If you're a millennial or part of Gen Z and you can't
afford housing, baby boomers would like to have a word with you.
Maybe, you should cancel Netflix, stop buying that expensive coffee.
Maybe that's what your real problem is.
And this is according to the latest poll that was done by King's College London.
This is a UK poll, so I want to be clear about that.
I know we're in the United States, the majority of our
audiences in the United States, but it feels really good to
know that older people in other countries also have broken minds
when it comes [LAUGH] to why younger generations are struggling financially.
Now, more than half of baby boomers, those born between 1946
and 1964, by the way, it's a giant number of years.
They believe that the luxury lifestyle choices made by young
people are to blame for their inability to save enough money.
And so, what accounts for luxury lifestyle choices?
Cuz when I think of luxury lifestyle choices, I
think about jet setting, think about going on a yacht.
No, for them buying coffee and not making your own coffee, luxury lifestyle
choice, paying $15 a month for Netflix, luxury lifestyle choice.
If you just save that extra $15 a month, maybe you can buy a $1.5 million home.
>> [LAUGH] >> You can.
[LAUGH] >> Good luck.
>> Okay, so let's go to younger generations
and what they themselves think about all of this.
They actually kind of agree with older generations,
which was a shocking part of this survey.
In total, 48% of the UK public think that young people spend too much
of their income on takeaway coffees and
food, mobile phones, holidays abroad and subscription services.
The same portion of millennials actually agree with
this view, as well as 43% of Generation Z.
What?
>> So I have a theory on that, where do we get our ideas?
We get them from family, friends, school, but also media.
And this is the thing that so I'm less familiar with UK media to be fair.
So I'll just use my experience in US media.
Constantly, like the younger generations, they spend so much [INAUDIBLE] so
that probably got into the head of the younger generation too.
>> Yeah.
>> So- >> Can we pause for one second, okay.
Do you guys remember, about the first six months of the pandemic was like?
>> Yeah.
>> I remember what it was like.
I remember spending virtually no money.
A lot of people spent virtually no
money, everything was closed, businesses were shut down.
And so you had no choice but to stop spending money.
So did you accumulate enough money for your finances to like miraculously
improve to the point where you could freaking [LAUGH] buy a house?
No, because at the same time we also
saw the cost of housing really skyrocket because of
the money that was printed and given to financial
institutions who then bought literal neighborhoods with that money.
But anyway, my point is saving 15 bucks a month by not paying for
Netflix, is not going to solve the problem of unaffordable housing.
>> Yeah, that's why I brought up the media, because if they
were honest about the facts, nobody would have that thought in their heads.
The price of housing, both rent and buying,
again I'm speaking mainly from a US perspective, is
way higher than it was, even if you adjust
for inflation from when the boomers were growing up.
And the student debt is monstrous compared to when
the boomers are growing up, and we can do
all of that, we can do it based on
inflation adjusted money, but that's not what you hear.
And part of the reason why you don't hear
them, part of the reason why the boomers have a
completely different view on this, is because the hardest thing
in the world is, is to escape your own perspective.
So, for the boomers, they thought, what do you mean, college is almost free.
Yeah, when you went to college, but not anymore, right?
When, they're like, what do you mean?
The houses were cheap?
Yeah, when you were buying houses, but not today.
And so, they just assume, that you're millennials and Gen Z are
living under the same conditions that they lived in, which isn't remotely true.
>> Yeah.
And I also want to address one other thing.
It's a little bit beside the point of this story, but obviously, in the
list of luxury lifestyle choices, they talk
about traveling abroad, young people traveling abroad.
Listen, as the child of baby boomers who literally worked their entire
lives until they got to their golden years where they can go out
there and travel, you know what happened to them once they got
to their golden years where they could actually go out there and travel?
They got sick and it was incredibly difficult for them to travel.
And I mean it's not just my parents, I've seen
that happen with so many people in the same generation,
the baby boomer generation, that's now being critical of young
people who take some time off to travel the world.
