Do I have a distorted view of the 1980s?
This post was inspired by that "telling kids they'll be millionaires" post.
I think that way of thinking where there is honest belief if you work hard you'll be a millionaire is fallout from the baby boomer generation.
My dad is a baby boomer and I have posted about how me made millions in the 80s/90s and lost it all fairly recently when the world got "real"
I can't see how someone like him will be successful if he was born a generation or two later, he is immature and has no filter and isn't willing to learn anything. It almost seems like in the 60s/70s/80s/90s if you wanted to be a millionaire, all you had to do was desire to be and walk into any engineering, law firm, trading floor or I-bank, hell David Solomon never did a summer internship and he went to a non target before simply joining GS. Today that would literally be impossible.
I think this is why a lot of baby boomers and older are extremely rude to working class people ie people who work in grocery stores and restaurants staff, in their generation those were the ambition-less who didn't want a large house in New Jersey and a Pied a terre in manhattan.
Thats why that generation raised the gen x ers and millennials telling them they can be literally anything they wanted because in the past they were right, anyone could get into most jobs, hell there were people working part time in gas stations who were able to raise a family and ride expensive motorcycles in their free time back then, this is why Harley Davidson is on a huge decline, very few people have that kind of income to blow on a bike anymore you can watch video essays on the phenomena.
Any that is my theory, that because in the 80s anyone could become a millionaire with little else than desire, baby boomers taught younger generations the same thing for decades until it became such a cliche that makes the person saying it sounds delusional.
So do I have a distorted view of the past? I am pretty sure if I went back in time (barring that i'm a black man) I would simply rise to the top of the business or at least have a stable family life with less anxiety of losing it all during a layoff and never being hired again.
Your theory is shit.
The 'you can be anything you want!' gold star isn't because the previous generation could be anything they wanted to be, in fact it was the opposite. Access to education, new job opportunities, etc. was far far FAR more limited.
It was just the mainstream parenting idea of the time. To raise kids with self confidence and dreams. Of course, we saw how that turned out - a generation of whimps in Millennials who are in their 30s now and still somehow have to blame boomers for everything despite being handed the world on a silver platter.
And in the profound wisdom of this generation they decide to update the parenting approach of 'you can be anything you want!' to now 'you can be any gender you want!'
Cant wait to see how this plays out
This is absurd. Wages were higher in real terms. Education was cheaper. It was easier to buy a home. Access to higher education is more widespread, now... but the value of those degrees has plummeted accordingly, and now you have to take on mountains of debt just to get said degree, whether it's worthwhile or not. The cost of college has skyrocketed in real terms. Homeownership is nothing more than a dream for most people in their 20s and 30s, and not a birthright as it was 40 years ago.
It's never been true that anyone could be "anything they want" but it seems hard to escape the reality that economic opportunity, especially for white middle class people, was far more widespread in 1983 than it is in 2023.
Ah, and here we get to the real axe you have to grind - disliking the idea that some people identify as a gender they weren't born with. Not sure why you have such a rage boner for people who want cosmetic surgery which will make them feel more comfortable in their own skin - I doubt you're ranting online about nose jobs or people who take hormone medication during menopause.
You are comparing apples and oranges. Houses are far more spacious, with nicer amentities, today than they were in the boomer time. Now having a finished basement, a guest bedroom, a cared for yard, granite table tops, and new appliances are table stakes for looking for a home. All that wasnt the case for the average boomer house. In addition, the reason a single wage cant afford a house is become women entering the work force en masse. Houses are still very affordable but they are single FAMILY homes for a reason. A millennial comparing about their inability to afford a home would be like complaining about their inability to afford owning 2 cars. They arent supposed to. Go live in a town home or apartment/condo, and get a home when you actually have a family.
Sure, education is more expensive relatively. But easier to access it. Via the internet you can really learn what it takes to get into any career path as well as the training necessary. Job switching is easy. Sites like Linkedin and Indeed allow you to quickly have more opportunities at your finger tips. Remote work and hybrid flexibility presents a standard of living that baby boomers couldnt even comprehend. Also, everything has been decentralized. Never easier to earn additional income from side gigs and pursuits, or to make money in creative ways.
All to say some things are easier, some things are harder... but most of it is easier. Of course when you get in your toxic echo chamber of losers who lack any accountability in their lives then you end up where you are - spinning your tires in the mud woe is me life sucks boomers had it so easy. If you want that circlejerk go to Reddit and find that audience.
There's always, and I mean always, pros and cons to everything. That's why if you've truly looked at all the evidence, in the end you truly wouldn't generalize anything or make any sweeping assumptions.
The boomers certainly, certainly had it easier in some aspects. But they had it harder too in other areas.
Way easier to get a job after college back then. But access to college in the first place was much worse. So it balances out.
