0:00 [Music] And welcome back everybody to another episode of the careful boys where we got Steve Chen with us y'all. Yeah. >> All right. General discussion topic about this. Okay. >> Sure. >> The American dream. >> Mhm. >> Right. Which is I think actually a very interesting concept because what we understood of it growing up and what we were even taught in school and what we aspired to want when we were younger or were witnessing I think it's very different today. I thought American dream was banging white girls. >> Oh, come on. >> My god. >> Then I'm living it. But I guess she's not really American. So British dream. We live in the British dream. >> The British dream. >> Um, so question and maybe you can start us off with this, Steve. >> Is the American dream still financially possible for most people or is it kind of a scam today?
0:50 >> What is the American dream? >> What how do you guys define it? >> We got to define it first. Yeah. >> Yeah. Don't not this one. >> You guys live a Chinese dream. >> Not whatever he said. How what's a Chinese dream? Let's talk about that. >> A Chinese dream is you buy a a house and then you knock it down and then you build a big house that doesn't have a backyard and then you bring all your family from China. That's a Chinese dream. >> I don't know if I have access to that dream. >> Chinese dream is going to casino making a billion dollars in $1. >> One pool. >> You go to the casino. Endless coins coming out. That's a Chinese fantasy. >> Yeah. >> No, it's a Chinese odyssey. >> I mean, the American dream I feel like was uh the ingredients involved being able to like work a stable, consistent
1:41 job that you can grow up in, climb the corporate ladder with that, >> own your home and pay it off. >> Own your home, pay it off, have some children, and retire at a certain point and be taken care of via your retirement. >> I always understood it as like whatever your aspiration was, there was a way out. make your dreams come true. >> Yeah, there was a path like nothing was like kind of like held from you like out of your reach. It's just a matter of distance. That's what I thought it was. >> Do I think it's attainable? Uh having Okay, so you said having a home paid off and then >> that's pretty much it. >> Stable job >> that you that you work. Are >> you talking about the white picket fence kind of dream? >> Yeah, white picket fence. I think that's the American dream. >> That is the American dream. You're right. Yeah. And then you're and then when you're retired, you're you're you're you get to like spend those time with your like wife, family. You don't have to worry about working anymore >> because you're also being taken care of by the system and all that stuff.
2:31 >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, I think people will disagree, but I think it's still pos I think it's possible, but it really depends on what it is that you do early on, >> right? So, if you're already like >> have a criminal record. >> Yeah. That right. >> Don't start in the negative. Maybe like you're already in your 50s and then like you're trying to get out of debt then yeah for for sure then that's not going to be attainable for them. But if you already have like okay so you you have kids who are like maybe 5 10 years old then they can totally be able to live that American dream but they have to start early right the power of the compound interest too. I do have to say that it is I mean with like home prices and everything it's been >> do you like the home prices right now? Yeah, it's I mean it's high. It's >> that's the argument, right? Is that the Gen Z argument? Like look at for
3:22 boomers. This is how much your price of a home is. Look how much it is for us. Like how are we ever going to attain what you attain? >> The chart says home prices went like this and median income increase went like this. >> I mean, it's hard to compare apples to apples though because like they didn't have access to the opportunities that we did. like boomers at their in their era like like they couldn't make the money that we did or we can't online and >> you know so they there was a ceiling >> surges of income you mean? >> Yeah. Or like for example right like even up until recently retail meaning like average people getting into investing in stocks was really ████ hard. Like you couldn't just buy stocks. You had to have like an agent download an app. They had to check and make sure you have enough money cuz they're like I
4:12 don't want to put you through risk. It was like hella hard, right? >> So the average person, unless you had like a 401k or whatever, you couldn't actually buy stocks like easily. So like boomers like forget about it. If you're just a regular dude, like you didn't and maybe you'll argue they didn't need to back then, right? >> Maybe they weren't as interested cuz doing okay. I showed all my employees like then, you know, I was like, I could tell I could I could I could show you as a teenager right now, if you work a minimum wage job, you're not even working like a top level job and you do the fire thing. Just put away money. Look, and I did a calculator. >> Teach your employees. >> I told them, I was like, "By the time you're 30, I know that feels like an eternity, you'll have half a mill." And they're like, "Half a million dollars?" And I'm like, "Just on minimum wage money." But and all you got to do is put most of that away in a in an index fund, which they can do now on like whatever Robin Hood or whatever. But they
