A resounding +1.
The whole thing is pretty pathetic. Each generation feels screwed by the others.
Let’s start in the late 1890s but we can go back farther. So they have the big strikes at steel mills, there were robber barons polluting the place and paying slave wages, no job security and no workplace protection laws, and civil rights was something that didn’t exist. Then the economy collapses. A guy named Coxey leads a march across the country because there were no jobs at all. Food is dangerous and Sinclair publishes “The Jungle”. Then we have the pleasant experience of World War 1 where thousands of men were sent off to experience trench warfare because a few “aristocrats” in Europe couldn’t get along. They come home and we end up with the roaring 20s, gangsters, and prohibition followed by a huge depression.
Millennials feel like it’s hard to get housing today? Try not having any work or any prospect of any work and no phone to spend your life involved with. Just the reality of soup kitchens. That young generation is in luck though, because we’re going to have another World War boys and girls. Kill off lots of people, decimate Europe, and set up a brutal dictatorship for half the world. Then come home and have kids. That generation grows up, looks for something to do, and starts agitating for civil rights. For the first time generations are discussed as independent entities. So we create a name called the baby boomers. As children they see the president get killed on live TV. When they start getting out into the work force and we have inflation of 17%, “stagflation”, miserable job prospects, housing problems, and the world starts taking over our embassies and telling us that it hates us.
Meantime the auto industry, which employed one of of ten workers, starts collapsing just like the electronics industry earlier. “Offshoring” becomes the byword as jobs disappear. We end up with a savings and loan debacle, more inflation, and the idea that everyone needs an MBA so people start spending for school like never before. Responding to demand, schools start raising their prices and it becomes increasingly expensive. Dot com booms and busts and once again, everyone is looking for the bad guys. The car industry is no longer an avenue for blue-collar lifestyles, nor is most manufacturing, which once provided work for people who went to school as well as people who didn’t.
And wine becomes a lifestyle thing, rather than a beverage. Wine tourism becomes a big business. Then we have another bank collapse and presidents of different parties who both believe that the best bet would be to give government money to the people who ran the economy into the toilet. Lots of people lose their houses to foreclosures as the millennials are coming to the work force. Housing prices start going back up, everyone wants to live in San Francisco and work for a cool start-up, and San Francisco becomes an open sewer. And in this whole scenario, the people who ruined everything are the boomers.
Every generation screws the generation that follows if you want to look at life that way. Perhaps another way to look at it is that every generation has to figure out how to live in the world as it exists, not as they wish it were.
What does it have to do with wine? Someone above said it - there’s plenty of wine in the $25 range that can make your life interesting without ever spending $150 on a bottle. As far as wine goes, the millennials have more and better choices than ever.
For a while, wine was and remains a fashion statement as much as anything. Otherwise celebrities wouldn’t be all over it. Eventually that will go away. It won’t be the “fault” of the millennials if sales of vanity labels go down or disappear entirely, or if people realize that it’s just stupid to pay $1000 for a bottle of grape juice.
And there will be lame articles attributing everything to whomever the author believes will generate some discussion.
(The above is an abbreviated version of the actual events that transpired. Only selected highlights were included.)
Burgundy is dead at retail… for millennials.
Waaahhhhh! Waaaahhhhhh!! Snivel, Snivel… I’m not crying about stuff I can’t afford. Nobody is ruining anything. There will always be something attractive that is beyond most of our means. There will always be the wealthy that can afford and will buy those items. However, I will take a parting shot at what seems like a common Millennial theme: Why in the hell did you take out all those student loans anyway? Don’t you realize that you could have worked your way through college? Don’t you know you didn’t have to go to an Ivy League school to get a decent education? Geeez…
i can’t tell if you’re joking or not.
Colleges are expensive now. Even public state universities. Not sure how much working part time at minimum wage will dull the impact of $30,000 a year in school costs.
I’m not sure, but clearly you missed your calling as a history teacher.
I think this ad, flagged by Jon Bonne on Twitter, may go a long way toward explaining the problem with millennials and wine.
The best part is the woman unwrapping her Zaltos at 0:23!
Student loans are just one example. Bottom line is interest rates being super low => assets are more expensive relative to income levels. Which means anyone who did not benefit much from the asset inflation that occurred as a result of interest rates going down so much over time (i.e. anyone born in 1980s and beyond), is now in a tougher spot when it comes to purchasing assets like a home or wine.
Doesn’t mean life is bad but it is more difficult for someone earning income today to purchase anything that is considered an asset than it was back in the day. Fine, high-end wine is an example of such an asset that is bid up given the inflation of other assets, which is why you see fine wine trading at insane prices today while average table wines have probably increased in price only in line w/ inflation over past few decades…cheap mass production wine is essentially a consumable like eggs or milk, whereas fine wine is an investment class.
I’m honestly not understanding the point. Why does this ad explain the problem?
Brilliant!
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
$30k will almost get you a semester at some schools…
Maybe you go to a Junior College for a couple of years and take all the basic courses there. Maybe you put some real thought into how much College A is vs. College B. Maybe you have to move to another state. Maybe you don’t take a full load of classes, etc., etc., etc. The point is, no one needs to take on that much debt to get a decent education. Maybe it’s no big deal if you are going to be an attorney or a doctor, but there are other ways.
I’ve been collecting (mostly Napa) since 25 (33 now). I know of only one other person around my age who is really into wine. If I’m getting a sixer at the grocery store for daily drinkers, I usually try to keep it around $25 a bottle. Most people my age at the store are grabbing the $8-$12 bottles. I’m not sure how the $50-$125 market will be sustainable.
Same with golf at my country club. Hardly anyone my age is playing.
Well clearly I didn’t RTFA. Based on that hypothesis, then I am all on board with the death of shitty $10 wines. Call me a really old millenial.
Facts? Historical perspective? +1. Thanks for making this thread worth reading.
I forwarded this to one of the many millennials that works for me. He is the most classic millennial of the bunch. This was his response:
“As a fellow Avocado Toast connoisseur, I’ve never spent $100+ on a domestic bottle of wine. But I also think a $15 cocktail made with a $12 wholesale bottle of Old Forester is bullshit, and I don’t buy those either.”
Mic drop, I think anyway.
Poor guy, he’ll never be able to buy a house.
He has a house. And a baby on the way.
Just to note - the University of Illinois is under $13,000 for a year. Many kids - including myself back in the day - have never been able to afford the expensive private schools. I’m not saying that’s the way it should be but it’s not a new development. I do think what is new is the image of what is “normal” life that’s been pushed by marketing and media that assumes every family has a big house with multiple baths, granite counters, blah blah blah and several cars and a pretty expensive lifestyle overall. That’s not reality for most folks but I think everyone assumes that all just comes automatically - it doesn’t. I mean I have friends who are in the millennial generation who live in CA, own a house, have two good cars, a kid and who chose to work in fields that are not the most high-paying. Seeing them fuss at my generation as if we somehow took the good life away from them is a little hard … and their assumption my generation all have juicy retirement funds and the rest … ugh.
I do find the millennials I work with tend to grab a beer as the first option when we have work happy hour … the wine served is pretty dreadful and the beers are pretty good. I have my wine shipped to the office so I keep a stash and often open a bottle instead and better wine is really appreciated by them - and enjoyed. I just think they are not exposed to it often enough to chose it over a cheap beer. They do like cocktails when we go out … and at least here in Chicago, a lot of millennials are quite up on the restaurant scene eating at 1 and 2 star spots as well as at the great “ethnic” spots we have.