Gen Z's Economic Disadvantage and What They Can Do About It | Mark Brandly
Summary
Labor Market: The speaker notes a still-tight job market with favorable job openings versus unemployment, cautioning that conditions could worsen without policy support.
Interest Rates: Jerome Powell's stance on potential rate cuts is cited as a preventive measure to avoid a labor market downturn.
Housing Dynamics: Homeownership is higher than in the 1960s, with median house prices up but homes significantly larger and higher quality due in part to regulation-driven standards.
Inflation Effects: Inflation is described as disproportionately harming the middle and lower classes while benefiting asset owners and the financial sector via wealth transfer and monetary injection effects.
Education Costs: Tuition inflation is attributed to bureaucratic expansion and cartel-like behavior in higher education, with administrative layers driving inefficiency.
Government Debt: The talk highlights soaring federal spending and projected interest costs as a major long-term burden for younger generations with entitlement risk.
Workforce Culture: The speaker critiques aspects of Gen Z work expectations and stresses versus earlier generations' attitudes toward hours and job fulfillment.
Transcript
Um, I'm Mark Branley. I teach up at Fair State University. Most of my students are Gen Z students. I ask them what they're stressed about and they at least economically they're stressed about passing my course, of course, but uh they're beyond that they're stressed about jobs and housing it seems like and and justifiably so in a lot of cases. um you know they face severe challenges and um uh I'd like to make three or four points about that now that I've been studying this the Gen C situation for the last 3 months or so. Um I'm not trying to contradict you but some of the stories that are out there at least in the media they they they outliers tend to be emphasized. So some of the things they say things are not as bad as they say on some things, right? Yes, inflation's hollowing out the middle class, making it difficult for Gen Z students, but there I they in some cases they overstate uh what's happening um at least relative to other groups. Um, and there's a lot of stories out there that about how easy it was back when I was younger, 50 or 60 years ago. And or well, I shouldn't have said that. [laughter] Well, I was younger 60 years. Um, but there's a economist look at one uh statistic. It's um the it's the job openings relative to unemployment. And then there's one diagram, there's one line on it that's the good situations where it's high number of job openings relative to unemployment. And then there's another flatter line where there's fewer job openings relative to unemployment. And right now we're still in the good part of the line, right? Unemployment's relatively low. U if you believe the numbers, of course, we could always say they're it's possible these statistics are not u completely accurate. probably understating un inflation and unemployment for uh political reasons, but uh Jerome Pal, the chairman of the Fed, says, "Yeah, things are good now, but they could get worse. So, we're going to need to cut interest rates some more this year." So, so we don't slide into the bad part of the of the economy regarding jobs. Uh the job market's tight. I agree. But it's been tight in the past. I lived through the stagflation of the 1970s and 80s. Massive unemployment rates, high inflation rates, much higher than today. I borrowed money at 20% interest because of the inflation rates at the time. And and uh I'm just saying I'm not saying things are all roses for Gen Z. I'm just saying we have to be careful about what we're saying here. Uh, regarding housing, um, home ownership is up relative to 50 60 years ago. Uh, it's not as high as it was in 2006 because they were giving loans to people who didn't have jobs for a decade. So, home ownership uh, has soared and then it's collapsed and now it's back up. But, it's back up compared to the 1960s, right? Um um and um the median house prices adjusted for inflation are way up, but the houses are much larger. They're much nicer. It's it's almost in some cases it's illegal to build those lousy houses from 1960 because of government intervention. And they're not demanding these houses, right? So, the median house size has increased 67.5% in the last uh 60 years, right? So, it's up and the houses are much nicer. Uh they used to have um they used to have uh six kids in a three-bedroom home with one bathroom and uh and then uh uh maybe I get personal. So, we uh uh we had five children in one bathroom in a really tiny home. And then we were able to uh [snorts] by the time I got to high school, we were able to move into a house with one and 3/4 bathrooms. And the appliances were lousy, didn't have appliances and dishwashers and microwaves and everything. So, we need to take this into account. Look, um um there's um after I'd been out of out of college a year or so, I was able to afford the cheapest possible place to buy in