Is Gen Z Doomed?

Prof G Markets co-host Ed Elson on the generational wealth gap, the impact of debt, and the political engagement of Gen Z

Meredith Martin

Mike Moffatt

, and

Sabrina Maddeaux

Apr 23, 2025

In this conversation, Sabrina Maddeaux and Mike Moffatt are joined by co-host of the Prof G Markets podcast with Scott Galloway, and host of the First Time Founders podcast Ed Elson. Together, they discuss the economic challenges faced by Gen Z, including their financial struggles, housing affordability, and the rising cost of education.

In this feature-length interview, Ed also highlights the generational wealth gap, the impact of debt, and the political engagement of Gen Z, emphasizing the need for action beyond social media advocacy. Mike, Sabrina and Ed delve into the disconnect between wealth and economic outcomes, particularly focusing on the impact of tariffs and taxation on different socioeconomic classes. They discuss the need for wealth redistribution through new tax policies and the challenges younger generations face in navigating financial landscapes. The conversation also touches on the importance of civic engagement and voting and the growing epidemic of loneliness in society.

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Below is an AI-generated transcript of the Missing Middle podcast, which has been lightly edited.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Let's jump right in with something juicy you wrote for the Financial Times that got me thinking. You said, and I quote:

What's wrong with Gen Z? This is the question I'm asked on every podcast or panel I've ever appeared on. Sometimes I laugh at the question. My day job is hosting Prof G Markets, a podcast where Professor Scott Galloway and I talk about money and finance, not Gen Z. But as a 25-year-old, I do have a front row seat to our struggles.
I usually respond, we are the most anxious, depressed and lonely generation in history. Also, on an inflation-adjusted basis, we are the poorest.

So let's start there. Is Gen Z really the poorest generation? And just to make sure we're all on the same page to start off, could you also define Gen Z for our listeners?

Ed Elson: Absolutely. So Gen Z, it's just an age range. I think it's 17 to 30 year olds at this point. I'm 26 at this point. So I'm part of Gen Z.

Is Gen Z the poorest? Well, there are many ways that we can look at it. And I think the way to frame it, you want to think about this on a relative basis. I mean, I'm not saying that Gen Z has the lowest standard of living in history. If you look back several hundred years ago, we're better off than people who are struggling in mines and so on. We have it okay in terms of standard of living. But on a relative basis, when you compare it to the generations around us, when you compare it to our parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents, yeah, the gap is the largest we've ever seen. And we can just go through some of the economic indicators. So I think the most obvious one is probably income.

The stat that I point people to is that today, for the first time in the history of America, the average 30-year-old is making less than his or her parents. And this is the first time that we've seen this in America. We can also define this as income mobility. We are the most downwardly mobile generation in the history of this country.

We can talk about wealth. 50 years ago, people under the age of 35 had an average net worth that was twice their income. Today, you look at people under the age of 35, their average net worth is equal to their income. So young people don't really own anything. And that wasn't as true before. And then we can just look at the price of stuff.

I mean, we look at the price of housing. I know you guys talk a lot about housing on your podcast. From what I gather, it's actually worse in Canada, but I'm going to be talking about America because that's where I live.

You know, the average cost of a home today is $420,000. But more importantly, it is equal to six times our income. And you compare it to my grandparents' generation, where the average cost of a home was equal to three times their annual income. We can look at the stock market. This is the most expensive stock market in history. It's correcting a little bit now that we have these tariffs. But still, if you're just looking at it on a price-to-earnings basis, the average price-to-earnings multiple across the S&P today is 26, even despite the drawdown. And the historical average is 18. It's a number of things.

I'm sure you talk about college as well. College costs have absolutely skyrocketed. The average cost of college for my generation is 42% of our annual income. For my grandparents, it was 13%. It's a number of things. And again, I would emphasize, I'm not saying that we have the lowest standard of living in history, but on a relative basis, compared to other generations, compared to our parents, compared to our grandparents, yes, we have a unique situation.

Mike Moffatt: So Ed, first of all, thank you for coming. I've been really excited. Particularly, the dynamic often on this podcast is a Gen Xer and a Millennial. So it's nice to be able to bring in Gen Zee or Gen Zed, depending on which pronunciation we want to use. And it is great that you mentioned the price-income ratio.

