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Randomdude: I'm not an advocte of expensive cars or big houses, so I tip my hat to your frugal lifestyle. The question is, will you maintain that frugality when your salary increases over the years and you have more disposable income?
I started off at about 20k a year when I graduated college, about 5 years later Ive made it to about 35k. I live no differently now then I did then. I dont buy things I dont need, regardless of my monetary level.
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Originally Posted by CosmicWizard
Only time will tell! The simple reason that most of the expensive cars belong to people over 50 is because they have built up their bank accounts from working many more years than you have at this point in your life. Some older folks can afford a few luxuries, and they don't need permission from you and me.
Im not so sure that is the case. I imagine many of these very wealthy people are living pretty close to pay check to pay check, just at a much larger level then average Joe. If they werent, they wouldnt have much need to be employed at their insanely high paying positions.
My guess is that a large number of them need that employment to maintain the lifestyle theyve become accustomed to.
I would say when you look at the wealth in this country that bommers have done very well. it also is by far the generation that has many retiring every early. Theylike no other geenration have satrted their own busineeses with success to teh poit that samll business is the main creator of jobs. These are not just your old mom and pop stores either.There will always be those that don't succeed and hotse that bascailly want to continue working regardless of if they could retire.Entitlements by government such as unearn income credit has increased because basically so many younger people are uinable to support their family; not to support the boomer generation.Bommers in fact have had more and more often to support later generations and have even more and more raised their grandchildren.It has lead to more and more people that depend on governamnt suport at very young age instead of the traditional needing it in old age thru programs they pay into for thru their entire working life.Just looking at entitlement increases and that they are more and more directed at younger people tells you the real story;IMO.
My, my, my such anger at the people who fed, educated, clothed, housed and kept you safe (meaning no draft) while giving you an unrivaled standard of living with more stuff than you'll ever need or probably use.
You forgot to include "ignorance" along with the anger.
Total and complete ignorance in the way our economic engine works and if you look at how much of the rest of the world lives we have a pretty damn good engine.
Part one of the ignorance is the thinking there's a finite number of jobs. There aren't, there are jobs to be created and made right now so why don't you do a little research and make one yourself? Don't tell me it can't be done either, millions and millions have gone before you to create their jobs so what makes you so special that you can't?
And you know what? It's hard to do, creating your own job can be really tough but who the heck promised you a rose garden at birth?
Good grief, is this the thinking our educational system is spewing out these days?
1. I can cost a job either in my head or on the back of an envelope real quick and I am usually pretty much spot on with the result. I do not need a spreadsheet, a system and a process that takes three weeks.
I really noticed this during MBA as well. Most students really struggled with anything that involved a BOE (back of the envelope) calculation - I had one class where the professor would give a harvard business case and basically ask you to analyze it using only BOE calculations. Most students struggled in that particular class like no other - it happened to be my favorite class. Especially students from Asia - it seems the education system in China, India, Taiwan really ill prepares students for the type of intuitive financial thought that is really essential to business. Strangely enough, students from Europe seemed to very much excel at this. Good intuition is so incredibly valuable IMO and so few people have it.
I really noticed this during MBA as well. Most students really struggled with anything that involved a BOE (back of the envelope) calculation - I had one class where the professor would give a harvard business case and basically ask you to analyze it using only BOE calculations. Most students struggled in that particular class like no other - it happened to be my favorite class. Especially students from Asia - it seems the education system in China, India, Taiwan really ill prepares students for the type of intuitive financial thought that is really essential to business. Strangely enough, students from Europe seemed to very much excel at this. Good intuition is so incredibly valuable IMO and so few people have it.
It is also a generational thing. I was learning maths at school before the electronic calculator had been invented (we did have the hand cranked variety but never used them as they were not quick enough), before the PC had been invented, before spreadsheets had been thought of, etc. etc.. If you could not work it out on a piece of paper or a slide rule (I still have mine) then there was no other way!
I would say when you look at the wealth in this country that bommers have done very well.
Yes, I agree but don't think for a moment we had it handed to us on a silver platter.
In 1972 I found myself with all my belongings in Sacramento, California with my Volkswagen bug parked downtown with all of my belongings packed in the back seat because I'd run out of gas.
I was 24 years old, I didn't have a job, I didn't have two cents and I had to wait until morning when the pawn shop opened so I could pawn my grandfathers heirloom 30.06 Model 70 for gas money to make it to Oakland.
I got $100 for it.
