Income, education, and Generation Y

[sg0508]

What one wants or thinks he/she deserves or should/shouldn't have to do are two different things.  This thread is a good example of how some people just refuse to see how the world has changed.  You're not competing only with your next door neighbor for a job any longer.  Now, you're competing with everyone around the globe, including those in India/China who will be happy to do your job for a fraction of the costs, no benefits, work longer days and not be subject to the same level of regulation. 

We live in a nation where we value $$$ first and everything else second. That's business unfortunately.  If a company can outsource half their jobs to India and save the shareholders millions, that's precisely what they're expected to do.  It's all about the shareholders, bondholders, business owners and those that bring in revenue.  Most others are "G&A costs" that bring little to no value and simply "use cash" in their respective companies.

Take a basic economics course.  It really isn't that hard.  The supply of global labor is > demand.  Technology has naturally eliminated jobs.  Americans' cost of living is very high and we demand more for our work.  Why would most companies (if they have the capability of outsourcing) want to keep their jobs here?

When the supply of labor > demand for labor, wages/salaries remain stagnant or fall, hours demanded by employers rise employer power rises, employee power falls and ultimately, more people are going to have a tougher time entering the job market, staying in it and remaining in the middle class.

It's not that hard.  Unfortunately, some of you still listen to politicians who remain in office by breeding off people who can't add 1+1 and see the writing on the wall.  If a politician EVER stated anything that I just did (and you notice how none ever have despite the evidence to the contrary), they would be run out of office faster than a racehorse.  People do NOT like hearing the truth until they actually see it and it blows up in their faces (i.e. for example, people overleveraging themselves, then watching the housing market crash and many losing their house).

Gen Y is at a competitive disadvantage in the global market.  They will be and are being REQUIRED to work harder to "make it".  Whether or not they WANT TO, or whether they feel like they SHOULD HAVE TO or not, is completely and utterly irrelevant in the scheme of how businesses operate, how corporate america sees it or how the global economy works, where the playing field has been leveled in a hurry.  After WW II, we were the only man left standing.  Now, globalization evened the playing field and put the US and its workers at a competitive disadvantage cost-wise and many are and will feel the blow from it.
So, for those

[All Along The Watchtower]

Just a tip: calling an entire generation "spoiled" or "entitled" or "stupid", especially when you are a member of said generation yourself, shows a lot more about you than about the people you are insulting.

Anyway...the biggest deficits of "personal responsibility" and the most entitled people can be found in the executive offices of many (if not most) corporations, so I'm not sure why some posters here are defending said corporate predators.

[krazen1211]

The problem is that we now live in a society where every single child is raised with the notion that they will never amount to anything unless they make it into college at age 18. College acceptance standards have dropped as well and more people are attending college than ever. This leads to nothing more than more people applying for the same jobs because more people are qualified. Doing well in the academic field and doing well in the private sector are two very different things. In today's world we end up with 20 people applying for the same position because the unnecessary amount of people going to college has resulted in more people being qualified. We can't all be doctors. If we were all doctors, then who would be the teachers? Forcing and pressuring everyone to attend college is not what this economy needs. The perfect economy is balanced. There are plenty of people who can make grades in college classrooms but have no chance in the private sector because of how different the worlds are. As long as the notion of people not being able to reach success unless making into college after high school is planted into the brains of our youth, we will continue to have a very educated society accompanied by a low income due to over qualification of trade and non-skilled jobs. The politics of education needs to stop and we need to establish a balanced economy once more.

Have you seen the unemployment rates for people without college degrees? Have you seen the income figures for people without college degrees?

You have to go to college to be a teacher too. And if Krazen has his way, I don't know why anyone would want to be a teacher and be demonized and villified and have your salary and benefits be subject to the whims of political grandstanding.

