Maybe gen a will be the ones with the balls to actually rise up, set everything on fire, and kill the people responsible for destroying everything. Because of the rest of us are just sitting around complaining.
And yes, I admit, I'm in that category.
This seems like a good place to post this reminder that in the last 50 years income has lost to inflation by 137 points. That's decades of prices rising faster than wages. It's not rocket science. They walked away with all of the productivity gains, and gave the entire country a pay cut at the same time. You want a boring dystopia? How about stealing your paycheck a couple percentage points a year until suddenly we realize we can't afford to live without 3 full time incomes in one household.
The most important thing is the rich getting richer
We're DINKs just starting to push into the "living a comfortable life" range. As in, we can do what we want and enjoy doing it.
However, bringing a kid into that picture throws all of that away. Hospital bills, diapers, just the costs in general would wipe us out.
We most likely wouldn't qualify for any reimbursements and are already maximizing the ones we have such as house financing and taxes.
I obsessively try to keep my "IOUs" to a minimum meaning aggressive mortgage payments and credit cards within the limitations of what I can pay off immediately but even that is difficult.
The house needs work - new siding and windows, unexpected issues like the boiler dieing etc. And I'm generally fearful of what we'd find behind the siding (termites??? everything not up to code?) A new job like that could turn into $40-50K that we just don't have floating around.
I don't go to doctors because I was afraid of what I might find. I'm lucky in the fact that my insurance is now pushing in the correct direction but still ludicrously expensive... And I mean ludicrously for the lack of services available that won't cost me an additional fortune.
The wife also works a must-commute 9-5. Not sure how she, or both of us would be able to handle childcare needs and not feel like we would be neglecting the kid.
When would I ever be able to afford a kid in these situations?
And I am lucky to say that we are DINKs that are getting paid relatively well... How can people that are below us in income survive having kids?
After WW2 almost every other developed nation was in ruin. The US was "the only game in town" when it came to production. This caused US labor to be in high demand and priced at a premium compared to places like in Europe or Japan, who were more concerned about rebuilding than exporting goods.
THIS is how a high school dropout could afford a house and a family. Because that high school dropout was basically your only option for labor. As those other countries finished rebuilding a lot manufacturing jobs left and things started to get "back to normal".
The US was in a unique position but like most things it was just squandered. Now the US is "regressing towards the mean". This is going to be the new normal because the last 40-50 years was an exception.
But there's actually an outrageous amount of wealth in the west. It just needs to be redistributed.
It's not an easy problem to fix, but it's relatively simple.
There are many things that need change, but fixing the housing prices isn't complicated, it's just unpopular. You just need to take make speculating on housing as an asset very expensive. This will drive down the demand from non owner occupiers (businesses). It will also reduce the value of the largest asset most people own. People who invested so much into owning a home with the expectation that it will appreciate aren't going to support policies that do the opposite.
I'm not advocating violence, of course, because that's illegal both on this platform and in real life.
However, the history of humanity has demonstrated that powerful people need to be publicly executed in order for there to be sea change in economic inequalities. When enough people have nothing to lose, said executions become inevitable.
It's wealth inequality. Capital accumulates capital, and it actually means something because wealth is control, and things like housing that determine control over people's lives are forms of wealth that get concentrated away from regular people along with everything else.
IMO two main things need to happen:
It's not even about money anymore.
I'm not positive that the world is going to be a comfortable place to live in at all in the next 40-80 years. I can't be sure it's morally acceptable to bring a new life into the world just to struggle until death. I know if I were given the choice I would have rather just not have been, it's not worth struggling forever just to barely get by until the game changes yet again and you get knocked back down to the peg you started on.
Die.
Whenever I hear someone say "what are people supposed to do?", that is what I remind myself is the default.
When the rich have taken everything that they want, that is all that is leftover for literally everyone else.
A magic utopia is not the default. That took effort to build, and now the ultra-wealthy are putting in effort to tear it down, so it is ludicrous to think that without effort that things will magically go back to the way they were. That is neither how inertia nor entropy work.
Sorry this is upsetting, but it is the Truth. When Trump wins, it will get even worse, not better. Maybe we should do something about it.
It's class warfare, plain and simple.
The owner class has collectively decided there are too many worker class people and have gone out of their way to make sure that fewer and fewer are born, and to actively punish those who choose to have children.
One thing I want to point out because I'm sure some rightie tightie always whitie is going to come by and say 'Butbutbut... there are more millionaires now than evar!!!11!1one1!!'
Yes.
They are trust fund kiddies, nearly all of them.
Upward mobility has been actively crippled by stagflation and several 'once in a lifetime economic crises' all in the span of 20 years.
Even lower end millionaires are scared of this and claim they are struggling.
Eat the rich, it is the only solution.
People who think of their children and want to give them the best future but don't have the money for it don't have children. People who don't care about the future of their children, ended up having children.
This leads to more children being born with shitty parents who don't care about them.
I am that educated couple. Wife has an associates and was just able to find a small job. I have associates, BS, and MA and can't even get a fucking interview because I don't have the absolutely insane list of qualifications on my resume that these companies are demanding for a half-decent paying job. I did everything I was supposed to and they still won't fucking pay me.
meanwhile 1000 and 1 Stinkpieces are being written about population decline, blaming young generations for not getting busy while job and housing prospects go down the shitter.
I went to college, acquired two diplomas, my SO went to college and acquired one as well. My brother has two as well if I recall correctly, and his wife has one as well.
Together, we are four college graduates with upwards of six diplomas between us.
The four of us also had to pool our finances to afford one home.
Quad income, one house.
It's not a small house but it's not exactly in a high demand city (we're pretty far out in a rural area, surrounded by farmland). I also wouldn't describe the house as large. If my SO and I, or my brother and his wife were to buy this place it might be "large" but with four of us here, it's fairly modest. We have no significant land, less than a quarter of an acre, and there's nothing special about the house that makes it cost more (in fact, there were several things that should have lowered the cost). Yet here we are, scraping by with multiple incomes barely able to save at all because the monthly cost of the mortgage is so high... And we need to save, because all of those savings need to exist for when the water heater and furnace and air-conditioner inevitably fail.... They're not new, this is not a new home. I'm still finding aluminum wires that I have to rip out and replace, because if the place burns down and my insurance finds a scrap of aluminum wire, they'll deny me any coverage for the damage.
My SO and I have no children. That fact is never changing.
This is why billionaires are so obsessed with developing AI systems to replace all the serfs who will now never be born.
Reproduction isn't a luxury item. It's a survival need. The only reason that it's viewed as such in western society is because our economic system is all kinds of screwed up. People have been brainwashed to consider survival, as a society, in terms of our economic systems rather than in terms of the actual people.
Historically, most families lived together under one roof (even royalty). It was only in post WWII USA that the idea of each generation having its own home became prevalent.
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