That said, it's hard not to see such complaints as a combination of entitlement and cluelessness. As a Boomer, I never would have considered taking on college debt without a pretty clear analysis showing breakeven in a reasonable period. The idea of getting an arts degree crossed my mind, and I dismissed it as ridiculous within a couple of months.
Most of my friends went straight into the military, the trades, or general employment. State college was for maybe the top 20%, and I'm not sure I even knew anyone that went to a name school.
Work? Full time every summer starting at 16, and half time while school was in session. Housing? Live at home, or maybe the cheapest dorm. Car? Find a friend and give them gas money. Phone? Picture an Obama phone that's nailed to the kitchen wall and shared with three other people.
By today's standards, Boomers were not well off. Even so, most of what I've earned has already been transferred to the following generation.
https://twitter.com/berniesanders/status/1121058539634593794
To approach these systemic issues as just the individual faults of young people is to essentially accept that these problems will never get better. That's the centrist boomer motto.
But seriously, I do accept that none of these problems will get better. The young and old are behaving as they always have and always will. As you get older, this becomes clearer, and the complaints of the young provoke a wry feeling when you remember issuing similar complaints yourself.
If it makes you feel any better, most of the people on HN are considerably younger and higher paid than I am.
An older person advises a younger one that that apparently very cheap old rotted house (with years of poorly done repairs executed by a variety of amateur repairers and fly-by-night gypsy home contractors, many repairs of which exacerbated the decay) is too far gone and trying to fix it is going to be a waste of money that will lead to a loss of time and money invested. They'd be better off in the long run looking into some totally different better house, or if they must have that house and location, knocking down the rotted house and building a new one that looks like the old one but which has a coherent and efficient modern infrastructure underneath the gingerboard.
The younger person then will always say, "OK, boomer, so you think better things aren't possible. Whatever, cynical grandpa!", rolling their eyes. The old person shrugs because he expected nothing different. And the young one finalizes that purchase of the house and they set to being the latest owner that's going to fix it once and for all and maybe even flip it for a profit. Decades later, the house is worse off than when they started and they are broke.