Posted on 08/15/2016 11:06:57 AM PDT by Lorianne
Millennials are not some vast unsolvable mystery. According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau (PDF), they earn $2,000 less than their parents did at a comparable age, they are more likely to live in poverty, and they are more likely to live at home.
But Baby Boomers and Gen Xers still seem to find it hard to believe that basic economic math can explain much of the younger generation’s behavior.
After several news outlets, including The Daily Beast, reported that rates of millennial sexual inactivity in early adulthood are surprisingly high, armchair social theorists came out in force to blame it on everything but the fact that nearly one-third of young adults are still living at home.
One right-wing college news website found a way to attribute the finding to millennials’ desire for “safe spaces.”
Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat speculated on Twitter that it was an example of the “porn paradox,” whatever that means. Others attributed it, predictably, to the effects of technology or increased anxiety. A Rutgers biological anthropologist even suggested that millennials might be too “motivated” and “ambitious” to even bother with sex.
The most likely explanation—which was mentioned in the study itself—is that parents’ basements do not make great boom boom rooms. But who needs Occam’s razor when you’re publicly opining about the behavior of an entire generation? Lower wages sending 22-year-olds back home after college isn’t nearly as sexy as complaining about porn or political correctness.
The truth is that lower wages and poverty can account for so many of the things that older generations find so mystifying about millennials.
For example, millennials drive less than their parent’s generation—and until recently, at least—were relatively uninterested in buying cars. As The Atlantic reported in 2012, this crisis prompted automakers to appoint “youth emissaries” and come up with new car colors like “techno pink” and “denim.”
But trying to make cars cooler doesn’t change the fact that, as CityLab found, there’s a significant gap in vehicle miles traveled between millenials who make over $30,000 a year and those who make less. Simply put: Cars cost money and millennials have less of it.
Millennials have also been shamed for how much they spend eating out instead of say, saving for retirement. “Millennials Are Spending an Embarrassing Amount on Brunch and Takeaway Pizza,” Vice recently declared.
It’s easy to chalk that generational difference up to some sort of narcissistic short-sightedness but the truth is probably a lot closer to fatalism: When millennials can’t save for retirement anyway, why not spring for some bottomless mimosas instead of enrolling in a 401(k)?
SNIP
Yea, most businesses would be facing bankruptcy or investigation by the DOJ. But not the federal mafia.
“You guys are rabidly defending your socialist Ponzi scheme. I don’t remember authorizing the government to steal from me to promote a Ponzi scheme.”
“The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935”
Boomer generation started in 1946 and SS was mandatory for most boomers. So how is it our socialist Ponzi scheme?
USA used to encourage people to build AMERICAN families.
If you want to do a good deed, get married and have a bunch of little AMERICANS.
I know it’s hard - like I said - if you want to do a good deed.
I can’t lay it on you that you HAVE to do that, though.
Not your fault in any way. My reading of this thread has been anything but comprehensive. However, WC1 has made some valid points.
SS _is_ a ponzi scheme whether we boomers like it or not.
But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that Americans quit having families, or had very small ones.
The led to excuses for much greater immigration. We’re gonna be VERY sorry.
> WC1 has made some valid points.
Damn right, and it’s not impressive to see some really lazy, stupid responses here. Lots of uninformed people.
I would not be so disdainful. It's not like the cat was ALWAYS out of the bag. The very Declaration of Independence notes men do not change governments for shallow reasons.
WC1 you have analyzed it well.
The answer is choosing to live a _sacrificial_ life, following He who sacrificed everything for us. There are men (and women!) who _want_ to do that. Choose that good road, then find that kind of woman! (just my suggestion)
Yes, following Christ, He of “Christ”endom. Which was not a perfect place, but not the hell being created now. We can talk about the Crusades some time if need be. Suffice it to say islamism has been around quite a while.
Do you know this first hand, or are you simply regurgitating the female party line?
Think of Romney, Ryan, Jeb ... GOPe ... those are the ones who need/needed to be overthrown.
Good luck with that. What he has to choose from is ethically equivalent to "good muslims."
What he writes is not original and is widely accepted. You can find many good essays on this out on the internet. It’s the truth.
you’re full of shit!
But we didn't KNOW that until the rise of Trump.
Prior to that we at least gave plausibility to the notion that there were more of what we now call the GOPe (what used to be called the Rockefeller Republicans) than there were of us, and being fair minded we set about building our wing. NOW we know they do not in any way represent us the way they claimed they would, and are more interested in preserving the status quo than addressing what we consider problems.
If we had moved earlier, they would have been able to preserve the plausible fiction that allowed Bush to succeed Reagan and start the whole farce over again with voters who did not remember their duplicity.
and you’re an asshole...so where do we go from there. I can support my contention.
Utterly irrelevant. How many times has the "Super Bowl Sunday domestic abuse" canard been tossed about.
“NOW we know they do not in any way represent us the way they claimed they would, and are more interested in preserving the status quo than addressing what we consider problems.”
No offense, but I knew they didn’t represent us when George Bush and the Republican congress didn’t lock down the borders on 9/11 and round up every person of Mid East origin and commence deportations proceedings, followed by massive retaliatory airstrikes and ground invasion of 1 million troops in Saudi Arabia.
If you think internet porn is not a mental health crisis among millennials you’re not paying attention.
None taken, but I submit there is a vast difference between inferring a thing, and having it demonstrated first hand.
Perhaps not.
What are the terrible consequences aside from posing and extreme psychological threat to women’s self esteem?
I do know this: MGTOW exists for good and valid reasons. And this is coming from someone still married to his first wife for 35 years.
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