God it sucks to hit 35 doesn't it? That was a really rough couple of years for me. You are like halfway to 70, and 70 is like way old. What is worse is all these "You can be anything" dreams start becoming undeniably impossible, like being a fighter pilot or competing in the Olympics. But the worst bit for me was thinking "Wow, that didn't seem all that long, am I really going to be 70 in just that much more time?" And frankly a mixture of panic and depression set in. I'm never going to be "somebody", I'm over the hill, all of my heroes were famous by this age, Etc. It doesn't stop.
And for me it was the time where I really internalized that life isn't about the goals, its about the trip and the stops along the way. Imagine your life is to drive from the San Francisco Airport to JFK in New York and catch a flight and fly back. That is your life. And sure you put goals in like "see the Grand Canyon" or something which takes you down a side path but once you have seen the Canyon, maybe hiked Zion, skiied the Rockies, you just have to keep driving east. And you hit Kansas which goes on and on and on and on and on.
I had started piling up things from the 'someday' pile into the 'remember when?' pile, like from 'someday I'll have kids' to 'remember when we didn't have kids?' When that 'someday' pile gets smaller you can imagine it has nothing in it but 'someday I'm going to die' well that is a scary thing to imagine indeed.
So it sucks, but what can you do about it? The thing I found that got me past that was focusing really hard on what I had (a great family), what I could change (where I wanted to be), and how I felt about the world (my outlook on the future). By focusing on that I kept from looking at that ugly visage of Christmas Yet to Come, and the fear and guilt that came along with it. I stopped following the news for a while since it only wanted to reinforce my fear of the future. I fed my curiosity and tried to seek out sources of wonder again (rocketry, quantum physics, and robotics systems are all amazing things to me).
That keeps me engaged and interested and learning, and in so doing keeps the future away in the future.
1. These are weirdly contrived generational categories...
2. You have no idea about student debt, underemployment, life-long renting. “Stop feeling special” is some shitty advice. I don’t feel special or entitled, just poor...
So basically, the post is about the Huff Post author being detached from reality. "You just want to feel special- get over it" is really shitty advice, he's right. They teach you not to say things like that at work. At least I hope they do.
I'm a bit above 35 (past the next "old" barrier that starts with 4), and although I fall more into the Huff Post author's vision of the sad yuppie close to the start of gen Y, it pisses me off that on Marketplace (PRI radio broadcast on NPR stations) today they were basically trying to convince everyone that no one knows what the middle class is and that we should just get used to the new normal and should even consider wealth redistribution as a way to deal with it (I'm not joking- this was really said and the Marketplace idiot went along with it- seriously L.A.- are these the people you want representing you?).
So, I'm with Adam Weinstein on this one saying, "Fk you".
I didn't sign up for the economic situation we're in, and I feel that our fiscally irresponsible government is to blame. Wealth redistribution? No, I don't think socialism or communism is a good idea. The only countries in which either are working having been abandoning them for capitalism, from what I see (specifically, India and China).
Can we stop threatening to bomb people, open borders again fully to allow all kinds of immigrants, hire ex-Israeli soldier elites to profile passengers and replace the TSA and no-fly lists in our airports/etc. (like Israel does), and have less government. Our government has better things to do than to try to tell us how to live and how we should manage our money. Did you notice how the Democrats were giving Yellen a hard time because she was female? Almost completely washed over in the liberal media. Shame! So much bullshit. I cannot wait to cast my vote next time to oust every single one of the losers currently in office.
Actually I did read it, several times actually trying to tease out the angst from the fiction.
The author, Adam, is angry, that much is clear. And he writes that he is angry at people who write pieces like the HuffPo one [1] which is "full of crap". That piece, basically labels people of a certain age (by calling them 'Gen Y') and then disparages them as being unrealistic in their expectations and their self image.
So what can we infer from that? Well first, if this was a single instance then it probably wouldn't be emotional for Adam; Second, if the complaints that the HuffPo piece was disparaging weren't complaints that Adam had been espousing he would have ignored it, and third he chose not to argue the merits, rather to argue the presentation and author.
Now, my opinion here is that the HuffPo article was a hit piece aimed right at Adam to generate rage views. And the HuffPo author tapped into that mid-life angst about how the world isn't what you imagined it would be, and twisted as hard as he dared to maximize the rage views. As for the 'weirdly contrived generational categories' every group of people gets exposed to the world (or made aware of it) around 15 - 25. And the 'big themes' in that time period become influential in their lives. These categories are self creating.
What I was trying to point out was that the anger over life not being what one hoped it isn't unique to any generation, the Economist article mentioned in this thread talks a bit about that.
So to address your second point, awareness about debt and underemployment and life-long renting. One can be aware, and care, and still have perspective.
And then you said, "I didn't sign up for the economic situation we're in, and I feel that our fiscally irresponsible government is to blame." This is where you have to choose. (And this is why, for me, 35 was pretty painful) You have to choose to either be a victim or to not be a victim. Do you look for 'blame' or do you look for 'fixes'. The Marketplace episode pissed you off because it was wrong, you can either show them how it was wrong or you can whine about it.
For me, when I hit 35 was when it sunk in that there wasn't any "they" anymore, there weren't grown-ups which were going to fix things. That was up to me, being one of the grown ups, I had to start fixing things. And I was irritated in the mess the previous generation had left behind.
>I feel that our fiscally irresponsible government is to blame. Wealth redistribution?
The irony is that (in my opinion) all of this was created because we wanted to redistribute wealth - but we did it by creating easy access to debt (dominantly, debt access for real estate and debt access to college, two signifiers of wealth that possessing them, as it turns out, does not make you wealthy), and because we wanted to grant everyone the luxury of illusory security that the rich "enjoy" without considering the upside cost of trying to cover everyone with no holes in the social service. So we got a whole bunch of bureaucratic overhead to make sure we are in compliance with artifical metrics and schemes to guarantee equitability, yet more people are falling through the holes. There's a greek word for this: ὕβρις,
Truly, our society in many ways is no better than the cargo cults.
Forcible wealth redistribution is a bad thing. Worse, when it has been done, it is done in a band-aid approach. Let's subsidize subsistence as a way to chain people to job searches. No thank you.
But having said that, I think it is reasonable for encouraging a sane wealth distribution to be a part of public policy. This doesn't have to be done through taxes just for owning something. It could be taxes on renting something for example, unless that is a rent to own agreement. The idea would be simply encouraging ownership to align with utilization rather than life-long renting as the norm.
I would recommend reading some conservative alternatives like Chesterton's "An Outline of Sanity" or Belloc's "The Servile State" for alternatives that are more historically grounded.
Self-reported well-being follows a U curve. "Happiness" declines starting at age 18 and keeps going down until it bottoms out in middle-age. But then, interestingly, it rises, and keeps rising, all the way to end of life. This has been observed all over the world.
Weird, I'm on an upward trajectory since 18. At 18 I was a total mess with low self esteem. Now I'm doing pretty damn good other than the constant poverty.
Though I understand the sentiment, and agree massively, I am clearly am somewhat of anomaly, I can still, though, see the benefit of broad statistical analysis. Sure, I'm doing okay, however, if I'm not a fit for the data, and most people are going downhill after 18, perhaps that is a reason not for sweeping judgements but at least a degree of concern, and an avenue of understanding?
Live life as you're doing, and consider supporting sens.org. Aging is terrible for many reasons, but we might actually be able to do something about it in the not too distant future.
Stop driving northeast -- Gone south to the Grand Canyon? Don't get back on track to NY, head to Philly or DC or NC or Florida instead. Better yet, make a J and head to Seattle.
