Why is Everything SO Expensive Now?

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Growing up, we were told you could go to college, get a six-figure job, and that meant you would buy a house with that white picket fence, get a car, get married, have kids. That was the American dream, right? But then we got older, and none of that happened. 60% of people are living paycheck to paycheck. Houses cost hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars. Grocery prices keep going up, and the United States has $1.6 trillion worth of student debt. Nobody can afford to have kids. The American dream was a lie. Even the idea of a six-figure salary as "making it" isn't really true anymore. If you want to own a home and have kids, zero of the 50 states make that possible to do with $100,000 or less. Even if you look up only the three states with the lowest cost of living, over $100,000 is required, and there is a $30,000 gap between the median income and what it would take to have that life. The American dream is dead, and corporate greed killed it because it didn't used to be this way. This is not about Left vs. Right or Republican vs. Democrat. This is about ultra-wealthy and corporations taking advantage of working-class people, as they have been doing for decades. And what's so sad is it did not used to be this way. We used to have a growing middle class. We used to have housing affordability and a quality of life that was attainable for average working-class people. So when did the American dream die? When did this idea of owning a home and having kids disappear? When did this idea of owning a home and having kids feel completely unattainable and unrealistic to an average person? Well, that is exactly the question we set out to solve here today, because this is the result of a lot of very shady economic things, shady politics as most of it is, and really I just think like a wake-up call, hopefully, for people as to like how crazy and bad the American standard of living is. Like, it is outrageous. I have compiled data, this is like a seven-page Razor's document. I've written for this episode about like statistics and finances and literally like why our generation cannot afford anything. Gen Z and millennials, like we are really getting ripped off by this system that is bubbled and is really going to pop in our lifetime. It's essentially like my thesis of this episode, and I'm going to go into a lot of the historical evidence of the way that has happened and also why just the cost of living and everything is so expensive. Groceries are more expensive. Insurance is more expensive. Cars are more expensive. Like, everything is. And that is, you know, I hear a lot of people say things like, "Oh, the economy is broken." And what's sad is the economy is working exactly the way it was designed. It's just not advantageous to you and I, like it was not designed to be that way. It was designed to keep rich people richer, keep corporations bigger, like that is where so much of it is. And again, we got a lot to get through, a lot of interesting evidence. That I'm excited to present to you. So with that, welcome back to Nicky at Night. I'm your host, Nicky Reardon, and I'm so excited to be here with y'all. We are at the time of recording this at 99,200 subscribers. So I feel like by the time this is posted, we'll have got through 100K. I'm saying that in a manifestation. Thank you. Holy fuck. Wait, I can't say it. Holy heck. Wow. I did not believe that this was going to happen, especially not this fast. I freaking love doing this. It is so much fun. I love to talk to you guys every single week. It is like researching these things is like exciting for me. It's like a good brain exercise. And I'm just so excited for what this show is going to be. I really want to think of ways as to like how we can step it up and do more stuff. I'm really excited to do more interviews and guest episodes. But also like I would love to do a 100K special, like a special bonus episode, so if you guys would like to do those for what that would be, let me know. It doesn't have to be like a specific topic. I think it could just be something fun or it could be something like having my real life friends on and talking about that or just even finding ways. I don't know. I feel like I'm always like talking about things and discussion topics, which is great. I will always do that and love to do that. Like the video essay format will always be what this is, but I'd love to talk about myself a bit more and life and things. I don't know. Or if you guys would like love a Patreon or a sub stack or like, you know what I mean? Something that's exciting and interesting and would get you going. So with that, thank you guys so much. I love y'all. I never forget that you're in the first 100K, okay? When this is the biggest podcast in the world, when this is a bigger podcast than it is now, you were an OG and I won't forget that, okay? So don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven't yet. Also please follow us on Spotify, follow us on Apple podcast. We are trying to catch up, okay? Spotify and all of those things are much, much harder to grow on. So your support, if you want to support the show an extra mile, that is how you could do it. And it will be so eternally grateful. So going back to our declining political system and economic system where none of us can afford anything and we're all in debt, I guess I really want to start with this concept of like, what is the American dream, you know, and how did that idea come to be? Cause I think it's very important and honestly is kind of a piece of propaganda. I think for America really, at the very least was a message they really held onto and sold to get people, you know, excited about this idea of an American lifestyle. And I think it really traces all the way back to the early 1900s and really this idea of like the nuclear family and the nuclear family is not like a nuclear