"They spent 3 weeks in Europe a month ago"

For what it's worth, it's hard to know what to do. For a lot of people your 20's are about the only time you can spend three weeks in Europe if you're American (most don't get paid holidays). By the time you're in your thirties there's a decent chance you've found yourself stuck to a spouse, a kid, alimony, or a mortgage, and even if you do go the experience won't be the same.

The other issue here is that even if the numbers show otherwise it's easy to be cynical about saving. If you actually need your money to be safe your options are limited. Even index funds go down, and saving for retirement, while a good idea, is a bet that not one government between now and your death will decide to just take it (Poland). Or dump cash in to the market using QE and devalue your assets (everywhere) or just declare some of your money invalid (India).

Keep in mind that even the NYSE is basically a crapshoot. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/02/business/20110...

So you think "hey, real estate!", but if you don't already own a home in a lot of places it's hardly worth trying until the next global collapse (any day now...). I may be jaded having watched a lot of people dump their money in to houses just to be completely destroyed anyway reveals they'd have been better off renting and blowing the rest on hedonism (or better yet, bitcoin).

Also, you're going to die anyway. Money is good for having fun. Is the fun you have now less valuable than the fun you have later? My dad was responsible and dull his whole life, taking the occasional 10 day trip like a good American is supposed to (nothing longer!). He's going to retire soon, but he can't hike like he used to and his wife has Parkinson's. It served as a reminder to me to have a bit of fun in youth before bodily decay accelerates. It's painful to hear his regrets.

If they're instantly poor that suggests your friend maybe took this to an extreme (even I made sure I had a few months of expenses before farting around Europe in my 20's) but still, maybe even poor people should have some fun and the push to save is part of a massive collective delusion to pretend we're not mortal.

But that's the basic point: premium mediocre represents the belief that three weeks in Europe is the right choice when you're young and near broke. It's this part of the millenial value set (whatever their economic prospects) that starkly contrasts them from past generations.

Certainly if you expect to have good economic prospects. I don't think it's a new phenomenon either; "Europe on $5 a day" was the classic Boomer travel book.

https://www.smartertravel.com/2017/06/19/56-years-later-euro...

"Certainly if you expect to have good economic prospects."

But I think the idea is that maybe this is true even if you expect to have _bad_ economic prospects. If I worry that the future is grim no matter what I may just say "screw it, I'm having my fun. We all wind up in the dirt anyway".

Traditionally we're told we should have expensive thing x ["homeownership", "retirement account", "family with kids in private school", "beautiful objects"] but if x is impossible I'll go with y ["traveling around Europe", "nice musical instrument", "bit more hedonism than I might have otherwise", "nice craft beer and dinner"], because I might as well spend my money on a good that's attainable. If you can save up a down payment for a home in only 20 years then why the hell bother? Hell, you might wind up buying a house just to have flood insurance jump 10,000% because the seas are rising.

*http://money.cnn.com/gallery/real_estate/2017/06/07/how-long...

Put in other words - for the person who has no prospect of ever owning a home, why should they save for a down payment instead of using it in some other way?

Of course, there is a continuum and plenty of folks are threadbare in retirement and regret not saving. I just think there are probably also plenty of folks who:

• saved and lost it because of political or economic instability (note the examples I cited), wishing they'd just had fun with the money.

• saved and had money to spend while their bodies rotted away so it didn't do them any good.

• didn't save and lived an austere life in their later years but figured it was worthwhile.

• died. •• We don't all make it to 75+. Once I hit my thirties I was startled as more of my friends and acquaintances started dying. I'm more willing to spend money on travel, friends, etc. as a result.

but we hear their stories less often. I don't know whether this is because they occur less often.

I'm not endorsing completely throwing away the idea of saving but I can see how when someone finally gets the chance to do what they want they figure they'll go for it because the goals we're ostensibly supposed to strive for are never gonna happen.

Also, we see everything through the lens of our own experience and my own is substantially biased by having spent a lot of time in the bay and LA not getting anywhere (admittedly my skillset was smaller then), then striking up a conversation over the pronunciation of JSON with a random guy in a pub in Dublin during the aforementioned farting around Europe and getting an interview out of it and now having a decent job and over a month off a year that I'm not guilted for using in a city where I might reasonably expect to own a home within the next couple years, not the next couple decades. YMMV.

