Is Gen-Z Secretly Rich? | Ep. 039 Lemonade Stand 🍋

33:15Yeah. But I know that we produce radically better outcomes in the United States compared to everywhere else. so it's probably fine that probably hurt you to say you couldn't even do that as a joke i like the college textbooks like started to drop briefly in like 2019 and then somehow that after the pandemic they convinced everybody it's like no you should pay even more for these books that have not gotten any better yeah i wonder why that was i definitely remember um even you know this is like fucking my era uh the insane palpable frustration i had with um they would put like the the key that you had to buy in the official store college you couldn't like get a used copy right you couldn't buy a used copy you couldn't get a pdf online you had to buy the otherwise you would not register it was like very very frustrating um so this is like i think this is the general high level counter argument which is that telling people they are better off just because they have more dollars is missing some nuance on the things they really want, which have gotten out of control.

34:21They want a college education to have, formerly to have a chance at a better career. You're even mentioning that that - Right, that even the value of that is drawn, yeah. And I didn't see that graph, the one you showed of college education having a higher unemployment rate than none, but I have seen one that is - And I should be clear. It's not that having a college education makes you worse off. It's just that it's no longer an advantage. Right. The average worker, which includes everybody college degree or not is actually better than you. If you're 20 to 27 with a college degree. So important to say, it's not having a college degree is worse.

34:54It's just not benefiting you in the way it did. But the thing I saw from that was especially, especially for men, which is that I was a graph that basically said that in that there was absolutely no advantage they were given to getting the degree. So they were just four years behind and they were in terms of employment, Yeah. They were getting out of the market, which was pretty insane. So yeah, I don't know. Thoughts, King? Is this anything? Is this, do I throw this away? The King is not impervious to data and he can begin to see the shape of your argument that perhaps some of the most essential things that you have to spend money on as a young person eat up a larger and larger portion of your budget, which he would guess would leave you with less disposable income than you did before to save and put away.

35:47And I would also say, go on this one more thing. Another thing that's gone up like this, other than just housing, stock market, but they haven't had the chance to get on the, they'd haven't owned when it was cheap. So the chance to buy assets is also out of their reach. So they have this cash, but they're buying generational highs in housing and stocks. The things they really want, which is college and healthcare and childcare are up. And what I would say is if it was just vibes, if they were actually doing really well, you'd think you wouldn't see such a precipitous decline in having kids and constant reporting of, I'm just saying like, I feel like there's actions that are also showing negative outcomes, not just holding sentiment.

36:35I feel like King would argue that. The King has been listening to Nick Fuentes. And Nick's saying it's the women. The king's son showed him Rumble.com, and he's been an avid viewer recently. In all seriousness, on the birthright thing, I'm not sure if that is... We could do a whole episode on birthright. It's definitely more than just income. But there's a lot of evidence that when people have not just stable income, but some kind of free time, the birthright goes up. and so there must be some correlation here uh especially with cost of child care rising so rapidly is that true though on the birth rate thing i think that isn't that the big problem with the birth rate like if we took that as its own standalone problem or you know potentially connected to this which i think it does have connections to this but on the whole even if you control a lot of these costs and make a lot of these circumstances better you don't just see birth rates skyrocketed.

37:37It seems to have a deeper tie to industrialization than it does to factors like this. Definitely true to that. We should probably do a deeper episode on this. There's no nuance, King. I like him. He's one of the top. You'll have to have all the babies. He's like my evil advisor. He's like, here King, King, take your iPad. Take your iPad and keep swiping. You'll have to evoke Prima Nocta. you've been on a weird pre monocle coming back in japan we keep going out in japan and the doug would be like what else is there to talk about dude you don't know by the way pre monocle is the right of the king to have the first night with any wife when you get married i want my country the king is not opposed Okay, dude, on this CPI stuff, I didn't realize this until we dove into it this week of like when everybody talks about inflation.

38:39I mean, you go because you see you have something. No, one more thing was just there was a graph you had where you said sentiment. You were like consumer sentiment. Sentiment's not really, you know, like people have bad vibes, but it doesn't mean anything. Things aren't that bad. Can you pull this up, Perry? There's plenty. My overall kind of real argument that I don't necessarily have, that I think is the situation exactly here, is that we have misplaced vibes about things literally all the time. Sure. Like, reality is often very disconnected from what popular sentiment actually is. I think that's fair.

39:16But I would say, historically, this is the graph of consumer sentiment. The shaded parts are recessions. there is a clear correlation between dips on this graph and actual real world recession yeah but what if everybody is brain rotted this time yeah like the only one that would really break this one is the current one so if you're telling me that all the previous ones people knew they were in recession that's why they're mad but now they have become brain rotted there's there's a possible argument that like the internet has changed something about sentiment and vibes are worse in the previous recessions like in the 80s and 70s did they have tiktok that this is a fair argument.

39:51It's actually a fair argument that maybe things are different this time because social media has broken people's brains and things are actually good and they're mad. But I would say, let's just, if historically it's probably the same as last time, they're really pissed because their opportunities are measurably worse. That's my, that would be my argument. It's like, it's just like 07, 08 or 2000 in the middle of COVID or 2001 after the.com bubble, like the opportunities get worse day nine is streaming i can't believe you have discord notifications for day nine for your windows zoomer here man uh so that that is my right i i think uh to make the case that people's vibes are just really now they are kind of willy-nilly in general i know on a lot of things but when they talk about the economy especially if you ask them questions like what are my odds of getting a job in six months, if I were to lose it now.

40:43They generally track performance of real things. It's not completely disconnected gibberish. It tracks actual recessions, actual bad economic feelings, actual slowdowns. Again, we're having rising bankruptcies. We're having rising default rates. These things aren't made up. And so I do think people aren't, I think it's frustrating to call it vibes. I think I crashed out on someone on Twitter recently. Actually, someone's reporter. I saw that. I saw that. I crashed out because it's like, bro, I think it's like spitting in someone's face to tell them it's totally vibes based. Not that there aren't Gen Z doing well.

41:15Some people clearly are. I think we have a real diversion. I want to talk about that. Okay. Setting CPI and inflation aside. Okay. So as we're doing all this research, one of the things is, you know, again, people keep coming to this graph. Younger generations are richer than their parents. And one of the things that Derek brought up was like, oh, well, in the last five years, you know, and we've all heard about this, more people are investing in the stock market than ever before. right? The GameStop craze and crypto craze and all this has made people far more people, the average person invest in the stock market earlier than they did before.

