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Due to the changing financial situation, do you think that there has been a change in the mindset of young professionals to save and invest rather than spend? Do you think that this may be related to the high cost of education and living?
Due to the changing financial situation, do you think that there has been a change in the mindset of young professionals to save and invest rather than spend? Do you think that this may be related to the high cost of education and living?
Yes people are investing in their education to learn how to make things that we consume... whoops....wait that can't be right because my wingnut propaganda says....
Honestly I'd say that the trend has been more towards hopelessness and nihilism especially since the surplus product of their education is going more and more to the finance sector in the form of yet more debt service to yet another banking ponzi scheme. .
It's true of everyone including young professionals. Spending is down, saving is up. Kind of awkward to be bringing home a bunch of toys when your neighbor is unemployed and your employer is talking about cut-backs.
It's true of everyone including young professionals. Spending is down, saving is up. Kind of awkward to be bringing home a bunch of toys when your neighbor is unemployed and your employer is talking about cut-backs.
It's more like spending is down, paying off debt is up.
"I'd say that the trend has been more towards hopelessness and nihilism..."
To an extent I'd agree with this, particularly among the unemployed and under-employed youth and most particularly among those already saddled with mortgage sized education debt, staring into what looks like and empty future couch surfing or living at home with parents. What a disaster.
What I'm seeing in the groups of people that are largely free of debt is a shift toward experiential consumption like travel, delving into the arts, engaging deeply in a hobby/avocation or pursuing interests and new skills versus the more traditional consumption of homes, new cars, high end merchandise. Too many possessions weigh experiential consumers down and compete for valuable time and money that gets drained away to pay for, store, insure or maintain things. I've seen this in down-sizers, retirees, young people without much debt and even young families that haven't yet gotten onto the debt treadmill, the stepping off of the consumer bandwagon. I also see people tightening belts not to have more things but to be able to pay off debt and shed them in an organized fashion. The spending party for things is over for many. The economic downturn forcing most people to look seriously at their consumption patterns, many realized that they didn't have such a good time at the spend and buy party and found that they were essentially enslaved by it.
Maybe it's a phase in time like the counter-culture movement in the 60s or maybe we are running into more people doing this in our own travels because this is our bias. If in fact this is a trend, it will be bad news for manufacturers of "durable goods", subscription magazines and newspapers, phone landlines and cable or satellite TV, anything that ties folks down to one place and for which there is a portable or web-based presence and traditional credit cards with their jacked up interest rates. It's good news for landlords, thrift stores, and the one exception to consumer goods, personal portable data technology, the smaller and more high tech the better. (Smart phones, Ipods, Ipads and the like.)
That's what I'm seeing like the above post, debt is the driver, getting out or staying out of it, or keeping it as low as possible is a very worthy goal pursued by perhaps the majority.
I am glad that so many educated young people seem to realize that debt is the modern-day equivalent of slavery, and that they're rejecting a life devoted to amassing great mounds of stuff (I am sorry that many of them didn't smell a rat when they took out loans for educations in flummery, so often at overpriced, make-believe universities). However -- my generation made a lot of noise about rejecting this and that, only to become, as they aged, the most aggressive consumers in the history of humanity as well as some of its most persistent armchair warmongers.
I think people like to think they are consuming less and they are paying down debt with a slightly higher priority, but I wouldn't say the pattern has changed much. Mostly people want the same things, but they want to pay less for them. If that is not working out they go for smaller or older versions of the same consumables and they pat themselves on the back for "cutting back". Kid wants an I phone 5, mom says no you can only have a 4 because it's free or cheap. Mom thinks she put her foot down and saved hundreds, but doesn't think 3 years ago the thought of giving a 12 year old a smartphone would have been outrageous. This is the sort of rationale I see day to day. Consumer cuts out HBO from their package and says they are being more frugal. Are they really consuming less?
However -- my generation made a lot of noise about rejecting this and that, only to become, as they aged, the most aggressive consumers in the history of humanity as well as some of its most persistent armchair warmongers.
Isn't it ironic. I was born a decade behind that counter-culture movement being nine years old at it's height in '68 and as I came of age totally imprinted with and devoted to the message, I wondered what happened as the '80s became the decade of greed. I was still in my cotton gauze, holed embroidered jeans and JC sandals and the revolution was long over. I still wear tie dye and did when it wasn't cool, like the '80s. If another anti-consumer revolution comes around I guess I'm ready...mind, spirit and wardrobe.
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