Larry Littlefield writes a lot of interesting blog posts on generational equity, mainly with a focus on the US, and New York in particular:
https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/category/generational...
The Fleecing of Millennials
51–60 of 132 posts
Re: The Fleecing of Millennials
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people in power have to start representing the interests of the millennials. This will only happen when people of that generation are in power, or people in power are being influenced by them.
This. One of the reasons I suspect AOC gets so much attention (apart from her very unabashed personality) is because she represents the Millenial generation, always ridiculed as being "lazy" and "coddled". Finally someone in Power who: * is a millenial and * understands millenial priorities Ironically, the policy proposals that the most outspoken Millenials embrace would actually strengthen programs that help the old…
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Re: The Fleecing of Millennials
#53The fleecing affects millennials in that they cannot save and invest their income. Once they've paid their health care and education [1] payments, they have nothing left to save. Per capita, in 2017 dollars, 1970 Americans spent $1,797 on health care. In 2017, $10,739 [0]. In return on that $9,000 annual investment: Life expectancy rose from 74.7 to 78.6, adding 3.9 years. In 1993, the annual cost for tuition & fees…
Housing and childcare are also outpacing inflation and wages. It’s crazy how much more things cost as a percentage of income than in the ‘90s. We’re going to have an inevitable retirement crisis when most millennials are forced to work until they die since they won’t have anything left to put into savings. 70% of Americans can’t even put together $400 in an emergency. I see things getting even worse unless something…
Part of that is the structure of the economy, like you say. A significant proportion of it, as a millennial myself, is people having a terrible understanding of personal finance.
If you spend all your money on things to impress people or because "you deserve them", then you end up with an empty pot.
Re: The Fleecing of Millennials
#54Does anyone know / remember if there were similar pieces written in the late 90s about people in their 20s and 30s then? Ie is this a trend that has always happened or something new?
They were a lost generation for different reasons. A little earlier than late 90s: The Thatcher/Reagan de-industrialisation through the 80s meant a huge number of children deprived of opportunity as whole regions and cities lost their major employers. In the UK it was effectively the start of our drug problem. Criminalisation had only arrived in the late 60s. Then we got the big recession of the early 90s. Most of th…
>> Most of those de-industrialised areas had huge crime and drug problems, lost opportunities and parents who were broke, jobless and without hope. London and the South East was turbo-charging banking so we got Harry Enfield's comedy "Loadsa Money" character on tv, and plenty of market traders becoming stock traders. If you were early into IT you avoided it too.
The Loadsamoney character was a plasterer. Even manual trades were doing well in the South East.
Re: The Fleecing of Millennials
#55> Medicare and Social Security have been spared from cuts. Programs that benefit younger workers and families have not. This is a political incentive problem. Retired people tend to have free time to engage in politics (or at least watch TV all day and get fed "news") and they turn out to votes in droves (as they don't have to e.g. take a day off to vote!), while young people mainly have the power to pull off a shits…
Don't underestimate the shitstorms. Look at the candidates who flipped districts in the 2018 elections. Also, Social Security benefits young families who aren't earning money. The student loan mess is terrible, but it's not a case of missing government funds but too many -- community colleges are in pretty good shape, but people borrow too much for useless private colleges thanks to modern marketing techniques and mo…
> Millennials in USA don't have a WWII or Vietnam war or Jim Crow laws or a big government supported KKK.
Millennials in the USA and many other allied nations have the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, with additionally European youth dealing with the refugees caused by said wars and the right wing that has risen by piggybacking on said refugees.
We don't have Jim-Crow-Laws but still disproportionate amounts of PoC and immigrants being targeted by police and systematically discriminated against by wider society.
We don#t have government-supported KKK, at least not openly, but at least Germans have groups of Nazis outright murdering people ("NSU" if you're interested) and presumably aided or at least protected by secret services. Most of Islamist terrorists across Europe turned out to be known to police, most notoriously Anis A. (the Berlin murderer).
> It mostly feels bad due to wealth inequality, not absolute poverty.
That's the core point. We see the ultra rich flaunt their riches to the point of obscenity while spreading "you can get rich too" while knowing we can't ever realistically rise to that level of richdoms (and we know it, too, which makes it even more obscene). Corporate exec make way over 100x, some probably over 1000x, the money as the cleaning maid wiping their toilets. This disconnect is it what riles up young generations.
Re: The Fleecing of Millennials
#56Boomer's may have accumulated a large amount of wealth, but that wealth is going to be hit hard by Baumol's cost disease. Right now the US has ~4 workers per retiree. That's going to be dropping to about 2 in the next few decades. And despite frantic efforts from the Japanese, the services that the elderly need are hard to automate. These services generally suffer from Baumol's cost disease: nursing et al are very 1:…
> nursing et al are very 1:1 jobs with or without the help of technology
How's that? I'm not familiar with the industry at all, but every place I've seen has far fewer nurses than patients. Is there a source on this information? Or some inside information I am unaware of? Or are you just exaggerating by using the term 'very'?
Re: The Fleecing of Millennials
#57Federal debt and surface temperature charts are telling because they include 20+ year projections periods--and of course those projections are dire (and bullshit). It's clear the story this "opinion columnist" (bullshit artist) is trying to craft. To me, net worth by age group is the troubling chart. If I read this correctly, median net worth for all age groups under 44 years old is significantly negative. The scale…
I believe the chart is cumulative change in net worth for people in those age groups. The median net worth for someone under 50 isn't negative, but it's a lot lower than it was 30 years ago. On the other hand, older Americans seem to keep on earning and not retiring which boosts their relative net worth relative to the generation(s) before them.
Re: The Fleecing of Millennials
#58Boomer's may have accumulated a large amount of wealth, but that wealth is going to be hit hard by Baumol's cost disease. Right now the US has ~4 workers per retiree. That's going to be dropping to about 2 in the next few decades. And despite frantic efforts from the Japanese, the services that the elderly need are hard to automate. These services generally suffer from Baumol's cost disease: nursing et al are very 1:…
It's weird though - my girlfriend studies nursing and Geriatric Nursing is still one of the lowest paid specialisations with poor conditions and respect (compared to say working in the ICU). It seems residential homes charge the 'guests' loads and pay the staff (carers, nurses, cleaners etc.) very, very little.
Hopefully not offending anyone, but it is one of the most manual labor intensive and has some of the lowest educational requirements and cognitive overhead of the various nursing specialties. It also carries lower requisite insurance costs.
Re: The Fleecing of Millennials
#59The first chart shows the trends started around 1978. Someone who was 25 then would be 65 now. And the worst time to be 25ish was the mid 1980s. That cohort is in their late 50s now. So I bet the 65+ line will fall as those who were less than 25 in 1978 start to join that group.
Re: The Fleecing of Millennials
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Millennials don’t seem to have a clue what’s in their best interest so I’m going to disagree with you. If there were any solid ideas coming from anybody in terms of helping millennials those ideas would have political traction. To think that only millennials can represent millennial interests is stupid.
We'll have to agree to disagree. Millennial lives and issues are far removed from the current establishment to be completely alien to people in power at present. To be disingenuous enough to believe millennials don't have a clue what's in their best interest is stupid.
Considering a majority of millennials support socialism, but also cannot provide a meaningful definition of the term...
I don't think most have a serious position worth considering. I say this as someone lumped in this demographic whipping boy.
There is plenty to be legitimately angry about too. I just don't trust this generation to come up with solutions that aren't literally "let's try real communism. This time it will work!"