> I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable.
How often are your peers experiencing these crimes? Assuming you're in the US based on your comments, crime rates are much lower now than when in the early 2010s when I was a young adult and quite hopeful despite thinking my job prospects were bleak and that I'd never be able to afford a home.
> I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable
Yes people of all ages tend to be unhappy when crime happens to them. Not sure where you live but lowering taxes and government oversight is actually a bad way to improve taxpayer funded and government run law enforcement agencies. None of this has anything to do with AI though and young people can be angry about multiple things.
Hah, I wish I had your optimism. I’m in the same boat re. the media and the pressing issues, but I just think AI is going to make things even more unaffordable for us, harder to find work, and used against us by governments who can afford the top models that might not even get released to the rest of us.
I saw the moon launch the other day, and in the past I would have been following and celebrating. These days I’m more preoccupied by the corruption in our government, including recent anti-democratic events (I’m not American).
This is something I never see mentioned so I'm curious what brought it up. Are you personally paying a lot of taxes or so much that you can't afford other things or is this a thing peers talk about? Is this a state or federal thing?
Taxes are pretty significant at the lower incomes. Not only are they paying 15-25% taxes after considering local, federal, state, and property taxes (even though federal are low) but whenever they want services from anyone in the upper quintiles they are also effectively paying the regulatory and tax burden of those enterprises since the customer ultimately assumes all the costs of the business.
Think for a second, if someone wants child care -- they must pay enough not only to satisfy the worker's basic needs but also the worker's income tax, business taxes, property taxes of the daycare, government mandated licensing and bonding, etc. None of those get recorded as 'taxes' the person contracting that service has paid, but really they are also paying those.
Given how little most of the lower pay workers have extra to work with, and how little they get in government services for what they pay, I don't think it's much a stretch for them to think taxes are holding them back. Being able open up saving even couple percent of income massively improves your financial safety and cushion at those brackets.
I totally am paying a massive amount of capital gains taxes! I’m also saving up for a house which means every dollar I don’t contribute to a down payment becomes principal and interest on a mortgage which equals even more money out of my pocket. For instance if I pay $37k in capital gains one year (which I did) and if my principal on a $500k house is $200k at 6% and $1500 monthly payments I’ll have to pay $33k in interest on just the $37k I didn’t pay up front!
Some cursory googling shows you have to make capital gains of between $185,000 and $250,000 to have to pay $37,000 in capital gains tax. This is between three and six times as much as someone in their 20s will earn in a year. I think you need a bit more perspective of what it's like to be a young person outside the extremely well compensated tech sector.
Don't the vast majority of young people entering the workforce have no capital gains to deal with at all? That tends to be more of a problem for people who are already well off. Are you talking about a narrower demographic or something?
The amounts you paid in capital gains are about 50% higher than I've ever paid. That was the second year I worked at a big tech company and suddenly had stock, which was about a decade into an my extremely lucrative career as a software developer. Most of my friends don't have to deal with capital gains at all because they're not part of the investor class. On average the rates of trading must be much lower for people in their 20s, no?
I hate to be uncharitable but the comment seems to simply be parroting conservative talking points, rather than being an accurate (or sincere) representation of young people's pessimism about the future.
> high housing costs which driven up by overregulation, entitlements to retirees and H1B/immigrant cases driving down wages
Anyone I talk to under 40 despairs at low wages, rising prices, and a political class that is incapable of going after blatant corruption, especially those identified in the Epstein files.
There is more anger at capitalism and billionaires (capitalists in the Marxist sense) than in any time in living memory. The notion that young people are generally upset about regulation, entitlement and H1B visas is laughably out of touch. It might be true for a tiny number of spoiled techies in the Bay Area! But outside SF, Seattle and NYC, young people are angry about a lot of things, and strong regulation and generous benefits are about the last of them.
> At the same time I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable. My take on this is that legacy media refuses to address these issues or plays them down and at the same time they amplify concerns about AI probably because AI is supplanting the reach and their rhetoric and reducing their ad share.
Maybe it’s just the legacy media I consume, but petty crime is rarely if ever reported (television, newspaper, radio, etc) in my experience.
And I’m not sure how you would expect media institutions to address petty crime. I guess they could ask local leaders and local law enforcement about it.?
This “gotcha” just leads to the conclusion that reporting on car break-ins and such just isn’t that interesting. “Car window smashed in Pasadena” yawn, talk about a waste of airtime imo. Might as well talk about all the people not using their blinker every day.
> And I’m not sure how you would expect media institutions to address petty crime. I guess they could ask local leaders and local law enforcement about it.?
Uh... yes? Journalists used to report on crimes and then ask police and town leaders questions on how they're addressing it. And then do follow-up stories weeks or months later, to report on (lack of) progress and again ask police and town leaders questions.