You people have had your way for 40 years. US education spending is now $11k per pupil.

http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.html

[opebo]

sg0508, nothing you post is news to any leftist - and the things you mention are precisely the reason we would like to kill the rich.  Also, it is worth noting that there is nothing any 'individual' can do about this terrible subjugation anyway, so your suggestion that people are spoiled is irrelevant.  Spoiled or earnest, they're doomed by their owners as long as those owners live and have power, so what's your point?

[MalaspinaGold]

I think barfbag and sg want us to go back to the good ol' days, when people worked 12-14 hour days, child labor was rampant in the coal mines and garment industries, workers who protested were blacklisted, the majority of corporations were hegemonal monopolies a la Standard Oil, and when Triangle Shirtwaist fires were everyday occurences.

I am a dumb and entitled millenial because I think barfbag and sg's good ol' days were bad ol' days for regular people, and because I and other millenials don't want it to happen again.

[opebo]

I think barfbag and sg want us to go back to the good ol' days, when people worked 12-14 hour days, child labor was rampant in the coal mines and garment industries, workers who protested were blacklisted, the majority of corporations were hegemonal monopolies a la Standard Oil, and when Triangle Shirtwaist fires were everyday occurences.

I am a dumb and entitled millenial because I think barfbag and sg's good ol' days were bad ol' days for regular people, and because I and other millenials don't want it to happen again.

They do want that, and they are also correct that this will inevitably happen again.

[barfbag]

I think barfbag and sg want us to go back to the good ol' days, when people worked 12-14 hour days, child labor was rampant in the coal mines and garment industries, workers who protested were blacklisted, the majority of corporations were hegemonal monopolies a la Standard Oil, and when Triangle Shirtwaist fires were everyday occurences.

I am a dumb and entitled millenial because I think barfbag and sg's good ol' days were bad ol' days for regular people, and because I and other millenials don't want it to happen again.

Have you been here long enough to read my bill proposals in the political debate forums or are you just a partisan hack who quotes their party line?

[MalaspinaGold]

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TNF put it almost exactly right. sg made ridiculous assumptions to explain why millenials are "dumb" and "entitled" (really, is there ANYONE willing to work 12-14 hours a day; are you REALLY holding that against the current generation). TNF rightly exposes the problem; and you go ahead and blame him for it, dismissing him as just another one of those silly and dumb millenials. If you are not willing to engage in substantive debate (as you have most certainly FAILED to do; I don't think any one can deny that) on this subject, only to proclaim nostalgia about the American will 100 years ago, and to make silly assumptions ("In terms of survival; each generation has gotten dumber than the last") that literally mean NOTHING, do not complain.

I gave you an entire post about why the whole "millenials are lazy and dumb; therefore they will be the Lost Generation" mindset is ridiculous. You have not commented on it. Have you not read it? I will requote it for you.

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If you want to see the greatest example of rampant, unchecked mass consumerism and moral degradation, I give you the 1920's.

If you want to see the greatest example of the younger generation mas rebelling against the perceived confines of the older generation, I present to you the 1960's.

Whatever the case is, your dismissal of the millenial's unwillingness to regress to the "good ol'" early 20th century should be a testament to the current generation, symbolizing their unwillingness to go back to a time when the average worker was worth less than the dirt he worked on.

[barfbag]

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TNF put it almost exactly right. sg made ridiculous assumptions to explain why millenials are "dumb" and "entitled" (really, is there ANYONE willing to work 12-14 hours a day; are you REALLY holding that against the current generation). TNF rightly exposes the problem; and you go ahead and blame him for it, dismissing him as just another one of those silly and dumb millenials. If you are not willing to engage in substantive debate (as you have most certainly FAILED to do; I don't think any one can deny that) on this subject, only to proclaim nostalgia about the American will 100 years ago, and to make silly assumptions ("In terms of survival; each generation has gotten dumber than the last") that literally mean NOTHING, do not complain.

I gave you an entire post about why the whole "millenials are lazy and dumb; therefore they will be the Lost Generation" mindset is ridiculous. You have not commented on it. Have you not read it? I will requote it for you.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If you want to see the greatest example of rampant, unchecked mass consumerism and moral degradation, I give you the 1920's.

