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Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

bbc.com

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Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#171

Post by patrickg_zill »

aioprisan wrote: post #42
meritt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

Well we could start with some common sense tax reform, like not letting anything above $112k not be taxable for social security, a system through which old people are living off the backs of the young and straddling them with debts for services they will never see themselves - a ponzi scheme

People who are capable of earning greater than $112k a year are probably capable of changing the way they're compensated in order to avoid the higher SS rate.

Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#172

Post by aioprisan »

marknutter wrote: post #118
aioprisan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean all of 2 years out of his 8? Remember the big healthcare reform bill that got passed and the American Recovery Act that prevented the American car manufacturers from closing up shop? What do you know, things can get passed when that party has control, but since then the GOP did everything possible to block all their efforts. So yeah, not much help for those millennials from the GOP.

Perhaps the reason the Democrats lost their super majority was because they rammed ACA and ARRA down the throats of congress with no bipartisan cooperation. It's hard to get the other side to work with you when you've demonstrated how little their opinions matter to you in the first place.

That's generally the nature of massive reform. It had to be done and there were political costs associated with it, but it was worth it from a net cost and health outcomes perspective. Desegregation was pretty unpopular as well, are you saying that shouldn't have happened either?

Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#173

Post by jbandela1 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #130
vacri wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The factual errors in your argument are extreme. Working class wages were proportionately higher in 1970. Drawing a dividing line is hard, but somewhere between 1970 and 1980, wage gains became decoupled from productivity increases. Medicine quite simply hasn't advanced significantly since 1970. Access to medicine by the underserved has, and accounts for much of increases in outcomes, as well as reduced environmental…

> Medicine quite simply hasn't advanced significantly since 1970

This is not true. Here are just 3 examples:

1. Childhood cancer - Less than 50% 5 year survival in 1970 vs greater than 80% 5 year survival now. http://www.cancer.gov/types/childhood-cancers/child-adolesce...

2. Anything dealing with the brain including diagnosis and treatment. Before CT and MRI - neurologists and neurosurgeons where operating blind. CT and MRI combined with computer technology allow the surgeon to plan and execute a much safer and gentler approach. In addition, during this time, our knowledge of practical neuro-anatomy has increased and enabled much better surgical approaches.

3. Low birthweight/premature infant mortality - We are much better at saving low birthweight / premature infants. See http://www.hrsa.gov/healthit/images/mchb_infantmortality_pub...

I would call these significant medical advances.

If you are talking about public health advances as opposed to medical advances, then actually good nutrition, good sanitation, and elimination of environmental toxins is probably responsible for almost the entire improvement in life expectancy. However, this has been truethroughout history and is not something new since the 1970's.

Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#174

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

internaut wrote: post #157

The Stagnation Hypothesis basically explains all of this. I would like to remind you that earnings, prices in general are phenomenon which relate back to the real world in some way. That is to say they must be side affects of something else. The cartoon series The Venture Bros symbolizes the Stagnation Hypothesis. If you don't want to watch the entire series to understand the point, just take a look at the episode: S…

That is, to put it most softly, a load of bullshit. The cutting edge of science and technology is every bit as innovative, hell perhaps more innovative than anything happening in the 70s.

I love how every one of your statement is predicated by "excluding computers, the internet, etc". That's like saying "aside from that whole steam power thing the industrial revolution was no big deal"

We have rockets that can land autonomously, stunningly high energy density batteries that have ushered a revolution in portable electronics (go ask your parents about NiCd batteries and how shit they were),god damn electric planes at prototype stage, carbon fiber solar panels pushing 35% efficiency, network of satellites that can pinpoint you on the meter level an connection to said network so cheap it's a basic addon to consumer hardware, and the the technology to fab transistors at 14 fucking nanometers (a feat thought to be impossible in your golden age of innovation).

You mention household energy bills, ignoring the efficiencies gained by vastly more efficient electronics, better available windows, insulation and = hot water heating, if you live in Seattle you can now have your energy usage broken down by device just by an analysis of noise on your input lines so you can better curb usage.

What do we have in our homes that wasn't around in the 70s. Hmmm, let's think, flat screen displays, solid state digital storage of high fidelity media, maybe you're an audiophile and have a nifty set of electrostatic speakers, a mechanical pencil at your desk, or maybe just a gel pen, LED light bulbs giving you long lasting pleasant lights at 50x the efficiency of incandescent and those are just the things that don't rely on a mirco controller to function. And you have the fucking gall to suggest innovation is slowing down.

The best part about it all, is to the public these innovations come so fast and hard that it's all "no big deal".

Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#175

Post by marknutter »

aioprisan wrote: post #172
marknutter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the reason the Democrats lost their super majority was because they rammed ACA and ARRA down the throats of congress with no bipartisan cooperation. It's hard to get the other side to work with you when you've demonstrated how little their opinions matter to you in the first place.

