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Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

pandodaily.com

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Re: Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

#81

Post by guelo »

shawnee_ wrote: post #43
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #24

Since the beginning of the financial crisis the media has constantly been repeating that the housing market was key to recovery and that the government had to do things to help prop up house prices. As someone who would like to own a house in the future, I find it quite unfair that the government is helping to maintain bubble prices. It is yet another way for current homeowners to to extract as much money as possible…

the media has constantly been repeating that the housing market was key to recovery and that the government had to do things to help prop up house prices. It is interesting how many people are misinformed about this. The government hasn't and can't do anything to "prop up" house prices. It only sets the prime interest rate, which affects the ability of people to borrow money (specifically does it affect ARM mortgages…

> The government hasn't and can't do anything to "prop up" house prices.

What about the mortgage interest rate deduction?

Re: Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

#82

Post by [deleted] »

shawnee_ wrote: post #43
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #24

Since the beginning of the financial crisis the media has constantly been repeating that the housing market was key to recovery and that the government had to do things to help prop up house prices. As someone who would like to own a house in the future, I find it quite unfair that the government is helping to maintain bubble prices. It is yet another way for current homeowners to to extract as much money as possible…

the media has constantly been repeating that the housing market was key to recovery and that the government had to do things to help prop up house prices. It is interesting how many people are misinformed about this. The government hasn't and can't do anything to "prop up" house prices. It only sets the prime interest rate, which affects the ability of people to borrow money (specifically does it affect ARM mortgages…

[deleted]

Re: Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

#83

Post by pnathan »

moocow01 wrote: post #21

A lot of this article has points I agree with but feels swarmy and misdirected. The take-away seems to be "forget about getting educated, pick up a few O'reilly books, make a website, make sure your friends are doing the same". Yeah a lot of stuff is tough for young folks. Yeah we probably have got some tough things coming. We've got a lot of collective debt, healthcare problems, student debt, global warming, etc etc…

About two years I broke out the BLS data for US employment % vs level of education into a series of graphs.

Numbers for the non-HS degree went up to about 17% unemployment worst scenario. Grad degrees topped out at 4%.

The biggest differentiator was high school: that dropped outcomes by about 5%, iirc. Some college - not even completed college - dropped about 4% down in the outcome. People with BS+ degrees did quite well.

The big takeaway from that was, "education pays off". Anecdotally, people who are willing to move and be self-motivated could do well even with a Humanities degree.

Of course, I only know one CS guy who couldn't get work.

Re: Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

#84

Post by nostrademons »

angersock wrote: post #76
Suncho wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That is what I'm suggesting. And I am not kidding. Do you disagree?

I'm concerned that I'm maybe putting the wrong emphasis on some bit of what you said, because if I'm not then yes, I disagree with you. There is no reason historically that people have not had to work to support themselves, and so to suggest that they not do this suggests either that you desire them all to become layabouts dependent on welfare or that you want them to stop working and die off. Please explain an alter…

work != job

Re: Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

#85

Post by mjmahone17 »

muzz wrote: post #66
brianchu wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "quite poor?" To my knowledge, if they're poor, they're poor. I don't know anyone who was legitimately poor that did not qualify for financial aid. EDIT (reply to below): Your point about the estranged parent is valid; a wealthy parent refusing to pay is the only case in which a "poor" student does not get much financial aid. Foreign students are not entirely excluded from financial aid, though th…

At Stanford, it's a policy that if your family makes less than $100,000/yr, they waive tuition. At Harvard and some other Ivies, they do it at $60,000/yr.

At Brown, that is the case as well (at 60k/yr). And yet, there are federal and school policies in place to prevent students from paying less than their fair share. I know students whose families earn about 25-30k/yr, who have siblings, and are still expected to pay ~15k/yr. My family's Expected Family Contribution last year was something like 20k (which is more than they were able to pay, so I still had to go into debt). However, due to the fact that I earned about 10k at an internship the previous summer, despite my parent's income remaining constant, our EFC increased to 28k. And, due to my unusually high income, I was eligible for about 4k less in subsidized federal loans (which I've had to max out). Meaning I've had to rely on private loans to make up the difference this year. While I'm forever grateful for the aid I have received, there are still waaay too many cracks students can fall through.

