Slog
News & ArtsWednesday, July 18, 2012
Money Generation Screwed
Posted by Eli Sanders on Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 6:00 AM
Attention, Millennials: Newsweek is the latest publication to determine that you have been screwed.
How has this generation been screwed? Let’s count the ways, starting with the economy. No generation has suffered more from the Great Recession than the young. Median net worth of people under 35, according to the U.S. Census, fell 37 percent between 2005 and 2010; those over 65 took only a 13 percent hit.
The wealth gap today between younger and older Americans now stands as the widest on record. The median net worth of households headed by someone 65 or older is $170,494, 42 percent higher than in 1984, while the median net worth for younger-age households is $3,662, down 68 percent from a quarter century ago, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.
The older generation, notes Pew, were “the beneficiaries of good timing” in everything from a strong economy to a long rise in housing prices. In contrast, quick prospects for improvement are dismal for the younger generation.
One key reason: their indebted parents are not leaving their jobs, forcing younger people to put careers on hold. Since 2008 the percentage of the workforce under 25 has dropped 13.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while that of people over 55 has risen by 7.6 percent.
Wondering if you're a millennial? If you were born in the 1980s, the answer is pretty much yes.
1
What about 1979? Am I millenial?
I recently had my 10 year college reunion. If you had told me when I graduated that I'd have trouble scraping up the $200 it cost to register for the reunion, I probably would have cried. Instead it's just business as usual.
I recently had my 10 year college reunion. If you had told me when I graduated that I'd have trouble scraping up the $200 it cost to register for the reunion, I probably would have cried. Instead it's just business as usual.
2
So I guess since I was born in the early 1970's I'm living some sort of dream existance?
Talk about some myoptic reporting
Talk about some myoptic reporting
4
When dealing with issues surrounding age (I don't mean wrinkles, I mean the logistics of larger generations of people graduating, retiring, etc.) the main determining factor is a number. There is no getting around it. There are exceptions, but there are exceptions with everything else in life.
Specific age benchmarks society has set in place to help determine if you are in a particular group of people. Be it senior, middle aged, young professional, etc. If you disagree with those benchmarks, that is a different conversation.
Also: I would advice against reading the Newsweek articles comments. You're welcome.
Specific age benchmarks society has set in place to help determine if you are in a particular group of people. Be it senior, middle aged, young professional, etc. If you disagree with those benchmarks, that is a different conversation.
Also: I would advice against reading the Newsweek articles comments. You're welcome.
5
I agree with the premise, more or less, since today's young adults are going to have a very difficult time finding employment that leads to what we consider a middle class lifestyle. But, I also know a number of retirement-age people who have to work for the next five years or so to simply make up for the savings hit that they took four years ago.
Twenty two year olds can better adjust to not making an extra $20k a year in a well paying job (as opposed to a part-time position), but someone who is 67 will need that extra $20K within a few years time.
Twenty two year olds can better adjust to not making an extra $20k a year in a well paying job (as opposed to a part-time position), but someone who is 67 will need that extra $20K within a few years time.
6
It's nice to know exactly how screwed I am, I guess. I'll think about this on the way to the $9.50/hr, no-benefits, no-vacation, no-hope-of-advancement, no-hope-of-permanent-placement job that I just started.
7
@4, anytime I have bitched about Slog comments being stupid or off topic I TOTALLY take back. Seriously, there is some batshit crazy out there in the general public.
8
@1 we're right between X and Y. Pick the generation you most identify with. (Personally, I don't fit in with either. I think I'm actually a very-late-born baby boomer.)
I felt the same way about my hs reunion, though mine cost closer to $500. I just couldn't see spending that much money to see people I hadn't had interest in keeping up with during the last ten years.
I felt the same way about my hs reunion, though mine cost closer to $500. I just couldn't see spending that much money to see people I hadn't had interest in keeping up with during the last ten years.
