Читать книгу Financial Security For Dummies - Eric Tyson - Страница 22

Just about anyone who was raised in America doesn’t know how bad it can get economically in other systems because they simply haven’t experienced them. When it comes to quality of life for folks near the top, the middle, and near the bottom, capitalism is the best economic system.

That’s not anywhere near the case in countries like Greece that embrace socialism. Greece has the level of government involvement, federal programs, and widespread labor unions that progressives/socialists constantly argue for, and that is precisely what drove the country into default and wrecked their economy.

As recently as 2013, Greece’s unemployment rate hit a whopping 27.9 percent and was still more than 15 percent in mid-2021. Think about what a train wreck of an economy that is. And their stock market has been even uglier. From its peak in 1999, the Athens Stock Exchange General Index is still down more than 86 percent as of mid-2021.

Younger Americans, however, have come to believe that socialism is as good as or better than capitalism. According to Gallup,

“Since 2010, young adults’ positive ratings of socialism have hovered near 50 percent, while the rate has been consistently near 34 percent for Gen Xers and near 30 percent for baby boomers/traditionalists. At the same time, since 2010, young adults’ overall opinion of capitalism has deteriorated to the point that capitalism and socialism are tied in popularity among this age group. This pattern was first observed in 2018 and remains the case today.”

The more a person understands how the economy and financial markets work, the more likely they are to identify with and support free-market capitalism with a minimal role for government. I firmly believe, based upon many years now of observation and business world experience, that the increasing numbers of socialist-loving (and capitalist-hating) young adults in America are economically illiterate.