God knows I do. Bought our first house in 1980 in South Louisiana just before the oil crash. It set on the market mostly unoccupied from 83 to 85 - on a captain's salary. We took a while getting over that one.
In defense of the youngsters in the room and society, I think they'd cite your valid statement as "boomer talk". Yes, the 80s were rough, yes the 21% 30-year treasuries were a hell of a tipping point, but there were a lot of other factors that make now a terrible time to be in the "have not" age demographic versus the "haves".
The biggest differences can include cost of living, 37 year high housing costs, and access to good salaries if you're not in a DEI box.
All of those differences pale in comparison to the much bigger issue that everyone glosses over: lack of sound money. 1962 the minimum wage was $1.25, payable in five quarters that were 90% silver with a present value of $28. That's evidence of the decline of sound money.
In addition, if you remove new government spending from the GDP numbers and you remove new immigrant spending, we've actually been in a recession for the past 5 years.
Does this matter? It doesn't if you're an immigrant, you're doing way better off in the USA than you did in your native country. Does it matter if you're a taxpayer without tangible, inflation resistant assets like land, gold, TIPS, or other similar assets? Yeah, you're getting a real thrashing.
The danger this time around is I don't think things are going to work themselves out the way they did in the latter 1980s. We have a very angry couple of generations (Millenials/Y, Zoomers/Zs) that have tremendous debt loads for jobs that don't exist or do not pay back their debts. Their COL and ability to buy a home is an impossible hurdle. Lastly, they lack the gumption and discipline to humble themselves to do with less than they were raised to expect. These generations aren't going to let things flow back to a normal equilibrium, they are demanding socialism at the ballot boxes to get the stuff acquired by others...especially boomers. The unruly mob that possesses nothing will outvote the "haves" that are a declining population over the next 20 years.
Scary times for any of us that have young children in light of the nation's trajectory. I pound into my kids head that they need to avoid debt at all costs, that they need to be resourceful, and that they need to go to university on a free-ride, go to a military academy, or take on a skilled trade. Debt load, fiat currency, and taxation is going to crush these very weak younger generations.