5:02 couldn't do that back then, >> but it wasn't, you know. >> True. Yeah. >> But it is weird to have to do that as a response to the condition >> rather than it's just a fun thing to do with your money. Yeah. It's like you're doing it out of necessity. >> Well, you you know, there's also like these like u unspoken social norms that I think also affect like the the ability to do that, right? Because it's like for example, you think that you have to go to a certain type of college which racks up a very specific and certain amount of like large debt. So you're already starting your livelihood at maybe age 22 with debt which wasn't necessarily something that like boomers are before that for sure had that same experience. Or like when you get married, there's a social concept or norm that you're spending like 15 to $30,000 on your engagement ring to your wedding day. And so you're starting now your married life with your partner in another version of
5:53 debt because society said like it needs to be this type of way with these traditions and blah blah blah. >> No, you're right. Cuz the boomers didn't have to all go to college to have a decent life back then. Like they could work blue collar jobs or whatever. >> And boomers didn't have Instagram where they have to ████ take pictures of their engagement ring to ████ impress their friends. >> You have to do that. >> No, they they don't have to. >> So they just did everything based off how they feel. They don't got to, oh look at my wedding was ████ in Cancun or whatever. >> Expectations and quality of life change cuz I remember growing up and going to like Denny's was very special. >> Yeah. >> So like now it's we all go out to eat and broke people will go on Uber Eats and like pay extra money to get something delivered, right? But if you think about that was like a specialty like getting delivery pizza was like a special thing to do cuz you didn't have
6:43 that's not something and that's we weren't I don't think we were broke and in poverty but our you know if if you ask everybody like did you go out to eat how many times you go out to eat at a restaurant they're like no like special times >> there's like once a month or something. >> No but young families now we go like multiple times a week. >> That's true. >> So I think the quality of life or what we expect is different and think about vacations. A lot of people never went to vacations, period. Like, >> but now we got Instagram. We have to We have to show everyone where we went. >> Exactly. Everyone goes to vacations now. So, I'm like, I don't know, man. Maybe it's like we just expect to spend more. Our idea of what is normal is like it costs more. I don't know. >> What What would be your answer to something like that, Steve? If someone's like, I want to save, but it feels like um I guess not society, but it feels like it's impossible because this is the
7:33 level of lifestyle I'm used to. >> So, going back to the question like, do I think it's possible? I think it's totally possible. It really comes down to the three pillars, right? It's either you save, earn, invest. That's it. If you can optimize all these three, then you can totally do it. I'm more pro taking action. I see a lot of videos online. And it's like, oh, you know, like America's going to going down. You can't do this. You can't do this. You can't do this. They're just complaining. And I see that and I'm like, okay, I I get that, but what's the point of complaining? Your life will still be the same. You can either complain and do nothing or you can like do something about it, like optimize some things, right? So, in terms of savings, so you guys made a good point. A lot of the things that we see on Instagram, right? the vacations, the luxury cars, the watches, the shoes, whatever it is that causes us to want to buy more because we want to be kept up with the Joneses,
8:23 right? So, that's that there's that one psychological part. Even with Uber Eats, something that was uh that is a luxury to us getting Uber Eats like I I remember I got like a bowl of like neuromi and like a beef noodle soup that was like 2530 bucks or something like that. Just like one. >> Yeah. Right. It's delivered to my house. I was like, "What the heck?" But all the kids nowadays, you can't even see like Uber Eats like reports. Like they there's data that shows like people are just using Uber Eats all the time. To them it's like a normal thing and they say I don't want to say everyone but like you know a lot of them they they believe it's like a it's a normal thing to do, right? Compared to like maybe like us where we cook our that's that's the normal thing. We go to like Aldi's and we buy food, right? Cook it at home. So there's a lot of like higher expectations, right? um in terms of earning a lot of the people back then like what you said Joe we they didn't
9:15 have the opportunities that we have currently right now back then we didn't have access to a lot of knowledge easily because we had to go to like we want to learn something what do we do we go to the library we got to like look at a book and sometimes they don't even have the book at the public school library or public library right or you have to like know someone so you have to know someone who is in real estate and then you can talk to them have their phone number and call them but now we have everything we have like chatbt we Google Gemini AI, we have Google notebook, LM, whatever it is, right? We can search, all the information is already out there. So information is not really that big of a barrier anymore, right? And also in terms of investing, investing, when I first started investing, I had to pay $20 for every time I made a trade. >> Oh. And uh and even back then, you had Yeah, like you're right. Like you has you actually had to call them uh called