9
if you're 65, you better have 170K net worth. you're going to need it - dying is expensive.
its not the old hogging all the jobs, it that THERE AREN'T MANY JOBS. we're lucky there are as many as there with the EU in a double dip and floundering trying to fix it. we could be Spain, but instead we're seeing slow improvements.
in closing, vote for Obama again, kids.
its not the old hogging all the jobs, it that THERE AREN'T MANY JOBS. we're lucky there are as many as there with the EU in a double dip and floundering trying to fix it. we could be Spain, but instead we're seeing slow improvements.
in closing, vote for Obama again, kids.
11
> [...] their indebted parents are not leaving their jobs,
> forcing younger people to put careers on hold
It's not often mentioned these days that one of the reasons F.D.R.'s administration came up with Social Security was that it co-opted the supporters of one Dr Francis Townshend, who championed an old age pension scheme both as a liquidity trap easer and as a way of encouraging workers to leave the work-force earlier.
> forcing younger people to put careers on hold
It's not often mentioned these days that one of the reasons F.D.R.'s administration came up with Social Security was that it co-opted the supporters of one Dr Francis Townshend, who championed an old age pension scheme both as a liquidity trap easer and as a way of encouraging workers to leave the work-force earlier.
12
You know... This Republican crap about "creeping socialism" is a huge, stinking pile.
In the 1970's, when a lot of "boomers" were coming of age, they were beneficiaries of all the post-Depression and post-WWII social backstops that had been put in place for their parents. Rent-stabilized Manhattan tenement apartments were still available for between $100 and $150 a month. (Rent-controlled apartments were even less, but weren't really available.) The minimum wage was something like $2.50 to $3.00 over the period.
In other words, to get out of your parents' house and start a life of your own, you didn't need very much. One minimum-wage job could support two people with housing, food and utilities. Make a little more, and you could start a family, although living in a tenement apartment wouldn't be my first choice for that.
Then Ronald Reagan came along, unions got busted, the minimum wage stagnated, and a number of factors led to gentrification and the rise of housing prices. Economic stress led to social changes. Married women entered the workforce in droves, not just for the fulfillment, opportunity and independence involved, but out of economic necessity. No longer could a single-wage-earner household exist comfortably.
It's not a happy time. Deregulation, more union-busting, loss of low-income housing, a minimum wage so far below the minimum independent-living cost it's shameful, and the Republicans want to make things even worse for the majority of people.
My generation had to put up with some shitty things. The red-baiting, the Vietnam war, radioactive fallout from nuclear testing, the constant threat of annhilation, awful civil rights deficits. But, for a large number of us, we were economically free. I look around today and see most young people living somewhere between economic slavery and fear, or without any independence..
It's not right, and we shouldn't stand for it. We know this country can do better, because we did it before.
More...
In the 1970's, when a lot of "boomers" were coming of age, they were beneficiaries of all the post-Depression and post-WWII social backstops that had been put in place for their parents. Rent-stabilized Manhattan tenement apartments were still available for between $100 and $150 a month. (Rent-controlled apartments were even less, but weren't really available.) The minimum wage was something like $2.50 to $3.00 over the period.
In other words, to get out of your parents' house and start a life of your own, you didn't need very much. One minimum-wage job could support two people with housing, food and utilities. Make a little more, and you could start a family, although living in a tenement apartment wouldn't be my first choice for that.
Then Ronald Reagan came along, unions got busted, the minimum wage stagnated, and a number of factors led to gentrification and the rise of housing prices. Economic stress led to social changes. Married women entered the workforce in droves, not just for the fulfillment, opportunity and independence involved, but out of economic necessity. No longer could a single-wage-earner household exist comfortably.
It's not a happy time. Deregulation, more union-busting, loss of low-income housing, a minimum wage so far below the minimum independent-living cost it's shameful, and the Republicans want to make things even worse for the majority of people.
My generation had to put up with some shitty things. The red-baiting, the Vietnam war, radioactive fallout from nuclear testing, the constant threat of annhilation, awful civil rights deficits. But, for a large number of us, we were economically free. I look around today and see most young people living somewhere between economic slavery and fear, or without any independence..
It's not right, and we shouldn't stand for it. We know this country can do better, because we did it before.
13
At Dan's age, having grown slightly less financially irresponsible, and more established in what passes for my career, I realize at last I am no longer just one paycheck away from living on the street.
