I graduated from high school in that time period as well, I didn't go to college because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I certainly took a bunch of shit from friends and some family that I wouldn't make it in life without going to college. Luckily it worked out for me and I landed a good blue collar career.

I'm amused from all the boomer advice in this thread, they pushed and pushed our generation to go to college no matter what, and now they want to give us advice on how stupid our generation was for going to college no matter what our circumstances were.

I've got a decent 1400 square foot house, a reliable car and invest in my 401k. I'm sympathetic to other people from my generation and the zoomers. Working class people are getting a raw deal, we are the first to feel the stress of a failing economy. Have a little sympathy for some of the younger people just getting started in life otherwise you'll push them into the welcoming arms of the left.

Nah, timing had nothing to do with anything that happened to them and there are no conditional differences, they're simply an ubermensch class.
??

I guess they'd rather have President AOC explain it to them

You said it a lot better than I was trying to say it.  It really is all about delayed gratification.

Unfortunately for the young, youth makes it hard to see the future.  When you're 20, 60 years old seems like a very long way off, and it feels like it's okay to blow your entire meager paycheck on dining out and clubbing with your friends because you'll have plenty of time to save money later.  Of course this isn't true at all, but that's where good parenting plays a part.  Kids need to have it drilled into them early that spending everything now means they will get to spend a LOT less later.

If you don't delay the gratification early, you won't get to do it later.  You'll work until you die.

This is an excellent example of why there is so much disconnect in these discussions. Many millenials and younger generations have a picture in their head of what life used to be like that they got solely from internet memes.

That's what you are describing. It's an internet meme about what life used to be like for people in the 50s and 60s. It's not the reality that they lived through.

Those of us who entered the workforce around the recession have a warped sense of job security. There's nothing like fighting for <$10/hr PT jobs against laid-off professionals to make you hang on to what you can get for dear life. It's one thing to have your career disrupted by a recession, but it was a completely different monster trying to get started then. It's foolish to tell someone to take a leap and job-hop when food stamps and homelessness were a reality for some of us not that long ago

The problem I've addressed around this issue before, continues to be ignored...

So I'll say it again for the 87th million time.

From where you sit, as you aren't the product of it, it's easy to say-useless degrees.

What I've said time and time again is-When I started? In order to be anything beyond a lube boob, a degree was needed.
Every dealership I had applied to-a minimum of an associates degree in auto repair was needed.
Many claim bullshit. Or not in their area. Their area does not = where mine was.
This isn't a 1 size fits all, rule vs exception.

Fast forward to my second internship-the practices changed.
The place I was at found out, from being a revolving door for know it all retards that knew nothing, but had that piece of paper though?
Became Degree AND 3-5 years verified experience.

The adults in the room doing the hiring? Well, they're mostly computer illiterate and technologically challenged.
Those newfangled cars and trucks don't have carburetors and points in the distributors. It's like, voodoo magic.
Wrong.

They're fucking volt meters with a logic board and preprogrammed parameters for fucks sakes. Stop thinking they're complicated.

So what happened to the hiring practices? Barriers to entry were put into place.
Trade school? Associates degree in blue collar trades? What?
The biggest failure being ignorant parents thinking pushing the kid out to college immediately after graduating highschool, was the end all be all standard operating proceedure.
It turned into a whole lot of wash outs, drop outs, flunkies that partied harder than they applied themselves, for they never really had responsibility in their life.

How can I say that? Easy.
I'm a product of it. I watched a supposed graduating class go from 200 in attendance for ford and toyota. Graduate 12.
Parents didn't teach their kids to treat college as an investment and to look at it in terms of ROI.
If this program costs $xx,xxx to complete, how long will it take to see $xx,xxx- $xxx,xxx?

Nope. But the adults in the room sure did have something to flex on others about their cherubz at the water tank, a dick measuring contest vicariously through their kids over whose cherubz going where and studying what...
and it blew up gloriously in their faces by their own admissions online how their kid is living with them into their 20s-30s, waiting tables, or oust themselves with excusing/enabling of-They're getting paid shit, they deserve better!

We get it. Ya'll wanted best for yours. How you went about it was pants on head retarded.
That being said, no different than I tell my young bucks when they get a bad week due to their slacking-it's called earnings, not givings. Apply yourself, and you'll do fine. Don't? Well. It doesn't pay to waste time now does it...

