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In the mid 1970's, my parents had full-time jobs, made a decent income, and paid $200,000 for their house. Now, you can't get a house in that town for less than $600,000 (a surburb of Boston).
That must have been one hell of a house. My girlfriend's parents had a $100,000 house in the suburbs of Boston in 1975 and it almost qualified as a mansion. A $200,000 house at that time would have had a long driveway, a swimming pool, at least 12 rooms, and a place to board a horse. Today it would cost $2 million.
My own parents had a $25,000 house and it left some things to be desired but it was still a place to live.
I've already posted the median household income figures historically so I won't bother you again. I'll just say that they're UP over the past 50 years - not down. (Adjusted for inflation of course.)
Here's sort of what I think has happened when it comes to a mindset over the past 50 or so years. I think that for hundreds of years, most of our ancestors struggled - to simply survive. Comfort was WAY down the list of "must haves" for most of the people who settled in the US for the first coupla hundred years or so.
But technology and other advances have brought an increasing level of comfort to each generation. Add to that the "opening of the world of opportunity and information" that this technology has provided. Travel is easy, eating is easy, clothing is easy, cleaning is easy. We don't have to worry about going to a well and drawing water - heck, we don't even have to worry about finding a quarter to use a pay phone! My gosh, we don't even have to know how to read a map!
It's human nature, I believe, for parents to want their children to be more successful than they are - and more comfortable, more healthy, etc. So each successive generation since the turn of the 20th century has had more and more comfort and security and "ease" at their very fingertips. So now - what used to be considered an easy lifestyle (wow, imagine a house with THREE SEPARATE BEDROOMS AND INDOOR PLUMBING!) is considered to be the bare minimum. Humans are greedy little b@stards in general. We always want more, better, easier, more convenient. So when hardships come into play - recessions, unemployment, OMG THE INTERNET IS DOWN - we are taken aback, because we've been raised with an avoidance of pain and discomfort and hardship as a standard of living.
We're ALL at fault to some degree. Maybe it will take something truly catastrophic for us, as a nation, to truly be grateful for what we have - or had. I sure hope not.
Those unemployment rates are not completely true to the current date. We're not at a 5.6 unemployment rate.
Nobody knows what are TRUE unemployment rate is but its definitely above 10%.
Again, you can watch the entire Elizabeth Warren lecture, which was filmed when she was a professor in 2007. She absolutely nailed the coming economic meltdown. And her reasoning and facts are absolutely topical in 2015.
Every fact I've posted is easily Googled. If you can't be bothered, that isn't my problem. I was not put on this earth to spoon-feed truth to neocons. They're the embodiment of "you can lead a horse to water."
Fact: the average kid graduating high school in 2015 has a grimmer outlook than the kid who graduated high school in 1975. Refute that if you can. I'd like to see your reasoning.
We're discussing macroeconomics. Lectures about bootstrapping are pointless.
I post my sources as a courtesy to other members. I also post my sources to show that they are objective and to show that I don't pull opinions out of body orifices and present them as fact.
You've posted one video by Elizabeth Warren - a politician who is considering running for President. Please forgive me if I don't consider that an objective source of information. I can just imagine your reaction if I posted one video of a Mitt Romney lecture as my sole "proof" of any position. Don't worry - I'm not that stupid.
But I see you can't be bothered by doing actual research yourself, so I won't bother asking you to support your rhetoric with factual sources again.
I think the saddest thing in the USA is that our young adults have essentially been written
off, enmasse, from accumulating wealth.....and this in so many ways I find it hard to even narrow them all down..
This goes far beyond paying off student loans........and has repercussions that can very much tarnish America's future...
What we have now bolstering our economy are the wealthy, the part of the middle-class that is still solvent, and seniors......
From about age 55 down, the average wealth of individuals and familes plummets....hugely.....
Here is how it lays out....
The age group that currently is 65-74 is the wealthiest group, with an average family net worth of 220K...and that, keep in mind, with no kids to raise. The age group that is 75+ has an average new worth of 195K....
That being said, it drops down for the boomers, per the younger ones that are 55-64.....they have a lot of debt, but still have a reasonable share of savings.....on average 170K a household.....
