How the US Is Destroying Young People’s Future | Scott Galloway | TED

Summary

Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU, delivers a provocative TED Talk addressing the intergenerational wealth transfer from the young to the old in America. He argues that societal structures, such as education and housing policies, have been manipulated to favor the wealthy and older generations, leaving younger Americans with fewer opportunities and increased financial burdens. Galloway calls for a reevaluation of these systems, suggesting policies like increased funding for public education, a progressive tax structure, and social reforms to correct the imbalance and restore prosperity to the younger generation.

Takeaways

• 📚 Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU, delivered a presentation with a critical view on the current state of society and economy, particularly focusing on the well-being of younger generations.
• 🚀 He humorously introduced himself as a 'global television store' with a history of failed TV series, setting a candid and engaging tone for the talk.
• 💡 Galloway argues that the prosperity and opportunities for younger generations are diminishing compared to their predecessors, leading to a breakdown in the social contract and causing societal unrest.
• 🏠 The cost of housing and education has skyrocketed, making it harder for younger people to achieve financial stability and home ownership.
• 📉 He points out that minimum wage has been kept artificially low, contributing to the wealth transfer from the young to the old.
• 🏛️ Galloway criticizes the higher education system for being elitist and expensive, suggesting that it should focus on providing opportunities for the average student rather than catering to the wealthy.
• 💼 He proposes that wealthy universities should expand their enrollment and reduce tuition to be more accessible, comparing them to hedge funds rather than educational institutions.
• 💔 Galloway highlights the negative impacts of social media on young people's mental health and suggests that there is a need for stricter regulation and age restrictions.
• 👶 He emphasizes the importance of investing in children's well-being, suggesting policies such as universal pre-K, expanded child tax credits, and increased spending on childcare.
• 💰 The speaker calls for economic reforms, including a progressive tax structure, a negative income tax, and the elimination of capital gains tax deductions to address wealth inequality.
• 🌐 Galloway suggests that the current generation has been economically favored at the expense of future generations, who will have to deal with unprecedented levels of debt.

Q & A

What is Scott Galloway's profession and educational background?

Scott Galloway is a professor at NYU and has had four TV series in the last three years, two of which were canceled before or within six weeks of launch. He attended UCLA with a 2.23 GPA and was later accepted into Berkeley with a 2.27 GPA.

How does Scott Galloway describe the current state of TED conferences?

Scott Galloway humorously describes the TED conference as a 'telenovela' and suggests that it is the last TED, implying a decline in its relevance or quality.

What is the main issue Scott Galloway discusses regarding the younger generation's economic prospects?

Scott Galloway discusses the issue of the younger generation making less money on an inflation-adjusted basis compared to the previous two generations, and the increasing costs of buying a home and pursuing education.

What is the 'social contract' breakdown that Scott Galloway refers to?

The 'social contract' breakdown refers to the situation where a 30-year-old is no longer doing as well as his or her parents were at the same age, which is a departure from the fundamental agreement societies have with their citizens.

How does Scott Galloway view the current state of higher education in the United States?

Scott Galloway criticizes higher education for being both expensive and inaccessible. He accuses educators of focusing on increasing their compensation while reducing accountability, using strategies that create artificial scarcity and aspiration.

What does Scott Galloway propose as a solution to make higher education more accessible and affordable?

Scott Galloway suggests that the Biden administration should allocate funds to public institutions to reduce tuition, expand enrollments, and increase the number of vocational certifications and nontraditional degrees.

How does Scott Galloway describe the wealth transfer from young to old in the United States?

He describes it as a purposeful transfer where wealth and prosperity are increasingly concentrated among older and wealthier individuals, while younger generations face reduced opportunities and financial struggles.

What is Scott Galloway's opinion on the current state of Social Security in the United States?

Scott Galloway criticizes Social Security as a wealth transfer program from the young to the old, which he believes is bankrupting the nation. He suggests that eligibility should be based on need rather than age.

What are some of the negative consequences Scott Galloway associates with the rise of social media and technology on young people?

Scott Galloway associates the rise of social media and technology with increased rates of self-harm, depression, lack of sexual activity among teens, gun deaths, obesity, overdose deaths, and a decline in the birth rate.

What solutions does Scott Galloway propose to address the challenges faced by young people in America?

Scott Galloway proposes solutions such as increasing the minimum wage, restoring a progressive tax structure, reforming Social Security, implementing a negative income tax, removing capital gains tax deductions, breaking up Big Tech, age-gating social media, providing universal pre-K, reinstating the expanded child-tax credit, implementing term limits, and promoting income-based affirmative action.