So fast forward to present day. If we stay the course? It'll be an associates degree to be a janitor and scrub floors and shitters.
Except, we won't call them janitors... that hurts feelz and sounds bad. Sanitation technician.

Take a gander some time at any popular job listing website sometime. Everyone is a "technician" of some sort.
Coincidence?

I practice what I preach. For a bunch that want the 50s-60s like economy and values to return... you sure do love your leftist enabling/credibility lending wholesale approach of-DO GOOD IN SCHOOL SO YOU CAN MAKE US PROUD AND GO OFF TO COLLEGE!

Fuck. That.
I don't want know it alls that know fuck all and can't fix a sandwich let alone a 50k dollar diesel truck.

I'd rather take 0 experience and groom them myself into productive proficient and every bit as good as me.
Does me no good to break bad habits that were taught/gained, just adds stress.
So why would I advocate for the degree and debt, when I know the courses are $ and packed with bullshit for no reason other than to spread liberal ideology? What? You think a trade centered education is an 8 hour day of hands on and theory/written tests for that trade?
In an ideal world, yes. But, like the engineers who live in that town of perfection issue free "Theory", the reality is far different.

There was 0 reason for my courses to include bullshit, but it did.
It was fun though, hurting hippie boomer feelz and calling them dirty hippies and telling them why they'll regret voting for obama.

Now. I want you to take a good hard look for the vast majority of parents in this country and how they disgustingly coddle, spoil, shelter, enable, and make excuses for their kid, and this degenerate belief that their kid is infallible and oh so deserving of better.

There's where your snowflake entitlement comes from.

Hell. Look no further than here! Look how many are proud to announce home/vehicle repair and maintenance is for teh poorz.
Then have the God damn audacity to ask why theres soybois. When they're raising soybois themselves
Really paid to spare junior responsibility, expectation, showing him how to be a man and do man things...
Get out of the cubicle, the law firm, roll your sleeves up, take junior under your wing and build/fix things together.

Anyone can bitch all they want about 20-30 somethings not able to change a flat tire.
Nobody wants to reflect on what they did to contribute to that.

I do. I find that degenerate as fuck. Where I'm confused for a boomer? I have been working since I was 13.
I didn't walk uphill both ways to school in snowstorms... but I did however, take my dirtbike or quad down to the local orchard and fill crates with apples and got paid cash for it, and tossed a couple buddies 50 bucks each to help.
Each crate paid $300.

I made friends with the kids whose fathers owned businesses in trades.
By 16 I could build a house or a race car. Not a humble brag. Truth.

Also where I fit in and often get confused for being a boomer? I was raised as if it were the 50s-60s.
That includes the ass kickings when I fucked up, which was few and far between but had to be worth it...for pops had arms on him like popeye and mitts like a bears paw. today? That's "abuse"...

What I learned from old timers > college degree.
But we don't push for that anymore.
No... lets all be 9-5 drones for corporate. Let's be nimbys and do the hard work and heavy lifting for environmentalmidgets and shit can and oppose domestic manufacturing. Let's allow the kids be raised by leftist teachers, while telling them, DO AS YOU'RE TOLD! PUT PERSONAL DISCREPANCIES ASIDE! YOU'RE THERE TO LEARN! DO GOOD IN SCHOOL SO YOU CAN GET INTO COLLEGE!

Fuck that. Parents need to be supportive/encouraging while holding their cherubz responsible and accountable.
Junior ain't too good for a boot in the ass or gone upside his head when he deserved it.
Let schools, video games, social media, peers/bad influences raise them? Don't cry victim.
Coddle them? Spoil them? Shelter them? Don't cry victim when you've spared them risk, spared them adversity.

Like the phrase-adapt improvise overcome? How are you going to get that with limp wristed parenting?

How!? Enlighten me. I'm all ears. Goes right back to saying, keep flexing on the poors by confessing you're too good to change your own oil, rotate your own tires, fix that roof, etc...
You're only yielding lazy entitled soft spoiled brats. Not men.

I will always and forever say rural America is best America. Child labor laws? The fuck are those? Oh, you mean, that thing that prevents the damn lazy bastards from gaining useful and potentially money earning skills, when they're in their formative and most influential years? Those things? Yeah... There's a blind eye turned to those in the sticks and for good reason.