Maybe many moons ago, when newspapers had an abundance of reporters, and relatively low crime / competing issues otherwise?
But I'm not sure I can recall, even in a local paper or a local TV news broadcast, seeing articles / segments about a random individual having their car broken in to or being robbed.
Edit: I take that back, I have seen reports of robberies (specifically armed robberies) in local news, but not so much car break ins.
Older U.S. taxpayers approaching retirement will bristle at word combinations such as "entitlements to retirees" as they have put enormous capital, which can clearly be summed from their large stack of W2s, into Social Security. Also, there are large segments of "retirement age" people who simply can't afford to retire.
It's quite interesting that your (presumably very representative) survey of young people has unanimously reported 'arbitrary amalgamation of bog-standard right-wing grievances' as the primary issue of our time
Among my sample of friends, who are mostly right wing and successful, crime is literally the primary issue of their time. That's practically the sole problem in their lives. Not sure why their political leanings are relevant. This is what a vast swathe of people actually care about.
Their recent comment history also consists of complaining about vaccine mandates, gun control, and climate science research at NASA while praising funding cuts to higher education…
You should be careful saying things like "high housing costs which driven up by overregulation". It sounds like you're trying to frame bad economic news like it's the fault of a more liberal political party in the US.
High housing costs are just an effect of capitalism. It's supply and demand - as simple as that. If they were grass huts in downtown San Fransisco, they'd be just as expensive. "Overregulation" is a fallacy.
Zoning costs money everywhere. That's work that needs to be done by a person. That person gets paid. It's capitalism again.
Prop 13 actually limits property taxes and the assessments that can happen. You're actually hurting your argument with this point.
Regulations don't reduce supply because regulations don't purchase properties. People purchase properties and then that property is off the market.
The Bay Area is proof that limited supply (because there is only so much land in the area) + steady (or increasing) demand (because people need to live close to where they work for some baffling reason) will cause property values to raise steadily over time.
Again: It's supply and demand. Regulations have very little to do with price increases.
To be clear: I'm not anti-capitalist ... I'm just anti "wrong context"
I live in an unregulated county and I just built a house for $60,000.
I've found a few plots of land in San Francisco where you could put my house on where the land itself is under $200,000. So $260,000. So why doesn't anyone do this? It's $200,000 in profit easy since you could sell it for $460,000+ easy. Capitalists just hate making money? Clearly there is regulation stopping it, otherwise developers would be buying $50k boxables or the cheapest manufactured house they could drop down off a trailer and making an absolute mint on all the slivers of cheaper land you can find for sale in these upper priced cities.
When I was in the planning phase of building my house I quickly identified only a few counties in my state where it was even possible to build a house all myself without regulatory inspections. The only reason why I have a house is because I found a place with no regulatory inspections for owner-builder housing which allowed me to bypass codes, engineering, building plans, and licensing.
People in New York City don't talk as often about how difficult building is because of NIMBYism. Generally it's a combination of red tape that's meant to act as a protection from things like fires and bad construction, which is good, environmental regulations which is so-so (some of them drive up housing costs), because of progressive policies (demanding a certain percentage of units be for lower income people), a scarcity of land, high wages, and a political class tied to unions (the latest tax breaks are tied to 50 dollar min wage for new construction of 99 units or more).
It's very very complicated. And new construction makes rents go up here because it's all luxury - it has to be, or developers won't bother to build.
It's so complicated that I'm sick of reading the West Coasters hot take on housing problems - that it's 100 percent due to single family homes and zoning and other very very California problems.
I’m hopeful for driver assist so I don’t have to pay attention while driving, also this helps disabled people get around (particularly in rural areas with less/no public transit). I’m also hopeful for humanoid robots so they can do all my chores like sweeping, laundry and cooking. In general the idea that me, my family/friends and my country is progressing makes me hopeful.
It's fair to hope for what was promised, but you cannot discount what is being delivered.
Self driving cars were a huge deal 10 years ago and we were all going to be using them immenitly. Now the future is here and they are no greater than a curiosity for the average person. 99.99% are driving manually and will be 30 years from now.
Similarly, AI promises to solve every problem, but the average persons' experience is that of increasing irrelevant spam and junk mail rather than being freed from laundry duty.
> I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable.
How often are your peers experiencing these crimes? Assuming you're in the US based on your comments, crime rates are much lower now than when in the early 2010s when I was a young adult and quite hopeful despite thinking my job prospects were bleak and that I'd never be able to afford a home.
> I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable
Yes people of all ages tend to be unhappy when crime happens to them. Not sure where you live but lowering taxes and government oversight is actually a bad way to improve taxpayer funded and government run law enforcement agencies. None of this has anything to do with AI though and young people can be angry about multiple things.
