undefined | Better HN

0 pointsralferoo1y ago0 comments

Replying separately from my other reply, because I think this is a totally different issue and actually gets to the core of the issue in the article.

> Rent has increased ... due to collusion among landlords, among other things.

> ... is such a big part of monthly expenses that it doesn’t even matter whether you have subscriptions or not. ... These are changes caused by large-scale political decisions, not personal moral failings of vast numbers of consumers.

To me, both these statements are indicative of passivity and lack of agency about the situation that exemplifies the Gen Z mindset towards money. The first attempts to blame someone or something else for the high rents, which doesn't achieve anything apart from increasing the feeling that life is unfair. This mindset doesn't allow a way to break out, because it relinquishes agency over the situation to someone else.

The second has so much to unpack - it's pointless even trying to spend less; it's the government's fault; lots of others are in the same boat; trying to help someone to save is pointing out their personal moral failings. But none of these things are actually true.

It's not a personal moral failing to be short of money. Arguably, there'd be a case to be made if someone was gambling thousands of dollars away every month while their kids starved. If you're just working a job, struggling to make ends meet and having to live pay cheque to pay cheque, that's not a moral failing, that's making the best of a bad situation. People in that situation usually have already cut out all unnecessary spending, because they've often had to make the choice between things they actually need and had to do without something they actually need. There are still ways out in that situation, and sadly the easiest to say and the hardest to actually do is just to leave the situation, move somewhere cheaper to live and try to start again.

That isn't what the article is about though, it's about how Gen Z is nihilistic towards money. How does someone who does have a decent income, but chooses to spend it on a fun lifestyle, on experiences, etc. respond to the statement "if you make your life a little less pleasant now by giving up X, then you can save that money and make your future life better"? I can totally understand why people don't want to give up X - they obviously want to keep life with its current level of pleasantness, so then it comes down to priorities - what is really more important to an individual? For example, a cup of coffee every day for a year, or no cup of coffee each day and having a a month's rent in savings at the end of the year so e.g. a random car breakdown doesn't stop you paying rent? Maybe after a month of skipping the coffee and seeing that it wasn't that hard after all and seeing the difference in the bank, they might then consider not having lunch out every day, instead taking in sandwiches 4 days a week. Maybe they might consider whether they really need Amazon Prime instead of just waiting 3 days and using the free shipping. But I think most of them won't, and that's the point of the article. Most Gen-Z'ers don't prioritise the savings and the future reward, because they want the short term experiences and happiness. More than that, their peers all agree that it's not their fault, they're powerless to do anything about the situation, they could never hope to ever save up the deposit for a house, and so they might as well not even try. It's this mindset that's depriving them of their own agency, not the government, not previous generations, not anyone else.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

janalsncm1y ago· 2 in thread

We can say it’s a mindset issue or that Gen Z needs to take more personal responsibility for their financial situation, but that essentially ignores all of the facts on the ground that are the results of trends and political decisions that happened before they were born. It isn’t their fault that things have become so expensive. It’s the fault of the profit maximizing companies that control the economy, and a political class that has allowed these problems to fester.

It used to be possible in America to buy a house and raise a family with free education. This is no longer possible. It was a choice to only zone for single family housing. It was a choice to cut state funding for universities which has led to unsustainable tuition bloat. It was a choice to allow companies to ship jobs overseas for pennies on the dollar. All of these choices reallocated money from younger, poorer people to wealthier, older people.

ralferooOP1y ago

> It isn’t their fault ... It’s the fault of ... > It used to be possible ... This is no longer possible.

These statements are the very essence of the nihilism in the article.

It doesn't matter if a situation is less advantageous to you than it was to someone 10, 20, or 50 years ago, or why the situation has changed. What matters is how you can best deal with the situation you find yourself in now.

Giving up, saying it's too hard so there's no point trying, blaming someone else all have the same outcome - nothing will change.

To use a card analogy: maybe you haven't been dealt the best cards in life, but if you fold every hand, you're never going to win. But if everyone else has terrible cards too, you can easily win with a bad hand if you play to your strengths.

janalsncm1y ago

I won’t disagree there are more and less productive mindsets you can have about your situation. But mindset isn’t everything. You can choose to have a productive mindset while understanding the political choices that were made. And that is important because we can make political choices to fix the problems that have been caused. You can’t just grind your way out of neoliberalism.

Your card analogy hides the fact that your cards weren’t dealt randomly. Opportunity isn’t evenly distributed. The cards were deliberately chosen. Politicians chose winners and losers when they rewrote the tax code to reward capital over labor, make it easier to ship your job overseas, cut funding for education, and now allow companies to buy up a quarter of new housing. And the only way those trends get reversed is if people become more aware of it, not less.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse