Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, says that “we are literally stealing from future generations,” and unless we “level up and make the same forward-looking investments we've made in the past,” our nation “may not survive.”
In his book The Algebra of Wealth, Galloway explains why young people are struggling in today’s economy, saying that “almost everything we do economically in the United States is a transfer of wealth from young to old.” The result: a younger generation whose “purchasing power has gone down.” They “can't afford a home, can't afford education, and they’re not forming families,” says Galloway.
He also highlights the emotional and social challenges faced by young men, who are “four times as likely to kill themselves as women, three times as likely to be addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated. In the next five years, we're going to have three female college graduates to every two male.”
Galloway shares some of his own experiences with money and life and says that a certain amount of money is “imperative” in a capitalist society, in which economic security allows you “to be freed from the anxiety that sometimes gets in the way of the key to happiness, and that is cementing relationships.”
“Every study shows that people overestimate the amount of happiness they're going to get from things, and they underestimate the happiness they're going to get from experiences,” he says.
In his book The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security, author Scott Galloway says “almost everything we do economically in the United States is a transfer of wealth from young to old - [the] two biggest tax deductions, mortgage interest and capital gains -who owns homes and stocks, people my age. Who rents and makes their money from current income or wages, young people. Minimum wage is at $7.25, it hasn't gone up in 15 or 20 years meanwhile, the NASDAQ has skyrocketed.”
Scott Galloway, pictured here, says “without economic security, you're going to have a disproportionate amount of anxiety in your life. Kids in low-income homes have ahigher standing blood pressure than kids in middle-income homes, and you're much more likely to get divorced when you're economically insecure. Taking economic responsibility for your household and yourself is hugely important in a capitalist society. It's almost imperative.” Photo courtesy of Piotr Sikora
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