bomb. It's nuclear, like nucleus of a cell, meaning like central, you know, standard of living. This idea of like a mom and dad and three kids. Yeah. And owning a home with that white picket fence and the dog and being able to save for retirement and really just like this upward mobility in society right throughout the entire 1900s, every single generation had more money and wealth in the last, like we were a growing nation with a growing economy and, and that actually meant that the working class people were also growing with it. Um, that is not true of the America today. If you look at the data. Gen Z is the first generation to have exponentially less wealth, lower standard of living, um, than the generation prior than our parents and then millennials even. And that is really terrifying. We are for the first time in American history, seeing blatant regression. Um, and that's really when I talk about this bubble popping, which is kind of going to be my thesis at the end of this video, it's a big takeaway. It's gonna be a lot of like, like data and like interesting and facts that I'm gonna, I promise. We're going to tie together at the end. So this nuclear family, you know, again, like starting in the 1900s really becomes popular in the 1930s, especially with the world war one and world war two, um, sentiment in this very, you know, pro-nationalist sentiment and this idea of, of America. And that was really exciting at the time. And, uh, the American dream has been this thing that has existed even before then. And, and outside of just, you know, this economic standard where you think of like the nuclear family, again, like mom, dad, three kids. Um, there is this cultural significance of the American dream, right? America was the place people went to make their dreams happen, right? That was this, what Ellis Island was, was all of these people escaping poverty and war and famine to come to America and build a better life for themselves, right? Like the, the statue of Liberty was literally meant to be this beacon that people would see on the horizon in the middle of the ocean that like you finally made it to that land of prosperity. Um, in that land where, you know, you could pursue your dreams and, and, uh, just try and build a better life for yourself. And that was really what America stood for. And, and I, even as an American take a lot of pride in that message. I think that's awesome. And what is very terrifying to me, especially when you think about the state of politics now is how somehow we've gotten to this place where the idea of like immigration is like only a negative thing when in actuality, I think that's like one of the most beautiful things about America. Like the statue of Liberty is literally like a symbol of why people should be excited to come here and should be excited to, you know, build that life for themselves. And it is, I think just like an extremely privileged take to be somebody who was born in a country with like significantly greater economic stability, political stability. We haven't had a war on American soil since like the civil war. Like we, we live in a society that is so. I'm so privileged to be away from those things. idea of people not like wanting to share that with people who didn't get that luck it is where you are born is luck of the draw you you did nothing to allow that to happen especially when it comes to this idea of like you know people escaping these war-torn countries or poverty and like all of all of that like it is not you know like people always have the luxury to like spend years on an immigration process when they are coming from a country that is like going through civil unrest and war like sometimes you need to escape that first you know like and that's why the immigration system was designed that way that is why there was these ideas of people being able to come here and seek asylum here and then apply for their immigration and i don't know it's a very like scary thing you know how this idea of of the american dream and when i talk about it being a piece of propaganda how like its definition has changed over time but really i do think that this like economic side of the american dream has always been this thing that we were sold on especially in our youth you know like you go to high school and then you go to college and you get a job and you have a house and you have kids and blah blah blah but that doesn't work anymore so how did it die like literally when did that idea not become possible or affordable anymore um the answer is really corporate greed as is most of the problems in american society as actually society in the world as a whole um we're going to start a lot like talking about like you know the 70s and 80s i think is where things really really start to change and i think that's where we're going to start to deteriorate because post-world war ii america is in a boom right like we won the war also like really the reason america was able to like swoop in that way is like these countries had been fighting for years prior before america never got involved so we had significantly more money significantly more resources an army that wasn't exhausted um and and we were able to you know like come in and stop world war ii which is a great thing and also meant that once the war was over america was not like in financial ruin or even physical ruin right again like a lot of these countries have been bombed and you know had war and their citizens and civilians dying um so america really becomes this global superpower right world war ii ends in 1945 so he's in the first two decades really really developing as as a society and in the 70s when good old corporate greed good old corporate greed comes in and honestly one of the big uh sort of issues we start to see with our economic society is ronald reagan and this idea of reaganomics aka trickle-down economics um and for i want you to like suspend your idea of you know like left versus right