I live in the USA, and our future seems more bleak than it ever has. Is not about politics, although politicians do have an impact on it. It’s really about our quality of life, and cost of living, which has not changed for the better, it seems, in a really long time. The cost of living keeps going up higher and higher, and much of our country still believes that even with increased cost of living, there is never any reason whatsoever to pay people more. So for instance, a job that paid 10 bucks an hour in the year 2002, that same job might still pay $10 an hour now. But I think we all know that the cost of living has dramatically gone up from 2002 to now.
Even White collar jobs though seem to be threatened to now, which is not something I’ve ever seen before. Positions like analyst, engineer, business intelligence, revenue management, whatever you want to think of. Any corporate office job, people are suffering. The cost of living is absurd, buying a house is simply out of reach unless you have dual income and it better be nearly six figure dual income…
I just don’t see how Americans at large are going to survive the next 30 years?
Many of us will not.
For the last 40 years through free trade we’ve had a large population join the market from countries like China, Russia, India etc.
Free trade with China has given us cheap consumer goods but at the cost of our own manufacturing which suppressed wage growth and inflation for a long time. We hit the peak of this just before Covid and we are now feeling the after affects.
China’s dramatically aging population along with geopolitical instability means that the logistics and manufacturing capacity that existed overseas for 20 years Is now failing. The US forced to reshore or nearshore (Mexico) much of its manufacturing capacity. Basically if we want to continue to have stuff we need to find somewhere else to make it besides China. This isn’t a cheap process and it won’t be as efficient as the old system.
Russia’s war with Ukraine has huge implications on resources and energy. Russia exports a lot of raw materials, fertilizer products, food, energy and aluminum. Taking them offline has affected international trade and has many many markets.
Our institutions that support labor have also withered over the last 40 years. Labor unions don’t have the sway they used too and politicians have ignored their needs for decades. Big business will not just give wage increases much like in the 20s and 30s Labor will need to grow and become more combative than it currently is to see any improvements.
In short the world order that we all grew up in is breaking down and changing. It will be at least a decade before these changes finish shaking out and we see solutions to the problems we are facing fully materialize.
Humans have a great capacity to adapt. Consider people around the world who have adapted to even worse circumstances.
spoiler
unionize
This is a circumstance born, in no small part, of the idea that manual labor and menial labor is meaningless and has no real value.
Our economy has been sold from beneath us, and the overall cultural ideologies result in most people avoiding these things. But it is the only thing that is actual production - the rest of the economy is all efficiencies or expenditure.
Slowly, the wealth has slipped away, and now it’s becoming apparent to people, and they don’t know who to blame.
Find or make an enclave and survive together.
First you look at other countries around the world. Then you see that lots of people somehow eke out OK livings despite horrible shit in government. So maybe you can too.
That’s not to say the horrible things to come are acceptable. Rather, you’re probably more capable than you believe. Believe in examples of billions around the globe.
Is not about politics
It’s all about politics. Just not about the 24/7 clown show that passes for politics in the US.
It’s about who gets what, how the spoils are divided. It’s obvious how the deck is stacked against ordinary people: the middle class is being bled dry and the hoarder class is taking off with all of it.
What’s extraordinary is that that somehow passes for ‘natural’ and ‘not about politics’.
Well capitalism is based on the horrible unfeeling cruelty of nature, that we originally created human society to escape.
So that’s why it feels natural. It’s the unfair unfeeling system of nature that society is not supposed to be
Trees actually cooperate and share resources.
This horrible cruelty shouldn’t be accepted as natural.
The america empire is following in the exact same footsteps of the Roman empire. If you fail to learn from history then history will repeat itself. The great American empire will fall and there will be nothing u can do about it no matter how hard u try.
“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
— Dylan Thomas
It’s been falling for a while now.
In history, a century isn’t that long.
Like a train crash in slow motion
Learn how to live in poverty and go unnoticed, because no grand and noble revolution is coming
Revolutions are never grand and noble.
(But some history books have been written by the survivors)
Honestly, the ones who survive well are the ones who build communities that take care of each other: Sharing meals, sharing gardens, sharing skills and labor, sharing rides, sharing emotions and stories, etc.
Capitalism was always pushing the US towards a gigantic class divide, and Boomers and Gen X carried that torch at the expense of their descendants’ future. Communities of support are something that will have helped regardless of who is carrying what ideology and regardless of who is in charge, and they thrive in adversity.
So if you’re looking for advice, build your local communities. Strengthen your bonds with your neighbors. Participate in local governance.
I would if the damned bank would let me buy a house!!! Trying to get a 90K bank loan, have 36k in cash, and still denied because I don’t have a credit score.
I was in the same boat. Banks are lazy and often won’t underwrite custom loans that fall outside their automatic software, but there are still some who will.
If you don’t have a score (which I’m convinced some mortgage people think means a bad score, because they’re fucking idiots who can’t listen), you can ask to speak to someone in charge or go elsewhere, but there are lenders who will work with you. Got ours through USDA, which took longer and was custom underwriting, but still got the terms about two weeks later.
let me buy a house
The advice wasn’t for house owners only. All the others are human, too.
and Gen X carried that torch
Has anyone seen my torch, 'cause I sure can’t find it (though I was in the last couple years of Gen X)
Beautiful. In fact, under royalty, people used to be killed with things like the Breaking Wheel and being boiled alive, which makes the Guillotine a far more humane punishment. I’m tempted, though, to say that “nothing ever happens” and assume the U.S. will proceed as normal.
