As I read this I have to keep telling myself "it's about how these voters FEEL", not necessarily their reality. I graduated with a Masters in Engineering in 1991 from a top school - "professional work", but there were certainly days where I was asked to do my share of "bullshit work". My starting salary was $33,500. With some very quick research, rent for a 2 bedroom apartment is NYC in 1991 was about $1,100. That would have been about 39% of my income - not a big difference from today. I didn't live in NY, I lived in Washington DC, but I chose to live out in Fairfax County and had a roommate to save money. Yes, my commute into DC was 45 minutes to an hour. Maybe these people should move to (gasp!) Elmont or Floral Park and take the LIRR to work. I will admit that I was fortunate to not have student loans, but that is a testament to how ridiculously expensive college tuition is today - which I would argue is not driven by the "greedy billionaires". I also question whether any of these people did the research I did into what the average starting salary would be for "nonprofit managers, freelance writers, overburdened teachers" before they decided to pay top dollar for the degrees in these jobs and insist on living in NYC. I would love to know who they think "promised" them a job in NYC as a nonprofit manager living in an apartment in some of the most desirable zip codes in the country with money to spare to save and eventually buy a home in those neighborhoods.
Re:Housing affordability - it’s interesting that you didn’t really propose any solutions, correct? Just advice to move out? I get that in near term, but wouldn’t they also vote for someone who is promising to fix their problem?
Re: Career earnings and student debt - again no solutions. Just that those chose the wrong degree. I’m not trying to be snarky, but people will gravitate to those that speak to solving their problems.
The whole point of this article was really to reflect on what these people desire instead of just dismissing them again. I think they understand they aren’t living their best lives.
I don't think you are being snarky and you are right to ask for solutions.
On housing, there really are only three solutions. One doesn't require anyone to "move out" and that is build a whole bunch of new housing - so much that prices come down. Two of those three, however, do require someone to "move out". 2) Let the market do its thing and those that can't afford the prices move somewhere cheaper. And like I said above, I'm not saying Antarctica - I'm saying Nassau or Newark. Commute like millions of other people across the country, including people that live in those places now. 3) Set price controls - and guess what - someone still doesn't get to live where they desire to live. The only difference is that the person that can't live there now has more money - but they still become a disillusioned voter if we "reflect" on whether they are getting what they "desire".
On choosing the wrong degree, the solution is to admit that was your mistake and either qualify yourself for a better paying job through more education and training or move somewhere where you can still do what you want to do career-wise and afford to live comfortably. Mamdani is not going to relieve people's student debt and he is not going to start paying social workers $200,000 a year - even if people think he "speaks to solving their problems".
I am reflecting on what people desire. But reflecting on it, analyzing it, and concluding that MAYBE they are being unrealistic is not dismissing them.
Surely, living in the DC area you ought to know that a house in Upper Caucasia NW quadrant is at least twice as expensive as a similar one in vibrant SE quadrant. Whites are a shrinking percentage of the population and therefore are being corralled into smaller areas. Ergo, desirable real estate becomes more expernsive.
Whites are not shrinking as a % of the population in DC or most other major cities. In fact they’ve been increasing and gentrifying many neighborhoods, which is making them more expensive.
From 1970 to 2013 in Prince Georges County, MD, just outside DC, whites went from 567,600 to 135,000, or a decline of 76%, mostly working class. They were replaced by middle class, affirmative action government job blacks moving from DC. The percent of blacks went from 16% to 63% while the percent of whites declined 86% to 15%. You don't care about that type of gentrification, right?
You are really are clueless, aren’t you? The whole reason PG County became more black is because black people left DC and moved there. DC became less black, more white. Nothing you said disproves my comment. The same thing is happening in Atlanta, Denver, and many other cities.
Government crowded out the student loan market loaning any amount of money to anyone for any degree, bankruptcy laws changed so you can’t discharge student loans, and universities took advantage by raising tuitions, salaries and building brochure-ready gyms and “amenities “.
Total disaster started by government good intentions—paving the way to hell…
When something fuck up in some major way over the long term you can bet it was something collectively « managed », so usually the government but it can be other groups too. The reality is that no single individual would allow for things to get that bad.
It would be hard to imagine a less sympathetic demography. Has anyone ever combined such affluence (by historical or global standards) with so much self-pity? They imagine some better -- perhaps perfect -- life and are miserable and indignant over the ways they can find reality falling short from that imagination. They are their own curse. Their sentence is to life with themselves, but now with more taxes and less policing. Their path to prosperity is the same as that for everyone: offer goods and services that people want. It's work! But it works. Their path to happiness is the same as that for everyone: stop ruminating about yourself and serve some higher purpose. Their inability or unwillingness to do either is on them as are the consequences.
Chris, this is great advice if you're talking one on one to a young adult. If, however, this is how you think conservatives, or even mainstream liberals, should talk to this demographic, don't be surprised if the group response is downright hostile.
Quite possibly. Sometimes people are really set in their ways. I'll have someone come to me essentially saying "I am falling behind financially and am miserable!" to which I assume they want to change those attributes and make different/better decisions. Given that it is a big target to be better than they're doing, I offer some better ideas. Then they defend and explain what they're doing, why, and why they need to keep doing the same thing even after they said it was terrible. It is like someone who is lost but insists on going in the same direction without getting help. Oh well...
This is 100% spot on. I am the person who this article talks about. Undergrad 3.5 GPA. 3.65 MBA GPA. Corporate job since I was 22. Was not able to afford a home with my partner in Greater Boston until I was 37. Unsure if we will be able to have children due to cost and age. I was promised in 2005 if I followed the script I would have a “good job” and a stable life. Until college educated people are able to afford to buy a home and have kids by age 30, expect politics to become more radicalized.