41:49Whereas in the past, that used to be kind of an old person's game. It's been the first couple of decades, you buy a house, you know, later decades in your life, you invest in stocks. And so imagine that you're somebody in Gen Z or a millennial who started investing in the stock market in the last five years. I'm in that category, right? Once I started saving money in whatever it was, I was, you know, when I was 30 or something like that, I started putting my money into the S and P 500 S and P 500, the giant index. Most people invest into, if you look at the history of the S and P 500, which you could very roughly correlate with where people are putting their savings from two September of 2000, it was$1 ,500 to buy one.

42:26What's it called? Stock and S and P 500 like a unit, I guess unit one unit in the S and P 500, one gram of the S and P 500. Give me a gram. So if you, if you do a line of the s &p 500 back in 2000 you're talking 1500 big ones okay and then 19 years later in 2019 it finally doubles to three thousand dollars it took 19 years for it to double it has doubled again in the last four okay so like uh five excuse me so the the s &p 500 one One of the main indices that people are investing into has doubled at what four times faster than it had in the past. This is an insane explosion of wealth. And so for people like me who put some money into the S &P 500 four years ago, I'm like, oh, wow, holy shit.

43:14Like I this is incredible. Stock markets are awesome. And there are probably many people in Gen Z in the millennial generation who've done that. And so when we look at these graphs of, oh, they're actually wealthier, this is going to account for that. It's going to affect that somebody's savings that they put into the stock market five years ago have fucking doubled. That's crazy. The king did have this thought when he was looking at one of the other graphs, is that your barrier to entry, like it was comparing wealth of these, of like the boomer generation at the same age, right? And it's so disproportionately lower.

43:46And so many of those, like when you go that far back, the bottom rung of the ladder to getting into a house was so much lower, right? So you had the ability to save your money and then buy a home, which wasn't necessarily skyrocketing in value for like much of the previous century, right? So your wealth that was primarily put into the home wasn't exploding. But now for a lot of younger people, I'm imagining that what money you do have is nowhere near enough for a down payment on a home. So you just put it into the stock market instead, and you happen to be investing at a time when there's record performances.

44:28But then I think on top of that, you might have data on how many millennials and Gen Z invest in the stock market. Presumably, most don't still, right? Because of all the issues we're talking about. I heard like investing, as in putting a small amount in, it's actually higher than ever. People are trying it a little bit with Robinhood. But not at like... But like 90 % of the total value of the assets in the stock market is owned by boomers. Okay. They own all of the value. That's what I mean. But it's like somewhat reasonable, right? For somebody like in a pretty normal job, middle of the road, like you're 28, 29 years old, to maybe have like$10 ,000,$20 ,000,$30 ,000 in savings.

45:06It's pretty reasonable for that to be the case, right? It seems like an outlier. It would be really high. Yeah, but any amount in that range of like, whether it be like a couple thousand versus like a 30 ,000 on the high end, right? Now, instead, you have no, go back to this feeling that I told you guys about a while ago. I'm normal right now. Oh, you look so normal. Where when I had my previous job and I was making 60K a year, I had no conceivable path to owning a home. Like it wasn't even on my mind because there's no realistic timeline with the amount of money that I'm saving right now that I can even afford a down payment.

45:46But I was saving money and getting close to what I'm describing right now and then thinking about putting it in something like the S &P. So I do think it makes sense. You don't necessarily, it's not that Gen Z have like this outsized portion of overall money put into it. They're not necessarily the reason that it's going up so much. but I do think it makes sense that for what portion of savings that you do have that will never from your young person mind will never translate into a home, at least not anytime soon. You may as well put it into this thing that happened to explode over this like 10 year period.

46:21That's a really good point. I think that's why a lot of people in this argument came back to even people that were like, they're not as screwed as we think they came back to housing because there's clearly something broke. I think there's more, you know, I'm on the side of a lot of things are screwed, but even most people can agree that there's a, there's a through line here, which is that housing is divorced itself. And again, can you pull the screen up, Perry? This is from, this is a crash up, but, uh, housing has so clearly divorced itself from income, even with increased incomes that people, they use this excess money in a lot of weird, different, like they're traveling more, like they're doing more things because they don't, they meaning like boomers who have homes.

47:01I'm talking about, no, even Gen Z. Gen Z is like, because they have this little nest egg that's not enough for a down payment, rather than putting that down and starting to put down roots like their parents might have, or their grandparents, they are making speculative bets on the stock market or crypto, or they're traveling more, or they're, like, they are enjoying more purchases than the people in that range. They're buying Taylor Swift tickets. Or they're buying T-Swift tickets. Yeah. But it's because they have given up. It's like, it's a hedonic spending because they have given up on the chance of getting a house.

47:32I think that's a really good way of putting it. I feel like that's how I felt. I was like, I'm saving what I reasonably can. And I actually do feel like I have a lot of disposable income because the idea of saving for a house is just, it's not existent. There's no chance I will ever get there and something drastically changes about my income in life. So I may as well just, I can just spend it on fun things. I'll go travel. I'll do this with my friends. I'll buy the concert tickets. Like you can do all that because it's not being put towards that greater goal because of how out of reach it is. And I agree with that.

48:06I think, but I do like just personally, that applies to the half that's doing better of Gen Z or whatever, like the portion of Gen Z that has found a stable, maybe white collar employment. And because there's a bigger group of people that can't get a job at all. And there is a rising youth unemployment and there is even food, like more basic costs that are eating into that they're not even thinking about. Yeah. That's, that's my argument as well. So like for me, the S and P 500 explosion as an example, which is basically anybody who put money into the stock market, you would have seen it blow up over the past five years.

