To look at why both Sanders and Corbyn are not the answer, you have to look back at how we got to the current situation in the first place.

The reason why there is so much debt and why the previous generations had life so good was that it was all on borrowed money and time. 2008 was a crunch time where finally, the debt got to such a high point (especially in mortgages) as to cause widespread mistrust in the financial sector leading to collapse. Now much of the Western World has a large and seemingly overwhelming debt that just keeps on rising.

Now the problem with Sanders’ and Corbyn’s polices are that they are trying to push us back into a lifestyle similar to the previous generation. Free education, healthcare, a high minimum wage and high unemployment benefits sound great on paper, but they are anything but free. To raise the revenue required to pay for them, both candidates for the top job in their countries wish to tax the rich and large businesses more, which they say would also reduce income inequality. The big problem with that is that the rich are able to move if they feel overtaxed, and take their companies with them if the companies are overtaxed. This then brings all revenue that they and the businesses brought in to zero on top of requiring large payouts to all the now redundant ex-employees who now will struggle further to find jobs as other companies have done the same. Most economists realize that there is a relatively low ceiling that you can tax the rich at before the amount of revenue gathered starts to decrease. Even companies that stay will freeze or slow down growth and recruitment for financial stability, which, with the rate of growth in the population, will no longer provide enough jobs in the future. For case studies to see where this has had an effect, you only need to look at France with its 75% supertax bringing in meager revenue and a youth unemployment rate of 25.9% (compared to Britain's 16.0% and the US’s 10.3%).

Another proposal to generate revenue for both countries is to downsize at least one aspect of the military. Now as the military costs an enormous amount to keep running and to replace outdated equipment, this sounds like a good area to cut. The problem with that is that historically, as financial uncertainty rises and resources becomes more scarce, the incentive to gain from other countries via military action or threat thereof rises. As we are entering this century with major uncertainty about the future and have already had two global recessions with what looks like to be a third on the way, defense and deterrents are generally a sound investment (remember that with a deterrent, you will not really know when it is working as it is preventing something from happening, although removing the deterrent may bring about major ramifications). By downsizing the militates and the deterrents of a country, you are gambling that other groups will not try to profit from that which is essentially gambling with your own population’s lives and quality of life.

Now to me (aged 24), both candidates look to be pulling wool over young voters eyes. By telling us that we can have the best of both worlds in employment and benefits, which logically and historically can only be achieved via borrowing vast quantities, they are setting us up for complete financial ruin and the passing down of this state of affairs to the next generation as the previous generations have passed to us a financial poisoned chalice. I think it is about time we as a generation realized that there is no going back to what the baby boomers grew up with — that was with borrowed cash from our generation. We cannot morally now, with the knowledge of what has happened before us, try to achieve the same quality of life knowing that we are shafting the next generation just as we have been. I think that now, we must cut our losses, realize that we’ll need to be a generation of financial prudence to pay off the debt handed to us and hand down an economy worth something to our children. Corbyn and Sanders are the selfish route looking to raise the quality of life now at the expense of the future, so I hope that we have the will and mettle to not give into the temptation of voting them into power and leaving behind an economy in tatters.