Now I am two paychecks away.
Now I am two paychecks away.
14
It's all a mess. The jobs that folks like my father-in-law had straight out of high school (in his case, mining) just don't exist in the US anymore, or if they do, they don't offer the wages and benefits that used to be there. Manufacturing has gone the same way--Mom used to be a fabric cutter in the garment industry, and when she told me she could rejoin the union and pay her back dues, I asked where she planned to work in this country. These were the types of boomer jobs that don't require advanced education, and not a few boomers think that since they held these jobs themselves back in the day that these options are still viable for their kids. Hence the "we don't need no (state-funded) education" lines.
You just can't support a family on entry-level wages in any job anymore; if you're lucky, you can support yourself and a cat most of the time. Newsweek thinks that millenials are pro-taxes, but it's not just because they pay so little: it's because most of us aren't so stupid as to think that 1%ers will miss what they would be forced to pay out in a fair tax scheme.
You just can't support a family on entry-level wages in any job anymore; if you're lucky, you can support yourself and a cat most of the time. Newsweek thinks that millenials are pro-taxes, but it's not just because they pay so little: it's because most of us aren't so stupid as to think that 1%ers will miss what they would be forced to pay out in a fair tax scheme.
15
@13, and THAT gloomy gus is the American Dream! You've made it babe, you've made it!!
Now get out there and dance in the street then throw your hat up in the air Mary Tyler Moore style!
Now get out there and dance in the street then throw your hat up in the air Mary Tyler Moore style!
16
#10 Nailed it! BRAVO! They are the screwed generation, meaning they get the sex. Anyone over 34 doesn't get any sex cuz they're not hip nor cool nor trendy nor desirable nor sexy. I feel so sorry for the screwing generation, really I do. Yeah really.
17
And yet, so few of them vote. And of those that do, half vote against their own interests. So sad.
18
Oh. For fuck sake. Talk about pandering with selective quoting to the martyr complex of your target audience, Stranger. If you want to start some sort of misguided generational hatefest at least put all this shit in some sort of context.
You realize these stats are reflecting the absurd unprecedented profits and pilfering of the public coffers of the 1% - not the general population, right?
Plus: Older people are not giving up their jobs BECAUSE THEY CAN'T.
First the retirement age keeps getting raised - so there is that. Then there is the insane cost of end of life care in general, the broken healthcare system, and the collapse of the housing market (where people had their "savings"), most people over 50 will never, ever, be able to afford to retire. I know I won't.
The boomers, were simply put in the unique historical position of benefiting from the Last Man Standing status of the post WWII US economy at the start of massive technological change and innovation. It was a huge accident. It was an illusion. They didn't deserve it any more than their parents deserved having to suffer the depression and die in concentration camps. Welcome to history.
And now, with the vanishing of geographical boundaries due to the internet, it's OVER and the US suddenly has to reconcile the fact that we are not exceptional.
The average Capitol Hill Hipster is intrinsically no better than your average 20 something on the Asian subcontinent. In fact Indian and Chinese 20 somethings work harder, cheaper.
And every time you, Sloggers and Stranger writers, buy cheap ass goods, don't vote (and people under 35 are the most apathetic population in the US - it's a fact), and don't hold our leaders responsible, YOU feed this race to the bottom. Frankly, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Yeah. Young people get screwed. I'm getting screwed. We're all getting screwed. But it's not like people over 50 are laughing evil laughs while they fill their swimming pools with champagne.
BTW - @17 is completely right.
More...
You realize these stats are reflecting the absurd unprecedented profits and pilfering of the public coffers of the 1% - not the general population, right?
Plus: Older people are not giving up their jobs BECAUSE THEY CAN'T.
First the retirement age keeps getting raised - so there is that. Then there is the insane cost of end of life care in general, the broken healthcare system, and the collapse of the housing market (where people had their "savings"), most people over 50 will never, ever, be able to afford to retire. I know I won't.
The boomers, were simply put in the unique historical position of benefiting from the Last Man Standing status of the post WWII US economy at the start of massive technological change and innovation. It was a huge accident. It was an illusion. They didn't deserve it any more than their parents deserved having to suffer the depression and die in concentration camps. Welcome to history.
