China's Millennials Are Happy to Own Nothing
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Ah, so rising rent and stagnant wages are causing reduction in lifestyle among the youthful. The article could be shortened to "people have less money, so they are forced to make do with less." There are many discussions about these cultural memes spawned by downward economic trends; some items are useful (sharing a power tool instead of purchasing), but they're the result of funding being constrained and people's expectations adjusting downward as a result. These people are not sworn to poverty, so I doubt they are actually happy to own nothing, so much as grudgingly adapting to owning less than their parents.
EDIT: Communes can make a comeback gracefully as part of this economic trend, but it's still important to understand that generations losing wealth isn't a positive thing.
This is a very common phenomenon with statistics... for example I frequently come across people citing that x time in history had early death rates - so you likely wouldn't have lived past 40 - without explaining the majority of deaths were due to infant death from disease. But if they in fact made it past early childhood then those projected maximum age numbers were not relevant.
This is why it's important to not plan based on global averages. One reason why conducting "cohort analysis" is very important in business analytics.
People nowdays can afford to buy a new smartphone every year, but they can only afford to live in a tiny capsule far far away from their work and social life.
This is not healthy.
I think it's a very positive thing. The idea that you can rely on wealth is rapidly becoming antiquated, and this strikes me as excellent preparation for a lifestyle where you might lose everything.
I would characterise the fact that the current generation growing up will be worse than their parents as the greatest tragedy of the last decade.
Time and time again I've been hearing baby boomers complaining about how young people today aren't "working hard enough" along with them being "so entitled" and pointing to Zuckerberg and random stories about kids selling start-ups for millions as if these are all somehow available to them and that they're being turned stupid by technology instead of "hard work" (this is fairly standard rhetoric not just for conservatives of the generation but even fairly moderate folks in my own experience at least). Then they tend to talk about how hard they worked when they left high school, bought a house, and lived well while saving judiciously similar to the lifestyle choices made in the Millionaire Next Door book.
Setting up a generation with unrealistic economic expectations is perhaps one of the biggest double edged swords the US has wielded in its history. Great for positive energy and all, but perhaps it wasn't entirely a net positive across several generations.
Is it smart to be frugal and live within your means? Absolutely. But being forced to be frugal because my boss is keeping more and more of what should be my money is a scam.
Guess I'm only getting exposed to the Chinese 1%, so thanks for this article.
That's probably part of it. Of course, to extrapolate large trends such as 'China's Millennials are happy to own nothing' based on 5000 or so people without looking into their ability to own things would be just as silly an sweeping generalization to make.
Only stuff I've bought in the past half decade is maybe like a few t shirts and socks/underwear. Everything else lasts.
Absolutely no clue what you wear for $100 in the Winter. Summer I can understand. I guess it's the boots/jackets that really change the price as 3 piece summer outfits I agree should be below 100.
You need to wait for special deals.
A 400$ jacked can go for as low as 90$ if the season is over and you buy a winter jacket of last years collection in april.
Glasses are cheaper to buy 10$ a year insurance that replace at any physical damage than to buy expensive – 190$ once, plus 10$ a year. (but I won’t count glasses for outfit, as that’s stupid – glasses are a disability tool, and I say that as someone who is short sighted).
Sweater for 50 is far overpriced, look more in the direction of 10. Pants are normal, though. I’d even say a good jeans is more like 80$.
Those prices already are cheap. That's a $40/year jacket. I mean I guess I could hunt and wait for deals but I don't have the brainpower to track yet another "thing" you know? I only spent a few hundred on clothing in the past decade with the majority of my main purchases being at the start of the decade. Shaving off $50 here and there from that would do virtually nothing for me. If you shop frequently then by all means hunt for deals but I wear the exact same thing every single day (this is where I makeup the money I lost on expensive items by not getting them on sale).
Please don't pretend like the prices that you are posting are in any way normal. Fit, quality, and style are greatly sacrificed for price. I can't even remember the last time I saw a $10 t-shirt that wasn't on sale or clearance.
And, even when dressing with style, you are just burning money.
Where do you live? There's no way you live in the modern world if you think $10/sweater is a regular price for something because that's absolutely insane. Do you only wear 90's crewnecks? I can see those being $10 at the local goodwill. If you do then why are you trying so extremely hard to find the lowest prices possible? Are you living in poverty?
Buy during sale at H&M, C&A, Vero Moda, etc. Normal clothes.
Normal people don’t have money to buy bags for $2k. Normal people are struggling to pay their bills while being a single mom with kids. Normal people can be lucky if they can afford clothes from ALDI, and don’t have to go to the Red Cross. That’s the reality for most of the former middle class.
My family luckily doesn’t have to live like that, but you are seriously not "normal person". You’re rich. Your friends are rich.
When your friends buy bags that are over twice the monthly salary of some people, bags that cost more than a vacation for 4 people in another country, then you are rich.
Some people, living on uncommonly-high tech salaries in the bay area and similar locations, might indeed spend $1K on a change of clothes. I imagine some other highly-educated professionals in expensive cities might do as well. There is nothing wrong or unreasonable with that, per se. But "$1000 outfit is standard" is a statement that applies to very few people, and implying that it should be the norm is absurd under present world economics.
For the record, in my experience, most people I meet in tech and in the bay area, still won't often get close to wearing $1k. Those who do is often only when you include things like prescription glasses, leather jackets and wearable gadgets ;)
Still, you can get a good outfit for below 200€. Watch not included, as everyone has a smart phone anyway.
I bought my winter jacket, from the 2014 collection, in April 2015. Factory sale at Elkline.
