sangheilios
Master Don Juan
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2018
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ExactlyThe Baby Boomers had excess because of a unique set of circumstances unlikely to be replicated in the present or future. After World War II, Europe and Japan were decimated. It would take both of those areas until 1965-1970 to be competitive economically on a global scale. Japan had a great 1970s and 1980s. The Nikkei crashed in 1989 and Japan has never truly recovered from that. With the U.S. being the dominant global economic force in the 1945-1970 era, the Baby Boomers were raised in prosperity and graduated into good economies when they decided to end their educations, whether it was high school, college, or beyond. Even the Boomers that whine about graduating into recessionary 1970s economies had a walk in the park compared to the Millennials who graduated in the late 2000s/early 2010s and the COVID 2020-2021 graduates.
It was a great time. Because Boomers weren't competing globally in the early parts of their careers, they had an advantage. They eventually squandered it. The Boomers basically rode the coattails of the GI Generation (1910-1925), who were one of the most accomplished generations, and didn't build upon the successes of the GI Generation. All the subsequent post Boomer generations have struggled to varying extents. X'ers routinely complain about being neglected and overlooked. This is partially due to being latchkey kids. Millennials have been decimated by an increasing need to go to college (the good middle class income jobs in factories were long gone by the time Millennials started turning 18 in the 2000-2005 time frame). The cost of college skyrocketed between 1980-present. Also, since more people were getting BA/BS degrees or more after 1980, the value of each individual BA/BS degree or MA/MS/MBA degree diminished. Millennials have had to pay more for degrees that haven't made them as marketable. Additionally, the Millennials have taken the brunt of the 2 worst recessions since WWII, the Great Recession of the late 2000s/early 2010s and COVID in 2020.
The Millennials were the first large generation to see their parents divorce to a large extent. I think you're right that a lot of Millennials grew up with messed up family dynamics. Some of the smarter Millennials don't want to repeat that. Even if they did want marriage, babies, and homes in the suburbs, they've been so crushed by student debt and recessions that they can't financially pull it off. Many of the older Millennials of the early 1980s that did get married went through their first divorce in the late 2010s, or will be part of the many post COVID divorces in the early 2020s.
You're correct that people who do spend their 18-29 years in numerous sexual relationships won't be good marriage material by 30. This is called carousel riding for women. Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble in any metro area of a sizable population will be full of women 27-39 years old who were/are carousel riders. It's not all on the women. Some men have blame in this. The top tier of men (roughly around the top 10% of men) who are getting most of the sex have no incentive to commit. The middle of the bell curve men are now getting lower quality women with higher BMIs and notch counts. Two causes of this are female hypergamy and male surpluses. These women won't make long term partners worthy of a enforceable legal contract. The better looking ones might be worth a 2-5 year relationship without a marital contract.
I have this conversation a lot with others about how the baby boomers enjoyed a period of economic success that even today's young adult simply hasn't experienced. Like I said, as long as you went to college or got into some sort of trade and put an effort in just to show up you most likely lived a very comfortable life and didn't have much to worry about. You also didn't have to go massively into debt just to get a degree or training and buying a house was realistic within a reasonable time frame.
I remember when I was in high school in the metro northeast you were considered "dumb" if you didn't go to college. People that went to college right out of high school often did so because it was the thing you did and you possibly did this with no real direction. I know the parents of many of these people did in fact help out with their college expenses but I know of several people who went on their own dime and it put them so far into debt that they will never pay it off in their lifetime. As you mentioned, college costs have skyrocketed over the past couple decades, I actually read an article about this and I guess over the past 30 years or so the average cost for college has increased by 3 times that of the inflation rate in that same time period. Even if you go to a state school, that is still going to cost you at least 40k in just tuition and fees, you go to any private school and you are committing financial suicide. I know one school in the Boston area, Northeastern, cost around 70k per year with tuition and fees as well as room and board. To top it off they have a 5 year program for graduation, so total cost of almost 400k!!!
You live in some city like Boston, NY, LA or wherever and just to rent a one bedroom is around $1500 per month and you are making maybe 60k per year if you are lucky out of college. There is no way you are ever going to get ahead of this, especially since chances are you won't be making over 100k per year from a regular career.
To tie all of this into this thread, you basically are going to have a group of young men who in reality are educated and work hard but due to the set of circumstances they are in they feel hopeless, so they resort into escapism things like video games or worse drugs and alcohol. Combine this with the fact that even landwhales are picky on tinder I'm actually amazed that we don't have a suicide crisis.