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Is that why I, and a lot of other people my age, have a lower standard of living than my parents did at the same point in their lives?

The "free movement of capital" only ever seems to move the capital one direction: up to the people who needed the labor of others to reach such wealth.

The large majority of people do not have a lower standard of living than their parents at the same age. My dad’s family could not even afford shoes for him and he lived in Europe.

I am sorry that you feel you are downwardly mobile, but you should not assume your experience generalizes.

Mine lived in America. Where the story in the article is taking place.

This is, in fact, a generalized experience: [0]

[0]https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millenn...

I don’t feel like having the nth argument about whether we are better off today than in 1980. Agree to disagree, i feel that the facts are obvious, especially if you subset to the population whose parents were in the US in 1980.

i think if you gave people a legitimate choice to go back to 1980 (and take their friends let’s say), we would see the revealed preference. certainly if you did it for a year and then gave them the option to come back

case-in-point, my mom was effectively cured of a cancer in 2024 that they wouldn't have even tried to treat in 1980
> This is, in fact, a generalized experience

Your article is from 2019. We're now "wealthier than previous generations were at [our] age" [1].

[1] https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/millennials-personal-fi...

You keep posting articles from WSJ as if we should take Bezo's literal mouthpiece as a reliable source.

edit: Bezos doesn't own the WSJ. I'm wrong.

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it’s also turbocharged by the number of people that are descendants of immigrants
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WSJ? Might as well have not included it. It's paywalled.

That being said, it seems to reference property owners. Hell, if I'd had the money to buy a house prior to the pandemic, I would have. I didn't because of constant reorgs at my employer at the time, which resulted in hiring freezes and reduced raises. The goal behind these was to make the company attractive to buyers. Eventually, they did find one: Oracle. They've since gutted what was a major employer for my region.

Since the pandemic housing has skyrocketed and pay hasn't kept up. It's been stagnant for 40 years while economic output has risen, along with COL [0].

Where'd all of the value go?

(that's a rhetorical question)

[0]https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/comparing-the-costs-...

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The reason young people often have a lower standard of living is because:

- there is a shortage of housing

- predatory loans for higher education

- chronic health crisis due to terrible government health policy and guidelines

- globalization has led to an international labor market

The last point may be bad for many Americans but an unequivocal good for the world. Global poverty has seen an incredible drop in the past 70 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:Wo...

Interesting that you put the chronic health crisis on a failure of government.

I would put that more on a failure of culture to value healthy living and activity. I wouldn't call that the responsibility of the government. Perhaps lack of clarity on ownership is related to the crisis itself.

It's not solely the fault of government, but heavy corn subsidies and the food pyramid travesty didn't help.