48:43But even with someone you're talking about, right. Who's let's say 28, they had $10 ,000 saved up. They put it into the stock market. Now it's$20 ,000. Like that, that's great. That doesn't move the needle in any way, shape or form. But then anybody who let's say has been working at Google for five years out and they've been making$200 ,000 a year and they could put a hundred grand in and now they have 200 they're crushing right and so i i because this graph is like oh see gen z and millennials have more money than anyone else i think frankly it's people like us three who have been very fortunate where if you've been fortunate of the past five years you've been really just it's fucking skyrocketing and then and then everybody else is being farther left behind but the average is being shot way the fuck up because it so i i get the sense that this is indicative of severe wealth inequality between like within generations right and so the king has heard that young millennial millionaires have been the king young new record numbers of young millennial millionaires are being made every day yeah record i i bet these numbers about wealth look way way worse if you actually separate it into income bans like it's probably substantially that is what i would think yeah and it's because i just i know it could be vibes but it feels so crazy to think that everyone simultaneously is encountering these similar problems i don't know well it's okay let's dig into housing so like like you said what a lot of people and again i i've seen like every news outlet has been talking about affordability and are young people screwed so two arguments from some surprising people.

50:20First is Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel, for those who are not aware, is a venture capitalist who is, I don't know, very libertarian and right-leaning, let's say. There's various controversy around him. He, interestingly, in 2020, wrote an email to the Facebook executives basically saying that it's completely understandable that millennials are moving towards socialism and says, when 70 % of millennials say they're pro-socialist, we need to do better than to simply dismiss them by saying they're stupid or entitled or brainwashed. We should try to understand why. And he argues that there's a broken generational compact, which is if somebody has too much student debt or if housing is unaffordable, they won't be able to accumulate capital and they won't be able to benefit from our whole kind of capitalist system where it's meant to grow over time.

51:04So this became viral in the wake of Mom Donnie winning and all of, you know, many people of Gen X, boomers and everywhere going, how did a socialist just win in New York. And they're looking at Peter Thiel, a kind of unexpected source of this going, it's obvious the younger generations aren't getting the same contract that their parents had. And so the free press did an article with, did an interview with Peter Thiel this past week or two. And he basically expanded on this and makes the argument that the real, real thing this comes down to is housing. He says you can reduce 80 % of culture wars to economics and you can reduce 80 % of that to real estate.

51:44So he basically argues that - You go a little bit, I think that's such a powerful line where he compares going to college in 1970 to now, because you go to college in 1970, you graduate with no student debt, you worked in the summer, the college has a material immediate impact on your earnings. You are immediately going to get a better job, highly chance, better job, more money. The alternative is you go now, You have way, way, way more debt. And I'm talking about literally right now, if you're graduating right now, no advantage in terms of employment. People are chat-GPT-ing everything. Your teachers are chat-GPT-ing everything.

52:19There's no guarantee you're getting an education of any severe quality. And then you're graduating into an environment where I think I agree with you, Doug, that most people are doing layoffs, not actually because of AI, they're just saying it. But they're, I mean, we use AI. We've used AI. Like it does often have the capability of like an entry level employee. Like it has that. Yeah. I think, and to be clear, I think it is harming entry level jobs, but just not in the way that people, it's not like, it's not the layoffs. I agree with you. I think the layoffs, I think the layoffs are not what's going on.

52:49They're looking to dump the people no matter what. Yeah. Right. They're trying to, and they're just trying, they're using it as an excuse to hire less basically. But if you are a company, one of these big companies and you see AI is getting better and it does entry level stuff, you're, you're clearly going to be like more, safe about throwing up a bunch of open roles and trying to hire things. More so you're rewarded in the stock market right now if you talk about how much AI you use. So you are incentivized to not hire people and brag about how much AI you're using, even though in practice right now, AI is not having a big impact for most companies and most economies.

53:22Right. So everybody's talking about how great it is. And again, even for me, who's generally an AI optimist, like I think the benefits have yet to be seen. I'm an optimist because I think where it could be in the future, nobody, I think, is sincerely making the argument that, oh my God, it's revolutionizing everything right now. I'm reading this article. Yeah. For Michael Assy. And it feels like Peter Thiel is not, he's not touching on how lazy people are. Yeah, he didn't mention that at all. People used to be harder working back then. And he also fails to address the TikTok concern. That is a concern.

53:56We should talk about that, Subo. Yeah, he doesn't have a point. So I actually, I think Peter Thiel is very smart in this article and really just says like, you know, he tries not to speak categorically and basically just says, look, we have screwed people over. Like our generation have screwed people over. He has a quote that's like, boomers are strangely uncurious about how the world is not really working for their kids. And I'm just like, yes, thank you. I don't understand. Anyway, so it talks about this and then says like, yes, of course, people are going to move to socialism. I think essentially it comes down to housing.

54:24If people feel both because of student debt and the price of housing, they can't accumulate capital. They are not going to buy into a capitalist system. And his argument is people are less supportive of communism and socialism, and they're just angry at capitalism. No opinion also. So there's an economist who I don't always agree with, but has found an interesting graph from Ben Glasner, which is from the economic innovation group that shows that he also makes the argument of housing is ultimately what this is where this doomerism is coming from he shows the same data about oh the current generations are wealthier but he says homeownership rate across the generations gen x has still not caught up to the same level of home ownership that boomers had meaning that gen x jesus has always had a lower percentage of homeownership than their parents or i guess you know, whatever, they're older brothers.

55:17And then millennials are atrioc and my generation. We are just now catching up to Gen X, but we're still nowhere near boomers, right? So it took us way longer than Gen X did to start getting homes. But even then we're behind the boomers and Gen Z is currently a small gap from us. So there's this argument of like, look, the boomers and the silent generation, they were the ones most able to actually get a home relatively early in their life and the the next kind of generations are struggling basically follows up a lot of the same things that um that the other does and you know says look the vast majority of americans build their wealth like if you're on the middle class you build your wealth through a home and if we lock that out of if we lock people out of that opportunity that is a fundamental break of the american dream and the feeling things are going to get better and obviously just the core sense of like oh i'm going to build a family i'm going to put down roots and so even if we talk about vibes, if the vibes are particularly bad because of this one issue housing, I think it's a real valid argument to go, well, that actually might be the most important thing, right?

56:19It's how it's not just where you live. It's also the way that you would build your wealth long-term and it's where you would build a family. And that feels broken to people fundamentally. Yeah. I mean, when I did that Gavin Newsom interview, I said, radicalism is when no house, i i agree with you i agree with you 100 like i think uh i mean i i don't know that i agree that it's only housing because i do think you know maybe hospital or college yeah the argument is just it's the prime i agree because i think like you said once you have a house you i don't know i think it's a a calming thing where you feel like you have roots or some some piece of society right instead of being a drift like you're a cog in someone else's machine that is just there to deliver Uber Eats or whatever until, you know what I'm saying?

