Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer • Hacker News Board

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#151

Post by burlesona » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

sdegutis wrote: post #11

burlesona wrote: post #2

From the article: “What’s old is new again. The paper observes that some of the millennials’ parents were subject to similar baseless grumbles of "kids these days" from their elders.” I don’t know though. Seems like part of the nastiness of the times is the baby boomers constantly taking jabs at millennials. Perhaps the silent generation complained the boomers weren’t “frugal enough” but I have a hard time believing…

There was an article the other day that said divorce rates for millennials is down a notable amount from baby boomers, but without the marriage rate lowering. One way of interpreting this is that baby boomers have more selfish tendencies than other generations, and millennials are realizing that their parents' ways (including divorce) are selfish, and learning from their parents mistakes. If this is true, then it's p…

I saw that study and it matched what I observe anecdotally around me. Millenials mostly have divorced parents and mostly feel that was a terrible way to grow up. So they’re waiting until they’re ready to have kids to get married to their long-term partner, and they’re approaching it with more of a sober commitment to stay together for the kids.

At the end of the day, marriage is a choice you make every day. Different cultures have higher and lower divorce rates largely based on how seriously they take that commitment.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#152

Post by lumberjack » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

iagooar wrote: post #6

It's funny how this "generation" thing only quite exists (as far as I know) in the English-speaking world. There is no such idea of generations of people where I come from. It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. Who draws a line between generations and why? People do not stop being born, nor do they magically change because they supposedly belong to an imaginary generation. Am I missing something?

It's like the "class war", except directed at your own parents. I find it quite funny how people fall for this crap.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#153

Post by mgbmtl » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

huehehue wrote: post #77

esotericn wrote: post #16

I think the term "poorer", and the monetary analysis done here, is too high level to extract real meaning. The average young person/couple that I know are able to do and buy far more than their parents (e.g. eat out, order takeaway, take holidays, go to bars, buy things for hobbies, buy clothes, ...). They just don't own property and have no path that leads there. In some sense you could say that they have higher inc…

They only need enough of an analysis to get a catchy article heading. Every day it's either "millennials are rich" or "millennials are poor". Millennials are poor: ~10% have $15k saved up https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/09/a-growing-percentage-of-mill... Millennials are rich: ~47% have $15k saved up https://www.sfgate.com/personal-finance/article/Millennials-... Avoid articles that stereotype any generation, because the…

Not to mention articles that use an average instead of median. Millennials can seem rich on average, but poor on median, because of the growing wealth disparity.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#154

Post by downrightmike » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #129

will_brown wrote: post #126

Baby Boomers are directly responsible for all the debt in the country, they invented it to pay for their lavish life styles they couldn’t afford and so they invented debt to kick the can down the road to future generations, and payment has come due. 1950 federal debt was ~$250B now $21T. Credit cards didn’t exist before baby boomers now $19T in consumer debt. Student loans didn’t exist before the boomers, now it’s mo…

I agree with most of this except the part about inventing debt; come on now, debt has existed as a concept far back into human history. EDIT: Yes all, I understand credit is now more easily available than ever, and I would argue that ease of credit is a substantial problem allowing for the transfer of responsibility to future generations. @infogulch: I agree with everything you said, but that is not what OP said, and…

Yes, but you couldn't spend it like water until the credit card. And that started with the Diner's Club card in 1950: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diners_Club_International

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#155

Post by whatok » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

awakeasleep wrote: post #145

will_brown wrote: post #126

Baby Boomers are directly responsible for all the debt in the country, they invented it to pay for their lavish life styles they couldn’t afford and so they invented debt to kick the can down the road to future generations, and payment has come due. 1950 federal debt was ~$250B now $21T. Credit cards didn’t exist before baby boomers now $19T in consumer debt. Student loans didn’t exist before the boomers, now it’s mo…

How are boomers as a generation of people responsible for the '78 Supreme Court decision to allow national banks to export the interest rate law of their home state into any state where they do business? Thats what caused the credit card explosion https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/marquette-inter...

