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The Kids (Aren't) Alright - World Happiness Report


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Making the rounds this morning is the new World Happiness Report. The main headline you'll see is that the U.S. dropped from 15th to 23rd.

What's not as clear, except for this WSJ article (paywalled: https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/world-happiness-report-americans-top-20-0f59cf98) and this Gallup article (https://news.gallup.com/poll/612125/happiest-country-earth.aspx) is that the drop is largely due to Americans under 30 years old.

"The report, which ranks countries by age group for the first time, shows the U.S. decline is at least partly attributable to Americans under age 30 feeling worse about their lives. The U.S. still ranks in the top 10 countries for those 60 and older, with a score of 7.258 out of 10. But for those under 30, it ranks 62nd, with a score of 6.392."

That's... uh... not good.

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2 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Let me preface this by saying that COVID was dangerous and we die the best we could with hard choices.  That said:

- It absolutely wrecked young people’s shit to all go home for like a year and half. We forget that a year is a damn long time to a kid and that people 15-25 are the ones who most need to be around peers. We are still unwinding what that means and of course in the U.S. we did it the hard way.
 

- Youth social media is WACK.  I really believe TikTok’s algorithm is tweaked to show young people videos of people who are unhappy and unstable and want you to feel that way, too.  I am a huge believer in mental health and therapy when needed but there’s a whole, very popular genre, of influencers insisting that normal life challenges like going on a bad date or having a shitty job for a while are in fact brutal trauma.  

Agree with all your points.

I will say reaching the endgame of our debt supercycle is also crushing to many young people. Elevated cost of living, wages not keeping up, the ridiculous and still rising cost of college, can't afford a house. A lot of problems there.

Oh, also they've been beat over the head about climate change for most of their lives which seems to have given a lot of people existential dread, unnecessarily.

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Previous generations used existential threats as motivation for positive change. My hope is that current generations do too. 
 

To you other point: I saw this quote in the home insurance thread in CYHMWT recently and it really hit home:

Quote

But these increases are not sustainable, not without a commensurate increase in wages, etc.

 

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Housing costs are fucking insane and it is truly nuts that in the United States we are going through it. We just aren’t building and there is another huge issue.

We’be told people forever that their house is the biggest investment and not a place to live.  We have TONS of actual boomers sitting around in houses that should have been sold to a young or growing family a long time ago so they could downsize. But the incentive is to sit on them, for good reason. 
 

I don’t blame them for that but do blame them for NIMBY refusal to just build more normal size houses. 

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16 minutes ago, Captainant said:

You don't think that major climate change is going to occur in our lifetimes? We are on track for a blue ocean event within a decade

These predictions have been made for our entire lifetimes, Greta.

The climate is everchanging, and in the past it's been warmer than it is now. See Medieval Warm Period.

19 minutes ago, Captainant said:

The problem is that we have capitalized things that SHOULD NOT be a major market profitability vehicle. Healthcare should NOT be a profit center. Housing should NOT be a profit center. Basic fucking sustenance should NOT be a profit center.

Ok, comrade.

29 minutes ago, drt said:

 

The current monetary and financial situation is unsustainable. When does it break?

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20 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

On the flip side, there’s a shit-ton of social media influencer types who are putting out unrealistic lifestyle videos that make the majority of people watching feel like they are living in poverty.  We have entire YouTube channels about kids unboxing toys, and it can’t be healthy for other kids to see those videos of some kid opening up a thousand bucks worth of toys in a few minutes.

On my bucket list is sailing up and down the East Coast and/or doing the Great Loop, and I occasionally look at videos about it, and I came across one the other night with a couple who bitched about their crappy jobs and tiny apartment and so they quit their jobs, sold everything and got a catamaran to live on, and they are acting like anybody can do it.  I looked it up and it was a $750,000 catamaran at minimum.  These “glamorous” influencers have got to be doing a number on a lot of their viewers, given how easily their content is spread.

When I was a kid in the 80s, there was a show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and it was once a week and not seen by most people.  Contrast that with the Kardashians that are non-stop on some TV channels, and all of the lifestyle influencer types who are pervasive across social media.

I swear to god I feel like I read this exact paragraph a year ago. Boat and everything. Crazy. 

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5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Kindness.  Taking care of each other.  Finding joy in simple things.  Finding happiness in connection, not in materiality.  Those are the simple and not-exactly-secret keys to happiness.  Our culture is far away from all of those things, and running further away from them every day.  We should stop running that direction.  Then, we should take some steps in the OTHER direction.

