[akra]

While this may be true, there's no point comparing yourself to other countries if you did achieve success, and are slowly losing it. The article makes the point that previous generations did have that success and slowly for newer generations it is being lost. That's a failure that needs to be highlighted - in the end against previous generations livings standards if you agree with this article we do not currently measure up to those standards.

IMHO I think globalization is to blame for this; it has transferred equity/ownership from Western countries over time. It has given us cheaper electronics, cheap aviation/holidays, and other discretionaries but in return has denied people of the essentials (cheap houses, job security, etc) and has transferred existing wealth away. The rich have the means to protect themselves and even profit from this redistribution of wealth; it's the middle class instead where much of the wealth was has slowly been drained. Instead of wealth they now substituted it with debt to keep the system running.

In the country I live in house prices are highly proportional to debt growth, much accrued to foreign debt. Our exchange rate stays high since issuing debt in the local currency despite increasing the CAD and draining wealth bids up the currency on the FX market. As long as houses don't crash (which is where most debt is issued) the dollar's worth doesn't deteriorate and we don't see the drain of wealth. As long as debt growth keeps growing we always create positive pressure on our exchange rate. The sad part about this of course is while young people can't afford houses, the goods they may substitute for this (cars, holidays, gadgets) are all underpinned by the debt used to bid those houses higher via a higher than otherwise FX rate.