And I literally thought about this the other day. I was thinking, 'Hey, my parents and the other boomers keep telling me how much smarter and more capable they are than Gen Z, and it was way easier to get a job after college back then. But none of these boomers are working at, or worked at, Blackstone or KKR or Lone Pine right?' Makes you wonder about the difference in perspective.
I think boomers are being weird when some of them write off Gen Z as being soft and narcissistic, because from what I observe, Gen Z is hustling for BB internships even before they enter uni. Many boomers didn't do that. But then Gen Z makes a lot of inaccurate assumptions about boomers too.
In a nutshell - don't generalize lol
Is this true? You are making this assertion as if it's a truism, but I'm not sure it tracks. Certainly more people attend college, but it's not self-evident to me that that implies that access has expanded. Someone graduating high school in 1980 may have had the ability to find a decent paying middle class job without a college degree - using a US inflation calculator, I see that a job that paid ~27,000 in 1980 is the equivalent to a job that pays 100,000 today. A journeyman brick layer in 1979 in New York City (page 49) made 12/hour for a 35 hour week; normalizing for a 40 hour work week, that means ~92,000/year. The median wage for a bricklayer in NYC today is 58,000. I'd bet fewer people would go to college if being a bricklayer still paid nearly 100k in real terms!
For good or ill, the truth is that a college degree is increasingly a necessity to work in any role, and thus going not going to college is not really an option any more. Access and attendance are not mutually inclusive, and we can talk about what is driving that change in attitude, but it's simply not fair to say that college is more accessible now than it was half a century ago (though that may well be true). As I said, my guess is you'd see far fewer people going to college, and taking on enormous debt to do so, if six figure salaries were achievable for people with nothing more than a high school diploma.
Yea who knows. Maybe. So be it
Would love to hear more insight from others on this as I have wondered the same thing. It does seem easier for folks in the past to rise to wealth faster and to a greater degree. I mean just look at bonuses from 2005/2006 to banking analysts... It's not just IB, even in big four, accountants were making more. Fees have gone down in the services industry in general as it has become commoditized.
To one of your points, I don't agree with the idea that anyone could have walked into an IB or top law firm without pedigree. I went to a non-target and was able to land a BB IB job through hustle and I'm not confident I would have made it into this role given no prior alumni made the move. I also think my parents wouldn't have had the jobs they did in the 80/90s if instead they were in the workforce in the 50s/60s. I would have had much less opportunity and would be lucky to work in a serious front office position at any corporate firm, forget about IB. This is all to say that it's easy to look back and imagine what life would have looked like if we existed in the past, but in general, many of the current generation of bankers wouldn't even have a moonshot crack at making it into these firms. I suppose that is why there is nostalgia for the past. For a well to-do upper middle class individual from a white collar family, he would have had an easier time assimilating into the corporate world / IB whereas some folks who are in banking today wouldn't even be in consideration. I think access is now more of a level playing field which naturally leads to lower pay for talent as supply increases. Prestige will fade with time as well given the link
This doesn't even touch on inflation, increasing social safety net, unnecessary gov't spending, rising house prices (local gov't restrictions, safety standards, etc.) which drains resources from the middle class and is only going to get worse. The US is moving closer to European system, and the results of that are already spelled out... less home ownership, smaller houses, less disposable income, slower growth economy, etc.
The CIO at my firm - one of the largest asset management firms in the world left school at 16.
That kind of thing just doesn't happen today. He's nearly 60 but he started working in Finance just after deregulation in the 1980s.
He talks about it in a post on our internal intranet - about how opportunities like that aren't available today.
I agree - I think it is easier for non-targets today than ever to break in. I doubt I would've broken in during the 90's or early '00s
I’ll trade my iPhone for a landline and the ability to buy a house while working for the USPS, all day every day
Median real utility per capita has declined dramatically since the 60s-80s. My statement is worded precisely. Don’t @ me with your fake stats
By every measurable outcome the US is worse since 1971.
It’s really disappointing how much harder you need to work and how much more money you need to make now to live even half as well as boomers could in the 80s and 90s.
Your issue is that you're analyzing opportunities from the 80s through your 2020s lens i.e. trying to replicate an opportunity from the 80s that in the 2020s may be inexistent or saturated. In other words, it's easy to go back to a certain period with our current mindset and think that we'll make the best choices - and even ride the wave at point 0 - while in reality, probably, you'll fit the average personality of the 80s and be clueless about different opportunities surrounding you. Mutatis mutandis, you may be surrounded now by opportunities that may make you rich that in 10-20 years will be extremely competitive to get because of demand, but you're clueless about them (and if you ask me: What are those? Then what makes you think that you wouldn't be asking me the same in the 80s?). So it's more a matter of being at the right place at the right time, and having the right mindset to take your chance.
