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Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

unfinishedman.com

11–20 of 45 posts

Re: Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

#11

But if people stop buying crap won't the crap making and marketing companies stop hiring so many of these college grads and instead of buying iphones they can't afford they now have to buy food they can't afford?

You gotta love that argument eh? It's kind of like borrowing money from a bank so that you can hire yourself to do useless work until you collapse under the increasingly large interest payments.

You have to right? Because if you don't borrow money to pay yourself to do useless stuff, well then you can't afford to eat... At least this way you're buying some time to figure out a way to get someone else to borrow money and pay you.

Re: Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

#12

"Life is hard, and it’s most certainly unfair… perhaps more so for our generation than any previous." Uhm, have you ever heard of World War II? I'm pretty sure the MacBook-toting hipsters you describe have a slightly easier life than those people had to serve in Vietnam or World War II.

I considered pointing this out, and the great depression too. I can't say (and didn't say) that our generation is definitely harder off (I wasn't born during the previously stated time periods), however... from everything I've seen, youth today are in for a really, really shitty time. Perhaps saying "worse than its been in a long, long time" would have been more balanced.

Re: Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

#13
post #2

Funny coming from unfinishedman.com, which is the blog people go to when they look at The Sharper Image and think "but what do you have that's REALLY frivolous?" [1] http://www.unfinishedman.com/aviator-wing-desk-inspired-by-w... [2] http://www.unfinishedman.com/electric-hot-tub-boat-for-ultim... [3] http://www.unfinishedman.com/mercedes-benz-c63-amg-edition-5...

I don't think any student's credit card is going to be able to take a limited edition C63 AMG though, so probably not the same target audience.

Re: Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

#14

But if people stop buying crap won't the crap making and marketing companies stop hiring so many of these college grads and instead of buying iphones they can't afford they now have to buy food they can't afford?

"But if people stop throwing rocks to break windows, how will the window makers make a living?"

Re: Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

#15
> Life is hard, and it’s most certainly unfair… perhaps more so for our generation that any previous.

Absolutely absurd.

You really think you have it worse than somebody born into slavery? Or worse than a medieval serf?

A large fraction of humans alive right now would look on your lifestyle as extremely privileged.

This kind of statement comes across as pitifully ignorant whining. You actually hurt the cause of fixing real injustices when you fly off into hyperbole like this.

Re: Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

#16
post #15

> Life is hard, and it’s most certainly unfair… perhaps more so for our generation that any previous. Absolutely absurd. You really think you have it worse than somebody born into slavery? Or worse than a medieval serf? A large fraction of humans alive right now would look on your lifestyle as extremely privileged. This kind of statement comes across as pitifully ignorant whining. You actually hurt the cause of fixin…

You realize the article focuses on debt in regards to students and young people, right? Yeah, there's a bit of hyperbole, but I think my reference to "toughest... generation... evar..." makes sense in the context of "young people have it pretty shitty right now". Clearly you disagree, so fair enough. :)

Re: Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

#17
post #15

> Life is hard, and it’s most certainly unfair… perhaps more so for our generation that any previous. Absolutely absurd. You really think you have it worse than somebody born into slavery? Or worse than a medieval serf? A large fraction of humans alive right now would look on your lifestyle as extremely privileged. This kind of statement comes across as pitifully ignorant whining. You actually hurt the cause of fixin…

Yes, it should say "perhaps more so for our generation than the previous"

Re: Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

#18

But if people stop buying crap won't the crap making and marketing companies stop hiring so many of these college grads and instead of buying iphones they can't afford they now have to buy food they can't afford?

"But if people stop throwing rocks to break windows, how will the window makers make a living?"

In this case the window makers are probably web startups. If college kids weren't buying all these iphones what would be the value of geolocated picture dating services or whatever?

Re: Young Money – Beating “The Man” by Spending Less

#20

"Life is hard, and it’s most certainly unfair… perhaps more so for our generation than any previous." Uhm, have you ever heard of World War II? I'm pretty sure the MacBook-toting hipsters you describe have a slightly easier life than those people had to serve in Vietnam or World War II.

I considered pointing this out, and the great depression too. I can't say (and didn't say) that our generation is definitely harder off (I wasn't born during the previously stated time periods), however... from everything I've seen, youth today are in for a really, really shitty time. Perhaps saying "worse than its been in a long, long time" would have been more balanced.

At least if you died during WWII you were done. Now you can volunteer to rack up $200k+ in debt that will take you 10-20 (or more) years to pay off. It's not slavery in that it never ends but many students end up being very nearly indentured servants for a long time. Which is worse, death or debt "slavery?"
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