republican versus democrat like i'm just talking about the policies that were implemented right what is trickle trickle-down economics it is essentially this idea or belief that if you give more money to corporations and businesses or just like you know like the um the the wealthier people and entities that they will then take that money and reinvest it back into the economy right so if a corporation has a tax break that they will take that money and then hire more people or open more stores or spend more on marketing and advertising all right like they will take that money and reinvest it into some way that is good for the economy as a whole and that was sort of the idea around it that like we're gonna cut taxes and we're gonna cut regulations and things like that to try and stimulate economic activity and really what that has proved and there are many economic professional economists that have tested this is that it works in the short term but does not work in the long term right like a great example of this is that since 1970 the s&p 500 has grown by 3 500 percent the median income has only grown by 49 so for every one dollar given to a corporation 1.4 cents actually made its way to like an american citizen or like an actual person so where is that money going it is going to the people at the top like people are greedy and that is a sad reality of our world right the salary of a ceo has grown by 1 300 percent versus a working class person has grown by 49 percent from 1970 to today so when these corporations are getting tax breaks and stuff they're not just like everybody gets a raise like people are greedy and that is a sad nature of reality that we need to account for and as that is why trickle-down economics don't work right like they do it or they take that money and they uh buy back a bunch of stock to decrease the supply of stock so that there is less of it so that the prices increase therefore the shareholder value increases therefore they make more money right like that is the way like these corporate entities work when it comes to having more money to do like they're they're always going to be self-motivated and self-interested and like that is a reality of the world and what's interesting is tax cuts give the illusion of a populist message right if i go to some person i'm like hey you're paying so much in taxes next year i'm going to tell you you're going to pay less like that sounds really exciting as a voter that like oh my god i would love to pay less in taxes but it actually benefits rich people way more want to be the one who's always in the know about the game the scores the plays here's a tip the apple sports app just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules and when your team scores it shows up right on your iphone lock screen making it easy to check in anytime so rule the group chat and download apple sports for free on the app store or find it on your new iphone the lemonati has spent decades keeping lemon on top and lime in the shadows their lemon agenda has infiltrated everything even our music that hits on named after the color of lemons not a coincidence big lemon has been pulling strings in the industry for years think about it but now seven up is fighting back with their new lime lemon soda now lime comes first seven up flip the sip like if like one percent of fifty thousand dollars versus one percent of five million dollars is a massive difference right and like if you're the person making fifty thousand dollars paying less in taxes actually like it might sound like it's so beneficial to you but it's really not meant to benefit you it is meant to benefit the corporation and that money is not going to trickle down to you right like you should want them to be taxing rich people more and more to do more things in our society that can benefit all of us right like that is the point of this but um this is a framing that really really works like it is really what kind of uh the economic side of like the republican party really built its ideology on like this idea of tax cuts this idea of um less government in intervention so that it would stimulate the economy in air quotes um so this is what ronald reagan did right he initiated this idea of cutting the taxes for the highest tax bracket so at the time again all these numbers i'm also giving are adjusted for inflation so you know so at the time that would be the equivalent of what is like four hundred thousand dollars a year today right like he was giving a tax cut to people who were making over four hundred thousand dollars a year which like to me don't think you're good like you're a millionaire what do you mean like you're making like almost half a million dollars a year you're fine right so and what's interesting is also like taxes on rich people in america used to be really high it used to be seventy percent so for every one dollar you made over that four hundred dollar threshold you were paying seventy seventy percent of it in taxes he instantly takes that down to fifty percent however this is like uh again like a rhetoric and an ideology that was really embodied to continue all the way to today where it is thirty seven percent right so roughly half of what you know the ultra wealthy used to pay in taxes they're paying half of that now um and what's crazier is the corporate tax rate is twenty one percent corporations pay less in taxes than you do isn't that insane like i'll talk about a crazy system and this is where i when i say people are like the our economic system is broken i'm like no it is working the way it has always been designed to work it's just the way it is designed to work is not to benefit citizens it is to benefit corporations the easiest example of that is literally like human beings people have a higher tax percentage than corporations do it is outrageous and even scarier like if you look at the legislation trying to be passed right now the big beautiful bill wants to cut those