This is a HeadGum podcast. I don't know what to think

I don't know what to say

and that's all right

yeah that's okay

I don't know how I'm going to be.

Hello, welcome to factually, I'm Adam Conover,

and you know, for those of us who came of age this century, we all have a sense

that we kind of inherited a fallen world, right?

Like the world sucks compared to the one our parents grew up in?

It wasn't like this for them, right?

They went to college for like a buck 50th semester.

They came out with a diploma and zero debt.

The dean gave them a handshake with eye contact

when they graduated. And then they fell in love got married they

bought a house affordable mortgages were apparently being handed out like band flyers in those days

and then they afforded to have kids like us hell they even had health insurance and a pension.

For our parents, a middle class life was achievable.

Not everybody achieved it, of course,

but the option seemed to be in reach for the majority. But today we know that things are different, right?

It feels much, much harder to get a good job now. It seems like all of our friends are

driving Uber for peanuts when they're not sending out resumes.

College is now so expensive that getting an education to give yourself a leg up means saddling yourself with crippling debt.

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