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Fed Says Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents, Only Poorer

bloomberg.com

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

#181

Post by zoom6628 »

potta_coffee wrote: post #100
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?

I was born in 1984. I had a curious upbringing, true, but I find I have very little in common with "kids" born in 1997, the last year of my "generation". In 1997, I was a freshman in highschool. Things changed dramatically between '97 and '10. For instance, kids my age didn't grow up with social media, we had land lines and dial up internet, and none of us had cell phones.

I was born in '63 and didnt see computers until 1976 (Apple IIe). The only form of telephone was a landline. WHen working in Hongkong in 1987 i saw first mobile - the Motorola brick.

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

#182

Post by wuliwong »

will_brown wrote: post #167
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Medicare/social security didn’t exist before the boomer generation Patently false. In the US, Social Security was instituted as part of Roosevelt's New Deal in 1935. From a more global perspective similar systems have been around much longer.

Sorry Medicare and medicade. It doesn’t matter if similar systems have been around much longer, governments have been around much longer than The US government and none of them are $21T in debt.

Sure but there are a lot of countries with larger debt to GDP ratios.

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

#183

Post by eppsilon »

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…

The US' national debt was 89% of GDP in 1950. Now it is 104%. [1] I somewhat agree with you (there was a long period in between when the debt-GDP % was much lower), but the current situation isn't as dire as you suggest.

1. https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to...

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

#184

Post by cableshaft »

elocinstr8t wrote: post #64

Sorry but I kinda disagree. I'm a Millennial with Baby Boomer parents and I'm definitely not poorer than them. No, I wasn't born rich, but I'm definitely earning more than my parents. Okay, maybe not as much as my Mom but this article is such BS. It all just depends from person to person you know. I hate it when generations always crap on millennials like we're the worse thing that's happened in the world. Have you m…

If you're doing anything related to software for a living and live in the US, you're not representative of the average American.

I'm not making anywhere near as much as I could be in software development right now and yet I'm making significantly more than the average household income in the US, just by myself (not including my girlfriend that lives and shares bills with me).

Also it's all relative. The types of jobs my parents worked were both middle-lower class jobs and we struggled at times to make ends meet. I ended up in one of the higher paying fields out there, so it makes sense that I make more than they did.

Comparatively, a good friend of mine's dad is a lawyer, but my friend is a teacher in the Pacific Islands (he studied for and tried being a lawyer for awhile, but his wanderlust got the better of him). He's making significantly less than his family did.

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

#185

Post by throw_away2 »

komali2 wrote: post #130
throw_away2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing was invented by two boomers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio... My personal theory is that it is just an artifact of US boomer navel-gazing and self-exceptionalism. Also that it fits in nicely with peoples' tendency to want to drop other people into little buckets so that they don't have to think about them too hard. People do the same thing with race, believing these diff…

I feel you there, although I do think it can be useful to say things like "people born before 1980 will not experience climate change like those born after."

Fair enough, as this is something that will happen to a given person, not some intrinsic attribute of their personality. But consider, too, the arbitrariness of specifying 1980. As someone born in 1980, I feel this acutely, as I'm not really gen-x nor am I really millennial. People born just before and just after me will feel climate change about the same. The framing implies a discrete change, but there isn't one.

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

#186

Post by kimmeld »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #171
jedberg wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You need to implement social security taxes on investment income, not raising the SS taxable cap on wages, to accomplish this. It makes sense to not overly tax burden wage income (productive effort) while taxing investment income (rent seeking) at a higher rate, no?

I'd just go with adding all income (investment or otherwise) into a total pool and then tax that with a single set of rules instead of this stupidly complex tax system.

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

#187

Post by Buldak »

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…

The culture wars have enveloped everything nowadays, from #MeToo to GamerGate to Trump. I wonder if gripes between boomers and millennial are just another facet of that upward trend in polarization.

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

#188

Post by benj111 »

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?

I think it is useful to group people by age. But yeah I'm not sure if the 'generation' distinction is helpful. I was born in the early 80s so apparently am a millenial. (although I was gen Y before someone coined the term). I'm not sure that my life thus far has been closer to someone born in the 90s versus the 70s. I grew up without the internet or mobile phones which are supposed millenial things.

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

#189

Post by maxxxxx »

wuliwong wrote: post #176
maxxxxx wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very American thing. They like to categorize people and then assign attributes to that group. "Conservative", "Liberal", "Gen X", ""Millenial", "Baby Boomers" and so on. I also find it pretty unhelpful to think about society that way. I think Clinton for example thought that "women" would vote for her because they are "women" and all "women" have the same opinions.

>They like to categorize people and then assign attributes to that group You mean like you just did?

Exactly!

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

#190

Post by rv-de »

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?

> 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?

Not sure if with "comming from" you are referring to Poland or Germany but regarding the latter I have to answer with a confident "Stimmt nicht!".

There is a big discussion in Germany regarding the so called "Generationenvertrag" which is about the young generation financing the older generation's retirement. Which is working worse every year.

Also there are public discussions about social injustice particularly impacting the current generation and with regard to retirement a bleak outlook compared to the previous generation (not really the current) of retired citizens.

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