No, I want to travel the world now, okay?
When I'm healthy, when I can walk, when I'm mobile, when
I don't have all these ailments that are slowing me down.
Like life isn't just about work, save, and then when you're 65 maybe, and by
the way, at this point if you're 65 you're probably not gonna be able to retire.
But if you do everything right in this magical Utopian world where they
think you can retire at 65 a lot of people get sick by then.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay?
No, I wanna travel now, I want to see the world now, I wanna live now.
>> So, I'll add one more thing to that particular line of thought.
So, if you're in Europe you guys take these
great trips really all across Europe, all across the world.
And it's built into a lot of this education systems in
Europe, do not ever let them talk you out of it.
>> Exactly.
>> Look, I know life's a balancing act and you do have to save for the future.
>> Yes.
>> But you also have to live now, okay?
Don't go to either extreme.
The way that young people vacation and go
traveling and backpacks and stuff in Europe is awesome.
It's one of the best things in the world.
Don't let the old people talk you out of it.
That's not the main problem.
The main problem is the economic system that we live under today.
>> Yeah and I want to talk about that economic system.
Now look, there are some good things to come
out of this survey, even though it's a little contradictory,
because the respondents were also asked whether they think the
current economic system is putting young people at a disadvantage.
And an overwhelming majority believe that is the case.
So, apparently they think young people are wasting money but they
also acknowledge, that the economy is pretty much rigged against them.
So, 76% of the public recognize that
factors such as increasing house prices, stricter
lending rules and low wage growth are
preventing young people from buying a home.
And I wanted to share some data with you
and even though the survey was done in the UK.
I can't help but show you what housing
prices look like here in the United States.
So just between December of 2020 and December of 2021
in just one year, the development of single family home
prices in the US increased significantly by index points.
So it went from 234.46 index points to 278.63 index points.
And it's partly because of what I was explaining before, you
have the federal reserve printing money, handing it over to financial
institutions including private equity firms, who then turn around and use
that money to buy up entire neighborhoods of homes, single family residences.
>> Now the government could stop them from doing that but they won't.
And that is affecting the housing prices and other prices so
much more than if you go on a one week occasion.
So, that's why the whole thing is that Netflix, your Netflix subscription,
no market forces are what's actually to cause for the issue here.
>> So let's take a look at housing costs and how
much of a burden housing costs are for low income renters.
And this is an international look at things, right?
So, share of low income private tenants spending more
than 40% of their income on housing meaning rent.
And look at that, at the top of the list
you have Great Britain, actually number one is new Zealand which
was surprising to me, where you have 56% of low
income tenants spending more than 40% of their income on rent.
Coming in at number two is Great Britain, where you have 47.5%.
And in the United States, that number is 45.6%.
>> And I want to draw attention to one other quick thing in that particular
study, Canada's so much lower than America,
even though we're right next to one another.
And similar in almost every way except our government.
Our government in America is much more right wing, much more
corporate friendly, and allows the banks to do anything they want.
And that's a different and you see it in your lives you can afford a home in
Canada right across the border, a lot more
than we can because our government is more corrupt.
>> And look inflation is impacting everyone
right now, including those in the UK.
So, if the economic system was already putting you at a
disadvantage, it's only been exacerbated by inflation which
you can see in this graph that specifically looks at
inflation in the UK between 1989 to January of 2022.
So, we're starting to experience record inflation.
It's going back to what it was in
the 1980s when it was incredibly high, and that's
pretty terrible considering again, people were already at a
significant disadvantage with how the economy was already doing.
>> Yeah, go on vacation, we're obsessed with that, okay?
Have fun, enjoy your life.
And by the way, when you come back from the vacation, change your government.
We have corporate rule all across the world.
We actually human beings have to
fight against the machines, those corporate machines
that have captured all of our
governments and most especially the American government.
And they have these corporate policies that
are driving up the prices, not you guys.