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Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

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Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#331

Post by hiram112 »

Retric wrote: post #222
gragas wrote: post #218

Suppose 30-year-olds make exactly the same as their parents did at 30. Then we would expect that barely half of 30-year-olds earn more than their parents did at 30. This title is stupid. It implies "oh hur dur the economy is so bad" when in reality it says nothing.

Economic growth is not 0. So, really it says that 1/2 the population is flat our worse off. Further, a rising tide lifts all boats is a complitly false analogy, and anyone using that phrase to talk about the economy is lying.

Interestingly, I remember in the 90s when offshoring really started to take off beyond just steel and some manufacturing, the response from the politicians was that BS about rising tide lifting all boats.

Then somewhere in the last 10 years, the mantra was that some sectors would be worse off with globalization, but if you got an education, you'd be fine. So everyone went to college and ignored the blue collar guys getting screwed.

Now we see the legions of indebted college grads living at home at 30, PHDs working part time as baristas.

Should have got stem degree, is what we're now told. Tell that to the guys who had to train their own replacements on H1b visas.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#332

Post by hiram112 »

Retric wrote: post #222
gragas wrote: post #218

Suppose 30-year-olds make exactly the same as their parents did at 30. Then we would expect that barely half of 30-year-olds earn more than their parents did at 30. This title is stupid. It implies "oh hur dur the economy is so bad" when in reality it says nothing.

Economic growth is not 0. So, really it says that 1/2 the population is flat our worse off. Further, a rising tide lifts all boats is a complitly false analogy, and anyone using that phrase to talk about the economy is lying.

Interestingly, I remember in the 90s when offshoring really started to take off beyond just steel and some manufacturing, the response from the politicians was that BS about rising tide lifting all boats.

Then somewhere in the last 10 years, the mantra was that some sectors would be worse off with globalization, but if you got an education, you'd be fine. So everyone went to college and ignored the blue collar guys getting screwed.

Now we see the legions of indebted college grads living at home at 30, PHDs working part time as baristas.

Should have got stem degree, is what we're now told. Tell that to the guys who had to train their own replacements on H1b visas.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#333

Post by hiram112 »

giardini wrote: post #116
cnnsucks wrote: post #66

This is WSJ red meat political controversy stuff. The story devolves into the usual "tax the rich" and anti-welfare state debate as any other political click-bait. I thought HN wasn't doing that for a week... I actually agree with the premise and many of the conclusions, and if it popped up on Drudge or Breitbart or whatever I'd be fine with it, but why here? Why must every popular site devolve into either a virtual…

Just a note: you _have_ to "tax the rich". Nobody else has enough money to pay the bills! The question isn't whether to "tax the rich" or not - it's "How should we tax the rich" and How much should we tax the rich?" that we need to answer. Meanwhile the correct answers are: - Bring back heavy estate ("death") taxes to prevent wealth from being passed from generation to generation, - Create heavy wealth taxes so that…

I don't know if it's true or not, but I've heard the claim that even pushing up tax rates to Eisenhower-era levels (without deductions) would still not solve the problem fully.

Instead, we simply have a demographics issue: Too many older folks with unpayable entitlements and not enough younger workers to pay for the bill.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#334

Post by Broken_Hippo »

flukus wrote: post #176
rubidium wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be exaggerating or living in New York/San Fran. Here in the midwest is is very reasonable for a top 20% income for 30 yr old age bracket to have only one parent work. If you're top 1% you can definitely afford a house in the suburbs and have one parent stay home.

In more affordable places are there a lot of jobs that would put you in that 20%?

I'm from Indiana - and that is exactly the problem. Sure, housing is affordable. But wages are a fair amount lower and a fair amount of jobs are low-paying. This is really a major problem with people looking at economic recovery - wages haven't caught up for a fair amount of folks. That all said, it might actually be easier to get to that 'dream' if you plan correctly and are willing to let a few things go: Alternatively, for some it might not be a choice because of the costs of childcare and transportation.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#335

Post by humanrebar »

somecallitblues wrote: post #321

How can they earn more when all the money is at the hands of Trump and others who make up 1%? The current capitalism is not distributing the wealth very well and it's certainly nearing a disaster. I wish the left had an answer but they don't. They're stuck with political correctness and more extreme are can't see that they don't have an answer to capitalism and that everything they've tried in the past has failed, an…

> I wish the left had an answer but they don't.

The left is the 1% as well. How much money do the Clintons have? A lot. How much Wall Street support did Obama have? A lot. If Hollywood isn't the 1%, what are they?

> ...working class have found a billionaire to be their champion...

Thiel is interesting partly because he's a business leader that talks about politics and isn't explicitly liberal. That is, he's an exception that proves the rule.

> ...and think that migrants and non-white and non-Christian people are to blame for their suffering...

Some do. But most have more complex motivations involving economics, democracy, and fighting (in their minds) corruption and hypocrisy. The Left won't make any positive progress here unless they try to understand their neighbors.

This is why "Love Trumps Hate" rings really hollow to most of the people I ask about these things.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#336

Post by humanrebar »

efng wrote: post #307
paulddraper wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. US home ownership has gone up and down between 64% and 69% in the past 30 years, currently at the low end of that. But at the same time, the average new house went from 1,600 to 2,500 sqft. Thirty years ago, how many people plopped down $5k for a TV? $700 for a phone? $150/month for telecom? Life expediency has increased by 6 years from 1975 to 2010. And to top it off, we're working less than we ever have. Aver…

> And to top it off, we're working less than we ever have This really struck me. I am going to assume your numbers ar correct, but if you could point me to a source I would love that. (did a quick search on the web, couldn't find exactly what I would like) My first thought was that it is fascinating that we would be working 12% less hours per person. I wonder how that break down by gender. The number I keep finding i…

First, homemakers aren't unemployed. They just work at different things.