taxes even more which would add 2.5 trillion dollars to the deficit and a lot loss of tax revenue which is terrifying and also like i don't think jeff bezos and elon musk need more tax cuts i don't think millionaires need more tax cuts you're fine like it's fine but somehow that doesn't do it and also it was so crazy to me when there's always this idea of like people are talking about i don't know like health care and they're like well how are you gonna afford that tax rich people tax rich people like we used to do that as a society and people are wondering how are you gonna afford that like oh my god how did we used to fund how do we fund two world wards we used to tax rich people like that's literally the answer and it is very easy to do that again and we should do that again like every literally 99 of the world of the population benefits from that like it's just a very rich and influential people who stop it which is something we will get to later on again trust me so this is really when i talk about like the depth of like how bad are things now like you are being so egregiously ripped off and i'm like oh my god i don't know how to do this i don't know how to do this in ways that you do not even understand right so i'm going to go over some basic pricing right housing a house in 1970 used to cost $23,000. If you adjust that for inflation today, that is $180,000. What is the median price of a house in the United States in 2025? $431,000. If you put that to a more closer to a city suburban area, it jumps to $800,000. So that is a minimum of a 240% increase. That doesn't account for how the property taxes will be higher, the insurance that you have to pay is higher, the down payment required to buy a house is higher. And in fact, the number one reason people aren't able to afford a house these days is because of how outrageous the down payments are, right? Like if you want to buy a house that's even $400,000, like 10% is 40 grand. Most people have like 40 grand in cash laying around, right? Childcare in 1970 was $700 a year, the equivalent to $6,000 today. Now it is $13,000 a year, 217% increase. Health insurance used to be $450 a year, $3,600 today is now $7,000 a year on average, a near 200% increase. Cars were $3,450 in 1970, adjusted for inflation, 29K. Now a new car is 50K, which is 170% increase. Again, not accounting for insurance of that car also increases by 170%. Gas for that car increases by 170%. Gas for that car also increases by 170%. Gas for that car increases by even more percentages than that, right? The list goes on and on. And this is a big reason for like the generational gap you feel between you and your parents and you and your grandparents, where they have the sentiment of like, well, when I was your age, dot, dot, dot. And it's like, no, you do not understand how much the cost of living adjusted for inflation has increased since when you were like 20 years old, right? Like it is not about that, right? Like all of these things, like a house on average is near is nearly two and a half times what it used to be. It's not because Gen Z is lazy or millennials are lazy or that we are irresponsible or we're just a generation that complains. Like what was possible for you at that time is physically not possible for us. And that is where so much of this generational gap comes because to people, they're like, well, you're 25. And when I was 25, I was married and bought a home. I'm like, I would love to be married. I have a home. It is not for lack of trying. Let me tell you, girl, but like, I don't have, you know, 400K lying around. Like I don't. And this is also then when you get to these like really annoying rhetorics that piss me off or people like the Dave Ramsey show where like, you got to stop getting that $7 coffee every day. I'm like, you think that me getting a $7 cold brew is why I can't afford a $400,000 house. Like, shut up. Shut up. Like that. It is, not because of that. The house price of houses have increased by 250%. That's why. And because the goalpost is moving further and further away faster than the median income has increased, right? Again, like what I'm saying with this, the way that corporations have gotten richer than exponentially over a hundred times richer than like the average person has and houses are getting, again, like the price of the house has increased by 250%. The increase in income has only increased by 49%. So Gen Z has sort of developed this mentality of like, well, I'm never going to get there. So why try? Right. And this is where we get in this idea of like Gen Z doom spending is I saw an article quote, this phrase that I loved, um, like doom scrolling, but doom spending where, because they're like, well, I'm never going to buy a house. So why care? Like we might as well buy those Taylor Swift tickets. I'm never going to buy a house. I might as well go on that vacation. I'm never going to be able to do this. And that has created. So now not only is the goalpost moving further away, but you're like, and not even trying to like reach the goal anymore because it is so egregiously far away, which takes us to the math. Like what would actually be required to get there? So 52% of Americans say that they think they would need a hundred thousand dollars a year to be financially comfortable. And the six figure salary used to be this benchmark of making it right. Like you would finally be able to buy a house and build a savings retirement and start spending things based on your wants and not just your needs living paycheck to paycheck so let's break down what does that ideal situation look like well ideally it's like 50 of your income is going to you know expenses rent groceries all the stuff you got to do 20 is maybe going to savings and then 30 is just like spending like things you spend you know restaurants getting drinks whatever uh and that is based on a family of four for standard living right so like a mom and dad two kids very standard and