This is entirely on the individual. No one can force you to be satisfied you aren’t rich/successful/whatever goal you’ve set except yourself.    Trying to place blame on you tubers or govt or whatever is just scapegoating.  This is an individual problem. 

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Great post Brisket. Reading about this report has had me thinking about it all morning. It's funny, by any objective measure, I am a success. I still feel myself on that hamster wheel because I see others that at least outwardly seem more successful. For instance, I look at the houses in Austin that are a step above mine and I'm not sure how so many people seem to be able to afford them. It's not contentment that I live in a good neighborhood already, it's "why can't I do what those people are doing"?

The funny thing is, for a myriad of reasons, I don't actually want that. Buying a $1M would drive me nuts with the cost of upkeep, taxes, etc. But I want to be able to do it.

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Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Great post Brisket. Reading about this report has had me thinking about it all morning. It's funny, by any objective measure, I am a success. I still feel myself on that hamster wheel because I see others that at least outwardly seem more successful. For instance, I look at the houses in Austin that are a step above mine and I'm not sure how so many people seem to be able to afford them. It's not contentment that I live in a good neighborhood already, it's "why can't I do what those people are doing"?

The funny thing is, for a myriad of reasons, I don't actually want that. Buying a $1M would drive me nuts with the cost of upkeep, taxes, etc. But I want to be able to do it.

Four car garage and you're still building on. 

Sounds like it's time you got back to the basics of love. 

 

Edited by Cum Rocket
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7 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Not wrong.  When people constantly hear about "mental health" and "anxiety," they see it in themselves:

 

Kind of a weird broken at both ends system. It is wonderful we de-stigmatized mental health treatment. 
 

But I think we have a lot of fairly normal and healthy people paying for therapy while we have a lot of REALLY sick people who can’t pay for it and aren’t getting it.  There are some really weird incentives to making medicine a profit center. 

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Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Not wrong.  When people constantly hear about "mental health" and "anxiety," they see it in themselves:

 

Why the fuck are you citing a goddamn January 6th insurrectionist fascist as some source of reasonable opinion? That Twitter user unironically wants a violent end to American democracy. 

Edited by Captainant
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Posted (edited)

Good dialog on the mental health stuff. The “depression isn’t real” and “back in my day” people need to shut the fuck up, but having a bad day isn’t a syndrome. There’s some mom stuff (i suppose dad stuff too although I’ve only seen it with moms) that borders on munchausen with this shit. “Neurospicy”.

Edited by Celery Man
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1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Let me preface this by saying that COVID was dangerous and we did the best we could with hard choices.  That said:

- It absolutely wrecked young people’s shit to all go home for like a year and half. We forget that a year is a damn long time to a kid and that people 15-25 are the ones who most need to be around peers. We are still unwinding what that means and of course in the U.S. we did it the hard way.

It was definitely damaging but I don’t know how much I buy into the Covid shutdown angle. Half the country was operating pretty close to normal just 2-3 months after March 2020. I mean I can even recall being in crowded restaurants and bars in Seattle of all places in November 2020. I definitely don’t recall everything being shutdown for “a year and a half”. 

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How many of the people here have children in their 20s and 30s?

If you do and talk regularly to them, you will understand their apprehension towards the future. History will refer to them as The No Lube generation cause they are getting fucked, no lube. 

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1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yeah, that’s exactly what’s dragging the under-30 crowd down, and they won’t shut the fuck up about it.  When I talk to my friends/family and others who are 30 and under, it’s all they ever talk about.   The under-30 crowd just won’t shut the fuck up about the climate,

2/3 of them talk about it atleast once a week

image.png.683a2c94219557b6355d4a0dc078ea0e.png

 

1/3 think they'll have to make major sacrifices

image.png.9184c335a119ff7921bb07a48785527e.png

there's also data on "anxiety" over the topic, but it's not segregated by age

 

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Posted (edited)

happiness is bullshit. my goal is to teach my kids to find balance, be content and grateful.  if I do that, they will be fine.  and to be clear, balance means what they eat, their physical activity, relationships, productivity. basically, be the best version of yourself and it will all work out.

 

* now climate change stresses me the fuck out and I can't imagine how hard it's going to be on them. I used to love summer, now I dread it. it's only going to get worse.