How does Scott Galloway conclude his speech, and what is the central question he poses to the audience?

Scott Galloway concludes his speech by emphasizing the importance of children's well-being and prosperity, questioning whether the audience loves their children, and challenging them to consider whether they are willing to make the necessary changes to improve the situation for the younger generation.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Introduction and Social Contract Breakdown

Scott Galloway opens with a humorous self-introduction and sets the stage for a serious discussion. He highlights the shrinking opportunities and prosperity for younger generations, noting a decline in real income and escalating costs for homes and education. Galloway emphasizes the broken social contract, where younger individuals are not doing as well as their parents at the same age, leading to societal rage and shame. He points out the generational divide in how Americans view their country, with older individuals feeling positive while younger people are increasingly disillusioned.

05:02

🏛️ The Impact of Economic Policies on Generations

Galloway delves into the economic strategies that have led to a significant transfer of wealth from the young to the old. He criticizes the low minimum wage, the skyrocketing median home prices, and the manipulation of government by the wealthy to maintain their assets. Galloway also addresses the issue of higher education, pointing out its inaccessibility and the self-serving nature of institutions that focus on increasing compensation without accountability. He calls for a reevaluation of tax-exempt statuses for wealthy universities and suggests a redistribution of funds to public institutions to increase accessibility and affordability.

10:02

📉 The Great Intergenerational Theft and Its Consequences

In this section, Galloway discusses the economic policies during the COVID-19 pandemic that have exacerbated the wealth transfer, protecting the assets of the wealthy while burdening future generations with debt. He criticizes the bailout of banks over the economy in 2008 and the subsequent market crashes. Galloway also addresses the emotional and mental well-being of the young, pointing fingers at social media platforms like Facebook for contributing to issues such as self-harm, depression, and a decline in civic engagement. He presents a series of graphs illustrating the rise in various negative societal trends among the youth.

15:04

🌟 Potential Solutions and the Importance of Action

Galloway concludes with a call to action, outlining several potential solutions to address the challenges faced by the younger generation. He suggests measures such as increasing the minimum wage, implementing a negative income tax, eliminating capital gains tax deductions, and breaking up Big Tech monopolies. Additionally, he calls for age restrictions on social media, universal pre-K, reinstating the expanded child tax credit, and implementing term limits for representatives. Galloway emphasizes the need for a progressive tax structure and reforming Social Security based on need rather than age. He ends with a poignant reflection on the importance of children in our lives and questions society's commitment to their well-being and prosperity.

Keywords

💡Social Contract

The social contract refers to an implicit agreement between citizens and their government, where the government provides services and protection in exchange for the citizens' obedience to laws and taxes. In the video, Scott Galloway discusses how this contract is breaking down, as younger generations are not doing as well as their parents were at the same age, leading to a sense of rage and shame.

💡Minimum Wage

Minimum wage is the lowest wage permitted by a government or by a special agreement. Galloway points out that the minimum wage has been kept low relative to productivity, which he suggests is a reflection of how society values youth labor. He argues that if it had kept pace with productivity, it would be significantly higher.

💡Home Ownership

Home ownership is the state of owning a home, which is often considered a cornerstone of personal wealth and financial stability. The script discusses how the cost of buying a home has skyrocketed, making it increasingly difficult for younger generations to achieve, which is a contributing factor to the wealth transfer from the young to the old.

💡Higher Education

Higher education refers to education that takes place after the completion of a secondary education, such as at universities and colleges. Galloway criticizes the rising costs and lack of accessibility in higher education, arguing that it is no longer serving its purpose of providing opportunities for unremarkable students to become remarkable.

💡LVMH Strategy

The LVMH strategy, as mentioned by Galloway, refers to a business tactic where supply is artificially constrained to create a sense of scarcity and aspiration, allowing for higher prices. He likens this to the strategy used by higher education institutions to increase tuition fees faster than inflation, which he sees as a problem.

💡Wealth Transfer

Wealth transfer is the movement of assets or capital from one generation to another or from one economic class to another. In the context of the video, Galloway discusses the intentional transfer of wealth from younger, less affluent generations to older, more affluent ones, which he views as a form of intergenerational theft.

💡Social Security

Social Security is a government program designed to provide financial support to retirees, disabled individuals, and their dependents. Galloway argues that the program, while intended to help the elderly, is effectively a transfer of wealth from the young to the old and should be means-tested to ensure it serves those in need.

