The wealthiest generation will soon be... | Hour 2

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. I do have a bunch of texts from the last hour. I will get to those. I am also now going to deliver on the answer that I to the question that I posed at the end of the last hour. I'm going to pay off the t's here, which is which generation is set to become the richest generation in history. It is not the Boomers, it is not Gen X. It is the Millennials. Those born between nineteen eighty and nineteen ninety four are set to become part of the richest generation in history. This is according to the Wealth Report by UK real estate agency Night frank Hey. This was a story that appeared at the rob Report. The group can expect a seismic windfall over the next twenty years as ninety trillion dollars of assets move between generations in the US alone, ninety trillion dollars in assets, because you can't take it with you. And so all of those older generations that have amassed wealth, when they die off, it gets passed down to the next generation in some form or fashion, whether it be inheritance or sale or whatever. When the Silent generation, which is the generation born between nineteen twenty five to nineteen forty five, When the Silent generation and the Baby Boomers and the oldest cohort of Gen X, so those towards the end of Gen X is like nineteen seventy nine. So when those three cohorts start dying off, you've got all that wealth that's been tied up in their homes that all gets freed up. And we're already seeing that, okay, because the Silent generation is dying off, Boomers are now dying off as well. In addition to property, you've got shares of stock, bonds, assets previous generations have accumulated, all going to the millennials. This transfer of equity will make the generation wealthier than all of their predecessors. The massive transfer of wealth could have an equally massive impact on society. Liam Bailey, Global head of Research at Night Frank believes younger generations will actively seek out greener homes, eco friendly goods, and sustainable investments. Given their track record, he could be right. Millennials ngen Z are leading the charge in climate change activism, according to Pew Research Center reports. Both are talking more about environmental issues than older adults, taking to social media to mobilize and enact change. So this is one of the things that I referenced in the last hour, that your decisions impact your life directly and your finances. I'm not telling you how to prioritize your spending. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm a gen xer, and as gen x we don't like people telling us what to do. Okay, we have a bit of a contrarian streak to us, so a bit of anti authoritarian kind of a streak to us. So I'm not telling you what to do. I'm simply pointing out that if you prioritize these types of choices with your money that you come into through inheritance or whatever, you will not have as much money to spend on other things. Okay, You're making a choice when. You choose to get the avocado toast delivered through door dash and you're going to spend forty dollars for that. Those are that's a choice that you could have had that avocado toast for probably about two bucks if you had gone to the store, bought the avocado, bought the bread, toasted it yourself, and put the avocado on it yourself. Right, you could have had that for about two or three bucks. But you chose to have it delivered from a nice restaurant or something, and so you're going to spend way more. That means that money that you spent for the delivery is not going to be able to be saved for something else. This is one of the other things that millennials and gen z tend to prioritize, which is the experiences. Right. And again no shade here, I'm not throwing any shade because there is value in that, right, And as I've gotten older, I've recognized there is wisdom to this thing because like a lot of like my generation and older were very wrapped up in the material stuff and not really the experienced stuff. But my parents, boomers, they did recognize the value of like an annual vacation, so we would take a week as a family and go someplace. And those are the things that actually you value and treasure more so than just the stuff. I remember some of the stuff that I had growing up, toys that I got or whatever, but it's really the experiences. But those things cost money, and so if you're going to buy more stuff, you're going to then not have as much funding for the experiences. Right, So these choices. That you make along the way, they compound, and if you make a lot of bad choices to spend money in frivolous ways, then that's a lot of money that you don't have for other things. And I've learned that lesson the hard way myself. So I'm not telling you anything that I am not, you know, bashing people for making mistakes that I myself have not made, but but I learned how to better budget, spend better. Right, those are very important tools that once again I can see why, like, if you haven't been taught these things by your elder generations, that's that's on us. That's why I'm doing this today. It's why I'm trying to say these things to you today, is because I recognize that ex Gen X and boomers have failed a lot of these millennials and Gen zs we have through K twelve, education, through media, messaging, through social media, and the algorithms that you know, hook you into a doom scrolling downward spiral where you have this idea that everything is terrible. Now, there are some things that are terrible, no doubt about it, But a lot of stuff is really good. There's like you live in a time and place that is literally unsurpassed in global human history. Just contemplate what that means. Nobody, no human being, has ever had it better. The average poor person in America has a higher standard of living than the middle class in Europe. I saw a stat a while ago that at this point in your in your career that millennials are earning more than boomers did at the same point in their career. Now I understand there's there are housing costs and education costs. These are the. Things that are driving this belief that