Nothing ever happens, until it does.
You get milked by the big corpos. Money flows from the poor to the rich.
And as long as you have only these two extreme right wing parties, there is nobody who would change it.
buying a house is simply out of reach unless you have dual income
Not in all areas of the United States. Houses routinely sell for under $200k in my city. There’s also many for under $100k.
Say city.
Check out much of the Midwest. Check out Detroit.
People say this kind of thing a lot, but I don’t really understand if they don’t have any family or friends, don’t care about their family and friends, or just think it’s reasonable to have to choose between your relationships and living in an affordable house.
It sucks but you have to do what you think is best maybe the savings allow for some road trips to visit.
My household is in the top few percentile, we’re fine. I just think everybody else should also have the luxury of not having to choose between relationships and shelter.
No contest.
Unfortunately, we live in a society
Median income for the area?
You can survive on very little, it just will be a lower quality of life than previous generations which feels bad, but you do what you need to in order to get by.
The simplest way to deal with all of this is to actually perform the financial calculations to see what’s the best situation for you.
A $80,000 a year job in a city may actually leave you with a lower quality of life than a $40,000 a year job in the middle of nowhere if you’re spending $4,500 a month on rent for a two bedroom apartment in the city, and it would only be $1000 for a two bedroom house the middle of nowhere.
Calculate some possible budgets for different areas and different lifestyles, and find out what works best for you. Being in a city is not as good as it used to be financially speaking.
If you’re having trouble “surviving” either way, you need to figure out how to reduce your costs and/or up your income.
Common things like sharing a home (with a partner or roommate) can reduce your costs massively, trying to live alone is pretty stupid financially right now.
Learn how to cook things yourself, it’s not hard with Youtube these days, you can massively slash your food budget by not eating out or buying pre-made food. One of the stupidest things I see is people picking up a second job, making very little per hour, and then spending 6 hours of their income on a dinner from a restaurant (eat in, eat out, doordash, etc.). You would have been better off just buying decent meal ingredients for 2 hours of your wage, and then spending 1 hour cooking and cleaning. Then you’ve got 3 hours worth of time back that you can either use to work for more money for other things, or just not bother working at all to have more time for you.
If you’re stuck in a dead end low wage job, invest time in getting new skills that will enable you to get a better job. It’s never too late to retrain for a better position unless you’ve already retired.
Americans need to budget better and get used to some sacrifices. If you can’t ride the waves, you’re bound to fall off.
This is a very insensitive and honestly silly comment to make. What makes you think people aren’t budgeting? They would have to in order to survive in the world that we live in now but there are major costs that we can’t control for example rising housing and rent. Even if we stopped dining out every single day forever, and never got sodas or drinks or anything like that, it would still be a struggle to survive because the price of groceries keeps going up due to corporate greed, it has absolutely nothing to do with people not budgeting. When you budget, and things keep rising in that budget, that’s a huge issue
For example, if I budgeted 100% of my income out as 30% groceries, 70% savings, from the year 2005 to 2024, The percentage for groceries would dramatically increase. It would go 30% groceries in 2005, 45% groceries in 2015, 57% groceries in 2024. As you can see, in this simple example, I’m not buying more groceries or changing my investment or budget. All I’m buying is groceries, and the cost of groceries keeps rising infinitely without my pay rising. This is the problem with the idea that budgeting can help you.
I’m leaving. I’m tired of fighting.
Serious question, but where do you plan to go and how? I see so many people posting about leaving, but unless you’re in a fairly high-demand career field, planning on marrying a local, or are already wealthy to the point that you likely won’t be affected by whatever is coming down the line, you’re going to have a bad time. Most countries aren’t swinging the gates open for people that won’t be a net positive on their system. And the ones that do probably aren’t ones you want to go to.
I moved to Japan which has its good and bad points (like anywhere). If I had it to do over, I’d probably pick Norway or Finland instead, but I plan on spending the rest of my life here barring some earth-shattering change.
Well, weak yen looks pretty bad for future prospects.
I’m working to get an income stream in another currency as well because of that. It hurts for anything imported for sure, especially given a lot of fuel is imported, but it’s still workable for now. If/when they get around to turning on some of the nuclear plants again or getting them replaced with renewables, energy costs and fuel imports should at least drop again.
It’ll take awhile, but the crux of it hinges on the inheritance I stand to receive next year. I know for a fact that I’ll be more than enough to do what we want to do.
Second, I’ve been planning on going back to school anyways for computer engineering, so what’s wrong with studying abroad? I’ve also been in and around IT and tech all my life, and I’m pretty decent with a soldering iron. I currently work as a board rework tech.
My wife is a pharmacy tech that’s been doing it for close to 20 years in a variety of environments. Depending on where we go, her field is one of those that are in demand. Specifically, we know she can get a Canadian work visa pretty easily. We have family in Vancouver so it works out.
I assume you’ve looked into visa requirements and whether you and your wife will be able to work. Canada is a bit cold for my taste, but if that’s what you have your sights on, I hope you can make it work. Best of luck to you.
Having been in Texas my whole life, I’m looking forward to the change in… everything, really.