Edited by troph
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55 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

This is entirely on the individual. No one can force you to be satisfied you aren’t rich/successful/whatever goal you’ve set except yourself.    Trying to place blame on you tubers or govt or whatever is just scapegoating.  This is an individual problem. 

If only the 95% could be satisfied with this trend, things would be fucking great!

ineq-landing_landing.png?itok=4e8bE1_j

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8 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

I know people hate to hear it, but what you describe about Finland (and other European countries that get bandied around during these conversations) actually does highlight the benefits of homogeny. When you have a small country and small population who more or less share the same backgrounds, heritage and cultural anthropology, you get similar belief systems and worldviews that give way to a shared culture fabric. This is why a lot of European countries who are being flooded with immigrants are becoming more nationalist and anti-immigration.

When you have a society as described above, the people can move more or less like a school of fish, en masse and quickly and together. 

The opposite is America which is a cobbling together of regions of a huge landmass, with disparate backgrounds and heritages and philosophies and religions and ideals, will never again move in lockstep together like we did 100 years ago when we were 1/20th the size and only the white men were enfranchised with power.

Adding to this is the advent of technology that gives access in nanoseconds to every vile and disgusting impulse of a human being and you get bitter jealousy, narcissisms, ego, addiction, selfish ambition and ultimately depression served on a silver platter.

And lastly, I know it's a very famous quote, but: “In America the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

If America does have anything as a root or fundamental precept, it's greed and power and consumption. That is what this country was built upon-- was how anyone and anything that stood in America's way was conquered-- and is what has always been the driving force.

Any idyllic fantasies and romanticism of the 1950's or the 70's when you grew up or whatever is just a) a fallacy of human beings who let emotion and time whitewash the realities of the past b) a temporary state that co-existed within the true framework of America that was never going to be able to last, just like any other temporary craze or c) both

 

Oh, I certainly agree that we can't and shouldn't whitewash about "the good old days" and "the way things were" at a given point in time (one of the pushbacks I've had on the "Make America Great Again" idea, pointing to the 50s and such.....which part of that era are you pining for?  The part where many of us couldn't vote, and couldn't marry our current spouses?  Or the part where our tax rate was much more progressive, and we invested lots of money in government-funded projects for the public good, like the interstate highway system, libraries, etc.?)

Our culture is indeed grounded in greed, power, and consumption.  BUT, it also has long had a thread of "working together for the common good."  Read De Tocqueville - from our very inception, the common good was also part of our culture.  And yes, when we look back on our high points as a nation, it's when a concept of the common good (warped and inconsistent as it may have been -- it's hard to say that we truly had the common good in mind when we preached and practiced it....but only for one class of people, and otherwise, let's go full Jim Crow) was at a relative zenith.

We are a country of "me," but we've also long had a strain of "we."  Those concepts ebb and flow in relative strength.  I'm suggesting that we're at or near "peak me," and "lowest we."  And that, counterintuitively, makes us collectively less happy.  It's human nature, but it's a part of our nature we ignore or look past.

I think of it in terms of food and eating.  Sure, I love a fancy expensive dinner.  I've had many that I really, really enjoyed.  But the HAPPIEST meals that I've had?  They're usually the times I've had a dozen people around our table, eating a pot of red beans and rice, or things like that.  A meal that caters to ME?  It can be good. A meal that caters to WE?  Those are the best.  But culturally, we elevate and value wagyu steak dinners, and demean people eating beans and cornbread around a folding table.  We have happiness bassackwards.  And it's not just about what you choose for yourself, it's about what society around you is doing to tear itself down.

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Trying to blame the “individual” for being responsible ignores that this generation is the most socially aware and informed. They see and hear everything and they hate what it means for them. The fatties of the world minimizing their issues is just another data point in why they’re so unhappy. 

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1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

This is entirely on the individual. No one can force you to be satisfied you aren’t rich/successful/whatever goal you’ve set except yourself.    Trying to place blame on you tubers or govt or whatever is just scapegoating.  This is an individual problem. 

Entirely, huh? You're honestly arguing that external factors don't contribute at all? That's what you want to go with?

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Here's a weird example of how fucked it is. 

The cost to rent a space for a wedding starts at $45k. 25 years ago, those same spaces were just $2-3k.