Jeans are normal price, boots, same – bought in march 2015 – again saving a lot.
You are just wasting money by not taking advantage of seasonal sales.
I originally typed $1500-2000... I see a lot of Thom Browne stuff here, and that means $350 for a button up, $1000 for shoes. But it's probably a minority still, and you can't tell how much shoes/boots cost without knowing the brand (though I've seen some Rick Owens sneakers).
Edit: Saw you mentioned winter. Yeah that drives my number up. My $1000 was based on fall/spring type of stuff.
I don’t think the struggles of normal people, or the fact that people have to save money, are understood by someone like him.
EDIT: I don’t usually read through comment histories, but here it’s to provide a context, not to judge the person, and these earlier comments from him, a few weeks ago, harden my belief: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10288459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10124135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10049439 although this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9195212 goes in the other direction.
I'm sure I've never worn a $1000 outfit in my life, and that includes a made-to-measure three-piece suit.
"Honestly, [$1000] is cheap as fuck. Have you met a regular person? Regular people go shopping every week for different shit, its unbelievable. I have friends that buy bags for $2k each, hats for $200, etc. Just because I literally only bought a few sweaters, a jacket, and boots a decade ago does not in any way make me inefficient. I am also not burning money by buying $50 sweaters." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10673865
It's not like I just think it would be optimal to share a kitchen or bulk meals and maybe actually talk to my neighbors.
Living in tiny isolated groups is the American dream.
I didn't buy a house because I wanted a place to myself; I bought a house because I wanted to have enough space to have people over for dinner and throw parties. A house big enough for that is too big for just me, so I share it with friends. Much better than all of us living separately in apartments, or (ugh!) in entire separate houses.
Communal living is very good but I'd much prefer the "American" version where its essentially 3-5 roommates I can trust than a much larger version like in the article.
Your living arrangements are what you make of it. I've lived in a 4000 sq foot home in the suburbs, and I've lived in a condo in a major metro (Chicago).
Nuts to possessions and competing on living space, I just want to spend time with good people.
This!
Your idea is awesome. But why restrict only to tech workers? At the least, you could let all digital workers stay?
The second problem is when you're at least somewhat introverted. There comes a time when I no longer want to spend time with people, even if they're good.
I think we Americans will soon see the multi-generational household as more the norm, especially with the high cost of care for our elderly.
Over the last 20ish years I have gone from dorm life to living with a roommate to living with a girlfriend to living alone to renting a room in a house (twice) to living with a girlfriend to getting married to said girlfriend.
So many people don't even use a kitchen so I can see where being able to live very cheaply with the bare essentials can be very attractive to many.
Secondly (this is more a theory), having a roomie is often just too informal to settle on and enforce social contracts for public spaces.
Yeah man, I'll clean the dishes. (Never cleans the dishes).
Although in college, I used to have the apartment where people just showed up randomly and chilled / did homework / played a game for 10 mins and leave (or crash on the couch). They'd help clean the place, were free to leave some food in the fridge and such and were generally very respectful. Donate an N64 or a sound system to the cause.Turned out my roomie hated it and never said anything, but it worked well for me. I just don't like it when people feel like a 'guest' or I'm treated like a 'guest'. It's uncomfortable.
Nowadays it's rude (and time consuming) to just drop by and I rarely see my friends on weekdays. Then they offer me drinks and such and theres a weird formaility to it that I don't enjoy at all. I think we need a 'third place', effectively a community hangout where everyone feels they have some sort of shared ownership and you can also expect people to be there regularly. The closest example I've found is our local hackerspace, but the audience for that is somewhat limited.
In both the U.S. and China the economy is growing, but a greater and greater percentage of those gains go to the owners of capital. Instead of demanding a higher percentage of the product of our labor, we're content to take what we're given and downgrade our expectations.
I am a "highly paid" software engineer who works in San Francisco. Plugging in 30% of my take-home pay into Craigslist yields an anemic, depressing list of available properties. So instead of getting ripped off by some scumbag landlord, I built a tiny house in someone's back yard.
If I could afford it, I would rent something nice, or even buy a house, but even with my 6-figure salary, it's not possible. And this is a scam.
My generation, even those of us that are getting the best deal going under Capitalism, are getting ripped off. and it's time we started talking about it that way instead of pretending like we're "living with less" because of some moral or ethical or lifestyle imperative.
And I should be clear -- I think Americans can stand to live with less, I think that co-housing is a legitimate option and I'd choose it if it were available to me. I also think that Americans should be seeing the benefit of increased worker productivity in their compensation, instead of 100% of that productivity increase flowing to the owners of capital.
Frankly I don't want to live that way. And I'm on my way to not to.
And many, many people don't live in those most expensive cities. There probably is an increasing concentration in some industries. But there's often a choice nonetheless.
Why not? It's the next step after "brogrammers".
"For as little as about $500 a month, You+ residents gain access to a private room with a bathroom"
Whoa whoa, for $500 a month, I imagine you could rent a full apartment mostly anywhere in China, could not you?
Sounds like a very expensive way to own nothing.
Having said that, sharing apartments is all rage where I live. It's cheaper to rent 3 bedroom apartment and divide the price between 3-6 people than renting one bedroom flat for yourself only. In places where housing is expensive this saves young people without stellar paychecks. Company is also nice when you get to choose who to live with.
Now that sounds totally overpriced. Is Beijing such an expensive city already?
"9m² apartment in a suburban house, on the attic – 150€/month, time limited offer of 3 months".
"11m² apartment subsidized by government, kitchen and bathroom shared with 30 other apartments, 350€/month"
Housing just is expensive.