> But you struggling with rent is entirely your self-inflicted problem...

The funny thing about this is that practically every single person in the US between the ages of 25-45 was an early adopter and a big fan for some (or all) of FAANG in the early days, and clearly saw the importance. The fact that they aren't filthy rich and far wealthier than older people tells a story. Not a story of lattes and avocados, but a story where housing and education costs guaranteed that as a group they couldn't save, never had a chance to invest, still can't invest. With certain adjustments the story isn't so different for much of the western world.. maybe education was cheap/free but their domestic labor market was weaker, whatever. They were and are still pretty much guaranteed to be on the outside. Luck, timing, and good connections are nice at any time, but the last few decades it's everything. In another timeline maybe wealthy youth is landlording it over the impoverished oldies, but in the best timeline we'd split the difference.

Even worse, it's a uniquely bad time to be smart and hardworking, because that's the type of attitude that could stick you with a lack of resilience at just the wrong time. People who've coasted may do much better than ones who are striving. Would you rather be a university grad with new debt right now, or be a certified HVAC tech for the last 5 years? If you were a mechanic, would you want to own the shop with loans to pay off in this economy and tariffs to deal with, or would you prefer to be a simple employee that can just bounce once the company goes under? I've met phd's who are delivering pizzas to make ends meet. Blue collar folks not only have better job security at the moment, but going back some years, if they got a mortgage at the right time and place with that stable job maybe they could do normal life stuff like kids, retirement one day.

What lessons do we think young people will take from all this? Nothing against anyone who is lucky, but a stubborn belief in mythical meritocracy or the legendary American dream is absolutely stone-cold crazy these days. There's just the insiders and the outsiders and there's not much rhyme or reason to any of it.