Today I saw a kid walking down the street with an ice cream cone in his hand. His girlfriend was with him, he was in his 30s. But his inner child held the cone. Just because you age doesn't mean you can't still be a child.
Edit: from my profile -- Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you dont. No one does. You shouldnt be trying to check off the boxes of life; they arent real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path Im following, and Im not walking in anyone elses footsteps. Im making it up as I go. - Charlie Hoehn
Well that's depressing - I was banking on 30s being a lot better (at least for dating) than early twenties. I guess I didn't consider the inevitable midlife mortality crisis. Guess I'll have to make the most of late twenties and early thirties.
>>I was banking on 30s being a lot better (at least for dating) than early twenties.
In my early 20s I was in college and the place was full of young, single girls. I'm 28 now and it is pretty depressing how everyone has either married or at least in stable long-term relationships. So yeah, the trajectory is not moving towards "better."
I don't love the article's tone, but I do like the implicit point that Gen Y's sense of entitlement about success is not so different from older generations' sense of entitlement about pensions.
"Aww, you promised that if you to get that fancy degree and then everything would magically work out for you? And it didn't? Totally predictable--serves you right."
Isn't so different from:
"Aww, you were promised that if you showed up to work consistently for 40 years, your employers would pay you to do nothing for the rest of your life and cover your skyrocketing medical expenses? And that's not working out? Totally predictable--serves you right."
One of the reasons why people think that Gen Y is self-entitled is because they are so inward-looking that they (in general) never bother to think of what it was like for those before. It's all about "I hurt now"
Example: "Last weekend my baby had a fever, and we contemplated taking him to the ER, and my first thought was - had to be - “Oh God, that could wipe out our bank account! Maybe he can just ride it out?”"
As opposed to previous generations who had much less access to healthcare in the first place?
The boomers are such a target for Gen Y wrath, yet there's little reflection on how growing up was different for the two. Boomers and before just buckled down and got on with it, because life is tough.
I was once having this discussion online with a Gen Yer, and I pointed out the medical advances, civil rights advances, relative lack of scarcity, so on and so forth. Not to mention growing up under the constant threat of the Cold War, which makes the War on Terrorism look like child's play. Despite all this, the entirety of her counterargument was 'some schools now require metal detectors'. She just couldn't grasp what it was like to grow up in previous generations - where instead of getting a false promise of a better life, you got no promise at all, and fewer entertainment options for distracting yourself. And as a woman, life would have been worse, with spousal and sexual abuse swept under the carpet as a matter of routine, and entirely legal reduced wages for the same work.
Are Gen Y better or worse off than previous generations? I certainly don't think they're worse off, it's just not 'perfect'. This article shows a lack of perception of the hardships boomers had and overcame, plus it quietly sifts in some whinging because his choice of career is dying... which is his choice of career, unrelated to Gen Y, and I noted that there was no acknowledgement of people in previous decades whose careers fell by the wayside (farriers? manufacturers? miners?). He certainly didn't mention that there are entire careers that now exist that didn't 20 years ago (pretty much all of the internet-related environment, for example).
The simple test is: would you rather live as an average person now or in 1960? If you're a young man in the US, remember that conscription is about to hit you, big time. (edit: and common jobs are mostly manual labour - there's very little in the way of 'designer' and the like)
Can you please reference the part of what I wrote that makes you think I consider myself a harder worker?
more thick skinned than any Gen Y person
I consider myself more thick-skinned than most people of any age. I've had friends remark on that point.
Am I special? I think my personality type is uncommon, but I don't think that makes me special in the way you're meaning the word. I'm just another guy. I contribute the same amount to society as the average guy. I have no reason to think I'm special outside of what I mean to my friends.
That you assume that I think I'm special suggests that you're suffering from your own sense of self-entitlement. Are you aware of which generation I'm part of? Very little of what I said is self-referential. I am a part of 'previous generations' and I did grow up under the end of the Cold War. So you assume that because I'm making an argument, I must be defending myself, because apparently that's the only thing that makes sense to you? You seem to be projecting.
So, here's some things that magically never seem to make it into the bookkeeping:
- We were at war with an enemy that actually felt credible. The Reds had nukes, invaded countries, and could have (as both sides nearly did) brought about the fiery death of the world.
- Not only was this threat credible, the government did useful things to protect its citizens: Civil Defense stockpiles and training, school drills and films that educated, and so on. Our current .gov is willfully ineffective.
- Healthcare was much more affordable, as basic care was cheaper and not being eaten alive by soulless administrators with fuckoff-huge budgets in a non-profit dickwaving contest. Resistant strains of bacteria weren't as widespread. Insurance and malpractice was not as big a deal.
- Not only was healthcare cheaper, there was not as much science as we have today invested in feeding us shit food that tastes great and has no redeeming nutritional value. There wasn't a McDonald's or Starbucks on every corner.
- The prison-industrial complex was not as embedded as it is today, nor were police as militarized.
- You could get a good-paying job doing vocational work, and even receive useful training for it at school. You might even get a good pension. Neither companies nor unions had screwed everything up yet.
- You didn't have to worry about your job being trivially outsourced, as international shipping hadn't quite gotten together just yet.
- You didn't have to worry about being bombarded with advertising target directly at you every day from every appliance, because the 'net wasn't around, nor was Facebook.
- My alma mater had free tuition for the first half of the 60s. :|
- Ma Bell had a competent government-sanctioned monopoly, instead of the patchwork fiefdoms from the 80s and 90s.
- We put a man on the fucking moon, instead of ads in the browser.
~
So, uh, yeah. There were downsides to be sure--I'd probably be running some ENIAC derivative or working at NASA (given my skillset) doing server monkey work right now, I'd to write weird programs for weird machines in weird languages, I'd have been bullied more growing up, and if certain classes of accidents happened I'd be shit out of luck.
If I were not white, male, or straight I could expect more trouble; then again, I'd probably have a more close-knit community to help me with those problems.
I'll leave speculation on dating and gender relations for some other thread and time.
All the same, I bet I could raise a family more healthily and more easily, and with greater (if perhaps more false) confidence that Things Would Be Alright.
For sure, I think that there are problems today - I was just mentioning things that are never said in these diatribes. I definitely agree that the prison system is a new and significant problem in the US. I definitely disagree that the war on terror is worse because the enemy is nebulous. I'll leave it there because I could write pages and pages of crap about the ups and downs of this stuff :)
The article compares Gen Y against boomers. Reality, at least in my world, Boomers had a good deal in terms of pensions, health care, and the like -- but unless those same Boomers were in Government jobs, those pension/healthcare promises are not as rosy as they were purported to be, or they took their early retirement benefits and folded them into risk in to the market. Those that did found themselves in a world of hurt come the late 90s/early 2000s and are now working at sub-optimal jobs in their 60s.
Personally, I've been working since I was 14 and I actually enjoy it -- a mix of pays the bills jobs, projects, and hobbies. My work ethic is best described as puritanical with a dose of optimizing for work life balance (at home preferred over sitting in a car for 45-60min). I probably work more than my parents did, but I don't have kids.
Any success I have is hard one over time, hard work, and being smart about decisions. I've never had a sense of "I deserve X". I don't agree with the article in a number of things, but when I've lead/managed members of Gen Y, there is a general feeling that they desire to advance/have more responsibility than their experience dictates. This is a generalization -- greater than 50% were of that mindset, but there were those in the remainder that were more balanced in their expectaions.
Sure, it is great to be goal oriented and have optimism, but for some of us a track record is more important than professed potential.