Credit card debt is a small percentage of overall household debt.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#156

Post by esotericn » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

aglavine wrote: post #70

esotericn wrote: post #16

I think the term "poorer", and the monetary analysis done here, is too high level to extract real meaning. The average young person/couple that I know are able to do and buy far more than their parents (e.g. eat out, order takeaway, take holidays, go to bars, buy things for hobbies, buy clothes, ...). They just don't own property and have no path that leads there. In some sense you could say that they have higher inc…

I think that they eat out and order takeaway because they perceive that they never going to save enough money to afford a house.

Sure.

In the UK it's not about saving, it's about income multipliers, which don't really involve financial discipline beyond the basic level of "have an emergency fund so you can interview properly".

In a silly limiting example, imagine you earn 40K. It's not intractable to save enough to hit a 5%, 10%, or whatever deposit on a 1 million property.

What is intractable is ever earning enough that 4x your income is equal to the remaining ~800-900K mortgage.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#157

Post by hour_glass » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #121

klodolph wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. It's just an arbitrary label for people born in a certain period of history. These people generally have shared experiences that are different from the experiences of other generations. > Who draws a line between generations and why? Same people that draw a line between lemons and limes. It's sometimes a useful distinction so people remember it and use it. > People do…

> There is no sharp dividing line between lemons and limes, either There is, if you care about scurvy: http://nowiknow.com/dont-forget-the-lime/

limes have slightly less vitamin c?

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#158

Post by gpvos » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

mymythisisthis wrote: post #114

iagooar wrote: post #6

It's funny how this "generation" thing only quite exists (as far as I know) in the English-speaking world. There is no such idea of generations of people where I come from. It's hard for me to even grasp the idea of it. Who draws a line between generations and why? People do not stop being born, nor do they magically change because they supposedly belong to an imaginary generation. Am I missing something?

WWII. There was such a large group of people born between 1945 and 1950, after the war ended, that they all push through the system at the same time. Woodstock music festival happened in 1969 right when everybody was in the their 20s or about to hit 30. Then they all had kids at roughly the same time, the 1970s and early 80s. Housing boom of the 1980s. Lots of new kids shows that happened in this time period as well.…

In the Netherlands, this effect is even stronger. We also speak of the baby boomer generation. Can't speak for the rest of Europe though.

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#159

Post by pasbesoin » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #126

Baby Boomers are directly responsible for all the debt in the country, they invented it to pay for their lavish life styles they couldn’t afford and so they invented debt to kick the can down the road to future generations, and payment has come due. 1950 federal debt was ~$250B now $21T. Credit cards didn’t exist before baby boomers now $19T in consumer debt. Student loans didn’t exist before the boomers, now it’s mo…

My Great Uncle Joe served in World War II. 4 years tromping around Europe. In his 80's, he still woke up at night, screaming. So his wife would tell us; he never spoke much about that. She lost her first husband, Fred, to the war. Society calls them "The Greatest Generation".

They couldn't have kids. But they ended up running a drive in, where the kids who worked for them became like family. They put more than one through college, and took one in when he needed a home. Decades later, those kids would call and visit them.

Well, those kids may have turned out pretty well. But, generally, I've come to think of those who came after this "Greatest Generation" as "The Selfish Generation".

Really, we're speaking of more than one generation, here. The symbolic touch phrase might come from the 1980's, written in the movie "Wall Street":

Greed is good!

To which I might respond, "Divided we fall."

Re: Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

#160

Post by jedberg » Thu, Nov 29, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

kimmeld wrote: post #148

will_brown wrote: post #126

Baby Boomers are directly responsible for all the debt in the country, they invented it to pay for their lavish life styles they couldn’t afford and so they invented debt to kick the can down the road to future generations, and payment has come due. 1950 federal debt was ~$250B now $21T. Credit cards didn’t exist before baby boomers now $19T in consumer debt. Student loans didn’t exist before the boomers, now it’s mo…

Social Security was founded in 1935, so before boomers ever were born, although it had a different feel from today's program. Social Security is funded (you actually pay taxes for it), but the rest of the government borrows from it quite recklessly which is why republicans want you to believe it's not funded. With simply upping the ceiling on the amount taxed into it we can easily fund it for the foreseeable future.…

Upping the contribution limit without upping the benefit would just be a hidden tax on the upper middle class, but not the rich, who do not work for salary. If you want to tax the rich, you need to raise the upper tax rates.