Denver, which is a small condominium. And because of inflation, my principle of interest was higher than my the principle of interest on my large house in Big Rapids if you adjust for inflation, right? So, uh I'm just saying Gen Z should be careful about these uh uh claims they are making. And on cars, you some of my students complain about the price of cars. But, um Eric Peters, who writes for Lou Rockwell, has explained how government mandates drives up the price of cars just beyond the inflation. just they mandate all of these accessories and things safety features um making it hard for them to afford cars. Um but a lot of things are better. Microwaves are better. But I remember when my mom could finally afford a microwave and so I was in uh I was getting I was out of college, right? And it was like three or $400 and it was this rickety thing that had like two buttons and and uh now my $60 one is 10 times [laughter] better than this. So we should praise the market for all these gains we've had. You know there's the cars are better than today. They last longer. Uh the appliances are better. Um uh so um uh yes inflation and other government policies are making things difficult. On the flip side, yes, entrepreneurs should be praised and louded for their for the gains we have made. Um students um uh talk about going to college and paying for it. Families couldn't even afford to go to college. A lot of students when I was getting out of high school, right now [clears throat] families can afford to send students to college. Yes, tuition rates wildly outstrip inflation because it's a giant government bureaucracy, right? Driving up uh the price of college. Um but um not everybody went to college back then. A lot of pe a lot of people didn't go to high school. It wasn't uncommon to to find people that didn't go to high school. In the 1980s, I worked with quite a few people that hadn't finished high school. You know, that's only 40 years ago, which is completely uncommon today. Um, uh, so some things aren't as it's not all doom. Like, uh, the percentage of household spending on food, clothing, and housing is down over from the 1960s and 70s. There's more discretionary income. people go to restaurants a lot more than they used to and go out and entertain themselves. So, um um I'm not trying to uh contradict Professor Daggner here, but but we have to be careful about what we're saying here. Uh the second point I want to make is that um and I think I think I really think these are outliers but this is what gets attention in the articles and books I've seen. Um the um the uh there are professors who've written articles saying they're students the Gen Z students. Of course, this doesn't apply to anybody sitting in this room who are going to Cornerstone studying economics, [laughter and gasps] but they're they complain that the Gen Z students aren't focused. They don't meet deadlines. They don't have a strong work eth work ethic. And I certainly see that in my students, right? So, so at some point, it's at least for a hopefully a minority of Gen Z students, they're they're part of the problem, right? So [clears throat] they should uh uh we should be careful about how we think about this. Um there's a lot of Gen Z students. Uh I'm not on social media, so I have to actually read articles or books, but they uh uh they uh um they don't want to work 40 hours a week because of work life balance or something or uh and [clears throat] uh jobs need to be fulfilling and uh uh the reason I could afford my condo is I was working like 70 or 80 hours a week in the oil field. So otherwise if I had if I had taken a job teaching at a high school I couldn't have afforded it. Um uh I mean in college one year I I was working in the standard work week was 50 hours and we were hoping that we get 60. Just can hope he lets us work Saturday, right? So we could have we weren't worried about this work life balance. Um, but uh the Gen Z some of the Gen Z stuff is that they're stressed, so they they can't have work life balance. So, it was I read a thoughtful article. I thought it was thoughtful. I didn't agree with it, but they said they're stressed because of Trump, so they can't show up to work or uh the Supreme Court decisions or uh they live in an age of terrorism, climate change, so of course they mental health is bad and and um they uh complain about these things. And one thing they complain about is that the work's not fulfilling. So, um maybe I should uh excuse excuse the language here, but this is actually a worth probably a book I think worth reading. Um it's telling how so many jobs lack purpose and is not fulfilling. It's called uh jobs. So here there it's written by a millennial but it applies to the to the Gen Z uh people I think. Uh so the reason they don't have a strong work ethic and can't meet deadlines is because the job's not fulfilling uh it's uh they're just working for the company's profits. They're not doing anything for society or anything. Right? So and uh it's [clears throat] just a different outlook than it used to be. Um one chapter of