Fascinating. I constantly wonder about the psychological mindset of entrepreneurs in the US. It seems to me that being an entrepreneur is the riskiest profession imaginable in the USA. Unless you come from a family of means, failure becomes a one way ticket to homelessness, malady, and squalor. The social safety net is extremely poor and unforgiving, such that one mistake could be a life changer.
This is why I wonder, to this day, why a coalition of entrepreneurs do not support a basic income. It is the ultimate hedge against failure in a capitalistic society, and would severely curtail the risks of failed ventures for every individual.
This would massively incentivize the fail-fast mantra of startups, and unleash a scramble to create the most valuable and profitable companies with a long term focus.
I'm not holding my breath for basic income in the USA, but if Europe or the Commonwealth countries instigate it first, it would be a massive draw for serious entrepreneurs in the long term. Of course, this would have to be balanced by access to capital, which does not necessarily require presence in traditional VC hotspots (many UWaterloo companies have gone thru YC and received top tier VC funding).
This is the world I hope to see going forward. Basic income, single payer or nationalized healthcare, and a long term focus on efficiency at the state and national levels.
Family of means, I think, can include "someone I can live with rent free for a couple years." There is not as much in the way of means required as some think, but family itself has become a bit of an economic luxury.
But the larger issue is this: ballooning debt and harsher bankruptcy laws. The simple fact is that if you want to be an entrepreneur, it is hard these days to justify a college education if coming out of it means five figures of debt that you have to pay back. This debt hangs like a stone around the necks of the younger generations who are struggling to swim in turbulent economic waters.
So entrepreneurship becomes a privilege of the wealthy, and yet another way to suck money from everyone else. We don't need a government safety net. We need an organic one.
One option as you say would be something like an entrepreneur's guild. This could be a good idea--- it could function as a sort of labor union among startups, and also a safety net for founders. It could also help ensure that people who enter as early employees make the kinds of contacts that could let them go into business for themselves. And despite functioning as a labor union it would not be one, because the stated business would be to help new entrepreneurs succeed (i.e. it would not be adversarial against management). To work it would have to count as members investors, founders, and workers.
“This is why I wonder, to this day, why a coalition of entrepreneurs do not support a basic income. It is the ultimate hedge against failure in a capitalistic society, and would severely curtail the risks of failed ventures for every individual.”
Doesn’t that kind of sound like “privatize the gains, socialize the losses”? I don‘t really see how entrepreneurs would benefit overall from a basic income; successful individuals would have to pay for this through higher taxes, which would probably disincentivize risk-taking overall. Intuitively, it seems to me that any sort of scheme that tries to cheat the free market by subsidizing people who take risks and fail at the expense of those who either succeed or avoid risks probably overincentivizes risk-taking. Why should someone who doesn’t think their idea is good enough to put their own money at risk and can’t find anyone else who wants to invest and put their money at risk either get a taxpayer subsidy?
This makes especially little sense in Silicon Valley:
“OK, I quit my well-paying tech job with health insurance and free food because I thought I could successfully bootstrap the next big social media blogging platform with my entire life savings, and now I’m somehow unemployable, bankrupt, and homeless, I deserve a bailout!”
Obviously, there needs to be some amount of risk-taking, but I’m extremely doubtful that it makes sense in general for the government to subsidize starting tech companies, especially when there are so many willing private investors. I agree that having health insurance be largely the employer’s responsibility does complicate switching jobs and starting companies.
Doesn’t that kind of sound like “privatize the gains, socialize the losses”?
Yes it does, and it exists for ventures above a certain size, such as banks. Why not democratize that policy? The free market you mention and defend does not actually exist.
"Sensible" is a value judgement, and as such does not have to be anything, as we see in the current policy environment. We can say that the current policies are not sensible (or symmetric), but that's a response to a different question. The facts remain that the current markets are not free and that there are policies in effect that do socialize losses while privatizing gains.
In a lot of ways, isn't this what YC et al. are for? Essentially an interview for funding so that you can get a company started. If it works out, YC makes some money for the next group of people. If it doesn't, you got an investment. It's up to the panel of investors to decide whether they want to make that investment (i.e. if they think your idea is worthy of investing).
You're welcome to start your own coalition of investors, and lower the barrier of entry/investment. Guarantee entrepreneurs a certain salary for a certain amount of time. It could be interesting. I wouldn't invest in such a fund, personally, but it's an interesting idea.
Unless I missed your point and you simply meant that entrepreneurs should politically support such an idea. That's a different point all together!
On the flip side of that, taxes for the very wealthy are much higher in most European countries with a social safety net, especially when you consider the legal loopholes available to the rich in the US, so the potential payoff to successful entrepreneurs is greater.
The payoff is greater in another way too: Because our culture is generally less shameless about its love of materialistic success, the social reward is higher.
Said another way, we Americans love us a good lottery ticket, risks be damned!
Mainly because "basic income" is just a fancy word for welfare. If you want to be an entrepreneur in Australia, just go on welfare. Sure, you might eventually be forced to get a job, but you can easily live in the zone between having no work, and having full time work, and satisfy all the requirements for receiving welfare. In fact they even have a special program for entrepreneurs [1].
Removing the strings would be extremely costly, since there are a lot of non-entrepreneurs who would rather live off basic income and do nothing.
The people most drawn to the idea that wealth is earned, not just made, are the ones who want to be entrepreneurs. You don't create webapps and whatever because you are passionate about it, you do it because you are passionate about becoming rich and famous, and think that you can do it, if only you try hard enough. Failure is only for those people who didn't try as hard as you, right?
People born in the USA in the last 40 years don't have the same near universal likelihood of a better economic life than their parents. I suppose you can look at this as unfair to you.
You might want to realize you have been born at very close to the best place and time economically for any human in history. You are likely in the top .5% of lucky people though maybe not quite as lucky as someone born in 1950 in the USA (if you were white anyway).
The 1960's in the USA was probably the richest middle class in the richest society ever in human history. That you might be a bit less lucky than that hardly seem like being super unlucky.
And frankly, while I agree, those born a few years earlier in the USA had a better shot of bing in the top .5% of the world economic lucky winners than those born in the USA today do I would still rather be born today (or twenty... years ago). Basically I'll take the other gains and accept the economic well being is not as largely in my favor.
The article seems to talk of blaming those born recently for their situation. That is lame. They have almost nothing to do with why they have this economic situation versus someone born 40 years ago. But that misses the main point. Being born in the last 40 years in the USA is SUPER LUCKY. Yes you still struggle with challenges but nothing like what hundreds of MILLIONS of people born someone else the same decades you were in some other part of the world. And other than a handful of people in human history and then maybe some fairly large numbers born in the 1950 or 1960 in the USA, Europe, Japan and a few other places you are EXTREMELY LUCKY.
The fun thing about these sorts of viewpoints is the lack of comparisons. We can never really compare with other people regarding where we were born but unless you have spent significant time living in other countries, I really wonder about this. It's like saying "Budweiser is so great beer I will never even try another!"
Now a different perspective. I have spent around four months in Ecuador living with middle to upper class families there, and around three years total living in Indonesia. What I can tell you is that poverty in these countries is qualitatively different than poverty in the US, so much so that it is really hard to say one is worse than the other for most of the bottom 20%. For the bottom few percent though there is no question. The availability of affordable, nutritious food and basic shelter is much better here in Indonesia (and in Ecuador) for the poorest of the poor than it is in the US. Water is somewhat different but availability of water that won't kill you in the short term isn't a problem (drinking boiled polluted water is however).
Economically the poor have more stuff in the US, but they also carry a lot more debt, have more restrictions on what they can do, and they have weaker family ties, which means they have access, paradoxically, to less capital.
