The kids are alright… I think

However, I will also admit that she has proven herself to be far more sensible than I ever was and I don’t really know her precise situation. I have to accept that for whatever incomprehensible reason she has decided to go and live in the middle of nowhere – that it was a rational choice and makes sense to her. Indeed, this is one of the basic tenets of economics: people make rational choices. Admittedly, this is not a universal law and at best seems just to be a rule of thumb, since economists are actually intrigued by those circumstances where people consistently take irrational actions against their own better interest. But for the sake of argument, can we just accept that people are rational? Please?

Anyway, despite being of a much younger generation than myself, my sister shows every desire to get her foot on the property ladder. And she’s not the only young person I know who’s looking to buy their first property. Despite all we hear about Generation Z – or whatever letter we are on now – not wanting to be burdened with a mortgage and having the freedom to be able to upend almost everything at a moment’s notice and travel to Japan or whatever country is currently most popular with backpackers, people still want to buy real estate. But I don’t think it’s true that the younger generation is unwilling to take on the burden of debt. After all, my niece, who recently turned up in Warsaw backpacking, is about to turn 21 and starts university next semester. She was telling me about the huge debt she’s going to take on in the form of student loans. Unsurprisingly, she’s spending what money she has (which I believe she inherited) right now while she still can, and then, just like the rest of us, she’s going to join the rat race. This is partly why I distrust all this babble about what young people want. Yes, it’s true that they don’t want mortgages, they would prefer to cycle around town and to have everything nearby. But I remember over thirty years ago my father saying something about how young people didn’t want to be working to pay off a mortgage. I believe that if I’d been born in the 1940s, I would have spent my entire career working in one company just paying off the bank – because that was the rational thing to do back in those days. This has little to do with the various predilections of any particular generation and everything to do with hard cash. The trend towards PRS is being driven far more by property prices than by the desire of the young to live life with no permanent ties. These astronomical prices are being driven by the overall lack of housing in Poland. In short, housing is now so expensive that it’s unreasonable to expect most people ever be able to afford it without a state-subsidised mortgage that is still nevertheless utterly exorbitant.

Many Polish people I know received their apartments from their parents, but this certainly cannot be representative of the majority. If someone knows that an apartment of their own is forever out of reach, should it come as any surprise when they turn around and declare that they never wanted one in the first place? I mean, I could say the same myself about a 40-foot yacht with a helipad. Meanwhile, as home prices continue to head out into the cosmos, should any of us even raise an eyebrow about how increasingly it’s only institutions that can afford them? I could say something similar about the way firms are going out of their way to attract young talent. Back in my day, if someone deigned to give you a job, you were forever grateful. But these days it’s difficult to tell who’s actually interviewing who. If you don’t have the swankiest office in the centre of town with a games room and you’re not prepared to throw in ample paid vacation time, you just don’t stand a chance. But this is certainly not because the younger generation has suddenly become so much more whimsical and hedonistic. To misquote Bill Clinton, it’s the demographics stupid! There simply aren’t enough young people to replace all the retirees, so if you are in your early twenties you can pretty much demand whatever takes your fancy. And guess what – they do.

I’m certainly not saying that I understand the younger generation. I don’t. Half of the time, I can’t even understand what they’re saying. They are the so-called digital natives, whereas I was an adult before I even started using the internet. But I still maintain that many of the differences between me and them are just a result of circumstance.