For something to be funny there has to be truth in it. So it is with the new board game that is flying off the shelves, Monopoly for Millennials. It will be fun for all the entitled hipsters in your family. It is replete with ninth place trophies and, of course, they do not own real estate, so the best case would be that their parents get them a bigger basement apartment.
If you are not positive who millennials are, they are the young folks who never use the word "millennial." For these 22- to 36-year-olds, it has become a pejorative word of their own making.
To define this generation, there have been disconcerting polls taken by millennials. One thousand millennials took the polls, and only five hundred finished them. But all 1,000 of the millennials' parents took them out to dinner and bought them something nice for trying.
Troubling information has come from these recent polls. Millennials are on average $42,000 in debt, mostly government student loan debt for degrees in inane majors from indoctrination institutions, not educational institutions. Strapped with this debt, they do not take risks, start families or buy homes like previous generations; had they done these things at the same pace as two earlier generations, 3.7 million more millennials would own their own homes now.
When these kids do not date (which is the leading cause of marriage), it does not bode well for society. Throw in the #MeToo movement, and men are scared to death to make any contact with women except over the Internet. With Tinder and other hook-up sites, men get their "friends with benefits" needs taken care of. Young women presumably have friends with batteries.
Either way, relationships and children are not what this generation wants. They do enjoy sex, but it pales compared to the jubilation of the test coming back as "Not Your DNA" on the Maury Povich Show.
Gallup polls also showed that 51% of Americans under age 30 have positive views of socialism. This is a problem resulting from years of Obama, "Fauxcahontas" Warren and that millennial heartthrob, Bernie Sanders, who appeals to 22- to 36- year-olds because all of his suits are that age. And 29-year-old Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez embodies the millennials' naïve thinking on economics. She does not believe in free speech, just free health care. They think socialism's great free offerings are education, medicine and health care. Yet they are never taught history's great lesson: socialism's three great failures always end up being breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Their logic would conclude that, if socialism is good, capitalism is bad. Capitalism is the way their parents and grandparents got the money to support them. One of the Monopoly game pieces is "Rich Uncle Pennybags," who gives millennials money so they can have "experiences." The hipsters then can use the money to meditate at a retreat in Arizona or be the first to discover a new vegan bistro.
The wildly popular Millennial Monopoly game was initially priced at $20, but you cannot even find it at Wal-Mart now for less than $75. This might actually be a good lesson in supply and demand economics for millennials and might get them interested in business. If they spent more time creating the supply in business that meets a demand, they might not be so broke.
Millennials prefer weed to cocaine and cats to dogs. They dislike cocaine because they cannot see their image in the mirror when they do a line. They prefer cats to dogs because a cat will not lead the police to where you hide your weed.
So far, their contributions to society seem to be craft beer and avocado toast.
Craft beers are those expensive, warm and syrupy beers with stupidly cute names like "Hoppy Ending Pale Ale," "Audrey Hopburn," " Pathological Lager," or "Citra Ass Down." My generation didn’t have cute names for drinking. We had serious and simple names like bourbon, beer and cirrhosis of the liver.
Millennials drink a lot because of all their spare time. The national Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence says there are twenty million functioning millennial alcoholics, which also helps explain the alarming rise in karaoke bars.
So for Christmas, millennials, do not buy your parents a six-pack of craft beer. Buy them a big bottle of bourbon — because you are why they drink.
Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Hasbro Makes Monopoly Game for Millennials