So I am not sure. I think that the bottom 50% may not be that much worse off in most other countries and I think there is a certain American arrogance which looks at the way we destroy the families, neighborhoods, and communities of the less well off as "progress." But if you never live elsewhere for long enough to really get the sense of how other people live, you don't see it.
I agree it is far from cut and dry. I have lived in Africa and Asia for 5 years - the rest in USA. Billions of people today do not have electricity and clean running water in their house.
Air conditioning, that many in the USA act like is necessary wasn't available in 1950 in the USA (in any significant way) and in much of the world until fairly recently.
Even things like access to a library and school is far from universal today. The internet is a great boon in providing access (and is available to more than have access to a library).
I don't see any quick and decent way to compare making $40,000 in the USA today with making 1/2 that much somewhere else. But I do know that what you can live on for $40,000 in the USA today provides luxuries most people today, and in all of human history, could never have afforded (electricity, indoor plumbing, heat, air conditioning, TV, car, cell phone, internet, food, clothes...). Yes you don't have as fancy stuff as you can see other people have. But you have a ton of great stuff.
Getting into debt is a huge issue - as it can really get you into financial trouble. And the current options for going to college are not easy. But it isn't like it was super easy before either. Both my parents had to get scholarships. I would have been out of luck probably.
We often are comparing our "shortfall" to this tiny little stretch of time and location that was great and worrying that it isn't fair it isn't quite as great as that.
I agree there are quality of life issues in the USA that are obscured by cash wealth. I also agree that those in the USA often create a much worse financial situation for themselves by taking on debt for useless junk and then complaining they can't afford to live on so little... (this even happens to rich people in the USA making over $100,000 a year).
> I agree it is far from cut and dry. I have lived in Africa and Asia for 5 years - the rest in USA. Billions of people today do not have electricity and clean running water in their house.
I don't have potable running water in my house (in Indonesia). The water is clean enough I feel comfortable brushing my teeth in it and showering in it. Not clean enough I can drink it without boiling it. We don't have central hot water (just some small units on the showers), only some rooms have air conditioning, etc.
On the other hand we have some other luxuries. We have a bottled water dispenser in our home that dispenses near-boiling water for tea or coffee (with child safety devices no less). We have two maids who keep the house clean and help with the children.
> I agree there are quality of life issues in the USA that are obscured by cash wealth.
I think the larger issues are this:
1. Cash wealth != capital wealth. The median US household is far more capital-poor than the median Indonesian family. I would define capital wealth as accessible resources that can go into capital investments minus total debt. It has little bearing on balance sheet wealth (and can be significantly above or below that).
2. We an extraordinarily multi-layered approach to discouraging small business in the US. This includes regulation aimed at large businesses which has, in some cases, made small business flat-out illegal (see the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act), complex tax codes which lead to large corporations paying less taxes than small businesses, a health insurance regulatory framework that chains people to corporate jobs (not new under Obamacare, but exacerbated by that), and the like. Self-employment is the privilege of the wealthy in the US, and that undermines everyone.
When I was in the US, my AGI was in the 70k range (after deductions and the like) and it wasn't always that easy to make ends meet with children. Making $20k/year over here would be an improvement to be honest in terms of quality of life. Two of my three kids were born over here without medical insurance, and the care set me back a lot less than the one who was born in the US with insurance (which nearly put me into bankruptcy--- I think I calculated our out of pocket expenses after insurance were over $10k).
> We often are comparing our "shortfall" to this tiny little stretch of time and location that was great and worrying that it isn't fair it isn't quite as great as that.
I don't know. I am more concerned that we tend to think of ourselves as uniquely well off, but....
1. Homelessness is criminalized in the US (especially in Democratic-voting urban centers!) far more heavily than over here in Indonesia.
2. Having a business is easier over here than in the US unless you are a foreigner (why my business entities are effectively owned by my wife so I can avoid the minimum investment limit).
3. Care for the elderly is better because people care for their relatives more closely. Also this means that people invest more heavily in their children's education and businesses since children are retirement policies.
What we have done in the US is to substitute "things" for "people" among the poor and the picture isn't pretty. So often I hear how we don't want the US to be "a third-world nation" but the fact is we have a lot to learn from less well off countries about how to live more socially and sustainably.
>>> What we have done in the US is to substitute "things" for "people" among the poor and the picture isn't pretty. So often I hear how we don't want the US to be "a third-world nation" but the fact is we have a lot to learn from less well off countries about how to live more socially and sustainably. <<<
We proved as a nation that we can set up the economics well. There is no excuse for letting them get significantly worse. There might be luck in finding setups that let the most people succeed, but keeping them is another matter. Fix the mistakes of the last couple decades and do what works.
> While you’re at it, stuff this economy. Not this GDP, not this unemployment level: this economy, this financial system that establishes complete social and political control over us, that conditions us to believe that we don’t deserve basic shelter and clothing and food and education and existence-sustaining medical care unless we throw our lives into vassalage and hope, pray, that the lords don’t fuck with our retirements or our coverages.
I assume his "basic level of support" was at least at, if not higher than, the USA-defined "poverty line" ... which is above 87% of world incomes (PPP adjusted). He wants others to, under implied or actual threat of gunpoint, be compelled to provide for what he considers basic needs (and much of the world considers luxury) with no consideration of impact on their lives. This because he chose a life of debt and rent, most likely in an area most others could not afford to live in. Am I wrong?
For a start, I would think a basic level of support would include decent healthcare for his feverish kid that didn't bankrupt the parents.
I don't see why the poverty line or the world median income should determine whether that level of support should be granted or withheld.
Did his kid choose to get a fever? Did he somehow cause his kid to get a fever by choosing the life of a journalist or choosing to live in some expensive American city?
> Did he somehow cause his kid to get a fever by choosing the life of a journalist or choosing to live in some expensive American city
No, but he chose to live the life of a journalist in an expensive American city. In doing so, he chose to sometimes be hit by negative shocks that might bankrupt him, like a child's fever or a fender-bender or an apartment fire without rental insurance.
Should the guy be able to choose that path in life? Sure. But I feel we fail the uprising generation when we say to not worry about rainy days, to be anything you want to be without the worry about financial stability.
Financial stability, for the record, isn't about employment stability, but in having enough reserve to weather life's issues. If I go out drinking with my buddies and spend $60 on a bar tab, that's $60 less of my income that I could put away for a rainy day. Add that up weekly over a year, and you quickly find a substantial rainy day fund. He and his friends could certainly find a less expensive hobby, like poker night, LAN parties, Frisbee golf, or what have you.
Is it his fault his kid is sick? Absolutely not. Is it his fault he isn't seeking to structure his life in a way to weather small shocks (like a kid having a high fever)? At least partially. Let's not deny him the right of his own responsibility here.
That's well and good, but is it his fault that the government, hospitals, doctors, manufacturers, and insurance providers actively collude to keep costs high? To keep costs rising? And then to mandate payment for services (read: insurance) that basically only serve to make a bunch of investors richer? And actively legislate and regulate to death anybody trying to fix the system or implement an alternative?
What evidence do you have that this guy is irresponsible, akin to blowing $60 on a bar tab instead of saving for rainy days? It's easy to argue against straw men.
The only evidence of irresponsibility presented in the article is the fact he chose and continues to pursue a low paying career with the full knowledge of the costs involved.
My example of a bar tab wasn't an argument on him, but rather an identification of a common behavior of men in big cities that one could, by way of illustration, trim to help establish financial security.
"Did his kid choose to get a fever? Did he somehow cause his kid to get a fever by choosing the life of a journalist or choosing to live in some expensive American city?"
He certainly chose to not be able to afford getting decent healthcare for his kids fever.