💡Child Poverty

Child poverty refers to the state of children living in households with income less than a certain threshold, often resulting in inadequate living conditions. The video script highlights that while senior poverty has decreased, child poverty has remained flat or increased, indicating a societal issue that needs to be addressed.

💡Corporations and Capital

Corporations and capital refer to business entities and the financial assets owned by individuals or entities. Galloway discusses how, over the past 40 years, corporations and capital have outperformed labor in terms of wealth accumulation, leading to a disparity in wealth distribution.

💡Progressive Tax Structure

A progressive tax structure is a system where the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases. Galloway suggests that restoring a progressive tax structure, including an alternative minimum tax on corporations and wealthy individuals, is necessary to address wealth inequality.

💡Affirmative Action

Affirmative action is a policy that aims to increase opportunities for members of underrepresented groups. In the script, Galloway proposes a reevaluation of affirmative action, suggesting it should be based on economic status rather than race or ethnicity, to better address the needs of the disadvantaged.

Highlights

Scott Galloway humorously introduces himself as a failed global television store with a history of canceled TV series.

He provocatively declares the event as the last TED, implying a significant shift in the paradigm of ideas and discussions.

Galloway satirizes the event's theme and host, likening it to a telenovela and poking fun at the format.

He raises a critical question about the love for our children, setting the stage for a discussion on generational prosperity.

Galloway presents a stark reality where younger generations are earning less than their predecessors, adjusted for inflation.

He points out the inverse relationship between age and prosperity, indicating a broken social contract.

Galloway discusses the disparity in how different age groups view America, with younger people feeling less positive.

He criticizes the low minimum wage and its impact on youth labor, suggesting it's kept artificially low.

Galloway highlights the skyrocketing cost of homes relative to income and the implications for wealth transfer.

He argues that the wealthy have weaponized government to protect their assets, hindering new entrants from acquiring wealth.

Galloway reflects on his own educational journey, emphasizing the importance of higher education in creating opportunities.

He criticizes higher education for its focus on increasing compensation while reducing accountability.

Galloway calls for a rethinking of higher education funding and strategy, suggesting a shift towards technology and scale.

He discusses the disparity between wage growth and corporate profits, indicating a shift in wealth towards capital.

Galloway criticizes the Social Security system as a wealth transfer from the young to the old, rather than a social safety net.

He argues that representatives are more responsive to older voters, leading to policies that favor the elderly.

Galloway suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic was used as an opportunity to accelerate wealth transfer to the older generation.

He calls for a series of policy changes to address the challenges faced by the younger generation, including economic and social reforms.

Galloway concludes by questioning society's love for its children and urging action to ensure their well-being and prosperity.

Transcripts

My name is Scott Galloway,

I teach at NYU, and I appreciate your time.

I have 44 slides and 720 seconds.

Let's light this candle.

(Laughter)

OK so for those of you who don't know me,

I'm actually a global television store.

True story.

I've had four TV series in the last three years.

Two of them have been canceled before they were launched,

and two were canceled within six weeks.

Let's recap.

(Video) If we want to juice this thing,

if we want to put a cattle prod up the ass of the economy.

Bloomberg.

The most trusted name in financial news.

Not for long.

Andrew Yang: I'm going to do whatever I can for this country of ours.

Scott Galloway: Jesus, come on, dude, you’re 0 for two.

(Video ends)

Face for podcasting.

So first insight of the day.

I'd like to be the first person to welcome you to the last TED.

(Laughter)

OK.

By the way, it's clear -- what's it called?

What are we here for?

“The Brave and the Brilliant?”

It's clear that Chris is a frustrated soap opera producer.

(Laughter)

Essentially what we have here is a telenovela

where, after a night of unbridled passion

between Bill Gates and Malcolm Gladwell,

they give birth to their bastard love child,

Simon Sinek.

(Laughter)

OK, I start us with a question.

Do we love our children?

Sounds like an illegitimate question, right?

Well, I'm going to try and convince you otherwise.

Essentially, as we go down generations,

we're seeing that for the last two generations,

people are making less money on an inflation-adjusted basis.

In addition, the cost of buying a home,

the cost of pursuing education, continues to skyrocket.

So the purchasing power, the prosperity, is inversely correlated to age.

Simply put, as we get younger,

we're taking away opportunity and prosperity from our youngest.

The social contract that is now no longer in place

and for the first time in the US's history,

a 30-year-old is no longer doing as well as his or her parents were at 30.

This is a breakdown in the fundamental agreement we have with any society,

and it creates rage and shame.

