The story we were telling young people that if they apply themselves, go to school and get a job they'll be able to afford family, house, vacations is moving further and further away for more and more people.
The turn towards financial nihilism will continue.
This doesn't make any sense. The population has experienced massive uplift over the last few decades. Their parents weren't going on vacations with the family as kids, they were struggling to put food on the table. Houses are outpacing inflation, but the home ownership rate continues to climb.
The threshold for greed is higher than the median net worth of an American. We tell people they need "generational" wealth to a make it in this country because housing, education, and healthcare are all so expensive
While "financial nihilism" is part of it, I think we should be putting even more attention towards the forces that are trying to deliberately encourage it for profit.
Kind of like pathological gambling: Sure, some people are susceptible, but there's also an entire industry around finding them and making them succumb.
We live in a capitalist society, not a labor-oriented society. The way to make big money is through capital - ie: purchasing property and then selling it for (hopefully) profit.
Laboring in a capitalist economy is a loser's strategy because your capital is you body's ability to produce value and that has a maximum physical limit. Why participate in an economy using a strategy that has a natural upper bound? It makes no sense. You're not even playing the game poorly - you're not playing the game at all.
This is the logical end conclusion, but in reality, we live in a middle ground where plenty of people have and will live in a society where they can sell their labor for a perfectly content life.
This is becoming less and less true by the day. Salaries are dwindling while the stock market is roaring, and it's already the case that speculation brings more income in this country than work.
It's not sustainable, capitalist societies always degenerate into a society of owners who get the majority of the wealth while workers get scraps. This is what's to blame for the social unrest the West is experimenting.
The turn towards financial nihilism will continue.