Pretend the graph doesn't exist. Pretend the statistics don't exist. Pretend you have no way of knowing that "the 1%" are reaping the lion's share of the recovery, that they all live off in an Elysium we'll never know about.
Compare yourself to your parents, given that. You have the internet. If it's killed work for "the creatives," it's given the rest of us free access to their works. You have a cell phone, where your dad might've broken down on a highway north of Phoenix and prayed for a pay phone. If your kid runs a fever and the treatment wipes out your meager savings, at least he'll live, where his uncle might've died under the same circumstances.
I'm blessed with a good job. Maybe my luck clouds my vision, and there's a huge structural problem I refuse to recognize. Maybe it'd be different if I had a wife and kids, but I can't help but think that's... optional, especially for those of us in our 20s.
So maybe I just don't understand the plight of the author or those like him, but I can't help thinking that the primary drive behind the complaints is jealousy. The HuffPo article tries to say it nicely, and explain it with unfairly inflated expectations, but it still comes down to the same thing. Young people are jealous because other people have status, and it's just not fair.
Cell phones and the internet are nice, but I've bills and debt and crap job that I can't support myself on. I've got a mother in law dying of cancer, and once that's over with, the debt from the meager medical care she's received will burden her family for years. I've got a fiancee that can't find work in her field so she's stuck in a crappy job as well. The circuses are nice, but I'd rather just have some damn bread.
It's not "jealousy" when I'm asking to be able to support myself. Is it unfair to expect not to start out in life heavily burdened by student loans, unable to get a job that provides any sort of benefits, or to be able to pay bills? I'm not asking for the shiniest and newest, I'm asking for a basic living. It's not status; it's not being stuck living at home.
Compare yourself to your parents, given that. You have the internet. If it's killed work for "the creatives," it's given the rest of us free access to their works. You have a cell phone, where your dad might've broken down on a highway north of Phoenix and prayed for a pay phone. If your kid runs a fever and the treatment wipes out your meager savings, at least he'll live, where his uncle might've died under the same circumstances.
I'm blessed with a good job. Maybe my luck clouds my vision, and there's a huge structural problem I refuse to recognize. Maybe it'd be different if I had a wife and kids, but I can't help but think that's... optional, especially for those of us in our 20s.
So maybe I just don't understand the plight of the author or those like him, but I can't help thinking that the primary drive behind the complaints is jealousy. The HuffPo article tries to say it nicely, and explain it with unfairly inflated expectations, but it still comes down to the same thing. Young people are jealous because other people have status, and it's just not fair.