57:02This is like a getting on the ladder kind of thing. And feeling like you can't do it is incredibly demoralizing, incredibly alienating. And it makes you, I think, more radicalized, more unwilling to listen to politicians yap. I want to read a comment from a guy on this Peter Thiel free press article, which just feels so, it encapsulates my frustration. The more we've done research for this show, the more I've become upset at boomers, unfortunately. This is from Rick H. in response to Peter Thiel. USA's older generations, which includes me and many here in the comment sections, have one, left younger folks in the U.S.

57:38with$38 trillion in debt to fund nice retirements and healthcare for us older folks. Two, set up a system to encourage young folks to go into insane levels of debt for what often turns out to be useless college educations to keep aging professors and administrators employed. I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, but three set up a system to enrich themselves by artificially inflating home prices we did this by supporting government policies and electing officials that implemented all this and then in quotes capitalism isn't working for for young people more like government enforced intergenerational theft isn't working for young people and it's just like god damn like um so i appreciate the awareness and i just get the sense of like dude what's fucking crazy is right now like this year uh there's this big push in a lot of these states especially no income tax states like florida to get rid of the last tax that hits boomers which is property property tax yeah so like boomers get houses you know back here the price inflates all the way up here and now the only tax they have to pay that funds schools roads hospital services in their area is property tax and they are flipping out about using their last gasp of political power to rip that out which means all those things are paid for by the remaining smaller amount of younger people.

58:53It's crazy. It's so frustrating. This guy's pretty much spot on, which is like it's using the power of the government to steal money, to steal money from the working people and give it to the older people who already have all of the money. I don't want to get too, I try not to get like too riled up because, you know, ultimately like my parents are boomers and I love them. They're great people. And I and every boomer I know, I don't think ever was like, yes, we should spend 38 trillion dollars for us the boomers but collectively it feels like it's going to go down as like the most selfish generation ever like it's just unbelievable to me that this is the system that we are being left with this is what a lot of our episodes turn into this i know the king uh was hoping that let's get our pitchforks the argument would be more in support of the older folks like himself the king is getting a little sweaty in this game did you know the king likes skateboarding taylor swift i'm like you no you're right i do i i dude i just ended up ranting about boomers every time we talk about this because just i've yeah i think this is horrific well like the way the system is set up and then you i mean the last thing is like our political system is a disaster It's boomers sitting around in Congress doing nothing.

1:00:11It's like, how does that possibly inspire hope when the people who might make a change are boomers who just keep voting for themselves or not doing anything? Ah, ah, sorry, King. Yeah. I spoke out of line, sir. You know, we don't have to go into a whole Graham Plattner thing, but I was just, I was just reading a stat, which is if it was like, if Graham Plattner gets elected this time around and then serves 36 unbroken years, like six full terms, he would still be younger than his opponent if they won today

1:00:43so like i think this kind of thing just frustrates people bro i think it i think it rightly does i have a counterpoint what if the king is most deserving of rule experience it matters maybe there's something to it have you considered that the king has the finest blood in his veins and he deserves to have the money. And my good friend, Peter Thiel, it seems it's weird to see him on the side of the young people. He talks about the Antichrist a lot. When me and Peter, we meet every week to discuss the way that I will be rolling out my surveillance program. And your blood boys. And my blood boys. Well, I already have, I actually taught Peter about the blood boys.

1:01:22You put him onto that.

1:01:26Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, maybe this is a good - of this interview and Peter Thiel was drinking a smoothie made of human blood. Made him smarter. It's smart. He's spot on. Like Bella in the last Twilight movie. She's just hitting the cup. Yeah, exactly. Hitting the cup like it's lame. Wait, wait, one more thing. If you could show this graph. Because you talk about government spending a 38 trillion in debt. You know, there's just a really, really unavoidably strong correlation between when we drastically increase the money supply and then 12-15 months later we get massive inflation. It happens consistently over and over again and we always act shocked.

1:02:06Where did this inflation come from? What the hell is going on? We're all trying to find the guy who did this. It's like there's no fucking secret. There's no... When they make the choice to borrow or print money we don't have to fund something, it's not magic. There will be a consequence in some way, but we as a society just collectively like merlin told me it was different this time uh so i think that's frustrating too but um was there more on this like i think i think there's a lot of ways we can go this direction i think i think it is interesting to me one of the biggest learnings i had from this is that when people talk about inflation it is talking about everybody in the economy in the in the economy right it talks it that's referencing what boomers are currently spending it's referencing what somebody's middle age is spending it's referencing what a young person is spending Not only that, when you talk about CPI, they choose how much to weight each thing.

1:03:01There's something crazy like college tuition is 3 % of the CPI, meaning that they don't account for the cost of college very much. That's only like 1 % to 3 % on average, whereas something like medical care is really high. Food is 14%. Transportation is 15%. But if you're a young person, that doesn't reflect what you actually spend money on. If you are going to college, a gigantic portion of your life and lifestyle depends on how much college is going up. And that went up almost 200 % in the last two decades, right? That is way above what your salary went up. And so I think that's a really important thing as people talk about, oh, well, you're richer accounting for inflation.

1:03:37But inflation broadly does not reflect you in your age demographic and what you actually care about. If all the things you care about went up by 300%, it doesn't fucking matter that inflation only would have it. 80%. Right. I think that's a really powerful point. I'm too riled up. How do we what's a positive thing? What's fun about all this? This is depressing reading all this stuff. We need to talk about the TVs. The TVs are really huge. They're really cheap. I mean, if we're being real, it's like you can but then they make the TVs bad at the same time because you got to go into the settings on the LG.

1:04:13Who puts ads in my TV? Why are they doing that? You got to take off the motion smoothing. I will fully defend. They're better. They're just, people aren't remembering enough. Shopping for a TV. Perry, bring this up. Look at this. Look at that monitor. Sorry, keep going. I'm just going to pull monitors in the background. Used to get like a 480p TV was a fucking thousand dollars. I mean, it's insanely better now. Do you know how monitors are so much cheaper than they used to be? They're so cheap. You can get a fucking sick monitor. Your time is up.