the book is that um there's a common mis misconception that these jobs are confined to the public sector. So this these are not government jobs. These are private sector jobs. There's whole chapter saying this is just if you're working in the private sector, these jobs are just not lifeful. So I'm just not going to put forth that much effort. Right? So or um it has a very tiny section on it saying on the note of the role of government in creating jobs. So there's a slight blame on the government here but not much. It's mainly it's ma mainly business owners, entrepreneurs, managers. These are the people that are are causing the problem here. Um, and then it even has a section on you could have one of these unfulfilling jobs and not even know it. You could just be happy with your job. Everything's fine, but it's not a good job. It's just not a fulfilling, life affirming job. So, um, so um, and again, this doesn't apply to these people in here. So just don't behave this way. [laughter] This is a lesson. [gasps] Um but there are there are uh uh legitimate complaints that the Gen Z students make and uh try not to overstep what's already been said here. Um um they do tend to blame they tend to not blame government policy, right? So, um, a lot of them blame baby boomers, which I'm, uh, proudly one of them, maybe proudly, I'm not sure. And, and, and they have some legitimacy to this because the boomers have created this situation to some degree. So, there's a there's a uh, a book out uh, A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America. worthwhile book to read. Apparently, the baby boomers are sociopaths creating this situation for Gen Z and and millennials. Um um so actually quite a bit of the book's about government. They just blame the baby boomers, not the state. >> So a lot of the chapters are on government policies and debt and things. Um they do blame neoliberalism. So neoliberalism is this idea that since the end of towards the end of the 20th century there's this flowering of free markets and free trade and deregulation. A complete myth that's out there time and time again. People talking about how neoliberalism has taken over and that's the problem that's fueling the problem. But what caused the neoliberalism? Disco. There's a whole chapter how disco fueled disco fueled the neoliberalism that's causing all these problems. So uh um but on a serious note a lot of the chapters are about um you know government debt. the the baby boomers have gotten into the situation of skyrocketing government debt, high interest payments. Uh you know interest according to the congressional budget office interest pay and this I'm sure is an understatement in the next uh 10 years interest payments of the federal government will be 20 trillion. It's going to be more than that. So they always understate these things. Uh and so this is going to be a burden to the to the younger generations. Uh the entitlements might not be there. They have legitimate uh complaints here. Um I just think they're to just uh uh blame baby boomers I think uh uh is not quite accurate. Um one of the chapters of the book is which is a very good chapter about the slower economic growth. So it it tracks the economic uh statistics from the 50s to now. There used to be tremendous economic growth and the reason it's hard now to to be successful as a younger gener in for the younger generation is because of the slower economic growth and uh the Austrian economists of course understand why this is the case. Economists in general should understand it. Uh you know it's is government intervention in the heern markets going to will lead to um misallocation of resources. resources won't be allocated as efficiently as before as if there's as if consumers are allocating resources. So in the market, consumers determine the allocation of resources. You know, if consumers buy blue shirts, the entrepreneurs build blue shirts and sell them. Consumers buy Chiaets, the entrepreneurs build Chops, right? And um but um increasingly our allocation of resources in our society are determined by bureaucrats. Bureaucrats largely make up the regulations and the prohibitions that we face. And uh Ludy von Misesus in his great little little book bureaucracy came out in 1943. He predicted what's going to happen. He predicted our our situation where bureaucrats would be allocating resources so heavily. And he calls this tyranny. He says, you know, if consumers don't get to allocate resources and it's done by unelected government officials, this is tyranny. But he knows this this will uh this means a m misallocation of resources and of course economic growth is going to be less. Um so so yes um you know inflation um is is very harmful. It's um uh Professor Dner almost understated how it's just so tremendously harmful to society. Um it um it you know it transfer when they when when they um create inflation, the people with assets tend to benefit. Like if you hold stocks and bonds and houses and assets, your asset prices tend to go up faster than inflation. So the rich people benefit from