this is what i say in all 50 states in the u.s you cannot have a home with two kids for less than a hundred thousand dollars like it is literally impossible even the three cheapest states let's look at them the three cheapest states are minnesota arkansas and kentucky and the required income it would take to own a home and have two kids and financially support them is over a hundred nine thousand dollars for all of them and the median income is like seventy thousand dollars so there is literally no state where that is possible anymore right and this is when like an interesting thing like like we've really developed this mentality of like you know like 100k is great and it's really terrifying that like 100k does not even cut it anymore when the median income is like 30 below that and you need even more money than that 30 percent gap like and and when you look at them even like the the most expensive states something like uh hawaii california massachusetts the required income to have a home and have two kids is 250 000 a year where the median income of those states is 110 000 a year so that's nearly a you would have to double your salary to even like have children is just so insane and that is what i'm saying this like people do not realize how egregiously ripped off our generation is and then looking out of all of the counties in the u.s that are the most affordable like just have the lowest cost of living out of any place in the country only three percent of them have a median income higher than the cost of living three percent out of our counties in the united states are only places where like people are making more money on average than is required to live that is how bad it is and how bad it has gotten it is literally like this idea of of corporate greed i'm about to give some examples that have like siphoned money away from the working class into these institutions right again the s&p 500 has grown 3 500 the income of a ceo has grown by 1 300 this income of a person 49 right like it is outrageous the way that the top one percent in and like mass accumulations of wealth are outpacing growth and that growth has gotten bigger and bigger every single year and this is really where we're getting into this bubble popping which is again the thesis of this video where we are having what is called a k-shaped economy where the rich people keep getting richer and the poor people keep getting poorer think of literally the way a k is shaped right like the middle class is shrinking there's almost it's almost non-existent at this point um and how awful that is getting one of the great examples you're seeing this bubble pop is housing houses have become so expensive and that is very very good for older people right like my mom and my grandma like they got to buy a house cheap when a house is 100k 200k and now that house is probably the 500k to a million dollars whatever right like that's like the standard growth and that is really really great for them because they get to sell that and retire but it's absolutely awful for everybody younger than them because nobody can afford that house and what we are starting to see happen is especially right now where nobody can afford the houses so houses just sit there for so long like there's more supply than there is demand um and there's actually a lot of data starting to come out about housing and how like it is so hard to sell a house right now because nobody can afford them it's not that millennials and gen z don't want to buy a house we would love to none of us are have the ability to drop 500k like we have exponentially more student debt we have exponentially more credit card debt the groceries have gone up cars has gone up gas has gone up like everything is roughly between 150 to 250 more expensive than it was 50 years ago and because of that we cannot have these massive financial goals and also i think what's really going to happen i don't know exactly when but there's so many people who have built their idea of retirement on selling their house right like you know like i have this house and i have a little bit of savings i have a little 401k but one day i'll be able to sell this property that i own and i paid off the mortgage and i'll accumulate all that money back and i'll use that money to retire and what's going to happen is people are going to hit the age of retirement but there will not be enough buyers because none of us are dropping a million dollars in the house right like we cannot do that so that is where this really scary thing is going to come in and also again that's what i'm talking about had this bubble popping. Like, they will not even, they were so addicted to the growth of their own money that they are going to cannibalize themselves until money cannot exist anymore. And also, what's really awful about this, again, like, especially with property and housing, it has really furthered this generational divide between older people and younger people. Because people who already have property don't want there to be more property built in their neighborhood, right? If you have a house that's, let's say, $500,000 or whatever, or I don't know, like, the mortgage is $5,000 a month. Again, I'm just making up random numbers for this. It's $5,000 a month, right? And if they go and build a bunch of new properties that are, I don't know, only $3,000 a month, what is going to happen to the value of your house? Nobody's going to want to buy that house. Nobody's going to want to move into the house because you can get that same area, that same neighborhood, that same school system for a much lower price point. And if you have a house that's, let's say, $500,000 a month, and you have a house that's So the people that own property have these things like homeowners associations, and they petition and their city council and things like that to prevent new developments of affordable housing. Like this, and this is not a left versus right issue. This is like, everybody