And now, with the vanishing of geographical boundaries due to the internet, it's OVER and the US suddenly has to reconcile the fact that we are not exceptional.
The average Capitol Hill Hipster is intrinsically no better than your average 20 something on the Asian subcontinent. In fact Indian and Chinese 20 somethings work harder, cheaper.
And every time you, Sloggers and Stranger writers, buy cheap ass goods, don't vote (and people under 35 are the most apathetic population in the US - it's a fact), and don't hold our leaders responsible, YOU feed this race to the bottom. Frankly, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Yeah. Young people get screwed. I'm getting screwed. We're all getting screwed. But it's not like people over 50 are laughing evil laughs while they fill their swimming pools with champagne.
BTW - @17 is completely right.
20
Canadians' average net worth now higher than that of U.S. citizens:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/…
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/…
21
@18,
They may not be filling their pools with champagne, but they are voting overwhelmingly for politicians who are hell bent on fucking over younger generations. Why do you think Republicans are so squirrelly about destroying Medicare and Social Security (i.e. they'll only eliminate both for anyone under 50)? Because their constituents are overwhelmingly middle aged and elderly. Those voters want their tax cuts, and all the rest of us can go fuck ourselves.
But it's not like people over 50 are laughing evil laughs while they fill their swimming pools with champagne.
They may not be filling their pools with champagne, but they are voting overwhelmingly for politicians who are hell bent on fucking over younger generations. Why do you think Republicans are so squirrelly about destroying Medicare and Social Security (i.e. they'll only eliminate both for anyone under 50)? Because their constituents are overwhelmingly middle aged and elderly. Those voters want their tax cuts, and all the rest of us can go fuck ourselves.
22
@18 I agree that older people aren't responsible for economic globalization or the 2008 financial crisis. However, the disproportionate political power of the old has effected how our government has responded to these new realities. Nearly every government program has been cut back in last few years, but anytime somebody suggests reigning in Medicare spending you get a bunch of Rugged Individualist Tea Party Patriots screaming about death panels. I think it's kind of dickish the way older Americans cut funding for public schools and jack up tuition at state universities so that they can enjoy the same public services that they always have w/o having to pay higher taxes.
23
@18
So the past 30 years that the older generations spent gutting the social safety net and busting unions was to preemptively teach my generation a lesson about civics? That's great news! I'm sure we'll all be relieved to hear it. That combined with your assertion that the Baby Boomers just totally lucked out in a fluke after WWII and that's why they've benefitted more than anyone else in recent American history will do wonders to endear previous generations to us and make us more willing to engage now. After all, it's not like you all saw this surplus of wealth around and thought it'd be better to hoard it than possibly make a sacrifice for your children, right?
Do you see not see any connection at all between lack of upward mobility and disenfranchisement? Most of my friends vote. Many of us do our best to inform and engage others to be more aware of their actions. It's not the easiest task in the world when you're faced with such dismal prospects. I mean, wouldn't you be buying as much shit made in China too if that's all you could afford? Or do you just want to give us a pedantic lecture about going without and saving our money to buy more expensive products that are still crap-based and designed to break so they can be replaced with next year's product line?
So the past 30 years that the older generations spent gutting the social safety net and busting unions was to preemptively teach my generation a lesson about civics? That's great news! I'm sure we'll all be relieved to hear it. That combined with your assertion that the Baby Boomers just totally lucked out in a fluke after WWII and that's why they've benefitted more than anyone else in recent American history will do wonders to endear previous generations to us and make us more willing to engage now. After all, it's not like you all saw this surplus of wealth around and thought it'd be better to hoard it than possibly make a sacrifice for your children, right?
Do you see not see any connection at all between lack of upward mobility and disenfranchisement? Most of my friends vote. Many of us do our best to inform and engage others to be more aware of their actions. It's not the easiest task in the world when you're faced with such dismal prospects. I mean, wouldn't you be buying as much shit made in China too if that's all you could afford? Or do you just want to give us a pedantic lecture about going without and saving our money to buy more expensive products that are still crap-based and designed to break so they can be replaced with next year's product line?