inflation. But it hollows out the underclass, the middle class. They're the ones whose wages and savings are being destroyed by the inflation. So it's a wealth transfer from poor people and middle class people to the financial sector of the economy. Plus there are injection effects from the monetary expansion. So when the government uh pumps the money to the economy, the people who get the money first are the ones that benefit at the expense of the people who don't get the money first. So the banks and the governments, you know, it's a it's a way to take wealth away from West Michigan and give it to the financial sector of the economy, right? And I'm sure um Alex Pollock will do a better job than I do to talk in talking about this, [laughter] right? He's he's the he's the expert here on this. Uh the high tuition that they face is due to government bureaucracy. The education system is basically a large cartel. if you want to um uh uh start a program, you have to kind of look like all the other programs. So, it took me years at Fah State University to get an economics program. Years of paperwork, convincing the provost and everybody. And then when it got to the when it got to the board of trustees and they approved it, then it goes to every school in Michigan and they get to complain about it, my competitors. So, every state school, not not Cornerstone, right? And then um Michigan Tech says, "No, you shouldn't have a program because you don't have as much math as we do." Western state uh Western says it doesn't look like our program, right? So, you always have to kind of look alike. You can't compete at the margin very well. It's just one big cartel extracting wealth away from the students. Plus, when I was younger, most of the tuition went to the classroom. And now there's just layers and layers of bureaucrats and departments and DEI and and uh and equal opportunity groups and all these other little army of vice presidents. [laughter] So there's just of course tuition. It's just this inefficient government bureaucracy. Of course tuition rates are so high. Uh so I'm uh you know I'm sympathetic on this point. Um um oh I better not dotle too too long on that. So the whole government financial apparatus is a burden. The government debt u you know will the entitlements be there for for Gen Z. They're worried about this. Government spending has almost tripled. This is not adjusting for inflation. Has almost tripled since 2006. It's up 180%. So it's 2.8 times as large as it was. This is according to the economic report of the president as it was in 2006. And in 2006, not adjusting for inflation, the government spending relative to 1930 was 815 times higher. So it's just been this massive increase. If you adjust for inflation and uh population increases since 1930, um government spending is over 50 times higher than it was. So uh you'd have to eliminate 98% of the federal government to get back to 1930 roughly. So of course this this is going to be a burden on on uh this financial burden. is going to fall on the younger generations and we should be um they should be aware of that. I uh it's important to note I think this is as as an aside uh some people as when when I know this is depressing to me but when the baby boomers die this is probably the largest wealth transfer in history because we've acquired all these assets and now the millennials and the genz's are going to get it. So you have that to look forward to. [laughter] All right. [laughter] So what should Gen Z do? Um first thing you should do is learn economics. You should learn the eternal truths of God's creation. What are the eternal truths? Right? So the political science they teach today is not the political science when I was in an undergraduate. That changes, right? The marketing is different. Some things are different. Economics, at least correct economics, these are this these this is the wisdom of the ages. These are the eternal truths of God's creation. Math, logic, economics, and some other areas, right? Ethics, some things are are just eternally true. Learn those things. This this will help you understand how the world works. This will help you predict what's going to happen. This will make you a better employee. you know, economics students tend to get paid a lot because they're just good problem solvers, right? So, the newest uh uh uh pay ranking that I saw again saw economics degrees as a a top 10 paying degree, which is common, right? If if I'm being materialistic here, but but anyway, learn economics. You're better. You make better decisions. You know what's going to happen. And join the fight for liberty. That's what you should do. Agenzi should help us advance the cause of liberty. Um, uh, Austrian economics has exploded in the last 30 years. uh as as far as the number of people studying it. Uh the great Murray Rothbart uh used to tell us um he used to call students to join his fight, his intellectual fight for liberty, his intellectual fight against the socialists and the Marxists and the communists and the Keynesians and basically both political parties. [laughter] So join us in this fight. Uh Murray Murray thought Murray Rothbart thought the prospects for liberty are dim in the short run. you know, the forces of tyranny are taking over. He was pessimistic, but in the long run, we'll win out because truth wins out in the long run. And these are this is one of the truths. [snorts] And um but Murray always thought uh even if we lose in the short run, it's fun. He always thought it was enjoyable to make the case for liberty. So if you're not if you haven't already joined us in this cause, please do so. Thank you very much. [applause]
