Some topics covered:

* Louise and I debate whether successful parents have a duty to protect their children from downward mobility, or whether helping your adult children is nothing more than nepotism

* Will millennials treat their own future adult children more generously than the boomers treated them, or will they simply repeat the same pattern with a new excuse?

* How many complaints about baby boomers stem from misguidedly comparing modern life to a brief and extremely peculiar and prosperous period in the 20th century

* We explore the conflict between two moral systems: Western individualism condemns nepotism, while many other cultures regard helping your family as a basic duty. More on this here

* Are millennials truly poorer than earlier generations? Or are there just a few vivid stories that have coalesced into a misleading myth?

* The education treadmill and why, between generations, more college degrees have not produced much higher incomes

* How American, British and Australian debates often get blurred together, even though culture, history, and the economic situation differs across countries. See Louise’s piece on this here

* How social media raises the standard for what counts as a normal home, a normal income and a normal adult life

* The loudest complaints about “economic inequality” tend to come from highly educated people in prestigious but poorly paid careers. Recall that participants of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York were overwhelmingly affluent. 72% were from households above the NYC median and 76% had a BA degree or higher

* I suggest many OWS participants were angry that their earnings were lower than their college graduate peers who pursued finance, a more lucrative path. So often the real battle isn’t between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” but between the “haves” and the “have-mores”

* We discuss why nepotism is often hidden, and how that secrecy breeds resentment among people who think their peers succeeded entirely on their own. You might be surprised at the number of writers and artists who are only able to pursue their dreams because a parent, spouse, or trust fund is paying their bills

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The Millennial Fears the Sting of Downward Mobility

Rob Henderson's Office Hours (private feed for [email protected])

The Millennial Fears the Sting of Downward Mobility