Is the "system" designed to turn Millennials and Gen Z into lifelong renters and debt-serfs? Is there a way out?

Doug Casey: It's a natural consequence of Statism.

First of all, taxes are high and have been increasing for decades. After taxes, you have less money left over to save. And if you do try to save, inflation eats away at the dollars that you put in banks or investments. Worse than that, welfare and government benefits make saving feel unnecessary for many people. They feel they don't need as much because the cradle-to-grave welfare state will cover them. There's a reason why Klaus Schwab famously said, "You'll own nothing and be happy."

A lot of people believe it. This feeling is abetted by schooling, where everyone is inculcated with this collectivist meme. On top of that, the rich are viewed as parasites. And who wants to be a parasite?

This is all caused by State intervention in the economy. Schools almost always teach students that the State is their friend. It's not; it's their enemy. Few Americans are critical thinkers, as New York's election of an avowed Communist shows. The fact that voters in most large cities in the US have elected leftists tells me that the situation is dire.

Take the experience of my friend Walter Block, one of today's greatest living economists, who grew up in New York. Bernie Sanders was his classmate. They were both rabid socialists. Walter became a free-market anarcho-capitalist. Bernie, like almost all their classmates, remained socialist. Most people are programmed by their environments and stay that way, like Bernie. Since trends in motion tend to stay in motion, at least until they arrive at a major crisis, I'm not too optimistic about a change any time soon.

Libertarians, free thinkers, classical liberals, AnCaps, and the like are a tiny minority. And when things become turbulent, we tend to be a very unpopular minority as well.

International Man: We're seeing a collision between AI/automation and a credential-heavy job market. Which parts of today's white-collar economy do you think are most fragile?

Doug Casey: It's common knowledge how smart AI is, and how rapidly it's getting radically better. It's already been several years since AI passed the Turing Test, which basically states that if you're communicating with a computer, and can't tell it's not a human, then it's actually intelligent.

We're way beyond that now. We can talk with video simulations, and we can't tell whether it's a human. AIs are getting better at an accelerating rate as they improve themselves. I have zero doubt that as robotics are perfected, you won't be able to tell androids from people—except that they'll be smarter, stronger, and better looking. We'll soon be living in the world of real Terminators. Hopefully, most of them will be virtuous, not killbots. I suspect many real people will prefer them as mates and love interests, which was a sub-theme of the great movie Blade Runner.