10:05 the brokerage to to put on a trade for you. >> So when I was when I started, they didn't have the $0 fees or anything. It was $20 per trade. >> I was just like, "Oh my god." Like, "Okay, sure. I'll do that." And then later it became like uh $7.99. I don't know if you guys remember like Scott Trade or something. >> Yeah. Something like or like E Trade and it became like $3.99 and became like uh 99 cents and now it's like free, right? Right. But then they have the bid assass spread. But that's that's another thing. But uh I would say like with saving, earning, investing, like you can do all three now easier nowadays. It's just with the saving part, it's more of that mindset, right? Like shifting our mindset like okay, everyone's doing this going on vacations. I don't need to do that. I can still go on vacations but less, right? Earn with earning potential. Like everyone can start an online business right now. I'm not saying it's easy to do. There's a lot of
10:55 self-discipline and a lot of grit that you have to have. But the resources are already out there. It's just >> do you want to do it? Do you want to take action? And can you carve out like 30 minutes or an hour a day to learn about this? Right? Which is very difficult for human beings. I understand that, right? And in investing, it's totally accessible for all of us nowadays. Robin Hood, right? Weeble, whatever, um, >> Fidelity, right? You can just do it on your phone. >> Yeah. And I don't know necessarily if we if we can compare like if things were easier for boomers or you know now >> because I I think we're also like from immigrant families. So their generation >> it's not really the same as like an Americanized family >> or maybe like if they were white or whatever and they they were they were here generationally >> that might just it's just two different ex experiences. One is like I just dodge
11:46 bullets and I'm trying to make it in this world. Yeah. you know, and then uh but like I think the opportunities is like if it hits now, you can go way quicker, higher. Like for example, if your mom, you know, she used to hustle the the lunch boxes, right? But imagine if she had Instagram and social media and how much more quickly like it would have gone like cuz some people they do they were doing like catering during COVID and some of the food just went viral and then people would just like order from their ghost kitchens or whatever, right? Mhm. >> So now we have access to like the whole city without having to call or like go door todo. So I think the hustle is like for hustlers like your customer base has now opened up. But then I do think though the barrier is more
12:36 difficult in terms of cost or like the amount like a million a poor home in LA is a million dollars, right? Like not like in a poor neighborhood. >> Crazy. And I'm like, bro, like that just doesn't match cuz the minimum wage hasn't changed that much. So to be able to like do that on a single income, I don't think that exists anymore. Yeah. So like the idea of maybe a single family like middle class um how it used to be, I don't know if I mean not not a single family, a single income family like with dad working, mom stay at home. I actually don't think that even was happening in the 90s. So I think that that maybe started stopping in the 70s if you think about it, right? Cuz by the time we were children, both of our parents were working. So that's not even the American dream anymore. And I think
13:26 that's the common experience. >> My parents needed to work. >> Yes. But that's also the thing you said were like, were the white families living that way too? >> You know what I mean? Like the ones that were here for like three gen, but then our parents just got here. They both definitely have to work. I think it it there were a lot of white families that were like um dual income like where the kids were latch I mean because that word latchy kid came from that our generation you know like kids after school just had to be home alone while both mom and dad were working and I do think that was the '9s like it started from ' 80s and on yeah but that nuclear family I think that's just I would say that's golden era American economics where after World War II we didn't have competition we had hella ████ money we had a boom booming industry. So also you didn't have um this big of a population and
14:16 workforce, right? So like you can pay people better and then there you know you could do blue collar jobs and then be paid cuz there was a scarcity, right? But now I think people don't see the population difference of we had 300 million plus plus hella free labor, right? Not free but like immigrant labor or whatever. And um we ma our we overseased a lot of our manufacturing which those were the jobs before that people had a decent income on. So you wipe that out and it's like more of a third world country if you think about it. So, I don't know if we'll ever go back to that because if you think about the population that are working class, how will they ever recover to being at the same level of 1950s America being able to like have a
