Interesting point you bring up. This stuff should be drilled in to us from birth that in order to buy things, you need to have the money. If you don’t have the money you don’t buy things. It really just common sense when you step back and look at it. That’s also the way things pretty much worked 50 years ago. Imagine telling your great grand parents that you took out a loan to buy you and your friends lunch.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still paying off the computer that I purchased with my student loan money from my college education. I lived in a different city for a while and had a spout with no job and lived off peanut butter and bread for almost a month until giving up moving back in with my parents for a few months. I ended up taking something in school that I found out later I didn’t want to do as a career and it was more of a hobby at the time.

Looking back, if I just had have worked a few years to figure things out, and saved my money for a course that I really wanted I would be in much better shape now. This is not only because i would have more relevant training, but also far less debt.

You just won’t see me whining on my local representatives doorstep asking for handouts because life is too hard. You also won’t see me complaining that I took out a loan and now have to pay it back.

It certainly is a good point that not everyone should attempt to keep themselves on the “highschool, college, job, promotion, etc.” treadmill, because they just aren’t suited for it.

However, a lot of what Generation Debt is about IS those people that fall between the cracks. I’m going to use an example from my own life, just because I know it well: I had trouble saving up money in high school because my family lived out in the boonies, and was too poor to afford a separate car for me to drive anywhere to work (there was literally no employment within walking distance), and my parents worked a lot and worked odd schedules, so it was difficult to rely on them for transportation.

I accept that a lot of it was my own fault - with some ingenuity I could have worked from home, or found a way to get to a job, but I didn’t necessarily see it as important enough. A book like Generation Debt would have gotten my teenage self thinking about such things.

In your comment you mention that you can either get through your 20’s with either “significant debt . . . a lot of help, or a lot of luck”. I think you missed the other three ways: Hard Work, Patience, and Saving.

Why said every student on the planet has to go from high school and get sucked in to a college or university? Why not work for 2 - 3 years and save.

I realize not every high school student can get a part time job, but I would bet that most can. After that work full time for a few years and save and/or invest. Also, if possible, work through your college/University years for your spending money. If you can’t afford it without debt, wait. Either that, or go in to debt; It’s a choice.

I do think Boomers and Silent Generation (pre-Boomer) folks don’t realize how drastic this situation really is. The system is stacked against us so that we CAN’T do as well as our parents did, unless we have a lot of help or a lot of luck. In the late 1950s, a year of tuition could be feasibly be earned at a summer job. I don’t know anyone who can do that now.

I can see how Anya would definitely come off as whiny without the context. If I had to name a weakness of Anya’s, it’s that without all the information in the book, she just looks like a big complainer. But she’s really looked into the troubles that this generation is having and the future troubles we’ll have (because of the way our economy is built, etc).

I definitely recommend you check out the book - she really has done her research.

“Waaah, our parents had it easy, our lives are hard because the world is against us, Waaah. You 40 year olds have no freakin clue,like oh my god, like wow life’s Haaaaaaard”.

That pretty much sums up everything I’ve read from her. Less blaming others and more self control is what the G-Debters need. (I’m a ‘79er, so I’m borderline there . . . )