Scott Alexander

Scott writes, By Zoomer's metric, about 1.5% of Americans are financially successful.

Could their high standard for success be related to why they feel like they are unsuccessful, and from there, why they think the economy is bad?

But an alternate interpretation of this chart is that every generation believes success is around $500,000 per year.

Inflation adjusted to the value of the dollar when they were in their early 20s and forming beliefs about success.

This is a bit of a stretch.

Surely boomers have had plenty of time to update on the value of a dollar since their 20s, especially since many of them are still working and collecting salaries.

But the math works out.

Victor Thorne, responding to a demand that Zoomers justify themselves, wrote, quote,

That's a big part of my definition of financial success.

In part because better food is one of the main rich people things I'm actually interested in.

End quote.

Q commenters yelling at him for feeling like he needs, in quotes, to shop at a nice grocery store, and him very reasonably responding that the question asked about feeling financially successful, not about what he needs, in quotes.

So one interpretation of this question is that companies have done a much better job making Zoomers feel like expensive products are part of the good life.

For example, shopping at Walmart versus Whole Foods.

I endorse this.

I am in the same social class as my parents, but I remember them shopping at the same grocery store as the poor people in their hometown, whereas I mostly shop at upscale, hippie-ish places.

Theo Didactus writes, quote, I'm surprised you didn't address one thing, but I guess it's just a different way of saying vibes.

Still, I think this connects to a lot of econ discourse and frankly, I don't have a good solution and it honestly scares me a little.

So, when prices go up really fast, that's the economy.

It's a force external to me and I'm mad that it's happening because I sure as hell didn't do it.