Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Are Millennials Bad with Money?" video.

@cecesoclean4591 When I was younger and started to invest, you needed to have literally thousands of dollars in order to open an account without paying fees for doing so. You would then pay fees every time you wanted to trade and you'd be required to know how to set up a portfolio and what to invest in. Compare that with today where there are financial tech firms that will take as little as $10 and invest it for you in a diversified portfolio. They're willing to take as little as $5 (or less) a month and invest and balance the account as circumstances dictate without requiring much from the end user. It's super-easy, barely an inconvenience. References to other channels are tight.
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While you're at it, why don't we talk about how the Boomers pulled the ladder they used to get where they are up after them so that following generations couldn't prosper as easily.
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@riffdex Not true, the standard of living has increased because of cheap credit, people put things on their credit cards and hope that they'll be able to pay it off. As far as housing goes, in those decades you had a huge number of people moving from rural areas with cheap housing to more urban areas with expensive housing. What's more, the cost of housing has relatively little to do with the actual building on the land, the land itself has gotten super expensive. The land my parents' house is built on alone is worth roughly 25x what they paid for the land and the house when they bought back in the mid 70s. Perhaps if you live in a dying city or one where there's little chance of growth in the future that may be the case, but in areas that people want to live, the cost of housing has been growing a ton. It makes that whole average housing cost pretty much meaningless. You happened to be able to get that done, but you're completely full of it if you're suggesting that it's a reasonable possibility for more than a tiny fraction of the folks in your generation. Houses are just not that cheap and jobs just don't pay that well.
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@loveflying4488 That's not really accurate, most of the individuals that served in Vietnam were volunteers. Only about a third were drafted and they themselves may not even have seen any combat as sending conscripts into war zones is asking for trouble. Most military jobs are on the logistics side ensuring that those doing the actual fighting have the supplies that they need.
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Clearly they don't, just look at how many of them wound up destitute in old age, despite the various pension programs out there, the ability to buy a house with just one income and the degree to which the stock market has grown over the decades they were working.
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