Some days ago I read an interview with one of the more important politicians in Germany's conservative party, where he complained about millenials not buying into consumerism as much, and also about his political opponents not protecting ye olde businesses enough from this trend. All I could think of was buggy whips: if your industry is not dying because someone invented a better and cheaper way to meet demands, but because there is no longer as much demand (if at all!), then, sorry, no, you do not deserve to be saved, or bailed out even.
Reminds me of the 2008 crash where people weren't buying cars. "Oh, awesome! They'll have to cut prices, so those who run a prudent budget will get good deals for not going along with the car-buying hype" -- no. Instead, the auto industry gets special attention and demand-propping, like Cash for Clunkers.
Privatize the profits, socialize the risks. Of course those with power will push for the most beneficial possible scenario for themselves, hypocrisy be damned.
I feel the same way whenever people & news fixate on jobs, especially with regard to jobs being lost with the closure of large factories or other big employers. No, they do not exist to produce jobs. No, we shouldn't pour money and effort into unprofitable business just for the sake of jobs...
I agree and I disagree at the same time. The problem is we did not find a solution yet to cope with the challenges of the next industrial revolution and the global competition.
The way the economy is interconnected is so fragile that it really scares me.
Economy is really a scary game especially in the age of behemoths and we do not really know how to deal with the wealth inequality. An entire nations might find themselves in a position of not being able to compete with large international conglomerates. Smaller nations are less likely to have more than 1 or 2 large corps of their own and what happens if 1 collapses / gets out-competed / bought by the competitors.
We have already seen what had happened in Finland with Nokia. Sure the situation is not that bad at first. Finland is still one of the richest nations. But it hit them really hard. Their economy is "stagnating" and the unemployment rate increased.
> We have already seen what had happened in Finland with Nokia. Sure the situation is not that bad at first. Finland is still one of the richest nations. But it hit them really hard. Their economy is "stagnating" and the unemployment rate increased.
I concur -- as a young, unemployed finn from a region that has scored among the nation's worst places w.r.t. youth unemployment and unemployment in general.
But it's not just Nokia. That might have made a big dent on the economy as a whole but at the same time it shouldn't cause other companies in other industries to struggle (which has happened).
Even as they go down, we can't fixate on jobs for the sake of jobs. Sure we could be shoveling sand from pit A to pit B, but that isn't going to help us in the global economy, even if it had some local effects.
It's not fun trying to sell stuff to people without good stable jobs (or even worse, without any jobs), trust me.
And if you can't sell it you're not gonna do it at all, unless you can start with the high-end version, Tesla-style. Which doesn't work for all things, or tends to not work so well if you're not Elon Musk...
Factory jobs are usually a bit different, as a lot of them are just being moved overseas. It's not that it's unprofitable to have the factory in X western country, it's that it is more profitable to have it in Y developing country where wages and regulations are often a lot lower.
It is an interesting problem for some nations / companies. With the USA and their companies China is one of the only viable markets out there to actually show any real growth (I am now excluding the domestic US market and EU). With that said China demands from the companies to set a joint ventures on its soil and produce locally. Without a trade way there is no way to keep the factory jobs in the US and sell in China.
Well, because if someone else doesn't offer a job, long term contributes to degradation of society and eventually increase in crime rates.
It is easy to say to just get a job when one is young and lucky to live in prosperous regions. Outside those criterias one can spend years trying to get something, even just a couple of hours a week.
> if your industry is not dying because someone invented a better and cheaper way to meet demands, but because there is no longer as much demand (if at all!), then, sorry, no, you do not deserve to be saved, or bailed out even
...wait, WHAT?! so you'd imply that bailouts are instead for industries "dying because someone invented a better and cheaper way to meet demands"? so kinda like "let's use bailouts to discourage innovation instead?!" wtf.
Not that I like the "saving dying industries" idea much, but if there's any way it would make sense to apply it, it would be to pump-up/resurrect demand for things for which people may have temporarily lost taste for due to a recession, but now the recession is over, things are back up, so it's a good idea to accelerate growth by encouraging people to consume more of the expensive stuff they lost taste for!
(Though some kind of Universal Basic Income would be the most sensitive way to increase consumption imho: cover the needs of the poor a bit, and also give more to those who already have more than enough so they can burn the extra cash and accelerate economic life...)
P.S. Oh, and one of the lessons that millenials should be thought imho, would be that, paradoxical as it may seem, on the collective level, by spending less you're making yourselves poorer! Of course, the "on a collective level" is the part most people fail to grok...
