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This went viral. Estimated percentage of
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30 year olds who are both married and
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homeowners. So two of the American
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dreams, dare I say, getting married and
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starting a family, having kids, and um
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in the 50s that was, you know, half of
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30 year olds already were married and
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already had homes and now we're down to
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12%. There's a lot of factors here
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obviously Chimov but your thoughts
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generally on this you were
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I sort of
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I started to do some research on this
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and
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it's really sad actually what's
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happening right now
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so I think if I had to kind of frame
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this that chart that you showed is more
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of the outcome and so you have to go all
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the way back and try to explore what are
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the potential root causes that causes
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this kind of an outcome and There are
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there are a bunch of them.
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I think one of the first ones that we
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have to look at is what has happened to
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young men. And I think what's happened
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to young men is
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a little concerning. So I don't think
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it's our generation, but I do think if
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you talk to people 30 and under, you
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start to hear a consistent theme from
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guys, which is one, it's they don't
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really have the social skills to really
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talk to girls.
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It starts with that. And so what happens
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is they go to these different outlets.
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They go to video games.
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They kind of communicate more online.
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As a result, they tend to have brittle
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or fragile emotional relationships and
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social relationships. They don't date
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the same way that they used to.
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Then a lot of guys just feel like they
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also don't want to get caught into being
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perceived,
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you know, post the me too movement in
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any way, shape, or form as being
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untowart. You take all of these factors
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and you put it together and there's a
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lot of guys that have just opted out and
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they just kind of move in a direction of
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parasocial relationships instead. Then I
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started to look at like the the data on
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porn usage. It's out of control. I had
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no idea. But do you guys know what the
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average age now of a porn watching
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male is?
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That's scary to think. The average age.
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Yeah.
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Would it be the average age of an
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American man or does it skew younger? I
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would assume skews younger.
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It's gone. It's gone from 20 down to 16.
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There are more than 50% of 12-year-old
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boys now that watch porn.
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I was shocked. I was like, "What are you
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even talking about?" I was a teenager,
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late teenager, I think, when I like I
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mean, we had like you found a magazine
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here or there, whatever.
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They got a girly magazine. Yeah.
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But can you imagine what it does to a
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12-year-old boy when they start to get
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instant gratification and you compound
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that all through high school and they
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don't have quote unquote what we would
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call gain, right? The ability to just
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talk and just kind of like carry on a
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conversation. What do you think happens?
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And then you go into the dating pool and
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what are these dating sites optimized
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for? These dating sites are optimized to
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keep people there, not for you to find a
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relationship and for you to churn,
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right? And so the gamification and the
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and the dynamics of those systems are
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where many young men and women now look
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to to find a relationship. And so you
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have lonely young men that creates
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lonely young women. a small cohort of
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very eligible men and women that
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everybody's chasing and fighting over.
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Everybody else kind of left on the
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sideline.
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And so what do you think happens over 15
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or 20 years of this activity? It's what
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you see in this data. People aren't
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coupling up. They're not having
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long-term committed relationships. So
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obviously as a byproduct, they're not
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getting married more. Obviously, as a
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byproduct of that, then you're not
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combining two incomes. You're still with
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one income. At the same time, Nick, I
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just pulled this data. You can show it.
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What has happened to the underlying
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things that people would look to as
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satisfying
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markers of progress in life? A home, a
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good education, those are way out of
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reach, right? So, if you look at this
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chart, the price to income ratio of a
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home from 1980 to now has effectively
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made it so that
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you have to make an enormous amount of
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money as a single individual to afford a
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home today. M
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and then if you only have a small
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percentage of people actually getting
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married and bringing two incomes
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together, you see what you're seeing
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today in that chart. So I don't know. I
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think that we have a an issue in the
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American fabric we need to figure out. I
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don't exactly know what the solution is,
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but it's taken me this long and maybe
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this is what all these young people have
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been screaming about and I have ignored.
