The Insanity of Millennials

Earlier today the Dailymail, a UK newspaper, released an article titled: More than half of Millennials expect to be millionaires someday, according to a new study. Ameritrade conducted a study and found that 53 percent of millenials believe that they will one day be millionaires.

Millenials are people born between the years 1982 and 2000. There are currently 83.1 million millenials, surpassing the 73 million baby boomers. I myself am a part of this generaion, but am not as optimistic. The aricle goes on to point out that 20 percent of all millenials have student loans that they will never be able to pay off. I also identify with his group. I was not properly educated on the amount of loans I had to take out to graduate from the liberal arts university I went too. I currently sit at over $50,000 in debt.

Even with working hard and making descent money, I won't be done paying unil i'm 54 years old, thirty long years away.

I am financially independent from my parents and live on my own, unlike 17 percent of my fellow millenials who are stuck living at home and being supported by mom and pop. Just look at the recent court case between thirty year old Michael Rotondo and his parents. Who had to take him to court to evict them from their home. Young adults used to pride themselves on being self sufficient, buying a house and starting a family. Source: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/22/us/judge-rules-son-must-move-out-new-york-trnd/index.html

The millenials have been brainwashed and glamorized by the lives of social media models and the rich and famous. A lot of millenials know nothing about finance, saving money, investing or even cryptocurrency (which could springboard many out of poverty.) I have been investing in crypto for over a year, and currently have descent holdings in EOS and Tron and looking to expand soon.

Instead of taking the time to read and educate themselves, millenials are mainly obsessed with sex, drugs and alcohol. I know countless people ages 22-30 who live for the weekend and their binge drinking episodes. Others crave smoking mairjuana four to five times a day. I always like to think back to the 1950's, when people my age were already married, had a stable home life, job security and children.

Accordingr to PEW Research Center, 24% of adult Americans have not read a book in the past year. And an even scarier thought is that many of these adults will never read a book for a lot longer than a year. I have never understood this. With so many resources online, such as Youtube, Coursera, Amazon bookstore and web articles, anyone can learn anything if they put their mind and heart into it. Learning is by no means easy, and does take a lot of work and practice to get better, faster and comprehend more.

The optisimism is nice, but these poor millenials are sadly lost and unrealistic. Inflation will continue to decrease the value of the dollar, meaning that being a millionaire in 15 years may not be the same as it was today or 10 years ago. Currently in the US there are 11 million millionaires, making up 3.5% of the population. Essentially in order to become a millionaire is like the lottery, and these numbers don't account for how many millenaires inherited their fortunes from their family. Self made millionaires are even rarer.

The financial future is bleak for the US, especially young american millenials. They need to understand that financial success will only come from extremely hard work, and maybe even some luck. Instead of dreaming about the riches of others, millenials need to figure out how to reinvigerate the economy and create high paying jobs for the struggling masses. Until then, the middle class will continue to shrivel away.