does this across the country, like in any state ever. Like, people do not want to build affordable housing because they're like, well, my house will decrease in value a little bit. So then the only thing that can get built is a house that's affordable. And if you have a house that's affordable, it's like more luxury housing. You see this so often in Los Angeles, how like, there are always new apartment buildings, but they are like luxury, massive complexes. And the average rent in one of those things is like $2,500 a month minimum for a one bedroom. And people can't like, who is nobody can afford that, right? Like people want more affordable housing. There's so much demand for affordable housing. I'm sure if you surveyed people and said, would you like to live in a new property that costs less for you? I'm sure you would. I'm sure you would. I'm sure you would. Yeah, absolutely. Sign me up, right? But they don't build them because people who own property don't want there to be cheaper options than what they have, right? So they just don't build them and make it extremely hard to do that. And that makes it so young people can't afford that. And then also that makes the problem worse, right? If that young person is now having to pay $2,000 or more a month in rent, that means they have less money to save to then buy that house, right? Like perpetuates itself. And this is also like, you know, when we talk about these ideas of like being in a recession, like I, something that like, I think people don't think about enough is like, the way we calculate a recession is kind of dumb. What a recession technically means from an economic standpoint is if we have a quarter of negative GDP growth, two in a row, right? So like we had a negative one in Q1 of this year. If we have another one, we will officially be in a But what that doesn't account for is that like, GDP is just like an sum of the economy, right? So like a trillion dollar companies like Apple and Meta and Nvidia and all these massive things, Google are just doing great. But the rest of the economy is absolutely awful. Nobody can afford a house. We're in a student, student debt is the highest it's ever been. There's $1.8 trillion in student debt in the United States. Like the economy is bad. It's bad for 90% of the country. 99% of the world, right? But like, by definition, it could not be in a recession because Google made a ton of money. And like that, I just hate like, I hate the idea that like, it's when people, you know, talk about recession and blah, blah, blah, like, it's just so stupid and bad. So like, what is the cause of this really? Like, why? Why is this built this way? I truly believe the sad answer for 99% of things in life is lobbying. The amount of money funneled into our government isn't insane. And it's really sad because we used to have a government that was very good at building things, right? Like we built a transcontinental railroad and the Hoover Dam and like, America was rapidly industrialized, rapidly. We actually set the blueprint for like, what an industrial society would look like. And one of the greatest examples of how far we have come from that now is a high speed railroad, right? Like once upon a time, the American government was so eager to build a transcontinental railroad, right? Like, oh, my God, we're going to build a transcontinental railroad. Oh, my God, it would be so amazing if people can go from the East Coast to the West Coast, and we could ship things, blah, blah, blah. And in 2025, like if you've ever been to a country like Japan, we have technology to where you could get from like LA to Chicago in a few hours on train, a public transit train. And we don't have that we have had zero initiative or anything to build something like that. Why? Because there is a lot of lobbying from number one, airline companies, number two, oil and gas. Oil and gas companies don't want a railroad. They want people to drive cars. They want people to fly airplanes. Airline companies want people to have to fly airplanes. So they spend tons of money in funding candidates and lobbying the federal government and giving donations to political campaigns for those politicians that will not make that a reality. And what that means that this influx of money in government has decreased innovation as a society, right? Like we just blatantly could have a technologically advanced advantageous thing to every citizen of America. And like, we just don't have it. We just don't have it. Right. And another great example of this is taxes. TurboTax as a company spends so much money lobbying the federal government because they want people to pay for TurboTax. So because of that, we have a terrible tax system. Like, I don't know if you know this, the idea of like you having to find out how much taxes you owe is like a uniquely American thing. Like in other countries, like the government's just like, you made this much money. You're not going to pay for it. Right. This is how much you have to pay here. Like, it's very linear as it should be. Right. Or like, why doesn't they just have it on their own government website? Right. The reason they don't do that, the reason we don't have these like societal innovations is because there is somebody who is financially invested in keeping things the way they are, keeping things worse. So you have to pay money to rely on this thing. And they pay money to politicians. And that is like the root of, I think, like 99% of causes. In America, it's like somebody got funded by something to prevent that from happening. And it is really, really scary. Because when I say this is not about political parties, like the Democrats are taking billionaire investments. They are taking those billionaire lobbying things the same way the Republicans are. The Republicans are too. It's just different companies and different industries and different sides. And that's what I'm saying. Like, this is not about a left versus