We had a report recently in the Missing Middle Initiative showing here in Ontario, the province where Sabrina and I currently are, the price-income ratio has doubled in the last 20 years. So we're not even necessarily talking about what our grandparents were paying. It's relative to what I paid for my first home in 2004.

So it was London, Ontario, not the most expensive place in the world. But back then, average price-income ratio was about 2.5. My wife and I paid about 2. And now you're looking at the 5.6. So a lot of times, we make these Canada-U.S. comparisons here.

You wrote your piece for the Financial Times, a UK-based publication, but one with a worldwide audience. How are you seeing differences between the U.S. and the U.K. and other countries?

Ed Elson: So I don't have as strong of an understanding of what's happening in the U.K. And that's because I live here in America now, and I do basically all of my research in America. But we've talked with analysts and economists, and I think what we're finding is that the trend is similar across the U.S. and across the U.K. We just had Gary Stevenson on, who just wrote this number one bestseller, The Trading Game, where he's talking about pretty much the same dynamic. He's explaining what we're seeing in terms of income inequality and wealth inequality. And then he also draws the comparison between the generations. Basically, you have as a general trend, old people are getting a lot richer, and you can just do the common reasoning. It's the old people who own all of the assets today, and the asset prices are going up. And then we look at, you know, income, we look at salary, you look at minimum wage as another example, it's basically flatlined. So he's noticing the same trend.

And we had a conversation with him on our podcast, Prof G Markets, where he went through some of the dynamics at play in the U.K. and how young people in Gen Z are getting screwed on a number of levels. And it was quite interesting to just, you know, realize that this is the exact same thing. We're describing the same trend.

And then when we had you on, Mike, on our podcast, and we had you on because we wanted to get an understanding of what is happening in Canada. And your description of what's happening in Canada is very, very similar to what's happening in the U.S. So I can't give you specific numbers that I have handy right now on what is happening in the U.K., but just based on anecdotal evidence from my conversations with people, it sounds like this is pretty certainly a global trend and not just an American trend.

Sabrina Maddeaux: For sure. And you had a line in there that stuck with me that young people are getting screwed. And I always think that's so key because even though these are global trends, they're trends because of a series of deliberate policy decisions that have been made and continue to be made. They didn't just happen out of circumstance.

Your co-host Scott Galloway has this other really eye-opening stat that the average age of a homebuyer in the U.S. was 29 back in 1980, and it's now skyrocketed to 47. That's almost two decades later in life. So, how much is Gen Z's financial stress tied to this housing affordability mess?

Ed Elson: I think it's a huge problem. And I love that stat because it's so simple. It really paints the picture of what's happening. And we talk about price to income ratios, which I also like as a statistic because I think it gives you a sense - six times our annual income - it sort of shows you, if you want to afford a house, you have to work for six years and spend zero dollars. And that's the way you'll afford a home. That's the way you do it in our generation. So I like that stat, but I think that there are other indicators.

We talk a lot about economics and there are certain indicators that are just quite frightening on a very basic level. One example I would give is that a third of Gen Z still lives with their parents. This is just a sort of downstream simple consequence of the fact that prices have gotten so out of control and the fact that our incomes have not grown with it. In addition, more than half of us, or I think almost half of us, are still being supported financially by our parents, which again is kind of absurd.

You and I, we spend our time on these podcasts trying to paint a picture of what's happening at the economic level. But then there are the other things that are happening at a life level. I think if you have a generation of children - and we're not children anymore, this is the other problem - you have a generation of young adults who are still being supported by their parents financially, who are still living at home with their parents, you have an entire generation of people who are living in a state of arrested development and arrested adolescence. I worry about what that does not just at an economic level, but also what it does to our mental health. What does it do to our sense of well-being? What does it do to our sense of confidence? Our ability to go out into the world and do things that are beneficial to society and to ourselves. That's why I appreciate that you bring up that statistic about the average age of a homebuyer. I think those are the kinds of statistics that start to illustrate what's happening here. We can talk about the economics, but eventually that trickles down into actual life experience. And if you have an entire generation of kids who have grown up living in the basement of their parents' homes, is that a very great society? Is that the kind of society we want to live in? Are these the next leaders of tomorrow? I worry about it.

Mike Moffatt: Yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm a quant…I'm an economist with a PhD from a business school. So I'm the guy constantly on the Bloomberg terminal or with Excel open. And it's so easy to just look at the numbers and focus on it that way.