everything is terrible because those things are real. Right, Housing has gone way up and education has gone way up. Why Well, not to beat the old same horse here, but. It's government. I'm sorry, but like and again, and I am sorry because this is once again how the Boomers and gen X, but mainly the Boomers, because we have never held powers gen X, and we never will. I mean, that's we're the generation that will probably never have a president. You know, I'll never have a h'll we'll never get the reins of power. So the Boomers have, you know, have created this regulatory regime. And you know, if you want to believe them that they did it with the best of intentions, that's fine. I don't but if you want to, fine, But regardless, the result is the same that we have brought in too many people right through illegal immigration that has put pressure on the housing stock and you have a regulatory burden where you can't build enough homes to meet the demands. And that is a failure by your elders. Absolutely, don't take the wrong message from that, though, and say let's pursue those same policies. You have to be strong enough to course correct. All right. For over a year now, you've heard me talking about Create a Video, great local company in mint Hill that has helped more than two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos, VHS tapes, film reels and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now creative videos helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. 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Check out Group travel videos dot com. That's group travel videos dot com or call seven oh four eight four six seventy eight seventy extension two o six and when you do that, ask for Katie. But Pete, can I just email? Well, yes you can. You can email Katie Katie at group travel videos dot com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. Let me go over to the text line. I have been ignoring your texts for far too long. I apologize. Tracy says, I agree. As a young man, I did not see the world as I do now, being sixty six, The United States of America is the closest to heaven on this side. I love America. Thanks for helping spread the word. You're welcome. I am a giver. Tony B. Says, I don't understand why gen Z expects to automatically have all the things we have that took thirty years to get. Manage your expectations. So look, this is not something that is specific to gen Z or millennials or any generation. You know, if you are born and raised like I was born and raised in a middle class household, and that then is sort of the level that I am accustomed to. That is me being the fish not knowing it's wet. Now. When I went away to college and you know, I first go to a dorm room that was basically a prison cell. But I mean I could come and go as I please, but it was like from a construction standpoint, it was cinderblock walls. It was a yeah, I mean it was it was a prison cell. And nowadays this is what you're trading off, right when you go to college. Nowadays, it's not like that, right. The college experience has become quite bougie, as the kids. Say, luxurious. Even. I am aware of some college campi that provide servants like made service and such to students, which is insane to me. It's absolutely nuts. They have suites with kitchens and such like, basically apartments. They did not have these things when I went to school. Okay, it was a like a fourteen by fourteen room, and I had a roommate in bunk beds like that's what we and two desks and a closet about two feet wide. That's what we got. So this goes to yes expectations. And then when I moved off campus, then I got roommates and we lived in these old mill houses in rock Hill and the Mill. None of the mill houses that I ever lived in had air conditioning in rock Hill. This is hot, is very hot, got very very hot some days. But that was like you, that's what that's what you did. I was a poor college kid. First apartment that I rented alone, very small old house, converted, no air conditioning, moved to Charlotte, got air conditioning and was in a tiny little apartment, paper thin walls, you know, cheap rent basically first house. Then I bought It's like eighty grand oh pete. See, you can't buy a house for ady grant. You could, but you had to do what I did, which is to live in a very dicey part of town. That's the trade off. As Thomas Soule always said, it's that there are no solutions, there are only trade offs. Right, So these are the things, these are the decisions you have to make in the primary decision. My dad taught me that's what you call social capital. Dad gave me social capital when I was going to buy the first house, and he said, is this your first house or your last house? And it's a way to think about when you make the purchase, do you plan to stay here for a long time? And I did not. The plan was I was going to go in there. The house was a wreck, and so I spent like four or five years fixing it up, and then I sold it. That's how you accumulate some more wealth because the house gained in value, so I could sell it for more because I had put in sweat equity. I had done the work myself, right, and I was willing to live in that nine hundred square foot home for those years in a work zone because I was willing to delay the payoff. Right. That's another thing. A lot of people in the younger generations, because they were born in the digital age, they are accustomed to things being immediate, you know, And that's them being the fish. They don't know they're wet because they they just think this is the way that it's always been, and so I want this thing to be a certain way. And well, no, And if you were raised in a three thousand square foot home with central air and everybody has their own bedrooms, their own bathrooms and everything like that, that's your that's your baseline, you know. And so if you have to downgrade, you're going to feel like you're being deprived. How come I can't have that, right, Well, your parents did not have that immediately either, you know, they work towards that, right, David says, I don't think the younger generations realize the value of on demand TV, not having to sit your butt