Another issue is that we make decisions based on beliefs instilled by our parents' generations that may be outdated for our current times. To take your example of DJ-Sol, going into Wall Street in the 80s was the equivalent of going into Silicon Valley in the 2010s. It was booming, risky, and "hyped", so people preferred safer and more familiar paths (e.g. being an executive at P&G which is a 60s mindset) than going into Wall Street - only entrepreneurial and risk takers relative to the general population went with that path; in the same way as how 2010s graduates preferred to get into a safer and more familiar path (e.g. being an investment banker at JPM/GS/MS) than going into the booming, riskier, and "hyped" Silicon Valley (despite having more upside).
Dude, supply and demand principle plays a huge role in today's job market. More college degree holders = massive supply of educated workers competing for jobs. Back in the day, having a degree really set you apart and helped you land a well-paying gig. But now, it's more like the baseline requirement.
This oversupply of educated workers means employers don't have to pay as much for their services. If they can easily find someone with similar qualifications willing to work for less, why would they offer higher wages? That's where the stagnation in wages comes in.
So, in this kind of environment, creativity and initiative became a lot more important, especially with the proliferation of the internet the past like what? 20 years? If you want to earn the big bucks (become a millionaire lol), you've got to go beyond just having a degree and following orders. You need to be proactive, think outside the box, and come up with innovative solutions to problems. Doesn't even have to be big problems, just the long tail. Before the internet this is not possible because the cost of reaching your customers will simply be too high, but now? It's literally 0.
This means starting your own business or side hustles, finding a niche market, or developing a unique skill set that's in somehow in demand is easier and more realistic than ever. And the internet has opened up a world of possibilities and leveled the playing field. Anyone with an idea and the determination can make it happen. You no longer need fucking 50k to start a business, you can literally bootstrap a company with a few hundred dollars and build from there.
Most people however are 1) not caught up to this fact and 2) too lazy to put in the work (as I said before, "working hard" is different in this day and age as before). It's easier than ever to make decent money now but you have to actually use your brain for a change.
My 2cents
This topic reminded me of a speaker I listened to at a conference recently. She worked for Inlay Insights, a consultancy that deep dives generational divides in the workplace (also for market analysis and advertising). You can look her up and her research. Plug to her because I found her presentation to be very fascinating.
Basically, the Baby Boomers (1946-64) tend to be a more optimistic and anything is possible bunch. They grew up in the economically roaring 1950’s and 1960’s (post WWII) where the USA was on top. The Baby Boomer could expect an income 4X their Dad. The NASA Effect: their big memory of NASA was winning the Space Race and landing on the Moon.
The Gen X’ers (1965-79) were more cautious, less trusting, and somewhat cynical. They for the first time got bombarded with TV ads and had to decipher what was real or not. The NASA Effect: their big memory was the Challenger Shuttle explosion.
I won’t bore you with the other observations of the other generations (but I love this stuff).
One other thing I remember is people who grew up near the intersections of their generations often act as a mediator because they understand both sides. What that also tells me is your frustration is warranted (Baby Boomers vs Millennials and Gen Z) but also trying to learn their perspectives could help you understand.
Demographics and the study of groups, particularly generations is a Hard Trend (economists such as Harry Dent had some good reads trying to predict). Of course there are nuances.
You have to form an investment thesis and philosophy if you want to grow as buyside investor who has conviction in your bets (of course loosen or harden your views with relevant data). Your view on demographics is an important part of that mindset. Let me know if you believe that statement about the importance of a personal philosophy on the buyside (I found it a good topic when talking to C-Suite, CIO, CEO types).
So, the speaker from Inlay Insights gave an example of Dove Soap that was super interesting.
Around 2014 Dove Soap came out with a commercial “celebrating dads”. Google it, it’s really sweet. Around 2014 was also a milestone for corporate America to provide paternity leave.
Anyways, hope you liked that example
I think the point you touch upon with this parenthetical is kind of fundamental here...
The universe of people with a realistic opportunity to enter the industry (as well as just a general awareness of what finance is and a desire to work in it) is vastly bigger now than it was in the 80s (let alone prior to that)-- that plus better data/tech just equals more intense and sophisticated competition for seats, capital, alpha, etc.
If you assume that all things are equal in terms of opportunity, you're right that '80s you would have an easier time lucking into success, but the table stakes assumption that you'd get a foot in the door is doing some heavy lifting when it comes to tipping the scales that way
It's exactly like debating how dominant a modern day college football player or NBA player would be in their respective league decades ago.. everyone is a product of their time. Of course the old-school sports legends who smoked on the sidelines and worked other jobs in the offseason seem a bit unserious compared to current stars that have been in training camps since they were toddlers, but who's to say the old-timers wouldn't dial it up if they had access to modern sports medicine, coaching, training, nutrition/PEDs, etc. and had to contend with the modern competitive environment
If you look like me, the world is a much better place in 2023 than 1983. Nowhere near as much racism and people like me without a college degree can bootstrap companies into $$$ without any real seed capital thanks to the power of the internet.
So no thanks, I like 2023.
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