1:04:41I think we wonder why everyone is just fucking gaming addicted. I mean, the only part of this I felt like we, we glazed over a little bit. the king is realizing he was very disconnected from, you know, perhaps the plight of the younger people upon the exploration of the data, uh, is that, uh, on the unemployment front, even though unemployment is relatively good across the board, we did make this distinction between like your college degree no longer helps you in the same way that it once did. Uh, the quality of jobs that people have now, like people, like young people being pushed into, uh, lower quality gig work positions that would qualify themselves as unemployed, uh, and, and And this separation, I think a big theme of what we talked about here is this attaches to this other thing we've been talking about, this like K-shaped economy where, you know, people are an exclusive number of people are splitting off into like higher level lucrative positions.

1:05:40While a lot of people desperately try to find just jobs to make it through every week that are their employment and they count as employed, but they're not in a good spot. We got a quote here from this FTR that came out today. An affordability crisis is sweeping the U.S. High prices of food, rent, and health care force lower-income Americans to come back on necessities. Here's a quote. It feels like everything's just closing in around us, honestly, said Anissa Camacho, a 26-year-old florist in Bethlehem. She recently moved in with her grandparents because renting was too expensive. So like, you know, I obviously want to tell her that she's an entitled asshole and that things are better for Gen Z, that she should not complain.

1:06:18Look at the graph. Look at the graph. Well, did she see the new Samsung monitor? Yeah. And I think she's not, she's, she's actually deliberately leaving that out, which is a bit of a miss on her part. But she says, I work two jobs, my partner works two jobs and it just feels like we're scraping for crumbs here. It's like, clearly this person exists. Like there's, there's a cohort of people who feel like this and it's not vibes for them. You know, on average, I'm sure there are people who are doing well, but these people exist. and I think in an increasing numbers, and that is what's causing this polarization in there.

1:06:50Okay, so I do want to get your guys honest opinions on this. How much do you think social media is affecting this stuff? Because I think it's got to be to some degree. There is no world where you can consume doomer media every day and not feel worse. And we're all aware of this. If you watch news telling you that everybody's in danger and that your neighborhood is horrific, you're going to feel your neighborhood's horrific, and then you go outside and it's fucking fine, right? so we're all aware that this can happen i don't know the specifics around tiktok or discord or what's doing what i would as i think we all agree i think the underlying situation is actually bad for young people but do you feel like it is exaggerated at all by the fact that we have social media platforms and youtube that for example every day will feed you stuff that's like look at how shitty it is and you have people you know on both uh not to call them out specifically but like hassan and asmongold on both sides of the political spectrum are streamers who have 50 ,000 people watching them every day.

1:07:45And they're just telling you how fucked up everything is all day. I mean, it's going to mess with you. And so I do wonder if that is, let's say, exaggerating an underlying problem. And I'm curious what you guys think. I have no idea. I'm not sure. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, my gut tells me, of course, it's doing something, right? Of course. But like how is it a big factor? Chicken and the egg, right? Because is there just so much demand for that? Like if these streamers started talking about how great everything is, would their viewership just go down and someone goes elsewhere? Like, is it not really, is it, is it people feeling this way and looking for this outlet?

1:08:16Yeah. I don't know how to quantify it. I think the proof in that it is the case is that a lot of people, like you can, you can pull sentiment about different aspects of life, like per perception of crime as an example, right? Or honestly, you could take so many different issues in the U S and then you could pull the demographics that are performing the best, have the most access to wealth, have homes, have stable jobs, have a retirement. And their sentiment, because they engage with the same news and social media to a similar degree that young people do, is down in a bunch of different categories, right?

1:09:00So there's proof that even if everything is perfect, there's something manipulatable about your perception of things because of the media that you're consuming. Like there's that, that problem certainly exists. I don't know what the, but when we're like, if we were mapping out sentiment against like affordability of housing, I'm sure that the sentiment for young people right now is mashing up with the reality of that. But if you could somehow magically pull the world where we didn't have a bunch of short form video platforms that people engage with all the time. I bet the line would still be down, but just like up slightly more than that.

1:09:36And I don't know how much that would be. We don't know the impact. I will say this. There's a study that just came out, the American Psychological Association, which found a direct link between watching TikTok and Instagram reels and damaged cognitive performance, aka brain rot. Like it is a real thing. And, you know, I think that is also part of the despair though i think people feel trapped in algorithmic media this is why i don't post anything on tiktok i want my viewers to be smarter we're an intelligent bunch he's a noble guy i've seen the chat we've got two words that we know rigged and rigged and that would only be bold it would only be we never would have learned bald if I had TikToks.

1:10:21Can I take my King uniform? And drop a theory?

1:10:32Associated with poor cognition, attention, inhibitory control, language, memory, and working memory. All of these things were down. I appreciate that you're committed enough to the King character that you wouldn't break the illusion by doing this smoking weed bit with the crown on. The king would never. The king would never. The king would never. The king enjoys inedible from time to time, but my maybe unsubstantiated theory in that I haven't seen some study that pieces all of this together. This is kind of piecing a few things together. Okay. Is that, and also anecdotally, what I'm witnessing in the large amounts of young men that I'm friends with.

1:11:22We're seeing like at this increasing time of economic strife, you're also seeing a growth in a bunch of these bad habits or like bad communities forming, people being like pushed to extremes on the internet and congregating in small insulated communities where their perception of reality or conspiracies is really just you're talking about my community they were great they were great really distorted you're you're uh you're struggling to get a job and you maybe you stay at home all day like uh browsing the internet and uh in playing video games you just play video games all the time you're addicted to something like sports gambling you're there's so many things that I think as a result of how connected we are that can prey on our free time and our sadness.

1:12:21So when you encounter problems, real problems in real life, like feeling bad because you can't find anyone to go on a date with, or you can't find a job right now, or you just got laid off, or your college degree isn't panning out, or you can't afford a home, you're more likely to like become entrapped in these predatory systems that are being funded and grown around you take something like sports gambling for instance yeah and also from what i understand there is a like performance gap between young women and men right now that i think is interesting like if you're a young woman you're more likely to be employed than a young man is um and i think for college educated but yeah for college educated and there's an assortment of like reasons as to like why that may be the case.