If the top 1% percent don’t give away some of their wealth like they did during FDR’s presidency, then you’re going to see more and more Mamdani’s emerge.
So, you want the 1% to give money to you, not to the truly needy. Who made such a promise to you in 2005? You don’t say what your undergrad major was in. Some major are productive, some are actual harms to society.
Ive been waiting for the first libertarian “it’s my own fault” reply. To answer your question, I was a business management major at a business school then I got my MBA as I mentioned. I wasn’t wise enough at age 18 to realize I needed to “learn to code”, get an engineering degree, or whatever major you think is worthy enough. Your libertarian “it’s my fault” response proves my point.
And to answer your snarky “who told you life would be good in 2005”, it was the general zeitgeist of the time that college was the ticket to a good job and a middle class life and trade school was for losers. This was enforced by family, high school, and culture. Not sure how old you are but any millennial who grew up then would agree with me.
If we create a society where you need to get into the top 10% of income earners to be able to afford a house and kids by 30 then politics is going to destabilize like you are seeing. Telling people they aren’t valuable, lazy, or stupid like you just tried to do to me isn’t a good way to earn their votes.
To answer your pro 1% libertarian argument, you tax the 1% at higher levels to fund Universal Child Care and Medicare for All. You outlaw private equity from buying single family homes. You steamroll NIMBYs concerned about more density and lower property values and you build more homes.
I know one thing for sure. If you try to tell people like me I made poor choices and I’m too stupid and not valuable enough you’re going to see more and more Mamdani politicians emerge.
I am not a libertarian, more of a Roosevelt New Dealer. Mamdani’s policies will lead to national poverty. We need to enforce antitrust laws, reverse the Clinton era financial “reforms” and go back to the New Deal financial regulations, plus end the asset price accumulation caused by loose money since about 1995. I agree that the US middle class has been screwed, but the last thing we need is programs that create more of an entitlement mentality, either among the top 1% or anyone else.
Bernie’s social democracy is the 21st century version of a FDR’s New Deal. No one is talking about seizing the means of production. We just want to have a higher floor like they do in European countries. The Nordic countries are the happiest countries in the world for a reason.
If we keep going down our current path the country is either going to end up with fascism or economic collapse/ disintegration.
The beatings will continue until the US removes 99% of H1B, OPT and other VISAs focused on bringing in cheap labor to compete with US citizens. All other "solutions" are handwaving.
Peter Turchin identified this as Elite Overproduction - that there are never enough elite roles for those trying to climb the ladder - and when there are far more who want the roles than roles that exist, chaos follows. Figure out a way to address elite overproduction and you reduce the chance of chaos.
Great analysis. As someone who was born in 1984, went to and graduated college I can attest to the struggles my generation has experienced. I'm in a group chat with several of my college buddies and much of the conversation revolves around how hard it is to maintain even a somewhat comfortable middle class lifestyle that is even a fraction of what our parents enjoyed. My feeling is the boomer generation, in politics, in business and nearly everywhere else has simply held on too long and now the next generation, multiple decades into adulthood, has grown resentful and that resentment has yielding candidates like Mamdani.
Born in 1988. As I already commented above I couldn’t agree more. My family were blue collar workers and never made a ton of money. They live in old average houses and due to asset inflation are now millionaires while millennials can’t afford to buy homes and start families until their mid-late 30s. Waiting for the boomers to die so we can get their inheritance isn’t an economic plan. I’m not surprised at all politics is destabilizing.
Nothing new. This is the class the bolsheviks called the petit intelligentsia. You say they are “culturally elite.” It would be more accurate to say that they perceive themselves as culturally elite. They believe their masters degree from Columbia gives them the right to look down on everyone else, and they certainly believe they should be better paid than a plumber, even though their benefits to society are much less than the plumber.
You'll never convince the right wing economy policy team anything is wrong. They see the high asset prices of stocks and real estate as a feature not a big. They still call for more tax cuts to help capital owners save even more money...parking it in US assets...pushing prices even higher..
One possible area for common cause: we've tried to lower prices by subsidizing demand and constraining supply and have found that tactic at odds with day one of Econ 101 stuff re: how prices work. Instead we could try the opposite: deregulate supply. Allow builders to build. Get rid of delays and red tape. The solution to high prices is high prices if markets are freed to do their thing. If the government stops supporting demand and instead lets supply grow, prices might fall. It works in theory and in practice.
One easy place to start would be with federal legislation limiting building codes to meet minimum safety standards. Currently they require all kinds of things that are niceties but not essential. Most builders will tell you the Residential Energy Code is one of the factors contributing unnecessarily to housing costs. In addition to energy there are several other codes (structural, electrical, plumbing, etc.) and these codes are proprietary intellectual property, meaning to even know what is required to comply with the law you have to pay over $100 each just for the pdf versions.
The second piece of low hanging fruit to fix is real estate commissions. If you have 20% equity and the realtors take 5-6% of the full sale price every time the house turns over, that represents a huge transfer of wealth. As in 1/4 of your equity.
Building codes in particular are promulgated by an NGO called the International Code Council and if you click through you can see the monthly and annual document license fees which exceed $2,000 for the full set per year: https://codes.iccsafe.org/codes/i-codes/2024-icodes
Finally I highly recommend a Substack call Construction Physics, although I’m not sure if they’ve specifically covered building code cost impacts: https://www.construction-physics.com
Personally I’d like to see minimum building standards developed as a free open source document with certification to specific levels, for example Grade 1 through 5 showing basic and structurally sound to more upscale deluxe building standards. This could be developed with certification and inspection provided by private engineering companies. That would put the consumer in a position to buy what they want and can afford without impairing safety. It would also take governments out of the loop, as construction delays are a common cost driver due to slow permitting by municipalities.
