No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#51

Post by gruez » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:32 PM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #47

lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

Gen Z are the richest generation in all of American history on a median per-capita real income basis, compared to older generations when they were the same age. And it's not even close. Millenials are the second richest in American history. The only problem is housing. Any discussion not focused 100% on housing is not grounded in reality.

>Gen Z are the richest generation in all of American history on a per-capita real income basis, compared to older generations when they were the same age.

source: https://www.economist.com/img/b/608/739/90/media-assets/imag...

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#52

Post by weweersdfsd » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:33 PM UTC

jen20 wrote: post #41

weweersdfsd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's more or less same mess in Europe too. Young people are supposed to take 20-30 year mortgages that require a stable career to pay back, while corporations do their best to make everyone unemployed via advances in AI and robotics. Hell, my country also shares more than 1000km of with Russia, and who says we won't have WW3 in 20-30 years? At this point the main economic improvement in my life will probably co…

It is _far worse_ in Europe since mortgages are typically not fixed rate for 30 years - an aberration almost unique to the US.

Oh yeah, you're right. Rising rates basically crashed the entire construction sector in my country for that reason, since few people can afford the rates, so no new mortgages.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#53

Post by leni536 » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:33 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #37

neilv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... so long as the other villagers are fighting amongst themselves, over whether their house should be larger than that of their neighbor. Turns out most of their problems are arguably traceable back to those people with 100+ houses each. Which would be glaringly suspicious to an outside observer. But the vill…

>Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. >But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... How much % of the housing supply is actually taken up by people with 100 houses?

How much of zoning laws are lobbied by peopke with 100 houses? People owning the houses is not the problem, as other people still live in those houses. The incentives to keep it a good investment is still a problem.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#54

Post by freeone3000 » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:33 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #35

kubb wrote: post #30

Born too late to enjoy exponential asset growth. Born too soon to see the true environmental impact of the asset growth. Lost generation, can I just get some drugs to cope please, my computer job is making me lose my humanity ;( Just kidding it’s all good :)

It would make an interesting film(book/documentary/comic?) where the protagonist is laid off because the factory in Anytown, Georgia closes down and by some magical plot contrivance he is able to move to Shenzhen and get his job back. You could go a lot of different ways, or several at once, with this set up.

This is the excuse-plot around Shenzhen IO; you then spend the rest of the game making awful novelty tchotchkes

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#55

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

lenerdenator wrote: post #27

theryan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a bit disingenuous. Home ownership under 35 is nearly 40%. 35 and up it increases to above 60% https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/07/younger-house... has some nice statistics.

It'd be interesting to see what would happen to 35 and up if you excluded everyone born before, idk, 1980, and then again if you excluded everyone born before 1965.

> It'd be interesting ... if you excluded everyone born before ... 1980, and then again .. .before 1965

On one income, I owned my first house in 1994 for $425/mo and next in 2001 for about 2x that. Hurricanes hit elsewhere in 05 & 07 (last here 1921) & I lost the 2nd when my (mandated) insurance doubled my monthly house payment.

By 2021 we could minimally survive on 1.5 incomes (did 1). Today it's 3.5 incomes (have 4).

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#56

Post by jasperry » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:35 PM UTC

jassyr wrote: post #46

jasperry wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value growth isn't tied to physical resources anymore, it's increasingly ascribed to intangible things, such as intellectual property. I'm not saying that growth is guaranteed to continue, just that economies have already been growing based on more abstract values; it's not all about food and fuel anymore.

Even so, the IP is used to make things which require resources. Disney IP is used to make toys, movies, books, etc, that all require electricity, paper, computers, employees sitting and eating, commuting into the office. Or a vaccine patent will be used to make a vaccine which requires a factory to be built and operated, the product produced, stored, shipped, used, and disposed into a landfill.

That's true, but more and more products are moving away from dependence on the physical resources. Kids don't buy toys much anymore, they play digital video games. You can see a doctor on Zoom instead of driving to their office. I'm not saying that's better, but it's happening.

The real problem I see is when people use wealth generated from intangibles to put the squeeze on physical resources, such as buying up land as an investment to drive up the price when people need a place to live.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#57

Post by Pet_Ant » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:35 PM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #47

lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

Gen Z are the richest generation in all of American history on a median per-capita real income basis, compared to older generations when they were the same age. And it's not even close. Millenials are the second richest in American history. The only problem is housing. Any discussion not focused 100% on housing is not grounded in reality.

Richest? How? Maybe by total wealth.

I think wealth should be measured by how many hours at the median wage do you need to achieve a socially acceptable standard of living. Unfortunately, our standards have gone up and there are things that are now necessities that weren't before.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#58

Post by gruez » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:35 PM UTC

cduzz wrote: post #48

gruez wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. >But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... How much % of the housing supply is actually taken up by people with 100 houses?

Ever wonder about who can afford to make all-cash, above ask offers on houses? Or you can rent that house after the PE firm buys it and rents it out... https://www.propublica.org/article/when-private-equity-becom... https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...

>Or you can rent that house after the PE firm buys it and rents it out...

That's fine? It's still contributing to the housing supply, it's not like they're hoarding the houses. Moreover unless you want to ban rentals entirely, you're going by definition need people owning more than one house. Finally, the fact that rents are sky-high as well, suggests that housing is expensive in general, not only home ownership.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#59

Post by mistermann » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:36 PM UTC

keybored wrote: post #29

neilv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... so long as the other villagers are fighting amongst themselves, over whether their house should be larger than that of their neighbor. Turns out most of their problems are arguably traceable back to those people with 100+ houses each. Which would be glaringly suspicious to an outside observer. But the vill…

What’s ironic[1] about these comments is they set up these ignorant-sheep narrative about how the villagers are bickering among themselves. Which begets more finger-pointing among the villagers instead of looking at the real source of their problems. [1] Not ironic if you don’t think you’re one of the villagers.

It is a narrative, yes, but are you asserting that the narrative is not substantially true? I struggle to think of anyone I know of, let alone know personally, that is mostly on the systems analysis side of the spectrum vs the story telling and bickering side.

Culture is constantly running in the background, teaching us not only what to think, but also how to think. And changing culture is hard.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#60

Post by swores » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:36 PM UTC

pseudo0 wrote: post #36

theryan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a bit disingenuous. Home ownership under 35 is nearly 40%. 35 and up it increases to above 60% https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/07/younger-house... has some nice statistics.

In case you weren't aware: > The name "homeownership rate" can be misleading. As defined by the US Census Bureau, it is the percentage of homes that are occupied by the owner. It is not the percentage of adults that own their own home. This latter percentage will be significantly lower than the homeownership rate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_...

To add to what you said, and make it a little easier to visualise why it's misleading:

If you have one person living on their own in a house they own, and four people renting bedrooms in a shared house, the home ownership rate is 50% despite only 20% (1 of the 5) of the people being home owners.

If the home owner then rents out one of their bedrooms to someone expanding the population between the two houses from 5 to 6, then home ownership rate is still 50% but now it's 16.6% (1 in 6) of people who own a home.