If you want to see the greatest example of the younger generation mas rebelling against the perceived confines of the older generation, I present to you the 1960's.

Whatever the case is, your dismissal of the millenial's unwillingness to regress to the "good ol'" early 20th century should be a testament to the current generation, symbolizing their unwillingness to go back to a time when the average worker was worth less than the dirt he worked on.

What exactly are you trying to say? What does this generation need to do to meet your requirements?

[MalaspinaGold]

The current generation literally has to do NOTHING different to be a completely average generation in my opinion. I am not the one calling the current generation "lazy" and "entitled", or at least any more lazy and entitled that mankind has always been.

This is not to say this generation is perfect, but I do not see it as being much different from the boomers, or Gen X.

[barfbag]

The current generation literally has to do NOTHING different to be a completely average generation in my opinion. I am not the one calling the current generation "lazy" and "entitled", or at least any more lazy and entitled that mankind has always been.

This is not to say this generation is perfect, but I do not see it as being much different from the boomers, or Gen X.

Each generation is unique in its own way based on the difference of the times.

[MalaspinaGold]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

[barfbag]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

We have always had a very cushy lifestyle in our generation.

[krazen1211]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

We have always had a very cushy lifestyle in our generation.

The government education industry complex has taken advantage of that. See monstrous palace dorms and gourmet $20 a day meal plans.

And, of course, labor force participation rates have plummeted due to these types not entering the labor force.

[Person Man]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

We have always had a very cushy lifestyle in our generation.

The government education industry complex has taken advantage of that. See monstrous palace dorms and gourmet $20 a day meal plans.

And, of course, labor force participation rates have plummeted due to these types not entering the labor force.

And of course this has nothing to do with the Boomers retiring and somehow having a good lifestyle dictates the type of person you are.

[MalaspinaGold]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

We have always had a very cushy lifestyle in our generation.

And there you go again making some random generalization without any factual evidence to back it up.

We may have a more comfortable lifestyle, but that may be because the US is the richest country. If you want to change that, you won't find much success at the ballot box.

[krazen1211]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

We have always had a very cushy lifestyle in our generation.

The government education industry complex has taken advantage of that. See monstrous palace dorms and gourmet $20 a day meal plans.

And, of course, labor force participation rates have plummeted due to these types not entering the labor force.

And of course this has nothing to do with the Boomers retiring and somehow having a good lifestyle dictates the type of person you are.

Facts are tricky for liberals.


http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412880-why-are-fewer-people.pdf

The dramatic drop in labor force participation during and after the Great Recession has
been driven by a decline in labor force entry rates rather than substantial increases in the
share of workers becoming discouraged and leaving the workforce.

[barfbag]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

We have always had a very cushy lifestyle in our generation.

And there you go again making some random generalization without any factual evidence to back it up.

We may have a more comfortable lifestyle, but that may be because the US is the richest country. If you want to change that, you won't find much success at the ballot box.

What people want is a nation who works for what it has. You realize we've run up our debt so college students can have $20 a day meal plans and luxurious dorms? Are you going to pay for it or are you going to pass the debt onto your grandchildren? Taxing the rich won't help either as heard in Democratic campaign talking points because if we were all taxed at 100% for 20 years, we still couldn't afford to pay off our debt. Have fun while it lasts.

[opebo]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

We have always had a very cushy lifestyle in our generation.

And there you go again making some random generalization without any factual evidence to back it up.

We may have a more comfortable lifestyle, but that may be because the US is the richest country. If you want to change that, you won't find much success at the ballot box.

The lifestyle was much cushier in the past than it is today, guys.  You're simply extrapolating too much from 1) TV shows, and 2) your own atypical upper-middle class existence.  Overall the US population is much poorer and living much worse than it did in 1980.

