It's Tuesday. The Subject Is Money. GO!

[blythechild]

I've been reading a lot lately about the younger generation's apathy towards established social values because they feel hopelessly removed from them. Kinda like a Dickensian street waif fogging up the glowing windows of privilege with their unfortunate desperation. Some social scientists have labeled this particular segment of the population "The

Comments

[wednesday42]

A lot of the problem we have in the US, imnsho, is that we're reaping what we've sown, particulary in the latter half of the 20th Century. We bought into the idea that we all "deserve" more, and should be able to pay less for it. We achieved that by outsourcing our labor overseas, by exploiting illegal immigrants, and by removing the stigma of borrowing money, and voilà - flashy shit with engineered obsolescence that costs ten times what it's worth and is paid for with a 17% APR loan. Add to that the mutation of child-rearing that equates giving one's children a "better" life with denying them nothing and piling on possessions in lieu of emotional investment, as well as an educational system that's been decimated for fear of hurting anyone's feelings, god forbid, and you've got generations of people (at least two now, by my estimation) with no coping mechanisms who've been raised to assume that things just somehow happen because they're all special little snowflakes. Fair or not, that's a genie that doesn't go back into the bottle - something catastrophic has to happen in order to shift the pattern.

(And yes, I am working my way steadily up the Cranky Old Lady echeladder. Thank you for noticing. ;P)

[blythechild]

Hello Cranky Pants... you're in good company with me ;)

I agree that you can draw a straight line from the economic and manufacturing boom of the 1950s right through to the reality of today that demonstrates that economic model couldn't last. But our collective memories are short and now that promise of affluence feels like 'a right'.

I'm sorta afraid of how 'bad' things have to get before the current model snaps closer to the middle again. That second video shows that we all know that the system is skewed, but we're all pretty confused about how skewed it is. If almost everyone is just barely making it, HOW MUCH WORSE COULD IT GET? I'm a fan of dystopian fiction, not dystopian reality...