"and even if you do go the experience won't be the same."

Off topic, but say someone is a late-20s/early-30s guy who for financial reasons wasn't able to do the "backpacking Europe/Australia/NZ/whatever" thing, how does the experience significantly change throughout the 30s/40s? I know a few people who still do this.

"maybe even poor people should have some fun and the push to save is part of a massive collective delusion to pretend we're not mortal."

This ties into something I've thought for a while and while reading the article. Basically "premium mediocre" is just another variant of materialism. That somehow material goods (of a sufficiently high caliber) are an intrinsic good, and that obtaining/consuming them brings about some intrinsic benefit to one's life, just a variant shaped to the particular existential angst of millennials. But there's an out: maybe the most lasting and significant experiences of one's life are one's that take place/are primarily a function of one's mind. From the outside it may seem much less substantial or obvious, but why can't millennials consider spiritual progress, mental self-discipline, grand experience, or cultural exploration (say bumming around Europe for a while) to be a primary aspiration, even if it leaves them relatively broke at the end of the day? To an extend they do, and I'm not sure that's such a terrible thing.

>Off topic, but say someone is a late-20s/early-30s guy who for financial reasons wasn't able to do the "backpacking Europe/Australia/NZ/whatever" thing, how does the experience significantly change throughout the 30s/40s? I know a few people who still do this.

Well, not the same wonder / starry eyed optimism for everything you see, not as easily content on sleeping in any kind of accommodation (not many 30s/40s will sleep in bunker bed hostels for example), less casual sex, less bodily demanding "adventures", etc.

Not qualitatively or remarkably different than 20s though, in the 30s, as Carl indicated. After all the decade distinction is arbitrarily chunked off, whereas actual change in these attributes is linear/gradual. In addition I've seen many cases where each of these experiences improve over time, e.g. someone in their 50s/60s being finally exposed to the wonder and reality of other cultures, whereas in 20s, it may not stand out as much compared to other youth/20s experiences.

I remember being in my early 20's and hosteling around and doing pub crawls and the like and thinking "man, everyone must stop having fun when they hit 30". I imagine you're less likely to do the pub crawl/random hookups/wandering around a new city at 4 AM thing in your 50's than in your 20's (though now that I say that I know some people in their 50's who definitely keep up just fine...) Now that I'm a good way in to my thirties I definitely do less stuff like that, but then, life hasn't proved to be too dull.

Then again, I still remember fondly a couple in their 70's I met in a hostel in Prague who were finally doing their round the world trip. They were the exception though.

Regardless, though, I think that life is generally different at 40+ than at 25 and that will be manifested in travels. Even if you're the same, the folks around you won't be (people will definitely treat someone who looks 45 in a hostel differently to someone who looks 25). It's not worse (and in some ways it's much better; I like not being broke), but the experience is definitely different.

I can relate to this all too much. All my non-tech friends are struggling to get into tech someway, and my programmer friends sit comfortably in their premium mediocre. Interestingly enough, my non-tech friends seem to be the ambitious ones wanting to climb above that level. They are the ones who talk about reform and quasi communist ideas, while the developers sit quietly and comfortably at their computers, not giving class any thought. I am somewhere in between right now, piled with student debt wanting to get out, but wanting to spend those 3 weeks in Europe too.

The US employment rate is so high that the risk of being long-term unemployed is pretty low, outside some special groups and places (e.g. coal miners, coal towns).

Interest rates are also historically low.

Thus the effective discount rate on money is super low. It's a good time to take a European vacation, particularly when you are young and child free. It's gonna cost a lot more later, and you might be less secure, not more.

The unemployment figures are mostly a fiction. The true rate of joblessness has been concealed by the huge increase in SSDI claimants, discouraged workers, people in involuntary self-employment and underemployed workers in part-time or casual jobs. There's a vast disparity between the number of people who officially count as unemployed and the number of people who want a full-time job but can't get one.