Don't get me wrong I think the system is fucked up and we should do things to fix it. But you know what, the world and the way evolution works is pretty fucked up as well. Open any history book and it is obvious. If people choose to live an idealistic lifestyle and pretend the world is something that it obviously is not, then there are probably going to be consequences.
Stop this. The cost of healthcare is a few dollar co-pay. If you're poor you get Medicaid. If you're older, you get Medicare.
So, what exactly is your point? That if you're not poor or old, and you are too lazy or cheap to buy insurance, we should feel sorry you having to pay $100 to have your child taken care of? What an amazing sense of entitlement you have.
How can you make shelter, clothing, food, education and medical care rights without taking away other individual rights?
If you believe that everybody has a right to food, are you prepared to take away the property rights of land owners so that you can grow the food?
If you believe that everybody has a right to medical care ("medical care" being defined as the services of a doctor), are you prepared to take away the rights of doctors to their labor?
> If you believe that everybody has a right to food, are you prepared to take away the property rights of land owners so that you can grow the food?
Not at all. Discontinue all farm subsidies. Purchase farm land at fire sale prices. Provide jobs to the unemployed through farming what can't be automated, and automate the rest. Food provided.
> If you believe that everybody has a right to medical care ("medical care" being defined as the services of a doctor), are you prepared to take away the rights of doctors to their labor?
Take their rights away? No. Destroy their income earning ability? Probably. I would provide more rights to nurse practitioners, subsidize their training with job guarantees, and automate most doctor decision making to expert systems. I would invest heavily (through DARPA and the NIH) in continuing the development of vaccines and protocols for chronic illnesses (thereby providing STEM jobs), and leveraging DARPA (again), continue to invest in robotics for robotic surgery apparatus (a la DiVinci Surgical System).
Socialism and capitalism may dine together now, at the table of ruthless efficiency.
> Provide jobs to the unemployed through farming...
It's actually possible to earn more than minimum wage as a farm laborer, yet there is a farm labor shortage and a drive by the UFW to recruit the unemployed met with astonishingly poor results. See http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Berry-growers-UFW-beg....
> Take their rights away? No. Destroy their income earning ability? Probably.
That's a great idea. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it. I guess I forgot that no doctors have ever opted not to accept Medicare.
Taking your epiphany a step further, since software is such an important part of life and the economy, maybe we can destroy the income earning ability of software engineers too while we're at it. I'm sure everybody around here would be happy with the arrangement.
> I would provide more rights to nurse practitioners, subsidize their training with job guarantees...I would invest heavily (through DARPA and the NIH) in continuing the development of vaccines and protocols for chronic illnesses (thereby providing STEM jobs), and leveraging DARPA (again), continue to invest in robotics for robotic surgery apparatus (a la DiVinci Surgical System).
Thank goodness the United States government doesn't have a problem with debt. If it did, all of your investments and guarantees might be impossible to make.
I don't really feel the need to rebut you point by point. Yes, technology will provide efficiencies and excess that can be used to benefit society as a whole instead of a select few. Yes, it is possible to provide these things without forcing someone to provide their labor.
Automation is going to destroy the income of everyone. Unskilled labor? Almost done. Semi-skilled labor? Coming around the corner. Doctors? Lawyers? Code. Are you going to complain that open source software destroys the income of developers too?
I know your type. "I've got mine, fuck you. Get some bootstraps." If you don't like having a social fabric, which includes caring for the weakest among us, Get. The. Fuck. Out.
> Are you going to complain that open source software destroys the income of developers too?
Even open source software needs support, maintenance, optimization and customization. Even if Linux is OSS, Google still has their own in-house kernel team (and I bet the same happens downstream at Samsung). Apple with LLVM is another example. Some people/companies are willing to pay to get more features/support/bugfixes for FOSS projects, and there's always going to be more work to do.
I can't think of any open source project that was ever finished; for an example of the opposite, look at Wine.
> I don't really feel the need to rebut you point by point.
Of course you don't. That would require you to continue to make arguments that are at odds with economic reality.
> Automation is going to destroy the income of everyone.
So when are you changing your username from toomuchtodo to nothingtodo?
> I know your type. "I've got mine, fuck you. Get some bootstraps." If you don't like having a social fabric, which includes caring for the weakest among us, Get. The. Fuck. Out.
If I take your kindly-worded suggestion, how will you seize my labor? And where should I turn in my property before I leave?
Sir (or Mam), I wouldn't accept your labor nor your property voluntarily, let alone seize it. I empathize with whatever has brought you to the point of "keep what you kill and let the weak perish". Enjoy how you choose to spend your resources, I know how I want to spend mine.
> I wouldn't accept your labor nor your property voluntarily, let alone seize it.
And what of the labor and property of lawyers, doctors, investment bankers, Silicon Valley multimillionaires? You're going to have a hard time delivering and paying for all the promises and investments you wrote of if you're picky about who you're willing to take from.
> Enjoy how you choose to spend your resources, I know how I want to spend mine.
That, my friend, is individual liberty. I'm glad that despite your vitriol, you seem to agree that it's a wonderful thing.
One modest suggestion, however: you shouldn't presume to know how others spend their resources. A person you're quick to curse as cold-hearted might be far more charitable than you ever imagined, and, in both relative and absolute terms, perhaps far more charitable than you.
I have no problem saying that people should have a right to minimum sustenance and medical care. If this was not the case, we would not bother giving either in prison. A doctor in an ER has a moral imperative to not deny life saving treatment due to lack of ability to pay. If someone is literally starving to death, let them eat the farmer's food; that is the price civilization pays for the truly destitute not to overthrow the system. "Rights" are a creation of humans, and we can choose to make them pragmatic and reasonable. The whole modern idea of personal property rights is not even that old.
We give those (minimum sustenance & care) in prison because we absolutely deny the occupants any rights necessary to self-providance thereof.
Ancient religious rules required farmers to not take everything from their fields, instead leaving whatever was missed/fallen for the poor to gather for themselves. Notice that it involved the able-bodied poor making the effort to take advantage of benign neglect, and not idly waiting for the farmer to dole out a significant fraction of what he reaped. Contrast this with the modern "basic income guarantee" movement, which requires nothing of the able-bodied "poor" yet requires productive workers hand over a good chunk of their earnings; this new notion is hardly pragmatic and reasonable save to those who would benefit from it (aye, many would be quite satisfied living thereon).
> Contrast this with the modern "basic income guarantee" movement, which requires nothing of the able-bodied "poor" yet requires productive workers hand over a good chunk of their earnings
I don't believe anyone has put together how much is going to need to be collected to provide a basic minimum income. Also, if you subsidize energy (renewables), food (subsidized agriculture), and healthcare (all of which is going to benefit the populace as a whole and is therefore a sunk cost), there should be a minimal cash outlay as a basic income.
I'm assuming the citation you wanted was in reference to this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleaning The old testament outlines at least one example of this practice in the book of Ruth. I've heard of similar practices in other religious systems but I don't have handy citations for them.
EDIT: @zaphar: The person I responded to said "yet requires productive workers hand over a good chunk of their earnings". I asked for a citation regarding that statement. It was broad with no data backing it up.
>are you prepared to take away the property rights of land owners so that you can grow the food?
Is that a question? Because damn. The lack of empathy or even respect for people's basic humanity is just astounding.
Is it not self-evident that a homeless man's right to be alive and healthy is worth more than my right to the BMW my family could have purchased instead of paying income tax?
There are good arguments to be made about the efficacy of the state vs. growth prompted by a free(r) market in actually achieving that goal, sure, but when you make such a plain insinuation that property is worth more than life... I don't get it. I will never understand the ideological fascination with property rights at the expense of all else.