Here is the big dropoff...I am 52, so this is my generation cohort..X.....we older X's(45-54ish) have an average family net worth of 92K(half of the younger boomers)....the younger ones(35-44) have an average family net worth of 33K(1/5th of the younger boomers who themselves are finished raising kids for all intents)....keep in mind these are the age groups that should be the main spenders/drivers of the US economy.....and they don't have that ability....all the money is locked into the older boomers and the seniors by far...not unlike a company sitting on cash in another country that is hoarding the same....
And finally we have the very bottom....Millennials..those under 35.....their average net worth is close to zero, and is below zero(negative) in some surveys/stats.....
This is the worry.....
We have an entire generation of young adults, from around 18-34, who have little chance of ever raising a family, let alone aquiring a lifetime of wealth. And I mean little. As I mentioned earlier, this is far from just a student loan thing. This is the first generation of americans to face outsourcing of living-wage jobs enmasse, especially the formerly working and lower middle-class ones. This generation has to fight for poor-paying retail jobs, and pray they get enough hours each week. They with certainty will never save much money at all, if any.
Here is where the repercussions kick in. The wealthy seniors in our topsy-turvy world will die off eventually, and leave the money to the boomers. The boomers will spend it all, as they are struggling as well, and health care will siphon the rest.......the Millennials are going to be left with nothing per wealth passed on, zero, with no way to gather it for themselves in volume career-wise.
This will for all intents mark the end of the housing market. The Millennials will be a generation of renters for a lifetime, not by choice. The few who are able to raise family and buy homes will never accrue wealth by the same like the silent generation(born 1928-48), or the older boomers(born 48-60).......
This does not have to be, but looks like it will play itself out like this.......We have an US economy driven by spending(70% or so)......prob is, all the savings is tied up with seniors and older boomers in the US that are far past the age of spending, and will hold onto every penny per retirement issues, outside of small spending on perhaps a vaca or two at most, perhaps a few dinners out..........The age cohort that traditionally are the big spenders(29-42 raising families), and the younger ones(18-28) are broke, and have little to nothing to spend.....
That is not a great omen for the future of the US economy, or the future of the younger generations...
Any opinions on this?
Here are a few articles on this....This is a huge issue we are ALL living with, and will for many years...
I have many times been a spendthrift too but if more young people would watch what they spend they would have more money and by the time they are old they too could have more wealth than young people.
How much do you think investing a monthly cell phone bill or eating out expense or other entertainment expense would grow to in 10 years.
Fact: the average kid graduating high school in 2015 has a grimmer outlook than the kid who graduated high school in 1975. Refute that if you can. I'd like to see your reasoning.
I already have. Repeatedly. With sources to back up my claims.
Look - anyone can spin sound bytes. Just about anyone can make a case for victimhood as well, because nearly all the time, victimhood is as much a mindset as it is anything else. Politicians, world leaders, generals, and pundits make a pretty good living off the whole concept.
We live in a wealthy nation. Even our poor enjoy climate controlled housing and enough food to be obese. My gosh, in spite of all the medical advances of the 20th and 21st century, it's our OBESITY RATES which actually lower our lifespan potential!
I raised my children to understand that at 18, they were an adult and that their destiny would be determined largely by their own work ethic and character. And now that they are ages 32, 30, 28, and 26 the truth of this is becoming very evident in their lives.
I've lived in Japan and in Germany. Lucky me! Anyway, both those countries were absolutely decimated by war in the 1940s. Talk about a challenge - how on earth did the people who were born in 1925 -1945 have a snowball's chance in hell of regrouping and building successful lives? Well, I was able to look around me and see very clear evidence that they had done just that but it obviously took great perseverance and strength of character, because they certainly didn't have wealth and prosperity handed to them on a silver platter. Like you said earlier, you and I probably haven't really endured economic hardship when we put things in perspective.
