I agree 100 percent! Unfortunately, I again seem to struggle with properly articulating my thoughts. To blame our young people for the moronic notions of our current social environment is grossly unfair. As you and others point out we all observe some very outstanding young people. However, it is not constructive to obfuscate the corrosive effects that muddle-headed philosophy has had on this generation, our generation and our father's generation.
I completely agree that the exorbitant cost of aviation simply makes it prohibitive for most young people to pursue. But the gut level question is why is it so expensive? There are a plethora of technical reasons which I am sure we will soon be reading about, but none will answer the root cause. I believe the root cause is our cultural decline evidenced by an increasing sense of entitlement. It most certainly is not the fault of this generation but they mirror even as they are victimized by it.
When Americans first began to view their government as a source of goods rather than the guardian of freedom, the die was cast. When a society desires to vote themselves resources rather than earn them a host of power hungry politicians will rise to indulge them. These despicable men fully understand that when they have the power to take from person A and give it to person B, they own both! Of course they pull this off by appealing to “compassion”. A charactered society would see right through this sham, but alas Americans are blinded in their lust for free stuff.
The economic consequences of these blunders are a government that continually borrows and prints worthless money driving inflation to the point that many things that were already expensive have now become prohibitively so.
I don’t suggest for a minute that this is all there is to it, but government willingness to exploit rather than discourage profligate spending is certainly significant. So while I don’t blame the current generation, neither do I absolve them when they line up to vote for a government that promises to forgive their college debt. The government has no right or authority to forgive that debt and neither does the student have the right to expect it.
I suspect that someday they will bemoan the profligacy of their children while forgetting their own. Why not? They learned from us.