right or Republican versus Democrat. Like, this is your standard of living. You are being beaten. You are being ripped off by your own government. And America did not used to be this way. It didn't. Like, it used to be very affordable. That's why your, you know, your grandparents and your parents are like buying houses in their early 20s, right? Especially when you think about even earlier than that. There used to be a norm that it was like women wouldn't work and a man would have like three kids and own a home and have a job and all of these things, right? Like, that was the standard. And I think what's very interesting is like, when we think about our, a lot of the gripes, that people on the left and right have, it's, it's, I don't think we disagree on the things we're upset about. I think we disagree on the reasons for why we're upset about those things, right? Like, great example of this, I think about when you, you know, you think of like, the right and like tariffs, right? How they're like, oh, we want to bring back factory jobs to America and factories. Like, we don't need factories. And I don't think people even really miss factory jobs. I think they miss the standard of living that existed in the 50s and 60s. Like, when we were a primarily manufacturing economy, right? Like, having tariffs to bring back some random factory job, and let's say Ford Motors opens up a new factory, is not going to magically make you $150,000 a year. Like, groceries will still be expensive as they are, and healthcare will still be expensive, and housing will still be expensive, like, all of those things. And that bringing back a factory is not going to change that. What needs to change is these overall standards of life. And I think that's a great example of this is, you know, like, you see like, incel guys on the internet, and they have these complaints, like, girls only want a guy who's going to take them on these dates and has a house and blah, blah, blah. And girls are just gold diggers. And, and they blame women for that. And I'm like, okay, like, the reason like, I see your why you're upset. But think about why can't you afford a house? Why can't you afford to take her to dinner? Right? Or like this anger towards again, like immigrants is, you know, like, like, the reason you didn't get a promotion or a raise at work is not because of an immigrant. It's because of a billionaire. It's because of a corporation. They are the ones who are having record high profits, again, 3500% growth in 50 years. And you are not seeing, you are seeing one penny for every $1 of that, right? That is where like, the gripe is coming from. And I really like, think that if if America is ever going to rebound, it has to be this like, greater class consciousness. Like we have to realize that the amount of money that we pay for everything, America is the richest company, country in the world, but we pay the most for healthcare out of any country in the world. Or even again, when these people have these gripes, like, how are you going to afford that? It's like, tax-fresh people, tax corporations, there is no universe in which a corporation should ever be paying less taxes than you. Just never, right? And like, their tax percentage should never be lower than you. And it is like that now. And that is not a system that is designed to help the people that is a citizen and working class Americans, that is a system designed to extract profit from its citizens. And that is what's really scary. It's like the product of America is you and I. The juice and the lemon is being squeezed dry and we are really getting to the point where there is absolutely no juice left to squeeze and it will collapse the economy, right? It's going to start with housing where all these people are going to start to sell their houses and they can't do that. And then it's going to come with college where college keeps increasing in price and the salaries associated with college degrees are not increasing at the same level. So then people are going to go to college and we're going to have no skilled college degrees and no skilled laborers. And like these issues are going to keep perpetuating themselves until it just collapses. And that is really, I think, what is like terrifying to me, one of many things about the state of America and sort of this death of the American dream. I really hope that people like think about it and think about it. I think it's a really important thing. I think that people think about that more at the very least. Like I hope this like equipped you to like have that sort of tough conversation with your mom and dad or something or the next time you get into a fight with them, you know, like ask them how much they paid for the house and go to an adjustment, inflation adjustment calculator to today's money and show them. Be like, this is literally like you paid $100,000 for this house and like now that would be $600,000. And like I can't do that. And neither could you probably. So with that, I don't know. Sorry. This is kind of like a deeply economic politics episode. I really am just trying to use my platform to educate people on some of the issues going on with America. And I think people really don't understand how bad it is. I've just been thinking about this a lot, especially since traveling. I was thinking I went to Japan and like I went to Japan and got all you can drink alcohol for $14. One drink in the United States is $20. It's not because it's magically 10 times more expensive to like pour a shot of vodka here. It's just you're being ripped off. Like that is the answer. It's not like this in other places. So I hope you all enjoyed. Thank you so much. I love you. Don't forget to follow Spotify and all that good stuff. Subscribe to the channel. Yeah, I'll see you next week. Easy to check in anytime. Coca-Cola for the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola for everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.