Re: Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

#86

Post by jpdoctor »

pnathan wrote: post #83
moocow01 wrote: post #21

A lot of this article has points I agree with but feels swarmy and misdirected. The take-away seems to be "forget about getting educated, pick up a few O'reilly books, make a website, make sure your friends are doing the same". Yeah a lot of stuff is tough for young folks. Yeah we probably have got some tough things coming. We've got a lot of collective debt, healthcare problems, student debt, global warming, etc etc…

About two years I broke out the BLS data for US employment % vs level of education into a series of graphs. Numbers for the non-HS degree went up to about 17% unemployment worst scenario. Grad degrees topped out at 4%. The biggest differentiator was high school: that dropped outcomes by about 5%, iirc. Some college - not even completed college - dropped about 4% down in the outcome. People with BS+ degrees did quite…

> About two years I broke out the BLS data for US employment % vs level of education into a series of graphs.

I've posted it elsewhere, but CR also had that graph in his blog: http://cr4re.com/charts/chart-images/EducationUnemploymentSe...

I find it quite an oversight that pando quoted the CR unemployment duration, but not the UE by education. The second graph makes the pando article look silly IMO.

Re: Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

#87

Post by skylan_q »

brudgers wrote: post #63
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #24

Since the beginning of the financial crisis the media has constantly been repeating that the housing market was key to recovery and that the government had to do things to help prop up house prices. As someone who would like to own a house in the future, I find it quite unfair that the government is helping to maintain bubble prices. It is yet another way for current homeowners to to extract as much money as possible…

Why do you want to own a house? Is it as an impediment to relocating? For the risk of a highly leveraged investment? Or so that you can spend time and money fixing leaking pipes on Tuesday evening and patching the gypsum board on Saturday? Ever notice how most small businesses deal with real-estate? Hint: they don't negotiate a thirty year lock-in.

I completely understand where you're coming from. I'm in Canada, and all the above is reasons why I rent right now.

"Why do you want to own a house?"

It's actually not a bad proposition now in the US. Housing starts are heading up, prices are rock-bottom but starting to budge upwards again, and the common wisdom on real estate is now strongly negative.

What I'm saying is that someone would likely be able to get their money back (+ inflation) if they get a house these days and sell it later. Of course, they've got to deal with the headaches you mention, which personally still turns me off.

Re: Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

#88

Post by Suncho »

angersock wrote: post #76
Suncho wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That is what I'm suggesting. And I am not kidding. Do you disagree?

I'm concerned that I'm maybe putting the wrong emphasis on some bit of what you said, because if I'm not then yes, I disagree with you. There is no reason historically that people have not had to work to support themselves, and so to suggest that they not do this suggests either that you desire them all to become layabouts dependent on welfare or that you want them to stop working and die off. Please explain an alter…

I don't want them to die off. I do want them to depend on welfare. Whether they layabout is up to them.

Historically, if you go way back, everyone grew/hunted their own food and built their own houses etc. This was a very brittle/brutal existence. Drought, disease, or a cold winter means I might die or my family might die.

So we learned to be efficient by dividing up tasks and specializing. This reduced the total amount of work that needed to be done to ensure our survival. Over time, technology (algorithms) continues to get more efficient thereby continuing to reduce the work necessary for survival.

Of course, this natural progression eventually leads us to point where the work necessary for our survival is completely automated. We're not there yet, but there will never again be enough jobs that everyone can have one.

That's a good thing. It frees people up to do what they want with their time.

Re: Young People Are Screwed: Here's How To Survive

#90

Post by mrtron »

guelo wrote: post #81
shawnee_ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the media has constantly been repeating that the housing market was key to recovery and that the government had to do things to help prop up house prices. It is interesting how many people are misinformed about this. The government hasn't and can't do anything to "prop up" house prices. It only sets the prime interest rate, which affects the ability of people to borrow money (specifically does it affect ARM mortgages…

> The government hasn't and can't do anything to "prop up" house prices. What about the mortgage interest rate deduction?

Which is not common outside of the US.
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