I kind of agree with you, but there is the big question what to do with the employees of such industries, regarding re-qualification and employment opportunities.
Specially here where without a whole set of Zeugnis we are apparently unable to do a certain tasks.
That is a big question, sure. I did not mean to handwave that problem away. I do not wish unemployement on anyone.
Still, the industry itself does not need to be saved just for the sake of saving the industry. In that particular interview one of the key points was the automotive industry, with the diesel scandal. If millenials don't want to buy these cars, maybe sell electric cars and invest into infrastructure projects, or invest more into car sharing (which they already do with DriveNow etc). All better than just using public funds to keep producing the same old cars, in this example.
The problem is not finding a thing to sell. The problem is a sustainable growth model and revenue. You need to actually earn money to be able to re-invest.
> Home-ownership is a giant pain and often a poor financial choice
Yeah, this probably doesn't get discussed enough. I've had my house for a little under a year, and it's required a new roof, a gas stove for a finished basement that turned out to be severely under-heated, problems with electrical wiring, and a few little odds and ends that weren't up to code, which I had to fix to get home owners insurance.
I'm saving a bundle when you only consider the difference between my old rent and my new mortgage, but home ownership comes with many incidental one-off costs.
If it's overall cheaper and one-off costs are the down-side, the risk can pretty much be mitigated by a budget.
Sorry, every time people talk about how "hard" home ownership is all I hear is "being well-off is super hard, trust me you don't want money it only causes more problems. Let me shoulder your burden by skimming money off your paycheck so you don't have to deal with pesky things like wealth."
Live in a cold region in a home built before natural gas was piped to your region? Heating suddenly fails in February? That $95 dollar proprietary, mechanical zone-controller from Honeywell is going to cost you $120 after markup and another $600 in labor. That heating tech also saw some "green death" on that copper, so you're going to have to call a plumber.
I'm fine with that but I went through vetting three heating techs before I found one that one which knew his industry well enough to answer my fairly baseline questions.[0] Eventually the guy I settled with explained the mechanical properties of both zone-control unit designs, and why one brand is more popular in the region[2]. He then mentioned what he observed as the more reliable Taco lines "always go with the gold series controllers, the green ones are poorly constructed especially if not installed properly".
All in all, I probably spent ~20 hours on top of the labor. In my NYC co-op, all of that would have been dealt with and paid with the co-op fees (which are more than reasonable). On the flipside, I'm perfectly fine with the home maintenance issues-- but it's ultimately the vetting process for a well informed[3] tradesman that takes the bulk of the time[4].
--
[0] Generally, I get on some forum with trade masters[1] I found the answers to after about half an hour of researching on a master plumber forum [1] (i.e., "so how often do these units fail? How does the Tacos compare to the Honeywells?").
[1] For EE, the EEVblog is usually second to none. Need a copy of the firmware for a 1984 HP sig-an? Some dude will have it. Other trades have similar sites- Hvac-talk in this case, absolutely high quality discourse. The great thing is that most of the time these guys will have in their vBulletin signatures their qualifications like "Master Certified ..., 1984 ". Similarly, practicalmachinist is great for certain things. Contractor-talk IIRC was very helpful as well.
[2] It turns out Honeywell is out of Rhode Island so there was some local brand loyality developed out of buying local + the sales reps hit western MA pretty hard.
[3] I.e., this 55 year old chap informed me that you apparently want to have the unit head pointing up and positioned vertically and mounted in-line with horizontal (not vertical) piping. This mistake is fairly common apparently and can lead to significant issues down the line. So while I paid more for his labor, his industrial knowledge was effective "preventative maintenance".
[4] If you don't want to/don't have the time to perform due diligence, having a friend who is informed enough to vet the quality of work with you is worth it. A buddy of mine is a contractor who knows all of the corner that are often cut, the indicators of quality workmanship, etc.
I believe this is true in the United States also. I definitely have constant post code envy and look up houses all the time.
Housing costs a fortune for anything move in ready in any city/town that is desirable and I'm looking in the Southeast which would have been traditionally pretty cheap.
Like many GenXers I would have been happy to laugh at those silly Millennials but TFA has me convinced of their wisdom and good taste. With the exception of bar soap and the possible exception of Lowe's/Home Depot, I completely agree that society needs less of everything on this list.