24
I agree. A lot of older people also got fucked when their life savings (their real estate) turned out to be worth shit.
I would advise those who may to avoid injecting any sort of generational politics into their own paradigms. It's divisive and counterproductive. I'm saying this as a millennial.
I would advise those who may to avoid injecting any sort of generational politics into their own paradigms. It's divisive and counterproductive. I'm saying this as a millennial.
26
Fuck the millenials. I'm tired of those whiny narcissists and their Twitter accounts. They act like the world owes them. Maybe if their boomer parents hadn't pandered to them so much growing up, they'd be able to handle a recession. Man up, bitches!
27
@21 and everybody else.
Of course policies are skewed for older voters. BECUASE THEY VOTE.
Young people don't vote. That is not a controversy. It's always been the case. Not only that, twenty something's today are more apathetic than any in the last twenty/ thirty years in terms of voting and civic participation in general, 2008 not with standing.. google it. It's just a fact. And when young people vote they are almost as likely to vote teabagger bullshit as thier parents. Sorry. You can't blame old people for being as self interested as you are.
You want change? Get your asses off the Internet and vote. Or hate on your parents and write lengthy internet screeds for all the good that will do. Your choice.
The sense of entitlement in here is staggering.
Of course policies are skewed for older voters. BECUASE THEY VOTE.
Young people don't vote. That is not a controversy. It's always been the case. Not only that, twenty something's today are more apathetic than any in the last twenty/ thirty years in terms of voting and civic participation in general, 2008 not with standing.. google it. It's just a fact. And when young people vote they are almost as likely to vote teabagger bullshit as thier parents. Sorry. You can't blame old people for being as self interested as you are.
You want change? Get your asses off the Internet and vote. Or hate on your parents and write lengthy internet screeds for all the good that will do. Your choice.
The sense of entitlement in here is staggering.
28
@26 - Yeah! Narcissists! When are those whiny little jerks going to learn to look outside of their own situation and empathize with the struggles other people are going through?
And why didn't they tell their parents to do a better job parenting, huh? With that kind of shortsightedness, they deserve to reap what they've sown!
And why didn't they tell their parents to do a better job parenting, huh? With that kind of shortsightedness, they deserve to reap what they've sown!
29
Fuck you, tkc. Citation anywhere. Show me just one example of supposed entitlement here of the staggering amount that you're seeing.
People lob around the word entitlement like everyone should expect to work 14 hours a day 6 days a week just to make rent, and should be grateful for the opportunity to work overtime to afford food. What are these entitlements that vex you so?
People lob around the word entitlement like everyone should expect to work 14 hours a day 6 days a week just to make rent, and should be grateful for the opportunity to work overtime to afford food. What are these entitlements that vex you so?
30
The author of the Newsweek article thinks that milennials are the most screwed generation ever? More screwed than the children of the Great Depression who were raised during a time when there were no social safety nets such as unemployment insurance, food stamps, college grants and etc, followed up by World War II? The generation that voted to creat those programs, by the way. Wow. The specious premise of the article is actually to convince millenials that all those hard-won social programs have failed and no one will ever get a pension or Social Security benefits in the future. That is right-wing crap. Plus @10 has it right, youth trumps age and economic situations change.
32
@20, thanks for the link. They deserve it. Of course, it's largely because their property bubble didn't burst quite like ours, so their relatively higher "net worth" number rests on the probable value of their mortgages, but I'm still happy for whatever keeps them mellow.
34
It's war time, people: young against old, this group against that group, men against women, but never, ever identify the enemy.
That would require intelligence, honesty and a spine.
Instead, be sure to award that Pulitzer, not to any more investigative journalists, but those who are on the "safe" side, like Eli!
He must be right, he's got a Pulitzer after all, just like that there Jared Diamond fellow, who wrotes the introductions for the books for his hedge fund buddies, huh?
Newsweek? That's a publication? Weren't they recently sold for $1.00 (that's not a typo, doods and doodettes)? Far too much, if you ask a rational thinking person.