Spare the cherubs risk and adversity. Get hyperbolic useless lazy snowflake lemmings that wind up becoming free shit army recruits.
Tell them to inherit a debt and to not argue with teachers/professors...or question why we're learning this? When will we ever use this?
Don't be surprised when you have a nation of degree holders that can't find employment when the barrier to entry is-degree and 3-5 years verified experience...OR degree holders on unemployment/welfare. I've seen the 50s-60s-esque economy. Where I grew up-highschool drop outs 40-50k to start at the local production plants, factory, mills. No degree needed. That all vanished when shit heels from NYC got scared following 9/11 and found out the false facade of concrete jungle, and did their version of "bugging out" like the locusts they were, and turned my backyard into their shit hole degenerate playground. All those jobs? Shit canned for china/3rd world. Because that was a threat to the ideology that pushes education like religion.

Jobs that pay a wage conducive to raise a family, in a low cost of living area, where everyone from kids to adults have nice toys? No no... we can't go having that... we need poor down trodden and welfare rats to support our causes, beliefs and ideology. Buddy I fought it since I was in highschool. In order to graduate what you knew as civics? We had to log and participate in town hall meetings, court/County commissioners/zoning meetings etc.
I not only know what they're capable of. I know what "we" are guilty of in helping them achieve to later cry victim.

Someone raised them to be this way.
Failed leadership tanks companies daily.
Failed leadership in politics tanks countries.
Yet... nobody.... fucking nobody wants to touch the dumpster fire of raising kids from the mid 80s onward with a 10 foot pole for the glorious disaster that it yielded... pride can't be sidelined for that one... Neither can ego... admit the adults in the room were wrong? No never...

They sure can bitch about it while offering fuck all for an alternative let alone a solution...

Mine is simple.
Don't require a degree.
Groom your own productive and proficient workforce sans degree and debt that lends credibility to the left.
Stop being nimbys.
Short dick the tax man. Camaros on blocks. Lawns like hayfields.

Ya'll work live and play on a budget right? Your state and local .gov gets a pass? And funds your demise and everything you oppose? For what? An arbitrary hearsay property value?
Nobody is this fucking stupid...right?

Well. If they dont know, they're victims of their own ignorance or got lucky and never had to experience the fuckery of ny taxes and the degeneracy it funds. Also, coming soon to a free state near you since plandemic and fuckery there.

But the adults in the room sure did have something to brag about at the water tank, didn't they...
There's that...
That will be their legacy. Trading off the value of good hard work for 3rd world manufactured things and rent a home depot laborer. Claiming their cherubz deserve better. Don't challenge the teachers the professors. Do as you're instructed and told. Too good for that sort of thing.
Jobz Americanz won't do! bullshit. Cut welfare and starve they'll work in those fields, they'll dig those trenches. They'll lay pavers, shingles, frame houses, roof houses, and AND they won't shit in the tub of that mcmansion! They'll weld. They'll solder circuit boards if needed, they'll do everything it is you claim they're too good for, so long as there's no alternative but to fucking starve.

They'll use their brain, adapt improvise and over come. But the adults in the room didn't want that. They wanted this degeneracy. They don't have the right to bitch about it.
You don't plop a video game in their hands, let a hippy educate them, and see them at dinner, thinking that's the American dream. That's degenerate. I find nothing to be proud of by professing "that's beneath me, for teh poors, not worth my time". There isn't anything any trade I'm too good for.
I know fuck all about oil drilling, but I'd give that a shot in a heart beat if the retards here didn't ban it via amending the constitution.
Every day is a day to learn and do something new. I'd rather be a perceived poor for being filthy in grease, dirt, sweat and blood, than have bitch mitts from being a cubicle rat/corporate lackey and farm out more opportunities for visa holders and illegals who will do it for less.

Better start building and producing things here. Or mark my words. Associates in scrubbing shitters and floors. To compete with visa holders and illegals...and in time? Oversized roombas.


Takes Hannity to make it talking point before the adults in the room take it serious wayyyyy too late...
Personal problems with a teacher is what you wrote it off as...
Good thing you fuckers won't make that mistake a 2nd time...
At least the Xers take what their kids say serious and with concern...

So no. It's not an abundance of underwater lesbian basket weaving degrees.

