A generation of Peter Pans

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.

I’m Gen X.

That’s all you needed to say. You’re part of a victim class that want’s the government to solve your problems. Getting an education post high school is easier than ever, but you can’t make a living with frivolous studies.People with tech school training have a better chance at a decent living than the geniuses being educated in liberal arts institutions, and not nearly the loan debt to show for it

I’m simply pointing out the reality that uneducated low skill jobs pay much less than they did 45 years ago. You can argue a different point, that people need to do x, y and z. I’m only stating life is different.

And, I think we have too much education already. Albeit not in the right areas. But generically I think we have way too many college graduates than the country actually needs. Thus, employers can be lazy and require a college degree to screen out the stupid and or those without ambition. Even tho the job may not require any specific skills past what should be taught in the eight grade. So more education or any advice for that matter only really works on a subset of the population. The whole can’t follow your advice because its simply not possible. There are a finite number of good jobs out there.

Anyways, the book you referenced sounds interesting and I personally agree with the points you shared. I’m only really arguing that on a macro level we are in worse shape. Charles Murray has a book where he argues the opposite. I believe it’s titled Coming Apart. He looks at census data and shows a static income for high school educated “households” between 1970 and 2010. But he doesn’t bother to tell us the percentage of two income households in 1970 vs. 2010.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.