The older fuckhead generations will say, well, downsize, get a shittier, less expensive place. This is their, our response to everything. Buy cheaper, sacrifice and deal with it. Why the fuck should they have to sacrifice when the previous 2 generations lived mostly stress free about their financial futures.

 

Fuck the older generation, including ours.

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1 minute ago, crash_davis said:

Here's a weird example of how fucked it is. 

The cost to rent a space for a wedding starts at $45k. 25 years ago, those same spaces were just $2-3k.

The older fuckhead generations will say, well, downsize, get a shittier, less expensive place. This is their, our response to everything. Buy cheaper, sacrifice and deal with it. Why the fuck should they have to sacrifice when the previous 2 generations lived mostly stress free about their financial futures.

 

Fuck the older generation, including ours.

Yep. The older generations yanked the rug out from the younger generations and basically said “you can’t have what we had” and think they should just get over it 

didn’t it used to be that you’d strive for the next generation to have it better than you?

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2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

We are a country of "me," but we've also long had a strain of "we."  Those concepts ebb and flow in relative strength.  I'm suggesting that we're at or near "peak me," and "lowest we."  And that, counterintuitively, makes us collectively less happy.  It's human nature, but it's a part of our nature we ignore or look past.

I think the paradigm has shifted and we have yet to see "peak me".  Brother, we are in for a wild ride and we might pass out for the lack of oxygen at peak "me" in America.

The "we" is no longer a coast-to-coast, stars and stripes banner we can all fit under. The "we" is micro-targeted pods of likeminded folks who share the same belief systems, who will vie for power and influence.

We see this now in "movements"; The Christian Fundamentalist movement, the LGQPT movement, the Tea Party movement, etc. 

The "We" in these pods will have to form coalitions for power and the only way to get the people's minds and hearts in this new attention economy where every product and market is competing with each other for a sliver of the 24 hours that humans aren't already overconsumed, is through emotion; fear, lust, dopamine, security, etc.

I see the future as a combination of "Me" first and "We", as described above, second.

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5 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Here's a weird example of how fucked it is. 

The cost to rent a space for a wedding starts at $45k. 25 years ago, those same spaces were just $2-3k.

The older fuckhead generations will say, well, downsize, get a shittier, less expensive place. This is their, our response to everything. Buy cheaper, sacrifice and deal with it. Why the fuck should they have to sacrifice when the previous 2 generations lived mostly stress free about their financial futures.

 

Fuck the older generation, including ours.

Ok in spirit I’m with you but huh? Starts at 45k?

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Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Here's a weird example of how fucked it is. 

The cost to rent a space for a wedding starts at $45k. 25 years ago, those same spaces were just $2-3k.

The older fuckhead generations will say, well, downsize, get a shittier, less expensive place. This is their, our response to everything. Buy cheaper, sacrifice and deal with it. Why the fuck should they have to sacrifice when the previous 2 generations lived mostly stress free about their financial futures.

 

Fuck the older generation, including ours.

Conversely, I don't understand the entitlement culture and expectations that just because things used to be X that I deserve and should have X too!

What's wrong with saying, hey the wedding venue market was undervalued, it's been rightsized to where supply coupled with the social and culturally-inspired demand means the new price to play is XYZ. There are inferior substitutes you can employ if you you can't or won't pay.

I feel like the entitlement culture leads to victim mindset and defeatism which is annoying at best and self-defeating at worst.

Edited by BeardIP
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My hyphothesis as to one of the major reasons that young people are unhappy in the US: meanness is discouraging and demoralizing, kindness and caring about other people breeds contentment.  And we are at a point in our cultural cycle that fucking elevates and worships meanness, cruelty, selfishness, and hurting others, and demeans and diminishes ANY concept of the common good, doing things for the benefit of your fellow man, and the like (hell, see cum rocket's reply above).  You think that young people don't see that?  They see it clear as day.
Contrast that with one of the countries highest on the happiness index, Finland (7 for youth, 2 for elderly).  The observation hit my wife like a hammer when we visited last year: they care about each other, they care about their children. As in, it is a point of national pride and identity.  It is conspicuous, it is woven into their daily lives and the stories they tell each other.  And I thought there was an interesting point in the discussion of "happiness" as it is observed in Finland.  It's not about walking around giggling with a shit-eating grin on your face; it's about contentment, and being satisfied.
Culturally, we don't value "having enough" at all.  You must either have excess -- wild success, conspicuous cars and fashion, etc. -- or you are a loser and a failure.  In someplace like Finland, happiness/contentment for the bulk of the country is being able to spend 2 weeks in the summer at a cabin on a lake.  Many of them don't even have electricity.  You sauna, you plunge in the cold lake, you drink by the fire with friends, you eat some food that makes the Finns happy (but man, most folks wouldn't be thrilled with it).  And it makes you happy.  Here?  You best be blowing it out on a tropical beach or somesuch, eating $200 per person dinners, or else you suck.  Yes, there are outliers (there are rich Finns, there are Americans who are happy and satisfied with ordinary lives).  But our dominant cultural theme is NOT healthy.
Kindness.  Taking care of each other.  Finding joy in simple things.  Finding happiness in connection, not in materiality.  Those are the simple and not-exactly-secret keys to happiness.  Our culture is far away from all of those things, and running further away from them every day.  We should stop running that direction.  Then, we should take some steps in the OTHER direction.