What people want is a nation who works for what it has. You realize we've run up our debt so college students can have $20 a day meal plans and luxurious dorms? Are you going to pay for it or are you going to pass the debt onto your grandchildren? Taxing the rich won't help either as heard in Democratic campaign talking points because if we were all taxed at 100% for 20 years, we still couldn't afford to pay off our debt. Have fun while it lasts.

BB, the debt is caused solely by the rich.

You guys are totally

[Person Man]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

We have always had a very cushy lifestyle in our generation.

The government education industry complex has taken advantage of that. See monstrous palace dorms and gourmet $20 a day meal plans.

And, of course, labor force participation rates have plummeted due to these types not entering the labor force.

And of course this has nothing to do with the Boomers retiring and somehow having a good lifestyle dictates the type of person you are.

Facts are tricky for liberals.


http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412880-why-are-fewer-people.pdf

The dramatic drop in labor force participation during and after the Great Recession has
been driven by a decline in labor force entry rates rather than substantial increases in the
share of workers becoming discouraged and leaving the workforce.

If you actually read it, you would see that the numbers of change over years is relatively unchanged by age.

[barfbag]

I don't question that. However, the millennial generation is NOT dumber than its predecessors, and almost certainly not more lazy.

We have always had a very cushy lifestyle in our generation.

And there you go again making some random generalization without any factual evidence to back it up.

We may have a more comfortable lifestyle, but that may be because the US is the richest country. If you want to change that, you won't find much success at the ballot box.

The lifestyle was much cushier in the past than it is today, guys.  You're simply extrapolating too much from 1) TV shows, and 2) your own atypical upper-middle class existence.  Overall the US population is much poorer and living much worse than it did in 1980.

What people want is a nation who works for what it has. You realize we've run up our debt so college students can have $20 a day meal plans and luxurious dorms? Are you going to pay for it or are you going to pass the debt onto your grandchildren? Taxing the rich won't help either as heard in Democratic campaign talking points because if we were all taxed at 100% for 20 years, we still couldn't afford to pay off our debt. Have fun while it lasts.

BB, the debt is caused solely by the rich.

You guys are totally

The debt is caused by voters and politicians spending more money than they have. Term limits and balanced budget amendments would take care of that. Look at individual states. Most require a balanced budget. There is something to be said for our lifestyles being cushier a generation ago. It was easier to find work and livable income. Now the economy is much different and more people are going to college becoming overqualified for lower paying jobs. Debt is accumulated with little means of paying it off because there are only so many high paying jobs out there and a dangerous number of people who are qualified for such opportunities. People are also spending more than they have in greater numbers resulting in an inability to pay off debt and resulting in a lifestyle of struggles. Technology on the other hand has somewhat compensated for some of the hardships. Nowadays people can text each other instead of calling or walking to a friend's house. Most families have at least two cars. There's truths supporting both arguments that this generation has it easier or harder than generations prior.

[MalaspinaGold]

I really hate it when conservatives whine about the budget deficit.

The deficit for budget year 2009 (which was 1/3rd in the Bush Administration) was $1.4 trillion. That was the highest deficit ever.

Projections are that the deficit will be somewhere between $600-800 billion (depending on whether you look at CBO or Obama Administration data.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/us-budget-surplus_n_3581160.html

In other words, the deficit has shrunk by 50% since 2009. This also does not include a large part of the sequester. Once the sequester comes into full effect, the deficit will be all but gone.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/
As you can see on the debt clock, the deficit is continually shrinking at a very fast rate. When I checked this meter about this time last year, it was growing.

There are ample reasons for why there should be a reasonable federal debt. See Hamilton, Alexander. The theory is that if creditors have a substantial stake in a country, they will go to great lengths to keep that country from reverting to bankruptcy, or else the creditors lose their money. The debt does not need to be paid off anytime soon; at most a deficit should be eliminated, and inflation will take care of the rest.

Ever since WWII debt has been a staple part of American economics. Reagan himself tripled the deficit IIRC.

EDIT: I accidentally posted this as a new topic because my account timed out. I don't know if a mod wants to delete it...

