Quote:
Originally Posted by Policy Wonk
Millennials are broke, it isn't that they're driving less and everything else is ceteris paribus, they're doing a lot of things less... like household formation.
Rent + Student Loans + High Interest Consumer Debt = Broke
Low Paying Job + No Debt What-So-Ever = Broke
Fabulous Job + Streaming Netflix on iPhone in Mexico = Broke
The economic circumstances of the Millennials (or as I saw in a British tabloid "Generation Fucked") are fairly sweeping. To extrapolate their present consumer behaviour into a new value system is like saying these people were craving rugged outdoor living, a real sense of camaraderie in their community and an escape from the stifling industrial cities.
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While I don't disagree that a large part of the reason, and probably the main reason for most areas of the world, is economics, it most certainly is not the only one.
But let's say it were, why is that necessarily a bad thing? Why should driving and the car driver get to deviate from the course of what we'd like to believe are fundamental economic principles?
I would drink more wine, if it were cheaper. I would ski more often if it were cheaper, and I would head on over to the Cosmodrome and take a commercial space flight too, if it were affordable.
Why should car driving, on the back of supply-side economics and massive subsidization or real and external costs be any different? Again, had we understood the full implications of the policy decisions we made decades ago, this question would (hopefully) be rather irrelevant.
I find it quite crazy that N3 has to jump through so many hoops, but then change is slow.
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