on the couch at eight thirty every Wednesday to watch your favorite show and if you miss it, who knows when you might catch the rerun. That's exactly it. That is so true appointment watching. Like everybody like, if you miss that show, you may be lucky if they do a rerun over the summer, and you'd have to wait until the summer to watch that episode. You had to sit through all the commercials, all of that stuff. So yeah, I mean, these are things that I don't want to say younger people take them for granted, but because I'm not, it's not an accusation. You wouldn't know any different if you're younger. You just you don't know that there was another way that this was done for decades before it changed, you know. And Oscar points out that gen X thought that the world was over on January first, two thousand, remember that the Y two case here, Yeah, we thought everything was going to break, like all the systems that were computerized, like everything was going to break because of the doomerism that was told to us by media. Let me get back to some more text messages. This, oh from Ato three number that started this whole conversation with his text or her text yesterday. I think you spoke to this peep. But many people in gen Z substitute real community and real purpose with fake causes like the environment, social justice, et cetera, et cetera. People need something to be proud of, and right now this country is just not offering it for a lot of people. Okay, So again, this is a frame of mind, Ato three number, Ato three, Can I just call you Ato three? This is a frame of mind. Okay, the country is not offering it. Nobody owes you anything. Again, gen Z values authenticity. This is me being authentic. This is being a resident of Realville. You are owed nothing, and previous generations understood this. If you want more, if you want better, it is on you to pursue those things. Okay, but nobody owes you. This country doesn't owe you something that. This country's not offering community to you. Okay. If you wish to be a part of a community, then that is on you to go seek it out or to build one. Now, I do acknowledge that that message has not been delivered by your elder generations. Totally totally agree. For example, gen X, we were told delay getting married, you don't have to get married, you don't have to have kids. Who wants to have kids? All of that. Going to work was actually way more fulfilling for women. Particularly young generations have now been sold this idea that having the experiences paramount to anything, that you can have a community that's online, and that's not and ATO three is exactly right. They've been sold a lie as well. Every generation gets sold lies, and whether it's intentional or like the people that are doing the promulgation, because some people don't know, they think, oh, well, this is what's best. So I'm going to tell my kids this is what's best, right, And they don't realize that it's not actually best. So when I guess, I don't know what what is Zuckerberg? Is he a gen X? Is Mark Zuckerberg? When he created Facebook? May he may be millennial, late stage millennial or one of the earliest millennials. You know, when he built the Facebook so he could and his college friends could rate the attractiveness of his female co eds, right, like that. The whole social media experiment, in this creation of a quote unquote community as a surrogate for real world communities, that was a big mistake. Social media has been a colossal failure of an experiment. I've talked about this. I don't think kids should have the screens. It's the downsides to me are way they outweigh the positives they in my mind, like that's the science has settled on that. But you know, we were also told, like I remember all of the Earth Day stuff and the rise of this environmentalism movement and all of that stuff, and you know this stuff began a while ago that you know, we're the problem, and you know by just merely existing, we're killing Gaya Earth and all of that. So again, every generation has its own challenges. The gen Z and millennial generations are not unique in facing these challenges in hearing things that they're being told and taught that turn out not to be true, and they are damaged by that, no doubt. But you're not unique in this setting, right, Every generation gets told lies. Every generation has challenges, and so this like you can change your mindset when so when you say that, okay, tweeted again, or text it again. Let me go back to. The country is not offering it for a lot of people. That's not to say you shouldn't be proud regardless, as I am very proud of this country, but it speaks to the feelings of why people can't honestly say they feel proud anymore. I'll read this first too late. The economic data comparisons are really irrelevant. It's not about wealth. Yes, this is a piece of it, and the reason I originally brought it up was because you and other conservative commentators did. And yes, life in eighteen hundred was hard. Life as a coal miner was hard. But those people had real purpose. They had real communities, real families, they had their nations, They had purpose. This is what gen Z and so much of America is missing. The soul has been ripped out of this country. Also, I think it speaks to our subconscious how the first thing we compare is economic situation. Dude, I spent like an hour talking about all sorts of other things besides that economics. So go back to get the podcasts, go and listen to the podcast I talked about all these other things again, like see again, this is the there is a self centeredness that every generation possesses. I get that again, I'm a gen xer, like we kind of wrote the book on well, no, the boomers really they really did write the book on that. But I kid, I kid the Boomers. But as I said, every generation blames the one before this idea that this is somehow unique to your generation, that the soul has been ripped out of the country. I would submit you're you're probably online a little too much, as the kids would say, right, touch grass. If you seek these things, then go seek them, right, build build these things if they don't exist, but they do exist. I've brought