[barfbag]

I really hate it when conservatives whine about the budget deficit.

The deficit for budget year 2009 (which was 1/3rd in the Bush Administration) was $1.4 trillion. That was the highest deficit ever.

Projections are that the deficit will be somewhere between $600-800 billion (depending on whether you look at CBO or Obama Administration data.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/us-budget-surplus_n_3581160.html

In other words, the deficit has shrunk by 50% since 2009. This also does not include a large part of the sequester. Once the sequester comes into full effect, the deficit will be all but gone.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/
As you can see on the debt clock, the deficit is continually shrinking at a very fast rate. When I checked this meter about this time last year, it was growing.

There are ample reasons for why there should be a reasonable federal debt. See Hamilton, Alexander. The theory is that if creditors have a substantial stake in a country, they will go to great lengths to keep that country from reverting to bankruptcy, or else the creditors lose their money. The debt does not need to be paid off anytime soon; at most a deficit should be eliminated, and inflation will take care of the rest.

Ever since WWII debt has been a staple part of American economics. Reagan himself tripled the deficit IIRC.

EDIT: I accidentally posted this as a new topic because my account timed out. I don't know if a mod wants to delete it...

Glenn Beck had a debt clock too. If you go by liberal sources then of course you'll get all kinds of great news for Democrats. What else upsets you? Come on we're listening. Let it out buddy. Vent! Vent!

[pbrower2a]

Generation Y is highly "entitled", hates rules/regulations/authority and doesn't like taking responsibility for anything.  Their work-ethic as a whole is horrendous.  Plus, the democrats have successfully used the gay marriage issue and the eight years under George Bush against the GOP. 

The irony of the entitlement of the Millenials, is that they are well on their way to becoming a "Lost Generation" with globalization and technology killing their chances at building careers.  Most aren't smart enough to see the writing on the wall.

1) Technology has eliminated the need for more jobs
2) It's just cheaper to offshore to India and China
3) Gen Y tends to run for the hills when the going gets tough.  American companies do not like these kids; they tend to stay at jobs very short times
4) In terms of a college education, many of these kids do not take their education seriously.  They go and drink, saying "it's college", but they fail to realize that times have changed and that doesn't cut it anymore.  Times have changed.  The supply of global labor > demand.  Companies want people more dedicated who will work 12-14 hour days and for less pay, not for kids who will complain and demand higher salaries/wages
5) The success of the Millenials is largely going to be tied to mom/dad.  If they did okay, you'll have a chance as a Gen Yr.  If you grew up in a struggling or broken family, the odds are against you. As we clearly see, we're becoming as "have vs. have not society" and it's more likely to be a "have not".  More people are falling out of the middle class rather than getting into it or reaching elite status. 
6) This generation has no sense of personal responsibility and no sense of pride or financial planning. They get what they want, when they want it and are told "they're great" to appease them.  Mom/dad aren't parents anymore.  Now, the kids control the households as mom/dad have become figureheads in many households and the number of "stable" households decline.
7) The democratic party suits the personality of this generation far better and politicians only care about getting re-elected.  They don't throw the truth in anyone's face because that will get them thrown out. Plus, socially, the GOP is back in the 80s, which isn't going to attract the Millenials.

Until about thirty years ago we knew more potential for upward social mobility. People with talent and imagination had chances to attend a 4-year college at slight cost and get professional credentials cheaply, advance through corporate bureaucracies, and establish start-up businesses that have the opportunity for huge growth. Those with limited talent could get solid wages doing industrial labor with the aid of strong and militant unions. 

(More explanation than criticism)

1) The profitability remains for most giant industries, but those in command as tycoons and executives take all of the economic gain since the 1980s from technological improvement.   

2) Cheap, swift transportation has taken away the cost of importing. We have bigger container ships and specialized containers that may have been loaded in China, have traveled cheaply across the Pacific Ocean, get transferred easily to trucks or trains at some western port city, and travel swiftly to mass markets. Add to that, technology has generally made the imported objects smaller in mass than their functional counterparts of thirty to seventy years ago.

