The on-line magazine Vox employs someone named Emily Stewart. She describes herself as a “millennial” from a “solid working-class background.” She wrote an article called “You don’t need everything you want. Our expectations around money are all out of whack.”
This is one of a number of articles I’ve seen that are meant to make people think that runaway inflation is perfectly normal and nothing to get upset about or vote a president out of office for. Well, anyway that is the hope. Let’s see how she does.
“I am tired of talking about money. I recognize how that sounds, given that I talk about money for a living. Still, it feels like an inordinate number of conversations I’m involved in lately end up about how much more expensive everything is now (which is true) and how much the economy sucks (which is false) … It’s not that these issues aren’t painful, it’s just that they’re also exhausting. Some of them have simple solutions, too, just not fun ones. You can cook at home. A fancy wedding is not compulsory. Tips are optional, and if you’re that upset over giving the barista a dollar or two, there are cheaper alternatives for your morning coffee.”
So, she “covers business and economics for Vox and writes the newsletter The Big Squeeze, examining the ways ordinary people are being squeezed under capitalism,” but she’s tired of talking about money? What would she prefer to talk about, her horoscope? If we need any clearer indication that the facts don’t support her thesis in this article, I don’t know what that would be.
“Part of the issue is that we seem to have blurred the distinction between a want and a need. Child care and a place to live and a tank of gas to get to work are necessities. The latest iPhone, not so much. On this, some people — and I include myself here — have lost the plot. If you took a European vacation this year, what a delight. Also, it was a privilege, not a right. It’s a choice, too, and one that might make your financial goals later down the line harder to attain.”
Okay so here is the explicit distinction; want and need. European vacation and tank of gas. And that is very clear. What she doesn’t admit is that for the great, great majority of people in this country it’s the “child care and a place to live and a tank of gas” money that has become unattainable. The average person picking this up and reading it will be mumbling curses under his breath and thinking what a clueless prima-donna. She’s taking European vacations and quibbling about how she should feel about it.
“The American economy remains one of abundance. Said abundance isn’t equally distributed, of course, and lots of people really are struggling. But as angry as consumers say they are about the economy, they’re not, on aggregate, changing their spending habits. For many people in the country, life is pretty good. And yet, they often don’t feel that way. No matter how much we’ve attained, we always want more.”
Now this is a crock. I guess under her definition Venezuela is a land of abundance because there are several billionaires living there. Even though the average citizen is trapping sewer rats for his dinner, it’s a land of plenty because there are still plenty of sewer rats. This woman is delusional. They don’t change their spending habits because they spend their money on rent and food and gas. Unless they commit suicide they still need those things.
“I say all of this recognizing that I am in a bubble — I am a millennial living in New York City and surrounded largely by middle- and upper-middle-class people, though many of them don’t see themselves that way. I also say this as someone who is upwardly mobile from a solidly working-class background. If I could tell the child version of myself how things were going to turn out — that I’d be living in a big city, be able to afford to rent an apartment in said city, and have the chance to regularly take trips that involve a plane — she would not believe it. I am aware this is not the case for everyone in my generation or those before or after me. Still, I sometimes catch myself feeling like it’s not enough.”
She got part of it right. She is living in a bubble, an opaque bubble. Apparently, New York City is filled with middle- and upper-middle-class people. I guess I must be missing something when I see the headlines about the illegal immigrant hotels and the homeless encampments. Eric Adams, their mayor, looks pretty shook up about the fiscal meltdown the city is currently going through but apparently La Stewart hasn’t heard about it yet.
“It all feeds into the hedonic treadmill, where we’re constantly chasing down the next dopamine hit but ultimately return to our baseline level of happiness, whatever happens. The pursuit of constant pleasure or fulfillment is enticing, but it’s also not wise — eventually, that Big New Thing just doesn’t have the same kick. Even if we can buy that $40 bottle of wine to have with dinner, it’s genuinely often better to stick to the $15 bottle and keep the pricier option for special occasions. Really good and special experiences in life should be rare, Schwartz said, so they don’t become commonplace and can still deliver satisfaction. (He joked that as far as he knows, “no one on Earth” has ever taken this advice.)”
Ah, so this is her target audience. Affluent White Female Liberals (AWFLs). She is writing to the single middle-aged childless urban cat ladies who need that $40 bottle of wine and “want to see Taylor Swift and Beyoncé live.” She is consoling them about having to vote for Joe Biden despite the fact that that means they will only be able to see “Taylor and Bey” in the movie version of their concerts.
It’s stunning how myopic and self-centered Stewart and her cohort are. Someone who writes on business and economics could look up just how many people are living paycheck to paycheck, at best. People are taking out loans to buy food and pay the rent. These are not times of great abundance, unless you’re an AWFL with a sinecure at one of the New York media properties. Then it’s pretty good.
But there is an audience for this article. And she eventually staked it out pretty clearly. It’s just not people that anyone normal would want to talk to.