(Applause)

As a result, people over the age of 55 feel pretty good about America,

but less than one in five people under the age of 34

feel very good about America.

This creates an incendiary.

Righteous movements,

cuts to our society end up becoming opportunistic infections

because generally speaking, young people have a warranted envy,

they're pissed off and they're angry

that they don't enjoy the same spoils and prosperity

that were provided to our generation.

A decent proxy for how much we value youth labor is minimum wage,

and we've kept it purposely pretty low.

If it had just kept pace with productivity,

it'd be at about 23 bucks a share.

But we've decided to purposely keep it low.

Out of reach.

Median home price has skyrocketed relative to median household income.

As a result, pre-pandemic, the average mortgage payment was 1,100 dollars,

it's now 2,300 dollars

because of an acceleration in interest rates

and the fact that the average home has gone from 290,000 to 420.

By the way, the most expensive homes in the world,

based on this metric, are number three, Vancouver.

Why?

Because 60 percent of the cost of building a home goes to permits.

Because guess what, the incumbents that own assets have weaponized government

to make it very difficult for new entrants to ever get their own assets,

thereby elevating their own net worth.

This is the transfer I'm going to be speaking about.

(Applause)

This has resulted in an enormous transfer of wealth,

where people over the age of 70

used to control 19 percent of household income,

versus people under the age of 40, used to control 12.

Their wealth has been cut in half.

This isn't by accident, it's purposeful.

This is me at UCLA in 1987.

I know your first thought is I haven't changed a bit.

(Laughter)

This is also Mia Silverio,

who is the analyst who put together these slides.

By the way, Mia is 26.

I did the math, just by virtue of her being in this audience,

it brings the average age of the entire conference down 11 days.

(Laughter)

When I applied to UCLA, the admissions rate was 76 percent.

Today, it's nine percent.

I received a 2.23 GPA from UCLA.

I learned nothing but how to make bongs out of household items

and every line from "Planet of the Apes."

And the greatest public school in the world, Berkeley,

decided to let me in with a 2.27 GPA.

And that's what higher ed is about.

Higher ed is about taking unremarkable kids

and giving them a shot at being remarkable.

(Applause)

And every year it's gotten more expensive.

Higher ed and homes and the ability --

not only is higher ed incredibly expensive,

it's not accessible.

Because me and my colleagues are drunk on luxury,

and I'll come back to that.

We've embraced the ultimate strategy.

Me and my colleagues in higher ed wake up every morning

and ask ourselves the same question when we look in the mirror.

How can I increase my compensation while reducing my accountability?

(Laugter)

And we have found the ultimate strategy.

It's called an LVMH strategy,

where we artificially constrain supply to create aspiration and scarcity

such that we can raise tuition faster than inflation.

And old people and wealthy people have done the same thing with housing.

All of a sudden, once you own a home,

you become very concerned with traffic,

and you make sure that there's no new housing permits.

And here is a memo to my colleagues in higher ed:

we’re public servants, not fucking Chanel bags.

(Applause)

Harvard is the best example of this.

They've increased their endowment in the last 40 years

and have decided to expand their enrollment,

their freshman class, by four percent.

Any university that doesn't grow their freshman class

faster than population

that has over a billion dollars in endowment

should lose their tax-free status

because they're no longer in higher education.

They're a hedge fund offering classes.

(Cheers and applause)

My first recommendation:

Biden should take some of that 750 billion

earmarked to bail out the one third of people that got to go to college

on the backs of the two thirds that didn't

and give a billion dollars to our 500 greatest public institutions,

size-adjusted, in exchange for three things.

One, they use technology and scale to reduce tuition by two percent a year,

expand enrollments by six percent a year

and increase the number of vocational certifications

and nontraditional four-year degrees by 20 percent.

Where does that get us?

In just ten years,

in just ten years, that doubles the freshman seats

and cuts the cost in half.

This isn't radical.

This is called college in the '80s and '90s.

Another transfer of wealth.

Look at what's happened to wages.

Oh, they've gone up?

Not as much as corporate profits.

There's a healthy tension between capital and labor.

But for the last 40 years, capital has been kicking the shit out of labor.

Well, you think, what about wages, right?

They've gone up.

Well if you compare them to the S and P, they barely register.

It's been an amazing time to own assets.

But your attempt to get the certification or the income

such that you can acquire assets has gotten harder and harder.

In my class of 300 kids, it's never been easier to be a billionaire,

it's never been harder to be a millionaire.

By the way, our job in higher ed

isn't to identify a top one percent of people

who are freakishly remarkable or have rich parents

and turn them into a super class of billionaires.