There's just one problem: the cost of providing your social safety net can't exceed what you can reasonably/realistically collect in taxes.
Tax revenue, when it's growing, grows linearly. Debt, however, grows exponentially. That explains why the total debt burden of the federal government, if you include unfunded liabilities, exceeds $70 trillion even though federal tax receipts last year were above $2.5 trillion.
Context is everything.
No, you with your interwebz and spare time to be talking on HN isn't going to get a dinner from me. But the guy with his family out in the cold on xmas because bigcorp decided they didn't need him after 39 years and he has no other marketable skill(of whose fault is debatable)? Yeah, I'm buying that family dinner. This kind of thinking, the "them vs us" instead of _US_ as a whole. This is what keeps divisions between us. This is how racism survives, this is how people don't care for the homeless, the poor, the sick, the people in 3rd world countries suffering to provide you your fancy 1st-world luxuries. Screw 'em, right? If they weren't smart(read: lucky) enough to be successful that's their own fault. What, they didn't know enough to learn fancypants.js in 2007? Too bad! What, they thought they should be working at the corp forever and getting a nice retirement package? Pfft, whatever! What are people suppose to do? EVERYONE can't be an entrepreneur. Some(apparently a lot) of people just want to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.
In this case, "context" is a convenient excuse to make a broad sensational statement then claim that the obvious absurd consequences of that statement don't count.
Are you starving and desperately in need tonight? Then sure. In fact it would be best if everyone but you (since you're impoverished) banded together to feed you tonight in your desperation, especially if you have a kid in the same plight. We'll call this thing "taxation". What a beautiful name that is. "I like paying taxes, with them I buy civilization."
Panera Bread founder and chief executive Ron Shaich has built a fortune selling pumpkin muffins and croissants to America's middle class.
But this week, he's trying out the SNAP Challenge in an effort to find out how the other half lives by limiting grocery purchases to the average benefit amount shelled out by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It's not much.
A typical food stamp recipient receives just $4.50 per day in food aid, according to Feeding America.
Emphasis mine.
If we want to lower the cost of food aid, cut out the middle man. Buy the farm land, automate as much of the farming as you can, and directly manage the distribution of the food.
Your argument essentially boils down to "taxation is a violation of individual rights", since a democratic government tasked with feeding its people would obviously fund production of the food, rather than needlessly trample property rights.
It's even worse: The real wages not keeping up with productivity, I don't think is only because of mendacious CEOs but because that productivity is going to pay off benefits and pension plans of the previous generation, so not only are they telling us to 'suck it up' but they're leeching off of us.
Then there's systematic debt, like sovereign debt, social security, medicare, which we're 'legally enjoined to pay off somehow'. Well, we could pass the buck on that one, if the overleveraging of society doesn't cause another economic realignment that burns our generation in our old age, just as it burned us as we were seeking jobs.
> The real wages not keeping up with productivity,
Total employee compensation does (i.e. you have to include taxes, benefits, etc.). It's easy to see why - if someone produces way more than they cost, then employers will be lining up to hire them.
It's like as if you could buy widgets for $.10 and sell them for $1.00. You'd buy as many as possible!
>if someone produces way more than they cost, then employers will be lining up to hire them
Not someone who buys into efficient markets in labor (or anything really): I don't think that's true. The cost of additional employment can be burdened by other things (human resources expenses, compliance) times the risk that the employee is a dud. These can increase the 'activation barrier' inherent into adding a hire. And what if you only need one widget? You wouldn't buy as many as possible at all, because the rest will just be dead weight.
You're right that what matters is the cost of the employee to the employer, which wages form only a part. But if the employee productivity far outpaces that, then they'll be hiring, which will bid up those wages.
> You wouldn't buy as many as possible at all, because the rest will just be dead weight.
As I said, "if you could sell them for $1.00", which is not dead weight. Any merchant badly wants widgets that can be sold for 10x cost. Heck, I'd even start a reselling business if I could find such a product!
well, sketchiness of the metrics aside, the 75% more productive is an average value, not a median value (or a mode), so not all labor will yield "1.75x cost"...
It also has to do with increased global competition. In the wake of World War II, much of Europe and Asia was destroyed and in turmoil and had a lot of rebuilding to do. By the 1970s and 80s many countries had caught up and started seriously competing with the US in things like automobile manufacturing.
I will never for the life of me understand "unpaid internships" as a career path. I get that they exist, and they continue to exist because... they currently exist and "that's how it's done", but... holy cow. "Come slave away for months on end with no pay, and maybe one day you can continue doing it and we'll give you a bit of money. Maybe". And people fall for it. And continue to fall for it.
Perhaps it's a "prisoner's dilemma" problem (too late to find the better analogy if it's not) but if everyone stopped taking 'unpaid internships'... those wanting the work done would have to pay.
What about "we hire from the pool of those who contribute to our open source projects. If you want to work for us, that's where to start?"
The problem with unpaid internships is that they are closely supervised and hence end up with something like an unpaid employee. But what if the relationship is more loosely coupled? What if "just because we won't pay you for this doesn't mean someone else won't" is a part of the message?
The beauty of open source development is I can do it in my free time, and because I want to. Often times having open source development on your resume is simply a way to show you're a motivated developer and to demonstrate the quality of the code you produce. I'm not sure it can be directly compared against an unpaid internship, apples and oranges.
Right, but part of the question is, if unpaid internships are so bad, what about mentored open source development? How can one draw a line?
From my perspective, hiring people in related open source technologies means little ramp-up time development-wise, it means seeing someone who has a somewhat entrepreneurial spirit, and the like, all on top of the benefits of unpaid internships.
That might happen at one or a few companies, but it doesn't describe the entire software industry or even a large portion. It seems to in some other career paths.
this is exactly why unionism was born. to allow a collective voice for workers which can stand up to employers. unfortunately due to a number of factors this is a declining factor in modern workplace relations.
Unions don't necessarily help. Look at pilots, for example: The unions are run by the pilots with the most seniority, and as a result those pilots get (a) all of the job security, and (b) most of the money.
I delivered pizzas after I got my architecture degree and didn't magically find my dream job. The internship program is 3 years at near minimum wage after a masters degree, because that's the way it has always been. Never mind trying to take and pass the architects exam which staggeringly few pass the first time.
I 'do' architecture for fun now and make far more money than nearly everyone I went to college with. Assuming that they are even working.
You'd take a job that provides real income, as would everyone else, and the people wanting journalism work done would offer to pay up... ???
The problem is that there's always someone willing to go work for free, often with crappy conditions, because they hope that maybe someday someone will throw them a low wage bone because of all their 'experience' at working for free.
Depends. If the unpaid internship had a reputation of leading to a well-paying job, it may certainly be worth pursuing over McBurger. This is called "consumption smoothing" -- we do it when we're young and when we're old, and possibly in between, when we're unable to financially support ourselves.
It's not good to remain a permanent unpaid intern.
Isn't that rather much a false dichotomy? A person with a journalism degree should be able to figure out several ways in which to provide themselves beyond the immediate-but-inadequate burger-flipping versus delayed-and-maybe-still-inadequate that unpaid internships provide.
> "Last weekend my baby had a fever, and we contemplated taking him to the ER, and my first thought was - had to be - “Oh God, that could wipe out our bank account!"
For the sake of your family, consider moving somewhere in the world that treats you like a human. It is happening elsewhere too ("this financial system that establishes complete social and political control over us") but not nearly to the extent that a gainfully employed individual can't reasonably expect basic healthcare for his children.
When I was traveling in France I busted my chin. I walked to an ER and got stitches. They later mailed me a bill for 40 EUR, and I'm not a French citizen, just a random human.