You'd be mighty surprised how many pursued a degree in a legitimate field, and either found out, that field is over saturated (as was the case with IT)
Having to relocate cross country as local zoning/politics killed their current job.
Found themselves as perpetual low guy on the totem pole in favor for the bosses nephew or family friends kid.
Or plain old didn't take advantage of or apply themselves in school/work from a shit work ethic learned by a bunch of limp wristed parents placing their cherubz upon a pedestal as being too good/deserving better and spared adversity like it was the plague.
As badly as most want to believe the case is bad/junk/useless degrees...
I knew many that pursued career paths and wound up no better than low guy on the totem pole doing the whole... first to show up, last to leave, and be taken advantage of. The company man today isn't rewarded for his effort/dedication. He's the boss's do bitch.
And he won't be taken care of beyond hey kid, take the weekend off! You deserved it!

If this weren't the case... explain why the free shit army demands free college/canceled forgiven college degrees.

Hint. This ain't the 50s-60s where an employer picked up the tab for that degree...
Investors saw that as money wasted and cutting into profit marginz.
There's a reason why my mother's hospital shit canned walking in at 16 to be a CNA, and covered college/continuing education way back before my sister was born. She had more in loans/debt than her mortgage.
My mother? Debt free. She too is guilty of being ignorant of what is vs what was, roasted my sister over taking on that debt...
The battles those two had

Turns out.... it's not the 50s-60s anymore. Businesses both corporate and small/sole proprietors rarely invest in their workforce anymore. For the sacred degree is the end all be all. The lie that it is a guaranteed 6 figure per year career path.
Maybe if you go into business for yourself... or like 70-80 hour weeks. Sure.

So no, it isn't the "useless degrees" in the way you think it is...
More like... the courses packed in that degree, diluted the value of said degree, and produced a generation for the majority, of know it alls that don't know.
So much for that big degree being a metric to gauge proficient and productive work force...

One of these days the bullshit will stop. For now? It will continue. God forbid the adults in the room admit they were wrong and someone far younger has a solution for the degeneracy they enabled and implemented, the degeneracy they coddled, spoiled, sheltered, excused.
We'll just blame it all on the left. That's easier than reflecting on where and why or how we fucked up 2-3 generations and proceeded to reduce this once great nation into a festering boil on the ass of humanity of perpetually ass hurt petulant adult aged toddlers that can't drive a fucking car or truck anymore without 87 cabin airbags, nanny state fuckery of traction/stability control.
And just like their phones, said vehicles will be plugged in to charge at night too.



My problem? Being born about 20 years past where I'd be better understood...
I don't get along with many my age and younger. I do however, get along with the old timers that tell me how great things used to be...
Don't blame me... I've only been trying to stop this shit before ya'll held Hannity and Bush as conservative messiahs.
You adults in the room didn't listen and refuse to.

I may not get along with many my age and younger, but I'm not ignorant as to why they are the way they are... I understand their demise. You and many others write it off as Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps.
Except... you didn't give them boots to strap remember, they were too good for that sort of thing.
Thus, they hate me because I have what they dont... foresight, pride in my work, and a work ethic of live to work Monday-Friday.

I'm not making excuses for the lazy the inept. But I'll be damned if those that did exactly as the adults in the room told them, educated them, instructed them advised them to do, did it, are going to be conflated with lazy and inept because "their ship didn't roll in".

Upper middle class or better lifestyle on an entirely passive income for the majority of one's life.

 Or to put it another way, if you can't spend it faster than it grows without going crazy.

I wasn't offered the survey, so I could complete it on my old Galaxy S7 while wearing my $65 work boots and drinking my $.99 off brand Mt. Dew...

I'm an early Millenial (I'll be 40 this year) and I have my doubts. I'm making almost twice what my dad was making at my age and he had it a lot better financially than I do. On his $40k salary he was able to buy a house, a new car, and support a wife and 2 kids and put some money away. My wife works part time, and we are barely able to afford her car (mine is paid off) and raising one child going to private school. Buying a house is pretty much off the table until either her mom retires and can take care of our son so my wife can work full time, or her mom dies and we get to sell her house to use as a massive down payment.

Granted, part of this is because we want our son raised right (no daycare ever, and he attends private school). I get that we are making sacrifices which will pay off (hopefully) for our son... but I feel like we still can't really get ahead.

So only in Asia can one become a welder, plumber, electrician, heavy equipment operator, or any number of other skilled jobs that don't require college?

It’s a Mindset that you don’t understand, and Won’t understand.    

Delayed Gratification is it’s own reward.

I would say 9/10 millennials I work with all want or have bought since graduation a brand new car/suv ($35-50k), have an expensive apartment ($1500-2k/month) or a $350-400k home in the city on top of school loan debt making $50-80k a year and are single.  They eat out every meal, but $5-8 coffee at least once a day and wear designer everything.  