It's to give the bottom 90 a chance to be in the top ten.

(Applause)

You know who doesn't need me or higher education?

The top 10 percent.

The whole point of higher ed is to give the unremarkables, i.e. yours truly,

who was raised by a single immigrant mother,

a shot of being remarkable.

The transfer has been purposeful.

While the cohorts, corporations and the ultra-wealthy

continue to garner more and more of our wealth,

we have decided, "I know, if they win the gold,

let’s give them the silver and the bronze, and let’s lower their taxes.”

This transfer is purposeful.

It’s not by accident, and it works.

Senior poverty is way down, and we should celebrate that.

Meanwhile, child poverty is flat to up.

The third rail.

I'm going to talk about Social Security.

It would cost 11 billion dollars to expand the child tax credit.

But that gets stripped out of the infrastructure bill.

But the additional 135 billion dollars a year to Social Security,

that flies right through Congress.

And every year we transfer 1.4 trillion dollars

from a cohort that is increasingly doing less well

to the cohort that is the wealthiest cohort

in the history of this planet.

I'm not against Social Security, but the criteria should be if you need it,

not whether you have a catheter.

80 percent of you,

80 percent of you have absolutely no reason

to ever take Social Security.

It is bankrupting our nation.

And we have fallen under this mythology

that somehow it's this great social program.

No it's not.

It's the great transfer of wealth from young to old.

(Applause)

How is this happening?

Because our representatives are in fact, representative.

Old people vote.

Washington has become a cross

between the "Land of the Dead" and "The Golden Girls."

(Laughter)

Quite frankly, this is fucking ridiculous.

And if I sound ageist --

(Applause)

If I sound ageist, I am.

And you know who else is ageist?

Biology.

(Laughter)

When Speaker Pelosi had her first child,

get this, two thirds of households didn't have color televisions,

and Castro had just declared martial law.

But she's supposed to understand

the challenges of a 17-year-old girl who’s 5′ 9", 95 pounds,

getting tips on dieting and extreme dieting from Facebook?

She's supposed to understand the challenges

that a 27-year-old single mother faces?

By the way, young and dreamy.

(Laughter)

Young and dreamy.

(Applause)

The great intergenerational theft took place under the auspices of a virus.

I know, let's use the greatest health crisis in a century

to really speed-ball the transfer.

This is the Nasdaq from 2008 to 2012.

We let the markets crash.

And by the way, you need churn,

you need disruption because it seeds and recalibrates advantage and wealth

from the incumbents to the entrants.

It's a natural part of the cycle.

But wait, lately, no,

a million people dying would be bad.

But what would be tragic is if we let the Nasdaq go down

and guys like me lost wealth.

So we pumped the economy,

which again, increased the massive transfer of wealth.

The best two years of my life?

Covid -- more time with my kids, more time with Netflix,

and the value of my stocks absolutely exploded.

And who has to pay for my prosperity?

Not me.

Future generations who will have to deal with an unprecedented level of debt.

Why am I here, and why do I get the prosperity I enjoy?

Because in 2008 we bailed out the banks,

but we didn't bail out the economy.

We let the markets fall.

So as I was coming into my prime income-earning years,

I got to buy, no joke, these stocks at these prices.

This is where those stocks are now.

Where does a young person find disruption?

When you bail out the baby boomer owner of a restaurant,

all you're doing is robbing opportunity from the 26-year-old graduate

of a culinary academy that wants her shot.

We need disruption.

(Laughter)

I just like this slide.

It has no context or relevance.

(Laughter and cheers)

We're economically attacking the young,

but I know, let's attack their emotional and mental well-being.

Let's take advantage of the flaws in our species

with medieval institutions, Paleolithic instincts

and godlike technology.

I'm just going to say,

I think Mark Zuckerberg has done more damage to the young people in our nation

while making more money than any person in history.

(Applause)

Oh, but wait, it could be worse.

It's as if we let an adversary implant a neural jack into our youth

to raise a generation of civic, military

and business leaders that hate America.

How can we be this stupid?

(Laughter)

This all adds up to a bunch of graphs all headed up into the right.

And what are they?

What's the first one?

Oh, that's self-harm rates, which have exploded,

especially among girls since my colleague Jonathan Haidt pointed out,

it's really, really gone crazy since social went on mobile.

What's the next one?

Teens with depression.

The next one, men and women not having sex.

Biggest fear of my parents was that I was going to get in too much trouble.

