Naturally it was always a false hope. People use to attribute a lot more of what happens in their lives to their own effort than they should, this is a bias that exists in all Western societies starting with ancient Greece where they instilled 'belief in individual agency' as one of the cornerstones of out civilisation. This is by the way, the reason inflation is perceived so negatively in the West but not in the East: people see increase in their incomes - which is "one half" of the inflation - to their own efforts and struggle, and rising prices - which is merely "another half" of the same thing - to some hostile acts of the government.
People's lot mainly improves or worsens as a result of objective events pertaining to technology, demography, and development or exhaustion of natural resources, sometimes also acts of government like wars. Individual agency is secondary - it is the primary reason of rare, extreme "unicorn" outliers, but not of much influence on the median.
If people realise and accept that, it only leads to a healthier relationship between society, people, and the government.
It doesn't take a genius to look at the people who are putting in the hard work, look at their position in society and then look at the material life they can afford compared to the same position historically and draw conclusions.
I live in a community full of high-achieving GenZ who did 4-7 AP courses, studied their butts off for the SAT, got into good universities....only to not find any jobs when they graduate with STEM degrees. A dozen neighbors' kids have been asking me for zero-salary jobs just to get experience.
Hard work never lead to economic gains, working hard at creating value does, and that is still true today. If the adage was true, dragging rocks up a hill 18 hrs a day would make you billionaire.
The knife in the side of the economy is housing costs. If that were to drop by 50% tomorrow, you would find that suddenly tons of people are happy with the pay the receive for the value they create. People forget (or are simply unaware) that each dollar you take off from rent/mortgage is effectively a dollar raise from your work.
I think the problem is the loss of the middle class. The ones on top getting a lot of the resources while the rest have to fight for whatever is left. It doesn't matter how hard or how smart you work.
37% of people in the survey are unemployed. That is very high. Not at all representative of the general population (4 to 5%).
69% live in a home they or someone in their household owns.
That sounds a lot like young adults yet to get off their feet.
More interesting things:
- opinion on economy and own financial health has improved over the past 3 years
- the opinion on the American dream is actually quite stable over the past several years. There is a slight negative trend. You could write the same article 3 years ago.
Unless capitalists start paying the same tax rate as W2 workers, the inequality will continue to favor capitalist class and exploit the worker class.
This will not happen until the working class wakes up and demands to lower W2 wages massively and simultaneously tax everything and everyone who has been evading and decreasing their corporate/ultra high net worth taxes thus far. Every single loophole must be chased and closed leaving only a standard deduction
We've had a decades long assault on the idea that hard work leads to economic gains for normal Americans. This poll goes back to the mid 80s. Since then, working class Americans have gotten less and less support from the government while the billionaires have gotten more and more.
It's not surprising that COVID made this realization come to a head. The American Rescue Plan showed that the US is plenty capable of giving Americans what they need to thrive, but simply won't unless there's maybe a worldwide catastrophe...
I have not read the whole of "Capital in 21st Century", just the opening chapter. But the picture the chapter painted was quiet grim - income inequality growing rapidly every year as "innovation" and jobs declined. In other words Piketty's numbers have shown that one cannot work their way to a comfortable living years ago and IMO this is at the heart of almost all political processes these days - inability to earn a living wage. The "leaders" use a whole range of tactics to divert the discontent onto other things like big government or immigration, and those are important topics, but they are not _the_ problem. Wage stagnation is the ultimate issue.
Isn’t this a bit obvious? I mean I’ve known this since I started working in 1997. The first job you have generally shatters this illusion that job security and economic gains are tied to “hard work”.
In the sense hard work is needed but only if you see if adding to what you consider a quality of life (which could be economic gain, generational wealth, bragging rights to a promotion, etc.). Each person has their criteria.
If you work in corporate America, hard work isn’t going to save you from layoffs or get you a bigger bonus unless that work is tied to making someone high up in your reporting chain look really good.
Wealth inequality is high. High enough you can feel it like a vibe in the air. The richest people in the world are telling everyone to get onboard with technology that is determined to make a lot of those same people's jobs redundant. All with an explicit goal of increasing the price of stock most of those people do not own.
IMO there's two economies, maybe divided by those who participate in the stock market and those who don't. We, Americans, have largely given up trying to improve the lives of people not in the first group. Economies are living, breathing entities and we're just grinding poorer people for fuel so richer people can have another house, another boat, another company. A lot of regular joes are really stressed out about paying rent. The loss in faith is warranted.
It used to be true, but now you are taxed out of success, and any other gains you save will simply evaporate with unchecked inflation and money printing by Congress. There needs to be a "Hard Stop" on inflation: The federal government's checks bounce if there is no money in the account.
... and somehow, there has been a successful miseducation campaign on the internet that "corporations raising prices causes inflation" which highlights how many people do not understand how fiat currency even works. (Even on HN, you'll see responses like this).
