In mid-May, Australian millionaire and property mogul Tim Gurner spoke of the financial failings of millennials. Gurner stated, “When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each. We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high. They want to eat out every day, they want travel to Europe every year. The people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it (and) saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property investment ladder.”
Of course, the liberal media erupted.
“It’s not just illogical to criticize people for eating $19 avocado toast. IT’S IMMORAL” proclaimed Quartz media columnist Olivia Goldhill, who then went on to quote a study that said it would cost more than 57,000 avocado toasts to buy a loft in Detroit.
This obviously just completely overlooks the argument Gurner was making; he was not insinuating that giving up avocado toast would make property affordable to millennials but that many millennials held luxury in higher esteem than basic necessities.
Too many young people have no concept of creating and maintaining wealth. As Taylor Smith, CEO and co-founder of Blueboard, told CNBC, millennials “aren’t spending their money on cars, TVs and watches,” instead they’re “renting scooters and touring Vietnam, rocking out at music festivals, or hiking Machu Picchu.”
It is true and only fair to acknowledge that millennials have been born during one of the worst recessions in recent memory and during the most competitive employment environment in history, but that’s no excuse; look to the generation after the 1929 Wall Street crash for inspiration that hard work and savvy investment can create wealth.
The fact that young people seem to care more about what’s going to happen next on their favorite reality tv show than they do about politics, real world issues and upholding traditional values has led to a generation in which we have seen the resurgence of far-left wing political figures, whether Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders.
If these millennials get what they want, they’ll soon find out that the bubble they live in will burst.