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So I apologize for not really
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understanding the gravity of it. But I
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think that this is a big problem and I
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think we need to start talking about it
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a lot more
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and here's a manifestation of it. If you
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look past year prevalence of major
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depressive episodes US adults 2021
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pretty recent data and that 18 to 25
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spike look at that Shimoth and then 26
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to 49 and then the older generations
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maybe not having these massive
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depression episodes. Frey any thoughts
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on the American dream changing and young
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men? Yeah, I think there's a lot of
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conflated factors here. They can
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certainly be related, but there's just a
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lot to unpack in all that. I mean, I can
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I can comment on the one piece. I I
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think we talked a little bit about, you
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know, getting lost online. I mentioned
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when I was in college that year, 1996,
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when that that woman got lost in AOL, we
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had dialup internet. It was, you know, a
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very different world where we're all
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connected 24/7 on our phones. I'm sure
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we all have average phone usage of 7
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hours a day today. So, there's a lot
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more rabbit holes to fall into that
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reinforce this isolation. It doesn't
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actually solve your isolation or
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loneliness problem when you get stuck on
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a phone or stuck on the internet. It
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actually magnifies it, makes it worse
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because you start to see all the things
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you don't have and you start to feel
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worse about yourself and that leads to
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all of these kind of I would say
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difficult social context that Simon's
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talking about. With respect to
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affordability, as you know, I think that
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that's a distinct point which is related
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to our expectation that the government
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can and should always solve our problems
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for us. And as a result, we created the
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federal home loan program much like we
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created the federal student loan
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program. Both of which I believe created
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bubbles in those markets. We created
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this concept that every American family
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should be able to afford a home. And our
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solution was to pump a bunch of money
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into homes through the federal home loan
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program. And that ultimately led to
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bubbles of inaffordability for for
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homes. If we really want to solve this
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today, besides solving the government
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spending problem and inflation problem
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and dollar devaluation problem, which
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obviously require cutting spending, I
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think it's going to need to be some sort
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of set of rules around making sure that
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homes are not being bought up by
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institutions. That that's one that I
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think is going to be a pretty popular
00:07:09
point that's going to come up in the
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next year or two, particularly in the
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next election cycle. So, you know,
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there's two sides to that to that one. I
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think you you're kind of dancing around
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the the issue there and I think it's
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very real which is the financial piece
00:07:20
of this Freedberg boomers have just
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absolutely this these couple of
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generations if you look at the cost of
00:07:26
homes like you mentioned the cost of
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education and then you just look at real
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wage growth I don't know if I sent you a
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chart Nick if you can take a look at
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this you know the big problem in the
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United States is wages have not grown
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except for people who have a lot of
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money already and so if you wanted to
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start a family and you're in $100,000 in
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debt for your student loans and homes
00:07:48
have double, triple, quadrupled in price
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when compared to your income and we
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don't have real wage growth. That's an
00:07:54
issue and I think this will become the
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issue of the next election. We see
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Mandami and the socialist movement. We
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talked about it last week. If you really
00:08:01
want to make a compelling argument for
00:08:03
the next election cycle, I think it's
00:08:04
real wage growth. And if you look at
00:08:07
something like minimum wage and this
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disparity between what top earners make
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and minimum wage, here's a chart of
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where minimum wage is in the United
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States versus other developed countries.
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There is a real argument here even
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though we might all be free market.
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Well, there's a very different approach.
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There's a very different approach to
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higher education in literally all of
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those countries except for ours.
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It's affordable. Yeah.
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Well, yeah. And and I think that we have
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to call a spade paid. There was an
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entire generation, if not two
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generations of young men and women
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younger than us, right? So, not in their
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late 40s, early 50s who were told that
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they must, not should, not it's nice to,
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they must go to university. And these
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folks took out an enormous amount of
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financial support to do so. And part of
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the underlying reason was that they were
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told and it sounds very credible.
00:09:03
Technology is coming and there's going
00:09:05
to be so much automation of all of the
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other kinds of jobs that you may do in a
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trade school. You should go to
00:09:11
university and protect yourself. Well,
00:09:14
lo and behold, it's turned out to be the
00:09:15
exact opposite. So, could you imagine
00:09:18
where, you know, you could have gone to
00:09:19
trade school, been an electrician, been
00:09:21
a plumber, build, done something,
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welder,
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made a couple hundred grand, married
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somebody, you know, she does a good job.
00:09:30
Now, all of a sudden, she also makes
00:09:31
$150, $200,000 a year. You're making
00:09:33
$400,000 and you have no debt. That is
00:09:35
the key. You have no debt.
00:09:38
When you make 400K and have no debt, I'm
00:09:41
sorry, but that is probably actually
00:09:43
better than being the doctor making a
00:09:45
million bucks. And then there are all of
00:09:47
these other jobs that aren't a doctor
00:09:49
where you're still saddled with the
00:09:50
300,000 and you have no way of paying it
00:09:52
back. So I think that that's also a
00:09:54
really important issue that we have to
00:09:56
figure out at some point. There was a
00:09:57
framing of the issue for an entire
00:09:59
generation
00:10:02
that was probably wrong. If I had to
00:10:04
bet, I would bet that engineers are more
00:10:06
likely to have their jobs replace in the
00:10:10
short term than welders and plumbers.