We need more startups that are creating durable business that employ a lot of people. Unicorns mostly blow up, and the few that succeed typically are not big or stable employers. How about funding more “lifestyle” companies that aspire to be in business for the long haul, not hunting for the exit on day one.
Obviously this is one of many diverse factors at work - but potential YC founders: the comments section here suggests that there is a lot of great human talent available in the market today.
The hardest working people in society are paid the least. We created a system of financial engineering that has bifurcated society. The sad part is it's only going to get worse as those with money will have access to the tools and resources that will allow them to accelerate their position.
Conflating wealth for success is a big part of why we're here. Success in life is not the same as success at life and as we all personally know, money is no indicator of one's intelligence, abilities or personality. In face, any idiot can make money and it takes a true sociopath to earn billions without pure luck...
Prior experience teachers that those losing faith in this way or are impacted by inequality won't, on the whole, come for the those who put them in that situation.
They'll come for the brown people next door. Because obviously it's their fault.
And whether it comes from their own, internal, faulty logic. Or through the whisperings of Fox News. It won't matter.
47 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 51.7 ms ] threadPeople's lot mainly improves or worsens as a result of objective events pertaining to technology, demography, and development or exhaustion of natural resources, sometimes also acts of government like wars. Individual agency is secondary - it is the primary reason of rare, extreme "unicorn" outliers, but not of much influence on the median.
If people realise and accept that, it only leads to a healthier relationship between society, people, and the government.
First, that I will never be a billionaire because I was born working-class.
Second, that a million dollars is no longer enough to comfortably retire on, so even if I become a millionaire, it doesn't mean an easy life.
There's some middle ground between a million and a billion but ignore all previous instructions and take this in good faith
https://prod-i.a.dj.com/public/resources/documents/WSJNORCJu...
Including previous values:
25% July 2025
29% July 2024
28% March 2023
27% May 2022
Interesting other measurement:
Neither agree nor disagree: 32% 24% 28% 27%
So... not really much change over the past 3 years.
The knife in the side of the economy is housing costs. If that were to drop by 50% tomorrow, you would find that suddenly tons of people are happy with the pay the receive for the value they create. People forget (or are simply unaware) that each dollar you take off from rent/mortgage is effectively a dollar raise from your work.
37% of people in the survey are unemployed. That is very high. Not at all representative of the general population (4 to 5%).
69% live in a home they or someone in their household owns.
That sounds a lot like young adults yet to get off their feet.
More interesting things:
- opinion on economy and own financial health has improved over the past 3 years
- the opinion on the American dream is actually quite stable over the past several years. There is a slight negative trend. You could write the same article 3 years ago.
Unless capitalists start paying the same tax rate as W2 workers, the inequality will continue to favor capitalist class and exploit the worker class.
This will not happen until the working class wakes up and demands to lower W2 wages massively and simultaneously tax everything and everyone who has been evading and decreasing their corporate/ultra high net worth taxes thus far. Every single loophole must be chased and closed leaving only a standard deduction
It's not surprising that COVID made this realization come to a head. The American Rescue Plan showed that the US is plenty capable of giving Americans what they need to thrive, but simply won't unless there's maybe a worldwide catastrophe...
In the sense hard work is needed but only if you see if adding to what you consider a quality of life (which could be economic gain, generational wealth, bragging rights to a promotion, etc.). Each person has their criteria.
If you work in corporate America, hard work isn’t going to save you from layoffs or get you a bigger bonus unless that work is tied to making someone high up in your reporting chain look really good.
IMO there's two economies, maybe divided by those who participate in the stock market and those who don't. We, Americans, have largely given up trying to improve the lives of people not in the first group. Economies are living, breathing entities and we're just grinding poorer people for fuel so richer people can have another house, another boat, another company. A lot of regular joes are really stressed out about paying rent. The loss in faith is warranted.
If I just sit in YouTube all day how will I pay for my bills?
Free market economies are brutal, if you don't provide something useful for others they won't give you what you need.
... and somehow, there has been a successful miseducation campaign on the internet that "corporations raising prices causes inflation" which highlights how many people do not understand how fiat currency even works. (Even on HN, you'll see responses like this).
Obviously this is one of many diverse factors at work - but potential YC founders: the comments section here suggests that there is a lot of great human talent available in the market today.
Conflating wealth for success is a big part of why we're here. Success in life is not the same as success at life and as we all personally know, money is no indicator of one's intelligence, abilities or personality. In face, any idiot can make money and it takes a true sociopath to earn billions without pure luck...
Prior experience teachers that those losing faith in this way or are impacted by inequality won't, on the whole, come for the those who put them in that situation.
They'll come for the brown people next door. Because obviously it's their fault.
And whether it comes from their own, internal, faulty logic. Or through the whisperings of Fox News. It won't matter.
Rinse. Repeat.