My eyes were opened decades ago when I first toured an old European city .. not one of the apartment complexes would meet an American ADA standard to allow it to be rented out. The very aspect that made it charming .. narrow, twisting gothic stone stairways and no place to retrofit an elevator even if one were demanded. (An aside, I was stationed at the Pentagon during it's update to meet ADA standards (9/11 fortuitously struck an empty section being renovated) - so one could directly compare the original unique and cool architecture - one felt like they were working in a James Bond movie - with secret ratholes, hide-out and impossible secretive mazes with the new huge waste of space open area sections that resemble any modern grand escalator-ridden and broad avenued shopping mall. There never has been a government Department of Aesthetics to even provide input to whatever functional priority of the moment. (Which in the case of the Pentagon, seems to be to ensure it is able to handle the day when every worker there is in a wheelchair.)
Can't talk about subsidizing demand and constraining supply of housing when the Democrats want an unlimited stream of cheap foreign labor to come into the country unabated and unvetted.
Reply to Mr. Pete: Actually, the high asset prices were caused by the Clinton administration’s “reform” of the financial system and the Obama administration’s quantitative easing. I agree that both of these administrations were bought and paid for by the oligopolistic on Wall Street, but they were hardly right wing.
Respectfully, is commuting not an option? I live in Japan and commutes of 40+ mins door to door are very normal. I don’t know if that is feasible as don’t know NY well though. Is that an option there?
It's very expensive to live without roommates in anything within a 40 minute door to door commuting distance of Manhattan's office districts (including Jersey) unless you are in price-controlled housing (which New York has a lot of! This is the only reason it's possible for its median household income to be similar to Portland, Oregon). For market rate properties $2000 - $2500 is possible but you have to really hunt and be prepared to fight to sign a lease on the spot, and that's for a walk up with no washer/dryer or dishwasher.
They want to live in stylish neighborhoods in New York. Some of this is a genuine economic squeeze, but some of it is lifestyle choice. Phoenix and Houston are beneath them.
Another factor, in addition to the comments below, is the glamor of "prewar" styles of architecture. We will never get back the "real" materials that made those turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses so great, but one way to lure young professionals out to the suburbs is to move away from that "subdivision" style of postwar housing with the low ceilings and hollow-core doors. This may be a great style for some, but many younger renters/buyers would regard living in such digs as a lowered quality of life. New builds need vaulted ceilings and crown moulding if they can possibly swing it - and does anybody plaster walls anymore?
Most of these credentials are good for nothing but bullshit jobs. It's not that these people have been lied to. Everybody has known all along that the really tough academic courses like engineering or physics were where the money was. But a lot of people thought they could spend 4 years of student loans partying and getting laid and walk right into a comfortable adult life. Nobody told them it would be that way.
Politically this is a real problem. It's going to be tough providing a great living to a large number of people who are not qualified to produce anything of economic value. They will only vote for politicians willing to lie to them. It's going to get worse.
I'm sorry, but what a load of crap. Let me guess... You're a crypto bro who makes his money via "sit-on-your-ass" capitalism like stock trading or some other finance-centric job. You think labor deserves nothing, while ownership deserves all and more.
My father, an accountant with an associate degree, was the sole wage earner his whole life. Worked in an office, but never had any people reporting to him. Raised 5 kids. All went to college, all got STEM degrees (2 engineers, 3 applied math majors), with no student loans (BTW, the annual tuition + fees + room and board of the school we attended is $80k today). He retired at 62, and enjoyed a better life in his 28 year retirement than I, a 64 year old chemical engineer with a graduate degree who is at least 8 years from retiring, have had to date or ever even hope to have.
Now, I'm generally doing fine compared to most. I don't want anybody's sympathy, least of all yours. But I definitely understand and respect the sentiment of Mandami voters as expressed in this article. OTOH, I have zero respect for "I got mine, f-you" attitudes like yours.
I think labor deserves the vast majority of the value it produces. So what is your solution? How do all these people with degrees in comp lit or lesbian studies produce enough value that they can have incomes to satisfy their unreasonable expectations?
I know engineering very well. If you've worked 40 years as a Chem E and aren't in financial shape to retire there is something unusual going on. Catastrophic health for you or in your family, or a gambling addiction or something. Maybe you paid full freight to send a bunch of kids through your alma mater. Whatever it is, you have my unwanted sympathy. But your case is far from typical.
Right but millennials in high school were brainwashed in the 2000s that going to college and getting an office job was the ticket to a middle class life and trade school was for losers.
Most millennials can’t afford to buy a home and start a family until age 35 or later.
Meanwhile our boomer parents that were your glamorized electrician or plumber or whatever who live in old crappy homes are multi millionaires due to home price inflation.
But of course like a top 1% loving libertarian you blame us for being too stupid, lazy, and not valuable. The idea that you need to be in the top 10% of “most valuable” to have a middle class life is insane and will result in destabilized politics. If that’s your attitude fine but don’t cry when more socialist politicians get elected.
The main difference is that I'm the sole wage earner AND I decided not to go into the self-congratulatory-laden field of management. The truth, which your "I-got-mine-f-you" brain is incapable of seeing, is that having two incomes and/or going into some kid of upper management role is completely necessary for a person with an advanced degree in engineering to be able to retire comfortably before death.
But, sadly, American culture was overtaken in the 1970's and 1980's with the general idea of shareholder primacy and management superiority. That the ONLY thing that mattered was production. That people are replaceable widgets.
So *of course* someone like you would say "well, your wife just needs to work, loser", or "why didn't you go into management, Mr. Washout".
*THAT* is what is wrong. That selfish behavior was elevated to a virtue.