1:13:12Right. But one thing that I've been thinking about is, uh, men are like more likely to become addicted to things like, like, uh, destructively addicted to things. Like you're, if you're a guy, you're more likely to be addicted to sports gambling. You're more likely to be addicted to drugs. You're more likely to be, uh, uh, I don't know. You're more likely to like die in like adrenaline related sports. Like I think, god so i i and then i'm ignoring the couple other arguments for like why that gap exists but i think there is something here to be said about the systems at hand are like built to like pray abnormally so on young men right now in a way that i think is really sad um and this is it doesn't mean young women can magically afford homes right now it's just that anecdotally in my life, all the young women I'm friends with are like more stable, put together, like happier people.

1:14:13And they're still struggling to afford homes. A lot of them are getting laid off, but they like find jobs quicker. They're more like, they're, I would say they're more productive and engaged members of society than like all of the men I know in my life. And I think there's something to be said about like all of these things, like psychologically, you're more likely to fall down some like psychological rabbit hole as a guy right now. And then all of these systems are like built to acquire as many like users and take as much money from you as possible. No, I think there's something uniquely vulnerable.

1:14:46I mean, that's getting hit with video games, porn and fucking sports gambling. Like these three things are just, yeah, they're just running roughshod over a generation, bro. They're going fucking crazy. And there is something to be said there. I don't know the math on it. I agree with you, but you can see it. I mean, you can see it among people. It's just, it is, it makes every challenge bigger. I think the conclusion I'm drawing here too, it's like, it's not like these are things that are the source of this crisis that people are facing when you look at affordability, right? But I think it's the difference in when, it affects your ability to like get knocked down and like get back up and engage in society again.

1:15:28It's like when the bad thing happens or when you see the insurmountable mountain of the unaffordable home, you're more likely to like, the glue trap that you're more likely to walk into is there now, which sucks. It sucks that all of these things are like forming at the same time. And that's something I've been wrestling with recently. No, I think that seems spot on, man. I heard that so much. If you could press a button and make every video game less fun, would you do it? Dude, I fucking might. imagine all the people who are like trapped where they play counter-strike all day they blow all their money on counter-strike skins hundreds of thousands hundreds of thousands of dollars it could have been a down payment on a house but instead it's a fucking or dota like i think butterfly knife i'm not saying video games are inherently bad but i do i think i've i've now been around long enough and have enough friends and know enough people that play something like a competitive video game like addictively that i can see the way it saps their ability to do other things in life the same way the same way that a drug would.

1:16:32Would you remove the AWP from Counter-Strike to save the men? Oh, Hunter. I mean, we'd play more Counter-Strike, maybe. They fucking hate the AWP. They're the new... Did you guys ever get addicted to WoW growing up? Yes. No. This is the one time where my grades were, like, horrible. Yes, dude. I distinctly remember... It was, like, 2006 or, like, early out after WoW. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it came out, and I I started playing it and I blinked and I lost six months. I lost a summer and into school and it hurt my grade. And I just blinked. It was gone. And it was like heroin, dude. Someone like me, because it was like steady, measurable progress.

1:17:12I felt like I was getting better. Everything that life doesn't... Yeah, that game is designed. It's just designed to hook you in every way. And games have gotten way more advanced since then. And I can totally see that. I mean, I fucking love games. I play games all the time. I was addicted to League of Legends all my college years. Fucked my grades too. Yeah. But I totally get it that I think the things people are looking for are so much harder to find in real life, these steady, measurable success and progress and moving up a ladder, and so much easier to find in a digital world that are better and better at giving it to you at every step of the way.

1:17:48Yeah, so I see that. I see that hard. Yeah. And it's tough because I don't think any of these things are inherently wrong. I think these games are fun. I'm a fucking gamer. I love games, but I want these things to be available. Like, I don't think it's, I don't want all gambling to like be illegal and non-existent. I think it's fun to like have your back fucking ripped off by a truck slap at the craps table.

1:18:15I don't think that should go away. I, uh, and, and I also don't mean to say that I think women deal with a ton of unique problems in society that they are also encountering all the time as well. Yeah, I mean, social media hits them in a different way. There's the suicide rate among young women on Instagram is higher. Yeah. Anxiety, stress, like there's, it's impacting everyone in different ways, but I think we just see it more among, especially young men in our lives. Yeah, I think I'm privy, I'm privy to just being friends with more men as well. So I have a more pronounced view of it, but I, I just see, I think when I do compare the men and women in my life that are around the same age.

1:18:57I see the women finding success in hard times in ways that the men seem to be like unable to do. And, uh, and I've been thinking about like why that's the case, you know? Uh, okay. Well, you know what you guys want to, you know, just ending that on a very maybe bit of optimism is just now the political kind of trend is towards affordability like that term yeah a billion abundance and like that's what mom donnie i would argue largely went on right he just focused on the affordability of living in new york city and that was like the main thing and everybody else was talking about the normal political stuff he was like no this is what i'm going to do to make this more affordable right and like that really resonated and even this morning i saw jd vance was like he made this tweet and it's mostly attacking other republicans or whatnot and about ukraine but essentially he was like after four years of house pricing doubling, many young people feel priced out of the American dream of homeownership.

1:19:52And later says, we're really, our administration is working hard at this. Like a lot of politicians now are talking about affordability. So I think there is hope that in theory, if the political system decides that that is the big measure of what people care about, there might be really substantial momentum in this direction. Whereas I just don't, like I haven't heard this type of vernacular from anyone really in our lifetime. Yeah, I will say. I'm not giving him credit. No, no, no. I understand what you're saying. I would just say that not only advance everybody, I mean, after the Momdani win and the horrendous Trump polling lately, there's been a switch flipped and everyone is saying affordability.

1:20:28Everyone is saying it. They've realized that that is the fucking, the ticket. You know, we're going to have to parse who means it and who doesn't. I will say as a canary in the coal mine example, Japan is now talking about affordability a lot in Japan. We've talked about it all the time. and they are preparing a massive stimulus bill to deal with the cost of inflation that resulted from their last stimulus bill like we might end up a world where i snip that in the bud like my biggest fear is that because everyone's mad about affordability we get politicians who do counterproductive counterproductive things so yeah but i agree that like i i do think that people are finally recognizing it yeah it's at least clearly like recognized more everyone is are like, oh shit, we can't just ignore this anymore.

