I Steal Only What I Can't Afford 🧞♂️
The Sunday Essay ☕️
My Great-Grandfather immigrated to the United States in the 1880s. None of us know where he came from. He spoke no English and carried no papers.
He was hired by a farmer named Martin and kept the name for himself.
My Grandfather was born in 1906, the sixth of eleven children. He was persuaded to immigrate north to Canada under the Dominion Land Act, which granted 160 acres of land to any settlers willing to brave the desolate Canadian Prairies. The Dominion Land Act continued to offer free land to settlers until 1950, although most of the prime fertile areas were taken by 1930.
This is where my Dad was born in 1942. He and his eight siblings grew up in rural Saskatchewan without running water or indoor plumbing. For half of the year, when the Saskatchewan landscape was frozen solid, my Dad and his brothers would harvest ice from a frozen river, haul it home and melt it over a fire in the living room. This was how they got water for drinking, cooking and cleaning.
This is a typical Canadian family history.
My recent ancestors fought hard to get to North America. They fought to survive here, and they fought in wars overseas to protect their life here.
What is your family story? I imagine it is similar. I would love to hear it in the comments below.
Why is this at the top of my mind today?
Recently, I stumbled across an organization called Generation Squeeze.
Their mission, as per their website, is to “Fight the Disease of Generational Unfairness.”
Read that again.
Generation Squeeze is one of dozens of organizations in Canada and the United States that aim to address the inequality between the young and the mature.
The “inequality” being that young people don’t have wealth and don’t have houses, while older generations do.
This, per Generation Squeeze, is unfair.
Now, let me back up and do them some justice. Their claims are that life has become too expensive, housing is unaffordable, and jobs are underpaying. I agree with all of this—life has become more expensive, and wages have lagged behind inflation, by a lot.
But here is where I disagree:
“It is exactly what we’ve been saying for over a decade: hard work doesn’t pay off like it used to.” - Generation Squeeze founder, Paul Kershaw
But is it that hard work doesn’t pay off like it used to? Or is it that “hard work” just isn’t hard, like it used to be?
Yes - life has become very expensive, homes are unaffordable, and jobs underpay—definitely. All of this is true. But we only get to navigate those problems because a generation ago, our ancestors navigated much harder problems.
My great-grandfather arrived in a foreign land alone, young and unable to communicate with anyone. My grandfather moved to a place so rugged that settlers were bribed with free land to move there. My dad harvested his drinking water from frozen river ice.
The battles we fight today are a privilege, not a burden.
My core issue with organizations like Generation Squeeze is that they are training people to be victims instead of training people to work hard and overcome.
They are robbing people of the opportunity to believe in themselves, instead convincing them to point the finger at the “privileged class,” who literally fought and died for our lives today.
Young people are not have-nots because life is unfair. They are have-nots because they have not had the time to let their productivity compound.
If it takes longer to buy a house today than 40 years ago, then that is just today’s “hard.”
My grandfather got his land for free but had to settle the frozen tundra to keep it. That was his “hard.”
Life was never a lay-up. If that was your expectation, you were lied to.
But I’m from the government…
Generation Squeeze, which has the audacity to pose this question on its website, “How can we be better ancestors?” is a government-funded organization—your tax dollars at work.
Why?
Because if we can unsettle the young and get them loud and organized enough, then we can increase the taxes on the mature.
Our politicians could choose to promote productivity, but instead choose to promote wealth redistribution. This thinking is not just wrong and misguided - it is evil and destructive.
It is evil and destructive for a government-funded think tank to convince a generation that the path to a better life is not through productivity but through the redistribution of other people's assets.
Is there good news?
For those who accept that we still live in the animal kingdom and that life has always been and will always be a game of survival of the fittest, this is an opportunity.
To be the best at sport, you need to outcompete. To win in business, you need to outcompete. To reach the top levels of earning power and make the unaffordable life affordable, you need to outcompete. Life has always been competitive.
If my competition is tied up, pointing the finger and crying fowl, I will wake up early, do pushups, and dominate. And you should, too.
That may sound over the top - but that’s the point. There is a ton of utility in the kill-or-be-killed mindset.
The followers of Generation Squeeze would benefit from fewer participation trophies and more survival of the fittest mentality. It is valuable to know when and where, and how to be ruthless.
Has life never been harder?
No, the opposite.
But if you think I’m wrong, let me know in the comments.
That’s all for today. Have an epic Sunday,
Jay
This essay deserves to be widely shared- it is well written and on point. Perhaps our biggest problem as a society is the ease of donning the mantle of victimhood.
N.IRELAND (UK) -- My great grand parents lived in Belfast workers house. 2 bedroom no bathroom etc. He worked at Harland and Wolff (where Titanic was built). They had 6 children and one on the way when he was killed in an explosion. His wife died a year after her last baby was born. My grandmother, the eldest raised her siblings. After years of belonging to the church, she asked for help. They insisted that she tell her story and plead every week. Instead she made boiled sweets, sold shoelaces and SAVED. As each male sibling reached 14 years old, she bought a ticket to Canada hoping her brothers would avail of the land on offer. After all the children were raised and gone or married, she married a WW1 veteran and 9 children, some died, my own mother was her youngest. My mother married a very anti social off grid man - we grew up like our grandparents. 5 daughters of which I am the youngest (57). We worked hard from when we could walk and carry. I was growing potatoes and looking after chickens. this was in the 1970's! One thing I knew. I NEEDED a good education. So despite the odds (coming from a single classroom school with dry bucket toilet) I made it to a top school were I excelled - I got paid work from 14 years old and never stopped saving and educating myself. My nature is risk off, yet I studied BTC and ICO's and made some money years ago. I broke the chain of poverty and my only child now 23 is leaving to work in a prestigious job in Rome after attaining her degree in Mandarin, Japanese and French. I admit I influenced her somewhat in learning Mandarin (and living in Taipei) - I felt it was a good skill going forward into 21st century. She too worked from she was 14 years old. She saved in silver and sovereigns. She understands (at 23) that she must work at living through these inflationary times with caution. I always help - but only when she meets me halfway. so - 5 generations from Ireland - all hard working people - wanting their children to do better than themselves.