Indeed, hard to imagine anyone really being upset by any of these industries disappearing. But easy to imagine that in the future people will be incredulous that many of them existed in the first place ("You bought a handbag for 30-times it's production cost, and it made you feel good?")
I'm guessing the lack of disposable income and home ownership are a big cause. Who wants to buy a motorcycle if they don't have a garage, or don't know if their next rent apartment is going to have one?
I just got back from a trip to Cambodia and rode a bike there; I can definitely see the appeal! My peer group has a pretty negative perception of bikes, though: they see bike riders as reckless and bikes as dangerous and polluting. I wonder what it would take to build a culture akin to what exists now for bicycles.
> While millennials like to workout, they're ditching gyms in favor of boutique, class-centric centers.
"Millennials don't want to be tied down," Megan Smyth, the CEO of FitReserve, a service that lets members book boutique studio classes, told the New York Post. "It's a spontaneous demographic."
Ditching 24 hour gyms where you can go whenever you feel like in exchange for booking classes is "spontaneous"???
And no matter the monthly cost, they still try and get you into a year contract. That is the lack of flexibility. You can't go for a month and decide to switch gyms; you're tied to your choice for a year.
> In late July, Goldman Sachs downgraded both Boston Beer Company and Constellation Brands based on data suggesting that younger consumers prefer wine and spirits to beer, as well as the fact that they're drinking less alcohol than older generations more generally.
Not to mention the number of breweries has grown from 2,751 in 2012, which was a record then, to 4,144 in the beginning of 2016.
Yea, I wondered if they even have accurate numbers for beer - you mention the doubling of breweries in the last few years - on a slightly larger timeline it's even more pronounced - it has gone from next to nothing in the last decade and shows little sign of slowing down: https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/number-of-brew...
>Instead, younger consumers are turning to convenient options with minimal cleanup that can be eaten on the go, from yogurt to fast-food breakfast sandwiches.
BusinessInsider reads more like Buzzfeed than ever before. (Millennials HATE these industries, and you won't believe number 8!) It's also no wonder the publishing industry is collapsing and is only still around because of aggressive advertisement tactics.
I'm surprised that cereal is on the list. The reason cited is that it's viewed as inconvenient. I eat cereal nearly every day because it's pretty much the laziest breakfast you can possibly make.
As with many things in this article, I disagree with their statement on cereal very much. I would rather spend my money on better foods for my children than the processed, sugar-filled, expensive "cereals" that are marketed as "healthy". I prefer the actual term for [cereal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereal) and we try to stick to that mixed with yogurt and fruits.
You're welcome, America. Will anyone really miss Buffalo Wild Wings? Or Golf? I suspect we drink just as much beer, it's just more craft beer than Sam Adams or Corona.
The 'Millennials don't like breasts' angle is a new take. I'd figured that one was a constant.
I think Millennials realize that they can see boobs any time they want, and don't need to go to a crappy, overpriced restaurant to ogle the topboob of a stressed, exploited, overworked waitress.
My guess is it's more along the lines of "male Millenials have realized that going to a restaurant explicitly to oggle the waitresses' breasts will make them appear crude to their peers"
Generation n has different preferences than generation n-1. Industries that don't adapt are going down, leaving the space for newer industries. That's the normal state of things.
So that they can cash in on generation n-1's dislike of generation n. Stating it as the obvious fact that it is doesn't sell newspapers or generate clicks.
I honestly don't even see such articles as negative. They're not destroying 'the economy', just a few businesses, by acting more frugally/efficiently. People don't serve 'the economy' - it's supposed to be the other way around. If parts of it are no longer needed, tough.
I notice that the napkin entry implicitly assumes disposable napkins. Given that it's often said that millennials value authenticity, I wonder if part of that decline can be attributed to cloth napkins, and the cited Washington Post article at least touches on that but doesn't seem to have any data. The beer entry similarly seems to disregard the explosion of popularity in microbrews.
Of course, like most such articles, this is really less about millennials' preferences than it is about our economic situation. For whatever reason, a lot of people seem to think that inflation ended in the 1970s and that we aren't all running out and buying houses because we lack an "ownership culture" or whatever.
I'm gen-X and would prefer to go out to dinner to a place with awesome food rather than a meh meal at a chain restaurant where they might just be microwaving everything that isn't grilled or fried.
Maybe because of the recession its more of a culture shift away from feeding the greed of corporate america?
Maybe people, of all ages, are just more aware of the details on things like handbags that are overpriced, overpriced bar food at Hooters, etc.