When I got back home to the US I went to get the stitches removed. That visit cost me over $300. :sigh:
Kaiser charges a $100 copay for ER visits. $50 does not sound too outlandish.
The bigger question is why GenY thinks a simple fever is cause for helping to overcrowd our emergency rooms even further. A thermometer costs $20 and will help determine if the fever is severe enough to require medical intervention.
Four months ago, one of the VPs in my company called in sick to work. In the email he sent to his team, he said he had food poisoning and needed to let it run out of his system. The next day he sent another email saying he's still struggling with it and not feeling well, but had started taking some antibiotics.
He died on the third day.
Because you see, what he thought was a simple food poisoning was actually a rare form of staph infection that reached his heart and destroyed it. By the time his family realized he should be taken to the ER, it was too late.
You may want to think about that the next time you have a "simple fever." Because the fact of the matter is that people are not doctors and should not try to self-diagnose themselves when they feel sick. They should go to the doctor, or if the symptoms are non-trivial, the ER.
Whoa, people are considering as early back as '77 "gen-y"? Since when? I was '82 and people have always told me I was "too old to understand gen-y, the gen-x-er that you are."
My wife was '78, and I know she doesn't consider herself gen-y.
But I do commiserate. Actually, I think we have it a site worse. At least our youngers should have had the chance to see the college-degree-bubble-writing-on-the-wall. We were the first to get fed into the meat grinder.
I was born '80 and consider myself to be in the nebulous area. My sister is '83 and is firmly 'Y'.
I saw the college bubble popping. It's why I went to night school and graduated debt free from a state in-state urban public university with a solid, practical program and a degree in business. It was a tough few years, but it also set the expectation that life would suck for a few years and then would get better, and I would find a way to do what I wanted after I met the goal.
Too many people, the author of the linked rant (I won't dignify it by calling it an article) seem to have been sold a promise of a fulfilling fun college experience and fulfilling fun career if only they mortgaged themselves. Mortgaging yourself never is a good idea. That is a horrible approach. I hope that the generation now in high school learns from their errors.
very few sees the bubble popping until it's popped. The worst off are approximately 2010-2013, because we're at 'peak undergrad' right now. Best time to go to college will be in about 10 years.
Its not just journalism of course. I am a programmer (born in 1977) and have found myself for many years without full time employment or benefits. Now that's a misnomer because I certainly worked full time but I just wasn't given regular employee status at those jobs. I have also had jobs where I had to work at an outsourcing rate. Because if the lack of health insurance I have been unsuccessfully dealing with health problems for many years which has also made it more difficult to secure regular employment rather than contract work. Now I also do not have a degree so I'm sure some people will chalk up all of my difficulties to that. But I believe that we are actually in tough times for workers of all sorts and have been for some time.
All I'm going to say is that the Forbes 400 (America) saw their total wealth grow 300 billion(!) in one year between 2012 and now. That was 17.6% in a single year.
I can't like this comment enough. It's not that we feel special, we just want what our parents didn't have, we want to improve our station in life. This is natural. This is evolution at work. Our parents wanted the same thing, they wanted stability when our grandparents grew up in recession after recession, war after war, plague after plague.
People have the audacity to say that we should accept stagnation without trying? That line of thinking is what is wrong with the world today.
Pretend the graph doesn't exist. Pretend the statistics don't exist. Pretend you have no way of knowing that "the 1%" are reaping the lion's share of the recovery, that they all live off in an Elysium we'll never know about.
Compare yourself to your parents, given that. You have the internet. If it's killed work for "the creatives," it's given the rest of us free access to their works. You have a cell phone, where your dad might've broken down on a highway north of Phoenix and prayed for a pay phone. If your kid runs a fever and the treatment wipes out your meager savings, at least he'll live, where his uncle might've died under the same circumstances.
I'm blessed with a good job. Maybe my luck clouds my vision, and there's a huge structural problem I refuse to recognize. Maybe it'd be different if I had a wife and kids, but I can't help but think that's... optional, especially for those of us in our 20s.
So maybe I just don't understand the plight of the author or those like him, but I can't help thinking that the primary drive behind the complaints is jealousy. The HuffPo article tries to say it nicely, and explain it with unfairly inflated expectations, but it still comes down to the same thing. Young people are jealous because other people have status, and it's just not fair.
Cell phones and the internet are nice, but I've bills and debt and crap job that I can't support myself on. I've got a mother in law dying of cancer, and once that's over with, the debt from the meager medical care she's received will burden her family for years. I've got a fiancee that can't find work in her field so she's stuck in a crappy job as well. The circuses are nice, but I'd rather just have some damn bread.
It's not "jealousy" when I'm asking to be able to support myself. Is it unfair to expect not to start out in life heavily burdened by student loans, unable to get a job that provides any sort of benefits, or to be able to pay bills? I'm not asking for the shiniest and newest, I'm asking for a basic living. It's not status; it's not being stuck living at home.
This! Why do we let these rich robber barrens get away with having the lowest tax rates since the 1950s when the middle class is clearly falling off a cliff? This is ridiculous people! Lets raise taxes on these guys back to what it used to be under Clinton when we were doing fine, it won't hurt them one ioata, then we can fix all the problems with schools, hospitals, social security and build infrastructure to get some money back into the economy so people have some disposable income so they can buy things and get a healthy economic system moving again. This isn't that complicated, we can just be apathetic and go back to being peasants ruled by a few elite or we can demand they pay their fair share!
You have no idea about student debt, underemployment, life-long renting. “Stop feeling special” is some shitty advice. I don’t feel special or entitled, just poor.
Uh...yeah, we do have an idea. We've just lived long enough to take a look around, discovered there are alternatives, decided to stop making stupid decisions, realized that life isn't fair, learned that shouting "fuck you" at others results in a pretty poor life, and decided to make it better.
Considering it was upvoted, others did see worthy content therein. But to spell it out...
Yeah, we do have an idea. We have either experienced or studied such problems, including many which are much worse. We've variously experienced crushing debt, empty bank accounts, war, death, injury, illness, loss, etc. If the peak of your whining is school debt and rent payments, and you don't notice the comfortable indoor HVAC + balanced nutrition + comfortable convenient transportation + easy instant access to the bulk of human knowledge + clean water, you've got it pretty darned good over most.
We've just lived long enough to take a look around. We've lived longer than you, some of us by several times over. We've seen more than you have, and discovered the range of options is much bigger than you think it is. We chuckle when we start telling you what those options include, and you cut us off to cling to the limited range you don't want to let go of - but insist we fix everything for you.
discovered there are alternatives. YES you can live on $1/meal, with fine nutrition and taste, if you're willing to research and get dirty. YES you can own your home outright, if you'll not demand expensive location & structure, do some serious research, be willing to move, and do some work yourself. YES you can get a good education with little debt, no debt, moderate cost, and (if sufficiently flexible & hard working) they might even pay you to attend. We also have noticed that taking the "sign here" easy path is very expensive. NO you don't have to put a gun to someone's head (be it by implication thru proxy) and make them pay for you.
decided to stop making stupid decisions. "Life is tough. It's tougher when you're stupid." - John Wayne
realized that life isn't fair. It's not fair. In no way is it fair that over 87% of people on the planet are doing worse than you. It's also not fair for you to, after making the choices you did and in the health you enjoy, to demand the other 13% improve your lot in life while giving nothing in return.
learned that shouting "fuck you" at others results in a pretty poor life. The link I provided sums it up pretty well. BTW, should be obvious I was referencing the first two words of the thread & article's title. If that's your attitude toward prior generations, don't be surprised if they become disinclined to help you more than they already are (which they are and obviously are unappreciated for). ETA: I see the first two words of the thread's title were removed subsequent to my prior post; I wish the original title, being that of the linked article, was retained in full as it set the tone as the author clearly intended.
and decided to make it better. In the rather immortal words of a notable HN thread, and in the language which the author seems to understand: fucking figure it out. Solutions to the problem are not impossible, quite achievable actually, and everyone else you're demanding support from have their own equivalent problems that they're figuring out. Yes that debt sucks; you signed up for it, you CAN pay it off, yeah it might hurt but that was your choice, everyone else you want to pay your bill have their own voluntary debts they're working on paying off and they're not making you pay. Yes that rent sucks; move somewhere land is cheap and building materials affordable and start swinging a hammer. Yes the kid's illness threatens the bank balance; take that as a red alert warning klaxon telling you to start saving money now because unexpected expenses DO happen, and just because you didn't prepare with adequate savings or insurance doesn't mean you get dibs on the funds of those who did prepare.