In contrast, Oren's talks alot about human flourishing, and that in the end, the goal of policy should be to promote human flourishing. That is what is needed.
If selfish behavior was elevated to a virtue, it was not in my lifetime. It was 250 years ago when Adam Smith was writing. And the liberal political economy built upon that premise has created fantastic wealth, even for the bottom quintile of the American population. And throughout the world.
Of course I'm referring to selfish behavior in the economic sphere. Selfish behavior in the political sphere, such as choosing a government that promises to take from other to give to you, produces poverty. Every time it's tried.
But I'm not a laissez-faire kind of guy. The government has a role creating and enforcing the conditions for a free market economy. Nobody else can do it. And lately, our government has been failing at that. Largely because those who are harmed by this -- by the monopolies, cartels, fake barriers to entry, the regulatory capture -- all these people want is socialism. And that's just going to make everyone poor.
Maybe I have you wrong. I asked at first for specific policy options, but haven't heard them yet. How to you propose to close the expectations gap for those who assume they deserve a "flourishing" income but who are not capable or willing to produce anything of commercial value?
I think the policies advocated by American Compass are a good place to start.
I won't bother to refute your "Adam Smith advocated selfishness" argument. Oren has been all over that. Of course, you plug your ears and say la-la-la, as any good "I-got-mine-f-you" believer does.
Tell me, what commercial value does your free-market hero, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts (he of the ~$1 M annual salary*) actually provide? The man is a history major who's self-described skills are: "Nonprofit Organizations, Event Management, Team Building, Fundraising, and Leadership". Seems to fit the profile of the people you loathe.
Thanks for name dropping American Compass. I had heard of them, so I went to their website and read every policy proposal in the eight subject areas under "Issues and Proposals." These are truly excellent. I agree with all of them.
Note that in some of the discussion, they state, "as Adam Smith knew well, the pursuit of private interest will only advance the public interest under certain conditions. Clearly, those conditions do not hold today." Which is very like what I said in the middle paragraph above. Oren, whoever he is, will just have to adjust.
None of these proposals are going to do much for the mis-educated would-be elites. Their problem is fundamental. The way value is created in the modern world does not involve them. This will remain true even if we de-globalize, and especially if we de-financialize.
There are a few cushy positions for people like Kevin Roberts. But for every such position, we grant credentials to 100 people who are counting on them.
Unaffordable housing begin with the great society in 1960s. Unaffordable healthcare began with government subsidies and exacerbated by the ACA of OBama. Educational failure from indoctrination and student debt explosion began when OBama federalized student loans and used high interest rates to pay for the ACA. Life . The Federal Reserve is not independent it manipulates our currency and democrats flood the economy with free money and then inflation eats up any wage gains. The government is the problem and maybe the country is too far gone to reverse course.
I was hoping you'd discuss the neighborhoods, rather than just punditing vaguely. Where does the working class in NY live? What was the pattern in Manhattan? Who did the rich people vote for? Who did the ethnic eighborhoods here and there vote for?
Thank you. Brilliant analysis. The suffering middle class has been an overlooked issue for years. Too successful to get the benefits of the poor. Too poor to enjoy the benefits their seemingly decent salaries just can't provide.
Where are the parents of these 20-, 30-, and 40-somethings?
As a group those parents inherited beaucoup bucks from their parents. The biggest inter generational wealth transfer in human history. Those parents went to college and grad school when it was dirt cheap. They bought their houses when houses were dirt cheap. (Most college educated kids today had parents and grandparents with lots of advantages; social mobility is long gone in the US.)
Why didn’t those parents pay college tuition for their kids from their inheritances and incomes? Why don’t they sell their houses and downsize and recycle the gains into gift down payments for their kids? Or move out and give the house to the kids?
Why should those of us of a certain age who lived beneath our incomes and used our inheritances to pay for our kids’ education and help them with down-payments to buy houses cover the costs of others who were selfish and spending on themselves like drunken sailors?
For that matter, why should we cover all the college debt that arose from tuition having to pay for bullshit administrative jobs in colleges and universities over the last 35 years? Maybe the endowments should pay off unsustainable student debt or the institutions should be sued for fraud and have to sell their real estate (just like the RC Church atoning for sexual abuse). You could build a lot of high rise housing on the campuses in NYC.
But those are Zohran’s friends (and specifically his dad and his dad’s friends). And come to that, the NYT informs me that the Mamdanis have a big, fancy family compound in Uganda. God only knows how many Black Ugandan families were dispossessed to produce Mamdaniworld. Maybe that could be sold off too and Zohran can do his beach holidays at Rockaway.
I’m done rescuing fools. Let they/them live with the consequences of their folly. They are determined to collapse the republic because they expect to rule from the ashes. Most will hang from lampposts when the Jacobins take over. The madness is evident. There aren’t enough good men left to come to the rescue.
As I read this I have to keep telling myself "it's about how these voters FEEL", not necessarily their reality. I graduated with a Masters in Engineering in 1991 from a top school - "professional work", but there were certainly days where I was asked to do my share of "bullshit work". My starting salary was $33,500. With some very quick research, rent for a 2 bedroom apartment is NYC in 1991 was about $1,100. That would have been about 39% of my income - not a big difference from today. I didn't live in NY, I lived in Washington DC, but I chose to live out in Fairfax County and had a roommate to save money. Yes, my commute into DC was 45 minutes to an hour. Maybe these people should move to (gasp!) Elmont or Floral Park and take the LIRR to work. I will admit that I was fortunate to not have student loans, but that is a testament to how ridiculously expensive college tuition is today - which I would argue is not driven by the "greedy billionaires". I also question whether any of these people did the research I did into what the average starting salary would be for "nonprofit managers, freelance writers, overburdened teachers" before they decided to pay top dollar for the degrees in these jobs and insist on living in NYC. I would love to know who they think "promised" them a job in NYC as a nonprofit manager living in an apartment in some of the most desirable zip codes in the country with money to spare to save and eventually buy a home in those neighborhoods.