3) Generation Y has far less experience in industrial labor, mining, or farming. Household work is easier than it used to be. The sort of work that the economy has favored has been work requiring no specialization, but one consequence of that is that in such work one has little incentive to stick around. Employers generally give employees little ground for institutional loyalty, and dumbed-down training makes it easy for people to go from one bad employer to another in non-recession times.

4) As expensive as college education is it is no realm for flippancy. The debt is real, and one had better make as swift a transition from college education to remunerative work as possible lest one end up with debt in the range of a house in some markets and a near-minimum-wage job that one could get without a college education. A college education is effectively worthless for a fast-food worker or a checker-cashier in a box store.

5) America has become more like the bad old way in Europe in which being from the Right Family means far more than does any personal attribute. (Of course the South long fit the "Right Family over all else" as the key to success with its aristocratic structure in a largely-agrarian South).   

One possible explanation is that the old Northern and Southern elites merged politically after the 1960s. The Democratic party used to be an alliance between Southern agrarian elites and Northern industrial workers while the Republican Party was an alliance between Northern aristocrats and executives with non-voting Southern blacks. Those political alliances were possible because the Southern agrarian interests and Northern industrial workers never met each other except at political conventions and because Southern whites voted for the aristocracy and against blacks.   After the Civil Rights movement aligned Northern industrial workers with southern blacks, the Northern and Southern elites began to merge ideologically.

Southern elites have consistently held that no human suffering is excessive so long as a profit is to be derived from it, and Northern elites had to stay one step ahead of strong unions. Both Northern and Southern elites have aligned themselves in unqualified hostility toward working people and a shared attitude that no human suffering is in excess so long as it allows the maximization of profits.

6) What goes unrewarded disappears. For people without assets, thrift is not so much providing for the future as acceptance of economic denial imposed from above. Toil without reward entices goldbricking. Why should one work hard if one is going to get paid much the same? Businesses that offer no cause for loyalty (no pension plan, no path of carer advancement, brutal management) hardly foster institutional loyalty.

Maybe we will yet be dragged kicking and screaming into a situation in which productivity matters greatly for reasons other than elite profits and executive compensation, in which loyalty becomes a virtue, in which investment in workers' skills becomes good business practice, and in which social inequality and economic deprivations become universally abominable.

7) The Democratic Party is the party of unionized workers, government employees, and middle-class members of racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. Members of the middle class who own small businesses recognize that the plutocratic elite wants those businesses squeezed out. Middle-class professionals recognize that the plutocratic elites wants them  proletarized so that they too can be overworked and underpaid. The Republican party now has a reliable vote among lower-class white working people whose superstition, anti-intellectual culture, and misplaced pride makes them hostile to educated people and to 'exotic' but successful people, which explains some of the interstate polarization of the vote.

Now for the big one: Capitalists have not faced a Red (meaning Marxist-Leninist) threat since the mid-1980s when China and the Soviet Union both abandoned any pretense to world (Bolshevik or Maoist) revolution against  capitalism. They have preferred that working people have a stake in the system instead of having a desire to overthrow their economic masters. They decided  to use consumerism and a welfare state based on solid wages and a strong public sector as an alternative to Marxist-Leninist models of socialism. Now that the elites fear no Red threat (in the old sense of hammers and sickles with icons of Vladimir Lenin) those elites can revert to their old brutality. Perhaps Big Business need not go quite so far as to revive Henry Clay Frick, but they can for now impose plantation-style inequality and social stratification.           

[opebo]

BB, the debt is caused solely by the rich.

The debt is caused by voters and politicians spending more money than they have.

No, buddy, the money is still there, just as it was in 1980 before the bad people took over - the money's just sitting utterly wasted in the hands of the rich.  Raise the taxes back up to confiscatory levels and everything'll be just dandy.