Madonna s version was catchier and you could dance to it.
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8 minutes ago, Goredho said:

If only the 95% could be satisfied with this trend, things would be fucking great!

ineq-landing_landing.png?itok=4e8bE1_j

This got posted by Neonmoon a while back - "95th percentile" means the cohort that is earning more than 95% of the population. The top 5% of family incomes grew considerably, leaving the median and bottom 20% even farther behind. 

3 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

We see this now in "movements"; The Christian Fundamentalist movement, the LGQPT movement, the Tea Party movement, etc. 

And I really have to disagree with your framing here - the fundagelical christian movement and tea party movement are efforts to change all of society to further exclude their "out" groups, and the LGBT movement has been focused on acceptance and allowing people the space to exist as they wish to.

Those are pretty fucking far apart movements, and it's concerning that you think they're equivalent. 

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Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Ok in spirit I’m with you but huh? Starts at 45k?

Maybe he means venue+catering? I got married on the cliffs of La Jolla six years ago and sure as shit didn't pay no damn $45k for the venue.

Edited by aggie08
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9 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Here's a weird example of how fucked it is. 

The cost to rent a space for a wedding starts at $45k. 25 years ago, those same spaces were just $2-3k.

The older fuckhead generations will say, well, downsize, get a shittier, less expensive place. This is their, our response to everything. Buy cheaper, sacrifice and deal with it. Why the fuck should they have to sacrifice when the previous 2 generations lived mostly stress free about their financial futures.

 

Fuck the older generation, including ours.

What are you talking about? 45k seemed so expensive I had to check it. Tons in Austin for less then 10k (and that was 30 seconds on google). 

https://www.herecomestheguide.com/wedding-venues/texas/region/austin?region[0]=Austin

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I'm not exactly down a conspiracy rabbit hole, but patterns are patterns and it really is starting to look like "the fourth turn" or whatever historical thing you want to call it for the last 800 or so years at ~100 year cycles and a bit longer before that. All the signs are there, but the thought right now is can we break the current cycle and transition from an iffy time to a moderately okay time instead off absolute chaos and destruction which usually is needed to reset the system at this point. 

The kids not being alright is a byproduct of being born at the peak, and seeing that there isn't much further to go up, but a long way to go down. I mean if you really think about it, and Warren Buffett pointed this out not in a "shut up and stop crying" way, but in a way that people often forget - Poor people today have a far better quality of life than John D Rockefeller did when he was the richest man on planet earth. Access to better, safer transportation. Access to better, tastier food. Access to more options for entertainment, connectivity, etc etc etc. the list goes on and on. They didn't have the social positioning and that's not the argument, but there is something to be said about the current human condition and it's ultimate reliance on networked computers to feed their brain tingles. Having access to everything whenever you want from birth, etc etc. 

Being poor still sucks today, but it sucks a whole fucking lot less than it did even 50 years ago, let alone 100 years ago. We've lost sight of what's important to us as a community, country, and civilization and have started to cater towards being okay with the status quo or not striving for more, because the next step for humanity is one that requires us to face the reality that we either have to live with the planet and start to move more towards mutual beneficial outcomes for us and the planet or we leave the planet, which we are not technologically equipped to even start dreaming about. A few billionaires talking about getting to Mars isn't gonna fucking get it done. If the US spent as much on the future as it does maintaining it's perception of world order then we would be going somewhere. Instead we can't even get out of our own fucking way to keep destroying the god damned planet to the tune of not even being able to use the panama canal anymore. 