Enough people have said the above, and a whole lot more, on HN. I assumed you've read it, and grokked the reference thereto in my post above. Accused of "zero content", there's some elaboration short of handing you a copy of Foxfire and a link to Google ... aw, heck, here ya go: http://www.foxfire.org/thefoxfirebookseries.aspxhttp://www.google.com ... there, now you've got everything you need to solve those problems yourself.
1) he's not a good enough writer to earn more.
2) he's chosen jobs that have little hope of a lucrative payoff.
3) his personality is such that he gets fired from everyplace he works.
No, it's not far-fetched, but it means you've fallen to the bottom of the pyramid of disagreement by indulging in ad hominems/character assassination; which while possibly valid in this case, still means you are failing to deal with the many objective points he brings up (eg the quartering of the Village Voice rates paid to the best writers, not him).
It's hard for people engaged in a career path to recognize the end that's coming.
Much journalism is literally farmed out to content mills and pays fractions of a penny per word. This implies a labor supply glut. I wonder sometimes if we see this in web dev too?
On the one hand, it would take a miracle or three. On the other, things have been very, very slowly improving. I cannot tell if things are about to crash and burn or finally start coming together.
I am sorry you suffered. Thank you for the well wishes.
I think you misunderstood me. I was saying that people as a rule don't feel entitled, because it's not something you feel. I wasn't passing judgement on you.
This being said, fuck you for abusing me on the basis of information you hadn't yet shared.
I have a good job, for a telecom carrier, I make more money than I thought a could, enough to live in one bedroom apartment and save a little for a rainy day. That said, I have no stability (I'm a contractor who's project could vanish at any point in time), no retirement (my retirement plan right now is death), no insurance I can afford (would cost over 10% of my take home to get it).
I long for stability, permanence and benefits.
I know right now it sucks - but I know in a couple years the boomers will be exiting the workforce in droves, and there will be room for me in the permanent roles. I just have to bide my time, be patient, and wait, and it will all work out. I hope.
Seriously? It's like the author, Adam, and I read a completely different Huffington blog posts. And why the hell does he need to drop the f-bomb so much to grab attention?
I'm at the very end of Gen Y, born 1993 and 19 years old right now.
Adam says 'So take your “revise your expectations! check your ego!” Horatio Alger bullshit, and stuff it.' Are you kidding me? The Huffington blog post said the opposite! It said that Gen Yers should stay ambitious, but be more humble. We need to keep being ambitious, but expect that we need to work very hard to fulfill those ambitions.
Furthermore, Adam is ranting that he chose something he really wants to do and is poor, because his job doesn't pay enough. It sounds like he is very capable and could get a better job if he wanted to. He is expecting that the job he likes to do will make enough money to support his family and lifestyle (whatever it may be.) That sounds a lot like what the Huffington Post was saying too ("career path expectation.")
I think the Huffington blog post is fantastic, and many of my friends could benefit from its advice. At first though, it does seem to bucket and portray Gen Yers unfairly, but the post's conclusions make up for it.
Seems a fitting time to remind those put off by this sort of complaining that it is not sufficient to merely convince like-minded bystanders to blame the victims. Victims must blame themselves for true peace and quiet.
I say carry on with the social hectoring of those who seek a better state of affairs and don't (yet) feel personally responsible for the outcome of their (increasingly loaded) societal dice roll.
Sounds entitled to me. He feels that his degree entitles him to wealth and financial security. It does not.
He acts surprised that other people aren't providing for HIS child. Again with the entitlement, as if he and his kid are somehow owed something from someone purely by virtue of their existence.
What he says is true. A 26 year old economics major approached me yesterday here in Asia and revealed that in lieu of any obvious job he was making a play in to journalism and researching resident foreign sentiments of the local environs. I sort of shrank in horror that he would see journalism as a viable career path, but stranger things have happened.
The one potential escape our subculture has is remote work and the option of living in lower cost parts of the world. I'm here, and it's nice. If anyone wants such a job - permanent gig, frontend dev - I've got one going right now.
Take away any semblance of job security, benefits and any possibility of advancement, then stand back and act surprised that Gen Y isn't totally loyal. Huh.
Maybe words are less expensive these days because so many of them are being published ... When I was young, we could either read the newspaper, magazines or books. Each newspaper had exponentially more eyeballs looking at them because they were (in my town) a monopoly. I think what he's describing as a writer is simply a case of supply and demand. We're all writers now (notice I didn't say good writers).
What an utter shock that those so minimal affected by the economic changes taking place over the last 30 years (tech community) are among the most skeptical that those changes are harmful to the vast majority.
Someone mentioned US economic prosperity. Any definition of "economic prosperity" must include prosperity for the majority.
This person believes he represents his generation, and he is advocating for things that reduce economic prosperity. He should not be surprised about the results he's seeing.
Whatever this means that you feel persecuted by, the science of economics is clear enough about what promotes economic prosperity. History corroborates.
You should be making a moral argument, though that would also be wrong.
Isn't it nice to have the luxury of living when we have the choice of whether or not to take an infant with a fever to the hospital? Our parents/grandparents didn't have that luxury, they had to ride the fever out and hope their family member lived. Options like that are why our society is so expensive to live in today.
How old are you? My grandparents (nevermind my parents) could rely on hospitals, and they lived in rural Kansas on lower middle class incomes.
My Depression-era great grandparents had to make that choice (and worse), but implying we should be so lucky that we as a society are regressing 80 years is not such a good thing.
And for me it was the time where I really internalized that life isn't about the goals, its about the trip and the stops along the way. Imagine your life is to drive from the San Francisco Airport to JFK in New York and catch a flight and fly back. That is your life. And sure you put goals in like "see the Grand Canyon" or something which takes you down a side path but once you have seen the Canyon, maybe hiked Zion, skiied the Rockies, you just have to keep driving east. And you hit Kansas which goes on and on and on and on and on.
I had started piling up things from the 'someday' pile into the 'remember when?' pile, like from 'someday I'll have kids' to 'remember when we didn't have kids?' When that 'someday' pile gets smaller you can imagine it has nothing in it but 'someday I'm going to die' well that is a scary thing to imagine indeed.
So it sucks, but what can you do about it? The thing I found that got me past that was focusing really hard on what I had (a great family), what I could change (where I wanted to be), and how I felt about the world (my outlook on the future). By focusing on that I kept from looking at that ugly visage of Christmas Yet to Come, and the fear and guilt that came along with it. I stopped following the news for a while since it only wanted to reinforce my fear of the future. I fed my curiosity and tried to seek out sources of wonder again (rocketry, quantum physics, and robotics systems are all amazing things to me).
That keeps me engaged and interested and learning, and in so doing keeps the future away in the future.