That's generally the nature of massive reform. It had to be done and there were political costs associated with it, but it was worth it from a net cost and health outcomes perspective. Desegregation was pretty unpopular as well, are you saying that shouldn't have happened either?

You're comparing desegregation to the ACA? I'm pretty sure most Democrats are unhappy with the ACA.

Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#176

Post by snowwrestler »

_9vpl wrote: post #143
imtringued wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home ownership is a great asset if you're using the home yourself. On the other hand a car is a actually a liability that depreciates over time requiring inspections in regular intervals, compulsory car insurance and a parking lot at both the departure location and the destination.

A home is no different from a car in that it also depreciates, things break, needs to be maintained, repaired, etc. The only real difference is that in major populated areas, the land it sits on tends to be rare and valuable, which allows its value to keep up with or even exceed the rate of inflation.

The biggest advantage of home ownership is the tax break. You can leverage capital 4:1 (with a 20% down payment) and your capital gains will be tax-free up to $250,000 per person.

The second biggest advantage is that you can fix your housing costs. Good luck finding a rental that will have the same monthly payment for 30 years, but it's not hard to get a 30-year fixed rate mortgage.

Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#177

Post by dredmorbius »

jbandela1 wrote: post #173
dredmorbius wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The factual errors in your argument are extreme. Working class wages were proportionately higher in 1970. Drawing a dividing line is hard, but somewhere between 1970 and 1980, wage gains became decoupled from productivity increases. Medicine quite simply hasn't advanced significantly since 1970. Access to medicine by the underserved has, and accounts for much of increases in outcomes, as well as reduced environmental…

> Medicine quite simply hasn't advanced significantly since 1970 This is not true. Here are just 3 examples: 1. Childhood cancer - Less than 50% 5 year survival in 1970 vs greater than 80% 5 year survival now. http://www.cancer.gov/types/childhood-cancers/child-adolesce... 2. Anything dealing with the brain including diagnosis and treatment. Before CT and MRI - neurologists and neurosurgeons where operating blind. CT…

Overal LE increased at twice the rate 1900-1950 as 1950-2000. Source: Gordon 2016.

One of the NYTime health reporters had a statistc in a 1990s book that 85% of human L.E. improvements were from public health, not diect medical, meaasures. Laurie Garret IIRC.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/12627.Laurie_Garrett

"In all, 86 per cent of the increased life expectancy was due to decreases in infectious diseases. And the bulk of the decline in infectious disease deaths occurred prior to the age of antibiotics. Less than 4 per cent of the total improvement in life expectancy since 1700s can be credited to twentieth-century advances in medical care.”

― Laurie Garrett, Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health

Intensive methods have worked in some areas. Sanitation, clean water, waste disposal, nutrition, vaccinations, hazard and toxin removal, and general preventive care -- all the nonsexy stuff, matter far more.

Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#178

Post by mercutio2 »

ghaff wrote: post #97
BuckRogers wrote: post #24

Earlier 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…

From a technology standpoint, there was a real break around 1995 or so. It's not so much the consumer tech itself. Oh, it's incrementally advanced in a lot of ways but a 2016 laptop, for example, would be clearly recognizable as such to someone in 1995. A smartphone less so but it would have existing analogs in devices like the Palm Pilot. What would be vastly sea-change-levels different is the pervasiveness of conne…

The first Palm Pilot was released in late 1997. it would've been a really, really big deal to have one in 1995.

Laptops would've been recognizable, but their utility was severely limited without WiFi, which I think was arguably a bigger transition (wired Internet -> wireless) than BBS -> Internet. So I guess I'm agreeing with you, connectivity was the big phase change!

Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#179

Post by antisthenes »

xapata wrote: post #62
drchiu wrote: post #4

I 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…

To be fair, the Boomers didn't intentionally create a Ponzi scheme. They were just irrationally exuberant when estimating future economic growth.

Which is understandable, considering they grew up in the highest oil per capita use period in human history.

It's easy to buy into the "unlimited resources and growth" hype when you're at the peak. Sort of like the bullish delusions of 2007 stock market.

Re: Millennials 'set to earn less than Generation X'

#180

Post by antisthenes »

arca_vorago wrote: post #103
nyolfen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the appropriate response for ordinary americans seems to be democratic isolationism, imo. oppose trade deals like ttip, tpp and tpa -- these deals serve to enrich those who are already the global winners and provide nothing for the emerging intelligentsia of the first world. globalism might benefit those in power at the moment, but it provides nothing for those of us who need to work through a career or two to be com…

Which is something I've been ranting about this very thing for years, often to much undeserved derision in my opinion. You touch the point but don't nail it down. You need to identify exactly what you have in common with the Texan vs the Chinese man. I would argue this is the beauty of the true American exceptionality, in that the American Revolution, despite the British propoganda attempting to paint it as hardly mo…

> You need to identify exactly what you have in common with the Texan vs the Chinese man.

Worker class vs capitalist class. Under the current system, the classes are incentive-incompatible and human beings are surprisingly receptive to incentives on an intuitive level.

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