Second, look at the employment rate charted over the last forty years or so. Some of that may be explained by retiring baby boomers, but it's the following generations that will need to pick up the economic slack to pay for retirement, healthcare, prop up their home values so they can retire, etc.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#337

Post by ainiriand »

mattlevan wrote: post #240
ainiriand wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income should be the solution we, as an organized group, give to all individuals to be able to express themselves. All human beings have basic needs and the State have to provide this. The State here is the expression of the will of the population. Do not take the State as something socialist or communist, taking from someone and giving it to someone for free; no,this is provided by us, the population, for us,…

This is a common argument for basic income and, even though you say "Do not take the State as something socialist or communist", your argument is the same as it is for socialism and communism. You say, "Do not take the State as something socialist or communist, taking from someone and giving it to someone for free; no, this is provided by us, the population, for us, the population." --- Here's the problem. Can you th…

When I say the population I am referring to a set of people who actually believes that colaboration and resource sharing is the best way to success. This 'population' (countries), are the places I want to live. For example, I would never live in the USA, because you dont take care of each other, you are an individualist society.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#338

Post by Lazare »

skybrian wrote: post #313
Lazare wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you understand the implications of the argument you're making. > Any treasury bonds held by the federal government (for example, by the Social Security) is money the government owes to itself and has no real-world effect. That is 100% correct. Which is the point. Those bonds are not a meaningful asset for Social Security; they have "no real-world effect" because they're an IOU payable by the same entity…

As I understand it, the implication is that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to think of the government as saving money specifically for the future expenses of retirees. At the level of the federal government, it's a pay-as-you-go system. Current taxes and treasury sales (deficit spending) pay current expenses. (And it's a bit weirder than that because the Fed can retire government debt if it wants to, just by cr…

There's really two (equally valid) ways to look at this, from an accounting point of view.

1) SSA is independent. It has liabilities (the promises made to enrollees), and assets (the trust fund). Liabilities exceed assets in the long run, but until then (currently projected as 2034) the system is fine. The federal government, on the other hand, needs to count those liabilities at full value. This means government debt is significantly higher than generally reported, the Clinton surpluses never actually happened, and a lot of spending decision, in retrospect, look quite reckless.

2) SSA is not independent, but is part of the federal government. Social security has liabilities (the promises made to enrollees), but the trust fund is a wash. This means that the lower "net" totals for government debt are technically correct, and that there was a budget surplus in the 90s...but it also means that no provision was made to cover those liabilities; the system is being run strictly on a pay-as-you-go basis. And while they may not be technically debt, given the scale of the liabilities social security represents to the federal government, a lot of spending decisions, in retrospect, look quite reckless.

What's important to note is that these two stories are completely identical. It's like arguing whether a liter of water weighs 1kg or 2.2lbs; the answer is "both". :) In both cases the money collected via the payroll tax was used to fund general expenditures, leaving an unfunded liability. The size of the liability isn't in question, nor is the matter of who has to pay it. It's really just a qyestion of what you label the boxes.

> it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to think of the government as saving money specifically for the future expenses of retirees.

That's not inherent in the concept of a pension system. It could have been run on a funded basis, with actual savings accounts; it was not due to political reasons. I took toomuchtodo to be decrying that fact. Yes, the system we have is a pay-as-you-go system, but in retrospect doesn't that seem like a pretty poor idea?

Also:

> the Fed can retire government debt if it wants to, just by creating new money out of thin air and buying treasuries

That is legally impossible. (It also wouldn't work from an economic POV; it's effectively the same thing as just printing money to pay for SSA liabilities directly, and we know that funding government directly via the printing presses doesn't work.)

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#339

Post by ainiriand »

tluyben2 wrote: post #180
ainiriand wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, massive automation of tasks is going to cause a massive demand of programmers, developers and QA engineers, so no robot apocalypse yet. Basic income is not the solution to this problem because this is not a problem. The solution to this 'problem' is having a better education and making tech more accessible for everyone.

There will be more demand for a short while but a lot of that will also be automated away. Think about a period of 100 years aka your children and grandchildren. Not the coming 3 years as we programmers tend to do. Even if we will have another AI winter after this spring and summer; 100 years gives enough time for another spring and summer. Not only can not everyone do everything; many people cannot learn programming…

Well, it is really hard to think about what is going to happen regading jobs in 100 years. I dont think that human mind is going to be removed from the equation. And if human intervention is, in fact, removed from most of the jobs, then what alternatives to get the basic needs are they going to have? Also, we have to be extremely careful because, even if we are not going to be there, we are paving their destinies now.

Re: Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30

#340

Post by pikzen »

retube wrote: post #293
gremlinsinc wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly feel basic income is a MUST have. I so much believe in it that I WANT the automation to come, I want to see the jobs disappear, I live for the day when robots do all the physical work and a job is optional--and we can pick and choose what we work on because having a roof over our head and food on the table, and healthcare is just a given. We can be entrepreneurs, etc.. I have a ton of app ideas, but I work…

So far automation has not resulted in net fewer jobs, but more productive jobs replacing more mundane ones. That has been the story throughout human history. I see no evidence that is going to change. Indeed "AI" has so far only created jobs, not killed them.

>So far automation has not resulted in net fewer jobs

Yes. Yes it has. Manufacturing has seen hundred of thousands of jobs replaced. And the amount of software developers or maintenance jobs created to make that work doesn't even begin to cover what has been lost.

As far as job creation goes, guess you'll have to check that up with the ever growing percentage of unemployment throughout first world countries.

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