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The Fleecing of Millennials

nytimes.com

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Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#101

Post by war1025 »

normal_man wrote: post #91
war1025 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rules have changed and people are still trying to live like their parents did. Healthcare is expensive. If you are on Obamacare, it is subsidized. Housing is expensive if you want to live in a "good" neighborhood. There are a lot of "okay" neighborhoods that people can afford just fine. College is expensive, but it really depends on which university you go to. As much as anything, the college issue is intentional…

Instead of just going "welp, this is how things are now", there is always the option to change the rules back. How about we go back to 90% taxes on the top brackets and see how millennials fare then?

Replying to you again because I addressed your latter point, but not the first.

I absolutely agree there are things that could be changed to make life better for many people.

However, you live in the present, under the rules as they are. And from there you gain leverage to change the future.

Living as if the rules were different when they aren't just sets you up for failure.

It's the whole idea of "be so good they can't ignore you".

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#102

Post by sk5t »

notacoward wrote: post #36
oftenwrong wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the children of the dead, wealthy baby boomers will pick up where they left off.

...which is why we need to fix the estate tax. Large inheritances benefit only a few, often to the detriment of others. One could even argue that it doesn't benefit the few much either, because unearned wealth tends to bring its own psychological problems. I know all of the arguments against a robust estate tax, I've heard them literally hundreds of times, but I find them unconvincing. If we want to keep claiming we…

You'll forgive my skepticism in thinking that the folks who would be affected by confiscatory estate taxes will simply resort to more complex structures to avoid it--trusts, corporations onshore or off-, etc. Moreover, it isn't a settled matter that high estate taxes are per se "fair." The deceased already paid taxes on all that income, why should the government again get to help itself to what's left over?

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#103

Post by echelon »

jmull wrote: post #86
rnernento wrote: post #4

It's cute that they call it a fleecing, as if millenials could really have done anything about this. Sadly (I guess...) I suspect the generation responsible for all of this is going to end up paying some unexpected prices when the time comes as they age out of power and have to look to millenials for care.

That's a good point. However, the narrative of "blame the boomers" is a con. Blow this off if you want, but just realize that unless you're a russian bot or an ally of the American oligarchs you're working against your own self interests. The con is blame the problems of one group on another group to separate them and get them fighting each other. This distracts everyone from the real causes of the problems. It's the…

> I don't know the full solution to that, but one thing is we have to make voting easier.

I wholeheartedly agree. We need absolutely zero friction to onboard younger generations.

What does this look like to you? Do we provide an app where people can input their social security, driver's license, or other ID number? How do we keep it from being abused if this information was stolen by a third party?

Ideally we could have something as simple as download -> vote -> submit. And also provide a website version that doesn't even need to be downloaded.

How do we get something like this approved? What states would be the most likely to go for this?

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#104

Post by magicnubs »

notacoward wrote: post #36
oftenwrong wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then the children of the dead, wealthy baby boomers will pick up where they left off.

...which is why we need to fix the estate tax. Large inheritances benefit only a few, often to the detriment of others. One could even argue that it doesn't benefit the few much either, because unearned wealth tends to bring its own psychological problems. I know all of the arguments against a robust estate tax, I've heard them literally hundreds of times, but I find them unconvincing. If we want to keep claiming we…

> If we want to keep claiming we live in a meritocracy, the effects of an estate tax on ensuring (restoring) equal opportunity are not optional.

As of 2018 a couple can leave >$22 Million without paying any tax on it. That's enough for your children, their children and their children's children (and potentially on and on) to never have to work. Generational wealth like this is how we get and perpetuate "classes".

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#105

Post by downrightmike »

40acres wrote: post #78

I filed my taxes with Turbo Tax the other day and they compared my salary to other people my age (27) in my state (Oregon), I didn't double check the numbers but Turbo Tax reported that I made about 5 times the average 27 year old in Oregon. What I've noticed is that there is a huge inequality gap among millennials as well, a lot of millennials have crushing debt and poor job prospects yes -- but others get a job at…

What will happen is those that have better options will have kids. Similar to why there are so many people with last names of miller or smith. Both trades were protected to a point by not going to war and having the means to have kids. If we still went with our father's trades as last names, the next generation would probably be full (relatively) of Jane and Joe Engineer.

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#106

Post by NeedMoreTea »

hoaw wrote: post #85
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not sure it is the same thing, but maybe in the UK it was. As you say there have always been turmoil. But most of the time the young were seen as getting a better deal. Factories closed and older generations suffered, but the young got other jobs and at least to some extent benefited from the transition. Today we are talking about how young people get it almost universally worse from an economic standpoint and i…

That's exactly what I saw then too.