I actually have endured significant economic hardship actually, during my early twenties - and it was my own poor choices that landed me in that situation. Once I got there, it didn't take me long to figure out I didn't want to stay there. Of course, my poor choices meant that I had to work much harder to dig myself out of the hole I'd wandered into - but I did it. It meant literally not eating out for five years. It meant not even buying a soda or a bag of chips for five years. It meant having one old car and one bicycle rather than two cars. It meant cooking every meal from scratch - and sometimes those meals were sort of weird combinations of whatever food was on hand. It meant going without a home phone. It meant buying everything we needed in clothes or homegoods from either thrift shops or garage sales. It meant having literally about ten items of clothing for myself. OH THE HUMANITY! Even as I write this, I realize that lifestyle would be heaven for some people in other parts of the world, and in fact, even during that time of financial difficulty, I was grateful for what I had. At least I wasn't living in the street! (Though I did live in a storage building for about three months.)
I had no intention of staying in that situation, and even though interest rates were horrific and we were in the midst of a nationwide recession, I dug myself out of that hole. Yes, it took me about 7 years to really get back on my feet but I did it.
Meanwhile, my future husband (who I didn't know at the time) was working 80 hours a week for just above minimum wage, in mud up to his knees, outside in any sort of weather, after paying his own way through school at a community college - his family was poor and no one could help him with any expenses after he graduated from high school. He was sharing a mobile home with three other guys, sleeping on a mattress on the floor and eating cheap chili out of a can for breakfast.
It also took him about ten years to really start making some headway in the world.
By the time we met in our forties, we had both rebuilt our lives successfully - but we also both knew what it was like to be poor, and we knew we didn't want to ever go back to that after working so hard to get out of it.
My point is that it's not uncommon to be financially strapped when one is a young adult. I'd venture to say it's VERY common. It's usually due to several factors, the largest of which is that one hasn't had the time to build a lucrative career at that point. Credit can be too easy to obtain - at the worst possible time of one's life. Immaturity can lead to poor decisions.
Experience is often the best teacher. When we shield our adult children from that particular teacher, we often do them a disservice.
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 01-14-2015 at 09:16 AM..
I already have. Repeatedly. With sources to back up my claims.
Look - anyone can spin sound bytes. Just about anyone can make a case for victimhood as well, because nearly all the time, victimhood is as much a mindset as it is anything else. Politicians, world leaders, generals, and pundits make a pretty good living off the whole concept.
We live in a wealthy nation. Even our poor enjoy climate controlled housing and enough food to be obese. My gosh, in spite of all the medical advances of the 20th and 21st century, it's our OBESITY RATES which actually lower our lifespan potential!
I raised my children to understand that at 18, they were an adult and that their destiny would be determined largely by their own work ethic and character. And now that they are ages 32, 30, 28, and 26 the truth of this is becoming very evident in their lives.
Exactly....we have 2 Millenial children and 2 Gen X children. The 2 Gen X children close to 40 and one Millenial at 30 are in the top 5% salary wise. They are imo set for life barring a catastrophic event or total collapse of the economy. The other Millenial child at 32 has a median salary which is insufficient for the high COL area he lives, tons of debt, and way overextended.
Without a doubt, the difference in their success is directly related to their own individual choices. Specifically, where they went to school, how much it cost, what degrees they chose, their wives/partners chosen, their ability to delay gratification vs overextending themselves, their timing of buying houses, having children, etc. They all have a great work ethic and they all are above average intelligence.....the only difference is in how they apply that intelligence through their choices.
[quote=Blondy;38017360]Exactly....we have 2 Millenial children and 2 Gen X children. The 2 Gen X children close to 40 and one Millenial at 30 are in the top 5% salary wise. They are imo set for life barring a catastrophic event or total collapse of the economy. The other Millenial child at 32 has a median salary which is insufficient for the high COL area he lives, tons of debt, and way overextended.
Without a doubt, the difference in their success is directly related to their own individual choices. Specifically, where they went to school, how much it cost, what degrees they chose, their wives/partners chosen, their ability to delay gratification vs overextending themselves, their timing of buying houses, having children, etc. They all have a great work ethic and they all are above average intelligence.....the only difference is in how they apply that intelligence through their choices.[/QUOTE]
"Bootstrapping" - ie, work hard, make sound financial decisions, support your own lifestyle choices or make different ones that you CAN support.
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