Annie Lowrey has a fascinating piece in the New York Times Magazine on the anxiety of the millennial generation. We're scared to take on debt, scared to form lasting relationships, and scared to start families. I'll answer her question in the simple fashion: yes, we do stand a chance. But there was one passage that makes our generation look quite pathetic:
During World War II, the ethos was “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” But the 21st-century rallying cry among the young is “We are the 99 percent.” This recession’s emphasis was never on making do with little; for many millennials, it has seemed more about wondering why they had to make do with so little when so few had so much. This sentiment was captured in recent exit polls that found that nearly two-thirds of presidential voters 29 and younger thought the American economic system favored the wealthy.
We are the inheritors of the wealthiest, most powerful nation in human history. The crisis we are slowly exiting was awful, but we remain on top. Can we tone down the emo-ness?