Gen Z's Economic Disadvantage and What They Can Do About It | Mark Brandly
Summary
Transcript
Um, I'm Mark Branley. I teach up at Fair State University. Most of my students are Gen Z students. I ask them what they're stressed about and they at least economically they're stressed about passing my course, of course, but uh they're beyond that they're stressed about jobs and housing it seems like and and justifiably so in a lot of cases. um you know they face severe challenges and um uh I'd like to make three or four points about that now that I've been studying this the Gen C situation for the last 3 months or so. Um I'm not trying to contradict you but some of the stories that are out there at least in the media they they they outliers tend to be emphasized. So some of the things they say things are not as bad as they say on some things, right? Yes, inflation's hollowing out the middle class, making it difficult for Gen Z students, but there I they in some cases they overstate uh what's happening um at least relative to other groups. Um, and there's a lot of stories out there that about how easy it was back when I was younger, 50 or 60 years ago. And or well, I shouldn't have said that. [laughter] Well, I was younger 60 years. Um, but there's a economist look at one uh statistic. It's um the it's the job openings relative to unemployment. And then there's one diagram, there's one line on it that's the good situations where it's high number of job openings relative to unemployment. And then there's another flatter line where there's fewer job openings relative to unemployment. And right now we're still in the good part of the line, right? Unemployment's relatively low. U if you believe the numbers, of course, we could always say they're it's possible these statistics are not u completely accurate. probably understating un inflation and unemployment for uh political reasons, but uh Jerome Pal, the chairman of the Fed, says, "Yeah, things are good now, but they could get worse. So, we're going to need to cut interest rates some more this year." So, so we don't slide into the bad part of the of the economy regarding jobs. Uh the job market's tight. I agree. But it's been tight in the past. I lived through the stagflation of the 1970s and 80s. Massive unemployment rates, high inflation rates, much higher than today. I borrowed money at 20% interest because of the inflation rates at the time. And and uh I'm just saying I'm not saying things are all roses for Gen Z. I'm just saying we have to be careful about what we're saying here. Uh, regarding housing, um, home ownership is up relative to 50 60 years ago. Uh, it's not as high as it was in 2006 because they were giving loans to people who didn't have jobs for a decade. So, home ownership uh, has soared and then it's collapsed and now it's back up. But, it's back up compared to the 1960s, right? Um um and um the median house prices adjusted for inflation are way up, but the houses are much larger. They're much nicer. It's it's almost in some cases it's illegal to build those lousy houses from 1960 because of government intervention. And they're not demanding these houses, right? So, the median house size has increased 67.5% in the last uh 60 years, right? So, it's up and the houses are much nicer. Uh they used to have um they used to have uh six kids in a three-bedroom home with one bathroom and uh and then uh uh maybe I get personal. So, we uh uh we had five children in one bathroom in a really tiny home. And then we were able to uh [snorts] by the time I got to high school, we were able to move into a house with one and 3/4 bathrooms. And the appliances were lousy, didn't have appliances and dishwashers and microwaves and everything. So, we need to take this into account. Look, um um there's um after I'd been out of out of college a year or so, I was able to afford the cheapest possible place to buy in Denver, which is a small condominium. And because of inflation, my principle of interest was higher than my the principle of interest on my large house in Big Rapids if you adjust for inflation, right? So, uh I'm just saying Gen Z should be careful about these uh uh claims they are making. And on cars, you some of my students complain about the price of cars. But, um Eric Peters, who writes for Lou Rockwell, has explained how government mandates drives up the price of cars just beyond the inflation. just they mandate all of these accessories and things safety features um making it hard for them