And people wonder why we want a socialist for president
Nationalism is the only thing that fixes globalization.
Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
71–80 of 203 posts
Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
#72I think for many millennials, the conclusion of this article doesn't come as a surprise. As a member between the Gen X and the millennial crowd, I've certainly seen how much harder people just a few years younger than me have it as well as how much easier for those slightly older. Older generations don't realize that their wealth is primarily built up in what is really an elaborate ponzi scheme of sorts, money which…
Stagnating wages, rapidly increasing house prices, bad terms for renters, increasing university costs. If I were 20 I'd consider working remote and just go live in a much cheaper country. You could get a boomer lifestyle yet!
As an X-er watching the millenials and the boomers lobbing grenades at each other, it amuses me that the millenial argument sounds like this: "Those greedy boomers have fucked up the world for everyone else with their overly lavish and unsustainable lifestyles... and they won't let us into their cushy club!"
Point of fact is that if you were to give the choice between today's 20-year-old lifestyle and the same in 1970, you'd be insane to choose 1970, especially if you were a minority or a woman. Sure, houses are cheaper in `70, but the jobs are much more menial, life is less comfortable, medicine is less advanced (particularly pain medication), social opportunities are much more stratified, entertainment is much harder to get, communication is considerably more limited, shopping times are much more limited, so on and so forth. Summing up the differences between now and then as merely "houses and uni costs" is basically just propaganda.
Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
#73When boomers wanted cars, we subsidized cars. When they wanted education, we subsidized education. When they wanted gas, we subsidized gas. When they wanted suburbs, we subsidized suburbs. When they wanted to take a loan out of their retirement, we paid for it out of ours. When they wanted to eat themselves into oblivion, we paid for their health care. Now that they are sated, millenials want the same...but the boome…
Who's "we" and "us" in this scenario?
Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're entirely right, government spending does not harm economic growth.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I think it's important to note that if you make the reductio ad absurdum argument that a tax rate of 100% has strongly negative effects, sure I'll go with that, but if there's a claim that what we have right now is either too much or too little, then there needs to be some sort of evidence to support that claim.
> "a tax rate of 100% has strongly negative effects"
Could you elaborate?
Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
#75There are mitigating strategies that we can use to our advantage. Rejecting car & home ownership culture, enforcing various frugal lifestyle patterns (cook and eat home, body weight exercise), cheap travel (couchsurfing/airbnb), geoarbitraging income can do wonders on a personal level. There are several changes on the horizon that could cause interesting ripples soon - for example, what happens when mobile solar power, electric transport, better batteries and global internet coverage enables entirely new kinds of productive lifestyles outside of expensive cities?
Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not suggesting that I'm in favor of this, but the idea is that the country has plenty of wealth, it is just concentrated in older generations who were able to build it through decades of economic largesse, so, well, that's who should should be paying for it.
And I'm still not clear on how taxing the shit out of everyday working citizens somehow redistributes the wealth which is already hoarded by the 0.1%.
I've realized it's pretty much pointless, and here's why. There's a bunch of people who don't really pay taxes and don't understand how wealth and taxes work. But they have to file a 1040 every year, so when you talk about taxes they think "income taxes". If you mention "capital gains", mostly their eyes just rollover because they can't conceptualize even what you are talking about.
They just don't understand they are agitating against hardworking doctors, lawyers, engineers, small business owners, and etc., while giving the people who do nothing but open an envelope every month a pass. They are probably 'useful' in a sense.
Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
#77And people wonder why we want a socialist for president
Bernie Sanders is a social democrat, not a socialist. It's insane that social democrats haven't rebranded considering how common the confusion is.
Bernie Sanders has been branding himself as a "democratic socialist" (not social democrat) for decades.
Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a lot of us are. My parents are Boomers and we were born between 78 and 82. Technically being born in 78 makes you GenX. Yet if you have a brother born only 4 years later, it's another generation? We had the exact same experience, Atari 2600 on a TV that is now weird to even think existed. No TV remotes, walk up and change the channel. Rotary phones, city directories and phone books. Need the time and temp? Y…
Because "generations" are mostly marketing bullshit that are constantly being adjusted to sell the latest newborn consumers youth products. As a GenXer, I always thought it was funny that GenX was defined down to the point that Douglas Coupland (b.1961), the guy who literally wrote the book, was too old to be a GenXer. (The other aspect to this is that when I was young, almost everything I read about "Generation X" w…
Your opinion is appropriate, given that cynicism is a hallmark of the Gen-Xers...
cough
Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
#79Might want to consider the increasing drain on the economy that the government takes. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2020... One way or another, it comes out of our pocketses.
1. The article is about the UK.
2. Your link is biased. Here's a longer term more accurate graph. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
3. Looking at the historical data there's nothing obvious that would distinguish genX vs genY except maybe kids graduating right after the 2008 recession which isn't normally attributed to government spending. Pre-recession government spending was around 18% which is in the post-WWII range.
Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stagnating wages, rapidly increasing house prices, bad terms for renters, increasing university costs. If I were 20 I'd consider working remote and just go live in a much cheaper country. You could get a boomer lifestyle yet!
As an X-er watching the millenials and the boomers lobbing grenades at each other, it amuses me that the millenial argument sounds like this: "Those greedy boomers have fucked up the world for everyone else with their overly lavish and unsustainable lifestyles... and they won't let us into their cushy club!" Point of fact is that if you were to give the choice between today's 20-year-old lifestyle and the same in 197…
It seems perverse to say that just because previous generation had it tougher, that they should be entitled to a better quality of life.