Sorry, I don't read Newsweek, Morty Zuckerman's US News and World Report, and I wonder why that fraudster, Chris Hayes, is going around the country on a book tour acting as an apologist for professional liar and bankster stooge, Fredric Mishkin?
That would require intelligence, honesty and a spine.
Instead, be sure to award that Pulitzer, not to any more investigative journalists, but those who are on the "safe" side, like Eli!
He must be right, he's got a Pulitzer after all, just like that there Jared Diamond fellow, who wrotes the introductions for the books for his hedge fund buddies, huh?
Newsweek? That's a publication? Weren't they recently sold for $1.00 (that's not a typo, doods and doodettes)? Far too much, if you ask a rational thinking person.
Sorry, I don't read Newsweek, Morty Zuckerman's US News and World Report, and I wonder why that fraudster, Chris Hayes, is going around the country on a book tour acting as an apologist for professional liar and bankster stooge, Fredric Mishkin?
35
@29 Why you blaming me? Look I'm genuinely sad that life isn't working out for you. It's not fair.
But you had better do what countless generations of people before you have done and alter your expectations for your life. Yelling at me isn't going to do shit for you.
Are you seriously challenging the fact that older people vote at higher rated than younger people? Really?
Not that it matters to you but you can look at the the Census Hot Report for 1996 - 2010
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/v…
But that's pretty wonky to poke through. But it will confirm what I said as far who votes at a higher rate.
You want to blame me? Fine. Go for it. The irony here is that The Stranger fuels it's paper with free internships of angry millennials. I at least pay my interns and pay my employees above market rates. Though maybe I shouldn't.
Fuck it. You changed my mind. I guess I will go with a "I Got Mine philosophy." Since I'm getting blamed for shit I had nothing to with just because my parents fucked in North America in 1963.
But you had better do what countless generations of people before you have done and alter your expectations for your life. Yelling at me isn't going to do shit for you.
Are you seriously challenging the fact that older people vote at higher rated than younger people? Really?
Not that it matters to you but you can look at the the Census Hot Report for 1996 - 2010
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/v…
But that's pretty wonky to poke through. But it will confirm what I said as far who votes at a higher rate.
You want to blame me? Fine. Go for it. The irony here is that The Stranger fuels it's paper with free internships of angry millennials. I at least pay my interns and pay my employees above market rates. Though maybe I shouldn't.
Fuck it. You changed my mind. I guess I will go with a "I Got Mine philosophy." Since I'm getting blamed for shit I had nothing to with just because my parents fucked in North America in 1963.
36
That is false.
For all your whining about how other people are entitled, you sure like to pull facts out of your ass and lie. It's almost as if you're too entitled to do any actual research. Project much?
And when young people vote they are almost as likely to vote teabagger bullshit as thier parents.
That is false.
For all your whining about how other people are entitled, you sure like to pull facts out of your ass and lie. It's almost as if you're too entitled to do any actual research. Project much?
37
FINALLY another step towards my "it's the baby boomer's fault, they haven't done their fair share" agenda.
38
@35 now if the tiny sliver of people who hold the majority of the nation's and the world's wealth would change THEIR expectations with the rest of us...
39
Are people who aren't Millennials seriously just now figuring this out?
I mean, I basically understood the state of the world I was inheriting based on the way they never changed the oil in that car they handed down to me when they upgraded to a Cadillac we couldn't afford.
I mean, I basically understood the state of the world I was inheriting based on the way they never changed the oil in that car they handed down to me when they upgraded to a Cadillac we couldn't afford.
40
@39 Yes, some older people are just figuring it out. Others never will, and keep voting for teabaggy bullshit as they demand their Medicare and SS checks.
Half the ones who do figure it out say "Oh well, you're young! You've got your whole life ahead of you! You know how to work the tweeter machine computerphone thingamajigs!" That doesn't mean shit when there aren't any decent jobs, when rents are going through the roof, when you don't feel you have even the same deal your grandparents had.
Hopefully we'll vote in a better system, much like the Depression/WWII generation.
