SANDRA SMITH (CO-HOST): We featured some of these TikTok videos where they cling their Louis Vuitton over the shoulder and say, “I’m living with my parents, I’m deep in credit card debt, I have student loan debt, but I don’t care. I deserve this or whatever it is.” But at the same time, they are complaining about high prices and the cost of living. So there is this changing psychology as well.
CHARLES PAYNE (CO-HOST): There’s a psychology and listen, last year, Bernard Arnault became the richest person in the world. He’s the chairman of Louis Vuitton and that’s in part because we’re spending mindlessly. You walk into a Louis Vuitton store and you have people who are racking up stuff and then after that, they go home to a basement somewhere, to a project somewhere, to a trailer park somewhere, you know. And it’s just absolutely nuts and so it’s become ironically — sadly to be quite frank with you — culture.
Listen, the American dream was always about waiting your turn. You know, when you started the job, you didn’t get the gold watch on the first day, you got the gold watch on the last day. A lot of these folks want the gold watch on day one. And they talk about their parents or their grandparents and they say, “Well my grandmother bought a house for 30 grand and now it’s a $5 million house.” Yeah, it took time, right? It just takes more time than it has in the past. But the American dream is within reach for those people who want to work hard. The formula has not changed.