But you're absolutely right that the human element of this is so important. You have highlighted one of my favourite statistics: people in their 20s and 30s still living with their parents. It's absolutely skyrocketed here in Canada as well. So it's something that we look at. The mental health part of it, I think, you're absolutely right that it is affecting health.

And you just mentioned that you're not a kid anymore, but you see it even in the younger generations…

You know, maybe our next episode, Sabrina, we bring on a Gen Alpha.

Ed Elson: It's a good idea.

Mike Moffatt: But seriously, my daughter's 13 years old, about to be 14. Now she would claim that she's Gen Z, not Alpha, but I don't want to get into that discussion…

Sabrina Maddeaux: That's an entirely different podcast.

Mike Moffatt: That's an entirely different podcast.

But you know, she's even told me or asked me if she's ever going to be able to own a home. And I guarantee I did not think about that at age 13. That was never a concern I had. But that generation is concerned about it. And I think rightfully so.

I'd like to, though, pivot a little bit from housing. We look at the data, and in Canada over the last 20 years, nominal wages for most age categories have gone up about 3% a year. So you're looking at, you know, 2% inflation plus 1% real wage growth, right? And that's not that bad compared to some other places. But we all know that home prices haven't risen, you know, nominally 3% a year. We know that stock prices haven't risen nominally 3% a year. So that creates that kind of disconnect between incomes and prices. But what other sort of factors or what other prices are you looking at that also speak to a lack of prosperity for your generation? Like, what else is getting disconnected from income?

Ed Elson: I think you can look at what's happening in terms of just default rates and delinquency rates and our dependence on credit cards and credit card debt. I think that's kind of concerning. I think one of my favourite statistics I saw recently was that 60% of Coachella tickets this year were financed using buy now, pay later. And this buy now, pay later trend to me is really concerning because I think these companies have kind of gotten their act together recently, companies like Klarna and Afterpay and Affirm. These are these buy now, pay later companies.

A few years ago, they made this pitch to our generation, saying that debt is something that our generation doesn't like. They basically said, you know, you watched your parents get screwed in the credit crisis in 2008. Debt and credit, and credit cards and these old banks that profit off of your debt, these are scary bad things. So we have this new, sexier, more interesting product, and it's called Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL). And this isn't debt per se, but what we're going to have you do is you're going to just buy the product now and then guess what? You get to pay later. And of course, that is literally the definition of debt. So they sort of pulled this fast one on us. And that to me is a big concern, not to mention all of the insane marketing schemes they were using. I'm pretty sure Klarna hired ASAP Rocky to go in and do an ad where he's sort of touting how cool it is to use Klarna. And you have, you know, the different branding with the bright pink and they're doing these collaborations with Apple Pay.

So I think what we're seeing, again, is credit and a reliance on debt is being made to look and feel sexy and cool and hip and sort of forward-thinking. But what's happening is we're falling into the same trap once again, and we're becoming overly reliant on debt. And we're using buy now, pay later to justify buying things that we can't afford, as exemplified by the fact that 60% of those Coachella tickets were financed through this instrument.

You now have DoorDash collaborating with these Buy Now, Pay Later firms.

So I'm certainly a little bit worried about the debt as well, but I do think the most important things to keep track of are the housing prices and also stock prices. Stock prices are less of a problem, I think, but I think the thing that we need to emphasize to my generation is that you actually have to invest in the stock market or you have to invest in something. And I think figuring out what to invest in is sort of the big question for our generation right now because we don't have the benefit of being able to get in at a P multiple of 18 and sort of ride this wave that we've seen over the past couple of decades. But we do need to make sure that we're investing in something. And we do need to make sure we're not just throwing our money out the door in the form of BNPL-financed burritos from Chipotle and Coachella tickets. That's not the way out.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Yeah, if only we were as innovative and ambitious about making things more affordable as we are about finding ways to put people into debt.

Ed Elson: Oh, a lot of smart people figuring out how to finance Coachella tickets, absolutely.

Mike Moffatt: So speaking about investment in debt, one thing that we hear a lot about in Canada, about the United States, is student debt. What's happening down in the US over the last, say, 20 to 30 years on the price of education?

Ed Elson: The price of education has gotten completely out of control. As I think I mentioned, the cost of college for my generation is more than 40% of our annual income. And for my grandparents, it was 13%. The cost of college is insane. It's gotten totally out of control.