Yeah this post would be a lot more interesting with a good editor

> the rate of downward mobility among my young, bourgeoisie 20-somethings friends in NYC is shocking

i dunno, i'd argue these people aren't downwardly mobile because they were never upper middle class to begin with (bourgeoisie). if you have no saved money and your family can't just straight up give you money to live if you lose your job, you're lower to lower middle at best. better luck next time, etc.

and if the parents have the money but aren't willing -- then they are but a cleverly constructed socioeconomic facsimile of the upper classes, but aren't truly that thing. the upper classes will stop at nothing from ensuring their progeny maintains or outperforms their own status. to them, that's _the whole point_ of having money. by definition they will give their wealth to their offspring in times of need, barring exceptional circumstances like enabling alcoholism or something equally untoward.

upper middle and upper class kids can fuck off to do a phd for 8 years, or traipse around europe, or attempt to launch a business and fail, with basically no consequence whatsoever.

btw the 'classes' really are a [not quintile] system, like in economics. the interesting thing is the money is secondary, it's social status that really matters. and by this, i mean it is exceedingly unlikely for classes 4 and 5 to fall down, because their money is entrenched in the financial system. i.e. they own stuff and would literally have to work at liquidating and spending it all, in a sort of drawn out socioeconomic suicide.

1. lower class (poor people) 2. lower middle class 3. middle class 4. uppper middle class 5. upper class

Your post hits the nail on the head, but complicates things more than needed.

The whole idea of "middle class" is a fiction that supports the behaviours discussed in the article. In the real world, it doesn't actually exist in any meaningful way. You're either working class or you're not. If you can walk away from your job today and never look back, congrats! You're not working class. But for everyone else, you're stuck and putting a fancy label on things doesn't change much.

I disagree. While the terms "lower middle class" and "upper middle class" are perhaps unnecessary, the term "middle class" itself is an important economic (and socioeconomic) distinction, although its exact definition is highly contentious.

Here are my own definitions (it's important to note that sometimes people don't fit neatly into a single category):

Lower Class (also called the Working Class, or the Working Poor): They live paycheck-to-paycheck, usually at job(s) that have low pay, shifting schedules, no benefits, low job security and no possibility for long-term career-building. They own very few assets, if any, and rent/borrow most things. They are usually one medical emergency away from financial ruin (at least in the USA). They are too worried about tomorrow and the next week to worry about further into the future.

Middle Class: These people have fairly stable jobs that have decent pay and benefits. They often build careers around those jobs and it becomes part of their identity, which can be seen in the way they think of themselves and introduce themselves to others (e.g. "I'm an accountant"). They own or make payments towards owning core assets such as house. They sometimes own small businesses. If they lose their jobs, they can use their skills and connections to find another, but it can take some time. They tend to plan and save for the future, at least passively (e.g. 401k accounts).

Upper Class: The upper class is defined primarily by wealth. Even when upper class folks don't have "fuck you money", their wealth enables them levels of comfort that can only be dreamed of by the Lower Class, and is looked up to by the Middle Class. Work tends to be optional for most, and tends to be about prestige and social class rather than a necessity. When they lose their jobs, it's mostly because of corporate politics or some sort of scandal, and they can trivially find another job using their connections (usually an email or phone call is sufficient).

I'm not sure about that, because there is such a huge range of "need to work" lives.

Taking it for granted that everything but "upper class" means "has to work", it's still worth drawing distinctions amongst the non-upper-classes. Those differences do exist in very meaningful ways, all the way down to life expectancy.

You can't just trivialize away the difference between "college? how the fuck would I afford that?" and "it's 100% expected that I'll go, and my parents can pay the entire thing with zero debt".

If you're going by quintiles your upper middle class is 60th-80th percentile. That's 66k-105k household income for their parents. Even if you gave a 40% bump for NYC that's still not the life style you're describing.

yeah maybe not quintiles then. but i think there are 5 distinct classes, and probably not another number.

"it's social status that really matters" - that sounds like the "traditional" UK class system where money isn't a strong factor in where you are in the class spectrum.

i'd say money has a larger impact than in the UK but it's still secondary.