Generation Debt

Why Now Is a Terrible Time to Be Young

(How Our Future Was Sold Out for Student Loans, Credit Cards, No Benefits, and Tax Cuts for Rich Geezers - and How to Fight Back)

Anya Kamenetz is a young twenty-something freelance journalist who has got an axe to grind with the older generation.

She argues that young Americans are being grounded by low wages, high taxes and sky-high housing prices - thanks to a financially irresponsible baby-boomer generation. The gist behind her logic is that our parents have been living beyond their means and now the current generation of adults will have to foot the bill for their gross imprudence.

This may sound like a classic deflection of blame, so to support this theory, Kamenetz wet out to interview several people of this generation. Almost all of them tell stories of despair, desperation and debt from holding low-paying jobs and high college tuition.

Unfortunately these "interviews" are done with supposedly anonymous folks who have chosen not to come forward. As such, these discourses can never be verified as anecdotal evidence. Are young people really getting into debt because of what their parents have done, or its just that they are financially irresponsible?

Nonetheless, the author has highlighted a compelling case that needs attention very soon. Young people today are getting into debt too fast for their own good and something needs to be done immediately.

Overall it is a pleasant read with very little technical jargon. I did pick-up the revised paper back edition with an extra chapter and a slightly different cover. 305 pages thick.