Gun people do not fret, I kept the receipt and I did return to pick it up. I wasn't about to give that up.
I was also sicker than a dog with a good case of bronchitis. It was the low point of my life.
So I made it to Oakland where I slept in my sleeping bag on a friends floor.
Sold my Volkswagen so I could go to school. No car, no job, no medical insurance but I was going to school and this was before found a place to live. When I finally did find a place you wouldn't put your dog in it because it was really bad.
I applied for one job at a Household Finance place. I walked over a mile in the summer to get there. Dressed in a suit and tie a filled out the application and feeling sicker than a dog used the employee bathroom to puke my guts out.
At this point you couldn't have taken anything from me except maybe a sleeping bag and the clothes on my back. Literally, I had nothing.
Everyone in the office heard me puking my guts out. I didn't get the job.
So a couple months later I latched on to a job at a castings plant working third shift in hellish conditions with a crew that was mostly illegal immigrants. Yeah, we had them back then too.
My job was a "grinder" where aluminum castings of toilets, used in prisons, would pop out of molds and my job was to take a little grinder wheel, put some grease on a rotating tip, stick my head in the toilet and grind the burrs off. This is what I did for two years as I went to school.
I proceeded with my life, owned my own business for 20 years where some of these years I earned a lot. Some years I didn't earn so much but I kept going.
I put my kids through college, my family always had medical coverage and sometimes it cost me $800 a month but I paid for it.
I paid all my bills on time, paid on a mortgage until it was paid off and on I went with life. Good times and some bad times.
I tell this story not because it's special because it isn't. Millions of baby boomers have the same story to tell and I don't doubt for a moment many baby boomers reading this can repeat my story in different settings.
Life isn't a rose garden, when you were born you weren't guaranteed anything, you got to do that yourself and sometimes suffering is involved. So suck it up and get out there!
I would say when you look at the wealth in this country that bommers have done very well. it also is by far the generation that has many retiring every early. Theylike no other geenration have satrted their own busineeses with success to teh poit that samll business is the main creator of jobs.
I agree.
I know a few folks from my 'era' [born in 1959] who have retired while in their late 30s or 40s.
I got a 20-year pension. I also have done a lot of investing in apartment buildings and collected a few of them before retiring in 2001.
I imagine many of these very wealthy people are living pretty close to pay check to pay check, just at a much larger level then average Joe. If they werent, they wouldnt have much need to be employed at their insanely high paying positions.
My guess is that a large number of them need that employment to maintain the lifestyle theyve become accustomed to.
Well, if that is the case then that is how they have chosen to live. They need no permission or approvcal form you and me. No matter how harshly peolple like you and I might judge them, they will continue to live in the manner they choose.
Last edited by CosmicWizard; 08-11-2009 at 01:25 PM..
THis is a really interesting thread to me. Lots of good stuff.
My boss is a boomer - I'm GenX. Some of the ways she does things crack me up, but I tell her all the time, you're the boss - I'll give you my take on a situation, but its your call. And that works for our relationship. She listens to my POV, but generally decides to do things her way. Hindsight proves both of us out at different times. (I think that's why she started listening once in a while) She did train me very well, expects a lot of loyaty from me.
The flip side is, I see a really strong sense of entitlement from boomers like her. They grew up in good times (aalthough it was also the cold war?!), and they are disappointed by the new reality. I think for Gen-X we were kids when the razors in the apples ruined Halloween, and the tylenol murders happened, we became cynical. We've seen our parents devote their lives to work, blow off their kids, and get screwed by their employers. We're very pragmatic and cynical as a generation as a result. Probably the boomers most dislike that we will choose family over work - its a value they had to forego. And I don't know if its just that as we all get older we more st in our ways, but I know things like bad customer service really "grill their cheese" even moreso than it does for younger generations.
The flip side is, I see a really strong sense of entitlement from boomers like her. They grew up in good times (aalthough it was also the cold war?!), and they are disappointed by the new reality.
I thought your post was pretty good but would take issue with the above .....
Do you really believe that?
We had the Vietnam war, we had the recession of the 1970s, we had the stock market crash of 1987, the recesssion at the end of the 1980s, the dot-com bust and now this crash. We saw most of the big computer companies we grew up with go bust, we saw companies like IBM nearly go bust and lay off thousands. We saw most of corporate America abandon their pension commitments. But, most of the time we dealt with it and bounced back pretty good. Sure we had good times, but we also had bad times.
So, what is the new reality?
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