Re:Housing affordability - it’s interesting that you didn’t really propose any solutions, correct? Just advice to move out? I get that in near term, but wouldn’t they also vote for someone who is promising to fix their problem?
Re: Career earnings and student debt - again no solutions. Just that those chose the wrong degree. I’m not trying to be snarky, but people will gravitate to those that speak to solving their problems.
The whole point of this article was really to reflect on what these people desire instead of just dismissing them again. I think they understand they aren’t living their best lives.
I don't think you are being snarky and you are right to ask for solutions.
On housing, there really are only three solutions. One doesn't require anyone to "move out" and that is build a whole bunch of new housing - so much that prices come down. Two of those three, however, do require someone to "move out". 2) Let the market do its thing and those that can't afford the prices move somewhere cheaper. And like I said above, I'm not saying Antarctica - I'm saying Nassau or Newark. Commute like millions of other people across the country, including people that live in those places now. 3) Set price controls - and guess what - someone still doesn't get to live where they desire to live. The only difference is that the person that can't live there now has more money - but they still become a disillusioned voter if we "reflect" on whether they are getting what they "desire".
On choosing the wrong degree, the solution is to admit that was your mistake and either qualify yourself for a better paying job through more education and training or move somewhere where you can still do what you want to do career-wise and afford to live comfortably. Mamdani is not going to relieve people's student debt and he is not going to start paying social workers $200,000 a year - even if people think he "speaks to solving their problems".
I am reflecting on what people desire. But reflecting on it, analyzing it, and concluding that MAYBE they are being unrealistic is not dismissing them.
Surely, living in the DC area you ought to know that a house in Upper Caucasia NW quadrant is at least twice as expensive as a similar one in vibrant SE quadrant. Whites are a shrinking percentage of the population and therefore are being corralled into smaller areas. Ergo, desirable real estate becomes more expernsive.
Whites are not shrinking as a % of the population in DC or most other major cities. In fact they’ve been increasing and gentrifying many neighborhoods, which is making them more expensive.
From 1970 to 2013 in Prince Georges County, MD, just outside DC, whites went from 567,600 to 135,000, or a decline of 76%, mostly working class. They were replaced by middle class, affirmative action government job blacks moving from DC. The percent of blacks went from 16% to 63% while the percent of whites declined 86% to 15%. You don't care about that type of gentrification, right?
You are really are clueless, aren’t you? The whole reason PG County became more black is because black people left DC and moved there. DC became less black, more white. Nothing you said disproves my comment. The same thing is happening in Atlanta, Denver, and many other cities.
Government crowded out the student loan market loaning any amount of money to anyone for any degree, bankruptcy laws changed so you can’t discharge student loans, and universities took advantage by raising tuitions, salaries and building brochure-ready gyms and “amenities “.
Total disaster started by government good intentions—paving the way to hell…
When something fuck up in some major way over the long term you can bet it was something collectively « managed », so usually the government but it can be other groups too. The reality is that no single individual would allow for things to get that bad.
It would be hard to imagine a less sympathetic demography. Has anyone ever combined such affluence (by historical or global standards) with so much self-pity? They imagine some better -- perhaps perfect -- life and are miserable and indignant over the ways they can find reality falling short from that imagination. They are their own curse. Their sentence is to life with themselves, but now with more taxes and less policing. Their path to prosperity is the same as that for everyone: offer goods and services that people want. It's work! But it works. Their path to happiness is the same as that for everyone: stop ruminating about yourself and serve some higher purpose. Their inability or unwillingness to do either is on them as are the consequences.
Chris, this is great advice if you're talking one on one to a young adult. If, however, this is how you think conservatives, or even mainstream liberals, should talk to this demographic, don't be surprised if the group response is downright hostile.
Quite possibly. Sometimes people are really set in their ways. I'll have someone come to me essentially saying "I am falling behind financially and am miserable!" to which I assume they want to change those attributes and make different/better decisions. Given that it is a big target to be better than they're doing, I offer some better ideas. Then they defend and explain what they're doing, why, and why they need to keep doing the same thing even after they said it was terrible. It is like someone who is lost but insists on going in the same direction without getting help. Oh well...
Adaptation.
Their appalling and overweening sense of personal entitlement is disgraceful.
Yeah, if only they drank fewer grand lattes they’d definitely be able to afford to buy their own place.
They'd be closer!
This is 100% spot on. I am the person who this article talks about. Undergrad 3.5 GPA. 3.65 MBA GPA. Corporate job since I was 22. Was not able to afford a home with my partner in Greater Boston until I was 37. Unsure if we will be able to have children due to cost and age. I was promised in 2005 if I followed the script I would have a “good job” and a stable life. Until college educated people are able to afford to buy a home and have kids by age 30, expect politics to become more radicalized.
If the top 1% percent don’t give away some of their wealth like they did during FDR’s presidency, then you’re going to see more and more Mamdani’s emerge.
So, you want the 1% to give money to you, not to the truly needy. Who made such a promise to you in 2005? You don’t say what your undergrad major was in. Some major are productive, some are actual harms to society.
Ive been waiting for the first libertarian “it’s my own fault” reply. To answer your question, I was a business management major at a business school then I got my MBA as I mentioned. I wasn’t wise enough at age 18 to realize I needed to “learn to code”, get an engineering degree, or whatever major you think is worthy enough. Your libertarian “it’s my fault” response proves my point.