people in here, like we've had people from the Kawanas Club for example, and they talk about how young people are not joining these civic groups. There, these organizations, these communities do exist and you can join them. Again, this is a I'm trying to white pill in this case ATO three number. If you gave me your name. I'd be able to speak to you to your with your name, but they just use ATO three number on the text line. And because this demoralization effort is pervasive in our society, and that's what I fear has has sort of gripped you as this demoralization. You are demoralized, right, and so in your text when you say like you don't you know, there's gen z doesn't have purpose. The people are lacking in purpose. That is not a new thing for people. When I was growing up, we just would talk about it in terms of like what is the meaning of life? It's the same question, right, what's the meaning? Why are we here? What are we doing this for? But this is the thing America and Americans are not responsible for telling you what your purpose is. That's for you to find. That's what America provides you is the freedom to find your purpose and to pursue your purpose. Right. America is not going to tell you like you're not allowed to do that. You've got to go work in that field over there, you got to work in that factory over there. Right. If you want to pursue something that you feel is your purpose that gives your life meaning, you are free to do. So that's it. And if you're expecting more, this is where the comparison comes in, which is like you can compare to what other society that gives you that freedom. I would also suggest work. Gives people purpose. Ideally you're doing some work that you enjoy doing, because if you enjoy working, then you'll never actually work a day in your life. Right. I enjoy doing this even on bad days. This is enjoyable, and so I feel like this is my purpose. This gives me purpose. But the and then hopefully if you get good enough and you know you're skilled enough in that work, then you become well compensated for it. But even if you're not, if that's what gives your life meaning and brings you joy and you get a sense of accomplishment and purpose from doing that thing, then that is the value. I mean, even God did six days of work, right, That's what we're built to do as humans, is to work. And I feel like a lot of free time on your hands might actually not be such a great thing. So find things that you like to do, and maybe you just stumble across something that's like, oh my gosh, I'm really good at this thing and I enjoy doing it, and now you have purpose. And if you don't have something like that and you're looking for community, there are all sorts of civic organizations and religious ones, joined a church and all of that, and they will they already have the infrastructure there for people who are seeking meaningful experiences and purpose. Tons of clubs. Kawanas I mentioned that there's the Lions, there's I mean, they're all all sorts of them and they're are and they are they would love to have young people participate. But that's not that's that that's not for me to impose on you. That's not for me to say, here's your purpose, right, that's for you to discover on your own, and to blame your elder generations. I think we have failed you in in a lot of this regard because maybe we don't give you the freedom to go off and find these your own purpose. You know, the the bulldozer parents that clear everything out of the way so you never face an obstacle, you never learned to overcome things like that's on that's on us, I mean, not me personally, but like as you know. Generations go. So if you've never heard this message, like and I'm not saying this to like to be mean or to be like you stink or anything like you're you're soft or whatever, I'm not saying it like that. I'm telling you, like, this is the way that you can actually achieve the thing that you seek. Let me go over here to Jerry. Hello, Jerry, welcome to the show. Hey, Pete, you already touched on it, but I got kind of choked up when I called in and talked to your producer, whoever answered the country has already given everyone who's here the best possible gift, and that's that's freedom. Yeah, the freedom to pursue, Yeah, your dreams, freedom. To freedom to act like an idiot if you want. Well, yes, I I. Don't think younger people hear that and knocks or appreciate it. Yeah. I mean again, this is I keep using the same analogy because it's apropos. It's the it's the fish doesn't know it's wet. If this is all that you've grown up in, you don't realize that this is not the default setting for humanity, you know, right, So. Uh, Jerry, I appreciate the call. Happy Independence Day to you, all right, take care see you. Yeah, this is the default setting throughout human existence has been poverty. Nothing. You have nothing, you don't own anything, you don't get to pursue your dreams, you can't like the these questions of what is the meaning of life? These are questions that we have the luxury of contemplating that generations before us did not, and I'm talking pretty recently, because it was like, you know, probably go back one hundred years, maybe one hundred and fifty, and it was like wake up, work, go to bed, do it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, in the day after and the day after and the day after, and that's it. And all you thought about was making sure you got whatever work had to be done or else you're not eating, you know, like because you're growing your food, and work meant working in the fields, right, Like that mean subsistence living. So yes, now we have wealth, We have this this privilege where we can sit around and contemplate what is it that I want to do to bring myself joy and fulfillment and all of that. I'm not knocking it again. All I'm pointing out is that we are in a unique position to be able to even sit around and think in these terms. The mere act of having this conversation over a text line and radio is something human beings have never really been able to do before. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalanarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.