My co-host, Scott Galloway, who is a professor at NYU, he's sort of been sounding the alarm on this for a long time. The way he describes the dynamic that's happening is that these elite institutions, these elite colleges, have restricted the supply artificially in the same way that Hermes and Louis Vuitton artificially restrict the supply of their handbags, thus driving the cost of the handbags up. And in a funny way, it actually stokes more demand because people are more excited about how exclusive it is. And so we have this dynamic of these schools who are being measured and evaluated based on how low their acceptance rates are. And that's something that's really compelling to people. If you went to a great school, it means that the acceptance rate was like 5%, 6%, 7%, which is just totally insane. And so I think this is a big problem that Scott has been trying to address, that we actually need to start measuring and evaluating schools and rewarding them for increasing their acceptance rates.

You know, a school that gives you a really great education, but is actually increasing the number of seats at the college faster than the rate of population growth, that's something that we should aspire towards. But the trouble is, that's not really what we've seen in the past few years. Acceptance rates are only going lower. And these elite colleges are still very much in control of the trajectory of our society.

I think that one of the big problems here that we haven't been addressing is legacy admissions. I mean, this society is ruled by our parents or by the Boomers. And all of this wealth is being accrued towards the top and towards the 0.1% of that generation that are 55 to 60 to 65 years old. And the fact that they have now rigged the system such that only their children can get into the elite colleges, and such that the people who go to those elite colleges are the ones who are gonna get the good jobs and who are gonna go on and build wealth. I mean, we understand why this exists. I mean, if you have a legacy-based admission system that makes it easier to get donations from alumni, it incentivizes investment into these schools.

But if we're going towards a direction where rich parents are defining the next generation of rich people, and we have no way of redistributing that wealth among the rest of our people, that's a very dark trajectory to be going in.

And the idea that these elite institutions, which are sort of supposed to be the icons of our country and of our democracy, the fact that they're just caving into that, that to me is a huge problem, and I think it needs to be addressed.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Yeah, and that echoes the housing market too, at least in Canada, where now one of the best indicators of whether you will own a home, whether you're a millennial or Gen Z, is whether your parents own a home or whether they can afford to help you with a down payment or you get an inheritance. So you see that across so many sectors.

But I've been thinking about the 60s when Boomers were young and shaking things up politically. They were out there changing the game. And by the 80s, they were even leading political parties. But with Gen Z and even Millennials, my generation, I'm just not feeling that same vibe of political energy, even with all these challenges that you're facing. So, I know it's tough to speak for everyone, but when you're hanging out with your friends and having conversations, do you sense any big Gen Z political wave coming? And if not, what's the holdup?

Ed Elson: This is the ultimate question for our generation. And this is the thing that drives me insane. And the way I put it is that Gen Z is actually very active with our opinions. We have very strong feelings about inequality, about racial inequality, about sustainability. I mean, we were kind of the ones that pushed this whole ESG thing that actually came about in the corporate world. I mean, we saw some action from large institutions and governments and companies.

We're very active with our opinions. We're very lazy with our actions. When it comes to actually showing up and making the change ourselves, not just posting about it on Instagram and on Snapchat, but actually showing up. And what is the best indication of your ability to show up? It's your voter turnout.

And in the last election in the US, we had a 40% voter turnout, the lowest of any generation. And in fact, it was lower than in previous elections. So we love to get very excited about these issues. And I do respect that. I think a lot of people think that we're kind of emotional - and like throwing a hissy fit - but I think it's a good thing to get emotional about these issues and to take them seriously. But the thing that is just inexcusable from our generation is to feel so activated about these issues and post about it online, but then when it comes to actually showing up at the voting booth, showing up to the polls even, we just drop off a cliff. I think it's some combination of that we're distracted - I mean, you just look at like ADD rates in our generation - but I also think a lot of it is just we're so…we've been basted in this digital world that means that we have no understanding of how to do things in the physical world. We don't really know how to fill out paperwork. And if we're given paperwork, we start to almost short-circuit, and we get very anxious and confused. I genuinely think that this is a big reason why we're not showing up to vote, because it's just not digitized enough. And the way we operate, we spend 40% of our waking hours looking at a screen. We're very much based in the digital world. So we know how to post a story and we know how to send a text to our friends and say, ‘Oh my God, you need to think about this issue.” We also know how to donate to certain causes from our phones and click on the link in the Instagram story. Like, we're really good at all that stuff. But when it comes to doing anything beyond the digital realm, we don't really show up and it's really frustrating.

