I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before.
What’s some things currently making you ramble like an old man?
You are being proletarianized. No remaining vectors for new growth, means corporations are now also cannibalizing white collar workers.
The welfare states in northern Europe were created as a bulwark against the threat of unions “going Bolshevik,” that threat has been gone since 1991 so those concessions are being revoked. Elevated wages are also being revoked. Very explicitly in the case of France and Germany.
Americans are buying up EU assets for cheap, the USA is cashing out on their investments during the marshall plan. Either workers (through their unions) regain enough leverage through strikes or capitalists take everything since workers have no leverage.
Crazy rent price increases in metropolitan centers are also really just clawbacks on white collar wages.