If I am Screwed in this Economy, then We Are All Screwed

I have to start this piece by giving a shout-out to my son, Dylanger McKissen.?

His original idea for a title for this article was, “If I am ****ed, then we are all ****ed,” which is way funnier than the sanitized version I went with.?

Dylanger is an extraordinary person. All fathers say this about their sons – or at least all fathers should say this about their sons.?

(Mine didn’t, which explains 98% of why I am the way that I am.)

In about 45 days, Dylanger will graduate with his bachelor’s degree at 18, a degree which he partially paid for himself working as a janitor at the middle school near our home.?

(One of my future posts will talk about how we got my son a bachelor’s degree for less than 10k, but glad to answer questions in the meantime via DM from interested parents and adult students.)

Dylanger is a member of Gen Z. He and I have spent the last several years talking about the bleak outlook of many young people.

The gist of that discussion can be boiled down to this: we have made it unaffordable to ever own a home on a version of a planet we have said isn’t long for this galaxy.

The kids have internalized that bleak vision.?

And we wonder why they seem so disconnected from a society any rational person would want no part of.

Despite these obstacles and the narrative surrounding him, Dylanger has worked hard to put himself in a position to have the life he wants.?

But, like the rest of us, Dylanger is worried that his best effort won’t lead to the outcome he hopes for.?

I know how he feels.?

The LinkedIn Version of an Instagram Model

I don’t want to sound arrogant when I say this, but I have a strong LinkedIn profile. I have a good education, a track record of interesting and important jobs, a long and successful stint as an entrepreneur, and every two weeks I publish a newsletter that gets a decent number of views.?

It’s the closest thing I will ever get to being one of the prettier people on Instagram.?

But, like an Instagram model, the ease and upward trajectory of my profile – and the life it implies – is more the product of good lighting and the right framing than you might think.?

Like many of the people I talk to after I publish these articles, my life looked very different before 2020.?

I had a much higher income.?

I led a thriving consulting practice.?

I didn’t dodge creditor phone calls.?

I didn’t have a pantry stuffed with beans and water in case World War 3 or the Civil War 2 came to a theater near me.?

So, yeah, things were different.?

In 2024, the conversation about a bleak outlook and limited horizons is almost solely centered on young people like my son, and I feel extraordinarily bad for them.

I had the privilege of being a middle-class American who grew up in the 90s.?

I was taught with a little hard work and the right choices, the world would be mine.

Or at least a little corner of it.

Then, just as I entered my forties, I finally learned who the world really belongs to.?

40s Problems and 20s Problems

I remember twenty years ago, when I was 22.?

Though my life arc differs from what my son’s will be like in four years (I was married with a four-year-old at 22), I still remember how fired up I was about the Iraq war, income inequality, and a host of other issues that were and are important.?

But forties problems are different from twenties problems.?

Forties problems are smaller, yet more terrifying.?

When I was 22, I could talk about a war thousands of miles away. It was important, but it didn’t impact my daily life. For me, it was the sort of abstraction that can drive a 22-year-old to wave cardboard signs in the street.?

But most 42-year-olds aren’t going to make a sign about how much it sucks to get a second job.?

For one thing, they don’t have the time or the energy.?

It isn’t just about the time, though.?

As a species, we come up with endless ways to divide and separate ourselves – but the truth is all of us have a lot more in common than we admit.?

Like Dylanger and me.?

At 18, his life is just starting. At 42, mine is at the midway point.?

And we’ve both realized that we have the same problem.?

No One is Listening

Almost twenty years ago, I earned my degree in public policy while managing a campaign for state legislature in Arizona. At various points in my life, I have been highly engaged in politics.?

It sounds na?ve now, but deep down – like most people – I believed what they told me.?

What choice did I – or anyone – really have?

Was I supposed to assume they were full of it, right from the start?

They told me that electing them would solve my problems.?

They told me they understood and empathized with whatever struggle I was facing.?

They told me they genuinely cared about me.?

They told all of us they genuinely cared about everyone.?

In 2024, all of that – every word – seems like a lie.?

The difference between a 22-year-old and a 42-year-old in 2024 is that the 22-year-old knows from the start just how impossibly steep the hill they are being asked to climb really is.?

The 42-year-old is discovering that mid-mortgage.?

The sad fact is that unless things change, the 22-year-old is better off by being jaded, while the 42-year-old is finding out just how dangerous naivety can be.

And a world where being jaded is an advantage is a world that needs to go.??

Take it Back

We have let the job of world-building be the exclusive domain of "leaders" who have no idea what the rest of us face.

In 2020, over half of the members of the United States Congress were millionaires, and the median net worth of all members was roughly $1M dollars.?

When you have that type of money in the bank, it’s no wonder shutting down the economy didn’t seem like a big deal, and it wasn’t just the wealth. As a member of congress your paycheck was never in danger, no matter what policy you enacted.?

But it isn’t just the United States.?

The current prime minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak, is a quarter billion dollars richer than King Charles.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has an estimated net worth of more than $90M USD.

Pick a leader in the developed world, look up their net worth, and you will almost always come across a number most of us could only dream of.

We established modern democracies to avoid being ruled by kings, only to create a class of rulers that is far wealthier, more powerful, and sometimes less accountable than royalty.?

In that world, the belief that all you need to do to get ahead is make good choices – like Dylanger always has, and like I sometimes have – is a fantasy.?

But it is a fantasy I would still like to see come true.?

That will only happen for us – for all of us – when we realize that none of our political saviors are going to create a world that works for people who don’t have a million dollars in the bank.

They are going to do the same thing royalty has always done.

They are going to create a world that works for them – and then tell the rest of us to eat cake.

Which is exactly why we need to stop listening to them and start taking our world back.?

Because if we don’t, like Dylanger said, if he’s ****ed, then we are all ****ed.?

This article was written by me, and not a machine. If you are interested in booking a coaching session to learn more about working with me to craft a personal career content plan, click here!