Mike Moffatt: I'll defend your generation a little bit. I do love the fact that you guys care about things. You have a different perspective than we did. You don't have quite the Gen X cynicism that we did - like everything's screwed and nothing will ever get better, which ends up manifesting itself into things like Woodstock 99 and just chaos.

But let's suppose people listened to your advice and your generation was able to take that kind of Instagram advocacy and move it into the real world, the physical world, the voting world. Presumably, if that involves politics, that's going to involve policy. So, what do you think that Gen Z should be advocating for as part of policy? Because it's one thing to just say, ‘Okay, everything sucks and change it, change it, change it.’ But like, what do you see as the role of governments to address some of these structural inequality factors that you've mentioned?

Ed Elson: I think we should alienate our allies and post tariffs on all nations. I think that's the way we do it. 51st state, yeah. And I think we should colonize Canada. We really want to get…

Sabrina Maddeaux: And that's where we'll end the podcast. Thank you for your time, Ed.

Mike Moffatt: I was going to say, no, that's a thing that Meredith's going to clip and put on X and blue sky.

Ed Elson: Yeah, exactly. Out of context.

This is the big question. And I think it is telling what's been happening with these tariffs. I think what has been so interesting has been the Republicans' defence of the tariffs, where it tanked the stock market and we started hearing a lot about this argument that, well, you know, the stock market is primarily owned by rich people. The stock market is 90% owned by the top 10%. And so if you tank the stock market, then it's actually not really a big deal because it's only hurting Wall Street and it's not hurting Main Street. This has been a really interesting discussion to see unfold because it's something that I, Scott and I, and I'm sure maybe you have been talking about for a long time where they're suddenly catching onto this thing that the world of stocks and assets is ruled by a very, very small group of people. And so if you hurt them, then it's not the end of the world because look at all these other people on Main Street.

Now, the trouble is that the argument has been completely perverted because actually what we're seeing with these tariffs is, yes, it's gonna bring down the multiple in the stock market. That is going to happen, and rich people aren't gonna be very happy about it. But the more important thing that's gonna happen is we're gonna see massive price increases, which is essentially a tax on consumption and a tax on regular people on Main Street. So yeah, you're gonna kind of hurt rich people, but barely. You're gonna really hurt poor people. So clearly, what we need to do is we need to figure out a way to target the very, very top of the pyramid.

People have gotten infinitely wealthy in the past two, three, or four decades, and we need to figure out a way to redistribute that wealth among the rest of the public. How do you do that? Taxes. I mean, that's it. We need new tax policies.

People dance around the issue because people don't like to talk about taxes. And we'd rather say, ‘Oh, we're gonna do these tariffs. It's gonna kind of do the same thing that taxes do, but it's also gonna hurt poor people.’ No, we need to get our act together on taxes. And there are many ways we can do that.

One way we can do that is we could just increase the capital gains tax. I think that's probably unlikely, but you look at capital gains tax compared to income tax, and the divergence between those two things is kind of a little strange to look at it from a first principles basis. Why are we taxing people way less for what their capital does versus what their labour does?

I think a wealth tax is a legitimately decent proposal. People say it's crazy. People say it's out there. People say, ‘How would you even implement it?’ I actually don't think it would be that hard to implement it. We just need to get our act together on auditing and evaluating the value of people's portfolios. I think these are arguments that people say because they just don't want it to happen.

Those are two sorts of improbable proposals that I doubt would go through anytime soon. Some more reasonable, and I would say more probable proposals…I think we should just have a borrowing tax, where if you borrow significantly against your assets, and this is what most of the ultra, ultra-rich do, instead of selling their holdings, which is a taxable event, they instead borrow against their holdings. And because they have such a giant asset base, they can borrow at near-zero interest rates. So it's sort of like an infinite money glitch. You can just sort of keep borrowing and borrowing. I think that should be a taxable event. If you're borrowing significantly against your assets, that is a way to finance your lifestyle. You're essentially, it's essentially a tax loophole. So we should make that a taxable event.

