Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

My first paragraph wasn't meant to be a summation of yours, sorry, it's just that your statement reminded me of the last part of it. It's just odd that the criticisms of the boomers includes both "they're being unsustainable" and "they won't let us be unsustainable wtih them".

As for starting families later, that happens with wealthy, stable societies. People were starting to have children later well before housing costs j-curved. Family sizes have reduced as well - plenty of western democracies are now below replacement birthrate.

In short, the problem is this: housing costs are a problem. Bitching about the boomers is going to help no-one, especially the millenials. Rather than spend that energy creating division, find forward-thinking solutions. Instead of being bitter about the one problem that generation has, be happy that things like job quality has improved[1] (yes, for the slightly lower amount of jobs per worker these days), education is more available[2], society is less discriminatory, food supply is of better quality, entertainment is more easily accessed, travel is much easier, so on and so forth.

Hence why I say that focusing only on house + uni price is just propaganda.

[1] Those jobs that immigrants do in modern western societies, the ones that the natives don't do because they're too menial? Those were the jobs that the young boomers and earlier had to do.

[2] Uni courses are more expensive, but there's a ton of education out there that isn't in the form of a four-year degree, and that's independent of the amazing resources available on the internet.

That doesn't really help without a baseline. If the boomers averaged x hours of vacation time, and millennials are average x/2, then wanting more doesn't speak to a lack of work ethic.

The link I presented was aggregate government spending, it was not restricted to federal spending.

Hardly man. I'm a small business owner. I pay a hell of alot in income taxes. I have invested money.

The thing is - we all use our resources in this country. We all use the roads, the land, the water, the minerals, and every other item out there. My company probably uses more than the average person. It should be taxed at least equally - if not more as a result.

I have a bunch of people that drive all over the place. They write on paper. Many miles of roads are used slightly because of them. Paper is produced for them to write on. My grandma has never drove a day in her life - and at 95 still walks everywhere she needs to.

She makes pennies on the thousand dollar compared to me. Taxes provide infrastructure and resources. The poor are overly taxed.

The factual errors in your argument are extreme.

Working class wages were proportionately higher in 1970. Drawing a dividing line is hard, but somewhere between 1970 and 1980, wage gains became decoupled from productivity increases.

Medicine quite simply hasn't advanced significantly since 1970. Access to medicine by the underserved has, and accounts for much of increases in outcomes, as well as reduced environmental polutants and healthier lifestyles: clean air, clean water, unleaded petrol, lead-free paint, reduced smoking, and reduced alcohol consumption.

"Lifestyle" shopping was only just being invented at about this time -- shopping as recreation largley didn't exist. "Amazon" was called "Sears, Roebuck", you could buy a house, or a bed, or a wardrobe, with a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Communications and entertainment are about the only area with significant improement, though I'd argue the quality of news coverage 1970 - 1980 was far higher than today -- most cities had multiple local papers with detailed coverage, and newsmagazines weren't the joke they are today. Television was more limited and video didn't exist, but movie theaters were much more common (and cheaper), and live performances easier to find. There was also a form of entertainment and information called "books", freely available in these terminal service devices called "libraries".

You've failed to account for decreased labour union participation (stronger job security), general life and housing security, highly subsidised educational opportunities, the burgeoning of opportunities resulting from the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights movement, the long boom in opportunity in California (offsetting the decline of the rust belt), affordable air conditioning making life in the southeast comfortable for the first time, and the fact that in 1970, the advances of the next 30 years were rapidly approaching. I (and others) see the information revolution as largely played out -- its peak period seemed to be ~1995 - 2005.

Sources: varied, though Robert Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth covers much of the changes in lifestyle, transport, health, communications, and work, from 1870 - 2015. It's especially damning on info/comms technologies excepting 1995-2005, and healthcare since 1970. Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century is one of many books addressing the rise in inequality, see also Anthony Atkinson's Inequality.