So these figures are not surprising at all

He is talking about extrinsic rewards, like owning a house.

@Bloencustoms

Fortunately I do not have that problem.  When I get my pay I set x amount aside for Long term savings that sits in an account (I have kicked the idea around to put this in a brokerage account).  X amount that pays my bills.  X amount to spend.  I have three different accounts. When I pay bills I manually move the money.  

I don't think we are that far off of each other and I think you will agree with this.  If it wasn't for automatically deducted 401k money I would bet very few people would have anything to retire on.  The only reason people have that money is because someone saves it for them (past them putting in a percentage)  There are a lot of people currently who live off of social security in retirement.  My uncle who is of the boomer age group is a perfect example.  He is single and lives in a trailer park never married and no kids.  Throughout the years he saved 3% per pay check.  Drank and smoked the rest away.  He told me there is no way a working man could save 2000 bucks.  Meanwhile I have many times that in my savings and I am close at the age of 30 to the money he had total when he retired (that includes a 100,000 dollar pension he took the lump sum on).

The difference is I budget he never did.  

A little about myself.  I started cutting grass at the age of 11 around the neighborhood from there I did side jobs and worked part time while in school.  I graduated in 08 from highschool.

I went to college at 21 got a degree in business and have worked for 1 fortune 500 and currently a fortune 75 company.  From the day I graduated at 25 I have saved 14-17 percent per year in my 401 that automatically gets increased by 1 percent every year.  

I still own my side business cutting grass and doing some small excavation jobs if the money is right.  In the winter I run heavy equipment for my buddy plowing snow while working my full time job.  Two years ago I went back to school for nursing (while running my side business and working full time).  I will complete that program (hopefully at the end of this year).  While I do have some student loans they are currently in deferment and I have the cash to pay them off in the bank set aside for just that reason.  All of the nursing school has been paid for cash.  

I consider myself to have average intelligence.  I am not the dumbest guy in the room but I am no Einstein either.  

What do I see from my generation?  I know of some of us who are good workers.  I know of others who are not.  I think you get that in every generation to be honest.  What differentiates my generation from others is the fact that every dumb comment they make is found on social media which everyone has access too.  Especially the media.  

I make well over the median household income were I live.  What frustrates me is the housing.  I am not paying 200000 for something that was worth 140000 six years ago.  I am hoping something breaks soon as when I finish school I am ready within 6 months to a year.  

My American dream consists of a decent truck, a 1000 to 2000 sq ft house that does not border a major road  (I am not picky).  Plenty of time to hunt and fish.  That is all I really care to have.  I don't take vacations other than a trip to camp to hunt.  I don't have monthly subscription to anything other than additional apple storage at 2.50.  

With all that being said I don't know how many in my generation do it.  I consider my self to be doing pretty well and I know there are many people I graduated with who are not doing as well who have more than I do.  Smart people realize they are one car issue away from losing it all.  

The biggest problem with the American dream now as opposed to the past is that you could make a living just about anywhere back in the day.  Now to make a decent living you have to move away and find a place with adequate employment.  

If everyone tried to work in the trades, prices would fall. There just aren’t enough jobs for everyone to have one. I was a tradesman and now manage them.

I do, better than you could possibly imagine.

How old were you when you bought your first house by the way?

It doesn't matter what you major in, I just need you to go to college so mom can rock a "Proud UGA mom" bumper sticker and not have the neighbors asking questions about why there's no college listed under your name on the neighborhood Highschool graduation banner

Attached File

Dude went off.

I just for shits and giggles looked up "heavy equipment" on Indeed in one of the areas I used to work in back in ny.
3 hits for each Repair tech and Operator.

There's no pay listed.
Minimum level of education preferred-Asociates degree and 5 years verifiable experience in the field with references.
And there's in one place alone-6 openings for that position, with a starting date of-Immediately. This is corporates version of "where's all the good men!?"

They've got word salad about how great the company is with over 7,000 employees from PA-ME.
A multinational diverse work force (visa holders)

Sign me up for that fuckery. I'll be taking advantage of that sensitivity training and have an HR cackling hen out for drinks Friday night again.

Cost of education went up because leftists were building their bulwark behind academia.

I invest in real estate with my profits from my main business and I buy under priced homes 2 times a month at least.

