Reply With Quote
A bit longish.
My 40 year old ass is too old to comment for myself personally, but my gut says it is probably not too far off the mark.
I wonder what will be written about my children's cohort when they hit 20 in 15 years or so.
I just read it in the magazine and searched to see if it is on-line...Is it an accurate view of your generations perspective?
http://nymag.com/news/features/my-generation-2011-10/
A bit longish.
My 40 year old ass is too old to comment for myself personally, but my gut says it is probably not too far off the mark.
I wonder what will be written about my children's cohort when they hit 20 in 15 years or so.
As a parent who came into kids about a decade or so after the first of my generation, I recoiled at the "everybody is a winner" bulll that is being peddled.
Not everybody is going to be a winner. Some will succeed, some will fail. Not all games are "zero sum", but you can't expect to win all games or get things for "just showing up".
I am too compe ive for that mamby-pamby crap. I have told my kids straight up "someone will come in last place". I encourage them to do their best, but not to be laboring under the delusion that there isn't someone better out there that will beat that.
Hard balance between "tiger mom" win-at-all-costs, and building some decent amount of self-esteem to face challenges with the confidence that you can. The two are not mutually exclusive, but too far one way or the other is not healthy, IMO.
Thanks for the article, by the way. The tedious drum beat of the election cycle needed something with a bit of a wider perspective.
I guess it was too long for them to read without getting a participation prize...
It sure is CC. I am now one of the lucky ones the author speaks of but there was a point where I was unemployed for 5 months. I luckily was able to scrape by and everything worked out for the best but my story is very unique. Most of my friends who are employed don't have careers. The few that do are either in the military as officers or in my field. It really sucks and it only makes it worse that we are earning much less doing the same jobs which means that when we get older we would not have put as much money away as we could have. Add to this that SS most likely won't be around and Medicaid will be vastly different, things don't look all that great for us.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily like SS or medicaid but we are paying for it now which further depletes what goes into our IRA, HSA, or 401K (if "we" even have one). Add to this we are going to have to keep taxes at least at this level to pay for all the BS from the previous generations. This sucks. But I am one of the lucky ones... very lucky.
I'm 44. Am I a younger guy?
I was hoping to get some feedback from our 20-35 crowd....
This guy went into over analysis mode. Yeah, this current young generation is all right.
It is not so much mystery voodoo as to why this current young generation is having some issues and it's not so bad either because it's pretty straight forward.
20 workers to 1 retiree when SS first started
2 workers to 1 retiree within the coming years.
The young genereation is going ot have to pay off baby boomer retirement whether it is SS, medicare or consumer prices, and that is a crippling outlook. It's already pretty evident at the current time.
Australia's solution was to import more foreign workers. 25% of their population is foreign born. They have no high unemployment, had no housing crash and no financial market collapse.
The younger generation will realize this when they in control and since they tend to be more open to other people it will likely happen. So yeah, it's alright.
I am on the 2nd page and just want to point out that I would like to punch every person in the face who had their picture taken for this article.
No wonder you dont have a job, emo kids. Maybe giving an outward appearance of maturity and seriousness would go a long way in the interview process, you self-obsessed egomaniac. "Look at me, I am soooo individual with my cool haircut and not-fitting clothes. Im an individual, I standout, I am different."
Yeah...you arent and you dont, -head. You just look ridiculous and childish, not exactly traits employers are looking for no matter what your degree says.
"I dont have a job! Waaaah!"
I mean, seriously? Most people cant determine your gender much less get a general idea of your professionalism.
Once a- ing-gain...
Theyre confused?! I am ing confused by their confusion.
Baby boomers had better keep voting as they leave the power structure because that particular generation is not going to forget the bed that was made nor how it was handled.
The health care bill is being mostly funded by forcing millenials to buy health insurance. That starts in 2013 and is going to piss off quite a few people. Its pretty obvious that the current power structure has a place for them. Not all of them are stupid.
Jesus H Christ.
This jackass is two friends in.
Friend #1: Majored in English...English, people. Post grad in Environmental Studies.
Friend #2: Was a math whiz in high school, got to college and realized (as most do) that you suck compared to others, so what did he decide to change his major to, you ask? ing poetry. Poetry...seriously. From "Im a math whiz!" to "Edgar Allen Poe is so overrated." in less than 4 years. Here's some prose for you...
Youre a bag.
-Anonymous
Yup, not that they don't deserve a good retirement. But if they want it, we're going to have to bring in more scary immigrants x10.
If they put up barriers, bring on the death panels. Me or my kids will not pay for their failures.
Fascinating. Don't remember that.
The lifestyles detailed in the article are not familiar to me. I have been unemployed for about one month total in my entire working career. Moving back in with my parents, though technically possible and in fact once offered, was and remains disagreeable to ponder, no disrespect intended to my dear mother and father.
They had to put up with me for eighteen years and paid for my college deliquency for another; that's quite enough. It's better this way. Maybe if one of them gets too old and needs help around the house, I'd consider moving back in for a spell.
In retrospect it's lucky for them and me I didn't accept the hospitality on offer, so I guess you might say I can't really relate to the person who has been sidelined by cir stances, who can't really afford to decline the generosity of parents short of personal des ution.
(roll them bones)
@ RG
While I believe your words to be true (or Bowie's), doesnt make it any less true that the lowering of their expectations (as described by the author) is exactly the defeatist at ude they pretend to not have.
Theyll be good little drones, today or tomorrow, but some day. All nice and defeated even before they were actually, you know, stepped on in real life.
To have real epiphanies in life, IMO, you must fail. You must fail, you must struggle, you must try and not succeed.
These kids havent even hit 30 yet and their mental for ude on career expectations have already been dashed because their degree choice was frivolous and they took out a student loan.
Whoopety- ing-do.
Those arent problems, those are hurdles. Very short hurdles, you couldnt limbo under those hurdles.
Meanwhile, those who want it, are climbing buildings to get it. Theyre low-hanging fruit suited to man a desk in nowhere corporate America, day-dreaming about (apparently) their basket-weaving class later that night. Hmmm, I wonder if this pervasive self-defeatist, distracted at ude spills over into the work environment?
I wonder.
Life is easy.
Orient yourself into a chosen direction.
Go like a bat out of with no exceptions.
Youve just won, congrats.
Is this what you tell yourself? Maybe if you repeat it enough it will become true.
Heh, I don't entirely disagree. I thought the bowie quote was apt, as I am now at the age where I can start wagging my own finger at "those damn kids", and your statements remind me that people have been saying that since ancient Greece and probably before. Still, the kids muddle on.
As one of the first of the boomer's kids and the first generation of Americans to enter that stagnation of living standards, I can understand their disappointment. I think we sensed that a bit as reflected in the first wave of mopy, self-absorbed music that was running as an undercurrent in pop music in the mid-late eighties.
That kind of gave way to some of the angry grunge in the 1990's, as we followed through our collective emotional dealing.
Maybe I am over-analysing, who knows. Fun to speculate at.
Focus and passion are hardly irrelevant.
You are very unknowledgable.
Some of these people have nearly $200,000 in debt. Student debt cannot be erased by bankruptcy.
The idea that a college degree will pay for itself turned out to be a lie perpetuated by pretty much everybody, and now that college grads have graduated in to the worst economy since 1929 nobody knows what the to do because the only people who worked during the great depression are all dead or extremely elderly.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
