone else doesn’t need to be a defining characterist of a person’s quality.
I think they see the boomers doing nothing, but having everything, and the dream of having a house, two cars, and 2.5 kids was not something they were ever told they could have. They grew up with depressed millennials close enough in age to still be friends, who tell them “I’m fucked, so you don’t have a chance in hell!” And they’re right. With prices going up and wages stagnant or going down, they don’t ever get to save anything. And why should they? At the rate houses are climbing, that down payment keeps running away from them. And still, the only thing they will ever be able to pay for is a dump in a shitty part of town.
Until we bring back hope for the future, we will keep seeing people give fewer fucks.
And yet Gen Z turned out for… Trump? He’ll surely help the economy and enable a new era of magically plentiful high paying, stable jobs.
Less than half of us voted. As a member of Gen Z who DID vote for Khamala its because the only good thing she does is not be Trump.
A good portion of our generations more liberal/left-leaning side just got done having the shit beaten out of them by cops before getting kicked out of school for protesting against the genocide in Gaza.
What makes you think any of these people want to turn around and vote for a law-and-order ex-DA who’s ignoring some of the worst atrocities of our times?
Everyone in this generation who isn’t jaded and disillusioned is a fascist or fascist sympathiser (same difference :p). No one has the energy to care let alone vote.
They probably won’t until establishment democrats keel over, and unfortunately it looks like medical science kept them alive and puttering until it was too late.
Boomers protested Vietnam. Millennials Iraq.
Kids want change. Sometimes that is for a good cause and sometimes it is about draining the swamp and hurting others.
But if you needed to be convinced that it was worth voting against a rapist fascist who hid nothing? You were never an ally.
Its not that they need convincing to vote against it, its that they needed to be convinced their vote would even fucking do anything.
Most of us are convinced that we’re dying in the climate wars before we hit middle age regardless of who we vote for, the rest where the dipshits that went out and voted for Trump.
And a rapist openly running on project 2025 would not be any “fucking” different?
Would it make my life and the lives of millions of other Americans easier by not having a target painted on our backs for probably as long as our country stands? (We’ll probably never see another election again IMO) Yeah sure, that’s why I voted for Khamala.
That being said she wasn’t going to do anything to meaningfully stop the horrors of late stage capitalism. Either way I’m probably going to die by middle age in the climate wars.
Its just now that they’ll happen even sooner, and now I have to worry about being put in a camp because of my prescription to estrogen.
Ones certainly worse, but neither actually seemingly give me the possibility of living a full and happy life. Even if I do make it to old age I’ll be living in a dying world, clinging to whatever habitable sliver of earth I’d have the privilege of finding.
Honestly until we start being friendly and share cookies with the ghouls hiding behind the funds managed by Americas institutional investment firms which collectively own everything, I don’t think we’ll be solving anything.
Its just now that they’ll happen even sooner, and now I have to worry about being put in a camp because of my prescription to estrogen.
And that alone should have been reason enough for anyone who actually gave even the slightest of shits.
Growing up is realizing you aren’t going to win. But you can lessen harm.
Yeah except that for previous generations not “winning” wasn’t an inherent global existential threat.
Its hard to be motivated when you know either way you’re not getting the full life you where promised. Especially when the issue at hand is someone else’s problem. (From the perspective of my cis Gen Z counterparts.)
I’m not saying its the right way to operate, I’m saying its how lots of people do naturally. Its unfortunately human, and its taken advantage of by design.
Its easy to keep people preoccupied when they’re a weeks pay away from starvation.
Demand for human labor is declining, and as a result, wages are declining.
Which is precisely why wages shouldn’t be decided through market mechanisms
Or maybe we get rid of the “wages = living” bit.
We could all negotiate for the full value of our labor a lot better if we didn’t have a noose around our neck forcing us to work.
I have nothing in principle against people earning a living through dignified, honest, collective labor, with the basics being guaranteed such as housing, healthcare, education, nutrition, energy and a few others.
But that’s socialism!
Yes, I’m what you would call a communist. Or a tankie, depending on your mood!
Among all my friends, there are two clear common denominators between those who rent and those who own houses. The ones renting have office jobs and live in the capital, while the ones who own houses live in smaller cities or the countryside and work in manual labor.
I’m not saying correlation is causation, but it’s an interesting observation - and so far, it applies to 100% of my friends.
Or have office jobs and commute a bit longer.
People say I’m crazy for commuting 1,5 hours (one way). But I get to go home to my own property. Especially now with hybrid working still being a thing, I only go to the office once or twice a week.
I must agree with the people saying you’re crazy for having that long commute. That’s over a month spent getting to and from work every year. Time is the most valuable asset in the entire world. By working we’re trading time for money but for the time spent commuting you’re not even getting paid. I would seriously consider trying to find an alternative solution to this.
I’m located in The Netherlands, the housing market here is fucked. An alternative solution would be to find something to rent closer to work, but I would pay 1,5 times as much in rent, for a small apartment in a neighborhood where I don’t want to live. Yes, I’m spending more time on my commute, but I also have more disposable income each month that I can save and invest. If all goes to plan, I can retire earlier and live mortgage free within 20 years. In essence, I’m trading a bit of time now, to have more spare time and a better financial position in the near future. I’m taking it.
ted to get the fuck out of here when she said: a lot of people wanted the lawnmower, but she doesn’t sell it to anyone (she mant she didn’t sell it to immigrants). And: “no offence to you, but your generation
do you drive, or take public transport? Americans will assume you drive, and then it is a pure waste of time. On the other hand, spending 3 hours on a train, one can sleep, work, watch a movie, read, whatever.
I drive, public transport in The Netherlands is horrible outside of the major cities. Even in the major cities it’s “meh” to be honest. The PR department of The Netherlands does a great job at portraying our country as some sort of engineering marvel / paradise. The truth is that mobility in The Netherlands is expensive and in case of public transport, it lacks proper connection to regions outside of the cities. The only reason why we “love” riding our bicycle around, is that it’s the only affordable mobility option.
Many people that cover longer distances, like myself, have a company leasing car. So it doesn’t hit my wallet as much.
I suspect you have much higher standards than Americans. Just curious, how much time/money would it cost for you to take public transport to work? (for Americans, something 70-80 miles away is literally an impossible commute without a car, except for a few exceptions along the NYC, Philadelphia, DC axis.
Maybe the boomers need to stop working and die, so the better paying jobs and wealth can come to the younger generations.
So: boomers have had the easy life, they’re wealthy and own nice houses, but also they still have to keep working even though they’ve reached retirement age, but that’s just because they want to keep you from getting their fantastic job that they still keep working at even though they have the easy life and plenty of money … 🤦
Did you see my follow up comment below? It brings context to my above statement.
I was talking to a boomer here in Canada. When I asked him why he stayed in the same company for 30 years he said, hey they kept giving me promotions and increasing my salary from the first year. As well as having a work pension plan. Just with a bachelor’s and no beginning experience.
MFs be asking masters and years of experience from new grades.
