Well-to-do millennials fret they won’t be insanely wealthy like their parents.

Lester Feder has a problem. He recently spent a week in Tuscany to celebrate his father’s 80th birthday. Lester is happy for his dad, but frets that he will struggle to match his parents' luxurious lifestyle and spending. (see link below)

Lester himself is reasonably well off. He’s a homeowner in NYC, with a killer mortgage rate, obtained well before Fed Chairman Jerome Powell unleashed a can of whoop-ass on the rest of us. Doubling the mortgage interest rate practically doubles the monthly payment.

Lester is a writer, musician, and photographer with a national reputation. He’s also insanely self-centered, entitled and out of touch. Homeowners in NYC envying other homeowners with nicer cribs? Really??? This isn’t a political or economic problem. It’s an education problem. Apparently, Lester’s parents sent him to the finest schools, but all he used to do was get juiced in it.

This is also the face of class warfare in America. People with homes and 401Ks and who are lined up to inherit big bucks when their parents finally pass away. People who turn their gaze ever upwards, never down or sideways. After the inheritance Lester’s biggest concern seems to be whether or not his 401K will grow large enough so that HE can have a Tuscan villa when he retires. He's unaware that half Americans don't have a 401K at all, and the other half have a median balance too low to even buy compact car.

How do we fix a problem like this? Not the challenge of retiring early and living abroad. But the problem of smug progressives walking the streets among us, who are clearly ignorant and unashamed about how the rest of the world lives. The educated elites in America believe they are doing their part by driving an EV and recycling. And that everyone else just needs to follow their example.

I don’t know how Lester – a NYC homeowner – feels about unimpeded immigration to the USA. His city’s budget was blasted to smithereens providing food clothing, shelter, and medical care for jobless migrants. Lester’s home probably has a gate, or a doorman, or something. At least I'm hoping it does. It's what I would ask for, if I could afford to own a home in New York City.

I also don’t know how Lester feels about taxes. My guess is that he didn’t vote for Trump, and that he (cough) disapproves of high import tariffs. Lester may lack the imagination to envision the living standards of the workers abroad who make America’s clothes, cars, and electronic toys. He probably does try to support local food producers. With the possible exception of wine, cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basmati rice, coffee, tea, bananas, siracha peppers, mangos, pomegranate juice . . .

Lester certainly isn’t signing up for a higher inheritance tax. That’s okay, because Trump’s not going in that direction anyway. Higher inheritance taxes was a Biden wish list item. Does Lester secretly pray for the return of deductibilty of NY state income taxes on his federal tax return? That would lower his tax bite considerably. Damn you, Trump, for that! And you too, Biden, for not repealing it . . .

There is not a single word in Lester's Tuscany travel tale about how ordinary Italians live. Apparently in Tuscany they stay out of sight. Lester did not observe middle easterners are flooding across the Mediterranean into Italy to escape poverty and oppression. That trip is more arduous than crossing the Rio Grande to reach America. Where are the Africans migrating to? To find work building skyscrapers in Dubai and Saudi Arabia?

Lester – if you’re reading this, be assured that I do not hate you. In fact, I feel your pain. It’s just that you seem oblivious to the pain of others. It’s a disease of the well to do, and apparently one without any cure.

I'm just sayin' . . .

Rise of Millennial Retirement Panic: People Worry Saving Isn't Enough - Business Insider