I also think that we need to increase the estate tax. And I think that's very probable and doable. I mean, we talked a lot about how we're seeing a society where it's the rich people's children who are going to win. So why is it that in America, you can pass $27 million over to your children tax-free? I mean, that's just insane. And actually, the limit has been increasing over time, and Trump was someone who increased it.

Past that threshold, by the way, it's a 40% tax on the value that exceeds that limit. So if you were to pass $28 million down to your kids, you're gonna pay $400,000 in taxes, because it's only taxable on that last million.

So I think those are two more doable and more likely proposals. But again, all roads lead to taxing the rich. It sounds very populist and kind of socialist, but I just find, I mean, look at the arguments that the Republicans are making right now. They're kind of using the same justification.

Mike Moffatt: Yeah. Well, it is, you know, that sort of disconnect between the 1% or 0.1% and everyone else is eye-opening. And in particular, you know, you mentioned the kind of stock market piece. One of the big concerns that I have is that we have a growing portion of the population that is essentially disconnected from economic outcomes, like their personal outcomes, and the outcomes of the economy are so different from each other.

I'm one of the people who occasionally has ‘aha moments’ where you see something, or you hear something, and it changes a large part of your worldview. And I can point to one of these.

It was the day after Brexit. And I was one of these people who was trying to figure out, like, what the heck is going on? Like, why is the UK doing this? And the BBC was interviewing all kinds of folks. So they were somewhere in the North of England, and people were celebrating Brexit, and it was two guys in their early sixties or so. And the interviewer quite earnestly asked about, ‘Well, aren't you worried? You're seeing the stock market go down, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ And they cheered even louder, right? Because to them, that was an actual benefit. It was like, not only have we gotten rid of the EU, we punched rich people in the nose. I was like, ‘Oh, that is interesting!’

So yeah, I totally agree that we have to look at the loopholes that rich people have. And I totally agree on the part about them being able to use their stock as collateral and basically avoid triggering a capital gain. But I think we also have to look at the middle class and how disconnected they are from economic outcomes.

Ed Elson: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is fascinating, I think that's exactly right.

The stock market goes down, and you start seeing people cheering, and you know, is that a surprise when three-quarters of the wealth in America is owned by people over the age of 55?

I mean, I'm just speaking for my generation. I think my generation probably has the same reaction. We don't really, we don't really own anything. We don't own stocks. So the stock market goes down. We're going to start cheering about it. I would like for us to reverse that. I think the thing that we need to be doing is that we do need to be investing. I mean this S&P thing is kind of a miracle and, you know, returning 10% in the past 30 years -we'll see if that continues - I'm beginning to be a little bit anxious based on what Trump is doing and based on what we're seeing in terms of capital flows to other markets. But we do need to get real, and we need to recognize we need to be investing in stocks, and we don't need to be investing in crypto.

That's a big problem that I've seen. You see this sort of despair among my generation, realizing that they're not going to be able to afford anything. So what do they do? They start going all in on Cum Rocket and Fart Coin because they saw someone who posted on Twitter that they got like a 2000% gain in like an hour, not disclosing that they're the insider on that crypto project. And also not highlighting the thousands, possibly tens of thousands of people who lost money on those trades.

I mean, this is another big problem. All we want to do is get rich quick because we're so frustrated with what's happening. And I don't think that's the way to do it, because I think if you just look at what's happening to a lot of people in my generation, a lot of them are losing money. It's just that they don't tell you that because they don't want to gloat about it, because they're embarrassed and they feel ashamed. Meanwhile, the people who are making money, the very, very few, are talking all about it and they're posting that on Instagram and they're posing with their Lamborghinis and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it causes a feeling of shame in my generation.

But I do think we need to be encouraging people to not only get more focused on reducing their spending and working really hard. I mean, the very, very basics; work really hard, try to figure out what you're good at, try to figure out what your value could be in the marketplace, try to reduce your spend. And once you've put some money away to the side, yes, you should be investing it in the stock market.

You should not just be letting it sit there, and you should not be throwing it away on sports gambling, like a lot of our generation is beginning to do. So I do think we need to think about the overarching macro trends, and we need to think about real policies, especially in the world of taxes.