And to answer your snarky “who told you life would be good in 2005”, it was the general zeitgeist of the time that college was the ticket to a good job and a middle class life and trade school was for losers. This was enforced by family, high school, and culture. Not sure how old you are but any millennial who grew up then would agree with me.
If we create a society where you need to get into the top 10% of income earners to be able to afford a house and kids by 30 then politics is going to destabilize like you are seeing. Telling people they aren’t valuable, lazy, or stupid like you just tried to do to me isn’t a good way to earn their votes.
To answer your pro 1% libertarian argument, you tax the 1% at higher levels to fund Universal Child Care and Medicare for All. You outlaw private equity from buying single family homes. You steamroll NIMBYs concerned about more density and lower property values and you build more homes.
I know one thing for sure. If you try to tell people like me I made poor choices and I’m too stupid and not valuable enough you’re going to see more and more Mamdani politicians emerge.
I am not a libertarian, more of a Roosevelt New Dealer. Mamdani’s policies will lead to national poverty. We need to enforce antitrust laws, reverse the Clinton era financial “reforms” and go back to the New Deal financial regulations, plus end the asset price accumulation caused by loose money since about 1995. I agree that the US middle class has been screwed, but the last thing we need is programs that create more of an entitlement mentality, either among the top 1% or anyone else.
Bernie’s social democracy is the 21st century version of a FDR’s New Deal. No one is talking about seizing the means of production. We just want to have a higher floor like they do in European countries. The Nordic countries are the happiest countries in the world for a reason.
If we keep going down our current path the country is either going to end up with fascism or economic collapse/ disintegration.
The beatings will continue until the US removes 99% of H1B, OPT and other VISAs focused on bringing in cheap labor to compete with US citizens. All other "solutions" are handwaving.
Peter Turchin identified this as Elite Overproduction - that there are never enough elite roles for those trying to climb the ladder - and when there are far more who want the roles than roles that exist, chaos follows. Figure out a way to address elite overproduction and you reduce the chance of chaos.
So accurate. I am a lawyer. The profession is broken.
Great analysis. As someone who was born in 1984, went to and graduated college I can attest to the struggles my generation has experienced. I'm in a group chat with several of my college buddies and much of the conversation revolves around how hard it is to maintain even a somewhat comfortable middle class lifestyle that is even a fraction of what our parents enjoyed. My feeling is the boomer generation, in politics, in business and nearly everywhere else has simply held on too long and now the next generation, multiple decades into adulthood, has grown resentful and that resentment has yielding candidates like Mamdani.
Born in 1988. As I already commented above I couldn’t agree more. My family were blue collar workers and never made a ton of money. They live in old average houses and due to asset inflation are now millionaires while millennials can’t afford to buy homes and start families until their mid-late 30s. Waiting for the boomers to die so we can get their inheritance isn’t an economic plan. I’m not surprised at all politics is destabilizing.
Nothing new. This is the class the bolsheviks called the petit intelligentsia. You say they are “culturally elite.” It would be more accurate to say that they perceive themselves as culturally elite. They believe their masters degree from Columbia gives them the right to look down on everyone else, and they certainly believe they should be better paid than a plumber, even though their benefits to society are much less than the plumber.
You'll never convince the right wing economy policy team anything is wrong. They see the high asset prices of stocks and real estate as a feature not a big. They still call for more tax cuts to help capital owners save even more money...parking it in US assets...pushing prices even higher..
One possible area for common cause: we've tried to lower prices by subsidizing demand and constraining supply and have found that tactic at odds with day one of Econ 101 stuff re: how prices work. Instead we could try the opposite: deregulate supply. Allow builders to build. Get rid of delays and red tape. The solution to high prices is high prices if markets are freed to do their thing. If the government stops supporting demand and instead lets supply grow, prices might fall. It works in theory and in practice.
One easy place to start would be with federal legislation limiting building codes to meet minimum safety standards. Currently they require all kinds of things that are niceties but not essential. Most builders will tell you the Residential Energy Code is one of the factors contributing unnecessarily to housing costs. In addition to energy there are several other codes (structural, electrical, plumbing, etc.) and these codes are proprietary intellectual property, meaning to even know what is required to comply with the law you have to pay over $100 each just for the pdf versions.
The second piece of low hanging fruit to fix is real estate commissions. If you have 20% equity and the realtors take 5-6% of the full sale price every time the house turns over, that represents a huge transfer of wealth. As in 1/4 of your equity.
I would read more about this, if you care to recommend anything.
I suspect there’s a broad disconnect about what is “essential.”
Sorry I misunderstood your original comment.
Here is a study by the National Association of Home Builders that indicates regulatory costs are about 24% of residential home prices: https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/news-and-economics/docs/housing-economics-plus/special-studies/2021/special-study-government-regulation-in-the-price-of-a-new-home-may-2021.pdf
This is more of a summary article on regulatory costs: https://frontlineadvisorygroup.com/the-impact-regulation-in-home-construction
Building codes in particular are promulgated by an NGO called the International Code Council and if you click through you can see the monthly and annual document license fees which exceed $2,000 for the full set per year: https://codes.iccsafe.org/codes/i-codes/2024-icodes
Finally I highly recommend a Substack call Construction Physics, although I’m not sure if they’ve specifically covered building code cost impacts: https://www.construction-physics.com
Personally I’d like to see minimum building standards developed as a free open source document with certification to specific levels, for example Grade 1 through 5 showing basic and structurally sound to more upscale deluxe building standards. This could be developed with certification and inspection provided by private engineering companies. That would put the consumer in a position to buy what they want and can afford without impairing safety. It would also take governments out of the loop, as construction delays are a common cost driver due to slow permitting by municipalities.