It took lots of reading and investing in myself to learn how to find the properties and to finance them without any money, but it’s doable. I’m not anything particularly special, I just use my time wisely and take responsibility for where I am, for good or bad.

You said that today, you wouldn’t be able to afford this same house.

So my answer to the people in your hypothetical shoes, is to buy a smaller house. They don’t have to have an 1800 sq ft “starter” home.

Yup. This isn't about middle or upper class folks. The blue collar and lower class will be squashed by this. While trades may be great for many who college wasnt the best option if there is a wholesale swing towards them you'll see the labor market in those become glutted and wash out those vaunted pay rates. Youll have another group of overpromised citizens with years invested (with trades your fucking body too, Im 37 and the guys I know in the trades already have knee and back issues) that will fill gyped if the income isnt what was promised. There will have to be a balance between that and bringing back our manufacturing base. Like it or not decades of government policy got us here and telling kids focus on yourself and look at Timmy the doctor isnt going to solve it. It'll take some course corrections from the right that go against the traditional conservative dogma. Trump swept into office on a populist platform with tariffs that would make the typical Milton Freedman unlimited free trade adherents shit their pants. We can just keep trucking along with the neocon globalist policies that have in part created this mess and let the left convince more and more their ideas are better or we can do something about it ourselves. There are going to have to be some affirmative policy changes from our end, flat out, if we want to prevent the left from running the table on us.

Sister in law just bought a 1200 square foot for 350k

You’re out of touch with reality.

While it might be making light of some of the other problems Millennials face, it does hit the target square on the primary failing that the generation seems to be unwilling to face.

Gen X had to face a mass of Boomers who stood in the way of our promotions, and at least we recognized that it was going to take a while of saving, investing, and enduring before we could see a payoff for our labors. It was going to suck for a while, so we had better not think we would instantly have all the stuff our parents earned over time. That would be unrealizable in the short run.  Millenials - as a group statistic, not individuals - not only widely ignore
the core issues of cash flow management and deferred gratification, BUT they also repeatedly vote for and support policies that undermine their long term stability at the same time as they whines about not not achieving dream lifestyles.  Gen X wanted an apartment with friends that had fewer roaches in it.  Millenials seem, again statistically, to feel denied that they don’t live a life out of the Robb Report.  

What makes matters worse is that Millenials should have been absolutely screaming their lung out for the past decade at DC about immigration and H1Bs but instead they acted as cheerleaders at the immolation of their own future.  As it wakes up, Gen Z will hate the bastards worse than Gen X hates Boomers.

And the worst part is that Gen X is the one that will be screwed because there is no real way to avoid  Millenials getting to be in charge when we hit old age.  

I’ve been watching the Millenials from a sociological framework since I first read the Fourth Turning, and it’s a perfect storm for the neo-socialist fascism we know is coming.

Right here, 1315sf 3/2, $430,000.

19min relevant part starts.

Jokes on you, I did it on my company paid $1000 phone, wearing company paid $200 boots, while drinking my company expensed $8 coffee.

Being able to let off the gas and coast all the way to the grave.  

He’s not wrong.

I’m Gen X.

I didn’t spend my 20’s partying or vacationing or any of that shit.  I wear $25 wranglers and have shopped at Goodwill.

I’ve driven the same truck for 15 years.  I’ve spent years not having the nicer things in life, scrimping and saving so I could buy a house when I was 24.  

Now that I’m on the other side of 40 I’m beginning to see the positive effects of that.  I’m mostly debt free, can afford vacations and nice things.  All of this while raising 4 kids.

Life is hard and unforgiving.  You have to delay gratification - sometimes for years - to have what I have now.

So get to work.

Not a bad definition.    How much is that today?

Lol.  I can buy a 1800 sq ft house in my area for less than $200k.  In the best school district in the county.  On 2 acres.

I had my 2500 sq ft house built for $175k.  Two years ago.

At least $10,000,000 net worth. $50,000,000 would be better.

I've not read all 18 pages.. but this is what it boils down to.  The issue is, the people they are voting for, have convinced them they are out to take someone else's money, not theirs.. and they are all for that.

How common are $100,000 jobs there?

