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No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

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Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#31

Post by jasperry »

asynchronous wrote: post #6
lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

I want a financial person to explain to me why we continue to expect exponential growth of companies’ revenue year after year, and why that makes any logical sense in a world with finite resources.

Value growth isn't tied to physical resources anymore, it's increasingly ascribed to intangible things, such as intellectual property. I'm not saying that growth is guaranteed to continue, just that economies have already been growing based on more abstract values; it's not all about food and fuel anymore.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#32

Post by JKCalhoun »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #26

This article spells out the incentive structure that leads to low-status men underperforming. > Some of the jobs he can get don’t pay enough to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss. > The educated class decides cohabiting partnerships are just as valid and important as marriage. A…

> Some of the jobs he can get don’t pay enough to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss.

Same as it always was.

Or perhaps moving a factory workforce into the service industry has been degrading? (Since of course we shipped the factories overseas.)

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#33

Post by weweersdfsd »

realce wrote: post #10
apwell23 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

workforce in usa seems pretty good. Have you seen the homeprices they are able to afford ?

A mortgage is 30 years. Who thinks most people will have well-paying jobs in 20 years? In 10? In 5? What's the current percentage of American workers who can afford a house, a car, and a single child responsibly? What's the average income-to-mortgage ratio in America, is it sustainable? What rationalization are we supposed to have for self-worth when robots and AGI do all of "our" labor? This entire society is meltin…

Yeah, it's more or less same mess in Europe too. Young people are supposed to take 20-30 year mortgages that require a stable career to pay back, while corporations do their best to make everyone unemployed via advances in AI and robotics. Hell, my country also shares more than 1000km of with Russia, and who says we won't have WW3 in 20-30 years?

At this point the main economic improvement in my life will probably come when I inherit my paren't house. Career, work, that is all uncertain to build a life upon, so I will just rent and downshift.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#34

Post by quickthrowman »

nradov wrote: post #12
foobarbecue wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing. Most people can't afford a home here; we're renters. The exception is upper class people riding stock market hype bubbles.

False. The homeownership rate is about 66%. Most people can afford a home here. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

> Most people can afford a home here.

Correction, most people have been able to afford a home in the past in the US.

Homes used to be affordable, now they aren’t.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#35

Post by JKCalhoun »

kubb wrote: post #30

Born too late to enjoy exponential asset growth. Born too soon to see the true environmental impact of the asset growth. Lost generation, can I just get some drugs to cope please, my computer job is making me lose my humanity ;( Just kidding it’s all good :)

It would make an interesting film(book/documentary/comic?) where the protagonist is laid off because the factory in Anytown, Georgia closes down and by some magical plot contrivance he is able to move to Shenzhen and get his job back.

You could go a lot of different ways, or several at once, with this set up.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#36

Post by pseudo0 »

theryan wrote: post #11
foobarbecue wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing. Most people can't afford a home here; we're renters. The exception is upper class people riding stock market hype bubbles.

I think that's a bit disingenuous. Home ownership under 35 is nearly 40%. 35 and up it increases to above 60% https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/07/younger-house... has some nice statistics.

In case you weren't aware:

> The name "homeownership rate" can be misleading. As defined by the US Census Bureau, it is the percentage of homes that are occupied by the owner. It is not the percentage of adults that own their own home. This latter percentage will be significantly lower than the homeownership rate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_...

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#37

Post by gruez »

neilv wrote: post #8
lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... so long as the other villagers are fighting amongst themselves, over whether their house should be larger than that of their neighbor. Turns out most of their problems are arguably traceable back to those people with 100+ houses each. Which would be glaringly suspicious to an outside observer. But the vill…

>Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself.

>But some can, and can even take up 100 houses...

How much % of the housing supply is actually taken up by people with 100 houses?

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#38

Post by throwawaysleep »

quickthrowman wrote: post #34
nradov wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. The homeownership rate is about 66%. Most people can afford a home here. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

> Most people can afford a home here. Correction, most people have been able to afford a home in the past in the US. Homes used to be affordable, now they aren’t.

Gen Z is becoming homeowners at a record pace:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/21/ge...

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#39

Post by jen20 »

realce wrote: post #10
apwell23 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

workforce in usa seems pretty good. Have you seen the homeprices they are able to afford ?

A mortgage is 30 years. Who thinks most people will have well-paying jobs in 20 years? In 10? In 5? What's the current percentage of American workers who can afford a house, a car, and a single child responsibly? What's the average income-to-mortgage ratio in America, is it sustainable? What rationalization are we supposed to have for self-worth when robots and AGI do all of "our" labor? This entire society is meltin…

Stop being a turkey voting for Christmas. Lose the puritanical outlook on life and start considering the myriad ways a few hundred billionaires could be stopped by the general population at large.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#40

Post by voisin »

asynchronous wrote: post #6
lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

I want a financial person to explain to me why we continue to expect exponential growth of companies’ revenue year after year, and why that makes any logical sense in a world with finite resources.

There is no rationality. It is a justification for “I’ll get the most I can now and push the externalities on some future fool”.

It is no different from traders hunting buffalo to extinction. They got their money, consequences be damned.

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