1:21:13So that's at least mildly encouraging. Yeah, I agree. Speaking of Japan, you guys want to talk about a little update to... Yeah, what's going on? Because I haven't been paying attention since we got back and I've been seeing headline after headline of how China is, they're ramping it up in the wake of Japan saying that they'd step in for Taiwan. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's the long and short of it. Japan said they'd step in. China said, well, we'll behead you for that. and then it was a little bit of a tiff. And it was kind of expected like they would back channel, solve this, move on. It has not been solved.

1:21:48The escalations keep continuing. So China, one of the first major things they did was encourage every traveler in China to not go to Japan. That was the first thing. And then a bunch of people canceled their flights, causing some economic damage in Japan. Then Takeuchi kind of doubled down. She called Trump to try to get him in on it. He, actually, I'm sorry. For the first time since 9-11, a Chinese leader started a call with an American president. It's always been us that engaged first. The first time Xi Jinping reached out to get a call with Trump and told him, we have to keep the post-World War II.

1:22:24He made a lot of World War II references to how we beat Japan. He's like, we have to keep the post-World War II system. Us, you know, we're going to G2. The little guys, yeah. Yeah, America and China, we're going to work together. We beat Japan. Like this has become a real defining issue because nobody, I think, of a major economy has ever openly acknowledged Taiwan in this way in the past few decades. This is the first time someone with influence, which is Takeichi, has said, Taiwan is basically its own country. We're going to defend it if you try to attack it. That's so past the red line for China and how they see the world.

1:22:59So there's a bunch of other examples. You know, Perry mentioned like there's Chinese video games that are cutting out Japan stuff. I know that there's, sorry, I'm, you know, I don't have any feedback on like what was just said there. I'll pull up some of the examples, but. It's wild. It is wild. The World War II stuff, you know, in part what they were saying, what G is saying about like, remember World War II, how we worked together and we stopped Imperial Japan. I like the idea of him making that call and being like, and we've been homies. And we've been tight the whole time. No, no rough patches.

1:23:43And he was like, you know, and the argument is like, look, the World War II era was Taiwan was part of China. It was after World War II that Taiwan split off. And clearly we should be aiming for the World War II era. That was kind of the golden extra that we should aim for. So, okay, a couple more examples of things that happened. One is China brought back this repudiated myth about how Japanese sushi is contaminated by nuclear fallout because of Fukushima. And so we can't be eating it. And so they stopped importing of sushi. Taiwan is labeling all Japanese sushi as like hero Japan sushi. And they're trying to get people to buy more.

1:24:30Obviously they can't make up for the Chinese laws, but I thought that was pretty funny. Um, there's been military drills all through the, the water space between Japan and China, especially around those islands that we mentioned in our last podcast, the Senkaku Islands, Senkaku Islands. I wonder what the sentiment is in Taiwan, because I can see it going kind of two ways of awesome. Somebody's like stood up for us in a public sense. You're like publicly acknowledge, publicly acknowledged. This is cool. Thank you for the support. and then another way of, guys, shut up. You're rocking the boat. You might be making things worse.

1:25:06And I'm curious what sentiment is more pervasive of those two or other feelings that may be the case. My understanding is that those are the exact two pieces of sentiment that are split along party lines in Taiwan. Okay. The current ruling party, the DPP, the Green Party, is very, very like pro-Taiwan independence. So they love this. Like this is a big moment for them. but the other two are more like we're just going to get along with China. We're going to just like don't rock the boat. Keep things going. And they don't like this at all. Concerts from Chinese stars have been canceled in Japan and also blocked from Japanese J-pop stars in China.

1:25:45Like there's like a cultural, like it's, it's, I'm just saying every day, like you mentioned, there's new headlines. It's heating up. Like it's not really deescalating. And I think, I don't see a path for it to deescalate unless China gets Takahashi to back down and say something like a public apology. Is that what it would take? Like that's what they would want. Cause it feels like one of those things you can't take back. The U S ambassador, Japan also came out and super explicit. It was like, we back up Takahashi. We absolutely have like, I'll find the exact quote. Yes. It was like very, very explicit.

1:26:15Trump didn't do that, but our ambassador, Japan very publicly did and was like, we have Taiwan's back. China's used to bullying people. We got him. So it's, I don't know. Like this is a big every day is a bigger story is what I would say.

1:26:36Do you think that we can ask people about this in China when we know it's like I do dead ass. It might be the one thing we can't really ask. Taiwan is the one line because I've heard it's I've actually the general feedback I've gotten. is that it's not as uptight as we make it out to be. And you can add, people will tell you their opinions there. Yeah. It's not this like insane thing where like people can't talk about like public figures and stuff like that. But my understanding that this is the one thing you should - This is their red line. They're like their biggest thing. They - Okay, all right.

1:27:19This is, so this is from, this is from a US ambassador to Japan, George Glass. last Thursday said, this is a classic case of Chinese economic coercion. And I just want to say directly from the president and from myself and from the embassy for the prime minister, we have her back referring to talk. I see while Beijing appears intent on fanning the flames of discord. The U S Japan Alliance is focused on ensuring that peace and prosper spirit thrive in the region. That is pretty clear. That's pretty shocking from, which is crazy. It's gotta be crazy to be in that position. and hit send tweet on that.

1:27:57Like your intern at the embassy, hit send tweet. And you're, the domino effect of what you could be inciting. I will say for Trump, they've asked him about this directly and he avoids criticizing China and doesn't answer it directly. He's never, like which is the US's response for most of it. He's continued our normal diplomatic strategy here, which is to never. Our whole shtick is that we never talk about it and we never acknowledge them, but then functionally treat them like a country anyway. Yeah. We visit them diplomatically as a separate country, but we never ever, it's the one China bug.

1:28:32We never say they're separate. It's a part of China. I'm more of a one China policy guy, but I'm the other way around. You think it's West Taiwan? All of China is Taiwan. You're getting stopped at the border. You think we can ask about that in China? Oh, the video game thing about them cutting out Japanese sections is a rumor. So there's no official announcement from the company. They're just now people are talking about Japanese references right now for that. Yeah. Integral part of the post World War Two international order, which is really funny. Glass also said for the fishermen who have worked so hard to finally get a contract back to be able to sell seafood and other products in China and have now been denied that we have your back.