My biggest fear, honestly,

is that my kids aren't going to get into enough trouble.

My advice to every young person watching this program

is go out, drink more and make a series of bad decisions

that might pay off.

(Laughter and applause)

Next graph, cumulative gun deaths.

You're more likely to be shot in the United States

if you're a toddler or an infant than a cop.

Next graph, obesity, way up.

By the way, the industrial food complex wants to addict you to shitty, fatty foods

so they can hand you over to the industrial diabetes complex.

We should not romanticize obesity.

You're not finding your fucking truth.

You're finding diabetes.

(Laughter and applause)

Overdose deaths, way up.

Deaths of despair.

When I was in high school, it was drunk driving,

now it's kids killing themselves.

Young people don't want to have kids anymore.

Two-thirds of people aged 30 to 34, able-bodied,

used to decide to have at least one child.

It's been cut in half.

It's now less than a third, 27 percent.

As a result, people over the age of 60 in the US, pretty happy.

People under the age of 30, not so much.

Some of the lowest in the free world.

What can we do?

Nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with it.

We got the hard stuff figured out.

There are programs to address all of these issues,

they cost a lot of money, that's the hard part.

And we have figured this out.

In just five minutes post an earnings call,

we can add a quarter of a trillion dollars to the economy.

We've got the hard part figured out, the resources.

We have the money, but we decide not to do it.

This is per-capita spending on child care in the United States

relative to other nations.

This is housing permits.

Things are doable.

We increase minimum wage at 25 bucks an hour,

it goes into the economy.

The wonderful things about low- and middle-income households

is they spend all their money.

We have to have or restore a progressive tax structure

with alternative minimum tax on corporations and wealthy individuals.

We need to refund the IRS.

We need to reform Social Security.

It should be based on whether you need the money,

not on how old you are.

We need a negative income tax.

My friend Andrew Yang screwed up a great idea,

but he branded it incorrectly.

Instead of calling it UBI,

he should’ve got Republicans on board by calling it a negative income tax.

(Laughter)

We need to eliminate the capital gains tax deduction.

When did we decide that the money that capital earns

is more noble than the money that sweat earns?

Shouldn't it be flipped?

(Applause)

We need to remove 230 protection for all algorithmically-elevated content.

We need identity verification.

The reason we can have identity verification

is because we have a First Amendment.

Break up Big Tech.

We have monopolies that are incurring greater and greater costs

on every small business and parents because again, see above,

our representatives don't understand these technologies.

We need to age-gate social media.

There's absolutely no reason anyone under the age of 16

should ever be on social media.

(Applause)

We need universal pre-K.

We need to reinstate the expanded child-tax credit.

We need term limits, see above, Andrew Yang.

We need income-based affirmative action.

Any visible signs of affirmative action make no sense at all.

You would rather be born gay or non-white,

in the United States today than poor.

And that's a sign of our progress

and our need to recalibrate who we give advantage to.

Affirmative action, of which I’m a beneficiary --

I got Pell Grants, I got unfair advantage --

affirmative action is a wonderful thing, and it should be based on color:

it should be based on green.

How much money you have or don't have.

Expand college enrollment in vocational programs.

Mental health, ban phones in schools, invest in third places,

Big Brothers and Sisters programs.

We need national service.

We need to tell people in the United States and Canada

that they live in the greatest countries in the world,

and we need to remind them of that every day

by exposing them to other great Americans where they feel connective tissue.

We can do all of this.

We can do all of it.

We have the resources.

The question is, do we have the will?

This is my last slide.

It is an emotionally manipulative slide to try and get you to like me more.

(Laughter)

But it does have a message.

This is the whole shooting match.

Anybody here without kids, ask someone with kids.

You have your world of work,

you have your world of friends, you have your world of kids.

Something happens here, your whole world shrinks to this.

(Applause)

So I present, as I wrap here, with just a few questions.

One,

if you acknowledge that our kids are the most important thing in our lives,

that everything else we do here is meaningful,

but our kids' well-being and prosperity is profound.

If you acknowledge that they're doing more poorly

than previous generations.

If you believe there’s a chance

that the illusion of complexity has done nothing but provide cloud cover

for the unbelievable transfer of good will,

of well-being and of prosperity from young to old.

And if you believe we can actually fix these problems

and we have the resources,

then I present to you, I posit,

I augur the question that I hope has more veracity

than it did 17 minutes and 24 seconds ago.

And that's the following question.

Do we love our children?

My name is Scott Galloway,

I teach at NYU, and I appreciate your time.

(Cheers and applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)