Maybe if we as a whole are more educated consumers, we consume less?
It is like with car sales: every time gas prices go up, people start buying Priuses, etc. But the minute gas prices come down, SUVs (the bigger, the better) are all the rage again.
I'm GenX, but for my generation and Millenials I'd add "Fine China ownership", "Opera visits", "Stamp Collections", and a few others to the list. With "Matchbox Car Collections", I'm not sure if this is still a millenial thing.
Interesting... Business Insuder seem to be tailoring their stock photos to local audiences. I saw Commonwealth Bank, Myer, Sizzler, Jarryd Hayne. Those names likely won't mean much to people outside Australia.
The article text seemed the same -- just local photography.
It seems that it just changed you to the Australia edition. You have a slightly modified headline and some different pictures. The Australian one also shows up as a slideshow, while the American is one long article.
That was one of the conflicts in that article. Several items were related to decline in restaurants - Applebees, Buffalo Wild Wings, Hooters - and then later it says millenials are spending more money on restaurants and experiences.
So what are the new restaurants that young people are patronizing? Take out places?
And what are the experiences? Travel? Concerts? Movies?
Went to hooters. There was too much clothing. Food was overpriced by bar food standards. If I want to see tits I'll go to a strip club. If I want beer and food I'll go to a bar. The Unix design philosophy isn't just for software.
> the Unix design philosophy isn't just for software
I have mixed feeling about the "Unix design philosophy" in software. And I'll sure as hell fight to not let it invade other aspects of life!
I happen to like "expert generalist" software and tools, and just as much I like "expert generalist" people.
I can't wait to see the reversal of the "worse is better" and "efficiency first" philosophies... even if this will likely coincide with the brink of technological singularity and the extinction of bio-humans, I hope I'll see the short as it may be age when we use technology to engineer plenty, richness, artfulness and hedonistic excess in all areas of life instead of the current artificially synthetized scarcity in all things for the purposes of "efficiency" and "accelerating growth".
Some people can enjoy the female figure just fine without advanced states of undress. But I would prefer more diversity in outfits, more along the lines of cosplay restaurants. The standard hooters uniform does nothing for me.
For me it just sounds like a consumer generation smartening up - no napkin, hooters, beer and softeners... This is mostly waste anyway, our needs and consumption will change and the industry has to change with it.
So much emphasis on millenials not buying things and so little emphasis on millenials being paid fairly so that they can buy things.
People are being denied the possibility of having money. Therefore a lot of luxuries (or perceived luxuries) are disappearing. Businesses should stop feigning surprise about it, and start handing out money to their workers.
Millenials also have the benefit of being in a world where information is more available, so it's more difficult to scam them or trick them into consuming things with nasty side effects.
Let's see what's in the list proposed by the article:
1) Casual dining: perceived luxury. Homemade food is cheaper (probably healthier as well).
2) Beer: harmful to health. People are now more likely to be aware of this, so a reduction in consumption is to be expected.
3) Napkins: probably, perceived luxury. There are better, cheaper alternatives.
4) Breastaurants: preceived luxury. Another factor here is that the younger generations are likelier to find these demeaning to women. I know I wouldn't ever go to one of these.
5) Cereal: this is an interesting case. My money is on two causes: one is that they are probably perceived to be harmful to health (most are more sugary than it seems at first glance), another one is that people are changing their breakfast habits because of time restrictions. Because yes, millenials aren't just money-poor; employed millenials are time-poor too.
6) Golf: obviously a luxury.
7) Motorcycles: possibly a luxury too. If you run the numbers (as I have, but your results will depend on your location) you will probably found that public transport+Uber or equivalent is cheaper than having your own vehicle. In the case of Harley-Davidson mentioned in the article, they are definitely a luxury.
8) Homeownership: definitely a luxury; rent, shared homes or simply staying with your parents is just cheaper. Also, homeownership ties you into a given locations, yet the job market is likely to requiere people to move. Therefore homeownership is not a smart move for a lot of people.
9) Yogurt: not sure about this, probably it's being perceived as harmful. However not every yogurt is packed with sugar; I wonder if healthier brands are faring better than not so healthy ones.
10) Bars of soap: probably perceived as a luxury as well. The article mentions health concerns, whicih might be valid.
11) Diamonds: this is not even a luxury. It's, and always has been, a racket based on very effective propaganda. Congratulations to millenials for finally starting to end the farce.