I think he was asking you to recommend something for him because he wanted to read more about the topic. I’d be interested as well.
Thank you for pointing that out. I’ve edited my comment accordingly.
My eyes were opened decades ago when I first toured an old European city .. not one of the apartment complexes would meet an American ADA standard to allow it to be rented out. The very aspect that made it charming .. narrow, twisting gothic stone stairways and no place to retrofit an elevator even if one were demanded. (An aside, I was stationed at the Pentagon during it's update to meet ADA standards (9/11 fortuitously struck an empty section being renovated) - so one could directly compare the original unique and cool architecture - one felt like they were working in a James Bond movie - with secret ratholes, hide-out and impossible secretive mazes with the new huge waste of space open area sections that resemble any modern grand escalator-ridden and broad avenued shopping mall. There never has been a government Department of Aesthetics to even provide input to whatever functional priority of the moment. (Which in the case of the Pentagon, seems to be to ensure it is able to handle the day when every worker there is in a wheelchair.)
Can't talk about subsidizing demand and constraining supply of housing when the Democrats want an unlimited stream of cheap foreign labor to come into the country unabated and unvetted.
Yeah, that’s the problem in NYC, not enough buildings
Correct. Turns out lots of people want to live there. Go figure.
And it's an island.....
Reply to Mr. Pete: Actually, the high asset prices were caused by the Clinton administration’s “reform” of the financial system and the Obama administration’s quantitative easing. I agree that both of these administrations were bought and paid for by the oligopolistic on Wall Street, but they were hardly right wing.
What stops them from moving to someplace where it’s cheaper to live? Lots of nice places out there
Simple answer: lack of jobs and remote work opportunities and a corresponding lack of potential mates.
Respectfully, is commuting not an option? I live in Japan and commutes of 40+ mins door to door are very normal. I don’t know if that is feasible as don’t know NY well though. Is that an option there?
It's very expensive to live without roommates in anything within a 40 minute door to door commuting distance of Manhattan's office districts (including Jersey) unless you are in price-controlled housing (which New York has a lot of! This is the only reason it's possible for its median household income to be similar to Portland, Oregon). For market rate properties $2000 - $2500 is possible but you have to really hunt and be prepared to fight to sign a lease on the spot, and that's for a walk up with no washer/dryer or dishwasher.
They look down on commuters as “bridge and tunnel people.”
I've read many horror stories about US subways (open drug use, perverts harassing people, murders, etc)
Only the city managed ones.
They want to live in stylish neighborhoods in New York. Some of this is a genuine economic squeeze, but some of it is lifestyle choice. Phoenix and Houston are beneath them.
Another factor, in addition to the comments below, is the glamor of "prewar" styles of architecture. We will never get back the "real" materials that made those turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses so great, but one way to lure young professionals out to the suburbs is to move away from that "subdivision" style of postwar housing with the low ceilings and hollow-core doors. This may be a great style for some, but many younger renters/buyers would regard living in such digs as a lowered quality of life. New builds need vaulted ceilings and crown moulding if they can possibly swing it - and does anybody plaster walls anymore?
Most of these credentials are good for nothing but bullshit jobs. It's not that these people have been lied to. Everybody has known all along that the really tough academic courses like engineering or physics were where the money was. But a lot of people thought they could spend 4 years of student loans partying and getting laid and walk right into a comfortable adult life. Nobody told them it would be that way.
Politically this is a real problem. It's going to be tough providing a great living to a large number of people who are not qualified to produce anything of economic value. They will only vote for politicians willing to lie to them. It's going to get worse.
The engineering and physics majors are now also experiencing this economic insecurity. That is a reality, and that's what's "going to get worse."
I'm sorry, but what a load of crap. Let me guess... You're a crypto bro who makes his money via "sit-on-your-ass" capitalism like stock trading or some other finance-centric job. You think labor deserves nothing, while ownership deserves all and more.
My father, an accountant with an associate degree, was the sole wage earner his whole life. Worked in an office, but never had any people reporting to him. Raised 5 kids. All went to college, all got STEM degrees (2 engineers, 3 applied math majors), with no student loans (BTW, the annual tuition + fees + room and board of the school we attended is $80k today). He retired at 62, and enjoyed a better life in his 28 year retirement than I, a 64 year old chemical engineer with a graduate degree who is at least 8 years from retiring, have had to date or ever even hope to have.
Now, I'm generally doing fine compared to most. I don't want anybody's sympathy, least of all yours. But I definitely understand and respect the sentiment of Mandami voters as expressed in this article. OTOH, I have zero respect for "I got mine, f-you" attitudes like yours.
I think labor deserves the vast majority of the value it produces. So what is your solution? How do all these people with degrees in comp lit or lesbian studies produce enough value that they can have incomes to satisfy their unreasonable expectations?
I know engineering very well. If you've worked 40 years as a Chem E and aren't in financial shape to retire there is something unusual going on. Catastrophic health for you or in your family, or a gambling addiction or something. Maybe you paid full freight to send a bunch of kids through your alma mater. Whatever it is, you have my unwanted sympathy. But your case is far from typical.
Right but millennials in high school were brainwashed in the 2000s that going to college and getting an office job was the ticket to a middle class life and trade school was for losers.
Most millennials can’t afford to buy a home and start a family until age 35 or later.
Meanwhile our boomer parents that were your glamorized electrician or plumber or whatever who live in old crappy homes are multi millionaires due to home price inflation.
But of course like a top 1% loving libertarian you blame us for being too stupid, lazy, and not valuable. The idea that you need to be in the top 10% of “most valuable” to have a middle class life is insane and will result in destabilized politics. If that’s your attitude fine but don’t cry when more socialist politicians get elected.
