Posted on 05/16/2015 6:59:26 AM PDT by rktman
An interesting doom-and-gloom piece appeared on ZeroHedge this week entitled “A Generational Storm is Coming.” Apparently written as a rather depressing commencement address for the graduating class of 2015, it discusses the current economic realities facing young people and tends to put a lot of blame on the older generation for screwing them over.
OK, fine, whatever. But it did have a couple of interesting points regarding college students:
“[The student loan delinquency rate] will probably go much higher … as students take on more debt. Total outstanding student debt is expected to bubble up to $3.3 trillion by 2025. What do you do if you can’t pay? Well, the feds have a solution for you. The trouble is, it turns you into the very thing the program was meant to avoid. Here’s how it works.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
As is true of all government compassion, the cure entrenches the sickness. When conditions must be met to qualify for government handouts those conditions become motivational. Thus the government creates and sustains eligibility to the end of sustaining the putative bureaucracy. Thus, welfare, of any kind, enriches government coffers while maintaining recipients in perpetual poverty. There is no legitimate moral justification for government compassion.
The perfect political bribe scenario for a certain Democrat presidential candidate.
They said the same thing about baby boomer men. the Peter Pan Syndrome was written a long time ago.
In Amerika, serfdom pays.
As a boomer myself, I can only say I musta missed the boat for never never land. Seems like I never never stopped working. Well, until I retired with 36+ yrs with the same company. But, if I wanted a job today, I’d have a job. Maybe only supplemental wages but I could have one.
I know Boomers like us who worked hard all their lives and are sitting pretty well.
I also know Boomers who spent every dime they got and now have nothing to show for it.
The Millennials are a lost generation.
They can’t make a decision unless all their friends agree.
Making $$$ and being successful is considered very bad.
I hope I’m dead before this train wreck happens.
These little irresponsible snots think they can something for nothing, that life owes them. And they are counting on government to give them what they want.
This fiction always has a deadly ending, as the government and their minions, who jealously covet their power, will abandon these worthless facilitators and stomp them (and everyone else) into the dirt to remain in power.
Time to prepare for the world of hurt to come. It’s as clear as the writing on the wall.
My wife and I are in our mid 70’s. She worked until about two years ago. I worked until I was 62, and I took my CPA’s advice to retire and learn how to manage our IRAs.
We have managed our money and funded good education for our kids.
In spite of our ages, we both get job offers and enjoy our lives with zero financial help from anyone.
Our adult children are doing okay on their own.
The author misses a very obvious alternative.
The vast majority of jobs don’t have any tangible reason to hire college graduates. So when corporations realize this, and that they can get four more years of “high end” productive work from new hires, *with no outstanding student debt*, it might start a stampede out of the higher education scam.
Right now, lots of corporations subcontract both remedial and specialized education for their new hires, because their college graduate hires are undereducated.
Often they hire college graduates not for their education, but to *avoid* accusations of unfair hiring practices. However, there are other ways around this problem.
What will start the stampede is when corporations specifically do not hire college graduates anymore, so that hires have to omit that they attended college, making their degrees worth “less than zero”.
>>>We have managed our money and funded good education for our kids.
In spite of our ages, we both get job offers and enjoy our lives with zero financial help from anyone.<<<
I’m Gen X. And to be blunt I’m tired of what you said being applied as if that holds true today. I remember what your generation was like when you were my age. And I can see how much harder it is for the young than when I was their age. This is not just an anecdotal musing from one guy.
Read this article for yourself. The part I want to point out is this in particular: Men with less education face an even bleaker picture; earnings for the median man with a high school diploma and no further schooling fell by 41 percent from 1970 to 2010.
So yes, some youth can be very successful today. However, I think the typical young person has a much harder time than my generation or your generation.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-american-wages/
Zathras, the Millenials I encounter in private law practice and in the professional graduate schools do not fit your description. They are working their fannies off and are focused on financial results and security. Every generation (including we Boomers) has its slackers. I’m not willing to say that the Millenials are better or worse than the Boomers in that regard. There is statistical evidence that the Millenials are forming households and bearing children at a lower rate than the Boomers did at similar ages. However, we Boomers hit our 20’s in a very different economic climate than the one faced by Millenials today.
” I think the typical young person has a much harder time than my generation or your generation.”
What a load of crap. Did you crawl in here from DU? You sound like the crowd that thinks McDonalds owes a living wage to their part time employees
Load of crap? What are you ignorant? Can’t u read real wages for a high school educated man has fallen by 40% since 1970? Because that fact is pointed out you gonna try to defame my character? get bent.
I sourced my data. All you did was talk like some emotional putz.