But I think there are things that our generation can do on a personal level to make their lives better. And I think one of the first things you do is you recognize, yeah, we have it pretty difficult. The situation isn't great. So what am I going to do? I'm going to take that into account, and I'm going to work extra hard, even harder than my parents did. And I'm not going to necessarily listen to all of their advice because they grew up in an age where they got to ride the wave of asset prices and housing prices and stock prices, et cetera. But I'm going to do my homework and be really diligent about getting my life together. And I'm not going to be fooled by these BNPL schemes or these gambling schemes or these crypto schemes. I'm going to do it the right way.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Yeah, that's a really important message. And I'm so glad that you touched on the crypto thing, because that's where I was going to go next. You see this driven by so much desperation and not having the entryway into traditional forms of investment. And you only see the good side on social media a lot of the time, not the devastation that goes along with it.

But I want to flip it for a second and have a little bit of fun. So we've talked about the bad, but what's one Gen Z money hack or trend that totally confuses older generations, but actually makes perfect financial sense?

Ed Elson: I cannot think of one. And I think that's telling.

Sabrina Maddeaux: That's fair as well.

Ed Elson: There are a few people who would tell you crypto, but it's kind of the worst innovation of all time.

I think there are a few in my generation who are incredibly gifted technologically. And I think we're seeing some real value is being created in the AI world. I have several friends who are AI entrepreneurs, AI engineers. When I look at what's happening in the startup world, that is very inspiring.

I wouldn't call it a financial hack. I honestly don't really believe in financial hacks. I think if they exist, they only exist for a very, very small set of people. But I think I am inspired by what is happening in the tech world right now. And I think we are making tremendous strides in terms of bringing real value to our society and to our economy.

I was far less inspired back in 2020 when all of these people were metaverse engineers and crypto engineers who were reinventing the wheel that is the stock market and saying that they've figured out this new thing because it doesn't exist in the world of the SEC, and it's not regulated. The whole crypto thing, I think, was one of our generation's biggest mistakes. But what we're seeing now in terms of AI and machine learning, that to me is very exciting. And I do think that we will likely see huge wealth being created over the next 10 to 20 years. And I think the question for my generation is, how do we position ourselves correctly and how do we ride that AI wave? People always say this is the next Internet. This is sort of the next Internet moment. I, on this occasion, I do believe that it is about to happen. I just look at what's happening in the AI world. I'm very excited about it.

The trouble is, a lot of it has been cut off from us in terms of access. I mean, the fact that you have a lot of these big tech companies which are buying and investing in many of the leading AI startups, so that wealth is again being accrued to the incumbents, that to me is a problem that I hope will be addressed. The fact that Microsoft owns half of the profits of open AI, that to me is a problem. So the only way you can get in is by buying into Microsoft, which is, of course, at these massive sort of Boomer level prices that won't benefit us. But I do think we're going to see a transformation. And I'm inspired by our technological abilities. And I think the question is: Okay, we know AI is going to take over the world. Which company, which AI company, is going to take over the world? And can we figure out a way to be a part of that? Can we figure out a way to ride that wave in the same way our parents did?

Mike Moffatt: Now, I find a lot of what Sabrina and I do is, you know, talking about the challenges that millennials have. You know, Sabrina comes from a lived experience. I come from a nerdy academic background. I feel like we spend a lot of time explaining to other Gen Xers and Boomers the millennial experience. And even today, we've got you on talking Gen Z, but you're talking to a Millennial, Gen X and hopefully to a lot of our Boomer audience. But what if Gen Z came to you and said, ‘I don't understand what's going on. I don't understand why I'll never be able to afford a home or why we're having all these challenges.’ What would you, in sort of a 30-second pitch, what would you want them to understand that you don't think that they currently do?

Ed Elson: I think I'd want them to understand that you get what you vote for.

Our Congress is increasingly all old people. I mean, you can look at the data, and then you can also just look at pictures. It's all old people.

Mike Moffatt: Yeah, you don't need AI to tell you that.

Ed Elson: Exactly. I don't need to…write a model up for you or regression analysis. It's very simple.

So why is it all old people? Because old people figured something out, which is that if you vote for your own interests, you get rewarded for it. That's all we've seen over the past few decades. I mean, why do all of our policies benefit the old? Because it's the old people who voted for everything. The Boomers got their act together - this is how we make change. And also, now, this is how we make things not change. This is how we make things stay the same.