In the 90s recession youth unemployment was over 20% nationally. Can't find any decent regional or city figures now, and the tories changed the way unemployment was measured during that recession, so anything earlier is incomparable. In Scotland, the NW and NE, and probably the Midlands it was well over that.

Apprenticeships had recently disappeared (my generation was probably the last where some got a chance to leave school at 16 and go into a 3 or 4 year apprenticeship, as a few of my school friends did). Instead of going into work with prospects they ended up on long term unemployment benefit, maybe crime or drugs for some. Those who came out of college with engineering or manufacturing related skills find there's loads more chasing the industrial and engineering jobs that remained with poor chances.

Or simply take a dead end job unrelated to their qualifications, because money - the Deliveroo and Uber of their day, and many tried to move, failed, and got the dead end job somewhere expensive (SE). A CV with 5 or 10 years of all the wrong experience for a chosen career. Sure, some made it through unaffected too.

Kids coming onto the job market late 90s were fine, the economy was booming. Still far more so in the SE though. Those in the early and mid 80s mostly were too, unless they got unlucky with employer in the 90s recession, or bet on the about to die skills.

That generation had few chances of being paid as much as mum or dad, buying house or getting a mortgage until late or even the lifetime career prospects they might. Looking at them now, many got to OK. Though much later, on less money, in a smaller house, probably with more career and job switches and a far harder journey. Not a better deal at all.

Sheffield, Scotland and Liverpool probably still haven't forgiven the Tories for those years. Scotland certainly hasn;t looking at election results. Manchester and Leeds are pretty vibrant now, after many years repair and struggle. I don't know, but would imagine the story in the US rust belt would be frighteningly close.

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#107

Post by NeedMoreTea »

gadders wrote: post #54
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Of course he was. I can't believe I forgot that! :)

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#108

Post by treespace8 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67
snikeris wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the millenials will be paying for the older generation's retirement and healthcare via Social Security and Medicare.

> millenials will be paying for the older generation's retirement and healthcare via Social Security and Medicare My guess is younger generations, once better politically ensconced, will flip the script on boomers by funding broad social benefits out of social security and Medicare. (For example, by reducing Medicare benefits while making them available to all age groups.)

This won’t happen until the boomers numbers are much smaller then the milliennials.

The boomers will be a unified block all voting for social security and health care for the elderly.

Everyone else will be split around various special interests.

So maybe in 20 years?

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#109

Post by neltnerb »

canuseeme wrote: post #81
bryanlarsen wrote: post #20

Boomer'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:…

> Right now the US has ~4 workers per retiree. That's going to be dropping to about 2 in the next few decades. I think it's more like a 1/3 drop will take 45 years: https://www.econdataus.com/workers.html not that it changes your overall point by much.

I sure hope they put their retirement investments into companies that pay their workers enough that society still functions. My bet would be on complaints about how milk is five times as expensive as it was back in the 80s instead.

Re: The Fleecing of Millennials

#110

Post by hoaw »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #106
hoaw wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure it is the same thing, but maybe in the UK it was. As you say there have always been turmoil. But most of the time the young were seen as getting a better deal. Factories closed and older generations suffered, but the young got other jobs and at least to some extent benefited from the transition. Today we are talking about how young people get it almost universally worse from an economic standpoint and i…

That's exactly what I saw then too. In the 90s recession youth unemployment was over 20% nationally. Can't find any decent regional or city figures now, and the tories changed the way unemployment was measured during that recession, so anything earlier is incomparable. In Scotland, the NW and NE, and probably the Midlands it was well over that. Apprenticeships had recently disappeared (my generation was probably the…

Ah, I get what you are saying. Certainly not a good situation either. I guess the UK is a bit ahead of its time on this front. I still think there is a bit of difference though. In earlier recessions there at least seemed to be some recourse. Certainly harder to e.g. study in the UK I would imagine. But when the market turned you could get a chance.

In Sweden we had had high youth unemployment for 15 years (it's "low" now at 16%), but as people study or get a bit older they get work. Today though, it almost doesn't matter what you do. You either have to take a 100 year mortgage, or pay some significant rent, to live in e.g. Stockholm. And if you don't you are looking at declining job markets. It just seems like getting screwed has become ingrained in the system. Heads they win, tails you lose. Things are going well, you pay a lot. Things go bad, you are paid nothing. Maybe that was always the case and it is just easier to be informed now.

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