to afford cars. Um but a lot of things are better. Microwaves are better. But I remember when my mom could finally afford a microwave and so I was in uh I was getting I was out of college, right? And it was like three or $400 and it was this rickety thing that had like two buttons and and uh now my $60 one is 10 times [laughter] better than this. So we should praise the market for all these gains we've had. You know there's the cars are better than today. They last longer. Uh the appliances are better. Um uh so um uh yes inflation and other government policies are making things difficult. On the flip side, yes, entrepreneurs should be praised and louded for their for the gains we have made. Um students um uh talk about going to college and paying for it. Families couldn't even afford to go to college. A lot of students when I was getting out of high school, right now [clears throat] families can afford to send students to college. Yes, tuition rates wildly outstrip inflation because it's a giant government bureaucracy, right? Driving up uh the price of college. Um but um not everybody went to college back then. A lot of pe a lot of people didn't go to high school. It wasn't uncommon to to find people that didn't go to high school. In the 1980s, I worked with quite a few people that hadn't finished high school. You know, that's only 40 years ago, which is completely uncommon today. Um, uh, so some things aren't as it's not all doom. Like, uh, the percentage of household spending on food, clothing, and housing is down over from the 1960s and 70s. There's more discretionary income. people go to restaurants a lot more than they used to and go out and entertain themselves. So, um um I'm not trying to uh contradict Professor Daggner here, but but we have to be careful about what we're saying here. Uh the second point I want to make is that um and I think I think I really think these are outliers but this is what gets attention in the articles and books I've seen. Um the um the uh there are professors who've written articles saying they're students the Gen Z students. Of course, this doesn't apply to anybody sitting in this room who are going to Cornerstone studying economics, [laughter and gasps] but they're they complain that the Gen Z students aren't focused. They don't meet deadlines. They don't have a strong work eth work ethic. And I certainly see that in my students, right? So, so at some point, it's at least for a hopefully a minority of Gen Z students, they're they're part of the problem, right? So [clears throat] they should uh uh we should be careful about how we think about this. Um there's a lot of Gen Z students. Uh I'm not on social media, so I have to actually read articles or books, but they uh uh they uh um they don't want to work 40 hours a week because of work life balance or something or uh and [clears throat] uh jobs need to be fulfilling and uh uh the reason I could afford my condo is I was working like 70 or 80 hours a week in the oil field. So otherwise if I had if I had taken a job teaching at a high school I couldn't have afforded it. Um uh I mean in college one year I I was working in the standard work week was 50 hours and we were hoping that we get 60. Just can hope he lets us work Saturday, right? So we could have we weren't worried about this work life balance. Um, but uh the Gen Z some of the Gen Z stuff is that they're stressed, so they they can't have work life balance. So, it was I read a thoughtful article. I thought it was thoughtful. I didn't agree with it, but they said they're stressed because of Trump, so they can't show up to work or uh the Supreme Court decisions or uh they live in an age of terrorism, climate change, so of course they mental health is bad and and um they uh complain about these things. And one thing they complain about is that the work's not fulfilling. So, um maybe I should uh excuse excuse the language here, but this is actually a worth probably a book I think worth reading. Um it's telling how so many jobs lack purpose and is not fulfilling. It's called uh jobs. So here there it's written by a millennial but it applies to the to the Gen Z uh people I think. Uh so the reason they don't have a strong work ethic and can't meet deadlines is because the job's not fulfilling uh it's uh they're just working for the company's profits. They're not doing anything for society or anything. Right? So and uh it's [clears throat] just a different outlook than it used to be. Um one chapter of the book is that um there's a common mis misconception that these jobs are confined to the public sector. So this these are not government jobs. These are private sector jobs. There's whole chapter saying this is just if you're working in the private sector, these jobs are just not lifeful. So I'm just not going to put forth that much effort. Right? So or um it has a very tiny section on it saying on the note of the role of government in creating jobs. So there's a slight blame on the government here but not much. It's mainly it's ma mainly business owners, entrepreneurs, managers. These