There's a slice of life permanently devoted to paying back.
For the car, the house, the TV, the fridge and more.
And rents are the ones that drill big holes in monthly budgets.
Sweden has one of the biggest government rent control programs running since World War 2.
The objective was that the middle class and people earning less should not be priced out of the best neighborhoods. And with all the sincerity in implementation, there's a 9 year waiting list to get into a government contract that lasts for life.
Rent or buy is the eternal question and there are no easy answers.
Desirable housing close to city centers and schools, offices and entertainment gets lapped up by people who can afford to invest in multiple properties and choose exactly which part of the world they want to be in at a particular time.
For the rest, which probably is 90% of the world's population, it's a toss-up between getting a decent house in a livable neighborhood.
The EMI life allowed a larger set of people to advance their dreams - but it came at a price. It took away flexibility and freedom of choice.
Especially with big-ticket purchases like homes, a 15-to-20-year lock-in is guaranteed.
Even a couple of decades ago, education was nowhere near as expensive as it is today. And students are well into middle age by the time they pay back loans. And then embark on the housing loan EMI!
The Equated Monthly Instalment has become Eternally Maddening Indebtedness!
Is the burger falling out of favour?
According to the Wall Street Journal, millennials may have had their fill.
There seems to be a drop in the number of burgers they consume.
McDonald's is still growing overall but they shut down nearly 150 outlets in the US last year.
This can be sliced and examined in several ways but some fast food brands are running in the slow lane.
Millennials have grown up with the healthy food movement ringing in their ears and it was bound to have an effect.
McDonalds is experimenting with getting more people in for breakfasts and the $36 billion they make every year still allows ample elbow room for experiment.
It's a good time to consider how longstanding brands stay in 'cruise mode'
At some point all of us tire of a food item we have too much of.
It's a simple matter to make less of something at home but when entire supply chains are configured down to the smallest spice ingredient, it may lead to earthquakes.
We change brands at times simply because we want a 'change'. Not because we're unhappy with the existing experience but we want a new one.
Even if it means smelling a little different.
And with the hundreds of D2C brands now available, customers are moving out of their loyalty lock-ins.
This may be a small shift in the scheme of things, but it can splinter quickly if a generation decides that burgers are no longer 'comfort food.'
No escaping the Antakshri in India
It's a family activity that makes young people roll their eyes.
And the older ones bring out their singing voices from the deep freeze.
Songs sung off key, off lyrics, off the beat but with gusto.
At marriages and family gatherings, impromptu teams are assembled in seconds.
The ones with an encyclopedic knowledge of old Hindi film songs are in great demand.
They are the ones who come to the rescue when tricky ending of songs with the hard 'Th' and hard "Dh' are the starting point for the next song.
Wikipedia states the the Anatakshri has been around since the days of Ramayana. It comes from Anth (last) and Akshar (Alphabet) and at the time, it was uses to create a chain of narration of slokhas.
This activity has transcended time.
Today, it's only about film songs and several group trips have survived bad singing and raucous voices.
The songs are quite easy to come up with in the early stages of the game. As the teams exhaust all the popular ones, it gets progressively tougher.
There is a timer for the rival team to respond, but this is often like street cricket rules. The elders in the family could be impervious to time and consult each other - they don't like losing to the younger ones.
At one point, this was one of the most-watched programs on TV as well. But while it survives at family functions, it may be losing its charm
But that's debatable, especially for an activity that has survived thousands of years.
Do you have a cringy Antakshri story from your family?
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