1:29:16So now we're not only we have the backs of American soybean farmers, also Japanese fishermen is the Trump administration's backing them up. Russia weighed in, saying Takeuchi's remarks were extremely dangerous and that Japan should deeply reflect on its history and learn from the lessons of World War II to avoid serious consequences caused by wrong words and deeds. Can we just forget what's happened the last 80 years? 1945 was the peak. It's just, I gotta be honest with you, it feels different when it comes from them. There's no one here from Russia. Because it just feels like... Guys, can we cool things down?

1:29:55Like, in a way, like I agree with some of what they're saying. It just feels like any other guys. If any other guys were saying that, it'd be like I agree a little more. Yeah. Anyway, I guess we'll keep up with this story. There's not much more to say right now. It's still only... I guess it is economic actions, but no military actions. Just escalating economic stuff and words. but it doesn't look like people are going to let it go, especially China. China's not going to let it go until they get a public apology because I think for them, it has to maintain the agreement among all major countries that Taiwan is functionally a part of China.

1:30:35They have to have that. So they will keep pulling levers economically and otherwise to make that a case. What would we, the world, except for China, have to give China for them to just agree to give up on Taiwan? Oh, I don't know. I don't think... Alaska? Oh, you mean actually just land South Dakota. What would, what would you be willing to trade? We give them an enclave in the United States. Dakota is let me, let me put the king outfit back on. It's like South Dakota will not be traded. Well, do you want to end on a maybe, maybe like one more fuck boomers thing quick? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get me upset again.

1:31:13So I saw this interesting article in the New York times and it was a called the housing strategy that has California NIMBYs in a corner. And this one guy didn't discover or create, but brought a loophole in California housing policy to light, which is that in places that have really restrictive zoning laws, I think every year, every couple years, California cities have to make their presentation of here's how many units of new housing we're like committing to building. Here's how we're going to do it. Okay. But when you submit that plan, oftentimes in like higher or more expensive areas, like Beverly Hills, those plans are intentionally put in areas that are very difficult to build in or can't realistically be built in at all.

1:32:06It's kind of a way for not having to fulfill the obligations of the commitment. And this guy sued Beverly Hills and, on the basis that if you are creating these plans that can't be fulfilled and you're breaking the state guidelines or requirements for how those units need to be built then we can uh push forward new building structures that would otherwise break your existing zoning laws so he's using this path i'm not fully following can you break it bottom line basically beverly hills is saying hey, we're going to put together like 3 ,000 new units of housing. And here's how we're going to do it.

1:32:48Here's the areas that are going to be developed. And here's how we're going to meet this goal that we're setting. And if they don't do it. But he sued on the basis that if you dig into these building plans, they actually don't meet the code or requirements for how these buildings are supposed to be built, like on a California basis. And because this local ruling is breaking the state law, Now you can use that as like leverage to get something built that would otherwise break Beverly Hills is really restrictive zoning laws. So now he's getting like a, I think it's a nine story, nine story or 19 story building apartment building built in Beverly Hills, like getting the development started.

1:33:30Dude, a 19-story in Beverly Hills would tower over everything around that. It would be like the thing in City 17. Yeah, 19-story tower. That's awesome. And this was, you know, naturally, this loophole is not being received well by the residents who live there. They don't want to be there. And I thought it was interesting because the reaction. in. So is the loophole just to say like, well, they didn't follow the rules and that's the government. So I can run the phone. It sounds more like Beverly Hills found a loophole and they are now unable to use that loophole, which means they're Beverly Hills and a bunch of other cities in California.

1:34:12Sounds like other cities in other states around the country. Apparently, the first time this came to prominent light was a case in New Jersey. But these cities like beverly hills were abusing the fact that nobody was willing to no developer or person involved in the building of housing was willing to sue on these grounds before because they want to maintain good relationships in the area to get building projects so this like third party guy found out about this problem and became like the bastion for bringing the court case and said beverly hills is not following the laws or commitments that they say they are for building these 3 ,000 units of housing.

1:34:53And because they're breaking that a state law loophole overrides all of this and allows us to build new types of buildings that we couldn't there before. Okay. And, uh, the reaction from the local community, uh, but they loved it is they're ecstatic. Weirdly like time and time again, the story we've heard is that people like don't like changes to the neighborhood people they make up all of these excuses right they call it they and anything but saying this lowers the value of the home that i am currently in and from uh the the quotes in the article are none of us are opposed to affordable housing said kenneth goldman president of the southwest beverly hills homeowners association but a building that's almost four times the city's height limit you don't have to be a nimby to say that's just so far out of line he said but how dare they and i read this section and i was like well what's what's in line kenneth yeah because we're not i we're not making any progress yeah it's not like anything is substantially changed in affordability of beverly hills homes we should lower that guy's property tax that's what i mean yeah and then he'll and then he'll have the economic incentive to make more yeah i'm sure he will um and i just on the whole, you know, the boomers are ruining society argument from earlier.

1:36:12I just, the quote stuck out to me when I was reading the article of like, anytime there's kind of like ground made, because this whole thing in this article is this guy is stepping up to sue and get a building made in this way or getting a developer to make a building in this way because there's been no progress in any other common method before. Beverly Hills is blocking housing developments and projects previously. so it's not like you were taking a good faith approach to this prior and now you're upset this 19 building a story building is getting built instead of like a 10 story one um and i found that i'm glad it's 19 stories that's sick yeah i mean i i worry they'll find a way to get them they might it's like the richest people in the country all in one little enclave they're gonna find they're gonna find a way but it is fucking cool that he got that through i do hate i mean I just hate the language they use it all.

1:37:08It's always like, we love affordability. We love it. It's like, Oh God. It's so important to me that we have it. It's just, it doesn't make any sense. This particular example right here. This one doesn't work in my backyard. Thank you for joining us on another week of lemonade stand. You know, if you want to join my kingdom, you can check out patreon.com Sioux Falls, South Dakota or move to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. To all our boomer viewers, we have a Patreon episode where we talk really nicely about you. It's just we saved that because you have the money. We pretend for the Zoomers in the free version.

1:37:48We promise we're all on your side. I will 180 all of my values for money. Wait, we were talking about adding a tier three at some point. It's got to be boomer tier. Dude, the boomer tier. We just glazed. Talking about how hard they had it. Thanks guys for watching. Thanks everybody.