are the people that are are causing the problem here. Um, and then it even has a section on you could have one of these unfulfilling jobs and not even know it. You could just be happy with your job. Everything's fine, but it's not a good job. It's just not a fulfilling, life affirming job. So, um, so um, and again, this doesn't apply to these people in here. So just don't behave this way. [laughter] This is a lesson. [gasps] Um but there are there are uh uh legitimate complaints that the Gen Z students make and uh try not to overstep what's already been said here. Um um they do tend to blame they tend to not blame government policy, right? So, um, a lot of them blame baby boomers, which I'm, uh, proudly one of them, maybe proudly, I'm not sure. And, and, and they have some legitimacy to this because the boomers have created this situation to some degree. So, there's a there's a uh, a book out uh, A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America. worthwhile book to read. Apparently, the baby boomers are sociopaths creating this situation for Gen Z and and millennials. Um um so actually quite a bit of the book's about government. They just blame the baby boomers, not the state. >> So a lot of the chapters are on government policies and debt and things. Um they do blame neoliberalism. So neoliberalism is this idea that since the end of towards the end of the 20th century there's this flowering of free markets and free trade and deregulation. A complete myth that's out there time and time again. People talking about how neoliberalism has taken over and that's the problem that's fueling the problem. But what caused the neoliberalism? Disco. There's a whole chapter how disco fueled disco fueled the neoliberalism that's causing all these problems. So uh um but on a serious note a lot of the chapters are about um you know government debt. the the baby boomers have gotten into the situation of skyrocketing government debt, high interest payments. Uh you know interest according to the congressional budget office interest pay and this I'm sure is an understatement in the next uh 10 years interest payments of the federal government will be 20 trillion. It's going to be more than that. So they always understate these things. Uh and so this is going to be a burden to the to the younger generations. Uh the entitlements might not be there. They have legitimate uh complaints here. Um I just think they're to just uh uh blame baby boomers I think uh uh is not quite accurate. Um one of the chapters of the book is which is a very good chapter about the slower economic growth. So it it tracks the economic uh statistics from the 50s to now. There used to be tremendous economic growth and the reason it's hard now to to be successful as a younger gener in for the younger generation is because of the slower economic growth and uh the Austrian economists of course understand why this is the case. Economists in general should understand it. Uh you know it's is government intervention in the heern markets going to will lead to um misallocation of resources. resources won't be allocated as efficiently as before as if there's as if consumers are allocating resources. So in the market, consumers determine the allocation of resources. You know, if consumers buy blue shirts, the entrepreneurs build blue shirts and sell them. Consumers buy Chiaets, the entrepreneurs build Chops, right? And um but um increasingly our allocation of resources in our society are determined by bureaucrats. Bureaucrats largely make up the regulations and the prohibitions that we face. And uh Ludy von Misesus in his great little little book bureaucracy came out in 1943. He predicted what's going to happen. He predicted our our situation where bureaucrats would be allocating resources so heavily. And he calls this tyranny. He says, you know, if consumers don't get to allocate resources and it's done by unelected government officials, this is tyranny. But he knows this this will uh this means a m misallocation of resources and of course economic growth is going to be less. Um so so yes um you know inflation um is is very harmful. It's um uh Professor Dner almost understated how it's just so tremendously harmful to society. Um it um it you know it transfer when they when when they um create inflation, the people with assets tend to benefit. Like if you hold stocks and bonds and houses and assets, your asset prices tend to go up faster than inflation. So the rich people benefit from inflation. But it hollows out the underclass, the middle class. They're the ones whose wages and savings are being destroyed by the inflation. So it's a wealth transfer from poor people and middle class people to the financial sector of the economy. Plus there are injection effects from the monetary expansion. So when the government uh pumps the money to the economy, the people who get the money first are the ones that benefit at the expense of the people who don't get the money first. So the banks and the governments, you know, it's a it's a way to take wealth away from West Michigan and