Hah, I wish I had your optimism. I’m in the same boat re. the media and the pressing issues, but I just think AI is going to make things even more unaffordable for us, harder to find work, and used against us by governments who can afford the top models that might not even get released to the rest of us.
I saw the moon launch the other day, and in the past I would have been following and celebrating. These days I’m more preoccupied by the corruption in our government, including recent anti-democratic events (I’m not American).
> pressures of high taxes
This is something I never see mentioned so I'm curious what brought it up. Are you personally paying a lot of taxes or so much that you can't afford other things or is this a thing peers talk about? Is this a state or federal thing?
Taxes are pretty significant at the lower incomes. Not only are they paying 15-25% taxes after considering local, federal, state, and property taxes (even though federal are low) but whenever they want services from anyone in the upper quintiles they are also effectively paying the regulatory and tax burden of those enterprises since the customer ultimately assumes all the costs of the business.
Think for a second, if someone wants child care -- they must pay enough not only to satisfy the worker's basic needs but also the worker's income tax, business taxes, property taxes of the daycare, government mandated licensing and bonding, etc. None of those get recorded as 'taxes' the person contracting that service has paid, but really they are also paying those.
Given how little most of the lower pay workers have extra to work with, and how little they get in government services for what they pay, I don't think it's much a stretch for them to think taxes are holding them back. Being able open up saving even couple percent of income massively improves your financial safety and cushion at those brackets.
I totally am paying a massive amount of capital gains taxes! I’m also saving up for a house which means every dollar I don’t contribute to a down payment becomes principal and interest on a mortgage which equals even more money out of my pocket. For instance if I pay $37k in capital gains one year (which I did) and if my principal on a $500k house is $200k at 6% and $1500 monthly payments I’ll have to pay $33k in interest on just the $37k I didn’t pay up front!
Some cursory googling shows you have to make capital gains of between $185,000 and $250,000 to have to pay $37,000 in capital gains tax. This is between three and six times as much as someone in their 20s will earn in a year. I think you need a bit more perspective of what it's like to be a young person outside the extremely well compensated tech sector.
4 replies →
Don't the vast majority of young people entering the workforce have no capital gains to deal with at all? That tends to be more of a problem for people who are already well off. Are you talking about a narrower demographic or something?
The amounts you paid in capital gains are about 50% higher than I've ever paid. That was the second year I worked at a big tech company and suddenly had stock, which was about a decade into an my extremely lucrative career as a software developer. Most of my friends don't have to deal with capital gains at all because they're not part of the investor class. On average the rates of trading must be much lower for people in their 20s, no?
Dear lord, what percentage of the Gen Z (the population mentioned in the article) do you think pay capital gain taxes???
Congrats I guess, you are clearly rich enough to pay taxes. Most young people would consider themselves lucky to have $5K to rub together.
I hate to be uncharitable but the comment seems to simply be parroting conservative talking points, rather than being an accurate (or sincere) representation of young people's pessimism about the future.
> high housing costs which driven up by overregulation, entitlements to retirees and H1B/immigrant cases driving down wages
Anyone I talk to under 40 despairs at low wages, rising prices, and a political class that is incapable of going after blatant corruption, especially those identified in the Epstein files.
There is more anger at capitalism and billionaires (capitalists in the Marxist sense) than in any time in living memory. The notion that young people are generally upset about regulation, entitlement and H1B visas is laughably out of touch. It might be true for a tiny number of spoiled techies in the Bay Area! But outside SF, Seattle and NYC, young people are angry about a lot of things, and strong regulation and generous benefits are about the last of them.
> At the same time I see young people frustrated when their cars get broken into or when they get robbed and criminals are not held accountable. My take on this is that legacy media refuses to address these issues or plays them down and at the same time they amplify concerns about AI probably because AI is supplanting the reach and their rhetoric and reducing their ad share.
Maybe it’s just the legacy media I consume, but petty crime is rarely if ever reported (television, newspaper, radio, etc) in my experience.
And I’m not sure how you would expect media institutions to address petty crime. I guess they could ask local leaders and local law enforcement about it.?
This “gotcha” just leads to the conclusion that reporting on car break-ins and such just isn’t that interesting. “Car window smashed in Pasadena” yawn, talk about a waste of airtime imo. Might as well talk about all the people not using their blinker every day.
> And I’m not sure how you would expect media institutions to address petty crime. I guess they could ask local leaders and local law enforcement about it.?
Uh... yes? Journalists used to report on crimes and then ask police and town leaders questions on how they're addressing it. And then do follow-up stories weeks or months later, to report on (lack of) progress and again ask police and town leaders questions.
