I am broadly sympathetic to the argument that everyone younger than me is so soft that they couldn’t survive a single period of 1980s-90s school recess. (My scar tissue from the unsanctioned, bootleg varieties of dodgeball alone have only just healed). But doesn’t every generation do this? I’m sure those who survived Normandy and the Bataan Death March probably thought their grandchildren were pretty soft, too — and they had a point.
However, I am extremely sympathetic to one argument that everyone younger than me can make: it’s hard to find a place to live that you can afford, and that wasn’t always the case. This seems to explain much of why the world seems rigged right now. According to this Consumer Affairs study, you need a six-figure salary to afford a home in most of the country: “American households need to earn $120,796 a year to afford a typical home (with a 10% down payment). That’s 48% more than the U.S. median household income of $81,604.” That was not the case when I bought a house, likely the only one I will ever be able to get.
Almost every developed country is facing some version of this problem, and there are some ways to improve things at the margins. But the central issue is the same — older generations staying put and doing everything they can to drive up the value of their own homes, at the expense of everyone else…