What scares me the most (here in the states anyway) is the absolute lack of fear of going into MASSIVE debt among people under 40.
I simply can't even imagine buying a $500,000 house if I don't have half that to put down on it (at least). But I know lots of younger couples making RIDICULOUS mortgage payments. They also make $600 car payments on new Tahoes and Lexus SUVs.
Some of them are musicians. And these guys will FINANCE a drum kit or a $8,000 PA system for their band.
Their monthly payments must be INSANE.
Let me put it to you this way. PART of the reason houses are so expensive is people having a PAYMENT mentality. You get to tue end of your month amd there's $3,000 left. You think "Well, I can afford a $2,000 mortgage payment and still have money in the bank!" Nest thing you know they're putting a transmission for their car (that isn't even CLOSE to being paid off) on a credit card because there isn't enough in the bank to cover it.
If we were only able to put a grand a month away in savings I would he losing my mind. And yet there is a HUGE percentage of people here in the IS who.....
1).....slide into home plate every month BARELY making every payment, AND....
2) .....think they "deserve" another bass or a new car or a bigger house or a $10,000 Disney vacation amdanage to somehow squeeze one more payment into their budget.
It literally makes my stomach uneasy to even imagine living that way.
Do NOT finance a bass (or amp or pedal or whatever music gear) especially if you already have one and don't make a living playing music. That is simply idiotic. Period. Dumb. Stupid. Ridiculous. Insane. Not very bright. Stop it. Put down your freaking computer mouse, or phone, or iPad and go for a walk while you give yourself a lecture on not being an idiot.
I haven't heard any economists or "experts" saying this. But I think PART of this inflation is due to people who only care about surviving another month having gotten back to zero (or close to it) in their bank accounts.
You do not "deserve" anything you can't pay cash for with the obvious exceptions of a shelter and food and the POSSIBLE exception of a car. Everything else, if you can't hand over the money for it, you can't afford it and shouldn't get it.
Before you light into me, I have been FLAT BROKE TWICE in my life. And I practiced what I preached back then. Once I slept on a friend's couch for two weeks. When I got my own place, I got a mattress from a family member who was getting a new one and put that sucker on the floor of my bedroom. My clothes were literally stacked on the floor. I used paper plates and a plastic cup I had gotten from a baseball game a few years earlier. I drove a 15 year old car with 275,000 miles on it and clawed my way out with ZERO debt. I've lived it.
Make a mortgage and a credit card a LOT harder to get, and enforce WAY lower caps/limits on them. It will hurt for a little while. But after a few years IQs will rise and we'll settle into better times.
/rant
Or a place to rent 