And so that would be my big piece of advice. If you want to change things, this whole idea that we're doomed and that there's no way out of it, I'll only believe that once we start hitting a 60, 70, 80 percent voter turnout. To me, we live in a democracy, and that means that the way you change things is by voting for your interests. And we're not doing that. So we're not holding up our end of the bargain here, and we don't have the right to complain yet until we start voting properly and until we start taking action.

If after we vote, things still don't change and we still can't figure out a way to get policies that enrich us and that don't disproportionately enrich our parents and our grandparents and then later their children and those dynasties that are brewing at the moment. If that doesn't happen, then I will believe you. Then I'll believe that we're doomed, and maybe we need to get more crazy. Maybe we need to start bringing out the pitchforks.

You look through history. That is, generally speaking, what happens. But so far, we haven't tested it far enough. So my response would be, you get what you vote for. And so the answer is quite simple and cliche, but cliches are often correct. So we should vote.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Plan A, democracy. Plan B, pitchforks. I like it.

Ed Elson: Exactly, exactly right.

Sabrina Maddeaux: All right, Ed, let's end on a high note here.

So Gen Z is facing a lot of serious economic hurdles, but you guys are also super creative and resilient. And you touched on AI. Maybe you want to build on that, but maybe you have a completely different answer here. What's one bold, maybe even wild idea or trend you see Gen Z cooking up that could flip the script on what success and prosperity look like in the future?

Ed Elson: Look, the trends are not great. Beyond the economics, which I think we've talked a lot about, you look at the anxiety trends. Anxiety rates have more than doubled over the past decade, and depression rates have also more than doubled over the past decade. You look at loneliness trends and the fact that the amount of time Americans spend with their friends per day has fallen 70 percent in the past decade. The fact that one in 10 Americans reports having no close friends today.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Yeah, we have an episode on what we call the relationship recession that talks about the epidemic of loneliness and whether it's friendships or romantic partners.

Ed Elson: It's huge. It's such a big problem. And to me, I think that most concerning trends that you see in America and probably in the world, whether it be politics or business or media, whatever it is, I think most things can be reverse-engineered to the fact that we are an incredibly lonely society at this point. I think that explains everything.

Now, what's the positive? I think the positive is that we're starting to recognize this, and these conversations are starting to be had. I mean, the idea that even - Mike, you mentioned your daughter there, the fact that she's talking about, am I going to be able to afford a home? I think there's a very dark side to that, which is ‘Why is she thinking about being able to afford a home?’ But there's also a positive side to it in that people are having those conversations so much that even a 13-year-old girl is hearing about it. And I mentioned those loneliness trends, and then you say to me, ‘We have an episode that we're working on that addresses that problem.’ So, to me, I think we're reaching an inflection point where people are starting to understand the issues, and quite smart, thoughtful and empathetic people such as yourselves are developing platforms to get these issues, get the word out.

I mean, it was sort of the Joe Rogans and the Andrew Tates for a long time. But I think the tide is beginning to turn. I think that our generation is slowly, slowly but surely becoming fed up with the bullshitters, the people who just take a contrarian, wild, edgy view and then pitch it as, you know, you're escaping the matrix, you're taking the red pill. This is the truth. And I think we're beginning to understand the real issues here.

And the real issues are the ones that we have talked about on this podcast. What is happening to the younger generation? What is happening in terms of inequality? What is happening in terms of housing, in terms of loneliness, in terms of relationships? These are fast becoming mainstream issues that the majority of people are beginning to understand at this point. And I think the only thing that can happen after that is that we take real action. I think once you recognize the trend and once you collectively decide we don't like this, that's when you start to change things.

So the trends are not good, but the fact that we are all talking about them, to me, isn't an indication that we're about to change them.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Yeah, that's always the first step. I know in Canada, even as recently as a few years ago, you couldn't get a politician to say the words housing crisis. And now it's one of the hottest topics of our upcoming federal election. And this has been so awesome. Thank you so much for dropping by and sharing all your wisdom with us. And a big shout-out to our listeners and viewers for tuning in. And of course, to our producer, Meredith Martin, you're always the real MVP here.

Ed Elson: Thank you so much for having me. This is very fun.

Mike Moffatt: Yeah, Ed, thanks so much. This was incredible. It was fun to turn the tables and ask you questions since you got to do that to me a couple of weeks ago.

And to our audience, if you have any thoughts or questions about Fartcoin or any other topic, please send us an email to [email protected]

Sabrina Maddeaux: And we'll see you all next time.