My fiancé and I have been doing better than most Americans. No debt, relatively high pay - we're pretty happy right now.
But we feel like we are stuck.
Perhaps its the golden handcuffs, or maybe we're being over-dramatic. But I couldn't imagine having a kid (or kids), and $XXX,XXX debt with the uncertainty of my profession alone. Having been through a couple layoffs in my ~10 year career. Take into consideration the state of the world, and we have decision paralysis.
I want to be optimistic, but I'm having a tough time.
This might come across as over-dramatic, but this country is a factory that mass produces the most dangerous thing on the planet. A young, lonely, angry man that has nothing to lose - a man that sees only doom in the future. And they can buy an AR-15 when they hit 18 in most states for less than it costs to get your teeth cleaned. Plus ammo delivered to your door!
> Perhaps its the golden handcuffs, or maybe we're being over-dramatic.
I tried finding an escape from the handcuffs, but my career was also a dud, so I never had the insane salaries. Most jobs such harder, and the ones that don’t I’m never going to be able to do. There were a few things I was interested in, till I realized changing careers like that is insanely expensive both in real and opportunity costs and doesn’t happen often for a reason.
At this point, I want to just find some cheap property, away from people and maybe with some nice amenities like a nearby river. That’s the only was I see myself contented now.
It prevents Americans from noticing and voting in response to the actual problem, which is an aggressive and systematic effort to undercut American wages at all levels of the working class, with immigrants, both legal and non-legal. They've been trying to blame it on AI, and when that doesn't work, they call you a racist (conveniently ignoring that Americans are not all one race).
Man, your anger is just pointed in the wrong direction here.
Be mad at the CEO & hedge fund managers making millions of dollars a year by exploiting the working classes, who will happily move all the jobs overseas tomorrow if they can't hire in America. Not your fellow worker who was born on the other side of an imaginary line.
You're not losing wealth because of the Honduran guy mowing your neighbor's grass. You're losing wealth because the top 1% is accumulating an ever larger share of total wealth.
Can you quote a any specific portion of my comment from which you inferred anger?
Also, do you not understand that reducing an American person’s wages, by having a Honduran guy come into the country and do his job for half the price, then use that to compete with him for an apartment, increasing his cost of living, and reducing the money Big Corp, Inc has to spend on labor, is a direct transfer of wealth out of your pocket, and into their pockets. It’s one of many ways rampant immigration is a war on the middle class, and yes, it is Big Corp, Inc, and the institutions that own it, who are doing this. I am not angry at the Honduran. I am critical of the people who gaslight us into thinking that allowing him and millions like him to come here and work for less money than their American counterparts, is somehow good for us.
People will say Americans don’t want those jobs. But here’s the rub - Americans did want those jobs, back when they paid enough to support a family. Americans also do want trucking jobs, and tech jobs, and medical jobs, and all jobs. And we’re forced to do them for a vanishingly small wage, while we watch our futures disappear, and the hope of ever securing financial security disappears.
> by having a Honduran guy come into the country and do his job for half the price, then use that to compete with him for an apartment, increasing his cost of living
So the immigrants are making half the income, but also paying more for rent? So your thesis rests on the notion that the Honduran is paying like 80% of his income in rent?
This is pretty straightforward economics. The Honduran guy doesn’t need to compete directly with him for housing to contribute to an overall increase in the cost of housing. I assume you are an adult, and since you’re on Hacker News, you’re probably an educated one. It’s crazy to me that I would have to explain such a basic economic concept to an educated adult.
It's crazy to me that you're still blaming the poorest, most exploited, least powerful person in the economy for the problems instead of the people actually responsible.
Since you moved the goalposts after I pointed out the absurdity of suggesting that the underpaid Honduran laborer is also bidding up the price of housing to a broader, indirect impact, I'll go ahead and point out that your argument still fails there. That low-cost labor you're complaining about? That makes construction of housing less expensive. The migrants are building more houses than they're occupying.
Be mad at the top 1%. Be mad at the people who inherited land, wealth and power. Be mad at the people raising your rent and preventing people from building more housing. But don't be mad at some guy just trying to make an honest living doing hard work to stay fed and sheltered because he wasn't born as lucky as you.
That's where genz and millennials come in. We need to put aside our differences on a great many thing to organize around building a better future for the US.
My fiancé and I have been doing better than most Americans. No debt, relatively high pay - we're pretty happy right now.
But we feel like we are stuck.
Perhaps its the golden handcuffs, or maybe we're being over-dramatic. But I couldn't imagine having a kid (or kids), and $XXX,XXX debt with the uncertainty of my profession alone. Having been through a couple layoffs in my ~10 year career. Take into consideration the state of the world, and we have decision paralysis.
I want to be optimistic, but I'm having a tough time.
This might come across as over-dramatic, but this country is a factory that mass produces the most dangerous thing on the planet. A young, lonely, angry man that has nothing to lose - a man that sees only doom in the future. And they can buy an AR-15 when they hit 18 in most states for less than it costs to get your teeth cleaned. Plus ammo delivered to your door!
Anyways enjoy your Wednesday.