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1 minute ago, Captainant said:

This got posted by Neonmoon a while back - "95th percentile" means the cohort that is earning more than 95% of the population. The top 5% of family incomes grew considerably, leaving the median and bottom 20% even farther behind. 

And I really have to disagree with your framing here - the fundagelical christian movement and tea party movement are efforts to change all of society to further exclude their "out" groups, and the LGBT movement has been focused on acceptance and allowing people the space to exist as they wish to.

Those are pretty fucking far apart movements, and it's concerning that you think they're equivalent. 

Well, more foundationally, the point was that these movements all contain the same componentry: 

  • Folks who share the same core beliefs/views
  • Folks who are banding together for economies of scale to maximize influence and power
  • Folks with a point of view (and true believers and allies) who think their impact and difference is for the better for their stakeholders

Now when it comes to their specific agendas, absolutely there are differences and you can begin to disposition them as moral, immoral, evil, good, etc. depending on what you believe, etc.

Hope that clears it up!

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1 minute ago, BeardIP said:

Conversely, I don't understand the entitlement culture and expectations that just because things used to be X that I deserve and should have X too!

What's wrong with saying, hey the wedding venue market was undervalued, it's been rightsized to where supply coupled with the social and culturally demand means the new price to play is XYZ. There are inferior substitutes you can employ if you you can't or won't pay.

I feel like the entitlement culture leads to victim mindset and defeatism which is annoying at best and self-defeating at worst.

I think there is a sweet spot that policy should endeavor to hold where people who are not "elite" (economically, intellectually, etc...) are able to feel good and happy about their existence and their life's trajectory.  Our policy has been to grease the rails by which money can be moved from the middle class to the already wealthy.  Its not a perception problem that people in the middle class have to cut back or assume more debt to have the life they had 30 years ago.  Or to that they grew up in if they are a young adult.

That's not all kumbaya beneficence on my part.  Happy, content people don't revolt.

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21 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Capitalistic greed has made everything so expensive. They can’t afford to buy a house or luxury items. God forbid we mention how expensive everyday essentials like food has become.

It's a perverted version of capitalism, if that. Central banks and governments printing money continuously to bail out big banks or other big industries isn't capitalism. The root of this stuff really goes back a ways. 

But then shutting down the global economy for Covid and printing trillions of dollars really got the ball moving. 

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The wedding thing is such a good example of a bad example. The wedding industrial complex is ridiculous but ultimately I don’t think anybody gives a shit, it’s not driving genZ sadness. Housing, healthcare, climate, income inequality, reproductive rights, the death of the American Dream, and the worst generation just won’t let go.

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Just now, crash_davis said:

Correct, venue and sit down meal. 

if you are talking about a 120-150 person wedding that isn't "cheaped out" or at a venue that you have to do every fucking thing yourself or hire a planner then I agree.

Can you have a wedding for cheaper? Sure, but it just means you or your friends did more legwork and you didn't have a lot of "standard" amenities that most weddings have. like bar service and open bar, reception/cocktail hour, actual nice shit at a venue with real tablecloths and real silverware. You know, like a wedding that someone who cares about throwing arguably the nicest party they will throw for the foreseeable future would throw. 

A day of planner by themselves is running in the 3-5k range and a full on wedding planner is 10k+ (SIL getting married this year). Venue rental isn't even the biggest scam. DJ for a wedding? Good luck finding one who doesn't just throw on a spotify playlist and actually knows how to move people throughout the day from place to place without paying AT LEAST 3k. Catering/meal that isn't served on paper plates and is actually consistent, hot and of quality that you would expect at any olive garden these days is MINIMUM 50-60/head for the DINNER portion. If you add on snacks and apps during the cocktail hour + dessert or a late snack for the dance party that easily pushes 75-80/head (including service, grat etc). 

Anyone saying that a Wedding can be done for under 20k and be any kind of reasonable person's definition of a "decent/nice" wedding should go into business as a wedding planner and crush it making 25% profit off of selling that package to people. 

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8 minutes ago, Captainant said:

This got posted by Neonmoon a while back - "95th percentile" means the cohort that is earning more than 95% of the population. The top 5% of family incomes grew considerably, leaving the median and bottom 20% even farther behind. 

 

Cantillon effect. They're closer to the money printer. This really isn't hard. 

  • Fuck You 4
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