Maybe many moons ago, when newspapers had an abundance of reporters, and relatively low crime / competing issues otherwise?
But I'm not sure I can recall, even in a local paper or a local TV news broadcast, seeing articles / segments about a random individual having their car broken in to or being robbed.
Edit: I take that back, I have seen reports of robberies (specifically armed robberies) in local news, but not so much car break ins.
Older U.S. taxpayers approaching retirement will bristle at word combinations such as "entitlements to retirees" as they have put enormous capital, which can clearly be summed from their large stack of W2s, into Social Security. Also, there are large segments of "retirement age" people who simply can't afford to retire.
It's quite interesting that your (presumably very representative) survey of young people has unanimously reported 'arbitrary amalgamation of bog-standard right-wing grievances' as the primary issue of our time
Among my sample of friends, who are mostly right wing and successful, crime is literally the primary issue of their time. That's practically the sole problem in their lives. Not sure why their political leanings are relevant. This is what a vast swathe of people actually care about.
Their recent comment history also consists of complaining about vaccine mandates, gun control, and climate science research at NASA while praising funding cuts to higher education…
I think you're projecting.
- Taxes
- Overregulation
- Housing
- Immigrants
- Legacy media
This is literally a checklist of wealthy conservative old man issues.
Ah -- you showed your hand there.
You should be careful saying things like "high housing costs which driven up by overregulation". It sounds like you're trying to frame bad economic news like it's the fault of a more liberal political party in the US.
High housing costs are just an effect of capitalism. It's supply and demand - as simple as that. If they were grass huts in downtown San Fransisco, they'd be just as expensive. "Overregulation" is a fallacy.
Zoning is regulation. Prop 13 in California is regulation. Regulations can reduce supply and drive up prices. The Bay Area is proof of this.
Zoning costs money everywhere. That's work that needs to be done by a person. That person gets paid. It's capitalism again.
Prop 13 actually limits property taxes and the assessments that can happen. You're actually hurting your argument with this point.
Regulations don't reduce supply because regulations don't purchase properties. People purchase properties and then that property is off the market.
The Bay Area is proof that limited supply (because there is only so much land in the area) + steady (or increasing) demand (because people need to live close to where they work for some baffling reason) will cause property values to raise steadily over time.
Again: It's supply and demand. Regulations have very little to do with price increases.
To be clear: I'm not anti-capitalist ... I'm just anti "wrong context"
1 reply →
It's not as simple as that. The supply is being kept low to enrich housing investors.
I live in an unregulated county and I just built a house for $60,000.
I've found a few plots of land in San Francisco where you could put my house on where the land itself is under $200,000. So $260,000. So why doesn't anyone do this? It's $200,000 in profit easy since you could sell it for $460,000+ easy. Capitalists just hate making money? Clearly there is regulation stopping it, otherwise developers would be buying $50k boxables or the cheapest manufactured house they could drop down off a trailer and making an absolute mint on all the slivers of cheaper land you can find for sale in these upper priced cities.
When I was in the planning phase of building my house I quickly identified only a few counties in my state where it was even possible to build a house all myself without regulatory inspections. The only reason why I have a house is because I found a place with no regulatory inspections for owner-builder housing which allowed me to bypass codes, engineering, building plans, and licensing.
People in New York City don't talk as often about how difficult building is because of NIMBYism. Generally it's a combination of red tape that's meant to act as a protection from things like fires and bad construction, which is good, environmental regulations which is so-so (some of them drive up housing costs), because of progressive policies (demanding a certain percentage of units be for lower income people), a scarcity of land, high wages, and a political class tied to unions (the latest tax breaks are tied to 50 dollar min wage for new construction of 99 units or more).
It's very very complicated. And new construction makes rents go up here because it's all luxury - it has to be, or developers won't bother to build.
It's so complicated that I'm sick of reading the West Coasters hot take on housing problems - that it's 100 percent due to single family homes and zoning and other very very California problems.
Guys, we're not all in California.
why do things make you hopeful?
I’m hopeful for driver assist so I don’t have to pay attention while driving, also this helps disabled people get around (particularly in rural areas with less/no public transit). I’m also hopeful for humanoid robots so they can do all my chores like sweeping, laundry and cooking. In general the idea that me, my family/friends and my country is progressing makes me hopeful.
It's fair to hope for what was promised, but you cannot discount what is being delivered.
Self driving cars were a huge deal 10 years ago and we were all going to be using them immenitly. Now the future is here and they are no greater than a curiosity for the average person. 99.99% are driving manually and will be 30 years from now.
Similarly, AI promises to solve every problem, but the average persons' experience is that of increasing irrelevant spam and junk mail rather than being freed from laundry duty.