zlacker

Why does OP's idea of success have any affect on you living out your idea of success? If you want to stay in your town with your family and friends have at it. If OP wants to make $10 million, then more power to him. He will probably provide jobs to support a dozen people living out your version of success. For everyone to work, there have to be people that want to build and achieve great financial wealth because those people drive the economy and provide employment for the rest. Neither life goal choice is better than the other. Each depends on the other.

Your argument regarding the airbnb driving up houses in your area is a valid one but the real issue is a shortage of homes, and the resolution is for someone that wants great financial success to assume risk and build more. Something often forgotten in castigating the rich is that many of them took on a massive amount of risk to succeed and in doing so provided jobs for others.

If the youth are unable to determine what their own version of success looks like then that's on them, you figured out yours, why cant everyone else? Honestly the root cause of your issue is likely globalization, manufacturing and livable blue collar jobs were lost because other countries were willing to do the work for far cheaper. This forced the United States to elevate financial services / software / thought leader style jobs with high salaries concentrated in fewer hands.

>>wonder+(OP)
Because our society is interdependent. In the case of housing, there has been a growing trend over the past decades of owning more than one home. In that case, to do that you undoubtedly affect people who just want to have a family and comfortable life socializing in their community because you force the price of houses to go up and house stock to become limited, which also forces people to rent ... And to make your investment work you push the rent higher because 'market forces' . . Aka you need to rent high enough to make a comfortable ROI/pay off your mortgage and upkeep with the rental income

This is only one example of what the hyper individualism mixed with capitalism for the sake capitalism creates in terms of disincentives for normal healthy communities

>>doctor+A1
Yes. The other thing these individuals don’t realize is that my idea of success also affects them. If I don’t think buying a big house is my idea of success, and if a lot of us think the same thing, then their big house that they bought is suddenly not worth anything and suddenly they are no longer a success and they have a house that’s underwater.

Yes, everything is interdependent, and the myth of the separate individual is only a capitalist materialistic concept used to pit us against each other.

>>Follow+Di
It's not a capitalistic concept. People in the DDR (among other communist states) used to rat each other out with the consequence of the target losing their home or possible incarceration so that the stoolie could "inherit" this desired asset. They still had the concept of some being more equal than others and deserving more.

>>Follow+Di
That's just supply and demand. It applies to virtually every good in a capitalist society regardless of the pursuit of success or wealth. Supply and demand is intrinsic to capitalism.

>>doctor+A1
Of course, supply and demand. There is no viable alternative though. If there are 10 houses and 15 people want them, whoever is willing to pay the most gets them. Otherwise how would we determine who gets them? Government? You would suddenly find that the decision makers family all have homes followed by people willing to pay bribes followed by everyone else.