Costs in general are high for everyone. Wealth is an interesting thing. I saved for many years to be able to buy a house. Every penny I could. I didn’t go to the movies with friends. I didn’t have all the newest electronics. I didn’t have a new truck. I had a reliable truck I could afford. My friends bought motorcycles when I put money in savings. As the house market rose to prices that were insane… I realized I would have been better off trying to buy a house the day I graduated with the no money I had than at the time. The market rose faster than I could save. The only reason I was able to buy a house was the market crash in 2007/2008. I was then able to get in to one I could afford. The weird thing with 2020…? There was a stock market crash. But not a housing crash. I know plenty of people that were at the age I was at when I bought mine that were praying for a crash. As they saw it… it might be the only way they could afford to get a house.

It didn’t happen. The despair is clear to them. They just can’t afford it. Now we’re deep into clown market ranges. With inflation kicking in hard… what is next?

It’s hard to defend the asset owning class—my class—when I know that when the left says the asset owning class is hovering up the wealth of the nation. And not through being better, but through government intervention—though they are ignorant to call government intervention capitalism.

Socialism and or war. Either way the wealthy are going to suffer too.

32 or 33.  Starting from nothing, but had been practicing delayed gratification already for 25 years.      It always seemed like a natural instinct, but was also no doubt, learned behavior.

That's where many boomers are completely out of touch. Many of them don't understand that "starter homes" now start at $250k

I’ve seen this movie before.

This is kind of where I am.  Generally, Gen X was poor and in building mode in their 20s and 30s and then in their 40s it was like a light switch got flipped.  Again, generally.  That’s what happens when you’re so massively outnumbered by an older generation in the prime of their earning and management position years.  Seeing some comments here like “I’m 30, and only want a decent house on a couple acres and a newish truck and a stay at home wife…why can’t I have that right now” has me…not laughing, but definitely shaking my head.

“I accidentally left my cigarettes at home.  If you me have one of yours and I’ll buy you a beer”.

ETA. Wrong thread.  

That’s what boomers had. My dad showed me the house he had when I was born, I’ll bet it’s $550,000 now.

Yet you’re saying it’s correct for people to delay home ownership until they are 50. Which means they’ll never pay it off. Which means that house better be affordable on social security.

Why do you think Millennials are this way?  What about their upbringing has them acting/believing in this way?

No.
But we are not the 40% manufacturing and skilled trades economy we once were.
We’re a 60% service economy now.
With an off the charts increase in wealth accumulation highly concentrated where nothing really happens or gets done or gets made.
There’s no true output backing it.  It’s not a good place to be in as a country.

When the government dumps money into, say, building ships, planes, roads, producing oil, etc. we get a real return.

When it dumps money into welfare, no result pet projects, etc. we get noting to back it.

Meh, that sounds a bit hyperbolic.   Don’t you think you could live well off of half as much?
You seem to be all over the place in this discussion.  Can’t quite figure it out.    Are you claiming to be one of those bored, idle rich white guilt types, similar to the aristocrats who supported the French Revolution?

Boomers were literally handed the world, as the US ran the international order while the rest rebuilt after WWII, as I’m sure you know.  Like WWII itself, that event and that time period was an anomaly.  Of course passing those blessings to their millennial kids would be a challenge because Americans screw up generational wealth.  Add in factors like not saving much because muh social security and reverse mortgages to fund retirement travel, and yeah.  Things are definitely different for the generations after them.  We can accept that, or just say screw it and try socialism I guess.

I left home at 17 and started work well below half the median household income..
Eight years later 2.5 times the median household income.
Another 8 years and 4 times it.
Another 8 years and 8 times it.
Then a couple more years and ten times it.
Then- doing the same and doing it harder and under worse conditions-
Am down around 8 times it again.

All work and effort and self financed or earned.  No windfalls, no luck etc.
With significant delayed gratification over the years.

With my wages not keeping pace, stagnating, falling behind inflation on top of that, with tons of prices of stuff being driven up.

I’m in a pretty solid position -

But things suck balls for someone 17-25 right now starting out compared to how they did 20, let alone 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Some are still going to succeed and kick ass-
But there are some different hurdles, traps, conditions, and ambushes laying in wait these days.

You can concurrently bemoan the lightweight grasshopper youth and recognize it’s a different Hill for the ant youth these days.

His point is valid though.

Sure that compounds to a good chunk of change over time, and they should be investing that money rather than spend it on coffee....the difference is that daily coffee might be their only vice or expenditure.

Even if they did tuck that money away, the rest of their money doesn't cover expenses like it should, or would have several years ago.

Plenty of working class people used to buy a pack of smokes each day, and still managed to buy a home, buy a car, feed the kids, and eventually retire.

Many have a very hard time doing that now, even without the smokes or coffee.