Gambling addiction? Nicely done, jackass.
The main difference is that I'm the sole wage earner AND I decided not to go into the self-congratulatory-laden field of management. The truth, which your "I-got-mine-f-you" brain is incapable of seeing, is that having two incomes and/or going into some kid of upper management role is completely necessary for a person with an advanced degree in engineering to be able to retire comfortably before death.
But, sadly, American culture was overtaken in the 1970's and 1980's with the general idea of shareholder primacy and management superiority. That the ONLY thing that mattered was production. That people are replaceable widgets.
So *of course* someone like you would say "well, your wife just needs to work, loser", or "why didn't you go into management, Mr. Washout".
*THAT* is what is wrong. That selfish behavior was elevated to a virtue.
In contrast, Oren's talks alot about human flourishing, and that in the end, the goal of policy should be to promote human flourishing. That is what is needed.
If selfish behavior was elevated to a virtue, it was not in my lifetime. It was 250 years ago when Adam Smith was writing. And the liberal political economy built upon that premise has created fantastic wealth, even for the bottom quintile of the American population. And throughout the world.
Of course I'm referring to selfish behavior in the economic sphere. Selfish behavior in the political sphere, such as choosing a government that promises to take from other to give to you, produces poverty. Every time it's tried.
But I'm not a laissez-faire kind of guy. The government has a role creating and enforcing the conditions for a free market economy. Nobody else can do it. And lately, our government has been failing at that. Largely because those who are harmed by this -- by the monopolies, cartels, fake barriers to entry, the regulatory capture -- all these people want is socialism. And that's just going to make everyone poor.
Maybe I have you wrong. I asked at first for specific policy options, but haven't heard them yet. How to you propose to close the expectations gap for those who assume they deserve a "flourishing" income but who are not capable or willing to produce anything of commercial value?
I think the policies advocated by American Compass are a good place to start.
I won't bother to refute your "Adam Smith advocated selfishness" argument. Oren has been all over that. Of course, you plug your ears and say la-la-la, as any good "I-got-mine-f-you" believer does.
Tell me, what commercial value does your free-market hero, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts (he of the ~$1 M annual salary*) actually provide? The man is a history major who's self-described skills are: "Nonprofit Organizations, Event Management, Team Building, Fundraising, and Leadership". Seems to fit the profile of the people you loathe.
*https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237327730/202443129349303214/full)
Thanks for name dropping American Compass. I had heard of them, so I went to their website and read every policy proposal in the eight subject areas under "Issues and Proposals." These are truly excellent. I agree with all of them.
Note that in some of the discussion, they state, "as Adam Smith knew well, the pursuit of private interest will only advance the public interest under certain conditions. Clearly, those conditions do not hold today." Which is very like what I said in the middle paragraph above. Oren, whoever he is, will just have to adjust.
None of these proposals are going to do much for the mis-educated would-be elites. Their problem is fundamental. The way value is created in the modern world does not involve them. This will remain true even if we de-globalize, and especially if we de-financialize.
There are a few cushy positions for people like Kevin Roberts. But for every such position, we grant credentials to 100 people who are counting on them.
This is harsh, but there’s some truth to it. It’s not exactly news that social work and nonprofits and freelance writing usually pay poorly.
Unaffordable housing begin with the great society in 1960s. Unaffordable healthcare began with government subsidies and exacerbated by the ACA of OBama. Educational failure from indoctrination and student debt explosion began when OBama federalized student loans and used high interest rates to pay for the ACA. Life . The Federal Reserve is not independent it manipulates our currency and democrats flood the economy with free money and then inflation eats up any wage gains. The government is the problem and maybe the country is too far gone to reverse course.
I was hoping you'd discuss the neighborhoods, rather than just punditing vaguely. Where does the working class in NY live? What was the pattern in Manhattan? Who did the rich people vote for? Who did the ethnic eighborhoods here and there vote for?
Thank you. Brilliant analysis. The suffering middle class has been an overlooked issue for years. Too successful to get the benefits of the poor. Too poor to enjoy the benefits their seemingly decent salaries just can't provide.
Where are the parents of these 20-, 30-, and 40-somethings?
As a group those parents inherited beaucoup bucks from their parents. The biggest inter generational wealth transfer in human history. Those parents went to college and grad school when it was dirt cheap. They bought their houses when houses were dirt cheap. (Most college educated kids today had parents and grandparents with lots of advantages; social mobility is long gone in the US.)
Why didn’t those parents pay college tuition for their kids from their inheritances and incomes? Why don’t they sell their houses and downsize and recycle the gains into gift down payments for their kids? Or move out and give the house to the kids?
Why should those of us of a certain age who lived beneath our incomes and used our inheritances to pay for our kids’ education and help them with down-payments to buy houses cover the costs of others who were selfish and spending on themselves like drunken sailors?
For that matter, why should we cover all the college debt that arose from tuition having to pay for bullshit administrative jobs in colleges and universities over the last 35 years? Maybe the endowments should pay off unsustainable student debt or the institutions should be sued for fraud and have to sell their real estate (just like the RC Church atoning for sexual abuse). You could build a lot of high rise housing on the campuses in NYC.
But those are Zohran’s friends (and specifically his dad and his dad’s friends). And come to that, the NYT informs me that the Mamdanis have a big, fancy family compound in Uganda. God only knows how many Black Ugandan families were dispossessed to produce Mamdaniworld. Maybe that could be sold off too and Zohran can do his beach holidays at Rockaway.
I’m done rescuing fools. Let they/them live with the consequences of their folly. They are determined to collapse the republic because they expect to rule from the ashes. Most will hang from lampposts when the Jacobins take over. The madness is evident. There aren’t enough good men left to come to the rescue.