12) Fabric softener: luxury.
13) Banks: well, you need to have money to use them, so don't expect millenials to use banks all the time. Also some usual banking practices are really shady and millenials want to avoid them.
14) Department stores: probably perceived as a luxury.
15) Designed handbags: obvious luxury.
16) Gyms: this is another interesting one; I would have bet that people are consuming it more than 20 years ago. I guess that memberships are just too expensive and people just go for a jog in the park. So, another luxury.
17) Home-improvement stores: well, millenials don't usually own their houses and they are not going to spend their already meagers pool of time and money into improving another person's house.
18) Football: I can't say much about this, because I'm not from the US. The article mentions a decrease in cable TV, which is obviously a luxury. I suspect that there is a greater cultural trend here and people are just less interested in sport because there are so many more options to spend free time, and so much less of that free time.
19) Oil: this is a matter of political conscientiousness, so it falls under the "perceived harmful" category.
After this wall of text, my conclusion is: yep, millenials are doing what they are incentivized for. No real surprise here.
I was born right between Gen X and Millennials. Sometimes I am included as a millennial, sometimes not. I'm 50/50 on this list.
- Applebees: DEAD. "Low-quality restaurant sees declining sales." Color me shocked. Suffice to say, I haven't set foot in an Applebees / Chilis / etc. in years. I was given a gift certificate a couple years ago, and used it at their sister restaurant On The Border for margaritas only.
- Beer: ALIVE. I'm surprised here, given literally all my friends love microbrews. I have a case of Starr Hill in my fridge right now. Is this looking at "Big Beer" and ignoring craft breweries? They also mention that "younger consumers prefer wine and spirits to beer", but use Constellation Brands as an example. Other than Corona / Modelo, Constellation is primarily wine (Black Box, Estancia, Robert Mondavi, Toasted Head, Woodbridge).
- Napkins: DEAD. Just a pain. Drives my mom nuts. That said, I do have linen napkins for nice occasions.
- Hooters: DEAD. Full of creepy old men who wish it was still the 80s.
- Cereal: ALIVE. My wife, in particular, eats cereal almost every morning.
- Golf: ALIVE. I enjoy golf. I don't get out to play as much as I'd like, and when I do, it's usually 9 holes. A full 18 just takes too long.
- Motorcycles: ALIVE. I used to ride a 1,000cc Aprilia Tuono R, but sold it when I had my first kid. I miss it. Most of my motorcycle-riding friends are on the same trajectory, but that has nothing to do with generation.
- Homeownership: ALIVE. Just bought my second house. 50% of my friends own.
- Yogurt: ALIVE. Confused here, too, as they turn around and mention that Greek yogurt is popular. Anyway, yogurt (Greek) for lunch today.
- Bars of Soap: ALIVE. I like Caress.
- Diamonds: ALIVE. I have bought my wife a few. Just so damn expensive, and synthetic stones have reached par in quality.
- Fabric Softener: DEAD. According to Procter & Gamble's head of global fabric care, millennials "don't even know what the product is for." I don't know what the product is for.
- Banks: ALIVE. Though what they really mean is: physical bank branches. In which case: DEAD. I haven't visited a physical bank in years. Schwab is great. My wife recently opened a business credit card at BB&T, and they told her she had to come in person to change her address. She is considering cancelling her account.
- Department Stores: DEAD. Sears and Macys are ghost towns. Norstrom does better. I feel like the quality is generally lower-end, and I can get a cheaper price online for the good stuff.
- Designer Handbags: ALIVE. Most of the millennial women I know have at least one "nice" bag. Michael Kors and Kate Spade are kind of "young" or entry-level. Tory Burch does well, along with stalwarts like Louis Vuitton and upstarts like Shinola.
- Gyms: ALIVE. I belong to a "big-box" gym. I like all the different classes I can take, or that there are other facilities available.
- Home Depot: ALIVE and I am singlehandedly keeping them afloat. I guess this aligns with the "homeownership" bucket, but renters need stuff, too. I went to Home Depot twice this weekend.
- Football: ALIVE. I can't wait for the fall, NCAA, and fantasy football. We did ditch cable this year, and that definitely has an impact. Football needs to catch up to viewer trends. Oddly enough, they miss the biggest existential threat to football: violence and brain injury.
- Oil: ALIVE. What? Sure, electric cars and bicycle usage are going to cut into gasoline sales, but this is just silly.