15:08 home on a factory job? Unless it's like hella union protected, like you're working for Ford and you're making 200k for putting a button in a car, right? But those are very like far and few jobs. So I don't know >> plus we're working towards like an automated society like with machine learning robots even the whole night. So I guess yeah the in general the American dream is possible but it seems like the wealth gap is more probable and less people are likely to find like that kind of financial freedom if they don't do something >> really distinct innovative or or just >> if someone's looking for like the most stability and they're starting fresh like 17 18 I would highly uh recommend the military like if people are looking for that like stable um Well, like that
15:58 I guess traditional American dream cuz once you get in like even like Suben like he's done his own research. He's a one one of our other cast members. The minute you're married your wife or your spouse almost gets paid not to work >> cuz you get like this like almost like marriage allowance you know it's called they call B&H which is basic housing allowance and it's immediately like an additional 3500 to your monthly salary. So, like if me and Nicki get married, then I get immediately 3500. He gets to be a stay-at-home mom. >> And dad or dad. >> And generally, the bases aren't in crazy hot spots like New York or or LA. So, wherever you're stationed at, it is very possible for you to be under 21 and buy your first home. >> And then you also got like your healthcare taken care of. >> Healthare taken care of. You have your home is like, let's say you get stationed, I don't know, somewhere Georgia or whatever. It's 300 grand
16:49 >> and uh VA loan is 0% down. Uh but if you even go conventional loan or FHA, it could be 0% down or 20% down and you can >> and then while you're serving, all you got to do is like accidentally break a finger or something >> and you get disability. >> Yeah. So it's like you can >> That's so fun. >> But if you if you do the non-Chinese route, right, and then you and you just serve and you have your home and then like a lot of the people I've met now later on in the military, almost every place they got stationed, they just bought a home. So within their four years, if they're not like the stereotypical military idiot buying ████ Dodge Chargers and ████ if they do it responsibly, they can almost buy a home everywhere they go. And after their four years, when they're 21, they own like three or four homes and they're all just rental properties. >> You know what? And they didn't even really have to know Korean. That's it.
17:39 >> What a loophole. >> You know what's crazy though is what's not crazy, but our generation was told be white collar. don't work with your hands. You know, your mom told you that all this stuff. But now, because there's such a huge amount of people that didn't learn the trades, there's like a super big shortage of the trades like skilled >> and they make two 300k. >> They're in their 20s making like 200k because they said, "I'm not going to go that route. I'm going to go the apprentice route." So, they were apprentice at like, you know, super young age and then they just developed the skill set. So by the time they're 25, they got their own plumbing company. They're like killing it. And I'm like, yeah, dude. I mean, that's a that's a route in itself, you know? >> Yeah. It feels like the dream's different for everybody. >> It's just changing, right? >> But then but then that idea of the picket fence thing is that expired I think a long time ago. I don't think like you said like what are you going to
18:29 do? Just complain about it. Like you kind of have to adapt. >> There's no like complaining about AI. There's no complaining about anything. Like really that's moving faster than you can complain about it. I think a lot of people are moving away from home own home ownership into just renting and just putting their investments not into a home and just putting into like the markets or something like that >> cuz I think I mean I'm a homeowner myself and it's like sometimes I'm like why did I buy a home? Like why there's so many expenses I have like property tax, things are breaking all the time, right? But it's like it's might be just better just if I were to rent sometimes, right? And in most cases, if you do the math, cuz you don't have to like fix anything or whatever >> and just use that money that you save, but you got to do something with it. You can't just like leave it. You got to put it into some sort of investment that's going to grow over time. >> Right. >> Right. And it's also more liquid, too, compared to like with a home, you got to
19:20 you can't just sell a room or sell a window. You got to sell the entire property. Right. >> So, I would say it is for sure harder to get to. It's possible, but it's just there's a lot of friction to it. I mean, we're it's it's there's pros and cons from back then compared to what it is right now. >> Just more competitive now. >> That's right. It's I feel like accessibility is higher now, right? But then there's a lot of distractions, too, cuz it's just like, oh, like there's like so many like I can learn all this, but then at the same time, you're like, "Oh, I'm going to swipe on TikTok." And then just like, you know, >> that's true. We have way more entertainment than our grandparents did. >> We need to be like that much more focused, >> that more much more disciplined. It's hard. >> Everything's trying to grab your attention. It might have worked in your favor that you're introverted. >> Yeah. >> Just that. Yeah. Well, >> you know what I mean? Like >> cuz this guy went to jail. [Laughter]
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