The Peter Pan Princle is basically about young men, and women, who do not want to grow up. Basically, stop living on mom’s couch and get out in the world and pay your own way!
Otherwise, I guess this gen, whichever one it is, had it harder then folks had it during the Civil War? Great Depression was a cake walk? I guess WWI and WWII were easy times?
So, boo, freak’n, hoo if times are wuff. Maybe mamma will kiss your tears. Their rough for most of us privileged white folk who have the honor to work our asses off so other’s don’t have,too?
I’ll agree with you rough is relative. But in terms of a man, supporting a family, I think its more difficult. Of course many things complicate that simple black and white analysis. Such as a better quality of life due to tech, health care and so on than earlier. But as far as a man getting the respect that comes from having and supporting a family, I think it is harder. Of course people can be less materialistic and live more like the WW2 generation and have modest homes, few possessions and be savers. But that is a different topic.
As a side note, do men even have that urge that they need to provide for their family anymore as young millenials? Or has feminism made the two income household the default worldview?
No matter Peter Pan, which is what this article is about, has a choice.
He can sleep on the couch at mom’s or he can strike out and make his own way.
Try as Peter Pan might there is no changing reality.
BTW A younge man who moves home for a few month is not necessarily a Peter Pan. If he is working and saving in order try again. That is not the same thing. If he does chores around the house and pays for his own food and maybe a few dollars for rent.
Just like someone who needs food stamps for a few month is not the same as someone who makes a liftstyle out of being on the dole.
You mention respect. How about a young men having some self respect? If they are not then start paying their own way.
Also, this is KEY, IF a young man can barely take care of himself perhaps he should not seriously consider having a family for a few years. Maybe he needs to work harder and save more money?
Back in the day people would save up 20%, not 3%, in order to buy a home. People actually invested in their homes. Today they have taken the commitment, and motivation, out of everything by making it seem easy.
Its not always hard either. But it is a never ending struggle with moments of joy and even contentment and sadness and hardship along the way.
Loved ones get sick or die. People get cancer or some crippling disease. Get laid off right when they could use the money the most.
But what choice is there? You either choose to live and be a fully functioning adult or you live in lala land with the commies and deadbeats.
There is nothing new here.
I was graduated from college in 1960, and the country was in a big recession. The only people getting jobs then were engineers and people like me with business degrees. I had several job offers and so did my friends in engineering and business.
Our sons finished their post highschool education in the mid to late 1980’s, and the job market was even tougher. They both got jobs and landed on their feet even when the company or business they worked for went belly up. Their friends with worthless/liberal Instant Unemployment Degrees are still struggling and many still live in their parents or grandparents basement or spare bedroom. Those who got married for the most part are divorced and their off spring are losers like their parents.
Forget my personal history.
Go on line and get the Kindle book, “The Triple Package” by Amy Chuang and Jed Rubenfield.
The authors document success and failure in America and the reasons why. They show the world why so many Americans with parents born in this country are basically failures or can’t succeed in life due to their lack of self control and motivation, poor choices of education and failure to master any education they were exposed to.
Yet many sons/daughters of immigrant parents from third world countries regardless of skin color or ethnic background succeed because they are motivated to succeed and have self control to make a success in America.
A few years ago, we saw this reality in an 8th grade honors ceremony with one of our grand daughters. She and 80 other people were honored for their achievements. She was honored for math and English. My wife and I noticed that most of the other award winners were not white and found out later most had immigrant parents. Our grand daughter was one eight white kids being honored.
One of the outstanding winners in many categories was a young girl from Russia. She didn’t speak English when she came to America. She got awards in English, Math and Science. She was one of the 8 white kids.
Later I asked my son about the demographics re those who won awards.
His reply was simple, most of the white kids at school, which made up 60%+ of the students, weren’t motivated and were like their parents. He said the Hispanic kids, honored at the ceremony often had parents, who had recently come to America as adults and worked their butts off to get their kids through school.
A few months later I got the book, Triple Package, and it explained to me what I saw in person at that 8th grade honors ceremony.
Excellent summary of reality.
I forgot to ping you to my reply:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3290490/posts?page=18#18
First, we are not producing enough jobs or shall I say, we are losing enough jobs and importing foreign workers to flood the work place, making young Americans with no experience right out of college, have less opportunity than older generations.
Second, it is custom for families and societies to warn/educate young people about debt and money. We have made debt sound fine but it is not fine and now we have a whole generation who believed it was fine and can’t make it up - can not live up to our society’s loud and proud lie about debt.
I battled with my sons about going into debt to make it easier on them through college. I threatened to cut off our help if they did not hold up their end without going into debt. Everyone around them was going into debt and we seemed odd to them. Odd, I am. Now they know. Most of their friends did not know.
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