Young debt

A recent Washington Post piece on young adult debt makes for interesting reading. The basic thesis is that the time spent investing in professional qualifications at academic institutions, geared towards establishing a foundation for a vocation, do not adequately provide for the costs of modern living. There isn't enough money to earn to pay for all the goods and services a young adult will need or want.

Despite covering an interesting and relevant topic, the article comes across as somewhat ironic and hypocriticial. The solution the article profers for this dilemma is to buy one of a number of self-help books on how to keep your budget in the black. Young people are in debt or don't have the capacity to fund their lifestyles... so buy a book that tells you how to do it.

I've noticed that usually these sorts of books or commentaries lack one key ingredient - institutional analysis - what are the economic principles, and how do the institutions which manage or control the economy create an environment in the costs of living increase?

Take the present situation. The commons is constantly being privatised. Less and less public money is being invested in the public, more and more public money is being privatised (for example, aid and disaster relief money going into the coffers of corporations, privatised roads, public utilities, hospitals and academic institutions, and so on). This automatically leads to an increase in costs. At the same time, the overall share of wealth is being less equally distributed. There are now more billionaires than ever (partially explained by an increase in population which has increased the global economy, and partially explained by inflation) yet this has not been matched by a comparable increase in the general population's wealth.

There is limited mention of the deleterious effect of corporate consumerism on youth debt. The fanatical and always increasing promotion of fashionable consumption (purchasing items that aren't a necessity) by corporations as the pre-eminent form of social expression - typically at the expense of other, more meaningful forms of expression (for example political or familial). The 'urge' to purchase products, to consume, is an unchallenged axiom in the Washington Post article (although it is good to see some reference to 'European social policy', also known as 'common sense'). The urge to consume is presumed to be an almost organic human right. Yet once you remove the facade, I think the article is really just a spruik for the books it mentions. The corporations (in this case the Washington Post, which sells readership to advertisers) are so shamelessly obsessed with profit they will even sell you books bemoaning the pressures of purchasing the goods corporations sell to us! As I am keen to say at every opportunity, Orwellian stuff!!