Half the ones who do figure it out say "Oh well, you're young! You've got your whole life ahead of you! You know how to work the tweeter machine computerphone thingamajigs!" That doesn't mean shit when there aren't any decent jobs, when rents are going through the roof, when you don't feel you have even the same deal your grandparents had.
Hopefully we'll vote in a better system, much like the Depression/WWII generation.
41
@35 - I didn't blame you for anything. I'm not complaining about my lot in life. That's my whole point. I make 22K a year, and barely scrape by, but I do scrape by, and wait to see if times might actually change for the better.
I asked you for a citation for anything that you alleged in your stupid screed, including the fact the young people vote less than old people, and that when they do vote, they vote Tea Party just as much as their parents do. Figures that you would come through and provide a citation for the first claim, but not the second.
And I asked you one example of entitlement in this thread, which you didn't provide. Because there isn't any. You're just shitty fucking person with an axe to grind, and if this post had been answered by 100 separate sixty year olds posting about how hard it was in their day, you still would have posted the same stupid fucking monologue about how much entitlement there is in this thread, because *KIDS TODAY*.
I don't feel entitled to anything. But maybe you can pretend, just for a second, that yes, it is a pretty terrible time for a lot of people my age right now looking to build a career or a resume.
I asked you for a citation for anything that you alleged in your stupid screed, including the fact the young people vote less than old people, and that when they do vote, they vote Tea Party just as much as their parents do. Figures that you would come through and provide a citation for the first claim, but not the second.
And I asked you one example of entitlement in this thread, which you didn't provide. Because there isn't any. You're just shitty fucking person with an axe to grind, and if this post had been answered by 100 separate sixty year olds posting about how hard it was in their day, you still would have posted the same stupid fucking monologue about how much entitlement there is in this thread, because *KIDS TODAY*.
I don't feel entitled to anything. But maybe you can pretend, just for a second, that yes, it is a pretty terrible time for a lot of people my age right now looking to build a career or a resume.
42
@35, the idea isn't to yell at you, nor to cast blame. It's to point out that a whole lot of people who are still alive, and voting, and comparatively economically advantaged have put the world, and in particular the younger people who are now expected to make it run, in a pretty bad spot, and to encourage them to start, at the very, very least, voting a little differently to keep from making the many problems even worse.
You're a Slog reader, so, trolls notwithstanding, you probably weren't going to vote Romney to begin with, but the more this message spreads, the more likely aging Boomers will see it, see their 20- or now even 30-something kids struggling, and put two and two together. "Oh shit! All that voting we did based entirely on who would lower our taxes so we could buy more expensive cars didn't work out so well! Maybe our priorities have been slightly off."
I mean, it's not very likely, but one can hope.
You're a Slog reader, so, trolls notwithstanding, you probably weren't going to vote Romney to begin with, but the more this message spreads, the more likely aging Boomers will see it, see their 20- or now even 30-something kids struggling, and put two and two together. "Oh shit! All that voting we did based entirely on who would lower our taxes so we could buy more expensive cars didn't work out so well! Maybe our priorities have been slightly off."
I mean, it's not very likely, but one can hope.
43
@40: Well said. My in-laws, who I otherwise adore, hold to this attitude. Their flippant comments about "things working out" and "when I was your age..." drive me up the wall. This coming from a guy who could pay Stanford tuition by working part-time. I could go on about the ways circumstances benefitted that generation and screwed mine, but it is best to keep one's in-laws happy. I just wish that generation wasn't so damn arrogant-- it is the same "by your bootstrap" rhetoric from the GOP who have no appreciation for how larger-scale economic and social forces have helped them succeed.
45
According to Strauss & Howe, Millennials will be the next great political beneficiaries, similar to the GI generation before them. Wait about 15 years. It's Generation X that has consistently been screwed, and will continue to be screwed, because we're a generation that resists forming a political power base to protect ourselves (except, perhaps, for the Libertarian cause; which just proves my point).
46
You should have listened to me on SLOG ten years ago and moved to Canada.
You'd be a lot richer, and not worried about global warming, as you enjoyed the 100 F summers.
You'd be a lot richer, and not worried about global warming, as you enjoyed the 100 F summers.
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