I've offered this (unpopular) opinion here before but it's a bit personal to me so I'll state it again. When it comes to people complaining about housing costs- if you hold the opinion that they should (a) go to college (b) learn to code (c) pull themselves up 'by their bootstraps, I still wonder things like- who is going to work at McDonald's, who is going to ring you up at Walmart, who is going to sell you your steaks & pork loins as the local butcher?
......
We're now at a point where many of us look down on the 'gas station' employees and believe they don't deserve to own a house. "they can always live with roommates" right? What about the factory workers that produce the steel to make the barrels, the woodworkers & plastic/aluminum engineers who make the stocks/chassis we rely on for our hobby? What about the seamstress that makes the rest bags we argue about, makes the condora pouches we post pictures of to hold our high tech gear?
Lord knows I hope some of our older folks (yes "Boomers") will chime in on this. Something got seriously broken along the path to 'progress'. Place your blame where you want to but I'd suggest it's not worth anyone's effort blaming any "Boomer" or "Gen X'r" or "Millennial" either for that matter. It's long since time we all take a pause, recognize we're being played, and instead of fighting amongst each other, it's long since past time we "look behind the curtain" of OUR government and question how we got to this point and start holding our elected officials accountable for this nonsense.
It seems you are oversimplifying opinions as well as causes.
Regarding housing and housing costs, entry level jobs at McDonalds, WalMart, etc. are simply that. They are low skill
entry level jobs that pay accordingly.
Jobs that parallel those have existed for the last century including during the post WWII boom years. Even during those times, similar jobs were NEVER expected to allow the employee to pay for a house. They are
entry level jobs that are viewed as stepping stones into the higher employment market.
You learn how to show up on time, work with people, follow instructions, be responsible for your results, learn to pay taxes and learn to compete for advancements.
Current norms incubated by over-reaching government have fostered the mindset of equal outcome rather than equal opportunity. Now there are many that are demanding such. It doesn't help that the U.S. has exported the vast majority of its high paying/high security manufacturing jobs and is devolving our workforce into a service economy.
The mechanisms for equal opportunity still exist, are still available and are still being used by young people to succeed and build wealth up to and including purchasing a house.
The entire structure of Capitalism is a
flow from entry level beginning through high skill/high expertise and finally retiring out of the system with financial security. The speed at which you move through the flow is up to the individual. Recognizing that there will always be exceptions like professional connections, etc., the ones that work the hardest and smartest will succeed accordingly.
Since there is a continuous stream of new people entering the workforce, there will ALWAYS be labor to fill the entry level jobs at the gas station, WalMart and McDonalds. Those employees are not to be looked down on as Poors or second rate since they are transitory by choice. Those entering those jobs should always have their sights set on higher paying positions within or outside where they start.
Is somebody being played?
Most likely, both on a micro scale as well as a national and societal scale.
It is still going to boil down to taking responsibility for your own future outcome as much as possible then taking the actions and sacrifices (time and hard work) to see it to fruition.
A true meritocracy-based system will always produce the most innovation, peace and prosperity. Every time.
Only those that want individual power will argue otherwise as they prefer to be the ones to dictate who gets what and hand out available resources.
With that type of power, what could possibly go wrong? . . .
Lots and lots of variables not the least of which include that .gov is the largest and least accountable employer in the system.
One way that I can see citizens are being “played” is that the unelected ruling elite want to pit us against each other.
Breed hatred and discontent amongst the easily led, based on political differences, racial differences, religious differences, economic/income differences and EVEN AGE differences.
Super easy to capitalize on obvious frustrations and bait the responses and energy into actions that will have absolutely no positive outcome for the frustrated person. A lot of it can be very overt and obvious while other manipulations are subversive and camouflaged.
It only takes carefully planned “nudges” to make a large change in future outcomes.
Some nudges are most assuredly subtly in play even in internet forums.
Surely this is not a sustainable model, and hopefully the fallacy in this belief isn't lost on at least some of the SH folks. They can always "go be poor somewhere else" after all, but who's going to staff the libraries, Wendy's, and local grocery stores? Just an opinion but we need to fix this.
The original model is still functional and can still be a path to success for every employable person.
The issue is with people re-defining the model into something that has little resemblance to the original/intended model.
The framework is being deconstructed and manipulated into something that can be exploited by those that want to replace it with equal outcomes regardless of effort.