The American Dream died and nobody bothered to tell Gen Z until they checked Zillow.
Economists now claim an entire generation won't achieve what their parents did. Home ownership. Retirement savings. A job that doesn't require explaining cryptocurrency to your grandmother. The usual markers of success that boomers accomplished by showing up to the same factory for thirty years and refusing to quit.
Gen Z looked at starter homes listed for $847,000 and wages that haven't moved since their parents were in college. They did the math. Turns out you can't buy a three-bedroom ranch when your income goes entirely to student loans and avocado toast. Who could have predicted this.
The bargain is eroding, says the headline. What bargain? The one where you work forty years for a corporation that fires you three months before your pension vests? The one where healthcare costs more than a mortgage but covers less than thoughts and prayers? That bargain?
Some kids are making it work. They moved back in with their parents. They started a dropshipping business. They bought fractional shares of Tesla at the top and called themselves investors. Real bootstrap stuff.
The technical analysis on the American Dream shows a clear head-and-shoulders pattern forming since 1978. The neckline broke in 2008. The retest failed in 2020. Now we're in price discovery and Gen Z is holding the bag.
But retail traders on Reddit still think they can chart their way to a picket fence and 2.5 kids. They're buying calls on homebuilder stocks with money they should be spending on literally anything else. Financial literacy at its finest.
The dream isn't dead. It just costs $3 million now and requires you to already have $3 million.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
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