give it to the financial sector of the economy, right? And I'm sure um Alex Pollock will do a better job than I do to talk in talking about this, [laughter] right? He's he's the he's the expert here on this. Uh the high tuition that they face is due to government bureaucracy. The education system is basically a large cartel. if you want to um uh uh start a program, you have to kind of look like all the other programs. So, it took me years at Fah State University to get an economics program. Years of paperwork, convincing the provost and everybody. And then when it got to the when it got to the board of trustees and they approved it, then it goes to every school in Michigan and they get to complain about it, my competitors. So, every state school, not not Cornerstone, right? And then um Michigan Tech says, "No, you shouldn't have a program because you don't have as much math as we do." Western state uh Western says it doesn't look like our program, right? So, you always have to kind of look alike. You can't compete at the margin very well. It's just one big cartel extracting wealth away from the students. Plus, when I was younger, most of the tuition went to the classroom. And now there's just layers and layers of bureaucrats and departments and DEI and and uh and equal opportunity groups and all these other little army of vice presidents. [laughter] So there's just of course tuition. It's just this inefficient government bureaucracy. Of course tuition rates are so high. Uh so I'm uh you know I'm sympathetic on this point. Um um oh I better not dotle too too long on that. So the whole government financial apparatus is a burden. The government debt u you know will the entitlements be there for for Gen Z. They're worried about this. Government spending has almost tripled. This is not adjusting for inflation. Has almost tripled since 2006. It's up 180%. So it's 2.8 times as large as it was. This is according to the economic report of the president as it was in 2006. And in 2006, not adjusting for inflation, the government spending relative to 1930 was 815 times higher. So it's just been this massive increase. If you adjust for inflation and uh population increases since 1930, um government spending is over 50 times higher than it was. So uh you'd have to eliminate 98% of the federal government to get back to 1930 roughly. So of course this this is going to be a burden on on uh this financial burden. is going to fall on the younger generations and we should be um they should be aware of that. I uh it's important to note I think this is as as an aside uh some people as when when I know this is depressing to me but when the baby boomers die this is probably the largest wealth transfer in history because we've acquired all these assets and now the millennials and the genz's are going to get it. So you have that to look forward to. [laughter] All right. [laughter] So what should Gen Z do? Um first thing you should do is learn economics. You should learn the eternal truths of God's creation. What are the eternal truths? Right? So the political science they teach today is not the political science when I was in an undergraduate. That changes, right? The marketing is different. Some things are different. Economics, at least correct economics, these are this these this is the wisdom of the ages. These are the eternal truths of God's creation. Math, logic, economics, and some other areas, right? Ethics, some things are are just eternally true. Learn those things. This this will help you understand how the world works. This will help you predict what's going to happen. This will make you a better employee. you know, economics students tend to get paid a lot because they're just good problem solvers, right? So, the newest uh uh uh pay ranking that I saw again saw economics degrees as a a top 10 paying degree, which is common, right? If if I'm being materialistic here, but but anyway, learn economics. You're better. You make better decisions. You know what's going to happen. And join the fight for liberty. That's what you should do. Agenzi should help us advance the cause of liberty. Um, uh, Austrian economics has exploded in the last 30 years. uh as as far as the number of people studying it. Uh the great Murray Rothbart uh used to tell us um he used to call students to join his fight, his intellectual fight for liberty, his intellectual fight against the socialists and the Marxists and the communists and the Keynesians and basically both political parties. [laughter] So join us in this fight. Uh Murray Murray thought Murray Rothbart thought the prospects for liberty are dim in the short run. you know, the forces of tyranny are taking over. He was pessimistic, but in the long run, we'll win out because truth wins out in the long run. And these are this is one of the truths. [snorts] And um but Murray always thought uh even if we lose in the short run, it's fun. He always thought it was enjoyable to make the case for liberty. So if you're not if you haven't already joined us in this cause, please do so. Thank you very much. [applause]